The Man in the Mirror

First thing's first; I'll be posting a new short story next week, and I expect all (two) of you to tune in for the release of my first completed literary work since puberty. But onto the crux of this post; a year ago, we lost the biggest and brightest star of the music industry. I happened to be in LA at the Walk of Fame the day after Michael died, and captured some pictures of local reactions to one of the greatest tragedies in recent pop culture. Looks truly do speak volumes-

Blast some your favorite Mikey jam today, kids (mine's "They Don't Care About Us"). And pay your respects to a bona fide legend. Now, on to this week's Saviors of Cinema pick-

THE GRADUATE

The 25: Countercultural masterwork with so much to say it leaves you speechless.

"You ever heard of this one?", a thoroughly religulous relative who will remain anonymous once asked as he caught sight of this week's film on a DVD store shelf. "It's about sluts. Do you know what those are? Loose people. And people who watch this...they turn into loose people, too." From that moment on, I think, I knew watching The Graduate would be one of the great movie-viewing experiences of my lifetime. And indeed it was. This is a rare thing-a Talking Movie. Not just one with recorded dialogue, but one that speaks honestly (at times, ruthlessly) and intelligently about common experiences, emotions, and thoughts; disillusionment, lust, fear of aging, generation gaps, unfair standards, young-adult ennui. Oh, and it's funny as hell.

You know the plot, I bet; recent college graduate Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman, in his game-changing debut perf, still one of his best) carries on a torrid summer affair with a much older family friend, the slinky Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft, in one of the greatest performances of all time), then breaks her heart by committing to a true, deep relationship with her daughter Elaine (Katherine Ross). The film could get by on story alone-it's filled with twists and turns and great situational comedy and drama. That makes it a very good movie. What makes it great is its willingness to sink its teeth into great themes most films merely nibble at. Classic literature is expected to be about more than what's on the page-great books revel in deeper meaning. But film is often held to lower expectations-we just ask that it entertain us, let us have some good laughs or expel some cathartic tears here in the dark. But at its best, it can convey thoughts as brilliant and worthy of discussion as anything Hawthorne or Hemingway ever wrote, while still steeping us in the visual and aural awesomeness unique to the art. The characters in The Graduate represent much more than themselves. Their actions are as much social commentary as they are advancers of plot. And in those shockingly and appropriately ambiguous last 30 seconds of perhaps the most famous ending in American movies (I dare not spoil it), this one cuts to the heart of what it means to grow up in the modern world.

I have saved my favorite thing about the film for last. No, it's not the Simon and Garfunkel score, though about half of their most famous (and best) songs were written specifically for this picture. Nor is it the kick of seeing how many films were influenced by what started here-Garden State, Up in the Air, and Rushmore, to name a few. It's the way reliably pyschotic and reliably brilliant director Mike Nichols makes every single image count for something. Each self-contained shot carries as much subtext as any sentence of a Great American Novel. Take for example the way Benjamin is reflected in glass, photographed from the outside of phone booths, filmed from the inside of a scuba diving suit (long story)-it's as if the whole world has conspired to trap him. Notice how Elaine is often situated between Mrs. Robinson and Benjamin, separating them both literally and figuratively. And don't even get me started on the use of that cross in the wedding scene. No wonder he won the Oscar! This movie is a flawless, paradigm-smashing triumph. Were I still making a numerical list, this would've ranked 7th or 8th best. Ever. So here's to you, Mrs. Robinson. Mason loves you more than you will know. (Whoah, whoah, whoah....)

The Singular Scene: Benjamin's month-long affair starts, grows, and peaks-all within about three minutes of spectacularly designed jump cuts set to S&G's musical crown jewel, "The Sound of Silence".

Woody, Meet The Woodman

I know the title of this blog sounds like that of a western-tinged gay porno, but bear with me-it's time to discuss the cinema's two greatest Woodys-a family-friendly cowboy and a ponderous little Jewish genius. Let us begin with a review of the only film out as of this moment that I'll allow you to break your mainstream movie boycott (which I assume you've been following...right?) to see;

In the interest of keeping the stunning specifics of Toy Story's denoument a surprise (better so that it bowls you over even more), I'll simply say this: the saga of Woody and Buzz stands next to that of Frodo and Sam as a tale that will transcend its moment and become one of the defining pop culture creations of our generation. This film, for all its eye-candy visuals and delightful new characters (Michael Keaton steals every scene he's in as a very....erm...effeminate Ken doll), is really about closure. It will resonate most strongly with people around my age-those who grew up with these films. At that strange bridge between secondary schooling and the Rest of Your Life, the time has come to say goodbye to so many things, and, 11 years after the last installment, the geniuses at Pixar have given us not a half-assed, money-grubbing follow up, but a wonderful chance to say goodbye to these talking toys too, toys that for many of us were as integral a part of our childhoods as our relatives and friends and old haunts. And they've done it with just the right amount of funky humor and lump-in-the-throat pathos. Those final ten minutes make up the best singular scene you're likely to find at the movies all year, taking an ingenious form that allows us to see all of our personal favorite characters, spend one last marvelous moment with them, and then begin the painful but necessary process of pulling away that we'll repeat so many times over these next few years. Kiddie flick, my ass. The only downside is all those honest tears will fog up your 3D glasses. So long, Woody. You will endure as long as the movies do. A. Woody Allen will endure as well...hey, speaking of him, this week's Saviors of Cinema film is-

HANNAH AND HER SISTERS

The 25: The greatest by the greatest. Or so I say.

I don't quite think I can call Hannah And Her Sisters my favorite film, but suffice to say that it's my ultimate idol's greatest creative output and possibly the wisest picture ever produced-it knows so very much about the secrets of love, of loneliness, of hidden wants and needs, and relates that knowledge in a series of a chapters (it's structured like a novel) that are uproarious and slyly touching, often at the same time. Annie Hall is considered by many to be Woody Allen's best work, but there are moments of remarkable insight here that make that movies' famous "we need the eggs" line look like kid's stuff.

Allen's script (so brilliant a screenplay Pulitzer category was almost created just to honor it) chronicles two years in the lives of three close-knit siblings-self-sufficient Hannah (Mia Farrow), pensive, pent-up Lee (Barbara Hershey), and venomously competitive Holly (Oscar winner Dianne Wiest), as well as the goings-on in the lives of their parents, children, exes and lovers during that same timespan. And if this sounds like one of those overstuffed arthouse bores that crams in fifty pointless characters just to show off, that it ain't. The structure allows Allen to explore almost every conceivable kind of relationship-sister and sister, father and son, husband and wife, and best friends and lovers and so on. The answer to why I love Allen so much lies in this gentle probing-in the way he understands and portrays truths we always knew but could never voice. He's the great humanist of the movies, seeing right through us all with x-ray precision and displaying our damaged contents without judging them. Even his laugh lines are filled with psychological revelation. Take for example the scene when Mickey, Hannah's ex (played by Allen himself), argues with his father (Leo Postrel) about the meaning of it all. When Mickey posits a question about the presence of evil in the world, his papa responds with this howler of a comeback: "How should I know why there were Nazi's?! I don't even know how the can opener works!" It gets a hearty chuckle, sure, but there's something very telling embedded in it, an astute observation regarding the late 20th century generation gap that bridged a purely practical generation from a ruthlessly inquisitive, spiritually adrift one. The film is filled with dual-functioning lines like this. Watch it once to catch the humour, twice to catch the genius.

This is also the rare picture where all the different Allen's come out to play, and do so at the top of their game. Allen the screenwriter, as previously mentioned. Allen, the actor, in his most complete performance playing a confused, nervously witty man-child in whom, frankly, I see a lot of myself. Allen the director, pulling career-great performances out of many of his actors-particularly Wiest, a study in emotional nakedness, and fellow Oscar winner Michael Caine as Hannah's not-so-devoted husband, who despite his wavering fidelity is somehow the story's most likable character. Allen the comedian, who understands timing and delivery better than anyone else around. Allen the lover of art, cramming his film with poetry and paintings and impassioned renditions of old cry-in-your-champagne jazz standards. Allen the lover of New York, thrilling to the metropolitan magic of the Manhattan streets and making them a central character as well as a location. And at the center of it all, Allen, cinema's Ultimate Understander, the purveyor of hard-to-swallow but compassionately conveyed truths about who we are and why we're here. That few film addicts have seen this one is a damn shame. That most people haven't seen it puts them at quite a disadvantage, for, after all, there's so much one can learn about themselves through The Woodman's massive spectacles.

Singular Scene: Mickey's final monologue. If it isn't Allen's personal proudest moment as actor and screenwriter, it should be.

The Summer of My (Cinematic) Discontent/Farewell to the Heavenly Hundred

Firstly, so sorry for the length of this post. I fell victim to what I believe a certain chick flick classic terms "word vomit". Secondly, I've spent far, far too much time making this site more like a traditional webpage. Click on the links at the top to explore. Thirdly, I know you're expecting a theatre kid commentary on this years Tony Awards. I haven't the heart. Suffice to say everything wrong with Broadway-blatant commercialism, celebrity miscasting, the works-was on sad display.

Ah, so, on to my rant:

Can you imagine what else could've been done with thousands of feet of celluloid? It could be cut up to provide our impoverished public schools with bookmarks. Someone might melt it down and mold it into cute lil' ping-pong balls. Hell, I'm sure Lady Gaga could craft some eye-popping menagerie out of it. Instead, Hollywood's wasting mountains of the stuff on some of the most incompetent movies ever made. By this time last summer, we had Star Trek and Up, and patiently awaited a knockout new installment in the Harry Potter series. This year, we've suffered through flat-out junk the likes of Marmaduke and Killers, and we've already been let down by depressingly average new entries in the Iron Man and Shrek franchises. It seems as if it may have happened at last-Hollywood's adapted the last material deserving to be made into a film, and run totally dry in the Original Thought Department. Here's to hoping Buzz Lightyear delivers us unto excellence (and beyond!) when Toy Story 3 opens at the end of this month. But thus far, this has been the dumbest, most disappointing, flat-out blah-est summer in film history.

This is the spot where I'd normally bitch out American moviegoers for supporting such cheap, greasy-popcorn pap. But I'm delighted to say...they haven't! Americans are staying away from the movies in droves this summer, and God bless them for realizing that there are infinitely more appealing things they could be doing for two hours than watching Katharine Heigl take another giant step towards career oblivion. I say keep it up. Boycott the cinemas this summer. Pick a film or two to go to if you must, but other than that, STAY AWAY. Lighten the wallets of the studio nutjobs who take us for intellectual jello and attempt to sate us with the same ol' stories.

And now for a confession. I have killed something. What, you ask? Why, the Heavenly Hundred. That's right, I will no longer be posting a sequential list of my hundred favorite films. Before you go have a good cry (which I know you will), the reason for this act of sabotage is this;

I hate waiting! For example, I've wanted to write about this week's film forever, but I've had to wait, cause I'd rank it in my top 40. And God knows how long I've been sitting around patiently waiting to reach a Woody Allen film on the list. Not fair to my inner writer. Not at all. If you say you can undertake a list of such magnitude, you're either lying or heavily, heavily medicated. Furthermore, to make a definitive list is to imply that one's knowledge of cinema will never change or grow. And that, my friends, is a mound of horseshit.

So in short, I introduce to you the Saviors of Cinema....a non-linear list I'll add to weekly. More great films, just a different format.

Done weeping? Good, cause I've got a hidden gem for you this week-

DONKEY SKIN

The 25: Like its star, peerlessly gorgeous and startlingly timeless.

Of all the art forms, film has always been the easiest medium in which to express one's full imaginative vision-try staging Avatar as a piece of theatre (the day I see an ad for Na'vi on Ice in the paper is the day I stop blogging, fyi), or capturing the visual intricacies of Citizen Kane in prose. Now, with the advent of CGI, directors can put whatever they want up on the screen. And, in a way, we've lost something because of it. Once upon a time, one of the most magical parts of the moviegoing experiences was the good ol' head scratch-how did they do that?! Imagine how audiences felt seeing the original King Kong for the first time. Holy shit, there's a giant monkey on top of the Empire State! They didn't know how this breathtaking feat was pulled off, and their imaginations expanded a little bit because of it. In the Peter Jackson remake (which I did enjoy, for the record), that scene is just as epic in visual and emotional scope. But though my pulse quickened, my jaw did not drop. Here's why; I know for a fact that the good folks at WETA Digital animated Mr. Ape, then stuck him on an animated building. The answer to the immortal question "How Did They Do That?!" can no longer encompass a variety of techniques, from stop-motion to clever camera angles. The response is always "oh, they did something with a computer." As such, our generation has been robbed of the crafty wonder of old-fashioned ingenuity. Watch Donkey Skin with the knowledge not a single Macbook was used to enhance a single shot, and feel that wonder for the first time.

A rather unorthodox fairy tale (think if Shrek made a baby with the French New Wave...) by Jacques Demy, Donkey Skin recounts the adventures of a spoiled princess (Catherine Deneuve) who's must retreat into a life of poverty and secrecy in order to avoid marrying her father (Jean Marais). Sounds like Alice Walker in the Middle Ages, but in fact Donkey Skin is one of the brightest films you're ever likely to see. It's filled with shimmering music by the greatest songwriter the movies ever had, Michel Legrand (FOB-Friend of Barbra), studded with gleefully flippant anachronisms (dear God in Heaven, is that a phone? A helicopter?!), and bursting at the seams with unforgettable characters (my personal favorite is the old lady who hocks up frogs every now and then.) But, for me at least, at all comes back to the visuals. Who knows how Demy packed so much giddy, otherwordly detail into every frame, but the fact is, he did; statues move, clothing changes colors, mirrors take on a life of their own, flowers speak, and at the center of it all is one of nature's most enduring visual effects, Deneuve's radiant, unblemished, marvelously expressive face. This is a movie filled with hand-made miracles, and each one wears down your Michael Bay-era skepticism, until at last Demy's primitive, brilliant analog magic lifts you up, up, and away you to into a rarified air of gushing, childlike excitement.

Oh, and there's a donkey that shits gold. Pretty sure they borrowed him from my Temple.

Singular Scene: Deneuve flees to the country in slow motion while the rest of the world seems to freeze around her. To witness this moment for the first time is to remember it forever.

Now you should comment. No, really. Dooo it. Make a narcissist out of me.

Mike's Badass Rant, Spielberg's Black-Ass Film

My faithful readers-all three of you-I ask you you this. Have I not always used my cyber-powers for good? To direct you to fountains of knowledge, insight, and general cultural enlightenment so that you may sip from them at will? Well, folks, this one's a gusher.

Okay, so remember Star Wars: Episode I: The Shitty Menace? If I were making a Hellbound Hundred list, this collection of moving images (I love the word "film" too much to insult it by applying it here) would make the All Time Top 5. However, as much as I love bashing it, nothing can compare with the Youtube video that "Mike", a brilliant (if possibly mentally compromised) filmmaker from Illinois, cooked up. It's a delectably mean-spirited, hour-long critique in which he manages to trash nearly every aspect of every scene in the film, from the acting to the story to the visuals and everything in between. He also rants about his ex-wife, his rampant drug and pizza roll addictions, and the strategies that work best when killing hookers. (You read that right). Starting out with the sentence "The Phantom Menace was the most disappointing thing since my son!" and only gaining comedic traction from there, this is without a doubt the strangest and funniest thing I've ever come across on the YouTubes. You'll also gain a new appreciation for the old films (and hell, almost ANY OTHER EXISTING FILM) as "Mike" points out logic and continuity errors so glaringly stoopid my freshman year English teacher would've taken serious points off for 'em.

Here's part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxKtZmQgxrI
Parts 2-10 are on this guys page. Happy viewing!

And now for another Heavenly Hundred. For those of you wondering "When the hell is this kid gonna put one of the Conventional Classics on his list??!?!?!", the time has come....

THE COLOR PURPLE

The 25: White Jewboy does right by great novel, Whoopi does right by great character.

Let's imagine you have a car with some serious problems. The radio doesn't work, there's no air conditioning, and it requires a new tank of gas every other day. But...it travels through time and can fix health care. My point here is, in some situations, you've gotta overlook the shitty parts in order to reap the considerable rewards of the whole. My godawful fail of an analogy applies to The Color Purple, which trips over itself tonally many a time, but emerges as one of most timeless, deeply affecting films of its era.

This is Celie's story. Celie, the woman bearing her second child for her father. Celie, sold into life of abuse at the hands of the cold-hearted Mister (Danny Glover) and stolen away from all she knows. Celie, who learns the meaning of selfless love from Mister's old flame Shug (Margaret Avery), and the benefits of self-esteem from his take-no-bull daughter-in-law Sofia (Oprah, of all people!). And finally Celie, the liberated woman, alive at last to herself and the world around her. If it all sounds a lot like Precious, well, this one did it first and did it better. I give 99% of the credit to Whoopi Goldberg, who plays Celie. That the groundbreaking comedienne is equally gifted at drama isn't surprising; I always sensed their was something deeper hiding just beneath that Sister Act habit. But I certainly wasn't prepared for one of the best performances in American movies. The feelings she portrays are not uncommon onscreen; heartbreak, jubilation, longing, the works. But there's a complexity to how she does it; instead of a generic, Kleenex-ready sadness, Celie has a thousand shades of sad, and we come to know and understand them all. Her happiness doesn't pour out all at once in a blast of montage-ready sunshine; we see all of its various degrees, the way it manifests itself in small smiles and arched body language until it finally peaks in the closing scene. Anger is there, too, always simmering under the surface, and we're always subconsciously aware of the intensity of it, yet still shocked when she erupts at the dinner table in the indelible and iconic "I curse you" sequence. There's a wonderful, slow-burn subtlety in Goldberg's performance. A truly infuriating Oscar snub.

The other "Berg", director Steven, deserves enormous credit as well. In a culture where incest, abuse, and misogyny have become network-special fodder, it's easy to forget what a daring move he made by adapting Alice Walker's controversial book for the screen and not skimping on the sickening stuff. By detailing the lowest of Celie's lows, the film earns its bucket o' tears when this crushed butterfly flaps her wings oncemore. Faithfulness to Walker's book damages the film a bit, too-Spielberg and writer Menno Meyjes, in an apparent attempt to cram in every subplot that popped up in the book, result to crude stereotyping in a few instances, which makes characters such as Mister's son Harpo and the white Mayor's wife look like cardboard cutouts...and it doesn't help that they're standing next to one of the most fully realized characters you're likely to find in a mainstream motion picture. Such attempts to fit it all in lend the film a flabbiness that isn't becoming, and shut it out of a higher spot on my list. But there is startling power at work when the filmmakers stick with Celie's story (and by extension, Goldberg's glorious turn) , a power far too potent to deny this one a spot on my Heavenly Hundred.

The Singular Scene: For all the High Drama moments, nothing moves me more than when Shug sings to Celie, and we see our downtrodden heroine smile for the first time.

Wow, Whoopi can do serious?! Whaaa-?! What's your favorite straight-faced performance from a funnyman/woman? TALK TO ME (via el comment button).

SR June: Michael Chabon, Literary Gadfly

Sorry, you're gonna have to hear from me more than once this week. But the fact is, I just finished re-reading this book, and if I don't write about it now, I think I'll burst;

The future of American literature has a name, and it's Michael Chabon. Today, I wanna talk mostly about the jaw-dropping, Pulitzer-winning crown jewel of his writerly achievements-

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. It may very well be the best American fiction novel published in a decade that gave us masterpieces such as The Road and The Corrections, and its my Summer Reading recommendation for this month-I'll give ya four weeks to read this fucker before I strongly suggest another one in July. This is a book you will love. I'm making that statement without qualification, without denoting that you will enjoy it if you're a fan of this genre or that style. You will love this book no matter what. And don't be givin' me no lip about the 640-page-length. Read about 60 pages (roughly an hours worth) per day, and you'll be done in 11-12 days. And besides, I didn't hear you bitching when you plowed through the Harry Potter series, young man/and/or lady!

Chabon's main characters are two teens growing up in the 1930's Joe Kavalier, a stoic, fiercely impulsive refugee from Nazi-invaded prague, and his cousin, Sammy Clay, a polio-stricken, nebbishy Brooklyn boy. When Joe comes to live with Sammy, together they decide to write comic books (quickly becoming a profitable novelty in the states) for loose change, ultimately authoring a hit five-n'-dime series called The Escapist. They're content to bang out simplistic, anti-German propaganda pieces until Chabon introduces throws two more people into the mix; Joe's lover Rosa Saks, a wealthy, impassioned liberal who might be able to bring his still-trapped relatives over to America; and Tracy Bacon, a flirtatious radio star who causes Sammy to question his sexual orientation and his lot in life. It's here, as the emotional complications start to pile up between the boys and their romances, that the membrane between fiction and fact is permanently permeated, and Kavalier and Clay's art begins to resemble a barely modified rendition of their own lives.

At base level, this is simply a gripping read. It's filled with fights (verbal and physical), snappy dialogue, and stunning incidents of the larger-than-life, only-in-books variety, often leaving you with a pulse-pounding sense of pulpy wonder so overpowering that you forget you're really reading a character study. And those characters are the secret to Chabon's success, lemme tell you; in this novel and others, the author proves that no one alive can do a better job of creating characters so fully dimensional that they greet you like old friends each time you crack open the cover. Artists in particular will be moved and reassured by the messages about the power of and need for creativity, but anyone at all who reads this story will become emotionally involved in it because of the choices these very flawed, beautiful beings make; in its final pages, some of the most moving sacrifices in the history of modern storytelling take place, in deeply moving moments up there with the plane scene in Casablanca or passages from Fantine's story arc in Hugo's Les Miserables. Roger Ebert said art affects us deepest by making us proud of the characters being portrayed. Chabon proves him right.

This is also a helluva read for potential English/Creative Writing majors (COUGH). Chabon is a writer's writer, and I actually went back and read this book again to marvel at the structure of his sentences. With his pen, he transmogrifies the ordinary into objects of incalculable beauty and magic. The Brooklyn and Queensboro Bridges? "A pair of great iron tsarinas linking hands to dance." Comic books? "Two-bit argosies of blood and wonder." Cops? "A writhing knot of nightsticks and broad-brimmed hats." This man is supernaturally talented, perhaps the best composer of descriptive prose since the king himself, Steinbeck.

I've cried reading two other books; the final Harry Potter and Ray Charles's autobiography. This one made me weep the first time through, and tear up after my second reading. I can boil my opinion of this work down to two "W" words: Wrenching and Wondrous.

Okay, let's say 640 pages scares you. Or you don't like reading about comic books. Or you hate Jews (in which case you're shit outta luck. Chabon is my fellow brother of the yarmulke.) Check out The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Chabon's Salingerian account of the sexual misadventures of a college grad and mobster's son; or The Final Solution, a gut-buster of a novella that effortlessly merges tales of Sherlock Holmes and the Holocaust. In thirty-odd years, Chabon will be known as a literary savant, a Mark Twain for the Twitter generation. Don't you wanna say that you read him way back when? Because that Jew-boy with the weird laugh that you knew in high school told you to?

You must read some Chabon this summer. Ah, but what author must *I* expose my self to during the hot months of the year?

COMMENT.