There are a lot of categories that not only are relatively irrelevant, but that I personally have seen zero films from. Let’s go through them as fast as possible!
Lightning round!
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
I had the chance to see Bullhead and didn’t, so it couldn’t have been good. The only alternative is that I’m a bad decision maker, and that’s just absurd. A Separation already won; don’t get greedy, Iranians. A Canadian film? Adieu, Monsieur Lazhar. It’s trendy to hate on Israel this year, so you’re out, Footnote.
In Darkness from Edgar Allen Poland it is. Appropriate.
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
The best documentaries are typically about irrelevant things that sound boring as hell (I’m looking at you, Helvetica). Let’s use that logic here. Hell and Back Again and Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory both sound like low level horror films. Undefeated is going to suffer its first lost. The Earth Liberation Front bombed my old workplace once, so screw If A Tree Falls. Pina, which is about the tragic death of a dance choreographer. Well, none of those things are irrelevant or boring sounding, but Hell and Back Again sounds a lot like Helvetica. Done.
DOCUMENTARY SHORT
Christ, more shorts. The Barber of Birmingham sounds so boring and irrelevant, I’m not even going to read the rest of the titles.
FILM EDITING
The best film edit is the edit you didn’t even see, so in that spirit, this category comes down to The Descendants and Moneyball, two films I haven’t watched. It’s also important to leave the boring parts on the cutting room floor, but Moneyball, a film entirely about statistics and baseball, apparently did the exact opposite. Some might call it avant-garde, but this is the Oscars, dammit.
The Descendants it is.
ART DIRECTION
Obviously, The Artist is going to win this category. IT’S IN THE TITLE.
COSTUME DESIGN
This category always goes to the costume designer who recreated a foppish era of England’s past, so in the interest of balance, I’m going to disqualify every film that involves the Brits. Sorry W.E., Jane Eyre, and Anonymous. That leaves The Artist and Hugo, which recreate foppish eras of America and France’s pasts, respectively. I’m going to give the nod to The Artist, mostly for John Goodman’s cigar.
ANIMATED FEATURE
The Pixar Memorial category.
I don’t vote for sequels or ridiculous spinoffs, so Kung Fu Panda 2 and Puss in Boots are flat out. There are way too many films set in Paris, so sorry Cat in Paris. We’re left with a cowboy lizard and a film I haven’t heard of but appears to prominently involve lead character Rita’s breasts. Unacceptable! This is a kid’s category! I won’t have you corrupting America’s youth with beautiful imagery of the human body!
Rango rides away, and we all can’t wait for Pixar to get back in the game.
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Anyone who knows me knows The Tree of Life won this six months ago, and the rest of the list is there to be polite. What, you wanted a joke? I have to take one of these seriously, and it’s going to be the category led by 1950s Texan tale of childhood angst that prominently involves dinosaurs.
Whoops, those last few were real categories. Oh well. Onto the big 6 next time.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Aaron Picks The Oscars, Part One
It’s that time of year again. No, not Oscars nominations. That happened like an hour ago; nobody cares anymore. No, it’s time for everybody to wildly speculate on who’ll win the somewhat-coveted trophies while maintaining intellectual superiority by declaring “it’s all politics anyway. (do you think George Clooney is due?)”
I’m not going to fall into that trap. Oh, no. I’m not going to be ironically and hilariously smug while descending (eh? eh?) into the same idiotic fervor everybody else does. I’m going to maintain artistic integrity here. I’m not going to predict who wins. I’m going to write a blog post about who I THINK should win, based on the nominations, and my own spotty track record of having watched the nominated films and a healthy dose of my own personal biases. It’ll be exactly like the real Oscars, only I’m the out of touch, elitist Academy who’s shamelessly pandering to mainstream sensibilities.
Without further ado…
WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY)
I’ve seen three of these, which is pretty damn good for what’s about to transpire. Also, I’m not sure why Midnight in Paris, The Artist, and Bridesmaids qualify for this category, since those are all clearly biographies and not original stories at all.
Margin Call is also pretty clearly an account of actual events, but they did stop short of calling the fictional investment firm the “Lame Men Brothers”, so they sneak in.
Still, A Separation, which I believe has something to do with divorce in Islamofascist Communist Iran (I haven’t seen it), clearly sets itself apart. There’s no way it isn’t a made up story because as I understand it, it portrays Iranian citizens as real people with complicated emotions and political beliefs, and at no point do any of the main characters attempt to build a bomb or declare ‘Death to America’ (again, I haven’t seen it…if the end of the movie twist is a suicide bombing, I take this back and give the win to Margin Call). This level of silly imagination shows great creativity, so A Separation is my winner (unless it sucks, b/c again, haven’t seen it).
WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY)
Ah, the real Hollywood writing category. As we all know, Hollywood is generally incompetent except when they can rip somebody else off and not give them credit for it, so this is the real battle.
More typical of this awards season, I’ve only seen one of these movies, so it’s a particularly hard category to judge. Both The Ides of March and The Descendents prominently involve George Clooney, so they split my Clooney vote and knock themselves out of competition. Moneyball is about baseball, and I’ve heard it’s quite good, which means I know a lot of liars because nothing about baseball is good. It’s out for dishonesty.
That leaves Hugo and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. I loved Hugo, but I didn’t remember the writing being particularly good, plus a lot of it was in French, which meant I had to read it. While some might argue that gives it extra points for a writing category, this is America. And in America, we love the Brits (pip pip!). And TTSS combines four words that have no business going together into a cool sentence, which is all I know about the writing of the film. Good enough for me.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy wins the day.
SOUND EDITING AND MIXING
Now begins my annual Wikipedia research session to relearn the difference between editing and mixing.
Still confused.
Let’s use the scientific method.
HYPOTHESIS: If there’s a difference, it will show up in the nominees. We can then use the what we know about the nominees to extrapolate what that difference is.
OBSERVATION: Since these are two entirely different skills, the lists of movies should differ greatly as well. Let’s see, for sound editing we have The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Hugo, Transformers, War Horse, and Drive. For sound mixing, we have The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Hugo, Transformers, War Horse, and Moneyball.
….
….
ANALYSIS: Clearly, the difference between sound mixing and editing is very precise. It also appears to have something to do with the difference between Drive and Moneyball. Having seen Drive, sound editing, therefore, seems to have something to do with cars and 80s throwback synth tracks. Moneyball has something to do with baseball, so I can only extrapolate from what I know about the film (not much) that Sound Mixing is predominately concerned with sports.
CONCLUSION: Well, Moneyball is clearly the most sports related movie on this list, so we’ll go ahead and award the Sound Mixing Oscar to them.
You might be tempted to say Drive is the most cars related film on the list, but Transformers has even cooler cars, and theirs transform into robots. Plus, there’s a rumor going around that if you put on Pink Floyd at the same time as Transformers and get really stoned, IT TOTALLY SYNCHS UP, so we’re going to give Transformers: Dark of the Moon the Sound Editing Oscar.
VISUAL EFFECTS
Another category where I’ve only seen 2 of 5. Unlike writing, this is a particular handicap, as I can’t get any clues from the titles. So instead, I’m going to go by a google images search.
Harry Potter 2: Ok, so I’ve seen this one. I don’t actually remember anything about the effects, so I’m going to yawn and move on. The poster is very blue, for what it’s worth.
Hugo: That’s a pretty cool clock. It also gets some extra props for landing a visual effects nomination for a film about a 9 year old clock maker in 1920s Paris. Oh yeah, and the 3D stuff is revolutionary. Interesting dark horse.
Real Steel: I liked this movie better when it was a Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots commercial. None of these guys are taking Optimus Prime. Sorry.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes: The effects on those monkeys are so good they almost look like monkeys.
Transformers Dark of the Moon: If only Michael Bay movies didn’t have sound. Wait, this won sound. If only Michael Bay movies didn’t have…screw it, those robots are f’ing awesome, and nothing about this category says “writing”, “dialogue”, “acting”, “direction”, or “plausibility”. Transformers Dark of the Moon wins a stunning second Oscar (in the fake Benmark Academy). I was stunned.
MUSIC (ORIGINAL SONG)
Wait, there’s only 2 contenders? Fuck it, I’m taking The Muppets.
MUSIC (ORIGINAL SCORE)
Again, I’ve seen two of these, and I can’t really remember the music from either of them. So The Artist and Hugo: out by default. I can only assume Tintin and War Horse, two John Williams scores for Spielberg movies, are bad ass. But again, the Williams vote is split, leaving us with Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Alberto Iglesias takes the trophy. I’m pretty sure he’s some sort of hybrid between a Colombia rebel and a pop icon.
SHORT FILM (ANIMATED AND LIVE ACTION)
I can’t believe they split the category literally nobody’s seen a contender from into two. Someone must have let them know that the Oscars don’t drag on long enough. I’m taking Wild Life as the least hipster sounding contender, and Time Freak as what I can only assume is a film about a time travelling cross dresser who likes to freak on unsuspecting club goers in different centuries, which SOUNDS AWESOME.
MAKE UP
Only three contenders, which means the Academy watched more than three times as many short films as films where they noticed the make up. Here we have the always wonderful wizards and magical creatures of Harry Potter, Meryl Streep transformed before our very eyes into a dignified old lady at the top of her profession, and…
….
….
Oh God.
OH GOD.
IS THAT GLENN CLOSE? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO HER? YOU…YOU MONSTERS! I CAN’T UNSEE IT. HERE, TAKE YOUR FUCKING OSCAR, YOU HEATHENS.
The Oscar goes to Albert Nobbs.
(editor’s note (yes, I’m my own editor, what of it?): After googling Albert Nobbs, I googled Glenn Close to see what she looks like these days, and maybe it’s not quite as drastic a transformation as I first expected. Or they did such a good job making up her face, they froze it into a hideous, emotionless spectre for all eternity. I like the second theory better, and I’m going to stick with it).
I’m not going to fall into that trap. Oh, no. I’m not going to be ironically and hilariously smug while descending (eh? eh?) into the same idiotic fervor everybody else does. I’m going to maintain artistic integrity here. I’m not going to predict who wins. I’m going to write a blog post about who I THINK should win, based on the nominations, and my own spotty track record of having watched the nominated films and a healthy dose of my own personal biases. It’ll be exactly like the real Oscars, only I’m the out of touch, elitist Academy who’s shamelessly pandering to mainstream sensibilities.
Without further ado…
WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY)
I’ve seen three of these, which is pretty damn good for what’s about to transpire. Also, I’m not sure why Midnight in Paris, The Artist, and Bridesmaids qualify for this category, since those are all clearly biographies and not original stories at all.
Margin Call is also pretty clearly an account of actual events, but they did stop short of calling the fictional investment firm the “Lame Men Brothers”, so they sneak in.
Still, A Separation, which I believe has something to do with divorce in Islamofascist Communist Iran (I haven’t seen it), clearly sets itself apart. There’s no way it isn’t a made up story because as I understand it, it portrays Iranian citizens as real people with complicated emotions and political beliefs, and at no point do any of the main characters attempt to build a bomb or declare ‘Death to America’ (again, I haven’t seen it…if the end of the movie twist is a suicide bombing, I take this back and give the win to Margin Call). This level of silly imagination shows great creativity, so A Separation is my winner (unless it sucks, b/c again, haven’t seen it).
WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY)
Ah, the real Hollywood writing category. As we all know, Hollywood is generally incompetent except when they can rip somebody else off and not give them credit for it, so this is the real battle.
More typical of this awards season, I’ve only seen one of these movies, so it’s a particularly hard category to judge. Both The Ides of March and The Descendents prominently involve George Clooney, so they split my Clooney vote and knock themselves out of competition. Moneyball is about baseball, and I’ve heard it’s quite good, which means I know a lot of liars because nothing about baseball is good. It’s out for dishonesty.
That leaves Hugo and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. I loved Hugo, but I didn’t remember the writing being particularly good, plus a lot of it was in French, which meant I had to read it. While some might argue that gives it extra points for a writing category, this is America. And in America, we love the Brits (pip pip!). And TTSS combines four words that have no business going together into a cool sentence, which is all I know about the writing of the film. Good enough for me.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy wins the day.
SOUND EDITING AND MIXING
Now begins my annual Wikipedia research session to relearn the difference between editing and mixing.
Still confused.
Let’s use the scientific method.
HYPOTHESIS: If there’s a difference, it will show up in the nominees. We can then use the what we know about the nominees to extrapolate what that difference is.
OBSERVATION: Since these are two entirely different skills, the lists of movies should differ greatly as well. Let’s see, for sound editing we have The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Hugo, Transformers, War Horse, and Drive. For sound mixing, we have The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Hugo, Transformers, War Horse, and Moneyball.
….
….
ANALYSIS: Clearly, the difference between sound mixing and editing is very precise. It also appears to have something to do with the difference between Drive and Moneyball. Having seen Drive, sound editing, therefore, seems to have something to do with cars and 80s throwback synth tracks. Moneyball has something to do with baseball, so I can only extrapolate from what I know about the film (not much) that Sound Mixing is predominately concerned with sports.
CONCLUSION: Well, Moneyball is clearly the most sports related movie on this list, so we’ll go ahead and award the Sound Mixing Oscar to them.
You might be tempted to say Drive is the most cars related film on the list, but Transformers has even cooler cars, and theirs transform into robots. Plus, there’s a rumor going around that if you put on Pink Floyd at the same time as Transformers and get really stoned, IT TOTALLY SYNCHS UP, so we’re going to give Transformers: Dark of the Moon the Sound Editing Oscar.
VISUAL EFFECTS
Another category where I’ve only seen 2 of 5. Unlike writing, this is a particular handicap, as I can’t get any clues from the titles. So instead, I’m going to go by a google images search.
Harry Potter 2: Ok, so I’ve seen this one. I don’t actually remember anything about the effects, so I’m going to yawn and move on. The poster is very blue, for what it’s worth.
Hugo: That’s a pretty cool clock. It also gets some extra props for landing a visual effects nomination for a film about a 9 year old clock maker in 1920s Paris. Oh yeah, and the 3D stuff is revolutionary. Interesting dark horse.
Real Steel: I liked this movie better when it was a Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots commercial. None of these guys are taking Optimus Prime. Sorry.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes: The effects on those monkeys are so good they almost look like monkeys.
Transformers Dark of the Moon: If only Michael Bay movies didn’t have sound. Wait, this won sound. If only Michael Bay movies didn’t have…screw it, those robots are f’ing awesome, and nothing about this category says “writing”, “dialogue”, “acting”, “direction”, or “plausibility”. Transformers Dark of the Moon wins a stunning second Oscar (in the fake Benmark Academy). I was stunned.
MUSIC (ORIGINAL SONG)
Wait, there’s only 2 contenders? Fuck it, I’m taking The Muppets.
MUSIC (ORIGINAL SCORE)
Again, I’ve seen two of these, and I can’t really remember the music from either of them. So The Artist and Hugo: out by default. I can only assume Tintin and War Horse, two John Williams scores for Spielberg movies, are bad ass. But again, the Williams vote is split, leaving us with Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Alberto Iglesias takes the trophy. I’m pretty sure he’s some sort of hybrid between a Colombia rebel and a pop icon.
SHORT FILM (ANIMATED AND LIVE ACTION)
I can’t believe they split the category literally nobody’s seen a contender from into two. Someone must have let them know that the Oscars don’t drag on long enough. I’m taking Wild Life as the least hipster sounding contender, and Time Freak as what I can only assume is a film about a time travelling cross dresser who likes to freak on unsuspecting club goers in different centuries, which SOUNDS AWESOME.
MAKE UP
Only three contenders, which means the Academy watched more than three times as many short films as films where they noticed the make up. Here we have the always wonderful wizards and magical creatures of Harry Potter, Meryl Streep transformed before our very eyes into a dignified old lady at the top of her profession, and…
….
….
Oh God.
OH GOD.
IS THAT GLENN CLOSE? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO HER? YOU…YOU MONSTERS! I CAN’T UNSEE IT. HERE, TAKE YOUR FUCKING OSCAR, YOU HEATHENS.
The Oscar goes to Albert Nobbs.
(editor’s note (yes, I’m my own editor, what of it?): After googling Albert Nobbs, I googled Glenn Close to see what she looks like these days, and maybe it’s not quite as drastic a transformation as I first expected. Or they did such a good job making up her face, they froze it into a hideous, emotionless spectre for all eternity. I like the second theory better, and I’m going to stick with it).
Thursday, January 19, 2012
MEOW
I was digging for topics, and so I put up to facebook a request, with the promise that whatever I was given I would proceed to write a blog post about.
Naturally, I got LOLcats. An interesting quandary, because how, exactly, do you talk about something that is, by its very nature, so trivial and meaningless?
LOLcats, have in some strange ways, changed our national narrative on the feline species. When I was young, I remember distinctly (or perhaps it was just me), people divided very solidly into “cats” and “dogs” people. If you liked one, you hated the other. It was like being on two sides of a very dug in football rivalry; it was almost unthinkable to cross the picket line and join the other side. Certainly, I was very much a dog person: I despised cats, considered them evil, and secretly wondered when they might rise up and overthrow the world.
Sometime around the point the Internet started putting cats on everything, that dialogue began to change. These days, it’s not only perfectly acceptable but probably the norm to love cats AND dogs. I was resistant to this change at first, holding out for the unassailable superiority of dogs (DOGS RULE, CATS DROOL), but one hilarious and poorly captioned image after another began to wear down my defenses to the point that I now find cats adorable, fluffy, and hilarious like everybody else.
Of course, there’s an alternate possibility: that the two events were not related at all (correlation does not equal causation and all that jazz). At about the same time, many of the women I dug were very much cat people, and in college setting, where dogs were actively discouraged, cats were the only pet available. As a result, I was around them a lot more. They say you broaden your horizons when you live in a new place and travel; you’re exposed to your deepest stereotypes, and find them breaking down over and over again. Maybe this effect happened in an odd arena: with the classic cats and dogs war.
On the other hand, society in general has grown in many ways much less divisive (our politics aside) and more open to new ideas and alternative lifestyles. Maybe as a result of the general trend to accepting the merits of virtually everything, cats have come along for the ride.
I’m not saying I understand why, but whatever the case, it has certainly become more true. The long standing cats and dogs war has broken down, and cats and dogs (and their owners) have begun to live with each other in harmony and peace.
And with that, you’ll excuse me. I need to look at every single post in r/awww.
AW HE THINKS HE’S PEOPLE!!!!!
Naturally, I got LOLcats. An interesting quandary, because how, exactly, do you talk about something that is, by its very nature, so trivial and meaningless?
LOLcats, have in some strange ways, changed our national narrative on the feline species. When I was young, I remember distinctly (or perhaps it was just me), people divided very solidly into “cats” and “dogs” people. If you liked one, you hated the other. It was like being on two sides of a very dug in football rivalry; it was almost unthinkable to cross the picket line and join the other side. Certainly, I was very much a dog person: I despised cats, considered them evil, and secretly wondered when they might rise up and overthrow the world.
Sometime around the point the Internet started putting cats on everything, that dialogue began to change. These days, it’s not only perfectly acceptable but probably the norm to love cats AND dogs. I was resistant to this change at first, holding out for the unassailable superiority of dogs (DOGS RULE, CATS DROOL), but one hilarious and poorly captioned image after another began to wear down my defenses to the point that I now find cats adorable, fluffy, and hilarious like everybody else.
Of course, there’s an alternate possibility: that the two events were not related at all (correlation does not equal causation and all that jazz). At about the same time, many of the women I dug were very much cat people, and in college setting, where dogs were actively discouraged, cats were the only pet available. As a result, I was around them a lot more. They say you broaden your horizons when you live in a new place and travel; you’re exposed to your deepest stereotypes, and find them breaking down over and over again. Maybe this effect happened in an odd arena: with the classic cats and dogs war.
On the other hand, society in general has grown in many ways much less divisive (our politics aside) and more open to new ideas and alternative lifestyles. Maybe as a result of the general trend to accepting the merits of virtually everything, cats have come along for the ride.
I’m not saying I understand why, but whatever the case, it has certainly become more true. The long standing cats and dogs war has broken down, and cats and dogs (and their owners) have begun to live with each other in harmony and peace.
And with that, you’ll excuse me. I need to look at every single post in r/awww.
AW HE THINKS HE’S PEOPLE!!!!!
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Rice Paddies and Oil Fields
Occasionally, I do free writes. Perhaps this isn't the best place for them, and perhaps it is.
This was inspired by a wide array of topics discussed at a potluck I attend at my good friend Matt Scheer's place. It strays on the melancholic side, to be sure, but I'm also in my cubicle, so melancholy is to be expected.
Enjoy.
****
Light flashes in slow, uneven pulses from a corner of your mind’s eye that you can’t quite comprehend.
Water flows rapidly across an uneven staircase, smoothing the sharp edges of the stairs.
Fire heats the inside of a hearth set in the heart of America, in a fireplace in Joplin, Missouri.
Earth moves around on its own volition and a hillside sprouts where flat land once stood.
Arrowheads sit untouched in deep sand dunes. Who will be the first to discover them?
Moss grows on a dying tree engulfing its scrawny white bark with a green fur coat.
What does it mean exactly to mean?
What does it dream exactly to dream?
For what is the price of rice in the afterlands of the soul?
Paddy farmers enter factories, hey o and watch their blissful robes fall to leave them naked on the throne of machinery. Gears and rotors, servos and motors, cranking out tiny iPods and little tiny speakers as they split their fingers and let the blood dry on the hands of the children under their supervision. Don’t take a break, little one. Don’t cry. Make sure you get those glass screens inserted right. The children of the First World Champions demand perfection.
Smooth pottery? Smooth gorilla glass. Craftmanship? No need, when mechanical perfection directed by toddlers who have shadows of their mothers tucked deep in their subconscious is at our hands.
Order now, and get it tomorrow. A hundred countries will work for nothing so that you might feel enlightened and powerful and well informed and indignant.
Oil has found its way into every last crease of the old man as he staggers across a sandswept dune past mastodon bones bleached white by a hard beating sun. The man wonders idly whether the oil he has harvested for the last forty years was once the skin and blood of that mastodon, whether the fuel that flows freely from his taps once flew freely through the veins of the creatures deemed unworthy of the University’s archeologists. He wonders if the ancient warriors who left the arrowheads scattered knew that they would be condensed to black blood used to fuel the pleasure cruises of petulant teenagers in top down convertibles all across America.
Dreams haunt us and tell us of a history that we couldn’t know otherwise. We see death and rebirth, destruction and creation, grotesque deformities somehow sprouted into beauty unforeseeable. A young girl cries as she sees the fate of her friends in the factories where the rice patties once stood. She cries when she sees the arrowheads left with nobody, outlasting the craftsmen who forged them and were later forged into the devil’s dark milk. Finally, the tears are too much, and she drowns in them.
We can instantaneously tell each other how horrible it is that children made the devices we use to decry their working conditions. We can do so in a poem as we turn back to the spreadsheets that have encaptured our souls in their cells.
The key to balancing what seems unbalanceable is to never stop moving. Keep jerking around left and right and up and down until it seems impossible that the pin will ever fall. If anybody ever tells you how silly it looks, ignore them. If you lose focus for a second, the whole world comes tumbling down.
Penile globes. I don’t know how to tie that in yet.
Distant memories of young love haunt us and break us into damp reckonings with our selves. Would we continue the lusts of our youth if we were given the option again?
If we are all resurrected from the past, could we all be the same? Could the young girl I loved be the same girl who cried in terror at the visions she couldn’t explain? Could we all be dreaming the same dream?
One man never stops moving. A river runs until the bed is dry, always moving forward yet constantly stuck in the same place. Near it, an old oak tree has never seen past its roots, and yet the two never seem to separate.
Who is to say whether the mighty oak or the swift river is correct?
When we talk, we make sounds, but we lose the hearing of the world around us. Does anyone listen? Is anyone here? Or am I imagining everybody in front of me? Or is everybody in front of me imagining me? Couldn’t both be true?
I’m brought back to the image of a single grain of rice, floating in the wind, travelling from country to country, down river and river, floating in the ocean, somehow never gobbled up by a stray field mouse. And yet it ends up, after years of travel, back where it began. But where it began is not what it remembers; it’s changed somewhat, and a giant dark building stands menacing over the fields where the rice grain once grew. And a long line of sad people file in and out and in and out and punch a little card to show that they belong. And the grain of rice joins them in their melancholic; for the home it once left no longer stands, and he realizes that he’s alone in the world once more.
This was inspired by a wide array of topics discussed at a potluck I attend at my good friend Matt Scheer's place. It strays on the melancholic side, to be sure, but I'm also in my cubicle, so melancholy is to be expected.
Enjoy.
****
Light flashes in slow, uneven pulses from a corner of your mind’s eye that you can’t quite comprehend.
Water flows rapidly across an uneven staircase, smoothing the sharp edges of the stairs.
Fire heats the inside of a hearth set in the heart of America, in a fireplace in Joplin, Missouri.
Earth moves around on its own volition and a hillside sprouts where flat land once stood.
Arrowheads sit untouched in deep sand dunes. Who will be the first to discover them?
Moss grows on a dying tree engulfing its scrawny white bark with a green fur coat.
What does it mean exactly to mean?
What does it dream exactly to dream?
For what is the price of rice in the afterlands of the soul?
Paddy farmers enter factories, hey o and watch their blissful robes fall to leave them naked on the throne of machinery. Gears and rotors, servos and motors, cranking out tiny iPods and little tiny speakers as they split their fingers and let the blood dry on the hands of the children under their supervision. Don’t take a break, little one. Don’t cry. Make sure you get those glass screens inserted right. The children of the First World Champions demand perfection.
Smooth pottery? Smooth gorilla glass. Craftmanship? No need, when mechanical perfection directed by toddlers who have shadows of their mothers tucked deep in their subconscious is at our hands.
Order now, and get it tomorrow. A hundred countries will work for nothing so that you might feel enlightened and powerful and well informed and indignant.
Oil has found its way into every last crease of the old man as he staggers across a sandswept dune past mastodon bones bleached white by a hard beating sun. The man wonders idly whether the oil he has harvested for the last forty years was once the skin and blood of that mastodon, whether the fuel that flows freely from his taps once flew freely through the veins of the creatures deemed unworthy of the University’s archeologists. He wonders if the ancient warriors who left the arrowheads scattered knew that they would be condensed to black blood used to fuel the pleasure cruises of petulant teenagers in top down convertibles all across America.
Dreams haunt us and tell us of a history that we couldn’t know otherwise. We see death and rebirth, destruction and creation, grotesque deformities somehow sprouted into beauty unforeseeable. A young girl cries as she sees the fate of her friends in the factories where the rice patties once stood. She cries when she sees the arrowheads left with nobody, outlasting the craftsmen who forged them and were later forged into the devil’s dark milk. Finally, the tears are too much, and she drowns in them.
We can instantaneously tell each other how horrible it is that children made the devices we use to decry their working conditions. We can do so in a poem as we turn back to the spreadsheets that have encaptured our souls in their cells.
The key to balancing what seems unbalanceable is to never stop moving. Keep jerking around left and right and up and down until it seems impossible that the pin will ever fall. If anybody ever tells you how silly it looks, ignore them. If you lose focus for a second, the whole world comes tumbling down.
Penile globes. I don’t know how to tie that in yet.
Distant memories of young love haunt us and break us into damp reckonings with our selves. Would we continue the lusts of our youth if we were given the option again?
If we are all resurrected from the past, could we all be the same? Could the young girl I loved be the same girl who cried in terror at the visions she couldn’t explain? Could we all be dreaming the same dream?
One man never stops moving. A river runs until the bed is dry, always moving forward yet constantly stuck in the same place. Near it, an old oak tree has never seen past its roots, and yet the two never seem to separate.
Who is to say whether the mighty oak or the swift river is correct?
When we talk, we make sounds, but we lose the hearing of the world around us. Does anyone listen? Is anyone here? Or am I imagining everybody in front of me? Or is everybody in front of me imagining me? Couldn’t both be true?
I’m brought back to the image of a single grain of rice, floating in the wind, travelling from country to country, down river and river, floating in the ocean, somehow never gobbled up by a stray field mouse. And yet it ends up, after years of travel, back where it began. But where it began is not what it remembers; it’s changed somewhat, and a giant dark building stands menacing over the fields where the rice grain once grew. And a long line of sad people file in and out and in and out and punch a little card to show that they belong. And the grain of rice joins them in their melancholic; for the home it once left no longer stands, and he realizes that he’s alone in the world once more.
Third Party America, Or The Republicans March Off A Cliff
The year 2012 is shaping up to be one of the most monumental years in American history. With the country limping out of the worst economic recession since the big one in the 1930s, apocalyptic chatter filling the airwaves (Mayans!), multiple wars, skyrocketing debt, collapsing health care system, thoroughly disillusioned youth, and two radical political insurgencies (Occupy and the Tea Party) assaulting the established powers from both sides of the political spectrum, it isn’t a stretch to suggest that the American experiment is at its least stable since World War II thrust the United States into the world’s spotlight. In any moment of instability, long held truths are cast in doubt, and previously thought impossibilities burst on the playing field. In this moment of instability, for the first time since Theodore Roosevelt and the Bull Moose party, the United States seems primed for a successful third party candidate. Indeed, given the rapidly transforming political, economic, social, and cultural spectrum, the very survival of the Republican Party may be at stake in the 2012 election.
The collapse of an American political party is not unprecedented, though it has been an extraordinarily long time. When the party system broke into American politics in the late eighteenth century, there were two parties: the Federalists and the Democratic Republicans. The Federalists were the party of finance and the banks; the Democratic Republicans were the party of farmers and rural America. The Federalists quickly faded: their power was built on finance, not a seller in early America. After Adams, they did not win a single election, and the party disappeared completely in 1824. From 1800-1824, the Democratic Republicans won every single Presidential election, and in 1824, with the death of the Federalists, they were the only remaining political party in America. This allowed the Democratic Republicans to essentially pick their own Presidential candidate in the House of Representatives. Much was made about Gore winning the popular vote and losing the election in 2000: in 1824, Andrew Jackson won the electoral vote handedly, but the House of Representatives chose to ignore that fact and ‘elect’ second place finisher John Quincy Adams. Jackson, the candidate of the poor and underprivileged, didn’t sit well with mostly aristocratic Congressional members. They instead chose the son of the last Federalist President.
Jackson, who has always been perhaps best known for his temper, was predictably furious, and his insurgency forced the Democratic Republican party to split into two parties the following election. Jackson, frontrunner of the newly formed Democratic party, won easily. A few elections later, the remains of the Democratic Republican party re-coalesced as the Whigs. While the Whigs successfully won two elections, both their candidates died while in office (including William Henry Harrison’s now infamous speech in the pouring rain and resulting flu death just 24 days into his term), and the Whigs never quite caught on. With the Civil War looming, American politics descended into chaos, with many smaller parties springing up (including the Liberty Party, the Free Soil Party, the Know Nothing Party, the American Party, the Southern Democrat Party, the Constitutional Party, and of course the Republican Party). In the chaos, the unfortunate Whigs fell off the political spectrum, and in 1860, Abraham Lincoln of the newly formed Republican Party became President.
Since that day, the United States has only elected candidates from the two major parties, but other political parties have made their impact. The Populist Party near the turn of the century wielded enough power to influence most Presidential elections, and Teddy Roosevelt’s Bull Moose Party in 1912 succeeded in getting Taft thrown from office and Woodrow Wilson elected. In 1924, the Progressive Party won several states, and in 1948, Strom Thurmond did the same. George Wallace of the American Independent party made a relatively successful challenge in 1968, and of course Ross Perot briefly led the polls in 1992 before inexplicably dropping out of the race while he was the front runner (he still took down 18% of the vote when he changed his mind again and re-entered late in the election cycle).
So while there is a stronger history of third party participation in the United States, it’s fairly clear that most third party challenges are unsuccessful. Why, then, could a third party be successful this year?
Traditionally, the knock against third parties has been that every third party challenger has succeeded only in swinging the election to the opposite side of the spectrum. For example, if a liberal third party springs up to challenge the Democrats, the liberal vote splits between the third party and the Democrats, and the Republicans walk away with the election. The same process works both directions: when a conservative challenger springs up and challenges the Republicans, it results in an easy win for the Democrats. Because of this long history of futility, these challenges rarely occur in modern America, and most voters are savvy enough to ignore those that do (see Nader, Ralph). Why would this year be different?
For the first time in modern American history, the stances and politics of the two major political parties do NOT even remotely match the typical political beliefs of the American people. The continuing popularity of both the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements (and those movements antipathy to the established political parties) is a fairly clear indication of this general malcontent towards the Washington establishment, though it’s hardly the only indicator. One could demonstrate this by looking at Congress’s all time low approval rating (9%, lower than Lindsay Lohan, ‘America going communist’, the Gulf Oil Spill, and herpes), reading any random sampling of posts on reddit, considering the fact that Ron Paul is getting serious consideration as a Presidential candidate, taking a brief, terrifying foray into any talk radio show on any channel, or by simply bringing up politics in conversation with anybody anywhere at any time. While the United States has never seen a serious political challenge to the established power structure in the post World War II era, the modern United States has never experienced general, across the board, anti-Washington rage quite like the last five years has produced.
It’s also important to note that an entire wing of the American political spectrum, conservatives, effectively do not have representation from either of the two political parties. Certainly, the Republicans claim to represent conservative ideals of fiscal restraint and small government, but their track record is exactly the opposite. When given office, Reagan Republicans have spent at an even faster rate than Democrats, pushed the government into more and more people’s lives, and continually supported enormous tax payer giveaways with no oversight to a small number of corporations in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and other east coastal. As a result, more and more conservatives are declaring themselves ‘libertarian’ or in some extreme cases, ‘fascist’ out of desperation because whatever the modern Republican Party thinks it represents bears no resemblance to reality. At this point of the primary season, it seems fair to say that Mitt Romney, an East Coast millionaire known for implementing universal health care in liberal stronghold Masschusetts, Newt Gingrich, perhaps the most despicable human being alive, Ron Paul, a crazy person, and Rick Santorum, doing whatever the fuck it is he thinks he’s doing, do not represent your average American conservative, who just wants government to leave him alone and not screw things up too badly.
Of course, the liberals are hardly happy either, but the left is likely stuck with Obama, who is the closest thing to a radical progressive as will ever get elected in predominantly conservative America. And the center I will personify as my Dad, a fairly liberal guy who was raised conservative, who works for a defense contractor but recently married an NPR host, who votes consistently Democrat but always claims up to the day before the election that he’s considering both candidates, who is on the fence on Iraq and not sure about gay marriage. In other words, he’s a typical American, with a mish mash of self contradictory opinions and a weird, cobbled-together spectrum of thoughts and ideas that we continually and absurdly attempt to categorize as ‘liberal’, ‘conservative’, or ‘moderate’. His response to the Republican field this year: “what a bunch of jokers. They’ve lost their minds.” His response to the Democrats under Obama: “I can’t keep paying for all this crap. Someone besides the upper middle class needs to start paying taxes.” The moderates in America are caught between Occupiers and Tea Partiers, who want progress but not socialism, who want security but not endless war, who want a strong economy but not crony capitalism, who want an education but not the crippling debt that accompanies it. At the moment, neither party is offering anything remotely close to this ideal. Were America a retailer, we’d be bankrupt by now: our consumers would have found a better deal.
We’re as polarized politically as a country as we’ve ever been, but most of America is united a common disdain towards the current Washington establishment. And as the major political parties pull further and further apart from each other and further and further away from the bulk of Americans, as the Republican party disintegrates into the circus sideshow this year’s debates have been, as the Democrats and Obama continue to falter in fulfilling the promises they made in 2008, for the first time since the Civil War, there is substantial room in the political arena of our nation for a new way of doing things.
Who could rise up and fill that void? That’s a topic for another essay.
The collapse of an American political party is not unprecedented, though it has been an extraordinarily long time. When the party system broke into American politics in the late eighteenth century, there were two parties: the Federalists and the Democratic Republicans. The Federalists were the party of finance and the banks; the Democratic Republicans were the party of farmers and rural America. The Federalists quickly faded: their power was built on finance, not a seller in early America. After Adams, they did not win a single election, and the party disappeared completely in 1824. From 1800-1824, the Democratic Republicans won every single Presidential election, and in 1824, with the death of the Federalists, they were the only remaining political party in America. This allowed the Democratic Republicans to essentially pick their own Presidential candidate in the House of Representatives. Much was made about Gore winning the popular vote and losing the election in 2000: in 1824, Andrew Jackson won the electoral vote handedly, but the House of Representatives chose to ignore that fact and ‘elect’ second place finisher John Quincy Adams. Jackson, the candidate of the poor and underprivileged, didn’t sit well with mostly aristocratic Congressional members. They instead chose the son of the last Federalist President.
Jackson, who has always been perhaps best known for his temper, was predictably furious, and his insurgency forced the Democratic Republican party to split into two parties the following election. Jackson, frontrunner of the newly formed Democratic party, won easily. A few elections later, the remains of the Democratic Republican party re-coalesced as the Whigs. While the Whigs successfully won two elections, both their candidates died while in office (including William Henry Harrison’s now infamous speech in the pouring rain and resulting flu death just 24 days into his term), and the Whigs never quite caught on. With the Civil War looming, American politics descended into chaos, with many smaller parties springing up (including the Liberty Party, the Free Soil Party, the Know Nothing Party, the American Party, the Southern Democrat Party, the Constitutional Party, and of course the Republican Party). In the chaos, the unfortunate Whigs fell off the political spectrum, and in 1860, Abraham Lincoln of the newly formed Republican Party became President.
Since that day, the United States has only elected candidates from the two major parties, but other political parties have made their impact. The Populist Party near the turn of the century wielded enough power to influence most Presidential elections, and Teddy Roosevelt’s Bull Moose Party in 1912 succeeded in getting Taft thrown from office and Woodrow Wilson elected. In 1924, the Progressive Party won several states, and in 1948, Strom Thurmond did the same. George Wallace of the American Independent party made a relatively successful challenge in 1968, and of course Ross Perot briefly led the polls in 1992 before inexplicably dropping out of the race while he was the front runner (he still took down 18% of the vote when he changed his mind again and re-entered late in the election cycle).
So while there is a stronger history of third party participation in the United States, it’s fairly clear that most third party challenges are unsuccessful. Why, then, could a third party be successful this year?
Traditionally, the knock against third parties has been that every third party challenger has succeeded only in swinging the election to the opposite side of the spectrum. For example, if a liberal third party springs up to challenge the Democrats, the liberal vote splits between the third party and the Democrats, and the Republicans walk away with the election. The same process works both directions: when a conservative challenger springs up and challenges the Republicans, it results in an easy win for the Democrats. Because of this long history of futility, these challenges rarely occur in modern America, and most voters are savvy enough to ignore those that do (see Nader, Ralph). Why would this year be different?
For the first time in modern American history, the stances and politics of the two major political parties do NOT even remotely match the typical political beliefs of the American people. The continuing popularity of both the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements (and those movements antipathy to the established political parties) is a fairly clear indication of this general malcontent towards the Washington establishment, though it’s hardly the only indicator. One could demonstrate this by looking at Congress’s all time low approval rating (9%, lower than Lindsay Lohan, ‘America going communist’, the Gulf Oil Spill, and herpes), reading any random sampling of posts on reddit, considering the fact that Ron Paul is getting serious consideration as a Presidential candidate, taking a brief, terrifying foray into any talk radio show on any channel, or by simply bringing up politics in conversation with anybody anywhere at any time. While the United States has never seen a serious political challenge to the established power structure in the post World War II era, the modern United States has never experienced general, across the board, anti-Washington rage quite like the last five years has produced.
It’s also important to note that an entire wing of the American political spectrum, conservatives, effectively do not have representation from either of the two political parties. Certainly, the Republicans claim to represent conservative ideals of fiscal restraint and small government, but their track record is exactly the opposite. When given office, Reagan Republicans have spent at an even faster rate than Democrats, pushed the government into more and more people’s lives, and continually supported enormous tax payer giveaways with no oversight to a small number of corporations in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and other east coastal. As a result, more and more conservatives are declaring themselves ‘libertarian’ or in some extreme cases, ‘fascist’ out of desperation because whatever the modern Republican Party thinks it represents bears no resemblance to reality. At this point of the primary season, it seems fair to say that Mitt Romney, an East Coast millionaire known for implementing universal health care in liberal stronghold Masschusetts, Newt Gingrich, perhaps the most despicable human being alive, Ron Paul, a crazy person, and Rick Santorum, doing whatever the fuck it is he thinks he’s doing, do not represent your average American conservative, who just wants government to leave him alone and not screw things up too badly.
Of course, the liberals are hardly happy either, but the left is likely stuck with Obama, who is the closest thing to a radical progressive as will ever get elected in predominantly conservative America. And the center I will personify as my Dad, a fairly liberal guy who was raised conservative, who works for a defense contractor but recently married an NPR host, who votes consistently Democrat but always claims up to the day before the election that he’s considering both candidates, who is on the fence on Iraq and not sure about gay marriage. In other words, he’s a typical American, with a mish mash of self contradictory opinions and a weird, cobbled-together spectrum of thoughts and ideas that we continually and absurdly attempt to categorize as ‘liberal’, ‘conservative’, or ‘moderate’. His response to the Republican field this year: “what a bunch of jokers. They’ve lost their minds.” His response to the Democrats under Obama: “I can’t keep paying for all this crap. Someone besides the upper middle class needs to start paying taxes.” The moderates in America are caught between Occupiers and Tea Partiers, who want progress but not socialism, who want security but not endless war, who want a strong economy but not crony capitalism, who want an education but not the crippling debt that accompanies it. At the moment, neither party is offering anything remotely close to this ideal. Were America a retailer, we’d be bankrupt by now: our consumers would have found a better deal.
We’re as polarized politically as a country as we’ve ever been, but most of America is united a common disdain towards the current Washington establishment. And as the major political parties pull further and further apart from each other and further and further away from the bulk of Americans, as the Republican party disintegrates into the circus sideshow this year’s debates have been, as the Democrats and Obama continue to falter in fulfilling the promises they made in 2008, for the first time since the Civil War, there is substantial room in the political arena of our nation for a new way of doing things.
Who could rise up and fill that void? That’s a topic for another essay.
Saturday, January 14, 2012
I'm Not Good At This (Let's Talk About Movies) (SPOILERS)
So I am not good at consistently updating these blogs. I'll try to be better. In the meantime, let's talk about movies.
My friend Matt did a great little post on his blog about a random selection of films he enjoyed last year about which he had something to say. I figured I could do something similar.
THE GIRL WITH A DRAGON TATTOO
I saw this with my friend Wickman, who immediately objected to the rape scene leaving the movie. I was happy about seeing how explicitly they were able to do it in a mainstream movie, but I left wondering: why was I so convinced it a good thing, in my eyes, that they were able to depict something so awful and horrific?
I think the reason I was so happy to see such an explicit scene is the range of emotions it forced you to feel. I think it's safe to say I haven't been that legitimately outraged at something happening to a movie character in years. Over the course of the arc between the protagonist and her social worker, I felt some degrees of outrage, squeamishness, horror, frustration, and ultimately a weird combination of triumph and schaudenfraude when she finally bested him. I've seen and worked on enough movies at this point that it's very, very difficult to have an honest, emotional reaction that isn't bogged down in some way with filmic analysis, comparisons to similar scenes in previous films, or a general overlearned sense of 'been there, done that'. Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, while certainly not immune to those considerations as this post proves, at least managed to break through the first layer of professional distance and into my core emotions, and I give the film props for doing so.
I also think it's important for the country to be able to acknowledge these types of scenes and not take the typical WASPish approach of pretending rape and other sexual uncomfortableness just doesn't happen. I've always raged against 'just don't talk about it' culture, because I think that attitude of "those types of things just don't happen around here" enables horrible things to continue to happen under a cloak of blissful ignorance and moral righteousness (see: Penn State, Catholic Church, National Football League). Art is normally the first to break barriers, and the issue of rape in America, especially in situations of uneven power, is an enormous barrier that demands to be shattered. 'Sweep it under the rug' syndrome allows an otherwise upright and moral football coach to ignore systemic child rape in his locker rooms over a span of decades; by addressing the reality of those types of horrors into pop culture, it becomes much, much harder to ignore in real life.
Also, watching that douche get the dildo jammed up his ass was one of the best moments of emotional payoff I've ever experienced.
THE ARTIST
I went into this movie hesitantly, expecting to appreciate but not quite enjoy the experience. I walked out knowing unquestionably that I watched one of my favorite films of the year.
Rarely in cinema do you see a film that is executed so flawlessly and effortlessly. From acting to direction, cinematography to choreography, soundtrack to story, The Artist was a film that rarely missed a beat. Ruthless execution can be stale; The Artist was surprising, upbeat, exciting, novel, and unique within the structure of it's perfect execution. The film was marketed around a gimmick: a black and white silent film in the modern era. While watching, the silent nature of the movie was almost unnoticable. It was a film that would have been one of my favorites if it had been in color and fully voiced: the gimmick was icing on a delicious cake.
Full credit also needs to be given to the actors. In incredibly demanding roles, both filled the room, with a virtuosity and energy normally reserved for live theatre. The inability to talk would be a handicap for many modern actors: the cast of The Artist were unleashed. The old cliche is that communication is 93% non verbal. The Artist confirms this, and demonstrates why true acting is more than reading lines on camera. Modern filmmaking is not nearly as demanding of the true theatrical skill great actors possess; silent filmmaking not only demands this skill, but showcases it and highlights it in a way that nobody can miss. Perhaps The Artist shows us that silent filmmaking does not have to be a one time gimmick, but an addition to the palette of film genres that has been left off the plate for far too long.
FAST FIVE
Alright, so I didn't really enjoy this film. But I kinda expected to, and it had its moments. That's not what interests me though. What interests me is why the rest of the artistically minded world suddenly decided to declare this relatively straight forward Fast and Furious cash cow as transcendent of the franchise.
I guess first, what did it do well? The Rock was fairly inspired and continued his improbably entertaining film career. I made the realization halfway through the movie that I think of Ludacris as an actor first and a rapper second these days. The final car chase was pretty fantastic as far as car chases go. And it was clear throughout the movie that the writers, crew, and actors were not treating this movie as simply a chance to upgrade mansions in Malibu: there was a genuine (if inexplicable) love, care, and respect for the characters in the movie that permeated every scene. If you can say a good thing about the almost hilariously testosterone charged franchise, it's that everybody involved seems to have a genuinely great time making them. And I suppose if I got paid millions of dollars to destroy Ferraris with glee, I would pretty much love my life too.
Now, the bad: as usual for a Fast and Furious franchisee, the story was laughable, the characters were flat and uninteresting, the dialogue lived in a purgatory somewhere between canned and cheesy, the pacing and plot points were so perfunctory I was surprised they didn't put the scene numbers and descriptions on the screen. This is probably totally unfair, but it's striking how The Artist could say so much with almost no words, while Fast and Furious managed to say almost nothing with an absurd amount of dialogue. The actors clearly cared about the characters, but their enthusiasm didn't amount to anything inspiring. They elicited an emotion like what I imagine watching your kids perform in an elementary play elicits: you love them for how hard they're trying, but you're checking your watch the entire time and trying not to smile wryly.
This is not to pile onto the cast and crew, who I harbor no particular ill will and definitely did a fantastic job in their objective: creating an adrenaline charged action film that meatheads can grunt over. What I don't understand is why the artistic community, normally so viciously consistent in mocking such efforts, decided that this particular installment was an exception worth of praise and appreciation.
CONCLUSION
If you're still reading, I'm fairly impressed. I'll give you a break before installment #2, which will probably come sometime in March at my current pace. Peace.
My friend Matt did a great little post on his blog about a random selection of films he enjoyed last year about which he had something to say. I figured I could do something similar.
THE GIRL WITH A DRAGON TATTOO
I saw this with my friend Wickman, who immediately objected to the rape scene leaving the movie. I was happy about seeing how explicitly they were able to do it in a mainstream movie, but I left wondering: why was I so convinced it a good thing, in my eyes, that they were able to depict something so awful and horrific?
I think the reason I was so happy to see such an explicit scene is the range of emotions it forced you to feel. I think it's safe to say I haven't been that legitimately outraged at something happening to a movie character in years. Over the course of the arc between the protagonist and her social worker, I felt some degrees of outrage, squeamishness, horror, frustration, and ultimately a weird combination of triumph and schaudenfraude when she finally bested him. I've seen and worked on enough movies at this point that it's very, very difficult to have an honest, emotional reaction that isn't bogged down in some way with filmic analysis, comparisons to similar scenes in previous films, or a general overlearned sense of 'been there, done that'. Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, while certainly not immune to those considerations as this post proves, at least managed to break through the first layer of professional distance and into my core emotions, and I give the film props for doing so.
I also think it's important for the country to be able to acknowledge these types of scenes and not take the typical WASPish approach of pretending rape and other sexual uncomfortableness just doesn't happen. I've always raged against 'just don't talk about it' culture, because I think that attitude of "those types of things just don't happen around here" enables horrible things to continue to happen under a cloak of blissful ignorance and moral righteousness (see: Penn State, Catholic Church, National Football League). Art is normally the first to break barriers, and the issue of rape in America, especially in situations of uneven power, is an enormous barrier that demands to be shattered. 'Sweep it under the rug' syndrome allows an otherwise upright and moral football coach to ignore systemic child rape in his locker rooms over a span of decades; by addressing the reality of those types of horrors into pop culture, it becomes much, much harder to ignore in real life.
Also, watching that douche get the dildo jammed up his ass was one of the best moments of emotional payoff I've ever experienced.
THE ARTIST
I went into this movie hesitantly, expecting to appreciate but not quite enjoy the experience. I walked out knowing unquestionably that I watched one of my favorite films of the year.
Rarely in cinema do you see a film that is executed so flawlessly and effortlessly. From acting to direction, cinematography to choreography, soundtrack to story, The Artist was a film that rarely missed a beat. Ruthless execution can be stale; The Artist was surprising, upbeat, exciting, novel, and unique within the structure of it's perfect execution. The film was marketed around a gimmick: a black and white silent film in the modern era. While watching, the silent nature of the movie was almost unnoticable. It was a film that would have been one of my favorites if it had been in color and fully voiced: the gimmick was icing on a delicious cake.
Full credit also needs to be given to the actors. In incredibly demanding roles, both filled the room, with a virtuosity and energy normally reserved for live theatre. The inability to talk would be a handicap for many modern actors: the cast of The Artist were unleashed. The old cliche is that communication is 93% non verbal. The Artist confirms this, and demonstrates why true acting is more than reading lines on camera. Modern filmmaking is not nearly as demanding of the true theatrical skill great actors possess; silent filmmaking not only demands this skill, but showcases it and highlights it in a way that nobody can miss. Perhaps The Artist shows us that silent filmmaking does not have to be a one time gimmick, but an addition to the palette of film genres that has been left off the plate for far too long.
FAST FIVE
Alright, so I didn't really enjoy this film. But I kinda expected to, and it had its moments. That's not what interests me though. What interests me is why the rest of the artistically minded world suddenly decided to declare this relatively straight forward Fast and Furious cash cow as transcendent of the franchise.
I guess first, what did it do well? The Rock was fairly inspired and continued his improbably entertaining film career. I made the realization halfway through the movie that I think of Ludacris as an actor first and a rapper second these days. The final car chase was pretty fantastic as far as car chases go. And it was clear throughout the movie that the writers, crew, and actors were not treating this movie as simply a chance to upgrade mansions in Malibu: there was a genuine (if inexplicable) love, care, and respect for the characters in the movie that permeated every scene. If you can say a good thing about the almost hilariously testosterone charged franchise, it's that everybody involved seems to have a genuinely great time making them. And I suppose if I got paid millions of dollars to destroy Ferraris with glee, I would pretty much love my life too.
Now, the bad: as usual for a Fast and Furious franchisee, the story was laughable, the characters were flat and uninteresting, the dialogue lived in a purgatory somewhere between canned and cheesy, the pacing and plot points were so perfunctory I was surprised they didn't put the scene numbers and descriptions on the screen. This is probably totally unfair, but it's striking how The Artist could say so much with almost no words, while Fast and Furious managed to say almost nothing with an absurd amount of dialogue. The actors clearly cared about the characters, but their enthusiasm didn't amount to anything inspiring. They elicited an emotion like what I imagine watching your kids perform in an elementary play elicits: you love them for how hard they're trying, but you're checking your watch the entire time and trying not to smile wryly.
This is not to pile onto the cast and crew, who I harbor no particular ill will and definitely did a fantastic job in their objective: creating an adrenaline charged action film that meatheads can grunt over. What I don't understand is why the artistic community, normally so viciously consistent in mocking such efforts, decided that this particular installment was an exception worth of praise and appreciation.
CONCLUSION
If you're still reading, I'm fairly impressed. I'll give you a break before installment #2, which will probably come sometime in March at my current pace. Peace.
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