I have never used crack cocaine. I have never used methamphetamines. I have never used heroin.
But I do watch “24.”
As with a drug addict, it’s something that a sensible person might not admit in polite company – to those who he hopes will think highly of him.
As with a drug addict, I know 24 is bad for me. It’s painful while experiencing it and the resulting guilt is nauseating. But it’s an addiction. I can go off it here and there, if necessary. I can even rationalize that it would be better to not watch it altogether, lest its seductive wiles work their charm on me yet again.
But I am an addict. I am weak. I’m watching.
This show is awful, ridiculous, even disgusting in the way that appeals to the most violent and ugly of human emotions. It’s sometimes badly written, the plots are convoluted, and ever since season one the ridiculousness factor has increased exponentially.
As art, it's awful. As politics, it's awful. As suspense, it's awful.
But. I. Can’t. Stop. Watching.
Which I guess means it's fucking great TV.
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Whither the hand job?
Sadly, that brilliant turn of phrase is not mine. It comes from this article, supposedly a book review but really more a mediatation on today's adolescent girls. This is the kind of thing that makes me want to be a writer.
(I agree with her, too.)
(I agree with her, too.)
Monday, January 16, 2006
What I thought of Brokeback Mountain
** As always, spoilers abound. You’ve been warned. **
To be fair, I really liked Brokeback Mountain. It’s just beautifully directed – which you would expect, because it’s Ang Lee. But no matter how many times they were all nominated, I certainly wasn’t prepared for how good all four lead actors would be. Really, who could have imagined that the guy from A Knight’s Tale and the guy from Donnie Darko would be so good as gay cowboys? Even more, who would have thought a girl from Dawson’s Creek and the girl from the Princess Diaries would be so good as the long-suffering wives of gay cowboys?
But it’s not a perfect movie. It’s slow in places, sometimes with great effect but other times it seems needless. The score is OK at first – spare and quiet, but so repetitive that it soon became noticeable to me (rarely a good sign).
The story itself is a bit of a melodrama, though I suppose that’s typical of love stories. But, curiously, whereas the melodrama of the short story worked, it didn’t work for me in the movie.
The story is fatalistic: From the very first moment Enis tells Jack that he worries about being found out you know at least one of them will die. As in the movie, the literary Jack Twist has ideas and dreams of how they could be together, but (perhaps because the story is told from Enis’ point of view) these never seem logical. As the reader you know the story isn’t going to work out that way.
But, even though I knew how the movie would end, I still found myself rejecting its fatalism. We see Jack in Texas, we know he is aware of the wider world in a way that Enis is not. At one point I started to wonder: Why doesn’t Jack just move to San Francisco? Of course, art – tragedy especially – is all about the choices people could have made but didn’t. Maybe that hint that it could have turned out differently makes the movie better. But not for me.
I try very hard to not let the experience of a movie be too biased by having read the source material beforehand, but Brokeback Mountain was a very different experience indeed. It’s probably the only movie I’ve ever seen with more plot than was in the original story. Given how short the story was based on, this was inevitable. The screenwriters did a good job with both the adaptation and the addition – but because movies are a visual medium and visual obscenity is more shocking than written obscenity and because this obscenity is homosexual and so even more risqué than plain old hetero sex – I felt the movie lacked shock value.
A lot of that is just me, of course. I’m not really shocked by the notion of gayness. Two men kissing isn’t something that turns my head any more than a man and a woman. And while I probably have a more open attitude about that then most of the movie’s audience, I’m still not really sure there was anything in the movie that was shocking to those who went to see it. Everyone walks in knowing they’re going to see “the gay cowboy movie.” Surely no one expects their relationship is only revealed through meaningful glances.
When I originally read it, the story was shocking to me. Here I had read all the way through this wonderful collection of short stories and I came to the last one in which these two cowboys are herding sheep on a mountain one summer. Nothing that came before suggests what the story is going to be about. You figure: sheep are going or a big storm is going to hit. Something. But frankly I would have been less surprised if one of them fucked a sheep than I was when – very suddenly, the whole thing goes from almost wholly platonic to full-on butt-fucking in a just a couple short paragraphs – they started having sex with each other. The story exploits pre-conceptions to shocking effect. I’ve read a lot of stories about men discovering themselves to be gay. I’ve read a lot of stories about cowboys. Reading it later I realized there are hints, little homo-erotic glances and yearning looks – but even that wouldn’t have prepared me for the gusto with which they jump into the sleeping bag.
Much as I remember that, what has always made Brokeback Mountain stick in my mind more than any other Proulx short story is the way it managed to be graphic without actually being graphic. The sex scenes, such as they are, in the story are probably the best I’ve read anywhere in the way they communicate everything important occurring without becoming porn and without being shy. But save for a handful of kisses and their first night as lovers, the sexual component of what Jack and Enis are up to seemed mostly removed from the movie. Which is understandable, I guess, but to me it compromises that good that the film is otherwise doing.
If this were a story of star-crossed heterosexual lovers it would be better than average for a love story, but not award-worthy, not a movie that people talk about even if they haven’t seen it. The whole point of Brokeback Mountain is its gayness. That’s fine to me, most good movies find a hook to turn on: Syriana is about the politics of oil, Munich is about revenge, Capote is about the inner battle of an artist. But it felt like cheating somehow to only tacitly acknowledge why Jack and Enis keep meeting up in the mountains. As Jack says late in the movie, “A few fucks a year” aren’t enough for him; this could almost be surprising because for nearly an hour we haven’t seen the two do much in each other’s company besides hug and drink whiskey and argue.
You have to admire a movie that asks its audience to confront homosexuality as its central issue (most gay movies are about something else – Philadelphia was more about AIDS, RENT is more about, well, AIDS, and Capote was more about being a writer). It’s just a shame that, good as the movie was, it seemed to lack the conviction of its subject.
It's not just that toward the end it stopped being much of a gay movie. It stopped being much of a romance. This is partly why it started to seem pointlessly long at the end. Jack comes and he and Enis fight. Jack comes but Enis has his kids. Jack comes and he and Enis fight. Yawn. Where's the passion? Where's the sex, the kissing, hell any reminder that these men love each other? It just seemed to vanish in the second half of the movie. It would have been a problem in any romance movie; it's especially one for the gay cowboy movie. The finale is powerful and redeems it. But that doesn't forgive the problems that came earlier. Why add so much extra story for Enis but leave Jack's character so murky? Why the waitress character? Why do "films" anymore seem to need to clock in at over (often well over) two hours, when they'd be better in every way if they were shorter?
To be fair, I really liked Brokeback Mountain. It’s just beautifully directed – which you would expect, because it’s Ang Lee. But no matter how many times they were all nominated, I certainly wasn’t prepared for how good all four lead actors would be. Really, who could have imagined that the guy from A Knight’s Tale and the guy from Donnie Darko would be so good as gay cowboys? Even more, who would have thought a girl from Dawson’s Creek and the girl from the Princess Diaries would be so good as the long-suffering wives of gay cowboys?
But it’s not a perfect movie. It’s slow in places, sometimes with great effect but other times it seems needless. The score is OK at first – spare and quiet, but so repetitive that it soon became noticeable to me (rarely a good sign).
The story itself is a bit of a melodrama, though I suppose that’s typical of love stories. But, curiously, whereas the melodrama of the short story worked, it didn’t work for me in the movie.
The story is fatalistic: From the very first moment Enis tells Jack that he worries about being found out you know at least one of them will die. As in the movie, the literary Jack Twist has ideas and dreams of how they could be together, but (perhaps because the story is told from Enis’ point of view) these never seem logical. As the reader you know the story isn’t going to work out that way.
But, even though I knew how the movie would end, I still found myself rejecting its fatalism. We see Jack in Texas, we know he is aware of the wider world in a way that Enis is not. At one point I started to wonder: Why doesn’t Jack just move to San Francisco? Of course, art – tragedy especially – is all about the choices people could have made but didn’t. Maybe that hint that it could have turned out differently makes the movie better. But not for me.
I try very hard to not let the experience of a movie be too biased by having read the source material beforehand, but Brokeback Mountain was a very different experience indeed. It’s probably the only movie I’ve ever seen with more plot than was in the original story. Given how short the story was based on, this was inevitable. The screenwriters did a good job with both the adaptation and the addition – but because movies are a visual medium and visual obscenity is more shocking than written obscenity and because this obscenity is homosexual and so even more risqué than plain old hetero sex – I felt the movie lacked shock value.
A lot of that is just me, of course. I’m not really shocked by the notion of gayness. Two men kissing isn’t something that turns my head any more than a man and a woman. And while I probably have a more open attitude about that then most of the movie’s audience, I’m still not really sure there was anything in the movie that was shocking to those who went to see it. Everyone walks in knowing they’re going to see “the gay cowboy movie.” Surely no one expects their relationship is only revealed through meaningful glances.
When I originally read it, the story was shocking to me. Here I had read all the way through this wonderful collection of short stories and I came to the last one in which these two cowboys are herding sheep on a mountain one summer. Nothing that came before suggests what the story is going to be about. You figure: sheep are going or a big storm is going to hit. Something. But frankly I would have been less surprised if one of them fucked a sheep than I was when – very suddenly, the whole thing goes from almost wholly platonic to full-on butt-fucking in a just a couple short paragraphs – they started having sex with each other. The story exploits pre-conceptions to shocking effect. I’ve read a lot of stories about men discovering themselves to be gay. I’ve read a lot of stories about cowboys. Reading it later I realized there are hints, little homo-erotic glances and yearning looks – but even that wouldn’t have prepared me for the gusto with which they jump into the sleeping bag.
Much as I remember that, what has always made Brokeback Mountain stick in my mind more than any other Proulx short story is the way it managed to be graphic without actually being graphic. The sex scenes, such as they are, in the story are probably the best I’ve read anywhere in the way they communicate everything important occurring without becoming porn and without being shy. But save for a handful of kisses and their first night as lovers, the sexual component of what Jack and Enis are up to seemed mostly removed from the movie. Which is understandable, I guess, but to me it compromises that good that the film is otherwise doing.
If this were a story of star-crossed heterosexual lovers it would be better than average for a love story, but not award-worthy, not a movie that people talk about even if they haven’t seen it. The whole point of Brokeback Mountain is its gayness. That’s fine to me, most good movies find a hook to turn on: Syriana is about the politics of oil, Munich is about revenge, Capote is about the inner battle of an artist. But it felt like cheating somehow to only tacitly acknowledge why Jack and Enis keep meeting up in the mountains. As Jack says late in the movie, “A few fucks a year” aren’t enough for him; this could almost be surprising because for nearly an hour we haven’t seen the two do much in each other’s company besides hug and drink whiskey and argue.
You have to admire a movie that asks its audience to confront homosexuality as its central issue (most gay movies are about something else – Philadelphia was more about AIDS, RENT is more about, well, AIDS, and Capote was more about being a writer). It’s just a shame that, good as the movie was, it seemed to lack the conviction of its subject.
It's not just that toward the end it stopped being much of a gay movie. It stopped being much of a romance. This is partly why it started to seem pointlessly long at the end. Jack comes and he and Enis fight. Jack comes but Enis has his kids. Jack comes and he and Enis fight. Yawn. Where's the passion? Where's the sex, the kissing, hell any reminder that these men love each other? It just seemed to vanish in the second half of the movie. It would have been a problem in any romance movie; it's especially one for the gay cowboy movie. The finale is powerful and redeems it. But that doesn't forgive the problems that came earlier. Why add so much extra story for Enis but leave Jack's character so murky? Why the waitress character? Why do "films" anymore seem to need to clock in at over (often well over) two hours, when they'd be better in every way if they were shorter?
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Schadenfreude
Schadenfreude (someone cue up the Avenue Q soundtrack!) is certainly not the most pure of human emotions, but that doesn’t make it any less sweet. Don’t we all sometimes love to see bad things happen to other people? The highlight of last year’s Orange Bowl wasn’t USC beating the hell out of Oklahoma (though I loved that), it was Ashley Simpson getting booed at halftime. I know I’m not only speaking for myself here.
So it has been with a tiny bit of glee that I’ve observed this week’s “outing” of all the BS in Oprah’s current book club selection, “A Million Little Pieces,” by James Frey. (In short: Frey’s book is a supposed memoir of his adolescent life as a drug addict and criminal. Except that it’s now clear that Frey was at most a petty criminal and basically completely oversells his hardcore cred in the book.)
I read the book several years ago and didn’t much like it then, not because I had any sense of the non-truths in it, but mostly because I didn’t think Frey was a very good writer. Moreover, I had not too much earlier read a much better memoir, largely but not wholly about addiction and recovery, called “The Black Veil” by Rick Moody.
But most of all, Frey’s book was self-aggrandizing and – worse – hypocritical. Consider the section of the book when Frey is at a rehab clinic and a former patient of the clinic – an unidentified but well-known rock star – comes to talk to the current patients. The rock star claims to have consumed pounds of drugs on a daily basis – enough, it seemed to me, to kill a football team let alone a skinny punk. But that was the point – the rock star was over-embellishing his story to the point of ridiculousness. Frey lashed out against the rock star and writes of a fantasy in which he beats up the rock star for spewing such obvious and over-inflated BS. Which is pretty fucking ironic, no?
Personally, I have no moral qualm with some bits of fiction creeping into memoir. Any history is written from a point of view. But then again, Frey’s argument that he’s simply telling his own story as he remembers it is just laughable. Then he went on Larry King and offered up a defense along the lines of Clinton’s “it depends on what you think the definition of ‘is’ is.”
But what really annoys me are those who are sticking by him, especially Oprah. I understand she’s no desire to be made to look like a chump, but she’s turned on authors she’s picked before, and for less – just ask Jonathan Franzen. When Frey appeared on Larry King, Oprah called in and defended the author. Her feeling was that, no matter the facts of the story, the ‘inspirational value’ of reading the book is nonetheless the same. And I’m sorry but that’s just crap.
I didn’t find much of inspirational value in “A Million Little Pieces” to begin with; remember that in the book he proclaimed contempt for the rock star who over-inflated his story. That detail has stuck with me ever since because it didn’t mesh with an author who seemed all too-eager to “brag” about his own bad boy exploits before getting clean. And that was before I knew he’d made the “bad boy” shit up, for the most part. (In retrospect, that Frey’s story has a lot of fiction in it shouldn’t surprise anyone – he tried to sell the book as a novel before one publisher finally suggested he try calling it a memoir instead.)
As I recall, the inspirational message Frey tried to impart with his book was essentially that addicts aren’t victims – they only have themselves to blame and in the end only they can save themselves. I’ve got no quarrel with that message personally, I’m a big believer that we make our own destinies. I just never liked how Frey made his argument. (His crappy writing was another issue, but let’s not get into that.)
So what do we make of someone who has now all but admitted that the hole he had to pull himself out of wasn’t nearly as dark or deep as he previously claimed? Addiction of any type is hard to beat and there’s probably value in Frey’s actual life story. So what made him embellish?
My theory is that, never mind his rhetoric, Frey is ashamed of his actions. If I recall correctly, he was not raised in poverty, or beaten by his parents, or abused, or any of those typical social ills that we might expect would lead someone to a life of drugs and crime. This would explain his insistence that addicts have no one to blame but themselves. Without a suitably adequate reason for getting into drugs in the first place, he compensated by making his addiction and recovery all the more remarkable. The end result was that – to me at least, though not apparently to Oprah – the whole thing just rang false.
Maybe some people actually responded to that air of unbelievablity, and it increased their depth of response. I’ve read a lot of non fiction that has affected me that way – the more unusual and stunning something is, the more your remember it. But there’s a line between the unbelievably true and that which smacks of fiction – or, as in this case, trying too hard. Frey crossed the line. It was one thing for me to have that visceral reaction and not like the book when I read it two years ago – then I could still respect those who were moved by the story. Now I don’t.
Fiction has it’s place. It is often moving and wonderful. As I’ve written before, I believe strongly in the powers of fiction. But good fiction is not deliberately manipulative. And it is labeled as fiction. A Million Little Pieces broke both rules. So let the public shaming continue.
So it has been with a tiny bit of glee that I’ve observed this week’s “outing” of all the BS in Oprah’s current book club selection, “A Million Little Pieces,” by James Frey. (In short: Frey’s book is a supposed memoir of his adolescent life as a drug addict and criminal. Except that it’s now clear that Frey was at most a petty criminal and basically completely oversells his hardcore cred in the book.)
I read the book several years ago and didn’t much like it then, not because I had any sense of the non-truths in it, but mostly because I didn’t think Frey was a very good writer. Moreover, I had not too much earlier read a much better memoir, largely but not wholly about addiction and recovery, called “The Black Veil” by Rick Moody.
But most of all, Frey’s book was self-aggrandizing and – worse – hypocritical. Consider the section of the book when Frey is at a rehab clinic and a former patient of the clinic – an unidentified but well-known rock star – comes to talk to the current patients. The rock star claims to have consumed pounds of drugs on a daily basis – enough, it seemed to me, to kill a football team let alone a skinny punk. But that was the point – the rock star was over-embellishing his story to the point of ridiculousness. Frey lashed out against the rock star and writes of a fantasy in which he beats up the rock star for spewing such obvious and over-inflated BS. Which is pretty fucking ironic, no?
Personally, I have no moral qualm with some bits of fiction creeping into memoir. Any history is written from a point of view. But then again, Frey’s argument that he’s simply telling his own story as he remembers it is just laughable. Then he went on Larry King and offered up a defense along the lines of Clinton’s “it depends on what you think the definition of ‘is’ is.”
But what really annoys me are those who are sticking by him, especially Oprah. I understand she’s no desire to be made to look like a chump, but she’s turned on authors she’s picked before, and for less – just ask Jonathan Franzen. When Frey appeared on Larry King, Oprah called in and defended the author. Her feeling was that, no matter the facts of the story, the ‘inspirational value’ of reading the book is nonetheless the same. And I’m sorry but that’s just crap.
I didn’t find much of inspirational value in “A Million Little Pieces” to begin with; remember that in the book he proclaimed contempt for the rock star who over-inflated his story. That detail has stuck with me ever since because it didn’t mesh with an author who seemed all too-eager to “brag” about his own bad boy exploits before getting clean. And that was before I knew he’d made the “bad boy” shit up, for the most part. (In retrospect, that Frey’s story has a lot of fiction in it shouldn’t surprise anyone – he tried to sell the book as a novel before one publisher finally suggested he try calling it a memoir instead.)
As I recall, the inspirational message Frey tried to impart with his book was essentially that addicts aren’t victims – they only have themselves to blame and in the end only they can save themselves. I’ve got no quarrel with that message personally, I’m a big believer that we make our own destinies. I just never liked how Frey made his argument. (His crappy writing was another issue, but let’s not get into that.)
So what do we make of someone who has now all but admitted that the hole he had to pull himself out of wasn’t nearly as dark or deep as he previously claimed? Addiction of any type is hard to beat and there’s probably value in Frey’s actual life story. So what made him embellish?
My theory is that, never mind his rhetoric, Frey is ashamed of his actions. If I recall correctly, he was not raised in poverty, or beaten by his parents, or abused, or any of those typical social ills that we might expect would lead someone to a life of drugs and crime. This would explain his insistence that addicts have no one to blame but themselves. Without a suitably adequate reason for getting into drugs in the first place, he compensated by making his addiction and recovery all the more remarkable. The end result was that – to me at least, though not apparently to Oprah – the whole thing just rang false.
Maybe some people actually responded to that air of unbelievablity, and it increased their depth of response. I’ve read a lot of non fiction that has affected me that way – the more unusual and stunning something is, the more your remember it. But there’s a line between the unbelievably true and that which smacks of fiction – or, as in this case, trying too hard. Frey crossed the line. It was one thing for me to have that visceral reaction and not like the book when I read it two years ago – then I could still respect those who were moved by the story. Now I don’t.
Fiction has it’s place. It is often moving and wonderful. As I’ve written before, I believe strongly in the powers of fiction. But good fiction is not deliberately manipulative. And it is labeled as fiction. A Million Little Pieces broke both rules. So let the public shaming continue.
Friday, December 23, 2005
CAMP: Having deliberately artificial, vulgar, banal, or affectedly humorous qualities or style.
– American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
There was one point in this week’s season finale of Nip/Tuck where I almost started to believe that the episode was going to end with Christian – whose dream sequence started this disaster of a television season – waking up from the nightmare that was this season. Like claiming virgin birth, after Newhart saying “it was all a dream” isn’t really something anyone else can do. But still, for a moment there, I was convinced it was the only explanation.
The entire episode – truly the whole season – was pretty goofy. But always in a way that suggested bad writing, lazy scripting, and a show that basically blew its wad back in its first season. It had never before occurred to me that the thing was deliberately bad, purposely surreal.
Until we got to the final confrontation scene, really two scenes, both with hostages and forced torture. Both utterly, unspeakably dumb. And both backed by an insipid, almost circus-like soundtrack. I’ve no idea what the song was, actually I’ve no desire to find out. It was upbeat and silly, almost. Entirely inappropriate for the brutality of the actions taking place on screen. And it occurred to me: Wow, it’s all been a scam. Christian is going to wake up with some bimbo next to him wondering why he’s making such strange noises in his sleep. It’s the only explanation. Professional writers can’t possible be this bad. Professional actors wouldn’t stand for it. Professional directors wouldn’t direct it. A network wouldn’t put this on TV unless it’s all a joke. It was all camp. I was sure.
But no. The joke was on me. It really was that bad. It was camp, just the writers didn’t intend it that way.
Somewhere there is the person who made the decision to play that song over that scene and he or she almost certainly believes the scene is a spectacular success in the tradition of Reservoir Dogs.
I’ve not yet decided what shocks me more: How bad a debacle this season was or, as I heard today, that there are those who think the season finale was a spectacular cap to the show’s finest season. Pardon me while I puke.
– American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
There was one point in this week’s season finale of Nip/Tuck where I almost started to believe that the episode was going to end with Christian – whose dream sequence started this disaster of a television season – waking up from the nightmare that was this season. Like claiming virgin birth, after Newhart saying “it was all a dream” isn’t really something anyone else can do. But still, for a moment there, I was convinced it was the only explanation.
The entire episode – truly the whole season – was pretty goofy. But always in a way that suggested bad writing, lazy scripting, and a show that basically blew its wad back in its first season. It had never before occurred to me that the thing was deliberately bad, purposely surreal.
Until we got to the final confrontation scene, really two scenes, both with hostages and forced torture. Both utterly, unspeakably dumb. And both backed by an insipid, almost circus-like soundtrack. I’ve no idea what the song was, actually I’ve no desire to find out. It was upbeat and silly, almost. Entirely inappropriate for the brutality of the actions taking place on screen. And it occurred to me: Wow, it’s all been a scam. Christian is going to wake up with some bimbo next to him wondering why he’s making such strange noises in his sleep. It’s the only explanation. Professional writers can’t possible be this bad. Professional actors wouldn’t stand for it. Professional directors wouldn’t direct it. A network wouldn’t put this on TV unless it’s all a joke. It was all camp. I was sure.
But no. The joke was on me. It really was that bad. It was camp, just the writers didn’t intend it that way.
Somewhere there is the person who made the decision to play that song over that scene and he or she almost certainly believes the scene is a spectacular success in the tradition of Reservoir Dogs.
I’ve not yet decided what shocks me more: How bad a debacle this season was or, as I heard today, that there are those who think the season finale was a spectacular cap to the show’s finest season. Pardon me while I puke.
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Irony
What was my first spoken (though I was alone in my car, I often talk back to the radio) reaction when I heard on Tuesday evening about this decision handed down in the Pennsylvania "Intelligent Design" trial?
"Thank God."
"Thank God."
Friday, December 16, 2005
I already had one response to Lisa's comment that I added as a comment on the previous post, but I had another thought about what she said and it's better as a separate entry than another overlong comment.
Lisa pointed out her lack of tolerance for conservatives who overvalue their own importance, and while I can certainly agree with that point, I tend to think the problem is perhaps not so much with those (probably relatively few) who have the opinions. The problem is the journalism that leads us to believe such opinions are valid, common, and worth discussing.
At least for me, the problem with journalism isn't that there's so much "bad news" out there or that I don't find them credible. The problem to me is the horserace. It's conflict. Journalism is built around conflict to some extent, sure, but most issues (especially the opening of a movie for crying out loud) are nowhere near as divisive as media coverage would have us believe.
Any lazy journalist knows he can reliably get a spicy quote from an extremist on either side of an issue. It's an easy story, but it's lazy journalism. It's writing about issues like horseraces (who wins and who loses) rather than like actual issues with subtexts and complexities and consequences that have nothing to do with "who wins."
It's pretty inexcusable that our elections and wars are reported in this way, but it's an especially sad commentary that even entertainment news now gets the horserace treatment.
Bearing that in mind is how I have managed to stay sane over the past few years. Is it miserabe to have to hear over and over again about Cindy Sheehan? God yes it is. And is it awful to have to hear unending griping from "the Christian right" about the decaying values of Halloywood? Indeed so. But those who make the loudest noise are generally furthest from the actual crowd. That doesn't excuse the incompetence of those people, but remembering that has kept me from pulling my hair out over the past couple of years.
Lisa pointed out her lack of tolerance for conservatives who overvalue their own importance, and while I can certainly agree with that point, I tend to think the problem is perhaps not so much with those (probably relatively few) who have the opinions. The problem is the journalism that leads us to believe such opinions are valid, common, and worth discussing.
At least for me, the problem with journalism isn't that there's so much "bad news" out there or that I don't find them credible. The problem to me is the horserace. It's conflict. Journalism is built around conflict to some extent, sure, but most issues (especially the opening of a movie for crying out loud) are nowhere near as divisive as media coverage would have us believe.
Any lazy journalist knows he can reliably get a spicy quote from an extremist on either side of an issue. It's an easy story, but it's lazy journalism. It's writing about issues like horseraces (who wins and who loses) rather than like actual issues with subtexts and complexities and consequences that have nothing to do with "who wins."
It's pretty inexcusable that our elections and wars are reported in this way, but it's an especially sad commentary that even entertainment news now gets the horserace treatment.
Bearing that in mind is how I have managed to stay sane over the past few years. Is it miserabe to have to hear over and over again about Cindy Sheehan? God yes it is. And is it awful to have to hear unending griping from "the Christian right" about the decaying values of Halloywood? Indeed so. But those who make the loudest noise are generally furthest from the actual crowd. That doesn't excuse the incompetence of those people, but remembering that has kept me from pulling my hair out over the past couple of years.
A meandering and (toward the end) sentimental post
Here's the poster you've probably seen for Brokeback Mountain.
So, then, what's this?
According to this site it's a new ad for the movie. But I had never seen it before. And it really pissed me off. I was all fired up to write this blog about the idiocy of trying to de-gay a gay movie and misrepresentation of potentially offensive topics in general.
And then I thought, "You know. I'm not sure even Hollywood executives are stupid enough to try to promote a gay movie with a poster of a nuclear family." Besides, it didn't really look like a poster, or even a traditional ad.
Turns out it's not a traditional ad, but it's one of several industry promos being sent out to Academy voters with the Oscar package. And since both of the females are supposedly contenders for award nominations it's only natural to put some pictures of them in the promo packs.
Which means that those who are showing off the second ad and screaming about hypocrisy are either (a) irresponsible and stupid or (b) hypocrites themselves. In this case, it's probably A, but even the possibility of B annoys the heck out of me.
From conservatives who rail against abortion but really don't want Roe v Wade overturned lest that disappear as a campaign issue to liberals who denounce the war in Iraq but nonetheless see the loss of American lives there as a chance for political gain, there are far too many examples of dishonest hypocrisy in the world today.
This is why I more and more admire people who at least truly believe in their convictions, even if I don't happen to agree with their opinions. John McCain is the best example. In reality, he and I disagree on far more issues than we share common ground on. But I don't care, really. I think more highly of him than I do of virtually any other politician. I voted for him for his senator position (as if that mattered) and would honestly be tempted to vote for him for President. Even though I don't like his politics, for the most part.
But I'm digressing, because this wasn't meant to be a political discussion. My real point is, in this year when I've read roughly 3,462 articles about how Hollywood is hurting the box office slump goes on, I can't recall reading a single article that suggests the main reason things are going badly: bullshit.
Most articles talk about absurdly high ticket prices (true) and bad product (true). But people always complain about prices and there have always been shitty movies. The problem is the great extent to which we are now aware that even Hollywood executives know they're putting out shit. And yet they still promote it. Does anyone really believe that there was a single person involved in the making of "Stealth" that thought it would be (a) a good movie and (b) a successful one? Of course not. And yet the budget to promote that piece of trash would have been front page news if it were a lottery prize.
So Hollywood is full of shit. We've all long suspected this, and now we have proof. Indeed, as the example I used to start this blog proves, we now tend to think Hollywood is even more full (?) of shit than they really are.
Cynicism is healthy. But a bleak world view isn't. I still believe in convictions and faith and being willing to trust others, even strangers. I think that used to be typical. More recently, it was at least something we all tried to encourage at this time of the year. Now even Christmas is regarded with a skeptical eye. It's a shame.
So, then, what's this?
According to this site it's a new ad for the movie. But I had never seen it before. And it really pissed me off. I was all fired up to write this blog about the idiocy of trying to de-gay a gay movie and misrepresentation of potentially offensive topics in general.
And then I thought, "You know. I'm not sure even Hollywood executives are stupid enough to try to promote a gay movie with a poster of a nuclear family." Besides, it didn't really look like a poster, or even a traditional ad.
Turns out it's not a traditional ad, but it's one of several industry promos being sent out to Academy voters with the Oscar package. And since both of the females are supposedly contenders for award nominations it's only natural to put some pictures of them in the promo packs.
Which means that those who are showing off the second ad and screaming about hypocrisy are either (a) irresponsible and stupid or (b) hypocrites themselves. In this case, it's probably A, but even the possibility of B annoys the heck out of me.
From conservatives who rail against abortion but really don't want Roe v Wade overturned lest that disappear as a campaign issue to liberals who denounce the war in Iraq but nonetheless see the loss of American lives there as a chance for political gain, there are far too many examples of dishonest hypocrisy in the world today.
This is why I more and more admire people who at least truly believe in their convictions, even if I don't happen to agree with their opinions. John McCain is the best example. In reality, he and I disagree on far more issues than we share common ground on. But I don't care, really. I think more highly of him than I do of virtually any other politician. I voted for him for his senator position (as if that mattered) and would honestly be tempted to vote for him for President. Even though I don't like his politics, for the most part.
But I'm digressing, because this wasn't meant to be a political discussion. My real point is, in this year when I've read roughly 3,462 articles about how Hollywood is hurting the box office slump goes on, I can't recall reading a single article that suggests the main reason things are going badly: bullshit.
Most articles talk about absurdly high ticket prices (true) and bad product (true). But people always complain about prices and there have always been shitty movies. The problem is the great extent to which we are now aware that even Hollywood executives know they're putting out shit. And yet they still promote it. Does anyone really believe that there was a single person involved in the making of "Stealth" that thought it would be (a) a good movie and (b) a successful one? Of course not. And yet the budget to promote that piece of trash would have been front page news if it were a lottery prize.
So Hollywood is full of shit. We've all long suspected this, and now we have proof. Indeed, as the example I used to start this blog proves, we now tend to think Hollywood is even more full (?) of shit than they really are.
Cynicism is healthy. But a bleak world view isn't. I still believe in convictions and faith and being willing to trust others, even strangers. I think that used to be typical. More recently, it was at least something we all tried to encourage at this time of the year. Now even Christmas is regarded with a skeptical eye. It's a shame.
Friday, December 02, 2005
"The opposite of war isn’t peace – it’s creation"
You know, I think there’s far too little dancing on tables. Seriously, wouldn’t life just be a little more exciting if from time to time some people on the street, or in the restaurant on the corner, or in your apartment building just burst on in full song and dance? Tell me that wouldn’t rock. (So long as it’s not induced by a demon, right Xander?)
That’s just one of the things I loved about Rent. (Yes, I saw it last night and so, yes, I’m going to write about it. Again. Just let me do this, though, and maybe I’ll get it out of my system.)
I loved the way everyone seemed to be a part of the real world, even when they broke out in song. It was charming and also seemed to work with the whole “we’re bohemian artists” thing that Rent tries so hard to champion.
I really liked the movie overall actually. There were some things I didn’t like, but virtually all of those were things that are problems with the musical – not really the movie’s fault. (Which is to say, the ending still sucks.)
I got a kick out of the dialogue, which was virtually all from the actual play – except in the play they would sing it, not speak it. Sometimes it was awkward and I really wanted them to be singing it, but I still got a kick out of it. Like a big in-joke for people crazy enough to actually recognize it. I wonder if, as dialogue, those lines seemed poorly written or forced to people who don’t know the play that well. Then again, I doubt very much if this movie succeeds at all for people who don’t already know it. That’s normally a big problem for me – generally I think movies need to be movies and not be overly concerned with their source material. But here it didn’t bother me. Maybe because I am a big fan of Rent. Maybe because I frankly doubt if the audience for the movie is much beyond those who have seen the show already anyway.
The only other thing wrong with the movie, I thought, was the strange section where the first half of Act 2 should have been … except suddenly we were no longer in a musical at all and we had that completely pointless scene with Alexi Darling. Stupid. And for that we get denied “Happy New Year,” “We’re OK,” and “Contact”? Harsh.
Otherwise, wow. So many of the songs were done so well. “Rent” is not really a song I love that much but by the end of that song I was sold on the project completely. “One Song Glory” was amazing. “Tango Maureen” kicked my ass. (I wasn’t much for the way “Out Tonight” started in the club, but it was redeemed at the end). And, of course, “I’ll Cover You” was just amazingly perfect – the reprise especially. God that part of the story just kills me. Someone explain to me how the same writer who could write that scene, which is so perfect, could also massacre the ending and Mimi’s death/recovery so badly? I’ll never get it. (Maybe if Larson hadn’t died it could have been tweaked and made better?)
Putting “Seasons of Love” at the beginning was a great decision, too. I already wrote about how much I love that song as a sort of Greek Chorus and to have the cast singing it to an empty theatre as the opening scene … it just worked.
And the cast was excellent. Pretty much the entire original cast was back, except for (I think) Mimi and Joanne. Rosario Dawson was so-so as Mimi but I thought Joanne was wonderful. The woman can sing. And of course the original cast is the standard, not to mention the voices everyone is used to hearing from the CD. Best of all, of course, is Jesse L Martin who frankly has the voice of God.
And I was afraid I wouldn’t like it. Sheesh.
Addendum:
It was so hard to sit in the theatre and not sing along and, at times, to not applaud some of the really great song numbers. It's a musical, you're supposed to applaud. The singing thing was especially awkward. I propose an idea to whoever has the rights to the show and might want to try a new twist: "Rent" as rock concert. Perform the show not as a musical, but as the singalong fest it so often years to be. I know I would go.
That’s just one of the things I loved about Rent. (Yes, I saw it last night and so, yes, I’m going to write about it. Again. Just let me do this, though, and maybe I’ll get it out of my system.)
I loved the way everyone seemed to be a part of the real world, even when they broke out in song. It was charming and also seemed to work with the whole “we’re bohemian artists” thing that Rent tries so hard to champion.
I really liked the movie overall actually. There were some things I didn’t like, but virtually all of those were things that are problems with the musical – not really the movie’s fault. (Which is to say, the ending still sucks.)
I got a kick out of the dialogue, which was virtually all from the actual play – except in the play they would sing it, not speak it. Sometimes it was awkward and I really wanted them to be singing it, but I still got a kick out of it. Like a big in-joke for people crazy enough to actually recognize it. I wonder if, as dialogue, those lines seemed poorly written or forced to people who don’t know the play that well. Then again, I doubt very much if this movie succeeds at all for people who don’t already know it. That’s normally a big problem for me – generally I think movies need to be movies and not be overly concerned with their source material. But here it didn’t bother me. Maybe because I am a big fan of Rent. Maybe because I frankly doubt if the audience for the movie is much beyond those who have seen the show already anyway.
The only other thing wrong with the movie, I thought, was the strange section where the first half of Act 2 should have been … except suddenly we were no longer in a musical at all and we had that completely pointless scene with Alexi Darling. Stupid. And for that we get denied “Happy New Year,” “We’re OK,” and “Contact”? Harsh.
Otherwise, wow. So many of the songs were done so well. “Rent” is not really a song I love that much but by the end of that song I was sold on the project completely. “One Song Glory” was amazing. “Tango Maureen” kicked my ass. (I wasn’t much for the way “Out Tonight” started in the club, but it was redeemed at the end). And, of course, “I’ll Cover You” was just amazingly perfect – the reprise especially. God that part of the story just kills me. Someone explain to me how the same writer who could write that scene, which is so perfect, could also massacre the ending and Mimi’s death/recovery so badly? I’ll never get it. (Maybe if Larson hadn’t died it could have been tweaked and made better?)
Putting “Seasons of Love” at the beginning was a great decision, too. I already wrote about how much I love that song as a sort of Greek Chorus and to have the cast singing it to an empty theatre as the opening scene … it just worked.
And the cast was excellent. Pretty much the entire original cast was back, except for (I think) Mimi and Joanne. Rosario Dawson was so-so as Mimi but I thought Joanne was wonderful. The woman can sing. And of course the original cast is the standard, not to mention the voices everyone is used to hearing from the CD. Best of all, of course, is Jesse L Martin who frankly has the voice of God.
And I was afraid I wouldn’t like it. Sheesh.
Addendum:
It was so hard to sit in the theatre and not sing along and, at times, to not applaud some of the really great song numbers. It's a musical, you're supposed to applaud. The singing thing was especially awkward. I propose an idea to whoever has the rights to the show and might want to try a new twist: "Rent" as rock concert. Perform the show not as a musical, but as the singalong fest it so often years to be. I know I would go.
Thursday, December 01, 2005
One of many reasons Thanksgiving break was great this year
I’m not really a big fan of biopics. Partly this is the result of my previously expressed affection for the power of fiction to be more true than reality. Partly it’s because I think even the most interesting lives lack any kind of engaging narrative arc. So, even though they look to be good and worthwhile films and even though I’m not uninterested in their subjects, I have never seen Ray, or Ali, or Gandhi, etc etc. I rented The Aviator which was interesting to watch (mostly thanks to Cate Blanchett) but excruciatingly boring as a movie. And I want to see Walk the Line because I’m a Johnny Cash fan but I don’t ultimately expect it to be one of my favorite movies.
But despite all that I want to plug a biopic that I saw over Thanksgiving, because I’ve seen a lot of movies this fall and most were high quality but so far this was the best: Capote.
It’s different than a typical biopic, which is part of why it worked so well for me. It’s based on a full length biography of Truman Capote, but the film focuses exclusively on the three or so years he was working on his masterpiece, the “non fiction novel” In Cold Blood.
Disclaimer: I’m a sucker for this story. Like The Insider or Good Night, and Good Luck (both of which are amazing movies in my book) I feel a little uncertain in recommending Capote because part of why I like it so much is because I’m personally so interested in it, and I’m not certain that everyone else would be so naturally fascinated. (In the case of Capote, my fascination is based on writing in general and In Cold Blood in particular, in the other two movies it’s my interest in journalism.)
I read In Cold Blood in high school and until seeing the movie remembered little of it specifically. What I did remember was the reaction it provoked in me: I mean, the book just floored me. Stunned me. It’s such a masterpiece. I had only a short time earlier read the famous account of the Manson crimes Helter Skelter and while that’s a fine book, reading it was like reading a lengthy piece of journalism. It didn’t engage me emotionally. This is part of why In Cold Blood is so spectacular – it really is like a novel, and is written by a writer who at his best is as good as any American writer of the last century. But the story itself is also just shocking. Even in the late 90s I found myself just stunned by the brutality and the senselessness of the crime. I remember thinking: If this book feels like a punch in the gut to me now, what must it have been like to read it in the comparatively innocent 1960s?
Although it doesn’t tell the full story of his life, Capote really is a biopic. In showing us a mere three years of his life, it somehow manages to tell the full story of his life. We see Capote in New York, famous, worldly, flaming. We hear bits and pieces of his background. And we see the pain and the start of the depression and alcoholism that would ultimately cut his life short. Writing In Cold Blood essentially killed Truman Capote. Even though he lived another 20 or so years he never published another book. He was never the same person.
The movie makes it clear why. Primarily, the movie likes to focus on his very complicated relationship with one of the killers, who is awesomely portrayed by the guy who was the drug dealer in Rules of Attraction. He felt an affinity for the man, who had a haunting background that reminded Truman of his own. But he was also terrified of the killer, with good reason. And he needed him, too, and used him in a very deliberate and conscious fashion to get the information he needed for his book.
Now I’m re-reading the book and it’s interesting to see that he must have had a similar (if surely less painful) conflicted relationship with Kansas, the setting for the book, the scene of the crime. Capote was a flamingly gay, completely urban snob. If we’re to believe the movie (and it makes sense) he laughed with almost a sneer at small town Kansas and its conservative values. And yet, the book seems to celebrate those values as sincerely as if Truman had been born and raised and lived there all his life. It’s an effective narrative device (the narrator of In Cold Blood doesn’t seem to really be Truman Capote any more than it would be in one of his fiction stories). But it’s also scary, because after getting very close to this small town and the people in it, he exploited them. Some of his depictions and descriptions of the people in the book are downright cruel. Others are caring. That’s the way it should be with characters – except these were real people who, inevitably, had to read what this man had written about them.
Anyway, Philip Seymour Hoffman just inhabits Capote. They always say that about actors portraying real people, don’t they? But he does. Like I said, I don’t see a lot of biopics, but let me give you the example of one I did see recently. In The Aviator, Leonardo DiCaprio played Howard Hughes. But I always saw DiCaprio on screen. Blanchett played Katharine Hepburn and she was Katharine Hepburn. She inhabited her. I watched the movie and saw Hepburn there. Hoffman does that with Capote. He’s not like himself at all. It’s not just his voice, or his mannerisms. It’s everything. I know he played a gay character in Boogie Nights, too, but you could hardly believe he’s the same actor. Bravo to him. (I though Catherine Keener as Harper Lee was also great and I’ve never seen Chris Cooper in anything I didn’t think he was great in.)
Diana said she thought it dragged in parts and she’s probably right (she did seem to really like it despite that note). I can’t insist you go see it. It’s a quiet and deliberate movie. There are scenes (one in particular comes to mind) that really do drag on, but they left me utterly transfixed. But if you’re not engaged they will seem overlong and boring. There aren’t many flashbacks or cinematic devices. There are a lot of POV shots. It worked for me. If you don’t go in wanting to see the movie, though, it may well leave you uninspired. But for me it was the best thing I’ve seen in quite a while.
But despite all that I want to plug a biopic that I saw over Thanksgiving, because I’ve seen a lot of movies this fall and most were high quality but so far this was the best: Capote.
It’s different than a typical biopic, which is part of why it worked so well for me. It’s based on a full length biography of Truman Capote, but the film focuses exclusively on the three or so years he was working on his masterpiece, the “non fiction novel” In Cold Blood.
Disclaimer: I’m a sucker for this story. Like The Insider or Good Night, and Good Luck (both of which are amazing movies in my book) I feel a little uncertain in recommending Capote because part of why I like it so much is because I’m personally so interested in it, and I’m not certain that everyone else would be so naturally fascinated. (In the case of Capote, my fascination is based on writing in general and In Cold Blood in particular, in the other two movies it’s my interest in journalism.)
I read In Cold Blood in high school and until seeing the movie remembered little of it specifically. What I did remember was the reaction it provoked in me: I mean, the book just floored me. Stunned me. It’s such a masterpiece. I had only a short time earlier read the famous account of the Manson crimes Helter Skelter and while that’s a fine book, reading it was like reading a lengthy piece of journalism. It didn’t engage me emotionally. This is part of why In Cold Blood is so spectacular – it really is like a novel, and is written by a writer who at his best is as good as any American writer of the last century. But the story itself is also just shocking. Even in the late 90s I found myself just stunned by the brutality and the senselessness of the crime. I remember thinking: If this book feels like a punch in the gut to me now, what must it have been like to read it in the comparatively innocent 1960s?
Although it doesn’t tell the full story of his life, Capote really is a biopic. In showing us a mere three years of his life, it somehow manages to tell the full story of his life. We see Capote in New York, famous, worldly, flaming. We hear bits and pieces of his background. And we see the pain and the start of the depression and alcoholism that would ultimately cut his life short. Writing In Cold Blood essentially killed Truman Capote. Even though he lived another 20 or so years he never published another book. He was never the same person.
The movie makes it clear why. Primarily, the movie likes to focus on his very complicated relationship with one of the killers, who is awesomely portrayed by the guy who was the drug dealer in Rules of Attraction. He felt an affinity for the man, who had a haunting background that reminded Truman of his own. But he was also terrified of the killer, with good reason. And he needed him, too, and used him in a very deliberate and conscious fashion to get the information he needed for his book.
Now I’m re-reading the book and it’s interesting to see that he must have had a similar (if surely less painful) conflicted relationship with Kansas, the setting for the book, the scene of the crime. Capote was a flamingly gay, completely urban snob. If we’re to believe the movie (and it makes sense) he laughed with almost a sneer at small town Kansas and its conservative values. And yet, the book seems to celebrate those values as sincerely as if Truman had been born and raised and lived there all his life. It’s an effective narrative device (the narrator of In Cold Blood doesn’t seem to really be Truman Capote any more than it would be in one of his fiction stories). But it’s also scary, because after getting very close to this small town and the people in it, he exploited them. Some of his depictions and descriptions of the people in the book are downright cruel. Others are caring. That’s the way it should be with characters – except these were real people who, inevitably, had to read what this man had written about them.
Anyway, Philip Seymour Hoffman just inhabits Capote. They always say that about actors portraying real people, don’t they? But he does. Like I said, I don’t see a lot of biopics, but let me give you the example of one I did see recently. In The Aviator, Leonardo DiCaprio played Howard Hughes. But I always saw DiCaprio on screen. Blanchett played Katharine Hepburn and she was Katharine Hepburn. She inhabited her. I watched the movie and saw Hepburn there. Hoffman does that with Capote. He’s not like himself at all. It’s not just his voice, or his mannerisms. It’s everything. I know he played a gay character in Boogie Nights, too, but you could hardly believe he’s the same actor. Bravo to him. (I though Catherine Keener as Harper Lee was also great and I’ve never seen Chris Cooper in anything I didn’t think he was great in.)
Diana said she thought it dragged in parts and she’s probably right (she did seem to really like it despite that note). I can’t insist you go see it. It’s a quiet and deliberate movie. There are scenes (one in particular comes to mind) that really do drag on, but they left me utterly transfixed. But if you’re not engaged they will seem overlong and boring. There aren’t many flashbacks or cinematic devices. There are a lot of POV shots. It worked for me. If you don’t go in wanting to see the movie, though, it may well leave you uninspired. But for me it was the best thing I’ve seen in quite a while.
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