Far Out

Watching A Boy Named Charlie Brown for the first time: was this intended as a head film? Seriously, the musical portions really cry out for some mind-expanding psychedelics.



Plus, there's that "Linus-is-jonesing-for-his-blanket" sub-plot.

EDIT: Christ, if it was a head movie, those had to be some depressed hippies at the finish. The thing about Peanuts (the comic strip) is that it frequently used Charlie Brown's failure as a punchline, but in the cartoons, specifically this cartoon, they linger afterward, so that you could see how it affects him. And that isn't pretty. So, say, in this movie, Charlie gets so depressed that he won't get out of bed. And then the ending fakes you out, thinking that he'll finally succeed at something, but even that is an illusion. I'm not the first to point this out, but this is pretty deep shit for "children's entertainment".

Good Morning, Baltimore

I have an interview with a junior high on the other side of town on Wednesday. I'm still a bit reticent about taking a teaching position after the school year has already started, but, as they say, beggars can't be choosers. We'll see how it goes.

In an effort to get my mind off my own pitiful drama, I went to go see "Hairspray" tonight. It's actually the first time that I have been to a movie since the beginning of summer. Unfortunately, may Divine forgive me, I actually enjoyed it. Once you get over the fact that John Travolta sucks in the role -- he wasn't convincing as a woman, as a Baltimorian, or even, oddly, as being fat -- it actually works really well. The songs were, by and large, enjoyable, and the entire thing came was cinematic enough to justify the remake. It started particularly strong, with the songs gining it momentum; eventually the plot starts to slow down, and the songs became a bit less enjoyable and irreverent. Other than Travolta, I found myself quite pleased with the rest of the cast, and I have a crush on Elijah Kelley, the young man who played Penny Pingleton's beau Seaweed. He was frankly beautiful, and just lit up the screen with his enthusiasm. Some bits of the movie had me thinking to myself, "That's not how it happened!" But by the end, I just accepted it for what it was, as something independent of its source material. After the disappointment of the recent cinematic adaptations of "The Producers" and "Dreamgirls", it was nice to see a confident, well-crafted musical that I genuinely enjoyed.

Unfortunately, before the year is out we're going to be faced with Tim Burton's re-imagining of Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd," something which I find myself less than enthusiastic about.

10

More taggery via Minge, this time in regard to my favorite films. Instead of the 20 films he did, I've chosen just the top 10; this list can change from day to day, so this list should be not thought of as in any way definitive. I also had a lot of trouble putting the films in order, so I chose the arbitrary alphabetic order. I also tried to avoid using the same directors over and over, in favor of casting a wider net.

All About My Mother. Nuns. Transexuals. Performance art. Hookers. Lesbians. Drugs. Birth. Death. Acting. AIDS. Hope. The most complex and ambitious expression of Almodovar's melodramatic aesthetic, weaving the influences of mid-century Hollywood directors like Douglas Sirk (see below) into something modern and monumental and wholly his own. This followed a long period of critical neglect for Almodovar, and a full recovery from something of an artistic slump for him that persisted throughout the 1990s. I think the surprise of finding a film of his so entertaining and thoughtful helped resuscitate his career internationally. He has yet to disappoint us by making another Kika. Plus, this was the first time I wondered if Penelope Cruz might actually be a decent actress. Who knew? Evidently, the Spanish. They never cease to amaze.

An American in Paris. So many people claim to prefer Singin' In The Rain to this movie, but I always thought that one didn't flow particularly well, and I prefer the studio-bound evocation of Paris that you get in this film, particularly during the much-derided ballet section. Plus, y'know, Oscar Levant, so bonus.

This is the movie (well, this and The Pirate) that made me fall in love with Gene Kelly: his muscular acrobatics seemed the perfect expression of a certain post-war restlessness, just as Fred Astaire embodied the fantasies of ease and affluence for Depression-era audiences. Plus, I just love Vincent Minnelli's musicals. (It was either this one, or Meet Me in St. Louis, but this movie flows a little smoother for me.)

Fight Club. My inner straight guy digs this movie. I think my inner straight guy might have the hots for Helena Bonham Carter. My outer gay guy has the hots for Edward Norton, so everyone is happy! Plus, any movie that includes a talking penguin...

Only dark spot: Meatloaf's tits. Ick. But at least he's not singing.

Hairspray. Yes, I'm a poseur. But in terms of sheer entertainment, this is the John Waters movie that does it for me. It balances precariously between earnestness and irony. It is clearly a subject that means something to Waters: he wrote about the model for the fictional dance show in Crackpot, and it evidently stuck with him. The colors are pretty, the performances are perfect, the hair is elaborate, the cameos are just right, and the music is great. And it was Divine's last film.

The Heiress. This movie is on the list solely for the performance of Olivia de Havilland. The moment her performance changes -- and it does take just a moment -- from the naive optimism of the beginning of the film, to one filled with by bitterness and lost opportunity -- is one of the most chilling moments in movie history. It is made even more chilling by the fact that you can't even see her face when that moment occurs, and that the change is clear only by the tone of her voice. This, then, is acting at its most sublime and elemental. And anyone who has ever been burned, who has ended up chiding themselves for the stupid decision they made by making themselves emotionally vulnerable to someone who ended up betraying them, will be touched by the ending, one that manages to be both tragic and triumphant.

Letter From An Unknown Woman. Evidently I love weepies. They don't get much more weep-tastic than this. Ophuls' continental melodrama is witty and maudlin, and occasionally you get the urge to grab Joan Fontaine and shake her until she gets over it. But you know she won't, you know that this fatalistic scenario can only be resolved one way. And even with foreknowledge, I still always cry. As above, RE: the tragic and triumphant. A classy, elegant melodrama.

Orpheus. Ah, the inscrutable French. The post-war landscape adds to a sense of desolation in Jean Cocteau's retelling of the Orpheus myth. As with Beauty & the Beast, this movie is chock full of surreal images that linger in your memory long after you've seen the movie -- the emissaries of death, for instance, uniformed and astride their motorcycles, seeming not unlike Nazi predators, prowling the countryside. Unlike the earlier movie, the story isn't particularly escapist. It's brutal and depressing and so gorgeous. Much like the eponymous hero, as portrayed by Jean Marais.

Run Lola Run. The film itself is so packed full of action that you don't even get a chance to consider the themes that underlie it all until you've left the theater. Stuff about the nature of reality, the nature of cause and effect, why techno music is the best music to use when you're cleaning the house. It's a smart film that isn't particularly interested in convincing you of how smart it is, it just does what it does, and you fill in the gaps. You get out of it whatever you're willing to put in, and I love that. Plus, the image of a red-haired Franka Potente running through the streets of Berlin have become sort of iconic.

Shaun of the Dead. It makes with teh funny. I don't tend to be a zombie-movie fan -- or, in fact, a fan of much of what passes for horror movies in the past 30 years -- but I love this one. Partly because it can be viewed as a gory metaphor for growing up, for taking responsibility for your own life, your own happiness, and those that you care about. The passing away (in this case, literally) of former things, and making a life for yourself, unencumbered by the past. Plus, there's a happy ending, something you don't often see in your run-of-the-mill zombie flicks.

Written on the Wind. Let's see: it inspired Dallas. It features Rock Hudson at his dead sexiest. Oil drills simulate sex throughout the Texas landscape. Russell Metty's beautiful lighting, which does not correspond to any light that occurs outside of a Hollywood studio. Dorothy Malone kills her father with a masturbatory dance to the frenetic strains of "Temptation". Gorgeous Technicolor. The fact that the protagonists are cyphers, and the antagonists are the ones you want to triumph. And check out this dialogue:

Kyle Hadley: "You filthy liar!"
Marianne Hadley: "I'm filthy -- PERIOD!"

Dude, this movie is genius, my favorite piece of camp, ever. And yet, every time I see it, I end up crying be the end. In spite of the irony, which Douglas Sirk always insisted was intentional, it still touches something in me, and that's why I love it. It's why I always name this, when asked to name my favorite film. Which then explains the look of confusion from whomever asked me in the first place.

Blast You, Minge!

That feisty queen tagged me! Wailey! Wailey!

Well, OK, so I'm flattered that someone cares about my opinion, but these are hard questions. "Next time make it easier for me, OK, handsome?"

Name a book that you want to share so much that you keep giving away copies:
I didn't so much give away copies as loaned everybody mine, but Sean Stewart's Mockingbird. At least three other people read the book, and it is no longer in my possession. It is well-written, and is extremely enjoyable with it's mixture of realism and fantasy.

Also: Gideon Defoe's The Pirates! in an Adventure with Scientists. Because it is a freaking hoot! And there have been many, many others, including Karen Joy Fowler's Jane Austen Book Club, Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, and Alan Moore & Eddie Campbell's From Hell.

Name a piece of music that changed the way you listen to music:
Um, it's not a piece of music so much as an album. I borrowed Pet Shop Boys' Discography from the guy across the hall in my dorm on the last day of my freshman year at university. Keeping in mind that I already knew some of the songs from my youth, I was just completely blown away to hear them, alongside all these brilliant songs that I had never heard before. Up to that point, I listened almost exclusively to alternative rock -- The Smiths, Pixies, REM -- but this album threw my musical tastes wide open. It proved to be a gateway music to disco, which, in itself, got me completely into 60s & 70s soul and funk. At the same time, their references to classical music got me interested in such composers as Richard Strauss and Claude Debussy. They're also at least partly responsible for my interest in Noel Coward, Stephen Sondheim, and Dusty Springfield. They molded my idea of what pop music is, and what it can accomplish, and what can be expected from it. I found a music that spoke to something fundamental in me, music that had a wider view of the world than the petty complaints of white, suburban youth. Not only that, it was music made by gay folks. So, you know, bonus. Plus it was the music that convinced me that I should dance, no matter how self-conscious I am, and no matter how stupid I looked. Pet Shop Boys are still my favorite musical group.

Although I still don't like "West End Girls" very much.

Name a film you can watch again and again without fatigue:
I have a few: Written on the Wind, Letter from an Unknown Woman, I Walked with a Zombie, There's Always Tomorrow, The Heiress, Rebecca, Smiles of a Summer Night, Hairspray. I could probably come up with a few more, but that's good enough for now. Most of these are weepies, because I've noticed that sad movies retain their emotional impact for me better than comedies do. And because I am a complete pushover for melodrama of the non-camp variety.

Name a performer for whom you suspend all disbelief:
Barbara Stanwyck. Even in her stupid movies (Cattle Queen of Montana, anybody?), she just MAKES me believe her. And even her stupid roles are acted intelligently.

Name a work of art you'd like to live with:
I could probably come up with something better if I weren't so tired, but right now, all I can think about is that I would really love if I could have one room of my apartment papered with the Cow wallpaper that Andy Warhol used to cover galleries with. That would be so, indescribably cool! Albeit difficult to coordinate my furniture with.

Name a work of fiction that has penetrated your real life:
Wow, that sounds pretty personal. Penetrated how, exactly?

The work of literary fiction that I have most often found myself idly thinking about in my every day life is Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. Mostly because it is a novel that traffics very heavily in metaphor, and I am nothing if not a metaphorophile. The problem is, by saying this, I basically make myself look like the most pretentious individual on the planet. Which, you may be thinking, almost goes without saying.

Wait, a work of fiction can also be a television show, right? Well, in that case the answer would have to be Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. Oddly, for many of the same reasons listed above. It's all a metaphor for growing up. Julie and I (and occasionally Jolie) would plan our Tuesday nights around it, and watch it together, and then discuss what we watched. And, if you really want to see me bawl, just show me the episode where Buffy's mom dies. I'm not so much into it as I was when it was on the air, but it shaped how I think about television shows since I first watched it.

Name a punch line that always makes you laugh:
This was the easiest question to answer. From Arrested Development:

Buster: "Mmmm, so watery, and yet there's a smack of ham to it!"

Comic genius, never fails to crack me up completely every time. I even start laughing when I just remember the line. To see it, click below.

I tag whoever feels like being tagged: I don't have enough faith that people read my blog to tag anyone.

God Save The Queen (From Dentures On The Lam)

I went to see "The Queen" with Liz and Amanda yesterday in West Palm Beach. The movie was, not surprisingly, good. You should see it, etc. etc., but that is not what I will be discussing today.

I want to talk about the audience that was watching the movie. More specifically, I want to talk about the people sitting behind us. They were complete nightmares: a group of elderly people who insisted on talking throughout a great deal of the movie. Talking at full volume, and for extended periods of time. Exchanges such as this:

OLD MAN: "Who's that?"
OLD WOMAN: "I think that might be her husband."
OLD MAN: "WHAT??"
OLD WOMAN: "HER HUSBAND! IT'S HER HUSBAND!"
OLD MAN: "Whose husband?"

And so it continued. If you have seen the movie, you know that this is not a full-sensory-experience blockbuster: there are extended periods where there is no sound at all. No sound except the sound of the audience, that is. No sound but old people discussing who the guy SLEEPING IN THE QUEEN'S BED IS!!! "Oh, well, that's her pimp. He likes to get a piece of that red-hot action every once in a while."

Also, any time any of the characters insulted the queen, the woman would say, "YEAH!" Or, "THAT'S RIGHT!" Or, "SHE'S JUST JEALOUS OF DIANA!" Clearly the woman missed some of the point of the movie, which is not surprising, since she talked through the point of the movie. She was not bashful about expressing where her sympathies lie.

But if that were the worst crime committed, it would have been merely irritating. What thrust the entire thing into the realm of the absurd was when the woman's denture container fell out of her purse during a particularly important part, spilling her dentures on the floor. What followed was five minutes of them shouting at one another, rooting around behind us, trying to find her teeth. There was no effort to try to be quiet about it, there was no consideration for those of us whose teeth were not on the floor of the cinema.

And then, to top it all off, they clapped when the movie ended. Why did they do that? The same thing happened when I saw "Dreamgirls", and I was as puzzled then. Who were they clapping for? The projectionist? Because the picture was shaky for the entire duration, occasionally making me feel sea-sick. Were they clapping for themselves, for providing such a distracting floor show? I just don't know. Surely they recognize that Helen Mirren isn't actually in the theater, performing solely for our benefit. Good Lord, just imagine these people at a live performance!

It's bad enough when one has to contend with obnoxious teenagers making snide remarks throughout "Brokeback Mountain"; now the elderly have decided to get in on some of that irritant action. Is there no one left in the world that recognizes that seeing a movie in a theater is not the same thing as watching it in the privacy of your own home? Has this society been completely overrun with assholes?

I ask that question rhetorically, by the way.

RE:Volver

Tonight I went, along with The Two Lizzes, to see Pedro Almodovar's Volver. I had assumed that I wouldn't get the chance to see it in the theater, and in fact already have it added to my Netflix queue. But then, last night, I checked Movies.com, and discovered that it was being shown, as part of an Emerging Cinema series, at the Lake Worth Playhouse, which is within walking distance of where I lived when I was in AmeriCorps last year. Who knew?

Anyways, the film is splendid, as I had every confidence that it would be. I am an unapologetic fan of Almodovar: his blend of Sirkian melodama with a sort of profane surrealistic humor speaks to something fundamental in me. I admit that, while I admired his last film, Bad Education, tremedously, I haven't been able to bring myself to re-watch it, as I have his other films. Something about it lacks the warmth of some of his other films, and a sense of cynicism seems to underlie its entirety. From his attempt at (male-dominated) Hitchcockian suspense, he turns back to Sirk's womens' pictures as his primary muse with this film. Shots of giant windmills overwhelming a bleak landscape bring to mind the shots of the oil wells in Sirk's Written On The Wind -- one of my favorite movies, by the way -- as does the notion of returning to "the river", a symbol for a simpler time that has since passed. But Almodovar applies the deftly elegant writing that typified Bad Education to this picture, with details casually introduced at the beginning of the film, only to take on greater significance as the story progresses. As he himself says on the official website: "My films are becoming more and more difficult to tell and summarize in a few lines." This is true, and this is not, to my mind, a bad thing at all. But as complicated as it gets, the flow of the story seems very organic, almost naturalistic, in spite of the almost operatic plot. Almodovar knows the importance of not setting out all the information before the audience from the start of the picture, something which can occasionally leave the audience reeling, but which also allows a sense of discovery as the plot unfolds.

On a purely fannish level, it is a joy to see both Carmen Maura and Chus Lampreave, both Almodovar veterans from as far back as 1983's Dark Habits, again gracing his films. And Penelope Cruz, in her third Almodovar film, acquits herself beautifully to her role. Her acting is natural and graceful, and seemingly effortless when not encumbered by the burden of the English language. I have never seen her more beautiful -- apparently, she wore a prosthetic ass in order to look more realistic, and, I have to say, it suits her. And, as heavy as the film occasionally is, it is also very funny.

In addition to all of this, one scene takes place to Saint Etienne's "A Good Thing". Talk about two great tastes that taste great together!

This is the best film I've seen in a long, long time. I recommend seeing it.