this site has great format.

I can't say, when asked directly, that this blog has been something I have been passionate about. I've posted some lame and wack film reviews that no body has probably read and about half as many half-hearted epiphanies that could only be called such because the writer wishes them to be so.

I can say that the claptrap written before this has been some of the more therapeutic and enjoyable activity, that I have felt...somewhat PURPOSEFUL after doing a little off-the-cuff writing.

It has lifted "more weight" off my chest.

That isn't to say there isn't weight. As I said in my last post, "Deep down, you know you deserve this."

So as I lie (or is that lay? I'll never be able to remember, or remember why I don't remember, although I could expound a theory or three on that subject...) here in the bed of a dear friend's sister, I wonder, which of the weight is bad luck? Which do I create? And which is heavy and awful and generally awful because life is so some(most)times? And then I shake my head, and realize that there is no overarching theme to the world I live in. Here is where literature and film exist, and regular things are simple, random, pointless and plotless. Here just is. It is not bad or good. It's my world, and whateer the state of it, I sure as hell am living in it.

Deep down, you know you deserve this.

Mel Gibson’s absence from the big screen has spanned from my high school days and through the college years and beyond. I remember watching, for the first time, “We Were Soldiers” during this long absence, roughly three years into it. I was extremely perturbed by his presence, it seemed so foreign an idea to see him in a relatively recent film I had not yet viewed. To see Gibson onscreen in any form.

My first exposure to Gibson was a theatrical trailer of “Conspiracy Theory,”  which I was not allowed to see, and “Payback,” the first Gibson film I ever watched in theatres. “Payback” is my touchstone of reference for Gibson’s new film, “Edge of Darkness,” although many say “Ransom” is far more comparable (I have not seen that film.) “Payback” is a tale of revenge, as is “Edge of Darkness,” although for far more superficial reasons, a stolen 70,000$ that is perpetually mistaken for 150,000$.Gibson’s character, Porter, only wants what is fair, what was taken for him. It is here where he shares traits with Thomas Craven, Gibson’s Boston Detective whose daughter is gunned down on his front door.

Gibson plays dotting father cop Thomas Craven, whose only family member, a twenty-something daughter, is home for an unspecified visit. It is early on obvious that she is sick, but before Craven can get her explanation, she is graphically shot-gunned down, sending Craven on mission for justice that uncovers a shady government-contracted plant and even shadier weapons construction. Craven is up against some powerful players, including the head of the corporation and a corrupt Republican senator, and may or may not be being aided by a British clean-up man. Craven’s search for the truth turns violent and lawless when he is left with no other options to fight these economic, political, and social giants.

Both trailers and reviews for “Edge of Darkness” have unfairly cast it as revenge porn, which, quite frankly, I would have been happy with alone. “Mad Mel,” as he was so astutely described in “Entertainment Weekly,” has always been a favorite of mine. However, Thomas Craven uses brains and investigative techniques, and rarely projects bland rage at his antagonists; Craven prefers to learn what he can quietly, raging only when left no other choice. It is in this way that the film becomes something of a hybrid. It is a thriller, not entirely suspenseful but not with the obvious plot some have accused it of, and also a bloody, brutish revenge bath. These two styles fit together quite nicely, as they are both balanced enough within to satisfy the viewer’s thirst for both. Gibson gets his and doesn’t; vengeance is both wrought and punished.

A bit has been said about how the movie’s plot treads in unrealistic waters. This is true to a point. It isn’t believable, as “The New Yorker” ably put it, that “one man, it seems, can stanch the flow of evil.” Yeah, but so what? With every movie out there these days trying to out-realistic the next, it’s a breath of fresh air to see a well-constructed thriller that doesn’t want to induce suicide within the viewer due to it’s unforgiving closeness to said viewer’s real, dreary, miserable life. “Edge of Darkness” isn’t a whodunit, more of a whatnowdunit. Craven’s reaction to his tragedy is perhaps the surprise of the film; satisfaction comes slowly and bitterly in this film.

2012 gave me a Panic Attack

If Roland Emmerich is your movie God, pray not to be marginal or ordinary. Joe the plumber and his ilk are the first to suffer several million terrible deaths in this inexcusable waste of money. The end of earth as a world and culture unifying event? Only in Roland’s mind. If you aren’t a cog in his story-telling machine, you are as good as dead.

With “2012,” Roland “Independence Day” Emmerich has made the most violent film of all time. For almost three hours, the end of human civilization is arbitrarily and graphically depicted. There are no bloody deaths, such realism has no place in a film made by a man who alleged in his previous movie that mammoths, humans, pyramids, and ships all existed at the same time twelve thousand years ago. There is the motif of people being hit with tidal waves and looking peacefully at the camera right before their watery deaths (as was the case more than FIVE times in this stupid movie) continuing. The acceptance of a terrible death by these characters, many of who are major, is an extremely annoying occurrence. This goes back to Emmerich’s God complex: characters die this supposed “merciful” death if Emmerich considers them important, if not, a horrific death awaits. Major characters are ground up in gears and shown graphically and pointlessly drowning.

Emmerich’s latest begins during 2009, when scientists discover that the tectonic plates that make up the earth’s crust (I think) are shifting and behaving erratically, forecasting disaster for humanity everywhere in a few short years. The governments of the world keep this a secret, hoping to use the projected time wisely to prepare for humanity’s survival. However, it soon becomes apparent that even the best predictions are inaccurate, and that humankind is generally screwed. Before a single effects-driven event, we also learn that the wealthy private sector was given the right to buy space on massive “arks,” which are later revealed to be foolish-looking cruise ship-submarine hybrids.

The film follows several characters. There is the main scientist/White House staff member played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, who is morally conflicted from the beginning about his government’s action yet does nothing really to prevent anything or warn anyone, except his cruise-ship performer father. Danny Glover plays the president of the United States, and Thandie Newton plays his daughter. There is John Cusack as Jackson Curtis, a limo driver/science-fiction author, and Amanda Peet as his ex-wife. The film uses Mr. Cusack’s character as the one the audience is supposed to follow and identify with the most, similar to numerous Emmerich hero-fathers of past films. The main problem with “2012”’s characters are that they are not in fact characters. Everyone in this film is a cog in a machine, with Emmerich’s God-complex soaring to new heights as he plays evil puppet master, sparing people and condemning them with the most arbitrary nature. No character has anything resembling a personality, and the excuse that this is an effects-driven action film is no excuse, even Emmerich’s own past films had great characters without sacrificing the spectacle.

As the film moves on, so to do its characters, trotting the globe most inexplicably given the fact that fuel and resources are now mostly underwater. When our heroes, lead by Jackson Curtis, arrive in China or wherever the arks are being launched from, the passengers and potential survivors of the events of 2012 are revealed to be, not surprisingly, a very homogenous bunch, with the future looking mighty like something Adolph Hitler would’ve imagined. This should be the final insult of the film, but there are still thirty long minutes to go. With its oppressive run-time, shoulder-shrugging approach to the death of millions, and ridiculous happy-and-ambiguous-at-the-same-time ending, “2012” has managed to do the impossible and unseat “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” as the worst film of 2009.

Film Grade: F

Non Combatant

I am not a fighter by nature, in any sense of the word. I stand up for myself, but actual fighting eludes me as a solution to many of my day to day situations. There are things that I believe to be worth fighting for, and fighting against. I'm not talking about other people or their ideas, that scope is far too narrow to include anything I take arms against. I strike against sloth and apathy, in myself. I wage war for cleanliness and comfort. I take pause from any battle for a good-tasting meal. 

Recently I have come into combat with bad films. After a string of articles dishing out the merits of films of a lesser importance, I decided to become a combatant against lousy cinema for a time. This did not mean delving into the stereotypical pool of "classics" that, as my Uncle would put it, "high-minded cineasts" would put forth. I went in to my own backlog of films I had never watched. Impulse buys, thefts, and gifts were all piled up, numbering at least fifty, and I needed to make a dent. So I pulled out a few, and watched.

I started with "The Friends of Eddie Coyle," a meditation on "snitching" amongst criminals, ranging from low to higher ranking. The film followed, arguably more than its title rat, a team of bank robbers, an amateur gun-runner aiming for the big time, and an old, low-level gun broker. The gun broker is the titular Eddie Coyle, who is looking at 3 to five up north (In New Hampshire, Coyle is located in Boston.) Eddie, and most of the film's other criminals, all have a relationship of information-trading with a cop, Foley, and it is this cop Coyle goes to in order to try and get his sentence reduced, for being friends with "Uncle." We meet and see more of Coyle's potential targets for giving up than Coyle himself. Coyle's problems are shown to us in single scenes; one scene at home with the wife and kids, a few with the small-time gun runner, a few with Foley, and a few with fellow rat Dillon, played by Peter Boyle. This makes viewers feel as though they know Coyle intimately, we know him well with only a few scenes. The film is fun to watch, understated in story, with very good visuals. It is a rewarding world of thieves to get sucked into for an hour and forty minutes.

Next was "The Conversation," Frances Ford Coppala's 1974 film starring Gene Hackman. It is a simple-seeming story of a wiretapper, a professional, detached, bugger, Harry Caul, who gets involved in a conversation he tapes, embarking on a hazy, trippy dangerous journey to the truth. A couple may be hurt if Harry hands over his recordings, and this possibility unnerves him to the breaking point. The film is like a horror movie, with garbled audio serving to scare, and dehumanize characters. Hackman plays the main character, who has about 90% screen time, as a private man who carries nothing personal with him. Harry Caul is awakened from this life when he realizes the impact of the consequences of his personal involvement; audio turns to human voices for him. The film that follows this sudden change plummets Harry into a feverish nightmare of truth-seeking, and the result he found blew his mind, and mine as well.

Next in line was "The Road," in theatres. This film was reasonably mind-blowing. The vision of apocalypse unleashed on viewers should scare anyone; this is where we are headed and what we will become when we get there. The fact that the story, of father and son struggling to reach the coast in false hopes of life being easier there, moves relatively slow serves the film's purpose: one should be distracted by observing every inch of the screen, which is packed with the grim, pathetic, whispering decay of the world. The father and son are secondary, functioning as human diving bells for the viewer, entry into this world of cold and gray and lifelessness. The film wrapped me up completely, and didn't let go once.

Combat against unworthy cinema is a necessary precaution, but bad cinema must be tolerated. It is often humorous to watch, humorous to write about, and humorous to read about. It is humorous to discuss. For any of those humorous things to occur, bad cinema must also be tolerated. Besides, "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" will always be seen by an audience manyfold larger than that of "The Road," way of the world. But as long as bad cinema has an intangible way of upping the quality of my own life, I will continue to, and be happy to, wage an endless war against it, forever going back and forth between non-combatant and combatant.

Before My Eyes

I can understand why posts I've written would lead readers (Ha!) to believe that all I do is sit around watching defunct television shows. But two nights ago I went into the city to spend the night carousing and drinking, which is the first other activity of mine I will hint at on this blog.

I was a little lightheaded driving into town down I-95, I was getting lost in Dinosaur Jr.'s new album 'Farm,' particularly the song Plans. It was excellent but the subject matter, of break-ups and broken hearts, was hitting a little close to home. I arrived in town unsure of myself, not in the least because my chosen attire was an orange vintage Philadelphia Flyers jacket. I met up with my friend and we proceeded to walk about town, the entire time with me half in the conversations taking place. 

It was about 15th and Walnut when I thought I saw a high school friend of mine walking ahead. I was so out of it that I wandered straight into the street, apparently. I'm going to have to take the witness's word for it, because I wasn't paying attention at all. The car that nearly hit me was a silver GMC Envoy, or possibly a Pathfinder Armada, with tinted windows. The window rolls down, and I'm staring at the hardest looking dude I've ever seen, and he gives me the most serious "Are you shitting me? I know you're shitting me" face, while I stumble over explanations as to what made me walk out into the middle of the street against traffic, which I myself am unsure of. 

After my companion explained to me what exactly happened, I was overcome with a fit of the shakes and the sweats, even though I never knew I was in any real danger. I spent the rest of the night thinking, "What if I'm dead and I just don't know it?" I'm still thinking that.

Moderation

It has come to my attention that anyone who reads this would have reason to believe that all I do is sit around and watch irrelevant television shows.

That sentence was too long. 

Problem is, I know that isn't true, but I have an immense amount of trouble defending that truth, the truth that is the opposite of the previous conjecture. The one about me.

I haven't been running lately, that's the reason I'm sort off kilter. I'm going to run tomorrow. Thing is, I've been working out my glamour muscles. That is a reference to the last episode of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," in which Corey from "That 80's Show" accuses Mac of "Only working out [his] glamour muscles." I've been doing that, and believe me, this is not a vain comment. If anything, I have low self-esteem, I'm not trying to inflate my own ego here. Thing is, I've only been working out to the end of improving this muscle group. The fucking title of this thing includes the term "run," I feel like I should get back to it. I'm going to do it tomorrow, whenever I can. As long as it's before 6PM.

What color is my Piss going to be tomorrow?

Carnivale has my favorite style of character division. Since the show is composed of two parallel story lines, the cast of characters is roughly divided in half, as I like to refer to it the Nick Stahl half and the Clancy Brown half. This also means that the run time of the show is also halved, which is perfect for impatient people like me.

Nick Stahl is the reason I started watching Carnivale. I was riding high of my viewing of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, which starred Mr Stahl as John Connor. The first adds for Canivale, the Season 1 package cover, hit the streets almost simultaneously, and my interest was piqued. It took until the 2004 DVD release, a Christmas present, for me to see a second of the show, but until then I followed it loosely via reviews, primarily those published in Entertainment Weekly (I mention this so that those reading know that I was not overcome by fits of research prior to asking for a sight-unseen television box set for a Christmas present.) I viewed the entire first season and then shelved the show, relatively underwhelmed. This let down feeling also went along with season 2, which I was watching on air concurrently in January 2005. The best thing I can say about what that did for me was get me into Deadwood, which was re-running the first season at the time. These episodes would lead me to my favorite show of all time, Deadwood. I did however drop out of viewing Carnivale season 2 around the fourth episode, so the first ever show I watched on HBO was officially discarded. During a what would become to be routine home invasion in 2006, the set was stolen. and I never gave the show a thought after that.

I proceeded to do something odd for my birthday in 2007. I had asked for Season 2 of Carnivale on a whim, got it, and then asked for a Season 1 replacement Christmas. I re-watched Season 1 over January 2008, but inexplicably stopped 11 episodes in when my mother retired that same month around that same time. 

Today I had cause to open the show up again. After some Rome viewings a few days back, I decided that my Winter should be made up of finishing my cancelled HBO shows, namely, Deadwood and Carnivale. SInce Carnivale is a show only I am into in this household, I am using my time during the day to consume the mythology choked show. Like I said earlier, the show is divided into two halves. The Nick Stahl half does battle against the Clancy Brown half. Nick Stahl plays an isolated southwest kid whom we meet burying his mother. A bulldozer driven by the bank destroys his home, and a traveling Carnival takes him on as help. We meet Clancy Brown, a pious minister who begins to be tormented by his past and his own internal demon. Over the course of season 1, it becomes apparent that a battle between these two men who have never met is imminent, with the Nick Stahl, or Ben Hawkins, as good and Clancy Brown, or Brother Justin Crowe, as evil. It also becomes clear that the man who runs the Carnival had the same relationship with Ben's father, the elusive Henry Scudder. Set against the biblical backdrop of the 1930s dust bowl, Carnivale is as cryptic as they come but lent an air of urgency via setting and the music, which sounds lifted from the horror genre, with a touch of religious grandeur added to give a certain weight to it. 

I found episodes eleven and twelve of season 1 very rewarding, and now plan on diving head-first into the second, final season. I seem to always be doing this, getting into shows that I know full well end too soon. I wonder what that says about me psychologically, a question I plan to leave to the professionals. It does show, evident to anyone, that the premium cable networks need to give their shows more of a chance.