A Deliciously Evil Man

From my Dad: "You know, Gisbourne is an idiot, but even he should knock off the Sheriff for being such a [censored, but having to do with uncomfortable anatomy]."

Sherwood Calling

So, after a long work day after a long week after a long film festival, I finally drift home. The backyard, once landscaped, is lush with undisciplined life, and the birds roosting in a mostly dead tree have left some presents on my deck. The kitchen door argues, but finally bangs opens enough to allow me into the chaos strewn inside. Bag dropped, slippers on, and the day’s laundry already bucketed and escorted to the basement, I begin preparing for a long night of cleaning and blog updating. The festival report isn’t going to finish itself.

Then something pushes me to check the front porch. Sure enough, a box is waiting for me. What’s that rule about best-laid plans, again?

They weren’t supposed to arrive until the following week, but the new additions to my DVD collection are welcome: a low-key television western with Sam Elliott, a high school noir flick, and Buster Keaton’s last two silent movies. One more, though, ruins any best intentions for the evening--Robin of Sherwood (with Merries) has arrived.

When I think of Robin of Loxley, two screen personas spring to mind—Errol Flynn’s iconic swashbuckler, and the mythological Robin of the Hood. Back in the mid-1980s, when the BBC planned yet another version of England’s most lasting legend, writer Richard Carpenter concocted a strange mix of realism and mysticism--a young, misfit band of roughens finding a cause beyond simple survival, guided by a shaman of Celtic legend. Robin isn’t a disgraced noble--he’s a freeman whose freedom is stolen by the Norman Sheriff of Nottingham, a deliciously evil man with a hilariously horrendous temper. Little John is a man bewitched by an English lord fallen into the dark arts, and his duel of a meeting with Robin on the log is more deadly than the cheerfully playful one of tradition. Marian is a headstrong young woman as at home in the woods as surrounded by stone, so her fate as a pawn of the political church--represented by the Sheriff’s brother--is not one she accepts. Will Scarlet has become as heated as his name--in a devastating entrance in a prison pit, his features muted by shadow, Will tells the tale of his wife’s horrific death, of how everything he loved in this world was cruelly ripped from him. When he growls, “My name was Will Scathelock. It’s Scarlet now,” the never-absent hatred glows from within. A Saracen Muslim named Nasir joins the band, rarely speaking but wielding two wicked swords and a wry sense of humor. Then there’s Herne the Hunter--the aforementioned shaman, wandering around Sherwood granting Robin sage advice, weaving some naturalistic magic, and wearing Bambi on his noggin.

Tuck, on the other hand, is Tuck. Some things never should change.

For a nearly 25-year-old series, Robin of Sherwood is timeless. Clannad’s synthetic music doesn’t sound dated, only otherworldly. The strength of the series comes from the little things: the quiet camaraderie between the Merry Men, the affection between Robin and Marian, the give-and-take between the Sheriff and the childlike obstinacy that is Guy of Gisburne. These things, combined with unpredictable stories respinning the legendary tales in a different color, made Robin of Sherwood a series I never forgot.

Or maybe it was simply Sherwood.

When I reached my 8th year, my family moved from a Bill Cosby-like neighborhood filled with children my age to a small, quiet, dead-end street surrounded by woods. The youngest boys were in high school and didn’t want to have anything to do with the goofy, awkward new kid. The woods, then, became my friend. During the spring, after the snows finally melted, I would grab my cowhide backpack rescued from Dad’s attic and disappear into the wood for an hour or two, following the streams to map little islands and natural oddities like the Wooden Arch (that lasted all of two years), the hidden patch of Christmas wreath plants, the waterfall married with the crumbled dam, the grove of twisted and brittle swamp trees carpeted with fern. Although I never pretended I was Robin, I shared the comfort the fictional Merries felt within the underbrush and leaves. Hidden away from the rush of modernity, I discovered more than just a few personal landmarks in two acres of seasonal swamp and hillside woodland; the natural world became open to me for the first time in my life, and I’ve been drawn to it ever since.

These days seem further and further removed from those times, but I’m still drawn to the woods at Gambrill Park, where there’s a spot where all the mechanical noise can’t reach and true silence prevails. You can learn much from silence.

As I watch Robin and his crew crash through Sherwood, playing gracious hosts to sometimes unwilling guests and waylaying lords and knights, I’m a bit envious. Their time in the wood is perpetual and their life natural, even if forced on them by the official crimes of their time. I only get to return as my time permits. Maybe that’s why Robin of Sherwood left an impression on me.

Or maybe I simply had a crush on Marian.



Yep. That was it.

Living It Like Buster

Something silly to share. I tend to play this when the stress gets too hot, and all I want is a simple smile.



The clip is from one of Buster Keaton's 1930s Educational Films shorts, called Grand Slam Opera. In retrospect, that random dance, with Buster switching styles whenever the unseen orchestra changes, means much more than just a gag.

When the silent film era suddenly ended in 1928, Keaton signed a contract with MGM, his first real studio. Until that point, Buster had worked as an independent, creating such classic silent comedies as The General, Sherlock Jr., and The Navigator. But The General--today considered one of the greatest films of all time--was a financial and critical flop when released in theaters. When Steamboat Bill Jr. also lost money, Keaton's producer Joseph Schenck convinced him to retreat to the security of MGM. The looming talkies worried many silent stars, and Keaton was in no position to take a risk.

Although the partnership initially produced another silent classic in The Cameraman, Buster soon discovered that MGM saw him as nothing but an employee. Buster never directed a feature again, nor did he have much input in the films in which he starred. By the time Keaton made his first sound film--the abysmal Free and Easy--he had become nothing but a square peg, forced into the round holes of "snappy" dialog-driven comedies, always portraying the dimwitted fool "Elmer," while the heroes of his silent classics had redeemed themselves with their ingenuity and tenacity. The complete loss of creativity, combined with his already-deteriorating home life, took away whatever joy he had left. He had already lost his wife's affection; now he lost his art. Buster essentially lived on the studio lot in a bungalow supplied by MGM, away from his beloved sons. His drinking escalated dangerously, to the point where he was finishing off a bottle of booze daily. In his last MGM film--What, No Beer?, the last of a trilogy of pairings with up-and-comer Jimmy Durante--Buster is embarrassingly inebriated, his eyes glazed and hollow, his words slurred, his once-sharp timing muddled. His wife had divorced him by then, taking everything but his paycheck. Soon he didn't even have that. Although Buster's sound films, in spite of their low quality, made more money than his landmark silents ever did, studio head Louis B. Mayer fired him on the final day of shooting.

That was January of 1933. Exactly five years after he had signed with one of the most successful Hollywood studios as one of the great comedians of film, Buster Keaton had nothing left.

The next couple of years probably should have killed Keaton. No major producing firm would hire him, and he bumbled into a second marriage to a nurse who probably did more harm than good. Several of his close friends died suddenly, including his mentor Roscoe Arbuckle, punching another hole in Keaton's life. In his last days, however, Arbuckle had worked with Educational Films, the cheapest studio in town, and now they offered Buster work. With the vaudeville stage fading and no where else to turn, Keaton took the job and began churning out extremely low-budget, sound two-reelers. But his alcoholism got worse.

In the middle of October 1935, with his second marriage sliding toward divorce, Keaton began drinking heavily and wouldn't stop. An old family friend, Dr. John Shuman, took him to a hospital while Buster was unconscious. The next morning, Keaton's alcoholic withdrawal was so great that he was restrained in a straitjacket. He stayed in the hospital for two weeks. Shuman and other doctors explained to Buster how the drinking was killing him, and if he continued, he wouldn't live much longer.

According to Tom Dardis's Keaton: The Man Who Wouldn't Lie Down, "Buster listened calmly and did not drink for the next five years."

Keaton returned to Educational Films sober and anew. Grand Slam Opera was the second short he made after his hospital stay, and it's the only one in which Buster has a writing credit. His timing, his energy, his creativity...in a bargain basement short, mostly lost to time and memory, Keaton's joy in creation is completely alive on screen.

Educational Films would go bankrupt the following year, but Keaton would find more work back at MGM, as an anonymous gag writer. He gave away his famous routines to the likes of the Marx Brothers, Abbott and Costello, and Red Skelton, who remade Keaton's two MGM silents as sound films, but did them Buster's way. Most importantly, Buster Keaton would meet Eleanor Norris, a young dancer at the studio. Despite the differences in their ages, the two would marry in May 1940, and would live happily together until the end of Buster's life 25 years later. By then, audiences had rediscovered Keaton's silent features and shorts, and Keaton lived the last years of his life recognized as one of the giants of comedy.

Buster's Educational Films work mostly has been forgotten, and those who have seen the shorts call them "shoddy," "beneath Keaton," and "embarrassingly bad." But the 16 two-reelers Keaton made over those three years perhaps are among the most important of his life--they gave him work when he needed it, and when he was ready, allowed him to unearth the talent he nearly destroyed with the bottle. Few of us have traveled the road that Buster Keaton did, and for a time, that road was hopelessly perilous. Like the heroes he conjured for his silents, Keaton never gave in, despite the despair and melancholy that wrapped his existance. Even when hope left him, he continued on. When I watch that clip, made so soon after the darkest time of his life, I remember Keaton's dance lesson.

Swinging on the devil's dance floor? Buster did, and survived. And he's still dancing.

Maryland Film Festival '07, Day 2: Trippy Temp

Just got back, so this is a placeholder post until I have time and alertness to write something more substantial.

Man in the Dark--This year's traditional 3-D film actually beat House of Wax as the first studio, two-projector movie...by a day or two. A potboiler with some nice depth of field and 3-D effects, wonky movie science, and "snappy" one-liners that provided more entertainment than the film itself. Just a fun time.

Syndromes and a Century--Storytelling without a story. A highly visual film that follows a number of characters in a rural army base, and then suddenly switches to an urban, sterile hospital setting with the same characters going through the same plot swings, but from different perspectives. Still not sure what it was all about, but genuinely affect still.

Animation Shorts--11 short films of varying styles, tone, and techniques. The first was the funniest: "Ujbaz Izbeneki Has Lost His Soul" is a claymation work about a young man showing up in hell after losing his soul because, well, he loses things. Much to the devil's distress, Ujbaz is still losing things....The worst was "The Ballad of Mary Slade," a generally well-done short about the tragic downfall of a young woman as retold by the insects who have come to, um, consume her. Too gruesome for my taste. Overall, a solid selection with one very powerful work ("Everything Will Be OK") and only one music video to be found (a problem that has developed from past festivals).

Golden Days--A behind-the-scenes documentary about the experience of The Damnwells, a self-made indie band who signs a major record deal with Epic, spends a year waiting for the recorded album to come out, and then gets dropped without a release. Far from a VH-1 Behind the Music special, Golden Days features no cataclysmic climax featuring tragedic or excess; instead, the film shows a band still discovering who they are and how they've grown stronger from the experience rather than unravel from it. The final scene shows The Damnwells performing on stage, opening for and then performing with The Fray, another indie act Epic kept and promoted to two million dollar sales. The Fray insisted on keeping The Damnwells as their opening act; "we're fans." It's refreshing to see a music documentary where the music does pull the band through.

That's all for now. More detail later.

Maryland Film Festival '07, Day 1: Of Changes, Wanted or Not

Prelude

On this morning, a workday morning, I awoke at my normal 6 a.m., stumbled down the hallway, fed the finches, shuffled into the bath, and got as far as turning the hot water knob before realizing that the first screening at the Maryland Film Festival didn’t start until the early afternoon. I suddenly had time.

So, I commenced to lose track of it.

I ran some errands. I puttered around the house. I paid my mortgage, restocked my CDs and DVDs, and e-mailed a very special welder of the latest cattle prods. Then, while reading some online news sites, I looked down at my computer clock: 11:15 a.m. No problem; the first movie didn’t start until 1:30, and although it takes me at least an hour to get to the Charles Theatre, I still could leave at noon and be there in plenty of time. I just needed to clean up first....

And as I stepped back into the bath, my phone rang; a freelancer for a major project had an urgent question. I quickly answered, and because she’s a former coworker, we gabbed some more, catching up. Feelin’ good, I hung up, cleaned up, and finally got to the car.

It’s 12:15, and I still have to pick up some cash. By the time I finally get on the road, I’ve got one hour to make the movies.

This happens every year. Every. Year.

American Fork

With independent filmmaking, projects are connected, and one success can birth lesser-known but worthy siblings. Producer Jeremy Coon helped writer/director/star Jared Hess create the cult fave Napoleon Dynamite three years ago. Coon and much of that film’s crew then helped make Napoleon first assistant director Tim Skousen’s own work, The Sasquatch Dumpling Gang, which features a cameo by Hess and showed at the MFF last year. One of the main actors of that effort, Hubbel Palmer, then wrote and starred in another Coon production--American Fork.

Like Napoleon Dynamite, American Fork centers on the travails of a gentle lost soul. In this case, Tracey Orbison is an overweight grocery clerk who writes (good) poetry in his notebook while irking out a life in a dead-end town. Living at home with his depressed mother and stuffed-animal-loving sister, Tracey is stuck in a cycle of trying to loose weight and failing at passing the driver’s license exam. Then, one day, he attends a play at the urging of his well-meaning boss (Bruce McGill). There, overbaked actor Truman Hope (William Baldwin, in a delicious turn) dazzles Tracey with his bad acting, and Tracey quickly signs up for Hope’s class. But when Hope eventually lets Tracey down, our hero decides to become a mentor for the teenaged hooligan friends of new coworker Kendis. Bad decision, but before it ends, Tracey finds redemption, accomplishment, and, most importantly, a sense of peace, told wonderfully in a poem.

Although American Fork shares Napoleon Dynamite’s themes and character-based humor, it avoids the episodic nature and greater absurdist minimalism of its predecessor. Instead, as written by Palmer and directed by Chris Bowman, American Folk remains a very human film, despite some goofy sequences and outlandish jokes. Palmer’s performance, propelled by his melodious voice, anchors the picture, creating a believable axis around which the story orbits. The result is a compelling little comedy where the humor accents the characters, allowing the more saccharine touches to become genuine and smoothing over some predictable plot points. Some bits, especially in the middle where Tracey hooks up with Kendis’s crew, stretch the balance between the off-the-wall humor and human fable, but Tracey’s climatic poem makes all forgivable.

Just the perfect kind of little picture to start the festival.

After the film, Palmer and Bowman answered questions from the audience, revealing that American Fork was shot in the town in Utah where Palmer grew up and based the story. Many of the basic situations that Tracey found himself in were inspired by Palmer’s life, which probably is how the story discovered its more affecting traits.

Intermission

After the screening, I had an hour to kill. I found out two things.

One: Don’t buy a S’mores Crepe unless they give you a plate. Two handi-wipes and countless napkins still didn’t clean up the mess (and wound up with a sticky spot on my nose). In sucking down the tasty concoction before it wound up in a puddle in my lap, I felt like Tracey during one of his stress-fueled gorges. Next time, I'll stick (groan) with my butterscotch crepe.

The crepe place has been next to the Charles Theater for a few years now, but it's expanded a bit to include a small eating and waiting area. No tables, but a nice shelf-style bar along the window, with a cushioned bench seat running along back wall just behind it. I'm off in the corner, frantically wiping off the marshmallow and chocolate into the trash can, when I happen to glance at the side wall next to me. There's a door, which I assume leads to the playhouse next door, but surrounding it and covering the wall are keys--dozens and dozens of keys hanging each on their own hook, running from floor to ceiling. Behind me, a customer discovers that the keys are the idea of the owner's art student son. I'm too busy staring at it, smiling at its simplicity.

Two: The Maryland Film Festival has grown even from last year. Usually, the majority of the films are screened at the Charles Theatre’s five screens, with an odd showing at another theater nearby. This year, they have three additional screens--one at the MICA center and two just across the bridge at the University of Baltimore, where my next film was showing. 'Course, I didn't notice that until I actually looked at the ticket 20 minutes before the movie started.

Every. Year.

I wander a bit, meeting a statue of Edgar Allen Poe--looking for all the world like an inebriated Lincoln holding a ciggie--when I finally notice the UB Student Center across the street and climb the glass-enclosed stairwell to its fifth floor theater. Where the main screening room at the Charles was nearly pitch dark, the center’s theater is completely white and modern, except for a pure parquet floor and a low wood stage below the small hanging screen. From a cavern to an art gallery, only this one has one picture....

Time and Tide

In 2002, two filmmakers joined a group of 60 New Zealanders returning to their homeland of Tuvalu, a small Pacific Island nation that achieved notoriety for selling their international Internet domain of “.tv” to a start-up dotcom company for $50 million. Many have never seen the island, and even the oldest have not returned since leaving 15 years before.

What they find is a communal culture struggling with its newfound Western capitalism. The capital town is overwhelmed with people and trash, and the rising sea is rapidly overwhelming what little land the island holds.

Despite its themes of globalization and global warming, Time and Tide is a humanistic documentary about cultures as well. The film interviews both the visitors and residents, discovering how Tuvalu has experienced firsthand the effects of change. Some of the visitors ride to one’s childhood home, only to find that it’s become a massive trash heap because Tuvalu has no other place to put it. Residents talk about losing Tuvalu’s tradition of sharing while establishing an economy to raise money to send their children elsewhere for schooling. Two weeks before they leave, the visitors take a trip to an inlet island, where they find happiness in a more traditional settlement. Until some realize that the lagoon used to be their own village, on dry land less than two decades before.

Without a pulpit, Time and Tide instead preaches with the people living through the experience. Humor and joy is mixed with an undercurrent of dread about Tuvalu’s future, and the message is obvious that this little country’s future could be ours as well. The message is quiet, but sent with more finality and honesty than anything Al Gore could deliver.

Fortunately, the film will not be restricted to festivals. The directors Julie Bayer and Josh Salzman said that Time and Tide will be shown on PBS this month. Needless to say, I recommend it.

Missed Today: Bobcat Goldthwait’s raunchy comedy and third film Sleeping Dogs Lie, presented by John Waters.

Maryland Film Festival '07: Preview

This Friday, a personal, annual tradition will be reprised: For three days, I’ll attend the Maryland Film Festival in Baltimore, seeing a hodgepodge of little-seen independent features, off-the-wall short films, cult cinema, and the occasional documentary. As a self-proclaimed film nut, my yearly pilgrimage (well, driving back and forth on I-70 each morning) is something I probably should have done sooner.

Back in 2001, I first learned of the existence of the "MFF," which, like me, was nearly new to the festival circuit. Begun in 1999, the festival was housed entirely at the Charles Theatre, a restored movie house in the revitalizing art district across the railroad gridwork of Penn Station. Originally a cable car barn and later a ballroom, the 108-year-old, brown-brick building with two-story arched glass windows was gutted and expanded to five movie screens plus a little lobby. The festival was small, giving special emphasis to Baltimore filmmakers and the city’s reputation as a purveyor of strange cinema.

In other words, just my size.

By a month, I missed the 2001 festival--which featured such works as The American Astronaut, Four Dogs Playing Poker, Bill Plympton’s latest feature Mutant Aliens, the documentary Mr. Smithereen Goes to Washington, and the cult horror gore classic 2000 Maniacs (shown at the Bengies Drive-In and featuring a panel discussion with its director Herschell Gordon Lewis)--but I made plans for the following year, even though my life and work had completely changed by that point. On the early afternoon of May 3, I stepped into the Charles to see my first truly independent film, a movie with no distributor or bright financial future, made only because its creators coerced its existence against all common sense. The film was Body Drop Asphalt, a South Korean Jekyll-and-Hyde of a romantic comedy that first tried my patience and then propelled me on a visual, pop musical feast. I’ve been hooked ever since.

The Maryland Film Festival and its relatives around the country give a special gift to audiences: They provide an outlet for the real artistic film, one ill-made for profit. No where else can you see short films in vibrant abundance, nor will you see many of these features on the big screen anytime soon. To me, the festival is the chance to see something unusual, unexpected, and individualistic, and then meet the people behind the creation. Every year, Baltimorean cult giant John Waters presents a fringe film of his liking, while actors, directors, and producers attend others’ showings over the weekend in addition to their own presentations. They, too, are film fans.

This year’s festival is an odd one: Short of some truly standout features, I originally thought it was going to be an off year. The now-traditional Saturday 3-D and Sunday silent with the Alloy Orchestra still are intact, but the Comedy Shorts program--guaranteed worthwhile entertainment--is weirdly absent. Yet, my own schedule still boosts nine planned viewings, with a couple of others possibly in the offing given budget and ambition. My choices:

Friday

American Fork (2007). A gentle and naive grocery store clerk enrolls in an acting class, which in turn inspires him to mentor his dead-end friends. Things, however, take an unexpected, dark turn. A black comedy co-starring William Baldwin as the overdone acting class instructor and produced by Jeremy Coon of Napoleon Dynamite and The Sasquatch Dumpling Gang.

Time and Tide (2006). A somewhat short documentary about two friends who return to their indigenous homeland of the Pacific Ocean island nation of Tuvalu.

Saturday

Man in the Dark (1953). This year’s 3-D film was the first to use processed-projected background plates, creating an unusual depth-of-field. The film is best known for its roller coaster climax, finishing off a noir story of a former gangster who agrees to undergo experimental brain surgery to erase his criminal tendencies. Unfortunately, his former colleagues want one very important piece of information from him that he no longer knows, and they’ll stop at nothing to get it....

Syndromes and a Century (2006). A highly-acclaimed Thai film featuring two stories of courtship and love in two different time-periods, one inspired by the story of the director’s parents. The film, however, apparently an emotionally visual experience in addition to gentle, quiet storytelling. Can’t wait.

Animated Shorts. One of the two short programs I see every festival. This year’s feature 12 shorts, none of which I’ve read about, because I enjoy seeing these things unscathed by preparation. Usually, an eclectic mix of style, technique, and tone.

Golden Days (2006). A fly-on-the-wall documentary about a self-made indie band nearly torn apart by the major record label deal they somehow manage to land.

Sunday

Nosferatu (1922). The Alloy Orchestra, a three-man musical ensemble using an “outrageous assemblage of peculiar objects,” has created new scores for more than 20 silent films. Since the 2003 festival, the Alloy Orchestra performs one of their pieces with the film in question every Sunday morning. This year, the silent classic is F.W. Murnau’s classic vampire film. I’m normally not a fan of horror, but I adore the silent German Impressionistic filmmaking, and Murnau’s Sunrise (shown at the Charles before with the Alloy) and The Last Laugh are part of my home collection. Some films you just have to see, regardless of personal taste.

Domino Effect Shorts. With the absence of the Comedy Shorts program, I’m left with parsing out what I might like from the creatively-titled, but telling little program descriptions. This one features “a dark yet playful ensemble of highly visual shorts.” Really, that’s all they tell us outside of the basic plot descriptions.

Sound and Vision Shorts. Nearly music video more than film, these five shorts should be a fun and exhilarating way to end the festival, especially with a musical tribute to the Atari 2600. (!)

Despite my previous stillborn attempts, I hope to drop in each evening with a report of the day’s films and other activities. Unheralded, unpredictable, and otherwise, the Maryland Film Festival is a once-a-year chance to see once-in-a-lifetime cinema, and it’s long past time I shared it.

The Distant Shore

As the plane taxis to the runway, an innocent voice asks, “Are we going to the clouds?”

“Yes, we’re going to the clouds,” answers her father. I never knew.

In my childhood, my parents preferred to drive wherever our holidays resided, seeing all the tourist traps and historical landmarks along the way. I’ve only flown a few times in my life, and in my first real business trip, it was a necessity. After a long and busy weekend, I was heading home.

As St. Louis rapidly shrinks behind us, its sliver of an arch looking more and more like a wicket by the riverside, what appears as mist gently wraps around the plane. The ride suddenly buckles and bounces, not a lot but enough to grip the armrests just a little bit harder. The little girl in front of me giggles. I look out the window again. The mists are still swirling, but open air surrounds the wing. Past that probably by miles, the billowing surface of a cloud is slipping by, with sunlight softly breaking through. So, this is what it feels like to be a bird.

Suddenly, we’re free.

I look back to see a towering wall of a single cloud, Moher standing guard on an airy ocean. At its foot, more clouds peel away, streaming out to blanket the earth far below. The cirrus is stripped, pulled cotton forming ghostly fjords. The setting sun is hidden but tints the sky with dusk. And all I can think of is a song.

Lay down
Your sweet and weary head
Night is falling
You have come to journey's end
Sleep now
And dream of the ones who came before
They are calling
From across a distant shore

In Hollywood, from the early silents to today’s blockbusters, heaven often is depicted simply as lost loved ones hanging out above the clouds. They can watch us, the living, continue on; all they have to do is part the mist to see. When Annie Lennox wrote her song for Peter Jackson’s film, she didn’t write about the glory of battle or the triumph of humanity over ultimate evil. She wrote about the quiet end to the struggle, not of any war, but of life’s weary walk. As I gaze out the airplane porthole, no angels or spirits wander along this shore, but I understand why movie producers of yesteryear would want to believe so.

I think of Virginia Tech, of the road rage incident that claimed a couple’s life just down the road from where I live. I think of a local family found dead in their homes and the mother still missing, her urgent police poster still adorning the doors of coffee shops and stores. I think of a little girl with cancer, for whom another coffee shop is gathering anxious donations to pay for the medical treatment her parents can’t afford. I think of a lonely man, barricading himself in a liquor store at midday, and then burning everything down around him rather than surrendering. I think of the employees and shop owners watching everything they’ve worked to build become ash in moments. I think of a hundred horses wasting away in a field, because their owner loves them but doesn’t know how. I think of all that and more that has happened in the past two months, and I wonder where the madness ends.

When we’re born, we depend on our parents and friends. When we leave home, we muddle our way through, using the lessons we’ve learned and learning even more. Some people never close their eyes, but some people simply live to exist, never wanting to think of the meaning, much less the end. The prospect is too frightening.

The movies show us a fantasy, one where life has a clear rhyme, where injustices are repaid, crimes solved, evil vanquished in kind. Small wonder that their heaven is even cleaner. But our lives don’t have a screenwriter arranging for the fated romance, a director calling for the sunrise. We write our own script, character-driven and epic all at once. Maybe there is fate, but the choices still are ours.

Sometimes, the easy way is to shut the door, lock the deadbolt, and go to bed. The world carries on, though, with all its pain, hurt, and enmity. People make it so, as do those too frightened for nothing more than well-intentioned words.

Nobody is looking down from the clouds. I’ve seen their emptiness. Everyone we need to see is right here, souls both lonely and alive.

Night is beginning to fall. Far below on the patchwork earth, houses and towns switch on their street lamps. The lights are orange, like a hundred small fires together against the night.

What's the First to Go, Again?

Netflix, that infamous online DVD rental store, does a very neat thing for members: They keep track of very single movie, television, or oddity rented and returned. On one of my slower days, I’m gazing at my list. I’ve been a member since 2001, so it’s a long list. But I remember every single movie, episode, and oddity…except that one.

Strange Impersonation?

What’s a Strange Impersonation? Other than a bad Rich Little routine, I mean.

I go online, check the Internet Movie Database. The plot rings a bell, but not much else. So I look up a review or three. Vague outlines begin to appear, but they’re blurred by bad camerawork and poor developing. One review has a picture, of a blonde woman ironclad in a stiff Forties suit, severe blonde pompadour, and horn-rimmed eyeglasses. The blur refocuses a bit—I remember the scientific accident, a jealous assistant, the vengeful lead heroine, a misunderstood beau, a convoluted setup…but that’s as far as it gets.

For the life of me, I can’t remember how it ends.

Sigh.

This is what happens, right? First the eyesight (which faltered before puberty, actually), then the old brain pan springs a few leaks. I’ve never forgotten a movie, even ones I wish I could forget. Some are welcome houseguests, others are burned in with a brand. Except this one.

Yes, Strange Impersonation is back in the queue. I swear old age is a conspiracy.

Of Editors and Rebels

I was one of the Star Wars generation, the group of kids who were still kids when the original, first movie came out 30 years ago next month. It’s hard to explain how that film affected us, even that famous and fabulous first scene. Imagine seeing for the first time that small transport suddenly streaking over our heads, fleeing the impossibly huge Star Destroyer running it down, all the while John Williams's trumpeting score erupting in echoes around us. From Luke and Leia’s daring swing across the chasm in the depths of the Death Star, to Han's “negotiation” with Greedo, from Vader’s first menacing appearance to Ben Kenobi’s sacrifice--now pieces of pop culture, they once were simply a story told well. All the way to the end, when the center of mechanical evil suddenly bursts into fragments of light, all by the hand of one boy trusting in himself. No doubt, Star Wars is a great adventure, but the film is one of those rare works where everything--characters, story, music, eye candy--combine to do more than entertain. As Luke found his own way, the film made children believe they could, too. And for adults, it uncovered a bit of their own missing childhood.

I just wanted to know what the hey happened to Biggs.

Like many other kids, I clamored for the Star Wars toys: playsets and action figures, ships and games. Because I’m a bit of bookworm, I also wanted the books, and one of the first ones was the movie picture book--a toddler’s retelling embellished with movie stills. And there, near the beginning, was a picture:



Hey, I knew who that was! That was that guy who was the last to get blown up in the Death Star trench run! The one whose death made Luke seem slightly put out! What was Biggs doing on Tatooine?

Of course, when I read the novelization ghostwritten by Alan Dean Foster, I found out. Biggs was an old buddy of Luke’s, and at the very beginning of the story, he had come back to say goodbye. Novelizations usually are based off of the original script, before the film receives its final edit. Many times, scenes that seemed crucial on paper become extraneous on celluloid, and they’re cut and cast aside. They live on, however, where they started--in words.

Because of that picture, I knew even at my preteen age that the scenes had been filmed. It was the first time I knew anything about deleted scenes, and that knowledge began a lifelong obsession about them. I love to see what might have been and what justifications the editor or director used in removing them from the finished story. In a strange way, it probably led me to my career as a book editor--trying to figure why some things work and others don’t, why a piece of information that originally seemed so important suddenly has outgrown its need, long before the narrative is made public.

A age or so later, I read that the Biggs scenes still existed, and I hoped that one day I could finally see them. Thirty years after Star Wars surprised everyone, I have. Whoever dirtiejon is, I owe him and, by extension, YouTube a debit of gratitude. Enjoy:

Poetic Silents

In the living room, under the table, sits a book saved from childhood. Its jacket gone, its cover slightly bent, the binding with faded gold lettering weak from age. Open it. Inside, hundreds, thousands of stills and portraits, three decades’ worth, black and white and staring out frozen or posing dramatically, with little explanation other than a name. Silent, like the films they show.

Open it.

In another era’s theater, the lights dim. From everywhere comes a crash of pipes and whistles, and a bright light appears at the foot of the stage. The organ rises, where it belongs, with an older man playing by inspiration and tradition. The audience is enthralled and applauding; the movie hasn’t yet begun.

The fairy tale film pretending but doing it well preaches of love and acceptance. Modern melodrama done up like old, accompanied by the strings and winds of an orchestra.

In the classroom, a boy among others hears the projector cough and whir, and soon a flicker appears of a mountain, people in single file winding up the pass like ants. One falls and remains still. Later, when the little man makes the rolls dance a gig, the boy can’t help but laugh.

Open it.

The groom by duty strides down the middle of the road, leading to the only woman he wants. Behind him unknowingly a horde of brides, wanting anything but love, pursues and gathers speed. Soon, he sees, and he is running like a madman. He becomes a blur.

The dashing buccaneer laughs in triumph from the main mast, betrayed pirates swirling in frustration below. All in ancient color.

The wife cowers in the corner of the tram, looking away. The husband, horrified at what he did and what he may lose, stands over her, his eyes never leaving. They remain still, but the tram slips from woods to town to city.

The woman lies prone on the ice flow, senseless from misery. Her baby dead, her reputation gone, her new family betrayed, everything lost, she has given herself to the storm. The river rushes heedless toward the falls, while forgiveness jumps from ice block to ice block after her.

Three women, never trusting, drift like fragments of ghosts in the desert, stumbling from the body of the man who loved all. One plots to destroy, another hates. The third knows, and struggles against hopelessness.

He is innocent, and the girl knows now. She is there, in the projection room, after he awoke from a dream. He does not know what to do, so he looks to the screen for inspiration.

Open it.

The girl kisses him; he never smiles, but the joy is in every movement. The couple rediscovers their love in the vows of another, and he cries to her for forgiveness. The lost baby brings out the women’s better natures. The tramp thinks her note is for him. The disgraced doorman is on his knees in the washroom. The daredevil man hangs periously from the clock.

Open it.

Still images made fluid, wildly fluid. Not fiction but memory, burned forever. Tinted or monochrome, scratched and worn, but still moving, dancing, laughing, crying, living. Living. Living.

They're Hangin' at the BMMB

It occurs to me that I have other reviews reclining over at the B-Movie Message Board, aka the BMMB. Since I'm not going to have Internet access for a few days, head on over there and witness some serious gushing about Equilibrium, some serious hurtin' over Shatter, and some serious self-consciousness in praising Bubba Ho-Tep. Hey, there might be a pop quiz someday.

Incidentally, I wrote two of those reviews after seeing them in the theater. The only other time I did that? Brick.

Hager Haunted No More!

Even a little good news is still good.

When I saw the ruins of the Hager Drive-In this past weekend, I got worried. A friend had told me about the act with the inflatable screen, but what I saw made me think something had gone awry. At home, I got even more worried: their website was down, even though the one for the Hager Cineplex was still active. Luckily, the cineplex site included an e-mail address for the drive-in, and the resultant worrywart missive captured a happy response.

I'll not post it here, since it was a private communication, but the gist is good: the crumbled ticket booths actually represent progress on renovating the drive-in, and although nothing really everlasting will be constructed for a couple of years because of various zoning issues, a permanent steel screen tower rising 80 feet should arrive in a few weeks--probably one of the reasons why the theater hasn't opened yet. (Oh, and the website is being overhauled by a professional, and "it will ROCK.")

In other words, that golden marquee will be alone no longer.

Huzzah!

Virginia Tech

Sometimes, you wish it were all a movie.

You wish that the people who died were acting. You wish that you could rewrite the script, that you could add a hero to stop the madness, that you could change the plot an hour earlier.

But the shuttle still explodes, the plane still flies into the tower. And one morning, one student destroys the lives of many others.

A family member goes to Virginia Tech. On this day of all days, he skipped class and spent the morning in town. Thank God for small favors. A coworker awaits the list, hoping for safety of old friends who went to school at Tech and stayed to teach. My prayers and thoughts are with them, the families, and the survivors.

We watch the violence on screen, both wide and small, where soldiers and foreign enemies, murderers and vigilantes, crime syndicates and cops, heroes and villains all rain fire. It’s exciting, it’s entertainment.

One survivor said the shooter “had a very serious but very calm look on his face.”

We live in a connected world. We touch someone, and that touch migrates to others. Throw a pebble in the ocean and birth a wave. The violence we cause rings out and wounds. Someone loses five loved ones in the tower. Her friends see her grief and share it.

Today is a day to share. Solace is necessary, needed, either in thought or action. We live in a connected world. Touch.

REVIEW: Slapstick of Another Kind

(Note: I actually wrote this movie review for the BMMB, but I always felt it was overbaked. Now, with Vonnegut's passing, I thought this might be a good time to post a review of one of the (justifiably) lesser known film adaptations of his work, especially of one I discussed specifically this past weekend. You'll also see I used "loving sadness": When I wrote So It Goes, using that again just felt right. This review is the new, improved version; you can read the long-winded one here.)

“I was born in 1922, and I call my generation of writers the class of 1922. This would include Gore Vidal and James Jones and others all born around then. We are the last generation of North American writers to be inspired by other novels rather than movies--Norman Mailer, John Updike, we wrote book books, and just thought that a movie sale was found money. Now young writers write books intending to be movies. But I never did that.”
--Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

When authors sell the movie rights for their works, it’s the studios that actually make the devil’s bargain. Although each novel comes with a built-in audience, that audience is harder to please than, say, the stereotypical teenager who’s never cracked open any book on their own, much less one translated for the screen.

Therefore, it’s ironic that Kurt Vonnegut Jr.--a classic “unfilmable” author if there ever was one--has had not one, but two artistically successful theatrical films that both he and his fans are happy with: Slaughterhouse-Five and Mother Night. But Vonnegut didn’t completely escape unscathed. Back in 1982, writer/director/producer Steven Paul somehow got hold of one of the author’s lesser known works and brought it to the screen. In so doing, he forgot the meat, heart, and damn near all of the skeleton.

Hi ho.

Slapstick the novel is a short breath of a tale. Like Mother Night and Bluebeard, Vonnegut structures it as a memoir--in this case, that of Dr. Wilbur Daffodil-11 Swain, a 100-year-old, 2-meter-tall, Neanderthal-like man who served as the last President of the defunct United States and now lives in the ruins of Manhattan, renamed the “Island of Death.” With the sad humor of Stan Laurel and Buster Keaton, Dr. Swain recalls his strange life, which always revolved around his twin sister Eliza. The two grew up together in seclusion at their family’s abandoned Vermont estate--their parents thought the two were as stupid as they were ugly. But when the siblings touched heads, they became geniuses that would have made Albert Einstein look average. After their unwilling separation at age 15, Wilbur eventually becomes President on a campaign of artificial families (based on an essay from one of Wilbur and Eliza’s “lesser” thinking sessions) and the slogan of “Lonesome No More,” all while American civilization crumbles around him. But Eliza still remains a part of his existence, even as an absence he can’t fill until death.

Not a perfect book, Slapstick still could have made an interesting little movie with its absurd humor laced with loving sadness. An enterprising screenwriter or a visionary director could have strengthened some of the plot’s weaknesses and inherent difficulties. But writer and director Paul proves himself neither as he recasts a somewhat flawed satire into an insanely unfunny and tedious low-rent comedy.

Hi ho.

Instead of an elderly Wilbur, the film opens in outer space, or at least a badly painted backdrop of stars and galaxies. A glowing flying saucer floats by, looking suspiciously like an escaped extra from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Two god-like disembodied narrators--one male, one female--begin discussing the problem of Earth, where their previous gifts of intelligence to the Chinese have gone astray. They decide to try again, this time with a model American family blessed with power, beauty, and intelligence. And thus the twins Wilbur and Eliza are born unto the beautiful couple of Mr. and Mrs. Swain, played by Jerry Lewis and Madeline Kahn.

Let me say that again: The beautiful couple played by Jerry Lewis and Madeline Khan. Just wanted that to sink in a bit....

The babies, unfortunately, are so ugly that their appearance sends the doctors and nurses into hysterics and causes Mr. Swain to accidentally fall out a hospital window and into a convenient trough of mud (it’s a Lewis thing...go with it). A distraught but concerned Mrs. Swain takes her doctor’s advice to seclude the twins and allow them to live out their hopefully short days without ever knowing they are freaks. The doctor handles the hiring of the staff to take care of the children, including a Chinese cook, a Brooklyn handyman, a French maid, and Sylvester, a mortician-turned-butler played by Marty Feldman. Meanwhile, the 3-inch-tall Chinese ambassador (Pat Morita) announces that they are withdrawing their embassy from the rest of the civilized world.

Fifteen years later, the Swains are still distraught; their supposedly doomed children are still alive. As Mrs. Swain vents her frustration to her doctor--strangely, Mr. Swain stays mostly in the background for the run of the movie--a badly animated flying fortune cookie suddenly appears, scattering everyone on the patio (and Mr. Swain down the cliff, of course). The cookie lands, and out jumps the miniature former Chinese ambassador. He tries to convince the Swains that their children--who their doctor insists are morons--are in fact geniuses and America’s only natural resource. Somehow, this all ties into the Chinese wanting to negotiate for approval to take control of gravity. Somehow, but screenwriter Paul forgets to tell us.

Hi ho.

At this point, we’re 20 minutes into the movie, and we haven’t even seen Wilbur and Eliza. With that amount of build-up, you’d think that there would be a big reveal. Instead, we get the maid tucking them in for the night. Once she leaves the room, Wilbur and Eliza (also Lewis and Kahn, in heavy make-up and pj’s) get up to review several of their essays and to waltz to music while the hired help party away downstairs. It’s a routine to which everyone’s grown accustomed, until Mr. and Mrs. Swain phone Sylvester in mid-reverie. For the first time since the twins were born, the parents are coming to visit . . . and the President is coming along.

And that, sadly, is more than half the movie. No film can contain every part of a novel, but Paul guts Slapstick, ripping away much of its story and shredding the remnants. Gone are the Island of Death, Wilbur’s presidency, the King of Michigan, Eliza’s forgiveness, their writing of So You Went and Had a Baby in a five-day orgy, Wilbur’s granddaughter Melody, fluctuating gravity, Vera Chipmunk-5 Zappa and her slaves, and so on. Wilbur’s plan of artificial families is regulated to a final plot point, and “Lonesome No More” is just an exclamation from Wilbur when he awakens from electroshock therapy near the end. All that remains in the film is Wilbur and Eliza’s backstory--hardly half of the original work. Without the aching tragedy and conflict that Vonnegut created, the movie is infused with an inertia that doesn’t let up until Paul finally and completely abandons the story for a Hollywood climax that undermines any meaning left over.

Are you ready?




You’re sure?




Okay . . .




The twins are aliens. Hi ho.

The Wilbur and Eliza of Vonnegut’s novel are freaks, but they’re still human. Like everyone else, they have to muck through their lives and deal with the pains inflicted by loved ones, even by themselves. In many ways, that’s what the art of slapstick is about. But Paul doesn’t understand that--he sees pratfalls without pathos. So he goes for sap instead.

Paul errors badly in trying to make a goofy comedy out of a satire. Slaughterhouse-Five and Mother Night succeed because their makers didn’t attempt to shoehorn them into a certain genre style. The films follow their books’ rhythms, and like the books, create something unique. Vonnegut is not a comedy writer, but Paul ignores that, and the result is that Vonnegut’s gentle absurdity is replaced with clumsy slapstick and comedy with a capital C. The family doctor is named Dr. Frankenstein. Comedy! Wilbur’s mandated disguise at military school is a pair of Groucho glasses. Comedy! Wilbur sticks his smiling mug through a portrait’s hole where the head used to be. Comedy! Hey, watch the flying fortune cookie! Comedy!

And we all know that there’s nothing funnier than a Chinese man speaking bad broken English. Ugh.

There are some admittedly nice touches. Laurel and Hardy, to whom Vonnegut dedicated his novel, make a silent cameo appearance. When Wilbur and Eliza appear at the top of the stairs, intelligent and well-attired for the first time in public, the scene is strangely moving and slightly surreal. The make-up for the two giant Neanderthanloids also is very good, although slightly toned down--Eliza looks cute rather than ugly. Tall, but cute. And Paul actually provides the movie’s best joke: Because gasoline has become too rare or expensive, the remaining cars and airplanes run on chicken “products.”

However, any goodwill won is lost by the film’s obvious low budget and Paul’s incompetence with his own material. Many of the sets look like they were lifted from the nearest television sitcom, and the staging for several of the physical comedy bits is placid, cluttered, and slow. Eliza and Wilbur’s height varies wildly throughout the picture: when Sylvester introduces the twins to their parents, his head only comes up to their waists, but later on, Eliza is obviously only a head taller than her butler. Then there’s a prolonged scene in Air Force One, where the President discusses America’s situation with the plane’s captain. It’s nothing more than a big set-up: the camera eventually pulls back to reveal that the compartment is filled with chicken cages. But Paul already spoiled his punchline by telling the joke earlier in the picture, and the entire scene becomes a waste of time.

For Vonnegut fans, the resulting mishmash becomes even more painful whenever something from the novel creeps through. The miniature Chinese ambassador’s press conference at the start of the film begins with a line from the book: the Chinese are severing relations because “simply there was no longer anything going on in the United States which was of interest” anymore. It’s a very simple, subtly funny line, but Morita’s ensuing dialog slides downhill from there, ending with, “Up your ass with Mobile gas!” Not to mention the tiny sumo wrestlers laughing and high-fiving behind him. Other pieces of the original novel peek through, but they’re distorted or dimmed through Paul’s cracked circus mirror.

The dreary cast doesn’t help, either. Lewis and Kahn sleepwalk through their dual roles; Kahn seems uncharacteristically half-asleep. Perhaps she was trying to play “dumb,” but both her mother and daughter characters stretch the same blank expression throughout the picture. Lewis gets more mileage out of his make-up as Wilbur, but his physical comedy is lifeless and most of the time spontaneously out of place. For his part, Feldman saves some dignity by channeling Alec Guinness’ Professor Marcus from Ladykillers, but resorts to mumbling as the film lumbers to its denouement. Morita seems to be the only one having any fun with his role, and it’s unfortunate that most of his lines are Paul’s and not Vonnegut’s.

By itself, Slapstick of Another Kind isn’t as painful as, for instance, a Tom Green waste of celluloid. But by taking the novel’s title literally and forgetting to read beyond the first hundred pages, Paul misses out on most of the story and thus its meaning. There is little slapstick in the original Slapstick. But Paul can’t even handle his own handiwork, and the haphazard remains only remind us of what could have been. Ironically, the traces of Vonnegut’s inherent absurdity save the film from its own utter dullness; perhaps that’s a kind of comedic poetry after all.

Hi ho.

Flickers of a Ghost

I got lost. Took a wrong turn, wound up in a different state, discovered a direction, and began to wind my way home.

I was tired, and the sunlight was fading rapidly behind the grey and black clouds roiling in the sky. So when I saw it, I tried to blink away the hallucination.

It is huge--a bright, pulsating marquee of yellow and orange, standing, it seems, at least two stories high. A white placard juts out, demanding passer-bys to come see the zombie movie premiere at the Hager 10 Cineplex. But the strange thing is that the marquee fronts an empty parking lot.

I drive by, but slow...the cineplex actually is about a football field or so away. What’s behind that empty lot, though, causes me to turn around.

For about 20 years, the Hager Drive-In had operated here alongside the cineplex, but 20 years ago, it closed down. The marquee is the only operating remnant of the drive-in left, but there are other bones.

The parking lot, which probably once held the bulk of the drive-in, stretches far back and curls all the way behind the indoor movie theater. Even though a Saturday crowd is at the cineplex, their numbers are dwarfed by the size of the lot. In a far corner sit the drive-through ticket booths, weirdly guarding the edge of an overgrown field. Only a year ago, the entryway was still intact, but since then, the roof with the Hager heraldry has crumbled, leaving the two booths standing free. A deteriorating snack bar and projection house building stands in the field, drowning in the brown weeds and vine.

As I gaze at the ghost, the skies open. The deluge matches my mood.

But the Hager may not be completely lost. According to Drive-In Theatres of the Mid-Atlantic, a group is working with the cineplex to to restore and reopen the drive-in. In the meantime, an inflatable screen shows double- and triple-feature revivals of b-movies past and present.

I hope they succeed. Drive-ins are an American creation, one in-grained in our collective conscious like Route 66, jazz, convertibles, and baseball parks. Losing part of the American identity to a dusty, historical relic would be more than a simple shame--we would be giving up a unique part of our culture willingly.

They’ve started to have a revival the last few years, but the resurrection can’t come fast enough. More than 200 drive-ins once dotted the landscape of Maryland and the Virginias. Now only 11 remain.

Far too many ghosts.

So It Goes

One regret I’ll never dispel is that I never got to meet Kurt Vonnegut.

Like many people, I first encountered Vonnegut’s writing in high school, where his surreal storytelling seemed to make a lot of sense to an embryonic adult. The first novel I read was the mostly forgotten Jailbird, but it was good enough for me to seek out the granfalloons, artificial families, Tralfamadorians, and Kilgore Trout. My literary gluttony only ended when I grew sick with influenza; trapped to a bed, I was in the midst of Player Piano, Vonnegut’s first novel about a dystopian society where punch-card computers dehumanize the human worker. I had just reached the point where the story’s hero, the nervous and gentle Paul Proteus, finally rebelled and began running from the authorities. My fever was hot, and I began to hallucinate--suddenly, I was Paul, and I needed to get away. Right. Now.

No, I never finished the book. An absurdity that Vonnegut would appreciate.

I’m sure many will call him the modern Mark Twain; heck, they even looked like each other, especially late in life, when despondency overtook both. Vonnegut, however, was his own writer, a unique narrator who brought a fantastical brevity to modern literature, and a prose that turned a cynical but humorous eye to humanity’s foibles. Lord knows we need it.

War, as with other writers, shaped most of Vonnegut’s work, not just his penultimate novel, Slaughterhouse Five. As a prisoner, he survived the Allied bombing of the German civilian city Dresden, an event that the American government denied for years, yet fully demonstrated man’s inhumanity to man. A lesson like that cannot be forgotten, and Vonnegut struggled to write about it for two decades.

Despite that experience, or perhaps because of it, Vonnegut never lost his own love of humanity. The villains in his stories usually weren’t individuals but characters representing corporations, the science community, the military, even society itself, all twisting good intentions into bizzare contortions. In his most famous short story, “Harrison Bergeron,” people of talent and intelligence are purposely handicapped by the government so that everyone is equal--idealism run rampant. His heroes tended to be the meek, the Billy Pilgrims, Rabo Karabekians, and Eliot Rosewaters, who, for one reason or another, find themselves in the convolution of ridiculous tragedy brought on by a blinded adherence to a higher ideal.

For Vonnegut, humanity was forever building the tower of Babel, never realizing that the blueprints were in gibberish.

Still, the best of his stories, even dark satire like Mother Night, contain more than biting deconstruction of the human condition. Whenever I think of Vonnegut, Buster Keaton somehow slips in. The Great Stone Face persona was a myth--Buster’s characters weren’t emotional automatons going through the motions of comedic timing. He perhaps was the most subtle actor of the silents; joy, fear, nervousness, and frustration all were conveyed through his eyes, quick expressions, and body movement. What Keaton never did do was smile--no matter what chance or fate threw at him, Buster’s characters doggedly persevered, usually to the unheard laugher of his audience. Vonnegut fully understood Keaton’s art. One of my favorite Vonnegut novels is Slapstick, considered to be one of his lesser works. Flawed it may be, but the narrative is Vonnegut unfettered. His hero is a gifted freak who recounts his sad life from the shambles of Manhattan, of how his own well-meaning mistakes helped push away those close to him as the world slowly frayed. But the story is not a tragedy because the storyteller is not tragic; his telling is lighthearted despite itself, and a helpless hope still clings.

That is the essence of slapstick. And that is the essence of Vonnegut.

This week, we lost a voice for humanity, one that loved us enough to gently poke at our own grotesque grandiose. Vonnegut understood us, perhaps too well, and his stories will forever remind us that while we are still human, we sometimes forget the humanity of others. A lasting image of Slapstick is that of the hero’s pregnant granddaughter, crossing the Midwest with nothing but a shopping cart to find the grandfather who doesn't even know she exists. It’s an image that is both lovely and sad. And that’s Vonnegut’s gift to us: loving sadness.

I think I’ll finish reading Player Piano now.

Screenin' the Green

The other night, we met the music of two Irish bands in a silent-era theater, boisterous with sounds of pipes, tin whistles, bodhráns, flutes, and guitars...all clashing and weaving amongst the restored chandeliers and flying to us in the balcony, where reels and jigs shook our souls from our boring seats to the aisle frightfully creaking with age. In between, we listed to lilting Celtic accents tell stories--some true, some laced with humorous exaggeration--about where the songs came from, their heritage as important as the notes probably learned by heart.

The night ‘twas my idea (apparently, poorly articulated); I’ve loved Celtic music for years, and one of the bands performing was Lunasa, who’s Merry Sisters of Fate is a favorite. I’ve never seen ‘em live, the best way to experience that music. But I never imagined how much it would hit me that night, and I’m glad I was able to share that with someone who loves Celtic music as much, if not more, than me. Both bands--Dervish and Lunasa--managed to make the night a larceny of expectation.

The funny thing is that I’m not actually Irish, though I’m probably as close as you can get without being one. While my own heritage is Germanic and Scandinavian, many of my family’s friends had Irish blood. I grew up surrounded by Keefes, Sweeneys, and Doughtertys. Several of my own friends wear their Celtic roots proudly, including two of my closest. I live in a small city with a strong Irish American community, complete with two pubs, a couple of annual festivals, and, of course, the occasional Celtic artist selling out the local theater.

So, on St. Patrick’s Day, when Bushwallers overflows with drunken revelers donning bright green teeshirts, plastic bowlers, and ageless gift shop buttons, all I can think about is The Quiet Man.

John Ford’s love letter, as traditional as It’s a Wonderful Life is for Christmas, is an Emerald picture postcard of Ireland, done up Hallmark-style. Americans love their fantasies, and The Quiet Man has them, in charming spades, right up to and including a leprechaun-like matchmaker. But The Quiet Man is an American fairy tale, not an Irish one. Not like another film, John Sayles's quiet The Secret of Roan Inish.

You know how you can tell? The music and the storytelling.

The Quiet Man comes with a Golden Age Hollywood score, with nary a hornpipe to be found. There might be a bagpipe, but I’m not sure. The aforementioned leprechaun delivers the standard, book-ended narration, but remains silent through the film.

Roan Inish, though, mines traditional folk tunes to embroider a story filled with story, told by characters as family history rather than fable. The grandfather exiled from the home of his heart, the cousin "touched" by a legacy that traps him between sea and land...they see a world undone, their family strewn across Ireland in cities and steamshops, broken apart and away from the life they were meant to live. The stories told are sad, rimmed with tragedy, but they are woven with love and longing all the same.

That's Ireland.

It's in their music, their humor, their history. Seanchai are more than simply carriers of heritage--they are the heritage of ancestors. The songs, dancing, and stories are the Irish's connection to their past, but not just the chronological litney of events. Seanchai tell the soul of Ireland.

As Americans, we see fables separate from the lives we wear everyday. Not the Irish, and that's why their culture has become important in my own life. Our existence brims with loved ones, those we know today and those who came before. Celebrate and cherish them, for they are our own magic.

And that's the secret of Roan Inish.

Lunasa played a hornpipe called "The Last Pint" the other night. It was one of the first songs they played together 10 years ago. Almost a lament, it speaks of lovely memories of friends past never forgotten. It was my favorite of the night.

Sláinte.

Richard Jeni

It was a tough week for B-entertainment.

First, Andy Sidaris, television sports pioneer and silicon-movie maven, succumbed to throat cancer and probably happily joined a gaggle of buxom Valkyries in Vahalla. The next day, John Inman--known best for his role of Mr. "I'm Free!" Humphries on the classic British comedy series "Are You Being Served"--passed on at age 71.

But the one that hurts the most was comedian Richard Jeni, who took his own life last Sunday at age 45.

According to Jeni's family, Richard suffered from "severe clinical depression coupled with bouts of psychotic paranoia." I've had friends who suffer from mental illness, and it's more than a hard thing to live with. As Jeni's tragedy painfully demonstrated, it can take your life.

Sometimes, the ones who make us laugh are the ones with the most pain.

Richard Jeni first came to fame during the stand-up saturation of the early 1990s, when you couldn't find a channel without a comedian dishing some routine. What made Jeni stand above most, however, was his delivery. Nobody was better. If you listened to his jokes, they weren't funny by themselves. Until Richard told 'em. He didn't do anything fancy--he didn't have props, gimmicks, or catchphrases. He simply was your drinking buddy, telling you a funny story while you're watching a boring game with beer and wings. If he had a "gimmick," that was it: he was your friend. Just sit back, listen, and laugh.

Rest in piece, Richard. And thank you.

REVIEW: Brick

Since the end of black and white, film noir has struggled as a genre. The advent of day-bright Technicolor seemed to mortally dim the genre’s popularity. With its stylish but grim view of humanity, the pure noir film felt tired and out of place during the radical, love-in Sixties. Even when the genre returned during the societal cynicism of the following decade, classics like Chinatown or Point Blank either feel like homages or pale in comparison to the likes of Key Largo, The Big Combo, or Double Indemnity. It’s almost as if the noir film can’t be complete without the visual impact of German Expressionism, lost when movies’ color palate changed from monochrome to a rainbow.

Which makes Brick all that more a pleasant surprise. At first glance yet another high school black comedy/thriller, the film instead is a crackerjack noir flick through and through. It manages to tread carefully among the well-worn archetypes without waylaying into parody or self-awareness, delivering instead a vibrant crime story in the classic form.

The film opens with stillness. A young man is crouched on the edge of a drainage ditch, his hands folded. He is staring at a body of a young woman.

The story cuts back, two days earlier. The young man, Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), finds a note at his locker from his ex-girlfriend Emily, asking him to wait for her call by a pay phone. When he answers, her voice is shaking, hesitant, scared. She’s in trouble, and something frightens her away before she can explain. A mysterious car roars by, and Brendan realizes Emily was just around the corner.

With little to go on other than the scratches Emily blurted out, Brendan begins his search, first going to his informer friend “The Brain” for a direction. During the next several hours, Brendan encounters slightly altered archetypes of old: the siren, lost souls, stylish parties, mysterious notes written in code, whispers of a crime lord. Camera tricks and cinematic style are hurled at you, giftwrapped in clipped, slang-ridden dialog that sounds like the bastard child of Hammett and Hinton. For 20 minutes, Brick fulfills every expectation.

And then writer/director Rian Johnson hits the reset button. The ditch, the body. Brendan suddenly looks up, hears someone in the dark tunnel. And without hesitation, he runs into it.

From that moment on, Brick becomes more than a simple redress of genre tropes. The tunnel is symbolism with a sledgehammer: All bets are off for Brendan, and from this moment forward, he has no idea where his pursuit will end. The neat trick is that the audience doesn’t either. They enter the tunnel with Brendan, suddenly realizing they’ve lost their safety net of assumptions.

Brick manages to keep its crime story vital by populating it with odd, enigmatic characters: Laura the rich girl temptress, Dode the punk-greaser hybrid, Kara the theatrical black widow, Tug the pressure-cooked enforcer, and, especially, The Pin, Brick’s young crime lord-in-the-making. None have a real backstory, not even Brendan. Instead of growing and changing, the characters gradually reveal their true natures, never allowing the audience to come to grips with their first impressions. Each character can find a predecessor from the classic era, but each is slightly translated through the high school environment, providing small, odd, humorous surprises. And that’s where the movie either lives or falters.

When Brick was unleashed in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it theatrical release, it got a good amount of publicity for that high school setting, but in reality, it’s nothing more than seasoning. Instead of tricking out a Heathers clone with hardboiled attributes, Johnson actually does the reverse. He only appropriates the vague outlines of high school drama clichés--the tyrannical assistant principal, the schoolyard brawl, the teen party. He’s simply dropping a noir story into an unexpected setting to see what window dressing changes. Instead of a limo, The Pin cruises around in a plush van. Instead the expected confrontation between the gumshoe and the police, we have the confrontation between Brendan and the vice principal (Richard Roundtree, in a fabulously straight-laced cameo). Although the actors are playing it as if they were living in Mickey Spillane’s universe, the situations themselves become entertainingly absurd because the context is skewed.

This tenuous fantasy Johnson has constructed works only because every player sells it without any wink or nudge. Gordon-Levitt, best known for his work on “3rd Rock from the Sun,” has the toughest assignment--it’s hard to play stone stoic convincingly, but he manages by expressing his emotion subtly through body language. His is a physical performance of limitation, and the rest of cast follows suit. Lukas Haas stands out as The Pin; with his black cape and cane, he projects an aura of quiet menace that imbues his youthful appearance. Noah Fleiss as Tug and Matt O’Leary as the Brain bring a nice touch of humanity to two roles that are more caricature than character, while Emilie de Ravin is suitably vulnerable as Emily. Only Nora Zehetner struggles a bit as the sultry Laura; she’s very good, but she simply isn’t as believable as the others. At times, she almost seems to be playing her role conscientiously rather than disappearing into it.

Perhaps the greatest strength of Brick, however, is the visuals. Whoever led the design--Johnson, cinematographer Steve Yedlin, or projection designer Jodie Lynn Tillen--replaced the traditional black and white with a stark but muted look for Brick. Each scene is lit coldly, sometimes dimly, and one color in each setting dominates the others. Combined with the hardboiled style of Johnson’s direction and editing, Brick’s visual sense recalls the visceral garnish of Hong Kong thrillers, dialed down to create an almost benign tension.

In some respects, the film’s style may be too much, at times drowning the characters rather than enhancing them. Laura’s teen party near the beginning is the closest Johnson ever comes to upsetting his delicate universe; Laura’s a rich kid, but her parent’s neo-classical house seems pulled out intact from an affluent speakeasy of the Roaring Twenties, and the high school partiers act as if they belonged more to that decade rather than the current one. It’s the only time in the film where the characters’ age clashes with the story’s tone, and the result rings false. Other situations work because they exist purely in the high school environment, creating a believable foundation for the young characters, but the film teeters on cracking it with what is probably an ill-advised homage.

But with few real missteps, Brick remains one of those cinematic oddities--a unified vision that transforms a gimmick into genuine personal expression. Johnson obviously loves these stories, and his cast and crew crafted more than a tribute to a nearly lost genre; they’ve created the real thing. With a slight twist. The end result is unique and old school all at once, and that’s something as rare as noir itself.

---
Film Information
Year Released: 2005
Director: Rian Johnson
Main Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Lukas Haas, Nora Zehetner, Noah Fleiss
Trailer: http://www.apple.com/trailers/focus_features/brick/trailer/

No Better Time Than the...Whoops

So, here we are.

Looks different ’round the old place, doesn’t it? Something had to change; three posts in two years isn’t exactly buzzing the ether. Blogging just isn’t my well-used bag, unfortunately. I’ve never kept a diary, and any writing journal I managed to maintain served more as a testing ground for story figments, fragments, and remnants. Although I am a windbag of the Uilleann pipes variety, I need an audience to engage, and a message board is a far better place for that crime than a blog. Combine all that with knack for privacy, and you have a tailor-made digital cubicle for cobwebs. A decision about the Parking Lot needed to be made.

Thus, welcome to my movie blog. Sad, I know.

In light of last year’s post, the switch to film flam commentary and reviews may seem odd. But I realized something about myself: I can talk about anything, but I love talking movies the most. Heck, my last two entries were movie-related. When you love something, the work of writing transforms to joy, and that includes reviewing. Too many critics believe in their title too much; instead of watching a film for pleasure and simply conveying to readers what worked and didn’t work, they enter darkened theaters with dread, their critical mind firing on all cylinders before the first trailer rolls. Which probably is why critics get paid for their work--for them, there’s no fun to be had anymore.

Well, I’m having fun now. Since my “revelation” last year, I cut back the Netflix subscription and watched whatever smacked my fancy. Movies hiding at the bottom of my cedar chest found their way out of the dust to my DVD player. Big Trouble in Little China, Rock and Rule, Mannequin, Still Breathing, The Shawshank Redemption, Equilibrium, Sherlock Jr., The Thin Man, Bubba Ho-Tep, Murder by Decree—all movies that, in their own unique madness, managed to fix a smile on my face. I can recognize their faults, but I also can recognize why, for me, those faults simply make the movie more endearing and immediate. Perfect imperfection, the blessing of the indie and B-movie.

I love movies, especially little ones that ambush you from the commercial fringe. I want you to know about them, and I want you know why those strange flickering images are so important. So, I’m trying again, for the joy of it. Besides, a beautiful woman talked me back into it, and I’m a sucker for beautiful women. Especially ones with cattle prods.

Anyone got any Bactine?