Movie Recommendation of the Month

Why does the vampire myth endure? Vampires or something approximating them have been with us since before the advent of Christ. Putting vampires on film is almost as old as the motion pictures themselves. The archetype for the modern vampire is of course Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a book I should probably read someday. Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles facilitated my earliest and deepest forays into vampire lore. Before she became born-again, Rice was one of my favorite writers. She could spin a tale replete with its own intricate mythology that left you marveling at the breadth and depth of it all. She was my J.K. Rowling. Interview with a Vampire, The Vampire Lestat and Queen of the Damned were some of my favorite books as a teenager. After college I got hip to Buffy the Vampire Slayer (second greatest show of all time behind The Wire; I can prove this empirically), but after the first two seasons that really wasn’t much about vampires. But I digress.

Back to the question: why do vampires still intrigue us? For my money, vampires are the perfect monster. In most incarnations they are always just slightly inhuman in appearance, many times too perfect, ageless and unchanging. You could write a dissertation on the symbolic importance of blood and drinking blood and then you throw sex into the mix. Oy. The vampire can represent almost anything you want and that’s what makes it such a great template to work with. As long as you adhere to a few rules, you can write a vampire story that’s a metaphor for whatever the heck you want.


Enter “Let the Right One In”, a Swedish vampire movie about the horrors of adolescence, the beguiling nature of love and of course preying on humans. Oskar a delicate blond boy in both features and temperament spends his days getting bullied at school and his nights fantasizing about revenge upon his tormentors. Eli is the strange girl who has just moved next door and has a habit of hanging out on the frozen bars of the Jungle Jim in her pajamas oblivious to the cold. After a couple of awkward interactions, the two become fast friends. The movie’s plot isn’t especially suspenseful or thrilling (although there are genuine heartbeat-raising moments). What drew me in was the relationship between Oskar and Eli. It felt so natural. The child-actors do an excellent job. Oskar's vulnerability masked beneath his aloofness and Eli's loneliness buried just beneath her lone wolf posturing are both communicated beautifully.

The movie does set-up some interesting mysteries. Who is the man who seems to be Eli’s father? Does Eli truly love Oskar? Is she capable? Her character is morally ambiguous. She seems to have some compunction about killing, but then she just lets other people do it for her. She’s more than capable of securing her own food and perhaps doing a much better job of it, so why the need for a surrogate? How old is she? At one point she states, “I am twelve. But I’ve been twelve for a long, long time.” One wonders is she still emotionally twelve as well? It is clear that she manipulates Oskar, but how different is this from any other twelve year old? Also the question of sexuality is left lingering as Eli tells Oskar more than once that she is not a girl. Does she just mean that she is a vampire and therefore lacks gender or is "she" really a "he"? The movie lets this go unresolved even teasing us with a shot in the film that leaves the question even more open-ended (apparently in the novel upon which the movie is based, this point is made explicitly clear). There is also an abundance of ambiguous sexuality going on. Almost every male character is at some point implied to be gay or at least bisexual. It’s an odd touch but one that creates an undercurrent that colors how viewers interpret the film.

The cinematography enhances the film even further: drab utilitarian structures that make up the scenery all set against the stark snow and ice backdrop plus the alternating sun-bleached and purple midnight skies, all of it creates a sort of sensory deprivation for the viewer. Taken altogether, it's unlike any horror film I've ever seen. I'm not sure that's even the proper designation.

Much to my chagrin, an American remake is in the works. I can only imagine that they'll butcher the film, removing some of the more subversive elements to make it more palatable for American audiences. Do yourself a favor and just rent the DVD. Also respect the actors: watch it with the subtitles.

It Takes a Lot of Effort to Make It Look So Effortless

Pixar continues to evolve. I really expected a letdown after the masterful Wall-E. I would have forgiven Pixar if Up had been a lesser film. But no these guys refuse to relent. Here's the most successful U.S. animation studio both commercially and artistically of the new century and they are still willing to try things that their rivals wouldn't even begin to think about. What other studio would be brazen enough to attempt to include (let alone integrate into a single project) the following in what is ostensibly a kid’s film: a septuagenarian hero; a scene depicting a woman’s infertility and her subsequent emotional recovery from said; a funeral? Exactly what is Up? A kid's film about loss, letting go and embracing non-traditional ideas of family. Yeah, maybe Dreamworks will touch on some of these themes in Shrek 4.

Even if the film turned out to be a disaster, I'd give them props for the attempt. Luckily, it's nowhere near that. Instead it's a minor masterpiece with some of the most sumptuous visuals ever seen in a computer-animated film. It doesn't even need the state-of-the-art visuals, because these guys just know how to tell a story. Almost from the opening sequence, you can tell how much the creators care about their creations. There's more character development in the first five minutes of Up than in the entire bloated two-and-a-half plus hours of TF2. The film never resorts to cheap scatological humor which is rare these days for, well, almost any film with comedy in it, animated or otherwise. It earns its moments. Sure it's emotionally manipulative, but all works of fiction are. That's the point. It's just with the best ones, you don't notice.

Still for all the accolades critics have almost universally heaped upon Pixar, I still think they have room to grow. I don't think they've made a film that matches the limitless inventiveness and bravura display of imagination embodied in Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away. But that's a good thing. It gives me something to look forward to.

Dey Took Arr Jurbs!!!

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Why does MSNBC still employ this man? I understand the ratings chase, but there has to be a line. Rachel should be ashamed to ever let this man on her show again. He's an out-and-out racist. He adds nothing to the debate. He is neither a provocateur nor someone who argues in good faith. There is no discourse to be had when your guest refuses to at least acknowledge the validity of Sotomayor's educational achievements (No, Mr. Buchanan, they do not just "hand out" summa cum laude to just anybody). How is he raising the level of discourse espousing views that would garner applause at an Aryan Nation rally? Forget how factually deficient his comments are; the man is the most transparent, irrefutably racist commentator working in MSM today. Buchanan is nothing more than a bigoted demagogue; however, we've known this for some time now.

My anger is squarely aimed at the MSNBC producers and Rachel Maddow. They know he's going to just say something probably inflammatory and at the very least embarrassing. Perhaps he's just the harmless crazy old man Maddow likes to set him up as. Still, why not invite a conservative voice that isn't a walking, talking anachronism? Raise the bar. It isn't that difficult.

Buchanan's much loved 'base':

Urinetown

Two urine-related posts in a row! Sweet.


This morning while riding the train, I noticed a man holding a glass bottle. It was a Voss "Artesian" water container; the one that goes for upwards of $10 in some of the city's unbearably posh nightspots. Sloshing around inside the container was a translucent yellow liquid that I'm 95% sure was urine. I was a bit incredulous at first, but all signs pointed to this being the case. First the color was just too familiar. Apple juice usually has a darker tinge, some gradation of amber. It wasn't florescent enough to be Gatorade or some other sports drink/sugar water concoction. Also there was condensate inside the glass, indicating that, whatever the liquid was, it had given off some kind of heat.

Nope, there was no doubt in my mind, the guy had urine in the glass. So naturally all I could think was WTF? Seriously, man: WTF? Put it in a plastic bag at least. That's a friggin' biohazard, a code-red-"28 Days Later"-incident waiting to happen. What if the train were to come to a sudden stop? What if it slipped? What if his hand got bumped? What on earth was this guy thinking? It just made no sense. And then I wondered: where exactly is this fellow off to? Doctor's office? Drug test for a job? What situation would require production of an off-site sample? He looked like a normal guy. Not homeless or otherwise perturbed. He was just a guy riding the subway...clutching a cylinder of urine. I pray it was at least his own.

The city never ceases to amaze...or disgust.

Illustrations of Hood Pathology

Quite often I'll walk past the garbage bins in front of my building and get the bum's rush courtesy of the overwhelming ammonia smell of urine. I always wonder, "Who is peeing in the trash?" I always hope that it's maybe stray cats or some other animal, but I know it's probably some dude.

Well the other night I came home from a party sometime in the early morning and saw some dude who most likely lives in my building, taking a whiz right in the garbage bin area. He couldn't be bothered to go upstairs to his apartment. Nor could he bother to use a tree or perhaps the sewage drain in the street. No, he had to pee in a heavily trafficked common area. Why? I guess for the same reason you have the pervasive "piss in the elevator"-phenomenon found in low-income housing complexes; the same reason I find less vigilant dog-curbing in my neighborhood; the same reason people flagrantly toss food wrappers and other debris on the sidewalks of the neighborhood they live in. I see it as a lack of self-respect. If you don't value the environment that you inhabit, then you don't much value yourself. That's of course much too simplistic a view, but I think there is a grain of truth in it.

Movie Recommendation--Sorta

Hancock is not a good movie, per se. I do think it's an interesting failure worth viewing. The film starts off well enough with an interesting premise that gets explored for roughly a half-hour before the plot throws a curve-ball. It could have worked, but the movie tries to shoehorn everything into 90 minutes, thus giving short shrift to the complexities of the situation as presented.

One of the mysteries the movie puts out there is the origin of Hancock. As an amnesiac, Will Smith's anti-hero (if you can even call him that) struggles with questions of identity. Great, I can roll with that. When we finally find out who he is, the why's and wherefore's, I was a bit surprised at the subtext the writer weaved into it. It was bold, but that also made it problematic. The issue with Hancock's origin reveal is that the film isn't constructed in a way to support the weight of it. Nothing that precedes it suggests that the film will aspire to anything more than your typical lightweight action flick. I actually found Charlize Theron's monologue in which she explained Hancock to himself quite moving, but it belonged in a better movie.

I hear a sequel is a possibility. Perhaps the creative team involved can make good on the potential the concept holds.

Michael Bay is the Future

At the time of this post, Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen has grossed approximately $310 $364 million dollars domestically and an additional $326 $383 million dollars in foreign box office. Less than a month into its run, that puts it at #26 #13 and #36 #28 for all-time unadjusted gross, domestic and worldwide respectively. It will undoubtedly move up a number of slots before its run is completed. It’s plausible inevitable the film could will break into the top ten, domestically speaking. I’ve concluded from this that Michael Bay’s career may be the strongest case against democracy the world has ever known.

Michael Bay. He is the proverbial scorpion on the back of the frog. He makes us complicit in the death of our own good taste. Bay acts as a pop cultural Satan who gets us to lower our standards just a tiny fraction each time out. And what do we do? We drop a few more coins in his palm and smiling glassy-eyed ask him to do it again.

I remember going to see Armageddon over a decade ago at the behest of a friend who was a great admirer of both Bad Boys and The Rock. After the film he turned to me with a grin and started laughing almost with tears in his eyes and then summed up his feelings on that film with a slew of invectives. I'll admit I thought the film was serviceable with a few moments of inspired lunacy (space madness? lifetime income tax exemptions?). Little did I know I was only encouraging Bay to continue. Years later I had the misfortune of watching Bad Boys 2 which I found not just crude in its execution but racially offensive which is no minor feat since one of the leads was Will Smith (I'm recalling the scene where this kid comes to take Martin Lawrence's daughter out on a date--Roger Ebert makes special note of it in his review). I caught his film The Island on DVD, I think. I found it to be his least offensive film. It was nonetheless a mediocre effort marred with Bay’s signature desultory chases and explosions. The man doesn't seem to strive to make films so much as cinematic energy drinks.


I don’t mean to say he is without talent. He at the very least has an eye. You could take stills from a number of his films that would rival the work of Annie Leibovitz. Bay is an auteur without question. I would call his particular style Brutalism (apologies to any architects). He assails the viewer with a wearying combination of visual and aural concussive bursts. Some viewers find this stimulating, exhilarating even. In small doses I find it tolerable, but extended beyond say an hour, I just find it exhausting. I become numb to whatever is unfolding on the screen trying to pass for a story. His characters have no internal complexity. His films often lack internal logic and flout the external variety. Apologists often say he's just making fun movies. But that's just it: His movies are not fun.

Amos and Andy in the 21st Century

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen finds Bay at his absolute most indulgent worst. I went in with the lowest expectations for the movie and somehow it managed to undercut even that. I knew I was in for an interminable experience when the first words I heard Optimus Prime utter were: "Punk @$$ Decepticons." It would only go downhill from there. The film is an endurance test and I almost failed. I could have walked out and felt no shame (the only other movie I ever almost walked out on was Rush Hour 2; Brett Ratner is bar none America’s worst working director).

The film is super-saturated with action sequences, which is to be expected, but the bulk of them are completely unintelligible from a visual or logistic point of view. Imagine watching action scenes from The Bourne Identity, but replace Matt Damon with ILM’s hyper-articulated (and downright ugly) CGI robots. I defy anyone to make sense of 90% of the fight-scenes in this movie. At some point it’s just random bits of ornate metal smashing into each other and splintering into more pieces. No attempt is made to imbue any of these creations with character or soul. That goes for both organic and inorganic creatures in this film. The result is action that fails to resonate at all; it's a paradoxically inert spectacle.

I was disappointed to find the screenwriting team responsible for the new Star Trek also penned this dreck. I found that film immensely enjoyable and smartly designed. There is no point rehashing the plot of TF2, because it’s utterly meaningless to the proceedings. The dialogue as noted above is at turns offensive, vapid and cliché (in many some cases a combination of all three). And the less said about the two Sambo-bots: Mudflap and Skids, the better. I will just note how disappointed I am that Steven Spielberg’s name is on this flick. It would seem he had no issue with a film that prominently features two Gremlin-faced, simian-looking, jive-talking, foul-mouthed robots (one sporting a gold tooth, no less) both of whom are apparently illiterate. I hold this against Spielberg even more so than the surprisingly flaccid and disappointing Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

So all this terrible dialogue, frivolous plotting, and incoherent action rumbles along for over two-and-a-half hours, daring the audience to revolt against it. Yet, at the end of the screening I attended on opening day, people actually applauded. I was dumbfounded. I understand art is subjective, but some things are just inarguable. How anyone in the audience felt a connection to anything that transpired on that screen is beyond me.

The only way I can explain it is that the film is pornography for the action-junkie set. It arrives at its goal in the most artless and brutal way possible. I wonder if people who enjoyed this movie felt shame afterwards? God, I hope so.

Of course Bay is not the sole villain here. He is merely the most successful. The past decade has been commercially ruled by Jerry Bruckheimer, producer of the bloated and boring Pirates of the Caribbean sequels, the derivative National Treasure films and his mind-numbingly repetitive television work. Bruckheimer and his ilk, the Stephen Sommers' (who will inflict more pain on our cortices this summer with GI Joe) and McG's of the world, hold the reins. This is the entertainment we flock to and I just don't understand it. We've created a generation that thinks Terminator 2 is a better film than Terminator; that Jaws is boring (yes, somebody actually argued this to me); that Transformers 2 should get a pass because it's got cool effects. Aesthetics in a bare-fisted, knockdown brawl against good story-telling--and it's been no contest. Films like Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen are sins against Creation. And the sooner the movie-going public at large recognizes this, the sooner our redemption can begin. Please, WTFU.

And this sums up everything I've been trying to say:

Being a Maverick Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry

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"You have sustained personal torture, personal attack, political attack, investigation," Gregory said. "You have never resigned from anything. Is it consistent with your qualities of leadership to resign an elected post like this?"

"Sure," the senator said.

"It is?"

(BTW, it would be so nice if our media superstars had just a hint of testicular fortitude)

Here's my thing: We know you're full of $#!t, you know you're full of $#!t. Why continue to bull$#!t us? Just offer the mea culpa and try to salvage your legacy just a bit. We know you have to be steaming on the inside that this woman has cemented you as a politician with the worst judgment in history. Why is it so hard to say: "You know what? I messed up. She was totally unqualified and I took a gamble that was wholly inappropriate. I'm sorry." Why, John? Is there a 'mercy rule' we can invoke for the GOP? The slide towards irrelevancy continues unabated.