Johnny-come-lately movie reviews

I’m such a talented and popular person that, despite the fact that I consider myself a movie aficionado-in-training, I don’t make it out to the big (or even inconsequential movies) until long after they’ve been released. This is partially compounded by the fact that Dara tends to see many of our common movies in the theatres, without me. (By the way, Dara, you forgot to mention that we saw some cute puppies this weekend, too. Don’t forget that).

Here is a quick review of the three movies we saw on Saturday:
(Oh, and the Godfather: didn’t care for it. It insists upon itself.)


My Super Ex-Girlfriend.

Movie reviewer Jane Stevenson said of “Super Ex…”:

“Ultimately, My Super Ex-Girlfriend is lightweight fare but there are a lot worse ways to spend 90 minutes on an unbearably hot summer afternoon.” Yes it was lightweight, and yes there are probably worse things sto do on a sticky afternoon than to constantly roll one’s eyes at the corny site-gags and warmed-over humour, but Ms. Stevenson doesn’t quite hit the nail on the head. “Super” is a take on “Fatal Attraction,” meets “Mystery Men,” as interpreted by Nickelodeon. The problem with this movie is, with all its innuendos and all the scrubbing done to clean up the movie for its ratings, it suffers from an identity crisis, and from a lack of what most writers are taught on the first day of writing class: know your audience. Half of this movie was for kids (you can’t expect me to take a shark through the apartment window seriously, can you?), and the other half was decidedly for adults (at least the sex-with-a-superhero scenes). All in all, a forgettable movie.



Match Point.

It’s hard to go wrong with a Woody Allen movie, and the same can be said for “Match Point.” Besides the woo factor (I can pretty much sit through anything with Scarlett Johannssen), the script was tightly-woven, and included a cast of characters who were both sympathetic, and just pathetic. The film is an essay about luck, and it borrows heavily from Dostoyevsky’s “Crime and Punishment.” The movie builds slowly, which gives us ample time to sympathize with the characters. Over time, however, the protagonist (played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers) loses the favour of the audience as he transforms from social etiquette guru, to one of society’s worst kinds of menace. Without giving too much away, the film cleverly wraps up showing how, (using the tennis analogy)m sometimes the ball bounces your way, and sometimes it doesn’t. Unless you’re name is Dara, this film will probably keep you guessing (especially in the third act) and (if you’re like me) will keep you on the edge of your seat. Excuse the cliché, but I really was sweating on this one.


Munich.

The darkest film of the night was also a film I had been wanting to see for a while. I had several discussions with my brother-in-law Larry about seeing the film and finally decided to rent it. I’m not sure what the controversy was about: Spielberg is, in no way, an apologist for Black September, Palestine or terrorism of any kind. I didn’t expect he (or this movie) would be, considering how far he has advanced the Jewish cause through his movies over the years.

The simplest thing you can say about this movie-- the sad truth that permeates all the bloodshed-- is that violence begets more violence. It doesn’t matter who started it, or who will finish it, or what it’s about: violence is a sad thing. This is a tacit truth, like the golden rule, and yet people still treat others unjustly, and violence still continues unabated. I am not so simple as to think that violence is never the answer, or that people shouldn’t stand up for themselves, or their way of life, but I am recognizing the simple mathematical formula: violence = more violence. If Israel were to simply allow continuous suicide bombs unabated, and Mossad closed its doors, I know that the violence could and probably would continue on in Israel for 1000 years without ceasing. Hitler would have marched on unceasingly without the intervention of the Allies. But the point remains, and the poignancy of movie was made ever clear when I turned off the DVD player and saw the continuing violence in the middle east tallying countless new bodies in a seemingly endless war. I watched in anger on Friday as I came home and heard about the shooting at a Jewish Center in Seattle. For which there will probably be retaliation. For which there will probably be retaliation. For which there will probably be retaliation. For which there will probably be retaliation. For which there will probably be retaliation…..

Catching up

I just caught up on my emails, I finished a bio (which took me forever to finish!) and now I have time to sit with my guitar and write songs, although my blog hasn’t been getting any love lately. So here are a few quick points:

First and foremost, Dara completed her first day of work today. It sounded like she had a good time, and that her reputation is already on the rise (this always happens when Dara starts a new job- she’s like a rock star of the corporate world). I’m very proud of my Dayray and I know she’ll succeed. My main concern is that she enjoys her time while at work. Tonight she and a few executives from her office went out to the Cheesecake Factory where it sounds like she had a great time. Have a great second day babe!

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And now on to bitter posts:

Today on KNX 1070, Anchor Jim Thornton, in conversation about the heat, said that he was literally sweating bullets. Well Jim, you will be a handy addition to middle-eastern forces if you can literally sweat bullets- oh the money they‘ll save on munitions! To see (or hear, in this case) a journalist bastardize the English language like that is just sickening. Especially when it followed this:

California legislators are tossing around the idea of banning the use of handheld cell-phones. On KABC 790, host Larry Elder (who seems like a decent guy) unflinchingly shot down the idea of legislating away the so-called “right” to use the cell phone while driving. Larry’s argument was one of consistency: why not make a law against sleepy drivers? If you’re going to make it illegal to drive and use the cell, why not make it illegal to eat and drive at the same time? Legislate smoking out of the car.

Well, I know I’m supposed to respect my elders, but the consistency argument is a little flaccid. Especially when you consider that they’re not the same things. While eating might be the same thing, and should probably be given consideration (ever try to eat a whopper driving down the 5?), how would the police possibly enforce a law where sleepy people are kept away from the steering wheel? Cops would pull people over saying, “sir, I pulled you over because your eyelids looked droopy.” “Oh, sorry officer. I’m actually just stoned right now.” “Right. Carry on.”

The thing that annoyed me most about Larry’s attitude is that he wouldn’t even acknowledge any danger inherent in the increasing distractions in a car. He mocked the idea. For him, there are those who can handle driving with a phone, and those who can’t (he obviously places himself in the former category). The arrogance in his stance is repugnant; he wouldn’t even acknowledge the arguments of his detractors, and none of his callers seemed to, either. It wasn’t a talk-show, it was a “right to drive and talk” pep rally.

What bothers me so much about this kind of stance is the unwillingness to even look at the other side. Larry was searching for calls to reinforce the idea that driving with a cell phone is completely safe- and never once explored its possible dangers. Where is the growth in that? What does his audience get from that? Would his mind change if someone mowed down an entire family walking on the sidewalk as they were dialing in to his show? I highly doubt it would. He’d place that driver in the “irresponsible” category, while he and his callers are all capable drivers, and completely immune to crashing when dialing a 10-digit number (which is utter bullshit). All but the most realistic and humble people think they’re better singers than they are. Same goes with driving. How can you objectively state that you’re responsible enough to use a cell phone while driving, and another person is not. The issue clearly demands attention, but according to Larry, it doesn’t. The damn filthy government should leave their hands off this issue, as with most issues.

Well, Larry, the reason they’re looking at this issue is because, when these people get into car crashes, they kill or wound others. The reason we have laws in the first place is to protect society against other members of society. What other laws inconvenience you, Mr. Elder? You impede progress with your arrogance , and it makes me sick.

Whoa. Where’d that come from? Probably leftover from the other day when I was listening to Rush Limbaugh (yes, I tried it out for about as long as I could… which amounted to five minutes or so). I tried to keep an open mind, but Rush was also arrogant (to a degree that would make Larry Elder blush), and simply would not concede that the global warming issue could be an issue at all. He was condescending and, in a mocking tone, declared how he bravely played golf three times a week in the blinding heat- and has done so for years. Well thank you for performing that indisputable proof that global warming doesn’t exist, Rush. And what an act of bravery. Kids in Africa could learn from your courage. Thanks for exploring the issue for us. Oh, and the marinade of sarcasm and venom you injected into your words for us few granola-eating, berkenstock-wearing listeners out there was much-appreciated. You are a fat, rich man, and all you can think to do is to berate people who look to make modern urban man and his rituals accountable. Maybe lefties can be a little parochial in their pursuit of a better planet, but it’s hard to question their motives, when a healthy, peaceful planet are their goals. You hate naive altruism? What about blind arrogance?

What’s your motive, Rush? What harm does it do to just look at the issue; give it some thought? Consult some scientists who aren’t on the payroll of a large energy company, and then make up your mind.

How’s that for sarcasm and venom?

And to those spicegirl neighbors of mind, an you please go to bed now?

9/11 and the new, new jet-age.

One thing 9/11 taught us (as Westerners) is that sometimes the fighting, which is going on thousands of miles away, can appear at your doorstep in an instant. I have observed that one of the strange reactions to 9/11 is for people to place themselves in context relating to the attacks. This is more than a “where were you when Kennedy was assassinated?” question. Because of the magnitude of the attacks, it’s not uncommon to hear “a friend of a friend” story, where the “friend” was 85 stories up that day. I have noticed people take ownership of the attacks, and you might hear, “I work in a skyscraper, so you can imagine how scared I was that day….” I’ve seen or heard many stories of sudden twists and near misses; the “almost flew from Boston that day” story, or the tale of the “woke up late for work” man. Sadly, you don’t have to get too close to ground zero to find people who were a lot closer to those sad events than just a missed plane ticket.

And with the lessons of 9/11, we have a new view on globalization. The jet age hit us, literally, where it hurts and all of a sudden, the events in the middle east seem a lot closer than they would have six years ago.

My brother-in-law, Aaron, has a close friend who has been studying in Haifa, and was there the day katyusha bombs began raining down from southern Lebanon. Stories like his give weight and texture to an event which would normally be so easy to ignore, on account of the distance. I appreciate every story I read from every angle which enlightens me about the realities of violence and conflict. The pity of war, and the sadness of death and injury seem to be a common thread in these close-up stories.

If there is one good thing we can learn from 9/11 (and I believe there are many), it is to never look on human life glibly or dismissively. To those of you who know the smell of burning jet fuel, I doubt you ever will.

Happy 100th post

A good friend of mine, Tom Gale, alerted me to this fascinating interview with Syriana director, Stephen Gaghan. The following is the first of two parts, and is worth a read:

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Writer-director Stephen Gaghan’s new film, Syriana, is a look at the politics of oil – and much more. In a interview in San Francisco, Gaghan spoke about politics, art, the dealer-user paradigm for drugs and petroleum, and how if he’d written a movie about his experiences researching Syriana, he would have wound up with something that looked and felt like Dr. Strangelove. Gaghan was more than willing to digress – about if ‘running the gantlet’ or ‘running the gauntlet’ is correct, Congressmen who live on boats paid for by defense contractors and how Turkish coffee can ruin your film crew and perhaps how he shouldn't have had that last Caramel Macchiato – and his thoughts on oil and chaos, politics and art were bursting out of him at a fever pitch, as crude and refined and combustible as the resource that fuels his film. This is the first part of a two-part interview; if you're sensitive about profanity, you may not want to click further.


(Gaghan is asked about a remark he's made about the genesis of the film -- specifically, Executive Producer Steven Soderbergh's quote in the Syriana press notes that "Steve Gaghan once said to me that he thought oil was the world's crack addiction, and I knew he would find a novel way of exploring that idea. ")


‘Oil is crack?’ Who said that? Oh. I was mis-quoted. Well, what I was talking about really was the dealer-user paradigm; and what I mean by that is not some fancy phrase, because I’d had experience around drug dealers during my voluminous 19-year research for Traffic...


... and I’d noticed some times when you could be in somebody’s house, and it could be a totally genteel type of drug dealer, or it could be a more gangster-y drug dealer, but whatever – there was often something similar about them, which is they have children, and the children are staring at violent television, cartoons or some shit, and they’re eating sugar-coated breakfast cereal and they look malnourished, there’s a handgun on the table – there’s always a handgun on the table, like on a coffee table or a table, and it’s so unsettling, and the TV’s going and you’re looking at the handgun and the children are over there and you want to say, 'I’ve got this great parenting book by Mary Hartsell and I just want to give it to you, because I think you could use some advice on parenting. …' But you don’t say that – because that would be breaking an unwritten code. And the unwritten code is the guy has something you need, and you really need it, and you’re not going to fucking bum him out.


In America, in the West, we have this producer-consumer nation paradigm, and it works like this: 50 years of sort of a bi-lateral, multi-lateral maintenance of the status quo in the Middle East, which involved turning a bad eye to some really bad parenting. Whether it was a repressive regime, extermination of the Kurds, Saudi Arabia with women shrouded, walking 10 feet behind the men, etcetera, etcetera. But we weren’t going to say anything. Why? Because the producer nation, the dealer, has the shit we need – they got the good shit, and we don’t want to knock over the apple cart. To mix the metaphor. So that’s what I was thinking about, and I think it’s really apt. ...


And I think it’s truly interesting, as I went around to research the film, the most startling thing early on – and my access point was through a CIA officer (See No Evil author Robert Baer) who had been our Iraqi bureau chief early on in the mid-‘90s – speaks Arabic, speaks Farsi, speaks Russian, speaks French, 21 years in the Middle East – he’s a world expert on Iraq, and the people he was introducing me to, all around, a total rogue’s gallery – from government intelligence to middlemen in the oil business to arms dealers, terrorists, billionaires, members of royal families from the oil-producing nations.


… I met so many people who were just certain, they were certain; They had this great speech; they would tell you how the world works, and it was so convincing. So convincing. And then an hour later, you’d meet somebody else and he would tell you how the world works, and they were so convincing, too. And the problem was that their worldviews were a hundred and eighty degrees from each other, and this is really unsettling. And it happened again and again and again, and I thought “Holy shit – could it be that nobody is seeing the whole picture? Could it be that all these people who have this fucking talk – this often ideological talk – are masking some self-interest? That all these people who are posturing like Talleyrand -- they don’t have the whole picture? The Talleyrands are rare; a Talleyrand comes along once in a hundred years, and we’re in a Talleyrand free-zone, with a bunch of discount Talleyrands that are truly just looking to feather their own nest, and they’re gonna put in their time riding the ideological gravy train for just the minimum amount of time necessary before they can jump out and really score big. And they tell themselves, when they are making these morally compromised decisions, that it’s really about their family, that they have a wife and kids to support. It’s not just them: ‘God, if it was just me, I could buck the system, I could do what feel right in my gut, but I havemy family to think about.'


I’ll give you an example: (George H.W. Bush's National Security Advisor) Brent Scowcroft. His last point (in a recent New Yorker profile): 'I believe in the fallibility of human nature; I’m a realist. If human beings can mess up something, they will. You can hope for the best, but you gotta expect the worst.' I find that quite compelling. (World Bank President and ex-Deputy Secretary of Defnese under Donald Rumsfeld) Paul Wolfowitz; I met Paul Wolfowitz at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner, which is pigs feeding at the trough like you have never seen; if you’ve never been to that event it is literally pigs feeding pigs … pigs at the trough? They don’t even need the trough; they’re dropping canapés into the piggy mouths; there’s piggy dancing. It’s disgusting ... anyway. Wolfowitz’s point – which they touch on in the New Yorker article, it’s the most cursory examination of what the Neo-Con philosophy was, but anyway – Wolfowitz’s point is: 'No, we’re in a civilizational conflict; America’s only as good as the ideas we’re exporting. What are we exporting? What do we stand for in the country? Are we the children of the enlightenment and John Stuart Mill? Do we believe in representational government, do we believe in women’s rights, do we believe in minority representation in government? If we do, then we can’t stay in business with these people; we can’t keep turning a blind eye to these repressive regimes, to people gassing their own citizens. We have to take a stand; we have to stand for something; otherwise, this other force that we’re up against is just going to swallow us whole while we’re sleeping.' That’s a compelling argument; they’re a hundred and eighty degrees apart from each other. And what’s interesting is that both of these men have had a really high hand in running the United States government in the last 15 years.


I find that it’s really interesting and exciting; I think it’s such a great entrance point for thinking about narrative in a modern film, a truly modern film that truly tries to reflect the world to us as it feels right now to us, not as the world feels to us it feels to us as if it has to be a movie. Because if it has to be a movie, it can’t be x, y and z. But if it has to feel like the world feels like now, what is the narrative form that’s gonna take? How do you dramatize hundreds of people all of whom seem certain … and none of whom see the whole picture? Those are the questions I was asking myself.


(I explain to Gaghan a glib exchange with a friend I had with a bit of truth to it: "I was talking to someone and they said “I don’t know if I want to see it, because it looks like a sequel to Traffic,” and I said -- glibly, but also seriously, “Don’t think of it as a sequel to Traffic; think of it as a prequel to Mad Max.” ... And the question is, at a certain point, the music’s going to stop, and everyone’s going to look around and say ‘Uhhhhh, where’s my chair?” I mean, you’ve done a certain amount of research; if there’s a civilian authority on these matters, it’s you. So, how long is the music going to keep going for oil?")


Well, they think we’re at peak production this year and next year, something like that, for global energy production, the most that we can ever can really get out; that we’ve hit the crest and oddly, I think everybody had this feeling – although not a one-to-one relationship – I think that what we were seeing, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, it felt like the trailer of coming attractions, it felt like a preview. Like, holy cow – we are looking into Mad Max. Like, God, that is what it’s going to look like. It’s going to be racial; 'Us fat White people, we got all the shit we need; fuck you, poor people who happen to be Black or Mexican'; it really felt like you were looking at this Hobbsean future; it was just like he laid out. I don’t know; people have been making predictions; oddly, everybody I talked to in 2001, 2002, would have said for sure that Saudi Arabia was going to topple by now, that it was going to go down in flames to the Wahhabists. And weirdly, us going into Iraq, energy prices tripled; it tripled the price of a barrel of crude, which has poured so much money into the coffers of these regimes that they’ve been able to sustain themselves a little bit longer. They were going down; they were running out of money. And now, they’re like so loaded. Imagine if you could triple your Gross National Product overnight. They’re like ‘Go Bush! Go baby! Go Iraq, go Syria, go Iran! Keep it rollin! Let’s see if we can quintuple it, sextuple it!’


It’s astonishing how good war is for oil companies and oil traders. Anyone in the energy business (will tell you): Chaos is good for the energy business. And that’s the first thing they’ll tell you. They don’t feel good about it; but it’s true. I think we will hit a tipping point ... but I also think we’re so industrious, so creative … that there really will be a Manhattan Project-style ... I mean, we’re very close to having the writing on the wall for global warming, I believe; we’ve passed a tipping point and shit is going to start going haywire, and I think we’ll start talking in terms of carbon wedges and changing our lifestyles is going to happen very quickly. I don’t know if it’s going to be five years, 10 years 15 years … It’s definitely in our lifetime; our children are going to have very different lives. The carbon economy is going to shift; I don’t know if it’s a hydrogen economy, a sunlight economy; you’re not going to be flying around on jet planes the way you are now, probably; there are going to be changes. ... I don’t know; I’m not a futurist. But I did enough research into human nature, figuring out this one, that I’m absolutely certain that until it’s really dire, nothing’s going to change.


(The energy crisis of the '70s comes up; specifically, how we didn't seem to learn anything from that.)


It’s the same fuckers, man! It’s all the same Nixon guys; they got tossed out of office for a while with Carter. They came back with Reagan; they had a bad couple years under Poppy (George H. W. Bush), who wasn’t really hip to these guys, and then Clinton … and they’re all back! Just look at them! They’re all like a hundred and ten years old, they cut their teeth under the first Nixon administration ... they hang upside down like vampire bats when they’re out of power and they wait around. It’s the same guys: ‘Hey, don’t conserve energy! There’s no problem! Party on!’


(Part Two of this interview include Gaghan's thoughts on if defending Syrania will be harder than making it, comedy as tragedy, and more.)

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The article highlights several issues which have been on my mind lately (“lately” being the past year and a half or so). The first two comments after the article speak volumes about the 180 degree perspective that Gaghan is speaking of:


1. I really want to see this but it is going to suck if it is full of left wing liberal rubbish.

2. God, what a pompous retard. How perfect that he lives in San Francisco.

Way to tow the party line, guys.


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Here's the proper link:



http://www.cinematical.com/2005/12/02/interview-stephen-gaghan-director-and-writer-of-syriana/

Happy Canada Day

And for my 99th post here on blogspot, I would like to take some time to say happy birthday to my beloved Canada. 139 years ago today, the British North America (BNA) Act was passed, where the sovereign Dominion of Canada was recognized by British Parliament. This non-violent act of independance set the tone for this nation of peacemakers to make their mark on the world. And although Canada is often regarded as the knucklehead little cousin of the world, we have our proud moments on both a national and an international stage.

Life has taken me to different paths, but Canada will always be the place where I learned how to read and write, what is wrong and what is right, how to love, how to play and appreciate music; it's the the place I went to my first concert; went to school and fell in love with my wife. Canada might not be for everyone, but with all of these experiences, Canada will always be a part of me.

Happy birthday Canada- I love you.