Category: Movies and TV

Strange Intersection

I’m reading Lies My Teacher Told Me, and one of the latter chapters is called “Down the Memory Hole” (a reference to Orwell’s 1984), which was an interesting coincidence for me because I’ve been listening to Kevin Moore’s Memory Hole, a very, very interesting pastiche of found-audio that I highly recommend. It hovers somewhere between music and sample collage. It’s a meditation on politics, religion, and humanity. You can listen to it for free at ChromaKey.com (click on “Audio” and then on “Memory Hole.”

The first paragraph of that chapter in the book is the same paragraph that starts Kevin Brockmeier’s The Brief History of the Dead. So I was twice struck. Here’s the passage in question, which sparked Brockmeier’s novel:

“Many African societies divide humans into three categories: those still alive on the earth, the sasha, and the zamani. The recently departed whose time on earth overlapped with people still here are the sasha, the living-dead. They are not wholly dead, for they still live in the memories of the living, who can call them to mind, create their likeness in art, and bring them to life in anecdote. When the last person to know an ancestor dies, that ancestor leaves the sasha for the zamani, the dead. As generalized ancestors, the zamani are not forgotten but revered. Many…can be recalled by name. But they are not living dead. There is a difference.”

-James Loewen. Lies My Teacher Told Me

In other news, I just got back from seeing Resident Evil 3, and while I lament the relegation of Milla Jovovich to the land of post-apocalyptic zombie movies, I have to say I completely understand the appeal of her status as an icon of bad-assery. I may even go see the inevitable part 4. But I won’t rush to see parts 1 or 2. Once upon a time she was a really good singer and musician. I also came to realize the appeal of zombie movies: they are the best excuse to see excessive violence without remorse. After all, they’re just zombies. They are the last frontier of justifiable slaughter.

Sharing a Dream

I was watching the bonus features on Tideland, and Terry Gilliam hit me with this:

The dream that used to stick with me was my ability to fly. But it was never like in Brazil, flying through the clouds. It was only about 3 or 4 feet above the ground. I zipped along at about that height, but i wasn’t touching the ground. And years ago after having dreamt this for so many years I actually had a sense memory of the whole thing. My whole body felt that I had flown.

That is my most frequently occurring dream, and it is so vivid that, when I wake, I remember the experience so well that I feel as though I’ve actually done it. I was really just levitating a few feet above the ground, though. Nothing grandiose. No flying high above the trees. Anybody else have this?

Tideland

Terry Gilliam has lost his mind. And made maybe his best film.

You haven’t seen Tideland. Even I was barely aware of its release in 2006. From what I’ve read, it may be the most polarizing film I’ve ever seen. Most reviews are either one star or five. If you’re the type of person who is a moral absolutist, you will hate this film. If you believe that morals and behavior are culturally and socially derived, then you might enjoy it. If you’re fascinated by child psychology and the ability of a child’s imagination to shield themselves from trauma, you just might love it.

It’s almost a horror movie. Without giving too much away, I should mention that it resembles Psycho and Texas Chainsaw Massacre in one respect: it looks into the lives of people who exist off of society’s moral grid. Norman Bates and Leatherface freaked me out not with their violence, but with the norms they fashioned for themselves, particularly their reverence for their dead relatives. The scariest thing about them is the thought that people like them may exist in the darker corners of modern society.

Add into that mix an innocent young girl (Jodelle Ferland, who gives an astounding performance that puts Anna Paquin’s Oscar to shame) growing up in that madness, and you’ve got Tideland. There are a lot of uncomfortable scenes, but they’re only uncomfortable to adults putting themselves into the shoes of the child. What most often makes a film resonate with people is the empathy of experience with the main character. You put yourself into his or her shoes. But if you’re an adult, you can’t quite see through a child’s eyes. You have assumptions and boundaries and preconceived notions about how people should and should not act, but children don’t yet have that. For example, there’s no difference for them between heroin and insulin – they’re both just things that are administered with a needle.

From all that I read about the film before I saw it, I knew that this would test my loyalty to Terry Gilliam – the only director who has never disappointed me, and who has most consistently produced motion pictures that I adore (Billy Wilder, Cameron Crowe and Steven Soderbergh are close runners-up, though). I need never worry again.

Weirdest Director’s Commentary Ever

I recently picked up The Night of the Following Day, starring Marlon Brando, for $5 at Wal-Mart. The film is a slow-burning nail-biter of a kidnapping caper. It has a great overcast French setting, and if you’re like me you can enjoy a film like this just for the distinctive compressed tone and rainy texture. It’s also very 1968. Its twist ending may have been inventive at the time, but would likely not impress modern moviegoers. This may be why I enjoy it.

But there’s more: the director’s commentary by director Hubert Cornfield. Or so we would be led to believe. Rumor has it (via IMDb) that the commentary was actually Brando using some type of voice disguiser. Here are the only two reasons I would believe this:

  1. Cornfield’s voice is almost unlistenable. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to release a DVD with what sounds like a dying man breathing his last gurgling breaths. Perhaps Cornfield truly wanted to record it, despite his apparent ill health (he died three years after the DVD’s release, Brando one year). He certainly reveals a great deal about Brando’s arrogant and erratic behavior on the set. Perhaps he wanted to tell the world finally. Or perhaps Brando wanted to do it as both a prank and an apology.
  2. There is one scene where the commentary reveals that Brando was performing while completely drunk. The narrator hails the scene as a grudging appreciation of Brando’s talents. But the trivia section for the movie at IMDb reveals “Cornfield had to delete the parts in which his drunkenness was apparent.” Brando probably wouldn’t know that. And if Cornfield wanted to get back at Brando, he would not have chosen to praise Brando’s skills if time had to be spent extensively editing him.

I have to admit the mystery surrounding the DVD is more tantalizing than the film’s plot. Still I highly recommend this movie as one of the best $5 DVDs I’ve ever purchased.

Watch Conan O’Brien on Wednesday!

My friend Elizabeth is playing trombone with Patrick Wolf on Conan O’Brien this Wednesday night. I met Elizabeth during my trip to NYC last October and we became fast friends[1]. She gigs regularly as a trombonist for hire around the New York area. I once ate cotton candy off her head.

She’ll be the third person I’ve met who has been on Conan. The first and second were Bryan Beller and Mike Keneally, who played with Dweezil Zappa. Bryan has the distinction (I think) of being the first guy to take a bass solo on late night TV. Here’s the clip of the performance circa 1993, and here’s Bryan’s write-up of the experience. Mike and Bryan came through Little Rock some years ago for a guitar clinic and I took them out for pizza afterward. Here’s a picture of us. Bryan has recently moved to Nashville, which is nice. Hopefully we’ll get to hang out sometime soon.

UPDATE: Elizabeth says she’ll also be playing with a group called St. Vincent, doing several dates on the road opening for the Arcade Fire.

1.) We discovered last February that we had both recently read The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker and Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. That’s just spooky.

Thoughts on “Heroes”

One of the marvelous things about NBC’s Heroes is that, like the X-Men, each character has his or her own peculiar power that is somewhat limited in application. So writing a plot must be a bit like playing a game of chess. And like chess, Heroes has two “queens,” Sylar and Peter, who can operate with all the powers of each player (something that thus far separates the characters of Heroes from the X-Men).

All of this made me wonder about chess: why are its pieces so limited in movement, and why is there only one game to be played on the chess board, with one set of “powers” for each piece? There are dozens of games that can be played with a deck of cards, so why not re-assign each chess piece a new power? For example, let’s say that a rook can teleport to any open space analagous to its current position (if it were in the far top right corner, it could teleport any of the other three corners, presuming they were open.). Perhaps knights could only move at full right angles, bishops could only land on every other diagonal tile, etc. Just a thought.

I suppose at some point, the more changes you’d make, the more chess would resemble Dungeons & Dragons, which, in a certain sense, is more complex, creative and strategic a game than chess because the powers of the pieces are constantly in flux.

This is the sort of thing I think about before I fall asleep at night.

Wolfman’s Got Nards: Special Edition

This brings me great joy. Via DavisDVD:

“Lionsgate Home Entertainment will release fan-favorite, and one of the most requested titles, The Monster Squad on July 24th. Available on DVD for the first time, the 1980s cult classic arrives as a 2-disc 20th anniversary special edition featuring a newly mastered 16×9 anamorphic transfer, Dolby Digital 5.1 and original 2.0 stereo tracks. Bonus materials will include an audio commentary with writer/director Fred Dekker and “Squad Members” Andre Gower, Ryan Lambert and Ashley Bank, deleted scenes, “MONSTER SQUAD FOREVER!” five-part retrospective featuring new interviews with Dekker, actors Andrew Gower, Ryan Lambert, Ashley Bank, Duncan Regehr, Tom Noonan and more, “A CONVERSATION WITH FRANKENSTEIN” never-before-seen classic interview with the Monster himself, the original theatrical trailer and TV spot. Retail will be $19.98.”

The Summer of the Third

This may be a record for most sequels in a summer, and certainly for the most Part Threes ever:

Part Twos:
28 Weeks Later
Hostel 2
Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer
Evan Almighty
Daddy Day Camp

Part Threes:
The Bourne Ultimatum
Rush Hour 3
Spiderman 3
Shrek The Third
Ocean’s 13
Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World’s End

Part Four:
Live Free Or Die Hard

Part Five:
Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix

Attention Television Executives

Television as we know it will be dead soon. Everyone will have a DV-R at some point and we will skip commercials, rendering your revenue source nearly nil. What you must do to survive is this: digitize your entire catalog of old programming (if you’re smart enough to have saved the tapes) and offer your own YouTube-style service in which you can sell website ad space. You’re sitting on a goldmine of over 50 years of programming you thought you’d only air once or syndicate for reruns. But we want that content on-demand. Especially the nightly talk shows of which there are so many episodes that DVD just isn’t feasible: classic Johnny Carson, Merv Griffin, early David Letterman in particular. You’ve got it and we want it. For example, I want to be able to go CBS’s website and search on “Mel Torme Buddy Rich” and find this choice gem from Merv Griffin’s show in 1978.

We want to be able to watch what we want, when we want. It’s your content; you control it. If you build it, we will come. So get to work. It’s your only chance to survive.

Meta Studio 60

How to deal with being a young, unproven show in a time wherein more and more people are skipping commercials with DV-R’s and TiVo? Product placement. How to build in product placement, yet do it in such a way that you retain creative credibility? Answer: talk about product placement in the script. All the more “meta” is the fact that Studio 60 is a show about a show. So while the characters are talking ever so specifically about adding product placement for Gibson Guitars, I recall wondering why I’ve seen Gibson and Epiphone[1] banners around the set.

Add to all this the fact that last week’s episode talks about a spinoff show (see the other show about a show, 30 Rock, and its relationship to SNL), and you’ve got a complete loss of suspension of disbelief, which is the only problem I keep having with Studio 60. Fortunately it will be around for another season.

1.) Gibson-owned brand.