Hallucina

"Bleach" Season 1 (Episodes 1-20)

2009-12-15T19:50:00.008-05:00

Like "Naruto", "Bleach" isn't so much an anime as it is a commitment, the kind of show that has ardent otakus saying things like: "It gets REALLY interesting after episode 99, and wait until you get to this one reveal in season 10... Oh, man, you'll piss your Shinobi Shozoku!"
Tite Kubo, the creator of "Zombie Powder", rules a ninja-ghost empire comprising (so far) 42 thick manga volumes, 250+ TV episodes, 2 video movies, 3 full length theatrical features, a bunch of videogames, and- the stat that makes me giggle- 7 rock musicals! "Bleach"'s initial story arc is shonen-simple: orange-haired teen Ichigo Kurasaki has the ability to see ghosts, and the obligation to dispose of these ever-more-dangerous "hollows". Ichigo is tutored by Rukia Kuchiki, a shinigami ('death god') trapped in a feeble schoolgirl uniform. Since Rukia has trangressed against the otherwordly Soul Society, Ichigo must travel to the great beyond to save her, accompanied by a smart-mouthed teddy-lion named Kon.

There's also a bunch of other characters that are considerably less interesting and are mostly distinguished from each other by hair color and breast size (Ditzy Orihime has got to be the most freakishly endowed teen ever!)

As most anime does, "Bleach" trascends the above description through the accumulation of details, the peculiarities of design, and the vibrant scores. How else to explain to you, the sensible non-otaku Dear Imaginary Reader, why I actually got a little teary-eyed at this emotional AMV* concentrating on the (exaggerated) romance between Rukia and Ichigo? It's set to Maroon 5's "She Will Be Loved"!

*AMV="anime music video", the favored form of fan expression this side of cosplay. Way less icky than cosplay, as a matter of fact.

CHAPTER 80: OFF TO SEE THE WIZARD

2009-12-15T13:42:00.007-05:00

The avenues of the forest of Marly are pullulating with carriages that trail each other in what's known as the afternoon hunt- mostly an spectator's sport. Louis XV is too old for the game- but he pretends he's as vigorous as always, sort of like Hugh Hefner does.
Dumas here tell us of Plutarch, who in turn tells us of Mark Antony's curious eating practices.

Mark Antony had a busy, busy time imparting justice to the Sicilians, (which, according to Dumas AND Juvenal, were then as now the biggest mafiosi in the world) so he seldom could stop for dinner at proper hours. And since he wouldn't stop for dinner, dinner stopped for him: his cook was ordered to keep a rotation of boars on spits 24/7, so that whenever Mark Antony DID want to eat, there would be one roasted to perfection just waiting for him.
It's the same with Louis XV, except instead of boars he has ordered that stags be released on the forest of Marly every couple of hours. That way, a-hunting he will go whenever he wants, and there will always be at least one tired stag at the end of endurance.

On this particular day, it's nearly four o'clock and the King follows one such antlered beauty that's been hounded since noon and ready to drop.
Similarly, Madame Dubarry (Anne Hathaway) pursues the King, all the while elaborating conspiracies with Monsieur De Richelieu (Jack Nicholson), but as fortune will have it, it's a different quarry they find. Their coach lurchs to a halt. The countess inquisitively checks out the panorama outside the window, and sees, to a side of the road, an upside down carriage, revolving its wheels in the air like a courtly bug. The two black horses which once suffered the indignity of pulling the carriage are now enjoying their freedom by lunching on the nearby grass.
"An accident!" The Countess covers her mouth: "And there's a dead man on the ground!"
Richelieu looks out, and says: "What tragedy!"
The corpse on the grass sits up: "I'm alright!"
"The dead man is talking!" says Madame Dubarry. "And sounding awfully like his Eminence, the Cardinal of Rohan."
It is indeed, the Cardinal of Rohan (Alfred Molina), who limps away from the scene of the accident to approach the coach: "Oh, Madame Dubarry, Marshal. There's been a mishap with my carriage. That teaches me to hire English drivers! Luckily, I think he's dead, so I get to spare the rod."
"Well, bum a ride from us," says Madame Dubarry, scarcely believing her luch. "There's plenty of room- if the Marshal agrees to hang with our coachman."
The Cardinal hesitates for a calculated second: "Oh, why the heck no!" Richelieu gallantly adopts an uncomfortable riding position that nonetheless allows him to hear everything- and interrupt appropriately as we will see.
The Cardinal sighs: "Now I won't catch up with his Majesty. The hunt means nothing to me, but I thought I would pull at his Majesty's elbow, you know, I had a little something to ask of him. But now only a MIRACLE could make it happen."
Richelieu stiffens from the driver's bench, and cranes his neck to exchange a glance with the Countess: "Weren't we just talking about... MIRACLES?"
"We were," says Madame Dubarry, piercing through to the Cardinal's will. "Do you believe in miracles, Cardinal de Rohan?"
CARDINAL: "Well, you know, I'm a priest and all. They're in the Scriptures."
DUBARRY: "I don't mean those miracles, I mean the ones in REALITY."
C: "Oh, THOSE! Those are more rare. Nonetheless, I suppose I have seen... things that were odd."
D: "Things like... sorcery?"
C: "I promised not to say."
D: "You may have promised not to talk about the sorcery- but did you promise not to talk about the sorcerer?"
C: "Gosh, I guess not!"
D: "Then I might as well admit that the Marshal de Richelieu and I have been out looking for a sorcerer, and as there is a rumor going around town that you may access one..."
C: "I see. By all means, take my sorcerer. He's called the Count de Fenix."
Dubarry and Richelieu exchange twinkling glances, before the Countess goes on: "Never heard of him! Does he have another name? What kind of sorcery can he accomplish?"
C: "His 'other' name is Joseph Balsamo, and he quite accurately foretold my future upon one ocassion."
D: "Yes, I'm sure he's done the same for a lot of people. SO, Cardinal, out with it! What does the Devil look like?"
C: "Which one, the one from Hell? I wouldn't know! The Count de Fenix is the most proper and Christian of Satan-worshipping wizards. AND has the best wine in town."
"I would so love for him to read my horoscope!" squeals Madame Dubarry, not faking the enthusiasm, as she zeroes in on the info she needs: "And all this magic happens at..?"
C: "At night, mostly."
C: "Yes, but where?"
C: "In his very fashionable room."
D: "Right, but where is this room again?"
C: "Inside his house."
D: "Which is..?"
C: "A magnificent but mysterious house."
Madame Dubarry grabs the Cardinal by the St. Louis ribbon: "Give me the address, imbecile!"
C: "I forget, somewhere near the Marais neighborhood! Near St. Fruit! St. Fraud! My footman knows! Footman!"
An inconsequential footman materializes from near the Cardinal's foot. "Sire?"
The Cardinal gasps: "Footman! Help, before I'm strangled! Where was it we stopped that night near Marais?"
The footman is eager to please: "Oh, you mean that night we stopped by the wizard's house in St. Claude and you came back with a big heavy bag full of gold and..."
The cardinal brings his boot down on the footman's conveniently positioned face: "Yes, right, as I was saying, the Rue St. Claude it is!"
At this very moment, Richelieu interrupts: "The King's carriage! Too close, to our right!"
"He goes right, I go left!" Madame Dubarry smiles.
The Cardinal is confused: "But, the King... we were looking for him? He will miss you if he sees you don't say hi!"
"That's the whole point," says Madame Dubarry charmingly.
The Cardinal is awed by this strategy: "Countess, you're such a tease!"
"That's what the King always tells me when I don't say hi! Now, you may get off the carriage and run to him! You'll get your interview up close and personal, thank me next time we go hunting together."
The Cardinal goes off towards the Monarch, followed by his kicked-about Footman, while the Countess and the Marshal roll down a different forest path.

DUBARRY: "Ok, I'll admit it. I'm afraid of wizards."
RICHELIEU: "Oh, thank God you said it first! Me too! I once met one..."
D: "Did you..? Hahaha, did he pull a bird out of his pocket?"
R: "I'm quite serious! This particular old sorcerer brought me back from the dead. It happened in Vienna, years ago; I was an ambassador who hapenned to find a sword stuck in my lungs. Even less pleasant than it sounds! I was dead, or as close to dead as the nose is to the lips. This wizard passed by, brushed my panicking servants to a side, poured three drops of a strange liquid down my throat, and three more on the wound."
D: "And..?"
R: "I'm telling the story, aren't I! It worked!"
D: "Thank God!"
R: "What worries me is that I suspect God had nothing to do with it."
D: "True, only the Devil would have saved your conspiratorial ass. And does this sorcerer live?"
R: "Doubtful, unless he was getting high off his own supply. This was many years ago, and he was older than sin then. His name was Althotas."
Madame Dubarry laughs: "What a name! No wonder you're all 'fraidy cat about this! I'll still make you come to the Rue St. Claude with me, and NOW!"
R: "What if I'll rather not?"
D: "I'll tell everyone your crazy wizard story!"
R: "Then I'll tell everyone I told you my crazy wizard story... IN BED!"
D: "Well played, Marshal!"
R: "I COULD tell it to you in bed, later, if you like?"
She punches him playfully: "You'll have to be brought back from the dead again before that can happen! Now, coach, direct to the Rue St. Claude! We're off to see the wizard!"

Benito Perez Galdos' The National Episodes- "The Court of Charles IV"

2009-12-14T19:39:00.004-05:00

Gabriel, the young narrator who sailed the seas in"Trafalgar", is now a young page to an actress. "The Court of Charles IV" is not witnessed but instead gossiped about backstage, even as the novel details the ascent of the so-called "Prince of Peace", Godoy, and the attempt by Charles IV's son, Ferdinand, to oust his father and allegedly poison his mother.

ABOVE: Francisco Goya's portrait of the Royal(ly dysfunctional) family.

But it's the "roar of the greasepaint, the smell of the crowd" that makes this novel, as Gabriel is there behind the curtains for the era-defining premiere of Moratin's "El Si de Las Ninas" ("The Maiden's Consent") and serves as go-between for the intrigues of three ladies: Pepa, his mistress (in the "owning-his-ass" sense), and the euphemistically denominated Lesbia and Amaranta, all of this climaxing in a performance of "Othello" that threatens to become the most literal minded Shakespeare performance ever.

Kevin McDonald's "State of Play"

2009-12-14T16:40:00.013-05:00

"State of Play" is the "Julie and Julia" of journalism movies! (See, it's about this old school, passionate, Woodward-and-Bernstein reporter, and the next-generation blogger cutesily trying to replicate his investigative feats.) Kidding! Sort of.

Cal (Russell Crowe) is a shabby workhorse with a flask of Irish wine concealed in his trenchcoat. You can tell he's the best damn newshound at the Washington Post because of the way his majestic British-for-no-reason boss (Helen Mirren) keeps on howling at him but always gives him "one more day to bring in the story". Cal is paired with the delightfully named Della Frye (Rachel McAdams), a Girl Friday out of an Erle Stanley Gardner novel, a calfling of a blogger that, refreshingly, Cal doesn't try to fuck, in what may be the movie's biggest surprise.
The particular story the duo is tracking involves a crazy-good killer; a nefarious military contractor of Blackwater-like reach; and the dead mistress of philandering politician Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck, in a role meant for someone ten years older). Cal and Stephen and Stephen's wounded wife (Robin Wright Penn Arquette) used to be a three-wheeling item in college or something, so THIS TIME IT'S PERSONAL. (Please don't do the math on Crowe and Affleck. They went to college together like I roomed with Updike in Harvard.)

This is a slick, very watchable thriller, with the newsroom as police station, and director Kevin McDonald ("The Last King of Scotland") shows a real nostalgist's admiration for the sinking battleship of print news, all the way to closing credits that guide us through the printing process, set to Creedence Clearwater's Revival "Long As I Can See the Light". When the characters decide readers must receive a story as big as this one with fresh ink on paper, it sounds like either devotion or desperate defensiveness for a tactile universe as antiquated as the one in "Newsies".
Jeff Daniels, Harry Lennix from "Dollhouse", and a motel-carpet-chewing Jason Bateman co-star.

Pearl Jam Before "Pearl Jam"

2009-12-13T16:27:00.021-05:00

Gather 'round, me grungies, to hear the legend of Pearl Jam, the secret standard-bearers of modern rock. They get no love from the lawmen, and it's their fault, for being conceited ruffians, but they've carried their shadow flag for sooo long, what's not to credit? It is whispered that it took them 16 years to arrive at that safe place where they let their band name speak by itself from an album cover, flying plain above a dissected avocado. So indulge me while I briefly peruse my memories of the pre-"Pearl Jam" discography of Eddie "Yellow Led"-Vedder and his mates (Mike "Ready" McReady, Stone-Cold Gossard, Jeff "Can-I-Get-An-Ament", and assorted journeymen of sound.)

1- It's tough to imagine a stronger opening salvo than the one in "Ten". I dare you not to be electrified through "Once", "Evenflow", "Alive", "Why Go", "Jeremy" and "Black". Good as the rest of the album is, that stretch is so fantastically organic that had "Ten" ended with "Black", its reputation would in no way be diminished.

2-So angry, so soon! "Vs." found the sheepish band fenced in by fame, (baring its teeth at it!), and in "Animal" they reminded us that it was "Five Against One": presumably the band against the world. Or was that song about self-hating masturbation? Discuss at will. Even though there's nothing much but honesty linking the softer songs, ("Daughter", "Elderly Woman..."), with the rockers like "Rats", "Blood" and "Leash", and "Vs." debuts PJ's pontificating tendencies, this is almost as good as "Ten".

3-"Vitalogy" was the point where Pearl Jam attained critical credibility as something other than grunge cash-ins; from them on, paradoxically, they lost the attention of critics. "Vitalogy" is curious: some of PJ's towering songs, ("Corduroy", "Nothingman", "Tremor Christ", and "Betterman"), along with their most unloved, "what-were-they-thinking?" moments ("Bugs"? "Pry, To"? The excruciating "Hey Foxyhandlemopmama, That's Me", which scientists have confirmed causes blood to emanate from your ears?)
But, like I said, "Betterman".

4-Pearl Jam had always been preachy, but in "No Code" it sounded like they were literally relaying epiphanies about some nameless Eastern-via-George Harrison religion. Too vague to convert anyone, and too soft for a hard-rock band, "No Code" does have some great songs: the mystic strum of "Who You Are", the "old friends" sadness of "Off He Goes", and "Hail, Hail" ("the lucky ones, I refer to those in love").

5-Most people will tell you "Yield" is the "sucky" Pearl Jam album. But it's merely a strained one: a band as great as this one should never have to give you the impression that they're TRYING to rock, but that's exactly what happens during most of "Yield", until they throw their hands up and honor Paul McCartney with the closer, "All Those Yesterdays". I always did like the Todd McFarlane- directed video for "Do the Evolution", with its eerie certainty that the world ends on 2010. Take that, Mayan Calendar!

6 and 7- "Binaural" and "Riot Act" melt in my head. I heard them as a conjoined MP3 set and to these binaural-ready ears they're equally strong and there's nothing separating them but the extra-political snarl that dates "Riot Act". It's pathetic how many rock bands abjured political commentary during the last decade, (you had to go to rap to find that, and I suppose country, or Neil Young.) If a big self-important band was going to angrily comment on the Iraq War, clearly it was a race between U2 and Pearl Jam, and Eddie beat Bono to it. To some it may be little more than namecalling, but a song like "Bu$hleaguer" at least gives focus to their preaching.

Now, it may be true or it may be a lie, but that's the tale the way I heard it, and some say they still rock on to this very day. I will be one of those "some" when I tell you about their two more recent releases, "Pearl Jam" and "Backspacer", in the very near future.

I'm Down with Fraggle Rock

2009-12-13T00:34:00.007-05:00

Dear Imaginary Reader:
The Fraggles on DVD! FINALLY! If you have a child, are a child, were a child, or plan to be a child someday soon, you need them. Jim Henson's crew knew about those beautiful places we could all see as kids, behind veils of concrete, just around the corner from tedious reality. It's harder now to believe in the clumsy harmlesness of Gorgs, or trust the wisdom of Trash Heaps; the Doozer's architectural wonders are of a Sysyphean futility, and when I see old sweatered Doc I wonder if the actor has croaked yet. (He hasn't! He plays another "Doc" in the "Boondock Saints" sequel).
The one character I relate to more than ever is Traveling Matt, perplexed by "Outer Space" and its absurdities.
I'm floating out here in Outer Space, fellow traveler, and I too fail to understand what I see.
That doesn't mean I care less for you, Gobo, with your Jonathan Larson-ish hair AND musical sensitivity.

And, oh, Red and Mokey- how torn I was between the two of you! Mokey, you were ugly, very ugly in fact, but you had the music, the poetry emanated from your half-lidded eyeballs. Red, you had the looks, you saucy little thing, but I knew that beyond your bad girl rebelliousness there was a little heart aching for help, and when you sung the Friendship Song, I reached out to the screen in pain, wanting to assure you I would always be your friend and my heartbreak was your heartbreak.

Wembley, Boober- what can I say, fellows? You guys are ME, all my neurotic indecisions and pragmatic depressions manifested in Muppet form, topped off with wildly colored shocks of hair or, in Boober's case, by that Bohemian cap designed to conceal his drugged-out eyes.

Hollywood has a new "Fraggle Rock" movie in the making. It will be bad: I don't think there's anyone left in that town both innocent and experienced enough to pull it off.
Here is the "Fraggle Rock" opening in Spanish, which is how I remember them best.

Fraggle Rock Intro Español
Uploaded by nomecopies. - See more comedy videos.

CHAPTER 79: THE CONSPIRACY IS BACK ON!

2009-12-12T20:13:00.004-05:00

Like birds that have heard a double-barreled shotgun go off, all of Madame Dubarry's sycophants have fled the court and run to Luciennes, to gauge the aftermath of Monsieur De Choiseul's confirmation. Lead among them are Jean Dubarry (Gerard Depardieu) and the Marshal de Richelieu (Jack Nicholson), who roll into the more private chambers of that scrumptious, recently-slighted countess.
Poor little Zamore (Gary Coleman) tries to intercept them, telling them of Madame's siesta, but Jean directs the toe of his boot right into Zamore's protuberant bottom, and the official ebony governor of Luciennes starts crying murder.
At this Chon (Evangeline Lilly) emerges from the chamber adjacent to her sister's. "What are you doing, you brute? You'll kill him!"
Jean: "You want some of this too? I've got ass-kicking enough for everyone!"
Between Jean's threats, Zamore's shrieks, and Chon's outraged gasps, there's no more siesta for Madame Dubarry (Anne Hathaway), who hastens out of her room barely wrapped in a sleeping gown: "What's this about, brother? Oh, dear Marshal, you here..!"
Richelieu is not being his gallant self: "I'm here, and De Choiseul is THERE, steadier in his post than ever. Wonder what went wrong! Can it be that you did not read the note the King gave you?"
Jean throws himself on a couch that creaks under the weight of his boisterousness: "Can you even READ, sister? You told us he'd promised to fire the Minister!"
"Shut up, Jean, I CAN read, but I'm so pretty I don't HAVE to!" She extracts the letter from between her breasts, which is where women used to archive their important correspondence: "It says here: 'I, Louis XV, promise that tomorrow I will see Monsieur De Choiseul out of Versailles.' Clear, isn't it?"
The Marshal slaps himself in the forehead, his wig flying out of his head before settling down slightly askew: "Well, there, clear indeed. Then TOMORROW we will triumph. 'Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow'! He didn't put a date on it, did he?"
Madame Dubarry frowns: "I... no..."
"So everytime you ask him about it, he can say: 'Sure, I'll do it TOMORROW, just like the letter promises!' It's like this bar that has a sign that promises: 'TOMORROW- DRINKS ON THE HOUSE'. What happens tomorrow is immaterial, Madame. Only today counts. Not only that, the King actually DID see the Minister out of Versailles. Walked him right out the door himself, arm in arm. Then gave him a tour of the LPT. So he's kept his promise in any case. Madame, this is what's called 'being punked'."
"I'm going to bite off his... crown..." mumbles Madame Dubarry.
"Oh, disgrace, tragedy, disaster! Drama!" says Chon and raises her hands to the ceiling like a despairing Niobe. Not the Niobe from the Matrix, the mythological one whose 14 children were wiped out by the gods.

Madame Dubarry whirls around the room: "Fine! I won't go to the big chase this afternoon! He'll miss me!"
Richelieu coughs: "On the other hand, go. Be nicer than ever. I know it's hard to fake it, but always remember your precarious position. The King might after all decide that it's best to, er, live his last days on Earth in widowed celibacy."
Dubarry laughs at this: "Yeah, right!" Then pauses: "People DO like to try new things, though. Are YOU going, Marshal?"
RICHELIEU:"If you cut off my legs I'll drag my stumpies there. Of course I'll go, I want a social life, don't I?"
The royal mistress fixes her eye on her "ally" testingly: "Then come in my carriage."
R:"But, my dear Countess, if I do that, M. De Choiseul will put me on HIS black list!"
D:"You said we were in this together!"
R:"Marie Antoinette will put me on HER black list!"
D:"You said you were my friend!"
R:"But understand..."
D:"It's fine, Marshal. You do what you gotta do."
Richelieu lowers his head: "Fine, I'll go with you, but I get the window seat."
Meanwhile, Jean is quietly prying open a drawer in a bureau, sneaky activity not missed by the countess: "JEAN!"
He nearly breaks the bureau in his confusion: "I thought I saw a, whatchamacallit, a trapped bunny in this drawer and I was trying to help him out."
Madame Dubarry sighs: "I took the money out of there, you fool. How much do you need anyway?"
Jean: "A pittance. Just, you know, I need to bribe reporters and poets and the such so they don't rip us a new one in gazettes all over Paris."
She extracts a billfold from- say it with me- between her breasts, and throws it at him: "I bet I'll find the same bills in a brothel by tomorrow morning. Leave! You make me sick."
Jean happily pockets the money and stalks off, not forgetting to steal a valuable jade figurine on the way out of Luciennes.
"What a lovely lad!" says Richelieu. "He must be very dear to you."
D:"YES, he's sucking my money. Very well, it's nearly 1. The King's escort is supposed to pick me up on his way to Marley for the afternoon hunt. I'll get prepped, while you tell me what plan B is."
R:"Briefly, my nephew, Monsieur D'Aiguillon, who's spurring his horse toward us as we speak. As for forcing De Choiseul off his place, frankly, it would take a miracle. And you know, it ain't Bible times. No miracles."
D:"Except I know one man who can make miracles come true."
R:"Yes, well, we ALL have a friend in Jesus."
D:"No, keep up. I just thought of him! This is the magician who predicted, ten years ago, that one day I would be the Queen of France! And aren't I?"
R:"Can he predict if I'll ever be Prime Minister? So where can we find this miracle man?
D:"I dunno. Never got his address. He said he would contact me to ask for his reward, but he hasn't yet."
R:"And he HASN'T asked for money? Now, THAT is a miracle! Spit the name out."
D:"He's the Count de Fenix, a Prussian officer- I pointed him out to you during the presentation which you so contributed to."
R:"He can't be that good a magician- all the ones I know have names that end up in O. Like, 'The Grand Ostromo.'"
D:"He does too! His OTHER name is Joseph Balsamo."
R:"Well, crikey! How do we find him?"
"I don't know," says Madame Dubarry, who has been squeezed into a beautiful outfit even as she yapped. "But I know someone who knows! Ah, I hear the carriage outside. Come along; let the fools hunt for animals. We'll go hunting for a wizard!"
And the duo sets off to the big chase of the month.

Judd Apatow's "Funny People"

2009-12-12T13:00:00.011-05:00

The sadness of comedians has intrigued me for a long time- just like the messy divorces of pop's paladins of love. Have I quoted this joke from "Watchmen" enough?
"Heard joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he's depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. Doctor says "Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up." Man bursts into tears. Says "But, doctor... I AM Pagliacci!"
Bummer.

As you may have heard by now, Judd Apatow's "Funny People" is not entirely funny. Sure, it has all the dick jokes Seth Rogen and Adam Sandler can stuff in their mouths, but the feel is that of Woody Allen's "Stardust Memories". "Funny People" is not as hostile: Allen talks of "killing" his audience, Apatow merely "fucks them", or worse, he dismisses them. That suits someone like Werner Herzog, but it's a box-office mistake when you got an empire of goodwill to maintain. When famous funny-man George Simmons (Sandler), who thinks he's dying, allows the darkness to creep into his set, his unimportant, uncomfortable audience fades into silence. As he puts it, when you can hear the waitress' footsteps, you know there's a problem.
At 2 hours and a half there are a lot of moments for the waitress' footsteps to be heard in the movie. The movie ignores our patience, and even our need for suspense: its driving premise is given up with about an hour to go. I'm not complaining about the mix of drama and comedy- in fact, the main problem here is that the drama and the comedy are in apartheid, with a strong, funny first half that peters out to whining and self-indulgence. If I was Apatow and I had nabbed a hottie like Leslie Mann I too would parade her in the saintly light- but do we also need him to show us his real-life daughter singing "Memory" from "Cats" and then scold us for being too immature if we giggle?

ABOVE: There is NO nepotism in Hollywood!
I wouldn't have thought so 10 years ago, but I've come to like Adam Sandler. Not that I'm fooled into finding him a GREAT actor just 'cause he knows when to shut up, but at least he knows how to provide people with access to his disappointment better than Seth Rogen, who's just there to show a new angle to the bromance: (bromos also have to take care of the last rites should one of them fall along the way, no?) Supporting in the "funny" part of the movie are "Superbad's" Jonah Hill, "THE SUPER ABRIDGED MARIE ANTOINETTE SAGA"s
very own Jason Schwartzman, and newcomer cutie Aubrey Plaza, who's now on "Parks and Recreation".

ABOVE: Aubrey. (I love the term "newcomer". 'Yeah, baby, I'll make you newcome!')

There's a lot to love in "Funny People", but that hanging last hour has left me too tired to sell you on it. Even as Apatow's less successfully structured movie to date, I recommend it.

The Apples in Stereo, "#1 Hits Explosion"

2009-12-11T20:04:00.007-05:00

To paraphrase someone else speaking of P.G. Wodehouse: "It's impossible to feel miserable when listening to the Apples in Stereo, and believe me, I've tried."
The archetypal indie-pop band out of the Elephant 6 collective, The Apples in Stereo takes me to a happy place. Robert Schneider's lyrics are simplistic to the point of cheerleading: ("Go" is a typical exhortation.) But that just means nothing gets in the way of the fun. Get this greatest hits set- it doesn't go wrong. The Apples have that playful Beatles sound down pat, (specifically the Beatles circa "Revolver"). But hey, if only more people were capable of sounding like the Beatles, I wouldn't have wasted those rounds on my radio that one time Theory of a Dead Man accidentally came on.

Watch the Powerpuff Girls -themed "Signal in the Sky"!

"Peter Parker: Spiderman" 1999-2003

2009-12-11T19:34:00.005-05:00

The stories in "Peter Parker: Spiderman", written largely by Paul Jenkins, are not particularly epic: as the title of the publication suggests, the human aspect of the superhero is what comes to the forefront. That means Peter will stare at himself in the mirror with an alarming frequency as his friends are endangered by his identity. The stories tend towards the stand-alone, as in the moving 35th issue, which finds an inner city boy fantasizing about a Spiderman that can swing him away from a doped-up mom and the encroaching threat of gang life. Spidey is absent in this story, (some things even superheroes can't hope to fix), but the issue ends tenderly with a dream revelation: the boy unmasks Spiderman to discover he's been his missing role model all along.

Nikita Mikhalkov's "12"

2009-12-11T12:39:00.005-05:00

In the typical flow, Hollywood discovers a powerful-but-low-budgeted idea in a foreign market, and wedges it into a platable American shape, squeezing out everything that made the interesting original- and usually what makes the original interesting IS its provenance. But here's the reverse: Nikita Mikhalkov's "12", a Russian remake of Sidney Lumet's classic "12 Angry Men". The plot is essentially unaltered, its thespian veneer never shaken off: this is still a story of 12 jurors stuck in a room who watch their preconceptions slide away as they move away from a nearly unanimous "Guilty" verdict towards the analytical solution of a crime. It's powerful stuff, and Mikhalkov, (who directed the Academy Award winning "Burnt by the Sun") manages to imbue it with Russian significance: the alleged murderer is a Chechen immigrant, and characters catch themselves calling each other "Comrade" accidentally, then blushing. Fall-of-communism grievances are aired, xenophobia rears its ugly head, and there are more cathartic "acting" moments than you can shake a sickle-and-hammer at. It's an actor's flick, then and now, and the group of characters gathered here are memorable as their coats of propriety are shaken off: even when their detective work isn't logical the volume of their performances drown those concerns.
"12" is a little too long for its one-gym-room set-up (and conversely, I thought the flashback war scenes that take us out of the room were a cheat, lowering the net as it were.) Also, I didn't welcome its moments of magical realism: (the trespassing bird that signals - something; the shimmery fragmentation of reality that seems to guide a juror's quest for justice). It is nonetheless a suspenseful, brilliantly cast movie- fans of courtroom drama should not miss it.

Viva La Vie Boheme

2009-12-11T00:12:00.005-05:00

"I can't control
My destiny
I trust my soul
My only goal
Is just
To be"

I saw Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal perform "Rent". They seem not to have aged- some would say the play has. I've aged too. Badly: It's 12 years or so later, and I find it hard to believe that we'll ever be an 'us', instead of a 'them', or that I'll learn real love if I love myself, or even that there's no day but today. Thinking like that is what lands Mimi as a homeless junkie with AIDS, after all.
But for three hours or so I forget, and I still get transported to my youth when this show felt actually cool and transgressive- something you might not sense after all this time, you Skeptic Imaginary Reader. I have little new to say or feel about "Rent". Instead, I thought I would list, in order, all the revealing references in what is simply the best rock opera. (No, even if it's far more acceptable to mainstream tastes, "Tommy" isn't as good, sorry.)

1-CBGBs
2-The Pyramid Club
3-Fender Guitars
4-"The Christmas Song" ("Chestnuts roasting...")
5-"Musetta's Waltz" from Puccini's "La Boheme"
6-AZT
7-The Cat Scratch Club (Real? Maybe?)
8-Spike Lee
9-Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" ("bah humbug, bah humbug...")
10-The Life Cafe (REAL!)
11-Pound Ridge
12-Doc Martens
13-The Parthenon
14-Bustelo
15-Marlboro
16-Captain Crunch
17-Santa Claus
18-Stoli Vodka
19-"Oh Holy Night"
20-MIT
21-NYU
22-Alphabet City
23-Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Evita"
24-Ridley Scott's "Thelma and Louise"
25-"Joy to the World"
26-Jesus
27-"It's a Wonderful Life"
28-Prozac
29-Harvard
30-The Scarsdale Jewis Community Center
31-Santa Fe
32-Ted Koppel
33-Heidegger
34-The Beatles' "Can't Buy Me Love"
35-Newt Gingrich
36-Calvin Klein
37-Saks
38-"Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer"
39-Irvin Berling's "Holiday Inn"
40-D, C, X, smack, horse, joogie-boogie boy, blow, crack
41-L.L. Bean
42-Geoffrey Beene
43-Burberry
44-"White Christmas"
45-"Jingle Bells"
46-"Silent Night"
47-Diet Coke
48-Mickey Mouse (suicidal)
49-China (as in "Go back to..!")
50-Mother Goose's Nursery Rhymes
51-Bohemia, Calcutta
52-"Little Town of Betlehem"
53-Absolut Vodka
54-The Village Voice
55-Maya Angelou
56-Susan Sontag
57-Stephen Sondheim
58-Allen Ginsberg
59-Bob Dylan
60-Merce Cunningham
61-John Cage
62-Lenny Bruce
63-Langston Hughes
64-Uta Hagen
65-Buddha
66-Pablo Neruda
67-"The Wizard of Oz"
68-Pee Wee Herman
69-Gertrude Stein
70-Michelangelo Antonioni
71-Bernardo Bertolucci
72-Akira Kurosawa
73-Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana"
74-Vaclav Havel
75-The Sex Pistols
76-The 8BC Club
77-Marijuana AND S&M
78-Hollywood
79-The Gospel of St. Luke
80-MTV's New Year's Rocking Eve
81-James Bond and Pussy Galore ("in person!")- accompanied by Miss Moneypenny.
82-Spiderman
83-Dateline ("Buzzline")
84-The Plaza Hotel
85-The Clit Club (totally unreal?)
86-Billy Wilder's "Some Like it Hot"
87-Alec Baldwin
88-IMAX Theaters
89-Rod Serling's "The Twilight Zone"
90-John Williams' "Star Wars Theme" (distorted on Voice Mail #5)
91-"Santa Claus is Coming to Town"
AND
92-Robin Hood.

Wheeew- hope I didn't miss anything.*
*I did. ACT UP is not just an imperative, but also an actual organization.

Idina Menzel sings a stripped ballad version of "No Day But Today" to a very appreciative crowd. Skip past the 1 minute mark.

Benito Perez Galdos' "The National Episodes: Trafalgar"

2009-12-10T12:11:00.008-05:00

Benito Perez Galdos is Spain's answer to Balzac's prodigy, a vast chronicler of life both private and public. He's probably best known to cinema fans through Luis Bunuel's adaptations of three of his novels,("Viridiana", "Nazarin", "Tristana", all of which you must go watch now!), or maybe through his Tolstoy-sized "Fortunata and Jacinta".

But it's his 46-volume "National Episodes" that makes him the premiere Iberian novelist, (Cervantes beats him in influence, but have you read Cervantes' non- Quixote stuff? No, you haven't.) A towering achievement of historical fiction, the Episodes work like Balzac's "Human Comedy", with characters historical and imaginary flitting in and out of them in little rewarding manners. Balzac would often show us his recurring characters at a different station in life; Galdos' own neat trick is to show his little troupe through the perspective of different narrators.
The first series of Episodes begins with "Trafalgar". The narrator, Gabriel Araceli, tells us he's sinking back through his memory to an adolescense not void of adventure. In 1805, at the age of 15, he's an eager sea lad, part of the French-Spanish co-allition that was defeated by the British Navy at Trafalgar. It's a decisive battle of the Napoleonic Wars where a victorious England nonetheless lost one of her greatest military legends in the form of Horatio Nelson.

Young Gabriel opens up to patriotism during the brutal combat. In a premature epiphany he's incensed by a vision of the Spanish flag, and understands that one fights and dies for one's country, one's neighbors and grandparents, one's favorite tree and chapel and childhood memories. But when the flag he's worshipping is brought down from the ship's mast, and the conquering Brits proudly raise their own Union Jack, Gabriel has a second stunning realization, one most soldiers fight to avoid: that the enemy feels exactly the same about their country and is killing for the same ideals, and has been duped by more or less the same patriotic speeches.

Galdos is not widely translated into English. His use of 19th century slang is challenge enough for Spanish readers, who can visit the extensive author's oeuvre (or "obra?") at the Cervantes Virtual Library.

Sondre Lerche's "Heartbeat Radio"

2009-12-09T20:42:00.007-05:00

Sondre Lerche is like Josh Rouse or Ed Harcourt or Rufus Wainwright: one of those guys I've liked for a long time but for some reason never quite elicit my gushing fandom*. "Heartbeat Radio" isn't changing that. These are amiable, jazzy pop songs, crafted to show how stylistically elastic our young Norwegian is. Like his music, his lyrics toy with squareness but turn loose at the last minute so that they run no risk of becoming "American Idol" standards. "Heartbeat Radio", "Music and Lyrics" and "I Cannot Let You Go" are the obvious, too-singular-to-be-singles singles in this set, but my favorite is "Like Lazenby", which finds a discarded lover sympathizing with the one-time-only James Bond over a loungy theme:
"Can I do it over?
Don't I get a second try?"

*"Gushing + Anything" will always sound gross. It's just a gross word.

Ron Howard's "Angels and Demons"

2009-12-09T05:31:00.007-05:00

I can't ever make my mind up about Ron Howard. One of our best directors? Hack? "Angels and Demons" is better than "The Da Vinci Code", but not in the way "Empire Strikes Back" is better than "A New Hope"- in the way "Attack of the Clones" was better than "The Phantom Menace".

Dan Brown's first Robert Langdon thriller was only a modest hit until the phenomenon of a sequel that, if nothing else, kept the book industry on its respirator. "Angels and Demons" has its charm as a mid-range suspenser because it allows you to dwell on the trivia. Want to examine those Illuminati ambigrams for a minute or so? The written page lets you.
The big screen, though, pushes them in your face and, since they're not exactly a fun five-car collision, whisks them right out while Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) runs from one end of the Vatican to the other, leaping through plot holes and entering lame set pieces, (he's stuck inside the Vatican's library! With all those dusty tomes! Oh no!). This is one of those movies where the bad guys, instead of accomplishing what they want to accomplish, leave reams of instructions for our connection-happy hero to track them down: "'You will find our lair where the saint ain't' The saint ain't... Saint ann... He means they're hiding at Saint Anne's Church!" And there Langdon goes with an entourage that includes, (aside from Ayelet Zuhrer as Langdon's female appendage), Ewan McGregor as a recently deceased Pope's camerlengo, Stellan Skarsgard as the ruff Swiss Guard cop, and Armin Mueller-Stahl as a seemingly-mean "preferitti", a Papal candidate.
Look, I don't mean to spoil things, but you pretty much have three options for who the big bad is, and two of them are so blatanly villainous that you'll be foolish not to opt for the third.
Aside from a pretty Vatican City travelogue, all "Angels and Demons" has going for it is the sweet message that "religion and science can co-exist": the movie goes out of the way to present the Catholic Church in a positive light even if that dillutes the suspense, (Howard doesn't want those Opus Dei assassins after him anymore than you do.) But neither Howard nor Tom Hanks behave like they've lucked out on a great franchise: more like they're saddled with a mediocre one. This is an unsatisfying product (product is the correct term) and as soon as the end credits started rolling, everything was illuminated:
IT WAS WRITTEN BY THE HACK SUPER DUO OF DAVID KOEPP AND AKIVA GOLDSMAN.

Rob Zombie's "The Haunted World of El Superbeasto"

2009-12-08T12:49:00.004-05:00

A ramshackle homage to Ralph Bakshi, strippers, creature features, strippers, John Kricfalusi, jokey rock songs, strippers, and everything else that has preoccupied Rob Zombie for the last forty years, (including strippers), "The Haunted World of El Superbeasto" is also the best adult-themed American cartoon in years. Or maybe it's the worst, who knows? It's the only one I recall seeing. (I don't mean adult-themed as in "Adults can relate to Wally's plight wah wah wah". I mean it in that triple-and-quadruple-X, hundreds-of-lovingly-depicted-breasts, censors-bulging-aneurystic-veins-over-the-Satanic-imagery kind of way.)
The surprising cast members have fun throwing itself into cartoon mode (Comedian Tom Papa as the egocentric ex-wrestler/pornie star! Rosario Dawson as foul-mouthed Velvet Von Black! Brian Posehn! Paul "JOHN ADAMS" Giammati as Dr. Satan! Zombie's wife, Sheri, as El Superbeasto's shirt-bursting sister- ok, she's not that surprising). But we never quite have as much fun as they do because the movie foregoes "funny" for "energetic", and when the "energetic" fails, it goes to "vulgar"- and it often goes to "vulgar." The animation is surprisingly smooth, though: like, big-screen-good, but one can't imagine it there. It's hard to enjoy cartoon tits when watching in public, and, unless you're into hentai, not very productive in private.

Was any of THAT tasteful? If the question occurred to you, hop along, Cassidy: this is NOT your movie.

"Naruto" Episodes 1 through 78

2009-12-08T12:31:00.004-05:00

It's taken an ultra-dilated year or so of viewing to watch the first three seasons of shonen power-horse "Naruto", (episodes 1-78). I'm a mere third of the way through the FIRST show. Never mind that the sequel, "Naruto Shippuden", is just as gargantuan. How can a two-minute ninja fight extended over four or five episodes be so captivating? Humor and heart, I suppose. One watches on because to desist would be un-ninja-like, a failure of endurance. It's the way I feel about Robert Jordan's "The Wheel of Time": so much has happened- and so very slowly- that turning back would be to face dishonor.
(Or cut one's losses? I never can decide!)

CHAPTER 78: LE PETIT TRIANON

2009-12-08T08:52:00.003-05:00

Versailles- grandiose, inmense, its anterooms thronged by courtiers, its corridors crowded with footmen, pages, and officers- was built by Louis XIV to house a God, and a God with a big posterior too. It was too much for a man, and even Kings have to be men on ocassion. Hence Mr. Le XIV had ordered the palace of Trianon to be erected, a more reasonable retreat within the greatness.
But even Le Grand Trianon had been too much for his sucessor, our Louis XV (Robert De Niro), who's conjured Le Petit Trianon, a sixty-foot square pavilion: the retreat from the retreat.

Le Petit Trianon, (or the LPT, as I am tempted to denominate it despite the redundancy) is a relatively plain oblong building, with grated convent-like windows on its side, and with room for about ten masters and some 50 servants. 5 to 1 is a nice ratio! It's connected to the rest of Versailles by a florid garden, traversed by a wooden bridge.
And hopping on this bridge are Louis XV and the newly grateful M. De Choiseul, (Tom Wilkinson), who knows his business and praises all progress on the LPT.
LOUIS: "It's coming along. The dauphiness has that embarrassing Austrian accent; here, away from the courtly noise, she'll practice her French at ease."
CHOISEUL: "Your Majesty, it would be beyond me to suggest Marie Antoinette is anything sort of perfect."
L: "Remind the Dauphin of her perfection. Look at the lump over there!"
He points at the Dauphin, the Louis XVI-in-training (Jason Schwartzman), who is planted in the garden doing something dorky like calculating the sun's altitude or the rate of growth of petunias.
L: "Enough with the science! Girls hate science!"
At this, a soft, charming voice (and its accompanying person) sneak upon the King and M. De Choiseul: "Not at all, I think his nerdiness is adorable."
The two men bow to Marie Antoinette, who has just been chatting to a man so sinking under rolled papers, compasses and other accoutrements of creation that he has to be an architect.
MARIE ANTOINETTE: "May I introduce Monsieur Mique? He's helping me add some touches to this garden that's boring everyone."
L: "Not so loud! Your husband might hear you!"
MA: "Oh, he knows."
L: "That you're bored?"
MA: "He knows about the changes, I mean! I want a natural garden in this park. I like nature, like the English."
L: "I wouldn't mention the English around M. De Choiseul. He'll throw the Navy on you. And what's this about a natural garden? Aren't they all?"
MA: "Not if they're cut at 45 degree angles. We have to add some wildness to this place! Rivers, grottoes, ravines, pretty little houses carved out of rock!"
L: "Fit for whom?"
MA: "For a Queen and her servants!"
L: "A natural savage Queen- Monsier Rousseau would approve, my dear. And as for the servants-" The King directs his glance at one of the windows of the palace, on the domestic's side, where there's a sudden female apparition: "What do we have there?"
MA: "Oh, it's a young lady I have taken upon my protection. She reads for me."
L: "Ah, mayhaps Mademoiselle Andree de Taverney? She looks pale. I should ask after her health!"
MA: "She's still in recovery from that messy fireworks display, so I think we should leave her to herself for now, while she gets settled." She grabs the King by the crown in a futile attempt to distract him from further ogling Andree, but he's still at it.
L: "Poor thing, and it looks like her room is all gloom. Let's go in, see how we can pretty it up."
Marie Antoinette sighs: "The room is fine. Oh, all right, I'll show you in."
M. De Choiseul throws his hands up: "Your Majesty, I have a country to run. Let's go room-raiding right after the war." And so the Minister goes back out, while the King, Marie Antoinette, and Mique the architect move on.
(The Dauphin is left in the same place, measuring the garden's humidity.)
As the trio enters the LPT proper, they see a shy figure vanish down the other end of the hall.
L: "This bird has flown. WELL, since apparently Mademoiselle de Taverney has deserted her new alcove, what stops us from going in and rummaging through her drawers?"
And so the King turns the key conveniently nestled in the lock, and bursts in with the hopes of finding an abandoned fan or a scented napkin or something equally pornographic. But Andree's room merely shows the modest disarray of the "just-moved-in": a pianoforte, some books, and, drawing everyone's attention, a Chinese vase from which beautiful flowers bloom.
L: "That is one butt-kicking bouquet. Clearly, the little reader girl has great taste."
MA: "Actually, that bouquet was left in by the gardener for her, before she even moved in."
L: "The gardener?" He smells the bouquet suspiciously. "It seems the gardener has great taste too. Who's this gardener that's so attentive to Mademoiselle?"
MA: "I don't know. Some kid. Monsieur de Jussieu, the botanist, supplied him for me."
L: "Did he now?" The King dedicates some more suspicion to looking out of Andree's window, and inspecting the flower bed right below. "Well, gardeners take care of flowers, I suppose." He narrows his eyes and mutters to himself: "He's STILL there? What is WRONG with him?"
He refers to the Dauphin, who's standing outside the LPT- meditating on land distribution, one guesses. Hasn't moved much.

MY GOD THIS WOMAN! PART # 1,326

2009-12-07T07:18:00.003-05:00

"ZegaPain"

2009-12-07T05:56:00.004-05:00

The misunderstanding- or deliberate misinterpretation- of quantum physics has resulted in much generic anime nonsense, but as far as generic anime nonsense goes I quite enjoyed Sunrise Studios' "ZegaPain", a mecha show that crosses "Ender's Game" and "The Matrix."
Kyo is your typical high school boy struggling to keep the swim-club alive when the beautiful Shizuno dives into his life- except Shizuno may not be real. And there is a videogame that may be a fun time-waster, or a portal into a war being fought by robots in a post-apocalyptic world. And then Kyo starts realizing odd things about his life, like the fact that his Mom is ALWAYS away, or that the subway to Tokyo never ever gets to Tokyo no matter how many times he rides it.
It's not the plot I dug ("Is life a computer-generated illusion? Are computers an illusion-generated life? Are illusions a life-generated computer? Huh?"); it's not the character designs, (plucked out of "You Too Can Draw Manga!"); and it's not the intrusive, low-budget CG fighting scenes, practically all of which I recommend fast-forwarding through. Rather, it's the way the series unfolds, with some revelations completely altering what we've gathered so far. Besides, "Zegapain" has many touching moments of quiet humanity, as in the scene in which a distraught Kyo self-righteously harangues a flirty teacher who's brought bento for his crush: "How can you go on flirting and eating knowing that life is fake and everything is meaningless?" And the teacher replies, somewhere between bemused and perplexed: "Because it's fun?"
Which is a very decent point.

OOOOH, ANOTHER ANIMAL-NAMED BAND!

2009-12-06T14:09:00.004-05:00

Fight Like Apes! Another animal-named band! Is there a big overlap between indie bands and frustrated zoology majors? "Tie Me Up With Jackets" doesn't do much for me, (not-so-lovely-noise), but blessedly it's brief. Just there for the video. I'm a sucker for that "Waking Life" animation-vibe, didn'tcha know?

Dan Simmons' "The Terror"

2009-12-06T09:35:00.012-05:00

Just like in "Beaufort", the men in Dan Simmon's "The Terror" are trapped in a stronghold in the middle of a desert. This time the fortress is a ship, (that titular "Terror", lodged in the Arctic ice in 1846, along with its sister "The Erebus"), and the barren wastelands are white instead of a sandy orange, but the men still go through the same combination of methodic, martial boredom and then... well, terror. It's the title! Simmons, (whose recent excursion into Dickens territory with "Drood" is on my Q), has long been a melder of genres, whether he's working on science fiction or fantasy mode, and here he takes the nautical adventure novel in the fashion of Herman Melville or Jules Verne and adds... well, a MONSTER. Melville in particular would have loved that mysterious white entity that prowls outside the keeling vessel, bursting out of the snow to rip the sailors apart- and this is a novel as deeply symbolic in its way as "Moby Dick". It's also less syntactically tortured. (Sorry, White Whale Fans!). As for this book's killer white creature, whether it's a Polar Bear a la "Lost", an Innuit Spirit, or the incarnation of disencarnation, it won't matter once you're in its maw. If the scurvy doesn't get you first.
A Melville quote about the fear inspired by whiteness in nature is key to the novel's approach to death. Whiteness is ghostly, an unnatural color, precisely because of its blandess. People may be afraid of the dark, but I think the dark at least holds promises. ANYTHING might happen in the dark. It is far more terrifying to face a white blankness and know that NOTHINGNESS awaits.

“This elusive quality it is, which causes the thought of whiteness, when divorced from more kindly associations, and coupled with any object terrible in itself, to heighten that terror to the furthest bounds. Witness the white bear of the poles, and the white shark of the tropics; what but their smooth, flaky whiteness makes them the transcendent horrors they are? That ghastly whiteness it is which imparts such an abhorrent mildness, even more loathesome than terrific, to the dumb gloating of their aspect. So that not even the fierce-fanged tiger in his heraldic coat can so stagger courage as the white-shrouded bear or shark.”

Joseph Cedar's "Beaufort"

2009-12-06T02:21:00.009-05:00

The great sage John Rambo taught me this:
You can't build a warrior, then take away the war. Shit WILL go down.

The ancient, titular fortress in Joseph Cedar's Academy-Award nominee "Beaufort" has stood as a symbol of the Middle East's uncertainties for centuries. A Crusader's enclave in Lebanon, it has often switched military allegiance while never quite losing its majestic authority over the landscape; at the time we enter its ramparts, (and you WILL feel like you have entered them and lived in its cavernous depths), Beaufort is occupied by Israeli forces who- for reasons they don't fully understand- are retreating and abandoning the place to the Hezbollah attacks that make every bathroom break both boring and terrifying (boredom and terror being the two constants of war).
Why is the war over? Are their leaders clueless? If the mission has been accomplished- or botched- why aren't they home already? If they do get back home, how will their friends and family look at them? Heroes? Killers? Losers? And why are they dying to defend something they've already lost? The questions transcend the specific politics of any particular side. This movie works like Wolfgang Petersen's "Das Boot": no matter how you feel about Israeli occupation of the area (there, I said it, sue me), you will care for the mystified soldiers.
"Beaufort" also works a lot like "Alien" or "Dune": the men and their weaponry are an unwelcome anomaly in an otherwordly desert; their weaponry and gadgets cover them like futuristic projections; the fortress' claustrophobic, reinforced corridors are the spaceship from hell; the enemy an invisible, inhuman pest.

The mystified soldiers are headed by Liraz (Oshri Cohen), who's hot-headed-but-you'll-get-to-know-him. Aside from one other character that gets shockingly dispatched in the movies' sole surprise, Liraz is the one you'll recall as he watches his men revolt and squirm under the weight of his patriotic conviction. Like many a soldier, he's constantly forcing himself to believe that he's doing the RIGHT THING, even if situations suggest otherwise. He's like that earnest veteran who hauntingly looks you in the eye and shares his logic:
"We were doing the right thing, because if we WEREN'T doing the right thing, I lost my legs and my buddies in vain, and I couldn't live with THAT. Hence we were doing the right thing."
Be warned the movie has its share of war-time cliches. Like, why can't soldiers learn? DON'T fuck it up by wistfully telling your buddies: "Just one more week, and I'll be back home in my girlfriend's arms. Want to see her picture? I love her so much. Just gotta make it through this LAST DEADLY MISSION, and it's sweet street from there on out." Might as well pop back a grenade, dude.
I said the movies' more gripping moments transcends politics, but that doesn't mean the filmmakers do. You never get a sense that they understand the guys over at Hezbollah are going trough exactly the same monotonous wartime chorus, aching for their family and fearing death in precisely the same way as their Israeli counterparts. But "Beaufort" is not propaganda: the decision to almost entirely cut direct enemy confrontation turns it into a pensive movie about isolation and the unlikely bonds that get formed among people locked together into comradeship. Two or three cliches less, and it might even have DESERVED that Award nomination.

ART: The F is silent.

2009-12-03T21:12:00.004-05:00

I feel so inspired by David Lynch's photographic exhibit, that it's almost like I'm bursting to the seams with that gaseous feeling known by the German as "Ein Art". I don't think I've given my prodigious artistic talents their full due. I mean, I own a picture camera, and I KNOW I can borrow a beret from my cousin Chadwin- why aren't I being feted in Manhattan?
Well, I was dicking around with the camera, took a few shots, but then it fell down in my bathtub. (You don't need to know why I had my camera in the bathtub, just accept it sank like the Titanic and no longer works.) But can anything deter the steam engine of "EIN ART"? (Answer: Only the rusty coin of commerce on the tracks!) I realized what I've always suspected: anyone can make art- but it takes a true "EIN ARTISTIK" to talk about it incomprehensibly.
So I took some old boring pictures off the Net, made by nameless suckers no doubt, and much improved them with my titles. If genius arouses you, it's ok. You don't have to feel ashamed about it anymore.

Title: "Child. Labor. Child Labor. Child IN Labor. Child in LABORatory. Rostchild's Factory. Factory Roast Child. Capitalism Bad."

Title: "Mother, Why Are People So Ugly in Old-Timey Photographs? It Makes Me Sad."

Title: "Stop Being Such an Asshole and Give me a Sandwich, Rich White Photographer Dude, Version: #23,459,432"

Title: "I held you in my hands and your hair was a dazzling cloud, and your body lapped away like the desirous sea, but, really, all I wanted to do was get into your boat, if you know what I mean."

Title: "Marilyn, Reading."
Alternate Title: "Marilyn, Fucking Hot, Reading."

Title: "Death is the epitomic conversion of community involvement into caloric waves of unified field theory and art is the exploratory counterpart to that, as well as a confluence of love and intellectual potentiality that must be manifested in the form of political engagement."

Title: "Patent(ly) Iron(ic): or I Ruined Another Shirt, Why Does this Keep Happening to Me???

Title: "All Right, maybe she's no Marilyn Monroe, but listen, I just caught the ghons in Vichy, I can't be too picky about this."

David Lynch's "Dark Night of the Soul" (with Danger Mouse, Sparklehorse)- AND Iggy Pop

2009-12-03T19:45:00.010-05:00

Now David Lynch is mind-freaking you with PHOTOGRAPHS! Can he be stopped?

"Dark Knight of the Soul" is a multimedia event currently being exhibited at the O.H.W.O.W. Gallery (worth the seeking out if you're in Miami). There's the book, with some 50 Lynch captures, and then there's the accompanying album curated by Danger Mouse and a guy perilously named Sparklehorse. "OOOOH, eat your asparagus, kids, or else I'll call SPARKLEHORSE on you!" Maybe if he learned from his buds and called himself DANGER Sparklehorse I would be kinder. You know how I feel about "Twilight" and things "sparkling"! (I'm kidding, Sparklehorse: any friend of Tom Waits is a friend of mine.)

ABOVE: Celebrated musicians Sparklehorse (left) and Danger Mouse (right).

Basically you listen to the album as you peruse Lynch's stuff. Supposedly the thing to do is go to the gallery and pace yourself so that you sync the pics and the tracks, (with contributions by the Flaming Lips, Julian Casablancas, Suzanne Vega and Iggy Pop: more on him below). Some ridiculous copyright hold-up means you get a blank CD when you order the book and are supposed to dig for the dumb tracks- thanks for making me work extra, Danger Mouse!
That one thing irked me inmensely: as far as I'm concerned, selling you an album of music and then telling you: "Oh, it's blank for copyright reasons" is absolute extortion- particularly when the seller follows that statement with: "You can just download the tracks off the Internet and burn them on the CD yourself- you DO know how to use the Internet, don't you? Chuckle chuckle."
Well, thanks, douche, that's brilliant. Companies need to stop selling CDs with music and being like: "Just put whatever you want in there. It's called 'customer interaction', it's the Internet era's fresh paradigm that frees you as an adventurous listener from being subjected to the artificial track listing of a traditional music publisher!"
NO, it's called BULLSHIT and assuming I have time to waste tracking down the songs you should have given me in the first place. Here's an idea, I'm going to get a blank book, call it "The Free Daytime of the Wavelength Bunnies", put it at the bookstore, and charge you 25 bucks for it. When you say "But it's blank", I'll say: "USE YOUR OWN IMAGINATION, SQUARE! What, you want me to DREAM for you too? Chuckle Chuckle."

I hate people.
Except Iggy Pop, whom I met at the Lynch exhibit. He's all right.

Side Note: Poor Iggy. The guy is majorly off. IRL you see the canyons around his eyes and you can tell he hasn't had a day on Planet Reality for some thirty years. His handler has to be there behind him all the time to more or less keep him from keeling over and having his face further mawed by rats. I felt sad for Iggy. He kind of wavers druggily like a shot up flag, and every second of his attempt at life is punctuated by some asshole like ME going: "OMG it's Iggy Pop can I take a picture with you Iggy Pop you're so cool Iggy Pop wow this is unbelievable wait until I post on the Internet that I saw Iggy Pop this is better than that time I saw Jewel shopping for incense!" To me it was a fun incident- to this dude it must be a horrifying recurring nightmare of hazy strangers that pop up in front of you every second while you smile politely and take the picture or autograph a CD. Then take two more steps- another guy pops up: "OMG it's Iggy Pop." Repeat. Take another step, someone new: "OMG it's Iggy Pop." Being famous like that is like an impossible level on the worst-designed RPG ever, where every step takes you to the same fight scene and what's worse is, if there ISN'T a fight then there's nothing to do and that's even more devastating. Being forgotten.
Not that that's REALLY possible, this being America. Right now someone who was on season 2 of some sitcom called "Seven is Quite Sufficient" is being recognized at an Arby's by someone who's like: "OMG you're that girl from that show aren't you can I take a picture with you you're so cool wait until I post it on the Internet that I saw you!" And I bet it happens to HER at least five times a week.

The only way to win the role-playing-game of fame is to die.

Where were we? "Dark Night of the Soul". Lynch is a great image-maker, of course, and he gets a lot of mileage out of juxtaposing the large and small. But if you want a Lynch photograph- why don't you just make stills of his actual movies yourself? You do know how to use the pause button on your Blueray Player, don't you? Chuckle Chuckle.

And yes, there's creepy broken dolls, Dear Imaginary Reader, and "artsy" (read "moronic") subtitles to add "meaning". My untintentional favorite howlers: "Will evolution diminish before our very eyes?" And this mindblower: "Think about the world you know."
I'm thinking, I'm thinking, but I don't like what I'm coming up with.