http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Thu, 21 Nov 2002 03:36:58 EST http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/ Phillip WinnSunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. 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Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2002/11/21/033658.php Colin WyersPoor little Willy is crying so sore, A sad little boy is he, For he's broken his little sister's neck And he'll have no jam for tea.--Harry Graham, Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless HomesKurt Cobain's diaries have been published. Amazon.com publishes several reviews from buyers:" If you are a true fan--no, a true human being, you will allow Kurt Cobain to rest. If you feel a need to peek into his thoughts, buy his albums.""If you love Kurt Dont buy this bookIf you respect Kurt dont buy this bookNirvana = Music""..the whole spirit of grunge - the iconoclastic stiff upper lip, the music for a lost generation ...all bites the dust with this final nail in Curt's coffin...plainly put Grunge is being SOLD OUT.""this book was really sad... includes all of his social problems including depression and drug abuse... I really liked it...""I felt Cobain came off as a much more gentle soul than my original perceptions of him had ever allowed me to consider. I felt almost like he forsaw his life spin out of control and was just overwhelmed by the thought of stopping it. I was thoroughly fascinated."None of this, of course, tells us what was in those journals. Nancy DeWolfe Smith, writing in The Wall Street Journal, claims that the professional reviews don't, either:"Grotesque fantasies of homosexual rape and homicidal rage fairly leap off the pages, suggesting that the anti-establishment icon from a remote Washington State logging community was tortured by a lot more than the hot spotlight of commercial success. Yet we haven't heard a peep from reverential reviewers about such things. Why do you think that is?"Smith explains, highlighting such vignettes as this from the work:"Neil Strauss, writing in the New York Times... cryptically refers to his revealed anguish at 'being teased to the brink of suicide at school.' Well, it's all there in the diary, if not in the Times. For our purposes, the story begins when Kurt decides to have his first sexual affair with a classmate widely believed at school, though not by him, to be mentally disabled. 'One day after school I went to her house . . . and she offered me some twinkies and I sat on her lap and said let's ----.' The experience repulsed him physically, but things quickly got worse when everyone from her father to the police wanted to question Cobain about taking advantage of a 'cronic retard.'"Let's take a look at another charming scene:"Suddenly one of my father's office clerks appeared in the drawing-room doorway and announced that the comet could be seen from the terrace.... While crossing the hall I caught sight of my little three-year-old sister crawling unobtrusively through a doorway. I stopped, hesitated a second, then gave her a terrible kick in the head as though it had been a ball, and continued running, carried away with a 'delirious joy' induced by this savage act. But my father, who was behind me, caught me and led me down in to his office, where I remained as a punishment till dinner-time."This story is not, however, from Diaries. It comes from The Secret Life of Salvador Dali, written by Dali himself and published in 1942.From both books, I could quote many more such gruesome incidents -- Cobain sounding like one of the Columbine killers, Dali confessing to his bride-to-be that he wants to kill her. But I think you get the flavour of it all.George Orwell takes to task Dali's autobiography, and his art, in his exceptional essay Notes on Dali:"In an age like our own, when the artist is an altogether exceptional person, he must be allowed a certain amount of irresponsibility, just as a pregnant woman is. Still, no one would say that a pregnant woman should be allowed to commit murder, nor would anyone make such a claim for the artist, however gifted. ... And, after all, the worst crimes are not always the punishable ones. By encouraging necrophilic reveries one probably does quite as much harm as by, say, picking pockets at the races. One ought to be able to hold in one's head simultaneously the two facts that Dali is a good draughtsman and a disgusting human being. The one does not invalidate or, in a sense, affect the other. The first thing that we demand of a wall is that it shall stand up. If it stands up, it is a good wall, and the question of what purpose it serves is separable from that. And yet even the best wall in the world deserves to be pulled down if it surrounds a concentration camp. In the same way it should be possible to say, 'This is a good book or a good picture, and it ought to be burned by the public hangman.' Unless one can say that, at least in imagination, one is shirking the implications of the fact that an artist is also a citizen and a human being."Was Cobain a talented songwriter and performer? I think so, yes. I've enjoyed several of Nirvana's songs throughout the years.But these diaries reveal that he was simultaniously a moral cesspool.That is, as indelicately as I can put it, his own damn fault. Blame depression, blame bad homes, blame the drugs, blame whatever the hell you want -- plenty of people face those demons. Kurt Cobain chose surrender to them, in the end delivering his life up to them. He didn't have to. He chose to. The mystique of his music shouldn't disuade us from realizing this simple fact.It's not suprising that fans don't want to view this. To try and reconcile their brief and torrid love affair with the art of a monster.Here's hoping that most of them are afraid of a seeing eye, not a mirror. Books1953@blogcritics.org Thu, 21 Nov 2002 03:36:58 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2002/11/09/223159.php Colin WyersIt is very, almost frighteningly, easy for somebody famous in one section of entertainment to get work in the movies. And it doesn't have to be somebody you hate for it to fill you with a sense of dread and fear - what's the last good adaptation of a Stephen King novel where King had any measure of creative involvement whatsoever?Whatever you think about Eminem, he's famous. He can sell fuckloads of albums. He's got a legion of loyal fans. He could have gotten a studio to bankroll him in just about any picture, and it would have been a worthwhile investment for the money-loving pigs.Eminem is, in short, a Big Swinging Dick in the entertainment industry.What gives you hope in the opening minutes of 8 Mile is the fact that his BSD is nowhere to be seen.He throws up before his first contest and chokes on stage.Big stars don't, as a rule, like to be seen portraying vulnerable characters. (This is one of the many immutable Rules, as postulated by William Goldman, writer of movies like The Princess Bride and the upcoming Dreamcatcher.) When they do, however, it opens up a door to a whole level of acting - what's the better performance, Tom Cruise as the ubermensch in M:I2, or as he cries at his father's deathbed in Magnolia?Eminem's always been an actor of sorts, creating a stage persona that's vulgar, violent, and infectuous. In 8 Mile, he creates a different persona. One that gets beaten up in his trailer park while his daughter watches. One that works a shit job at a Detroit metalworking plant. One that gets cheated on. One that isn't accepted in the subculture of Detroit's hip-hop scene.It's risks like this that elevate 8 Mile from your average rap movie to a challenging statement about the American underclass.Not all the credit goes to Eminem. A lot of faith was put into him by director Curtis Hanson, who stunned Hollywood with his neo-noir L.A. Confidential. He recreates the Detroit of Eminem's early days stunningly, and holds together a film that could have teetered into the abyss at several points.Hanson also veers into new territory for him, with suprisingly good results, giving the scenes where we get a glimpse into how Rabbit, Eminem's alter ego, composes his raps an intense power.The cinematography has a gritty, tough beauty to it. The supporting cast, from Brittany Murphy as a trashy wannabe model who takes an interest in Rabbit, Mekhi Pheifer, as fellow rapper Future, who encourages Rabbit to keep rapping in the face of racism and rivalry, and Kim Basinger, who gives a brutal performance as Rabbit's alcoholic trailer-park mamma, are all gifted.But Eminem, who must carry almost every scene in the movie, isn't overshadowed by them. And in the scenes where he, as Rabbit, freestyles, we start to understand why he's inspired such devotion from his fans - and wonder why he so often squanders his talent in other endeavors.Does 8 Mile herald a future acting career for Marshall Mathers? I don't know.But the movie has it's own peculiar charm, taking chances that pay off and directions not explored in other movies in it's genre.That's plenty enough for one film to accomplish. Video1761@blogcritics.org Sat, 9 Nov 2002 22:31:59 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2002/10/06/162643.php Colin WyersThere are some films destined to win Oscars, taking on piles of accolades for their cast and crew for months to come afterwards. And there are films where everybody that's getting an Oscar already has it or was robbed of it.Red Dragon won't be getting any Oscars - but the cast certainly has plenty of acting accolades to throw around, and the film is best viewed as a scenery chewing contest, where each actor does his level best to outdo the amazing performance you saw just moments ago.The loser in the contest - outside of Harvey Keitel, who got no material and gave none - was, suprisingly, Anthony Hopkins. It's not that he's lost his magic, or that anybody noticed that he's grown old, not young, since he gave his landmark performance in Silence of the Lambs. Hopkins was simply handed the Peter Lorre part in this script - an eccentric, involving character with a sense of menace that fades the moment the camera moves off him. Unlike Silence, you do not feel Lector throughout the movie - there are other matters to occupy your attention.Lector is used in Red Dragon the same way he was used in Silence, as a sort of depraved and self-interested Oracle of Delphi, dispensing advice in vague riddles and cryptic formulations. On the other side of the glass is not a rookie FBI agent, but a seasoned veteran of the force, the man who took Lector down himself: Will Graham, played here in a suprising turn by Edward Norton. (The audience is forced, in scenes with the two of them, to reconcile the fact that Hopkins, too old, is looking right at Norton, too young.) Norton is the workhorse of the film, carrying the burden that ties the disparate elements of the film together. There are moments, however, when he is let to shine, and he manages to upstage Hopkins once or twice.Emily Watson, as the blind photodeveloper, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman, as the bottom-feeding tabloid journalist, bring an odd sort of diversity to Red Dragon. In Hoffman's character, we get to see the characters interacting with the world outside their macabre underworld - obviously, people are interested in portrayals of these killers, and those who stalk them (we are, or we wouldn't be there), and Hoffman's emotional breakdown is a perfect foil.Watson, on the other hand, is the closest we get in the, for lack of a better term, Lector trilogy (Manhunter, the film that this is a remake of, called him Lektor, so we can safely exclude that with the phrase) to a sympathetic everyman. She gives a very convincing portrayal of a blind woman, and unlike any of the non-Starling women in the series, we have an emotional connection with her when she is finally thrust into peril.In Silence, and later Hannibal, the man was elevated from his small role in the original novel, eventually reaching the height of co-protagonist in Hannibal. Ted Levine gave a wonderfully creepy, yet small and undeveloped, performance as Jame "Buffalo Bill" Gumb in Silence; Gary Oldman's Mason' Verger in Hannibal was more memorable for sardonic lines like "Nobody beats the Riz" than any sort of malice.But in Red Dragon, the title character is not the delightful cannibal, or the woman who relates with him, but the killer we don't know. Ralph Fiennes utterly steals the show as Francis Dollarhyde, who bridles at the title the press gives him. (Gumb was "Buffalo Bill" because he "skinned his humps"; Dollarhyde was the Tooth Fairy because of the bites he inflicted on his victims.) Fiennes simultaniously goes for broke in threatening the landmark performance of the serial killer genre, Norman Bates's career-ending performance in Psycho and manages to imbue even such lines as "Open your eyes, or I will staple your eyelids to your forehead" with a chilling menace.What holds this all together is a story, pulled from Harris's first novel featuring Lector, that is probably the best out of the three. Silence will long be remembered as the first and the finest film (while Micheal Mann fans everywhere kick puppies in desperation); but Dragon has the most developed plotting and characters of them.All of which was essentially handed to director Brett Rattner on a platter. It's hard to judge him by this film - he could have sat in his trailer all day, for all we know. The film might have been better if he had done so, for all we know. All we do know is that he could have righteously screwed this up and he didn't. I suppose that'll do, for now.Red Dragon passes the acid test - it will not disappoint most fans of Silence of the Lambs, those who enjoyed Hannibal or those who did not. It will keep you in suspense for much of its running time. The film is truly a triumph of the hams.For two other views of the film, see here and here. Video1122@blogcritics.org Sun, 6 Oct 2002 16:26:43 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2002/10/04/153811.php Colin WyersPeople who love movies love movie trivia. It's a great thrill -- who won this Oscar, who was the first this or that to win that Oscar, who was uncredited for his work on X, what sly references did the director work in -- to know the little arcana about moviemaking, like being able to peer into the codex of Hollywood magic.And, both justly and unjustly, directors have been lifted up, by glowing and condescending press alike, into the position of the priesthood of this sacred order.So here's the question: can you name five female movie directors? Preferably off the top of your head.And for the bonus question: can you name one great female director?By great, I don't mean somebody that's a good director, or somebody who makes movies you adore. I mean somebody that's had a lasting impact on the art or storytelling of moviemaking. (Examples: Kubrick's influence on cinamatography; Hitchcock's influence on how suspense stories are made and received.)C'mon, give it a try.(And yes, I have answers to both questions posed, which I'll reveal later.) Video1088@blogcritics.org Fri, 4 Oct 2002 15:38:11 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2002/09/26/011557.php Colin WyersMovie sequels, as a general rule, get down on their knees and give the audience bad road head. The audience sits there with their pants open and daydreams about what the first film was like instead of looking at the whore slurping away in their laps. And those are the better sequels. The really horrible ones just cop a feel through your trousers and call it a day.To misquote the late, great Raymond Chandler just a bit, "Movies are like a kiss. The first is magical. The second is routine. The third one, you take the girl's clothes off."In that vein, then, Hannibal is a breath of fresh air. The Silence of the Lambs was a slow, seducing waltz, and as the final curtain goes down on it, you and the film head off to the back for a little hanky-panky. Well, it takes ten years to get there, and when you get there you find out that your playmate is a little on the wild side - whips and leather and chains, oh my. And maybe that's not your thing. But Hannibal at least tries to seduce you on its own terms.Can you imagine how easy it would have been to let Hannibal just coast on Silence's buildup? If you can't, go see just about any sequel. For nearly any sequel, you have to have seen the original first. They are derivative works, and this weakness just pervades them throughout. Hannibal doesn't feel that same way. The events of Silence of the Lambs are treated as a sort of best left alone prologue, and the film begins in medias reis.The psychologist Pavlov once trained dogs to salivate at the ring of a bell. It's the concept of conditioning. Movie critics aren't just conditioned, they're like the POWs in The Manchurian Candidate, smoking yak dung and thinking it's tobacco. They manage to convince themselves that the job of a sequel is bad road head, that they want bad road head, and when they show up to Hannibal and instead find a film that wants to work you a bit, they turn running.Admit it - you liked Hannibal Lector. Yes, you, fuckstick! Yes, I'm talking to you! You thought he was cool. You thought he was suave and debonair. You were charmed. You thought that his cannibalism was some sort of weird tic, something he tried struggling with but just ended up accepting.You were charmed by his intelligence. Hannibal shows you that academically, he is the same as he is culinary - obsessed with the dark, macabre secrets of the underworld, a twisted sort, who isn't a well-cultured sicko, but somebody who has cultured their own sickness into a tart little dish.An example, from uber-critic Roger Ebert: "In Hannibal, Lecter can move freely, and that removes part of the charm. By setting him free to roam, the movie diminishes his status from a locus of evil to a mere predator. He can escape from traps seemingly at will, but that misses the point. He is never more sympathetic here than when he's strapped to a cruciform brace and about to be fed, a little at a time, to wild boars. His voice at that point sounds a note of pity for his tormentors, and we remember the earlier Lecter."Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight.Charm? Sympathetic? Ok, in real life, if you ever meet a guy that kills people and eats them, you gonna be charmed? You gonna feel sympathy? Bull fucking shit you are. You're going to plug the sucker with a .45 and beat his still-smoking body with the butt until you're 100 percent satisfied that you are not the entrée, that you do not go well with some nice Chiante and some fava beans.Silence and Hannibal are both art. But the first uses its art to soften some of the rough edges, to keep us at a safe distance from the darkness. Hannibal uses its art to render Hannibal Lector without excuses, without the novel's plodding attempt to explain him away.I admit that if I had seen the film when it first came out, when I had no distance from any expectations from it, I probably would have rejected it. It was not the film that Silence builds up to. And, yes, I loved Silence of the Lambs. But Hannibal makes me question that love. And that's bold. Sequels are supposed to reaffirm the first act, not make you think about it, ask yourself why you care about it. It's a sequel that has tough love for its predecessor, not blind love.Much ado has been made about the difference between Jonathan Demme and Ridley Scott; about how one brought empathy to the project, while the other brought none. But could Demme have made as good a Hannibal as Scott? I don't think so. He made his case for the characters. He said what he had to. He went off and made insipid tearjerkers starring Oprah Winfrey. He would have walked on the set, counted his greenbacks, and churned out another film, with no magic at all.Scott brings something new - he doesn't fall in love with the doctor. He doesn't empathize. He finds a brutal man and documents him, bare before us, a monster pure and simple. It is, in this age where so many can worry about what conditions made Osama bin Laden what he is, a bold statement. What makes evil men evil is that they are evil. It's a straight line that goes right through you and rips you clean in two.It is a sequel that takes risks - and even if some of them may not pay off, the fact that it takes them is alone worth it.Bravissimo. Video: Horror916@blogcritics.org Thu, 26 Sep 2002 01:15:57 EDT