I stood beneath a tree today with my brother and we talked about how small the tree used to be when we were younger. We looked at its branches and how long they stretched now, and stared at the roots in awe. They too reached out from the base of the tree, like a child becoming an adolescent becoming an adult, moving out into the world, finding out what how it processes and perceives the world. And then I thought about chopping the tree down, and how I could never do that, and how even if I were to take an axe to the thing, maybe the stump that was left in the ground as a reminder of the tree's brilliance would go on existing for thousands of years. The basic matter of the tree would remain in existence into infinity, and so maybe the tree itself would, too. And this lead to me considering the minute, sub-atomic ways in which we are only now learning that the human species receives and processes information, and that in turn forced me to consider that maybe, perhaps, in some way, after the human brain ceases functioning and we die, maybe we still continue taking in stimuli and processing it. It is an extremely biased, anti-intellectual stance to say that the human brain can detect and process every bit of information we receive from every dimension of reality. Maybe the remotest parts of our being, the very smallest pieces of genetic material we consist of, goes on into eternity. Maybe we all get to live forever in ways we never even came close to dreaming were possible and our every anxiety about death and destruction is wholly unfounded. Maybe (probably) we are all wrong about reality and the truth is something that we could never even hope to conceive of (yet). Regardless, it occurs to me that the only way to obtain this knowledge is through science. Religion is static, the most conservative, concrete way of thinking possible, and it is nearing irrelevance. To me, anyway.

Zzzzimilies

The eternal debate rages on; do people prefer to sleep "like a baby" or "like a rock"? (If you're one of those "sleep of the dead" people you can fuck right off, weirdo.) People have been arguing about this for years, but it's time to settle the score. Travis Martin is setting the deal straight once and for all!

First off, I'm not all that familiar with what babies sleep like (I only sleep next to, like, two babies per year), so it's a little hard to be impartial. But my impression is that babies sleep the sleep of the deranged, waking up every hour, crying, screaming, evacuating their bowels and bladders without a care in the world. In other words, if you sleep like a baby, you sleep like a retard, jack, and I don't want that simile in our lexicon any longer. Who would want to sleep like a baby? Only a sick culture, one that reveres the rights of children above those of adults, one that places a premium on stupid, fleeting youth, could invent such an inane expression. Slept like a baby. As if!

I wouldn't take this so personally if there wasn't a perfect expression floating around; sleep "like a rock". What a lovely turn of a phrase! What a sort of Zen like image to ponder and use in our conversation. Sleeping like a baby is a regression, devolution, a return to the cradle. When one sleeps like a rock, however, one alters their genetic make up entirely and becomes like a rock, unthinking, uncaring, immobile. Peace. Americans don't want to think about negation, deconstruction, about the quiet and solace that comes from nothingness, losing yourself in the abyss. We would be happier if we learned to accept the void. Give up control. Stand in awe before the all-consuming mouth of pure light and color and experience. Allow it to engulf you. Analysis is for the deathbed and the fearful. Step into the wilderness of the soul and be made into something new. This is what I'm doing, and it's the only thing I've tried that brings me any semblance of peace. I want to bathe in white noise. I want to be cleansed by the static. I want to become the void.

I will become the void.

it lives!

October is just around the corner, and you know what that means. 31 nights of horror films, for the third year running. Last year's writings are somewhere on a message board I never read anymore, but all of the stuff I wrote from 2006 is still archived here (and MANIAC is, i think, the best piece of film analysis I've written. Which is not to say it's any good, or original, or whatever. Just, y'know, saying.)

This will continue to be pretty much just writing about horror and other types of cult cinema, but I'll most likely post some original fiction stuff that i've been kicking around. I am in the midst of finishing my first screenplay and I imagine bits and pieces of that will end up here at some point. But this is all probably bullshit and I'll just continue to write movie reviews for 3 months till I get sick of it. (Again.)

2006 ROUNDUP: INSIDE MAN (Lee)

Anthony Lane wrote something about BULLETS OVER BROADWAY, the Woody Allen film from around a decade ago or so. He wrote about how Hollywood does not need great pictures, but rather good ones. The staples - the romantic comedies, the thrillers, the period dramas - these needed to be less formulaic, more interesting and unique, and the masterpieces could take a backseat for a little while. Another NYC auteur, this time Spike Lee, takes this notion and applies it towards the crime picture genre, with solid, if not spectacular, results.

It's easy to foget how good of an actor Denzel Washington is, mainly because I've seen so few Denzel Washington movies. TRAINING DAY was, I think, the last one that I watched, and I can't imagine what the one before that was. He is completely cool and collected in this as a hostage negotiator who slowly starts to realize that the bank robbery he's working isn't really a bank robbery at all. Clive Owen is Dalton Russel, the inside man, who knows a lot about the wartime dealings of the head of the board of director's at the bank. Jodie is just sort of there. The show belongs to Denzel, of course, but you probably already knew that. My favorite part was Clive Owen. He spends most of the film with his face covered, but there is a scene where he finds what he's looking for, the thing that'll make him rich and expose a wealthy man for the savage he is, and he pulls his mask off, staring longingly at the thing he's spent so long planning. Owen's face is so interesting, scruffy, deep lines running down his cheeks. Lee shoots it in close up, and it's beautiful.

Things start out with a relatively standing heist picture, people talking about "the perfect crime" and whatnot, but things soon start to unravel and it becomes about something else entirely. Lee can't resist throwing in some references to race relations in New York, and the first filmmaker to overtly reference 9/11 in a film also shows us Foster and Washington acting in front of a large "We Will Never Forget" banner. These touches never really come around to mean anything greater, though, just an everyday occurence in the melting pot.

I had to get on IMDb to check out Clive Owen's character's name, and of course ended up spending ten minutes or so reading the threads that are posted there. A mistake, as most trips to the IMDb usually end up being. While people debate whether or not Spike Lee is the worst director of all time and how this movie "sucks", they all seem to sort of miss the point. INSIDE MAN is a good movie; it never achieves greatness, but it never really tries to, either. It's obvious that Lee has fun with the material, and the cast is also laughably good. It's a solid little heist flick that has some interesting twists and turns. Note: this is coming from a person who typically hates any kind of movie that "twists and turns".

In a larger context, this is exactly what Hollywood needs. Take a look at the top seven films in America, in terms of moneymaking, and then look at their rottentomatoes scores:

01. NORBIT - 09%
02. HANNIBAL RISING - 17%
03. BECAUSE I SAID SO - 07&
04. THE MESSENGERS - 13%
05. NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM - 45%
06. EPIC MOVIE - 02%
07. SMOKIN' ACES - 27%

All studio pictures, all released nationwide in multiplexes from New York, across the flyover states, all the way to LA. If even half of these were as good as INSIDE MAN, then perhaps I'd watch more Hollywood pictures in theatres. Maybe a lot more people would, come to think of it. INSIDE MAN never attempts to tackle any big issues in any meaningful way. It knows its place, and it makes its claim as the little sudio picture that could. That Spike Lee is also releasing documentaries about Hurricane Katrina is important and admirable; he is able to make these documentaries because movies like INSIDE MAN are seen by the larger public. I think it's great that someone like Michael Heneke is allowed to try his hand at a Hollywood picture. The US remake of FUNNY GAMES will be almost certainly be inferior to the original, but the fact that it'll make Heneke some more money, and perhaps allow him to make movies for a little while longer, is worthy of note.

Perhaps what we need are great filmmakers making good pictures, at least for a little while. Just a thought. INSIDE MAN won't make my top 10, but it never set out to do so, either. This is, in its own way, worthy of note.

2005 ROUND UP: COCAINE COWBOYS (Corben)

Yet another larger-than-life documentary, COCAINE COWBOYS attempts to capture the glitzy, gawdy world of 1980s Miami, complete with a soundtrack provided by Jan Hammer. From the opening credits, what we are seeing is stylized and cool and funny and so very over the top. That it never becomes self-parody is to its own credit. What could have become an exercise in camp or irony instead ends up being a love letter to the times and places.

Perhaps it may strike some people as odd that drugs could be presented in a loving light. While the documentary definitely exposes some of the uglier elements of the drug world (the insane bloodbaths that result from the trade), it also takes care to point out that men like Mick Munday and John Roberts, key figures in the Miami scene, were businessmen, who believed in the philosophy of supply-and-demand. They are providing a service to the people of Miami. The further irony of this situation is that the money they make they pour back into the Miami community, fostering development and commerce where there was once seemingly only blight and ruin. Roberts claims he spent $50 million in Miami restaurants, car dealerships, nightclubs, bars, tailors, and the like. COCAINE COWBOYS never explicitly points the finger at the entire city of Miami as an accomplice, but it does take care to note that there were virtually no cops there until things turned violent.

And, yes, they turn violent. The second half of COCAINE COWBOYS is not until the second half of SCARFACE, as we see the result of such an incredible amount of money being made in such a fast time, and in an unchecked industry. A central figure at this time is Griselda Blanco, who is simply too horrific to be made up. She is linked with the Colombian cartels (as Roberts and Munday and most of the people in the film are) and is said to be involved with some 200 murders. The people interviewed take care to note that Blanco was "the godmother" and she did not fuck around. She had people killed for looking at her wrong. In the film's darkest moments, we hear from her ace, Rivi, that she ordered him to kill a man who had disrespected her son. Rivi and a driver roll up on the guy, shooting into his car, but missing the target. They later learn that there was a 2 year old in the car and that they managed to shoot him. Rivi is terrified, but Blanco loves this, and soon is offering larger rewards for her men to kill the children of people who owe her money. She is, apparently, evil incarnate.

COCAINE COWBOYS, with its neon opening credits and cheesy score, could easily have veered off into parody, but it manages to play everything straight. Through a mix of old news clips, interviews, and re-enactments, we see how things played out through the media and the eyes of the people who lived and trafficked there. Perhaps the greatest strength is the directors allowing the players to tell their own story without injecting themselves into the mix. I guess I'm just sick of the modern documentary style of Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock (which was really influenced by the self-involved, docudrama "science fiction" films of my favorite director, Werner Herzog) and find it refreshing when someone, like Billy Corben, has enough faith in the source material and people involved to tell the story. COCAINE COWBOYS may make a top 20 of 2006, not top 10, but it's infinitely entertaining and engaging and an interesting slice of life in a certain place at a certain time.

2006 ROUNDUP: SHERRYBABY (Collyer)

The night before last I watched APOCALYPSE NOW, and last night I watched SHERRYBABY. They're very different films in many regards, but they also share a couple of things in common. For one thing, they both feature Sam Bottoms. For another, they both, at first glance, seem to be about Important Things, but, by the time we reach the end, turn out to be about people instead. And most glaringly, both films give us people pushed to their absolute limits, and lets us watch as their ends showly fray and they cope the only way they know how.

Maggie Gyllenhaal is Sherry, just out of prison, three years clean from heroin, and left to reside in a women's halfway home. Given the set up, one might initially think of this as a Lifetime movie, but it quickly becomes clear that what you're going to be viewing is a totally different breed of animal. SHERRYBABY is not truly about drug addiction or the things that lead people to seek comfort therein. It is rather about Sherry herself and how her addiction affects her. It is very much a character study, and a wholly unsettling one at that. It becomes clear early on that Sherry is not seeking redemption and that it is not going to be coming to her. She never seems to give up expecting it, however, which is perhaps the film's saddest quality. Sherry expects her five year old daughter to love and admire her, despite the fact that she has been incarcerated for half of her life. She expects to get a job working with children, despite the fact that she is a convicted felon. (She does manage to get a gig working at a daycare center for urban youth, but only after blowing the intake director. The theme of the use of sex to achieve her own ends flows throughout all of the film, and presents us with questions about who is using who.) She expects to remain clean and for her PO to cut her breaks. But as the PO himself says, Sherry does not want to put in the work.

SHERRYBABY is a heartbreaking, emotionally devastating film that never gives us a glimmer of hope, never gives us any reason to believe that things are going to get better. It is not a picture about beginnings and ends, but rather the dull monotony and bleak self-analysis that makes up the majority of our days. There's a lot more to consider here, including whether or not Sherry is sympathetic (I think she is) and what tone the film wants to close on (I want to think it's hopefuly, but I know better). But like Sherry and the film about her, this review is going to remain incomplete, unfinished, because beauty exists in the imperfect, if you're willing to look for it. SHERRYBABY is not for everyone, but it is a film that everyone should see.

EVIL COMEDY IN THE NEW YORKER.

So, Tad Friend from The New Yorker has put together a piece on Sarah Silverman's new sitcom (which I await breathlessly, lustfully), which he has taken to calling "mean comedy". Ah, Tad? This particular brand of comedy, which Sarah is definitely a purveyor of, goes further than being "mean" and enters the realm of pure EVIL. It is not about just simply lacking sentimentality, but also about debasing the very structure that our country was founded upon. I am a New Yorker fan (Anthony Lane is my favorite film critic), but Friend's claims that Silverman's show is "much the meanest sitcom in years" totally ducks STRANGERS WITH COMEDY and IT'S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA, my two old standbys. And actually, add WONDRER SHOWZEN to that list. While not technically a sitcom, it has to be considered among the single most subversive, vile, completely ruthless TV shows ever filmed. That it is a spoof on children's educational shows only adds to the fun. But I'll have a longer writeup on WONDER SHOWZEN sometime in the coming future. As to Sarah's show, well, it's getting Brian Posehn and Jay Johnston on TV regularly, so it's got that going for it. It is, of course, also Sarah Silverman's, who I am starting to think might be wearing a little thin, but is still bitterly funny in smaller doses. Just the same, I am looking forward to watching the show. More evil comedy can never be a bad thing.