Popular Librarian

Its Often Funny in Philadelphia

2006-08-12T18:43:00.000-07:00

The story behind the FX series It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia has already become legend in struggling actor/comedian/writer circles. A group of friends frustrated with the lack of opportunities for struggling actor/comic/writers spend the change in their pockets to film a pilot, send it into FX, win a contest and voila, are given a series. We saw something similar with the Project Greenlight series but what makes Sunny special is that we actually get to enjoy the finished project, as opposed to week after week of watching socially challenged film geeks hire their grandfathers as stunt doubles and fall further and further behind schedule.

The premise of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is three late 20-something guys, Charlie, Mac and Dennis, who run a bar in Philadelphia with the help of Dennis’s sister Dee. Early reviews of the show compared it to Seinfeld, and tossed about phrases like “edgy”, “politically incorrect” and “totally unlike anything that’s ever been seen on TV before”. These terms have all managed to become clichés, thanks I would argue, to Seinfeld, and the generation of snarky Yuppie comedies it inspired. What makes Sunny worth watching is that it’s actually funny. Really funny. Laugh until you can’t breathe, “I cannot believe I’m watching this happen” television.

Not only did these buddies manage to sell a TV pilot for which they are the main producers, writers and stars, but they even managed to add Danny DiVito to the cast. DiVito hit sitcom gold with Taxi twenty some odd years ago and has had no reason to return to television since. The lure of Sunny proved too strong to resist. DiVito plays the role of Dennis and Dee’s ne’er do well pop Frank who moves back to Philly to help them run the bar, a role he tears into like a rottweiler with a bloody steak.

One of the things I really enjoy about Sunny is the full minute of parental advisory warnings FX shows before each episode. First, an FCC add about the joys of using the V-chip to control children’s viewing habits, then a black screen with MA-VL and a lengthy definition of what that means, complete with voiceover. Unlike the joking tone that accompanies the warnings for shows like South Park or Jackass, these are straight up THIS PROGRAM IS NOT INTENDED FOR CHILDREN type warnings. I’ve always felt that FX is Fox’s attempt at correcting the karmic imbalance from Fox News. The message is clear: beware ye all who enter here. Should you become offended, you have no one to blame but yourself.

Well fine, you say. In a world where “edgy” is used to describe a program like Desperate Housewives, what is it that you’re telling me? A quick visit to some episode titles for It’s Always Sunny might be helpful. “Charlie gets Molested,” “Charlie has Cancer”, “Charlie Wants an Abortion”, “Dennis and Dee go on Welfare”, “Underage Drinking”, “Mac Bangs Dennis’ Mom” and “Charlie Goes America All Over Everybody’s Ass” are a pretty representative sample.

The first episode I happened to catch was “Dennis and Dee Go On Welfare”. When it was finished, I nearly wept with joy. I wanted to gift wrap it and send it via strip-o-gram to the Parent’s Television Council, in hopes that they might spontaneously combust, or just surrender all their TV sets and move their families to Alberta. I can explain to you what happened in the episode, but no part of my explanation will capture the genius and lunacy of the show.

Angry at the way Frank is running the bar, Dennis and Dee quit at which point they discover the joys of unemployment payments. Each decides they are going to use the unemployment to fund the pursuit of their respective career goals, vet and actress. Meanwhile at the bar, Mac and Charlie are tired of doing double duty covering Dennis and Dee’s old jobs, so they convince Frank to apply for a “welfare to work” program that would allow them to hire cheap government subsidized labor, who they have the unfortunate habit of referring to as “slaves”. When Dennis and Dee find their unemployment running out they panic for a way to continue on welfare and, after some wacky misadventures, find themselves addicted to crack. (I swear to you it’s funny) Meanwhile Mac and Charlie head down to the welfare office and ask the officer if there’s some kind of book they can look through to pick the slaves, um, laborers, that they want to come work for them. (I swear to you it’s funny, too).

In “Charlie Wants an Abortion”, Mac begins hanging out with anti-abortion protestors when he realizes that it’s a great environment to pick up women. He hooks up with a pro-lifer who rewards his passion for the cause with passion in the back seat of her car. The girl is, according to Mac, a total freak in the sack and the best sex he’s ever had. Before you roll your eyes, allow me to refer you to recent studies from Yale and Columbia universities which suggest that teens who take ‘abstinence only’ pledges are more likely to engage in both oral and anal sex.

This is the genius of It’s Always Sunny. Crack is not funny. Welfare is not funny. Abortion is not funny. But Charlie, Frank, Dennis, Dee and Mac ARE funny. They’re clueless, self absorbed and compulsively watch-able. What you realize watching this show is that while crack, welfare and abortion aren’t funny, America’s clueless, self absorbed attitudes about these things are in fact, hysterical.

The phrase “politically incorrect” is virtually meaningless in this day and age. When I attended college it was a loose collection of symptoms which led us to label the most benign issues controversial for fear of offending anyone and everyone from the Vegan Libertarian Front to the Campus Crusade for Christ. Lately it has come to define everything from what people used to call plain old straight talk to simply mean-spirited behavior. The best comedy which often earns the title “politically incorrect” is that which hits the Left and the Right equally hard. It shows that as long as we take them seriously, it’s the wing nuts from both sides that ruin life for the rest of us. The only solution for the rest of us is to join the circus and laugh them offstage.

It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia is finishing up its accelerated summer season this week. I’m tickled to see that guest starring in the final episode is Stephan Collins, none other than the Reverend Cameron from 7th Heaven. My theory about FX being Fox’s karma bitch apparently holds for actors on the Fox network as well. Welcome, Reverend Cameron! It’s never too late to join the circus.

POPULUCIOUS

2006-08-09T21:44:00.000-07:00

Popular Librarian is undergoing some moderate cosmetic alteration. Namely, PopLib is becoming Populucious.

The heart and soul of the site remains the same: disconcertingly thoughtful analysis of popular culture and anything else that catches my fancy.

As I make this transition, I'll be posting new articles to both Popular Librarian and Populucious, at least for the next month or so. Eventually though, PopLib will be gracefully retired and Populucious will become the only place to be!!!

Summer Doldrums

2006-08-06T10:10:00.000-07:00

I confess I was excited the first time I saw ads for BBC America’s HEX. Truth is I’m in perpetual mourning for Buffy the Vampire Slayer and may be ‘til the day I die, or Josh Whedon finally directs Wonder Woman. I confess I had some small hope that this trendy demony looking show might be a temporary balm.

It started off semi promising. Cassie is a pretty blonde teenager struggling to fit in at an exclusive boarding school of the sort that only seems to exist in Great Britain. It’s set on impossibly lovely and remote grounds, the school resembles an ancient castle, the students appear to be able to leave the grounds with impunity in order to visit the local uber-hip pub and the urbane headmaster dismisses them with bon mots like: “Be free and try not to multiply”.

Cassie’s roommate is Thelma who is, of course, a Lesbian who dresses in some BBC wardrobe mistress’s idea of “goth chick” chic. Thelma loves Cassie. Cassie loves boys and yearns to be popular. There’s the cool in-crowd headed by a cruel bitch named (I’m not making this up) Roxanne. Through a series of wacky misadventures Cassie discovers that she is descended from a long line of witches and is being stalked by a sexy fallen angel named Azazeal. Azazeal wants Cassie to have his baby who will, as is so often the case in these instances, unleash unpleasantness on earth.

Azazeal has been wandering the earth trying, unsuccessfully, to impregnate many generations of blonde waifs since being drummed out of heaven some thousand years ago, apparently for his penchant for trying to knock up blonde waifs. (Note to fundamentalists: Even God wants his angels practicing "safe sex"!) Azazeal is tall dark and handsome, with dreamy eyes and cheekbones that could cut diamonds. One would think he’d not have much problem pulling tail. However, his means of seduction involve driving Cassie’s mother insane, revealing himself in monstrous demonic form, possessing a boy Cassie’s dating, stealing her unborn baby and murdering her roommate. Maybe next time he could try buying a girl a drink. Seriously, it’s worked for millions.

So far, a pale imitation of Buffy, yet somehow even with magic and complicated mythology and stone gargoyles turning into real ones Hex is in fact excruciatingly dull. Part of the problem is Cassie. She drifts around trying to get boys to like her when she ought to be, I dunno, figuring out how to stop Armageddon. She discovers magic powers but never seems to use them when they might be useful. When given explicitly clear guidelines for her safety, such as “He can’t harm you if you wear this pendant” and “Whatever you do, don’t leave the safety of the pentagram”, she’s the sort of girl who’ll promptly lose the pendant and run out of the pentagram to chase after a loud crashing noise in the dark yelling “Hello?” While plenty of 98 minute horror films are based on this particular type of lass, an 8 week TV series is an entirely different matter. One begins to root for Azazeal to just sacrifice her already, and on to the next generation please.

Any entertainment to be had comes from Thelma who, after being offed by Az, returns as a ghost. A goth chic Lesbian ghost. The thing I really love about the BBC is that much of their television seems so quaint. Sitcoms regularly star characters in the most ridiculous guises with no attempt to hide bad wigs or fake padding. The network motto ought to be “Hey gang, lets put on a show!” Thelma is eventually joined in her struggle by a demon hunter who dresses like Barbarella on her way to a Prince concert. No one in the school seems the least perturbed by this new 30-ish student wearing a purple lace trimmed black leather cat suit and duster jacket. British boarding school is so awesome!

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VOTE EARLY AND OFTEN

2006-08-02T19:30:00.000-07:00

Ok kits and kats, all 7 of you, I need your help and it wont be too painful. Long story short: Bravo TV show Project Runway is having an 'ultimate fanblog' contest. If you follow the link above, it will take you to a page where you can read and vote for your favorite of 10 entries. You don't have to read all 10. You don't have to read any of them. Just vote for mine. Mine is titled Runway Addict and I am, of course, Kati I. If possible, please do it repeatedly.

Long story long: I'm a huge fan of the show, and my entry was picked from HUNDREDS of entries to be one of the TOP TEN. Of all the huge Project Runway geeks in all the land, I am ONE OF THE TOP TEN-IEST. If my blog entry gets the most votes, then I will get a regular spot on the Bravo TV Project Runway sight, and my two minutes of non-famous fame will begin!

2006-07-30T21:02:00.000-07:00

Shallowgrave Farms Chicken

Here's a little totally inappropriate comedy from a up and coming sketch group called Donkey Corleone. In my own totally unbaised opinion, these guys are the next Kids in the Hall.

Pirates Return With Superman's Chest

2006-07-15T14:16:00.000-07:00

Whether or not you enjoy Pirates of the Caribbean II: Dead Man’s Chest really depends on what exactly you demand from a pirate movie. Given the spotty success record Hollywood has had with pirate films in the recent past, and the mediocre reviews PoC II has received, it seems that many American film reviewers have very particular demands from a film about rogues upon the sea. I was inspired to peruse pirate movie reviews of yore and came up with an interesting representation:

Pirates (1986 Dir: Roman Polanski)

The movie bogs down in a hopeless quagmire of too much talk, too many characters and ineptly staged confrontations in which everyone stands around wondering what to do next. – ROGER EBERT

Hook (1991 Dir: Steven Spielberg)

Poignancy. Lessons to be learned. Speeches to be made. Lost marbles to be rediscovered. Tears to be shed. The conclusion of "Hook" would be embarrassingly excessive even for a movie in which something of substance had gone before. - ROGER EBERT

"Hook" is overwhelmed by a screenplay heavy with complicated exposition. - VINCENT CANBY

Cutthroat Island (1995 DIR: Renny Harlin)

It doesn't transcend its genre, and it's not surprising or astonishing. I saw it because that was my job and, having seen it, I grant its skill…But unless you're really into pirate movies, it's not a necessary film. – ROGER EBERT

The most punishing aspect of ``Cutthroat Island'' is that it just wears down the viewer with a helter-skelter, needlessly overblown quality. No wonder those old pirates didn't survive -- they were too tired from so much hyperactivity. - PETER STACK

Pirates of the Caribbean-Dead Man’s Chest (2006 DIR: Gore Verbinski)

Too long, unnecessarily complicated and often silly – JACK MATTHEWS

There's nothing so tedious as nonstop excitement. STEPHANIE ZACHEREK

Is that now perfectly clear? A pirate movie needs to be fast moving and exciting, without tedious and complicated exposition, although it should transcend its genre and refrain from tedious nonstop excitement and needless overblown hyperactivity. Clearly, it should surprise and astonish but avoid silliness, because piracy is a damn serious business, and honestly none of it really matters unless you’re really into pirate movies.

With these clearly delineated standards to follow I’m amazed Disney green lighted (green lit?) the first Pirates of the Caribbean film. Obviously the film criticism community hadn’t reviewed these standards when they were reviewing the first one, since it received near universal acclaim. I believe a good deal of that approbation came out of the surprise factor. Before it was released, Pirates had that kind of worried buzz that surrounded Titanic before it overrwhelmed us all. It was an expensive special effects laden action movie starring Johnny Depp who had spent most of his career demolishing his non-indie film cred. Clearly studio heads were nervous about his performance and there were lots of worried articles about arguments over Depp’s dental work to make his teeth look pirate-y, a clear sign of a studio desperate to diminish expectations. The movie was based on a Disneyland ride for chrissake.

In fact it was part of a master plan by Disney to launch film series based on three of their amusement park rides. The other two were The Country Bears and The Haunted Mansion. Unless you have kids (and even if you do) you have no reason to remember either of these films. Haunted Mansion was one of those Eddie Murphy vehicles the reviews of which mostly centered on the theme “remember when Eddie Murphy was funny?” The Country Bears, based on Disney’s animatronic banjo playing bears stage show, got such universally wretched reviews that I actually seriously considered not buying it for the Library system, unprecedented for a Disney film.

The result was that most reviewers were completely stunned to find PoC to be utterly entertaining. Johnny Depp was epic as Jack Sparrow, a booze soaked scallywag with his brains scrambled from too much rum, sun and the lash (as opposed to the classic British Naval recruitment promise of “rum, buggery and the lash”, this being Disney and all). Was there a plot? Can you remember it? Come on. Be honest. No, you can’t. You remember being entertained. You remember something about a pearl, or a boat, or a chest of gold, and half dead ghosts, and Keira Knightly’s bosom and Orlando Bloom’s swashbuckle, a talking parrot and a cheeky monkey.

Well, PoC II has all of these things. It has a boat, a chest, a bosom, lots of swashbuckle, a talking parrot, a cheeky monkey and an intrepid dog. It also has a compass, a key, cannibals, a voodoo queen and the evil kraken. It has even more awesomely evil bad guys than the first one. In human form the British Navy is replaced by The British East India Company, which hasn’t had a good starring evil role in simply centuries and more’s the pity. Forget Enron and Halliburton. The British East India Company invented uber-national corporate malfeasance. In supernatural form it’s Davy Jones and his minions who are a special effects masterpiece: living, walking, talking growing coral reefs in human form. Utterly gross, scary and fun.

Orlando Bloom. What a name. Now that the days of sexy bad boy poets have gone, what else could the poor boy do but become an actor? Orlando does a masterful job at whatever it is he’s supposed to do. Keira Knightly wields her sexy so fiercely I worried someone might lose an eye, although clearly the teenage boys in the audience did not mind. Spoiler alert! There’s a cliffhanger ending, which means you’re going to have to come back next year to discover how it all turns out. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess it’s not with them all dead by suicide pact at the bottom of the sea. After all, this is Disney and Disney knows that the ride is crap unless you exit panting to stand in line to ride it again.

Oh yeah, in the theater next door, Superman has Returned. He looks good. Well rested. Still hot. Flying better than ever. Still conflicted with that whole “I want to save the world but still find time for dating” business. Lex Luther? Still evil. Still funny. Still trying to blow up the whole world for financial gain, which seems a shaky business plan to me but who’s asking, right? Lois is still around although unfortunately she seems to have been replaced by her Stepford wife version. She's no longer clutsy, funny, gangly and awkward, a woman who would really only inspire two men on earth to battle for her affections, that being Clark Kent and Superman. She's now just pretty. Pretty and angry and dating That Guy. You know That Guy. You don’t know his name but he’s always “the other guy”, the one the girl is with but shouldn’t be, except that he is kind of nice in an annoying Mr. Understanding Perfect Pants kind of way.

There’s other stuff, like plot and whatever, but is that why you go to a summer blockbuster film about a man in a body suit? Or pirates? Is it, really? I think not.

Brick

2006-06-20T22:46:00.000-07:00

She tried to sit in my lap while I was standing up.
-Phillip Marlowe in The Big Sleep

Laura Dannon: Do you trust me now?
Brendan Frye: Less now than when I didn’t trust you before.
- Brick

Brick, directed by Rian Johnson, is a great noir mystery, reminiscent of Dashiell Hammet or James Ellroy. Like any Bogart film or Ellroy’s L.A. Confidential, it has sharp witty dialog which is less realistic than it is how we all desperately wish we could communicate. It is set in Southern California which, for all its natural and artificial beauty, has another side. A yellowing grass, dying palm tree, mall parking lot suburban wasteland which can appear very much like hell without any imagination whatsoever. It has a beautiful blonde in distress, a loner who wants to save her, authority figures who want him to rat or be sold down the river, a complicated web of bad drugs and betrayal, a drug kingpin who may or may not be real and a sultry brunette who is definitely femme, possibly fatale as well.

Every great mystery has its conceit. In the Maltese Falcon it was that a nebulous black statue was worth dying for. Chinatown depends upon the audience accepting that, in Southern California anyway, water is something worth killing for. Brick requests that you accept that high school is one of the most dangerous places on earth, and late adolescence the most dangerous time.

Our hero, Brendan, receives a hysterical, almost unintelligible phone call from his ex-girlfriend Emily. Two days later she is dead. He starts asking questions. “Who’s she been eating lunch with?” he asks a friend. “I couldn’t say,” is the reply. “Lunch is many things. Lunch is complicated.” Brendan could call the cops, but knowing who done it isn’t enough. He needs to know why, and maybe break a few heads, make somebody pay for what he couldn’t prevent.

The problem with most movies set in high school, even clever ones, is that the stakes are so very low. Will he/she go with me to the prom? Will I pass the essential exam? Will the big game be won? Will my parents let me down in some critical way and yet will I grow enough to forgive their humanity? Even edgy or macabre tales like Heathers or Mean Girls, which show just how evil teens can be to each other, are presented as comedies, with a knowing wink to the audience.

We laugh and shake our heads. Aren’t we so much older and wiser now? If we’re honest with ourselves, we would acknowledge that our relief comes from a much more primal place. Like war veterans we are just desperately glad to be out of there with all our limbs intact. Under no circumstances, even knowing now what we didn’t know then, could we be induced to go back. Repression and careful whitewash of memory seems the only way we could be induced to send our own children through the gauntlet.

Adults may stumble in and out of the periphery but teenagers inhabit a world unto themselves. Caste is determined by where and with whom one eats lunch. Friendships are malleable, practical coalitions designed to help navigate rocky shoals. Love is a heavy weight. As currency it doesn’t buy much. It certainly isn’t enough to save friends from destroying themselves.

The grace of Brick is that it acknowledges just how very high the stakes are for those who wander the linoleum halls. High school is not where one spends the last golden days of childhood, but the place where one gets jumped into the gang of adulthood. If Lord of the Flies is not assigned reading it should at least be issued as a survival guide. Brick knows that some kids get lost. They don’t successfully navigate anything. They make serious mistakes, make wrong choices, that will determine a downward trajectory for their lives.

If I’ve made it sound all dark and dismal rest assured that, like the best film noir, there is plenty of humor. Joseph Gordon-Levitt portrays Brendan, the stoic, wisecracking kid whose brain never stops working the angles, who is always hiding a surprise up his sleeve, even as he wears his heart upon it. Emilie de Raven, known to some of us as Claire from Lost, takes a welcome respite from the land of whine and mangos, to give us Emily, the ethereal beauty Brendan cannot let go. Emily left Brendan because she couldn’t stand his solitary life, but her attempts to transform into a social butterfly prove deadly. Like the best gumshoes, Brendan is motivated not only by love, but by guilt.

Brick isn’t perfect. It appears that the characters attend a high school completely bereft of a student body, beyond themselves. A few of the characters push the lid over the top, and a few are confusingly extraneous. But in its entirety, the movie is entertaining as hell, and days later I find myself musing over what might become of the characters after the screen goes dark. It’s a great accomplishment for a young director with a young cast.

Teen movies often have an unspoken underlying premise in which high school is seen as less serious than the adult world. But when your head is encased in that microcosm it's the most serious time of your life. – Rian Johnson

Mission DaVinci and the Impossible Code

2006-05-20T23:19:00.000-07:00

Although many people can refer to books they believe were ruined by their adaptation to film, there exists another less discussed category of movie: the great film based on a crap book. Personally, I was so scarred by reading The Bridges of Madison County that I have been unable to watch the movie. However I have been told by many people, including people who I know also reviled Robert James Waller’s excruciating prose, that Clint Eastwood directed a fine film from the raw material based on the book.

The DaVinci Code is a book destined to be turned into a film. At its heart, the book is a potboiler, a page turner. It is the perfect airplane book. You pick it up in the airport newsstand, and by the time you’ve begun your decent into your destination, you are approaching the finish line. It has colorful characters and exotic locales. It has an everyman hero. Well, ok, most men aren’t Harvard professors, but there’s no confusing Robert Langdon for James Bond.

That said, in a James Bond movie, it hardly matters if the bomb in the briefcase is really a bomb, or a Macguffin, or a babe’s phone number. The chase is the thing and “why” is not a question that ever passed a double O agent’s lips. What I realized as I watched The DaVinci Code, however, is that ultimately there’s no way to divide the story from the, let’s call it the “theology” upon which it rests. Either you find the Byzantine plot full of historical re-re-enactment and dark Catholic splinter groups compelling or you don’t.

If you don’t, then all you can do is think “but why?” But, if the Vatican wanted to keep this information a secret, why gun the secret holder down in the middle of the Louvre? Why not just throw him off a bridge? If, as the sinister Silas screams at one point to the female lead, “every breath you take is a sin!”, then does that mean the Vatican knows her true identity, and if so, why chase her across Europe? Why not throw her off a bridge? I mean, they do have bridges in Paris. I’ve seen them. If the Merovingian line is more than a collection of natty white suits inspired by The Matrix, but is in fact an ancient French royal family, why is the family seat located in England? And what the F is up with Tom Hank’s hair?

Before I get ahead of myself I should say that if you have not yet read it or seen the film or attended a cocktail party or watched a weekend edition of 20/20 or a Sunday afternoon on the History Channel in the last 10 years, then I’m afraid this article is going to have some spoilers for you. And just so we can get the spoilers out of the way, the movie, as well as the book, is about a vast and sinister cover up to prevent the world from knowing that Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene were married and had a child. Tah Dah!!

The DaVinci Code is actually a particular kind of book that really bugs me, which is a non-fiction work dressed in fictional clothing, or possibly a fiction book dressed in non-fiction duds, depending on your point of view. Brown tosses fantastical theories with enough history to make the reader feel like they’re learning something. The book is a little like a great spinach salad. The greens seem like vegetables, but really they’re just a bacon delivery mechanism. I'm already amused by the thought of one million American tourists asking the tour guide at the Louvre to show them Mary Magdalene's tomb. If our diplomatic relations with France are poor now, just wait.

It's no secret that Brown’s theory is not even remotely original. Recently Brown was sued by the author of Holy Blood, Holy Grail for plagiarism (the charges were dropped). The first time I read The DaVinci Code I was startled to find it parroting several books, actual “non-fiction” books which I’d already seen. One, The Chalice and The Blade, is actually name checked in both the book and the film. Another is The Woman with the Alabaster Jar by Margaret Starbird, which Brown also cites in his book.

I'd like to make it clear that I’m not a Catholic Church apologist. The Catholic Church has, through history, participated in a number of things which were decidedly un-Christian. I have no doubt that at certain times in history they would have had the power to cover up any number of things. We’re talking about an organization that put not one but two different members of the Borgia family in charge, one of whom inspired Machiavelli to write The Prince. I also believe, personally, that the Church’s view of women and their place in society was based less on Jesus’ views than his disciples, some of whom may have had mother issues. I believe the Church burned an awful lot of smart outspoken women at the stake by dubbing them witches. I think their view of women has been damaging not just to women but to the world. I think a lot of historians like Riane Eisler and Margaret Starbird are as much trying to point out the damage done to a culture that ignores the value of one half of its members as they are trying to re-write the New Testament.

In short, I’m probably a perfect candidate for a book like The DaVinci Code. If every bit of it were true, it would not rock my world’s foundation. Unfortunately, I’m also a history major which is where I learned that just cuz you dig Santa doesn’t make him real. No matter how much I would like to believe, all the books I’ve read, fiction and non-fiction, which deal with the Holy Grail as sacred feminine mythology are of what I call the “Obviously woulda, shoulda coulda” school of historical research. They say things like “OBVIOUSLY, it would have been completely bizarre for a man of Jesus’ age and social rank NOT to be married by the time he was 33,” at which point they spin off into delightful, if fantastical, musings about what dish woulda, shoulda, coulda been served at Jesus & Mary M’s nuptials.

Well, OBVIOUSLY it would have been strange for a man of Jesus’ age and social rank to walk on water, turn water into wine and offer a new path to heaven. Being single seems like the least strange thing about him, frankly. If marriage was one of Catholicism’s ten deadly sins, as opposed to one of its more popular sacraments, then a vast conspiracy to cover up his wife and child might make more sense. The fact that Mohammad was married does not seem to cause hysterics in our Islamic brethren.

But wait, I was talking about a movie, right? Well, as a movie, it’s a fine movie. It does not stray from the book, up to and including some of those frankly silly scenes depicting pagan sex rituals. Tom Hanks is and always will be a fine everyman, and his character does a yeoman’s job at trying to keep the story on an even keel, at least up until the second half when the But Why’s shanghai the picture.

One thing I did notice was the audience at the movie. Literally every social strata was represented: senior couples, women of a certain age book groups, families with children and military guy pals sitting with one empty chair between them. It makes sense once you realize that the Jesus portrayed in The DaVinci Code, and part of why the book is so very popular, is what South Park likes to refer to as the “Buddy Christ” version of Himself. He's an approachable dude who sounds like he was fun at parties. In a world where little girls fall asleep wearing “What Would Jesus Do?” t-shirts, Brown gives us Jesus as not just the perfect spiritual guide, but the perfect boyfriend.

The movie, and the book, have been condemned by the Vatican; a move akin to the FDA condemning a diet of chocolate fudge. Gone are the warm fuzzy days of Pope John Paul II letting us know that enjoying Harry Potter will not place us in a state of sin. There’s a new pope in town and Benedict is not down with the warm fuzzy. Harry Potter & Dan Brown join gay pride and birth control back in the sin column.

Frankly, I think their judgment is a tad off. If they really want a movie to bunch their panties, what about one where an avowed Scientologist disguises himself as a priest in order to infiltrate Vatican City whereupon he commits wanton acts of espionage, kidnapping and destruction of both ancient Italian friezes and sweet Italian sports cars. I speak of course of Mission Impossible III, or M:I-III, or you know, that other Tom’s movie.

M:I-III is everything that a summer blockbuster promises to be. It is fast, loud and deliriously nonsense-ical, and you are not required to reflect upon your spiritual beliefs in order to enjoy yourself. It’s possible that M:I-III is the best of the Cruise Mission Impossibles. It is certainly better than the first one. The second one was fine, but loses style points for shoplifting it’s entire central storyline from Alfred Hitchcock, and Cary Grant no less. Tsk, tsk.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman steals the show as a truly great evil bastard. I like to think that after months of toiling in the skin of Truman Capote this was his trip to Disney World. His character is named “Owen Davian”, which is one of those names which make you wonder why they didn’t just call him Lucifer Satan "Rat Bastard" Devil-Hound. His dialog consists primarily of variations on a central theme of promised carnage: “I’m going to hurt you and make your girlfriend watch. I’m going to kill your girlfriend and make you watch. I’m going to hurt her by killing you but not before I force you to watch. I’m going to make you attend group therapy sessions with a board certified psychologist.” NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The “thing” in M:I-III that is causing all this fuss is an honest to god Macguffin. Truly, we have no idea, except that it has one of those “danger nuclear power” stickers on it. Does it matter? Hell no. It has one of those stickers on it, it must be bad for children and other living things. The movie skillfully if transparently applies the great Roger Ebert’s “Law of Economy of Characters”, which states that if a name actor appears in what seems to be a walk on role, they are more than just the butler. This is Mission Impossible, so we have to have at least one scene where a good guy is fitted with an impossible prosthetic mask to make them look evil, and at least one scene where a good guy is totally fooled by a bad guy wearing an impossible prosthetic mask to make them look good.

There’s a beautiful girl of course, though I must say that Michelle Monaghan, who plays Tom Cruise…er…I mean Ethan Hunt’s love interest, looks so freakishly like Katie Holmes that I’m thinking Monaghan should fire her agent. Or maybe Monaghan’s parents should gratefully reward her agent. Either way, it’s distracting, and you find yourself wishing, for a man so opposed to psychiatry, that Freud might hop out of a closet and smack Tom with a cigar.

But there’s no time for that now. There’s a nuclear macguffin out there, and somebody has to do something. Maybe this is he, the polite but frantic man running down the street who seems to know how to say “excuse me” in every language. Yes, it is odd that his hair is combed that way, exactly how it was when we knew him as “Maverick”, the flyer of jet planes. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence, but damn, again, no time for that now. Somebody just implanted a bomb inside somebody else’s head. I freaking HATE IT when that happens. Pass the popcorn.

Fun with CSI

2006-05-13T19:06:00.000-07:00

Although I have not forgotten my promise to rant more about the FCC, I recently underwent back surgery which has slowed my production way down. Truthfully, the happy pills they gave me while I recover from semi-major surgery have kind of blunted my vorpel blade a bit. It has, however, given me tons of time to catch up on my DVR recordings and ponder great philosophical questions, such as inventing the perfect CSI drinking game.

I wont claim to be a great innovator here. I have heard tell of other CSI related drinking games, although I have not read their rules. However, I feel my extensive experience with the CSI oeuvre, along with the lightheadedness brought on by healthy doses of Vicodin have allowed me to develop what I think may become the definitive version. Without further ado I bring you CSI:Blotto

While watching ANY version of CSI:

Drink each time anyone says "petechial hemorraging"

Drink each time a lab tech expresses a fervent desire to work in the field. Drink 2 when request is immediately followed by a cutting yet clever insult from the boss.

Drink each time the victim is a young beautiful woman in a costume (mermaid fins, hamster suit, french maid, etc). Drink 2 if the costumed woman is a stripper/hooker.

Drink each time they uncover a random bizarre peversion, like "tri-nogomy", "plushies and furries", etc. Drink 2 if it is a perversion you've heard of before. Drink 3 if...never mind...I don't want to know.

Drink each time an exchange between the boss and the DA includes the word "Dammit". Drink 2 when the DA threatens to investigate the department.

CSI: Las Vegas (or just plain CSI for purists)

Drink each time Catherine/Sarah painfully embarasses herself trying to flirt with Warrick/Gil.

Drink each time Warrick takes/makes a call from/to his girlfriend/wife

Drink each time Nick is placed in mortal danger. Then drink one more in honor of the writer who decided it would be fun to menace a pretty boy instead of a pretty girl.

CSI:Miami

Drink each time Horatio puts his hands on his hips.

Drink each time Horatio responds to a proposition/question by staring through his sunglasses into the middle distance with a constipated smile on his face.

Drink each time Horatio is propositioned by/dates/marries an impossibly young hot chick. Drink 2 when the chick dies.

Drink each time Horatio promises a child &/or single mom that "No one is going to hurt you, ever". Drink 2 when that person is injured/kidnapped/killed &/or sent to child protective services/witness protection.

Drink each time Alex refers to a corpse as "honey", "sweetie", or any other creepy diminutive.

Drink each time Calleigh holds/shoots a gun. Drink 2 if you wish Emily Proctor was still on West Wing.

CSI:NY

Drink each time reference is made to Mac's time in the service &/or Mac's dead wife.

Refuse to drink each time Stella is placed in mortal danger, because sheesh, come on guys. The woman has a gun.

Drink each time Detective Dan appears because, damn, that boy is pretty. Seriously, those cheeks, I could just pinch them all day.

Drink each time a beautiful woman sets off alone at night to walk through Central Park. Drink 2 if she is listening to an IPod and humming to herself while she walks....into to the arms of DEATH. Drink 3 if you didn't see that coming or stop drinking and turn to PBS.

Drink each time you find yourself wondering why on Law & Order it's the detectives that solve murders, but on CSI:NY it's the crime scene investigators. Drink 2 (or more really...sky's the limit at this point) if you ever secretly longed for the episode where Mac and Stella run into Elliot and Olivia at a crime scene, leading to a CSI:NY/L&O:SVU smackdown in the kitchen of the deceased.

Enjoy CSI:Blotto and I will, hopefully, be back quite soon with my vorpel blade fully sharpened and ready to snicker snack.

FCC Follies, part 1

2006-04-18T00:54:00.000-07:00

In March the FCC handed out over 4.9 million dollars in fines to television networks including CBS, WB, FOX, PBS as well as some local affiliates around the country. Today CBS, FOX and ABC filed suit against the FCC, requesting the courts overturn FCC rulings of obscenity against the networks, and of course the subsequent fines levied by the FCC. This news is timely in that the idea for a TV related column has been knocking around in my head recently. The gist of my article would be that it’s a fine time for television viewers, even with the FCC running around measuring everyone’s hemlines.

Since I’m something of a First Amendment junkie, once the specter of the FCC entered my head, it became the pink elephant I couldn’t ignore. Up until the infamous idiocy now known as “Nipplegate”, the FCC was only heard from occasionally, handing out small fines here and there and rarely making the front page. On that 2004 Super Bowl Sunday, however, when Janet Jackson accidentally-on-purpose flashed her pastie covered bosom to the country, the FCC suddenly became the new sheriff in town. They vowed to crack down on obscenity. They toughened fining policies. In the old days, it was the networks that were fined for programming they created. In the grand new days, however, the FCC applies fines not just to the network itself, but to every affiliate that showed the program.

Much of this is old news, but it is worth revisiting. Pre-Nipplegate, the FCC got some attention for its decision not to fine FOX for the 2004 Billboard Music Awards when Irish rock star Bono responded to his band’s award as being “fuckin brilliant”. In what seemed like a shockingly sensible decision, the FCC ruled that context is all. In this instance, Bono was using the word “Fuckin” as an expression of enthusiasm, as opposed to an expression proposing fornication. Therefore, FOX would not be fined.

Post-Nipplegate, in the ensuing hysteria, the FCC decided to reverse this decision which one can only assume they feared reflected some moral laxity on their part. FOX was fined, along with CBS’s The Early Show, for broadcasting the “Fuckin” unknown around the world until all this fuss drew attention to it. Their justification was that, upon further review, they decided that there was no way to remove the word “fucking” from its sexual context. It is always sexual and therefore it is always obscene.

While the networks protested, local network affiliates flat out panicked. A 3.5 million dollar fine to a network may be aggravating but a 30 second advertisement during the Super Bowl brought CBS 2 million. For a small local affiliate however, a $27,000 fine could be devastating, in addition to the fact that any FCC citations can be used against it when their license is up for renewal. The first casualty of the now cowed affiliates was ABC’s Veteran’s Day showing of Saving Private Ryan.

When ABC bought the rights to show Saving Private Ryan from Steven Spielberg, as he had earlier with Schindler’s List, he required that the film be shown unedited in its entirety. Affiliates begged the FCC to clear airing the movie, but the FCC responded with the feeble admonition that stations needed to “use their own good-faith judgment”.

Even if the FCC had given permission, its past behavior provided no assurance that it wouldn’t later turn around and fine them anyway. ABC affiliates all over the country preempted the movie. Although conservative pundits screamed that it was some kind of liberal plot, among the affiliates opting not to show the film were Atlanta, Dallas, Orlando and Phoenix, red state affiliates all. Although some would call this ironic, I believe the expression “chickens coming home to roost” is a bit more appropriate. It seems to me the station directors making these calls were showing an hard earned understanding of their audience.

Before we go any further, a brief analysis of Saving Private Ryan may be in order. It is a rated R film, which when shown on television is no doubt prefaced with a TV-Mature (only appropriate for 17 and older) rating. It is obviously violent and it is simply swimming in profanity. The Screen It website which offers reviews for parents offers the following breakdown, which they warn should be considered a minimum, since the sound of fighting often obscures dialog: “At least 20 "f" words, 12 "s" words, 3 slang terms using male genitals ("pr*ck" and "c*cksucker"), 17 hells, 10 S.O.B.'s, 8 asses (2 used with "hole"), 4 damns, 1 crap, and 12 uses of "G-damn," 3 of "Jesus," and 2 each of "Oh my God" and "Jesus Christ" as exclamations.” Screen It also helpfully adds: “Around ten or so uses of "FUBAR" (F*cked Up Beyond All Recognition) also occur during the movie.”

Faced with 20 F words and an out to lunch FCC, it’s no wonder station managers blanched. Ray Cole, the president of a communications company that owns affiliates in Sioux City and Lincoln, Neb said: "Without an advance waiver from the FCC . . . we're not going to present the movie in prime time. Under strict interpretation of the indecency rules we do not see any way possible to air this movie. To be put in this position is unfortunate, and reflects the timidity that exists at the commission right now."

Just to obfuscate things even further, in response to the Saving Private Ryan hullabaloo, the FCC came out AGAIN and said AGAIN that “sometimes” it’s ok to use the F-word if it’s for dramatic effect. In case you’re keeping score, we have Bono not allowed to use the word “fuck” for dramatic affect; Tom Hanks, allowed to use the word “fuck” for dramatic effect. And, if you’re lucky enough to be a television network, the FCC will not tell you before you air something whether it offends their standards, because, they offer with a straight face, that would be censorship. They will only let you know afterwards.

The latest round of citations and fines in March was in part an attempt by the FCC to clear the decks. Although they were cited for ‘indecent broadcasts’, FOX was, finally, not fined for the 2004 Billboard Music Awards, nor CBS for The Early Show because the FCC magnanimously allowed that the broadcasts had taken place before the change in the indecency rules. The FCC rejected CBS’s appeal of the 2004 Super Bowl ruling, however. Janet Jackson’s boob is still obscene.

In addition, CBS was slapped with a 3.6 million dollar fine for an episode of Without A Trace. The episode depicted a teenage orgy. I don’t watch Without A Trace, which I find pretty dull, actually. Obviously I wasn’t watching on the right evening! Joel Stein has some interesting things to say about the episode. It’s worth pointing out, though, that the episode was, in fact, a re-run. It had already been broadcast, but CBS showed it again at a different, earlier time. It is this re-broadcast that has resulted in the fines.

In addition to the big fines (3.6 million for CBS, 1.6 million for the WB), some smaller fines were levied against some networks and individual affiliates. (The complete list) Amidst the teen orgies, reality TV faux pas and movies showing inadequately disguised sex, one fine jumps out: A $15,000 fine to PBS affiliate KCSM for airing “The Blues: Godfathers and Sons”, one of seven episodes which make up Martin Scorsese’s project of the heart The Blues. The program was aired from 8 to 10, and contained several uses of the words Fuck and Shit. According to the FCC, these two words are “likely to shock the viewer and disturb the peace and quiet of the home. The gratuitous and repeated use of this language in a program that San Mateo aired at a time when children were expected to be in the audience is shocking,”

It’s easy to lose the thread while reading about dramas featuring sexually active teens and reality programs featuring pixilated sex. You find yourself thinking, well, yeah the FCC is full of it but Married by America sounds like a really lousy show. Maybe, even though the FCC is full of it, maybe possibly they were kind of asking for it. But an FCC fine for a documentary about blues music? And not just a fine, but a mealy mouthed admonition against “disturbing the peace and quiet of the home”. As if the TV suddenly came to life, possessed by PBS, and began chasing small children around the house barraging them with Howlin Wolf and Muddy Waters.

If you’re keeping score at home, that’s now Tom Hanks: OK to use the word Fuck for dramatic effect. Bono: Not ok to use the word Fuck for dramatic effect. Martin Scorsese and the godfathers of Blues music in America: Not ok to use the word Fuck for dramatic effect. But wait, it’s not even that simple. This is just whether or not it’s OK to use the word Fuck before 10 pm. After 10 pm, the words fuck and shit, teen orgies, pixilated sex and documentaries about blues music are all just fine. Before 10, they are obscene. After 10, they magically transform into “not obscene”. Of course, it should be pointed out that the only place in America that The Blues: Godfathers and Sons is officially obscene before or after 10, according to the FCC, is in San Matteo California.

When we deal with complaints at the Library, one of the things we point out to people is that everyone has things they like that others might find offensive. If we began removing things based on every complaint, soon our shelves would be empty. It seems like the perfect world according to the FCC would be 300 channels of empty shelves.

Coming Soon: Part 2, in which I dissect TV Ratings and how the FCC has become a mouthpiece for The Parents Television Council.

Partying Like Rock Stars

2006-04-02T00:13:00.000-08:00

I spent last week in the company of approximately one bazillion librarians (Give or take a zillion) at the Public Libraries Conference in Boston. There’s something kind of sweet about mass gatherings of librarians, notably how easy it is to pick each other out in crowds. Ever since I attended library school, I’ve heard admonishments about banishing librarian stereotypes, how we must do everything within our power to overturn the public’s view of us as quiet, bookish and moderately anal retentive. I bought into it for a while, but after being a professional librarian for over a decade, I’ve begun to feel it’s sort of futile, like nurses complaining that they’re known for being compassionate and tidy. Certainly we are more than quiet, bookish and moderately anal retentive (allow me to introduce you to the dust bunnies under my bed…they have names), but there’s no escaping the fact that those particular traits are somewhat endemic in our profession.

One evening during the conference I attended a banquet involving several authors speaking to several hundred librarians over broiled chicken. The dinner was scheduled to start at six. I arrived at approximately 6:03 to find almost every table full and most of the attendees almost through with the main course. This is not the first time that I have been brutally reminded that for a gathering of library professionals, fashionably late for a 6 o’clock reception is 5:30. Last fall at a gathering of media librarians I made the mistake of showing up at 6:15 to a “meet and greet” reception scheduled to begin at 6 to find the lobby deserted, the bartender packing up and nothing but a sad platter of wilted cauliflower and drying ranch dip left on a table. Party animals are us

This time around I will say that my table was a jolly lot, quite chatty all things considered. There was a intense discussion about adult programming at the library, which I’m sorry to say does not involve showing blue movies in the meeting room. This particular conversation had one librarian despairing that no one had shown up for her carefully scheduled evening of poetry reading. Someone had informed her afterwards that said reading had conflicted with “March Madness”, some sort of sporting event she had never heard of but was quite important, apparently. I didn’t want to break the news that chances were excellent that the “listeners to poetry” crowd was not likely the same as the “obsessed with the NCAA” crowd…easier for us to all believe that ESPN is to blame when our carefully planned programs fail. (Which reminds me…today I happened upon Dodgeball on HBO…still makes me laugh til I weep…”ESPN 8… If it’s almost a sport you’ll find it on The OCHO”…”If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball”. Stop me before I recite the whole freaking film and just go watch it)

Speaking of wrenches, it turned out that one of the librarians sitting at our table is, in his spare time, the editor of the Historical Wrench Monthly Newsletter. You may think that I kid, but I am not. Apparently historical wrenches are of great fascination to many. People as far a field as Australia subscribe to Historical Wrench Monthly, I learned, although I must point out that in Australia, they’re called ‘spanners’. And you thought that librarians are quiet, bookish and moderately anal retentive. No sir, we party like rock stars, every evening promptly at six.

Men Gone Wild

2006-03-09T23:04:00.000-08:00

3/9/2006

I avoided going to see Grizzly Man when it was first released, mostly because I figured I would be the only person in the audience who considered it a comedy, and I didn’t want to disturb the serious minded with my hysterics. Any way I looked at it, a movie where a German director of turgid epics about conquistadors narrates film about a whacked out nature boy who gets eaten by bears could be nothing but funny.

When it arrived I put the screener copy of the DVD in a drawer and basically forgot about it except when I would stumble across an article or column pontificating on “The Message” a film like Grizzly Man should impart to the world and found myself getting irritated. The message? The message seems pretty obvious: survival of the fittest is an effective means of weeding out the weak, the infirm and the idiotic.

But then fate intervened. A film happened across my desk called Project Grizzly, another documentary about a man obsessed with grizzly bears. The impulse to compare the two films was too great to ignore. We could be looking at the beginning of a trend, like bungee jumping or scaling Annapurna in a blizzard.

Despite the fact that the subjects share the same obsession, the two documentaries could not be more different. Grizzly Man, the more famous of the two, is the story of Timothy Treadwell, “amateur grizzly bear expert and wildlife preservationist” who spent thirteen summers of his life living with grizzly bears in Alaska, the last five of which he carefully preserved on film. His story would likely never have generated much national interest except for the fact that he left behind years full of tape about his life with the bears and, more notoriously, a final tape which recorded the sounds of Treadwell and his girlfriend being dramatically done in by a grizzly bear.

On the other hand, Project Grizzly is described as “the hilarious underground cult hit documentary” which follows the attempts of Canadian Troy James Hurtubise to construct the ultimate grizzly bear suit, which is to say a protective suit which he could wear while doing “close quarter bear research”. Project Grizzly looked far more promising to me for many reasons, not the least of which were that it is described as a favorite of Quentin Tarantino, and Penn and Teller’s favorite documentary of all time.

Although one tries very hard not to have pre-conceived notions about things, I confess from the moment Tim Treadwell looked into the camera and began to speak he confirmed my worst fears. The first we hear from Treadwell is a lengthy deconstruction of himself as a “kind warrior”. Yes, he may be gentle like a flower, but should a bear actually come after him, they would discover that he is also a samurai, a peaceful, gentle, kind but effectively bear repelling samurai, even more so when you consider he carries no weapons of any kind. He speaks with great enthusiasm about living “on the precipice of death” and not for the first time mentions the fact that no one knows or truly understands the great work that he is doing.

We see him talking to the bears, all of which he has provided with names, as if they are his closest friends. At one point, he practically weeps with awe over a pile of bear scat recently left by one of his bear brethren, or sisteren as the case may be. “This was just inside of her” he gasps, as if he could imagine no better place to be but in the colon of a grizzly bear. As I watched Treadwell make increasingly grandiose statements about the relationship he was forging with these bears, I could not get the Monty Python “getting eaten by an alligator” skit out of my head. As he looks fiercely into the camera and insists that no one has ever forged this kind of close personal relationship with grizzlies that he has; as he speaks to a 10 foot tall (standing) grizzly bear like he was a willful puppy (“such a big bear…he’s such a BIG bear…who’s a BIG BEAR?”) or as he tries to swim with a bear which is clearly trying to catch fish, covering himself in Béarnaise sauce (no pun intended) and throwing himself down the gullet of “Ed” or “Rowdy” begins to seem like the only next logical step.

Early on, Treadwell is good for an easy chuckle. He is clearly cut from the same cloth as too many of the men I gratefully left behind in Boulder; those trustafarians, with their hemp shoes, vegan diets, skunky weed and Daddy’s Visa. Eventually, however, Treadwell begins to really piss me off as he shows what seems to me to be a remarkable lack of any real understanding of bear behavior or life in the wild. One point finds him screaming to the heavens because a long drought has left the bears short on food, resulting in a mother bear eating her cubs. Animals dying because of drought is sad. Adults killing cubs due to a food shortage, or in an attempt to take over a territory is the sort of thing that make humans understandably squeamish. These things are, however, facts of life in the wild. It seems that in Treadwell’s eyes, this evidence of the harsh reality of a truly wild life interfered with his image of a bear utopia.

Just as these two movies have completely different tones, the subjects themselves could not be more different from each other. In fact, as I sat down to watch the adventures of Troy James Hurtubise it occurred to me that Troy and Tim would likely despise each other on sight. Troy is a good old boy. When not actively working on the bear suit project, Troy and his buddies like to sit around drinking coffee at the Country Kitchen buffet and shoot the shit about great hunting trips of yore and what time the missus would be expecting them home. Troy doesn’t mind a gun, but he is particularly fond of his Bowie knife. In fact, the first time we see Troy walking out of the woods, covered in snow, he looks for all the world like Daniel Boone, complete with the leather fringe jacket and his weaponry lashed to his side.

Troy begins his tale with the history that once upon a time, he found himself pinned on the ground by a bear who looked down at him and apparently decided he was not interested in people for dinner after all. After that, the bear suit became Troy’s obsession; a suit that would allow him to re-experience the thrill and the rush of being nose to nose with a bear while removing the threat of decapitation. Troy comes by his "Don Quixote like" tendencies honestly. When we learn that Troy’s father once built an exact scale replica of a Native American village in their backyard, his bear suit seems like part of a long family tradition.

Through archival footage we get to see the evolution of the bear suit. Early versions look like particularly robust hockey goalie outfits. By the time we are brought to present day and Ursa Major VI, the suit has evolved into something like an extra from Lost In Space. It is seven feet tall combining chain mail, vulcanized automobile grade rubber and titanium. The suit is in a natty red, white and black, and I kept expecting it to start shrieking “Danger Will Robinson”.

We then get the joy and pleasure of watching Troy and his gang of buddies test the suit for safety. This involves doing things such as suspending large logs from trees and swinging them into Troy (to simulate the force of a blow from a grizzly paw), and having six guys whale on him in the suit with baseball bats. It’s like the long awaited return of Super Dave Osborne, except that these guys are serious.

In the end, both films end unsuccessfully for the protagonists. Treadwell was eaten and the bear who did the eating, an aging bear who was having difficulty successfully hunting for himself, was shot by the forest service. Hurtubise is ultimately unable to encounter a grizzly bear when they discover that the unwieldy and heavy suit makes it impossible for him to walk across uneven or mountainous territory, which is where most bears tend to be located. One I feel sorry for. The other I not only do not feel sorry for, I am angry that he managed to get a bear killed for doing what comes naturally.

I understand having a passion for animals. We are amazed by their differences, and even more by their similarities to us. Animals speak to that primal part of us that thinks that living in caves and clubbing our food every night was really not such a bad way to live. We envy what we perceive as their freedom. They can, it seems to us, live where they want and eat what they want and sleep where they want and poop where they want. They never have to worry about raises or promotions or taxes.

I think it’s impossible for us not to project human emotions and motivations on the actions of animals. After all, it is only human nature at which we are truly expert. It is painful to imagine that the affection we have for animals is completely unrequited. I believe that Siegfried (or was it Roy?) really loved the tiger that attacked him. I also believe that the tiger was not playing or ‘trying to save him’ or just accidentally fell on him with his mouth open and claws bared. I think the tiger was really trying to attack him, because that is what tigers do.

I don’t doubt that Tim Treadwell’s affection for bears was real and intense. It was, however, misguided and almost willfully pathologically naïve. I once heard a forest ranger say that whether or not a person survives an encounter with a bear is entirely up to the bear. The main difference between Tim Treadwell and Troy James Hurtubise is that Troy understands this fact and respects it. Tim Treadwell thought he was above this truth.

When I was young I used to go visit my dad in his lab. He and his lab mates kept a snake named Noah...Noah the Boa. When it was dinner time for Noah, a lab mouse would find itself participating in a different kind of experiment. Sometimes Noah wasn’t hungry. Snakes can go days or more without eating. After a while of being ignored by the snake, the mouse would begin to think that this was his new home. They would hang out, build little nests in Noah’s coils and sleep. Eventually, though, Noah would get hungry and without much fanfare he would eat his roommate. The mouse thought he was safe. He thought he was home. In the eyes of a four year old looking through the glass, the snake and the mouse were buddies. Up until the time that Noah ate him, the mouse had no reason to believe otherwise.

Most Entertaining Films of 2005

2006-02-24T18:28:00.000-08:00

Soon the Oscars will be upon us and the time for discussing the cinematographic accomplishments of 2005 will be through. Everywhere you turn you can find "Best of" lists from critics, and these lists are helpful if you are filling out your Oscar ballots or fleshing out your Netflix list with "movies I must see because they are great, even if I’m not sure I want to".

It’s hard not to get caught up in the Best list madness, but recently I had a crazy notion. What if I made up a list of the most entertaining films I saw in 2005? When you drop the commandment of ‘Best’ and replace it with ‘Entertaining’, a funny thing happens. You end up with a list that has precious little similarity to the list of Academy Award nominees. Don’t misunderstand me. I’ve seen almost all the films nominated this year, and I think they are all fine movies. But are they films I would sneak out to see twice, or put on my Netflix list to watch again because I so enjoyed the first time?

So, without further ado, I give you Kati’s List of the Most Entertaining Films of 2005.

Most Entertaining Superhero Movie – Well, this is a no brain-er. Batman Begins rocked. Batman Begins erased the bitter memory of Batman and Robin forever. True, I loved Christian Bale before he ever thought to don the pointy eared rubber suit, due, in part, to his utterly random choosing of roles. Why not follow a critically acclaimed indie with a totally absurd dragon movie? I confess I have a weakness for low-budget sci fi flicks which is how I managed to stumble upon Equilibrium, a confusing mess of a "dangerous totalitarian future picture" none the less made compulsively watch-able by the presence of Mr. Bale.

Batman Begins should have been the beginning chapter of Christian Bale’s much deserved superstar period. His star moment was unjustly eclipsed by the perfect storm we now know as TomKat. Katie Holmes may have a lot to answer for, particularly when she finally produces the L. Ron Hubbard clone baby she now carries, but nothing more egregious than stealing Christian’s limelight. But perhaps true Christian Bale fans know that this is how we like it, his awesomeness is our little secret.

Most Entertaining Long Awaited Conclusion to a Beloved Sci-Fi Classic – This is a no brain-er too. It’s obviously Serenity. Oh, wait, you thought I meant that other one…Chapter Three-of-Six, the Lava Years. What am I on about? Why Firefly of course, the best damn space western that ever got canceled, developed a huge cult following and got made into a rip-roaring space movie.

What’s that? You say you never saw the TV show? Well that don’t matter none. Saddle up, my friends. No previous experience with the Serenity crew necessary. This is just a plain old great action adventure movie. Scruffy but attractive characters find themselves in some dangerous situations, run afoul of one Big Brother of a government, race around the universe while being chased by an un-redeemably evil agent of darkness as they try to clear their names and possibly save the universe while they’re at it. God, it almost reminds me of another movie I saw long long ago in a movie theater far far away. This movie is proof that George Lucas sold us a bill of goods. He tried to convince you that the reason you weren’t loving his turgid long winded sequels is that you ‘grew up’ and were now somehow impervious to his magic. Nuh-uh. Serenity has got the magic and its not afraid to use it. Sorry George. Joss Whedon is my master now.

Most Unnecessary but Entertaining Adaptation of a Jane Austin Novel – Bride and Prejudice. After side trips to the Valley and Utah, Jane Austin arrives where she was perhaps always meant to be: Bollywood. In this version our star crossed lovers are hotel magnate dragged to India by his best friend to attend a wedding and Aishwarya Rai , a woman Roger Ebert calls both the first and second most attractive woman (women?) in the world.

I realize lots of people had trouble with the singing. Unlike another great wedding themed Indian picture, Monsoon Wedding, no attempt was made to streamline the singing and dancing into the story. They just randomly, joyously burst into song. Personally, I thought the movie casting department made a critical error casting an instantly forgettable blonde guy as Mr Darcy while picking Naveen “Totally Dreamy” Andrews to play the second sister suitor role. Forgettable blonde…Naveen Andrews…Forgettable blonde…Naveen Andrews. I know who I want on my desert island.

However…this movie is a blast. It’s fun. The story translates itself well to India where, at least to Western eyes, they still hold to some traditional practices regarding marriage like “parental approval”. It doesn’t apologize for it’s Bollywood-ization which, quoting Roger Ebert once again, “are the Swiss Army Knives of the cinema, with a tool for every job: comedy, drama, song and dance, farce, pathos, adventure, great scenery, improbably handsome heroes, teeth-gnashing villains, marriage-obsessed mothers and their tragically unmarried daughters, who are invariably ethereal beauties.”

I read this week that Will Smith has been touring India and the Bollywood film industry, where he expressed his fondest hope to become a big Bollywood star. The world is shrinking. There’s no escaping. Bollywood is coming, people. Join now. Avoid the rush.

Most Entertaining Coke Coming Out Your Nose Comedy – It’s a tie, actually. Both Wedding Crashers and The 40 Year Old Virgin handcuff your funny bone and spank it silly. Wedding Crashers wasn’t a surprise to me. How could Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson not make a hysterical movie? I confess that The 40 Year Old Virgin did surprise me, though. I went tentatively, expecting to spend more time cringing than laughing. Even though I have had not one but several guys explain to me how American Pie is a true comedy classic, I have yet to make it through an entire screening of the Pie. I just…don’t…get it, I guess. Or maybe I get it, but am not actually entertained by it. I feared that 40 Year Old Virgin would be the middle-age male answer to American Pie.

And you know what? It is. It totally is. It has every kind of disgusting joke involving masturbation, blow up dolls, sex and all its associated secretions, drugs, sex and more sex. It is also a shockingly surprisingly sweet movie. After spending two hours watching the hilarious antics of one man’s friends desperate attempts to get him laid, you leave the theater realizing that the point of this movie is actually shockingly romantic: Love is the answer, my friends. Love and lots of laughter.

Most Entertaining Adaptation of a Beloved Children’s Book – Chronicles of Narnia – The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I was worried the first time I saw a preview for the Chronicles of Narnia. There’s no getting around the fact that it’s a beloved story, one I read over and over again in childhood. What were they going to do? Disney-fy it? Sanitize it? Pump up the Jesus imagery? Make talking animals that look like animatronic monstrosities? They did none of these things. They did, it seems, everything right.

Unfortunately upon its release we were unable to escape the ocean of punditry discussing the Christian symbolism (symbolism, I confess, which never occurred to me as I read the book as a child and did not, in fact, get until someone told me in college). I really feared that it would adversely affect the movie. Who wants to pay ten bucks for a bible lesson? The movie contains as much of that symbolism that exists in the book which is to say, there and obvious if you’re looking for it, but easily overlooked if you’re wrapped up in the adventure.

Most Entertaining Harry Potter Sequal – Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. What can I say? I love Harry. I love the books. I read them, repeatedly. There were concerns, of course. How could they adapt Goblet of Fire, a book the size of a telephone book, into an exciting movie without cutting critical pieces of the Harry mythos? Well, they couldn’t. They did cut critical pieces of the Harry mythos, but did I miss them? No, I was too busy being awed and amazed and entertained. I’ve told people before, though I clearly don’t listen to my own opinions, that books and movies are different artistic mediums. You can do things in each that you can’t do in the other. I vaguely recall hearing once that 2 pages of book equals one minute of film. Despite my love for Harry, a six hour movie aimed at a young audience seems a bit excessive. Movie makers have different goals and tools than book writers, although both may be totally committed to telling the same story. The makers of Goblet of Fire got that. They made an exciting entertaining movie, and saved the mythos for another day.

Most Entertaining Movies You Might Have Missed – Dear Frankie and Millions are both British films which came round the local art house cinema this year. The Brits do a certain kind of film well. I'd call them 'quiet films' or perhaps 'small films', films about people you could actually imagine meeting, or find living next door. It's a riskier challenge than might seem obvious. You can't help but want to call these movies "sweet" or "endearing" or "charming" or "heartwarming", which unfortunately too often translate into "excruciating treacle". But the Brits have the magic it seems to wrest real charm from stories about everyday people.

Dear Frankie is a three hankie movie about a single mom determined to protect her son from his n’er do well dad. For years she has told the boy that his father is a sailor, and for years she has been writing and sending her boy postcards from his “dad”. As in all movies that start with a lie, there are complications. A ship which happens to bear the name of the boat upon which Frankie’s imaginary Dad works is suddenly coming into port in their city. A friend suggests Mom hire someone to pose as Frankie’s Dad for an afternoon, which she does. But the stranger doesn’t go away after an afternoon. He keeps coming back…and meanwhile Frankie’s real Dad is on the phone…he wants to see his son.

Millions is not the kind of film you’d expect from Danny Boyle, the man who brought us Shallow Grave (the scariest movie about roommates ever), Trainspotting (the scariest movie about heroin addiction ever) and 28 Days Later (which is about zombies but I can’t claim knowledge as whether it’s the scariest since I generally avoid zombie movies unless it’s Shaun of the Dead which I can confidently state is the funniest zombie movie ever). Millions is a little scary, in a gentle sort of way, but mostly it’s a terrifically entertaining movie that you could actually take your grandmother to.

A bag of British pound notes falls seemingly from the sky into the clubhouse of two brothers. It is only days before Britain converts to the Euro and the pound notes become worthless. One brother quickly begins acquiring the sorts of things a boy would want, like skateboards and personal servants (he begins to pay fellow classmates to fetch him sodas). The other boy, still wrestling with the recent death of their mother, has recently developed an unnerving habit of seeing and talking to saints and decides to give the money away, dropping a huge donation into the penny cup being passed around at school, and drawing some small attention to their windfall.

Don't fret. This is a still a Danny Boyle film. It has his same hair raising cinematography and of course, just as there’s no such thing as a free lunch, rarely do duffle bags of cash fall from the sky without someone eventually looking for them.

Most Entertaining Film You Definitely Missed – Unless you were lucky enough to attend the Seattle International Film Festival last summer or are a resident of Canada, I’d say chances are good that you didn’t get to see a small gem of a picture called Sabah. Directed by young Canadian director Ruba Nadda, this film has unfortunately been referred to, in SIFFs promotional material no less, as “a Syrian Big Fat Greek Wedding”. I don’t know how to express how unjust this description is to this beautiful complex picture.

The elements are admittedly similar. Sabah is the eldest daughter of a Syrian family that immigrated to Canada. While her brother has been educated and become a successful businessman, Sabah has been dutifully caring for their aging mother. After being encouraged by her young outgoing niece, she decides to bust out and…rip off her headscarf in public? No. Tell he family she’s going to go to school whereupon she also cuts her hair and begins wearing full makeup? No. Inspired by a childhood photograph of her and her father at a swimming pool, Sabah decides to start swimming at the local community center in the afternoons.

Her swimsuit is beyond modest. She continues to completely cover her hair with a bathing cap. When a man comes in and starts swimming laps, she panics. She leaves the pool, extricating herself while trying to cover as much of her body as she can. She comes back though. The lure of the freedom found in swimming gives her to much to give up. She gradually gets more relaxed around the other swimmers in the pool, until one day, one of them asks her for coffee.

Of course, the other swimmer is a man, a reasonably handsome but decidedly Canadian man. He tells her that he’ll be at a certain coffee spot at a certain time if she’d like to come by, and she does. I suppose it’s obvious that she will become more attached to this man, that she will fall in love with him and he with her, that she will desperately try to hide him from her family until he finally insists on being acknowledged. Of course her family will disapprove. There will be tears, recrimination and perhaps reconciliation.

What’s not obvious is how gentle the film is with all of the characters. When Sabah and her brother have their inevitable showdown, her brother is not shown as a laughable caricature of an uptight old-world male. As hard as Sabah’s life has been, we get to see that her brother has struggled too, trying to hold the family together, burdened by some painful truths that he has hidden in attempt to protect the rest of the family. There is also the interesting acknowledgement that often when families emigrate to a new country, they actually find themselves becoming more conservative than they were in their own countries, withdrawing into the safe cocoon of a memory.

Even when we get to the happy ending, we see that Sabah has not given up her culture or her faith. We know that she would never be willing to abandon her family even for love. She still covers her hair in public. These were not props to be shed when something more exciting came along. She is not transformed into a new person, but instead transformed into herself.

I think this was my favorite film of the year. It makes me sad that it may never get a wide release. The same day I saw Sabah I also saw a documentary called Touch the Sound, a movie that was in fact picked up for wide release. It tells the story and sound of a deaf woman who is a professional drummer. It is undoubtedly fascinating, although I found it to be 45 minutes beyond interesting. After the fifth or sixth shot of pigeons flying through dusty sunbeams in warehouses, I began to feel like this was a movie about a director who is only slightly more interested in a deaf drummer than his own brilliance.

Who knows the intricacies of why a film is ‘chosen’ or not. Maybe the studios decided that the Greek Wedding scene was so over and it was time to move into films about the daughter of the president going to college and falling for her not-so-cleverly disguised bodyguard. I check IMDB every few months, hoping that maybe they’ve decided to at least release it on DVD. I’ll be in line when they do, not just for the library but for my own personal collection too.

In Which the author commits an act of heresy, followed by some damning confessions.

2006-02-09T14:16:00.000-08:00

Here’s the story, sing along with me, wont you? They were a scrappy group of lads from Liverpool who just wanted to make some music. It was all going just great until people started liking their music, and wanting to hear them play it. Everyone got a little bit overexcited. It goes without saying that the music they made Changed the World, and the first time [insert pundit here] heard [insert Beatles song here] it totally blew their mind and The World Would Never Be the Same. [Insert shot of hysterical screaming women here].

I don’t know if Beatles nostalgia ever really goes away, but it does certainly flare up with a vengeance pretty regularly. A few months ago, it was over the 25th anniversary of the death of John Lennon. This morning my otherwise not generally annoying am DJ announced that today was the 40 some odd anniversary of the Beatles first appearance on Ed Sullivan, from which the conversation devolved into discussions of where they were when first they saw, and how they took pictures of the tv screen to preserve the memory forever. As if anyone would ever be allowed to forget. If you count the four members of the Beatles, their manager or ‘fifth’ Beatle, George Martin, 10 years worth of recording, touring and television appearances and five movies, I have no doubt that every single day of the year is the something-est anniversary of the first time the Beatles or a Beatle did something somewhere. Catholic saints are not as busy.

I don’t begrudge anyone their musical heroes, or even deny that the Beatles have had a lasting impact. It’s more of the cumulative effect that I find myself struggling against. I have sincere respect and admiration for The Beatles. But some mornings, like this morning, I just find myself thinking oh, for pity’s sake, give it a freaking rest, already. I just want to let all you Beatles fans out there know that We Get It. They made a lot of great music that was really important to you. Some of the music they made has inspired artists that we know and love today. Some of the music they made was inspired by artists who were an awful big deal to some people in their day. Music is a good thing!

The thing is, and I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings or anything, but I confess that some of us…well, we’ve kind of moved on. In fact I would even go so far as to admit that for some of us, we were never really there to begin with. How you feel about the Beatles, we feel for other people. Other groups have made music since then that have totally blown some of our minds. Other singers have written songs that have made people want to change their lives, or fall in love, or overthrow an oppressive government or maybe just dance like crazy.

I will never forget, never ever, the first time I heard When Doves Cry on the radio. I was in my bedroom, listening to my tinny mono-radio that I’d had since I was 8. I was a thirteen year old living in rural North Carolina, and Prince just blew the back of my head right off. One can draw a direct line from hearing that song to the following events in my life: my first drink, my first smoke, my first sneaking into an R rated movie and my first kiss. If my parents had only known, I’m sure they would have taken that radio away.

Here’s an even MORE outrageous confession: I will never forget the first time I saw Madonna’s Open Your Heart To Me video. Madonna was obviously already on my radar, and I knew all the words to Like a Virgin and Material World. But that video. I was a teenage girl with less than the necessary social skills to keep boys attention. They made me feel tongue tied and stupid and weak. But that video with Madonna dancing to a peep show clientele, singing for them to open their hearts when she obviously could care less about their hearts, or frankly even impressing them. Yeah, you can argue that it’s not a ‘good’ message or a ‘healthy’ one, assuming you think it would lead to a direct rise in the number of peep show dancers. But what can I say? I saw this powerful woman, and it was like a salve to my wounded teenage girl ego. If I could have taken a photograph of the tv screen, I would have.

I guess I’ve kind of drifted from the Beatles, but I think I’ve made my point. You can argue that if it weren’t for the Beatles, we wouldn’t have the bands that blow our minds today. That is entirely possible. It’s also possible that music is bigger than that. Music is beyond one group, a single group, electrifying the world forever. Music has been blowing people’s minds since people have had ears. When we crawled out of the primordial ooze, music was standing there with a towel to greet us. I’m not an expert, but I’m pretty sure that since that day, music has evolved right along with us, and maybe a little ahead of us.

Music is wily and wild. She chooses her messengers and whispers in their ears. Sometimes the song is something radical and new. Sometimes the messengers get consumed in the process of delivering it to us. Every generation produces artists whose job it is to slay those who came before. A few are great enough that they rise above to inspire more than one generation: Mozart, B.B. King, Frank Sinatra. The Beatles certainly fall into that category, but are they really in a class by themselves? I guess you know my opinion. Sorry if I don’t mark this day down in my calendar.

Oscar Smackdown

2006-02-03T19:52:00.000-08:00

I find myself less and less enamored of the Academy Awards every year. Sometimes I think that an Oscar nomination can be a movie’s worst enemy. Year after year, fine films wilt under the overwhelming scrutiny that an Oscar nomination brings. Year after year, other fine films are neglected, forgotten and ignored for reasons who knows why?

The truth is, I find myself preferring the Golden Globes more and more. There’s something endearing about this utterly self serving, self congratulatory gathering where the participants get to drink and make faces at the winners. In its own way, it is far more honest than the Academy Awards. It reminds me of kindergarten field day, where everyone invited gets to go home with a prize, even if it’s for best penmanship. The qualification for categories seems to be ‘the more, the merrier’. This allows them to give Joaquin Phoenix an award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy (although Walk the Line was really neither) and Phillip Seymour Hoffman his award for Best Actor in a Drama. Given enough time and publicist energy, I imagine they could have added a Best Actor in a Western category so Heath Ledger could have his award too.

The most amusing example of this “wink wink”, hey we’re all here for the gift basket and the benjamins this year came during the presentation of the Cecil B. DeMille award to Sir Anthony Hopkins, god bless him. Gwyneth was on hand to do the honors, and she began her dutiful reading of the teleprompter as the screen showed the “This is Your Life” clips from Hopkins’ oeuvre. They started with The Lion in Winter, a madly great film where everyone involved got to gorge their way through the scenery like ravenous termites. Hopkins was fine in this film. Face it…do you remember either of his brothers in that film? There were three, but Hopkins is the only one to make any impression in the shadow of Hepburn and O’Toole.

They follow those scenes with a totally bizarre set of clips from a film called Magic which appears to be a C or possibly D film in which Hopkins plays a ventriloquist possessed by a dummy, or a dummy possessed by a ventriloquist. And they don’t just flash a scene, the clips go on and on, torturing us with Hopkins bouncing off the wall like a gibbon while screaming at a evil puppet. There’s a cutaway to Hopkins at some point, and you can even see his eyebrows crease…why the hell are they showing clips from…what the hell is that? Do I remember this film? Was that when I was drinking? Or was that the movie I made so I could finish the pool? Ultimately, they spend as much clip time on Magic as either Silence of the Lambs or Remains of the Day.

This was totally baffling, until I got to work the next morning and found in my inbox a packet of promotional material announcing… Guess what? Yes, the release of Magic on DVD…order now! Order soon! Order many! Before the end of the day, requests had begun rolling in and presto! A D movie about an evil puppet becomes an instant ‘classic’, and somewhere in Hollywood, a marketing flunky gets their wings.

But this is the Globes…no apologies. Crass. Commercial. An evening for Hollywood to get dressed up and say Yay, we’re all great and beautiful and rich, plus we get to go home with gift baskets containing choice swag the value of which is equivalent to the GNP of several third world nations. (Because if anyone needs free stuff, it's the rich and beautiful.)

But the Academy Awards are so freaking serious, and people treat the awards as if they mean something really profound. I know people who are still, still unhappy about the year that Shakespeare in Love got the award over Saving Private Ryan. But how can anyone possibly, realistically judge whether Shakespeare in Love is a ‘finer’ film than Saving Private Ryan, or vice versa. They’re both beautiful movies with strong stories and great acting. They are worlds apart in topic and tone. And they are both classics. I admired both of them. I enjoyed Shakespeare in Love more. The guy I eat lunch with swears the opposite. Who do you love more? Your mother or your father? Which is better? Chocolate or Strawberries? Please, sirs, can’t we have both?

One of the worst effects of this unnatural competition is the inevitable “Oscar Backlash”. The Shakespeare vs Ryan is a prime example, but it happens every year. Two years ago, Lost in Translation was the biggest victim. By the time Oscars rolled around, people were already muttering about how overrated it was. Nothing happens. What’s the big deal? I consider myself lucky to have seen Lost in Translation early, as soon as it was released and before it had been sucked into the shit storm of Oscar publicity. It’s a quiet movie…a true movie. Yes, it has funny moments, but it’s not a comedy. Bill Murray is great in it, but he’s not wacky Bill from yore, or even offbeat Bill from his recent film forays with Wes Anderson. After months of hype a gentle film like this will inevitably wilt underneath the hype.

Brokeback Mountain seems a likely candidate for the backlash this year, it has been so extatically praised, so obessively dissected. Heck, it even got it's own Oprah segment. I expect to start hearing the mutters soon. "What's the big deal about gay cowboys? Even the Village People had one. And these guys don't even dance." It's a fine film about love and marriage and friendship and parenthood. It's about fate knocking you ass over teakettle and never recovering your compass. It's about that life that happens to all of us while we're busy making other plans. But instead it becomes in shorthand "the gay cowboy movie", and by this point, anyone going to see it first time already has an opinion about it.

I will say that this year is unusual in that I think every nominee for Best Picture deserves to be there. Some expressed surprise that Walk the Line did not get an Oscar nod, but my personal feeling is that Walk the Line was a middling vehicle carrying two outstanding performances. I was frankly disappointed by Walk the Line, not by Phoenix or Witherspoon’s performances which were both out of the park homers, but by a story that did not do those performances full justice.

Those are my opinions though, and there are billions of others out there, some of whom can actually vote for winners unlike myself. I’ve given up trying to guess who will win or should win. Sure, I have my personal favorites, but their win or loss means very little. It doesn’t alter the initial impact the film had on me, or the memories of it that I get to keep.

The Complaint Department

2006-01-31T19:41:00.000-08:00

As the person responsible for selecting movies and music for my library’s collection, it is also my responsibility to respond to the occasional complaint that arises about said collection. I would like to say that these complaints are rare, but they are distressingly common and becoming more so. Last year I received 16 complaints, which might not seem like much, but that works out to more than one a month (see, I’m wicked smart at math too). The first year I had the job, which was 1999, I think, we had two. Less than one month into 2006, I have already received two.

I have theories as to why this is the case, which are backed with pure scientifically tested speculation and supposition. The numbers have increased every year since the current administration took office. That chill wind from the right you’ve wondered about? Not your imagination. Obviously there’s also the small matter of 9/11 which left a lot of people feeling helpless in a world gone mad. What possible connection could this have to complaints at the library? Well, maybe there’s nothing a person can do to keep terrorists from crashing into buildings, but dammit, they can sure as hell keep boobies out of the library.

And boobies do seem to be many people’s primary concern. Just as Janet Jackson’s suspiciously decorated bared breast brought network television to its knees last year, nothing seems to get some people so het up as the acknowledgment that underneath all of our clothes….we’re naked!! In seven years of responding to over seventy complaints, I can only think of two that were related to violence, and a small handful specifically unhappy about language. Most are unhappy about the naked. Notice, I don’t say ‘the sex’. The mere presence of a naked body, even in the most non-sexual of situations, is enough to cause much hysteria.

My favorite example of this are two separate complaints I received about Bernardo Bertolucci’s film 1900. The film is about Italy during the early 1900s as seen through the eyes of two boys, one a peasant the other from a land owning family. This particular period of Italian history is somewhat busy, what with the fascism and the communism and the wars and all that. There is a scene early in the film (early being a relative term in a four plus hour long movie) when the two boys, around the age of 8 or so, become acquainted. They hunt frogs. They wrestle. They swim in a pond. They compare equipment and engage in a pissing contest.

Now, anyone who knows anything about little boys knows that this is exactly how they act when left to their own devices. Anyone who has ever been involved in potty training a little boy knows how entertaining they find their own plumbing. My complainers did not see two little boys engaging in innocent and totally realistic fun, however. They saw child pornography at the worst and, at the very least, something no child should ever be allowed to see.

What made these complaints fascinating to me is that both spent a lot space describing in minute detail everything awful about the naked behinds of two 8 year old boys. Neither, however, made any notice of the massive amounts of violence in the film. Before we get to the offending scene, hundreds of extras die horrible deaths in various creative ways including one person getting pitch forked to death, which was a means of dying I had not yet had the privilege of experiencing, even on CSI. If I learned anything from watching 1900, it’s that frankly, Italy should be proud that there are people left in Italy.

This desperate desire to prevent children from being exposed to the naked body while maintaining a rather lackadaisical attitude toward violence is a sort of odd American thing. Four hundred years has not taken us very far from our Puritan roots, it seems. What I find so bizarre about it is that, thankfully, 99.9 % of the American public will never see a person pitch forked to death in real life. Most of us will never witness or participate in the violent death of ourselves or someone else. Most of us will, however, have sex at least once and a full 100% of us are, as I mentioned before, naked underneath our clothes.

20th Century Masters

2006-01-24T16:57:00.000-08:00

When Universal Music first started releasing the "20th Century Masters - The Millenium Collection" series of CDs, somewhere around 1999, it seemed like a fabulous thing. Remastered hit collections of the greats: Stevie Wonder, Hank Williams, The Temptations, The Four Tops, Bill Monroe. Their choices were certainly ecclectic, which only seemed to add to the nifty-ness. This is American music, Bill Monroe and Stevie Wonder; Stevie Wonder and the Allman Brothers.

Even in the early days some of their choices caused me a raised eyebrow. The Gap Band? Ok, sure, "You Dropped a Bomb on Me" and "Early in the Morning" are funk masterpieces. Perhaps it's only my limited imagination preventing me from giving them "Master" status. I'll give them The Gap Band.

Over the years, I've found myself increasingly startled over some their choices. Don't get me wrong, they are still putting out collections of the unarguably great from Itzhak Perlman to Bob Marley. But the original trickle of releases has grown into a thundering river including Yngwie Malmsteen, Livingston Taylor and who could forget The Bar Kays? I never forgot the Bar Kays, mostly because I never knew them. Having survived the 70s, I do vaguely recollect Livingston Taylor, although I think I wish I didn't.

Now they are starting to release some Master collections which test the bounds of incredulity. Smash Mouth? The Gin Blossoms? 98 freaking Degrees? The Gin Blossoms are ok, but they've only put out 3 albums in their career, only 2 of which charted. Do they belong in the Pantheon of Great Bands of All Time? Don't even get me started about 98 Degrees.

I know that you can argue that everybody is great to somebody. There's something inherently flawed in trying to make any kind of "Greatest of All Time" list, as the British poll which asked who was the greatest actor "Of All Time" recently showed. The land of Olivier and of Shakespeare selected Tom Cruise as The Greatest Actor of All Time, which begs the question, who on earth were they asking?

As someone with pretty ecclectic taste in music, I must admire a music series that can celebrate both Arthur Fiedler and Whitesnake. I'm just wondering if they should change the series title to "everything we've got in our basement". It would be truthier, and it would save people straining themselves trying to imagine Captain and Tenille as one of the greatest acts of all time.

So when they say gay what they REALLY mean is gay, get it?

2006-01-13T12:02:00.000-08:00

There are many things about The Producers that are impossible not to enjoy. When Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane really get going with the Brooks-ian banter, laughing becomes a physical imperative. Will Ferrell was born to play Franz Liebkind, president of the US chapter of pigeon lovers for Hitler. The temptation with a role like Liebkind is to play it all as a giant teasing wink, a la Arte Johnson: see…it’s so FUNNY because he’s a NAZI, get it? Get it? But Ferrell throws himself in headfirst, as he does all his best roles, practically Method acting his way through Der Guten Tag Hop-Clop. Franz Liebkind is hysterical, but Ferrell is dead serious.

Then, about halfway through the proceedings, The Producers comes to a grinding halt. Well, it doesn’t come to a halt per se, it’s more like we suddenly find ourselves in a time warp. The Producers is obviously a period piece, set in an undefined 1940s/1950s New York. But the time warp to which I’m referring is one that takes us to a particular, or rather a peculiar time when the love that dare not speak it’s name was still clearing its throat. A time when Liberace was the face of gay men everywhere, except that he wasn’t gay, he was just fabulous and waiting for the right girl and in the meantime more than happy living with his dear mother, and Johnny Carson laughed and laughed, and the audience joined in, even though some of them maybe weren’t quite sure why.

I can’t claim I know what it was like to be gay in the 60s and 70s, but I do know a few people who were gay in the 60s and 70s, and what I know most about them is that, during that time, they were decidedly not OUT. In fact, they were pretty steadfastly denying the remotest possibility that they might be anything out of the ordinary, a state that I think must exceed being ‘in the closet’, since how can one be ‘in the closet’ if one can’t even acknowledge that there is a closet, or four walls, or even a neighborhood?

And why would you acknowledge that neighborhood, swathed in pink ruffled organdy? In many ways Liberace was the perfect symbol of our society’s conflicted relationship with homosexuality. I remember my grandma LOVED Liberace. He was sooo funny…so sweet and charming…so talented…so flamboyant. He might be a little funny, if ya know what I mean? But boy can he play the piano. It was perfectly acceptable to be entertained by someone a little light in the loafers, but I must tell you that if my Dad had decided to run off and become Liberace’s pool boy, my grandma would have fallen on her knitting needle. It might be ok to enjoy being entertained by a man dressed up like Mae West, but it sure as hell wasn’t ok to BE a man dressed like Mae West, unless you made Johnny Carson laugh while doing it.

And so, The Producers. The story has been around since 1968. It’s a movie musical based on the musical based on the movie. Obviously, I am not the first person to write about it. I do know that every time I do read about it, the focus is on the Hitler humor. In that respect, the concept is genius. In the annals of human history, there are things that are Just Not Funny. Mel Brooks has made a career out of creating humor from situations that are just WRONG. When we laugh at showgirls singing “Springtime for Hitler” or Blazing Saddle’s Sheriff Bart (Where the white women at?), we know that we’re laughing at ourselves, at the knee jerk "how DARE you" in each of us.

But when Carmen Ghia opens the door in his too tight black turtleneck and eyeliner lisping “yessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss..ss.ss”, what are we supposed to be laughing at? For many years, this is what it meant to be gay in the public eye. It meant lisping and limp wrists and oh my goodness Shirley that man is wearing a dress! I can’t say that I was offended by the “Keep it Gay” musical number or Carmen and Roger De Bris, I was just startled by how anachronistic it all seems.

This anachronism was emphasized all the more when one of Roger’s stable revealed himself to be Jai Rodriguez, one of the Fab Five from Queer Eye. Jai is decked out like a gay I Dream of Jeanie complete with lavender nipples and a turban to match. Jai can usually be seen weekly sporting the heights of metro-sexual fashion and instructing clueless straight men how to write thank you notes and fold napkins, without ANY lisping whatsoever, and certainly no painted nips.

I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who could lecture me about the non PC-ness of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, how it reinforces the stereotype of the effete gay male obsessed with fashion and fripperies. But I’ll tell you one thing it does do. Every week we see five completely different men, each with their own area of competency and expertise, each with markedly different personalities and styles and (I presume) not one of them had to wear a dress in order to get the job (although Carson does seem determined to change that). Oh my God Shirley, gays have individual personalities! They are not a monolithic army swathed in organdy. Seeing Jai dressed in lavender pantaloons was almost as startling as seeing someone in blackface.

On the plus side, that element of The Producers does kind of grip one by the shoulders and make us acknowledge, wow, we’ve come a long way, baby. Unfortunately it also suggests that we have not come quite far enough, yet.

Old Kong

2005-12-28T22:19:00.000-08:00

How do I explain my feelings about Peter Jackson’s King Kong?

It is unarguably a great movie. The acting, story and special effects are seamless and awe inspiring. I could quibble that it is too long. Others have and they have a point. Yes it is melodrama building to refrain from revealing the Big Ape for an hour an a half. It isn’t that the first hour and a half isn’t interesting. I do believe that the entire story arc built in that time could have been built in less to greater effect. This is why I’m a critic and not making movies I’m sure.

There’s an awful lot going on in King Kong. What starts as a treatise on the effects of the Depression on the entertainment industry suddenly morphs into the scariest most thrilling dinosaur movie since Jurassic Park. And the bugs! Don’t even get me started about the horrible giant bugs that will haunt my dreams FOREVER Peter Jackson! You remember the second Indiana Jones movie? You wont after you see King Kong. Piffle are what those bugs are compared to these…a walk in a (somewhat dark, dank and creepy) park.

Before we get to enjoy the island of legitimately scary dinosaurs, we must endure an awkward and embarrassing visit to bone-through-the-nose scary natives land. I’d take some time here to scold about abuse of stereotypes but I’m not sure who exactly Jackson might be stereotyping. It’s like those car insurance ads that make fun of cave men, resulting in an embarrassed company representative attempting to make reparations to angry and organized Neanderthals. Several decades of indoctrination in the school of Political Correctness make me positive I should be offended. I’m just not sure on behalf of whom.

In the interest of addressing this philosophical conundrum, I tried to imagine how you would make King Kong without the morally troubling visit to native sacrifice land, but I can’t think of one. This is why I’m a critic and not making movies I’m sure. It did lead me to wonder about the population of King Kong Island though. Their primary industry appears to be the construction of scaffolding. They clearly have the technology to build a big freaking door which is strong enough to withstand dinosaur and giant ape attack, and of course the Giant Virgin Sacrifice Delivery Lever. So I have to wonder why not put that creative energy to use to invent, say, a boat to take themselves off the island with the dinosaurs and the bugs and the really big monkey that doesn’t seem to care for them?

All of this and we haven’t even met the title character yet. It may take us over an hour before we meet Mr. Kong, but when he arrives he seizes the movie in his big hairy mitts and waltzes away with it. Whatever criticism I may have about the movie let me make it absolutely clear that the ape is a triumph. He is real. I’d like to differentiate here between ‘realistic’ and ‘real’. Realistic still implies some element of unreality. Jackson and Andrew Sirkis have created a living, breathing, feeling character. King Kong is the heart of the movie. He is also, in my opinion, the movie’s Achilles Heel.

King Kong has been remade more than once. Every version has one thing in common. (Warning: spoiler alert) At the end, the gorilla dies. He is wrested from his island, a place where he already had no easy life to begin with, with the dinosaurs and the bugs…did I mention the bugs…and the ape-hating people. He is hauled to a big cold city, put on cruel display, escapes to find the only kind person he has ever known and is hounded to the top of a building where he dies. The main difference in this version is that before he does all of this, or perhaps while he does all of this, I totally fell in love with the big hairy lug. Somewhere around the time they capture him, ending with a long focus on Naomi Watts sobbing her broken heart out, I started to get a really sinking feeling in my stomach. Jackson has taken an early cinematic inspiration for Godzilla movies and turned it into Old Yeller, complete with tears.

It did occur to me that this movie could easily inspire generations of animal rights activists. What Charlotte’s Web did for vegetarians, what Watership Down did for lab animals, King Kong may do for gorilla rights. Go ahead and laugh at my crazy idea, then watch Kong watch the sun set with Naomi Watts. Feel like that trip to the zoo now? 100 years from now, when the Simian Liberation Front elects a gorilla for president, don't say I didn't warn you.

WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS

2005-12-28T22:18:00.000-08:00

WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW IS ANOTHER PRIDE & PREJUDICE?

People tend to fall into one of two categories: those who love Jane Austin and those who do not. Those who do not are also sometimes known as ‘male’, although that is not completely fair. There are probably women who don’t like Jane Austen too.

If you are in the category of those who do not like or even care one way or t’other about Jane Austen, then it is probable that you will never voluntarily agree to see the current adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, coming soon to a theater near you. In fact, I’ll wager to say that if you are in this category, your eyes glazed over the instant that Jane Austen was mentioned, and you have moved on to the sports section by now.

If you are a fan of Jane Austen then it is probable, if not certain, that you have seen one or more of the following:

The 1940 version of Pride and Prejudice, starring Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier, winner of an Academy Award and adapted in part by Aldous Huxley, of all people.

The 1995 BBC mini-series which set the world aflame with that scene where Colin Firth emerges all drippy wet from the pond on his estate and inspired Helen Fielding to write Briget Jones’s Diary, which was of course later adapted into a film starring Colin Firth (and some other people) and which you probably also saw.

The 1980 BBC mini-series, also known as the one that doesn’t have Colin Firth.

That Bollywood version of Pride and Prejudice (ever so subtlety called Bride and Prejudice) set in modern day India.

The spy thriller version (ever so subtlety called Pride and Extreme Prejudice) or that Mormon version of Pride and Prejudice (ever so subtlety called Pride and Prejudice) set in modern day Salt Lake City, or indeed any of the dozen or so other adaptations that have been made between the dawn of cinematography and today.

All of which begs the question, even to a longstanding Austen fan such as myself, why remake Pride and Prejudice?  Is there an element of Miss Bennet and Mr. Darcy’s rocky courtship that remains unexamined?  Is there an artistic vision of Liza’s spunk, Darcy’s brood that has not yet been acted?  I heard that this promised to be a ‘darker, edgier’ version of P&P, which seemed both unnerving and unnecessary.  Would Kitty run off to an opium den?  Would Mr. Darcy, guns blazing, have to help Mr. Bennett escape from debtors prison?  Would sweet Jane become an unwed mother?  Of course, Austen did actually write a darker, edgier version of this story.  It’s called Sense and Sensibility, which also has been admirably adapted to film, should the director like to update his Netflix list.

Clearly, it was with great trepidation that I went to see this new and improved P&P.  (I confess there was no question of me not going.)  I had hope.  Thus far critics have simply fawned over the film, and have engraved Keira Knightly’s name upon the Oscar already.  Metacritic has given it the designation of “Universal Acclaim”.  Only the most cynical literature snob would arrive determined to find fault.

The theater was packed with estrogen bearers, from giggling tweens to your grandmother’s bridge club.  They all simply loved it.  They laughed, they cried, they gasped.  The girls in the row ahead of me clutched at each other, almost expiring from the anxiety…would Mr. Darcy kiss Elizabeth?  Any film that exposes great literature to girls typically obsessed with …whatever it is that obsesses them (Am I that old already that I have absolutely no idea what that might be?) couldn’t possibly be a bad thing.  Only a person truly churlish would deny this.

I guess I need to start looking for a Churls Anonymous meeting.  I tried to love it.  I really did.  Certain aspects of it I did quite like.  Judi Dench was grand as Lady Catherine de Bourg, looking like an aristocratic refugee from the court of Madame Pompadour.  Matthew MacFadyen grew on me as Mr. Darcy with a quiet performance suggesting that his problem was not just arrogance, but a kind of terminal shyness that comes from spending a lifetime with people who find you tolerable, but really find your money much more interesting.

The film is beautiful with exquisite locations through which the characters can amble.  There are the requisite monstrously large trees under which all characters in period British romantic comedy must visit at least once in order to think deep thoughts, have a picnic or make a heartfelt declaration of feeling.  There are lots of strategic rainstorms which allow our heroines to look even more dewy than usual, like participants in a modest Edwardian wet t-shirt contest.

I understand that many scenes must be cut from a film adaptation of a book.  The choice in this adaptation seemed to excise much of the wit as well.

I got a small sinking feeling in the first scene when Mrs. Bennett is chastising Mr. Bennett about not making an introduction to the new well-to-do bachelors in town.  The scene in the book is one of the most charming as well as informative.  Mrs. Bennett is fretting in her hysterical fashion that Mr. Bennett must go introduce himself to the newcomers in order for Mrs. Bennett to start her determined matchmaking between the rich new neighbor and one of her daughters.  Mr. Bennett tells her that he will gladly send the neighbor a letter explaining that the young man is welcome to marry whichever of the Bennett’s five daughters he chooses, especially perhaps his Lizzie, which irritates Mrs. Bennett even more.

There, in two and one half pages, Jane Austin economically provides the entire story in a nutshell.  We see Mrs. Bennett’s desperation at marrying off five girls.  We see Mr. Bennett’s practical nature and sly humor that he exercises for amusement upon his dotty wife.  We meet the heroine, though we have not yet seen her, and we know exactly where Elizabeth will get her intelligence and her own sly wit.

In the film, all good humor has been excised.  Mrs. Bennett nags Mr. Bennett until he caves or hides.  No humor.  No deliberately yanking his wife’s chain for entertainment value.  Just a ‘yes dear’ before he runs off to his study.  Despite a fine performance from Donald Sutherland, this Mr. Bennett is a sad sack of a man, obviously caring of his daughters but otherwise henpecked and miserable.  In fact, the most entertaining aspect of Sutherland’s performance was, after the film ended overhearing the teeny boppers in front of me saying “oh my god, that was totally the guy from Animal House.”

I hate to think of myself as so obsessed with detail that I can’t understand effectively applied dramatic license, but the key here is ‘effectively applied’.   Elizabeth simply would not have asked Mr. Darcy to dance, as they show in the film.  Although Austin clearly loved to poke fun at the clergy, none of her ridiculous pastors would ever commit a sermon malapropism involving the word “intercourse”.   No Austin hero would ever say, no matter how appropriate the occasion, “First, I have been a complete and utter ass.”

If the film had been more fun, more generally entertaining, I could have forgiven these lapses.  If they had been well done, I might not even have noticed them.  But I did notice and I confess they made me cranky.  But I also accept that Joe Wright didn’t make this film for the Janeites of the world.  He made it for the tweens and the grandma bridge clubs.  He made an attractive, reasonably interesting romantic comedy/drama that happens to have similarities to a classic novel.  In this he succeeded, and I suppose only a churl would deny him that.