Blogcritics Author: Pacze Moj

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, 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. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

Movie Review: Basquiat

Pacze Moj — Tue, 6 Jun 2006 18:05:47 EDT

Masterpieces of Western Art, a many-authored survey of its titular subject published by Taschen, has the following mini-bio of Jean-Michel Basquiat in its back pages:1960 New York – 1988 New YorkBasquiat was born in New York as the son of a Haitian book-keeper and a Puerto-Rican mother. After a difficult childhood he began at the age of 17, togther with Al Diaz, to paint graffiti in underground stations and on house-fronts under the assumed name of Samo. He did casual work and played the guitar and synthesizer in a band. The art market soon discovered Basquiat; by taking part in the documents at Kassel in 1982 and the Whitney Biennale in New York in 1983, he became a media star. He made friends with Warhol. They painted portraits of each other and designed a number of works together. Basquiat introduced the graffiti art form to the world without disowning his Brooklyn ghetto origins. He constructed assemblages from waste objects; materials used as surface could range from a torn bit of paper to a fridge door. He died from a drug overdose.You will not learn a single fact more about Basquiat by watching Julian Schnabel’s biographical film; nor will you gain any insight into what drove and motivated his art. Although you will see many of his works, they remain on the outskirts of both the film and the world of the film: “We're no longer collecting art. We’re buying people,” as says one of the characters.Keeping with that, what Basquiat becomes is the selling of one artist (Jean-Michel Basquiat) by another (Julian Schnabel). But, because Schnabel is also an artist (his art appears in the film, painted by a silver screen alter-ego played by Gary Oldman) and, especially, because Schnabel knew Basquiat, the sales pitch is more convincing than in most other artist bio-pics.Instead of constructing a film that is an excuse to educate the viewer by way of throwing an easy-to-digest fact at him or her every five-to-ten minutes, Schnabel focuses on the details that add up to make up a person. Instead of the “he was born in New York in 1960…” approach, he gives us: “he had this funny little habit of…”Although Basquiat plays out much like the traditional “rise-and-fall of the big shot” story, there’s an important difference: Basquiat doesn’t change. He doesn’t become arrogant, aloof, or change his outlook on life when suddenly famous. He makes paintings with his food when he’s poor as well as when he’s rich; he paints over his girlfriend’s paintings as well as Andy Warhol’s; and the drugs that kill him are part of his life right from the beginning. It’s the art scene -- the film’s villain -- that squeezes him to death, not a flaw that he develops due to fame and riches.Schnabel paints an acidic portrait of the NYC art kingdom in the eighties, a time when Andy Warhol (played by David Bowie) was king, and when everyone was beginning to “discover” art produced by visible minority artists. The film’s cast of characters ranges from affable weirdos to vile, non-artist back-stabbers, and doesn’t shy away from insinuating that most in both groups are superficial, attention-hungry, selfish, and racist. Fame, connections, and money make up the holy trinity, and talent isn’t a sure means of achieving any of the three.“Is it still art,” Schnabel seems to ask, “if it doesn’t sell?”“Is he still an artist if he doesn’t want to sell it?”In the first shots of the film, Basquiat emerges from the cardboard box he’s taken to sleeping in. By the end of the film, he’s been thoroughly boxed in by the art world – caught amongst people who are as much unlike him as he is his middle-class, junior accountant father.Rating: B-

Pacze Moj resides at Critical Culture.

Movie Review: The Proposition

Pacze Moj — Mon, 5 Jun 2006 19:07:51 EDT

Great acting all around in this Nick Cave-penned Australian Western that effectively captures the darkness and myth that pervade the songwriter's songbook.The story in The Proposition revolves around a Captain played by Ray Winstone who captures two of three brothers, members of a gang responsible for the murder of a well-to-do family, and offers one of them the chance to release the other if he catches the third. In other words, one brother is given the power to decide which of his brothers will live. In other words, one brother must condemn another brother to death.What's exceptional about the film (and the script) is the way in which every character has a relationsip with every other character. Little details, like the knowledge that the Captain's men all want to have sex with his wife, for example, create an inter-connected world as well as deepen the narrative and create extra consequences for every action. In keeping with this idea, none of the characters in The Proposition are simple heroes or villains. Everyone has a red right hand, so to speak.What the film shows is a cycle of suffering in which the strong inflict pain on the weak, who inflict it on the weaker still, who lash out with explosions of violence against the strongest. The only way to escape is to break the cycle, and whoever does that, the film seems to argue, is the true hero.State-sanctioned jutice is not far removed from vigilante justice, outlaw violence, or the law of the land in Cave's outback. To misquote a high school physics textbook: for every action there is an opposite and greater reaction. In this way, The Proposition is not unlike Clint Eastwood's High Plains Drifter, but with one key twist that changes its entire worldview. Because what happens when the solution is also part of the problem? What if the fly-swatter is also one of the flies?Rating: A-

Pacze Moj resides at Critical Culture.

Movie Review: Caché

Pacze Moj — Sun, 4 Jun 2006 17:35:52 EDT

One of the strengths of Caché is its ability to generate discussion. I don't think anyone can see the film and then resist the urge to talk about it. Whether face-to-face on the walk home from the theater, more comfortably on the couch after watching the DVD, or digitally, on a chatroom, forum or blog on the Internet, you'll want to find out what other viewers and reviewers read, or didn't read, from the film. For example, I saw it with a small group of people, and Caché fueled our conversations for the rest of the night. Coffee and Caché. Very French, if you don't count that not one of us smokes. However, there was a bit of what seemed like a snag in our discussion: while most of us loved it, there was one person who hated it. To our collective surprise, the many-to-one conversation against the dissenter proved the most productive conversation of all."I don't get it," he said. "Who was making the goddamn tapes?"We threw some ideas at him: "Majid," "Majid's son," "their sons," "there were no tapes; it was Georges' conscience," "it doesn't matter--""It doesn't matter? Of course it matters.""Maybe the film's made in a way that allow multiple readings--""Maybe the director--Haneke, or however you say it--didn't have a clue about how to end his movie--any ending would have been a let-down and probably inconsistent with the rest of the film, so he "left it open" for movie goons like you to ponder over.""That's not fair. I mean, there are plenty of films--some that you even liked--that leave things ambiguous at the end.""Sure, but they don't pretend to be thrillers. And they don't start off with a long-ass shot of a videotape, go through a whole plot to find out who the hell was making them, and then leave you with nothing.""But you're reading the film--""I'm not reading anything. I was watching--""Fine, you're just watching the film in a different way than we are. Why does having no resolution make you so angry? For example, in Japan--""Come on! In Japan? We're not in Japan, and the movie's not Japanese. Just because I don't pretend to see things that aren't really there, and think the movie's a cop-out for having no ending, doesn't mean you can go film school on me. Read what you want into it, but let me just talk about what's there: nothing.""Even if we are reading things into it, that doesn't mean you're right just because you dismiss everything. If we make up nine things, or come up with nine theories, and one of them is right, or even half-right, we still come out ahead.""So, who filmed the guy and his wife?""I don't know, and I don't think it matters.""Here we go again. It matters because that's what the film's about! If we don't know who did it, then we don't know why they did it, and we don't know why, then we just know what--and we knew what before the opening credits finished.""We also know when.""When?""After Georges ... Majid, before Majid ... and, in the larger context, when the war in Iraq's going on, before the race riots in Paris--remember the scene of Georges and his wife talking with the TV between them showing some news footage of the war? There's a reason that was there.""So it's some sort of big political allegory. Evil white, French rich people putting down and oppressing the poor, angelic Arabs?""I don't think so. I don't think Haneke lets Majid off the hook so easily. As much as Georges doesn't want to remember what happened and admit the guilt he has and feels, Majid remembers it too much! He blames everything that went bad in his life on that one action made by a 6-year old. And the only reason Majid even had a chance to a better life and to be ... by ... is because ... gave him that chance. There's guilt in the film that one side doesn't want to acknowledge and the other side doesn't want to put into honest perspective.""Tapes, tapes, tapes. Why?""Because they unsettle Georges and his wife. They remind them that their comfortable life is being watched and maybe even threatened. Like those videos that bin Laden puts out every few months. They don't really have a point, but they're still a little bit unsettling and they make the news, right?""And the last shot? Is that some sort of cheesy, there's-still-hope message?""I don't even agree with what ... said, but I don't think Haneke's being in any way hopeful. I don't even think that last shot happens at the end of the film's time line. Remember that the second-last scene is a flashback or memory or something like that, so just because a scene comes after that one doesn't mean it comes at the end of the film. Try putting that last scene at the beginning of the film and you have a whole different picture, right? It's weird how it would skew everything we saw and thought if Haneke put that at the beginning.""So ... did it? I don't get why ... would.""No, ... didn't do it. That's the point. Maybe ... did it. But I think ... has got the right idea. Caché is all about teasing you into deconstructing it--into becoming an active viewer. I think it's significant that after Majid ..., Georges goes to the cinema! And then think of the second-to-last scene in the film. It's shot with this black frame that makes the action, from the point of view of the camera, look like a theater screen. Didn't you want to get involved in that scene and help ... when ...? And Georges works as a TV host--another instance of spectacle and viewership. Now that I think about it, there was a focus on the spectators at Pierrot's swim meet, too.""You can read anything into anything, if you want. Hell, you're all probably smarter than Haneke for making this shit up. The more empty and pointless a movie is, the more open it is for theories made up by film students--""And Haneke shoots the whole film on video, right? Just like the the videos that Georges keeps getting.""Haneke's laughing at you guys right now. I swear!""Maybe Haneke's planting the videos!""Look at all the idiots wasting their time trying to interpret my movie. Ka-ching.""Dude, that kind of makes sense, you know? Haneke's taping the family and then terrorizing them with the tapes. He's taking all of these characters and fucking with them!""Again, there's no reason for him to do that. It's just like all your other theories--wrong.""But there is a reason!""Pray, do tell, Haneke-san""He's doing it for us--the audience--for their--for our--amusement. He screws around with Georges and Majid purely for our satisfaction. He knows we want it, so he does it. We kept watching, didn't we?""What about people who walked out in mid-movie, like I should have done? What about them?""They wouldn't be asking these questions because they wouldn't be interested. All those slow scenes in the beginning...they're meant to get people like [the dissenter] out of the theater!""Funny.""Like in Funny Games--exactly. Haneke's always shown a pretty keen feeling for what his viewer is feeling and what he wants, and making audiences react in certain ways. He's certainly not a filmmaker who pretends he's making movies for no one, like some of the crap that comes out of Hollywood.""Oh, the irony! It hurts, it hurts!""That really ties in with the guilt theme, too. If we're watching Haneke toy with Georges and Majid, and everyone else, and we don't do a thing to stop him, aren't we complicit in the things he does. We're spurring him on by not doing anything. And so we have to share the guilt for what happens because we allowed it to happen by not acting to stop it.""Passive collaboration...in a French film? Never! I shan't think the French know a thing about it.""Shut up, already. You're just being annoying. Go watch Spiderman or porn or football.""You guys are insane. You know that? You're like those pathetic, rich, snobby book critics that your own beloved Haneke rips apart in the very film you're being precious about. Let's cut from this to the part where they talk about some side character's suppressed homosexuality, then let's talk about the garden as a symbol for white, liberal guilt. I mean, if that's not a joke on you, I don't know what the hell would be.""Ha! So you agree that there was a point to Caché!""Jesus. I'm going to go grab a ... from the ... and pull a Majid if you don't stop talking about this movie in the next five minutes. Let's talk about Good Night, and Good Luck. or--you know--another movie that was actually good.""You know, guys, I liked Caché after the credits ran, but now I'm beginning to really love it. There are so many details and things to talk about in it. When .... brought up that second-to-last scene, I remember watching the foreground more than the background. And, like you said, the shot's framed, but it's framed by ... ! If you think about what frames the scene, you can think that that shot really foreshadows some pretty nasty things. But, on the other hand, if you think about framing as in the verb, then you come up with the idea that ... isn't even Georges' fault--like ... already said. The film's so rich it's not even funny.""Haneke's the one who's rich. Because of people like you! Honestly, do you even give other movies this amount of thought, or do you just think about this one because you've read in some lame magazine or on some website that Haneke is a great director.""He is a great director. If you knew anything about anything about filmmaking, you'd know that even just his style has a point to it. He's rebelling against this idea that films are all about editing and cuts every half a second like some rap video. He doesn't find it necessary to force us to see one thing in a shot, and he doesn't find it necessary to limit cinema to just how images gain meanings in relation to each other. It's against the ideas put forward by the old Soviet filmmakers.""Are you finished, Ebert?""No. I wanted to say that Haneke's all about how elements of one shot or one image interact with each other. Like I said before, it's more Japanese than--wait, why did you call me Ebert?""Because you're fat and easy.""And you're not easy? You don't even want to think about a film that's in the least bit challenging.""And you don't want to admit that you don't understand a movie or that there is nothing to understand because a movie has no point, makes no sense, and isn't even entertaining. You guys say I'm in the mainstream because I like the movies I like and I don't like Caché and don't pretend to understand it, but it's the other way around. You guys don't want to admit that I'm right and the movie sucks because it'll make you look like the loser in your loser film-school circles. You don't want to be the person who says that the emperor's dick is waving around in the wind because you're afraid you'll be castrated for it--how's that for symbolism--even though you and the rest of the snobs know the truth.""That's such an easy thing to say, because anything that is more ambitious than your typical episode of The O.C. just gets labeled as pretentious and anyone who likes it gets labeled a snob. You have such a narrow definition of what a movie should be, and you believe in it so much, that you're the one who's pigeon-holed and a snob. Except you're a low-brow snob and you revel in your own low tastes. But it's just as much made up as what you think we do. You're acting dumb on purpose because you're afraid that by saying something original or pretentious you'll be laughed at. It's so much easier to criticize a movie for searching for answers about issues more abstract and important than getting laid by Jessica Alba than to commend it for trying to think about the questions it asks. So what if it doesn't give any answers. So what if we're wrong in everything we say. We're talking about things. And we wouldn't be talking about things if we just came out of watching The Ducks of Hazzard.""That doesn't mean I'm wrong. What's your point?""My point is--"

Pacze Moj resides at Critical Culture.

Movie Review: Queimada

Pacze Moj — Sat, 3 Jun 2006 22:26:27 EDT

Three years before appearing in The Godfather, Marlon Brando put in a better performance in Gillo Pontecorvo's undervalued, brilliant account of a man - William Walker - paid to create war.Borrowing the spirit of Joseph Conrad's Nostromo, screenwriters Franco Solinas and Giorgio Arlorio weave a tale about an insignifcant, Portuguese Caribbean island that has a significant amount of sugar cane. When the British decide they want access, they send in Walker with simple but diffcult instructions: foment rebellion among the black slaves who work the cane, overthrow Portuguese rule, then re-enslave the blacks and get sugar production running again.With a cold heart, the insanely methodical and rational Walker sets to work. He picks out a rebel leader, befriends him, molds him, then sets him loose. The rebels soon take the island, create a new country, and then surrender. After his work is done, Walker disappears.Ten years pass (in a weird, clunky montage and voice-over) and Walker is recruited by the company that owns the sugar cane production on the same Caribbean island -- and therefore owns the island. It turns out that the company has been oppressing its workers and the same slave rebel leader as ten years past has risen up and is leading an armed rebellion. Finding himself on the other side of the conflict, Walker must now capture the same hero he created.Oh, drama!Oh, drama set to an Ennio Morricone score!In one of the film's standout scenes, Pontecorvo lets loose Morricone over images of a triumphant rebel army marching along a beach, some dressed in the tattered clothes of the defeated Portuguese and others in nearly nothing. At first glance they look foolish, but as they get closer and we see them for longer, an aura appears and we realize just what the victory has given them: dignity. The dark skin that has up to now been a signifier of inferiority has, with dignity, become the uniform of a victorious army. As the scene ends and the rebel leader embraces Walker, I thought, "No longer will these guys let themselves get slapped around by the white man like they did in the beginning." And I was right. As the rebel leader says near the end of the film, the freedom that is given you by a man is not freedom; true freedom is taken, not given. Pontecorvo intentionally brings together all his weapons to highlight the beach-marching scene because it is then that these slaves have taken their freedom -- and it will not be easily taken away again.In this season of political films and G. Clooney, Queimada is an example of a real political film. It chops the head off black-and-white Edward R. Murrow and blows up Stephen Gaghan's nicely photographed sandscapes.Relevant during the Vietnam War and relevant now, Queimada ends with something along the lines of these ominous words uttered by an about-to-hang black rebel to William Walker:"You say that it is a white man's world. This is true. But what kind of world is it? And for how long?"Rating: A-

Pacze Moj resides at Critical Culture.

Movie Review: Cléo de 5 � 7

Pacze Moj — Fri, 2 Jun 2006 14:05:26 EDT

Agnès Varda is the forgotten member of the French New Wave -- if she's a member at all. In either case, it doesn't matter. What matters is that Cléo de 5 à 7 has not lost an ounce of its vitality, beauty or technique since 1961.On the surface, two real-time hours (that are actually an hour and a half) in the life of a pretty Parisian singer awaiting hospital results, the film proves how useless plot descriptions can be and how important images and sound -- not plot -- are to great cinema.Starting with an inventive opening sequence set in the house of a fortune teller, Varda transports us to Paris in 1961 and allows us to live with or as Cléo in this magical land of reflections, mirrors, and shiny things. In one scene, for example, Cléo takes a fancy to buying a hat and goes into a shop, tries some on, and picks one out; all of this culminates in a tracking shot, from the outside, of the shop's long front window that starts transparent (showing Cléo inside), changes to reflective (showing the busy street), and finishes inside the shop.This theme of perspective and focus is key to Cléo de 5 à 7. In a film-wthin-a-film that features JLG and his once-wife AK, a man watches his lover die only to discover that what he thinks has happened has only been an illusion brought on by the "dark" sunglasses he's wearing! So, too, Cleo learns that regardless of the result of her test, it's silly to sit around and mope and think about the worst. Your outlook is never imposed on you; whatever the situation, you can be optimistic, or pessimistic, or anything in between. According to Varda, it's better to have fun and hope for the best, as does Michel Legrand in a scene when he goofs around but composes a song for Cléo. Then and there, even Varda joins the shenanigans as her camera mimics the swinging motion of Cléo on her indoor swing.Cléo de 5 à 7is comedy, romance, drama. It is playful and sombre, and beautifully shot by Varda, who was a photographer before she became a filmmaker. There are a handful of critics who consider it slight and a waste of time, but, being a hypochondriac, I know that they're quite wrong and that it's quite a hefty film. After all, when I feel sick and dying, I watch it and realize how silly I'm being. It makes me smile. The film is my only psychiatrist, and they don't give out psychiatry diplomas for nothing, now do they?Poor Cléo, dying Cléo, stupid Cléo, wonderful Cléo, beautiful Cléo, living Cléo, masterpiece Cléo!Rating: A+

Pacze Moj resides at Critical Culture.

Book Review: The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly

Pacze Moj — Tue, 30 May 2006 20:30:21 EDT

A little-known, twice-divorced lawyer who works out of his car defends a real-estate agent accused of murder and learns life lessons in L.A. in Michael Connelly's "legal thriller" The Lincoln Lawyer.Who's Afraid of Punctuation?From the little I've read, contemporary novels seem to work with a limited punctual pallette. It's mostly commas and periods, with quotation marks for marking off speech, to which all question marks are confined, and the occasional apostrophe-in-contraction. Colons, semi-colons, dashes, and parentheses are slowly dying off. In fashion, however, are periods that appear to want to take the rightful place of every dot, tick, and line they can lay their little one-dimensional hands on, as well as all the resulting sentence fragments.Take this punctuation and fragment phenomenon into account, as well as an increasing reliance on short, simple words and sentences, and novels threaten to become screenplays. They are something more of elaborate plans than pieces of writing meant to be consumed for pleasure's or art's sake. Even the most hardened screenwriters will often distinguish between the art of writing and the craft of screenwriting. But, with less and less money in writing and more and more money in screenwriting, perhaps polymedia writers like Michael Crichton, Michael Connelly and Dan Brown are simply adapting to a more important market; instead of writing a novel and then slaving to adapt it into a screenplay, they're giving everyone a break and simply adapting non-existent screenplays into novels.“Thanks, Danny boy!” Akiva Goldsman.The Lincoln Lawyer is a great example of this type of screenplay-novel. It comes equipped with a standard plot that has all the right twists and turns, and at the right times, a manageable set of core characters, and some easily-spotted themes that will be fun to agree on for the ride home. As a piece of writing, it is an extreme version of anti-punctuation and — though I very much hope not — a sign of books to come.I ♥ SemicolonsThe semicolon is my favourite piece of punctuation; I tend to mis-use and abuse it. In Michael Connelly's The Lincoln Lawyer, the semicolon appears an anemic three times. The novel is 528 pages long; this review is — up to these dashes — about a page long. There are now as many semicolons in this review as there are in Connelly's novel.Let's read some books and do some math. Here's a list of words per semicolon in a selection of well-known novels:42333 – The Lincoln Lawyer (Connelly)4900 – Fight Club (Palahniuk)3711 – The Da Vinci Code (Brown)2534 – Requiem for a Dream (Selby)1881 – Illium (Simmons) 1224 – The Godfather (Puzo) 1109 – Childhood's End (Clarke) 1060 – Chronicles of Pern (McCaffrey) 1054 – For Whom the Bell Tolls (Hemingway) 748 – Snow Crash (Stephenson)747 – Neuromancer (Gibson) 686 – The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald) 638 – Carrie (King) 554 – Contact (Sagan) 539 – Animal Farm (Orwell) 515 – Middlesex (Eugenides) 426 – To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee) 323 – White Teeth (Smith) 233 – Sons and Lovers (Lawrence) 214 – The Adventures of Augie March (Bellow) 184 – The Fountainhead (Rand) 182 – A Scanner Darkly (Dick) 166 – Absalom, Absalom! (Faulkner) 142 – Fahrenheit 451 (Bradbury) 135 – On the Road (Kerouac) 71 – Huckleberry Finn (Twain) 69 – Orlando (Woolf) 63 – Midnight's Children (Rushdie)Please jump to your own conclusions. My conclusions: The Lincoln Lawyer has a severe semicolon deficiency, even when compared with other popular novels like The Da Vinci Code and Fight Club; generally, newer and genre novels use fewer semicolons than older ones; the average semicolon is used every 892 words, which, strangely, fits right into the big gap between Hemingway and Stephenson; Mark Twain, Virginia Woolf, and Salman Rushdie like semicolons even more than I do.Perhaps this sums it up best: the first page of John Fowles' The Magus contains as many semicolons as all the pages of The Lincoln Lawyer.Perhaps this sums it up even better: the sentence “Levin nodded.” appears six times in Connelly's novel, and the sentence “I shook my head.” sixteen times.I Semi-♥ ColonsIf you're keeping track, you've read four colons up to now. In other words, you're halfway through The Lincoln Lawyer. And while eight is almost three times better than three, it's still fanatically low (Snow Crash, a novel with a middling number of semicolons, has 269 colons, for example, and even The Da Vinci Code has more than 60).However, the funnest bit about Connelly's writing is that he sometimes refrains from using a colon or semicolon or dash and just sticks periods into spots that periods shouldn't be in. I'm sure he means well — to make the writing choppier and more reminiscent of hard-boiled detective stories — but it's more annoying than endearing, and really doesn't make much sense in a novel that takes pains to hide its writing in favour of exposing its plot. A film analogy: a Classical Hollywood melodrama with swish pans and jump cuts.Some fragmented examples:I planned to tell him to continue to dig into Dwayne Jeffery Corliss. To hold nothing back.There is no client as scary as an innocent man. And no client as scarring.Very few had the number. No clients and no other lawyers except for one.The caller was that one other lawyer with the number. Maggie McPherson.The periods are used for dramatic effect — to stall the reader and hit him or her with some more stuff once he or she thinks the sentence is over — but I think these examples would be better suited for a dash, a semicolon, a colon, and a colon, respectively.Minton had probably schooled her on the most important aspect of testifying: don't get trapped in a lie.Look, ma, a real, live colon!Edit ThisWhile reading The Lincoln Lawyer, I kept thinking about how much power editors have over works that are eventually released under the names of sole authors; the novel was so completely un-styled, liposuct'ed, template-plotted, and made-to-pander (stereotypes and counter-stereotypes give the book a universal political appeal) that I couldn't help wondering if the first draft looked anything remotely like the lifeless thing I held in my hands for several consecutive nights.“What's a title, Mick?”One of the first techniques I noticed was the way in which Connelly and his editors snuck explanations (of legal and medical jargon, as well as normal words) into the narrative.For example, instead of using footnotes, like a Jules Verne novel, information in The Lincoln Lawyer is sometimes spliced into conversations via a third character, who asks questions the reader would like to ask, such as “what's a rape kit,” and which one of the other two characters then answers in a clear and concise way, such as: “It's a hospital procedure where bodily fluids, hair and fibers are collected from the body of a rape victim.”Another common way of patronizing the reader is through in-text explanations. In this example, Connelly describes two wounds:The description for wound number one read: Superficial puncture on the lower right neck with ante-mortem histamine levels, indicative of coercive wound.The description for wound number two read: Superficial puncture on the lower left neck with ante-mortem histamine levels, indicative of coercive wound. This puncture measures 1 cm larger than wound No. 1.And then, in the next paragraph, translates the big words into little ones, for us simple folk:The descriptions meant the wounds had been inflicted while Martha Renteria was still alive. And that was likely why they had been the first wounds listed and described. The examiner had suggested it was likely that the wounds resulted from a knife being held to the victim's neck in a coercive manner. It was the killer's method of controlling her.Of these four sentences, only the second actually introduces something new. The first sentence explains what ante-mortem means, the third tells us that a coercive wound is a coercive wound, and the last makes sure we dumb-dumbs know what coercion is. Seventy-five percent of the time, I don't think Connelly thinks too highly of his readers.The Lincoln Lawyer is written in the first person. Everything the main character knows about the novel's murder case, the reader knows. With that, I'll let the last example mock itself:"Might I suggest an agreement," he said calmly. "At the end of this trial I walk out of the courtroom a free man. I continue to maintain my freedom, and in exchange for this, the gun never falls into, shall we say, the wrong hands."Meaning Lankford and Sobel.This Space For RentAnother neat aspect of The Lincoln Lawyer is its status as a commercial novel — in two ways: one that is meant to make bestseller lists, and a one that advertises other products. Some of the these advertisements are perhaps justified because words like “googled,” “PowerPoint,” and “iPod” have come to mean “searched for on the Internet,” “presentation,” and “MP3 player” in the same way that “Kleenex” and “Walkman” are now synonymous with “tissue” and “portable cassette player.” Other instances are, however, harder to excuse:I loaded the CD into the Bose player on the night table and soon the rhythmic beat of "God Bless the Dead" started to play.And soon I was riding in the back of a Grand Marquis, thinking that I had made the right choice when I had gone with the Lincoln.On the floor between the pickup and a fully equipped tool bench was a large cardboard box that said SONY on it. It was long and thin. I looked closer and saw it was a box for a fifty-inch plasma TV.I don't know if companies actually pay publishers to paste their names into novels — I doubt it — but here they are! Of course, none of these details make a difference in the novel. So, why are they included? I'm sure Lincoln's not complaining; every time I write "The Lincoln Lawyer," I advertise for them, too.When, midway through the book, a character at a Dodgers game criticizes the baseball stadium for being too commercial (“One of the lawyers, Roger Mills, surveyed the surfaces of the stadium and remarked that the place was more crowded with corporate logos than a NASCAR race car”), I chuckled and tried to understand who or what Connelly was making fun of: other novels, me, himself?Critics: what are they good for?Absolutely nuthin'.Maybe it's foolish to look too deep into a novel whose fluffy purpose is just to entertain. Maybe novels should be judged on how much of what they set out to achieve, they achieve. If so, then if a novel like The Lincoln Lawyer doesn't measure up to another, better novel, maybe comparing them is a fool's job. After all, a steamy romance can be “good” (as far as airport paperbacks go) and a book by Joseph Conrad can be “bad” (as far as Joseph Conrad novels go), but apples and oranges. Of course, when I read critics who raise my expectations and praise a “good” book for being good, I believe the bar has been taken away, and all's fair...According to the popular website Metacritic, which tracks and averages established critics' ratings of — among other things — books, Michael Connelly's The Lincoln Lawyer has a rating of 86. This makes it the fourth-best reviewed novel published in 2005, and 14th best of the last three years. Assuming that Metacritic's system is not broken, the most prominent critics in North America believe that The Lincoln Lawyer is a better novel than William Vollman's Europe Central (85), Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore (79), and Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go (78). Maybe it's wiser to assume the system is broken.In addition, Connelly's book doesn't have a single negative review! His other recent release, The Closers (81), has at least one dissenting voice: Entertainment Weekly. And, of the sixteen positive reviews for The Lincoln Lawyer, seven are in Metacritic's “Outstanding!” category.Coincidentally, publications I no longer trust include: The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, The L.A. Times, Publishers Weekly, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Globe and Mail, and USA Today.There's nothing sillier than a book reviewer, and nothing as honest and irrefutable as a semicolon count. Next time, I'm leaving the surfboard at home and counting before I read.Variations on a ThemeAccording to Vladimir Nabokov, there is a sentence in Lolita that took a month to write. This may seem crazy, but a sentence can be a complex collection and arrangement of words and punctuation. While there are many ways to transpose the same thought from one's head to one's paper, each way is always slightly different. Synonyms don't mean the exact same thing, rhythm changes, the order of words emphasizes some at the expense of others, and various dots in various places make varied stops and pauses. Here's an example of three sentences from The Lincoln Lawyer that could be tinkered with:I got lucky there. It was not a stolen or unregistered gun. It belonged to Earl's father, so my ethical infraction was minor.Let's use a semi-colon:I got lucky there; it was not a stolen or unregistered gun. It belonged to Earl's father, so my ethical infraction was minor.I got lucky there. It was not a stolen or unregistered gun; it belonged to Earl's father. So, my ethical infraction was minor.Or a colon:I got lucky there: it was not a stolen or unregistered gun. It belonged to Earl's father, so my ethical infraction was minor.Or a colon and a semicolon:I got lucky there: it was not a stolen or unregistered gun; it belonged to Earl's father. So, my ethical infraction was minor.How about cutting four words, changing the order of two others, using a contraction, and squeezing out four sentences instead of three?I got lucky. It wasn't unregistered or stolen. It belonged to Earl's father. My ethical infraction was minor.Two sentences, a semicolon and a pair of dashes:I got lucky; my ethical infraction was minor because the gun belonged to Earl's father — it wasn't unregistered or stolen.Changing around the order of the information and using only one period:The gun belonged to Earl's father — I got lucky there — so it wasn't stolen or unregistered; my ethical infraction was minor.I got lucky because the gun belonged to Earl's father: it wasn't stolen or unregistered.The construction of a paragraph is like the construction of a film: each sentence is a shot (length, type, angle); the order of words is mise-en-scene; and punctuation is editing. There is no right way to write a particular paragraph, but each variation in form changes the reader's perception of the the content.The VerdictThere is ample evidence to convict, but the judge has thrown out the case; most of the evidence was gathered under false pretenses and the prosecution has repeatedly badgered the defendant.Rating: 1 out of 4

Pacze Moj resides at Critical Culture.

Movie Review: King Kong

Pacze Moj — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 20:13:30 EST

The Return of the KingAmong the numerous witty, silly, and insightful epigrams uttered by Alfred Hitchcock floats this one: Self-plagiarism is style.Although not as infamous as his cattle-actor references, or as naughty as his quip about Tallulah Bankhead's fuzzies, it's more substantial than either, and serves as a solid starting point for a discussion of Peter Jackson's King Kong, which, according to it, is a prime example of style.For the past four films, Jackson has essentially been remaking his previous films and perfecting a style he first toyed with in the fantasy sequences of Heavenly Creatures -- if not earlier still. Although this was excusable (perhaps even desirable) when these films were part of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, brought to King Kong the style is stale. Furthermore, no longer supported by a well-known story and classic characters, it becomes obvious.A good example of Jackson's self-plagiarism is the first battle on Skull Island between the main cast of characters and a swarm of ravenous orcs native savages. Not only are the baddies in both films look-alikes (dark bodies decorated with war paint and dried mud), but, more importantly, they're filmed in the same way: close-ups of snarling, teeth-baring faces intercut with medium-shots of the blurred movement of masses of jerky bodies; armies of arms swinging weapons intercut with sound-enhanced shots of impact; "good" visually represented by individual characters and immobility; and "evil" shown as a collective character and reckless motion. Although distinct events do occur within the battle, they're separated by this almost generic chaos-footage. Sneak some footage of the climactic battle of The Fellowship of the Ring into the scene, and it'd take a perceptive viewer to notice a difference.Another common visual gimmick employed by Jackson in King Kong and the Lord of the Rings films is the slow-motion zoom. Used primarily to highlight scary details meant to shock the viewer -- like a skull stuck on a stick or the wet snout of an orc -- the technique creates a jerky kind of emphasis of its focal object or body part. It's something that particularly bugs me about Jackson's films.Of course, there are also two tones in which to read Hitchcock's statement: straight or deadpan. I think Hitch was more fond of the latter, but who knows? On one hand, King Kong may indeed be the work of filmmaker with a mature, unique style; or it may be the work of a hack whose style depends not on personal vision or technical mastery, but on the recycling of a handful of cinematic tricks and frills. Each viewer judges for him- or herself.I believe Peter Jackson to be a highly accomplished, precise, and intriguing film-stylist. To me, King Kong is enhanced by its similarities to the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I think that Jackson's work is an ideal example of why the auteur theory is still valid. But, there are two tones in which to read this paragraph...Whatever Happened to Baby Jimmy?For all its typical Hollywood elements and all its inherent big-budget blockbuster shortcomings, virtues, and limitations, King Kong is still -- strangely -- a strange brew of a Hollywood film.Conventional srcreenwriting teaches that nothing in a script should be superfluous and that everything should contribute to the overall plot and themes of its future-film. However, King Kong features numerous instances of superfluidity. For example, the big fight between Kong and the Tyrannosaurus Reges -- besides lasting what seemed like twenty minutes -- culminates in the ripping apart of one of the dinosaur's jaws. It's great spectacle, but wasteful screenwriting ("never fight for twenty minutes and rip apart the jaws when one word will do"). As are the scenes of Denham shooting his film aboard his ship. And the ship sequence altogether! The characters aboard ship disappear when the film shifts back to New York City, and we already know that the hot lesbian likes W. Szpilman ("don't repeat yourself!").But the greatest treason is this: after spending valuable space and time developing Jimmy, his reading of Joseph Conrad's dark innards, and his relationship with the Nigger of the Narcissus, Jackson forgets all about the lad! Hollywood screenwriting blasphemy: where's the arc? the resolution? the vengeance? I was quite curious to see how Jimmy ended up, and if he bore any grudges toward Kong.Some die, but no dice.Still, Jackson's greatest surprise and unorthodoxy is his treatment of King Kong's villain, the dastardly yet cunning filmmaker Carl Denham. Denham's a special villain for two reasons: he doesn't change by the end of the film ("you won't ever write in this town again!") and he doesn't receive a much-deserved comeuppance ("it's a bizarro script, is what it is!").In Hollywood, characters -- not all, but all major -- change over the period of a film; or "grow", as the catchphrase says. It's believed, perhaps based on the study of Classical drama or the teachings of the prophets Syd and Robert, that this is one of the reasons people pay money to enjoy watching Hollywood's films. The good guy usually becomes a better guy, and the bad guy either becomes a good guy too or, more commonly, dies in a spectacular way that reinforces whatever society happens to believe in at the time. But Carl Denham doesn't change -- at all! He's just as alive by the end of King Kong as he is at the beginning; just as determined to make new films and new entertainment; and just as jobless! How many lawsuits get thrown his way because of Kong's rampage is grounds for speculation, but, in the worst case for him, he'll end up just as poor and jobless as he was in Act I. In the best case, he'll be everything he was at the beginning, and rich.A Hollywood film that not only features a character with no "arc", but fails to punish -- nay, that rewards its villain! Peter Jackson must have had strange bedfellows indeed.Making Nothing Out of SomethingIt's not uncommon to hear one person accuse another of making something out of nothing; but is it possible to do the inverse -- to take something and make it into nothing?Even the best, most level-headed and striving-to-be-objective critics once in a while come across a film or book or album that they -- for reasons uncommunicable -- simply detest. They feel the hate in their gut but they either don't understand it or can't put it into words. Does this feeling ever turn into meditated omission or destruction? Is it fair to assume that because someone who loves a particular film is eager to find as much substance and subtext in his beloved works, someone who hates a film is equally eager to strip the object-of-hate of all its virtues -- leaving it naked, broken, and battered on the floor, next to a urine-stained copy of Uwe Boll's Alone in the Dark?I have that gut reaction to King Kong; because I don't like the film, I'm tempted to see it as nothing more than a stylistically-recycled popcorn commercial. But that's not fair! I've read fantastic criticisms of the film that emphasize its theme of doomed love, take a stab at its political subtexts, uncover its hidden attack on contemporary American culture, explain its dialogue with the original King Kong, and even use it to psychoanalyze Peter Jackson. Surely, a film which allows for such a broad range of discussion isn't bad, isn't any worse than other popcorn flicks I've liked -- like Sahara.Am I taking something and making it into nothing? I want to, but I'm resisting the urge. In the back of my head, on the southern shore of Skull Island perhaps, I know that King Kong isn't a dumb movie, and I know that it's a fruitful film to watch and analyze.But can you hear my teeth gritting?Peter Jackson's 8 �Not counting the film he made for television, Peter Jackson has directed 8 features and 1 short: 8 � films. That's a special number because it's also the title of a Federico Fellini masterpiece paradoxically about its own creation and about its director's filmmaking career to that point. (I'm cheating a bit: Fellini's 8th film was 8 �. But let me stretch things a bit!) In either case, Fellini's 8 � is one of the greatest loose autobiographies ever captured on celluloid.I want to suggest that King Kong is Peter Jackson's 8 �.After completing the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Peter Jackson must have breathed a small sigh of relief, before bracing himself for the potential that his project -- one of the biggest and most ambitious in cinema history -- could fail with critics and audiences. After the trilogy succeeded, and made oodles of money, Peter Jackson must have breathed a longer sigh of relief. The ordeal was over! But, what now? What could the great and successful Peter Jackson tackle now; what did he want to tackle now? King Kong? King Kong! But, why? Aha!What's greater and grander than the greatest story ever told if not the story of the story of the greatest story ever told! Kong, therefore, was never a big ape in Jackson's eyes. Instead, Kong became the embodiment of something else -- something even heavier than a big ape. Kong became the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the monkey that was finally off Jackson's back!In this interpretation, the trip to Skull Island and the first meeting with Kong turns into the beginning of the Lord of the Rings filmmaking process, complete with a savage tribe of Tolkien-nerds. A few people in a leaky boat against a fearsome world! Once the savages are out of the way, comes creation itself, in the film represented by the quest to save Ann Darrow and capture Kong. Jackson himself morphs into Carl Denham.After a long struggle and many adventures, Kong is captured -- the film is completed -- and the remaining crew sail back to New York... for the film's premiere! And Lord Kong smashes records, wows audiences and wins over critics. It exceeds all expectations, and becomes a runaway hit, scaling heights unimaginable.However, like all films, its theater run eventually ends. It plummets; but not to its death! Kong has merely been fully tamed. There is no more danger to Jackson and his studio of the film failing. And, as we see Denham at the end of the film, brain bursting with new ideas, he and we think: "Why, of course! DVDs packed full of extras! All genres of video games! And the original books republished in twenty different ways! The limits are limitless!"And all of a sudden something becomes clear: Denham can't die. He can't change. Denham is Jackson. Jackson's the same Jackson. And Jackson's making this film!Rating: 2.5 / 4.0

Pacze Moj resides at Critical Culture.

Book Review: Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Pacze Moj — Sun, 12 Mar 2006 04:17:59 EST

English isn't English when it's written by Vladimir Nabokov. Reading Lolita is like learning a new language; one that's precise, aloof, and full of trickery and playfulness.If you read the novel with dictionary in hand, and look up every word you haven't yet met (several a page for me), you'll be amazed at the perfect choice of word and immaculate sentence construction. There's so much meat in Lolita's telling that I finally understand why some authors compose and others write. Imagine reading a sentence in which the key adjective has three meanings that all apply equally well to a noun -- itself one that seldom exists outside the pages of dictionaries -- in a way that packs three sentences into one.If you fed a page of Lolita to a bird, the bird would explode.In high school, my teachers taught me never to use a big word where a small word would do ("it's pretentious", "it makes you harder to understand", "it slows down the reader"). Lolita illuminates that advice; never use a big word where a small word would do because a small word will never do where a big word does. When Nabokov's Humbert Humbert uses an obscure, scientific, foreign, or rare English word, he does so because that is exactly what he means.Synonym is a lie.My trouble with reading Lolita was that I didn't know how to approach Nabokov's new language. I tried to approach it with my brain, but lost its beauty, rhythm, sound; I tried to approach it with my ear, but lost its depth.New languages require a new way of reading.Postscript: FadingIt's been a few weeks since I finished Lolita, and the visceral impact it had on me is fading. The novel's narrative hasn't burned itself into my memory, and while I enjoyed the characters, I don't know them like I know my favourite fictitious friends--HH, CH, and Lo only came over for coffee; they didn't stay for dinner.And I wonder how much of that is due to Humbert Humbert's narration. Typically, the first-person point of view acts as a bridge between reader and narrator, but, in Lolita, it has a distancing effect. Is it because in most first-person narratives, the narrator isn't as smart and word-savvy as Humbert, or as in-control? In Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, for example, I felt more and more pulled into the narrator's world and mind as I gleaned aspects of her character that she had revealed by accident, because of her lack of control over the telling of her own story. Humbert Humbert doesn't give himself away in that way. Everything I saw and learned he wanted me to see and learn.If a book is a dialogue, I was bested by Humbert. He read me, but I couldn't read him. As a result, I left Lolita knowing more about myself than about H.Postscript: WritingI also finished Lolita with a revitalized understanding of the English language, which, I think, is more important than any story or group of characters. Pop-wisdom states that reading makes better writing, but some novels truly live up to the platitude. Writing's obviously wickedly subjective, but I don't think anyone can read Lolita and not become a better writer. After all, can you read a book about butterflies or chess and not learn something about butterflies or chess?To para-paraphrase another famous saying: to read Lolita is to learn to fish.The great Soviet filmmakers learned to make films by re-editing D.W. Griffith's Intolerance in hundreds of new ways; they didn't care about the film's characters or plot as much as about its construction -- the language in which it was written, and to which they would soon add their own syntax. Reading Lolita has been a similar education for me. As V. N. said:How we learn to imagine and express things is a riddle with premises impossible to express and a solution impossible to imagine.Form and style can be as entertaining, fun, stimulating and enlightening as content. Formalist tendencies, Stalin and Dan Brown be damned!ConclusionAlthough it set off a controversy that still lingers, Vanity Fair was right to famously declare Lolita as:The only convincing love story of our century.They simply got the lovers wrong. Humbert Humbert isn't in love with Lolita; he's head-over-heels, gaga, drooling-at-the-mouth over nubile words, pure writing, and unblemished, innocent language. Can you handle all the wild, perverse and kinky things he'll do to them? I hope so.Lolita is a book for fellow grammaphiles.Rating: 4.0 / 4.0

Pacze Moj resides at Critical Culture.

Movie Review: Junebug

Pacze Moj — Wed, 8 Mar 2006 21:05:30 EST

A newly-married woman meets her in-laws for the first time in Phil Morrison's Junebug, and the result is not a chain of "Focker" jokes but a serious look at characters who are a little too quirky to be normal and a little too normal to not be true. Culture clash, class conflict, religion, and the definition of art lurk beneath the surface.Talk About NothingAt least two characters in Junebug have problems with communication. George's father Eugene has turned into a man who seldom opens his mouth and spends most of his time woodworking in the basement, and George's brother Johnny has become a simmering, angry young man. It's significant that both are the products of marriages to strong-willed, talkative, demanding women. However, there is also an important difference: although he doesn't say much, Eugene still communicates with his wife in non-verbal ways (for example, he makes her a wooden bird to replace the one Madeleine breaks at the beginning of the film) while the only communication Johnny is capable of is verbal and physical violence (he yells at his pregnant wife Ashley after he's unable to force the VCR to record a show about her favorite animal, the meerkat; and he hits George with a wrench rather than engage in any sort of brother-to-brother conversation that could perhaps resolve their unknown but evident tensions). Eugene is not a talker, but he is a communicator; Johnny is neither.Furthermore, Ashley's complacent claims that Johnny is merely in a "phase" are proved false, and the film makes it clear that she craves communication with her husband. An extremely avid talker who attacks Madeleine with questions the minute she arrives, Ashley simply cannot exist without talking--it's not a want, but a need of hers. In one particularly poignant scene, she actually "gets off" on conversation: lying in bed with a picture of Johnny in one hand, she masturbates with the other to the sound of Johnny and Madeleine having a sort-of-conversation about The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It's the only time that the film shows anything sexual happening in Johnny and Ashley's bed; all other shots of the bed are cold, un-erotic.Post-colonialist: "Junebug Hates Black People"There's a fascinating detail in Junebug that I've noticed in several other recent films as well; however, none have been as blatant and well-structured as this one.Mere minutes after she meets her new family, Madeleine -- who is British, the nation most synonymous with "empire" -- is asked about where she's from. She explains that she was born in Japan, moved to Africa with her diplomat-father, and now lives in Chicago. As innocent as the answer seems, there's an interesting undercurrent: Africa, Japan, Chicago; Continent, Country, City; Black, Yellow, White.[Africa]{?}(?) [Asia]{Japan}(?) [North America]{U.S.A.}(Chicago)Does Madeleine's answer reveal an ignorance of geography; an attempted "dumbing down" of her answer; or a hidden racial, ethnic, or cultural hierarchy? Is the answer even hers?Art FilmDespite their middle-class, working-class identity, almost all of the characters in Junebug practice, or are involved in, some sort of art. Madeleine owns an art gallery, and wants to persuade a painter named David Wark to show his work there; George sings; Eugene works with wood; Peg makes crafts and sews; even Johnny tries to read literature. The only character to have no art of her own is Ashley. Perhaps this is one of the reasons for her constant references to motherhood. For example, on one occasion, she remarks that "children are the most important" in a marriage; later, she prays, "Help me be a good Christian mother." Lacking an art and unable to forge an identity as a wife because her husband ignores her, Ashley strives for the only other role a strongly patriarchal society affords women: as mother. It is a final chance to define herself. This parallel between art and birth is interesting because, in an abstract sense, both artists and mothers give birth to something unique. Junebug seems to say that art is for everyone and that everyone needs an art.Although mostly confined to content, art also affects Junebug's form. Most evidently, Morrison interrupts the flow of his film's narrative on several occasions with still shots of empty rooms and landscapes that serve as painting-like images of the film's well-captured setting -- an aspect of the film that many critics praise.Todd BertuzziOn February 16, 2004, during an NHL game between the Vancouver Canucks and Colorado Avalanche, Todd Bertuzzi sucker-punched Avalanche player Steve Moore and drove him, face-first, into the ice, as a response to Moore's earlier hit on Canucks star Marcus Naslund. Moore ended up with a broken neck and Bertuzzi ended up suspended by the league. More than a year later, Bertuzzi made his return to Colorado as his Canucks faced the Avalanche once again; and the fans let him have it. He was booed, jeered and heckled every time he was on the ice. After the otherwise unmemorable game, hungry sports reporters accosted Bertuzzi in the dressing room and threw Steve Moore-related questions at him over and over again, in an effort to goad out an emotional outburst."What did you think of the fans' reaction?""What do you think about Moore's newest legal suit?""Did you want to injure Steve Moore?""Do you think what you did is wrong?""Was it a cheap shot?"But Bertuzzi was not to be had. He calmly and systematically answered whatever question was asked with the same, infuriatingly meaningless, words. Sometimes they didn't even fit the question."It is what it is.""It is what it is.""It is what it is."...In the last third of Phil Morrison's Junebug, there is a scene of George's new wife Madeleine helping his younger brother Johnny write an essay about Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Although she's eager to help and knows the book well, he couldn't be less interested or more passively hostile. Why is the scene there: are Morrison and screenwriter Angus MacLachlan playing up the idea of a British woman lecturing an American man about one of America's greatest writers? Is it an attack on the state of the American education? Is it making a statement about the difference between knowledge of fiction and knowledge of reality? Is it suggesting that book knowledge can substitute for experience and wisdom? I don't think so. In fact, the scene ends in an almost random way: Johnny gets angry and makes a sexual pass at Madeleine, who rejects him. Huck Finn is instantly tossed aside and forgotten by the narrative. And, yet, the scene works. Although it could have happened over any book or in any situation, the specific inclusion of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn doesn't seem insignificant or shallow. It seems the right book because it's the book that Johnny was assigned to read. How could it be any other book?The Huck Finn scene isn't about anything other or bigger than its characters--much like Junebug as a whole. Although art, religion and family feature in the film, it isn't really about any of those things. Instead, Junebug is squarely about its characters. When it delves into larger concepts, it is only in this context. In other words, Todd Bertuzzi was right:It is what it is.Rating: 3.0 / 4.0

Pacze Moj resides at Critical Culture.

Book Review: The Day of the Locust

Pacze Moj — Sun, 30 Oct 2005 16:30:54 EST

Welcome to Hollywood circa 1939, the land of the ones with dead eyes who wander the sunny streets and frequent the gaudy hotels while on the prowl for the decaying dream of Mae West, Shirley Temple, and Clark Gable.Meet Tod Hackett, the narrator and painter who does work for one of the many studios in tinsel town. Like too many people, Tod came out to Hollywood to make some money and it big. So far, he's hacking it. He likes to keep a distance from most people and he has a painting called "The Burning of Los Angeles" that he works on to keep sane.Meet Faye Greener, Tod's object of defection. She dreams of being in pictures and she's forever read for her close-up, Mr. DeMille. Faye lives with her father, Harry, who sells overpriced, homemade polish to get into strangers' houses and force them to watch his once-reviewed clown act. He's a failed actor. One of Tod's few successful friends is Claude, a screenwriter. Tod's last friend is an arrogant dwarf.Tod's problems are Earle, a tall, handsome cowboy who Faye thinks is just dandy, and Earle's henchman, a Mexican and a dedicated cock fighter who knows how to dirty dance."Go West, young man."Nathanael West died in a car accident in 1940, at the age of thirty-seven. The legend is that he was rushing to get to F. Scott Fitzgerald's funeral.Although not much appreciated in his lifetime, West's novels began to gain recognition in the fifties. Today he is well regarded -- The Day of the Locust appears on the Modern Library's list of best novels as well as on Time magazine's recent Top 100 -- and considered a permanent part of America's literary canon, but many people still don't take warmly to his manic, modernist style.I think West is one of the best writers I've read. His novels are short, inelegant and yet logical -- in an Animaniacs kind of way. They're crammed with ideas, witticisms, observations, and un-hackneyed emotion. They take big themes and express them through small, larger-than-life characters. They don't preach.Homer SimpsonOne of the important characters in the novel is named Homer Simpson. I'm not sure if the Matt Groening had him in mind when creating the The Simpsons, but there are a few similarities between West's book and the television show: both Homer Simpson characters are dumb, good-natured oafs; both have the peculiar quality of always being out of their elements; and both the novel and the cartoon have a sardonic, incisive flavour of funny.Love is a Four-Letter WordWhatever love may be, in West's degenerated Hollywood, it's quite simple. It's often expressed as a fantasy, in a cheap restaurant, and alone. Sometimes the waiter interferes and there's no climax; other times it works just swell. If only he had the courage to wait for her some night and hit her with a bottle and rape her.That's Tod speaking. He's the hero of the novel. He's just being honest. And West, he's just being cynical, brutal and honest -- like always.West, the ProphetThe most astounding thing about The Day of the Locust is how visionary it is. West, in his infinite sarcasm, predicts so much of the perversity and grotesqueness of our world that it's a shame he isn't here to see it. I'm sure he'd share a grin, a nod, and a chuckle.Do Scientologists Dream of Electric Sheep? He spent his nights at the different Hollywood churches, drawing the worshippers. He visited the "Church of the Christ, Physical" where holiness was attained through the constant use of chestweights and spring grips; the "Church Invisible" where fortunes were told and the dead made to find lost objects; The "Tabernacle of the Third Coming" where a woman in male clothing preached the "Crusade Against Salt"; and the "Temple Moderne" under whose glass and chromium roof "Brain-Breathing, the Secret of the Aztecs" was taught.In the "Church of the Christ, Physical" and the "Tabernacle of the Third Coming" we have our gyms and our diet plans, our bony women and our steroidal men. We have equality and we have happiness and we have less carbs. We've thrown away our fruit and our salt for shakes and pills. We have a new god, and it is I. Don't Scientologists have the neatest pools?In the "Church Invisible" we have the liars and the scammers; the Billy Grahams and the Benny Hinns. We have the suits with secret connections to gods who charge $1.99 a minute. I'll give you five dollars more if you talk to my dead grandmother and tell her I love her.In the "Temple Moderne" we have Eastern mysticism practiced by the Beatles. We have New Age stores selling soap that washes clean our karma, at half off the regular price. Shop at Neon Jesus; save a tree.On TyrantsWest published The Day of the Locust in 1939. Hitler had already come to power, Mussolini had invaded Ethiopia, and Lenin had bamboozled Russia with three empty words: Peace Bread Land. Leni Riefenstahl had made Triumph of the Will, D.W. Griffith had made The Birth of a Nation, and Stalin had starved millions in the Ukraine without anyone making a film.West wasn't short of inspiration on tyrants. Tod didn't laugh at the man's rhetoric. He knew it was unimportant. What mattered were his messianic rage and the emotional response of his hearers. They sprang to their feet, shaking their fists and shouting. On the altar someone began to beat a bass drum and soon the entire congregation was singing "Onward Christian Soldiers".So, perhaps, in this instance, West wasn't so much a visionary as he was just aware and astute. Perhaps his ideas don't apply as neatly to our contemporary, enlightened times as they did to the dark pre-WWII days when he wrote them.But, could there still be some sliver of wisdom to be gained, and some foresight to be dug out of West?After all, the Soviets were atheistic, and the fascists only tolerated the Church because they had to. West's was a world of battling ideologies, not one of fighting religions. Wasn't it we who resurrected those?Isn't it our preacher who speaks in tongues, our President who speaks not even in one, and our Jesus who campaigns Republican? And isn't it our Allah who rewards us for exploding ourselves into crowds in the name of our illiterate Mullah?Let us draw fresh blood for the altar.Hit My Baby, One More TimeSomewhere in the middle of The Day of the Locust we meet Adore, an eight-year old boy, and his ambitious, greedy mother.Adore's mother is convinced that her son has "talent", and will one day break into show business. Would it not be a sin to not do her utmost -- look what she's sacrificed to give her boy the chance she couldn't have -- to foster his talents and get them noticed by all the important people who notice fostered talent? Wouldn't she be a cruel mother if she didn't push him into performing like a monkey to a music box? It'd be a waste, for sure, and no one likes squanderers.It's only natural, then, that she'd force Adore to perform for the pleasure of two strange men, Tod and Homer. His shoulders twitched as though they already felt the strap. He tilted his straw sailor over one eye, buttoned up his jacket and did a little strut, then began: "Mama doan wan' no peas An' rice, an' cocoanut oil, Just a bottle of brandy handy all the day. Mama doan wan' no peas, Mama doan wan' no cocoanut oil." His singing voice was deep and rough and he used the broken groan of the blues singer quite expertly. He moved his body only a little, against rather than in time with the music. The gestures he made with his hands were extremely suggestive. "Mama doan wan't no gin, Because gin do make her sin, Mama doan wan' no glass of gin, Because it boun' to make her sin, An' keep her hot and bothered all the day." He seemed to know what the words meant, or at least his body and his voice seemed to know. When he came to the final chorus, his buttocks writhed and his voice carried a top-heavy load of sexual pain.I don't think this passage needs a long explanation. If there's one thing Nathanael West nailed in The Day of the Locust, it was a young, nubile Britney Spears.Other examples: Milla Jovovich started modelling at age nine, with support from her manager-mother. Lindsay Lohan and Hilary Duff were made into sex symbols before they were sixteen. Venus Williams started playing tennis at age four and was coached by her father. Michael Jackson.The DestroyersHitchcock referred to them as the "moron masses". They were the ones who went to his films; the ones he manipulated.In The Day of the Locust, they are the ones who pay to watch Adore sing and dance, who attend the "Church of the Christ, Physical", and who cheer and stomp their feet at the firebrand speaker.They were the ones Tod wanted to paint as the marauding crowd in his painting -- "The Burning of Los Angeles". However, he would paint them in a special way.He would not satirize them as Hogarth or Daumier might, nor would he pity them. He would paint their fury with respect, appreciating its awful, anarchic power and aware that they had it in them to destroy civilization.It's possible to argue that Nathanael West takes the same position about his characters. It's been said that one of the greatest strengths of The Day of the Locust is precisely this quality. I disagree.I look at West as an excellent prosecutor. He's not the judge (us) or the jury (the critics). All he can do is try to convince us that his argument is the valid one; that his clients are guilty. The decision is ultimately up to us, but West's evidence and presentation is so staggering that there is only one decision. The question of the innocence of his characters doesn't come up. He presents and we judge, "guilty".And that is what makes The Day of the Locust a masterpiece. It's a splendidly, imaginatively, and concisely presented prosecution.ConclusionCivilization has not been destroyed. Los Angeles has not burned. But, I think, the entire world is simmering -- just a little bit.Rating: 4.0 / 4.0

Pacze Moj resides at Critical Culture.