I've done a fair amount of traveling in the last 6 months. Somehow, it seems I'm managed to acquire some really rotten airport karma. Here's a run-down of all my recent air-related fun and games:
Last April:
Went to Phoenix for my cousin Steve's wedding. No big deal. Very smooth trip, all things considered. A good time was had by all.
Last May:
Went to Baltimore for work for two weeks. Flying out was no problem. Returning to Nashville, I had about a 4 hour delay. At the time, I thought that was horrible. Little did I know what was in store for me... I think this was a Southwest flight.
End of June:
Flew to Reagan National for a job interview. Flying out was no problem. Returning to Nashville, I got to the airport really early because AIR booked my flight for, like, 7:30 at night and my interview was over at 2 pm. By the time 7:30 rolls around, my flight is already delayed until 10:15. When the plane finally arrives at the gate, I'd been in the airport for about 6 hours already... and then they cheerfully announce that they're canceling the flight due to "crew exhaustion." They put me up in a Hilton in Crystal City (a very lovely establishment, really) though they refuse to give me my suitcase. At the time, I couldn't imagine anything worse than this. But luckily, the hotel was across the street from a CVS where I could buy contact solution and deodorant. Yay!. Of course, in my short walk to the drugstore, no less that two low-slung vehicles sidled up next to me and propositioned me (I was not aware that my appearance was so whore-like). Generally, Crystal City isn't such a bad neighborhood in Arlington... but at 1 in the morning, well... I don't recommend walking to CVS in holey jeans and sassy high-healed sandals. The next morning, I went back to Reagan and my flight was delayed another 2 hours but I eventually made it home. I'd found some mascara and a lipgloss (this was pre-lipgloss-confiscation-era) and looked only slightly fuzzy about the head when I got there! I think this was a Continental flight.
Mid August:
I'd found out I'd gotten the job in DC and my mom and I decided to fly back out there so I could spend a couple of days hunting for an apartment. Again, flying out was no problem. We were scheduled to leave the DC area and return to Nashville, but the day before our departure, we got a call from my brother in Tucson that my sister-in-law had gone into labor. Mom and I dropped everything and changed the tickets so we could go to Tucson. We get into the air, leaving from the BWI airport, and we could feel the plane slowing down. That's certainly a strange sensation! The pilot then announced that there was a mysterious light on. So, he diverted us to Dulles. We stayed on the ground for another 2 1/2 hours. We missed our connector in Dallas. This time, the airline puts us up in the worst rathole I could ever have imagined. May I suggest to you, my reader(s?), that you avoid all Homestead Suites at all costs. This hotel was way out in a desolate hotel park quasi-near the DFW airport. There were no drugstores nearby this time. Not even a gas station. And, as the regularly scheduled feminine event befell me about 5 days early that month, I was, let's say, under-prepared. I found myself pleading with a cranky desk attendant for a tampon, saying something along the lines of, "Well, they're YOUR sheets, buddy!" When Mom and I made it up to the room (on a supposedly non-smoking floor) we were less than impressed. It reeked of cigarettes... and yep, I'm miserably allergic (and occasionally enjoy making my smoker friends feel guilty about it). The pillows felt something like day-old polenta. And this flophouse provided one sad little bar of soap... no toothbrush, no shampoo... no tampons, certainly. And obviously, no contact solution or deodorant. And, as they'd recently instituted the fear-o-liquids rule at the airport, I didn't even have a lipgloss-- and no, they didn't give us our suitcases this time either. And it was August. And we'd been trundling about DC looking for a place for me to live all day prior to this misbegotten flight. When we awoke the following morning, I was completely congested due to the smoke and my eyes were swollen shut (from sleeping in contacts, compounding the smoke allergy issue), we both stank like some sad little refugees, I had a pretty good frizz-halo going on, and I was haphazardly shedding my uterine lining. We left the shithole as early as possible and went to the airport where my mom was able to find a delightful Dale Evans t-shirt (we were in Texas afterall) and I finally found a tampon and our re-scheduled flight to Tucson left on time and we finally got to meet my new little nephew (please visit old posts if you need photographic evidence of his enduring cuteness). I know this flight was via American Fucking Airlines. Our return flight was relatively smooth.
Thanksgiving:
Back and forth to Nashville. Everything came and went as planned, thank old Jimmy in heaven. It even worked out that my fabulous friend Bob could pick me up at the airport and hang out at my place for a night... as a little detour on his way back to Nashville from Pennsylvania. Saved me cab fare, even! What a champ, that Bob!
Early-mid December:
Flew to Honolulu for work. The trip out was really long but un-eventful for the most part. The first leg landed me at O'Hare... and,on that flight, I sat next to a curious fellow who kept hinting that he and I should get together and "go clubbing" whenever he visits DC. I found his persistent interest in me a little baffling as I'm pretty sure he was gay. Every time I picked up my book, he'd interrupt to chat. Every time I tried to dose off, he's poke me for some more great chatting. Fortunately, I managed to avoid giving him my email at the end of the flight. On the 9-hour flight from O'Hare to Honolulu, I sat next to a 10-year-old girl from someplace near Toronto. She asked me a lot a questions about American geography as she didn't understand that we had to fly over a whole lotta land between Chicago and the California coast. Then, she and I played cards for a while--Crazy 8s, then War. Then, she made me take all the quizzes in her "Tiger Beat." As it turns out, I should not date my best guy friend, my BFF Style is "supportive" and the right guy for me is the "sweet, sensitive" sort (as opposed to a "Sporty" or an "Artsy"... teen magazines are clearly very nuanced). Obviously, I learned much in my 9 hours trapped with a preteen. The return flight was a red-eye-- what a joy! I left Honolulu last Sunday around 1:30 pm. I got to LAX around 9:30 pm. I left LAX around 11:30 and arrived at O'Hare at 5am--*yawn*. Generally, I prefer sitting on the aisle so I can get off the plane quicker but I highly recommend window seats if you've gotta fly overnight. At some point in the middle of that night, I began thinking that I'd be so much more comfortable if I could just take my very heavy head off and rest it in my lap. My neck had become a real, um, pain in the neck. Quite literally. When I arrived in Chicago, I discovered (oh, tell me that you haven't seen this one coming) my last leg--from O'Hare back to Reagan-- had been canceled. Fortunately, the holiday season had not yet begun in earnest and I was able to get on another flight that left 4 hours later. I finally made it home by about 1 pm on Monday. I took the day off and slept and did laundry to prepare for my Christmas venture, which was scheduled to begin three days later. That was a relatively smooth United flight.
Christmas (the most ill-fated of them all):
On Thursday afternoon, I left work early and went to Reagan airport, with high hopes of reaching Tucson by late that night. When I got there, I learned that my flight to O'Hare was delayed 4 hours (no big deal at this point) due to weather in Chicago. I was thinking, "Hey! At least it's not Denver!" My connector to Tucson was also delayed, so I still had hope that I wouldn't miss it. Roughly 3 hours after the flight had been originally scheduled to leave, the poor bedraggled woman behind the counter announced that all planes heading west of the Mississippi from O'Hare were canceled. I got on my cellphone with an American Airlines dude and he tells me that, if I get on the Chicago flight, I'll be stuck in Chicago for 2 days as there's not another empty seat anywhere until late on Saturday. He says that I can go home and he'd reschedule me to leave from Dulles, go to DFW, then on to Tucson on Friday night... and I agree to this with some misgivings about getting stuck in Dallas again. So, I go home, somewhat furious, have a beer and fire off one nasty-ass blue streak of an email to the American Airlines customer service center. Friday morning, I sleep late (because I'd already told my supervisor at work that I was going to be out of town), did a long yoga practice so as to engender calmness and mindfulness in my upcoming evening of travels, re-packed, took a long cab ride out to Dulles and arrived at the airport good and early for my 7:25 flight. But oh, yes, I soon learned that it, too, was delayed and the dude at the ticket counter assured me that I would miss my connector. By this point, I was really fighting tears and called me mom to ask whether or not I should give up and just skip Christmas this year. She verbally slapped me around and convinced me to forge ahead. When I got to the gate, I spent a long while, first swearing, then crying, then flirting with the gate counter guy while he looked around for another connector to Tucson for me. He kept telling me that I could get to Dallas but that the next available flight wasn't until Christmas Eve afternoon. Ridiculous! According to some news reports I've been listening to lately, the airlines all had this brilliant idea to retire some perfectly functional airplanes, thus thinning out some travel routes, in order to reduce empty seats and increase their earnings. Now, that's great for stock-holders, especially as they've been able to jack up ticket prices by 30+% this holiday season, but what ends up happening is that, if there's any weather issues or other sorts of delays, there's no way to re-book people on other flights. There's just no room for error. And this gate counter guy was telling me that American in particular retired a bunch of brand new TWA planes because the only people who could fly them were former TWA pilots... and so, I've been led to believe that stupid industry politics are responsible for my getting stranded in Dallas for the second time in 4 months. I did, in fact, make it to Dallas last night--- around 1 am--but my ticket got upgraded to first class. And shortly before I boarded, Lawrence, the gate counter dude, came and whispered in my ear that he found an empty seat on a 1:45 pm flight from Dallas to Tucson-- also first class! And this time, when I got to Dallas, however, they put me up in a Westin, bless their little airline hearts! And, because I'd done this a few times, I managed to talk Lawrence into having my suitcase tagged so I could get it off the carousel in Dallas. Oh, how my fellow stranded travelers envied me! So, I got about 5 hours of sleep --with my contacts out-- and was even able to wash my hair with my own shampoo this morning. And I had clean clothes to put on! Imagine! And so, I finally made it to Tucson on Saturday afternoon, as opposed to Thursday night--- I've wasted the lion's share of 3 days in airports, instead of hanging out with my family. But I'm here. And it's Christmas. And I've got loads of wrapping to do before I rest. And loads of wrapping before I rest...
The moral of this story is: Boycott American Airlines. They blow goats. I have photographic proof.
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Thursday, December 14, 2006
why I'm not posting
Welcome to the North Shore of O'ahu. There were, indeed, surfers, but my camera phone is not so great when it comes to details in the distance. They were remarkable to watch, though.
I hate that this shot is so blurry but it was taken leaning out of the window of our rental Ford Focus. These ripply mountains along the northern side of the island are just incredible. I can't imagine living up there and seeing that every day.
Here's me, looking dorky, but proving that I was here!
Outside my hotel, the city of Honolulu crawls up the mountainsides with its talons. Really, it looks more like a city in Southeast Asia than someplace in my own country.
This was the view off my lanai in my hotel room yesterday afternoon after work. I know it's hard to see but that little streak was a really beautiful rainbow. All the locals told me it's very de rigeur to see them daily. Regardless, I was impressed. By the way, that lumpy business in the background is Diamond Head.On my Christmas wish list is a real camera. Sorry the pictures suck so badly but they're the best I can do, given all I had was my l'il pink cellphone.
Aloha!
Wednesday, December 6, 2006
look at that!
My Blogger profile now correctly states that I am 30. So long, decade of financial struggle. So long, post adolescent wasteland.
Now what?
Now what?
Sunday, December 3, 2006
Shades of Frida
When I was home for Thanksgiving, I managed to squeeze in one movie in an actual theatre with Jon. We went to go see Fur, this thing about Diane Arbus, starring Nicole Kidman. It's directed by Steven Shainberg, who also did the adaptation of Mary Gaitskill's short story Secretary. And Secretary is a movie that I really love. It's one of the warmest, yet least sentimental love stories I can remember seeing on film. And it's quirky and tortured and deadpan in a way that makes me happy. Fur, however, takes on the very curious subject matter of ye olde circus freak photographer, Diane Arbus-- and should have been another good, solidly weird movie, especially because it makes a big show of how it's not just another biopic, how it's an imaginary portrait of Arbus' inner life. But I'm convinced that some of the spirit of films like this leaks out when the lead role is filled by someone who is just too damn famous--and famous for being gorgeous. I have nothing against Nicole Kidman... over the years, I have enjoyed several of her movies. However, I remember reading somewhere (the New Yorker, maybe?) when Closer came out that Natalie Portman presented a unique challenge to any director as she was really just growing into her beauty and her womanhood at that moment of the article. The challenge is that, when you're that beautiful, it's hard to keep the movie-- and every shot, every camera angle therein-- from being only about how beautiful the star is. It's like physical attractiveness is so distracting that it's hard for a director, camera and/or audience to focus on anything else. And perhaps the problem is that Kidman never lost her statuesque, willowy Kidman-ness in this part... she's just Nicole in '50s circle skirts and ballet flats. She's just not weird enough to be Arbus! And Shainberg didn't find the same kind of weirdness in her that he did in Maggie Gyllenhaal in Secretary, either, and so, the whole movie suffers.
I think I noted a similar problem in Frida, the Julie Taymor venture with Salma Hayek about Frida Kahlo. I REALLY wanted to like this movie. I think Taymor is a friggin' genius-- her painterly landscape alone in Titus was enough to win me over. I mean, this woman is a professional puppeteer who's got a real oddball sensibility. And, likewise, Frida herself was not exactly mundane or average in any way. And yet, because Hayek was the driving (financial) force behind getting the movie made int he first place, she was cast in the part... and her acting was simply not adequate to pull off anything but a spry, sexy cheerleader version of the limping, unibrowed artist! And so, that movie, too, was a big bore.
All this said, I really do want to see a pretty woman play a good weirdo. I think Cameron Diaz did a bang-up job in Being John Malkovich but, that character hardly had a historical source. And they really had to ugly her up to do it. So, readers, I offer a challenge: Can anyone help me think of a really hot woman playing a convincing freak? A movie in which the camera's problematically male gaze doesn't linger on the candlelit glow of the pretty girl's face for just a little too long? A movie in which the actress can be both pretty and a misfit at the same time... but have the movie not be about the prettiness? I'm sure it exists... but somehow I'm only thinking of more and more examples like Fur and Frida. I feel like I'm running a risk here of sounding like I begrudge these women their beauty.. but that's not really what I'm after. In fact, I think the notion of a drop dead gorgeous, completely loony, idiosyncratic character would be the sort of thing I'd stay up all night thinking about. The idea of a character having a very normal (even an exceptionally appealing) outward persona that is in drastic contrast with said character's inner life... well, I gotta see that movie! And I'm not talking about the beautiful, mysterious, tortured woman. I mean, where's a beautiful freak--perhaps one who enjoys her freakishness, even? Surely... surely it exists.
I wonder if Parker Posey counts?
I think I noted a similar problem in Frida, the Julie Taymor venture with Salma Hayek about Frida Kahlo. I REALLY wanted to like this movie. I think Taymor is a friggin' genius-- her painterly landscape alone in Titus was enough to win me over. I mean, this woman is a professional puppeteer who's got a real oddball sensibility. And, likewise, Frida herself was not exactly mundane or average in any way. And yet, because Hayek was the driving (financial) force behind getting the movie made int he first place, she was cast in the part... and her acting was simply not adequate to pull off anything but a spry, sexy cheerleader version of the limping, unibrowed artist! And so, that movie, too, was a big bore.
All this said, I really do want to see a pretty woman play a good weirdo. I think Cameron Diaz did a bang-up job in Being John Malkovich but, that character hardly had a historical source. And they really had to ugly her up to do it. So, readers, I offer a challenge: Can anyone help me think of a really hot woman playing a convincing freak? A movie in which the camera's problematically male gaze doesn't linger on the candlelit glow of the pretty girl's face for just a little too long? A movie in which the actress can be both pretty and a misfit at the same time... but have the movie not be about the prettiness? I'm sure it exists... but somehow I'm only thinking of more and more examples like Fur and Frida. I feel like I'm running a risk here of sounding like I begrudge these women their beauty.. but that's not really what I'm after. In fact, I think the notion of a drop dead gorgeous, completely loony, idiosyncratic character would be the sort of thing I'd stay up all night thinking about. The idea of a character having a very normal (even an exceptionally appealing) outward persona that is in drastic contrast with said character's inner life... well, I gotta see that movie! And I'm not talking about the beautiful, mysterious, tortured woman. I mean, where's a beautiful freak--perhaps one who enjoys her freakishness, even? Surely... surely it exists.
I wonder if Parker Posey counts?
Thursday, November 30, 2006
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.
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.
Monday, November 20, 2006
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!
Sunday, November 19, 2006
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!
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!
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
I'm pretty sure this is the cutest nephew anyone ever had.
Just look at all that fabulous, cross-eyed baby goodness!
Monday, November 13, 2006
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.
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.
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.
Wednesday, November 8, 2006
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?
Tuesday, November 7, 2006
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.
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.
Sunday, November 5, 2006
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?
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?
Friday, November 3, 2006
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?
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?
Monday, October 23, 2006
How far we've come, Princess Buttercup
So who among us, upon the release of The Princess Bride, could ever imagine the type of actress Robin Wright (Penn) would become? She was beautiful and tan and not particularly notable for being anything other than beautiful and tan. And now? All hooked up with Sean Penn, El Senor Hollywood Political Rabblerouser? And she's no longer so beautiful-- attractive in a brittle, fury-filled sort of way, sure, but certainly no longer the translucent and glittery princess.
And now, she makes movies like Sorry Haters. I saw a couple of previews for this movie on some other DVDs I'd rented recently but otherwise, I'd never heard of it. And why it hasn't gotten more attention is beyond me. Truly, this is what movie-making should aspire to. It's provocative and tough and mysterious... and it's Robin Wright Penn all the way down to her grown-out roots!
I can't even begin to offer a plot summary here as this is a movie that can only reveal itself as it's being told. But I can say that it touches on some momentous cultural hotpoints-- and is therefore, a delicious compliment to Paradise Now, which I also watched this past weekend. At its heart, Sorry Haters is a movie about the psychological repercussions of two women who were once friends but can no longer be so once they find themselves in different socio-economic strata. But that's not what makes this movie provocative and tough and mysterious. This movie is also about nostalgia for 9/11.
The idea that there are those among us who pine for the camaraderie, the victimhood, the nationalistic fervor that followed the terrorist attacks of that day is an idea so fucked up that it pushes me to the verge of vomiting, I swear. Regardless, this is a sentiment that I know exists. We liberals find it hard to believe but in the weeks following 9/11, President Bush had an approval rating of over 90%. That means that a ginormous portion of left-leaning Americans thought Bush's "We're gonna smoke 'im out" mentality was on the right track. I remember sitting on the floor in front of my TV, in a little shithole apartment in Tucson where the ghetto-birds (surveillance helicopters, for those not familiar with Tucson law enforcement) scanned my backyard nightly, sobbing and asking my then-girlfriend why no one was stopping to ask why these folks, half a world away, were so fucking pissed at us Americans, with our SUVs and our functional plumbing and our cheap $1.50/gal gas and our "democracy is right" moral superiority. I am NOT nostalgic. I am disgusted and ashamed that nary a single fucking American politician paused; took a moment to empathize with these angry men; thought, for even a split-second, whether their anger was justified--even a little. And so, this character that Robin Wright Penn plays? Man, do I hate her. I hate her for her extreme self-involvement. I hate her for her myopia. I hate her because she is every bit the self-satisfied, smug American that I am. I hate that she hates herself for all the wrong reasons. And most especially, I hate her because the evil which she perpetrates over the course of the story could so easily be discounted as psychosis-- as everyday, pedestrian insanity.
I maintain that there is something wrong with us--wrong with this country--if we've managed to cast ourselves in the role of "victim" here without ever being held truly accountable for all the evil we perpetrate out there-- out there around this globe-- because I know that someone out there will relate to this woman and cheer her on. And that someone won't be the *only* someone.
And so, quite simply, I cannot offer any sort of rational analysis of this movie. I can only imagine that Robin Wright Penn chose this role because she knew this movie would inspire impassioned responses-- from WHOEVER sees it-- fashioned from an incredibly broad spectrum of opinions. And therefore, this role might be the biggest risk she's taken to date-- and that's only in part because the movie doesn't even begin to take sides. In fact, it doesn't even offer clear-cut "sides!" What I mean is, if you sat 15 people in front of a screen and played this movie, they'd have 15 different arguments that they could make and support based on the content here alone.
And so, dear readers, I implore you: rent Sorry Haters. This story is an important square in the patchwork of the post-9/11 American thought process. It's meaningful in this way few pieces of American cinema can live up to. And no one's ever heard of this movie-- when it should be on the tip of EVERYONE'S tongue. In the end, it's the sort of film that gives me hope that artistic endeavor DOES still have SOME FUCKING RELEVANCE! C'mon, guys-- my paltry few-- don't let me down... see this thing!
And now, she makes movies like Sorry Haters. I saw a couple of previews for this movie on some other DVDs I'd rented recently but otherwise, I'd never heard of it. And why it hasn't gotten more attention is beyond me. Truly, this is what movie-making should aspire to. It's provocative and tough and mysterious... and it's Robin Wright Penn all the way down to her grown-out roots!
I can't even begin to offer a plot summary here as this is a movie that can only reveal itself as it's being told. But I can say that it touches on some momentous cultural hotpoints-- and is therefore, a delicious compliment to Paradise Now, which I also watched this past weekend. At its heart, Sorry Haters is a movie about the psychological repercussions of two women who were once friends but can no longer be so once they find themselves in different socio-economic strata. But that's not what makes this movie provocative and tough and mysterious. This movie is also about nostalgia for 9/11.
The idea that there are those among us who pine for the camaraderie, the victimhood, the nationalistic fervor that followed the terrorist attacks of that day is an idea so fucked up that it pushes me to the verge of vomiting, I swear. Regardless, this is a sentiment that I know exists. We liberals find it hard to believe but in the weeks following 9/11, President Bush had an approval rating of over 90%. That means that a ginormous portion of left-leaning Americans thought Bush's "We're gonna smoke 'im out" mentality was on the right track. I remember sitting on the floor in front of my TV, in a little shithole apartment in Tucson where the ghetto-birds (surveillance helicopters, for those not familiar with Tucson law enforcement) scanned my backyard nightly, sobbing and asking my then-girlfriend why no one was stopping to ask why these folks, half a world away, were so fucking pissed at us Americans, with our SUVs and our functional plumbing and our cheap $1.50/gal gas and our "democracy is right" moral superiority. I am NOT nostalgic. I am disgusted and ashamed that nary a single fucking American politician paused; took a moment to empathize with these angry men; thought, for even a split-second, whether their anger was justified--even a little. And so, this character that Robin Wright Penn plays? Man, do I hate her. I hate her for her extreme self-involvement. I hate her for her myopia. I hate her because she is every bit the self-satisfied, smug American that I am. I hate that she hates herself for all the wrong reasons. And most especially, I hate her because the evil which she perpetrates over the course of the story could so easily be discounted as psychosis-- as everyday, pedestrian insanity.
I maintain that there is something wrong with us--wrong with this country--if we've managed to cast ourselves in the role of "victim" here without ever being held truly accountable for all the evil we perpetrate out there-- out there around this globe-- because I know that someone out there will relate to this woman and cheer her on. And that someone won't be the *only* someone.
And so, quite simply, I cannot offer any sort of rational analysis of this movie. I can only imagine that Robin Wright Penn chose this role because she knew this movie would inspire impassioned responses-- from WHOEVER sees it-- fashioned from an incredibly broad spectrum of opinions. And therefore, this role might be the biggest risk she's taken to date-- and that's only in part because the movie doesn't even begin to take sides. In fact, it doesn't even offer clear-cut "sides!" What I mean is, if you sat 15 people in front of a screen and played this movie, they'd have 15 different arguments that they could make and support based on the content here alone.
And so, dear readers, I implore you: rent Sorry Haters. This story is an important square in the patchwork of the post-9/11 American thought process. It's meaningful in this way few pieces of American cinema can live up to. And no one's ever heard of this movie-- when it should be on the tip of EVERYONE'S tongue. In the end, it's the sort of film that gives me hope that artistic endeavor DOES still have SOME FUCKING RELEVANCE! C'mon, guys-- my paltry few-- don't let me down... see this thing!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)