Also, speaking of Virgin-Birth, there's this new show called, geez, what is it...uh...something about Strippers? Anyway, it stars that guy from Billy Madison and those two hot thirty-somethings from The Whole Ten Yards, and it's starting to go places. You should catch up on it if you haven't. It's better than the weird show that precedes it, the one that gets the X-Men all wrong. I didn't know Jean Grey was a gay Japanese boy, but so far it's the only fuckup I'm enjoying.

Join us next week, as humbled narrator of dark hallway of darkness and other funny shite must turn and face the strange ch ch changes.

11-24-06 And now it's time for Watching El Topo, with Adam Cofer:

Adam: Was that a metaphor?

Jesse: *barely contains exasperation*

After "adjusting" to the surrealism, Adam's surround sound system starts buzzing.

From the troubleshooting section of the Technics manual:

1. Is your stereo properly grounded?

2. Are you attempting to watch El Topo?

Ten minutes later:

Me: This one's not very plotty...

Adam: Jodorowsky's Catholic. Well, that explains......nothing.

Adam: This is sort of a funeral procession for his nads

Me: Elegy, right to the nuts!

Stop blinking if you want to understand what's happening.

Forty five minutes in:

Me: Oh, well there's water coming out of that desert penis.

Adam: (mit nonchalance, at this point) Okay.

Adam: I mean, bisexual is one thing, but she's a cactus fucker.

WORST. WHOREHOUSE. EVER.

This film was shot in Anamorphic Fuck You

UNEXPLAINED METAPHOR FATIGUE

If you, or anyone you know is suffering from UMF, please call this toll-free number.

It may be possible to spread UMF to others

Adam: Jodorowsky just donkey-punched me.

FILM ENDS.

Episode Recap West Wing Announcer Voice: Last Week, on EL TOPO......Tonight, on a very Special EL TOPO!.....

I think next Thanksgiving, I'll just buy a lava lamp and watch that.

el escritor hindu: Rushdie - The Jaguar Smile

Tried it, and Kissed God: El Topo, or The Mole

11-21-06 Two years ago yesterday, my Dad passed on. Last night, Robert Altman left us to understand this crazy, mixed up world without his wisdom, guidance, and uncommon humanity.

Most films are made to divert us from the confusion and sadness of life. The major difference between Altman and most of his contemporaries, is that his films are life itself. They are a vitality that could outlive even a man like him, but only scarcely.

He used to say that he made films because he didn't know enough about the world. He knew next to nothing about the world of Gosford Park before he made it.

There won't be another quite like him, this next time around.

It seems that lately we've got awfully big shoes to fill, doesn't it?

11-17-06 I looked back over this thing for a minute and realized that since about June, it's been round after round of polemics in these here parts.

Part of me is somewhat pleased with the writing, to be honest, and another part of me is aware that there are more sophisticated ways of expressing either discontent or contention.

Regardless, I consider this space a tool, not a journal. I'm not looking to be nice, but I will never, ever ridicule anyone for expressing an opinion here (I mean, not cruelly, anyway). Most of you who read this are scarcely worried about that, but I'm sure it's possible to misconstrue some of the writing here as preaching, that thing that Aaron Sorkin is so guilty of lately.

Well, it may or may not be preaching. I don't really know. We've all gone off on something on our blogs. I know we use these pages for many, many things, but I consider mine the one place I can adequately work out criticism, essays, and essentially, what I really think. I rank far, far below my influences, as do we all, as far as we're concerned. I'm not trying to emulate them anymore so much as I'm trying to do the work. It's a valuable part of my life, and it goes here. I think it's always been like that. I don't use this as a Livejournal or a diary. I don't keep one. Life can suck sometimes, but I tend to remind myself of my amazing friends and my absurdly loving family whenever things are tough.

Plus, I scream the merry-fuck at machines, inanimate objects, the moon, and whatever stands in my way that doesn't have a pulse.

and I come here.

If it comes off as self-righteous, if it ever comes off as mean-spirited, well, that's unfortunate, because nobody intends for that.

I don't buy the notion that it's impossible to interpret attitude through text. That's part of the point, here. I'm trying to find an Edge in My Voice, just as Uncie Harlan taught me.

I can't turn it off, I don't know what I really think unless I've written about it, and finding out what you believe in is the same thing as finding out what you don't believe in. That tends to mean ruffling feathers. Don't be timid. Ruffle me back, but have more to say than 'shut up' or 'get over yourself'.

Or don't read me, I'll still love you all the same.

There are those of you for whom not reading me won't be an option. RUFFLE ME. In a platonic way, depending on who you are.

11-16-06 ! It's remastered, it's anamorphically correct, and it's about damned time, sans the new crappy artwork. All I want for Christmas is, well, that one where Orson Welles is eating planets with his asshole, only they're cartoon planets this time.

11-13-06 About that Borat:

I understand the reasoning of cultural sensitivity, especially when it's being directed towards a nation like, say, Kazakhstan, one that is still on its way up.

I read a recent NY Times op-ed (Krugman? I can't remember...hold on...eh..can't find it now), and it said the usual things. You know, why couldn't Cohen make up a country, etc. etc.? Is it fair that Kazakhstan is faced with the possibility of being the next Polack joke? Isn't it wrong to paint a picture of non-westerners as sister fucking, horse-urine drinking rapists?

Umm....well, you can't help the stupid. I'm sorry, but you just can't help 'em.

Look at the above list for a second. Any sensible person knows that sister fucking and urine drinking has no cultural or economic distinction, right?

Neither does rape or anti-semitism.

Also, anybody who doesn't start to get the joke, can't really be helped.

The Poles persevered, and were never really that bothered in the first place by the Polack joking. Russia recovered from Yakov Smirnoff. Seriously, the Poles are a proud, free people.

The Russians and the Kazakhs, however, can't take a joke, and consider PR to be more important than freedom of speech. They've, of course, banned Borat from being screened.

Does it seem helpful to come to Kazahstan's defense over this? I think it paints a picture of them as cultural and economic victims to assume that they're threatened in any way by a movie.

Seeing as how it's an attack on America's darker nationalistic/ignorant corners, it seems hypocritical to defend one country's national pride whilst bemoaning one's own, no matter how nasty our own strain of patriotism has become.

Kazakhstan is fine with its dictatorship, but it seems to have potential for the development of economic and individual freedoms (and is hardly the most egregious example of digressions from them, in that part of the world). They'll get over being confused with Romanians (and really, it's Eastern Europe that Borat echoes, not Central Asia), and Borat will be remembered as one of the most tasteless, savage, indescribably un-PC comedies to ever hit theatres.

And everything's gonna turn out just fine. Promise.

11-9-06 ...ahem....What Are They Saying In the Picture?:

11-8-06 From now on, anybody (especially under the age of 40) that spouts conspiracy-theory/radical mumbo-jumbo about how the American Democratic system is totally and completely unfair is going to be responded to with "Remember, Remember the 7th of November".

Nobody's saying its perfect. Believing, however, that it's totally unworkable, and, in fact, is rigged by the Republicans, is (now) spurious, especially with evidence abounding to the contrary.

Do they try and make things unfair? Well, of course they do, and of course they have. But they can be fought. If you really believe they're that evil and uncontrollable, maybe you could swallow your pride and vote Democratic? Maybe you did yesterday. It worked, but what? You define yourself by your voting record? You'd feel guilty voting against your conscience?

Meh. Vote. It's easy, doesn't take long, and quite possibly, there's going to be an asshole in office no matter what you do. You're alive, you're guilty, you're involved anyway, fuck you, get involved.

This is not some mindless Hosannah to the American electoral system. It's simply a plea against childish-ness.

Conspiracy theory, leftist/rightist or religious radicalism, apathy, they're all new theologies (well, maybe not religious radicalism), kind of like Scientology.

All they require is a group of people that consistently believes what it's told, with little actual evidence to support the claims.

Let's keep our eyes on the prize, people. Let's start using reason in the face of radical unreason. Please. For the kids.

P.S. Lest my windbaggery be directed to those whom normally peruse this blog on a daily basis, I must assure you that it's really not directed at anybody save those it's directed at. I don't really know who that is, only the reader does. I'm probably going to dispense with the politcal bloggery for awhile, if only because my tendentiousness has managed to permeate every post of late, and I'm a little exhausted of it. Suffice it to say, I'm right at everyone else's expense, and by the by, did I miss the point at which the somewhat tongue-in-cheek tone of this blog was completely misread? It didn't used to be like that.

P.P.S. Case in point, when I mention that I'm better than every DJ, I mean, of course, OTHER DJs. That reflects more the attitude of every DJ than it does my nuanced attitude, which is, I'm better than every DJ, including all DJs, all the DJs you know, your Mom's DJ, God's DJ, and you, if in fact you are a DJ. Jeez, you suck compared to me. I think that clears up confusion.

P.P.P.S. If it doesn't, then may I offer this new system: {hubris}I am better than every other DJ {/hubris}.

11-7-06 To all who are undecided and whose trousers are trancey:

11-7-06 I was just about to post about the gay (gay homo, not gay queer) scene on this evening's Studio 60, and I was going to be all like "it was so this week's Abbott and Costello Speechifyin' Goof-Up (TM)", but then I read this.

Seriously, though, that scene was still the hammiest, most forced thing I've seen on TV in about, oh, two weeks now, and I think this is the last I'm going to want to write about this show here. Not like it's going to be around to provide me with fodder for much longer, but still. I'm not happy about that, mind. I want it to succeed, but I'm losing faith faster than this show manages to bungle its examination of Harriet's. There've been shows that have had rocky starts and moved on to greatness, but I think that tends to be the exception, not the rule. The Simpsons wasn't great when it started, but it was popular, funny, and edgy, for its time. So. Yup. Also, Heroes is really fuckin' boring.

11-5-06 Outrageometer: 15 Goddamns: Curmudgeon Alert

Umm....ok, so I'm just sitting here, listening to how much of a better DJ I am than everybody else (that mix cd I promised in the summer? It'll be here eventually. Get your iPods ready for...romance explosion), and I look up, because for some reason I've left the TV on, on mute, and I see a police officer, en route to a pulled-over car, get hit by an oncoming truck. It's a rainy day. As soon as his flung body hits the ground, his upper-body is rammed by another oncoming truck. I don't quite realize what I'm seeing, until the local TV news logo comes on. Some kind of disaster thing.

During the digitally projected pablum we're usually subjected to before a movie, we saw, preceding Borat, an add for a Discovery Channel doc about a team of climbers on a Himalayan trek. Apparently 11 of them died mid-climb. One of them is pronounced dead during the add, and we get to see his eyelid lifted open to confirm it.

Used to be, if people died in somesuch thing, it didn't air.

Seriously, there's a really nasty wrastling scene in Borat that I could do without, but other than that, my concern for the fair representation of a fictional Kasakhstan by a lowbrow (also, savagely sophisticated) comedy is scarce compared to my concern for the lamentable realities of our actual Republic.

Seems to me that Sorkin's point, however awkwardly executed, about the state of TV, might be more accurate than we're accepting, no matter how much good stuff is on. Not trying to be sanctimonious, but I draw the line at snuff films (actually, way before snuff films), and now they're being broadcast on cable and local.

11-03-06

Holy touching-myself-during-Maddox, Star Trek V is bad and Mike Nelson and Kevin Murphy are still havin' fun, cuz they're still the one.

Man, and I mean great goggly-fuck, that's a bad movie. I don't remember it being so bad. I knew it sucked, but wow, only see it after going here. Star Trek IV, VI, II, and III in that order are the best films ever made. I have been, and always shall be, your friend. Live long and prosper, that is, unless you decide to go on a hubristic quest for god at the edge of the Universe, only to find....Santa.... There. Wasn't that a coherent post. Please leave a message below telling me how fucking awesome I am.

10-30-06

10-30-06 I don't know how they ever got through a single episode. This was probably the greatest job ever.

Young Americans: Manderlay

Democracy in America: The Closing of the American Mind

Mighty Coferic Diaspora of music for my oddball/HIP HOP hip hop/weird/chill playlists: Doves, Fennesz (?), Girl Talk and MC Frontalot.

It's French, Bitch!: Playtime

10-25-06 By way of not retraction:

I muddled my point, or at least implied that references obscure to the average person are a bad thing on Studio 60 or anywhere else. I don't think that's true. I do, however, think that Sorkin used to include a wider audience either by explicating his references or attacking those in positions of power that should know what the informed characters are talking about. To me, this was always good strategy, and if, on occasion, I didn't catch the reference, Sorkin made it possible for me to understand its importance.

Holly's right. There's no Macguffin. There's essentially nothing happening on this show yet. That's a big deal.

So, with that said, what stood out for me last night in Corddry's speech was a supreme, talky lack of respect for the audience. Those who know what the characters are talking about are watching. Those supposed cornfed hicks from Ohio who never heard Who's on first? aren't watching, and if they were, I daresay they'd have every right to be offended. Nobody has the right to be that smug, I don't care if you won the Nobel Prize, and I certainly won't buy it when you justify Corddry's tirade with a false, schmaltzy makeup ending (The one where Corddry hands a 78rpm of Who's on First? to his dad).

Thing is, if Sorkin's so convinced he knows something his audience doesn't (and he's Sorkin, so inevitably he sometimes does), well, the way he's pushing, he's going to lose what audience he has. That would be a shame.

Seriously, who doesn't know "Who's on First?" And is that crucial knowledge compared to understanding the constitution or habeus corpus? Not right now it ain't.

This, I think, is where Holly and I are in agreement, and it seems she was able to accept (the reality of the show. Acceptance don't equal the happy) a lot of this before I was.

A disagreement I do have is with the notion that the reference made is arbitrary. I think if Dana had gone nuts over a production of Woyzeck then all the theatre majors in the audience would have associations to make with that. But The Lion King, even for those who never saw the Broadway production, has loads of associations that millions of people can interpret. I think in that case, Sorkin made a careful, brilliant choice. There are times when you challenge your audience to look something up,and there are times when you use something they all know. The question is, is it music or not?

Sorkin is one of the major influences in my life vis. separating the stuff from the stuff. Seems like he's confused about how to do that now.

I had to purge all this, because there are moments on every Studio 60 that I love, but it is now officially impossible to ignore its drawbacks. So, here's hoping he stops educating the public and starts enlightening us again.

Is this going to be a show about a select few and their select audience? If it is, he can't have it both ways. If he wants a show as good as WW or SN, he's going to have to include more people. Commedia and vaudeville may be important to the characters, and to Sorkin, but you're not necessarily an ignorant honkey from wherever (not LA, is how a lot of people are going to see it) if, understandably, none of that matters to you.

10-24-06 I agree with Holly on this one. It seems as though Sorkin is hittin' the fences here. He's doing to death a number of political and social tirades, and furthermore he's waxing it all for a much smaller group of people than the looser abstractions of The West Wing and Sports Night pulled in.

How many people have heard of, or are in Corddry's shoes, when he does an ode to the progression of comedic genius that led to Abbot and Costello? How many people in Middle America have really heard of the Hollywood Ten, and could much less be touched by the end of last night's episode (this may also correlate with the ratings drop)?

He's put together quite a large show to stand in for a snazzy club of hipsters. I felt so uncomfortable sitting through Corddry's rude, smug history lesson to his parents, to the point where the makeup at the end actually made me feel better because it was contrived.

And yet, I must admit, if the show really takes off, finally shuffling off all of this aggression, its first few episodes will hold a certain worthy distinction, and that is this:

In the 1980s, and before, a show like this would've been unthinkable. Bringing up the Hollywood Ten is the perfect thing to do, because it seems like so much of what Sorkin is railing against here started there, and reached its apotheosis in the 80s. You know, that wonderful me-decade that ushered in the highest point of political indifference and total ignorance on television. Obviously, we have problems now regarding that, but Studio 60 is on the air, and Lou Grant got cancelled precisely because of its politics. This was roughly around the same time that People for the American Way had gotten started, and Ed Asner was using his show to criticize the Reagan administration and conservative Middle America in general. His presence on Studio 60 as a grand high-poobah is a delicious justice.

Which is still to say (and boy, I was going a little Corddry, there. Don't think I didn't notice) that Sorkin, for whatever responsibility he bears for this progress, should probably come down off of his high-horse and climb onto someone else's. Holly's got it right. The Lion King speech in Sports Night releases endorphins. And everybody knows The Lion King.

10-21-06 Be inspired or don't be inspired. Be involved or don't be. Hell, I'm not denying that it's a dreary age for statesmen.

So long as you're acting on your conscience, it doesn't matter what anyone thinks.

But the fact is, at the end of the vote count, one of two possible choices will be representing you, thereby in some way making a difference in your life or somebody else's. Though it is nowhere near the same choice as what music you like or what food you eat, it could very possibly have an effect on your range of choices.

Yes, these are all cliches, and cliches rarely rouse the spirit or the motivators.

That's my fault, really, but it doesn't preclude our consistant reality that lunatics make it into office when people don't choose the lesser of two evils. I'm lookin' at you, Bill Frist.

And yes, all politics are local. Gentrification has made it hard to decide who we are as a class and as a generation. It's hard to battle that when money, old world values and staunch (not merely rational) conservatism rears its head and elects Trent Lott, Bill Frist, etc. Being absolutely intolerant of conspiracy theory, I resist the notion that this kind of alienation has been ready-made and doled out by the arch conservatives. After all, what better way to defeat your enemy than raise before you an entire generation more likely to either abandon your enemy or willfully follow the money into your own party? I don't necessarily believe it was a deliberate plan, but it's certainly hard to squelch the thought, and it's impossible not to see that those I oppose benefit from youth apathy.

If what I've been saying makes anyone wonder if I'm attacking them, well it's probably your conscience at work trying to figure out how you feel about this whole thing. I'm not singling anyone out. The whole point of this was to rail against anyone who assumes a priori that we're all powerless, or that there's not something inherently worth defending by voting.

Again, don't expect a reasonable candidate to show up if we can't finally agree on something that exists outside of ourselves. Faith is hard. Anathema to some in any form is faith, especially in the face of overwhelming foretellings of our inevitable loss. Fuck the neocons, I like a good challenge.

10-18-06 To those of you out there who have given up on voting:

You don't get to complain and you don't get to "damn the man."

I suppose the non-voting rationale comes down to "they're all corrupt anyway" or "my vote won't matter." What that translates to is "I feel powerless" or "I feel powerless and I'm going to bend over backwards to feel above it." Bullshit. You're not above it. Nobody is. You didn't make the world, and neither did I, but if Bob Corker wins and No.1 is passed, then you've sided with the badguys.

You know what? I'll do you one better, you're siding with the bad guys even if Corker loses.

You can either overthrow the ruling class or duck out and keep your mouth shut or vote for civilization. Those are your options.

If we want to cultivate leaders of character, articulation and conviction, we must first cultivate those ideals in ourselves. Tune in or drop out. But if you drop out, stick to that. You're powerless and you should be ok with it until you get real.

Most of you either believe America is fascist, or heading that way, or you're just too self-absorbed to care.

That's just letting the Republicans win. Isn't that just so much easier than actually having a conscience?

P.S. The Democratic Party can't stand up and vote for what they believe in unless they believe in something.They need a constituency for that. For Chrissakes less give it to 'em! Because otherwise, they'll just be fightin' to save their asses

10-14-06 This, I think, is a good description of what criticism, be it film or otherwise, really is:

"I can�t distinguish and don�t want to distinguish between writing criticism and teaching literature. You�re trying to take what�s implicit in the student and make it as finely explicit as possible. I feel it is exactly the same enterprise." - Harold Bloom

Criticism, for those unafraid of it, is much more than "I liked/didn't like" this or that. A critic that can't perform the above stated task is not a critic at all.

10-12-06 Oh. My. Humbled. Deity. I am still giggling, excitedly, knowing that all boundaries of taste are now officially going to be irrelevant when matched with having a badass good time. If you don't know who's doing this one, you will soon after a short glimpse at this trailer. Not for the faint of heart:

10-12-06 Spent some time today reading comments on my page from one year ago, which I suppose is now yesteryear the 1st. That there is one of my little ways of organizing the events of the past few years into the nostalgic form that they deserve. It was not 2004 when my life changed forever about sixty different times, it was yesteryear the 2nd. Screw that ol' Gregorian plunderer of our sovereignty. We can create our own way of tracking time. This here transitional time is no doubt a lead-in to a new age.

What with almost everybody I love being in forbiddingly different places, come hell, highwater, or a Delorean, I've got to figgur something out.

Got word from a Richard Fletcher that he's going to be in Atlanta, GA on Dec. 27th. I'll be there. Who's with me? I know it's prohibitive in both a distance-wise and fiduciary sense, but, Andrew? Jef, you're not thus as easily thwarted. Where's you at? Jess, this includes your Chicago self. Richard expressed an interest in seeing all of us. If I don't hear from you, you'll hear from me. I'm gonna be there. For those who can't make it, were I in the same boat I'd be madder for never knowing he was here in the first place.

In other news, I'll be back in Aok Ridge (huh, but I'm going to allow it) on Friday the 20th, so If any Cofers or Basses are there, I'm not gonna spend the whole time downloading East Eritrean porn, so we should get together and make some money.

Flixie: Tokyo Story, 7Up, Seven Plus Seven, 21Up

Chabon, Chaboff: Wonder Boys

No, I have done thy mother: Titus Andronicus

Wishes Shakespeare hadn't written that poetic abberrance: Harold Bloom, Samuel Johnson, TS Eliot, The League of Women Voters, and probably Francis Bacon

Likes the part where Aaron the Moor is evil: Me.

I think that maybe I'm: Dreaming (BLIM mix) - Atomic Hooligan

10-12-06 The only thing better than watching Tokyo Story tonight was afterwards seeing this.

10-10-06 And The Search For Civilization Continues...

Well, France is one thing, but Smoker's alley is just too goddamned much. I got out of class today and was reminded of the federal 25 ft from the entrance rule on smoking that's just been enacted. There's a big nasty warning sticker on the courtyard door.

Let me be clear. I quit smoking 8 months ago. My health has greatly improved. Nobody with any sense would argue that smoking is good for you. What anybody with sense oughta argue is that the candy-ass pansies are winning.

A bunch of self-righteous, pwecious, sensitive widdle pussies are ruining the world for those who know how to live in it.

GET THE FUCK OVER YOURSELVES. LEARN TO LIVE IN THE REAL WORLD.

If you think you've got it all figured out, and everybody else better make some adjustments, then you're the problem, not the smokers. I don't care how many statistics you have on the ills of smoking for the smokers and the surrounding non-smokers. I DON'T GIVE A FUCK. GROW UP, TOUGHEN UP, OR GET THE FUCK OUT.

Fuckin' unbelievable pussies

Oh, and France? Seriously, might as well ban cheese, wine and smug while you're at it.

10-8-06

HOT RATS

Just a little bit of recorded history I found this morning...

10-3-06 Well, to a certain extent, all you tv critics out there, including the Onion, I agree. The Studio 60 of Studio 60 may not be the high-point of the series (and perhaps, so far, it has been a bit awkward), but it could hardly bring the show down. Maybe Sorkin should get someone to write those segments with him (perhaps the Ricky and Ron stuff in last night's episode is a very forward hint about the likelihood of that on an extremely close-to-real-events-show)

Consider this though: it's been three episodes. And this is tradition.

As Pauline Kael pointed out, the movie-within-a-movie in Truffaut's Day For Night is no doubt an unremitting bore. Same is probably true for the science-fiction film that never even comes to fruition in 8 1/2. The play in A Midsummer Night's Dream? Who cares? Mamet made a joke out of his own movie-within-a-movie, in State and Main. Who the fuck would want to watch that movie?

Seriously, unless you're just rabidly anti-Sorkin, or a cynic in extremis, can you not, due to your own jaded-ness, suspend your disbelief enough to accept that that the revised Studio 60 has to be a success, otherwise episode 3 should logically be the finale? Seriously, what's on the screen so far has kept me up at night for sheer force of adrenaline alone. Rekanize!

Also, Peet rock. People, you just ain't hip.

9-20-06 How terribly sad.

9-13-06 I could (almost) never have anticipated BT's marvelous new album. It's truly wondrous. Don't pass it up, whatever you normally grok. Watch this space. New things a comin'

8-24-06 It is accomplished. Were it not for the profound thoughtlessness of the UTC bursar, I'd have a Mac Book Pro on the way. As it has turned out, blacker is (or is just gonna have ta be) better.

Musik - Din Din Da (Hi Fi Bugs mix)

I'm from TN, I hadn't really noticed: Snakes on a Plane

Just Purchased: HAPPINESS

8-13-06 I miss multiple comments. Rather than beg, I'm going to elaborate a foul and contemptible hoax that you should all respond to forwith. Michael Bay is not actually directing the Transformers movie. REJOICE!

8-10-06 Is it insulting to justify the cries, against that new Ricky Bobby movie, of "anti-Christian bigotry" by publicy calling Ted Baehr a complete and total nutjob? I mean, it seems beneath me. Got news for you, Ted: mocking bigoted, southern white-trash Christians is the best thing we can do for serious people of any Christian denomination. To compare this movie to Mel Gibson's recent PR mishap (thanks for the Sugar Tits shoutout! not for me, but for someone we dearly love), and call upon Will Ferrel to apologize is about the goddamned dumbest, stupidest thing I've ever heard. More on that would be insulting to just about anyone who can easily figure out the difference between hating on Jews the way Mel did, and this.

p.s. This site is also filled with outrage over the current middle eastern crisis, as well as being happy with the British government today for having stopped all the murders. Thanks.

Reading is hard: Mason & Dixon(look, it's been a busy, Rusdhie/news/wantingtobuyamac/FrancisBacon/AllanBloomkinda summer)

Flick-a-Brack: The Marriage of Maria Braun, Studio 60 FUCKYES on the Sunset Strip, Scenes From a Marriage

Album of the Summer: LoStep - Because We Can

7-31-06 I will end my thoughts on this with a few quotes that I believe are a clearer and more urgent criticism of this film than I could possibly evince. Then I will be done thinking about it and move on to the real, scruntless world:

To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim.

The highest, as the lowest, form of criticism is a mode of autobiography

Thought and language are to the artist instruments for art

Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril

- Oscar Wilde

and

...I've been working with audiences thirty years or more...And I've never met an audience that wasn't collectively smarter than I am, and didn't beat me to the punch every time...I'm no different than they are. I don't know anything they don't know.

- David Mamet

also

...Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.

- Oscar Wilde again

Which is to say MNS may not be down for the count, and obviously, there must be something there, though I find it intrinsically awful. What works for your young daughters better damn well see an editor before it hits the silver screen. Over and out.

7-31-06 Aha....So someone is sad for me that I didn't like it, huh? I remember being told exactly the same thing by a young Christian girl when I revealed I wasn't a Christian. Not trying to single anybody out. I'm really, really not trying to antagonize or talk down to anyone. Certainly not the way Shyamalan was talking down to me and the rest of us with this movie. I'm not a follower of his, nor am I one of his daughters, so I guess this movie just ain't for me. If anyone wants to duke it out with me, perhaps allow me to cut you off at the pass with that compromise?

All geniuses fail. Spielberg, Altman, Coppola (!!!), they've all failed before. It was Shyamalan's time, and apparently he fails arrogantly. That's really all it comes down to for me.

7-30-06

NARF! I DON'T LIKE THE SOUND OF THIS, BRAIN!

That is the misjudgment of the Method: the notion that one can determine the effect one wants to have upon an audience, and then study and supply said effect. Preoccupation with effect is preoccupation with the self, and not only is it joyless, it's a waste of time

- David Mamet

I have spent many sleepless nights fighting the hordes of critics, leftists, rightists, pundits, jaded Americans, etc. etc. that tell us there is nothing new left to say. For my money it hasn't all been done by a damn sight. Fury over these pronunciamentos is only attributable in a slight way to a prognosis of why Lady in the Water plain just sucks. For those who liked it (or even loved it?), I here again warn you, and with all seriousness, that though I can't understand what in the hell you're thinking, I seriously don't want to offend you. For those of you in that camp, fair warning, for I must now give off a list full of vitriol. I must first see the cuts, scrapes, bruises and downright offenses laying open upon this movie's sores. They are, in no particular order:

It is horribly shot, stupidly written, freakishly edited (with no sense of rhythm, purpose, setup, payoff or connection), poorly acted (though, honestly, considering the source material...), a waste of real talent, but a devastating rebuttal of Shyamalan's, annoying, distractingly analytical, talky, stagey, dull, gray, cheesy, lame, abusively bad, self-indulgent, and it's a pile of messianic tripe to boot.

On the one hand, and there are those who say they find the movie comical, it is a movie that doesn't know its story, doesn't know how to tell it, and doesn't know its attitude about what's happening (the music can swell all it wants, but it's your frustration that builds. I like having my buttons pushed, but what you're doing is grinding them down). Let me put it this way. You either believe in the story you're telling enough to actually write it, or you go halfway, and just have characters explain what's going on all the McFucking shitballin' time. We don't let George Lucas get away with it (intellectually, I suppose), so why let Shyamalan get away with it? This is Hayden Christiansen level dialogue. I'm supposed to laugh because Shyamalan is winking at me, saying I'm supposed to believe in the power of storytelling, while really he thinks his story is just really very silly, but oh yes, I better take it seriously, because one day, many years from now, his messianic writings will change the world, oh yes they will. He'll be a martyr for horseshit comic book fantasy B-movie directors who write about aliens, ghosts and scrunts while forgetting the basic truth of what made his earlier movies work: WE DON'T ACTUALLY GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THE MONSTERS!!

I don't love Signs because of its aliens, believe me, and by the way, I thought he'd done away with monsters in The Village (A movie I loved, for the record).

Shyamalan gives himself a fairly large amount of screen time, and you just want to deck him by the time he 's being praised as a messianic figure whose unintentionally apocryphal writings will change human consciousness. Got news for you, if you don't actually believe in, or make any attempt after four cumulatively billion dollar grossing movies, or understand and refine the talent that you clearly have, your obsolescence won't have anything to do with current generations not understanding your work (a supposition this director has made, also a sure sign you're dealing with a pretentious ass), but more to do with the fact that maybe, and bear with me, my Dark lord IndianMythPants, maybe, just fuckin' maybe you wrote an incomprehensible self-suck of a movie to fight back against all the people who, only a little unreasonably, didn't like The Village

Shyamy, you're quoted in USA Today as saying that Signs was the only one of your (four out of five, mind) brilliant films that you enjoyed making. You go on to say that you made it for the masses, "The Denny's Crowd", and I quote you directly there, and with all sincerity, I haven't eaten at Denny's in like four years, but I'll funnel their pigshit down my gullet using vaseline and mayonaise as a lubricant if you'll start making movies like Signs again. That movie is everything you're great at, nothing you suck at, and possibly, if your current decline continues (though frankly I don't know how much farther you can slide), the best thing you'll ever do.

I don't really care that you mauled a film critic. Most of them suck worse than the average filmmaker. But you need your best film critics right now. YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOUR TALENT REALLY IS, AND WINKING AT US THROUGH THE HAZE OF A BORING, INCOHERENT, CHEAPLY SHOT, POORLY EDITED, CRAPFEST OF NOTHINGNESS IS NOT AN ANTIDOTE.

I'm only angry because I love you. You're the real thing. And people need their messiahs. I don't. I wanted a filmmaker, and last week, I got you instead. P.S. By the way, I understood your movie just fine, though you didn't make it easy.

7-29-06 Sorry. Read no further if you somehow like Lady in the Water. That is, read no further for the next few days. This is possibly the worst film I've seen in ten years. I'm not entirely sure. The way most people felt after The Village is how I feel now. More after work.

7-21-06 I'm without blog. In mind. Blogless. Have overwhelming need to see everyone I love in every situation in which our fun was heightened, probably all at once. Is it possible to que up for this? I haven't written in awhile, obviously. I'll be back from the set and coverin' all bets here very soon. I have very seriously considered buying a Mac when school starts. I've had it with my PC. My God, no rhythm, cadence, structure, thought, idea. I will say this, though. Michael Haneke is the real thing. Also, Ebert came back, and with a vengeance on Shyamalan I couldn't have imagined. Geez. Hopefully next time you read I'll have posted from somesuch reason other than, balderdash, it's dusty in there.

Fuck Roosters: Al Gore's Big Adventure, Cache, The Trial

I Got My Head Checked: BT @ 1150

America and Onward (2005/6)

Brno 2005

The Rest of Nov. 2004

May 1st - Nov 13th 2004

August 2003-April 2004