Womanizing, gambling, larger-than-life merchant of death Tony Stark (Downey Jr.) finds himself on the service side of his own weapons and, as a result, becomes the proud papa of a moral epiphany. This, in a film in which the heroic journey celebrates the condemnation of war profiteering with an orgy of gunfire, explosions, and general mayhem. Call him “Irony Man.”
Gas Price Salvation, or How to Play in the Little Leagues
I’m feeling very soured by the primaries. No surprise, right? A lot of people are rather soured. But it is. McCain is getting rose-scented air blown up his…nose…and the smitten collective political awareness seems reluctant to admit that this is a guy who is bushier than Bush, a flip-flopper who wasn’t so gung-ho about leaving troops in Iraq (see http://www.msnbc.msn.com) before becoming more gung-ho than Cheney on a hunting trip, a man who loves an angry pastor but doesn’t get called on it. And what about McCain’s soulmate, Hillary Clinton? Among many of my friends and acquaintances, a trend emerged. Clinton started out as a strong, whip-smart lady with a strong grip on policy issues, a candidate fwho wouldn’t be all that objectionable if she won the nomination. But after praising McCain over Obama, waffling over Obama’s religion (he’s Christian, not Muslim…and there’s nothing wrong with being Muslim, dagnabit), and dragging on that Rev. Wright nonsense. After her surrogates lamely attack Joe Andrews by questioning his Hoosier credentials, when he was born and raised in Indiana, studied in Indiana and so on, (http://www.mydd.com/story) she now elicits comparisons with Rove-style Republican campaigning, with all the nausea and disgust that comes with it. And all this doesn’t start touching on the increasingly lack of foreign policy difference between Clinton and her new pal McCain. Bomb Iran, eh?
Indigestion ’08: Bad Thinking in the Media
Pennsylvania is done, we have Indiana and North Carolina to look forward to – yes, the national gastric disorder I call Indigestion ’08 continues. And with it endures the media’s most annoying analytical blind spots.
Michigan and Florida
Missing in all the theatrical pleas to help “disenfranchised” Michigan/Florida voters is the fact that their votes aren’t part of a big-D Democratic process, but are involved in an internal party matter. Complaining about disenfranchised voters in these two states is like complaining that members of the local Country Club were disenfranchised in voting for their officers. When it comes to Florida and Michigan, the people responsible for screwing over voters aren’t the candidates or the DNC; the fault lies with state party leaders who tried to get cute by breaking their own party’s rules. Put their heads on a platter, let them apologize to voters for throwing out their votes, and let’s all remember that…
The Water’s Lukewarm at the ‘Pool Party’
Why is it that overweight women in wannabe quasi-nudie-cuties are typically the butt of jokes, strange creatures whose sexuality is treated as something not to be taken seriously – something repulsive, even? Here’s another question: What would happen to films like “Pool Party” if there weren’t a surplus of nubile young women willing to take their tops off for the chance of being in a feature? The answer, of course, has to with Sarah Horvath, the boss’s daughter, appearing in various states of undress in all her scenes. There’s nothing quite like parading a bevy of bikini-clad beauties to keep viewers from noticing the plot’s recycled content and the used-joke smell of the comedy.
Hearing Things That Aren’t There
When it comes to film criticism, or any kind of art criticism for that matter, I don’t subscribe to interpretations that reflexively assume that what’s on the screen serves a symbolic purpose. An individual character isn’t necessarily a symbolic stand-in for a whole class; a movie’s plot isn’t necessarily allegorical. Of course, in some cases, a film can evoke a deeper interpretation, something beyond what-you-see-is-what-you-get. A woman getting murdered on screen by a male slasher may not automatically be a symbolic victim of social misogyny, but if that woman is first paraded around naked and the filming technique creates an aesthetic that caresses the violence, it would certainly be reasonable to see misogyny at work. But any interpretation really depends on the individual movie; how it tells the story, how it presents characters, how it is filmed. It’s very easy to create meaning where there is none, highlighting the importance of drawing on what is in the movie itself to make a case for any given interpretation.
‘Wait Up Harriet,’ but Maybe You Shouldn’t — It’s a Drama Without Drama
Review: Wait Up Harriet
The deus ex machina in “Wait Up Harriet” makes a near-literal appearance in the story of a depressed widower, a firefighter named Jake (Benfield), presented like Saul on the road to Damascus. The endlessly turning machine of grief, the monumentally dull grind of a grieving character, only shrieks to a stop when the screenwriters drag in religion. But not only religion. As Jake isn’t initially convinced by the bribe to believe in God to avoid everlasting hellfire and receive, instead, a happy and heavenly reunion with his dead wife, he is subjected to a mystical dream experience to drive home the epiphany. It’s theologically silly, convincing only to the already convinced, and it involves the inevitable angry-at-God cliché defined by a whiny “Why, God, why? You abandoned me! You suck!” But worse yet, it’s a cop-out for screenwriter Hanna Eichler, who struggles to pull Jake out of his deep, deep funk only to get mired in the quicksand of a drab character portrait and magical problem solving.
Whether or Not You’re in the Klub, The Actor’s Gang Makes Magic
The program describes KLÜB as an existential comedy in which actors trapped in a play must audition to get out. To some extent, this is an accurate summary. Like a theatre of the absurd, KLÜB is a place outside the normal space/time continuum, a metaphorical stand-in for life and the acting profession, a continuation of Camus, Beckett and friends. A troupe of actors, harassed by the unseen, god-like voice of the Director, stages desperate performances in an effort to escape the paradox of an existence in which the only rule is that there are no rules.
Free the Bear: A Discussion with Kyle Ellis – Part 3
This week concludes my interview with Californians for Independence co-founder Kyle Ellis.
Frédérik: The movement for secession isn’t only based on grievances with the United States. As your website states, Californians for Independence is also about fostering a kind of Californian self-awareness, whether it’s the state’s history and culture or the need to vastly improve the quality of education. Can you describe these goals in more detail? How do these fit into your group’s drive for independence?
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day: Love, Laughter, and Charm
All too often, doe-eyes from across a room stand in for a credible romantic spark, and it’s only because we have to accept that two characters are in love that we indulge shallow characterizations. For plot’s sake, of course. But the cleverness of Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day lies in its being both romantic and comic without obviously falling into the romantic comedy genre trap.
Free the Bear: A Discussion with Kyle Ellis – Part 2
This is part 2 of my interview with Kyle Ellis, co-founder of Californians for Independence.
Frédérik: In a feature (http://www.goodmagazine.com/section/) with Good magazine, Christopher Ketcham discusses Vermont secessionism along with broader rationales for seceding from the Union. What struck me in particular was his view that the United States is simply too big for its own good, a conclusion I’ve reached based on my own observations. The U.S. – unlike, say, Canada – is a deeply divided country – hot-button issues like abortion and gay rights only scratch the surface – and it seems rather ridiculous for various political/cultural factions to continually fight each other for control over the government bludgeon. And yet, the end result of all these secessionist movements might very well transform the United States into something very different – it might not even be a “United” States. Do you agree with Ketcham that the U.S. experiment has failed? What will it mean to be American in a post-secessionist U.S.?