Firefly: Space 1999 for 2006

My college friends I work with, half my age, are in love with this series that was evidently a televised SciFi channel production, because I had never heard about it until this semester. I find it to certainly be an interesting cross between Western and Space. Nice cross-breeding! It's visually not unlike Space 1999, however, in that the sets are obviously TV, albeit the SFX are good later generation stuff. But what sets this apart is the characters, as a good show should. I love the characters, and love their humor. They lack a little complexity, except for the captain and the Bishop. They are the centerpieces. I love the girl mechanic, but mostly just because she makes me smile, because, well...she's always smiling, even when she's been shot in the gut.

But the Captain and the Bishop I believe make up the main conflict of the story, even though they certainly are getting along well enough to travel the same ship together. Every good company needs a captain, a mechanic, a second-hand who not-so-secretly wants to take control, a whore, and a misguided doctor. Oh, and a nutjob. All good ingredients for story.

Ok, I like it enough to keep watching, but if it remains as formulaic and polished, I'll lose interest because every show seems to keep going the same and there isn't the rich development that I would anticpate in something written more in depth. I give it 7 out of 10 so far. I'm on DVD #2.

Heroes Revisited

Written Tues. Nov. 14th, submitted: Mon. Nov. 27th

Ok, you don't have to believe that I wrote this earlier, but here it is.

My early expectations for plot have not gone completely askew, and my initial look at Heroes has not really gone wrong with respect to the general direction of the show, however, I now must admit, ahem, I did not stop watching at 3 shows. Nope; I am now addicted. I am totally ready to save the Cheerleader. We have now gotten a glimpse into the world of the Dad.

He was not who we expected now, was he. There are moments still when he makes the blood run cold as he looks through windows on what’s going on with the other characters. He is always looking through windows, and wears those signature glasses with the wire and black rims, his time period showing no love of modernism and no need of upgrading his appearance to please others. He is always spying, looking in, but as we know now more fully, manipulating and adjusting, and deeply involved in the race to discover the identity and whereabouts of Syler.

Syler, the dark one, the murderer, and demonic-like figure of mystery. We have been set up with a definite line of demarcation between the good and evil, and now that there is a time and a date attached, a showdown of sorts it seems. Next week is supposed to reveal at least the character and nature of this evil being, although I’d feel safe to say at this point not the total purpose of Syler (because there are quite a few shows left ).

But back to the Father. His smiling and knowing protective outer cover will probably come out at some point as well. The mother is absolutely oblivious, I’m sure, her and Mr. Muggles. If she’s in on it I am going to quit watching. But the wide-eyed girl helper who is involved with Mohandas Suresh and the painter and seems to have the gift of persuasion, and the quiet dark man that always seems to be the backup for the Father and “cleans people out” of their memory, while at first all seeming to be the suspected evil scourge, now seem more to the point to be the very good guys themselves.

So ok, now I’m going to go off into speculation. Before, I had estimated that this would be one more piece of postmodern mishmash with a pluralistic and pantheistic god omnipresent in the background, neither good nor bad but shifting in perfect harmony with the tides of metaphysical force and subatomic energy. Along with that is the basic atheistic materialist belief that the people involved are all subject to the domination effect of evolution, and that given it’s course we all can evolve in our abilities, and that sooner or later there could develop in us, by the pantheistic god’s effect and the shifting of the planets (notice the eclipse motif in the painting by the heroin addict, and the appearance of an eclipse in the second adventure, also of note the obvious circular planet effect in the show’s title sequence) a wave of supranormal abilities, shifts in time and space, and physical interactions through the body and minds of certain individuals, few at first, and then growing into a pandemic. The conclusion that the story seems that it has been heading for philosophically is that we are all superheroes, and if we can tap into the great metaphysical force all around us, nurture belief in the human mind, and believe in the triumph of goodness in the human person, then we can “evolve” into better mankind. I still pretty much believe this.

Notice please the fairly consistent pattern of duality in the characters. There are many who have a dark side, an unseemly persona, and personal weakness, even if it’s as simple as Hirohito’s naiveté’, or as deeply disturbing as what looks like demon possession by the painter, or the dual-personality of the blonde mother. And the surprises never seem to stop popping up as to who has abilities; take for instance DL, the blonde’s husband “escaped” from prison and “appearance” in the house. Seems like the eclipse brought on a wave of the supernatural.

So my early estimation was such, but now I’ve gotten a slight glimpse of something more. This is where the writing of the show is getting deep, and me, I’m always digging it seems deeper than may be there. I have this strange, almost supernatural ability it seems, as a media critic, to see beneath the layers of lens flares, special FX, and rhetoric. Hmm, maybe I’m growing in this ability?

Let’s just imagine for a moment that the Father is a type of God. He has an investment in the Cheerleader because she represents innocence and good, kind of like the Church. He is doing everything he can to protect this relationship and keep it intact, whole, like a family. He seems to have near omniscience, and omnipotent ability in getting around and getting to the right people. He certainly knows much more than Dr. Suresh ever knew. And here is where I think the story may go in another twist – I predict that the older Dr. Suresh is not really dead. He simply had to go into hiding and is working with the Father.

I still stand by my early prediction that this group of Heroes will band together to form a “league” if you will of working heroes, and now I believe that the Father will be their leader, and that their arch enemy will be this Syler, along with maybe many others that are also evil but less talented in their abilities, just like the good guys grow and learn about their talents and learn to harness them.

So we have a couple of metanarratives within the scope of the story already, and 2 of them very familiar with American culture: the story of the Church, and salvation and a watching over by a benevolent God cast against an unspeakable evil which wishes to destroy it, and also the Cheerleader as a type of America the Beautiful, and the preservation of freedom and purity. But these are narratives which I believe in the end the story of Heroes will try to enclose or envelop within the supposedly larger narrative of the godless mass of pantheistic physical nature, the yin and yang of balance, and the consummation of complexity and chaos theory. Will one win out over the other? We shall see.

book review

Greil Marcus - The Shape of Things to Come - Prophecy and the American Voice

Greil Marcus seems to be waging an internal war and then displaying it on his own canvas. But he is doing it in a sort of Jackson Pollack kind of way. The cohesiveness must be all there, we tell ourselves, and we can see it, somewhat, but it is fraught with conflict that when pieced together is giving a picture in total of a cynical heart; a jaded soul. The three narrative historical landmark speeches he is using as foundation for his painting are all hopeful yet simultaneously dire warnings; all inspirational and incendiary. But he seems to spend a great deal of his initial energy separating the zeal and hopefulness of the speeches from a swathe of reality that he places liberally on the canvas in grey or black tones, separating as in distancing, in order it seems to point out the inevitable failure of the Union, the very grey-blue notion of America as only an idea, and not realized.

I am supposing after the initial burst of cynicism and a generally negative spirit, because of the title, itself being prophetic in nature and presupposing an answer, that Mr. Marcus is going to somehow redeem his text with some sort of replacement, revision, or reenactment of historical events that will enlighten us as to how it should be, was really, or could have been. It is yet to be seen what direction his “answer” will be to these supposed “voids”, but because he has written a book I’m supposing he has one. Or will he? Please tell me that this will not be another one of those high-language intellectual thrillers that destroy the past and current American system and waylay all paths of possible return to a reasonable rescue under that system, and then leave us to our own devices as to a solution, or offer very little in the way of redemption. I’ve seen this before. A writer of no mean political and intellectual talent splatters their frustration over the canvas with abandon, and then leaves the painting dripping red and black and blue; no flowers, no pointers to signposts up ahead.

But then again, I’m only on page 39.

The Fountain - Darren Aronofsky - release Nov. 22, 2006

This was a great piece of art work in motion, and certainly a great story, but it was not a cinematic masterpiece. Art meets science fiction meets Darren Aronofsky meets real science through the eyes of the microscopic special effects. Nice. But is the North American crowd ready for art alone to stand? And also, I believe that Darren, still a growing director, has not shown us maturity in this piece for the simple fact that he does not trust his own work yet. His reliance upon repetitiveness was taken as style in Requiem, but in this piece I saw it as tedium and unnecessary. I’m not sure of what everyone else thought, but I “got it” early on and connected his dots, and did not need the many consistent reminders. The dots I did not connect were purposeful on his part, and well done. I'll explain that a little later in this article.

Darren has a fascination with symbolism in all of his work so far. This one was cinematically straightforward and powerful. All of the themes were central, circular, rotational, and consistent. One cannot deny the visually adept eye of Darren’s cinema awareness and his ability to craft an almost totally visual story. You could easily make a hundred or more wall-hangings from this work suitable for framing. Candles and deep black were abounding, and rich textures reminiscent of Rembrandt. Kudos to the furniture, costume, and lighting people. Huge accolades to the Cinematographer. This one could be up for set and wardrobe Oscar.

I’ve just sat through a vision that is quite beautiful, and certainly metaphysically complete. While the vision that I’m left with is of Buddhist completion, circles within circles, it lends credence and understanding to the Christian bedrock story of the Tree of Life as well. Brining it home, Aronofsky leaves us with reality, and dealing with death, and the promise of life. This giant allegory draws upon both traditions to simply illustrate the holistic principle of life from death, and the relinquishing of life has never been so visually stunning. This was a great offering from the standpoint of art and it’s ability to bring about the heightened awareness of spirituality without actually saying a word. And speaking of words, there were indeed very few. The lush visuals did all the talking. Ultimately we are left with hope and promise, and the vision of life beyond where we live. The fearless face of beauty and love squares against strife and anxiety and the face of science and our machinations against the reality of death. The winner is life, but on it’s own terms, God’s terms.

The ultimate failure of the tree, even at the end, I believe was not necessarily the failure of the story of the Garden of Eden’s Tree of Life, but rather the ultimate subjugation of the human story to that of death, and re-birth in another life. The Doctor’s strivings prove to be fruitless. His striving to find the source, just like that of the Spanish conquistador, and his ultimate acceptance, to “finish it”, to write that 12th chapter, was a transcendence that we all must face. Flowers do indeed grow from the ground. “Unless a seed fall into the ground and die it cannot produce fruit”.

The final scene of the star was reminiscent of the final scene in the film Brainstorm, which also took the partaker of that vision, in that case Christopher Walken, into the world of the eternal and was like the enfolding of eternal space upon space, a never-ending light and folds of light. This beautiful and yet limited vision of the eternal is about as descriptive as cinema can get visually, metaphorically. But because of the somewhat overdriven visuals I was left with the same effect that Big Fish had upon me; I knew it was fake, but I loved it anyway. And I stayed with the story because of the illustrations’ strength.

Yet there was much to be desired in regard to the story. I am putting pieces together in the aftermath. During the first viewing I wanted to know more about the future hero and his world. I wanted to know where that bubble starship came from. I wanted to see the background of just how that ship was created, and where he got the tree of life from, and how it was that he knew to take it to the galaxy. Was he indeed the year 2000 man, still alive? It turns out he had the original and faded tattoo, and the place where the ring was prior to it’s theft. That did not become completely clear until the end. The now extremely fragile-looking and worn pen that he used spoke of the years, and so I’m assuming that he was the original Dr. that did surgery on monkeys. And so Darren is here attempting to draw us on with the suspense and the fairly thin line of mystery about this future space traveler. That was actually a good ploy. It worked.

It does work, however I think it might have been fine, would have helped somewhat, to just simply show the context of that world to some degree, to see an origin of that time. Maybe just a shot of his preparation and takeoff from planet earth with the tree in partial bloom, and other people of similar nature watching him go, a larger-scaled vision of the world of 2600 that he finally comes to live in. And if indeed he was the inheritor of that tree, just how was it that only he could take it off-world and to it’s origin? There are many questions that never get answered. Those details don’t really need to be in the film itself. But the answers to these puzzles, indeed some of the questions do not come until reflection later. This is a great reflective piece, and may be lost on some younger audiences without sufficient background to understand either religion, death, cancer, experience with love, or other more mature themes.

I’d say for all of the above reasons while the story was certainly well-rounded, was succinct, it lacked scope (not depth – it’s plenty deep), but was also a visual feast worth seeing for it’s beauty and poetic, lyrical vibrancy.

Heroes

Besides the bad channel feed I get where I'm at, I'd say that at least the plot is not fuzzy. Yes, believe it or not I find the new TV series Heroes to be predictable. People are discovering their super powers and are being drawn together in an inevitable plot to form a league of heroes not quite the same as "other" leagues we've seen before.

I DO like the freshness of the characters and their believeability. That is refreshing. Also, the discoveries they make about themselves are creepy, and it seems that not just one but a few of them have a negative or uninviting personal life. This is good, but of course the stuff of comics past, already been written.

The interchanging of scenes is very good, and the special effects normal to ok, the acting is as I've said, believable, and also cast well. The show has a filmic quality and is not too TV like, so it looks good (as far as I can tell with my bad reception - ok it's a shared campus network cable, but even though it's satellite it's not that great). One drawback I saw so far that is a weakness is the use of a floating voice that sporadically interjects poetic and mysterious-sounding lines that may or may not have anything to do directly with the visual of the moment. So much for aesthetics, let's get to the meat.

This is where rerun #2 comes into play. If you close your eyes and listen to what's being said it's standard postmodern mixed with all-but-deserted humanism and fantasy thinking. This will entertain all those who do not have a life and wish they really had one. Well, ok, and those who like heroes and comics just because they do. There is a huge dose of positivism thrown in, and you can tell from the plot so far, even though it hasn't thickened yet, that there will be many obstacles to overcome to make the show addicting. But it's all psychological drivel that amounts to little more than faith in mankind, against of course great odds and unnamed evils, the worst evil of course being resignation to tedium and amalgamated homogeniety. Nobody likes to be homo (sic).

But I am waiting to see the next recorded episode off of the TIVO. I'm betting there is mention, if not outright dutiful recognition as some kind of player, of a deity or higher power source, most likely fitting neatly into the catagory of an atomically and metaphysically correct pandeity. Will most likely catch about 3 episodes and then drop this one from future consideration. No stars really or good tomatoes, cows, whatever....

Syrianna

Kind of like Illiana, the combination of IN and IL. But no where near the midwest.

The strength of this film is visual, and the editing is minimalist. We are whisked from one scene to the next and made to put together the pieces. Now if you're a puzzle person you will like that. If you need things spelled out for you, this is not a good show. It is precicely, however, this type of editing that reflects the goals and ambitions of the project. We are kept engaged in a global spider web. We see bits and pieces of it, and very close up, and gradually we are drawn back until the entire web comes into focus. At first it looks like a few dewy, drippy lines of rope, and then when we get further back we see it for the huge trap that it is.

This is of course the filmmaker's view of politics. It's all tied together. But craftily they don't just want to spell it out for you. This does one of two things. We give up somewhere and proclaim "it's all too complex", or, and this is what makes the issues at hand compelling and believable (note that I'm not saying that the actual facts that are given to us are believeable in themselves), we come to the great "Ah hah!" that the story has been desigend to bring us to, and we therefore feel a great sense of personal discovery and enlightenment. This heightened state of involvement creates a buy-in for us. The buy-in is inclusive of Clooney's character, as we discover that he is an unwitting accomplice to destructive U.S. govt. policy and concurrent behavior; ergo, we side with him in his "quest for the truth". Dito with the Matt Damon character, and unwitting accomplace from the Swiss Banking end of the deal, and equally outraged at being used and abused, and wined and dined at the expense of his ethics. All of this is peachy if you buy into those kinds of politics. But of course who trusts their government any more, right? Since no one does it seems, we are open to this kind of thinking: the massive consipiracy. The reason that a film like this will succeed however, over and against a film like Farenheit 9/11, is because of it's understated agenda. It's much easier to buy into "fiction". We never feel as if we are being preached to in an action flick.

Very much in the vein of the original Manchurian Candidate, the gradual unfolding of the plot and the confidence we have in the hero of the story both lead us to the inexorable conclusion that all is not right with our current policy. We of course do not trust institutions that we rarely see the inside of or know of their policy, so the movement within the CIA, in particular by it's biggest directors and action figures, is belieable. We either believe that what they are doing is actually OUTSIDE the knowledge of the chiefs of staff or the presidency, or that somehow the upper management knows of it and is purposefully not directly involved, either way implicating a strong government involvement in direct manipulation of a foreign power's political choices, and all of that resultant from commercial concerns. The differnce between this film and the Manchurian Candidate would be that in the Candidate the manipulation takes place in the foreign power with designs on our own. You know, Candidate was banned for quite some time. I saw no smoke about this from any DC based committees...

Devil's Advocate Note:
Well, it certainly was a sad trip. The "good guys" get killed in the end, and all by our dear military. We are supposed to feel saddened by our own greed and licentiousness, and, according to the commercial at the end, start making an immediate gravitation away from our dependence on oil. We've got to stop encouraging the Arabs to just put up hotels and theme parks with their money and allow them to start building for the future without an oil based economy! That's what we're doing now folks: playing the whore and taking Vegas to them and not teaching them the value of savings! Without a fair shake from us now we will just be taking their money and leaving them with multimillion dollar roller-coasters and no electricity to run them with! Then where will they be, huh? You can't eat a roller-coaster! These poor ignorant Arabs can't think for themselves, so we've got to stop our government manipulation on levels like this! I'm so damned fired up about this I'm just liable to go jump in my SUV and ride right down to my congressman's headquarters, take him out to lunch, and give him a wake up call! So outbid the Chinese and give them what they need over there! Schools, and clinics, and football!

Man on Fire

I will never forget that little face. It could be because I have a sweet little blonde on her way to being just like that. I’d be on fire too if my girl was taken like that, taking a shot in the chest and cutting off fingers to find out who dunnit. It wasn’t even his little girl. But somebody like that would get under a man’s skin without too much encouragement. This just took about 40 laps in a pool, a few hugs, and naming her bear after him. Replacement father happens while real one is away. Maybe the hypocrisy of the real dad came through by comparison, kind of like a silent effect. Kids know who real people are without a great deal of thinking.

I thought this was one of the most engaging thrillers/mysteries/action dramas I’ve seen in awhile, not just for its high tension but because of the deeply personal and believable background story. But mostly, and this is not a first, the on-screen presence of Denzel Washington is unbelievable. He absolutely sizzles, again. His understated tension can almost be felt in this story with your eyes closed; walking TNT with Nitro sweat rolling off of him.

Now deep into the story when the stakes are high and we are drawing to a conclusion, the friend played by Christopher Walken is a little overplayed in the scene where he begins to describe Creasey’s “Masterpiece” (albeit it is true). That made the whole thing just a little too melodramatic for me, and that was the first time in the flow of the story that I broke out of the story’s trance and became aware of the acting. However, it didn’t take long for the story to close in again. I just would have directed that scene somewhat differently. Right idea and timed well in the story line, but over the top.

Walken in all other parts of the story makes a perfect compliment to Washington. Their friendship is genuine and warm and immediately bankable. Their past is made equally mysterious and adds perfect weight to the story, and power. We really don’t need to know the full story to feel the power behind whoever Creasy might have been, or exactly what he had done. The line, “Do you think God will ever forgive us for what we’ve done?”, is just plain great writing. It is, of course the entire theme of the story carried forward to the beginning, ending with a close up of the failing grasp of a hand on the figure of St. Jude.

All through the poignant story is the search for redemption and justice. It is classic bad guys and corruption vs. lone ranger with an edge. And the Lone Ranger is flawed by the past and predilection to alcohol, turning to the relationship with the little girl, and to God to get a grip. His personal turning point of putting away the bottle is not cheesy or pretentious, and his character displays genuine struggle. The consistent putting aside of the self for another, and blatantly placing himself in harm’s way, seemingly without regard for the guns of the enemy, Creasy comes off almost as a superhero, and his life takes on a very supernatural air, defying death, all the while seeming almost nonchalant about his dance with it. Particularly powerful were the brief glimpses of Creasy in a pool with his continued bleeding mixing with the clear water, reminding us of his ongoing condition while also adding even more tension and the pressure of time to the already heavily climbing events.

So tension and more tension is the word for this film, and a strong sense of story that carries us forward and sticks with you afterward. I have not been this engaged and felt such dramatic buildup since my first experience with the Russian film “Come and See”. So if you haven’t “gone and seen” this one, rent the disk, and make sure the kids are asleep. Not for the squeamish, nor those who need sleep.

Rate: 7 out of 10 Klodneys.

Coming soon, movie reviews on:

Syriana - hard to follow, poignant, party-line opinionated shaping of history
Final Cut - neat idea, too easy to follow, characters predictable
Man on Fire - read this later please
Birth - brilliant, stinking brilliant - more later on this one

Band of Brothers

While highly romanticized in style, I'd say the content was true and realistic. The amount of time spent on details was incredible, but that is to be expected of such a noteworthy historical remake. This series originally aired on HBO draws you in and creates a world of its own, which good cinema does. It's something else to create a lasting world after the DVD is turned off, which this also does.

The characters are all genuine, both in spirit, their acting, and in looks and language. This is one of the best rebuildings of history I've seen on any screen as far as authenticity. One expects some emotional buildup to the scenes in episode 9 of the Jewish camps they found, and there certainly was. It was an incredibly good choice to contrast the war-end atmosphere of American plundering, the concerns of a drunken Lieutenant about his ongoing problems at home and a divorce pending, and sexual escapades, with that of the new discovery of the death camps. It was portrayed accurately and without a great deal of aplomb in scope in order to demonstrate the real surprise of the findings. They also demonstrate the reality of the situation of not knowing immediately what to do with all those displaced men. There were no women shown at this particular camp that was found, as have other cinema expositions of the same nature, such as Schindler's List. But the emotions and realism were nonetheless clear and present. Animosity was dealt with fairly and I didn't feel that there was an attempt at creating a sense of "American scourge", or rather the slanting of the piece to make American involvement somehow look bad, as has been the case with so many other productions on Korea and Vietnam. The soldiers' real feelings, and justifiably so under the circumstances, were brought out in the scene where so many surrendered Germans were marching the opposite direction of the invading army. But Americans were not portrayed as a brutal or demoralizing force. I'd say this was a very fair representation of the actuality of the war, and in no way sensationalized. 5 stars.

Steve

The Bourne Identity and The Bourne Supremacy

There is always a “mole”, and the old saying comes true once again, “Follow the Money”.

These 2 films are about as action-packed a suspense thriller as you can get. The first one was more artfully photographed than the 2nd, and depended much less on the moving camera and special effects for its real thrill. It also depended much less on the amount of “drive time” that we get in Supremacy. There were a lot more smashed cars in Supremacy than in Identity. Losing the favorite female early on gave quite a bit of motivation to the audience, juxtaposing the beauty and romance of their initial location in India with that of the cold blue world of Russia, where we end.

But in the end, to have the satisfaction of possible redemption for Borne in finding his true identity, and the fact that he was able to get to the root of his bad dreams and reconcile as best he could with the Russian girl, facing the very thing that we are led to hate by this work, was satisfaction indeed. It felt well-rounded and not a bit trite; albeit overdue it would seem by the length of the story. It might also have worked if he somehow ended up dead in the girl’s apartment at the last, telling her of her parent’s fate and coming to a sort of conclusion himself. We could have learned of his own true life in a moment in which the CIA chief female figure walks in into the Netski girl’s apartment to find him dead there and in a brief moment tells the onlookers his real name, and who he “would have been”.

But all in all it was very satisfactory, and a very personal ending. Normally it’s just about the bad guys and the good guys, and once again we have that running in the background, but at least here there is so much more than just the stakes of cash verses altruism, or some version of lust verses ethics. Here, as I’ve said, a face is put on the “job”. Bourne’s searching to piece the dream back together is our searching to put pieces back together from the torn fragments of our existence too.

And you can tell it's not all about "Finding the Money", as that set of facts does not figure in to the story until almost the end, and in one moment (albeit a chiefly weak cinematic moment and fairly forced - one of the weakest moments of these 2 films)the literal beans are spilled about how much money it all is and who is controlling it, and where it came from.

There is so much in the world that is violent and out of our control. Taking back control and finding the source of our anxiety, and then rooting it out and apologizing for it makes for great story. It is what we really all want to do. There is an anxiety in reality that lurks beneath all of our waking days, and we long to root it out and put it in the light; face it down. We all long to come to a place of reality and integrity and would love to expose the hidden faces of those behind the scenes who bring corruption and greed. But the problem in most cases is that we have also all partaken to some degree in that out-of-control scenario.

The Bourne Identity and Supremacy are about conscience. Conscience outlives even memory. We may not remember specifically, or even know all that we have done, but we sense that it is not made right. We just will not rest until all is made right again.

Steve

Come and See - Elim Klimov -
Russia: 1985

"The Greatest War Movie Ever Made" - J.G. Ballard, author of many bizarre works of fiction.

Well, ok, so this would be a film that Ballard would like. One of his recent books is prefaced by William Buroughs. But Sean Penn, known for his highly conservative and quiet demeanor (ah hem) also commented, "What I saw will stay with me forever...it's a masterpiece..."

And truly it is.

The class I taught this spring semester was about equally divided between horrified and enthralled. I admit that prior to the semester's beginning I had dismissed showing this film because of it's supposed difficulty in obtaining it (which turned out to not be true as a new DVD came out), and also because I was not sure that it's extremity was necessary in the depiction of formalistic style. There is plenty to pick from in the surrealistic end of the style spectrum; we did end up watching Big Fish as the class choice for our final film. But Come and Sees hugely sweeping and ethereal sensations were something that I remembered from the time I saw it in Chicago at the Music Box theatre when it was new.

I remember getting tickets with a friend, a room mate named Troy. We were both up for a movie, and I was up for about anything that was playing at the Music Box because I needed a taste of downown, living in the suburbs, and in an open kind of mood. Downtown, coffee, and culture was appealing. But from the moment the lights went down and Troy and I dived into the realm of the depiction of WWII Russia, we were no longer present in Chicago. In fact, it was some time before I could really return. I remember emerging from the theatre and it was raining, a nice heavy summer rain, and I stopped under the marquise and asked Troy, "Are we really here? Back in the US?" We had a quiet trip home.

The integrity of place that Klimov demonstrates never once breaks away in this cinematographic masterpiece. While there are moments of lengthy agony, as the "swim" through the swamp, they are never inappropriate, nor really overly lengthy without purpose. The style is extremely personal, and is so very much inside the Point of View of the main character, a young boy who is agonizingly transformed through the events he experiences during a chapter in the Russian invasion by the Nazis. We are taken from beauty to horror, from innocence to jaded and hardened bitterness. We are exposed to graphic violence superimposed over joyous and raucous celebration by the temporary conquerors. In his work here that depicts the reality of this event firmly established in history Klimov does 2 things simultaneously: he veers far into the realm of expressionistic techniques, while also bringing such a vision of realism to the screen. One of the most noticeable is his use of sound. While we watch Florya, the young boy, struggle with the destruction of his family, we literally hear the ringing of his ears, and the eerie superimposition of sounds of screaming and voices over the ring and hum still left in his head. We are watching him from the outside, but experiencing what he is hearing, and also vicariously through the torturous timing of the shots.

This film is all about contrasts. It is filled with almost mystical lyrical symbolism all throughout, such as the raining scene in the woods at the beginning. In the midst of the overhanging threat of the enemy, Florya, our young boy, has teamed up with Glasha, a beautiful girl of traditional Russian appearance. In the space of a short time they have a courting time, build a "home", sleep together to keep warm, and are visited by a stork. The spell of the dream is broken by Florya as he then remembers his family and returns to the village to find them. What follows is horrifying in its reality, but revealing in the way that Klimov uses the characters to play against each other in their emotional states to comment on the difference between the reality and denial that the citizens would experience during this historically horrifying ordeal.

Often forgotten in the wake of the Jewish holocaust and the amount of attention that has been given to that over time since the war, the Russian invasion was no less an ethnic cleansing. But once you've "Come and Seen" from the Klimov perspective, you will never forget it.

Here is another excellent review:
http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/cteq/02/20/come.html

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Definitely different movie than "A Beautiful Mind".

I greatly enjoyed the film. My overall sense was that it was very positive. The overall sense is what I always react to after a viewing. This was a very potent piece of film making that definitely must be seen again, not just because it was so delirious and complex; it was that, but because it was so rich in imagery and deserves a second look.

Here are the strongest immediate impressions:

1. We spend the bulk of the story in the EVENTS. Mystery is a good device in a drama. We are forever piecing together the story of the relationship with their brilliant and not-so-brilliant moments, both positive and negative ping-ponging back and forth, and both reflecting the different perspectives of the characters. Like the underwear on the couch scene, then we are in the market hearing them have a disagreement about having a baby (another strong character-revealing moment), the jumping moments are reflective of the random way in which we process information. But it's the EVENTS that are the primary key to the overall direction of the story. They are actually the showpiece.

I viewed this film for the first time tonight with a large group of college students, and hung out to hear all the talk afterwards. If I had made a comment in the group I would have noted that there was a film in the 70s called Brainstorm. In that story, which stars a much younger looking Christopher Walken, the couple are on the skids and there is much stress. He is a scientist who has discovered how to record brain activity in such a way as a person can play it all back, and others can actually "be in" someone's mind that way. In any case, he makes a recording of all the great moments in his life that he's had with his spouse that are coming from inside his mind, and then he plays it back for her by having her put the transmission device on her head. She relives all those great moments from his perspective. It was a beautiful flashback sequence that spelled out their entire relationship of times past in a very effective way. In the story it saves their marriage.

In Spotless Mind this same type of device is used in a much more complex and drawn out kind of way. The many separate events of their lives are portrayed like a huge moving scrapbook. And the more we peel away the pages the more grey the backgrounds become in the "pictures", and the faster things begin to disappear around them. (I loved the fading book covers and signs in the bookstore near the end). We can focus more and more on the characters because the surroundings become more and more surreal and unstable. There is a house that had his mother's face in the window looking out at him. It becomes a paint-peeling shack. There is a big house that they almost spend the night in the first time around. In the latter part of the story it is falling apart as they converse. It's just downright cinema poetry at that point. Nice. But the filmmakers didn't stop at that. There is the car sequence as well, with Carey riding in it looking out while "frame" after "frame" of his life with her is going by, all mixed and intertwined, like the piles of filing cabinets in one room, and the car covered by a broken up shell of a house. It was all so fast I had to see that part again to take it in.

2. A device that this film uses to draw us into the story is first of all our natural desire for "the guy to get the girl", or vice verse. We naturally want people to meet, fall in love, and be together. It is the motivation for thousands of stories, and once again a simple human (Godly) drive is used to propel them together in this story. From the very first shot of him at the beach with her in the background at a distance(a cinematic device that is also foreshadow of what is to come - her being a part of his past and in his mind - there she is almost standing on his right shoulder) all the way through the train sequence, we are, with director Michael Gondry, putting them together. We want them to end up together. It doesn't matter how wildly different they are. It doesn't matter that she seems totally wigged and he seems totally inept. We are "with" her when she stops him from going out of the apartment the first time and asks him to call her. We are glad that they don't have just cheap sex and he doesn't succumb to her "part of the seduction" thing, almost throwing, well ok, throwing herself on him. We like it that he calls her right away, we feel his vulnerability and some innocence in that, and also wonder about rather it is going to work at that point. I feared at the moment he called her that he was going to get "burned" by the relationship, or hurt. When the title sequence came up late into the show it also took me back somewhat, and of course that whole reasoning didn't fit together until the end when he wakes up again and repeats his whole day. But no matter what, through thick and thin, we are WITH them because of the natural chemistry that is created in the story. The film maker is using that most natural tendency of our desire for a positive outcome here to perfection in keeping us glued to the plot. It also comes VERY strongly into play during the moments when he is struggling to wake up and stop the process. We want to as well. I could almost feel the suffocation. I felt my breath shorten with him, and realized I was holding my breath at the one moment when he first opens his eyes.

3. I don't believe that this film is about the ethical issue of the science of taking someone's memory, just like I don't believe that the movie Alien is about space monsters. That's just a story device, and a good one. This story is all about the preciousness of the moments we have with each other and how over time those moments can erode because we forget them in the immediacy of a bad time, or we allow the grievous side of a relationship to take precedence, as when he keeps repeating to himself, and hears the doctor's voice repeating to him the phrase of their interview, "She grew tired, and wanted a change".

4. Going back to the car sequence - when he is seeing a review of his memories going past - there was always a very powerful sense of the interrelatedness of everything. The theme of strong connectedness was brought out in 2 ways in the story. There was much juxtaposition of the "facts" of their lives intertwining. Events were also tied to objects. And there was also the very strong resistance that Joel had on his bed to the computer process, seeming to "erase" all their progress so they had to start over at another point. Those story points powerfully delivered the idea that good and bad are both taken together, so that in the climactic moment in the hallway we understand why they say "Ok" to each other, and start laughing at it all. She has just summed up her life's problems of why she is so impulsive and not a good match for him. She is prone to always changing her mind and being flighty, etc. The point is strongly made, I believe that good and bad, the relationship is worth it, even knowing that not all the pieces fit together.

5. I would agree that maybe caution is warned here about leaving the film in an existential state, and that maybe this is humanism in very fine moralistic form. We could easily assess this as feel-good material and dismiss it because of secular roots, but I can see that the foundational principals of what is concluded is nonetheless scripturally sound; spiritually grounded, in that relationships, although flawed, and equally so on both ends, are still worth having. It should also be noted that the ongoing relationship is stressed, and the desire to be together is confirmed.

6. The discussion group took us down the path of pain, and bringing up pain, and the fact that so many war veterans cannot talk about their experiences even to this day. It also noted, and very astutely, that the kind of pain that a veteran might have suffered during war might be one of those kinds of things that could be desirable to erase, or eradicate from memory. I'm not sure we spent enough time on the "pain" discussion. It is in fact through the painful parts of life that we learn and grow. And I'm not so sure that a war veteran should shut out all of that pain. That pain, unfortunately for them, is still part of who they are, and part of who we are. Without that pain we could easily rush into war again, forgetting how much our true worth is, or how precious life is, or the cost involved. Our being "dumped" by a loved one can make the next relationship more cautious, yes, but oh how much more rewarding is the time that it comes together and it begins to work. I want to discuss this more and can't right now, but this area also has to do with our ability to be honest and open in the body. The Church is very much like the secular world in this, in fact maybe worse, in that we cover up the sore spots, and the weaknesses, treating them as discolorations that need to be painted over.

Another later observation on the film:

Another huge point that only became clear after the film is over, at least for me is that the Carey character Joel we see in the beginning, and again in the end upon waking (both times) is MUCH LESS of a person than the person we meet at the party when he actually did meet Winslet for the first time. He was articulate to some degree, and conversant. And how about that Huckleberry Hound thing he did, remember? He did the proverbial joke you would do with someone named Clementine, but on the train he had NO IDEA who Clementine or Huckleberry WAS. NO RECOLLECTION. And here’s the catch – those memories of Huckleberry Hound were another part of him altogether from his childhood or elsewhere, not part of his relationship that was supposed to be erased with Clementine!! The other “attached” parts of him got erased too. Therefore I'd have to conclude that the story has much more riding under it than just a relationship story, as complex as that is. It is also a confirmation that we are interconnected through many and various ways and highly complex beings, and that love and relationships are intertwined with our whole self.

I’ve heard it said, and I’m sure you can collaborate this, that the longer that people spend together in marriage, the more they actually begin to physically look like each other to some degree. The effects that we have on each other are so much more complex than selective memory blots.

When we meet Joel in the awakened state he is almost comatose, lacking depth and emotion, not being able to get beyond the word “nice”. He is thinking to himself that he always messes up with the ladies, etc. But as it turns out he wasn’t all that messed up to begin with. He was definitely severely lessened by the erasure operation. You notice that the colors are extremely muted in the very first scene (that we see twice); the banged up car, the interior of the apartment looking so normal in medium shot, the dull colors of the beach scene shot on a grey day, and the train station. And then into his life (again, as we find out) comes Tangerine, and “Caustic Blue” or whatever that color was she had in her hair. Later when they are shot in their various scenes together there is a different film stock used altogether. The overhead shot of them on the ice is very vibrant and high contrast verses the muted faster stock used for the initial outside footage. I’d say that the way that the high-contrast indoor footage in the apartment, or on the couch together, or wherever, in bed, and please notice the high colors of the sheets and the shots under the covers when they are looking at each other in that little “cave” world enclosed by those covers, is all meant to contrast with the footage “without” her, or whenever in the memory segments she is disappearing. I’d be willing to bet that if we went shot by shot we would find those differences. Kudos to the cinematographer. Of course much of that work can be done post, but it’s always better to do it with the film stock original if you can. Gives a nicer look. This would be one case where film stock (original or post) played a major role in the development and affirmation of character AND plot.

The Butterfly Effect:
The Butterfly Effect:
The Butterfly Effect:
The Butterfly Effect:
The Butterfly Effect:
The Butterfly Effect:
Uh...let's see, which one of these do I want to comment on? Ok, I'm joking. This was an ok movie, movie-wise, but I really don't want to do the Ebert thing and talk about the film conventions here. I want to get to the chase.
My summary:
Chaos theory has probably to date not been illustrated as well as this. But it is a Godless theory. It's roots are still highly existential. The resulting ethos is lonely and ultimately lives up to it's name, leading to dispair. Only a short leap away is Theology of Choice, that being that multiple miriads of millions of possible futures exist according to our choices, yet all intertwine connectively to assemble themselves in the end in the fabric that God weaves into a most perfect tapestry. The difference in these two, again, and risking redundancy, is that one is Godless, and the later is not.

On wishful thinking this movie gets an A+. It is our utmost desire to get through life without hurting anyone, and without being hurt. "If only I had..." begins a thousand sentences through life. The ability to go back and fix those things would seem marvelous. In the end our hero, played by Krutcher, sacrifices his own desires for the good of many it would seem. That's very selfless of him. In the end, though unrealistic, I think most would identify with this desire, and yet we still live with the nagging "what ifs" of normalcy until something utterly "out of the ordinary happens" to us.

The story devices of time travel and the conveniently inherited trick of "the butterfly effect" certainly highlights for us many moments that we may relate to in the icons of the bully, a moment of decision that causes pain, or destruction. Words said that either heal or destroy, and especially impotency in the reality that what we could have done but did not in the face of something bad gets played over and over in our heads. Guilt is a strong force. It can be destructive by making us inward, depressed, jaded, and bitter, or it can motivate us to see justice, become sensitive, or break through the pain of what we have done and heal it many times over by proactively making sure it does not happen to others.

While this story may be based on a Godless theory, it is not Godless in it's morality, and at least makes us think strongly about our decisions, and how important others should be to us. It does not trivialize relationships, but indeed shows us how close-knit they are, and how interrelated everything is. My own personal saying regarding reactive synthesis is, "When you throw a rock, it comes back down". Another closely related saying of my own is, "When you throw a rock into a pond, the ripples actually never DO stop". I would say that is as close to "The Butterfly Efffect" as you will get. However, I'm firmly in the God-initiated camp.

Chaos theory in and of itself cannot give us an ultimate answer. It is only one very good way of observing interatctions, not an end in itself.

Everwood - Mon. Nov. 22, 2004
I'm stealing this review from "The Watercooler" from TV Guide, because I didn't see the show, but I'm sure this is accurate and it's funny.

Everwood
I normally don't watch this every week, but I'm tuning in tonight 'cause Amy and Ephram are supposed to do it! Or, as Harold told Andy, "My daughter is about to be deflowered by your son's super-sperm!" Whose father talks like that? And how many, armed with that knowledge, would actually allow their children to spend the night together? At least we see a nervous Amy reading the hilariously titled "Guide to Getting It On" and trying to justify her decision to her best friend (who wants to wait until marriage, natch). "Call it horizontal jogging," Amy tells Hannah, "and suddenly it's no big whoop." Well, not exactly, since she chickens out when she and Ephram are finally alone in the cabin. But when he wipes away her tears and holds her close, something tells me she'll change her mind. Which, of course, she does, surrounded by flowers, candles and a flickering fire. And fathers across America vow to lock up their teenage daughters until they're 30.

The INCREDIBLES. Saw them Sat. 11/13/04.

The Incredibles were just THAT! A friend said the word funny, but I found them to be far more than just funny, no offense to my friend. And I KNOW that I've seen this movie before. Yes, that's correct, I've seen the Incredibles before they ever came onto the big screen. Do I have super powers of premonition?? No, actually, I've just read alot of comics, seen a million movies, read a truck load of science fiction novels and short stories, and am a cartoon-a-holic from the time of the 60's. That's where I've seen them before! The Incredibles combined the high art of 3D, and superlative perspective animation with the lower-grade and flatter simple animations of other types of cartoon works and cell animation to create a very rich media experience, not to mention the rockin' sound of Dolby jets, splashes, footsteps, grunts, and yells. One of the best soundtrack mixes I've ever heard. What I found most amazing about the animation was the depth of the work, as when we plunged deep into the enemy stronghold on the island, through a waterfall, and a volcanic wall of fire. The realism of the surrealism just about killed me. 3D and 2D art's marriage has not found it's equal to date! Pixar has truly come into it's own as far as the bridging of the gap between realism and animation. Awesome!

But as for the depth of the story, I usually take a note down here on most films and begin to explain how it lacked emotional complexity, or it had hyper-realistic characters whose imaginations went way too far, or, and this is the worst to me, it falls short of having any redeeming value so far as the characters' morals and ethical lives are concerned. But I cannot say that about The Incredibles. Mr. truly stuggles with being "normal", but does it in such a way that integrity shines through. His office scene with the old woman is truly touching in a very funny kind of way, and even though it's high comedy, it's also something that we totally agree with and support. We cannot help but hate the boss and his bottom line. Corporate greed, while not the center stage for the whole of the story, comes through loud and clear as needing to be changed. It makes you believe there really are good people inside every organization, and that whistle blowing is a fine upstanding characteristic. Just the very idea that the Incredibles are brought down altogether by lawsuits is enough to put me both in stiches and head-nodding at the same time. I guess that means I could pull something in my neck if I'm not careful.

But what is the "big story" here? There's always the bad guy, yes, but if we go back to where the bad guy came from we can see it is from a type of envy, and a type of false worship. He was Mr. Incredible's "biggest fan" if you recall... oops, am I giving it away? His bitterness over rejection brings his struggle full circle to absolute hatred of all that is superior. He is filled with none other than self-loathing and self-centeredness at the same time. He sums up his entire philosophy in the speech he gives to the Incredibles in their captivity. He states, "Soon I'll make my machines and inventions available to EVERYONE! Then everyone can be super! Then 'no one' will be." His plan is to bring all the super people down, put himself in their place, not really being super himself, and attaining all that power,attention, and glory by way of his own intellect use it to put everyone on the same playing field as himself, which is to say, not super at all. What a great insight into the nature of evil itself. Someone at Pixar has been doing their character homework! Not to mention philosohical archeology.

Every character had complexity. What a great job with Violet, the teanager! Wow, she was perfect. So filled with trepidation over her identity, and doubt. So sweet in her coming-of-age in the need to be recognized by boys, and yet her inability to face them. Then her turning around and changing into a confident girl who can hold her own in a conversation. Very nicely done. They did the whole thing about Mr. Incredible getting ivolved with "the other woman" in a very subtle and kindly manner, so that the end result was that we can see trust overcome the doubt of what would normally be a very hard-to-accept set of circumstances. And all of that in the midst of the hilarity of the moments, and the non-stop action and story. It had to have been a tight team to pull this movie off.

Oh, and I wanted to mention that I could tell right away who Elastigirl was. I love Holly Hunter's voice. She is so sweet.

Good stuff. Go see.

BIAS: A CBS Insider...

BIAS: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News. sic by Bernard Goldberg, 2002, Perennial

That's MEDIA plural. What an awesome book. It's about time someone with authenticity and believability took the plate for team Truth. Just got the paperback from Amazon and I'm loving it. For years I've been staring, mouth wide open almost every night between 6:30 and 7 at the idiot tube, aghast at what passes for "news". I have just not been able to believe that "no one but me" can see the glaring discrepancies, fallacies, portrayals, and overtly, even commercially biased material that they call reporting. And it's not just the words. The camera angles, the lights, the color, the backgrounds...

Like tonight I decided to watch a whole hour of McLerher Report. I did not make it through the whole hour, but I got my jolly anti-entertainment anyhow. (You know I guess I really like this stuff now, to be honest, because it's like a sport, but a negative sport like golf, you know, the more points that you get the worse your score. So I sit there and add up points for every time there is even a slightly notable bias twinge, one way or the other to be fair, and believe me it's usually one way, and then compare that with other shows I've watched. There have been some doosies.) So here is a long comparative analysis between Senator Tom Daschle and wannbe Thune going on, and then breaks in between shots of this panel of discussion folks all sitting around pontificating. But what struck me, as usual, as I'm a visual person first and foremost, was the choice of where the interviews took place, and the lighting, and the situation. Daschle was in a nursing home, he was seated at an old upright piano with the old wood showing over his left shoulder and flowers and a nice picture over his right. The lights were up brightly. Thune, however, was in a restaurant, and just over his left shoulder was a cash register; an old one with the big funky buttons that have black metal curves under them and over the other shoulder there were rows of ice cream glasses on shelves upside down and waiting to be used for customers. There's one guy resonating with the people and caring about old folks, and another guy with cash and ice cream. Here was another case as well of a media piece that was clearly backing Daschle, and gave Daschle a much more highlighted version of what he had to say about Thune's tax legislation that he pushed and help pass.

What's eerie for me is that I just read in BIAS the quickie version of the whole "Forbes’s Flat Tax" fiasco and "Bold"berg's first attempt at tackling the BIAS issue, and it sounded VERY MUCH LIKE the same story, and Daschle taking the offense and saying that such legislation was "not good for this part of South Dakota". Anyhow, about the book:

There are plenty of great laughs and pointed jabs and just plain-speaking great truth exploding out of every page. It's readable and does not pander to the intellectual; reads fast like a short and intense novel, and confirms every notion I've ever had about the whole news business. It's like he is saying, in my words as interpreting, "It's what you always suspected but no one credible has ever been able to actually say without being put in witness protection or an asylum".

This is also perfect timing for me personally. I'm co-teaching a class this spring on the methodologies in film and TV that they use to create sympathetic synthesis and disarm disbelief. It's called "Wag the Dog: Media and Methodology". We will be viewing the title film of course, but other tasty morsels include:
Network
Broadcast News
Nashville
Ed TV
The Truman Show
takes from Westwing and
various News shows

And then we will be treading on less traveled territory for most college students in the area of study of Semiotics and Mise en'Scene, psychological constructs of screen space and the theatre, and Cinematography. Sound like science? You bet. Well that's all for today. Tired. Gotta write some other stuff about other places and other things. Thanks for tuning in. READ BIAS! Great book.

My web stats tell me that over 10,000 people have been here. Who are you?! I have no comments at all to tell me who the repeat visitors are or who any new visitors are. Would you please leave a comment? Something. Anything. "Hi" is good. But an email or a link to your own blog would be GREAT!

Michael Moore has a rub bud. Better believe that he’s on a path to destruction; Bush destruction. He’s said it plain and simple. I take no offense at the idea that someone can be out to oust a regime, and I have no problem seeing that there can be differences that drive people to campaign one way or the other. That’s us; America. That’s good. What I take offense to is someone actually believing, or pretending to believe that they can take pictures, add sound, edit, overlap the pictures in the order that they want to, cut out what they don’t want, publish it and call it a documentary. In truth we all do it to some degree; there is really no such thing as a documentary. When I put the pen to this page or fingers to the keyboard as it were (pen to page? wow, I really am dating myself aren’t I?) I am essentially telling my version of the truth, just like every blogger we know.

There is a certain amount of rhetorical juggling we all do to create an atmosphere that is both believable and sellable at the same time, and the balance of those elements eventually makes us a commodity that others buy into. Therefore integrity has a lot to do with the end results of our efforts as writers, photographers, painters, musicians, columnists, and documentary film makers. However, no matter how close to reality we can get in a media form, there is always an edge of ourselves involved, and therefore if we have a following it only follows that our followers will have a like-minded position and will gravitate towards our work and nod their heads with us. That is life.

My mother, among many pseudo-culturally literate positions that she took, had a saying about churches. As a child I asked her once why there were black churches and white churches. She answered simply that, “most people gather up with those who are like themselves because they are comfortable with that.” Years later when struggling with racial issues in my own life I came to resent that and it seemed to me an excuse for segregation or bigotry. However, I have come to see now that this was not an excuse for anything, but rather simply a truthful observation. People gravitate toward what they are comfortable with.

There seem to be many who are comfortable with Michael Moore’s version of the truth and applaud it. It won the Cannes film festival and received a standing ovation there of 45 minutes in length. Please note that this is France. It seems rather odd that the country that stood for liberty and democratic values so much so that they gave us one of our greatest memorials to liberty in the statue that stands in NY harbor now stands for 45 minutes applauding a work that in “my church’s” definition is downright manipulation and distortion.

Just having seen the 7/1/04 rerun of Michael on Charlie Rose for a full hour of confrontation on the Fahrenheit film (which by the way brings up so many other images for us who lived in the time when Fahrenheit 451 was a big deal and meant so much about governmental subterfuge and loss of freedom by the individual, etc, I’ll talk about the old film in a moment as that is an important comparison – but the link is certainly not lost on us) and Charlie was certainly not soft on him about the issues, Charlie raised the specters of the details of the film and most certainly brought out the fact that the film is not based on anything more than Michael Moore’s opinions. Mike’s “church” is large, yes, and he has a large following, but it was confirmed by Charlie that he was indeed “preaching to the choir”. In response to that, Michael said that yes he was but, “my purpose in the film is for the film not to be finished by me, but by having a reaction take place whereby people who are not normally involved at all in the process of government would leave the theatre deciding to become involved.” CR: “So you mean go out and vote?” MM: “Yes”. CR: You mean go out and vote for John Kerry. MM: No, I mean go out and vote, period. CR: Against George Bush is what you mean. MM: No no, I mean just go out and get involved and vote period.

My best intuition tells me, after seeing that interview, that MM has got his foot in two different worlds and is only deceiving his self into thinking that he is truly telling all there is to tell. He actually believes that he has made a documentary and has been as close to actual truth as possible. But when cornered with his own strongly opinionated bias he tries to make out as some egalitarian with the saintly purpose of giving people enough doubt as to make their own decisions concerning the matter of Iraq and George W. I seemed to think after awhile of watching him that I could see another mouth appear, and he was speaking from two distinct different mouths, both saying very different-sounding things.

Other people can see this as well. It’s political posturing. A reviewer of a Minneapolis paper (and this is a heavily democratic town where they like things anti-Bush in general) said that the film was heavily biased. Anyone can see it. He is unabashedly anti-Bush, yet he says he’s not skewing his material to reflect that, “only relating the facts”. Please. Can’t Michael Moore simply say with great tact and flair, “Bush is horrible for the country and I don’t like him so I made this film in hopes of helping the democrats, or anyone else for that matter, win the next election so he will not be in office”? Why can’t he just say that? Why is it that what is so painfully obvious to the rest of us is so lost on one who is supposedly so well-informed?

The Notebook was a good film. No, it really was. It was a “chick flick” with good cinematography and plot structure and special effects and, well, as a man I know I can say this word…romance. There I said it. It was romantic.

But it was also fickle, much like the leading lady of the film.

Now for the hard stuff: It was formulaic because the same story of poor guy from a small town with nothing except great genuine relationships and one parent that extremely loves him for real meets rich girl who desires same but never says so out of fear of at least one dominating parental piranha who will kick her out of the family and mentally and physically and emotionally disown and destroy her if she does creates immense psychological and social tension because theirs is a true love that must be decided over between great physical odds that involves time or distance or racial difference and a pile of money has been done to death. But you know, you can do a formula film over and over again if it’s done well. This one was done fairly well. It was funny, and beautiful, and the sidekick supporting roles were great, and the people were interesting, and it was told in a novel way via retrospect from the end of their lives and contained a slight bit of mystery for awhile which we eventually figure out. It was very good acting. James Garner was his usual cool self, and his own age and physique was perfect for the failing old man, I kind of hate to say.

As for other acting moments I cannot agree it was all there. There were too many “set up” moments like when she returns in a car to see him again and the car doesn’t start and they spend the day getting reacquainted. It was just too surreal and I didn’t believe it. I WANTED to because somehow the unfinished sexual moment from earlier in their youth there in the old mansion never did quite get worked out and I would think it safe to say that we were all still emotionally and somewhat glandularly on edge waiting for a release. See, those subterranean threads of sexuality and emotional pressure really do pay off for a filmmaker who needs to string us along through the story and get us to “wait” expectantly through a whole war and a house-building-from-scratch and a false romance by a big-wig and a not-quite-as-attractive-war-widow and, well, EVERYTHING, just to get there and see them EXPLPODE in a sex scene that lasts for many many time-compressed cinema hours, and then we feel spent just like they do. Woo, that was fun I suppose. Ok, this is a review, and I hope I’m not spoiling it for you. Of course I’m not. Seeing is believing. However, I did notice that this was PG13, and I did see a young miss of about that age in the audience, and after seeing its complexity and strong content I would not take my daughter to see it. Come on people, this is an adult movie.

Ok, I’ll go off on the ratings here for just a moment. Ratings are really a poor and narrow way to judge films. Our rating system needs to be overhauled somehow. But R would have been more appropriate for this film. This is one of those cases where the only thing a PG13 means is that certain body parts are not displayed graphically, so it’s “ok”. But what are not taken account of in a story of this type are the certain parts of the “soul” that are overexposed. A thirteen year old is not going to relate to or understand the complexity and difficulty of choosing between two lives and loves, or of the need for a temporary relationship with a woman, for instance, as a means of tempering a deeper inner need, and then it becomes a “disposable” relationship because all along the war widow is proven to be a “placeholder”. I think all of us who’ve had loves and lost them have had that feeling at one time or another, wondering if the current love we have is really only there because of something we “lost” way back when, and then we wonder “what if”. I truly felt sorry for the rich guy in the end. It really wasn’t fair after all. He was not a bad guy. But a thirteen year old may misconstrue many of the deep and heavy relationships in a story like this and walk away slightly, if not drastically, disillusioned, disaffected, disappointed, or simply demoralized and jaded by the idea that maybe nothing is very certain and there is no one that can be depended on in this world. Ok, in the end true love triumphs, yes, but too much reality too early in life in a strong visual context like this in my opinion is too much for a young teen. Something simpler like “just getting to know people and be honest with them” is a great theme for the teen mind, or dependence on someone in a giving relationship, or heroism. The theme of substance verses flash can be covered in a million different ways other than this for teens. And does sleeping together prior to the true commitment of marriage ALWAYS need to stand out as an act of testing the waters? I thought maybe the true love they had was deeper than that. In fact I’m sure it was, because of the way they died.

I have to admit, the last scene was awesome and a great way to end their story together, and made up for some other more bland and not too serious movie mistakes. Altogether, it was a good film that married couples and those contemplating marriage should see. A nice “date” film, it was a good story. And I am not a chick!

DNA evidence, crime, and on being falsely accused.

From the latest today in CNN.com:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/08/10/dna.testing.crime.ap/index.html

Concerning the article on DNA evidence increasing the statute of limitations on rape crimes:

We are headed for Minority Report faster than we think (people used to say Big Brother or 1984. Now we have more updated futures in film to look at for comparisons). The "advancement" of DNA profiling has caused a huge swing in what is allowed in courts and how people are "brought to the scene of a crime" even years after the crime, all through DNA testing.

The immediate thought that scares me is, "What if someone got hold of some of my DNA, easy enough to do, and placed it at the scene of a crime (present tense that is, not a past crime of course unless they found a way to sneak my cells into the evidence box)? I could be anywhere, virtually. All you need to do is have a willing victim follow me around, unknown to me, give enough time for a crime to happen apart from someone seeing me, put a little sample of me on a victim's clothes, and Voila!, instant rapist. Or for that matter, if you got a sample of some of me (and I'd like to address the issue of WHICH tissues we are talking about here)and actually committed some sort of crime yourself and purposefully put some of my cells at the scene, then it would be a matter of a tipoff and the coppers would be on to me! This all involves DNA and crime, and does not mention which bodily cells necessarily are used for the DNA evidence. I'm assuming in a rape case they would need to be semen, but that was not mentioned in the article.

Looking to the future, though, it would not be a big leap to assume that we will be innundated with DNA profiling. We've got Craig Venter, the man who cracked the genome before the government did trying to create life now, along with a few hundred others. We've got insurance costs out the wazoo, along with medical costs. We've got terrorism and global tracking problems. Why not a universal gene bank that will take care of all that? Why not a way to "tag" everyone? If we could just keep the information from hurting someone who wanted a particular job, say, or into a part of the military, or from being used in experiments...you see the escalation that manipulation of genetics will do to us if you follow it to it's logical conclusions. Can we keep that from happening? I have no idea. I do know that eye scanning can still be fooled to some degree, and you don't have to replace your eyes to do that. So DNA match is still the most solid evidence on the planet of the individuality of a human being. It's inevitable that it will not be left alone.

I'm not frightened really. I'm not being an alarmist and saying, "call out the inquisition and get rid of all this science!" In fact, I don't think there is a thing we can do about it, to be honest with you. Nothing.