Education: Part I

I was reading some posts on Barbelith, and there was a topic on what your ideal school curriculum would. I found the question really interesting. It's easy to complain about schools, everyone does and when I was in high school I certainly did, but it's a lot harder to come up with something that would actually work. But I'm going to give it a try, to find something that would work within the realities of student lifein high school.

The first thing to consider in assessing school is the fact that students are not going to want to do work. No one wants to be there, even if they do, it's basically required to feign disdain for even the least bit of work that is requested. So you're working with a problematic situation because the students' goal is to just pass the time as quickly and effortlessly as possible. That means if you give them the opportunity to 'explore freely,' they're likely to end up just doing nothing.

I think the biggest problem with school is that it puts you off learning. School is bad, you learn at school, therefore learning is bad. For a long time I held this belief too, the idea that analyzing a book, like we would in class, was reading too much into it. Frequently I'd hear people question an assertion by wondering whether that was the author's intention. Was something created as a symbol or was it just coincidence, and if the author didn't intend it, then why are we bothering to talk about it?

I think the biggest change for me was when I read Watchmen, and for the first time I saw a work that required using literary techniques to analyze it. You couldn't really understand the work without the understanding of foils, juxtaposition, metaphor, etc. It's a work that demands to be analyzed, to be deconstructed and unraveled. And so for the first time, I had to move from passive absorber mode to active explorer when it came to approaching a work of fiction, and that meant that I was doing the same things I did in class on my own time, and suddenly, doing them in class didn't seem so ridiculous. This was followed a couple of years later by The Invisibles, which broke me out of this idea that a symbol is only valid if the author consciously inserts it into the work, The Invisibles showed that the greatest books essentially write themselves, with the symbolism arising organically out of the work itself, rather than through specific choices by the author.

So, this experience I had forced me to reevaluate the kneejerk student reaction that whatever we're doing in class is stupid. That brings up the question, if people have to discover this themselves, how can we expect to teach them? I know a lot of people still refuse to engage with a film beyond the mere act of viewing it, and that likely stems from the fact that school experience makes people associate analysis with work, and in their free time, they don't want to work.

The other problem with English classes is the fact that so few people actually read the works that are discussed and written about in class. I always tried to read the whole book, but there were times when I'd do a skim and then take a look over the Cliff Notes to make sure I got the point. If you consider the fact that your average person might read a Shakespeare play and not understand it any better than they would if they looked through the Cliff Notes, it makes sense why people don't bother to read. But at the same time this means that the class becomes increasingly removed from the text itself and becomes more about repeating the same few ideas, an enaction of a tired ritual instead of a live engagement with a fresh text.

So, what would it take to make people actually read? I would suggest starting to mix in study of films with books in English classes, so that people would be able to write about something that they actually know about. You could give people a great book, but still some of them aren't going to read it because schooling creates an aversion to reading. That's a big problem for later in life, but putting that aside, people usually enjoy watching movies, so it would make sense to educate them through something they enjoy.

Some movies are shown in class, but it's usually the movie of a book you've already read, and then it gets evaluated in relation to the book, not as an art object in and of itself. Or a film is used to illustrate a historical event. This use of film reinforces the idea that the medium is somehow inferior, the only films worthwhile are ones that are based off something that is already acccepted into the academic canon.

I would move to a split books/films English class, where the films are challenging original works that have all the thematic complexity of the books that are read. Shakespeare's stuff was the popular fiction of his time, so there's no harm in having people learn from something they actually like. The problem then becomes, which films would you show? The initial leaning would be to go for something old, probably a European art film from the 50s, films that are inherently artistic, and also aren't popular fiction. This would be a way to avoid the complaints that would arise if you started showing people popular films. People would think the film has to be something you wouldn't want to see, or else it's not really learning.

The primary reason you read books in English classes is to provide the material to write about. I consider writing the most important skill you learn in high school, it's got the most real world relevance, and it's also the thing you're going to use most at college, regardless of what major you do. So, even though I'm a film major, most of my assignments are still writing essays, just about films instead of books. Even if you're a science major, you're still going to write stuff, so students need to learn how to write, and unfortunately, the fact that they don't actually read the books they're writing about means that composing essays is seen largely as 'bullshitting' enough to fill the page requirement. It's this association of the analytical process with 'bullshit' that's disturbing, and is something I see a lot in college students. There's the implication that reading deeply into something is inherently ridiculous, and that a work is primarily surface.

So, using films in the classroom and then having students analyze them in written assignments would hopefully be a way to get people comfortable with the process of analytical thought. There wouldn't be the issue of not reading the book because everyone would see the same film. What sort of films would I use? Because you're approaching from a narrative perspective, the actual film techniques used should primarily be those with literary antecedents. One film I'd consider ideal would be 2001: A Space Odyssey. Yes, there'd be a lot of chuckles about the drug association, and I'm sure a lot of people wouldn't understand it, but it's a film so symbolic that you have to read into it. So, assigning people to discuss the meaning of the film, as they see it would be an ideal chance for people to analyze a text in their own way.

Another film that would be great would be In the Mood for Love/2046, films rich with symbolism, parallels and literary technique. These would be films that would challenge people, but also hopefullly be enjoyable and give them a lifelong appreciation for qulaity films. Antoher great duo to analyze would be Before Sunrise/Before Sunset.

As I mentioned before, one of the biggest problems with having kids read in school is that it creates this lifelong association between books and school, leading people to view books as bad, or reading as something they 'should do,' not something they'd want to do. By the time you get to school, film is already ingrained as something entertaining, so in theory, these classes would make people take what they already do, but approach it from a more literary perspective.

Now, would this work in reality? You'd have to choose the films carefully, or else people would build up a wall between the films shown in class and the films they watch for entertainment, to the point that they would consider them almost seperate mediums and zone out from those films in the same way they do the books people already read in class. I think a good opening exercise would be to take a really popular, accessible film, perhaps even one chosen by the class, and then read into it, to show that the techniques used in class can be used on any film, any piece of fiction.

That's one of the keys in this revamp of schools. It is learning the act of analysis that's most important, not that what people are analyzing be within the accepted canon of literary material. In high school, I would enjoy writing essays when I could do it on a topic of my choice. So, I wrote about all my favorite stuff over the course of the four years: Star Wars, Batman Returns, Ghost World, Pink Floyd, Philip K. Dick, Tim Burton, Blade Runner, The Invisibles, Watchmen, Brazil and more. When I got a chance to do an essay on whatever I wanted, I put more effort in and took the time to really make it good, whereas an essay on a book I didn't really care about I'd just write quickly to get it done. On the AP English exam, I wrote an essay on The Invisibles and got a 5, so it's not what you write about, but how you make your point that matters.

So in theory, if you were to give students carte blanche to write on whatever they want, they'd put more effort into the essays. So, you could have people write about rap lyrics, videogames, whatever, as long as they put an effort into legitimately analyzing that which they choose to write about. In an urban school, are people really going to read Hamlet? No, but maybe use Tupac's poetry in the course and you'll get people more interested. Going down this path, you get into the problem of the middle aged teacher seemingly trying to act hip by teaching what 'the kids today' like, and also having to do additional reading to evaluate the quality of assignments.

So, that's the basic idea. In the next part I'll cover some of the issues, and also discuss how math/science fit into things.

Mysterious Skin

Mysterious Skin was one of the most critically acclaimed films of the summer, and now that it's out on DVD, I've finally gotten around to seeing it. The film follows the lives of two teenagers who were molested by their little league coach ten years prior and are each struggling to deal with the ramifications of what they went through. The film's notable for its structure, which follows two completely different plot line until the very end of the film, when our two main characters finally meet and sort through their issues.

The opening sequence of the film, which contrasts the two boys' abuse experiences is really well done, with a nice use of voiceover to convey narrative information. I love the opening shot with Apple Jacks falling down onto young Neil's head, leaving trails of sugar in their wake as they bounce off his hair. Another really striking image is the UFO over Brian's house, an image that remains unexplained in the rest of the film. Either his whole family had a mass hallucination, or there really was a UFO there. But that UFO serves as a crucial character motivator later in the film, regardless of its reality. The scenes with Neil and the coach were getting close to painfully awkward. You know something bad is going to happen, and it's just a matter of waiting for things to go wrong with the relationship.

The twist that the film puts on the abuse scenario is the fact that Neil actually likes the coach and he never considers himself a victim. Even though his experience clearly caused massive psychological trauma and led to his destructive behavior patterns, Neil finds that he never was able to find someone who would make him feel the way that the coach did, though he is not reticent in seeking out that love.

In the present, the film splits into two parallel narrative tracks, following Neil and Brian seperately. The two stories have quite disparate tones, but I think they work well together, and in light of the finale, it's clear that the film needs both stories to have its full impact. Neil's story is the more serious and developed, following his journeys as a male prostitute. His best friend is Wendy, played by Michelle Trachtenberg, and I'm really glad to see that she's choosing challenging roles in her post-Buffy days. Of all the actors from the show, she's done the most quality work, between this and her all too brief turn on Six Feet Under. She's good here, but is firmly in a supporting role, used to show us more of Neil and help us understand him. I really like their discussion in front of the movie screen, the idea that they would want to watch a movie of their lives that ends with them standing in front of the screen is definitely something I could see myself saying.

Concurrently we follow a slightly goofier plot with Brian and his investigations into UFO culture. Now, we already know that he was not abducted by a UFO, that it's actually the coach, which changes the way that we view these scenes. Brian's arc is his struggle to finally face what happened to him, to clear away the mental blocks that he has built up around the experience. It was good to see Mary Lynn Raskjub, so brilliant on 24, getting some work. She's good here as someone who's quite delusional. If we are to use logic, it would imply that she too was abused, and has masked it behind this story about aliens, but at the same time, it's possible she is telling the truth and Brian sees her zeal as a way to avoid confronting his own issues. The scene where Avalyn comes on to him and he awkwardly rejects her is tough to watch because it's the first time we really witness the extent of the emotional trauma he has suffered.

About halfway through the film Neil heads off to New York and Brian meets up with Eric, Neil's friend. The scenes with Brian and Eric are some of the most fun in the film, as we see Eric gradually move Brian towards the point where he can resolve the issues he has surrounding the abuse experience. We get the sense that Eric is his first real friend, and through their relationship, he gains the courage to stand up to his father and more easily express his feelings. Even though the real torrent of emotion comes at the end of the film, it is his experiences with Eric that allow Brian to finally let go at the end.

In New York we see the at first glamourous life of Neil as a prostitue. The scene where he takes on a john with AIDS is disturbing and has you fearful for the character, who is so self destructive. He has a sheen of invulnerability and can just coast along without concern for the trouble he leaves in his wake and seeing the AIDS victim is like seeing his own future if he's not careful. This invulnerability is completely destroyed in the harrowing confrontation with the man from Brighton Beach who rapes and beat Neil, leaving him bloody and broken. It's a really disturbing scene, the first time that Neil completely loses control of a situation.

The ending of the film is great, as Neil finally acknowledges the damages his actions have done, particularly to Brian. Both Neil and the coach were responsible for what happened to Brian, and that's no an easy thing for Neil to admit. I love the camera move up at the end of the film leaving the two characters crying on the couch, with their pasts finally revealed, the harsh reality torn from the hazy construct of memory. The stories have been destroyed and with only the reality left, they have no choice but to cry, alone in a house that has moved on. Throw in some Sigur Ros and you've got a great ending for a film.

One of the film's greatest successes is its visual style. The camera captures some gorgeous images and the stylization in the memories is striking. Even though the abuse sequences are difficult to watch, they are filmed in a way that works to convey the impact of what is happening, and the restrictions required by the use of such young actors actually ends up helping to create a more stylish depiction of events. I really liked the look of the New York sequences, particularly the stylish bar where Neil 'works,' and also the early 90s goth punk stylings of Wendy and Eric. The music is great as well, with wonderful looping, ethereal guitars adding to the film's beautiful, dreamlike feel, with the Sigur Ros at the end a notable highlight. It's a dark film, but the music manages to make everything palatable, not diminishing the intensity of the impact, but rather placing the viewer in a state where it's acceptable.

Even though it's needed for the story, I think the film does suffer a bit from the divided structure. It's an episodic film and only the two main characters get significant development, the others are all there to serve the needs of the plot. Obviously it's difficult to create a lot of fully fleshed out characters in a 100 minute film, and these aren't grievous offenders on the exposition front, but I'd still have liked to get a bit more insight into what drove Wendy or Eric. Though I guess it's proper that we only see them in relation to Neil or Brian.

The other thing preventing me from fully embracing the film is that the subject matter is difficult. This is a film you respect more than really love, though perhaps like Irreversible, the impact of the violence will lessen on future viewings and it will be easier to watch and enjoy. On the first viewing it's sometimes difficult for me to survey the full impact of a film because I'm anxious about how the narrative will resolve itself, and that was the case here. There were a lot of scenes where the awkwardness made things a bit difficult to watch.

So, on the second viewing I'll make the final decree, but the first viewing definitely proves that this is a top notch film. It uses music and visuals to create a unique mood and supports them with a compelling narrative. A film can make up for a lot of sins if it leaves you with a great ending and that was certainly the case here, the final image was striking and the last scene a great catharsis. This is definitely one of the best films I've seen this year.

Belle & Sebastian: 'Dear Catastrophe Waitress'

A new Belle and Sebastian album is looming close on the horizon, and judging from the couple of new songs I heard at Across the Narrows, it's going to continue with the style they created on their previous album 'Dear Catastrophe Waitress.' Even though I love their early stuff, I'd say that DCW is by far their best album, one of those really special pieces of pop, where every song is brilliant and just listening to it really makes me smile, something that none of their previous albms, no matter how good, can do.

The album kicks off with 'Step into My Office Baby,' a fantastically cheesy song that consists of a series of offce work related double entendres, such as the chrous:

"We need to talk
Step into my office, baby
I’m going to give you the job
I’m pushing for a raise
I’ve been pushing now for days"

The lyrics are fun and playful in a way that none of their songs prior were, just going so far over the top you can't help but laugh, and the music backing it all is great as well, with a nice drum pattern and some cool backup vocal stuff on the middle "I'm a slave to work..." section.

After this great opening they segue into the title track, which is a bit darker, but nicely backed by a driving string line. I love the way that B&S work a lot of instruments into their songs. The strings make this song work. After that is the laid back "If She Wants Me," which has a great chorus and a nice happy, but resigned feel.

"Piazza New York Catcher" is more in line with their early stuff, a song where the lyrics are the main focus, and are backed by acoustic guitar work. It's a funny song, with the great line, "Piazza New York catcher, are you straight or are you gay," one of those really witty things that they manage to work into their songs. I like the fact that you can listen a B&S song either as a great musical piece, or if you single out the lyrics, most of their songs tell an interesting story.

On this album they've embraced a 60s pop feel. Some of their EP stuff flirts with it, like Dog on Wheels, but the closest predecessor to this is 'Legal Man,' with its 60s spy movie feel. 'Asleep on a Sunbeam' definitely has the hippie pop feel, with one of the few vocal contributions from Isobel.

Next up is one of the album's best tracks, a near perfect pop track, 'I'm a Cuckoo.' It's not a particularly retro feel here, it's just an upbeat, well constructed song. I love before the chorus when Stuart has a long line of words to fit into a small space, and the instrumental section after the end of each chorus is great as well. It's a joy to listen to.

Next up is 'You Don't Send Me,' another strong track, followed by 'Wrapped Up in Books,' which I love. The ascending scales after the title lyric are great. 'Lord Anthony' follows, which is the most old style B&S track on the album, but it really works here. I love the story of the song and the light instrumentation. The lyrics have a very unique flow, constructing sentences in a way different from virtually any other band I've come across. The highlight here is the end of the track.

My second favorite song from the album is 'If You Find Yourself Caught in Love,' which is so over the top joyous it's unbelievable. The lyrics here are great, twisting the typical "I'm alone and sad" emo thing into a really upbeat happy anthemic song. The 60s style echo backing vocals are great, and for such a poppy song, the lyrics are interesting as well. So, check this one out, it's genius.

It's followed by Roy Walker which is also retro feeling, but a bit more country. It's another great track, with the questing chorus and excellent horns throughout. And the album ends with its best song, "Stay Loose." Here they move from 60s style to 80s style, with some keyboards and vocal distortion. It's unlike any song they've done and is one of those great album closing tracks that hints at the potential of what the band could be. I love everything about this song, the way the band enters on the chorus, and best of all, the great guitar soloes at the middle and end of the track. It's one of those songs where you just don't want it to end.

There's really not a bad song on this album, and there's some extraordinary ones. I love the blend of poppy sound and structure with the really complex, interesting lyrics, and the full, varied instrumental backing. Busting out strings and horns is always great, and it really works well here to create some fantastic songs. While I love their other albums, this new incarnation of Belle and Sebastian is an improvement on the old.

Filming Original Works

I watched the first X-Men film a few days ago, inspired by my marathon journey through Claremont's X-Men run, and watching the film furthered a lot of what I've been thinking about recently in terms of filmmaking, most notably, the question of why someone would want to adapt another work into a film.

So, let's say it's 1987, the era of X-Men comics I reviewed in my last post. Chris Claremont has been writing the book for 120 issues, and you're given the task of making this into a film. Well the obvious place to start would be to look at what makes Claremont's work successful, what would make people want to follow this book for so long, and this is the long form character development. Claremont's writing is brilliant because of the way he gradually changes characters, and makes you feel like they're real people, living real lives, no matter what extraordinary events they come across, everything makes an impact on them and causes changes. However, Claremont's strength, the longform character development, just can't be done in a feature film, where story guides things instead of character. That's why an X-Men film can never be as strong as the comics, because it can't go into anywhere near the depth that the comics work does.

The X-Men film isn't bad, however it suffers from the same thing that mars numerous films based on other properties, namely a divide between telling the film's story and at the same needing to please the film's fans. In this case, that means that characters who have complex, developed arcs in the comics are reduced to caricature here. If you were doing an X-Men film in 1988, it would be impossible to make a satisfying Storm because she's a character constantly in flux. Post Claremont, she settled into a safe personality, and that's what's represented in the film. There's no sense of the conflicted, layered character from the comics, and Halle Berry's apalling accent doesn't help. Nor do lines like "Do you know what happens to a toad when it's struck by lightning?" Similarly, Scott is reduced to a couple of character traits and Jean is just an object for Logan to be attracted to. They don't really serve the story, they're just there because you need to have some X-Men in the movie, however Storm, Jean and Cyclops add very little to the plot. If you were to write this film from scratch, there's no way you'd include these three deadweight characters, instead Wolverine would go after Rogue himself and confront Magneto one on one, backed by Xavier.

Similar problems occur in Serenity, where complex characters from the series are reduced to a few specific traits and shoehorned into easy goal-based arcs. For example, Kaylie wants to get together with Simon, she has some problems, and then she does. There's no complexity there, it's just a setup and knock 'em down, clean and simple. Compare that to the more complex courtship they had in the series.

Now, you may say that these films are based on long form works and are the exception rather than the rule. However, in adapting novels you run into the same problems. A book usually has too much material for a film, so you have to streamline things, cut out parts and give the characters simple, easy arcs, and still, people will say that the book was better than the movie.

Take something like From Hell, it's a decent film, but it's a completely different thing than the book. The book reveals who the killer is in the second chatper, and then is about exploring what drives someone to kill, and what the consequences of his actions are on his mental state. The film is a whodunit, for which the climax is the revelation of the killer. It's a completely different story, but with just enough of the book to make you annoyed about the copious amounts of brilliant material that got left out. From Hell the book is so well structured to fit into the comics medium, a deep, challenging, intellectual work that is perfect in and of itself.

So, the question arises, if adapting a work is so problematic, why is almost every film coming out based on a pre-existing property? The obvious answer is money. Studios want something that audiences will already be familiar with, because that means all they have to tell people is when it comes out. The audience will already know whether they want to go or not.

However, what reallly bothers me is why, as a filmmaker, you would want to adapt another work? This question gets to a core issue about film that bothers me to no end and that's the fact that even people working in it see it as somehow an inferior medium to the written word, which is so wrong I can't even say. Film is the ultimate medium, combining the best elements of prose, theater, music and painting, and when applied properly, the medium can touch you emotionally in a way that no others can.

Now, when I approach a film, I don't see writing, directing and editing as three seperate processes. They're all intertwined in creating the film. When I'm writing a movie, I'm transcribing the film that's already in my head, and when I'm shooting I'm trying to match that. So, I see the writing as an essential part of the filmmaking process, I wouldn't write a film and not direct it, or direct a film I didn't write, because the two are so intertwined.

Similarly, I would be very hesitant to do a story I didn't come up with. I don't understand why it's acceptable to adapt a work from another medium into a film. For one, it's constricting and rarely produces a truly great film. But it's also this implication that so called 'literary' work is better than 'the movies.' If someone was to write a novel version of Magnolia, do you think the literary community would be calling it the best novel of the year? And yet every year at the Academy Awards, you see films based on novels being acclaimed as the best of the year. It's ridiculous, I want films that bring something new to the world, something unique to the director's vision, you should be in film because you have ideas and a desire to say something, not just because you're able to read a book.

Am I saying that films based on other works shouldn't be honored? The vast majority of films I love are original works, but some like Ghost World or Batman Returns are based on existing properties. In his latter days, Kubrick worked from pre-existing properties as well. But, what Ghost World did was function more as an additional story in the universe, rather than just an adaptation. And with Batman Returns and The Shining, they are both films that are clearly the product of an auteur, who chose the material specifically to put his stamp on it.

However, I still would prefer to see original material, specifically created for the screen. When you watch a Wong Kar-Wai film it's incredible the energy that it exudes, because he's actually a filmmaker rather than someone who writes and directs. What's the difference? WKW works out his films by shooting footage and then seeing what works. So, rather than essentially making the film with the script and then hoping that it works when acted, he makes the film in the filming. Similar methods are used on Irreversible and Elephant, films that are created in the process of their filming, with heavy improvisation, both from the actors and in the style of shooting. And all of these films feel unique and vital, they're stories that could only be told in the medium of cinema.

I guess that's what I'm getting at. The best works aren't just good stories, they're specifically tailored to their medium. That's why adaptations of Alan Moore's works inevitably fail, because he's so good at using that which is specific to the medium of comics, so the story is good, but it's really in the telling that the brilliance emerges. Someone else writes Watchmen, it's a solid revisionist superhero story, like Rising Stars, but Alan uses the medium itself so thoroughly that the work becomes something more.

And when you make a film off a book it's very tough to do that. Books are written based on internal narratives, and usually involve the characters' thoughts in some way. Films can't do that, so you can either end up with a voiceover, which seems forced and stagy, or copious exposition to get points across. Similarly, books usually aren't designed to be that visual, because you can't see what happens in them.

Film has so many unique capabilities, it's foolish to harness yourself to a medium that doesn't allow for these. I consider Magnolia a brilliant film because it uses the medium so well. The use of cutting to connect the characters is something uniquely filmic. He lets the images and music speak in a way that no other medium could do well. Magnolia is a great story, but because of how it's made, it transcends to one of the greatest works of fiction ever made.

So, in light of this, it always bothers me when I hear that someone's adapting a book for the screen. Did you become a director to tell someone else's stories? Is Ron Howard so passionate about the Da Vinci Code that he needed to film it, or is he someone who doesn't really have any stories left to tell and decided to look for something that would likely be popular? Similarly, why is Peter Jackson making a King Kong film? I know it's the movie that inspired him to become a director, but I'm not going to go out and do a comic book remake of The Invisibles, or film another Star Wars. What could doing that remake possibly acheive, the story has been told, and the ideas it has are already out there.

Remakes are the most creatively bankrupt exercise possible. Could you imagine someone saying I've decided to do a rewrite of Catcher in the Rye? "The first one was good, but it's been a while and we could use another version." That sounds ridiculous, and a film remake should sound just as ridiculous. Film is art, and you're not contributing anything by doing something that's already been said. Just because there's a precedent doesn't mean we should accept this behavior.

That's not to say that every story has to be completely original. Tarantino loved old Kung-Fu movies, but he didn't decide to remake 'Lady Snowblood,' instead he took what he loved from them, the feeling they gave him as a viewer, and distilled it into one film. It's the same thing that Morrison did with Flex Mentallo, rather than remaking silver age comics, he distilled the sense of wonder he felt reading them into the book. That's what gives us Star Wars and Indiana Jones, whereas the remake gives us Flash Gordon.

And it's only getting worse. Very few people can get away with writing an original screenplay, and most of the successful films are based on something else. I guess what we need is a revolution wherein the people who make films aren't ones who just know how to use a camera, they're people with stories to tell, who write, direct, shoot and edit their films, true filmmakers rather than an assembly line. Story is the most powerful tool and the fact that our most culturally important medium is getting hand me downs from books and comics is unacceptable. If you're a director who's adapting something else, maybe it's time you got out of the game and let people with stories to tell make their films.

X-Men 195-213

The journey through X-men history continues here, as Claremont passes the 100 issue mark and just keeps going. By the end of this chunk of issues, he had been writing the book for twelve years, which is incredible, and the fact that the book still feels fresh and relevant is testament to just how strong a storyteller he is.

However, that's not to say there aren't some problems in this chunk of issues. 195 co-stars Power Pack, perhaps the dumbest concept that Marvel has ever published. They're a team of young kids who have superhero adventures without their parents knowing. It's so ridiculous and for some reason, they get teamed up with Wolverine in two different issues in this collection. Wolverine interacting with Kitty is a good contrast, Wolverine interacting with Power Pack is awful. If you saw a bunch of kids going around doing superheroics wouldn't you likely try to stop them and call their parents, not fight along side them? In previous reviews I've mentioned the fact that X-Men is best when it's insular, and that having other stuff from the Marvel Universe intrude usually the human/mutant dichotomy that becomes more and more essential to the book.

In a later issue, in which Wolverine battles Lady Deathstrike, the presence of one of the Power kids undermines what is otherwise a top notch dramatic story, illustrated by Barry Windsor Smith. Smith reminds me of Chris Weston in the way his work has a dirty, almost diseased feel. His work's very unique and, largely due the brilliance of LifeDeath I, his presence in a story is a good indicator that it's something special. The concept of the body shop is interesting, and I like the way that the Hellfire Club soldiers that Wolverine wounded back in the Byrne era keep coming back. It's the same idea as Morrison's brilliant Best Man Fall, to show that the actions of our 'hero' can actually cause huge problems for ordinary, decent people. However good the issue is, it's difficult to really accept it when you've got a member of Power Pack in there, I don't know if Claremont was forced to include the character, but whatever happened, it was an awful choice.

Back in the late 190s, we get more stuff with Secret Wars II. This also hurts the book, and even though some of the material works, you don't feel like you're getting a complete story, it takes away from the important stuff going on in the title, and I'd prefer if the major development on Rachel didn't happen as a result of her involvement with the Beyonder. The other lowlight in this chunk of issues is the awful issue in which Kitty and Colossus battle Arcade's robots, or the similarly bad issue where Kurt fights Arcade. This guy is an awful character, why must Claremont continually bring him back? I see no conceivable way to do a good Arcade storyline.

However, leading up to 200, we get a really interesting series of events featuring Magneto. One of my favorite issues of X-Men is 150, where Magneto battles the X-Men, and for the first time he's presented as a logical man, who may actually have a point, rather than a one dimensional villain. At the end of the issue he breaks down, thinking that he's killed Kitty, and we don't see him again until he washes up with Lee Forrester. When Magneto returns, his character's journey continues down its logical path, and we find he has given up his militant ways and is now working together with Xavier. The scenes where they work together as allies are wonderful and it's a shame that Xavier is shipped off into space at the end of 200 because I think there's a lot of potential to show Erik and Xavier working together, and continuing their ideological conflict on a more intellectual level.

One of the most interesting scenes in this time is when Magneto and Kitty go to the Holocaust museum, where Magneto seeks his ancestors. The scene has a curious blend of real world reverence for tragic events and yet, there is also the strong presence of the fantastic, when Mystique and Freedom Force attack. Magneto reveals he is a mutant and is soon turned against by the people he was just connecting with.

A similarly interesting scene is when Kitty goes after the people who attacked Professor X. They call her a mutie and such, then she makes the racial comparison explicit, asking one of her attackers if he would like it if she called him a nigger. It's very harsh language, and definitely disturbing. The question is, is Claremont's use of these real world racial problems exploitative, or does it come organically out of the story? It's definitely unsettling, but I think that's the point. So, it's difficult to say for sure, but I have to respect his ability to confront issues head on.

So, this stuff leads to 200, 'The Trial of Magneto.' This is a great issue because your logic is played against emotion. The masses have turned out to protest Magneto, and they are justified in wanting him convicted. His prior actions make him deserving of the worst punishment possible, yet we know he has changed, and as a result are strongly behind him. It suffers a bit from recap syndrome, just detailing stories that went before, but there's such an inherent tension in the issue that the recaps just build the suspense. Plus, I like the fact that Magneto does get successfully reformed. The villain turned hero is one of my favorite storytelling tropes and as a result, I was a big fan of this character arc.

Before the Magneto issue, the Essential X-men book reprints two long issues chronicling the adventures of The New Mutants and The X-Men in Asgard. These issues aren't bad, but they don't really do much for the characters. It's a 'ripping yarn' type thing that's much more important for The New Mutants than it is for the X-Men. Art Adams' art in the book is phenomenal, definitely the highlight of the story. But, this barbarian type fantasy just isn't that fun to read, it's something that should have been left in the 80s.

After Magneto's trial, we get some further development with Scott and Maddy Pryor. I feel a real attachment to Pryor for some reason, likely because I know the bad things in store for the character, and the fact that Scott behaves so unkindly towards her. In her first appearances, Maddy is great, and her initial romance with Scott provides the subplot for my favorite era of the book. However, here we see that Scott can never really commit to an ordinary life, he's always going to put himself in the role of leader, and that's what issue 201 is about, where Storm fights him to show that it's okay to let someone else be in charge for a while. I haven't read the start of X-Factor, so I'm a bit hazy on where things go from here, but I do know that Scott abandons Maddie to go back to Jean.

This is what Morrison gets to the core of in his run, the fact that Scott is emotionally stunted, someone who's drawn to Jean more as an idea than as a person. It actually reminds me a bit of Nate from Six Feet Under, in the sense that he tried to have a normal life with Lisa, but the memory of this fiery love he had with Brenda prevents him from fully embracing their life together. That's why Scott's relationship with Emma Frost is so intriuging, he's consciously moving away from the relationship that has defined his life thus far, even as Emma tempts him with Jean's Phoenix iconography, the memory of what they used to be. He's a very flawed character, though with his move to X-Factor, I don't get to see how he progresses. However, there is an Essential X-Factor coming out soon, so I'll be picking that up and following his journey.

Anyway, moving on there's the two Secret Wars issues and the Nightcrawler issue I mentioned before. The Nightcrawler issue itself isn't that good, but it does bring up a lot of interesting stuff about the character. He's restless and not suited to the complex moral landscape the X-Men find themselves in. He'd rather be a swashbuckler in a strict manichean world, where he could easily get thrills finding bad guys, rather than having to deal with issues. It's a nice progression of the character's journey.

That's one of the most satisfying thing about Claremont's writing, all the characters are always moving steadily forward. It may be very slow, gradual development, but they are never stagnant. Storm, Wolverine, Nightcrawler and Colossus are Claremont's most notable creations, and over the course of his run, they've all changed in significant ways, while still remaining true to the core of their personality. It's a lot like Whedon's work on Buffy, by the end of season six, Willow has changed a huge amount, but deep down, she's still the same character. It's a gradual process of evolution that is only really apparent when you step back and examine where the characters have been. The experiences he's had with the X-Men have made Kurt bitter and jaded, causing him to want to escape into fantasy personas, and that's what the issue is really about.

Following this is an arc in which the X-Men battle Nimrod, while turning on Rachel. I'm not a big fan of Rachel, largely because her origin is so convoluted, it's difficult to connect with her as a person. She opened the floodgates for a lot of awful characters, however, this ending for her arc is pretty interesting. I like the role Wolverine plays here, as someone who is so scarred by his own moral decay that he's willing to kill Rachel rather than let her become a killer. It's to make up for when he couldn't kill Jean back in the Dark Phoenix era.

This series of issues, and arguably Claremont's entire run to date, is about the morality of being a hero, and the inevitable compromises that come with that role. Storm started out purely committed to her ideals of good, such that she couldn't even kill the brood back in the 160s. Back in those issues, I wrote that it bothered me how none of the X-Men were willing to kill, even though it was clearly neccesary. That has changed, now their idealism is totally compromised and they're just trying to survive. This leads to the team up with the Hellfire Club to battle Nimrod. Much like with Magneto, their worst enemy has now become an ally, and it's interesting to watch the X-Men work together with the Hellfire Club to defeat a greater foe.

Nimrod himself is even presented in a positive light. The people are behind him, and he's nice enough to help a kid with his homework. He mentions that he's developing emotions, from posing as human for so long, he's starting to become human. The X-Men are hated by the public yet call themselves heroes. In destroying Nimrod they further anger the public to protect themselves. So, fighting for their own lives, can they really consider what they're doing to be good?

At this time, Claremont amps up the mutant/human conflict, culminating in the brilliant Mutant Massacre storyline. For the first chunk of his run, up until Days of Future Past and even beyond, the conflict between mutant and human isn't really a big deal. The X-men don't have too many problems with people and there's no sense of mutants being a threat or menace. That's why I find it hard to accept the Byrne run as the archetypal X-series, it actually has very little in common with what ended up in the film, and though it was good, I'd consider Paul Smith, or this post-200 era to be the work that defined the series.

The Mutant Massacre is the first crossover, which would later become the bane of the X-titles, but here it's very cool to read, seeing all the pieces connect across titles, even as they remain essentially independent. You could read just X-Men and follow what's going on, but like those early Buffy/Angel crossovers, reading X-Factor or New Mutants will fill in the details you'd miss. The overarching event that ties the issues together is the titular massacre, as the Marauders invade the Morlock tunnels to kill all the Morlocks within them. Why? That's unclear as of yet, but reference is made to Mister Sinister, and I know that all of this eventually leads to the events of Inferno.

But this in many ways is the peak of the mutant/human conflict so far. The X-men work best when they're not traditional superheroes, rather they're just messed up people struggling to survive and that's the case here. They try to help the Morlocks, and end up just collecting bodies and trying to help the few who survive. I love the end of the first issue, when Storm tells Wolverine to bring back one prisoner, and deal with the rest. Storm, who once valued life so highly, has become totally compromised, and instructs Wolverine to go out and kill the Marauders. Colossus takes pleasure in killing one of the Marauders, and is raring to go after more, though he is restrained at the mansion. This is the culmination of the moral decay that began with the Brood storyline for Storm, the values have been compromised because there is too much at stake. With so many people dead, and the mansion in a siege to protect the few who survive, they have no choice but to kill. It's a moral conundrum, and these issues raise things to war-level. No one is safe, and at the end of the storyline, Colossus, Kitty and Kurt and all left incapacitated. It's a really brutal storyline, and works wonderfully. I always love the storylines in ongoing narratives when everything is falling apart and the status quo is totally upended, and this is basically that for the X-Men.

One of the other chapters of the crossover is Power Pack, which is awful. However, the X-Factor and Thor issues are great. Thor is a book I'd never read but it was oddly compelling. Thor was this really magnetic character, a bit off, but rather jolly and committed to what he was doing. The end of his issue when he gives the Morlocks a Viking funeral is a highlight. The X-Factor stuff is great as well, as Scott ponders what he was doing by leaving his wife, all the while caught up in a siege of his own. I like the way they never meet the X-Men, but as a reader of both titles, you're aware of how close they come. The ending of the storyline in X-Factor is downbeat and sad, appropriate to what the storyline was about.

By raising the stakes in the human/mutant conflict, Claremont makes it so that the X-Men aren't so much fighting for good or ideals, they're just fighting to stay alive, and that's much more interesting. Watching everyone slowly lose faith in the dream is compelling, and after a brief downturn in the 180s-190s, the book is totally back, the best it's been since the Paul Smith era. I've got the next chunk of the book coming in in single issues from Ebay, so the journey will continue. I want to read to the end of Claremont's run and see where else Claremont is going to send these characters.

So, while I'm on the subject of X-Men, I want to talk about the Decimation event that is currently happening the X-Books. Following yet another alternate reality crossover, House of M, the 'real' Marvel universe has been altered so that there are only about 200 mutants. The idea behind this was that editorial felt that mutants were becoming too common and as a result were not a relatable metaphor for minorities, as they were intended to be. So, they invented this reality warp thing to change that and wipe out most of the mutants.

Now, this baffles me for a number of reasons. Most notably is the fact that if you want to get rid of a lot of mutants, why would you use an alternate reality to do this? Apparently editorial at Marvel has forgot that stories are supposed to have a thing called 'drama' and 'conflict' in them and in a longform narrative, they should build on the events that came before. So, why would you make this major dramatic event something that people won't even remember? But more important, why is something that has so much dramatic potential being done through this awful narrative device. The books have been hinting at this Days of Future Past future for years. There are too many mutants and they want to reduce the number, as well as make mutants feel like more of an oppressed minority. So why not just have the sentinels start up again and do another Mutant Massacre, taking out most of the mutants in the world, and leaving a small few left to fight back. Basically play out Days of Future Past, that story alone could last you three or four years, and would give you more of a sense of mutants as an oppressed minority. Plus, it has the potential to be phenomenal, to have the opportunity to do the definitive war between mutant and human storyline and not use it is ridiculous.

Or you could actually use the oft-discussed mutant cure, but leave a few mutants who could not be cured, making them an extreme minority. There's a lot of drama there, and it was already hinted at in Whedon's run on Astonishing X-Men.

So, as a storyteller it offends me. To use a reality warp to do what could have been an amazing four or five year storyline is horrible. But now that I've been reading this old X-men stuff, it bothers me as a fan of the characters. This basically ends the world that Claremont created. After all the shit that happened in the 90s, Morrison was still able to produce a book that developed the characters and concept of X-Men, while still staying true to its core ideas. That's how stories are supposed to progress, there are some elements that are key, like on Buffy, Buffy's not all of a sudden going to open her own restaurant, but she can go through major character changes. What the House of M stuff does is invalidate the characters who had been developed in favor of an imposed editorial change. I don't want to sound like the typical fanboy here, but I think what Marvel's doing here is trying to mix things up rather than allowing changes to come organically out of the story. Claremont's run had a constantly changing status quo and a huge shifting ensemble cast, meaning that things always felt fresh. I've read 120 issues of his run on the book and I don't feel like he's repeated himself.

But what this gets down to is the fact that X-Men is at its core a corporate property. Claremont had a personal vision for it, and for 15 years was able to guide the books and keep them fresh and interesting, with real characters who changed, not corporate properties. However, after that, the books lost the sense of having a strong authorial vision, something that's inevitably a consequence of having 15 titles set in the universe. So, Marvel Editorial dictates how things go, they dumped Claremont the first time, and they made House of M now, and if the changes stick, you wind up with a major step backwards, or sideways, and in this world, you couldn't have someone like Morrison come along and move things forward again, picking up where Claremont left off. I am intrigued by what House of M did, but it's more from a sense of curiosity about the changes rather than a sense of involvement with the characters. That's what Claremont never did, Magneto turned from evil not becauuse of a mindwipe or reality warp, rather because of things that he and the other characters did. That's how a story should function.

So, for me, X-Men begins with Claremont, takes a break, then ends with Morrison. They took a corporate property and characters, and made them into emotional stories with fully realized people. After Emma Frost and Scott kiss at the graveyard, no more is needed.

Division Shadow Now Available

The first issue of the comic I've been working on for a while is finally out, and you can order it here. I wrote the book and I'm self publishing it. It's been a bit annoying to have to pay for and do all the work to get the book out, but it's rewarding too. It's a story I believe in and really wanted to tell, and if I'm going to work on anything, it might as well be that. I first came up with the story three years ago, so it's been a long journey to print, with a lot of starts and stops, but we're zipping along now, and the remaining five issues should be released monthly.

So, if you've read my reviews and said don't criticize something until you've done it yourself, well now I have, so if nothing else, this earns me the right to critique other peoples' work. You can get more information at www.divisionshadow.com and also read a thirteen page preview here. I think it's a cool book, perhaps you will too.

Last Days

The last review I did was of Domino, a film I praised for its absurdly quick cutting and constant visual stimulation. So, it's a big jump to this review, of Gus Van Sant's Last Days, a film that is extremely minimalistic, dwelling on the most mundane everyday things to build a unique atmosphere.

Last Days is the follow up to Van Sant's Elephant, a film I loved. Both films feature very little in the way of a traditional plot and are primarily about building a world and feeling that the characters inhabit. Elephant was a bit more focused, since everything led up to a big event at the end. Last Days also builds to something, but it's not as clear or impactful an ending.

It was widely noted in the press surrounding the film's release that the last days of the title are Kurt Cobain's, and knowing at least something about Kurt's life is essential to understanding the film. I suppose you could figure it out, but at no point in the film do they explicitly say that this guy is a huge rock star, or that his fame is likely the reason for the ennui he's experiencing now. I did some reading on Cobain after seeing the film, and it's made things a lot clearer, but the film itself gives you very little understanding of the circumstances of what's going on. Normally I'd say go into a film completely fresh, but this is one where some outside information is helpful. I think it might have been wise to give a bit more exposition on who this guy is and why he's feeling the way he does, but with the film there's a conscious decision to avoid the typical biopic structure, meaning that if you bring the information you need, this can go a lot deeper than a traditional biopic, because it's more about putting you in this guy's headspace than trying to convey objective facts.

The film's got a lot of funny moments, mainly playing on the mundanity of everyday life. I love Blake making mac and cheese and dumping the cheese pack into the water, or when Blake is having cereal and accidentally puts the cereal back in the fridge instead of the milk. Similarly, the awkward conversation with the yellow pages guy and the Mormons are highlights. Particularly with the yellow pages guy, it's unclear why Blake is placing an ad, or if this store even exists, but the scene itself is strangely compelling. It's the only time in the entire film that we see someone coaxing Blake out of his self imposed mental cocoon and out into the real world.

In the entire film Blake speaks about three intelligible lines, most of the time he's just mumbling and we can barely understand him. This is annoying at first, but once you realize that the narrative is irrelevant, it becomes clear that the way he's saying things is more important than what he's saying. The entire film gives you this weird feeling of living this shiftless life, functioning at a distance from the outside world. So, the most powerful moments come when Blake comes into contact with regular people, as in the afforementioned yellow pages scene, or notably the scene with Kim Gordon, who calls him out on his lifestyle. That's the most emotionally affecting scene in the piece. Another really interesting scene is when Blake wanders into the town and goes to the rock club.

I think the film's biggest problem is that, other than Blake, we really don't know who anyone is. In Elephant there was a huge cast, but they all played off of archetypes, here there's just a bunch of random people. It's unclear whether they're in the band or just his friends. One of them looks a lot like Dave Grohl, and I doubt that's coincidence, but the phone call early in the film seems to imply that his band is somewhere else. So, the scenes with these people are difficult to decipher, and generally end up as strands without meaning. You see this guy listening to 'Venus in Furs,' but there's no meaning beyond that. It's just the surface of things. I suppose the point is to show Blake's distance from the people in his life, but it's all kind of unclear.

The film isn't entertaining in the traditional sense, or even something particularly thought provoking, it's more like going on a drug trip, entering this alien headspace for a while. You're not sure exactly what's going on, but there's an odd feeling about everything going on. However, the film is a bit self indulgent and actively confronts the viewer with long shots of essentially nothing, and countless diversions from the barely there main point.

In the end, it's not like everything came together, but the image of Blake's soul leaving his body is striking, and provides an apt conclusion for things. Stuff just happens and we caught some of the end of this man's life. Is the film a success? It certainly acheives what it sets out to do, but I think more could have been done with the premise, without turning it into a conventional narrative. Van Sant's minimalism is so concrete as to alienate the viewer. It's not a good thing when you have to turn to wikipedia afterwards to understand the basic premise of the movie.

But still, it works as a completely unique cinematic experience. I finished the film and wasn't emotionally affected, but I felt different, I remained in that odd state of mind after the film was done, that's a powerful piece of cinema.

Domino

Domino has gotten some of the worst reviews of any film that's come out recently, but these reviews were interesting in the way that they seemed to contain a vehement anger at the film, and a film that creates this sort of anger usually means it at least tries something different. The Fog may have gotten worse reviews, but I didn't see anyone claiming it was a nadir of cinematic expression. And all these awful reviews seemed to point out the things that made the trailer so great as the flaws of the film, so I went to see the film, and ended up loving it. This film is a hyper-kinetic pop art object in which narrative and character are rendered completely irrelevant and the shooting and editing of the film itself becomes the primary attraction.

There's a lot of films out there that end up being awful, but are able to string together a great two minute trailer. XXX was one of these, very quick editing, cool looking characters and a lot of excess. Compressed into two minutes, it was a cool experience. Spread out over two hours, not so much. Domino never relents from that trailer pace, the film may set a new record for average shots per minute, there's an unbelievable number of cuts and nearly every shot is moving. This makes the film an incredible rush, and lends an energy to every scene.

This film is much closer to an art film than a mainstream film, in the sense that the joy is more in the construction than the narrative itself. The opening scenes that convey Domino's journey from troubled youth to bounty hunter are the only particularly interesting character work. From there on, the film follows a fairly standard heist plot. If you shoot this differently, it could have the relaxed flow of Ocean's Twelve, or more likely end up as just a conventional thriller that's ok, but nothing special. Domino is a film unlike anything else I've seen, and for that alone I can respect it.

Domino is almost always backed by music, and that music determines the rhythm of the scenes. Even in dialogue scenes, there's almost constant cutting and you end up watching the cutting more than the action. I'm not saying that every film should be like this, I can respect the slow pace of a film like In the Mood For Love, but the medium can do this, and it's riveting to watch the construction of the movie and its total saturation of visual extravagence.

Thus, it's tough to write about the film from a traditional narrative context. The story doesn't convey the experience of watching the movie, it becomes something else entirely. I think Keira Knightley's good in the movie, anchoring everything, but the star is really the style. The opening credits alone are more exciting than most films, with the great spiralling dominoes and crazy 70s music. The movie constantly goes so far over the top, you can't believe it. The Jerry Springer sequence is so ridiculous, you've got to laugh at it. And the quick cutting makes it even more funny, because this ridiculous sequence is being propelled at such speed. The Tom Waits appearance is another bizarre one, and the intercutting with the image of Jesus makes it even more over the top. By the end of the film, I thought there was nowhere left to go, but the shootout in the tower outshone everything else with its sheer excess.

I guess what makes the film so good is that it really uses the medium. You couldn't do this in a book, it's uniquely cinematic. When I was teaching the workshop this summer, I presented the theory that the visual in film should be engaging on its own terms, apart from the narrative. Basically, your shot shouldn't just show the character talking to forward the story, it should show the talking in an interesting way. The best films are the ones that feature a great visual style and narrative.

So, this theory would be a rebuke to the traditional idea of invisible film construction, the idea that the authorial hand should not be present in the film. I think watching a film that is a marvel of visual construction is just as invigorating as watching a well told story. The best films combine the two, and perhaps the best fusion is the kind exhibited by Magnolia, which uses the medium so well, but also tells a story that's brilliant on its own terms.

Domino focuses almost entirely on the visual style part of film, with the narrative occasionally getting lost. Most Hollywood films are all about the narrative, and at this point, it has to be a pretty amazing story to get by with a weak visual style. If the visual style was toned down, Domino wouldn't be a particularly special movie. I've seen a ton of good, but unremarkable movies in the crime genre.

However, by choosing to move completely away from narrative and embrace the visual style part of film so thoroughly, Scott creates a film that's more like a pop art object. You watch the film, but don't really engage with the characters. And yet, the film is so fun to watch, that doesn't matter. When Domino's comrades fall, she picks up two machine guns and fires on some advancing mobsters, choosing to kill for the first time. In a typical film, this would be an agonizing moral decision, and the payoff of the revenge would be the focus of the scene. That's there in Domino, but it's beneath the surface, the focus of the scene is on the visual spectacle of Keira with the guns, and on showing that from as many angles as possible.

In some respects, the film recalls Wong Kar-Wai's mid 90s hyperpop period, and Scott makes extensive use of the so called 'Chungking effect,' messing with the shutter speed. WKW used the stylistic excess of those films to display the emotions of the characters. Scott doesn't really do that here, it's just about the editing, and quite frankly, I think that's enough.

Now, you may say, what about your review of Batman Begins, where I said:

we'd need Batman to be in some physical danger, and we don't get that either, or more accurately, we can't tell if he is because of the way the fight is edited. You have no clue what's going on because cuts are used to convey action rather than the actors actually fighting. The best action scenes rely on us knowing exactly what's going and being able to easily follow things. Look at the lightsaber duel in The Phantom Menace, wide shots make it easy to follow the action. Here, it's all quick cuts and then somehow Batman has won, we don't know how. But, that's not just this movie, it's a problem with many action movies today.

So, how do I reconcile that commment with what I'm saying about Domino? Here's the difference, Batman Begins is a staid film that wallows in gray muck. It uses quick cutting, but this follows a traditionally edited film, and is accompanied by boring score. So, the quick cutting doesn't fit into the world the film has constructed. I would argue that for quick cutting to be successful, it has to be tied to music or heavy sound design, making it rhythmic rather than random. Batman Begins isn't a very pop movie, it's a heavy, oppressive thing, and as a result, you want a heavy, brutal fight, not a bunch of edits. Domino is a pop construction, and a result, the editing fits. You don't really care about the character, you're not supposed to, so let's just show things in as cool a way as possible. Batman Begins is worlds away from cool. Also I'd argue Domino's fight scenes, even with the extreme cutting, are still more intelligible than what we got in Begins, and a lot more enjoyable.

All that said, yes, there's parts of the story that don't work. The ironic use of celebrities, as with Ian Ziering and Brian Austin Green, just isn't funny anymore, and considering the possibilities of the character, the fact that the story is such a conventional action structure seems like a missed opportunity. However, the film moves so fast, you can easily ignore the flaws and just revel in what is onscreen. It's a crazy, hyper-pop film art object that makes fuller use of the medium than anything else that's come out this year.

I'm normally someone who uses critical response as my primary barometer for whether or not to see a film, but in this case, the critics are off. This is a unique and riveting film that is definitely worth seeing. I loved it, and you should see it.

American Beauty and Six Feet Under: The World of Alan Ball

A couple of days ago I rewatched American Beauty for the first time since seeing the end of Six Feet Under. Before I go on, this article's going to go into stuff from the end of Six Feet Under, so if you haven't seen the whole series, don't read it.







But if you have seen the series, you've come to the right place. The thing that Six Feet Under and American Beauty have in common is the fact that both are works by Alan Ball, he wrote American Beauty and created/wrote/directed SFU. American Beauty is one of the rare films where I'd consider it as much a product of the writer as the director. I suppose that's mostly because Ball went on to make SFU, while Mendes has only done one film since, and it wasn't particularly thematically connected to American Beauty, whereas SFU has a lot of commonalities with American Beauty.

First off a bit about the film itself, this is a movie I've loved from the first time I saw it. It's probably the best film to ever receive the best picture Oscar, and the only best picture winner in the past ten years that was truly a great film. It's a film that some people find depressing, but is exhilirating to me. It's a movie that covers a lot of the themes present in my work, the need to stop messing around in a routine and start doing what you really want to do.

The film tells the story of a guy who starts living life how he wants to instead of how he's supposed to, and ultimately he dies, the implication being that society will not tolerate people who so blatantly flaunt its rules. If you compare Lester's arc to Nate's, there's a lot of interesting parallels, and also a lot of insight into the difference between the differences in story construction between film and television.

Both me follow the same basic arc. Numbed by the difficulties of family life and work, they find a female muse who reignites in them something that was lost, and pursue her, until they're struck down and suddenly killed. However, the morality of their actions are presented in opposite ways. The entire movie glorifies Lester's new outlook on life, whereas Nate's actions are presented as troubling at least, morally unforgivable at worst. I seriously doubt it's coincidence that his AVM strikes immediately after having sex with Maggie.

So, why is Lester a hero for what he does, while Nate is bad? A lot of it is in the fact that this is a pattern for Nate. Lester is someone who's been trapped in this life for years and just accepted it, whereas we'd already seen Nate struggle to adjust to married life. During the Lisa arc in year three, the implication was that Nate couldn't adjust to married life because he was in love with Brenda, and it was that sense of missed opportunity that stopped him from being happy. So, let's imagine that Lisa hadn't died and Nate had stuck with her for twenty years, growing more and more numb. Then, we could probably sympathize with Nate shirking responsibility in favor of getting what he wants.

However, the narrative of Six Feet Under seemed to be leading us towards a happy romantic resolution for Nate and Brenda. When Nate has sex with Maggie, it devestates the audience because it means that Nate doesn't live up to our expectations for the kind of man he should be. It's the same as when Brenda goes on her sexual journey in season two, she's pushing Nate away, except that Lisa's pregnancy takes away from us blaming her. At the end of season five Brenda is trying, and has overcome her demons. One of the most devestating images from the season is Brenda sitting alone in the Quaker church, while Nate and Maggie are at her apartment having sex. That really got to me, she was giving everything she had to Nate and he was behaving inexcusably.

But, is what Nate did really that different than what Lester did? Both of them saw a woman who would make them believe they were something they weren't. For Lester, Angela's youth and beauty would allow him to tap into an energy that he's long since lost. He saw her as someone with all the fire that Caroline has lost through the years.

For Nate, Maggie would allow him to recapture some of the idealism of his youth. Nate is someone who's spiritual, and I would imagine back in Seattle he was involved with all kinds of New Age and Buddhist stuff. Maggie, and her Quaker faith, would put him back in touch with this spirituality, and make him a part of something bigger than himself. As Brenda says, Nate wanted someone who could make him seem like a better man than he is. This came at a time when he was beginning to realize that Brenda wasn't what she used to be. She had lost some of the crazy fire that first attracted him to her. She grew out of the youthful restlessness that had dominated her life until her breakdown in season two, Nate never reached that breakdown point, he was always able to get by no matter what he did. In season three, Nate's little rebellions against Lisa could have eventually led to a breakdown, but he didn't reach that point until he slept with Maggie. That was the act that crossed the line, and he was appropriately punished.

Lester never actually crosses that line. When he's given the chance to have sex with Angela, the reality of who she is intrudes on the mental fantasy he has constructed for himself. The sexual temptress of his dreams turns out to be a virgin once her masks fall away. For Nate, Maggie was purity and goodness, an image that he destroys by having sex with her.

The joy of American Beauty is in watching Lester gleefullly trump societal taboos. It's basically a fantasy for people stuck in a routine, he tells off his boss, smokes pot when he wants, buys the car he wants and works a job so meaningless it becomes entertaining. He consciously chooses to live like he did when he was a teenager, and as a result is happier than he ever was before. In the entire Alan Ball-verse, Lester is the character who encounters the least problems, and in the time we see him, is almost always happy. He's able to accept death because he knows he's lived his life to the fullest, for Nate, death is something to fear, because he always feels like he's lost something by choosing to come back and work at the funeral home. He's lived the exact life he didn't want to lead, and that's what makes him forever restless.

Ball clearly supports Lester, but how does the work present the morality of Nate's actions? To my mind, Nate is a character with a fire for life and a constant desire to move forward and try to reach a utopian existence. This is the thing that keeps him forever moving forward, but it also prevents him from being happy in the moment. Lester is able to find joy in the little things, but Nate can never stop thinking about the big picture and the fact that on some level he considers his life a failure.

That's one of the most interesting things about Ball's work, the characters all have grand ambitions for their lives, but they're radically different. Nate has it all, but he can't stop wanting more, whereas his brother David wants is a normal life, family and kids. However, the fact that he is gay means that wanting this puts him into conflict with society. He has to struggle to get that which Nate takes for granted. Claire is more like Nate, she's always reaching for something more, yet she finds herself in danger when she takes a temp job at an office and finds herself getting increasingly drawn into the routine of office work. If she continued down that path, it's likely she would find it impossible to break out and return to her art. And then, what she abandoned would become a psychological cancer destroying her like missed opportunity ultimately destroyed Nate.

One of the other major themes the two works share is the characters' desire to be unique, as Angela says "There's nothing worse than being ordinary." This is the governing principle of Brenda and Claire's lives, even though they would never admit it, because to do so would imply that their uniqueness is a conscious effort rather than just how they are. Angela's situation is different from Brenda and Clarie's in that she sees being ordinary as blending into the background, whereas she always wants to be the center of attention. That's what grates her so much about Ricky being with Jane, he shows no interest in her, seeing through her glamourous mask to the inner beauty of Jane. Jane is a proto-Claire, with a similar attraction to slightly insane boys. She doesn't have that much depth though, I suppose her biggest act is her decision at the end of the film to abandon the pre-chosen societal path and go to New York with Ricky. Seeing what 'normal life' has turned her parents into, she decides that this isn't for her and instead chooses to run away and try something completely different.

Like Jane, Claire runs away to New York at the end, but because of the development that a series allows for, Claire has passed through that rebellious period and instead leaves for New York on good terms with her family. I like the fact that both Claire and Brenda, who were so obsessed with remaining unique, ultimately end up embracing traditional values, but doing it in their own way. So Brenda winds up with kids, and family has her top priority, but the family she's assembled is unique, I love the scene in the last episode with Olivier, Margaret, Billy and Brenda all gathered around Willa.

I think the ultimate rejection of the idea that being ordinary is so bad comes when Claire and Ted speak in the last episode. Claire pokes fun at Ted for his decidedly unhip musical tastes, to which Ted responds that being hip is a decidedly adolescent concern. He says he'll listen to what he likes and not care what anyone else thinks, as long as it makes him happy. So, Ted, even though he may be listening to what society tells him to, is actually following his own impulses more than Claire who struggles to remain above the mainstream, even though it alienates her.

There's a whole bunch of other parallels, but this is something to think about. Even though I love American Beauty, Six Feet Under is just so much deeper because of the time allowed to develop character. AB does so much in its running time, but Nate alone has richness enough to talk about for pages on end. Then again, American Beauty does have "Fuck me your majesty!" That makes up for something.

Ultimately, Alan Ball's work always touches on really interesting issues that no one else is talking about, issues of purpose in the modern world. I think he's one of the most talented and entertaining writers working today and I can't wait to see what he comes up with next.

Creator Control: The Magnificent Ambersons and Claremont's X-Men

For class yesterday, we watched The Magnificent Ambersons and read a bunch of articles about it. Ambersons was Orson Welles' followup to Citizen Kane, widely considered the greatest film ever made, and to this day, very few films have surpassed its awe inspiring cinematography. So, after dropping this film, Welles moved on to another ambitious project, an adaptation of the novel, The Magnificent Ambersons.

If one were to just watch the film, it would probably seem bizarrely disjointed, with some flashes of greatness, but a general lack of narrative cohesion. As is, the film is something like David Lynch's Dune, a film with a lot of good stuff in it, but one that never quite comes together as a finished product. The way it is now, Ambersons has a lot of bits that don't make much sense, and character arcs that aren't properly laid out, as well as a very cheesy ending.

However, perhaps more interesting than the film itself is the tragedy behind its production. Welles shot and edited together a 130 minute cut of the film then went to Brazil to shoot another project, at which point disasterous preview screenings led executives to recut the film, bringing it down to 88 minutes, and losing roughly 50 minutes of Welles footage in the process. Welles claimed that the film was even better than Kane. Looking at what is intact, I'd doubt that, but I'd imagine it would have been another masterpiece.

At this time there was no market for deleted scenes or director's cuts, so the footage was burned to make more storage space, and with that, the original Magnificent Ambersons was destroyed. This incident is probably the most grievous example of the perils of working within the Hollywood system, without final cut on a project. Welles had no ownership of the project, and because Kane was a box office failure, he had little influence over its direction. There was nothing he could do to protect the film from the editing because the director had no rights under the classical Hollywood system. And this continued for the rest of Welles' career, he was unable to get funding for projects, and had to make to do with lower budgets and inferior facilities.

Film is, unfortunately, a medium where you need a lot of money to realize a vision. Even with the proliferation of really good CG stuff, a certain base amount of money is needed to get a project going. For all its other merits, the way that digital is democratizing the medium is something to be thankful for. David Lynch is now able to make films on his own schedule, with no studio influence. However, working from self financing, he's not able to get the budget needed to do some things. So, he couldn't make a Dune on his own, those sort of ideas still require studio money, and with the money comes the ceeding of control.

I guess what bothers me so much about the Welles thing is that the footage is just gone. Somebody burned it and with that a work of art is out of this world forever. It's such a transient medium, and with one bad choice, an entire historical record is destroyed, never to return again. What was so briefly in this world, seen by only a few people, is now lost in time. In 'film heaven,' this is one movie that I'd like to see.

But beyond this awful situation, what does the Welles situation tell us about the role of creators vis a vis their creations? There's so many potentially great stories that were never told because the money didn't come through, or personnel dropped out. This is particularly true in comics where Alan Moore's Big Numbers only made it to two issues, and will never be finished. I haven't read it, but I've heard about the table size outline of the character arcs and that makes me sad it will never happen. Similarly, the end of Neil Gaiman's run on Miracleman is locked in legal limbo, and will hopefully make it back in a few years when the lawsuit with McFarlane is settled.

But, the greatest victims of corporate interference are people who work within a corporate system, like old Hollywood or big two comics. Chris Claremont created the X-Men. I know Stan Lee technically made the concept, Len Wein technically made the 'all new, all different team,' but that doesn't matter, because Claremont was the one who made the X-Men we know today. He built characters who have generated billions in merchandising revenue and his stories paved the way for the two films, as well as the thousands of comics made involving the characters.

And from 1974 to about 1985, he had total control over the direction of the X-Men's story. At first it was only one book, then he added New Mutants, a book that was still tightly integrated with the narrative of the main book. However, as the book became more popular, he became subject to more editorial pressure, culminating in an expanding world for the characters, one that forced Claremont to adjust his plans. The most notable affront to his work was bringing Jean Grey back, thus nullifying much of the impact of the original Phoenix saga storyline.

In the 80s, Claremont became more subject to the whims of the editors, and he was forced to indulge in a number of crossovers to build sales. Generally speaking, he made these crossovers work creatively, but in this environment, he was losing control of the world that he built, and the fearful executives forced him to move the characters back towards a more identifiable status quo. Hence Magento returns to being a villain, nullifying years of interesting character development.

The greatest affront to Claremont occurred in 1991 when he was thrown off the book he wrote for fifteen years, with no chance to resolve the plot lines, just left with nothing. It's mind boggling to think that this guy who was solely responsible for making the book into the biggest seller in comics could be let go with barely any notice. Ever since he left, the books had a big decline creatively, at least until the Morrison run in 2001.

So, the lesson of Claremont's experience is have control of what you create. He worked for fifteen years, making countless characters, but when he was fired from the book, he was left with nothing. That's likely why he willingly returned ten years later, because the characters still meant something to him. I find it unbelievable that he'd willingly return to the people who had previously screwed him over, but I guess that sometimes money trumps principle. Not everyone can be Alan Moore when it comes to burning bridges.

If Claremont hadn't been fired, I wonder if he would have ever left the book, or if he'd now be entering his thirtieth year on the title. I think he would have found it difficult to shake things up as he did in the 80s, now that the company sees itself more as a media licensing firm than a storytelling entity in and of itself. His success was ultimately Claremont's undoing, it's what turned one cohesive title into fifteen, and saw legitimate characters turn into static archetypes.

Work of Directors: First Impressions

Today I got the box set of the four new DVDs from the Work of Directors series, DVD collections that contain the music videos by a certain director. The original three (Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry and Chris Cunningham) have been some of my most played DVDs, and Gondry's in particular has some awe inspiring videos. And now there's four more. I've only had a chance to look at a couple of videos on each, but here's my thoughts on them.

From what I've seen so far, Mark Romanek seems to be the standout in the collection. He directed the film One Hour Photo, which was good, but his strength seems to be in his ability to change styles to adapt to whoever he's doing the video for. I'd already seen his video Johnny Cash's cover of Hurt, and it's one of the most emotionally affecting videos I've ever seen, very powerful images. For the first time, I watched No Doubt's Hella Good, a song I love, and it has a very cool video. It's washed out black and white with the band going around an abandoned ship. The oversaturation of the image maes for some striking visuals.

Then I checked out Jay-Z's 99 Problems, another video I'd seen before and loved. I love the rhythm in the editing, and the intercutting of still and moving shots, particularly in the breakdown sequence with all the dancers, as well as the Rick Rubin appearances. Next was Fiona Apple's Criminal. I knew the song, but not the video, and it's one of the best I've seen, capturing this porn vibe. Apple was apparently only nineteen when this was shot, and she looks a lot younger, the video plays on the idea of her as a sexually abused child, or at least a girl who's in a relationship with an older man. It's slightly disturbing, but the atmosphere of the video is so unique, I deeply respect it.

Next up was Stephane Sednaoui. I only watched two videos from him. First was U2's Discotheque. I love the song, but I'd never seen the video. U2's videos usually aren't that good, but this one was the exception. It takes place inside a disco ball and has all kinds of crazy imagery, vivid colors and a lot of quick cutting. It's very cool. I also watched The Red Hot Chili Peppers' Give It Away, which was ok, it's got some cool stuff, but was ultimately a bit too long.

I followed this up with one video from Jonathan Glazer. He's only got eight videos on the disk, and I've already seen most of them. I rewatched Radiohead's Karma Police, a very cool video for a great song. The way he builds the car into a living thing is great.

Then I rounded things out with Anton Corbijn. So far, I'm not a big fan of his. The video for U2's One wasn't too interesting, a bunch of black and white photography of the band dressed as women. It didn't capture the scope of the song. Then I watched the video for U2's Electrical Storm, which had the exact same visual style as One. He loves the slightly grainy black and white stuff. It's a great song, and there's some cool stuff in the video, but on the whole it's not that great. After that was Depeche Mode's Enjoy the Silence, which was a pretty cool video, but another one that was a bit too long for what it should have been.

So, on the whole these disks are pretty solid. No one's on the level of Gondry, but there's certainly a lot worth watching.

Mirrormask

Mirrormask was a film I was really interested in seeing because it's made by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean. Gaiman wrote the incredible comic series, Sandman, one of my favorite pieces of fiction. It's a landmark work in the history of comics and is certainly the best comic ever made that's not by someone named Moore or Morrison. McKean did the covers for Sandman and also has done some incredible comics art himself, including the great book Cages.

The film is very similar to their previous works, but the change of medium makes this forgivable. It's often difficult for artists to make the transition to directing film. If you've got a crew, it's pretty easy to shoot a film, but a lot of people moving to film from other mediums end up shooting stuff like Sin City, very static, sticking closely to storyboards and not really using what's uniquely cinematic. It's difficult to say how much input Frank Miller had into the direction of Sin City, but the film adds very little that wasn't already in the comic, so even though I enjoyed the film, I didn't feel like there was a particular reason to make it, other than to just get the stories out to more people.

McKean does not direct like Miller did, the film he makes has a lot of moments that are uniquely cinematic, and he created a really interesting cinematic world and style. The opening sequence is really well put together. I loved the cutting and visual saturation of everything. You were drenched in visual excess and that was very cool to experience. I liked the subtle use of split screen when Helena was speaking with her mother. And even though I don't generally like circus stuff, this was really interesting to watch. The filmmaking makes you experience the feeling of the circus more than just sticking the camera in one place and letting the people perform would.

This movie falls firmly into what I call the '80s Fantasy' genre, which consists of a teen protagonist who lives a boring life expressing a desire for something different, at which point they're taken into a a fantasy realm, where they have a whole bunch of adventures and return home with a new appreciation for their everyday life. In making this film, Gaiman and McKean set out to create a Labyrinth for the 21st century, and the influence is obvious, right from the sock puppet business at the beginning. The entire narrative structure is the same as Labyrinth.

The surprising thing about this film was how compelling the real world sequences were. Normally the filmmakers are trying to get into the fantasy as quickly as possible, but there was a lot of really interesting emotional stuff going on here. I actually wouldn't have minded if the entire film focused on the real world problems because McKean was able to shoot those segments in a really interesting way. I loved the setting outside the apartment, with the vast landscape off in the distance. Emotionally, these scenes were very strong and I really felt for Helena, and the mix of guilt and fear she carries.

Even though I love Gaiman's writing, he's got a lot of things that bother me that constantly pop up in his work. His strongest stories are the ones that are dark and serious, when he does whimsical stuff, the work frequently seems like it thinks it's more clever than it actually is, and he frequently gets in the habit of throwing out a bunch of wacky concepts rather than focusing on the emotional development of the characters. Most of Sandman stayed in a dark, serious place, meaning that the pieces that were comedy, like Delerium, worked well because they were the exception. When it's all this goofy comedy, it just doesn't work.

Mirrormask has a plot that's very similar to Coraline, his young adult novel about a girl who wanders into an alternate dimension. Both works are good, but the restrictions of a young target audience seem to lead to the works holding something back. Mirrormask has a lot really dark, great stuff, but isn't there consistently enough to be a truly great film.

I wasn't a fan of the sock puppet thing at the opening, that seemed like something that had been done too much, Labyrinth pulled off something similar, but twenty years have passed, and it's not fresh any more. However, after that, there's very little of the bad Gaiman tics. The opening chunk of the film is some of his most grounded, realistic writing and it's emotionally affecting.

For me, the beginning and ending of the film are great, it just suffers a lot in the middle. My biggest problem with most films in the '80s Fantasy' genre is the fact that there's not quite enough story to make a film, so they always rely on having the main character running into some wacky stuff along the way, some hilarious episodes that will show off the visual skill of the filmmakers. There's always that point where the film's sort of adrift, where the person's in this new world, but isn't sure what to do and just wanders around meeting strange things. I enjoy non-narrative filmmaking, but the problem is the things the filmmakers come up with usually aren't clever or entertaining enough to justify their screentime.

And sadly that's the case here. The first time the Sphinxes appear, they're very cool, and the book stuff is pure Gaiman, but by the time they get to the Sphinx with the riddles, I just wasn't dazzled by this stuff anymore. The film was progressing forward slowly without any emotional development for Helena.

Also, this was the only point in the film where I felt the presence of the green screen. In later scenes, the effects were completely seamless, but when the story was weak, I was taken out of the world. However, throughout the film, the acting is top notch, particularly from Stephanie Leonidas. It can't have been easy acting in a greenscreen world, but she pulled it off in a really top notch performance.

I will say that even though I thought the exploring the world section hurt the film, it was beautiful and very cool to see the McKean style in a film. I liked the fact that all the masks made the characters look like McKean drawings come to life, and on the whole, the effects were seamless. It's astonishing that they pulled this off with a 4 million dollar budget.

So, the film was losing me, but once Helena gets captured by the queen, it all picks up and up until the end is really great. I loved the 'Close to You' sequence, the combination of music and visual was perfect, making a really surreal moment. I loved the design on the jack in the box things. Also, I really liked Helena's goth fabulous wardrobe at the end, I'm sure a lot of Gaiman's fans who see this movie will be appropriating the style, that is if they don't already have lace up leather gloves.

As the film ends, it implies that the entire middle section is a dream, and if you view it that way, the conflict at the end, between the two Helenas, is essentially Helena confronting her guilt over what she said to her mother. Earlier, she said that she wanted to live a normal life and when Anti-Helena steals her life, she sees what that normal life would consist of. As a circus performer, they all hold on to something essentially childlike, a view of the world as full of wonder, something that's reflected in her drawings. However, Anti-Helena tears the drawings down and rather than existing in the realm of imagination, she lives on a purely physical. She smokes, she 'snogs' with boys and dresses in a cliched rebel teen style.

So when she looks through the windows she sees her wish fulfilled, and realizes that it's not what she reallly wants. This life repulses her and makes her appreciative of what she does have. So, at the end she has to consciously reject this lifestyle, and reclaim the life she did have, except now she knows that this is actuallly what she wants. She doesn't need to grow up so fast.

I'm a little hazy on what happens at the end to allow Helena to reclaim her life, but I figure that's the dream breaking down, so it doesn't have to make that much sense. Basically, the world is subject to Helena's will, and when she demands her life back, she gets it. And at the end, she's backk at the circus, only happy now instead of unappreciative.

The ending of the film raises some issues. Is it right for Helena to shy away from the adult world, most notably her quite repulsed reaction to seeing herself 'snogging'? I take it to be more that Helena is rejecting this accelerated development. Rather than having meaningless physical relations, she would want a relationship that goes deeper and fires her imagination. The most troubling thing for her is the destruction of her art, and by extension of the person that she is. She really likes the life she has, and the guilt she has over what she told her mother plagues her throughout the film.

The other thing that was great throughout the movie was the music. Reading Cages, you could tell that McKean was a big fan of jazz, and this film has a great score that's a combination of jazz and electronica. I love the trumpets and clarinets, it really helps to build the mood of the film, and is totally integrated into the storytelling. It's one of the most unique film scores I've ever heard, and it worked perfectly here, with the 'Close to You' scene as a highlight.

So, the film concluded on a real high note, and was generally top notch. Gaiman and McKean certainly made no concessions to the studio, this is a very pure hit of their vision. The problem with it lies in the second act, which makes the film good, instead of great. Of course, on a second viewing, maybe I'll appreciate it more, but we'll have to wait on that. On the whole though, they were completely successful in making a 'Labyrinth for the 21st century,' and I would argue this film actually surpasses Labyrinth, though I do miss the Bowie presence. However, in most other respects this film surpasses it, and I think it's that rare film where the cliche is actually true, it's got something for the whole family to enjoy.

U2 Live @ MSG

Yesterday I saw U2 live at Madison Square Garden. I've been a fan of the band for a while, but was never able to see them live, and considering their reputation as one of the best live acts around, I was very excited to get to see them. It took me five hours to make it from Middletown to Madison Square Garden, starting with an hour long bus delay, an hour wait for the train at New Haven and a trip along the entire New Haven line. Anyway, I got there about five minutes before U2 went on, so it was perfect timing, though I'd have preferred to have gotten there a bit earlier, so I wouldn't have to hurry so much.

This was the first concert I've been to where I wasn't in the GA section, and that was a change. I'm used to being in the mess of people, whereas here I was in a seat, near people, but not really caught up in that group mentality. I got the cheapest tickets (still rather expensive at $55), so my seats weren't the best. I was pretty close to the action, only slightly off the floor and not that far back, but I was behind the stage. So, I saw the backs of everyone as they performed, which was a bit odd. It put me at a distance from things.

But that doesn't mean that the show wasn't great. The level of charisma that they had far surpasses any other band I've seen live, there was such energy and assuredness in the way they played. The songs were all tight, but with enough variation to make the live show unique from the recorded version.

The way they had the stage set up worked great. It's a big circle, with the stage at once end, and a whole bunch of people in the middle, and the band members would walk around the circle at points during the show. The circle had all kinds of lights on it and they did some very cool effects throughout, with the lights setting a different mood for each song. They had a bunch of spotlights right in front of where I was, and it was interesting to see that they had a whole team of people sitting on these lighting structures suspended from the roof, operating the spotlights. That's got to be an annoying job, not one where you'd want a fear of heights.

Music wise, I was a bit disappointed in the song selection. There are songs that are essential to play, like Pride Where the Streets Have No Name, and songs from the new album they're definitely going to play, which leaves only a few spots for some of the less popular stuff. So, most of the variant songs here were from their early albums, with Electric Co. and Gloria, songs that aren't bad, but I'm not that big a fan of. There was only one song from Achtung Baby, one from Zooropa and none from Pop.

Even though the crowd was really into it throughout, this was clearly a group that knew the hits more than a thorough knowledge of the entire back catalog. When they went to a less popular song, like Miss Sarajevo or a lot of the stuff off the new album, the crowd just wasn't that into it, whereas on Sunday, Bloody Sunday or I Still Haven't Found what I'm Looking For, you could barely hear Bono because the crowd was so loud. On 'Still,' he stopped singing and the crowd did an entire verse on their own, which was very cool to hear. So, even though I'm not as a big a fan of those songs, hearing the crowd reaction to them, it's clear why they need to be played at the show. I think the new songs are actually better than most of the classics, but the crowd really wasn't giving much on them, or at least that's what it was in the area I was at. The crowd in the ellipse seemed to be a lot more into every song.

I was really impressed with the musical skill throughout. The guitar lines were great and there were a bunch of cool things, like having a seperate drum on 'Love And Peace Or Else,' that was probably the best song they did. That was another one that used the circle well.

Most of the songs in the encores were better than the stuff in the actual show. First Time was great, and the acoustic version of 'Stuck in a Moment' was even better than the album version, particularly when the bass and drum came in after nearly two songs dormant. And the combination of Yahweh and an amped up version of Vertigo to end the show was great.

On the whole, it's an astonishing thing to watch 19,000 people completely get caught up in this show, and the performance was that good. Seeing U2 from inside the circle would probably be the best show in the world, and even from behind the stage it was phenomenal. I'm thinking about trying to get tickets to their November show because I really want to see them again.