Top 20 Belle and Sebastian Songs

I'm going to see Belle and Sebastian and The New Pornographers Friday, a concert I am psyched for. And to prepare I've been listening to a bunch of stuff by both bands, and that prompted me to make a list of the top B&S songs. Originally it was going to be ten, but the top ten is heavily weighted to one album, and I felt to be fair, I should expand the list. So read on and discover the best songs of one of the world's best bands...

20. Dylan in the Movies (If You're Feeling Sinister) - This was the first Belle and Sebastian song I really liked, mainly because it's a catchy, ingenious chorus: "Don't look back, like Dylan in the movies." There's a great build during the chorus, and there's something funny about this really impassioned plea being backed up by an obscure allusion to a 60s documentary.

19. Family Tree (Fold Your Hands...) - This is a song in which a girl gripes about the shallowness of her high school friends, and high school life in general. Lyrically, it's a strong plea against materialism in favor of art, which is effective, and the narrator does seem like the sort of fangirl who would probably really enjoy B&S. The part of this song I really like is the chorus at the end, "If my family tree goes back to the Romans, then I will change my name to Jones," and so on. Very catchy and clever, and the rhythm of the vocals throughout the song is satisfyingly unique.

18. I'm Waking Up to Us (I'm Waking Up to Us) - This is from one of their 2001 LPs, a bridge between the "sad bastard" era and the hyperpop of their latter incarnation. This song reminds me a lot of Love, the 60s band, a major B&S influence. It's got that 60s style vocal harmonizing, and the multitude of voices is something unique to B&S. Like a lot of 60s pop, it's a bit of downer in terms of subject matter, but the music is upbeat and jamming, another hallmark of a B&S song.

17. The Wrong Girl (Fold Your Hands...) - I mentioned before abut the two phases of B&S, and nowhere is this more evident than on the underappreciated Fold Your Hands. The album starts out in Sinister mode, but by the end, you can hear the start of what would develop on Waitress, and this song is a great example of that. The simple chorus rocks, and the swirling strings make it more impressive. Structurally, it's a precursor of I'm a Cuckoo.

16. Me and the Major (If You're Feeling...) - This is a great example of an early period Belle and Sebastian song, intricate lyrics and folky acoustic style. The highlight of the song is the ripping harmonica solo in the middle, it's nasty and makes this song special. And the "snow is falling" outro is fantastic.

15. White Collar Boy (The Life Pursuit) - Like The Wrong Girl, this is a song with a simple, anthemic chorus that's just irresistably catchy. The title part of the chorus is great, but the highlight of the song is the call and response with "She said “You ain’t ugly, you can kiss me if you like,"" which is followed by "Go ahead and kiss her," a great example of the multiple vocalist stuff they do so well. It's a catchy, remarkable pop song.

14. The Loneliness of a Middle Distance Runner (Jonathan David) - This is the sort of audaciously pretentious title that only B&S could pull off. Once again picking up the track theme, this is a mini epic. It's a big buildup and the catharis when the title is stated is great. Ride through the field indeed.

13. Dress Up in You (The Life Pursuit) - I'm usually more into the upbeat, rocking songs by B&S, but this lowkey ballad proves an exception. This is another song about a girl wronged by her more popular friends. The highlight of the song is the telloff "They are hypocrites, so fuck them too," which builds to a fantastic trumpet solo. I always love when they let the instrumentalists go, and this is a fantastic, emotional solo that makes the song infinitely larger.

12. Sukie in the Graveyard (The Life Pursuit) - This has been called the Belles' first dancable song and it's pretty impressive. The ascending line that leads into, and continues throughout, the song is great, and provides the base for one of the more interesting characters in the B&S pantheon. This song reminds me of Six Feet Under, you throw art school and the graveyard together and that's what you get.

11. Don't Leave the Light On Baby (Fold Your Hands...) - This is a downbeat song, like Belle and Sebastian doing Portishead. The really successful thing about this song is the contrast between the noir, low vocals of the beginning and the shining ethereal vocals of the chorus. It doesn't sound like any other song that they've done, it's much darker musically.

10 Sleep the Clock Around (The Boy with the Arab Strap) - I used this song in my film, Ricky Frost, so I now associate it with that movie, but that only enhances my appreciation of it. The vocal delivery is almost monotone, but still rhythmic, fitting in with the bubbling music underneath, culminating in the instrumental solo in the middle of the song. I'm not sure what instrument that is, but it's great.

9. Your Cover's Blown (Books) - This is the pop epic that's so rich it could almost be an album in itself. The song starts out in a kind of lowkey disco mode, before blowing up into an anthemic groove for the chorus, speeding things up for a chaotic section of the song and then finally bringing it down to acoustic for the finale. It's quite an accomplishment, hearing the song mutate is a lot of fun, it's like all the eras of B&S were synthesized into one.

8. I'm a Cuckoo (Dear Catastrophe Waitress) - This is one of a string of incredible songs off of their best album. The verses are so full of energy, like they're trying to burst into the chorus, and when the chorus finally does arrive it's an upbeat march. I'm a big fan of the instrumental jams that follow each statement of "I'm a Cuckoo." Every moment of this song is just full of fun and greatness.

7. Roy Walker (Dear Catastrophe Waitress) - This is a 60s style song, with a tinge of Western. It's a really catchy chorus, but the highpoint of this song is the scorching guitar solo that occurs about midway through. It takes the song out of the comfort zone and into an edgy, exciting realm, and then when the chorus returns, it feels even more exciting than it did originally.

6. Step Into My Office Baby (Dear Catastrophe Waitress) - Full of double entendre, and backed by a fun, upbeat arrangement, this was the perfect song to announce the new B&S to the world. I love the way the song slows to a near halt, then gradually starts up again building to a final statement of the chorus. It's so happy, if you don't like this song, I sentence you to listen to Staind on repeat for all eternity.

5. Stars of Track and Field (If You're Feeling Sinister) - This is perhaps their signature song and with good reason, it's a warm, textured song with cutting lyrics. The imagery is vivid, but what makes it such a great listen is how well orchestrated it is, a big jump from the comparatively minimal Tigermilk. The trumpet work here is a highlight.

4. Lazy Line Painter Jane (Lazy Line Painter Jane) - This song is an enigma for me. I read the lyrics and ponder, is she pregnant and having a child, is she having sex, possibly with a girl? I don't know, but what I do know is that the interplay between the male and female vocal on the track is great, and regardless of what it means, the parts about "the first bus out of town" sound great, and by the time we finally get to the title statement, it's a driving stomp, a fitting conclusion to a great song.

3. If You Find Yourself Caught in Love (Dear Catastrophe Waitress) - Say a prayer to the man above...for this song! It's the best of their poptastic anthemic tracks. I really like the message of the song, and the way the lyrics remains sophisticated even though on the surface the song is pretty simple. What's astonishing about the song is that every part feels like a sing along chorus, this was a highlight when I saw them live back in October, and I'd love to hear it again on Friday.

2. Stay Loose (Dear Catastrophe Waitress) - The last track of an album often hints at a potential new direction for the band, going beyond what the rest of the album did. Think "Day in the Life" on Sgt. Pepper or "Street Spirit" on The Bends. Stay Loose is one of those tracks, unlike anything else B&S have ever done. The song has a techno 80s feel, with a slight android quality in the vocals in the verses. This builds up to a more jamming chorus, and ultimately to the nastiest guitar solo in the band's history. I love the repeated guitar arc in the middle and that ultimately fades out the song. It's a completely different texture for the band and it works wonderfully.

1. I Love My Car (I'm Waking Up to Us) - And at last the apex of the oevure. I Love My Car starts out as a fairly standard, 60sish pop tune, in which the narrator points out all the things he loves more than "you." I'm liking it, but then things go to another level, and the song takes on a heavy jazz type feel, and drops an incredible trumpet solo on us. This trumpet solo just comes out of nowhere and transforms the song into something that feels like a 1920s speakeasy. I play trumpet myself, so I'm a bit biased towards songs that use it well, and this one certainly does. The instrumental sections of this song are just unbelievable, and that makes it Belle and Sebastian's best song.

X-Men 266-273 (X-Tinction Agenda)

It's the second to last X-Men review post, as the six month, 200 issue journey approaches its finale. When last I talked about the X-Men, things were not looking good for the book, with the team splintered, plots loose and directionless. These issues restore direction, in what seems like an elaborate meta commentary on the book's direction following Inferno.

But before that, issues 266 and 267 see the resolution of the Storm as child thief arc, and include the introduction of the character who's Claremont's last significant contribution to the X-mythos, Gambit. While he's had some evolution since, the basic appeal of the character is present from the start. He's got the disregard for rules of Wolverine, but with a more suave, wordly demeanor. Even though the storyline with the Shadow King here is a bit convoluted and misguided, it's still fun to watch Gambit and Storm work together.

268 is a rather pointless issue in which Wolverine flashes back to a mission he did with Captain America during World War II. This reminded me of a few Angel episodes which featured similar historical adventures for our hero, and generally speaking, they don't work too well. It never feels organic to the character, and is more about name dropping. What is important about this issue is it sees Jim Lee become the regular penciller, and his work is significantly better than the other artists who were doing the book, even though it is a bit too early 90s.

269 sees the return of Rogue. She'd been missing since the business with Master Mold back in 247, and keeping her out of the spotlight was a major mistake. She was one of the best developed remaining characters, since Kitty and Kurt were sent off to Excalibur. Side note, I watched Sex, Lies and Videotape earlier today, and Laura San Giacomo would have been an ideal choice to play Rogue if they were doing the movie back in the late 80s or early 90s. Anyway, this issue is pretty good, and I'm intrigued by what will happen with Rogue and Magneto in the Savage Land. There's a lot of potentially interesting stuff here, though it gets some time off for the big crossover.

The first three X-Men crossovers were all pretty fantastic. Mutant Massacre is arguably the high point of the book as a whole, I would say it's even better than Dark Phoenix. Fall of the Mutants would have been a perfect end to the series, and Inferno is just so over the top you can't help but enjoy it. So, X-Tinction Agenda had a lot to live up to. This crossover follows the mold of Mutant Massacre, where a major crisis sends all the teams into chaos. This crossover actually marks the first time that all the X-teams have actually teamed up together.

The major problem is that the crisis they're teaming up for just isn't that engaging, it lacks the emotional pull of the morlock massacre, or the character based storytelling of Inferno. Instead, it's basically a replay of stuff that Claremont already covered back in the original Genosha storyline, this time with Cameron Hodge. Now, I haven't read the issues of X-Factor that led up to this, but the idea of this guy's head mounted on a giant robot spider is pretty ridiculous, he's such an over the top evil villain that it's hard to get involved in the crossover. There's no emotional conflict about whether they should defeat him, it's basically just a bad guy they're going to fight. Compare that to the conflict surrounding Maddie back in Inferno, where Scott is at least partially guilty for everything that happens. This is more of a gung ho, this is a bad guy, let's go get him type of story.

The major attempt to lend emotional strength to the story, as well as raise the stakes, is to kill Warlock. It's an effective scene, but it felt too much like they were just trying to say that this is an important story, that it's not a real threat unless a character dies, and unfortunately, Warlock had to go. So, that felt a bit crass, like they were trying to get that same level of emotional involvement that the Morlock massacre leant to the first X-over.

Reading this as someone who's only read the X-Men issues, the story isn't that important. This is much more about resolving things from X-Factor and New Mutants, and since the X-Men are so disjointed at this point, it's hard for them to actually play a major role in the story.

One of the major developments for the X-Men is the return of Alex Summers, the man who's suffered more than any other X-Man, he's reaching a Nate level of suffering. This is a guy who's just trying to live in peace, until he's possessed by Erik the Rd and made to fight his own brother. Then he crashes his car, and his girlfriend is possessed by the evil entity Malice. So, he goes to the X-Men and they want to kill him. He then gets involved with Madylyne Pryor, who gets possessed by a demon and turns him into her demon prince. Then, he goes through the Siege Perilous and winds up as a guard in Genosha, where he's soon sent to kill his own brother. Considering all he went through, you'd think he'd have some good karma, but apparently, the siege chose to screw him. Anyway, it was good to have him back and see things resolved between him and Scott by the end. Perhaps he can patch things up with Lorna, who hopefully isn't still a giant, that was one of the dumbest plotlines Claremont's come up with.

Anyway, I think the strongest emotional arc in the crossover was Rictor and Rahne's dashed chance for love. His guilt about letting her go back and her transformation into a mutate were really strong and emotionally engaging even for someone who wasn't that familiar with the characters. What was more contrived was playing off the Logan/Jean relationship yet again. It's always hinted at, but for no real reason other than to get people talking.

One of the major figures in this arc was Cable, who at this time was just an intense military leader, there's no indication that he is in fact Scott's son. Cable here is a very early 90s figure, all attitude and guns, clearly playing off what made Wolverine popular, except without Wolverine's underlying humanity. He's almost a caricature, but at the same time, he does make some points that are relevant. He reminds me of season seven Buffy, with his take the fight to them mentality. And much like it was in season seven, his speeches get annoying. The odd thing about Cable now is that he really isn't very cool looking. he rocks a light blue shirt, blue/white boots and his face always looks a bit weird. And he's also got the absurd overmuscling that afflicts many of the characters here, notably Scott, who apparently spent a lot of time working out since his jump over to X-Factor.



The crossover has a bunch of little character events, but on the whole, not much happens. It's basically Hodge captures and tortures some X-Men, they try to fight him and lose, he captures and tortures some more, then they fight him and lose. Then they fight him again and win. It's difficult with a 9 part crossover because we know whatever they do in parts 1-8 will not defeat him. So, there's this lengthy buildup and by the time they actually do win, it's not that exciting. The problem with an invulnerable foe like Hodge is there's no progression. You have no sense of them winning the fight, or even what the stakes are. And it's ridiculous at the end when just his head is still able to fight Scott and Alex. Whoever thought of the head strapped to a robot body concept was clearly not thinking straight at the time.

Another issue I have with the crossover is the idea that capturing these "innocent children" is so wrong. The New Mutants seem to be more competent than the X-Men, so when the media in the story tries to play it as these children in peril, you feel like they're manipulating the facts in the X-Men's favor unfairly. You're actually sympathetic to the Genoshans, because they're getting misrepresented. Also, shouldn't the media make note of the fact that the "child" who died was in fact some kind of alien?

The most thankful development to come out of this whole crossover was Storm's return to adulthood. The child Storm plot was dumb and undermined a lot of the brilliant development in the character's past. It's something that makes no sense and has no real emotional value for the character.

So, this isn't the best crossover, but it was still a fun read, and thankfully returned some sense of order and momentum to the X-Men. The book really couldn't have kept drifting like it was during the 250s and 260s, and if it took a less than great crossover to do that, it's worth it.

The issue following the crossover seems to be a meta commentary on the direction of the series. When Storm is criticized for the X-men pose as dead plan, it also functions as a critique of how that worked out from an artistic point of view. I think that was a great idea in theory, but as I mentioned in some of the previous reviews, they never followed through on it. Gateway's powers made the X-Men too powerful, and we never got to see the emotional impact of their decision. This was largely because Claremont spent too much time on extended action storylines and never delved into how the characters felt about what they did.

Similarly, when Jean Grey is talking about how she feels like the mansion is her home, it's talking about what people think of when they think of the X-Men. After all the experimentation of his run, Claremont at last returns to the mansion for the first time since the Mutant Massacre, and with most of the classic team intact. While I think Claremont lost control of the book, the conservative vibe here is a bit disconcerting, the idea that such wild experimentation was misguided is not something I'd agree with, and at this point, the mansion seems like an alien place. But I suppose after all this crazy journeying around, the most unexpected thing to do is to return home. It's like "All that You Can't Leave Behind" after Zooropa and Pop, part of you is happy to have that familiar world back, but at the same time the return to the familiar construes the experimentation as failure.

(Team) George Bush is a Genius

The whole George W. Bush presidency has been a series of increasingly awful things that he continues to get away with. It's so disturbing that you really have no choice but to laugh at it, and unfortunately, that's what most liberals do. As liberals laughed at the idiot president, the conservative right gradually reshaped this nation, and even though people may say he's stupid, George W. Bush was the perfect choice to be president.

Now, it's impossible for an outsider to really know what goes on behind the scenes, if Bush himself is a clueless patsy being manipulated, or someone who's so smart that he created that image precisely to create that perception.

Back in 2000, Bush was a joke, his misspoken phrases the stuff of a thousand forwarded e-mails, let right from the beginning, the ideas that would eventually cause this country so much harm were there. When the 2000 campaign was starting, Bush was seen as the frontrunner in the Republican party, at least until New Hampshire, when John McCain won the crucial first primary. Of course, in 1996, Pat Buchanan had won that primary and gone on to subsequent defeat, but McCain was a much more likely candidate than Buchanan.

McCain was campaigning as a reformer, comparing himself to the Rebel Alliance, and even using the theme from Star Wars as his theme song. At the same time, Bush was using his tagline "compassionate conservatism." After being beaten by McCain, it was pretty clear that team Bush was not happy, and thus they went to work utterly destroying him. In one of the moves that's so ridiculous it's funny, Bush decided to paint himself as an outsider, and used the tagline "A Reformer with Results," copying McCain and then attacking McCain for being part of the political establishment. Bush claimed that he was stronger on issues like the environment than McCain. This recalls stuff like his "Clear Skies" initiative, which lifted the restrictions on industry. Bush was the son of a president, he was more establishment than anyone, but he still painted himself as an outsider bringing the hammer of reform on a corrupt government, and people bought it.

In some respects, the idea of McCain winning was a bit unlikely, because of the soon to be pronounced blue state/red state divide. New Hampshire was more likely to support a reform candidate than the South, and Bush played to what would soon be firmly entrenched as his base. Bush won the primary by utterly destroying McCain in a very negative advertising campaign, by just taking what people liked about McCain and claiming it for himself.

At the time of the general election, there was still the strong perception that Bush was an idiot, not someone to be taken seriously. Rather than being a negative, this became the Republicans' greatest asset, being underestimated. What Bush combines is populism and elitism. He is simultaneously seen as one of the boys, an ordinary guy, while in actuality he is from one of the wealthiest, most powerful families in the country, and was being used as basically a frontman for conservative business interests.

So, when it came to the debates, the Republican machine created the impression that Al Gore was one of the greatest debaters in the world and Bush was an idiot who could barely string a sentence together. They put their people around saying things like "We're going to concede this one, no one can beat Gore." Then when Bush is able to coherently string a sentence together, it's seen as a moral victory for him, and the debate is ruled a draw.

One of the big things to come out of this debate was Gore's visible disgust with what Bush was saying. People said this was arrogant, ignoring the fact that the Bush campaign completely savaged McCain, and would later do much worse to Kerry. The other thing that was joked about was Gore's lockbox for the budget surplus. He called Bush's plan to give massive tax cuts to the top 1% of the country a "risky scheme," and instead proposed to put the money in a lockbox to use for social security down the line. Considering how things turned out, Bush's tax cuts were clearly more than a risky scheme, they were one of the dumbest budget decisions ever made. If the democrats weren't absoultely incompetent, they would have been able to show people that Bush is taking their money and giving it to rich people who could never spend all the money they have. People are literally buying tax cuts from him, and by today, the idea of a budget surplus is a distant memory, and with massive deficits, it's unclear how we'll support all the people going onto social security in a few years. Wouldn't it be nice to have that money in a lockbox?

And by the time we got to the general election, things got even more ridiculous. The 2000 election was one of the low points in this nation's history. Bush quite literally stole the election. Because his brother was in charge of voting in the state, could anyone honestly expect a fair assessment of things down there? The most ridiculous thing was when people said that Gore was being whiny by requesting additional vote counts. The Bush team presented the idea that just settling on him as president was what the nation needed, as if going another few weeks without the election decided would throw the nation into anarchy.

So, Republicans created the idea that they had won the election, and Gore was just being a sore loser by seeking a recount. This is classic policy, deciding the truth in advance and then just using whatever's needed to make it fit. The Supreme Court decided that election and it's sad that the vote of 9 people counted for more than the rest of the people in this country.

9/11 became the iconic moment of the Bush presidency, and a lot of people who didn't initially support him, got behind him then. At the time, that pretty much nullified ill feeling about the 2000 election and put the country together. However, I don't see how Bush's response to 9/11 was particularly good. He went to the wreckage with a firehat on, there's noting courageous about that, it's not like the terrorists were going to come back and attack him there. The way the media sold it, it was like he scurried into the towers before they collapsed and rescued some people.



And in the post 9/11 period, Bush did everything he could to assist his corporate friends, and as recent memos point out, on 9/11 itself, they were already planning the invasion of Iraq, using this national tragedy as a justification for enacting their policies, and at the same time, constructing a new political paradigm for the nation.

The critical thing after 9/11 was the construction of the idea that to not support American aggression was to be anti-American, to oppose Bush's policies was to be a traitor. This was evident in the Dixie Chicks controversy, how could having a difference of opinion mean being anti-American? Isn't the whole point of freedom having the option of doing and saying whatever you want? But as constructed by Bush, it's an us vs. them, the "free world" vs. the axis of evil.

While this was happening, he put through the absurd tax cuts that led to today's major budget deficits and started the war in Iraq, a conflict based completely on lies. I can understand the desire to go to Iraq and defeat Hussein, if they had sold the war as that, then people would at least have been able to make a legitimate decision. However, they presented Iraq as an urgent threat that needed to be dealt with before they attacked our nation with their WMDs.

Now, I don't understand how a country with the largest collection of weapons in the world can honestly say that the fact that a country has chemcial weapons is justification for attacking them. If two planes flown into a building is justification for attacking multiple countries, what would having your country invaded and bombed repeatedly be justification for? Honestly, if Iraq dropped a nuclear bomb on us now, could you honestly say that they weren't justified in doing so? I wouldn't be happy about it, but considering the way we've acted in the past few years, it's impossible to play the innocent victim act.

In 2004, Bush had started a war that was fast becoming a second Vietnam, thrown the budget to hell and stripped the nation of its rights, and yet he was still elected. Why? It's because the Republicans played such a good game.

The first mistake the Democrats made was choosing the utterly lifeless John Kerry as their nominee. I didn't want to vote for him, and in choosing such a non-person, they made the election about George Bush. The Republicans ran with this, completely controlling the playing field. They put Kerry on the defensive and by controlling the terms of the debate, ensured that he couldn't define his own identity.

This election is where I have to really respect the Republican campaign team, they play the game so well, you can only wish they were working for good. From the moment they invented the "flip flop" charge, they completely handicapped Kerry because any deviation from old positions was treated as a flip flop. This ties in with the completely flawed Bush idea that changing your mind, based on new assessment of the facts, is a weakness, and that you have to charge forth, never changing course. You can never admit a mistake for to do so is weak. That's how Bush thinks, and when he said that his greatest mistake was trading Sammy Sosa, he made this crystal clear. The man either saw no mistakes or was carefully tailoring his public persona to create this idea of a decisive, sure leader, while Kerry was a flip flopping, liberal who would rather talk with the terrorists than bomb them.

The fact that they used the idea that Kerry's idea of a more sensitive war on terror as a negative says so much about their mindset. Wouldn't understanding people be more likely to win the "war on terror" than bombing people, and creating more people who hate us. First, the idea of a war on terror is ridiculous, it's like a war on death. You're not going to win, terror isn't like the Nazis, there's no central place, all it takes is one guy, and you can never be truly safe. That's a fact of life. But, the best way to stop terrorism is to get to the core of the issues that create an anti-American mentality.

Of course, Kerry didn't really help his cause with his "I voted for it before I voted it against it" comments. His greatest problem was that he didn't present a clear alternative to Bush. His view on the war was basically, we're in it already, so there's nothing we can do. The democrats needed someone who would really say "This war was a crime" and perhaps Howard Dean could have done that, but he was criticized for being too angry. When Bush is doing the stuff he's doing, people should be angry.

Anyway, Kerry allowed himself to get played. The whole Swift Boat Veterans for Truth business was ridiculous, Bush was discrediting a veteran, the very people he's supposed to be supporting, and people were attacking Kerry for being anti-Vietnam. Honestly, people who didn't oppose the Vietnam War are the ones who should have been under fire. Kerry saw what the war was doing and opposed it, that makes sense, and it took a lot of guts for people who did everything they could to avoid going to war to criticize John Kerry's military service.

The problem with Kerry was he never really stuck it to Bush. The man was assaulting him, calling a coward, a bastard, and Kerry just took it. Why couldn't he just go at Bush with the same furor that Bush attacked him with. Call the lead up to war a lie, say the WMDs were made up, hell, make something up, it doesn't really matter, just attack the guy with fury. Instead at the convention, Kerry drops "Saying there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq doesn't make it so. Saying we can fight a war on the cheap doesn't make it so. And proclaiming "Mission accomplished" certainly doesn't make it so." This sums up the Democrat point of view, dropping these allusions to events. You need to say "George Bush made up weapons of mass destruction to send our country to war and thousands of people have died as a result. Every coffin that comes back from Iraq is there because of George Bush's fiction." And this would be a perfect opportunity to show the images of the coffins from Iraq, confront people with the reality of war.

Bush's genius in fighting the war in Iraq is to completely disconnect the country from the fighting. I have no clue what it's like over there because we never see it. It goes on, but we don't hear about people dying. The government learned from Vietnam, and as a result, a war is being waged in secret, with no end. Besides the lives, the cost in dollars is absurd, I don't want my tax dollars being spent to kill people.

George Bush's speech at the Republican convention tells you a lot about how he plays the game. Here's a telling excerpt:

THE PRESIDENT: "Wait a minute, wait a minute: To be fair, there are some things my opponent is for. (Laughter.) He's proposed more than two trillion dollars in new federal spending so far, and that's a lot, even for a senator from Massachusetts. (Applause.) And to pay for that spending, he's running on a platform of increasing taxes -- and that's the kind of promise a politician usually keeps. (Laughter.)

His tax -- his policies of tax and spend -- of expanding government rather than expanding opportunity -- are the policies of the past. We are on the path to the future -- and we're not turning back. "

George Bush criticizing someone for expanding government spending is where the laughter should have been. It's true that Bush isn't a tax and spend president, he's a spend and spend president, like a person maxing out his credit cards, he just doesn't care how much money's available, he's going to spend what he can and leave others to sort it out. The brilliance of this plan is that his democratic successor will get criticized for budget mismanagement, allowing the Republicans to take back the White House in the future and criticize Democratic excess.

The other telling thing is the way Bush and Conservatives completely control the word "liberal." They turned liberal into a dirty word, meaning wanton spending and government expansion, the exact thing that Bush is doing, except instead of spending on weapons, liberals spend on social programs. So, both parties spend, conservatives spend to kill people, liberals spend to help people. Right there's a soundbite Kerry should have been dropping, rather than skittering away from the liberal label, he should have reclaimed it, and redefined conservatism.

What Bush 9/11 Iraq linking tells us is that if you repeat something enough, people will believe it's true, and that's what Kerry needed to do about Bush and his crew. That's what they did with the flip flopper message, reinforce this one image of Kerry to the point that when you thought Kerry,, you thought flip flopper.

This is all aided by the "liberal media bias." By creating this perception that the media is against them, team Bush makes it difficult for any big news outlet to criticize them, because to speak out against Bush would be biased journalism. Considering how little journalistic investigation was put in to the buildup to Iraq, it's pretty clear that, if anything, there's a conservative bias in the media.

The culmination of this was the whole 60 Minutes incident, brilliantly played by the Republicans. The story here is that Bush was very negligent in his national guard service, yet the story became about how Rather didn't fully verify his evidence. So, a very valid point was nullified and turned into a positive for Bush. And then Bush gets defensive about people criticizing his military service, something that's completely ridiculous when you consider the way he attacked Kerry, someone who actually went to Vietnam, a place where you don't really have a choice whether you show up or not. And the same guy that shirked his own military service is sending thousands of people over to Iraq to die.

I wasn't really that surprised that Bush won, his team has reinvented politics and taken manipulation of the facts to another level. This is not a good level, but the Democrats were just embaressing out there, it was like watching Michael Jordan walk onto a neighborhood basketball court and take on whoever was around. That's how incompetent Kerry was, a guy who stood for nothing and couldn't even beat a president who'd made a ton of impeachable mistakes.

And Bush only got worse in his second term. The most notable mistake was in dealing with Katrina. He basically let a whole bunch of people die through inaction, it's really pathetic. And now, Bush is saying "Let's not play the blame game," this is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. It's like you discover a person's been murdered and say "Eh, he's already dead, so let's not try to find the murderer or anything, it won't bring him back." Yeah, it won't bring him back, but that's no reason to let a murderer go free. Holding someone accountable for their mistakes is not playing the blame game. This is the same tactic they pulled back with the recounts, making it sound like anyone who criticizes what they've done in the past is petty, backwards looking and missing the point. But, you've got to criticize what they've done in the past, because when it comes to future policies, they're going to make up whatever lie is needed to get things done.

It's been an awful presidency, one that's completely changed the way American politics are conducted. This is something the Democrats have to recognize when it comes time for the next election, they can't just sit back and get defined, they have to go out and control the terms of the debate.

Right now, it's looking like McCain will be running for the Republican nomination, and there'd be the temptation to say he won't be that bad, but this is a guy who was utterly destroyed by Bush in 2000, given one of the worst deconstructions I've seen, and then turned around and supported him. Most people say he was doing that to keep his status in the party, but if he's a guy who will compromise his values to do that, he's not someone who should be president. McCain is the opposite of Bush, he presents a really liberal, friendly facade, but ends up sticking with most of the conservative policies.

So, well played Bush. You've really been able to do whatever you want and get away with it. It's only going to be for history to judge the real extent of their crimes, but of course to do that would just be playing the blame game.

Head Automatica: Live!

Yesterday, I went up to Hartford to see Head Automatica in concert. I'm a big fan of their album, Decadence. I first listened to it because the album was produced by Dan the Automator, however, it's not an album masterminded by Automator in the same way that Deltron or Lovage are. But it's still a great album, with really catchy, fun songs.

We got lost a couple of times going there, so I missed the first two opening bands, and the very beginning of Morningwood's set. I got Morningwood's album when I saw they'd be playing and I enjoy it. It's one of those albums that in the future will probably be considered very mid 00s, it doesn't move too far from where the trend for rock bands is now, but that doesn't mean it's not good, and live, they were pretty impressive. Their frontwoman was a really strong presence, at times too annoyingly so, but on the whole they were really solid, fun to watch.

This concert was a great example of the unofficial age segregation at concerts. I would say it was about 2/3 high schoolers, and this was definitely the type of show that I would have went to back when I was in high school. But then when I went to see Doves or even The Polyphonic Spree, it seems to be only people around 25-30. What's the deal, are the bands so different that they produce these very segregated audiences? I don't think there's anything inherent in Head Automatica the album that makes it youth targetted, but in terms of live delivery, it was pretty clear that he was going after this younger demographic. It's not that there were no older people at the show, it's just that they were by far in the minority. I'm sure next week when I go to Belle and Sebastian, it'll be a whole different demographic. Is the music that different? Why can't we all just get along?

Anyway, as for the performance itself, it was fun, but they had a couple of things against them. On the album, the Head Automatica songs are sort of chil, they're rock, but more pop/electronica oriented than really rocking. But played live, everything gets turned up a notch, and the subtleties of the songs can get lost. This is effective for certain bands, like The Polyphonic Spree, who are all about excess, but in the case of Head Automatica, it meant that some of the more textured songs ont he record become more generic rock. The core of the song is still there, and it was a lot of fun to hear "Brooklyn is Burning" and "Beating Heart Baby," which are the most straightforward rock songs, but some of the others lost something in the live translation.

They also played a bunch of new songs, which sounded really good on the first listen, something that bodes well for the new album. However, it's tough when half of the songs they play in the show are ones that the audience hasn't played before. I think my biggest issue with the show was the fact that they basically just played the songs as on the record. There were only a few extended instrumental parts where the songs were altered to suit live playing. I much prefer when a band expands the songs from the record into something else for the live performance. So, the dueling guitars section here was great, and seemed to go over really well with the crowd, they should have brought out more of that.

So, it was a fun show, but not one of the best I've been to. I won't compare it to The Spree, that's just not fair, but a band like The Raveonettes really expanded and upped the ante on their songs for the live performance, while Head basically just played what was there.

Apocalypse Now

I watched Apocalypse Now for the first time back in 2000 or so and really liked it. It's been a fixture on my top 100 list, a really strong cinematic experience. Yesterday I watched the film for the second time, this time the Redux version, and it was an absoulte revelation. In the years since first seeing it, I've gone through a major change in the way I view films, and this is the sort of film that's definitely benefitted from it.

I'm not usually a big fan of war films, which isn't a problem here, because it's not a war film in the traditional sense. The war is a backdrop for a study in the way that extreme environments can alter a person's mind. The film has a lot going on in terms of theme, but the most striking thing is the mood. Watching this movie isn't so much observing events in a story, it's sinking into a mindset, a dreamlike trip down this river, where anything goes. What's happening on screen doesn't matter so much as the visual quality of the images, so a barrage of bullets out of the jungle is more about the lights streaking through the air than the danger our crew is in.

This surreal mood is set right from the incredible opening. It's so simple in its construction, using just dissolves and a perfectly chosen piece of music, but it creates a nearly unparalleled mood. You watch this scene and you're there in Saigon, in the drugged out haze that Willard himself is experiencing.

The film is notable in that even though there are some fairly conventional dialogue scenes, like the office meeting, there's never a sense of normality or safeness. Everything moves forward in this odd dreamlike space. Even in the lengthy dialogue scene in the French Plantation sequence, the incredibly soft lighting and Willard's confused expression makes the words being said secondary to the feeling of lost control. Willard is an almost completely passive hero, just getting carried along, be it literally on the river, in the air with Kilgore, or into bed with the French widow. Because he isn't a traditionally active hero, the film avoids the war movie cliches of the noble hero or even the frustrated GI just hoping to get home. By this point, the civilized Willard has been destroyed, he can't function at home, but at the same time, he hates life in Vietnam. He has no more hope and perhaps what intrigues him about Kurtz is that this is someone who had the same problems he did, and was able to find a solution.

It's certainly been covered enough, but the Kilgore helicopter assault sequence is a near unbelievable piece of filmmaking. It really does seem like they're fighting the war, the explosions, property being destroyed, ten helicopters flying in formation, there's no seams, it feels like you're really there in Vietnam. The sequence is brilliant in the way that it makes Kilgore and his destruction so attractive even when objectively we know that what he's doing is despicable and wrong.

The other really strong setpiece is the last US outpost. This is another scene where the scope of the destruction is astounding, creating this feeling of chaos, the dreamy journey down the river becoming nightmare. Watching the film now I was reminded a lot of what's coming out about the second Iraq war, and also the way that the government is deliberately trying to hide the truth about that war to keep cvilians from understanding just how bad it's gotten. It sounds like there's a similar chaos and uncertainty about victory. The war in Iraq, like the war here, doesn't have an easy victory. There's no army to surrender because the enemy is thousands of guerillas not one overriding entity.

Anyway, this Redux version brings a couple of new sequences that got mixed reviews. To some degree, I think people will find it impossible to adjust to changes to a classic film, no matter how well the changes work. My way of viewing films has changed, so I don't want to do a better/worse comparison. What I will say is that this is a film about a mood, about falling into this world, so criticizing a sequence for bringing the narrative to a halt is in some respects, a bit ridiculous. From a narrative point of view, the two new sequences are either unnecessary or actively harmful to the progression of the film, but in terms of building mood and feeling, I think they're both effective and I'm happy to have Redux on DVD rather than the original version.

The Playboy bunnies helicopter sequence is a bit odd in that the bunnies seem to have no problem prostituting themselves. The way I saw it is that they're completely drugged up at this point, hence the disconnect between what the men are doing to them and the things they're talking about. So, the playmate of the year going on about her loneliness and feelings of degredation while at the same time being used for sex is a result of the fact that she's numbed herself from the world as a way to get through her experience in Vietnam. I'd imagine the guys transporting them either got them the drugs or actively drugged them against their will as a way of getting the fuel. The bunnies are much like Willard in the beginning of the film, numb and detached from the world. It's not an essential sequence, but I think it's an interesting mood and feel and I'm glad it's back in the movie.

French Plantation is a longer sequence and if I were to re-edit the film, I would cut out at least half the dialogue from the owner, he talks about some interesting things, but it does grind the film to a halt. However, the scenes are beautifully shot and I feel like Willard's encounter with the widow reinforces his feelings of helplessness. He just moves along doing whatever comes to him, and his encounter with her is part of this. This is all really good looking stuff, great photography and for that reason alone, it's worth seeing.

One of the major contributors to the film's atmosphere is the excellent score by Carmine Coppola. A lot of people call the synthesizer stuff dated, but I think it's timeless, the quality of the sound creating this really odd feeling. It reminds me a lot of the synth work in Blade Runner, used right the synth can build a really alluring atmosphere. Used wrong, it's "Axel F," but that's not the case here. There's something otherworldly about the synth here and I'd love to see people bring this sound style back.

Anyway, the whole film builds up to Willard's confrontation with Kurtz. Coppola does a great job of building suspense about who this guy is and even though I'd already seen the movie, I was still really excited to finally get to Kurtz and see him again. I love Dennis Hopper's role, playing off his crazy hippie image in a really hyper performance. He's a lot of fun to watch.

Brando himself is right on the line of self parody, but I think his performance is masterful. His Kurtz is someone who's so gone from civilization, his godlike status in the village fueling his delusions about how enlightened he's become. In reality, he hasn't found the answer, he's just found a place where the questions don't matter anymore. Watching him, Willard is unsure whether Kurtz really is the messiah or whether he's just crazy. Willard is someone who's so passive that he basically waits for Kurtz to approve of his own death before he's finally ready to perform the murder.

The return of "The End" signals the beginning of an absoultely bravura sequence. Willard emerging from the swamp is one of the all time great movie images and the subsequent return to savagery during the murder sequence is all brilliant. As before, the use of "The End" transforms the sequence into something even greater than the sum of its images, it's one of the all time great uses of a song to score a film.

The ending is a bit of an anti-climax, after the superlative murder stuff. Willard just leaves, but for the character it makes perfect sense. He doesn't have the initiative to take over as king there. He waits for a mission, gets one, completes it and then returns. You could argue that he returns because he knows that if they took out Kurtz, they'll take him out too, but ultimately what matters is that he rejects Kurtz's grandiose beliefs in favor of a desire to just keep himself alive. He isn't at home in civilization or at war or at nature, he's been destroyed by the experience in Vietnam and even his own kingdom can't make up for it.

I think Kurtz's basic point, that the Vietnamese win because they're fighting for something, while everyone in the American army is just waiting to get home, makes a lot of sense, and also applies to Iraq. If you know that you're not really fighting for anything, are you going to put your life on the line, or just try not to get killed? Kurtz used to have that commitment but he recognized the futility of fighting a war that the soldiers weren't fully committed to and as a result holed himself up in the jungle.

The entire film is a movement from order and civilization to the savage chaos of the ending. That's why I could see problems with the French Plantation scene, because it breaks that flow. Intact, it would indicate Willard's detachment from the civilized world. This space feels alien now, while the jungle is home. In that respect he has become like Kurtz, even if his actions at the end indicate that he won't admit it. Everyone in the war has become like Kurtz, it's just that some of them are able to admit it and some aren't.

I've noticed that I tend to really enjoy films that are considered troubled, or excessive, films that draw criticism for their self indulgent. The most recent film that approximates the feeling of Apocalypse Now also drew criticism for a director going too far with a self indulgent, pretentious film, and that's Malick's The New World. The New World is another film that's all about atmosphere, so criticizing it for a weak narrative is completely missing the point of what the film is trying to do. 2046 is another movie that was very troubled and ended up as the synthesis of many hours of footage that were somehow put together into an amazing film. Fellow 1979 release All That Jazz also drew criticism on the same counts as Apocalypse, of self indulgent, pretentious excess.

What all these films have in common is that they represent singular directorial visions and also exist outside the traditional comfort zone for what a film should be. A lot of critics write about film from a narrative point of view, because frequently what's best about a film can't be put into words, it's something uniquely cinematic. And while these films may have a lack of narrative clarity, they have a singular emotional vision, they drop you into a world, they don't tell you about it, they make you experience it.

And in Apocalypse Now that experience can be harrowing and it can be exhilirating, but it all feels unique and unlike any other film out there. I love Kubrick, but to think that he could capture the feeling of Vietnam in England is folly, as Coppola said "This film isn't about Vietnam. It is Vietnam." It's a 200 minute film, but I'd have loved to say in that world for a while longer, and that's one of the best things a film can do, make a world you don't want to leave.

Notable News

So, we've had a few interesting developments in the past few weeks. For me personally, I've bought tickets to a bunch of concerts. This shall be quite the month for shows.

On Thursday I'm headed up to Hartford to see Head Automatica. This is a fantastic electrodancepop band, and their first album was produced by music god Dan the Automator. All their songs are anthemtic sing and dance along compositions, so it should be a fun concert. This will most likely be a younger crowd, more reminiscent of my early concertgoing days, seeing ska bands like Goldfinger and Catch 22. The very first concert I went to was Goldfinger at Irving Plaza in the Spring of 2002, it's still one of my most memorable shows, the crowd was so into it and the whole concert experience was completely new to me. So, hopefully this crowd will be like that and not the stand around too cool for this bunch you run into at a lot of shows.

A week later, on March 3rd, I'll be going to New York City to see Belle and Sebastian and The New Pornographers. These are two of my favorite bands, both featured in the soundtrack to my film Ricky Frost. I saw Belle back in October at the Across the Narrows Festival and it was a great show. I've gotten more into their music since then, and they've got a fantastic new album to draw tracks from. However, I think I'm even more excited for the New Pornos. Their stuff is so fun, high energy, it should be great live. I really want to hear "Testament to Youth in Verse."

And two weeks after that, I'll be going to Irving Plaza to see Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins. She's the frontwoman of Rilo Kiley, and she's out supporting her solo album. It's a great gospel/country/rock piece with some great harmonies courtsey of the twins. You can download the whole album here, legally. Definitely check out "Rise Up With Fists," that's the highlight of the album.

So, this should be a fun bunch of weeks. I'll have reviews of all the shows as they happen.

In other news out there, I was really excited to hear Grant Morrison talk about his plans for a potential Invisibles catchup book, along the lines of Sandman: Endless Nights. The Invisibles is the greatest work of fiction of all time, a work overwhelming in its scope, idea and character. I think it ends perfectly and is pretty much complete as is, however, I'd love to see Grant go back to the universe, even if only for a series of not particularly important short stories, just to fill in some of the undiscussed time periods, more stuff with Edie, or with what the characters do between 2000 and the last issue in 2012.

Grant has never let me down before, and I'm sure if he chose to go back to The Invisibles, it's for good reason.

In other exciting news, Mike Patton talked about plans for a new Lovage album. The original album is one of my top five albums all time, a perfect blend of 60s lounge stylings with modern hip hop to create a unique timeless album. It's completely unique and features astonishing performances from Patton and Jennifer Charles.

So, I would be thrilled to see a new Lovage album. I really regret not getting to see their live show the first time, so a new tour would be cool, but more importantly, there's still a lot of potential territory to cover with the concept. Apparently, Jennifer Charles has not yet committed to the follow up, I'd consider her essential to the album, and I'm assuming she'll get picked up eventually. Though I imagine there will be some changes, along the lines of the shifts between the first and second Handsome Boy Modeling School albums.

Still, just to get new Lovage material would be worth it. Automator hasn't done an album in a while, so I'd be happy to see anything from him. Patton's Peeping Tom album sounds pretty cool as well, I'll definitely check that out when it's available.

I have a feeling that I'll be waiting a while for both the new Invisibles stuff and the new Lovage album, but when it does arrive, that will be a glorious day.

Review Revue - February 2006

I've been watching a ton of movies this year, but it's been a while since I saw a really great one, probably since All that Jazz back around the very start of the year. However, I've seen some good stuff, and some not so good stuff.

6ixtynin9 - This is a film by Pen-ek Ratanaruang, who did the excellent film, Last Life in the Universe. Watching this movie, it's clear that Pen-ek has some very specific thematic and narrative things he likes to do. 6ixtynin9 lacks the profound melancholy of Last Life, Last Life was a movie you could drift into and get lost in, while 6ixtynin9 is more narrative based.

There's nothing wrong with that, I really enjoyed the movie. The music is great, and the lead actress is a really engaging presence. There's a nice sense of tension throughout the movie and it's fun watching the Rube Goldbergian unfolding of plot events.

However, the thing that holds the film back from being great is the fact that I feel like I've seen these sort of low level crime noir comic dramas many times before. It seems like every director starts with a film like this.

Bound - And this conception was fueled by the fact that I'd just watched the Wachowskis' first film, Bound. This film is also a noir drama with some comic elements, revolving around a bunch of money that gets lost. The twist that the film brings is the lesbian relationship between the two main characters. This is an entertaining movie, with some nice twists, but ultimately it's a bit constrained by the fact that everything is set in one place for the last hour.

The first forty minutes or so of the film are more unique. Watching the relationship develop between Corky and Violet is fun, though my whole viewing experience of the film was colored by an article I read about Larry Wachowski. This reaction raises some questions about how much a director's personal life should impact one's reaction on their work. In this case, the personal life is so bizarre, it basically forces you to reassess the work to date.

In the case of this film, right from the title we can see stuff that could be interpreted as playing on the masochistic tendencies of Larry, as well as on the fluid gender identities. But on the whole, the work is something that's good, but not great. But, it definitely shows that the Wachowskis have always been capable of capturing really striking images. Though at this point, it feels like the most interesting stuff from them is going on in real life.

Ran - When I watch a really acclaimed movie, even if I don't love it, I can usually at least see why it's considered a classic. However, in the case of Ran, I don't understand how this one got critical acclaim. I liked Rashomon, but here, Kurasowa makes an incredibly static, boring film. There's a lot of art cinema films that seem to deliberately confront the viewer with slow pacing and a lack of events. The recent Van Sant films are a good example of that, except they're so thematically rich and accurate in depicting everyday life. What Elephant does is show us ordinary life and allow us to find the drama within.

However, what this movie does is use similar pacing, except set everything in a very theatrical world. Most of the senes in the film feel more like a play than a movie, with their excessively stylized performance and static camerawork. You can put hundreds of people in suits of armor on the screen, but if you don't shoot it in an interesting way, it's not going to be cool to watch. I think the reason I didn't like the film is that in terms of style, it's basically the opposite of what I like, this is a very restrained, cold, theatrical style. I usually prefer the immersive movement and intensity of Wong Kar-Wai or Noe. In my mind, this film doesn't even look like it was made by someone who understands how to use film. I know Kurasowa is considered a master, but it seemed like he was phoning it in on this one.

There are some good parts, but it's a movie that moves so slowly in the first half that the movie had lost me before it got to the stronger parts. It's not wise to have an absurdly slow paced opening to the film because you're going to lose the audience. You've either got to have something interesting in the narrative or something interesting in the filmmaking, you can't do slow paced if you've got nothing happening. And, I know it was the culture at the time, but the women's eyebrow style was distracting. She looked like Robert Blake in Lost Highway, and that made it difficult for me to take the character seriously.

I just don't understand how this could be considered one of the best films of all time. If it wasn't for those outside scenes, this thing could have been a videotaping of a staged play. Film can do interesting things, why not try them?

Lenny - This is Bob Fosse's biopic of Lenny Bruce. Fosse's become one of my favorite directors, but unlike All that Jazz and Star 80, this one isn't able to transcend the traditional limits of the biopic. It's a great Dustin Hoffman performance, and I like the way that Fosse uses the comedy bits as sort of a Greek chorus to comment on the action, however, the narrative doesn't fully hang together. It's basically a function of the fact that at the end of his life, Bruce became boring, obsessed with his law issues, and hence the film has difficulty treating this period of his life.

However, it's still a good movie. The black and white photography is great, and Fosse has a great eye for composing a shot. However, Fosse didn't seem as engaged with the material as he was in his other films, so, no matter what he does, this was never going to be a really great movie.

Dottie Gets Spanked

Dottie Gets Spanked is a short film that Todd Haynes did between Poison and Safe. It's not his strongest work, but it's a really interesting piece that contains a lot of the themes and motifs that inform his later work.

One of the things I love about Todd's stuff is that all of them take place in a slightly skewed version of our reality, making the ordinary into something alien and disquieting. This is most notable in his early stuff, Safe and Poison both make you slightly uncomfortable, and Dottie Gets Spanked also has that slightly off feeling. It's a film that you don't enjoy in the typical way. Dottie feels very similar to Poison, and could probably even have been incorporated as another piece of that film. However, it's also clearer and more well developed than most of the stuff in Poison, and a bit more thematically dense.

I listened to the commentary included on the DVD, and that illuminates a lot of the motivation behind the film. The main character, Steven, is a stand in for Haynes, who went through most of the stuff that he does. Nearly all of Todd's films are concerned with the way that the typical suburban family structure is constricting and damages those in it, be it Karen Carpenter's cruel parents or Cathy's snarky neighbors in Safe.

Almost all of Haynes' films are concerned with troubled female protagonist, a tendency that first emerged in his childhood drawings, much like Steven's. What makes this film interesting is that even though the film is essentially about Dottie, it's the only Haynes film that addresses the suburban family from the perspective of the male child. Steven's mother may feel the same constriction that pains Cathy or Carol, but that's not what the film is about, it's about the development of this kid.

I admire Haynes for taking on tough subject matter. It's shaky territory dealing with childhood conceptions of sexuality, but this film pulls it off, and the dream sequences present things from Steven's uninformed point of view, while at the same time showing us the tendencies that will most likely inform his later life. He knows that his attraction to spanking is something to be ashamed of, but at the same time, he can't let go of it. This sentiment is eloquently summed up in the finale, when Steven buries the picture, with the assumption that eventually he'll return to that fantasy.

The film is very economical in the way it sets things up, to some extent, Haynes uses archetypes, the gruff father who's not able to understand, the overindulgent mother, but I don't think that hurts the work. Like Lynch, he takes this somewhat cliched suburban setting and then peels back its layers to reveal the dysfunction beneath.

The dream sequences reminded me of the scenes in Natural Born Killers which also used the laughtrack as an ironic counterpoint to onscreen action. To some extent, I feel like this sort of postmodernism is a bit passe. It's been done so much that it's not as shocking as it might have been back in 1993.

This doesn't hold back Dottie from being a really successful, haunting film. Haynes is a consistently intriuging and challenging filmmaker and I'm really looking forward to his upcoming Suppositions on a Film Concerning Dylan.

The Dottie DVD also included a short that Haynes produced back in the 80s called He Was Once. It's a dark parody of 60s TV show Davie and Goliath. This one suffers much more from the fact that this ironic deconstruction has been done a lot in recent years. However, it's still out there enough that it works.

I haven't seen the original material, so I'm probably not the best audience for the film, however, I'm aware of the basics, it's a moralistic claymation story of a boy and his talking dog. The first notable thing about this film is the great makeup and set design, which is designed to mimic the claymation aesthetic of the show. The actors move in an odd way, which contributes to the illusion. It's a very good looking movie.

It's tough to evaluate the film without having seen the show. I'd imagine the belt stuff is drawing out something implicit in the original material, that his parents don't believe Davie's story. Here it's turned into a sadomasochistic ritual which serves as the primary form of communication between family members. The thing that makes the film work is that it's not played as something jokey, the characters behave in an exaggerated way, but events are given gravity and played seriously.

The two dream sequences are fantastic, really dark interesting stuff. It's a good companion piece to Dottie because both explore the way that children rebel against their powerlessness in relationships with their parents. So, this was a cool film, definitely worth seeing.

Eros

Eros is an anthology film featuring segments by Wong Kar-Wai, Steven Soderbergh and Michaelango Antonioni. I'll watch anything that Wong Kar-Wai makes, so I was eager to check this out, and the bonus of a short by Soderbergh made it even more enticing. However, the film varies widely in quality.

There's been all kinds of rumors lately about Wong Kar-Wai's next project, but one thing is clear, it's going to be in English, with American actors and shot in the United States. 2046 functioned as in many ways the ultimate Wong Kar-Wai film, taking elements from everything he'd done before and combining them in a story that touches on all his favorite themes. The end of that film seemed to signal the end of an era,and from here he's moving on to new stuff.

That's what makes Eros a bit weird, it's so entranced in the same emotional and physical space of In the Mood For Love/2046 that it feels almost superfluous watching it after seeing the two more extended treatment of the same themes. It's not that it's not a good film, it's just that it feels like Wong Kar-Wai on autopilot, there's no real innovations in the film.

That's how I felt for the first half hour or so. Chen Chang's Zhang is a fusion of Tony Leung's character in 2046 and Ziyi Zhang's in the same film. He's trapped by this one experience of passion, which holds him back, and at the same time the woman he loves so overtly rejects him by flaunting her other men when he's around. This was profoundly emotional territory in 2046, but here it feels like there's at once too much and too little story. The basic events are very simple, as in most Wong Kar-Wai films, but the beauty of most of his work is in the moments between the plot, the acute observations of everyday.

By fitting the whole story in 40 minutes, we lose the sense of these characters as fully developed people, and instead they exist more to move the story forward. Yet, at the same time, it's such a simple idea that I was hoping for some more layers or complexity. Even the style for most of the film was WKW on autopilot, using the same style as in ITMFL, obscuring characters behind objects, not allowing us to see their faces, and showing only one side of a relationship.

That's not to say there isn't some good stuff, the music is still fantastic, and some of the shots, most notably the long slow motion shot of Gong Li fixing her hair. That was a moment that only WKW can do, but most of the short moved too quickly to allow us to luxuriate in the moment.

However, in the end all the emotions come to the surface and we get some of the rawest emotional pain in any of WKW's work to date. The final scene with Zhang and Miss Hua is very powerful, the way that this expression of love becomes incredibly painful for both of them. Zhang running his hand over the dress, trying to breathe life into it is a perfect image, one that encapsulates everything that the film is about. He feels like he has made her into what she's become, he's been a part of life by making her clothes, but without her, it's just fabric.

I like the ambiguity of the ending, not telling us that Gong died, but leaving us to assume that this is indeed what happened. I think it's tough to make a 40 minute film work, because it falls in that void between feature and short. You need a lot of material, but at the same time, there's not enough time to really flesh things out, leading to an inevitable feeling of unfulfilment. It's a good film, but in terms of WKW's canon, it's never going to be anything more than a minor work.

Soderbergh's film is also a minor work, one that's jokey rather than painful. The opening dream sequence is beautifully shot, I love the blue color scheme and the way props from the dream crop up later in reality. Very cool stuff. The psychiatrist scene is funny, but the whole thing feels a bit lightweight, especially positioned after the really affecting finale of 'The Hand.'

The ending is a bit nonsensical, the way I interpreted things, it's that Robert Downey Jr. is struggling to compete with the inventors of the snooze alarm, and as a result, has a dream that he was the one to come up with it. The ending feels a bit goofy, but I do like that final shot, the repeated throwing of the airplane out the window.

But this film looks like a masterpiece compared to the finale, Antonioni's 'The Delicate Thread of Things.' I haven't seen any other Antonioni films, and though I still want to check some out, I'm hoping this film isn't representative of his work. I heard it was really bad, I heard people were walking out, but I thought, it's only 40 minutes, plus it's got a lot of nudity so how bad could it be? Very, very bad is the answer.

This movie is almost a parody of European art cinema, the characters have ambiguous, vaguely philosophical dialogue, a man wanders into a stranger's house and has sex with her, then two women run around naked on a beach. It's a good looking movie, but the narrative is really lacking. There's no character motivation and there's no sense that these characters exist in anything resembling the real world. It's like an art film set in the universe of a porn film, that's the only way to make sense of the behavior.

These are good looking women and the film is enjoyable on that level, but overwhelming that was the fact that there was no real reason for them to be doing anything. Maybe I missed something, but there didn't seem to be any themes, it was just a bunch of stuff that happened, and the final image seemed like it should be important, but there's no real significance from the story. It just doesn't work.

So, on the whole, this wasn't a particularly good film. I'm glad I saw it because the Wong Kar-Wai piece is strong, but they're all clearly minor works from otherwise excellent directors.

Real Sex in Cinema

A few days ago, I watched the movie 9 Songs, and then yesterday I watched Gaspar Noe's video for Placebo, both of which feature actual sex. So, watching these two raises some questions about where the line between art and pornography is, and more importantly, is there really any reason that you need actual sex in a film?

9 Songs isn't a porn, but it does seem constructed entirely around showing people actually having sex, and that's where it fails. I think there's definitely films that would benefit from the frank depiction of sex that this film has, but the problem with this movie is that it clearly with the idea, "Let's do a film with actual sex," and went from there. I'd guess that the basic conception of the film was to show how a relationship changes by showing us the ways that their sex changes over time. It's not a bad idea, but the film doesn't really work because we've got no context for their relationship and only a vague idea of who these people are as characters.

So, rather than feeling a greater sense of intimacy with the characters, the audience is put in a voyeuristic position. We don't know these people, so watching them go at it doesn't have much emotional significance. Plus, the band appearances felt disconnected from the rest of the movie. The film is definitely spectacle in the sense that you're there to watch some bands and some people have sex, there's no sense of real narrative progression.

Now, I'm not saying it's a bad film. There's some strong parts, the increasing antagonism of the two characters, who seem to be unable to connect to each other and start to do all sorts of role play stuff rather than confront the reality of their relationship. The best scene in the movie is when Matt blindfolds Lisa. The image is striking, and there's a lot of subtext to what they're doing there, escaping into fantasy rather than being content in the reality of where they are at the moment.

So, this is a film that's more an experiment in the depiction of sex on screen than a real narrative. I think it would have been much more interesting to drop most of the band performances, and spend more time developing the characters. The film is only 70 minutes, so if you add another 20 minutes, you could get a better sense of the relationship as a whole. Then, the sex would feel less exploitative and more like we're just seeing every facet of these people's relationship.

In terms of depicting sex on screen, it's certainly true that there's a falseness in a lot of mainstream Hollywood movies. The not so subtle positioning to avoid showing any actual nudity can seem a bit contrived. However, I don't think the reaction to this needs to be actual sex. For one, that puts actors in a really awkward position. Where's the line between kissing someone for a role and actually having sex with them? In both cases, it's supposed to be meaningless, but where is the line drawn? What should you have to go through to serve a role? In this film, there's not that much gained through the shots of actual penetration, they don't add to the emotional reality of the scene, and ultimately that's what the point of the real sex is supposed to be, to make things feel more real.

If the sex was just one part of the plot, I might have had a different reaction. If these were more developed characters, there would probably be less sense of contrivance, but as it is, it's not that the film goes too far, it's just that it seems designed only to test the limits, rather than having the boundary breaking come out of a fundamentally engaging story.

I was reading an interview with Vincent Cassel where he talks about how Gaspar Noe originally approached him to do a film in which Cassel and his real life wife, Monica Bellucci would have sex on screen. But he didn't want to do this, and that's what led to the creation of Irreversible. Even once they started Irreversible, he was saying that if they wanted to "make it real" in the scene where they're in bed together, he'd be cool with that, but Cassel and Bellucci both said there was a line between the character and the real person, and they didn't want to cross that line in the film.

That's a film that I think finds a good balance in terms of depicting intimacy on screen. The two of them wander around their apartment naked, and the fact that they're so comfortable with each other tells you what you need to know about their relationship, you don't need them to actually have sex.

Yet, Noe clearly fancied the idea because in a video he did for Placebo he goes back to the real sex idea, it's basically two people wandering through an orgy. Now, in this case, there's no narrative, what makes this video different from porn?

I would argue that it's not in the narrative, it's the technique. Watching the film, what's being shown is almost incidental to the astounding camera movement. Noe's camera glides through space, capturing this environment in a great long take. Like a lot of stuff in Irreversible, it's astounding filmmaking, but for a lot of viewers, the brilliance of his technique is negated by his subject matter.

I like the video, but I could definitely see why someone would consider it pornographic and exploitative. Noe's someone who loves to shock, and this video is an example of that.

So, what's the conclusion. I feel like in general, you don't need to have actual sex in a film. For one, it can obscure the rest of the film in terms of media attention, as with what happened with 'The Brown Bunny,' but also because I feel like it's not needed. Actual shots of penetration don't really add anything, and as long as you have actors who are willing to go to an emotionally real place, you're good. Looking at Buffy, there's a show that had to deal with network television restrictions and still managed to portray sex in a really strong, interesting way. Buffy and Spike having sex in the falling house doesn't need nudity to convey its meaning. But there are other scenes that feel hamstrung by the need to keep any real nudity out of the scene.

It would be interesting to see the reaction to a mainstream film that features real sex, but I don't see it happening, and for the sake of actors involved, I'd say that's a good thing.

X-Men 255-265

Continuing the journey, this chunk of issues represents a nadir for Claremont, with even more aimless drifting than the first ten post Inferno issues. The thing that made Claremont's run from 94-225, and arguably through Inferno, is the constant sense of progress. There was no status quo, the team was always changing, and characters grew in interesting ways. This created the sense that anyone was expendable, and also meant that characters could undergo radical transformations, most notably Storm's journey from 166-225.

However, post Inferno, Claremont seems to have taken the idea that everything should change too far, and ended up with a comic that has virtually nothing in common with what he defined the X-Men as. I've got no problem with radical change, as long as the character core remains intact. So, I wouldn't mind if Wolverine and Storm retired and the comic followed their everyday life, because that would be a logical extension of the character arcs that he created, and is still true to the essence of the book, which is the relationships between the family of characters that developed over the course of the run.

Sending everyone through the siege perilous was a bold move that broke from the status quo, but unfortunately it's resulted in the book having no direction and no emotional center. This is an extension of the problem that began when Claremont shipped a lot of his best characters off to Excalibur, breaking up the family that defined the book. Here it gets worse because none of the X-Men are together, so it's a bunch of random episodes, with no real forward momentum.

The first arc in this chunk of issues is the bizarre Lady Mandarin storyline. After going through the Siege Perilous, Psylocke has been reborn as a ninja assassin. The storyline is primarily an excuse for Claremont to put Psylocke in the ninja leotard outfit and have her kill people, as well as put Wolverine through some more punishment. It's not a bad storyline, the ending works well, but on the whole, the plot development is a bit nonsensical.

Following this, we see a bit of Jubille, Wolverine and Psylocke travelling together, and there's some interesting territory to explore, but they only turn up in some of the issues, so the forward progress of their storyline is not too quick. Wolverine is one of the key characters in the book, and it really hurts to not have him in every issue.

The most successful storyline going on at this point follows Piotr, who has been reborn as an artist in New York City. This is a strong use of the Siege Perilous, one that makes emotional sense. Piotr is given everything he ever wanted, the slate is clean, and he doesn't have the painful memories of his time with the X-Men. This leaves his comrades wandering if they should reveal that he's living a lie or let him go on living the fantasy. It makes emotional sense for the character at this point.

The major goings on at this point is the Banshee and Forge storyline. These two are both established characters, but I don't think they can carry the book, like they're apparently meant to. Forge is interesting as a foil for Storm, and the whole reenacting of Vietnam thing feels played out. There's definite potential in the character, but if you keep having him do the same thing every time he appears, play out the same conflicts, it's not interesting to read. Similarly, Jean Grey doesn't really feel like a character in this book, she doesn't belong here, and that makes her appearances odd. It would make more sense to have Scott turn up and aid Banshee.

The other really weak storyline is Storm's regression to adolescence. This is nonsensical and makes no sense in terms of character development. I'm assuming they're leading up to a reenactment of the events of issue 117, where Professor X fights the Shadow King, with young Storm on hand, but I don't think that's worth going through this very long storyline that's going nowhere.

That's basically how the book feels at this point, a whole bunch of things are happening very slowly, and in 'cutting' between them, Claremont is basically elongating and repeating the same series of events. It feels like they're filling space before something big, but there doesn't seem to be any ultimate story destination that they would be leading to.

So, it's 14 issues to go until the end of the run, which includes X-Tinction Agenda. Hopefully things will pick up a bit, because I wouldn't want a lot of really good work to end on a weak note.

Making Films about "Real" Events

Yesterday I watched Schindler's List. It's one of those films that's essential viewing, and I hadn't seen it, so I rectified that omission in the film canon. I think it's a really good film, beautifully shot, the black and white photography is phenomenal and it's got a very strong emotional hook, particularly towards the end. However, I would hesitate to call it a great film because I think there's too much cultural baggage around it to assess it solely as a piece of art. In fact, it's almost impossible to make a film based around events that really happened.

Now, this is not a conventional viewpoint. Three of the films up for best picture this year are biopics designed to dramatize real events, and looking back in film history, many of the most respected and beloved films are based on the lives of real people. However, I don't think the vast majority of those films were truly great, successful works of art.

In the case of something like Schindler's List, the major thing that holds it back from greatness is the fact that it's more interested in making a point than being a great film. The film should have ended with the final black and white stuff, the closing sequence with the real people and the actors placing the rocks on Schindler's grave is too long, and kills the emotional high of the finale. When they send Schindler off in his car, that's the end of the movie right there, everything that was set out to be done is done, yet Spielberg sticks around, stating what you already knew. The film has already shown you that Schindler was an amazing guy, just closing on the line about how he planted a tree would have tied together the idea that there's this tree of survivors descending from him, you don't need the further explanatory titles.

Those titles and the color stone sequence don't make sense in terms of making a good film. It takes you out of the world that was created and rather than ending with the end of the story, it stops to show the reality of something we already knew. Side note, Spielberg just cannot end a film. Many of his films seem to peter out, to the point that the emotional buzz is killed. War of the Worlds is a great example of this, but Minority Report, Schindler's List, and to some extent Munich and A.I. all drag on after the emotional conclusion. A great ending can cover a lot of sins, particularly pacing issues, while a draggy ending magnifies those. So, when Schindler was driving away, I was really feeling the movie, but by the time that stone bit was going, I was starting to feel the 195 minutes.

But aside from specific issues with this movie, in general, I think it's folly to try to tell a story that really happened. The reason for this is that inevitably a real story ends up making the viewer more aware of the fictional constructions that film uses. There's a tendency to reduce real people to clear cut good and evil figures, as a way of fitting the film into a traditional narrative structure. And it's almost impossible to fit an entire life into a two hour film without sacrificing a lot of the complexities of that person. Ironically, fictional films are more likely to be like real life, because the real life stories that get turned into films are always extraordinary rather than ordinary.

The issue I have with Schindler and other Holocaust and genocide based films is that the cultural issues surrounding the subject matter make it nearly impossible to evaluate the film as an art object. I felt like Schindler was a very sadistic film, yet is calling the violence and treatment of people in the film cruel and excessive valid? It is designed to recreate actual events, but does this give the film a pass? Obviously it's condemning the violence it depicts, but why would this film receive cultural accolades while a movie like Irreversible is condemned as excessive? Both films use the graphic depiction of violence as a way of demonstrating how wrong these acts are. Why is it that Schindler's List is shown in classrooms and considered essential viewing, while Irreversible, a film that I would argue is more emotionally direct in its depiction of the destructive effects of violence, is maligned by many critics. In both cases, the depiction of violence is a fictional construction, and if you're saying that the violence in Schindler is justified because it really happened, the depiction of rape in Irreversible is certainly a lot more realistic than a menacing shadow and a cut away.

However, the answer to this conundrum is pretty obvious. Schindler's List can't really be called gratuitous because the events really happened. And therein lies the problem in evaluating the film, you can't evaluate the film as a narrative object, you can only examine how the real events are framed. So, saying I thought Schindler spending all his money to save them was implausible isn't a valid criticism because the response is: well, that's how it really happened. This makes it nearly impossible to have a legitimate discussion about the film from a narrative point of view. Certainly, you could talk about the way in which the events were framed to fit in to the movie world, but that requires a bunch of outside research that takes you further away from the film itself.

I feel that films like Schindler's List and another Spielberg, Saving Private Ryan, have a special place in the culture. They're "obligation films," you don't go because you think it's cool or will be fun, you go because you have to, it's your duty as a Jew, an American, a human, to see this film and in watching the film, give thanks to these great people who sacrificed of themselves in the past so that you can live now. This touches on one of the major problems I have with films about real life atrocities, you feel almost guilty about enjoying them. Schindler's List is a gorgeous movie, wonderfully shot, but can you really be like "That's a pimp shot" when it's of people being massacred and such? Irreversible runs into this to some extent, but there's not the cultural baggage, you can admire the look of the party without feeling like you're somehow enjoying the rape of this woman.

Yet, Holocaust films seem to function solely to put forth this "never forget" message, it's all somber, and any moments of humor or levity exist only in relation to the horror we know lies ahead. Yet, the film doesn't really earn this menace, it's using our existing cultural knowledge as a shortcut to create an emotional reaction. It's almost a genre piece, in the sense that we know the basic situation, and as a result, the filmmakers are free to dispense with traditional exposition and character creation. Bringing it back to Irreversible yet again, that's a film that is able to create a similar effect as those early moments of menace, but this time it's done through the inverted narrative structure. The film in someways draws on archetypal depictions of rape, yet at the same time skewers them, it plays around with the tenets of the revenge genre in a really interesting way. I feel like you couldn't do that with the Holocaust genre because the material is too touchy. You're not going to do a revisionist Holocaust film, designed to mess with traditional audience response, the response is predetermined, somber sadness and a respect for those who went through it.

Now, there are exceptions to the idea that you can't make a good film based on real events. The Insider is one of my favorite movies, and it's drawn directly from reality. I would say that this is the film Good Night and Good Luck wanted to be. Read interviews about Good Night and you'll hear about how it's designed to comment on today's political situation, and be an incendiary statement. However, watching the movie you get basically an emotionless dramatization of events, that again, is dependent on the viewer's dislike of McCarthy for any emotional impact that it does have. The characters are basically just people you see on screen, they're not particularly developed. And also the events of the film are so well known that you don't have strong dramatic tension while watching it.

What The Insider does is tell a story that is incendiary and does make an explicit comment on both journalism and corporate American in contemporary society. Good Night and Good Luck has the same problem that the Democrats had when going against Bush, it's all this winking criticism. It's preaching to the converted rather than explicitly addressing the issues at hand. The Insider converts you through its narrative arc, which is also riveting on its own terms. Was it ficitionalized? I don't know, but it's a movie, once you turn the camera on, it's all pretend. So, why not make a great movie first, a political statement second, and a true account third.

If Clooney wanted to make a statement about contemporary journalism, why would you go back fifty years? Why not tell the story of a reporter thrown in jail for refusing to reveal a source, or make something up, a worst case scenario of what The Patriot Act could do. That's more likely to change opinions than a couple of winking lines in a period film.

This isn't to say that films about the past can't comment on contemporary society. It's just that if that's your primary objective, to make a message movie about today's world, why not make the film about today's world. Jarhead is a film that's such a nothing object, precisely because it chose to do some winking commentary, but generally speaking stayed firmly in a first Gulf War mindset, when the second is far more interesting and contemporary. It's like if Casablanca was set in World War I, it wouldn't be as immediate and powerful a film. If you are going to use the past, don't do in a couple of alluding lines away. Assuming you read Brokeback Mountain as a call for increased Gay rights, that's a great example of hooking the audience emotionally rather than making an explicit point. Rather than say, gays should be able to marry, the film says, look how ridiculous it is that society forces these two people to live a sham rather than the life they want to. Look how much destruction that causes.

Now, I would draw the line between dramatizing a specific set of real events and setting a film in the past. Apocalypse Now is inextricably tied to its Vietnam setting, but it's not about the horrors of Vietnam, it's about the destruction of one man's psyche. Usually, a really strong emotional arc is more powerful than trying to make a bold message. You understand that war is awful because you've seen what it does to our main character, that's the message right there. In Schindler, the issues with the film arise from the fact that it loses focus on the character hooks and has all these random scenes of violence. That's because the film is trying to show the horrors of the holocaust in broad view, rather than just showing it to us through the experience of well developed characters. Other than Stern and Schindler, the people aren't defined enough to make us care for them outside of the historical context.

Ultimately, it's the same issue with adapting movies from a book. Why would you try to cram a pre-existing story into the restricting confines of a feature film? The best films are always the ones that are either specifically designed for the medium, like Magnolia, or films where the source material is completely claimed by the director to suit the needs of the film, as in the case of Blade Runner or Star 80. Star 80 is a good example of something that's essentially a biopic, but eschews the traditional rise and fall structure and instead dwells on the issues behind the rise and fall, a more personal focus for Fosse. Another great example of this is Fosse's All That Jazz, a film that is technically a biopic, but chooses the depict the person's mind rather than the events he lived. It makes you live as Fosse rather than show you who he was.

So, the basic point is, it's much better to do a thinly veiled interpretation of a person than a strict biopic, because that'll give you the opportunity to do whatever you want, without worrying about historical accuracy. If I was going to make a film about the Holocaust, I would not set it in Germany of the 1940s, but in an America ten years into the future, where conservative reactionaries manufactured a terrorist threat that led to the imprisonment of all Arabs. It would be drawing on the same basic emotions, but in a way that's more about drawing out contemporary prejudices than lamenting the losses of the past. Rather than "never forget" it would be "never again." And freed of the baggage of a strict depiction of reality, it'd be easier to develop themes and message as integral pieces of the narrative rather than as side pieces that contribute little to the film's main arc.

But, this whole argument is coming from a film perspective. I'm watching Schindler's List as a piece of fiction, whereas most viewers are probably more interested in seeing history depicted, and that's certainly Spielberg's main point with the film. I may have cracked on it a bit, but I did really enjoy the film. Liam Neeson is great, and the ending is very powerful on an emotional level. It just brought up a lot of issues I've got with the film world right now, and one of the primary ones is the idea that a work set in the past is somehow more valid than a comment on the present. If Gladiator was set in the present, it'd be a Charles Bronson movie, but set it in Rome and it's a best picture.