2010-4_27 AVATAR
“Avatar” is a very familiar story in new dress provided by some new technologies. The first thing that I saw in the movie was it was an updated version of “Star Wars,” with more sophisticated military hardware and more convincing fantasy figures and animals. The second thing that came to mind was “Dances with Wolves” by way of “Surrogates,” as other reviewers have mentioned. Someone originally antagonistic to a group is converted to the enemy’s point of view due to a deepened understanding of who they are a where they are coming from. This occurs in both “Dances with Wolves” and ‘‘Avatar.” I’ll discuss “Surrogates” a little later. Since “Avatar” is basically a cowboy and Indian narrative or framework one could also compare it to “New World,” Terrence Malik’s film about Pocahontas and John Smith. Princess Neytin (Zoe Saldana) from one of the tribes that live on Pandora, which is a lush moon in the Alpha Centauri star system, saves Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) from death when she intercedes and persuades her father, the tribal chief, not to harm him. Following that she is also assigned to show him the ways of the Pandorians. The at-first unwelcome intruder becomes not only the love interest of the princess, but eventually a leader of the tribe himself. That transformation and how it happens is the main thread through the narrative. It is, so to speak, the emotional and mythic armature around which a sensual spectacular is built.
The year is 2154. The bad guys in this narrative are the Americans, but not the U.S. Cavalry mowing down the Indians and the buffalo, although the mind-set of these future Americans is strictly out of the 19th century. Indeed, we would recognize them right away. A predatory Mining Corporation called RDA is interested in a vast underground store of a precious metal called unobatium. The problem is a colossal ancient tree—it is called Hometree by the natives—sits on the buried veins of unobatium, so they need to displace the tribe, that is, move them out of their way. But the tree is sacred to the Pandorians and the RDA has not yet discovered how to peacefully move them elsewhere. This is where the “Avatar Project’” comes in. A scientist named Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) is in charge of a surrogate idea as a way to penetrate the ranks of the tribe. The ‘spy’ lies down in a casket-looking locker and is transported into the body of a thin and tall Pandorian replicant, a genetically engineered hybrid copy of the blue 10 feet tall Na’vi, what the locals call themselves. It is a synthetic version that can pass as the real thing, at least in appearance. James Cameron was asked why he selected blue as the color of the Na’vi. He said it was a pleasant color. Well, yes, but it is also a celestial color, the color that represents the feminine principle and the Na’vi worship a Mother Goddess named Eywa who the tribe believes units all hearts through a spiritual networking of “mirrored neurons.” Blue represents the truth, like in True Blue. So it is Jake and Grace who go back and forth and provide information for the CEO of RDA and to Col. Miles Quanitch, the Military man in charge of the Blackwater-like private security unit employed by RDA. The Special Unit does all the heavy lifting for the Corporation, and all the dirty work. The Colonel is a vile commander who views the Na’vi as pawns in a game he is master of, mere bothersome obstacles to be removed. He has utmost confidence in his weaponry and fighting men. Hometree is a notion mocked by the Americans. Like who cares? All the trees are sacred to them! But the natives are earnest nature worshippers; they practice a form of pantheism, that there is an imminent divinity in Nature, a profound and mystical sense of Animism and identification with the powers of Nature. Attunement with natural forces is the goal of life for the Na’vi.
Naturally, the vile Colonel gets his way and his military machine attacks and destroys the Hometree. There is an implicit linkage to our aggression and occupation in Iraq, as, for example, the phrase “shock and awe” is used by the Colonel. He also sees both Grace and Jake as turncoats, traitors to be dealt with the ultimate penalty. The Americans are like riding in their own ‘Death Star,’ and the colonel is Darth Vader on a rampage for his Corporate Bosses. They are not only aggressive and predatory they are gross, insensitive, and totally lacking in respect for the other guy’s ways and their spirituality. They behave like they are stuck in the 19th Century; they are motivated by Manifest Destiny, land-grabbing, and finding where all the gold was hidden. They were bent on defeating the natives and taking whatever resources there were to have and exploit. And typically, Cameron stages a huge battle at the end which ends, most improbably, with the Na’vi and the wild animals of Pandora, who come to their aid at the last minute, victorious. The battle is a pandemonium of flying beast ridden by Na’vi warriors, American helicopters, confrontations between soldiers and beasts in the jungle below. All of it is a whiz-bang spectacular of color and action, a really hyped up and expanded video game.
Most of the people I talked to who saw the film in the theater always stressed the beauty of the film and had little to say about the content of the narrative. The film needs to be seen two of three times to get the whole in focus, to unify all its levels and elements. There is no doubt that the flashy aspect of the new technologies can grab your eyeballs and hold then throughout the more than two hours of the film. There is no doubt about how spectacular it is, especially the natural (or surreal) look of Pandora, the luminescent plants and strange flowers and beasts and floating things of undescribable meaning. I rather liked the narrative, how carefully Cameron worked it out and how it was relevant to contemporary America, both to its character and wars, and its environmental issues.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Tea Party Activists
2010_4_18 Tea Party Activists
Ironically, the Tea Party supporters who have taken to the streets in protest are, strangely enough, not the people hurt the most by the Great Recession. A recent poll conducted by the New York Times and CBS NEWS showed that the Tea Party citizens are more educated and wealthier than most of the population, and therefore are likely to be much better off than their fellow Americans. Yet they are the pessimists and say the nation is going to hell in a hand basket. How do we account for this?
They see themselves in a different frame of reference than the government who, they think, represent people unlike themselves. From this sense of difference, which is rooted in past values, comes this overwhelming feeling that they must take their country back. The last election, which to them was some kind of aberration, be damned. For some reason they are able to see the votes of those who put Obama in office as somehow lacking legitimacy, when clearly that can’t be so, as their fellow citizens put him in office. As far as they are concerned the country has been polluted and misdirected by alien (non-American) forces and values more tied to big government rather than smaller government, and who pay more attention to the collective than the individual. The depth of the gap between these groups is huge and goes back as far as JFK, a time when the Democrats and the Liberal Establishment took hold over years of dominance led by Senator Bob Taft, President Eisenhower, and the young Dick Nixon, and the conservatism they embodied. Suddenly social issues rose in importance and a number of hurdles were overcome in civil rights and welfare during the LBG presidency. It was that combination of Big Government and controversial social issues that cemented the opposition and sparked the anger that went along with the big change.
Their dislike of Obama is passionate and irrational, beyond rhyme and reason. They feel he wants to do more for black people than he does for folks like themselves. They include poor people and immigrants in the same category as African-Americans. 30% of the Tea Baggers are ‘Birthers,’ those who discredit Obama’s authentic citizenship. I don’t think there is any denying racism is at the bottom of their attitude toward the president. It reflects an unresolved past in regard how things used to be. I would suggest that the Tea Party banner reflects a deep prejudice that echoes down through the years of slavery. It is racism in a thin disguise.
The birth of the Tea Party is more evidence of our culture war, which Pat Buchanan identified some years ago. The ideological battle between the Liberal Establishment and the Republican Establishment-cum-Tea Party Activism is as hot today as it was during the early years of the Clinton Administration, which culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing. The Far Right sees it all as “creeping socialism.” “Better dead than red,” as they use to say. Most Tea Party Activists are white, over 45 or 65, and remember a time less diverse and multicultural than what prevails today. Many observers of Tea Party conservatives have perceived nostalgia at the heart of their feeling about values and patriotism. They lament what has passed and what has entered into the cultural and social mix. That’s the pollution they speak of. To support the poor, misbegotten, and the slackers is too much as far as they are concerned, the curse of the Welfare State. They worship self-interest, not empathy, a virtue that the president extols as primary in a democratic society, which puts all members at a premium. The Tea Baggers have a hardcore moral mission, which is why they are angrily against abortion, gay rights and marriage, welfare, the playboy, the addict, feminism, and socialism. And it is why they are for freedom, individualism (the more rugged the better), unregulated capitalism (let the market rule), every man for him or herself, let the banks fail, and “greed is good.” The evils stem from the disobedience of the Patriarchy that the conservatives of all stripes revere. In other words there are two narratives at odds with each other and they clash rather than exist on parallel lines of activity and principle because the Patriarchal principle tends to be absolutist and seeks to dominate the scene and if possible to obliterate the other, the “heretic’ for whom they have little regard. And that is the rub: the Tea Party moral imperative is too righteous, inflexible and intolerant. Liberals at least accept all comers under their democratic umbrella.
Ironically, the Tea Party supporters who have taken to the streets in protest are, strangely enough, not the people hurt the most by the Great Recession. A recent poll conducted by the New York Times and CBS NEWS showed that the Tea Party citizens are more educated and wealthier than most of the population, and therefore are likely to be much better off than their fellow Americans. Yet they are the pessimists and say the nation is going to hell in a hand basket. How do we account for this?
They see themselves in a different frame of reference than the government who, they think, represent people unlike themselves. From this sense of difference, which is rooted in past values, comes this overwhelming feeling that they must take their country back. The last election, which to them was some kind of aberration, be damned. For some reason they are able to see the votes of those who put Obama in office as somehow lacking legitimacy, when clearly that can’t be so, as their fellow citizens put him in office. As far as they are concerned the country has been polluted and misdirected by alien (non-American) forces and values more tied to big government rather than smaller government, and who pay more attention to the collective than the individual. The depth of the gap between these groups is huge and goes back as far as JFK, a time when the Democrats and the Liberal Establishment took hold over years of dominance led by Senator Bob Taft, President Eisenhower, and the young Dick Nixon, and the conservatism they embodied. Suddenly social issues rose in importance and a number of hurdles were overcome in civil rights and welfare during the LBG presidency. It was that combination of Big Government and controversial social issues that cemented the opposition and sparked the anger that went along with the big change.
Their dislike of Obama is passionate and irrational, beyond rhyme and reason. They feel he wants to do more for black people than he does for folks like themselves. They include poor people and immigrants in the same category as African-Americans. 30% of the Tea Baggers are ‘Birthers,’ those who discredit Obama’s authentic citizenship. I don’t think there is any denying racism is at the bottom of their attitude toward the president. It reflects an unresolved past in regard how things used to be. I would suggest that the Tea Party banner reflects a deep prejudice that echoes down through the years of slavery. It is racism in a thin disguise.
The birth of the Tea Party is more evidence of our culture war, which Pat Buchanan identified some years ago. The ideological battle between the Liberal Establishment and the Republican Establishment-cum-Tea Party Activism is as hot today as it was during the early years of the Clinton Administration, which culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing. The Far Right sees it all as “creeping socialism.” “Better dead than red,” as they use to say. Most Tea Party Activists are white, over 45 or 65, and remember a time less diverse and multicultural than what prevails today. Many observers of Tea Party conservatives have perceived nostalgia at the heart of their feeling about values and patriotism. They lament what has passed and what has entered into the cultural and social mix. That’s the pollution they speak of. To support the poor, misbegotten, and the slackers is too much as far as they are concerned, the curse of the Welfare State. They worship self-interest, not empathy, a virtue that the president extols as primary in a democratic society, which puts all members at a premium. The Tea Baggers have a hardcore moral mission, which is why they are angrily against abortion, gay rights and marriage, welfare, the playboy, the addict, feminism, and socialism. And it is why they are for freedom, individualism (the more rugged the better), unregulated capitalism (let the market rule), every man for him or herself, let the banks fail, and “greed is good.” The evils stem from the disobedience of the Patriarchy that the conservatives of all stripes revere. In other words there are two narratives at odds with each other and they clash rather than exist on parallel lines of activity and principle because the Patriarchal principle tends to be absolutist and seeks to dominate the scene and if possible to obliterate the other, the “heretic’ for whom they have little regard. And that is the rub: the Tea Party moral imperative is too righteous, inflexible and intolerant. Liberals at least accept all comers under their democratic umbrella.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
An Eccentric Thriller
2010_4_15 “An Eccentric Thriller”
The “Bad Lieutenant” recently in the theaters was not a remake or sequel to the film of the same name made in 1982 by Abel Ferrara. The earlier one starred Harvey Keitel as this drug-addicted degenerate detective on a nasty downhill slide. Ferrara’s film had a reputation as a gritty, truthful, and controversial film, with a great performance by Keitel. The new “Bad Lieutenant” is another kettle of fish entirely. To say the least. But there are some carryovers and some similarities of character. Edward Pressman produced both films, with the Polsky brothers being co-producers; and they were the ones who convinced Pressman to get involved with the second project.
The detective, Terrence McDonagh (Nicolas Cage) is cut from the same pattern as Keitel’s cop, someone who plays it fast and loose with the rules; and ‘Dirty Harry’ is a partial prototype as well. McDonagh’s weapon of choice, like Harry Callahan’s, was a .44 Magnum and he wore it shove into his pants, with the long barrel nuzzling his genitals. At one point in the narrative he was pressured by two officers of Internal Affairs to give up the gun; he cringed but finally hands it over. He was clearly the wild man in the New Orleans Police Department. He’d bend the rules and steal some dope (cocaine, heroin, oxycotin) to subdue the pain he had to live with every day and give some to his prostitute girl friend (Eva Mendes) who was as hooked as he was. But besides being erratic, he was tough, persistent, heroic, and, as his supervisor said, he had good instincts as a cop. He is always very intelligent, always several steps ahead of everyone else, both his supervisors and the drug dealers. This was how he differed from Keitel’s cop who was clearly going to come to a bad end from the get-go. The New York detective was lost and much darker. He was killed by gambles as he sat in his car stoned out of his mind, whereas McDonagh outsmarts the Gamblers and his temporary drug dealer associates. In sum, this new ‘bad lieutenant’ was a survivor and more clever than the opposition. He had a knack for coming out smelly like a rose. He would win through to sin another day.
The movie belongs to the two co-conspirators: Herzog and Cage. Cage’s performance was an amazing tour de force, as he carved out a cop who could be called a virtuous madman. He did a better job than in anything he has done in recent years. The film opens with him saving the life of a jailed prisoner during Katrina, which was how he hurt his back—a permanent injury. That got him into Vicodin and from there he went to other drugs to ease his pain. This disability forced him to walk at a slant, with one shoulder higher than the other, giving him the awkward gait of a man not comfortable with his body and how he must move it. At Times he looked like Quasimodo, the Hunchback of Notre dame. At other times his eyes darted from side to side, as if we are witnessing the tectonic plates of his psyche shifting or colliding. His emotions are like a brush fire igniting his tense and twitching physicality. Despite how he jerks, humps, and twitters from one scene to the next, when all was said and done, he’d come with the bad guy saying, “I love it! I love it!” As for Herzog, he was no doubt out to prove to the Hollywood powers that be he could make a profitable thriller, with a few inventive peculiarities to spice up the narrative, which I’ll discuss in a minute. I am sure he was behind Cage’s performance, encouraging him to trust his instincts as an actor and to go over the top when that seemed called for with this character.
I am not so interested in discussing the plot as I am to discuss certain metaphors and moments in the film that make it an unconventional and eccentric thriller. For example:
1.) In the opening scene in the flooded prison a snake slithered through the oily water. The snake struck an ominous note right off the bat. Ironically, the prisoner McDonagh saved turned up again by accident in the very last section of the film. The guy had gone straight, he was clear of drugs, and had a steady job. The final image was the two men sitting on the floor in an Aquarium, with various fish swimming around in their tank behind them. They got there right after the cop had said out loud, “Do you think fish dream?” It was a scene in vivid contrast to how they had met the year before in the foul dark prison water. The two scenes were like book ends supporting all the incidents between the two time frames. They gave the film an unexpected symmetry.
2.) In another scene a gator was dead on a road; it had been hit by a car that flipped over. An argument between McDonagh and a traffic cop goes badly at the scene. It ended with another gator, shot from a very low angle, peeking over the bank of a river alongside the road. Perhaps he was mate of the dead gator. Like the snake, he was an ominous presence and generalized lurking threat.
3.) More animals showed up in another scene; this time evidence of the detective’s drug highs. He visited a stakeout with four other cops. He perceived two iguanas sitting on a table. When he mentioned them to the others they said, what the hell are you talking about; there aren’t any iguanas on that table? We don’t know if it was a version of the DTs or Herzog amusing himself.
4.) At the shoot-out with the three gamblers, just after they were shot dead, McDonagh shouted “Shoot that one again; his soul is still dancing!” Herzog illustrated this curious apparition by having one of the gamblers break dancing on the floor for a few seconds; then he was shot again and the dancing stopped.
5.) When McDonagh had taken his girl friend to his father’s place to hide her, he showed her an out building where he used to play as a child. He informed her that his mother told him that a pirate’s treasure was hidden by the tree right out from the doorway. He had taken his father’s metal detector and found a bight shiny spoon, a treasure that he in turn had hidden somewhere in the out building and he had never found it to this day. But later on he did find it and brought it in to it show his woman. He laments the fact it is no longer a bright shiny treasure, for now it was rusty and tarnished, just like he was in middle age. Experience changed our ideals and treasures.
Terrence McDonagh can be placed alongside other emotionally wounded Detectives, like Kurt Wallander and Jesse Stone, who carry on despite their handicaps, which in some strange way helps them solve crimes. And like them he could end up in more than one movie. He is a natural for a new series.
The “Bad Lieutenant” recently in the theaters was not a remake or sequel to the film of the same name made in 1982 by Abel Ferrara. The earlier one starred Harvey Keitel as this drug-addicted degenerate detective on a nasty downhill slide. Ferrara’s film had a reputation as a gritty, truthful, and controversial film, with a great performance by Keitel. The new “Bad Lieutenant” is another kettle of fish entirely. To say the least. But there are some carryovers and some similarities of character. Edward Pressman produced both films, with the Polsky brothers being co-producers; and they were the ones who convinced Pressman to get involved with the second project.
The detective, Terrence McDonagh (Nicolas Cage) is cut from the same pattern as Keitel’s cop, someone who plays it fast and loose with the rules; and ‘Dirty Harry’ is a partial prototype as well. McDonagh’s weapon of choice, like Harry Callahan’s, was a .44 Magnum and he wore it shove into his pants, with the long barrel nuzzling his genitals. At one point in the narrative he was pressured by two officers of Internal Affairs to give up the gun; he cringed but finally hands it over. He was clearly the wild man in the New Orleans Police Department. He’d bend the rules and steal some dope (cocaine, heroin, oxycotin) to subdue the pain he had to live with every day and give some to his prostitute girl friend (Eva Mendes) who was as hooked as he was. But besides being erratic, he was tough, persistent, heroic, and, as his supervisor said, he had good instincts as a cop. He is always very intelligent, always several steps ahead of everyone else, both his supervisors and the drug dealers. This was how he differed from Keitel’s cop who was clearly going to come to a bad end from the get-go. The New York detective was lost and much darker. He was killed by gambles as he sat in his car stoned out of his mind, whereas McDonagh outsmarts the Gamblers and his temporary drug dealer associates. In sum, this new ‘bad lieutenant’ was a survivor and more clever than the opposition. He had a knack for coming out smelly like a rose. He would win through to sin another day.
The movie belongs to the two co-conspirators: Herzog and Cage. Cage’s performance was an amazing tour de force, as he carved out a cop who could be called a virtuous madman. He did a better job than in anything he has done in recent years. The film opens with him saving the life of a jailed prisoner during Katrina, which was how he hurt his back—a permanent injury. That got him into Vicodin and from there he went to other drugs to ease his pain. This disability forced him to walk at a slant, with one shoulder higher than the other, giving him the awkward gait of a man not comfortable with his body and how he must move it. At Times he looked like Quasimodo, the Hunchback of Notre dame. At other times his eyes darted from side to side, as if we are witnessing the tectonic plates of his psyche shifting or colliding. His emotions are like a brush fire igniting his tense and twitching physicality. Despite how he jerks, humps, and twitters from one scene to the next, when all was said and done, he’d come with the bad guy saying, “I love it! I love it!” As for Herzog, he was no doubt out to prove to the Hollywood powers that be he could make a profitable thriller, with a few inventive peculiarities to spice up the narrative, which I’ll discuss in a minute. I am sure he was behind Cage’s performance, encouraging him to trust his instincts as an actor and to go over the top when that seemed called for with this character.
I am not so interested in discussing the plot as I am to discuss certain metaphors and moments in the film that make it an unconventional and eccentric thriller. For example:
1.) In the opening scene in the flooded prison a snake slithered through the oily water. The snake struck an ominous note right off the bat. Ironically, the prisoner McDonagh saved turned up again by accident in the very last section of the film. The guy had gone straight, he was clear of drugs, and had a steady job. The final image was the two men sitting on the floor in an Aquarium, with various fish swimming around in their tank behind them. They got there right after the cop had said out loud, “Do you think fish dream?” It was a scene in vivid contrast to how they had met the year before in the foul dark prison water. The two scenes were like book ends supporting all the incidents between the two time frames. They gave the film an unexpected symmetry.
2.) In another scene a gator was dead on a road; it had been hit by a car that flipped over. An argument between McDonagh and a traffic cop goes badly at the scene. It ended with another gator, shot from a very low angle, peeking over the bank of a river alongside the road. Perhaps he was mate of the dead gator. Like the snake, he was an ominous presence and generalized lurking threat.
3.) More animals showed up in another scene; this time evidence of the detective’s drug highs. He visited a stakeout with four other cops. He perceived two iguanas sitting on a table. When he mentioned them to the others they said, what the hell are you talking about; there aren’t any iguanas on that table? We don’t know if it was a version of the DTs or Herzog amusing himself.
4.) At the shoot-out with the three gamblers, just after they were shot dead, McDonagh shouted “Shoot that one again; his soul is still dancing!” Herzog illustrated this curious apparition by having one of the gamblers break dancing on the floor for a few seconds; then he was shot again and the dancing stopped.
5.) When McDonagh had taken his girl friend to his father’s place to hide her, he showed her an out building where he used to play as a child. He informed her that his mother told him that a pirate’s treasure was hidden by the tree right out from the doorway. He had taken his father’s metal detector and found a bight shiny spoon, a treasure that he in turn had hidden somewhere in the out building and he had never found it to this day. But later on he did find it and brought it in to it show his woman. He laments the fact it is no longer a bright shiny treasure, for now it was rusty and tarnished, just like he was in middle age. Experience changed our ideals and treasures.
Terrence McDonagh can be placed alongside other emotionally wounded Detectives, like Kurt Wallander and Jesse Stone, who carry on despite their handicaps, which in some strange way helps them solve crimes. And like them he could end up in more than one movie. He is a natural for a new series.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Sam's Birthday and Tahoe Thriller
2010_4_13 Samuel Becket’s Birthday
Ron sent me a photo of Becket and a quote from UNNAMEABLE that is Gold Card Becket. I sent likewise to him.
“Breaking Bad” was bizarre on Sunday night. Both Walter and his brother-in-law have gone off the rails and are increasingly in a psychic wilderness. They no longer know who they are and why they are doing what they are doing. Moreover, they are on a collision course. Skylar put a charge into the already fragile Walt by fucking her boss at work and she did it again on Sunday’s program. He tried to break into the guy’s office to talk to him but in his state he was more likely to kill the seducer. He was furious and Security was called to remove him from the premises. In addition to that his principle has put him on administrative leave because he doesn’t teach anymore; he just sits in front of his class and stares into space. She blames his fight with lung cancer and he lets her think that. Like everyone else, she has no idea about his other life. His young meth-making partner has gone and made a fresh batch of blue meth to gather some money. His benefactor-cum-distributer pays half to the kid and the other half to Walt who didn’t know or approve the kid doing it on his own. He doesn’t want to go back into the business but truth be told that is all he is good for at this stage of his disintegration. He is a piece of flak adrift in hell.
Last night I watched a straight-to-DVD movie I had never heard of, some kind of thriller called “Wrong Turn to Tahoe.” It turned out to be an extremely violent movie and at the end no one was left alive. It was all about a war between two drug lords and the attachment one soldier has to his boss. Vincent (Miguel Ferrer) finds out through a heroin addict that a small time dealer named Frankie is out to kill him because the big man, Nino Bellini (Harvey Keitel) wants him out of the way. So Vincent and Joshua (Cuba Gooding), his right hand man and bodyguard, who is tough and good with a gun, go to see Frankie, a Hispanic youngster with nasty mouth, who acts belligerently toward Vincent. His attitude annoys Vincent so he beats his brains out with a baseball bat. When they go to bury Frankie Vincent kills the other dumb-ass hood in his employ because he thinks he was sleeping with his wife. He is thrown in the same hole in the ground with Frankie. Betrayal loves company.
Then they go see Nino at his mansion. The meeting does not go well. Nino calls them small fry and tells them they owe him a $100,000 for killing Frankie. That was the amount Frankie put in his coffers every year. These were fighting words to Vincent and he tells Nino to go fuck himself. What else as this was a conventional thug movie? Nino gets up and leaves the room. While Vincent and Joshua leave and go have something to eat and to talk things over, Nino tells one of his goons to go kill Vincent’s woman who is home alone. By the time Vincent gets home the deed is done: His woman is tied to the bed in spread-eagle style and viciously disemboweled. It is a deliberately grotesque and brutal death, to teach Vincent a lesson. The cold-hearted Vincent is actually grief-stricken—and very pissed off. He was ready to go to war with Nino. Joshua had planned to leave Vincent’s employ and get out of the nasty business, but he found he could not do it. Vincent was more than his boss; he had raised Josh as his own son. So there was a deep sense of loyalty and a very deep attachment to Vincent, even if he was a cold-blooded killer. So the two guys leave to go Nino’s mansion to even the score.
But first they visited the addict who spread the rumor that Frankie wanted to kill Vincent which the dealer had denied. They give him some good heroin and while he is stoned and happy, Joshua shoots him in the back of the head. He has killed often for his father-figure of a boss. He knows he is as bad as he is. Before they kill the addict Vincent tells him that famous story that I first heard from some writings by or about Orson Wells. It is the story of the scorpion and the frog. A scorpion who wants to get across a river persuades a frog to carry him on his back and, although reluctant as he doesn’t quite trust the scorpion, he does it. And sure enough, the scorpion stings him and the two of are sinking in the water. The frog asks him now why did you do that as you are going to die too? The scorpion answers, “It was in my nature to do it.”
When the gunfight ensues the odds are in favor of Nino and his men, eight hoods who are his bodyguards. But Vincent and Joshua prove to be the more resourceful and the better shots and kill everyone in the mansion, included Nino’s squeeze, a beautiful brunette. She put a bullet in Joshua before he puts a bullet in her forehead. So with both women dead, the score is settled. Mortally wounded in the back seat as Vincent drives to a hospital, Joshua decides he should kill Vincent to end his unhealthy attachment to the guy. He puts the gun to the back of Vincent’s head and his boss says, “You are too loyal and committed to me to pull the trigger.” Just before he pulls the trigger, which will end in both their deaths, Joshua mutters out loud, “It is in my nature.”
I like that. It was a clever ending. The screenwriter worked in that Wellsian parable very nicely.
Since I honed in on the story not the performances, I haven’t said anything about how routine the acting was, the kind of movie all the actors had made many times over. About all you could say is, they went through their paces and delivered what was expected of them. They were picking up a paycheck.
Ron sent me a photo of Becket and a quote from UNNAMEABLE that is Gold Card Becket. I sent likewise to him.
“Breaking Bad” was bizarre on Sunday night. Both Walter and his brother-in-law have gone off the rails and are increasingly in a psychic wilderness. They no longer know who they are and why they are doing what they are doing. Moreover, they are on a collision course. Skylar put a charge into the already fragile Walt by fucking her boss at work and she did it again on Sunday’s program. He tried to break into the guy’s office to talk to him but in his state he was more likely to kill the seducer. He was furious and Security was called to remove him from the premises. In addition to that his principle has put him on administrative leave because he doesn’t teach anymore; he just sits in front of his class and stares into space. She blames his fight with lung cancer and he lets her think that. Like everyone else, she has no idea about his other life. His young meth-making partner has gone and made a fresh batch of blue meth to gather some money. His benefactor-cum-distributer pays half to the kid and the other half to Walt who didn’t know or approve the kid doing it on his own. He doesn’t want to go back into the business but truth be told that is all he is good for at this stage of his disintegration. He is a piece of flak adrift in hell.
Last night I watched a straight-to-DVD movie I had never heard of, some kind of thriller called “Wrong Turn to Tahoe.” It turned out to be an extremely violent movie and at the end no one was left alive. It was all about a war between two drug lords and the attachment one soldier has to his boss. Vincent (Miguel Ferrer) finds out through a heroin addict that a small time dealer named Frankie is out to kill him because the big man, Nino Bellini (Harvey Keitel) wants him out of the way. So Vincent and Joshua (Cuba Gooding), his right hand man and bodyguard, who is tough and good with a gun, go to see Frankie, a Hispanic youngster with nasty mouth, who acts belligerently toward Vincent. His attitude annoys Vincent so he beats his brains out with a baseball bat. When they go to bury Frankie Vincent kills the other dumb-ass hood in his employ because he thinks he was sleeping with his wife. He is thrown in the same hole in the ground with Frankie. Betrayal loves company.
Then they go see Nino at his mansion. The meeting does not go well. Nino calls them small fry and tells them they owe him a $100,000 for killing Frankie. That was the amount Frankie put in his coffers every year. These were fighting words to Vincent and he tells Nino to go fuck himself. What else as this was a conventional thug movie? Nino gets up and leaves the room. While Vincent and Joshua leave and go have something to eat and to talk things over, Nino tells one of his goons to go kill Vincent’s woman who is home alone. By the time Vincent gets home the deed is done: His woman is tied to the bed in spread-eagle style and viciously disemboweled. It is a deliberately grotesque and brutal death, to teach Vincent a lesson. The cold-hearted Vincent is actually grief-stricken—and very pissed off. He was ready to go to war with Nino. Joshua had planned to leave Vincent’s employ and get out of the nasty business, but he found he could not do it. Vincent was more than his boss; he had raised Josh as his own son. So there was a deep sense of loyalty and a very deep attachment to Vincent, even if he was a cold-blooded killer. So the two guys leave to go Nino’s mansion to even the score.
But first they visited the addict who spread the rumor that Frankie wanted to kill Vincent which the dealer had denied. They give him some good heroin and while he is stoned and happy, Joshua shoots him in the back of the head. He has killed often for his father-figure of a boss. He knows he is as bad as he is. Before they kill the addict Vincent tells him that famous story that I first heard from some writings by or about Orson Wells. It is the story of the scorpion and the frog. A scorpion who wants to get across a river persuades a frog to carry him on his back and, although reluctant as he doesn’t quite trust the scorpion, he does it. And sure enough, the scorpion stings him and the two of are sinking in the water. The frog asks him now why did you do that as you are going to die too? The scorpion answers, “It was in my nature to do it.”
When the gunfight ensues the odds are in favor of Nino and his men, eight hoods who are his bodyguards. But Vincent and Joshua prove to be the more resourceful and the better shots and kill everyone in the mansion, included Nino’s squeeze, a beautiful brunette. She put a bullet in Joshua before he puts a bullet in her forehead. So with both women dead, the score is settled. Mortally wounded in the back seat as Vincent drives to a hospital, Joshua decides he should kill Vincent to end his unhealthy attachment to the guy. He puts the gun to the back of Vincent’s head and his boss says, “You are too loyal and committed to me to pull the trigger.” Just before he pulls the trigger, which will end in both their deaths, Joshua mutters out loud, “It is in my nature.”
I like that. It was a clever ending. The screenwriter worked in that Wellsian parable very nicely.
Since I honed in on the story not the performances, I haven’t said anything about how routine the acting was, the kind of movie all the actors had made many times over. About all you could say is, they went through their paces and delivered what was expected of them. They were picking up a paycheck.
Monday, April 12, 2010
The Stoning
2010_4_10 The Stoning
The Producers of “The Passion of the Christ” were behind “The Stoning of Soraya M.” Jim Caviezel, who played Christ in Mel Gibson’s hard and violent film, is in this film as a Western journalist who happened to have a vehicle breakdown in a small and remote Iranian village in which a stoning of an adulteress had recently taken place. The teller of the story is a woman friend of the slain women. The Iranian actress Shohren Aghdashloo played the friend named Zahra. I remembered her from 2003 when “House of Sand and Fog” was then in the theaters and she was an Academy Award nominee for the film. It was with Ben Kingsley. She is a key figure in “The Stoning,” the emotional lynch-pin of the narrative and at the same time the conscience of humanity in the circumstance.
Caviezel is a French journalist who happens to be at the right place at the right time to get this awful story, but it wasn’t easy to get the story out and spread around the world. When Zahra manages to be alone with the journalist she tells him the entire story in flashback and he records it on tape. To Western ears it is an incredible story, grim, horrendous, and inconceivable. Even the adulteress’ father and sons throw rocks at her. It is her slime-bag husband, who looks the part, who has arranged the whole sorry episode because he hasn’t the patience to wait for a divorce so he can marry and deflower a 14 year old girl he has the hots for. In cahoots with him is the village mullah, a man with an unsavory background, who the husband blackmails into helping him spread untruths and innuendoes about his wife. She is in a defenseless position because in Islamic culture women have virtually no rights. The husband may do as he wishes, and there is already a history of him beating her often. He is able to have one crucial witness lie about sleeping with his wife and then exerts pressure on public opinion and has the town leaders condemn her to death as an adulteress, a death by stoning by the male members of the community. The whole charade is carried off under the auspices of Muslim Law, or at least a time-honored tradition in Muslim countries.
In truth all this woman did was stand up to her husband, a brutal, arrogant lout, an authoritarian to the core. The mayor knows better but, afraid of public opinion, he goes along with the herd, to his later regret. The wife has no recourse but to submit. For there is no escape, no exit; a terrible resignation grips everyone in the village. It takes a herd to stage a stoning. She is prepared for death by her woman friend. She wears a white dress, like her Sunday best. Maybe white was proscribed. Two men dig a hole in the ground, deep enough to bury her body up to her thighs. Her arms are tied to her side. Eventually she looks like a truncated stature, legless and totally helpless. The woman was unbelievably brave in the circumstances; she even keeps clear headed when she speaks to the crazed throng of shouting men. A few people cringe with guilt as she speaks; other are eager to get on with the show.
The first person to cast a stone was, of course, her elderly father; but his feeble throws land harmlessly at her sides. It is her husband who strikes the first serious blow—right to her forehead. Gradually, with growing intensity, the stoning proceeds. At this point I asked my wife if I could fast forward as the scene was getting to me. But Sue was insisted on seeing it as is. And it was horrible, completely ruining my evening which had hours to go. I could not shake loose from the horror of what I had witnessed. The execution by stoning was an ugly comment on Muslim men and Islamic culture. All I could think of the rest of the evening was WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE? CAN’T THEY SEE WHAT INHUMAN BRUTES THEY ARE BEING? What is missing in their humanity?
Even worse the proposed marriage to the 14 year old girl fell through because the girl’s father had been sent to prison for some unnamed offense, thus bringing shame to her family, which made the girl unacceptable as a wife. More Muslim custom I suppose. In other words, his wife had not needed to die; her death was a mistake. The Village men shrugged it off, as if to say, well, tsk-tsk, better luck next time.
The Journalist and the older woman who gave him the story had to conspire to get the information out. Knowing that he might be writing a story about the stoning, the mullah and a couple of guys with automatic weapons stopped his repaired car and searched his person, finding some tape. The mullah tore it to pieces, thinking that he had saved the day. But he and the widow had outwitted the mullah. She was further down the road and handed the visitor the real tape as he went by and then sped down the highway out of town. When the story of the stoning was published it became an international best seller, shocking all who read it. However, it still goes on, even if those who maintain the practice lie about it.
The Producers of “The Passion of the Christ” were behind “The Stoning of Soraya M.” Jim Caviezel, who played Christ in Mel Gibson’s hard and violent film, is in this film as a Western journalist who happened to have a vehicle breakdown in a small and remote Iranian village in which a stoning of an adulteress had recently taken place. The teller of the story is a woman friend of the slain women. The Iranian actress Shohren Aghdashloo played the friend named Zahra. I remembered her from 2003 when “House of Sand and Fog” was then in the theaters and she was an Academy Award nominee for the film. It was with Ben Kingsley. She is a key figure in “The Stoning,” the emotional lynch-pin of the narrative and at the same time the conscience of humanity in the circumstance.
Caviezel is a French journalist who happens to be at the right place at the right time to get this awful story, but it wasn’t easy to get the story out and spread around the world. When Zahra manages to be alone with the journalist she tells him the entire story in flashback and he records it on tape. To Western ears it is an incredible story, grim, horrendous, and inconceivable. Even the adulteress’ father and sons throw rocks at her. It is her slime-bag husband, who looks the part, who has arranged the whole sorry episode because he hasn’t the patience to wait for a divorce so he can marry and deflower a 14 year old girl he has the hots for. In cahoots with him is the village mullah, a man with an unsavory background, who the husband blackmails into helping him spread untruths and innuendoes about his wife. She is in a defenseless position because in Islamic culture women have virtually no rights. The husband may do as he wishes, and there is already a history of him beating her often. He is able to have one crucial witness lie about sleeping with his wife and then exerts pressure on public opinion and has the town leaders condemn her to death as an adulteress, a death by stoning by the male members of the community. The whole charade is carried off under the auspices of Muslim Law, or at least a time-honored tradition in Muslim countries.
In truth all this woman did was stand up to her husband, a brutal, arrogant lout, an authoritarian to the core. The mayor knows better but, afraid of public opinion, he goes along with the herd, to his later regret. The wife has no recourse but to submit. For there is no escape, no exit; a terrible resignation grips everyone in the village. It takes a herd to stage a stoning. She is prepared for death by her woman friend. She wears a white dress, like her Sunday best. Maybe white was proscribed. Two men dig a hole in the ground, deep enough to bury her body up to her thighs. Her arms are tied to her side. Eventually she looks like a truncated stature, legless and totally helpless. The woman was unbelievably brave in the circumstances; she even keeps clear headed when she speaks to the crazed throng of shouting men. A few people cringe with guilt as she speaks; other are eager to get on with the show.
The first person to cast a stone was, of course, her elderly father; but his feeble throws land harmlessly at her sides. It is her husband who strikes the first serious blow—right to her forehead. Gradually, with growing intensity, the stoning proceeds. At this point I asked my wife if I could fast forward as the scene was getting to me. But Sue was insisted on seeing it as is. And it was horrible, completely ruining my evening which had hours to go. I could not shake loose from the horror of what I had witnessed. The execution by stoning was an ugly comment on Muslim men and Islamic culture. All I could think of the rest of the evening was WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE? CAN’T THEY SEE WHAT INHUMAN BRUTES THEY ARE BEING? What is missing in their humanity?
Even worse the proposed marriage to the 14 year old girl fell through because the girl’s father had been sent to prison for some unnamed offense, thus bringing shame to her family, which made the girl unacceptable as a wife. More Muslim custom I suppose. In other words, his wife had not needed to die; her death was a mistake. The Village men shrugged it off, as if to say, well, tsk-tsk, better luck next time.
The Journalist and the older woman who gave him the story had to conspire to get the information out. Knowing that he might be writing a story about the stoning, the mullah and a couple of guys with automatic weapons stopped his repaired car and searched his person, finding some tape. The mullah tore it to pieces, thinking that he had saved the day. But he and the widow had outwitted the mullah. She was further down the road and handed the visitor the real tape as he went by and then sped down the highway out of town. When the story of the stoning was published it became an international best seller, shocking all who read it. However, it still goes on, even if those who maintain the practice lie about it.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Hutaree
2010_4_03 Hutaree
A week ago a prominent Arizona rancher in southern Arizona, Robert Krentz, was shot to death while out on his ranch of 30,000 acres by himself. He was known to give food and water to illegal aliens crossing his property. It is not known if one turned on him or if the killer was a drug smuggler. Shortly after Krentz’s death 300 ranchers and friends gathered in Portal in the Chiricahuas to discuss the matter and what to do about it. They decided to demand troops along the border as the situation was going from bad to worse. The fear was the violence caused by the drug cartels in Mexico was sweeping across the border. In Tucson home invasions were replacing car-jacking as the fashionable crime of choice. A Mexican American husband and wife were shot to death this week when someone invaded their home looking for drugs. Two children were left without parents. Even in the middle class neighborhood where my daughter Kai lives with her family experienced a home invasion two weeks ago. Meanwhile, the Arizona legislature, a travesty and a joke controlled by Republicans, is trying to pass a law that carrying concealed weapons should be legal. Jan Brewer, the Republican governor who replaced Janet Napolitano, has shredded social services in the state, which were ranked just below Mississippi before that, all in a fanatical effort to cut spending and balance the budget. At the same time she has given the okay to Arizona joining something like 15 other states who are trying legal means to repeal the Health Care Bill that Congress passed last month. Arizona’s attorney general, Terry Goddard, a Democrat, has refused to join the action because he regards it as a futile political gesture that wastes taxpayer’s money, something the Republicans are constantly bitching about. In southern Michigan a Christian militia called Hutaree or “Christian Warriors” was busted this week; nine members of the gang were taken into custody when a mole planted by the FBI reported they were close to killing some police officers in an attempt to start a widespread insurrection against the Feds. They were certain other right wing groups would join in once they saw the battle was begun. Two days after that we received in the mail a special report from a group Sue has donated money to for some time, Southern Poverty Law Center, who were publishing a magazine totally devoted to one issue, “The Rage on the Right: The Year in Hate and Extremism.” I had seen Mark Potok on Rachel Maddow’s Show on Thursday night; he was the main editor of the special report and the writer of two articles in the report. It reinforced the opinion offered last year by Homeland Security that Right Wing groups were increasing in number and virulence. A dramatic resurgence of extreme groups has occurred since Obama entered the White House and after the recession hit the hardest, the totals going from 149 to 512, including 42 new militias. That is an increase of 244%. About 60% of the groups are rooted in the South. The Hutaree were listed as an “active hate group.”
As a token of how aggressive some of the groups are becoming is something exemplified by an article I read in the Arizona Star this morning. The AP reported that a group known as The Guardians of the Republic have sent letters to 30 governors demanding they resign ASAP to reduce the size of government, and if they don’t they “will be removed” by other means. Government is the main complaint among the far right groups. The threat of violence is implicit in the letter so in some states extra security has been put in place. A Republican doctor in central Florida put a sign on his office door that said the following:” If you voted for Obama seek urological care elsewhere.” Not what I would call ethical behavior. It’s just one more indication of the sharp divide between political opinions and groups. And finally there are the demagogues on radio and television, the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and their spawn who roil the base daily with their hothouse opinions and misinformation. They specialize in reckless rhetoric with violent implications for which they rarely take responsibility for. But they could care less what liberal critics might say. Limbaugh, for example, makes millions as an ‘entertainer.’ It’s a perfect cover for a scoundrel.
A week ago a prominent Arizona rancher in southern Arizona, Robert Krentz, was shot to death while out on his ranch of 30,000 acres by himself. He was known to give food and water to illegal aliens crossing his property. It is not known if one turned on him or if the killer was a drug smuggler. Shortly after Krentz’s death 300 ranchers and friends gathered in Portal in the Chiricahuas to discuss the matter and what to do about it. They decided to demand troops along the border as the situation was going from bad to worse. The fear was the violence caused by the drug cartels in Mexico was sweeping across the border. In Tucson home invasions were replacing car-jacking as the fashionable crime of choice. A Mexican American husband and wife were shot to death this week when someone invaded their home looking for drugs. Two children were left without parents. Even in the middle class neighborhood where my daughter Kai lives with her family experienced a home invasion two weeks ago. Meanwhile, the Arizona legislature, a travesty and a joke controlled by Republicans, is trying to pass a law that carrying concealed weapons should be legal. Jan Brewer, the Republican governor who replaced Janet Napolitano, has shredded social services in the state, which were ranked just below Mississippi before that, all in a fanatical effort to cut spending and balance the budget. At the same time she has given the okay to Arizona joining something like 15 other states who are trying legal means to repeal the Health Care Bill that Congress passed last month. Arizona’s attorney general, Terry Goddard, a Democrat, has refused to join the action because he regards it as a futile political gesture that wastes taxpayer’s money, something the Republicans are constantly bitching about. In southern Michigan a Christian militia called Hutaree or “Christian Warriors” was busted this week; nine members of the gang were taken into custody when a mole planted by the FBI reported they were close to killing some police officers in an attempt to start a widespread insurrection against the Feds. They were certain other right wing groups would join in once they saw the battle was begun. Two days after that we received in the mail a special report from a group Sue has donated money to for some time, Southern Poverty Law Center, who were publishing a magazine totally devoted to one issue, “The Rage on the Right: The Year in Hate and Extremism.” I had seen Mark Potok on Rachel Maddow’s Show on Thursday night; he was the main editor of the special report and the writer of two articles in the report. It reinforced the opinion offered last year by Homeland Security that Right Wing groups were increasing in number and virulence. A dramatic resurgence of extreme groups has occurred since Obama entered the White House and after the recession hit the hardest, the totals going from 149 to 512, including 42 new militias. That is an increase of 244%. About 60% of the groups are rooted in the South. The Hutaree were listed as an “active hate group.”
As a token of how aggressive some of the groups are becoming is something exemplified by an article I read in the Arizona Star this morning. The AP reported that a group known as The Guardians of the Republic have sent letters to 30 governors demanding they resign ASAP to reduce the size of government, and if they don’t they “will be removed” by other means. Government is the main complaint among the far right groups. The threat of violence is implicit in the letter so in some states extra security has been put in place. A Republican doctor in central Florida put a sign on his office door that said the following:” If you voted for Obama seek urological care elsewhere.” Not what I would call ethical behavior. It’s just one more indication of the sharp divide between political opinions and groups. And finally there are the demagogues on radio and television, the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and their spawn who roil the base daily with their hothouse opinions and misinformation. They specialize in reckless rhetoric with violent implications for which they rarely take responsibility for. But they could care less what liberal critics might say. Limbaugh, for example, makes millions as an ‘entertainer.’ It’s a perfect cover for a scoundrel.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Sherlock and the Brothers
2010_4_02 Sherlock Holmes and Brothers
Last night I watched “Sherlock Holmes” and this afternoon it was “Brothers.”No two movies could be more different; no two directors could be more different. Guy Ritchie is interested in being hip and outlandish, and he loves artifice and razzle-dazzle, while Jim Sheridan likes to focus of emotional truths in the family situation and what is most human in the narrative.
It goes without saying that Ritchie’s “Sherlock Holmes” has little relationship to the traditional portrayal of the English Master of Deduction, whether you think of Basil Rathbone or some of the Holmes that have turned up on television. Ritchie and Robert Downy have come up with a characterization that flies in the face of tradition and sticks its tongue out at it. Actually, I found it at first glance very refreshing. This Sherlock was more of a physical being, less the introspective gentleman, but an active soul out in the world battling with the forces of evil and even having a girl friend (Rachel McAdams) that treated him rather badly. Downy’s Sherlock lived in a messy and dirty apartment owned by Doctor Watson (Jude Law) who does not resemble the Watson of the past. He instead is a practicing doctor, young, also very physical, and about to be married. He was more the well-dressed English gentleman while Sherlock was more like the bohemian artist of the late 19th Century living a hard-scrabble existence in a chaotic apartment-cum-workshop that resembled Francis Bacon’s painting studio in London, which was a clutter zone of unbelievable trashiness. But Holmes, just like Bacon, said he knew where every scrap of paper was. However, one feature of Holmes genius remained the same: his powers of observation and deduction. They are still acute and save the day against a villain named Blackwood (Mark Strong.)
But all things considered it is the hip outlandishness that is the signature aspect of this interpretation. First of all, it was the dirtiest London I have ever seen in a film, having a kind of Dicksonian ambiance, decay, and texture. The plot, what little there is, was outrageous, as was Blackwood, who has the audacity to pull a Jesus on Holmes and us. Strong plays Blackwood as if he were a man of steel bent on world domination by using black magic that seemed to predate the magic of Aliester Crowley. Adventures pile up; explosions explode; and black magic is finally exposed as mere clever trickery. It was all one man’s delusion of power which failed to fool the mighty Holmes. In a spectacular finale that rivals a James Bond’s fight to the death with the villain, Holmes bests the man while explaining to him the nature of his trickery and why it didn’t work. Those explanations are a work of art by themselves, fancies concocted of facts and theory so arcane or far-fetched all you can do is smile and suspend belief. But it doesn’t matter because getting there is more important than those final explanations. Twice during the film my wife turned to me and said,” Where is this movie going? I have completely lost the thread.” Not long after that she fell asleep. I followed the fun all the way to the end, not expecting more than what I got.
Where Ritchie digs fantasy, Sheridan is into the nitty-gritty reality and the clash of personalities. I knew little about the “Brothers,” just what I had gleaned from trailers on TV, that a soldier who had gone to Afghanistan comes home to find out his wife thought he was dead and discovers his no-account brother has slept with his wife and this news eventually causes considerable stress in the all the members of his family. Actually, that wasn’t right, as the home front brother merely kissed the wife one night; he never did sleep with her. But the returning brother, his mind bent by some awful experience in Afghanistan when he was held captive by the Taliban, thinks they had an affair and his paranoia about that corrupts his relation with his wife and brother and his lack of resolution about his guilt about what he had to do in Afghanistan ties his guts in knots.
Only when I saw the Special Features did I realize that the film was a remake of a Danish film of the same name. The Director of that film was a woman, whose name escapes me at the moment, who had more a political agenda than Sheridan had. After finding a screen writer who could convert the Danish narrative into a righteous America story, they talked to Jim Sheridan to direct the revamped narrative. Sheridan is an Irishman who made “My Left Foot” and other films. He had never done a remake so he was challenged by the opportunity, and he was eager to tackle the emotionality of the narrative. There was one active conflict in the family even before the Marine brother, Sam (Tobey McGuire) comes back from the war; it was between the father (Sam Sheppard), an ex-Marine who had fought in Vietnam and the other son Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal) who he viewed as a loser and a bum, inferior next to his soldier son. The film opens with Tommy being released from Prison, so he has the mark of Cain on his forehead right off the bat. Since Sam, like his father, isn’t the type to share his misery with his family his refusal to share what happened creates a divide between him and his wife, Grace (Natalie Portman.) That core experience in Afghanistan was a “Sophie’s Choice” experience while he was a captive of the Taliban. He became so locked inside that awful memory that he remains too distant from the rest of the family, and that aloofness becomes a cancer that eventually explodes. It was his paranoia about Tommy and Grace that provided the trigger to his freak-out, where he smashed the new kitchen in a storm of anger. Cops arrive and he was taken off to jail and eventually lands in a Vet center somewhere. When he goes back home he was finally able to talk to Grace about what happened and that experience was redemptive and reconciling for the couple. The film concludes on that note
It is a somewhat difficult movie to watch because the emotionality of the film is often raw and intense. I would not call it an anti-war movie, as the war is only a context for the emotions to be felt and experienced, then they are brought home to be the prickly elements of the family drama. Jim Sheridan talks at length in the Special Features and he has some interesting things to say about his approach to filmmaking. One other feature in the film that I haven’t mentioned so far is the two daughters of Sam and Grace. They participated more in the story than what I would consider normal in a lot of films. Their feelings are counted as worthwhile and so are their comments. They are not little dolls that decorate the family—rather refreshing.
Last night I watched “Sherlock Holmes” and this afternoon it was “Brothers.”No two movies could be more different; no two directors could be more different. Guy Ritchie is interested in being hip and outlandish, and he loves artifice and razzle-dazzle, while Jim Sheridan likes to focus of emotional truths in the family situation and what is most human in the narrative.
It goes without saying that Ritchie’s “Sherlock Holmes” has little relationship to the traditional portrayal of the English Master of Deduction, whether you think of Basil Rathbone or some of the Holmes that have turned up on television. Ritchie and Robert Downy have come up with a characterization that flies in the face of tradition and sticks its tongue out at it. Actually, I found it at first glance very refreshing. This Sherlock was more of a physical being, less the introspective gentleman, but an active soul out in the world battling with the forces of evil and even having a girl friend (Rachel McAdams) that treated him rather badly. Downy’s Sherlock lived in a messy and dirty apartment owned by Doctor Watson (Jude Law) who does not resemble the Watson of the past. He instead is a practicing doctor, young, also very physical, and about to be married. He was more the well-dressed English gentleman while Sherlock was more like the bohemian artist of the late 19th Century living a hard-scrabble existence in a chaotic apartment-cum-workshop that resembled Francis Bacon’s painting studio in London, which was a clutter zone of unbelievable trashiness. But Holmes, just like Bacon, said he knew where every scrap of paper was. However, one feature of Holmes genius remained the same: his powers of observation and deduction. They are still acute and save the day against a villain named Blackwood (Mark Strong.)
But all things considered it is the hip outlandishness that is the signature aspect of this interpretation. First of all, it was the dirtiest London I have ever seen in a film, having a kind of Dicksonian ambiance, decay, and texture. The plot, what little there is, was outrageous, as was Blackwood, who has the audacity to pull a Jesus on Holmes and us. Strong plays Blackwood as if he were a man of steel bent on world domination by using black magic that seemed to predate the magic of Aliester Crowley. Adventures pile up; explosions explode; and black magic is finally exposed as mere clever trickery. It was all one man’s delusion of power which failed to fool the mighty Holmes. In a spectacular finale that rivals a James Bond’s fight to the death with the villain, Holmes bests the man while explaining to him the nature of his trickery and why it didn’t work. Those explanations are a work of art by themselves, fancies concocted of facts and theory so arcane or far-fetched all you can do is smile and suspend belief. But it doesn’t matter because getting there is more important than those final explanations. Twice during the film my wife turned to me and said,” Where is this movie going? I have completely lost the thread.” Not long after that she fell asleep. I followed the fun all the way to the end, not expecting more than what I got.
Where Ritchie digs fantasy, Sheridan is into the nitty-gritty reality and the clash of personalities. I knew little about the “Brothers,” just what I had gleaned from trailers on TV, that a soldier who had gone to Afghanistan comes home to find out his wife thought he was dead and discovers his no-account brother has slept with his wife and this news eventually causes considerable stress in the all the members of his family. Actually, that wasn’t right, as the home front brother merely kissed the wife one night; he never did sleep with her. But the returning brother, his mind bent by some awful experience in Afghanistan when he was held captive by the Taliban, thinks they had an affair and his paranoia about that corrupts his relation with his wife and brother and his lack of resolution about his guilt about what he had to do in Afghanistan ties his guts in knots.
Only when I saw the Special Features did I realize that the film was a remake of a Danish film of the same name. The Director of that film was a woman, whose name escapes me at the moment, who had more a political agenda than Sheridan had. After finding a screen writer who could convert the Danish narrative into a righteous America story, they talked to Jim Sheridan to direct the revamped narrative. Sheridan is an Irishman who made “My Left Foot” and other films. He had never done a remake so he was challenged by the opportunity, and he was eager to tackle the emotionality of the narrative. There was one active conflict in the family even before the Marine brother, Sam (Tobey McGuire) comes back from the war; it was between the father (Sam Sheppard), an ex-Marine who had fought in Vietnam and the other son Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal) who he viewed as a loser and a bum, inferior next to his soldier son. The film opens with Tommy being released from Prison, so he has the mark of Cain on his forehead right off the bat. Since Sam, like his father, isn’t the type to share his misery with his family his refusal to share what happened creates a divide between him and his wife, Grace (Natalie Portman.) That core experience in Afghanistan was a “Sophie’s Choice” experience while he was a captive of the Taliban. He became so locked inside that awful memory that he remains too distant from the rest of the family, and that aloofness becomes a cancer that eventually explodes. It was his paranoia about Tommy and Grace that provided the trigger to his freak-out, where he smashed the new kitchen in a storm of anger. Cops arrive and he was taken off to jail and eventually lands in a Vet center somewhere. When he goes back home he was finally able to talk to Grace about what happened and that experience was redemptive and reconciling for the couple. The film concludes on that note
It is a somewhat difficult movie to watch because the emotionality of the film is often raw and intense. I would not call it an anti-war movie, as the war is only a context for the emotions to be felt and experienced, then they are brought home to be the prickly elements of the family drama. Jim Sheridan talks at length in the Special Features and he has some interesting things to say about his approach to filmmaking. One other feature in the film that I haven’t mentioned so far is the two daughters of Sam and Grace. They participated more in the story than what I would consider normal in a lot of films. Their feelings are counted as worthwhile and so are their comments. They are not little dolls that decorate the family—rather refreshing.
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