Movie Missives

I'm sitting in the Brooklyn office of the American Red Cross. I'm on my shift as a Disaster Action Responder, which means that me and my teammembers go to any type of disaster that may happen in NYC. House fires, vacated buildings, water main breaks, anything. 

I've been doing this for about 4 months now, and though we've responded to some fires, there hasn't really been a big disaster for us to respond to. Even the people who's houses have burned down haven't needed any assistance from us in all but one of the fires we've been to. I'm not saying it's boring, but . . . sometimes it is. Sitting in the office, using the computer or talking to the other volunteers on my shift. I give up every one of my Friday nights to do this, and it would be nice to actually get to help someone. 

I look at it like giving presents, it's the thought that counts. Right?

Generally the places that we go to weren't very nice before they burned down, and afterwards their just shitholes. Housing project apartments, or really bad work done on dividing single family homes up into apartments. Almost every fire was an electrical one, except one where it was pretty obvious that the owner of the house set it on fire to get some insurance money. Ended up with seven houses on that block burning because they all shared the same cocklofts. 

It's very odd to spend time, waiting, hoping for someone to have something terrible to happen to them just so we have something to do.

As of July 30, 2007 I have a niece. This excites me to no end, though the (horrifying for many reasons) prospect of possibly being responsible for something so tiny, helpless, and beautiful kind of scares me.

She's barely two feet long, red and bruised all over, yet somehow she she manages to be unbareably adorable. She's not old enough to smile, but when she farts there is this amazing look of satisfaction and pleasure that spreads across her tiny face.

Last night I was watching American Eats on the History Channel, and it was about pizza. Funny enough, we were having pizza for dinner too! Anyway, as I watched this show about the history of pizza in America it made me think that there were similarities between the evolution and growth of pizza, and the evolution and growth of movies in America. I know that this sounds pretty far-fetched, and it sure is, but I feel like writing about it anyway. So there!

Anyway, according at least to the show, pizza started in Italy under the rule of Queen Margherita. It was brought to America by the first great wave of Italian immigrants at the cusp of the 19th and 20th centuries. It was a great invention by an obscure European. It's pretty fair to say that not a lot of Americans were familiar with the Lumiere brothers either, so pizza and the movie camera share that distinction.

The first successfull pizza shop opened in NYC in 1905. It wasn't until 1912 that the first really successfull movie was made, so pizza was ahead of the pack at this time. However, both movies and pizza were known about only by people in the know at the time. Neither had yet become the international phenomenon that they are today.

As the years went on the center of American movie making moved to LA, while the center of American pizza making stayed in NYC. It wasn't until after WWII that pizza started on it's way to becoming a national food. But, beginning sometime in the 1950s/1960s pizza was to become as popular as it is today. This is also almost true for American movies. It wasn't until the boom time of 50s that blockbusters began to take shape in the American movie landscape.

Today, pizza is seen around the world as a quintessentially American food. And the Umpteen Million dollar blockbuster is seen as the quintessential American movie.

Alright, that's enough of this silliness.

Why would you throw a ball out of the strike zone to a pitcher?

Action movies are pretty routine nowadays. Shoot people, blow shit up, etc, etc. Not even the plots are all the different from each other, sometimes the only thing left to do is keep track of them by who the actor is. Well, I finally saw something different. District B13 is pretty much unlike any action movie I've scene recently. Not that it's totally original and groundbreaking, but in this day and age it's good enough. It has extraordinary fight and chase sequences, it has decent acting, a decent plot, and decent writing. A lot of the stuff that I'd read and heard about it was that it was a lot of fun to watch, but not much in the way of being interesting. People and reviewers praised it as being revolutionary from a stunt point of view (which it was), but lacking in pretty much everything else. I disagree, what I saw was a movie by a pretty good writer (Luc Besson) who had something to say about society.

District  B13 is set 4 whole years in the future in Paris (France, not Texas). The government has built a wall around the worst ghettos in the city leaving them to the tender care of entropy. The district, B13 of course, has no schools, hospitals, or police stations, and the people live in squallor.  We are introduced to the main character, Leito, through a complicated chase sequence that ends to him losing his sister and murdering a cop. A handy "6 mois plus tard" (six months later) title card later and we are right in the middle of the story. Now we meet Damien, the other main character, a very athletic cop. He's an undercover cop who is asked to defuse a bomb that sits in B13. He breaks Leito out of prison for a guide, and they go after the bomb.

Unfortunately, the very first sequence of the movie is by far the best. Leito (David Belle) is chased all around the ghetto by thugs lead by a man named K2 (Tony D'Amario). The bad guys have no chance of catching Leito since Belle is the creator of parkour. Parkour is sort of a combination of jumping around like a monkey and skateboarding. A lot of the videos I've seen of it look like the Tony Hawk video games without skateboards. Anyway, the characters in District B13 are all experts at parkour, and use it to chase and fight. Watching the chase scenes it is obvious that the bad guys have no chance of catching Leito, and it didn't surprise me at all the learn that Belle was a founder of the sport. What's really amazing is the realization that most of the actors are doing it without wires or CGI. They are simply very skilled athletes and stuntmen.

The movie is really good. The story is just compelling enough for the 85 minute run time. That's the perfect amount of time for an action to movie to run. Though the story is good, it is an action movie and that's what really counts here. Good thing that the action is really cool. Running and jumping morph into punching and kicking. The trend of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon slowed down wire fighting is bucked here. The fighting is frenetic, fun, and faster than anything seen in a Matrix movie.

Like I said the movie's story is compelling. And the overall themes are current and socially interesting. I would be surprised if Besson had started writing this movie before the recent riots in France. And if he did, I'm sure that those events altered his script. There is even a line with a reference to burning cars. I'm sure that many governments wish they could build a wall around their ghettos (or neighbors, ahem USA), and in this movie we are given a glimpse of the kind of goverment that is willing to take that step. But, what is the next step? It's certainly one thing to confine Jews to ghettos and another to exterminate them entirely.  At the end of  District B13 Besson shows us what lengths he thinks a government is willing to go to.

Obviously there are a few movies that helped to define the genre of space-action movie in the public’s mind. Primarily, Star Trek and Star Wars. I am not even going to write about the Star Trek movies, since they are so bad. The only of them that comes close to being a good movie is Wrath of Kahn, and that is only because of Ricardo Montabaln's brilliantly over-acted villain.

Instead, I’m going to return to the Alien franchise. There are three other movies in this franchise, and only one of them is any good. When James Cameron made his sequel to Alien, he did not make a horror movie. He made a very good action movie about some Marines versus a bunch of almost invincible aliens. Action movies are not horror movies, though sometimes bad horror movies turn into action movies. The ending of Alien left a wide opening for a sequel along the same lines, but Cameron chose to take it in another direction. Aliens is a a classic space action movie. It pits tough humans against an even tougher monster. While also using the barren wasteland of a distant planet as another sort of enemy. In this movie the people do have a place to fall back on. Unlike the space truckers of the first movie, the soldiers of this one are part of a large military that is backing them up. Or should be. Another horrific aspect of the movie is that the soldiers are betrayed. They are forced to stay and fight the aliens because the human army wants to use the monsters as weapons.

James Cameron's movies have been an interesting adventure in quality over the last years, but Aliens is an excellent film. He excels here at combining the things that made the original movie scary with well done battle sequences. There are a few more chacters to care about in the second movie, including a little girl who sometimes seems to have a connection with the beasts. The men on the planet are battling an entire colony of the monsters, totally outnumbered and overwhelmed. Of course, this being a Hollywood action movie, the humans eventually prevail.

Then we have Star Wars movies. George Lucas batted .500 on the six movies in this franchise. (Perhaps I shouldn't watch baseball highlights while writing)  The first 3 (or second 3, depending on how old you are) are the very epitome of space-action-popcorn-fluff movies. The story is a reinterpretation of classic myths that have been told for thousands of years. Lucas has said that the works of Joseph Campbell were a huge influence on his story. These works of Campbell's talk about "monomyth", stories that are almost universal to people across the world. Many of these myths involve what Campbell called a hero's journey. Luke lost his home and went off in search of something greater than himself. Along the way discovering his destiny, and finally fulfilling it.

There are knights, and magic, an Emperor, Rebels, and smugglers. Everything that the middle ages (or middle earth) would provide as a setting for a movie. What Lucas did was imagine a limitless world in which his characters could travel. He took away horses and castles, substituting battle planets and x-wings. "The force" has replaced "magic" and lightsabers have replaced swords. It was his imagination that inspired generations fo kids to attempt a jedi mind trick, and that wondered what life would be like in a galaxy far far away a long time ago.

Star Wars: A New Hope entertained and inspired thousand of viewers. It may not be the best movie in the world, but it is a great action movie. The characters are pretty one dimensional, but millions around the world have loved them for almost 30 years. The good guys are good, and the bad guys are bad. One of the lasting impressions of Star Wars is that it's bad guys are very very bad. The Emperor and Vader are unrepentant evil bent on total domination. The good guys are willing to do whatever it takes to prevent this, leading to a classic good versus evil confrontation. One that takes place in space with weapons and abilities not even imagined on our world.

The Star Wars movies made recently all continue these basic ideas. But they don't do it as well. They're all pretty crappy movies.

Alien by Ridley Scott (1979) is probably the most perfect movie ever made that takes place in space. It is an intense and terrifying horror story. Scott and writer Dan O'Bannon give us astronauts who are not. They are not scientists or soldiers. The space crate Nostromo is a commercial vehicle, and the people onboard are basically space-truckers. They bring on board one of the most horrible villains in movie history. The nameless Alien is a shark of sorts, it has no more interests than hunting and killing the humans on board. Scott hardly ever shows the monster in full, it haunts the ship without coming into the open often. This is all the more terrifying, as the less the audience can see of the monster the scarier our imagination makes it.

The fact that Alien takes place in space is the other terrifying aspect. The ship is alone out there, the vastness of space leaving them helpless against the onboard terror. In fact, the tagline of the movie was "In space, no one can hear you scream". For these weathered space travelers the ship is home. A safe haven from the murderous void outside the metal walls. They have no where else to go; there is no hope outside of the ship. When the monster invades the ship, it has taken their home away. There is no safety, and the humans are forced to fight a monster that is almost impossible to defeat. One by one they are hunted down and killed. Scott's skilled directing brings the audience on board the ship, and we, like the characters, are not prepared for what is on board with us. The comfort of a theater seat or couch cannot protect us from the claustrophobic terror of the movie. Tight shots and a cramped set emphasize the trapped vulnerability of the people on the space ship. Scott also added a human heartbeat to the background sound of the film. Sometimes it is unnoticeable, and sometimes it thumps just enough to be terrifying. (Scott says that this idea was a late addition, and he simply put a mic to his chest during the foley sessions.)

On the flip side are the truly bad space horror movies. To me, this means Event Horizon. The first time I saw this movie it scared the pants off of me (in the interest of full disclosure I was under the influence of LSD).  Since then I have rented it a few times hoping it would be as good again. It never is. Event Horizon is basically a poor copy of Solaris, a psychological pseudo-thriller that has a generous amount of “Oh shit!” moments. Eventually the premise of Event Horizon, that the ship passed into an evil section of space, is silly and the “Oh shit!” moments become routine. The story is contrived, the dialogue bad, and the effects cheesy. The movie has some big name actors in it, but none of them can take it seriously enough to do anything more than phone it in.

People have been thinking about space forever. It has always been there, always present and always unreachable. It was many centuries before man first shrugged off gravity and burned air until there wasn't any more air to burn. We reached for the face of God and found that there was a lot of nothingness still between us and Him. It would be silly of me to try and summarize all the human attempts to understand the universe, but be assured that we've been contemplating it as long as it's been there. Just around 70 years before man actually went to space man made a movie about to going to space. Now, a little over 100 cinema years later people are still making movies about space, and our firsthand knowledge of space remains miniscule.

There are so many movies about space that they range from ridiculous camp to deep thought drama. The great majority of space movies are popcorn fluff, retellings of old (earth-bound) stories. Even including the "films" about space, most movies that take place there could conceivably take place on Earth. I was discussing this with the beautiful and smart Ms. Michael Dobbs, and she said something that I thought was very interesting. To paraphrase her poorly: space doesn't have any of it's own stories. All of the inhabited places on Earth have stories that are traditional to the people that populate them. In space (as far as we know) there are no people, and therefore no stories. Space itself is such a vast mystery that we cannot conceive of any sort of story-telling tradition out there. So, while space inspires the imagination, the most that anyone can do is transfer a story's setting to the practically limitless reaches of Outer Space.

Jules Verne has always been hailed as visionary writer. His novels contain ideas and inventions that would be solid science100 years later. In 1902 magician and filmmaker George Melies used a movie camera to interpret one of Verne's works: Journey to the Moon. (Less than 15 years earlier the movie camera itself was nothing more than science fiction.) Melies' work was the first of man's visual interpretations of the final frontier. With my admittedly limited education in art history I can't think of any painters who turned their brush on space. Melies' astronauts were shot to the Moon out of a cannon, landing in the Moon's eye. The Moon had breatheable air and was inhabited by bat-like people who were easily defeated with an emphatic umbrella swat. This was the first sci-fi movie, and it started a trend that sometimes reaches the beauty of the original.

Modern space movies cover all genres. Since space as a setting allows for anything the imagination can conjur these movies tend towards the extreme. Space comedies tend to over-the-top silly, while action movies lack any nuance. The space-dramas usually focus on the inherent loneliness that a person must feel when enveloped by such vast nothing. While most space horror movies center on the imagined monsters of space, the best of them manage to blend the dramatic feelings of emptiness with whatever terrors the mind can imagine.

I'm going to talk about a few movies, ones that span each of the major genres. These are not the best space movies, nor the worst. They are simply ones that I have watched a lot, and understand. They are movies that show more or less, the best and worst that space has brought to movies. I am not going to discuss real-to-life movies like The Right Stuff or Apollo 13.  These are not space movies. The movies I am talking about are the fantastical ones. The ones that do not limit themselves to the current state of human science or understanding

There will be more to come, this essay was getting very long so I decided to post it in sections.

Saw X-Men 3 this weekend. It was entertaining, but not nearly anywhere as good as the first two in the series. This one was an action movie, whereas the others were movies about the X-Men that happened to have some action sequences in them. Also, there is a palpable difference between seeing a movie on opening day or opening weekend and waiting a few weeks for the buzz to die down. Usually I don't like seeing a movie the week that it opens, but with eye-candy action movies it doesn't bother me as much. I'm a movie-shusher, ya know, I shush the people in the theater who chit chat through a movie. That's why I don't like opening weekend shows. But with movies like X3 it doesn't matter as much since the dialogue is not the crux of the story. 

Anyhow, back to the movie itself. It wasn't bad. It wasn't great. It was a satisfactory to ending to what had been a rather fantastic franchise. Starting all the way back in the 1960s X-Men has has both interesting and exciting storylines. Created during a time of severe social and political upheavel the X-Men are symbols for any and all minority groups in the U.S. In the 60's they showcased the racism and discrimination of the Civil Rights Era, and now they can be seen as representations of everyone from gays to Muslims. Bryan Singer's movies, and the scripts by Zak Penn managed to capture the essence of the comics. These movie X-Men are outcasts, and the mutants of the their world are protested against and hated as much as anyone in America.

A final note:  All three of the X movies have fantastic visual f/x, they are used to enhance the story, and obviously the story could not be told without them. Since this movie was bigger than the first two the f/x are bigger. However, there is not much that really looks fake. Especially the new powers of Dark Phoenix manifest themselves in very cool ways. The opposite of this is true in the preview for the movie of Ghost Rider, which looks cheesy and terrible. See the preview and you'll know what I mean. The final thing that I really loved about all of the X movies was the instances of truly inspired casting. Captain Picard as Xavier is obvious, and although I always thought that Glenn Danzig (of the Misfits) should have been Wolverine I am happy with Jackman's performance. In this third movie they added one more simply genius bit of casting. Vinnie Jones (Snatch) as Juggernaut. This has always been one of my favorite villians, and Jones was the perfect choice. Before he became an actor he was a rough and tumble football (soccer) player known for his dirty hits and kicks. Here he shines as the movie's strongman.

I've gotten a bit off-topic with my last couple of posts. Well, the next one will be about movies again. I just saw Kika by Pedro Alamodovar. When I can sort out in my head exactly what it was I watched then I'll write about it. It was good though.

Sigh. Bite my nails. Light a cigarette. Gross.

Is there anything worse than not having a job? Yes, looking for one.

Get up. Take a shower?

Find a reason to go outside. It's nice out.

Walk around the block. Sit on the steps. Go to Tea Lounge? Nah.

CNN makes me angry. How much Law and Order can I possibly watch?

I could "work" on my "screenplay" ... eh

I obsess about making sure that my I's are capitalized correctly. other words I don't care about.

Here is an Acrostic Poem based on one of my previous posts:

have quest and gets components nothing Hoboken.
matter few Hawk a he series further also 
he (Hudson's and this Hudson nothing hideous gaffes.
Now,
smoke a Hawk New Jersey across have Fuckin'
DVD Personally,
Hudson Hudson Hawk wants However,
look and H.H.
rehashing,
for anyone hasn't But,
and This someone (Hudson's H.H.'s Hawk Hawk's Hawk 
armies H.H.'s her service allows herself Hudson and 
this popcorn-fluff editing H.H.
have Hawk background.
at he behind car.
anyone hasn't But,
and This someone (Hudson's H.H.'s Hawk Hawk's Hawk 
armies H.H.'s her service allows herself Hudson and 
this popcorn-fluff editing H.H.
have Hawk background.

I think that computers emit writer-block causing rays. Something to look into.

I would take my computer to a coffee shop, but then I'd have to spend money on coffee.

Sometimes I get really annoyed by the sound of my watch ticking. That reminds me of The Tell-Tale Heart by EAP. What's the line? Be right back, going to go check.

"a low, dull, quick sound -- much such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton."

One of the great literary works in American writing, and it's only 4 pages long. Fucking bastard.

I could organize my itunes. Maybe I would feel like I accomplished something. I need more of The Who.

I go back and forth between liking and disliking The Doors.

Jazz is a four letter word.

I had had a long and well written post saved, which is no longer there! Argh! Oh well, I guess I will have to re-collect my thoughts on vampire movies and start all over again.

I love French stuff: fries, kissing, ticklers, and movies. It's very hard for me to think of a French movie that I've seen and didn't like. Granted some are better than others. I know that this may sound very film school-ish, but my favorite subspecies of movie is la nouvelle vague, or the new wave. There is something about the movies of this era that really touch me. I think its one of the last movements in filmmaking whose directors understood and made use of black and white photography. Something of a lost art these days. Starting in the late 1950s and continuing through the beginning of the 70s these films marked the onset of the independent film that saw its apex in the American cinema of the 1970s.  Even today's current crop of indie filmmakers is using the same rhetoric about their movies that these now revered French directors used about theirs. The new wave directors saw low-budgets and limited equipment as challenges to be overcome and opportunities to create a new kind of movie. The invention of the lightweight handholdable movie camera was akin to today's DV cameras, and allowed for more photographic phreedom. The directors were young, the actors were young, and their country was being rebuilt; what better time for a new kind of filmmaking!

Following the vertiable destruction of France during WWII filmmakers looked for new means of expression. As usually happens, when looking for something new, they turned to something old for inspiration. The directors of the new wave may be the only critics turned directors that are any good. The magazine Cahiers du Cinema was a literary springboard for men like Truffaut and Chabrol, and Andre Bazin's theories of filmmaking and the movies these directors knew led them to create these new styles of filmmaking. Bazin advocated for a more realistic style , such as documentaries or films where the director was able to guide with a lighter hand. He supported the use of cinematographic techniques like very long shots, and deep focus to more accurately represent the world as one's eye would see it. American directors such as Howard Hawks, John Ford, Nicholas Ray, and Douglas Sirk were also influences on the new wavers. These directors made movies in which the story was allowed to unfold on its own and the characters were caught up in it unwittingly or unwillingly. The new wave directors took this idea and started making what are now known as "character driven", "plotless", "European", or "artsy". The films usually have little to no exposition, the characters are the important thing, and the audience sees the movie as the people in it do. Personally, one of my favorite things about new wave movies is the use of voice over. Characters lie still in bed, or walk down empty streets and think. That's all. It breaks most of the rules that one learns about writing or making movies, and it can be brilliant.

The French have always been very avant-garde when it concerns American art forms. Especially movies and music. In the 1950s many of America's greatest jazz musicians found audiences in France before they did back home. This goes as well for some of America's unique film styles, especially film noir and Orson Welles (yes, I do consider Orson Welles a style unto his own). Long before Miles and Orson were hailed as geniuses here they were adored and studied in France. American film noir inspired many of the young French directors of the 1905s, leading to another subgenre known as "French crime movies". Directors such as Jean-Pierre Melville and Henri-George Clouzot made memorable movies that live on the cusp of noir and la nouvelle vague. Funnily enough, the circle comes full when a director like Quentin Tarantino credits Melville for influencing one of the greatest American movies of this generation, Reservoir Dogs.

I just got the new Criterion Collection DVD of Ascenseur pour l'echafaud or Elevator to the Gallows by Louis Malle. It's brilliant, one of the best movies I've ever seen. Gorgeous black and white cinematography, great acting, a very good story, and beautiful music come together to make this masterpiece. it is a convoluted love/crime story about two couples, but it is so much more. It is the story of what one would do for love, no matter the consequences.

Louis Malle's first feature. made at the age of 24, contains two of the most beautiful things ever committed to film. French actress Jeanne Moreau and a score composed by Miles Davis. Malle introduces us to Moreau with the voice of an angel, her voice, declaring it's eternal love. We see her first from longing eyes to quivering lip, soft focus making her skin glow. As she moves through the story, and Paris, the lights follow her, illuminating only her and whats around her. After all, with Jeanne Moreau on the screen, why would the audience want to look at anything else? As the stresses of the plot increase the sharpness of the lens' eye increases, bringing her into stark focus. The angst and depth of her character are exposed through poetic voiceovers and the beautiful angles and curves of her face and body. Though this isn't her first film, it is generally credited as the film that brought Jeanne Moreau stardom. She appeared in another classic of la nouvelle vague, Jules et Jim, and almost another 100 movies in the next 50 years.

Certainly there are other characters in this film, but none as interesting to watch or beautiful to look at as her. The only flaw in the movie may be that none of the other characters in the film are as good as she is. I'm not saying that the other actors aren't as good, just that none of the other characters interested me as much as she did.

Malle says he cornered Miles Davis at a nightclub and begged him to do the music for his movie. The wonderful thing is that Miles happened to be in Paris, and happened to agree to compose the score. The music was recorded in one sitting, with three French musicians that Davis had met the same day. Malle first briefly discussed the moods he wanted with Miles, and then screened the movie while the quintet improvised. There is no written music for the score of Elevator to the Gallows; however on this DVD there is some terrific footage of Miles watching and playing. It works to perfection. The music is haunting when Moreau wanders the Champs Elysees, and the music is aural longing as she searches for her love. In 1957 Miles was reinventing what people thought of as jazz. He was moving away from be-bop and towards what is known as "modal jazz," the soundtrack to the movie is considered the earliest recording of this new jazz, which found its culmination in Miles' masterpiece Kind of Blue.

Is Elevator to the Gallows a new wave film? Is it a film noir? Purists of either will most likely say no to both. Certainly Louis Malle would, but he was a man who denied and defied classification. His first film contains aspects of both genres, learning from the ealier noir films, and helping to create the new wave ones yet to come. It is a pioneering movie, Malle paved the way for men like Godard and Chabrol while travelling it right alongside them. He never made another movie like Elevator to the Gallows, but to me it is his best film.

Oh and Miles. Oh Miles. I could probably watch this movie with a blindfold and love it just as much. Except that I wouldn't get to see Jeanne Moreau.

P.S. There was one thing that I must mention. There are places where the subtitles are wrong. My French is good enough to know when words or idioms are mistranslated. The subtitles are rather literal translations, sometimes the English words cannot fully capture what the writer's meant. Subtle changes that make differences, for example "My feet are cold" where I'm sure the line was meant to mean "I have cold feet".

The worst example of this I have ever seen actually changes the entire meaning of a film. The last line of Godard's Breathless, uttered by the main character as he lays dying. We see Jean-Paul Belmondo dying, he says "C'est degutant" (This is disgusting). Followed by a shot of Jean Seberg (who actions led to his death). Every print I have seen has subtiitles that read "You are disgusting", followed immediatly by the closeup of Seberg. If one knows anything of Godard it is easy to realize that what is disgusting the life Belmondo's character has lead. Not that it was a life of crime, but that it is ending so soon. He is not angry at Seberg, he would not call her disgusting. He is disgusted, but it is by the existential absurdity of his death.

What is your favorite baseball movie? Why?

So I've applied for two jobs recently that are in the Paramount Building on 50th and B'Way. Since I didn't get either of them I have decided that there is some fickle television industry god who doens't want me working there. If anyone has a line on where I might find this god, please let me know and I'll send him the appropriate sacrifice.

For the last couple of Fridays I've worked what must be the best temp gig in the world. Working as a trailer checker for Miramax; this means going to different movie theaters and making sure they had the right trailers playing. I won't say how much it pays, but it's certainly more than one should get paid to watch movie trailers.

Lucky Me!

Have you ever seen Fishing With John? It's fantastic. Musician/actor/painter John Lurie of The Lounge Lizards and various indie movies stars in this docu-style fishing show. So far as I can tell one day John Lurie decided that he should go around the world fishing with his friends and making a television show out of it. The reason that this makes a good show is John Lurie's friends are Jim Jarmusch, Tom Waits, Willem Dafoe, Matt Dillon, and Dennis Hopper. They're all fun to watch as each of them is very bright and very strange.

As the star of the show John Lurie picks the fishing locations and pretends to instruct his friends and audience in the art of being a fisherman. What is most obvious is that John Lurie doesn't know a whole lot about fishing. This doesn't matter.  The fishing adventures go from Montauk shark fishing to  hunting for the elusive giant squid off the coast of Thailand. It doesn't matter if they catch anything or not, though mostly John Lurie and his companion do catch fish.  If you were wondering what do with a fish once you catch it, take this lesson from Tom Waits. Put the fish in your pants; however don't put 2 fish in your pants. They will fight for position and comfort.

There are 6 episodes of this 1991 cult hit. Luckily there is a Criterion DVD that has a cool Lounge Lizards music video. I bought it a few years ago and watch it all the time. By the way, another Tom Waits fishing tip. Use one of the finer cheeses, like Camombert of Blue, held on with a little piece of underwear.

The show is like good jazz or orchestral music. It plays like a calming story in the background. Sometimes when I'm relaxing there's nothing better than listening to John Lurie plead with Dennis Hopper not to call him Johnny. All of these episodes are brilliantly funny to watch and listen to. The guests are usually funny, even when they are cranky. In fact, Tom Waits may even be funnier when he's cranky. Speaking of Tom Waits, i'ts pretty cool to watch as he writes a song while canoing down a Jamaican river. Part of the reason that I like this is show is that it shows people who's work I enjoy outside of the realm that I'm used to seeing them in. Who knows what they are putting on for the camera, but who cares.

There's something very Zen about the show. Something about making a television show about something that you don't know how to do. The futility is what makes it an adventure, it's what makes for good television. The episodes of the show are like Zen koans on television. The fact of the journey comes the point of the journey and anything that may happen or not is just life.

Brick is a nice throwback to the bad ol' days of film noir. At least part of it is. It's also teen drama about the dangers of cliques and high school romance. The story is one that could easily have been an episode of Beverly Hills 90210 or even 21 Jump Street. Instead writer/director Rian Johnson has made a hard boiled detective story whose backdrop is a sunny Southern California suburban high school. While Sam Spade and Phillipe Marlowe were semi-alcoholic P.I.s the protaganist of Brick is a slightly geeky high school upperclassman. Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt of 3rd Rock From the Sun) still loves the girl who left him to join the popular group, and when Brendan thinks she is in trouble he does everything he can to help her out. He enlists the help of school genius (you know he's a genius because the first time you see him he is quickly solving a Rubik's Cube), beats up a stoner and goes, uninvited, to a popular-kid party where the kids wear silk dresses and togas, drink whiskey, play the piano and recite poetry. There was something about D.P. Steve Yedlin's photography of this party that made me think of the orgies from Eyes Wide Shut, even though there is no sex in this movie.

When Brendan finds his beloved ex dead, he becomes an underage Marlon Brando. Ploughing through the underworld of his school to find out what happend to her. He beats up a jock, has cryptic conversations with a drama student, falls for a femme fatale, and organizes a teenage gangster peace summit. Of course he does all of this without ever going to class or bothering to call his mother to say he'll be home late.

Brick does a good job of imitating classic 1940s film noirs, except for a few details that I'll get to later it is a very well made homage to the genre. The movie has all of the requisite characters for an underworld crime drama: the detective, the brainy assistant (called Brain, in this case), the dangerous and gorgeous women, the crime boss, and hotheaded thugs. The actors fit their roles very well, each of them accurately portraying the necessary qualities. There aren't any gray areas for the characters in this movie, they're all either good or bad. The only person explored even a little deeply is Brendan, and that's only because many of the other characters tell him about himself and what they think of him. For me the highlight of the film was Nora Zehetner, who played Laura this story's femme fatale. I had never seen her in anything before, but by the end of the movie it occured to me that she is a younger, prettier, and more talented version of Katie Holmes.

The were two details about the story that really interested me. First was the photography, Johnson subsitutes the crowded streets and back alleys of New York or Chicago for sunny and empty Southern California. The students in this movie occupy areas of the school like theater, football field, and parking lot like gangsters and their urban turf. Brendan travels between these areas, always an outsider, conniving and fighting for the information he needs. The geography of the film's high school is seemingly abstract, with walls, open spaces, and alleys all there because it fit the plot. Reminiscent of the Central Park meetings in Wall Street Brendan meets his informants at the fifty yard line of the high school football field when he needs discrection. Whatever town the school is in needs only a few streets so no more are shown, there is a tunnel of some sort, simply there because it was written into the script. The clouldess California sky fills the movie with a bright blue to sharply contrast the dirty whites and asphalt blacks of the high school. The only time we are inside the school is the Assistant Vice Principal's office (an always cool Richard "Shaft" Roundtree) where Brendan is treated like a rogue detective ignoring his normal work load.

This is after all the suburbs, so when we do see the inside a home it is filled with knickknacks and brown furniture. The gag the town drug dealer lives with his mom is only kind of funny when you realize that most drug dealers do live with their moms. However, Mom serving corn flakes and apple juice at a criminal sit down is pretty funny.

There was one thing that really prevented me from getting fully into the movie and its story. There was something too inherently silly to me about hearing the Hammett/Chandler/Thompson-speak coming out of the mouths of relative babes. Listening to these kids referring to "gats", "bulls", and "making a play", I couldn't help but picture a kindergarten class putting on a version of  The Sting. There is something so stylized about this language that I find it even somewhat odd when I hear it in a color film. It seems sometime that only men in grey coats standing in black alleys should talk like that. It's not that I didn't like the writing, I actually thought it was very good. In fact there was one reoccuring dialogue theme that I really enjoyed. In an interesting mishmash of high school and film noir Brendan kept telling to find him "where I eat lunch." And when he wanted to know who someone was hanging around with he simply asked "Who was she eating lunch with?" i found this quite smart considering the importance of what table one sits at during lunch. At least it does in movies about high school.

According to IMDB this is the first movie that Johnson has directed since film school. I think that he did a very good job, writing an interesting story and finding a good visual way of telling it. He is a talented director who appears able to coax very good performances even when the actors have only one dimension to play with. The movie has some very funny, very tender, and very smart moments and all around I really enjoyed it.

    The Aardamn animators have always excelled at giving personalities to animals. Beginning with Creature Comforts and the debut of Wallace and Gromit in A Grand Day Out in 1989 Aardman Animation and Nick Park have given animals starring roles in fantastic films. Creature Comforts gave us a very human and in depth look at life in a zoo, allowing the animals to let the people know what they’re thinking. All of the shorts with Wallace and Gromit won the Oscar for Best Animated Short, and they were well deserved. Hell, each of those years I’m sure that the Wallace and Gromit movie was worthy of Best Picture.

    Wallace and Gromit and The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is the funniest movie I’ve seen in a long time. I judge most comedy on how many times I laugh out loud during the movie, and I sustained at least a delighted giggle throughout W&G&TCW. The timing of the plasticene actors is impeccable and the sight gags unpredictable and hilarious. Park’s animated stars have mastered the art of film acting. Especially Gromit, who can display a thousand emotions with a wiggle of his non-existent eyebrows. Without either a mouth nor hands Gromit can navigate the world of small town England. He is an intrepid doggie, and if I were ever trapped in a well I’d take Gromit over Lassie or Rin-Tin-Tin any day of the week. The human side of this duo is Wallace the intrepid inventor. He is an inventor of genius level who takes the ideas of Rube Goldberg to the extreme. Not only are Wallace and Gromit delivered to their garage via chute (while getting dressed by robots along the way), but their paths cross twice. My only issue with Wallace is that he expects Gromit to have tea and breakfast ready every morning; which of course Gromit does with the appropriate obedience and annoyance.

 Wallace is a cheesehead worthy of Wisconsin, but its making him fat. There is the plot’s inciting incident. Using inventiveness to try conquering his cheese induced chubbiness Wallace stumbles upon the curse of the dread Were-Rabbit. If you haven’t heard of the Were-Rabbit then make sure to look in The Observer’s Book of Monster by Claude Savage, which has a great illustration. (Sadly, this book only exists within the very odd mind of Nick Park.) When this horrible (yet, very cuddly) creature is terrorizing the town Wallace and Gromit must stop it. Gromit uses his usual combination of wits, guile, and humanity (doggity or canine-anity?) to save the day.

This is a wonderful movie. Even watching it “formatted for [my] television” I delighted in the world these characters live in and the adventures they have. I know that some of the names included in the credits are Ralph Fiennes and Helena Bonham Carter, but it didn’t even matter. I was so caught up in the story that I forgot that these are animated folk. All of the major characters are emotive beyond the plasticness of their bodies. There is no grey area in this story between good and bad. The audience knows very well who is on which side in this story, but that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t take away from one’s enjoyment of this movie, viewers of any age will find something to make them guffaw.

Why the fuck is someone remaking The Omen?? I think it's because some movie studio exec figured out that they could release it on June 6th, so it would come out on 6.6.6! Well, La Di Fucking Da! Who cares? This was one of the greatest psychological horror movies of all time, and its one of the few horror movie franchises where the movies don't get terrible as the sequels progress. John Moore, who directed that brilliant masterpiece Flight of the Phoenix has taken it upon himself to rework this classic. After watching the preview on Quicktime.com I realized that Moore doesn't even have an original take on the film. The characters, sequences, and dialogue are basically the same as Richard Donner's original.

i'm all for remakes if it seems that new version has something different to say about the story than the original. But it doesn't seem as if this one does. Liev Schrieber may be a good actor, but he is certainly no Gregory Peck. And I'm certain that Julia Stiles (who I've liked sometimes) cannot match the emotional intensity that Lee Remick brought the role of Damien's mother.

Oh well. The worst part of it is that there will be a generation of movie-goers who will think that 2006's version is The The Omen. And as there have been less and less truly great and scary horror films being made, this is really sad.

6.6.6. Is a date really a reason to make a movie?