When Is a War Movie Not a War Movie?

Caught Flags of Our Fathers the other day. It's definitely among the most, "Hmmm" war movies I've ever seen (and infinitely better than The Thin Red Line, which tried to be a "Hmmm" war movie and ended up being a "Wow, this is boring" war movie).

One of the trailers was for the Dreamgirls movie. I'm not that familiar with the musical, but I have heard/seen a recording of Jennifer Holliday doing "And I Am Telling You". Like most people tied into the movie scene, I had heard that they'd been having problems casting that role in the film, eventually deciding on some chick from American Idol. At the end of the trailer a clip of her singing the song plays.

It wasn't bad. It was ok. It sounded pretty. That's sort of the problem.

Lyrically, "And I Am Telling You" is not a pretty song. It does not express pretty sentiments. It is not a sad song, it is not a happy song, per se, though there are moments of both emotions and many more in its 4 minutes. But the one thing it is not is fucking pretty. And there is, or should be no room in art for people who only want to look and sound pretty all the time. This is why ingenue roles, when badly written and performed, are boring: because pretty people, people whose every action and move are calculated to always present themselves as pretty, are boring. There can't be anything interesting going on because every fiber of their being is focused on being pretty; there's no room for the dirty and beautiful little details that make people neat.

Anyways, Flags. It's an interesting movie. Enough has been said of the fact that there are no blacks in Eastwood's depiction of Iwo Jima. Well, there is this one shot of them on the boat which feels somewhat random, but you don't really see any in the combat sequences. In his defense, black Marine units at Iwo Jima were apparently relegated to support duty, and the movie focuses most specifically on one platoon, the one which raised the second (and photographically immortalized) flag over Mount Suribachi. Personally, I don't think it matters.

More than anything else, Flags is about myth making. I suppose, from a certain point of view, that means it's about deceit, and it is. Even the picture itself, arguably the most iconic war photograph ever, is a lie; the first flag to be raised had a picture taken of its raising, but the film was exposed and ruined when the camera was dropped as the group the photographer was with was attacked. The picture that survives today was of a second flag being raised, one to replace the first flag, and it was the men from that raising that were hailed as the "Heroes of Iwo Jima".

Well, the ones that survived the next 20 some odd days of the battle, that is, which turned out to be three.

Ostensibly, Ryan Phillipe is the emotional lead of the movie, but it's the Native American character, Adam Beach, who's really the most interesting, I think. Beach returns against his will to a country that hails him as a hero yet discriminates against him; everyone calls him "Chief", senators make insulting remarks about his heritage and so forth. It is as fascinating as it is real and saddening, the dichotomy: you are called a hero, but you are never allowed to forget that you are subhuman, that you are and always will be, less than white. Even the other two soldiers are called heroes, but only insofar and for as long as it benefits the government and society. Like all heroes, like all icons, they are used, they are exploited, and eventually they are discarded to make their own way through the rest of their lives.

Perhaps that is inevitable, perhaps that is the way of things. Is this a result of the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately, instant gratification-seeking climate that exists in the world? Or is it unique to soldiers, is it because they remind us of things and actions that no person should have to do and remember?

There are numerous instances of savage violence that are depicted and alluded to in the movie. But Eastwood isn't trying to demonize the Japanese; early on it is explicitly said that there is no black and white in war, that no-one wins and all those terrible, terrible cliches. But, like all cliches, they're true. I wonder how other audience members reacted; the film cuts together the Marines advancing towards the Japanese guns slowly emerging ahead, behind and above, eventually opening up when the Marines are most exposed - which is exactly what happened. Viscerally, your first impulse is to side with the Americans, those good old boys being ambushed by the cowardly Japanese. But what if the Marines were, say, British colonials? And the people preparing to ambush them were members of the Revolutionary Army (ring any bells?)? What then? What if it was the Japanese landing on Hawaii, what if the American Navy had been battered and worn down, what if 22,000 American troops were told losing Hawaii meant an invasion of the continental United States, and they were facing the largest amphibious operation ever, 30,000 marines landing in a day and 40,000 more in the days to come?

What then? Would those same stealthily emerging guns be seen as the guns of defiance, of American ingenuity and honor in the face of a no-win situation, a modern day Thermopylae? And do people watching the movie think that? Or do they think, "Those scummy Japs, they don't even have the guts to get into a fair fight."

I wonder...and I sort of feel sad for the ones who think the latter.

All in all, I'm probably going to pick up the book. I'm also really looking forward to Eastwood's next movie, Letters From Iwo Jima, which will focus on the Japanese side of the battle and is intended to be the bookend to Flags.

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees?

So, this was actually posted on YouTube some time ago, but I don't think I ever linked it. It's one of the more recent movies we dubbed on my tv show.



Big cannibal ladies are scary!

Less Than Three?

So I have this love/hate relationship with internet slang and acronyms; on the one hand, I understand a lot of them, which plays into my elitist side. On the other hand, it's probably more than a little pathetic that I know so many, and I definitely don't like them creeping into everyday use. The other day I was in Capone's, and I happened to notice, scrawled on the bathroom wall in big ole letters, "O RLY?" (google that if you're interested and the reference makes no sense). Then, today, I come across this video/song:



Oddly enough, it took me like 2 minutes of the song before I figured out the whole less than three thing and what it referred to. I guess that could be a good thing.

On a completely unrelated note, it's one of those really windy/cloudy days when you can see the clouds sweeping across the skies, like a cheesy Scooby Doo background while the gang runs in place, and it looks really neat. I just thought I'd say that.

Booksbooksbooksbooksbooksbooksbooks

1. The Complete Poems, Anne Sexton
2. On the Road, Jack Kerouac
3. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
4. Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami
5. Sideways, Rex Pickett
6. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
7. Le Morte D'Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory
8. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
9. The Sonnets, William Shakespeare
10. To The Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
11. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
12. A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, Yiyun Li
13. interpreter of maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri
14. The Neverending Story, Michael Ende
15. Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
16. Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami
17. Blink, Malcolm Gladwell
18. The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Thomas Friedman
19. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
20. the namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri
21. Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
22. seven types of ambiguity, Eliot Perlman
23. Unhooked Generation, Jillian Straus
24. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins
25. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
26. This Book Will Save Your Life, A. M. Homes
27. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce
28. Youth in Revolt, C.D. Payne
29. jPod, Douglas Coupland
30. The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, Rainer Maria Rilke
31. History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides
32. Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller
33. Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, John Lee Anderson
34. No Acting Please, Eric Morris
35. In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, Marcel Proust
36. Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn, William J. Mann
37. The 9/11 Commission Report, Various

Does it really belong on a book list? Perhaps not. What with all the hullaballoo after the Mike Wallace-Bill Clinton interview, though, I figured it behooved me to read the report. Interestingly enough, while trying to find it I saw another book which claimed to "debunk" the report; apparently that author's contention is that there are a number of factual inaccuracies and inconsistencies which point towards some sort of government coverup of that day's events. Like most rational people, I tend to be somewhat leery of conspiracy theories and the images that said theories conjure up of overweight, sweaty men sitting in basements tapping away on their keyboards in an effort to disseminate the truth to the ignorant intarweb.

Well, them and Mel Gibson. Which, I guess, is sort of the same thing. Kinda. If you squint a little.

The previously promised thoughts are, unforunately, on hold; I don't seem to be able to string them together coherently. Perhaps another time.

Wow

So I'm kinda crushing on Fiona Apple, though to be honest I'm not quite sure if it's her or who she makes me think of. I've never heard the original Costello song, which I'm gonna start poking around for - I wonder how it originally sounded. Speaking of covers, I just noticed the I'm Your Man soundtrack is on iTunes - time to download the Antony cover of "If It Be Your Will".

I have other thoughts - honest. I'll just put them in the next post where they belong.

WHAT. THE. CRAP.

What the hell is that doing in my house? Who the hell buys that? Honestly.

And yes, that's rhetorical. I know exactly who bought that. Suffice to say, we are not close. In fact, we're the opposite of close. We're...far away?

Whatever.








On a funner note, while I'm here and while I'm uploading pictures, check out this one of the ghosts painted on my wall by a visiting fairy:


Ghosts are rad.

Sunday Morning News Crawl

Starting with this story, about the difficulty of black women attempting to meet and form relationships with black men. It's more of an observation about the article, really, which I think is somewhat retarded to begin with. Note this stat:

According to the 2000 census, black men enter interracial marriages at a higher rate -- 9.7 percent -- than any other race and sex except Asian women. That's twice the rate of black women.

So to be clear here, Asian women make up the highest percentage of mixed-race couple partners, followed by black men. The woman who is the focus of the article goes on to say that

She sees the breach between black men and women as a vestige of slavery. The legacy, she says, has created an "unhealthy independence" among black women and a level of irresponsibility among black men."

Ok. So what's the excuse for Asian women? Now that I look at it, there's an odd disconnect in the statistics quoted: Asian women enter into the most interracial relationships, yet black men and women are quoted as the "most uncoupled demographic in the United States."

Never mind, I just figured it out - the difference between Asian men entering into mixed-race couples and black women doing so must be greater than said difference between Asian women and black men - hence there are relatively more Asian men available for a given number of Asian women than there are black women for black men. This would seem to point to the simplest solution for people; quit limiting yourself by race. But who am I to judge another's quest for romantic happiness?

In the world, Dick Cheney's back to reminding America that the world is a scary place. Thankfully we have GWB and the Republicans protecting America, fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here, compared to the thoughts of some Democrats that we should "cut and run". How's that going again? Oh, right. Worse than ever ("Last month, 776 U.S. troops were wounded in action in Iraq, the highest number since the military assault to retake the insurgent-held city of Fallujah in November 2004, according to Defense Department data. It was the fourth-highest monthly total since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.").

A thought: if you added up all the dead and wounded from Iraq, how do the numbers compare to the WTC attacks? You know how Cheney is always saying another attack is coming, another attack is coming, another attack is coming? I have news for you, Mr. Cheney: the war your administration has prosecuted amounts to another attack; you just shipped America's youth out of the country so we wouldn't have to see the awful truth. You've done a better job than any terrorist ever could, for not only have you killed and maimed thousands, you've killed and maimed thousands of America's youth, its next generation. Dulce et decorum est, indeed.

Moving back towards the business side of politics, take a glance at this story mentioning 52% of Wall Street's political donations this cycle have gone to Democrats, a flip of the normal donation relationship. Now, companies tend to donate more to one side for 2 reasons: they're reasonably sure that side is going to win, or they believe that side will deliver the legislation they prefer. That's why in the past decade or two, Republicans have gotten the lion's share of their funding; their corporate tax-cutting platforms dovetail nicely with the largely ephemeral profits that Wall Street companies make. Every industry is the same, with periodic realignments as different platforms come to dominate the two parties; for example, KBR (or its parent company) was one of the largest contributors to Lyndon B. Johnson's career, back when the Democrats ruled the south, 30 short years ago. So which is this: is it just a one-off bet, or could this be the start of a realignment in American politics? I'm guessing it's the former, but time will tell, I suppose.

If It Ain't Broke...?

So, I finally got around to watching the Burton Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Prior to Big Fish, I'd never really been a Burton fan. I always thought his stuff was ok, but nothing all that special (aside from Beetlejuice, which is awesome even with Winona). Big Fish changed all of that, because there finally seemed to be an emotional core to the movie, a "point", if you will. Big Fish, ultimately, is about fathers and sons; it is Tim Burton's letter to his father, who died shortly before or during the shooting of the movie.

I believe Big Fish is, in fact, based on a book (hey, it is - this one). And I wonder if Burton took the same license with it that he took with Charlie. I find it interesting that Burton chose to layer the same emotional core onto the story of Willy Wonka - to give him a backstory, and to ultimately make the story as much about Willy as it is about Charlie. I wonder if all of his subsequent films will contain the same element - I can picture Sweeney Todd bemoaning the fact that his father never understood him as he slits a customer's throat.

In any event, I didn't realize what Burton was doing, and so sitting through the movie was somewhat frustrating. Many parts are truer to the book than the earlier film version, but in other parts there were definite deviations (at least, I think - I'm also filled with a strong desire to read it again, to see what was accurate and what wasn't). This leads me to my biggest beef, one I've had with countless adaptations, one I will probably have as long as there are adaptations and the reason why it took me a fair bit of time to warm up to the movie.

I hate it when adaptations stray from their source material.

Perhaps, I suppose, I shouldn't. They are, after all, adaptations. Inherent in the word is the sense of adapting, of changes deemed necessary in the move from one medium to another. And yet, there is a large part of me (perhaps the literary snob) that says, "Hey Mr. Film Director, if you think you can write a better story, go write it and leave that nice one alone." (typically I word that much more aggressively, with several expletives) This is why I find it intensely difficult to sit through parts of LotR, something I can rant about for several hours.

Yes, I am that much of a pathetic fantasy nerd. What can I say, I had a very sheltered childhood and books were important to me.

Regardless.

There are some times when I have found changes acceptable. The book Sideways, for example, is wildly different from the movie, but I found myself not minding - perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I watched the movie before I read the book. For the most part, though, they tend to irritate me. And it has nothing to do with the typical, "Movies are never as good as books," comment/observation. The reason why movies tend not to be as good as books is because in a book, the author can spell things out that need to be and leave things unsaid that don't need to be. In movies (especially Hollywood productions), directors and writers write to the lowest common denominator, saying, in essence, "YOU ARE TOO DUMB TO GET THIS IN A NUANCED WAY, SO I WILL HAVE THE CHARACTER SPEAK IT OUT LOUD."

Yes, that's exactly what they say, and they say it all in caps. How rude.

Anyways, back to Charlie. So Tim Burton's decided to give us all a backstory on Willy Wonka, to explain why he became so obsessed with candy and eventually leading to a reconciliation with his father. This is nice and all, but of course, it isn't in the book. And why did Burton feel the need to fill it in? Why did he have to create a "why"? Why does there always have to be a why? Is it societal? Is it so ingrained in us to seek prior causes (perhaps in search of someone to blame for problems) that even in our art, in our stories, there must be a why? There's a sequence in the movie (again, don't think it's in the book but it might be, and even if it isn't, no matter) where Mike Teevee says, "Why does nothing in this factory make sense?" and before anyone else can say anything, Charlie says, "It's candy. It doesn't have to make sense."

Why does Tim Burton's candy have to make sense?

Forsooth!

Your Dominant Intelligence is Linguistic Intelligence

You are excellent with words and language. You explain yourself well. An elegant speaker, you can converse well with anyone on the fly. You are also good at remembering information and convicing someone of your point of view. A master of creative phrasing and unique words, you enjoy expanding your vocabulary. You would make a fantastic poet, journalist, writer, teacher, lawyer, politician, or translator.

What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?

You Don't Have To Tell Me Twice

Never Date a Cancer

Clingy, emotional, and very private - it's hard to escape a Cancer's clutches. And while Cancer will want to know everything about you, they're anything but open in return. Instead try dating: Leo, Sagittarius, Gemini, or Aquarius

What Sign Shouldn't You Date?

Yeah...you know the whole bromide about how you always go for people who are like your opposite sex parent (wow, what a clumsy way of saying that...what I mean is, girls go for guys like their fathers, guys for girls like their mothers)? My mom's a cancer. FUCK THAT.

In the figurative sense, of course.

Echoes From Someone Else's Life

No doubt Hep loved his children; the warmhearted letters he wrote them throughout his life attest to that. And he wasn't always so serious or driven...But none of the Hepburn offspring could ever remember him saying that they'd made him proud. He demanded the moon and never seemed satisfied even when it was delivered. Once his daughter Marion asked him why that was. "I expect you to do well," he replied. "That's the norm."...As they entered their teens, what continued to motivate the Hepburn children's fierce desire to please was the plain and simple emotion of fear. Fear of their father's disapproval, of the sting of his hand.

The Age That Was Golden

1. The Complete Poems, Anne Sexton
2. On the Road, Jack Kerouac
3. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
4. Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami
5. Sideways, Rex Pickett
6. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
7. Le Morte D'Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory
8. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
9. The Sonnets, William Shakespeare
10. To The Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
11. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
12. A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, Yiyun Li
13. interpreter of maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri
14. The Neverending Story, Michael Ende
15. Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
16. Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami
17. Blink, Malcolm Gladwell
18. The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Thomas Friedman
19. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
20. the namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri
21. Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
22. seven types of ambiguity, Eliot Perlman
23. Unhooked Generation, Jillian Straus
24. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins
25. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
26. This Book Will Save Your Life, A. M. Homes
27. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce
28. Youth in Revolt, C.D. Payne
29. jPod, Douglas Coupland
30. The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, Rainer Maria Rilke
31. History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides
32. Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller
33. Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, John Lee Anderson
34. No Acting Please, Eric Morris
35. In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, Marcel Proust
36. Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn, William J. Mann

Huzzah, back to the world of biography. I saw a review of this new Katharine Hepburn biography, and decided it was time to find out some more about good ole Kate. From what I gather, most of the previous attempts have been either hagiographies written while she was alive (and thus, subject to her control as to how she wished to be portrayed) or flagrant attempts to attack or diminish her (as if such a thing would be possible - after all, in the end one's work speaks for itself). I also spotted a Jimmy Stewart book, but it seemed to fall into the former of the two categories, so I decided to pass for now.

Plus, the Hepburn book has an awesome cover. Now, I'll be the first to admit I'd never found Katharine Hepburn all that attractive - Grace Kelly all the way for me. But in that picture? Yow.

Well, Now I Feel Like an Ass

So no sooner do I make my previous post than I notice this story about a multi-product label line which attempts to both turn a profit for the retailers that develop and sell its products and contribute to AIDS relief in Africa. Of course, Bono is involved. Looks like I might be stepping into a GAP for the first time in a couple years, come October 13th.

Some might see this as a simple image improver for the companies involved. It's interesting to read the comments from Bobby Shriver (yes, another relative of the Kennedys):

“Gap in the beginning couldn’t understand how they were going to make money,” Mr. Shriver said. “They wanted to do a T-shirt and give us all the money. But, we want them to make money. We don’t want anyone to be thinking, ‘I’m not making money on this thing,’ because then we failed. We want people buying houses in the Hamptons based on this because, if that happens, this thing is sustainable.”

It is sustainability that is the key and that makes Red worth supporting. It isn't some little one-off knick-knack that you buy to wear and show off how "socially conscious" you are (like what this became); it's an attempt to create an ongoing stream of revenue from a relatively (barring private donations, which certainly do add up) untapped source.

There are those who might argue that the efforts of Red are just that; a means for Western, insulated consumers to demonstrate a social conscience and soothe their guilty consciences - "Oh, I'm not at fault, I buy Red, I do everything I can!" This is possibly true. It is also true that newborn children don't deserve to come into the world afflicted with a disease (well, virus/syndrome - I don't know what the difference is, but I'm sure there is one and that it's somewhat of a technical, medical nature) they did nothing to earn, and can do nothing to change. Given that terrible alternative, I think I can deal with looking like a sellout dweeb.

Since I'm on a news kick, check out this story about British soldiers debunking the US government's contention that Iran is feeding the Iraqi insurgency arms and equipment. Hey, wow - yet another "known known" being postulated by the US government which there's no physical evidence for (anyone else remember Cheney making all those comments about how they knew there were Iraq-Al Quaida links? Or the ones about all the WMD they had? Or the one about the insurgency being in it's "final throes"?) Granted, I wouldn't trust the Iraqi border guards as far as I could throw them, and I'm sure it's a massive amount of desert out there, but you'd think the Brits would at least find some trace, if something was going on out there.

One last thing, since - again, given the tenor of my previous post - I find this amazing. Pretty much in my lifetime, look what's happened. If the IRA as a cohesive military force can be eliminated and then brought into a legitimate political process, then maybe there really is hope for the other war-torn areas of the world.

I Am Boring

So, there's an interesting (possibly only to me) article on Slate about how Trojan came to dominate the condom industry, becoming a brand with the recognition value of Kleenex. What interested me the most was this passage:

Youngs Rubber, meanwhile, sued a company making Trojan knockoffs, a legal maneuver designed to underscore its commitment to quality. More important, the company lobbied state and local governments to enact laws restricting the sale of condoms to pharmacies alone. Since Trojans had become the preference of pharmacists, the brand was guaranteed a virtual monopoly in markets where these laws were passed.

One of the best teachers I had at New School was a gentleman by the name of Jim Nolt, a poli sci professor whose focus was on the effect that business has on politics. And here, it would seem is a textbook example of the things he tried to research and point out; legislation or policy created because of lobbyists, (and, probably) graft and bribery.

Pro-free marketers might point out that maybe it was a good thing for condoms to be sold in pharmacies, which is the only reason why legislators would have agreed with the viewpoint of Youngs Rubber; that the free market fulfilled a social need and created a social good while simultaneously fulfilling their own agenda of creating profit. The problem lies in the second part of that statement; corporations exist simply to make a profit. If they can make a profit and create a social good, they will do so. If they can make a bigger profit by creating a social evil, they will also do so, provided that the negative cost (from bad publicity or whatnot) is outweighed by the monetary reward. So you can't depend on corporations to fill the needs of society; they are ultimately beholden only to their shareholders.

It makes you wonder...is there any form of effective government? Communism is crap, and capitalist democracies are crap, so what's left - anarchy? And yet I have a difficult time subscribing to the ideal of anarchy espoused by people like Banksy and Alan Moore, who see people as inherently nice, fluffy and happy. I think anarchists are essentially romantics; like Rousseau, they believe in the idea of the noble savage, that people are fundamentally good and would be good to each other if there were no external constraints. I'm not so sure. This is also not to say that they (well, Alan Moore, at least) believe in some sort of magical, violence-free revolution; rather, there is a distinction to be drawn between the chaos that results directly after the fall of government and the utopian anarchic state. There is, of course, no map or timeline for this process, as there rarely is in utopian visions; it's just something they assume will happen because, again, people are fundamentally good.

I don't know, I wish I could believe that but I don't think I can at the moment. Perhaps that speaks more about where I am in my life right now than to any higher truth.