The next Natalie Portman

So, it's not that I haven't been watching movies... it's just that my downtime after the movies has been a little more rare. Regardless...

Can I just say? I think Evan Rachel Wood is simply gleaming with nubile promise. She's got this incredible fragile fury that I'm pretty sure is gonna take her places... and fast! Really, she reminds me of a pre-Closer Natalie Portman. She's not yet quite as sexy as the Natalie Portman in that SNL rap video thing (that video has an effect on my I can't fully explain... but... Damn! It! That little pixie haircut and all that f-word-ing. Is it hot in here?) but the potential is there. And this brings me to my viewing of Pretty Persuasion.

I think this movie probably overshot a little in its ambition. It's an entertaining story about a very very bad little private school girl... behold the stock porno character! And Wood certainly is something to behold. But, tacked onto the end, we find something of a poorly integrated stick-on moral. Or maybe it's not so much a moral as it is an attempt at locating a social conscience in what is basically a simultaneously fluffy and dark sex farce. In the last five minutes, it suddenly becomes an indictment upon the culture of American High Schools in which we have teachers constantly fucking students and students constantly bringing semi-automatics into the cafeterias... *Yawn*. I could've done without the moralizing and been happy with the little bit of devious, slightly deviant candy that this movie was at the onset. Well, maybe not happy... certainly not enraptured... but more certainly more entertained than I would have been if I had spent an evening watching She's All That.

damn Blogger...

The grand logic of Blogger sometimes eludes me. I started a post last week and just now had time to finish it-- unfortunately, Blogger posted it in chronological order according to when I started it, instead of when I finished it... so now, it's down there lost in the mire of last week's posts. Surely, there's a way to keep that from happening? Cutting and pasting into a new post? Annoying!

my itinerary

Hi, folks! I know my posts have become sporadic over the past couple of weeks but they're about to get moreso. Here's the deal--I'll be in:

Nashville: November 21st-27th (Jon, 'Rents, Cotillionistas-- that means you guys are up first on my social calendar.)
DC: November 28th-December 8th (There may or may not be a martini hour in the works to mark the beginning of my 3rd decade on Dec. 2nd, for anyone local, who's interested.)
Honolulu: December 9th-17th (For anyone who's jealous, trust me, this is gonna be a work trip. Yes, I bought a new bikini because I'm optimistic, but if it doesn't make it out of my suitcase, I won't be surprised.)
LA: The night of the 17th (Brian, you damn well better be up for a midnight beverage. It's been at least 13 years since I've been in LA and at least 7 since I've seen you!)
DC: December 18th-20th (I should be totally incommunicado for most of Monday as I'll have just taken the red-eye in from LA.)
Tucson: December 21st-27th (Anyone in the area who is up for a round of yuletide cheer, well, you should shoot me an email!)

So, long story short, I'll be paying a rather exorbitant sum for "rent" when my apartment is really just a quasi-posh storage unit for all my crap for the next 5 weeks.

I hope everyone has a lovely holiday season--and one that is far less exhausting than mine is likely to be!

I'm pretty sure this is the cutest nephew anyone ever had.

Just look at all that fabulous, cross-eyed baby goodness!

A Melange o' Foreign Cinema

Upon walking into some class or other when I was in grad school, I remember hearing a classmate complaining that his roommate was under the mistaken notion that, if the film was foreign, it had to be good. And so, said classmate apparently spent a fair ammount of time avoiding his own living room after his roommate's hit-or-miss visits to Casa Video. And it's true-- while bad foreign films do not always play by the same rules as bad domestic films, they can be oh-so-bad, just the same. And then, there are always the little gems that keep drawing me back into that lonely aisle...

Really, I don't have much to say about any of these that I've been watching lately so, in lieu of directional thumbs, I'm offering brief "yeas" and "nays" on my recent viewings.

First something French: Novo: Nay
OK, so, this wasn't exactly my cup of Cafe Au Lait. The basic storyline goes something like this: random beautiful women take advantage of a handsome guy who's lost his memory by having lots of sex with him. And he sorta, maybe, falls in love with one of them. But he can't really remember. I don't know-- the whole thing just didn't make much sense to me. The guy was kinda cute and all... by why are all these women aflutter, exactly? And what was the deal with his wife? I don't know. I'll entertain the possibility that I just wasn't paying enough attention... but I'll also entertain an alternative possibility that the storytelling was just plain old sub-par.

And now, two Italian pieces:
First, Don't Tell: Yea, with reservations due to lack of ingenuity in terms of approach:
This movie was up for the foreign language Academy Award a couple of years ago, I guess. And it's a well-shot little movie about a father sexually abusing his kids. Perhaps I've been watching too much of this sort of thing, but it all felt like so much re-tread, only in Italian this time around. It's a nice little film but doesn't have the impact of something like Mysterious Skin and it certainly isn't the sucker-punch of Hard Candy.

And then, Don't Move: Yea, for the most part
Actually, by the time this movie wound it's way around itself, it won me over. They sure managed to ugly up poor Penelope Cruz-- but it's worth it: she is a ravaged woman. But the most interesting thing to note is that Cruz's character gets raped early on in the movie. And then she procedes to fall in love with her rapist. And he with her. This is a concept that gives me the willies all over the place. And it's the primary reason why I ended up giving this movie a "yea".

And from South Africa, Tsotsi, of course: a quiet Yea
This is a very simple story and it's well-shot and well-told. "Tsotsi" means "thug" in Afrikaans and noting the American cultural infiltration in even this most distant of locales is unavoidable. This thing won the Best Foreign Film statuette last year-- the same year that the Turkish Head-on (Gagen Die Wand) came out. As Head-on wasn't even nominated, I don't suppose Tsotsi was such a bad choice. But it's safe and rather unadventurous in both its plot and treatment. Seriously, though, if you can get your hands on Head-on, rent it. It's one of the best, most complex, sexy, engaging, gravitationally tumbling movies I've seen in ages.

What remains

I feel I can safely say that the image of contemporary California held in the public consciousness has little to do with old Hollywood westerns. I mean, with the shopping malls, and Clueless, and the beach-dwellers of The O.C.... well, they're just not all that Clint Eastwood-y anymore, you know? But the romance with the Manifest Destiny, the old West-- and its denizen, the bow-legged cowboy, is still alive, isn't it? Or at least I would be led to believe so by the likes of Deadwood (which I gather is an original and smart take on the topic, though I haven't seen it and can't really comment upon it even remotely-- damn, HBO is pricy in these parts!). But then along comes a movie like Down in the Valley-- which is a sharp, eagle-eyed look at the stinking corpse of this very romance.

In the accompanying materials on the DVD, there was a rather elucidating Q&A session with Ed Norton, the star/producer and David Jacobson, the director, in which Norton recounts a conversation he had with Jacobson early on in production in which Jacobson said something along the lines of, "I'm not interested in the sociological, I'm interested in the psychological." Norton, himself, is clearly more interested in the sociological implications of this movie--as am I, of course-- but it's interesting that the director denies that they were even a consideration for him. Because, if it's nothing else, this is a movie about community and context. And those who intrude thereupon.

Basically, it's a movie about a teenage girl so wrapped up in her sultry San Fernando Valley ennui that she sets out to entangle herself with a self-deluded cowboy in the guise of the ever-adorable Ed Norton. OK, so this is an actor who is never good-looking that we could consider him a sex symbol and yet he has so much on-screen charm, intelligence, affability, and, well, muscly arms that his appeal is undeniable. And Evan Rachel Wood--well, I have yet to see this girl in something wherein she hasn't been shockingly good. I mean, her features are delicate and childish and yet she's got this complicated vulnerability/ferocity that makes me really glad that a pretty blonde teenager can still get taken seriously in Hollywood. And though both of their characters have loose-cannon tendencies, she is really the one calling the shots in this story-- and she's also the one who evolves the most.

And I suppose (because I'm me and I always talk about this stuff) I'll address the issue of a teenage girl/grown man sex: Yes, it happens. Yes, it's appropriate to the story. It's only interesting in this case because it's yet another example of the so-called impressionable young girl employing her own sexual agency-- she chooses this man and makes him fall in love with her, makes him desire her. There is no way in hell someone could interpret this situation as one in which he takes advantage of her. If anything, it's the other way around. But, for once, in this case, their intimate interactions aren't so interesting to me when there is iconic Americana at stake.

I, unlike the director, am much more interested in what's happening in this little San Fernando Valley than I am in what's happening inside the heads of these folks. Given, their despair, their malaise... it's palpable. But what happens when that old image of the lone wolf cowboy find himself caught up in this family on the verge of splitting at its seams? And if this cowboy seems to maintain that particular and peculiar variety of innocence that is destructive in its very ignorance, well, he is somehow simultaneously both very American and very out of touch with American people. And what is there to do with a vision of America that we can neither live up to nor live down? Well, if this movie is any sort of example, we treat it as an aberration and then we destroy it.

And, I know, it's hard to talk about cowboys these days without bringing up our shit-kickin' president-- or at least, it's hard for me to think about the word "cowboy" without also calling up his very visage. But this movie isn't about the war, or global vigilantism. It quieter and smaller and about a girl who loves a man who is at odds with his community-- because (spoiler alert)we learn he not so much the outsider that he purports to be. He is both huckster and victim-- and what makes this movie so great is that he exists so fully in that paradox.

This movie is in love with its smoggy, dusky landscape... and its blanched California faces. And, truly, it's a rank, sunbleached, old cadavre of a western-- but an engaging, thoughtful, wrenching chapter in that story that's as old as American pioneerism.

Of all the red letters today...

By the time anyone reads this, it's going to be very old news that Rumsfeld is stepping down (at last, at very long last), but I thought the occasion should be marked. These must be the groanings of this very heavy ship, eh?

For the record

Over two weeks ago, I faxed a request for an absentee ballot to the office of the voting commissioner in the state of Tennessee. As I haven't had time since moving here to register in Virginia, and I was still registered in Tennessee, my intention was to cast my liberal vote for Harold Ford (the homophobe Democrat from my home state), as opposed to casting it for Jim Webb (the sexist "former" Republican from my new state of residence). Anyway, the deadline for ballot requests was October 31st. I was well in advance of this deadline. I even called in and received confirmation that my faxed request had indeed been recieved. Did I ever actually receive my absentee ballot? Oh, c'mon, folks. You saw this coming.

Nope. My mailbox has seen hide nor hair if the elusive absentee ballot.

And so, for reasons I'm trying not to assume are conspiratorial, it appears my voice (and my button-pushing finger) will not be heard ringing endorsements for either of the dubiously liberal candidates in any polling location. But if anyone out there reading is a registered voter, please! Don't forget how today works. It's just the best chance we've got to begin the slow mechanism that'll turn the mighty ship. And turn it must.

I know it when I see it

Jon and I also went to see Shortbus last weekend. We found a fabulous independent movie theatre in downtown DC-- all by our non-native selves, thank you very much. I was struck, however, by the distinctive crowd that this particular film elicited on its opening weekend, though it was, of course, Sunday night. It was showing in a rather small theatre that seated maybe 65 or so-- and besides Jon and I, there was, I think, only one other male/female pair. Everyone else was part of a duo or trio of gay men. This is not so odd, I don't suppose-- the director, John Cameron Mitchell, also directed Hedwig and the Angry Inch-- a "delightful romp" about a tranny who had her sex change botched (hence, the, um, remaining inch was... angry). Now, I really and truly loved Hedwig when I saw it a couple of years ago. It's a heartfelt send-up of drag culture and also a raw and rebellious tearing-apart thereof. Mitchell himself stars as Hedwig and, legend has it, when this story was just a little crazy off-Broadway play, it sent shockwaves through the Village when Mitchell tore off his girly get-up and sweated and sobbed off his make-up-- thus breaking the illusion of the female-- with a spitting sort of rage. And this is a moment rather like the magician telling the secrets of his tricks-- it Just Isn't Done. But frankly, I think it's a genius movie-- it sparkles itself bare! But, anyway, Mitchell's known for gay-themed filmmaking... hence the audience. But entering that theatre was a moment in which I was self-consciously, outwardly heterosexual. Is it strange that I felt left out of a club of which I'm technically a member? Oh, well...I could really spend all day writing a post in which I break down the weirdness and political ramifications of my own sexual identity--in which I unpack my frustrations about how I can't even think about my own amorphous orientation without conceptualizing it in a socio-political context.... But I'd never get around to talking about Shortbus ...and I've already bored myself with the notion of launching into such a diatribe... so, instead, let's talk about something else:

OK, so I have to acknowledge that this movie has real sex in it. Lots of it. In every position you can think of. With every sort of grouping of humans you can think of. Nary a scene goes by without a tit or a dick. But it's not porn. Mitchell's published enough excuses in various venues that I'll leave it to you to google all about it. I'll just say that I buy his argument- I don't think this movie is pornographic at all-- but not really for the same reasons as our director. What I mean is this movie is just so goofy and celebratory in its kinkiness that it just winds up presenting varied and multitudinous sex as so much wholesome fun. And really... well... three cheers for John Cameron Mitchell!

But there are a couple of things I want to note in particular: There's a scene in the beginning where our protagonist, a hetero female sex therapist who is "pre-orgasmic", has a discussion with a big queen named Justin about all the young crazies in New York. She asks why so many are moving there when it's so notoriously expensive to live in The City. And he says "It's 9/11. It's the only real thing that's ever happened to them." Gut-punch, right? And another reference to the same thing: there is much panning over an animated landscape of New York in this movie. At one point, the camera pans over a mess of purply brown paint... it's amorphous and you don't recognize the animated representation until the paint turns into the real thing... the pale concrete hole. Ground Zero. And then the camera moves on and we're in the apartment of some young brat who's making inappropriate small talk with his dominatrix and then allowing his cum to land smack dab in the middle of Jackson Pollock (sigh). It's like everyone's running around having "post"-AIDS era giddy sex... but the anxiety is still there. It's just focused in a different direction. This thing? This atrocity... folks, our generation is never gonna be able to mention New York City without its specter, are we? And Mitchell's suggestion for coping appears to be "Let's all fuck like crazy in what was once the shadow of towers." And that's great and all... but isn't there something else? Something more to be done?

And then there's the matter of the sex therapist who can't get off. Ha ha. Old joke. But even if it weren't, I think I'd still feel a little funny about why a gay man would choose to place this primarily female problem front and center in his story. Let's face it... ruling out extreme old age and all of the diseases listed in the Levitra ads, it's not that hard to give a guy an orgasm. And women are notoriously trickier. And this concept of the female orgasm (wow, I'm really writing a post of female orgasms???) is a thing that alternately grants women undue power or puts them at a distinct disadvantage. Whether a woman's lack of ability to come renders the man inadequate or the woman (oh, how I hate the term) frigid, it's CENTRAL to the heterosexual power dynamic. And in the hands of Mitchell, Sophia's dilemma is Romanticized in this way that, from where I sit, displays little understanding of the anxiety that would inevitably accompany the problem at hand. He never really delves deep enough to enlighten the audience as to the actual source-- whether it be physiological or psychological-- of a situation that is doubtlessly abstract and distant from Mitchell's own frame of reference-- and his lack of heterosexual experience shows here. And this isn't to say that Sophia's anxiety isn't a palpable presence in the movie-- it's just that she spends a lot of time spinning her wheels (or, maybe, more accurately, poking her wheels with a vibrator) and then she sorta happens to eventually blunder into an orgasm. And this, like everything else, has a context that's bigger than Sophia, bigger than her relationship with her husband (poor sap) and Mitchell displays little awareness that female orgasm is a kinda (oh, forgive me) hot-button issue for those who think along feminist lines. Basically, I didn't buy the discussion as an authentic one. He doesn't GET Sophia... and so, neither do I.

All of this is not to say, though, that I didn't enjoy the experience of this movie. It's really very funny (Justin, the queen, sings a ridiculous song entitled "We All Get it in the End" (Ha! Puns galore!) and as Jim Ridley puts it, "when a man can still sing the national anthem into another man's asshole, the terrorists haven't won") and it does a little of that subversive cuteness thing I've talked about before. But the best thing about this movie is that not a single character, not even Sophia, whose sexuality is clearly in crisis, expresses the slightest under-the-hat, up-the-sleeve prudishness. The movie really believes that good clean, multifarious, exploratory, wild, passionate, gentle, inclusive, orgiastic sex is the answer to all the ills of the world. It's a lovely thought, really. Who's with me? Who's up for trying?

Even Sophia can't save the vapid.

Huh... look at that... I haven't posted in some time! No excuses. Sometimes, that's just how it is.

So, anyway, Jon was in town last weekend! Yay! That was fun... We had a delightful, yet crude, hit-or-miss driving tour of important DC buildings (and the Ikea store)and he put up with me exploring the dark and mysterious Georgetown Mall... and we got to see some movies in an actual theatre!

And I'd been really excited about seeing Marie Antoinette... every other Sophia Coppola effort I've seen has been understated and sardonic without, necessarily, undercutting its own Romanticism. I've found this an appealing mix. And really, I feel like poor Sophia did all she could with this movie. She plugs stridently though, applying a lithely ironic hand, now and again, to a story that is about as rapturous as the Paris Hilton: E! True Hollywood Story. Truly, it's a gorgeously shot, very well-propped little piece of French pastry... but how interesting can two hours of eating eclairs, trying on pink shoes and wondering when the Dauphin (a chubby and un-sexy Jason Schwartzman (Louis XVI was Jewish?)) is gonna finally get down to business with a (not particularly virginal) Kirsten Dunst really get? I wanted to really love this movie-- I wanted to find in it some discussion of the culture that could create a person who was on the tip of every French tongue, and yet, knew so little about the very realm she ruled. But it wasn't there.

If I'm going to give this movie the benefit of the doubt, I'll have to consider that it might be a veiled indictment of this headcold of celebrity adulation that seems to be going around these days... but, really, that doesn't help the fact that our dear departed, beheaded queen of France led a deeply, deeply boring life-- up until the last 3 minutes of this movie, anyway. And a boring life doesn't necessarily lead to a boring movie-- but, alas, this one sure did. I'll equate it with, perhaps, Ellie Parker on my bore-ificense scale. Sorry, Ms. Coppola... try applying your zesty New Wave soundtrack to your more intriguing lower-budget fair, why dontcha?