Weekend Update

Weekend of Phoenix

After buying tickets for Phoenix's show at the Bowery Ballroom, I received an e-mail letting me know that I'm now on the guestlist for their show at Maxwell's. So, I'll be going to both, doing back to back concerts with the same band for the first time. I've heard Maxwell's is pretty small, so it'll be cool to get a chance to see them in a smaller setting, and then I'll catch the bigger show the next day. In other Phoenix news, I found out today that Thomas Mars was the vocalist on Air's 'Playground Love,' one of their best songs. I'll be reporting back on both these shows.

Love and Death

I was sad to see that another 60s musical legend died this week, Arthur Lee, the lead singer of Love. Forever Changes is one of my favorite albums, it's one of those albums that might not have a lot of really well known songs, but has been massively influential, sort of like The Velvet Underground. Belle and Sebastian have songs that sound like they could have been made by Love, 'Waking Up to Us' in particular. All their output still sounds fresh, not like something that's forty years old.

The Miami Vice Reaction

As I mentioned in my review, I loved Miami Vice and I'd consider it easily the best film of the year so far. So, it's been interesting talking to other people who've seen the film and hearing their criticisms. A lot of people are saying that it didn't have enough action, or that it was hard to follow, which seems to be completely missing the point. The plot is irrelevant, you don't need to know what is happening, it's more about the mood you settle into. In this respect, it's a lot like Domino, a film that got lambasted by critics and the public because it went so far into stylistic experimentation. People have a very limited idea of what an action film should be, and they're not prepared to accept these hybrids of art house and action. Vice has more in common with Wong Kar-Wai's Fallen Angels than it does with Mission Impossible III, but people just aren't geared to look at action films as artistic statements. Criticizing Miami Vice for not having enough action is like giving the same criticism to Ashes of Time. If you're looking for a generic action film, it's not going to satisfy, but if you want a really exciting, experimental film, it's the perfect choice.

In the Docket

I've got a bunch of films out of the library right now. Memoirs of a Geisha is something I was interested in seeing when it was out, but never got around to. IT's interesting on two levels, one is to see two of the world's best actresses, Zhang Ziyi and Gong Li, together and speaking English. The other interesting level is the visuals which I've heard were dazzling, even if the film didn't quite make it. I've also got In July, a film by Fatih Akin, who directed the pop masterpiece Head-On. I've got another Altman film, California Split, a Bertolucci, Stealing Beauty, Mike Figgis' Hotel and finally, R. Kelly's Trapped in the Closet: Chapters 1-12. Reviews of the notable films were follow soon.

Tristram Shandy

Earlier this week I watched Michael Winterbottom's Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story. Both this film and 24 Hour Party People were really entertaining, funny films, but they don't quite make it to greatness. Shandy suffered from the fact that there have been so many projects about making films recently, it's tough to come up with new material. Steve Coogan's funny, but his direct to the camera narration made the film a bit too reminiscent of Party People. I ended up wishing that Gillian Anderson had a bigger part and that the film was just a little bit better. Winterbottom's stuff is always entertaining, but he's never made a masterpiece.

Champagne Saturday

This Saturday, why not make it a Champagne Saturday by checking out my new music video. I think it turned out well, there's a lot of cool color correction and some nice quick cutting at the end. If you check it out, post your comments, I'd love to hear them. Next up for me is more work on my feature, All Good Things, and on Tuesday, I'm shooting a video for the song 'Yer Warpin' Me' by Nepo.

Upcoming Dates of Note

8/6 - Phoenix at Maxwelll's
8/7 - Phoenix at Bowery Ballroom
8/8 - Manderlay on DVD
8/17 - Gnarls Barkley at Summerstage
8/22 - Veronica Mars Season 2 on DVD
8/25 - Idlewild Released
8/29 - Arrested Development Season 3 on DVD
9/22 - Science of Sleep Releated
9/24 - The Flaming Lips at Hammerstein
10/20 - Marie Antoinette Released
11/22 - The Fountain Released

JLA: Rock of Ages (10-15)

I read a smattering of JLA stuff before beginning this whole series readthrough and the one thing I read that I really liked was Rock of Ages. Most of the weaker stories in Grant's JLA run are the ones that are decent superhero stories that just happen to be written by Morrison. The best, like Rock of Ages, are ones where it's a Grant Morrison story that just happens to star the JLA. This was written around the same time as The Invisibles' Hand of Glory arc, in the wake of Morrison's "alien abduction," an experienc that forever changed the direction of his work.

Before the alien abduction, Grant was a great writer, who told some weird stories, but his works didn't have an overarching connecting tissue. It was the abduction experience that gave Morrison the basis for his personal philosophy, the philosophy that informed all his work since. You can see this division quite clearly in The Invisibles, the first few issues explore a lot of things but it's not until the 'Sheman' arc that Morrison's conception of the nature of time becomes clear. As that series develops, his 4-D conception of reality becomes the guiding principle for both the fiction itself and the philosophy that it's trying to bring into reality. Works like The Invisibles and The Filth are a blend of philosophical text and adventure story.

Reading Rock of Ages you can see a lot of the concepts developed in The Invisibles filtered through a different lens, though this series also presents some inconsistencies from the worldview that Morrison forwards in Invis. However, the story doesn't begin with craziness, rather it starts with a pretty basic setup. Lex Luthor has bought the JLA's greatest enemies together to attempt a corporate takeover of the JLA. Despite the appearance of yet another evil version of the Justice League, this is a really nice opener for the arc. It's cool to see Mirror Master return, he was the star of a great single issue story in Morrison's Animal Man. One of the cool things about reading stuff in the DCU is seeing characters from previous runs, it's sort of like seeing an actor you really like pop up unexpectedly in another film. It may not have the same magic as the original appearance, but there's a nice spark of recognition nonetheless.

One of the things you get reading the whole JLA series rather than random excerpts is a better sense of the character development. A lot of the characters here are inert, Superman isn't going to go through a soul wrenching journey of personal discovery. However, we do get to see the younger heroes change. Kyle, despite his vast powers, has to deal with personal unease about his role in the Justice League. One of the scenes that best shows this is the moment where he's arguing with a random guy on the street, insisting that the JLA's just doing their best.

About halfway through the arc, things take a major turn with the appearance of Metron. I first encountered Metron in Seven Soldiers: Mister Miracle, a series that caused me much confusion. However, after reading the TPB of New Gods, I was totally prepared for the excursion into Kirby mythology. Metron is the DC Universe equivalent of John a Dreams, a guy who's able to move through space and time at will, however, Metron chooses to remain in his own form rather than subsume himself to another persona.

Metron sends Green Lantern and Aquaman on a mission to retrieve the Philosopher's Stone from a future reality and they bounce into reality known as Wonder World. While on Wonderworld, Green Lantern comes across the infant universe of Qwewq! This is one of those details that's just mindblowing, the infant universe of Qwewq somehow makes it off Wonderworld and later turns up in Morrison's JLA: Classified arc. Qwewq is infested with the black death, but also given a vaccine in the form of the ultramarines, and it eventually grows up to become Neh-buh-loh from Seven Soldiers. Just think about the journey of this infant universe from this issue to the end of Seven Soldiers. No one else is doing this kind of crazy storytelling, chronicling the growth of an entire universe in the background of a bunch of books. The series of events that will ultimately hold back the Sheeda invasion begins here in Rock of Ages.

After Wonderworld, Green Lantern meets up with Hourman. At the end of this book, Metron gives the philosopher's stone to Hourman, and asks him to keep it safe. However, this event actually takes place before Kyle meets with Hourman. So, Hourman is able to show Kyle the stone, and caution him about Metron's betrayal, because the good Metron travelled to Hourman and gave him the stone. Metron's speeches are all about asking people to transcend 3-dimensional logic and perceive all of time as one flowing entity. To understand the story, you also have to accept that logic because it's the only way you're able to understand why Hourman has the stone earlier in the story, but isn't given it until the end.

One of the best things about this arc is just how dense it is. Morrison's throwing out single issues that other writers would have spend twelve issues on, he's just got that much material. The Wonderworld segment leads into a post apocalyptic drama set in a world that Darkseid has conquered. After turning themselves into pure light information, Flash, Aquaman and Green Lantern turn up in this bad future and have to fix it. Sure, it's a little Days of Future Past, but the fact that this massive universe appears for a single issue adventure means you don't have time to dwell on the cliches.

The way that this arc resolves itself relies on a different conception of time than what Morrison uses in The Invisibles. In The Invisibles, it's impossible for there to be an alternate universe because all time exists simultaneously. If you went back in time five years, the changes you made would already be in place because you exist in a universe where you were five years ago. Figuring out this conception of time took me a long time, but I eventually got it by tracing Ragged Robin's journey. In 1996, the younger version of herself sees the older version of herself on the mesa. There was never a universe where the younger Robin saw no one, older Robin was always there, which means that the future she created through her time travel was the one she grew up in. That's why Jack tells her not to worry when she launches, she's already done everything right.

However, here in Rock of Ages, Metron posits a reality in which the forces of good and the forces of evil duel over the direction of reality and the outcome of each battle shapes the development of our world. One could argue that these Gods are essentially serving the same role as 5-D beings like John a Dreams did in The Invisibles. However, if that's true, then where did the evil Metron come from? If the alternate universe did exist, then it's logical that evil alternate future Metron could trick the JLA, however, if you're using the Invis concept of time, that alternate future would be impossible and the evil Metron could never exist.

To reconcile this, we need to turn to Morrison's idea of hypertime. This is the idea that time is like a river, there's the main river, but also a bunch of smaller bodies of water that branch off from the main flow. Sometimes these smaller rivers just stop, other times they'll connect back to the main river. So, according to this, the reality where Darkseid rules the world would be a small branch off the main river, one that eventually reconnects with the main flow.

Metron talks about the Philosopher's Stone as the Worlogog, an incarnation of all space/time. If we're to believe that the stone is a model of the universe, it would be logical that destruction of that model would lead to a new, incorrect universe. So, by saving the stone, they're quite literally saving the universe and ensuring that time proceeds down a good path. The stone, both visually and conceptually, is exactly like the magic mirror that the Invisibles crew encounters in New Mexico. The idea of a liquid that contains in it all moments of spacetime is one of those things I always struggle to get my head around. In this liquid we see all our experiences modeled, all of reality contained in this one object.

The idea that reality could be modeled in a fixed liquid is in line with Morrison's conception of our universe as a massive life chain flowing down from the first organism on the planet to present humanity. Travelling through this organism, freed of our individuality, we could experience reality through anyone's perception at any time.

The end of this arc has a lot of interesting foreshadowing. Metron indicates that the JLA themselves will be the New Gods, the key figures in the next fight for humanity's future. The idea that the JLA become gods is the critical founding component of Morrison's run. He is elevating them to the status of myth, and building towards a fnal battle on a mythic scale.

This is an arc that's just so nuts you have to love it. This is the first arc that feels uniquely Morrison and it's a great companion piece to the stuff going on in The Invisibles at the same time. I think comics can be proud that their biggest franchise isn't just telling the same story over and over again, this book is exploring intellectual territory that very few stories ever touch.

The New Pornographers @ Summerstage

Setlist (Approximate):
Twin Cinema//Use It//July Jones//Laws Have Changed//Jackie Dressed in Cobras//The Bleeding Heart Show//The Jessica Numbers//Mass Romantic//Testament to Youth in Verse//Miss Teen Wordpower//Bones of An Idol//It's Only Divine Right//Fake Headlines//Graceland//From Blown Speakers//Slow Descent into Alcoholism//Sing Me Spanish Techno

Encore:
Star Bodies//Jackie//Execution Day//Letter from An Occupant

Back in March, I saw The New Pornographers open for Belle & Sebastian. They put on a solid show, but were undercut by the fact that the crowd was mostly just waiting for them to finish. So, I left with the impression that The New Pornographers were one of those bands that does fantastic records, and alright live shows. So, I was actually a bit unsure about going to this show, but I caught a good deal on Craigslist, so off I went.

The two opening bands were pretty solid. The Frames had really sweeping rock, a bit like Doves, but with a violin. They got a really strong crowd response and even did an encore, the first time I've seen an opening band do one. And I also really enjoyed Calexico, despite not being familiar with their work beforehand. They had a wide variety of instruments, cello, two trumpets, xylophone, accordian and the secret weapon, a Mexican singer who dropped some great vocals on a couple of songs. Their two trumpeters were great, doing some really nice team solos. The highlight for me was a cover of Love's "Alone Again Or."

Before getting into the show itself, I'll just note that Summerstage was a really nice venue. The sound quality was great and there was plenty of room. Plus, I got a spot front and center, one person back from the stage. I've been to many shows and I almost always enjoy the ones where I'm front a lot more than ones where I'm drifting around the back. It may be annoying to have to stand in place for a long time, but it's worth it to get there early and secuere a good spot.

With the first notes of their first song, the band wiped away any of my lukewarm feelings about their Nokia show. They ripped into Twin Cinema, speeding it up and turning it into a really tight anthem. One of their best songs, 'Use It' followed, in another fantastic rendition. They had a ton of energy, most of it provided by the drummer. He was playing pretty fast and this forced everyone else to put more energy in to keep pace. This isn't to say that every song was on speed, rather he kept things moving and the energy level high.

It's a huge difference watching a band as a headliner as opposed to being an opening act. Here, everyone was there to see The New Pornographers and that means that people are much more familiar with the songs and will dance or sing along in the audience. I think the crowd's enthusiasm means the band has to raise the bar to match and in this case, they certainly kept things going.

The highlight of the set was "The Bleeding Heart Show." Like a lot of New Porno songs, this one has a lot of segments. There's the subdued opening verses, the speedy, cascading b section ("We quit the room...") until it finally breaks into the wonderful, layered harmonizing of the finale, where "Hey La"s are layered over Kathryn's vocals. It's such a journey, I was completely absorbed in the song and the final segment was absoultely beautiful.

There's a similar structure on my favorite New Pornos song, "A Testament to Youth in Verse," which was another highlight. I love the round of "NoNoNos" that finish the song. The best moments in their work are almost always when vocals are layered, with some of them singing repeated syllables over one person's verse.

The opening of this show was so strong there was bound to be a little dip in the middle, but they roared back for the finale with "Slow Descent into Alcoholism" and "Sing Me Spanish Techno." I love the "Travelling at Godspeed" section of "Spanish Techno," and the way it segues into the "Listening too long to one song..." part. All of their songs have three or four sections that could be incredibly catchy hooks on a song, but combined they become supercatchy monsters.

Between listening to the albums again to get prepped for the show and seeing the show itself, I think it's pretty clear that Twin Cinema is their best album. I think each of their albums has improved on the previous one, but Twin Cinema adds a layer of darkness to the previously sunny world. The songs are still very catchy, but there's a bit more variation in tone and sound. It's a standout album.

For the encore, they broke out one of my favorite tracks off The Electric Version, "Execution Day." It was weird to hear the drummer taking lead vocals, at first his high voice was a bit jarring, but once I got used to it, his vocals were a nice way to mix things up. "Letter From an Occupant" was the perfect set closer, the non-words vocal part of the chorus is phenomenal and I walked out of the venue humming this song.

So, I was really impressed by The New Pornos performance here. They had tons of energy and were totally engaging, dropping most of their best songs, though they're a band where pretty much every song is something I'd want to hear. I'm really glad I saw them a second time and got to see them as headliners, at their best.


And there's the back of my head towards the bottom right of this pic up above.

Clerks II

Kevin Smith is a frustrating filmmaker, someone who came up in the 90s indie movement, but more than most of his contemporaries, he didn't seek artistic achievement, he was looking for mainstream crossover success. Smith's career path can be traced in moves from low budget comfort territory to more ambitious reaches for mainstream acclaim that fail leading to a retreat back to the comfort zone. In the case of Mallrats' failure, this led to what's easily Smith's best film, the hilarious and emotionally devestating Chasing Amy, however the failure of Dogma led to the goofy, utterly meaningless Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Bennifer aside, Jersey Girl was a creative failure, a totally generic comedy that lacked Smith's unique voice. When this attempt to reach out to the mainstream failed, he retreated back to make his first official sequel, Clerks II.

The comedy work that I like is usually about using comedy to cover a dark undercurrent, and the best Smith work is like this. The moments in Clerks that work best are when Dante and Randal express their frustration about working at the Quik Stop. Chasing Amy goes even further, using comedy as a way to bring us into the world, then moving into heavy drama in its second half. That film features the best transition between disparate tones I've ever seen in a film, and both halves work equally well.

Clerks II attempts to merge the two Kevin Smith styles, absurd comedy and sincere emotional stuff, however, he doesn't pull it off with the grace he did in Chasing Amy. There's some major flaws, but enough good shines through to make this a worthy sequel and a totally satisfying viewing experience.

However, I'll start with my major issue with the film. The reason Chasing Amy works so well is that the low budget aesthetic makes things seem much more real. When Smith works with a higher budget, he has a tendency to do cartoonish set pieces that take you out of the emotional reality of the film, stuff that's designed to shock, but ends up not quite working.

Basically, any moment of over the top comedy here doesn't work. Most of the stuff with Elias falls flat because the character doesn't feel real. He works as a foil for Randal, but particularly in the 'pillowpants' segment he feels like a total caricature. There's a lot of bits that feel removed from the emotional core of the film and it's like Smith put them in there because he wasn't confident in the film.

Look at the 'ABC' sequence, this is a scene designed to show Dante's attraction to Becky, and it works wonderfully. The slow push ins on the two characters make us realize that Dante clearly loves her and we know she's the right one for him. This moment works so there's no need to go and cut to the goofy footage inside the restaurant and then go to an even more bizarre crane shot mass dance number. This is totally seperate from the reality that the movie created and undermines the point of the scene, which is to show the emotional connection between Dante and Becky.

The other bit that fails because it goes too far over the top is the extended donkey sequence. I feel like Smith was just trying to think of something that would offend people the way the hermaphrodite porn did back in the original, but this sequence just went on too long and wasn't particularly funny, particularly the stuff with Elias, which felt totally unrealistic. Now, one could say that was the point, and in a standard gross out comedy, Elias' reaction would have made total sense. However, it's frustrating because so much of the film is emotionally right on and it touches on some really interesting issues. If some of this goofy stuff was held back, and the film went for a more lo-fi, real aesthetic, this film may have come close to Chasing Amy.

Because of the deadline, the wedding, the film had a strong sense of urgency and a feeling of emotional recklessness. You can believe that all these people would open up in the way they do because the world as they know it is going to end the next day. It feels implausible that two women would be fighting over Dante, but that's something you just have to accept. They do mention the oddness of it a few times, but it still feels a bit off, since this guy seems to have nothing particular to offer. It's weird that Smith chose to cast his own wife as an incarnation of the worst sort of relationship one could fall into, but the character is well used to show how much better off Dante would be with Becky.

The development of their relationship is satisfying, particularly the '1979' sequence, which featured some of Smith's best visual storytelling. It's not the most original sort of montage, but at that moment in the film, it felt totally right. I was genuinely surprised when Becky revealed that she was pregnant and the cake scene was another highlight.

Jay and Silent Bob in this film were a bit off. I think part of it was Smith's performance, he was doing the really goofy Silent Bob of Dogma and JaSBSB, which didn't feel appropriate in the universe of this film. Clerks Silent Bob was much more subdued and that's the sort of performance that was needed here. Jay didn't get that much good material and generally they just felt a bit old to be doing what they were doing. But, I did like the way they came into play in the jail scene at the end of the film.

Despite the love triangle, the real relationship at the film's core was Dante and Randal's. Randal is facing a future without the only person he actually likes and that scares him. The Jason Lee scene and go kart sequence are the critical piece of the character development, he's confronted with just how bad his life is and the only thing that makes it tolerable is leaving. So, he has Dante go karting with him just so they can spend some time together before they leave.

I think the jailcell scene was fantastic and the most notable moment in the film where Anderson and O'Halloran transcend their acting limitations and give a really moving performance. I like the idea that Randal sees what they're doing as a way to get around growing up and living a 'normal life.' People might consider it pathetic to work at Mooby's, but if he's happy, that's enough.

In the end, they buy the Quik Stop and finally have control over their destiny. However, the ending had a slight melancholy to it, with Dante and Randal both realizing that they've totally commited to this life, there's no more chance of escape. I think they're happy, but there's also the awareness that they're now bound there inextricably. The original Clerks was meant to tie in with the Inferno and the ending here brought that association back, they be happy to be there, but they're also trapped.

So, the film ends with both characters realizing that all they really wanted was right there already. One could argue that the film refutes growing up and encourages a permanent adolescent slacker state. However, the fact that Dante and Randal take control of the Quik Stop makes the message more like find what you want to do and take control of it, dont' let society tell you what to do. And, I think that's admirable.

This is a frustrating film because some of it is brilliant, and some of it is just awful. But, generally speaking the goodness shines through and I was really satisfied by the ending. However, it does leave us with the question of where Smith goes from here. With this film, he stopped trying to appeal to the mainstream and just accepted his place at the Quik Stop. So, where does he go from here?

JLA: American Dreams (#5-9)

After the high octane, pop opening that was New World Order, Morrison scales things back a bit for some more tightly focused, short arcs. New World Order functions as a mission statement, showing the new JLA, composed of the world's greatest heroes, fighting huge cosmic threats. In his two longform revisionist mainstream superhero runs, this and X-Men, Morrison used the opening arc as a way of reinvigorating a property that had gotten stale. But where is there left go from there?

The first story in this collection is a nice, if unremarkable storyline about a robot who overcomes her programming to save the world with the JLA. There's a funny bit where the JLA is interviewing new members, but this is one of those stories where the shortness of the piece means that there's just not enough invested to get a really profound emotional impact. But, like a lot of early Transmetropolitan issues, it's satisfying in the way it tells a complete story with some interesting themes in a short time.

The next story is a two parter about a horde of angels invading Earth. My biggest issue with Morrison's JLA is that most of the stories have the same basic structure, some unbelievably massive foe turns up, some of the League are put out of commision, but the rest really to defeat the foe in the end. The most interesting thematic material here is Superman struggling to live up to his own mythology. The whole agenda behind the run was to approach the league as a modern pantheon, so it's logical that Superman would have issues with.

When we reach the end of the story and Superman uses his powers to defeat an Angel and all kinds of huge foes, we see Superman proving his own myth correct. The human part of him may have doubts, but he is able to overcome those human doubts and succeed. One thing that hurts this story is Superman talking about his myth while wearing the stupid electric blue outfit, the classic uniform is intrinsic to the mythology and this goofy outfit undermines some of that.

Next up is 'Elseworlds,' a two plane story in which the JLA is menaced by the Key in the real world, and live through a variety of alternate universes in their mind. I usually enjoy an alternate universe story, but there's always something a bit cheap about them. It's cool to see Batman and Catwoman married, but the fact that it's an 'imaginary story' makes it difficult to engage in the drama of those moments. We're aware it's not happening, so the only interest is in seeing DCU mythology reconfigured. It's interesting, but not particularly illuminating.

I do like Green Arrow's quest to save the JLA, using only goofy arrows. And, the Key's rants, particularly the moment where he says his newfound powers are making him talk to himself, are great. This series is some of Morrison's funniest work, he's simultaneously engaging with the material on a totally straight level and also poking fun at the absurd conventions of the superhero genre. It's like the characters have to play these roles, they subconsciously fall into patterns of behavior dictated by the genre.

This is definitely Morrison's lightest take on the superhero genre, throwing things back to Silver Age style over the top craziness and simple character arcs. Nearly every other superhero has had serious underlying issues, whether it be the acid burnout and petulant adolescence of Flex Mentallo or dark sexual undercurrent of Seven Soldiers, this is the one superhero work that is simple, straight ahead superheroics. Because it's so thematically uncomplicated, I think it's one of Morrison's less satisfying works. It's certainly enjoyable, but with most of Morrison's work, you're not only entertained, you're enlightened.

Of course, a lot of the fun of this is seeing Morrison play with the DC icons. I loved Morrison's X-Men because it took everything great about Claremont's work and hauled it into the present. So, being a huge fan of the X-Men in general, I was able to better appreciate the way Morrison played off character histories. I'm not that familiar with DC, so there's not that inherent sense of excitement that X-Men had.

Still, this was a generally satisfying volume and I'm excited for Rock of Ages next.

Related Posts
Seven Soldiers Wrap Up (6/28/2006)
JLA Classified: 1-3 (7/16/2006)
JLA: New World Order (#1-4) (7/26/2006)

Miami Vice

I just got back from seeing Miami Vice, the year's first truly great film. This is Michael Mann stripping away any attempt to do a traditionally structured narrative and just indulging in his greatest strength, the ability to create an engulfing mood and letting the viewer get lost in it. It's a huge budget action film, but the style is that of an art film, with constant handheld camera and digital grain lending the film a sense of realism that is absent from virtually every other summer blockbuster.

The opening shot of the film dumps you right into the world. There's no character or plot setup because it's not really needed. These guys are undercover vice cops, that's all you need to know. This club isn't the usual highly glamourous Hollywood nightclub, it's more realistic. To some extent this hurts because the nightclub doesn't ascend into the realm of film fantasy, rather it stays down in the real world where video screens are slightly grainy and not everyone dances that well. The music flows nicely though, going from Jay-Z/Linkin Park to an instrumental version of Goldfrapp's 'Strict Machine.'

Watching this film, the first thing that jumps out at you is the digital photography. I know a lot of people are going to crack on the film for its slightly grainy look, and at times the shots just aren't as aesthetically pleasing as they might have been. However, I think on the whole the digital photography works wonders for the film. The camera moves with a freedom that I've rarely seen in film based movies, at least the ones that aren't by Wong Kar-Wai. Mann takes full advantage of the potential of digital to shoot night scenes in low key, realistic lighting and also to move his camera all around, giving us some of the most dynamic, exciting cinematography I've seen in a long time. There's an energy to the film that I feel just wouldn't be possible with traditional film, and if shooting digital freed Mann to create that energy, I'd gladly sacrifice the aesthetic quality of the image.

The way I look at film vs. digital is like this. Imagine you were doing a painting. There's a regular paintbrush and then there's a twentypound paintbrush that makes better looking brushstrokes. You could use this twenty pound brush and get a better looking brush, but it would make it a lot harder to paint. Your options would be limited and I'd rather have the chance to do whatever I wanted with the little brush. That's what digital is like, it gives you more opportunity for experimentation.

The thing that makes this film great is the way that it doesn't give you much background on these characters' lives, rather it puts you in their world and their emotions. If someone was to ask me what Sonny's character traits are, I wouldn't really know. But when he's watching Isabella leaving on the boat at the end of the film, I was feeling exactly what he was feeling. The film puts you in the numb world of an undercover operative and because you experience what they're feeling, it's very easy to empathize with Sonny and Rico, even though we don't really know who they are.

If the film does have some flaws, they're mainly in the opening section. Some of the dialogue was a bit clumsy and the actors didn't seem to be in their characters yet. However, I was still liking the film because I was loving the way Mann shot their car pursuing Alonso and the general nighttime aesthetic of the film.

The character setup here is very economical. The intimacy of the shower scene with Rico and Trudy tells us everything we need to know about their relationship. You could fault the film for not giving us more scenes with the two of them, considering the importance their relationship has to one of the big setpieces of the film. However, this isn't a film about building a world. It's about slipping you into something that's already happening and letting the viewer struggle to keep up with everything that's going on.

The cinematography and music had me engaged right from the start, but the film really takes off when Gong Li's Isabella shows up. I was predisposed to liking her since I've seen her in so many Asian films, however the admiration that her character earns during the film transcends that predisposition. Her relationship with Sonny is the emotional core of the film, and like Neal's relationship with Eady in Heat, we want it to work, but know that it can't. So, it's all about enjoying the moments that they're together.

The scene where they ride a boat to Cuba is one of the highlights of the film. Gong Li's sunglasses are great, and the use of Moby's 'One of These Mornings' is perfect. Mann cuts between closeups of the two actors, building tension with each cut, we're aware of the attraction between them and are just waiting for them to finally get together. The scenes in Cuba are wonderfully filmed, isolating the two of them from the world outside. Isabella cries when they're having sex, she knows that a real relationship isn't possible in her world, so no matter how much she's attracted to him, there's no future. Gong Li still has some issues speaking English, but she still gives a wonderful performance, creating the most emotionally engaging character in the film. Colin Farrell also nails this stuff, this is a great followup to the emotional territory he explored in The New World.

I've already mentioned it a couple of times, but the music in this film was phenomenal. Mann rarely uses music in the way that score is traditionally used, to guide the audience's emotions through a scene. Rather, he uses the music to build an atmosphere that the audience can sink into. Two notable passages are the boat trip to the trailer park and the final cue of the film.

The film is enjoyable on multiple levels, you can watch the story and characters and get caught up in their drama, or you can just watch it as a piece of visual art, enjoying the combination of visuals and music. I got lost in the world of the film, I stayed for a lot of the end credits, and when I finally stepped out of the theater it was like stepping into another world. That's the sign of a great film, when your reality is superceded by the reality that's on screen.

Another really notable acheivement for the film is the sound effects. I've never heard gun shots on screen that sounded like this. The sound really ups the intensity off the action. Mann is an expert at staging big gun battles, just check out Heat to prove that. The thing that stands out about the fights here is the brutality of the violence. People are shot very quickly and the fact that the characters are so nonchalant about it tells us everything we need to know about their world. When Jose quickly kills Isabella's bodyguard, we know that it's going down. Gina's quick execution of Trudy's captor is another notable moment of shockingly quick violence.

The final gunfight is another highlight, working both as a great action sequence and a way of building suspense for the final resolution of Isabella and Sonny's relationship. Her rage after she finds out he's a police officer is fantastic. The final shootout was shot in a really shaky way, with some shots seeming right out of cops. This whole final sequence looks great, with some notable visuals being the blue light on the white bridge, the lights of the city at night and the shaky cam as the action breaks out.

The film concludes not with any sort of rousing denouement. Jose may be dead, but the cartel lives on. We get no sense of what this did in the overall scheme of things, because ultimately that doesn't matter much to these people. They just do their jobs and deal with the costs of those jobs. For Rico, it means Trudy being horribly injured, for Sonny it means giving up love. I mentioned the final music cue before, but it deserves to be noted again. There's a profound sadness as Sonny watches Isabella leaving, both actors say so much with their face. From there, Sonny goes bac to the hospital, he'll continue to do his duty, even though he knows that it'll cost him the chance at a normal personal life. It's a very bold move to end the film on such an unresolved, somber note, but it fits perfectly with the world that Mann built here. We may want Sonny and Isabella to be together, but we need them to be separated because any attempt to stay together just wouldn't be true to the film we'd seen.

This film reminds me a bit of Domino, in the way that it generally puts the narrative aside and instead chooses to focus on creating a filmic experience. Domino succeeds because of the sheer pop excess of everything that happens. This film works more like an action Wong Kar-Wai piece, what's happening isn't important, it's more about what the characters are feeling, building a mood to get lost in. Even though it's brutal and harsh at times, I think it's the warmest Mann film I've seen, and this works as a wonderful companion piece to Heat. Both films are about the sacrifices that professionals must make to do their jobs. It's impossible to be a professional and still have a fulfilling personal life, and the arc of the film is about the characters coming to terms with what they've sacrificed.

I can't reccomend this film highly enough. I was really energized at the end, happy to see a film so stylistically bold and emotionally engaging. This is the sort of piece that couldn't work in any other medium, it uses the ability of film to create a unique world, to put the viewer in a feeling. It's not perfect, but the flaws are insigifcant compared to the film's overall quality.

Weekend Update

Ticket Situation

The ongoing saga of Phoenix tickets is resolved, I bought two off Craigslist. I paid a bit more than I want, but at least I get to the show. They're doing another show here on September 12, but I'll be back at school then. It seems that every year, September and October are full of fantastic shows, while the summer's more fallow. I'm just counting down until next year when I'll be in New York full time. And, it'll be cool to see Phoenix and The New Pornographers next week, they both put on good shows when I saw them earlier this year, though I'm definitely more excited for Phoenix. Hopefully they'll bring back that drummer from the last tour.

The New Film

Today I started production on my new film, All Good Things. This will hopefully be my first feature, which will be cool to have. We shot 11 pages of the 75 page script today and it went very smoothly. Also, I just wrapped up editing on the video I did for Victoria Rocks, I've got to get final approval from her, then I'll put the link on here so you can check it out.

The Fountain Remains Dry

In bad news, The Fountain has been delayed another month. The film is done, why can't they just put it out? I've been waiting for this thing for six years already. It's one thing to delay a film so that the filmmaker can work on it more, it's another to do for marketing reasons or to position a film for Academy Award consideration. I think it would hurt a prestigious film to be released in December, when twelve other prestigious films are being released every week. Whereas if a critically respectable film comes out now, it will stand out. Look at Crash, that's a film that came out in April, was the only respectable film out then and went on to win best picture.

The Colbert Report

I don't usually write about it because it's not particularly suited to analysis, but ever since I've been home from school I've been watching nearly every episode of The Colbert Report. I like The Daily Show but I think it's been eclipsed by its spinoff. The Daily Show usually has a good 10 minutes out of the 22, while Colbert is good for nearly the entire show. The episode last week in which Stephen asks Julian Bond, head of the NAACP, to help him find a new black friend was one of the funniest things I've ever seen. When I saw the first episode, I wasn't sure if the premise could sustain a show, but he's kept up the energy and made it into the most consistently funny show on TV.

The Weekend

This weekend, I'm definitely seeing Miami Vice. On Sunday, I'm shooting more stuff for the film, and on Monday I'm heading into the city to pick up my New Pornographers tickets, which I grabbed cheap off Craigslist. After that, it's back to the workshop for another week of instructing kids on how to make films.

Upcoming Dates of Note

8/3 - New Pornographers at Summerstage
8/7 - Phoenix at Bowery Ballroom
8/8 - Manderlay on DVD
8/15 - Veronica Mars Season 2 on DVD
8/17 - Gnarls Barkley at Summerstage
8/25 - Idlewild Released
8/29 - Arrested Development Season 3 on DVD
9/22 - Science of Sleep Releated
9/24 - The Flaming Lips at Hammerstein
10/20 - Marie Antoinette Released
11/22 - The Fountain Released

JLA: New World Order (#1-4)

After last week's read of JLA Classified, I decided it was time to read Morrison's entire JLA run through. I'd read bits and pieces before, but never went through all the issues in order. After reading this, Zenith will be the only longform Morrison work that I haven't read.

The bits of JLA that I did read were a bit frustrating, I don't think I learned to understand Morrison's approach to the character until I read Seven Soldiers. In reading about the DCU, you usually approach it from the perspective of the most powerful people in the entire universe. I'd read interviews where Grant talks about the way that he saw the seven JLA members as a pantheon, he's essentially telling stories about gods, and as a result, every conflict has to be amped up to a ridiculous level in order to be any sort of threat. Reading a book like JLA is the equivalent of looking at the life of someone like George Bush or Brad Pitt, this isn't an average life and you can't expect average problems.

For the characters in Seven Soldiers, the JLA are gods and even one meeting with them can put you on the convention circuit for years. I think it's more interesting to read about the struggles of ordinary people to become great than reading about great people being great, so I was more drawn to Seven Soldiers. However, once you understand what Morrison's doing with the book, it's a lot easier to enjoy it. Reading this book is all about just enjoying the over the top action, ridiculous concepts and imagery that Grant puts forth.

Grant worked on JLA concurrently with The Invisibles and the book itself feels a lot like Invisibles volume two. The texture of the pages and the quality of the art has a lot in common with Jiminez era Invisibles. Grant has talked about how similar ideas wound up in both works, filtered through their different lenses, particularly in the upcoming Rock of Ages. But, it's just notable to return to the era of that work and get a glimpse of where Grant's mind was at.

The best moments of the series are the really pop moments where we get to see the ridiculous cool of our main heroes. Page 1.3 is a great example of this, a bunch of b-list heroes are scrambling, but on the bottom of the page, calmly moving in we see Superman and are informed that "The big guy's on the case." I think it's misguided to try to write Superman as a regular guy, the whole marketing pitch behind Superman Returns was he may be super, but he still hurts. This book acknowledges that Superman is on a totally different level from other superheroes, let alone normal humans, and lets him revel in that greatness. One of the best moments is where he says "This is Superman" and Superman is written in the title font.

Superman is a great character, but the star of the series is undeniably Batman. This incarnation of Batman is basically the ultimate ninja special ops guy, Jack Bauer on crack. The character is so nasty, he manages to be mofre effective at fighting people than any of the superpowered people on the team.

The thing that Morrison manages to do really well is give each member of the team an iconic moment that makes you understand how far above ordinary people they are. There's the great scene where the Flash opens a lock instantly, Green Lantern asks him how he knew the combination and Flash says I just tried a thousand different combinations until I got to the one that worked. This guy thinks in a totally different way than ordinary people and I imagine Morrison thinking all the time about unique uses for these peoples' powers.

The major issue I have with the arc is the fact that I think it'd be more exciting to have the Hyperclan come in and actually show up the JLA and be proactive in changing the world, rather than turn out to be rather stock villains. The design on the Hyperclan hasn't aged well and it's odd to see a duplicate of The Invisibles' Boy, only with much larger breasts. The story is rather prescient in presenting an Authority-esque superhero team to challenge the old JLA. I'm guessing that the story is meant to be a meta narrative designed to justify the JLA's place in the world. These new Image style heroes can come in and kill people, but ultimately their heroism is a shallow ineffecient one against the real power and moral authority of the JLA. Their solutions are ineffective in the long term, just like no matter how many new comic books come out, the characters in the JLA will almost always outlast the new trendy characters.

But, at the same time it's a bit odd for Morrison to be promoting the conservative, institutional heroes at the JLA over these proactive guys with new ideas. The Hyperclan have more in common with The Invisibles than the JLA does. But, he does always return to the breaking down of dualism. So, this story shows that reckless shows of surface change aren't lasting, as Superman says, you can't force people to become better, they have to do it on themselves, the JLA are just a security measure there to protect people when they fall. So, this is Morrison creating a vision of a utopian policeforce, one that is there to help people grow, not hold them back.

JLA feels less distinctly Morrison than the vast majority of his works. When Morrison started New X-Men there was the sense of a vast change in the universe to date. I haven't read much other JLA, but this feels much more like an amping up of what was already there than a reinvention. He's not out to reinvent the wheel here, rather he's hoping to tell the craziest, poppest superhero stories possible and I think he succeeds.

The read will continue and I'll be blogging it all. So, look for thoughts on American Dreams soon.

Related Posts
Seaguy (4/9/2005)
Seven Soldiers: Wrap Up (6/28/2006)
JLA: Classified #1-3 (7/16/2006)

Altman's Images

At first it started out as Altman week, then I bumped it up to Altman month, but I'm thinking that this may have to be the Summer of Altman! The man's made a lot of films, so I'll have plenty to see to carry me through the next month and a half. Yesterday's stop on the summer of Altsanity was Images, a film that comes from the same weird dreamy mold as 3 Women.

This film is far removed from what's typically considered Altmanesque, there's no overlapping dialogue and only five people in the entire cast. You'd be hard pressed to find a minute of Nashville with only five people in it. I hadn't heard much about this dreamy Altman stuff and it's fascinating to discover these films because they're so ambiguous and challenging. Images takes place in an entirely subjective world, we're immersed in Cathryn's mind and see all her delusions and hallucinations. The film has a lot of horror elements and some impressive scares, but it works because it remains more interested in depicting the character's struggle than scaring the audience. A lot of unsuccessful films fail because they're trying to appeal to the audience rather than staying true to the characters' story. This is particularly true in comedies and horror movies where there's an easy measure of audience reaction. If people aren't laughing or scared, you could think that your film is a failure, or it could mean that the film works on a more subtle level than typical genre fare.

I read an article in the New York Times magazine Sunday about horror films and in it, the Pang brothers were talking about how American audiences need to everything explained. In most of these new wave Asian horror films there is no logical explanation for what happens. A film like The Ring has a great setup, but there's no satisfying answer for the film's mysteries. So, the joy of the film has to be in just experiencing the horror rather than seeking an answer. However, the fact that there's no way to make the horror element make sense doesn't mean that the character arcs shouldn't make sense. A film like A Tale of Two Sisters doesn't fail because the story makes little sense, it fails because the filmmaker puts scares ahead of logical character development. That's the sort of film that could work if it was made by a supreme stylist like Wong Kar-Wai, where the film's so beautiful you don't even care if it makes character or narrative sense. However, it was not.

Anyway, Altman's Images has a lot in common with recent Asian horror films. I think the first appearance of Rene in their apartment is a great scare moment and the overmodulated uniquely 70s sound of Cathryn's scream is viscerally disturbing. However, the film is more about exploring Cathryn's psychosis. She is filled with guilt for cheating on her husband, this guilt is manifested in the hallucination of Rene. Whenever she's alone, this guilt plagues her, blurring the line between fantasy and reality.

Cathryn's vivid imagination is evidenced by the film's narration, a story about a unicorn that she most likely made up during her summers up at the cabin alone when she was younger. Because they're in such an isolated place, her sense of internal tumult is magnified. Everyone she runs into ties into a memory, a piece of her psyche that she doesn't necessarily want to deal with.

Rene lingers in her mind, distracting her from her relationship with Hugh and also magnifying Hugh's inadequecies. When she shoots Rene, she shoots a camera, the instrument used to preserve images. Clearly she's trying to rid herself of unwanted memories, however it's not so easy. Marcel remains, offering her the chance to cheat in the present. By the film's end, she's killing all the hallucinations, trying to lay waste to her demons, and she does that to the hallucination of Marcel.

While at the cabin, Cathryn meets Susannah, a younger incarnation of herself. Meeting Susannah puts her back in the fantasy mindset she held when she was younger, and she turns reality into a stage to play out the imagined narrative. A critical line is when Susannah says that if she doesn't have any friends, she'll make some up to play with. That's essentially what Cathryn has done, create fictional versions of people she knows as a way to deal with her emotional issues.

However, Susannah becomes delusional enough by the end that she sees Hugh as a version of herself and kills him. Her reality and interior world has merged, leading her to believe that she can murder people without consequence. I feel like the version of herself that's also Hugh is meant to be her personal weakness. Hugh is constantly shown as less manly and mature than her other men, a boyish American rather than the European men. Also, she clearly feels that she's remaining weak and allowing Hugh to cheat on her, so all her weakness is mixed up in this version of herself. By killing it, she thinks she can overcome her problems and become stronger, however, she's so gone at this point that she can't tell the difference between reality and delusion.

I don't think the film is as successful as 3 Women, though it was clearly a stopping point on the road to that film. Both films deal with shifting identities in a dreamlike world. The film that this really reminded me of is Lynch's Lost Highway. Both films feature a hero trapped in a lifeless marriage who wanders into a psychological dreamworld built on guilt and shame. Images has a bunch of interesting stylistic touches, the dream montage when Cathryn stands outside the door and the opening with the shifting Cathryns when they first get to the cabin.

I also like the way Altman plays with identity by having all the characters named after other actors in the movie. So, Susannah York plays Cathryn and Cathryn Harrison plays Susannah. I'd imagine it was a confusing set, but it's an interesting meta commentary on the shifting of identities involved in acting.

So, this was another great Altman film. The man was doing all kinds of stuff in the 70s. Next up in my Altman journey will be California Split. And as a bonus, here's my ranking of all the Altman films I've seen.

Nashville
McCabe and Mrs. Miller
3 Women
MASH
A Prarie Home Companion
Images
Short Cuts
The Long Goodbye
The Player
Popeye

Related Posts
Short Cuts (6/10/2005)
McCabe and Mrs. Miller (5/11/2006)
Nashville (7/7/2006)

Elysian Fields @ Joe's Pub

I don't know what an Elysian Fields show would be like at a larger venue like Irving Plaza. Most bands who play live are trying to psych you up, get a big reaction from the crowd, make you sing along and get involved. If your audience just stood there silent, you'd probably be doing something wrong. However, at an Elysian Fields show, that rapt silence is the default mode while they're playing, followed by clapping after they finish. The audience isn't wrapped up in the music becuase they're doing so much, rather it's the minimalism, the skillful playing that draws you into the world of their songs.

This show was even more restrained than the show at Tonic in March. For some songs that worked well, others I found could have used a little bit more. At this show, they played almost exclusively from Bum Raps and Love Taps, their newest album. There was a bit off Dreams that Breathe Your Name, and I don't think anything off of the first two albums. In addition, there were a couple of new tracks, including one they also played at the Tonic show that's about "A Dirty Rotten Bastard who turns you on." That song is a bit more cabaret than their other stuff and it would be interesting to see them go in that direction on a whole album.

The way they were set up here, everything was built around Jennifer's vocals. She carried almost every song, with only occasional moments when the piano and guitar were spotlighted. The highlight of the show was "Passing on the Stairs," with Oren and Jennifer together on vocals backed by an accordian. If I have one complaint about their live show it's that I'd like a drummer backing them on all the tracks, not just occasionally when Oren plays drums. That would make it sound a bit fuller, as it does on the recordings. I wouldn't want heavy drums, rather just something to contribute to the mood they've already created so expertly.

But, the show still works great without that. I like the fact that they keep the focus on the music, rather than on showmanship. Their music creates a moody world and seeing them live lets you get lost in that world.

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Lovage: Music to Make Love to Your Old Lady By (11/19/2004)
Elysian Fields @ Tonic (3/18/2006)

Weekend Update

Elysian Fields

I'm heading into the city tonight to see Elysian Fields. I saw them back in March and it was fantastic, I'll write it up after I return tonight.

Comic-Con

The biggest comic book event of the year is going on right now, the San Diego Comicon. The biggest news for me is about Grant Morrison's new projects. When I heard he was revamping The Authority I wasn't too excited. The concept feels a bit 2000 and I was never a huge fan of the characters. However, his new take is brilliant, the Authority go through a dimensional warp and wind up in our world. Then, they set about to change our world for the better, one person at a time. Morrison's usually all about Silver Age craziness, so it's interesting to hear him talking about doing a very realistic series, even incorporating some Soderbergh style. This concept seems to be taken from the end of JLA: Classified, in which the Ultramarines were sent into a world without superheroes. It'll probably be at least a year before it turns up in trade, but I'm still psyched.

Seven Soldiers #1

In other Morrison news, Seven Soldiers #1 has finally been scheduled for release, October 25. It's a long wait, but in the long run it's worth it. I wouldn't want another Igor Kordey on New X-Men job. I'll probably reread the whole series before the release of #1.

Clerks II

I haven't gotten a chance to see Clerks II yet, but I'm going to get there soon and I'll write it up when I do. I rewatched the original Clerks and was a bit underwhelmed. The acting is so awful at some points and a lot of the jokes are very obvious. Jeff Anderson and Jason Mewes save the film however. Mewes is clearly the most talented, natural performer in the film. He's always funny even in the otherwise really weak Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Smith has only made one really great movie and that's Chasing Amy, it's still in my all time top 20. The transition from extremely funny comedy to emotionally devestating drama is seamless.

A Scanner Darkly Revisit

I rewatched A Scanner Darkly a few days ago. I really liked the film, but it doesn't match up to the best of Linklater's work. I love the stuff in the house, but the scenes at the police station, with the scramble suits, are less satisfying. It's meant to show the way that these scramble suits remove any individuality, but they also make it very difficult to emotionally relate to the characters. However, the film does close on a wonderful note, Keanu's delivery of "A present for my friends, at Thanksgiving" makes it sound like he's just discovered the key to the universe. Here's my ranking of all Linklater's work:

Waking Life
Before Sunset
Before Sunrise
Dazed and Confused
School of Rock
A Scanner Darkly
Suburbia
Slacker
Tape
Bad News Bears
The Newton Boys

New Gods

I've been reading Jack Kirby's New Gods series. I got the trade because I wanted to better understand Morrison's Mister Miracle series. The book is full of crazy ideas and generally holds up. There's some goofiness, like the constant use of exclamation points and the exposition focused dialogue. Every issue it seemed that Victor Lanza would have to state his name and profession. "I'm Victor Lanza, insurance salesman." "Victor Lanza's the name, insurance salesman." "But I'm just a poor insurance salesman, Victor Lanza!" And so on. But, it's very cool to get the background on everything from the previous series. New Gods overwhelming assault of ideas and concepts was clearly a major influence on Morrison himself.

Music

This week I've been listening to the Scissor Sisters' first album a bunch. I'm regretting not going to Siren Festival last week, I would have loved to have seen them live. The album is a great dance-rock record and even the cover of 'Comfortably Numb' is growing on me.

The other album I've been loving is 'A Night on Earth' by Crazy P. Like Daft Punk, their stuff is a perfect fusion of 70s disco with contemporary house. The album is 75 minutes of great songs, but the highlight is the opening track, Lady T. Check out the video here. This video is fantastic as well, though the version of the song used is a remix, not the album version.

Upcoming Dates of Note
7/22 - Elysian Fields at Joe's Pub
7/28 - Miami Vice released
8/3 - New Pornographers at Summerstage
8/7 - Phoenix at Bowery Ballroom (Hopefully)
8/8 - Manderlay on DVD
8/15 - Veronica Mars Season 2 on DVD
8/17 - Gnarls Barkley at Summerstage
8/29 - Arrested Development Season 3 on DVD
9/22 - Science of Sleep Releated
9/24 - The Flaming Lips at Hammerstein
10/13 - The Fountain Released
10/20 - Marie Antoinette Released

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A Scanner Darkly (7/6/2006)

Carnivale: 1x02-1x05

In my review of the pilot, I talked about the fact that this series has a very unconventional structure, based more around mood than a traditional plot or character development. Watching a lot of longform TV shows has changed my perception of narrative cinema. With a few notable exceptions, the character development in a 90-120 minute film feels woefully inadaquete next to the richness that comes from many seasons of a TV show. So, I began to see film as more about conveying mood, creating unique visual/emotional moments. The joy isn't in finding out the plot details, it's about enjoying the story as it unfolds and getting lost in the visuals and music. Films like The New World or Wong Kar-Wai's stuff are all about this.

So, watching Carnivale it's interesting to see a TV show that goes for this same feeling. The show draws on the mystery structure that's driven stuff like Twin Peaks and Lost, however what you take away from it isn't so much what happens as you do the dusty ambience of the depression era. The pacing is very relaxed, but I don't see that as a problem, it's refreshing to see a show that doesn't feel the need to give you a cliffhanger every ten minutes. This kind of pacing just wouldn't be possible on a network.

However, there is narrative progress here and things are getting interesting. I really liked seeing Justin build the church out of Mr. Chin's. What seemed like a random pretty dream sequence in the first episode turns out to have a deeper meaning. One of the most powerful scenes here was the sequence in which Justin confronts Templeton with his sin, the two of them seemingly stepping into a parallel dimension. I'm not sure if the black world he finds himself in ties into the black world that Samson was in in the first scene of the series.

That opening monologue set up a confrontation between good and evil, but at this point it isn't clear where Justin and Ben fall on the continuum. Justin seems to be doing good, by creating the church, but he's also clearly got some issues. Ben's clearly got talents, but there's a lot of potential for him to use those talents for selfish ends.

The show's unique because it's got a lot of supernatural stuff in it, but isn't done in a typically sci-fi way. This doesn't feel like a superhero story, rather it's closer to Unbreakable in that the character has extraordinary powers, but lives in an utterly ordinary, even depressing world. The powers here are treated more as a religious experience than something supernatural. The influence of traditional morality is heavy on the series. Ben is someone who grew up in a very traditional environment and is struggling to function in the world of the Carnivale, where traditional social norms do not apply.

So, I'm liking the series, but I'll need to see a couple more episodes before I can go into major discussion of its themes and character.

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Carnivale: 'Milfay' (1x01) (7/16/2006)

Freaks and Geeks: 'Discos and Dragons' (1x18)

It's always an odd feeling watching the end of a longform series. In a great show, particularly one cut down before its time, it's difficult to watch knowing that the end of the series world is approaching. I would have loved to seen a second season, but as a finale, this episode is essentially perfect, capturing everything that's great about the series and providing a nice feeling of closure. This is easily the best episode of the series and one of the best series finales ever made.

The episode is all about confronting the characters with their potential futures. Sam, coming off his breakup with Cindy, feels he has the social capital to transcend geek status, he's just about ready to abandon his friends. The episode revisits the strong sense of discontent with high school life present in the first few episodes. The geek storylines frequently drift into comedy and it's nice to see a more serious undercurrent return here.

The real triumph of the episode is in the way the different storylines weave together, with events in one story setting the direction of the others. Daniel's feeling of intellectual inferiority has been a running theme of the series, most notably in "Tests and Breasts," where he gives a speech about the three sections. Lindsay comes to believe that this is just a stock excuse, but the events of later episodes show that Daniel really does have this insecurity, even if he's not quite motivated enough to do anything about it. Now, having failed at everything he tried, he decides to commit himself to actually doing something. One of the best moments in the episode is Sam looking at Daniel learning how to work the projector.

Daniel's interest in AV stuff and Dungeons and Dragons makes Sam reconsider his move away from them. In some respects it's a bit shallow that Sam would change his opinion just because a cool guy showed interest in D&D, but it makes sense. Coming off the experience with Cindy Sanders, he saw that it's no fun moving from the geek world to the popular world, so Daniel moving into the geek world is the ideal for him. It provides him with the social validation he needs to pursue what he really wants.

And it's a great moment when Daniel wins the D&D game. This is the first time we've seen him actually succeed at something and it's also notably the first time that he drops the cool facade he's had throughout the series. Through the role playing game, he's opened up and found his real self. The last time we see Daniel he's going off to get chips and soda, leaving the geeks to ponder if they've become cool or he's become a geek. I wouldn't say they're quite to cool, but what has happened is they've for the first time found someone in another social circle who they actually like hanging out with and he's accepted them for who they are. That's ultimately what they were seeking the whole series, social validation, and now they have it, so it's a bit easier going forward.

This episode is so good that a storyline that great is actually the weakest of the three stories. The Nick disco storyline finds an incredible mix of hilarity and total sadness. Joel Hodgson goes way over the top as the disco manager, but it works, his facial expression in the first shot of the episode is totally unreal, going so far you just have to laugh. This story looks a low rent Boogie Nights and made me want to see a film starring Jason Segal and John C. Reilly as 70s disco dancers.

And like Boogie Nights, the 70s clothes and music is surface fun on top of a heavy, sad core. Nick is clearly still in love with Lindsay, but has chosen to fully embrace a relationship with Sara, taking up disco dancing to make her happy. With her, he's making all the changes he should have done for Lindsay, stop smoking pot, do what she's interested in. I love the scene where they're dancing in Nick's basement and his not quite convincing claim that he's over Lindsay, and Sara always calling Ken "Kenny" is great.

However, the genius of this story lies in the final conversation between Nick and Lindsay. On the commentary for this episode, Paul Feig talks about the fact that the best writing is all about characters not saying what they mean. Nick and Lindsay have a lot of issues between them, but they don't actually talk about any of it. But, because we know what's between them, we're aware of everything that's going on and when Lindsay walks away, it's clear the Nick may still want her, but he'll never have her. The best shot in the entire series is the tracking shot following Nick into the dance contest. It's a perfect blend of image, music and emotion. The way the light turns blue on him, the slight slow motion and Sara out of focus behind him tells us everything we need to know. Brilliant.

Nick's anger in the dance contest is what makes the scene so effective. It's certainly hilarious, but it also shows us just how mad this guy is. And the subsequent bit with Eugene is one of the funniest things they've ever done. For Nick, the series ends with him looking out, overwhelmed. He's with Sara, but he's also aware that the person he really loved just walked out on him. Of all the characters, he's got the bleakest ending.

The other storyline in the episode forces Lindsay to finally confront her identity. The whole series has dealt with the idea that she's just posing as a freak when in reality, she's still just like Millie. She may claim to be the same as Daniel or Kim, but everyone still holds her to the standards of an A student. The Academic Summit forces her to confront this, the event is something that she "should" be going to, it's an event for smart people to put on their resume to help get into college, and the idea that she wouldn't want to go is alien to a culture that's wholly built around getting into college and excelling academically.

Her parents feel it's ridiculous for her to even consider not going to the summit, but they're ignorant of the fact that Lindsay's discontent with the system is more than adolescent posturing. She is forced to choose between two weeks of academic competition or a week and a half of seeing shows, and she chooses to embrace her freak side, doing what she wants rather than what others expect of her.

The scene with Lindsay at the bus stop is powerful, primarily because we know that we're leaving these characters forever. Lindsay might be back in two weeks, but we never will and that's what lingers. As she leaves on the bus, so do we. And the final scene is a great moment because for the first time we see Lindsay totally happy. She takes off the nice jacket, puts on the army jacket and fully embraces the identity she has chosen.

To some degree, the last episode of Six Feet Under has made every other series finale a bit unsatisfying. That episode gave you everything you want to know allowing for a smooth break from the universe. While not so sweeping, this episode does give you a similar smooth journey out of the universe. I'd have loved to seen more, but I don't really need it. Part of that is because the show isn't concerned with huge plot and character arcs, we've just taken a look in on these people at this moment in their lives, and they will continue after the show is over. There's no loose ends, it's just a world that will continue, but going out on the series' best episode makes it a lot easier to move on.

The show has some flaws, but on the whole, it's one of the most uniquely realistic series ever made. It's easy to see yourself in the characters, and more than any other piece of fiction, this captures a lot of the reality of high school life. And, though it was cut down early, these eighteen episodes are a perfect snapshot of this world. They told the story they set out to tell and it resulted in one of the great TV series of all time.

Related Posts
Freaks and Geeks: 'Pilot' (1x01) (6/26/2006)
Freaks and Geeks: 'Smooching and Mooching' (1x16) (7/15/2006)

JLA Classified #1-3

Going through Seven Soldiers, I came across a bunch of references to Grant's JLA Classified arc, which served as a prelude to the series. So, having read all the Seven Soldiers stuff, I figured it was time to go back and see where it all began. Plus, I'll read anything Morrison does, so it was worth a look.

However, the one Morrison extended run I never got into was JLA. I'm not familiar enough with the DC Universe to follow a lot of what's going on. I'm going to go back and read the entire run through soon, but Classified has both what worked and what didn't in his previous JLA run.

The big issue with Morrison's work on JLA, and the JLA in general, is that these aren't so much characters as icons. As Superman Returns showed, it's very difficult to have narrative tension in a story about a guy who's got virtually no flaws, throw in six more similarly powered people and it's impossible to do a traditional narrative. Also, these aren't characters who develop and go through arcs, they just exist as what they are. This is a major difference from Morrison's work on X-Men, and the Marvel Universe in general, the X-Men are characters who can change, Superman is an icon who remains the same.

So, in building this story, Morrison uses the Ultramarines to create some actual tension. I don't know who these people are, but because they're not the iconic JLA, there is the chance that some bad stuff could happen to them. So, you can have a fairly normal narrative structure with them, they're battling Gorilla Grodd, a rather ridiculous foe, but a threatening one nonetheless.

The reason that Seven Soldiers worked so well is that all those characters are expendable, and also subject to change. The beauty of each Seven Soldiers miniseries is watching the character go through a trial and either claim the role of hero or reject it. There is change and growth for all involved. A JLA story can't do this, so once the main crew shows up the joy of the story is in watching these ridiculously powerful people in action.

I enjoyed the read, I don't think it's one of Morrison's stronger pieces, but I feel like I better understand how to approach the series than I did back when I read snippets of his previous JLA run. It's all about getting lost in the over the top craziness of events and just accepting everything that happens. The main villain is a giant gorilla, and that's one of the saner parts of this story.

The coolest concept in this series is the idea of the JLA being stranded in a world without superheroes. This ties into Flex Mentallo's idea that to escape danger, superheroes hid themselves in our fiction. QWEWQ is likely an analogue for our own reality, I love the idea that the JLA would just bounce through our world, it's just one piece of this massive cosmic reality that they exist in. This ties back into Morrison's idea of hypertime, that time flows like a river and certain universes branch off. So, our reality is just a branch on the river that they move through as well.

This would be interesting enough on its own, but the infant universe is also where the series ties in with the meta-plot of Seven Soldiers. Reading this arc reinforces the coolness of a shared fictional universe. Most stories are self contained, they happen and end. In the DCU you can read the whole Seven Soldiers series then branch out and see how these characters connect to others. It makes it feel like witnessing events from a parallel universe, something Morrison has talked about with his claim that he wants to make the DC Universe sentient. I'm not sure what he meant by that exactly, but I feel like it's commenting on the fact that this universe just moves forward, individual people can contribute ideas, but the universe as a whole is more than just the sum of its individual parts, the sheer weight of stories combines to create a universe that operates by its own rules.

This series gives us our first glimpse of the Sheeda mosquito soldiers. Looking at this in the overall scheme of things, the Sheeda used this moment to test the capabilities of the Earth heroes before beginning their invasion. Ironically, this test may be the thing that ultimately brings about their destruction.

Qwewq is an infant universe, its adult form is Neh-Buh-Loh, beloved Seven Soldiers villain. He's here as an observer and leaves when the test is done. Presumably what happens is Qwewq matures over time and finally becomes an adult sometime in the distant future, at which point the Sheeda have outlasted humans and rule the world. So, he is put to work for Gloriana and sent back in time to observe the JLA in preparation for the upcoming razing of this world.

However, as we see in Frankenstein #4, Neh-Buh-Loh is flawed. In his infant form, he's inhabited by the Black Death, the seed that would lead Neh-Buh-Loh to evil. However, to counteract that, the JLA places the Ultramarines into this world. Their influence is presumably what leads him to spare Misty and send her back in time to Zatanna, and they are also what ultimately weakens Neh-Buh-Loh so that Frankenstein can kill him.

If Misty does play a major role in defeating Gloriana, as I'm guessing/hoping she will, then the Ultramarines will have played a critical role in defeating the Sheeda. It's totally crazy stuff and even though this arc has some issues, you have to admire the sheer torrent of ideas Morrison puts forth in here. I can think of no one in film or TV doing the kind of crazy cosmic stuff that Morrison pulls off here. It works on its own, but it's particularly interesting to me because of the Seven Soldiers connection. The October solicitations are out tomorrow and I'm really hoping that Seven Soldiers #1 is on there, I need to get the conclusion of this story.

In the shorter term, I'll be readiing the whole Morrison JLA run pretty soon, and I'll blog that. And reading this and Seven Soldiers made me want to read 52, so once that comes out in trade, I'll pick it up. I hear it features appearances by Zatanna, Animal Man and some other Morrison characters, the chance to check in and see what's up with them makes it worth reading.

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Seven Soldiers: Post Index (6/28/2006)

Carnivale: 'Milfay' (1x01)

I heard about Carnivale when it first aired and the multitude of David Lynch comparisons, plus the fact that it's an HBO series, made me want to check it out. HBO's "It's Not TV, It's HBO" advertising campaign could come off as arrogant if it wasn't backed up by such a high quality bunch of shows. I'll check out pretty much anything HBO does because they've got such a strong track record.

The show itself starts off with a wonderfully atmospheric pilot that has me intrigued to see more, but not totally hooked on the show. I've written before about the fact that in the past few years, TV drama has changed from an episodic medium to one where many creators conceive of the show as one larger story, broken down into chunks. A show like The X-Files, or even Buffy, started out with a rather unremarkable episode compared to what would come later. There was not the sense that this was the start of a huge story.

However, things have changed and Carnivale starts like the first piece of a much larger story. This structure informs the entire episode. The opening is what I'm guessing will turn out to be a thematic summation of the series as a whole, dealing with themes of good and evil, and the passage from an age of wonder to an age of reason. The conflict between wonder and reason is something that's at the center of a lot of Alan Moore's work, most notably From Hell and Promethea. It's a theme with a lot of potency, particularly when the act of creating a story is equated with magic.

Our main crew in this show are clearly from the age of wonder. They all seem to have some kind of magical power and that's just accepted. They're telekinetics, psychics, and dream readers, all governed by a mysterious "management." Outside of the Carnivale, the age of reason is in full effect. People are crushed by the reality of their losses and succumbing to total depression. When we first see Ben he seems utterly defeated by the world, which we now know is a result of the fact that his mother wouldn't allow him to use his gifts to save her. She sees his magic as something demonic and wrong, and has restricted his powers.

So, I'm assuming one of the big arcs of the series will be Ben's conflict between his restricted upbringing and the free environment of the Carnivale. They travel the countryside, temporarily distracting people from their plight and making them feel good, as powerful a magic trick as any. After spending some time with the Carnivale, Ben feels empowered enough to use his magic to make the little girl walk again.

This is a show that looks fantastic, it feels like being dropped in another world, one so alien that even the World War I footage in the dream sequences feels out of place, belonging to our world not theirs. The concepts and visuals are great, but the pilot doesn't really give you a feel for what an average episode will be like. As I mentioned before, this feels more like the first chunk of a huge story than a typical pilot for an episodic TV series. I'm guessing the basic structure will be the Carnivale travelling to new towns, but it's unclear which of the characters, other than Ben and the Preacher, are going to be major figures and even those two aren't particularly well defined yet.

But, in the long term, I'd much rather see a pilot like this, that teases you with the mood and a bit of plot, than one that gives you a neat three act structure. If you're coming back for twelve episodes, there's no need to provide any sort of closure here and if I want to find out what the average episode will be like, it just means watching the next one. Even if the opening speech is a bit pretentious, I admire the fact that they have a specific agenda of themes that are going to be explored.

I'll definitely be watching more, there's a ton of potential here and it will be interesting see how it plays out.

Related Posts
Promethea: 1-16 (2/22/2005)
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Freaks and Geeks: 'Smooching and Mooching' (1x16)

I've been watching Freaks and Geeks, through 'Smooching and Mooching' right now. I was one of the few viewers who actually watched it when it was on TV and I've always been a big fan of the series, however, when I first watched it, it was before I was a really big fan of serialized TV storytelling. After seeing many series, I've got a slightly different perspective on the series.

I don't think Freaks and Geeks is a perfect series, but like Cowboy Bebop and The Office, it's a show that accomplishes exactly what it set out to do. Part of this feeling is probably due to the fact that it has such a short run, it doesn't experience the growing pains that come from a major change to the series' premise, as in say Buffy or Gilmore Girls season four. If there was a third season, a bunch of the characters would be out of high school and I'd be very curious to know what the longterm plans for the show where. Buffy showed that if you have good characters, leaving a high school setting can actually help the show, because the problems become larger. That would force the freaks to really examine the direction of their life, it's not so fun misbehaving when you're out of school with no job and no long term plan.

Going ahead it would have been difficult to keep those characters together, Lindsay would pretty much have had to go to college, so even if you did keep the other freaks together, you'd have the serious issue of your main character being cut off from every other character.

Besides the obvious issues surrounding the freaks' graduation, I'm not so sure the geek plots would have worked moving ahead. In the DVD booklet, they talk about how once they knew the show was ending they decided to throw Sam a date with Cindy. So, if the show wasn't cancelled maybe that wouldn't have happened, but as it is, that's the major misstep of the series for me. Maybe it's just personal bias, but you very rarely see the 'male friend' move into the role of boyfriend, particularly when Sam is so socially inept around Cindy.

Most of the show takes place in such an oppressively real environment. The pleasure and pain of the series is the extreme awkwardness of the interactions between characters. We're allowed to see everyone at their worst and that makes the moments of happiness more satisfying. But, the end of 'Smooching and Mooching' is a case where the show goes off into fantasy and gives the viewer something that's enjoyable but rather unbelievable, notably the scene with Vicki and Bill. I think his speech where he asks her "What's it like being pretty" is fantastic, but the fact that she kisses him so enthusiastically rings false. I would have rather seen her just give him a small kiss, acknowledging his point, but not leaving reality.

However, in that same episode we get one of the best stories on the series, Nick's time with the Weirs. This story works well on so many levels because we're allowed to view things from Nick's perspective, Lindsay's perspective and Harold's perspective. It's a series of very small, believable events that build to illuminate a lot of character truths. Nick isn't used to an environment where people actually support him, Harold gives him encouragement while still being tough on him, something that his father wouldn't do. Lindsay's jealousy of her parents' affection for Nick is wonderfully done and also reinforces her difference from the freaks. She has so much ability, she needs to do more to succeed than they do. Her intelligence prevents her from fully joining their circle, and that's both a blessing and a curse for her. She has to be aware that they'll probably never leave town, but she will. And it's also extremely funny.

With only a couple of exceptions, the freaks' storylines are almost always superior to the geek storylines. That's because in most cases the geek ones are the comic relief, they go through some stuff, learn a lesson and move on. There's more ambiguity on the freak side. When the geeks do go for high drama, it's usually a reaction to something around them, like Neil's dad's affair or Bill's allergies, rather than coming out of their own lives and actions.

The show has a very de-dramatized 70s cinema style most of the time, but it does hew a bit too closely to the set up a problem, play out problem, find closure for problem structure of a lot of TV shows. There's continuing arcs, but each episode has a standalone story and that sometimes results in a feeling of artificiality to the closure that the characters find. Because there's a large cast we get a Sopranos season five style structure where one or two characters will have the spotlight for the week and play out all their issues. On The Sopranos this was used to give insight to the characters, but usually there wasn't any easy resolution. Some plots here work that way, others go for the easy solution to character problems.

But, that doesn't stop it from being a great show. This is a show that had its exact voice right from the beginning and never did a bad episode. There's some I like less than others, but there's always at least one good plot going on. The show's dual structure allows for an easier balance of comedy and drama than on almost any other show. You can have one character in a coma almost dying and another doing some broad marijuana humor and it works. And when the two universes collide, as in the great moment where Neil sees his brother kissing Lindsay, it provides for some of the best moments of the show, as we watch how actions have reprocussions across group lines.

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Freaks and Geeks: 'Pilot' (1x01) (6/26/2006)
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Weekend Update

Bunch of small news items to cover today.

Phoenix Tickets

Damn you working during the day! I'd been waiting to see when tickets for Phoneix's August 7th show at Bowery Ballroom go on sale and it turns out that they went on sale at noon today, so I missed them. I'm hoping to track down tickets somehow, if anyone's got any extras, drop me an e-mail: patrick@respectfilms.com. You would be my best friend. And if you get a chance to go the show, definitely do so, their last show at the Bowery Ballroom was awesome. Let's hope they kept the same drummer.

Gnarls Barkley/Peeping Tom Show

I may miss out on that show, but last night I grabbed tickets for the August 17 Gnarls Barkley show in Central Park. When I heard about the show, I was thinking about going, but I decided that it wasn't quite worth it. However, yesterday I saw that Peeping Tom was going to be supporting Gnarls at the show. Peeping Tom is Mike Patton's newest album, it's pretty good, though a bit routine for Patton. However, he's one of my favorite singers and I've never seen him live, so this is the perfect opportunity. Plus, I am psyched to see Gnarls, I saw Cee-Lo at Wesleyan Spring Fling in 2005 and he was very entertaining. So, this should be a good show.

True Blood

HBO did a press conference yesterday to announce their future plans. There's one bad piece of news, that the new season of The Sopranos has been delayed until March. However, in good news, Alan Ball's new series, True Blood is moving forward for a probable Autumn 2007 premiere. Six Feet Under is my third favorite TV series of all time so I am quite excited to see what he does next. He has an uncanny ability to create characters who are totally real and a wonderful mix of flaws and virtues. At the end of SFU we may hate Nate's choices, but it's easy to see why he does what he does. Plus, it'll be cool to see Ball tackle vampires, his casting in season four indicates that he's a Buffy fan, so how will this crew of undead compare to Buffy's? We'll see, but I do know that this is my most anticipated film project.

Popeye

I've been on a big Altman kick the past couple of posts, hailing the man's virtues like it' going out of style, but it's not all good. I watched Popeye a few days ago and was not impressed. It had some trademark Altman elements, but Altman works best when he shoots in a documentary style, drawing you into a believable world. The fact that every line Williams speaks sounds poorly ADRed is the first strike against this film, and the awful townspeople are the next. That said, it was cool to hear "He Needs Me" in its original form. It made me want to give Punch Drunk Love another viewing.

The Youth Speak!

I'm running a broadcast news workshop for teens now and it's interesting to hear them talk about films. I heard a couple of people mention how they're sick of the fact that everything's a sequel or remake. Hollywood, this is your demographic, they want new stuff! However, they did see all these sequels or remakes, so even if people complain about it, they still go see these films.

Upcoming Dates of Note
7/21 - Clerks II released
7/22 - Elysian Fields at Joe's Pub
7/28 - Miami Vice released
8/3 - New Pornographers at Summerstage
8/7 - Phoenix at Bowery Ballroom (Hopefully)
8/8 - Manderlay on DVD
8/17 - Gnarls Barkley at Summerstage
9/22 - Science of Sleep Releated
9/24 - The Flaming Lips at Hammerstein
10/13 - The Fountain Released
10/20 - Marie Antoinette Released

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McCabe and Mrs. Miller (5/11/2006)
Phoenix @ Bowery Ballroom (5/11/2006)
Nashville (7/7/2006)

3 Women

The Altman watching continued today as I checked out another one of his 70s classics, 3 Women. Even more than Nashville, this is a film that would be completely impossible to make within the studio system today. Even the vast majority of indies don't come close to this level of narrative ambiguity. So, we can be thankful that Altman got a chance to do stuff like this back then.

Watching a film like this, with the high levels of narrative ambiguity and character transition, forces you to sit back and go with the flow. For a lot of people this is a problem, unlike Mulholland Dr., which engages in similar identity games, there's no definitive answer for what happens here. The film gives you the raw material to think over, but it's up to you to construct your own throughline. Altman drew the film from dreams, and it's likely that even he doesn't know exactly what everything means, it just feels right emotionally.

I'll start with the film's ending and track back. The closing moments of this film remind me of Kim Ki-Duk's The Isle, in the sense that the last scene isn't so much tied into the narrative we've seen before as it is a thematic summation of the film as a whole. These three women represent archetypes and as the film progresses, we see them each grow up and take on each others' roles. The entire film is about the life cycle, the progression from childhood to adulthood to old age and ultimately death.

Water is a critical image in the film. We open with a pool, images of naked people adorning the walls, reproduction is a clear motif. Water is where we come from, and it's ultimately where we go back to, we move from the waters of birth at the beginning to the water of death, which the old people enter. It's clearly a cyclical thing.

At the beginning of the film we see Pinky as a child, lacking confidence and seeking a mother figure to latch onto. She finds a role model in Millie, a single woman who seems to be in total control of her life. Her self image is totally out of whack with how society perceives her. She considers herself a confident single woman, with countless male admirers. She's trying to conform to the image of single women presented in magazines, however in reality no one particularly cares about her. Her attempts at high fashion are mocked by the other people in the singles' community and the doctors don't even notice she's there. At work, she's the only one without a counterpart, so she naturally latches on to Pinky, who looks up to her and makes her feel like the image she has of herself.

Millie is constantly making allusions to the interest that men have in her, talking about the pill and the rollaway bed, and at first Pinky is quite admiring, imitating Millie in every way she can. However, as things progress, the reality of Millie's life comes to the surface. She obsesses about her dinner party, but the people wind up not even showing up and when she goes out to get a man, it's actually Edgar. Seeing Millie with Edgar exposes Pinky to the fact that most of Millie's claims are hyperbole and that it's not Pinky holding Millie back, it's Millie herself.

Millie yells at Pinky and forces her to be complicit in Edgar cheating on his pregnant wife. Being exposed to the truth about Millie, her parent figure, forces Pinky to grow up and plunge into the water. The water in the film is associated with the life cycle, Pinky enters a child, but emerges as an adult, taking on the role that Millie had fashioned for herself in the first part of the film.

Here, we see another parent/child relationship. Pinky wakes up and says that she doesn't know the people who claim to be her parents. This works both as evidence that Pinky has become part of a new family unit, with Millie and Willie, however it also works as a depiction of what every child has to do to grow up. In becoming an adult, Pinky must reject her parents and establish herself as an independent person. This is an extreme representation of that, in that she actually claims that they aren't her parents at all, but it fits perfectly with the theme of growing up.

Earlier in the film, our point of view character was usually Pinky, and we saw Millie through her eyes. However, after Pinky goes into the coma there's a switch, and we begin to see things through Millie's eyes. After waking up, Pinky fashions herself into the person that Millie wanted to be. She's popular with all the men at the apartment complex and has even taken Edgar away from Millie. Physically she's transformed into an adult, putting on makeup and dressing in a different way. In becoming an adult, she has forced Millie into the role of a mother. We no longer see Millie pursuing men, rather she's trying to keep Pinky safe. The car stealing episode in particular sees Millie treating Pinky like her daughter. Pinky's leap has also forced Millie to grow up and abandon her previous identity. She's become the mother.

So, where does that leave the woman who's actually pregnant? With Millie growing up to assume the role of mother, Willie must also grow up and give up her fertility. This is dramatically represented in the scene in which Willie gives birth to a stillborn child. The generations have advanced and she now must be the elderly one. During this scene we see water covering parts of the screen, as in the opening scene, a visual reminder of the advance of generations.

The film's final scene effectively sums up the themes of what we've seen before, clarifying the roles of all the women within the film. Pinky now calls Millie her mother, and Willie is the grandmother. This scene is designed to show us how each of the characters embodies one of the archetypal female roles, and over the course of time they move through these roles. The film's tagline is 1 woman became 2/2 women became 3/3 women became 1, the 3 Women of the title aren't the three characters, rather it's the three archetypal roles: child, mother and elder.

If the archetypal role of woman is to give birth, to bear and produce life, the critical scene of the entire film is the birth scene. Here, we see Willie, the elder, becoming aware that she is no longer able to give birth, she has moved beyond fertility and lost her purpose. Millie insists that she doesn't know how to deliver a child, but because she's in the role of mother, she draws on innate knowledge that shows her what to do. Pinky is outside, the child confronted with her future. She may be young now, but eventually she will be the one giving birth and that scares her.

As the film proceeds, it becomes more and more about these archetypal roles and the characters recede from reality. We no longer see them at work and by the end even the singles complex has faded away. The birth scene takes place away from society, out in the desert with only women present. Here, we see the death of a male child, he can not live in this world which is devoted to exploring the life cycle of women. Similarly, Edgar dies. He has no place in the final scene, which is about characters embodying the three stages of the female life cycle.

So, the critical thing to note about this film is the way that it progresses from a relatively mundane real world setting into an increasingly metaphoric world where characters cease to have agency and instead are forced into roles dictated by the progression of time. Just like no one makes a conscious decision to stop being young, Millie never decides to move into the role of mother, rather the ascent of a new generation means that she can not continue to live the life of a young single woman. Just as Pinky stole her social security number, she steals her role in the world, forcing Millie to find another.

The final scene effectively sums it all up, showing the way that all women are connected and through the progression of time, the young supplant the old until they return to the waters and the cycle begins again.

Was this the interpretation that Altman intended? I don't know, but I feel like the film supports it. I don't think this was strong as McCabe or Nashville, but from an analytical perspective, it may be Altman's richest, most challenging film.

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