I recently watched The Candidate on DVD. Robert Redford plays a young California man of vaguely liberal ideals who challenges a heavily favored incumbent in a race for the United States Senate. The Redford candidate’s good looks, frank opinions, and campaign savvy transform this underdog into a dark horse contender. Michael Ritchie directed this well paced, exciting film in 1972; and the scene of the “lost people” (i.e. hippies) on the beach notwithstanding, its tone of anxious optimism still feels relevant today. Like the candidate of the film’s title, this stew I’ve been making lately is wholesome, fresh, and appealing—a winning combination.
In a large soup pot, sauté about 2 cups each of chopped onions, carrots, and celery. If you want a spicy stew add a couple of chopped jalapeños. Use just enough oil to cover the bottom of the pot. When the onions start to brown add enough vegetable stock or water to cover the following: 2 or 3 chopped turnips, 6-8 small potatoes, a chopped calabasita, a cup or two of chopped winter squash or pumpkin, A bunch of chopped greens (e.g. kale, collards, or chard). Add salt, paprika, and black pepper to taste. Simmer until the potatoes have cooked through. Serve hot over shredded cabbage or with toasted bread. Enjoy!
Showing posts with label usa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label usa. Show all posts
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
The Fighter
A quintessentially American tale about getting your head straight in order to kick maximum ass. Has-been boxer Dicky Eklund is the pride of Lowell, MA—first to industrialize, first to blight, a microcosm of present day America. His kid brother Micky Ward, Mark Wahlberg playing in his wounded puppy dog mode, is an up-and-comer with an uncertain future. They train hard, take on some serious issues (crack addiction, emotional blackmail, the oedipal complex), and make it to the light welterweight championship of the World Boxing Union. It’s impressive that they get all the way there working solely with their hometown crew. Pride of Lowell indeed. The Fighter is an inspiring story, based on real events. Christian Bale’s performance as the clownish, glassy-eyed Eklund is remarkable and Melissa Leo is ferocious in her role as the boxers’ mother/promoter. Also with Amy Adams. Directed by David O. Russell. 2010.
Here are some links to videos related to The Fighter.
Eklund vs. Leonard
Ward vs. Neary
The HBO Documentary featuring Dick Eklund: High on Crack Street: Lost Lives in Lowell
Watch more free documentaries
Here are some links to videos related to The Fighter.
Eklund vs. Leonard
Ward vs. Neary
The HBO Documentary featuring Dick Eklund: High on Crack Street: Lost Lives in Lowell
Watch more free documentaries
Friday, January 14, 2011
Marwencol
Marwencol is a documentary about the healing power of imagination. Mark Hogancamp is assaulted after closing down a bar in upstate New York. He suffers trauma, brain damage, memory loss. At a local hospital he receives reconstructive surgery. Before his rehabilitation is complete, he’s sent home for lack of funds. He starts to play with dolls. Working with their tiny parts improves his motor skills and hand-eye coordination. He acts out fantasies of revenge, love, heroism. In his backyard he builds a miniature town for the dolls and calls it Marwencol. It’s a Belgian village circa 1943. Beautiful women live there with soldiers who desert their armies and find common cause protecting Marwencol from the SS. Hogancamp photographs the scenes he creates with the dolls. The pictures find an audience in the New York art world. He’s a success. You can’t but feel happy for him; it's great to see this lonely, talented man finally catch a break. Directed by Jeff Malmberg. 2010.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
I'll back the world. For dignity's sake if nothing else. Audiences, people, the human race deserve better. The ancestors are frowning on us for putting up with this drivel.
Monday, July 5, 2010
Grown Ups
A brilliantly understated piece of politically committed science fiction? A parallel universe where every day is Independence Day--the great day celebration of the glorious and heroic past of the White Supremacist Fatherland? Afraid not. We're just in another shitty Adam Sandler movie with some weird continuity/script problems. Seriously, they say "Happy Fourth of July" on like four different days in this movie. Salma Hayek as the white washed Latina trophy wife (oh yeah I bet she gives a shit about the tooth fairy and skipping rocks), The running joke at the Chinese nanny's expense, and the whole embarrassing Chris Rock's mother-in-law's thing (Big, old, black lady farts--worse than the dog's)--I mean what century are we in? How many racist stereotypes can you cram into one movie? And they talk shit about vegan food. Fuck that noise.
All in all though, this film is just one catastrophic terrorist attack away from greatness.
All in all though, this film is just one catastrophic terrorist attack away from greatness.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
More thoughts on The A-Team
Sorry for the scatter-brained quality of these notes. This movie sucked so bad, but it was really disturbing.
Is father figure Hannibal Smith aka the “old man” a proxy for Judeo-Christian God? He’s certainly the pastor of a wayward flock. (Making the bad guy atheist is way of implying the theocratic righteousness of the good guys without being too heavy handed: Lynch, the villainous CIA agent, says that he doesn’t care if his opponent or whatever is God. Old man’s “faith” that there is a plan and everything happens for a reason. -- My response: “Sure it does, you’re a character in a movie!”)
Face – Old Man’s partner from start to finish. His “friend”. Like a son? An heir to the throne? A partner? Are we talking about a version of holy trinity: father, son, and the plan in which they have faith? Revealing moment when Face says to the Old Man “you trusted the general and didn’t see his betrayal coming. Would you ever do that to us?”. No? Why not? Because Rangers are different? They have tattoos, not just uniforms. Their loyalty is deeper, more personal. The have different values? Christian values? Communal values? Interpersonal values?
The General, Lynch, and the Blackwater (Blackforest) type mercenary Pike are all selfish, self-interested, devil take the hindmost types. They all just want to print their own money, to get rich quick. They are capitalists before all else, which is to say thieves. They have no core values beyond hedonistic self-interest. Lynch is ridiculed as infantile (his temper tantrums, video gamer’s mentality, etc.). He’s an immature, spoiled brat with too much power and influence for anyone’s good. Pike is a classic soldier of fortune stereotype, good at what he does but utterly lacking in scruples. He is amoral. He is only out to get his and will work for anyone. What matters to him, if anything, is the dignity of a job well done, not the meaning of the job, not the mission itself. He is a loner. What are the general’s motives? What are the woman’s motives? Sosa? Sosa seems genuinely concerned about justice, the mission, and the maintenance of law and order. Does she, like the A team, come to feel cheated by the system upheld by law order etc?
Is CIA any different from the A team? Is the fact that all operatives are “named” Lynch a sign of the agency’s impersonality and suppression of individuality or rather does that mean it’s like a family? The difference is CIA is not concerned about honor and keeping a good name. CIA is about hiding behind a mask. Or losing yourself in a mask. Or not having a self at all, just being a mask with no face. How is Blackforest different from A team? Supposedly it’s made up of individuals, each out for himself alone, brought together by mutual self interest. There is no magic bond of the tattoo and ranger brotherhood or whatever.
A team is like a fraternity, defined by a shared sense of honor, a kind of faith in one another and in the plan, and a sense of total confidence in its own abilities. All parties share the later sense minus Sosa who expresses cautious humility at one point saying, “we ought to assume they know more than we do”. This humility allows her to change her mind and accept the justice of the A team’s cause, etc.
BA’s soul searching is ridiculed along with nonviolence. He is made to feel impotent by The Old Man. His character is the only member who in any way questions the authority of Hannibal Smith and the core values of the A team. At no time does anyone engage in critical thinking. Even BA. He is shown with a book by an exoticized other, a western esotericist perhaps. But the book is a tool and a technology he is uncomfortable with. He quotes it, and then The Old Man quotes (supposedly) a refutation back at him. Biblical exegesis at the turning point of an action movie? Strange. It’s the fucking White Man’s Burden all over again. Seriously this whole subplot is super fucked up. Argh. The real, present father Smith, the Christian white man, the pastor, the patriarch, brings the wayward sheep back into the fold. And the sheep is all too willing to come home. BA’s attempt to go his own way was shown as an emasculating adventure with a false prophet. Ghandi was Christianized and recolonized by the white man and along with him the whole spirit of independent thought, inquiry, and living a self-examined life. The Socratic spirit is nipped in the bud as there’s no time for thought or discussion and too much ass to kick, to many guns to shoot, to much shit to blow up. BA kills Pike, which is fitting because Pike is a sort who might belong to the A team if only he had scruples or a sense of loyalty. BA comes around showing that his loyalty is stronger than his own sense of self. His previously troubled conscience is at peace with Pike’s murder, because the Old Man has shown him the way, the truth, the light (or at least some pyrotechnic simulation thereof). BA is portrayed as an animal throughout. His behavior is controlled against his will. Food is a means of control. Drugs too. His consciousness is switched on and off with no apparent moral qualms. At one point Murdoch speaks to him in a kind of pidgin English. He is subhuman, hence trainable. His adventure into pacifism is seen as an endearing, laughable, and naïve caper. Don’t animals do just the cutest little things?
“You look really tan”—homo-erotic bond between Old Man and Face? Is there some old style Greek shit going on here? Ridley Scott did have a hand in this movie after all. Is there some jealousy when The Old Man rebukes face for his history of embroilment with women? Face and the Old Man speak cavalierly about BA’s life—compare him to a midget. “Sure I knew the door of the van would hold him…it held the midget, right?” Again, the black man’s life is undervalued. Facility with language is the defining mark of intelligence. BA’s struggle with the book and his rhetorical defeat by the Old Man underline his failings as a human, relegate him to the animal realm. Murdoch’s surprise facility with Swahili impresses Face. Murdoch also does a South African accent. Face speaks French and German at various points in the film. The Old Man, presumably, is in possession of total mastery of The Word.
The unidentified Arab who turns out to be the general. The general who faked his own death. The demonized other: saboteur of the American economy. This symbolic other turns out to be a home grown cabal of military and mercenary. CIA trumps the cabal in the end. Triumph of secret government. Arab threat shown to be a misidentification. Real threat is corruption of military and government. Abuse of power in the military industrial framework.
Containers, destruction of port, collapse of global economy. Symbolic language. The A-Team seeks only honor and justice. Different values. Pike destroys ship with all containers on it. Ability and willingness to escalate conflict to a whole other level of destruction. Playing a “game changer”. What is this meant to stand for? An act of terrorism? Economic meltdown?
Only men have real power. Women are treated as objects by Face, Lynch. But Face grows up, comes to see Sosa as more than just another good time. He expands his circle of loyalty. Does the father figure approve? No; he resists all the way. Homosexual jealousy? Why? Is this characterization supposed to make us more sympathetic? Create dramatic tension? Or is it related to the holy trinity idea? The true born son of God ought to keep his mind on higher things? (But he’s so dreamy…)
What’s up with Murdoch? He is classified as insane, but how so? Just because he has no respect for rules or boundaries? Is he only with the A team because they are the baddest dudes out there and he can do the craziest shit with them? Because he craves excitement and the outlaw life?
Arizona and immigration policy. Arizona and militias. Arizona and racism. Arizona and white supremacists. Arizona and Nazis (Bolaño). Arizona and Mexico. Mexican federales are portrayed as cholos in uniform. Gangsters, hoods, criminals in uniforms. CIA is portrayed as frat boys with immunity. A team is bonded at the tattoo level. Why is the Old Man always recording voices? (Facility with The Word?) With the Mexican general in the helicopter…with Lynch…these tapes are never put to use, are they? Is it about being an honorable man, a man of his word, of The Word? The word in a Christian sense?
The Blackforest people are made to look like fascists (black shirts, brown shirts, what’s the dif?) Nobody in the A team wears a uniform. They are free to be themselves, so long as they kick ass and listen to the old man. So long as they stick to the plan. Their bond is with each other and with the plan. They are a kind of chosen people.
A team is scary. A team is propaganda for militias. A team is reaching out to vets of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and telling them the system is broken. If you work within it, you are only helping a bunch of privileged, infantile frat boys get rich while fucking over everybody else. To preserve honor, and good Christian values, (or are they Greek values? Or Roman, that is Latin values—honor, faith, family loyalty—but no—we must consider them strictly Anglo Saxon values or surely all Hell will break loose) one cannot work within the confines of the system. One must rebel to maintain the purity of the fatherland. It is totally crypto fascist propaganda.
Is father figure Hannibal Smith aka the “old man” a proxy for Judeo-Christian God? He’s certainly the pastor of a wayward flock. (Making the bad guy atheist is way of implying the theocratic righteousness of the good guys without being too heavy handed: Lynch, the villainous CIA agent, says that he doesn’t care if his opponent or whatever is God. Old man’s “faith” that there is a plan and everything happens for a reason. -- My response: “Sure it does, you’re a character in a movie!”)
Face – Old Man’s partner from start to finish. His “friend”. Like a son? An heir to the throne? A partner? Are we talking about a version of holy trinity: father, son, and the plan in which they have faith? Revealing moment when Face says to the Old Man “you trusted the general and didn’t see his betrayal coming. Would you ever do that to us?”. No? Why not? Because Rangers are different? They have tattoos, not just uniforms. Their loyalty is deeper, more personal. The have different values? Christian values? Communal values? Interpersonal values?
The General, Lynch, and the Blackwater (Blackforest) type mercenary Pike are all selfish, self-interested, devil take the hindmost types. They all just want to print their own money, to get rich quick. They are capitalists before all else, which is to say thieves. They have no core values beyond hedonistic self-interest. Lynch is ridiculed as infantile (his temper tantrums, video gamer’s mentality, etc.). He’s an immature, spoiled brat with too much power and influence for anyone’s good. Pike is a classic soldier of fortune stereotype, good at what he does but utterly lacking in scruples. He is amoral. He is only out to get his and will work for anyone. What matters to him, if anything, is the dignity of a job well done, not the meaning of the job, not the mission itself. He is a loner. What are the general’s motives? What are the woman’s motives? Sosa? Sosa seems genuinely concerned about justice, the mission, and the maintenance of law and order. Does she, like the A team, come to feel cheated by the system upheld by law order etc?
Is CIA any different from the A team? Is the fact that all operatives are “named” Lynch a sign of the agency’s impersonality and suppression of individuality or rather does that mean it’s like a family? The difference is CIA is not concerned about honor and keeping a good name. CIA is about hiding behind a mask. Or losing yourself in a mask. Or not having a self at all, just being a mask with no face. How is Blackforest different from A team? Supposedly it’s made up of individuals, each out for himself alone, brought together by mutual self interest. There is no magic bond of the tattoo and ranger brotherhood or whatever.
A team is like a fraternity, defined by a shared sense of honor, a kind of faith in one another and in the plan, and a sense of total confidence in its own abilities. All parties share the later sense minus Sosa who expresses cautious humility at one point saying, “we ought to assume they know more than we do”. This humility allows her to change her mind and accept the justice of the A team’s cause, etc.
BA’s soul searching is ridiculed along with nonviolence. He is made to feel impotent by The Old Man. His character is the only member who in any way questions the authority of Hannibal Smith and the core values of the A team. At no time does anyone engage in critical thinking. Even BA. He is shown with a book by an exoticized other, a western esotericist perhaps. But the book is a tool and a technology he is uncomfortable with. He quotes it, and then The Old Man quotes (supposedly) a refutation back at him. Biblical exegesis at the turning point of an action movie? Strange. It’s the fucking White Man’s Burden all over again. Seriously this whole subplot is super fucked up. Argh. The real, present father Smith, the Christian white man, the pastor, the patriarch, brings the wayward sheep back into the fold. And the sheep is all too willing to come home. BA’s attempt to go his own way was shown as an emasculating adventure with a false prophet. Ghandi was Christianized and recolonized by the white man and along with him the whole spirit of independent thought, inquiry, and living a self-examined life. The Socratic spirit is nipped in the bud as there’s no time for thought or discussion and too much ass to kick, to many guns to shoot, to much shit to blow up. BA kills Pike, which is fitting because Pike is a sort who might belong to the A team if only he had scruples or a sense of loyalty. BA comes around showing that his loyalty is stronger than his own sense of self. His previously troubled conscience is at peace with Pike’s murder, because the Old Man has shown him the way, the truth, the light (or at least some pyrotechnic simulation thereof). BA is portrayed as an animal throughout. His behavior is controlled against his will. Food is a means of control. Drugs too. His consciousness is switched on and off with no apparent moral qualms. At one point Murdoch speaks to him in a kind of pidgin English. He is subhuman, hence trainable. His adventure into pacifism is seen as an endearing, laughable, and naïve caper. Don’t animals do just the cutest little things?
“You look really tan”—homo-erotic bond between Old Man and Face? Is there some old style Greek shit going on here? Ridley Scott did have a hand in this movie after all. Is there some jealousy when The Old Man rebukes face for his history of embroilment with women? Face and the Old Man speak cavalierly about BA’s life—compare him to a midget. “Sure I knew the door of the van would hold him…it held the midget, right?” Again, the black man’s life is undervalued. Facility with language is the defining mark of intelligence. BA’s struggle with the book and his rhetorical defeat by the Old Man underline his failings as a human, relegate him to the animal realm. Murdoch’s surprise facility with Swahili impresses Face. Murdoch also does a South African accent. Face speaks French and German at various points in the film. The Old Man, presumably, is in possession of total mastery of The Word.
The unidentified Arab who turns out to be the general. The general who faked his own death. The demonized other: saboteur of the American economy. This symbolic other turns out to be a home grown cabal of military and mercenary. CIA trumps the cabal in the end. Triumph of secret government. Arab threat shown to be a misidentification. Real threat is corruption of military and government. Abuse of power in the military industrial framework.
Containers, destruction of port, collapse of global economy. Symbolic language. The A-Team seeks only honor and justice. Different values. Pike destroys ship with all containers on it. Ability and willingness to escalate conflict to a whole other level of destruction. Playing a “game changer”. What is this meant to stand for? An act of terrorism? Economic meltdown?
Only men have real power. Women are treated as objects by Face, Lynch. But Face grows up, comes to see Sosa as more than just another good time. He expands his circle of loyalty. Does the father figure approve? No; he resists all the way. Homosexual jealousy? Why? Is this characterization supposed to make us more sympathetic? Create dramatic tension? Or is it related to the holy trinity idea? The true born son of God ought to keep his mind on higher things? (But he’s so dreamy…)
What’s up with Murdoch? He is classified as insane, but how so? Just because he has no respect for rules or boundaries? Is he only with the A team because they are the baddest dudes out there and he can do the craziest shit with them? Because he craves excitement and the outlaw life?
Arizona and immigration policy. Arizona and militias. Arizona and racism. Arizona and white supremacists. Arizona and Nazis (Bolaño). Arizona and Mexico. Mexican federales are portrayed as cholos in uniform. Gangsters, hoods, criminals in uniforms. CIA is portrayed as frat boys with immunity. A team is bonded at the tattoo level. Why is the Old Man always recording voices? (Facility with The Word?) With the Mexican general in the helicopter…with Lynch…these tapes are never put to use, are they? Is it about being an honorable man, a man of his word, of The Word? The word in a Christian sense?
The Blackforest people are made to look like fascists (black shirts, brown shirts, what’s the dif?) Nobody in the A team wears a uniform. They are free to be themselves, so long as they kick ass and listen to the old man. So long as they stick to the plan. Their bond is with each other and with the plan. They are a kind of chosen people.
A team is scary. A team is propaganda for militias. A team is reaching out to vets of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and telling them the system is broken. If you work within it, you are only helping a bunch of privileged, infantile frat boys get rich while fucking over everybody else. To preserve honor, and good Christian values, (or are they Greek values? Or Roman, that is Latin values—honor, faith, family loyalty—but no—we must consider them strictly Anglo Saxon values or surely all Hell will break loose) one cannot work within the confines of the system. One must rebel to maintain the purity of the fatherland. It is totally crypto fascist propaganda.
Monday, June 14, 2010
The A Team
P: Protecting the honorable values of the fatherland when no one else will. Propaganda and recruitment for crypto-fascist militias. Like looking the devil in the eye for 2 and a half hours.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Please Give
L: I really liked this movie, it is not a feel good movie, but the movie left me feeling positive. the writer focused a lot of attention on the characters's flaws, but was able to make each character sympathetic. This movie deals with the intentions that people have behind their actions, specifically ideas about giving and taking, and the different consequences of those actions (the main character is consumed by guilt from her financial success that is a result of, essentially profitting from the "children of dead people", and tries to give to feel better about herself). The acting was great. The movie was thoughtful and funny.
P: A movie about growing up and getting old in a society based on infantile gratification in its various guises. A movie about the impossibility of community in an exploitative society. Focus on the Family, but in a blue-state, secular humanist way, not a James Dobson, 700 club way. Family and love relationships as the only refuge in a free market society. I feel like there’s more to be said about all this but I’m not up to it just now.
P: A movie about growing up and getting old in a society based on infantile gratification in its various guises. A movie about the impossibility of community in an exploitative society. Focus on the Family, but in a blue-state, secular humanist way, not a James Dobson, 700 club way. Family and love relationships as the only refuge in a free market society. I feel like there’s more to be said about all this but I’m not up to it just now.
Letters to Juliet
L: My boyfriend claims that he enjoyed this movie. He actually started fist-pumping to the Taylor swift song that played towards the end; This has made me rethink our relationship. This movie was very hard to sit through. I ended up disliking every one of the characters and kept hoping that the movie would take a crime drama or horror turn, but that was just wishful thinking. Horrible, predictable, badly acted (gael garcia bernal and amanda seyfried in the worst performances i've ever seen from both actors).
P: The other morning, as I dipped an amaretto biscotti into a Tuscan roast cappuccino, sunbeams falling through the vines on a Tuscan style pergola dappling the Tuscan rose flagstone of the patio where I sat and mused contentedly, I was suddenly gripped by a passionate desire to go to the movies. Never one to ignore the dictates of passionate desire, I immediately sought my destiny at the Edwards Greenway Palace, presenting my Regal Crown Club card for a ticket to Letters to Juliet, a one dollar popcorn, and a refillable Coke.
Letters to Juliet is all about beautiful people leading beautiful lives in a beautiful place. I wanted so much for something terrible and ugly to happen to them but in vain. Everyone in the film talks about following passions and seeking destinies, but to judge by appearances, these peoples' passions lead them to the tanning salon every two weeks, the dentist every three months, and some designer boutique or other every season for a tasteful, new wardrobe. Of course such people summer in Tuscany (Ahhh Tuscany!), soaking up passion and earthiness and the quiet nobility of the peasant while lounging around the pool and sighing over just the most exquisite local wine that you can't get back home. Between sighs and soulful, horizon gazing poolside chats, they drive around Tuscany in a cute, European sedan looking for a certain Lorenzo Bartoli. It's an errand of love and one which conveniently excuses the characters' (and by implication, the audience's) prurient, voyeuristic consumption of a geography, a gastronomy, a mystique--in a word, of their tourism.
I am not above the vicarious enjoyment of landscape and other earthy delights, but the most intense, aesthetic pleasure of Letters to Juliet was not, surprisingly, to be had in the contemplation of Tuscany's quaint array of hills, trees, and terra cotta villas. No, the most impressive variation of scenery was on Amanda Seyfriend's face. She musters a dazzling array of toothy, teary-eyed smiles. And pouts. And longing gazes. If I were as lovely at she is, I'd surely spend hours at the mirror in narcissistic awe, and I'll bet anyone that she has. I bet she has a name for each of her expressions, and maybe a catalogue of numbered, headshots illustrating them all? I bet she gives a copy of this catalogue to the each director she works with so the director can guide her entire performance numerically.
"Amanda baby, could you start this take with a number 25, then 13 seconds in, start changing to a number 4 and hold that, just turning your head 45 degrees away from the camera right at the end, please. Great, thanks."
I had a lot of fun to trying to watch this movie against the grain if you know what I mean. In Pyongyang you can turn down the volume of the radio in your apartment, but not all the way. You certainly can't turn it off. Everyone in Pyongyang lives like fish, submerged in a ceaseless, steady stream of ideological bullshit. Thank God life's not like that in Tuscany, right?
P: The other morning, as I dipped an amaretto biscotti into a Tuscan roast cappuccino, sunbeams falling through the vines on a Tuscan style pergola dappling the Tuscan rose flagstone of the patio where I sat and mused contentedly, I was suddenly gripped by a passionate desire to go to the movies. Never one to ignore the dictates of passionate desire, I immediately sought my destiny at the Edwards Greenway Palace, presenting my Regal Crown Club card for a ticket to Letters to Juliet, a one dollar popcorn, and a refillable Coke.
Letters to Juliet is all about beautiful people leading beautiful lives in a beautiful place. I wanted so much for something terrible and ugly to happen to them but in vain. Everyone in the film talks about following passions and seeking destinies, but to judge by appearances, these peoples' passions lead them to the tanning salon every two weeks, the dentist every three months, and some designer boutique or other every season for a tasteful, new wardrobe. Of course such people summer in Tuscany (Ahhh Tuscany!), soaking up passion and earthiness and the quiet nobility of the peasant while lounging around the pool and sighing over just the most exquisite local wine that you can't get back home. Between sighs and soulful, horizon gazing poolside chats, they drive around Tuscany in a cute, European sedan looking for a certain Lorenzo Bartoli. It's an errand of love and one which conveniently excuses the characters' (and by implication, the audience's) prurient, voyeuristic consumption of a geography, a gastronomy, a mystique--in a word, of their tourism.
I am not above the vicarious enjoyment of landscape and other earthy delights, but the most intense, aesthetic pleasure of Letters to Juliet was not, surprisingly, to be had in the contemplation of Tuscany's quaint array of hills, trees, and terra cotta villas. No, the most impressive variation of scenery was on Amanda Seyfriend's face. She musters a dazzling array of toothy, teary-eyed smiles. And pouts. And longing gazes. If I were as lovely at she is, I'd surely spend hours at the mirror in narcissistic awe, and I'll bet anyone that she has. I bet she has a name for each of her expressions, and maybe a catalogue of numbered, headshots illustrating them all? I bet she gives a copy of this catalogue to the each director she works with so the director can guide her entire performance numerically.
"Amanda baby, could you start this take with a number 25, then 13 seconds in, start changing to a number 4 and hold that, just turning your head 45 degrees away from the camera right at the end, please. Great, thanks."
I had a lot of fun to trying to watch this movie against the grain if you know what I mean. In Pyongyang you can turn down the volume of the radio in your apartment, but not all the way. You certainly can't turn it off. Everyone in Pyongyang lives like fish, submerged in a ceaseless, steady stream of ideological bullshit. Thank God life's not like that in Tuscany, right?
Monday, June 7, 2010
On David Cronenberg's The Fly
1. Bartok Science Industries and Bitonality
The Fly begins at a meet-and-greet hosted by Bartok Science Industries, the company funding Seth Brundle’s research. The name Bartok wasn’t chosen at random. Béla Bartók was a Hungarian composer of modern, symphonic music. He was a proponent of bitonality, a compositional method involving the simultaneous development of melodies and harmonies in two different keys. Dissonance results when two or more tonalities clash within a single composition. Think of Brundlefly as a bitonal composition in the medium of the flesh and the allusion to Bartók makes total sense. Two simultaneous melodies in different keys are analogous to two genomes, insect and human, clashing in a single organism. (I do have an unresolved question regarding names though. Stathis Borans and Seth Brundle both have the initials S.B., which is a reversal of Bartok Science. Why?)
2. Motion Sickness and Disembodied Consciousness
Seth Brundle suffers from motion sickness. Riding in Veronica Quaife’s car from the Bartok party to his laboratory, He admits that he hates vehicles. There’s something funny about a grown man with such a characteristically childish affliction. We’re meant to see Brundle as ridiculous but charming. His weakness makes him sympathetic. Motion sickness, after all, is not that big of a deal. But as with the name Bartok, there’s something going on beneath the surface here. The body ill at ease with the vehicle is similar to the mind ill at ease with the body. Seen in this light, does Brundle’s research on teleportation express a yearning for disembodied consciousness? The struggle between mind and body comes to the fore as Brundle’s physical transformation progresses. His thought patterns and the corresponding nervous impulses of the fly are at odds. He struggles in vain to resist the hybridization of his mind. It’s the ultimate case of cognitive dissonance.
3. Fusion and Cold War context
When things start going wrong Brundle asks the computer if the fly was assimilated during transport. The computer says, “no”. He then asks what did happen. The computer says, “fusion”. This is an evocative term given the cold war context of The Fly. The original film was made in 1958, the height of the atomic age. Thermonuclear bombs were exploded regularly over the Pacific throughout the ‘50s. These fusion bombs were far more destructive than the fission bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. They were enormous fireballs, sometimes miles across, made of superheated gas in an ionized state, or plasma. (The sun is a naturally occurring plasma created by an ongoing fusion reaction.) Brundle uses the word plasma several times while raving about his experience of teleportation, which also, and more importantly, was one of fusion with the fly. Plasma and fusion—it’s hard to escape the conclusion that Cronenberg has nuclear technology on his mind. His film The Dead Zone, made just before The Fly, deals explicitly with the threat of thermonuclear war between the USSR and the USA. But what exactly is he saying about all this in The Fly? Maybe we can think of Brundle’s plight—at odds with himself, gradually losing his humanity, plagued by his experience of fusion—as somehow representative of the Cold War world. I don’t mean to say that the fly stands for Communism and Brundle for Capitalism or vice versa. Just that someone thinking about the world in the grips of the Cold War might see an apt metaphor in Brundlefly, an organism with two genetic directives struggling to dictate the course of its development.
The Fly begins at a meet-and-greet hosted by Bartok Science Industries, the company funding Seth Brundle’s research. The name Bartok wasn’t chosen at random. Béla Bartók was a Hungarian composer of modern, symphonic music. He was a proponent of bitonality, a compositional method involving the simultaneous development of melodies and harmonies in two different keys. Dissonance results when two or more tonalities clash within a single composition. Think of Brundlefly as a bitonal composition in the medium of the flesh and the allusion to Bartók makes total sense. Two simultaneous melodies in different keys are analogous to two genomes, insect and human, clashing in a single organism. (I do have an unresolved question regarding names though. Stathis Borans and Seth Brundle both have the initials S.B., which is a reversal of Bartok Science. Why?)
2. Motion Sickness and Disembodied Consciousness
Seth Brundle suffers from motion sickness. Riding in Veronica Quaife’s car from the Bartok party to his laboratory, He admits that he hates vehicles. There’s something funny about a grown man with such a characteristically childish affliction. We’re meant to see Brundle as ridiculous but charming. His weakness makes him sympathetic. Motion sickness, after all, is not that big of a deal. But as with the name Bartok, there’s something going on beneath the surface here. The body ill at ease with the vehicle is similar to the mind ill at ease with the body. Seen in this light, does Brundle’s research on teleportation express a yearning for disembodied consciousness? The struggle between mind and body comes to the fore as Brundle’s physical transformation progresses. His thought patterns and the corresponding nervous impulses of the fly are at odds. He struggles in vain to resist the hybridization of his mind. It’s the ultimate case of cognitive dissonance.
3. Fusion and Cold War context
When things start going wrong Brundle asks the computer if the fly was assimilated during transport. The computer says, “no”. He then asks what did happen. The computer says, “fusion”. This is an evocative term given the cold war context of The Fly. The original film was made in 1958, the height of the atomic age. Thermonuclear bombs were exploded regularly over the Pacific throughout the ‘50s. These fusion bombs were far more destructive than the fission bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. They were enormous fireballs, sometimes miles across, made of superheated gas in an ionized state, or plasma. (The sun is a naturally occurring plasma created by an ongoing fusion reaction.) Brundle uses the word plasma several times while raving about his experience of teleportation, which also, and more importantly, was one of fusion with the fly. Plasma and fusion—it’s hard to escape the conclusion that Cronenberg has nuclear technology on his mind. His film The Dead Zone, made just before The Fly, deals explicitly with the threat of thermonuclear war between the USSR and the USA. But what exactly is he saying about all this in The Fly? Maybe we can think of Brundle’s plight—at odds with himself, gradually losing his humanity, plagued by his experience of fusion—as somehow representative of the Cold War world. I don’t mean to say that the fly stands for Communism and Brundle for Capitalism or vice versa. Just that someone thinking about the world in the grips of the Cold War might see an apt metaphor in Brundlefly, an organism with two genetic directives struggling to dictate the course of its development.
The Puffy Chair
L: A sometimes funny, often annoying movie about attractive looking but unattractively behaved 20 somethings on a road trip. Beware; there is uneccesary baby talk that makes parts of the movie unbearable. (Is it ever necessary though?)
P: Would make a pretty good short story or Al Queda recruitment film.
P: Would make a pretty good short story or Al Queda recruitment film.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Palindromes
This movie is for people fed up with joy, love and happiness. Certain kinds of masochists and nihilists will love it. Pain, cruelty, and humiliation are the stocks in trade. There is no hope in this universe, no chance of redemption or even consolation. Only a kind of stoic striving after dignity and a cynical irony used to fend off the relentless assault of an entirely hostile world. Bleak stuff and agonizing at times, but admirable in its uncompromising sincerity and sympathy for the downtrodden.
The Natural
They just don't make them like this anymore. It's not a sports movie; it's the last gasp of the Jeffersonian ethos in American culture. It's also the last gasp of a certain kind of filmmaking. The setup is quietly dazzling with its relaxed pace, elegant presentation, and complete self-assuredness of direction. The delights of a slow pan past the assembled team during the national anthem, the manager and batting coach playing "name that tune" in the dugout, and a magical, nightclub set piece between Redford and McGavin more than make up for some shoddy storytelling towards the end. (The mystery of the Redford character's past is never quite cleared up.) It is impossible to imagine anyone improving upon this material, despite its flaws. I can see how it might be cloying to some, but to me it was pure pleasure.
Love in the Afternoon
L: You've heard of May-October romances? This is like a March-December. Gross.
P: Maurice Chevalier says, "Try the French ham. C'est vraiment delicioux."
P: Maurice Chevalier says, "Try the French ham. C'est vraiment delicioux."
Hooper
Another Burt Reynolds movie, another vision of hell. Maybe of interest to masochists and demonologists.
The End
If you were to tell me that Burt Reynolds was the Antichrist I might have believed you before watching this movie. Having done so I'm sure of it.
Four Christmases
L: Maybe four funny scenes but many more bad ones.
P: Misanthropic, Malthusian diatribe packaged as romantic comedy. Is there such a thing as a masterpiece of insincerity?
P: Misanthropic, Malthusian diatribe packaged as romantic comedy. Is there such a thing as a masterpiece of insincerity?
The Thrill of It All
L: Not good but better than other Doris Day movies I've seen. I find her quite annoying so I should probably lay off. Horrible message, but maybe that's to be expected from a 50s movie.
P: Turned it off before the end, but not soon enough. Lost a few brain cells to this one. Unnngh...
P: Turned it off before the end, but not soon enough. Lost a few brain cells to this one. Unnngh...
Bruno
P: Some people will do anything to be on TV. This movie is of those people, by those people, for those people.
L: I laughed out loud a few times but this movie is not very good. I was embarrassed about laughing. Borat was much better.
L: I laughed out loud a few times but this movie is not very good. I was embarrassed about laughing. Borat was much better.
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