May 2009 Archives

"What 'American Pie' betrays is not good taste but any notion that privacy could matter to these kids or to us. Everything in this picture is out front: whatever humiliates the characters most is precisely what everyone in the school learns about them, and the movie views this as proper and humane. For we are all swimming in the same soup of confusion and embarrassment, voyeurism and malice. But without some feeling for privacy as a value, a movie about teen sex and romance can't be made with any grace or style. The idea that everyone should know everything, however productive of comedy, links the movie to the kind of daytime talk show in which neighborhood friends betray one another's secrets and the audience howls at them in mock disapproval and open pleasure. The new hit comedies make us join that audience, whether we want to or not."
-- David Denby, The New Yorker (July 12, 1999)

Andy Warhol got it almost right. Everybody is a "Superstar" (in the Warholian sense) already, or at least everybody behaves like one. And in the future -- that is, 10 years after "American Pie" and 22 years after Andy's death -- everybody's also a self-publicist, using sophisticated technology to manage a public image that masquerades as a mutant form of privacy. Blogs, Flickr, YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter -- these and so many other powerful promotional tools can be used by anyone, kids or mega-corporations, to create an illusion of intimacy with (in Facebookspeak) "friends" and "fans."

Howdy pardners:

Thanks for holding down the fort. Just returned from a sojourn down the Rio Bravo to Albuquerque (I knew I shoulda taken that left turn...), and not a moment too soon. The four Meconopsis betonicifolia (rare Himalayan Blue Poppies) I planted this spring are beginning to bloom! You may recognize them, or a spiny Tibetan relative named (I kid you not) Meconopsis horridula, from "Batman Begins." Anyway, regular posting will begin shortly. Meanwhile, look at this poppy and try not to let its utter Blueness drive you irretrievably insane...

I work for a newspaper, the Chicago Sun-Times. As you may know, the Sun-Times recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection -- mainly because of the money embezzled by its former owner, Conrad Black, who is now in prison. The Sun-Times is also contractually obligated to pay his legal bills, believe it or not. Anyway, everybody I know on the editorial side has been told to take a mandatory one-week unpaid furlough, during which time we are not allowed to work. Mine is now. I'll be back the day after Labor Memorial Day (May 27).

In the meantime, please keep commenting. I can't respond, but somebody will continue to approve comments in my absence. See ya soon!

UPDATED with more examples -- and questions -- after the jump.

Can one bad shot ruin a movie? I can't think of any examples off the top of my head -- I don't think it happens very often -- but I do believe it's possible. I'm not among those who think the final shot of Hal Ashby's "Being There" takes a marvelously sustained balancing act and kicks it to the ground. But I can understand how somebody might feel that way.

But how can just one bad decision -- maybe on screen for just a second or two -- deflate a full-length motion picture? Well, roughly the same way a pinprick in a balloon can, I guess. It can puncture the thin membrane that's sustaining the thing. Without shape and purpose, there's nothing to keep it aloft any longer.

Try thinking of a movie like a pop song. One misplaced note in the melody, one cheesy chord, one tacky lyric, one mispronounced word ("Yes, I hate the way he says 'don't diszgard me' too," Robert Christgau wrote of Elton John's "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" in 1974, and I still remember him mentioning it 35 years later) can render the whole record unlistenable, depending on how sensitive you are to the particular offense.

Or think of a movie as a piece of architecture. A misplaced brick of the wrong color or texture, a sloppy corner, a window stuck in the wrong wall -- could conceivably demolish the overall effect of an otherwise well-designed building. Leave out a stone, or put in one of the wrong size or shape or strength, and all or part of the structure could come crashing down.

Or think of a movie as your face. With one festering pimple right there. And it's permanent. It doesn't take up a lot of facial real estate, but it mars the visage so that it's all anybody notices.

My turn: In this episode, Keyboard Cat becomes a 23rd century film critic and must dodge deadly Romulan lens flares and Vulcan interrogation techniques on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise! Gratuitously excessive audio-visual excitement overkill galore!

UPDATE: Cameron sends this: "J.J. Abrams Admits Star Trek Lens Flares Are "Ridiculous":

I know there are certain shots where even I watch and think, "Oh that's ridiculous, that was too many." But I love the idea that the future was so bright it couldn't be contained in the frame. The flares weren't just happening from on-camera light sources, they were happening off camera, and that was really the key to it. I want [to create] the sense that, just off camera, something spectacular is happening. [...]

SPOILER WARNING: Do not watch this if you haven't seen "Chinatown." Besides, why are you wasting time with Keyboard Cat if you haven't seen "Chinatown," one of the greatest films ever made?

Here you go: An episode from the original "Star Trek" TV series ("Space Seed," 1967) directed in the flashy, shaky-cam style of the 2009 movie!

(tip: Ali Arikan)

... and, on the other hand, there's this:

A few notes on the obnoxious visual style of the otherwise mildly enjoyable new "Star Trek" movie:

Let us agree on one thing: No lens flares on the bridge of the USS Enterprise, OK? It's stupid, it's distracting, it's ugly, it's a pointless waste of cinematic energy, and (like much of the overactive camera- and CGI-work in the new "Star Trek" movie) it makes multi-million dollar sets and effects look unbelievably chintzy.

"Star Trek," Gene Roddenberry's great humanistic science-fiction enterprise (original network TV series, Earthdate 1966-69; original Kirk/Spock movie series, 1979-91), always featured cool technology (phasers, transporter room, warp drive) but it wasn't mainly about the science and it certainly wasn't about sophisticated eye candy. The characters were the primary special effects and the best scenes took place on the main set, the cockpit of the ship.

"Star Trek" offered a hopeful, Kennedy-esque vision of mankind's noblest space-travel aspirations -- motivated by goodwill, curiosity and a thirst for knowledge to seek out new life and new civilizations. We felt the future was in good hands because Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Uhura, Sulu, Chekov, Nurse Chapel and the crew were good people.

J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek" reboot movie gets some things right, beginning with fresh and appealing faces as the rookie Enterprise crew on the ship's maiden voyage. (John Cho as Sulu! Yeah!) But, damn, could this movie use a director. (I know, I said the same thing last summer about "TDK," and I meant it then, too.) Abrams began as a screenwriter ("Regarding Henry," "Forever Young," "Armageddon") and has become a one-man network television franchise as a series creator and producer ("Felicity," "Alias," "Lost"). But if you ever want to see what a movie directed by someone with the soul of a producer looks like, start with the works of Irvin Winkler ("Guilty By Suspicion") and then catch this one.

Don't get me wrong -- it's a fairly pleasurable if less-than-engaging trip, but Abrams has no idea of what to do with the camera other than to keep reminding you that it's always there, always screaming "Hey, look at me!," always obtrusively inserting itself between you and whatever it is you'd rather be looking at. I came away from this movie feeling frustrated, like I'd spent the whole time trying to peer over, under, or past a camera operator who was constantly standing in my way, blocking my view of the action. (See clip above. Actors: fun. Camerawork: annoying beyond all logic. However, there is a good reason Spock is so full of emotion in this scene -- and it's not just because he has a headache from that Costco lighting, which was on Kirk's dad's ship, too.)

Nathan Lee was doing his job. He reviewed Kirby Dick's documentary "Outrage" for NPR.org and accurately reported that the film criticized former Idaho senator Larry Craig and Florida Governor Charlie Crist as hypocritical politicians with anti-gay voting records.

That is not news to anyone who listens to NPR, nor are the rumors about both men's sexuality. Craig is infamous for having been arrested for soliciting an undercover officer for gay sex in an Minneapolis airport restroom. Crist has publicly faced direct questions about his sexual orientation since 2005. Both are elected officials, public figures, who have -- by their own actions -- made their sexuality relevant to their job performance.

Psychologists say that depression is rage turned inward. Stand-up comedy, on the other hand, is rage turned back outward again. (I believe George Carlin had a routine about the use of violent metaphors directed at the audience in comedy: "Knock 'em dead!" "I killed!") In the documentary "Heckler" (now on Showtime and DVD) comedian Jamie Kennedy, as himself, plays both roles with ferocious intensity. The movie is his revenge fantasy against anyone who has ever heckled him on stage, or written a negative review... or, perhaps, slighted him in on the playground or at a party or over the phone or online.

"Heckler" (I accidentally called it "Harangue" just now) is an 80-minute howl of fury and anguish in which Kennedy and a host of other well-known and not-well-known showbiz people tell oft-told tales of triumphant comebacks and humiliating disasters, freely venting their spleens at those who have spoken unkindly of them. At first the bile is aimed at hecklers in club audiences (with some particularly nasty invective for loudmouthed drunken women), then it shifts to "critics" -- broadly defined as anybody who says something negative about a figure whose work appears before a paying public. Some of the critics are actually interested in analysis; some are just insult comics who are using the Internet as their open mic. It gets pretty ugly, but it's fascinating -- because the comics, the critics and the hecklers are so much alike that it's no wonder each finds the others so infuriating.

Don't forget your memes. And don't play in puddles unless you're wearing your rubbers. And wash behind your ears.

(tip: David Pogue)