SLADE! GATEFOLD EDITION!

D.D. TINZEROES A prelidiction with the British glam rock genre of music, appropriately perhaps, is cobbled together from the best bits of a couple different vectors. First and foremost is love of the historical period, let's say roughly 1971 to 1974. '71 is a good concensus start point, with T. Rex performing "Ride a White Swan" on Top of the Pops in late 1970, wherein (if I'm correct) Marc Bolan put glitter on his face for the first time (and wore a decidedly feminine outfit). The moment itself seems pretty unremarkable looking back, but record buyers ate it up (the single was #1 in the UK for six weeks, and kicked off a string of four #1 singles for T. Rex, ending with a four week stint for "Metal Guru" in 1972). Slade's "Coz I Luv U" single also hits #1 in late 1971 and starts a string of six #1s ending with "Merry X-Mas Everyone" in '73. David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust is released in the spring of '72.The end definitively is in 1974, with T. Rex already completed bottomed out and the release of David Bowie and Slade's final glam-period records (Diamond Dogs and Slade in Flame, respectively). How Can It Be? Contrasted to Bolan's rockabilly three-piece and Bowie's experimental sounds of the same period (or Roxy Music or Alex Harvey), Slade's flavor is decidedly populist. "How Can It Be" is an admittedly honky-tonky, bouncy tune, with Noddy Holder reciting rather rhetorical questions which would not be out of place in a modern-day country song. This song is a bit of the odd-ball on Old New Borrowed and Blue (1974), but I like the Slade odd-ball songs because if nothing else they do demonstrate the existence of some sort of range of ability (Bolan's fatal flaw). This Girl. "This Girl," from thier glam piece d'reistance album Slade in Flame (1974) (which doubled as the soundtrack to thier feature film of the same name) has more of that populist lyric to it, this time about, well, "this girl" who is out to paint the town red and holds all the men in her sway, despite thier best efforts. I'm usually not a big fan of "over-produced" songs (this was Bolan's weakness when he started producing his own albums - "you know what this song needs? A string section!"), but I love the horn section on this song - I guess horns tend to be more rock-n-roll than strings (see also: Andy McKay of  Roxy Music). Know Where You Are "Know Where You Are" is first found as an vocal-less mellow jam session on the first track (titled "Genesis") of Slade's (then called Ambrose Slade) first album Beginnings (1969) (which flopped). Dropping the "Ambrose", Slade's second album (Play It Lound (1970))  featured the same jam but with lyrics and now-called "Know Where You Are." Slade toured relentlessly in this period, and by the time "Know Where You Are" ends up on the Slayed Alive! (1972) album it has grown into a galloping anthem of late-60s-styles philosophic questions. Who can not delight in Noddy Holder hollering to "read a new book - FINISH THE OTHER ONE!" over the wail of drums and crashing of guitars? I am also fond of the lyric "acing the song to make your playing look easy" which I feel is a nod at thier success being connected to thier touring chops.

L. CONTRADICTION It's not clear to me exactly why Tinzeroes is on this giant T-Rex / Slade kick.  T-Rex I've always basically loathed, and as for Slade?  There's some great stuff there, to be sure, but I cannot say that I ever actually cared about them.  (And the Six by Slade thing he gave me I find unlistenably screechy, pointless and self-indulgent.) But for a band I don't care much about, they've sure been kinda prominent in my life.  So here's a couple-three Slade songs that always--always--put a smile on my face. Run Runaway This was one of the great hits of my pre-musical life.  As I would fiddle with the parental receiver on a sunny sunday Kansas afternoon, not remembering exactly when Dr. Demento came on, I'd hear this, sometimes.  And I would kinda sing along and bop around to what I didn't know was really the last gasp of a once potent power. hey ho wish you well (representing the cassette Rogue's Gallery) As I began to make music more and more central to my life, I began trawling the Sound Warehouse cheapo cassette bin.  One day, probably 87, 88, I found this for 2.99 and Ramones Leave Home for 3.99.  Maybe the other way around.  I loved both, for a while, and that was probably the biggest moment I ever had with Slade, headphones on and blaring tinnily, stomping around in my Christmas 88 jean jacket that was so too big that, when I moved from Portland, a full-grown man, it was still too big.  First couple years of high school, it was not uncommon for me to tag things with Slade-spelled PLEEZ EKSKUUZE ANEE LAAK UV INTELLIJUNCE Then again, first couple years of high school, I spent most of my time drawing covers for my double concept album, JOHNNY WAS HERE, which was sort of a Zen Arcade meets Quadrophenia teen suicide epic, with, as I recall, one like 8-page long song-soliloquy from Satan. my oh my Somehow I had always pencilled this one in as a 70s smash lingering into the classic rock stations of the 80s, rather than a reunited-cash-in move.  But, whatever.  Sometimes a man's in the mood for a power ballad.  And this one is an oddly happy ballad. In fact, that's what I think Tinzeroes is responding to in and with Slade--it's similar to my perspective on Cheap Trick, which is that some very rare kinds of art operate on a level that's neither formal/aesthetic nor contentual/ethical, but is instead concerned with and productive of: JOY. More on this anon.

The Fast and the Furious

Shame (2011, Steve McQueen) is irreducible. It is about a young marketing professional who's a sex addict (Micheal Fassbender) and his suicidal sister (Carey Mulligan), set in New York. By the end of the film, nothing changes.

I'm split between two ways to read this movie. My first response was positive. Knowing the premise beforehand (Brandon's a sex addict), every shot rang completely true to his symptom. When I first saw the opening shot of Brandon catatonically staring at the ceiling, I projected that he wakes up with one thing on his mind and nothing else--the look of a junkie. And I thought, "brilliant, wow, that's exactly what it's like." I also thought the music, pacing and composition were refined, and that the film did so much in such an understated way.

But after reflection, I was not so sure. Hunger (2008, Steve McQueen) is a bona fide masterpiece about an historical figure who sacrifices his self through starvation to make a political statement in a humanitarian way. Shame's Brandon is the opposite: he indulges his sexual appetite and cares for nothing and nobody. And as a character, what the hell do I care about some rich upper-East side yuppie who gets laid as much as humanly possible? Seriously? Sympathy? For that? I realized, with a different filmmaking approach, I would not be empathizing with this guy's misery, I'd be appalled by the audacity someone had to have to think anyone actually cares about this character's conquests--it might even be nothing more than high dollar softcore.

In conclusion, Steve McQueen is a brilliant visual artist. In the film's beginning, there is an edit that is joined by a shot of Brandon jacking off in the shower that goes soft (blurry) on an MCU of him, which is followed by a match cut of a soft focus MCU of Brandon on the subway.

Also, there's a now signature McQueen overhead shot, composed with perfect symmetry: Brandon taking a bathroom break during work and what he does in the stall.

Then there's the first POV of Marianne in Brandon's office: she appears naked from the shoulders up (even though in the diegetic world she's clothed), and the frame is disturbed--what are we looking at? Her shoulders? Her lips? One eye?

The other two big sequences are: the tracking dolly shot of Brandon running out in the city at night, which follows him as he falls off into black, then catches him sporadically as he approaches overhead sources (also similar to the technique employed for he and Marianne's first walk and, maybe, inspired by the EXT. night shots in Army of Shadows (1969, Jean-Pierre Melville)); and the six minute two shot of he and Sissy (Mulligan) talking on the couch. I probably don't need to point this out, but six minutes is an exceptionally long duration for a shot, especially in the modern cinematic climate of today. (And Steve McQueen's most famous shot from Hunger is an uninterrupted seventeen minute take of two guys talking that is unlikely to be rivaled anytime soon.)

Like I said, it's impressive how every shot works by staying with Brandon or Sissy and omits dialogue for moments of silence and stillness, but preserves focus and remains truthful to their story.

--Dregs

Driven

My favorite films are dark and feminine. Recently, for feminine, there's:

• The Last Days of Disco (1998, Whit Stillman) glamorous, chic, and witty.
• Dancer in the Dark (2000, Lars von Trier) dark musical.
• Amélie (2001, Jean-Pierre Jeunet) so saccharine and girly, although light.
• Mulholland Dr. (2001, David Lynch) scary Hollywood dream/nightmare.
• Palindromes (2006, Todd Solondz) dark adolescent satire.
• Marie Antoinette (2006, Sofia Coppola) pink period/pop art.
• Volver (2006, Pedro Almodóvar) Classic Hollywood-style domestic melodrama.
• Black Swan (2010, Darren Aronofsky) scary ballet dream/nightmare.
• Mildred Pierce (2011, Todd Haynes) the final word in the genre, period.

Damsels in Distress (2011, Whit Stillman) is very light, so it simply cannot be significant for me in a way that actually matters. However, it is riotously funny, softly flowery with a pink feminine touch, and completely bizarre with its own droll ambitions of Classic Hollywood cinematic mannerisms meeting WASPy, adorkably naïve prep school girls who are delightfully characterized through exposition and dialogue.

Violet (Greta Gerwig) is a decoy who initially appears to be Charlotte (Kate Beckinsale) from The Last Days of Disco, but reveals truly unexpected character turns that layer onto her initial appearance--vacuum headed eccentric who seems to aim low, but with an air of superiority, claims virtuosity and altruism (the variant is that Violet is as naïve as Charlotte is cynical). And this is her vehicle to say some of the most insanely offbeat lines I never saw coming. The tone is set in the opening, when Violet scorns some male coed passersby because of their "acrid odor." The score under moments like this is audaciously prim, which signals the film's knowingness of its own satirical edge.

I've spoken a lot lately about how films only convey sight and sound, and that the other senses like smell, taste and touch must be evoked through other means. It's unimportant at this point, but smell seemed a big part of Hunger (2008, Steve McQueen) for me because I felt like he created a constant smellscape of putrid stench. Violet's character evokes smell in several ways. She even goes into a funny speech about how the smell of one's environment has a direct bearing on their state of being.

Violet also speaks with  proper formality and impeccable diction. And it never ceases to be hilarious and charming. (To regretfully digress yet again, Veda from Mildred Pierce has the most brilliant dialogue because it's also period; but, her prim and proper orations are daggers and one of the strongest parts of that film.)

This film constantly reminded me that I was in new territory, which I mean in a good way. It cannot be taken seriously, but it touches serious emotions and ideas. And Whit Stillman is a clever craftsman, in an elegantly minimalist way.

Violet has three close friends who support her adequately. Lily (Analeigh Tipton) becomes very prominent and is intriguing to look at--she has a distinguishing scar on her cheek that almost looks decorative. But of course, Gerwig is the core of Damsels in Distress, and her turn as Violet will be what lasts with audiences.

--Dregs

Torque

Since I was fourteen, I've known I want to write and direct my own movies. There's nothing I've thought about more or invested as much of myself into the pursuit of. There are quite a few ideas I've had that involve drastically reinventing the cinematic language. Every once in a while, I'm surprised to see another filmmaker, before anyone else, achieving something I'd only dreamed of.

Case in point: the notion I've fancied for some time now of someone making a feature length motion picture that did everything a Britney Spears music video or Chanel perfume commercial does in a minute, only for the ninety minute duration of a movie.

To assess this chronology thus far:

• Go (1999, Doug Liman)
• Requiem for a Dream (2000, Darren Aronofsky)
• Spun (2002, Jonas Åkerlund)
• Domino (2005, Tony Scott)
• Speed Racer (2008, Andy Wachowski and Lana Wachowski)
• Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010, Edgar Wright)

Spun was novel, but in the service of meth-tweaking, its editing style proves superfluous and nauseating overall; Domino is just an overly cross processed/saturated green color temperature and intentionally shoddy undercranking of the shutter speed; Speed Racer is simply mimicking animation styles; Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is mostly just a live action video game...

...mostly.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World brought many of the motifs Wright had pioneered in the watershed Spaced TV series, which aired on Britain's Channel 4 from 1999-2001. During Spaced, Wright liberally parodied various Hollywood genres, in his Tarantino-like, fanboy way. The key to what makes Scott Pilgrim vs. the World so unique is its frenetic, hyper-self-aware style of visual onslaught, with constant pop-ups of text providing up-to-the-minute exposition during, and often before its context becomes apparent. That shit is not from video games; Wright was tapping into the aesthetics of MTV music videos.

Detention (2011, Joseph Kahn) finally delivered what I'd been awaiting: a ninety minute feature that constantly sells itself as a music video--it's like eating a huge, eleven-course meal where all of the entrées are cotton candy, pixy stix and cocaine, with only Jolt cola to wash it all down.

The narrative is unlike anything I've ever seen, including Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Grizzly Lake High, as a location, contains the milieu of this cast of characters, although there are quite a few times when the story follows some into intergalactic galaxies, and others who are cavorting through the space-time continuum.

I can't help myself from giving away a little of the goodies (major spoilers in this and the next ¶). The film begins with a Ferris Beuller style direct address (character breaking fourth wall), nodding to Clueless's (1995, Amy Heckerling) Cher along the way, as Taylor Fisher (Alison Woods) tells us how to follow her "Guide to Not Being a Total Reject." The on-screen text is eponymous and resembles Tarantino's style of chapter breaks, especially in the style he began using on Kill: Bill vol. 1 (2003, Quentin Tarantino), which he obviously got from Vivre sa vie: film en douze tableux (1962, Jean-Luc Godard). As old as I am, I seemed to get most of the dialogue and pop culture references during this sequence, and actually felt like I think I got more out of this movie than teenagers will, in this regard.

And, the ensemble is made up of students of Grizzly Lake. The killerest part is that each of the stereotypically John Hughesian characters are living in their own hyper-aware, emotionally overwhelming teen dramas that respectively get played out as isolated movies, each apologetically embodying a different genre. Riley Jones (Shanley Caswell) lives in TV's My So-Called Life (1994); Ione (Spencer Locke) is in a Freaky Friday (2003, Mark Waters) meets Back to the Future (1985, Robert Zemeckis) plot; and Billy (Parker Bagley) is living The Fly (1986, David Cronenberg).
But this still doesn't quite communicate what exactly you get with Detention. Each vignette is titled, as its own chapter, but by the end you realize they're all insanely interlocked and build layers on top of each other that all work. Well, except the tilt-shift heavy "The Mysterious Tale of the Time Travelling Bear."
(End spoilers)

Kahn's music video aesthetic begins with his fancy for lens flares. I believe this was invented on Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977, Steven Spielberg), where Vilmos Zsigmond intentionally utilized the blue streaks of light that play out in anamorphic lenses when you aim uncorrected HMIs at it. But Kahn realized it looks cooler to key light Britney Spears with this technique (see the music video "Stronger"), instead of Spielberg using it to just hide what were maybe UFOs. Kahn also loves to push in on characters, a lot (I heard some kid saying that all Fincher's style is is pushing in--I kind of disagree). But, Kahn also uses "geometric editing" and vectors to put his puzzle together.

And the color temperature in Detention is typically a blueish frontal and overhead diffused source mixed with golden backlights and sidelights to mimic sunlight--which is actually very distinguished, fresh and works.

So, Kahn's narrative, his music video aesthetic and a ton of awesome pop songs and pop culture references (I mean really ambitious pop culture references, not Diablo Cody one-liners) make this film a new personal favorite of mine. The Ione character is so fun and cute--she's like if Taylor Momsen tried to be "Hit Me Baby One More Time" era Britney. Detention's an oasis in the desert of dull narrative filmmaking and I wish I could watch it again soon.

--Dregs

Biker Boyz

The duality of man theme expressed in Full Metal Jacket (1987, Stanley Kubrick) shows how man’s id can be tapped to create a killing machine; and, say, one that risks exterminating his ego and superego as a result (i.e. Pyle and Animal Mother).

For this reason, Full Metal Jacket is one of the 2 most important films I’ve seen, thematically. And for this same reason, I find it the one movie that best suited Kubrick’s talent and vision. And, that vision is cynical, satirical, and dystopian, to say the least.

The other most important film, thematically, for me, is Au hasard Balthazar (1966, Robert Bresson). Au hasard Balthazar has been my favorite movie for years. It’s the one movie I actually love.

Instead of showing the duality of man, Bresson links man to animal through their souls. He shows that man is not a paradox, but a spirit, just as all living creatures are. But, Bresson also believes all of our destinies to be martyrdom.

Le gamin au vèlo (2011, Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne) is very much concerned with the same aesthetic reverence and milieu of Bresson. Its central protagonist, Cyril, has a desperate hunger in his spirit to understand his purpose in life. He strives to decide if he’s a boy or an animal. And this juxtaposition is central, for the core of the film is this dilemma.

The narrative is a diptych in the sense that first, Cyril fights to understand what’s up with his dad, then the second half of the film arises after what Cyril does after he finds out.

The brilliance of Le gamin au vèlo’s focus arises from the blurring of the lines between boy and animal; because, all Cyril needs to be able to live as a boy is a parent, yet the film expands the elasticity of that connotation. In effect, what this establishes is the perspective that shows how the exact same thing is true of animals—or, as Au hasard Balthazar hypothesizes, kindness nurtures and is necessary for a spirit to exist and cruelty kills it, for humans and animals alike.
With the same ferocity as Alan Clarke’s characters like Gary Oldman in The Firm (1989, Alan Clarke) or the two adolescents in Christine (1987, Clarke), Cyril has a primal inertia. He sprints, attacks, bites, scales walls, climbs trees, and it’s easy to anticipate what he’s like once he gets on his bike—it becomes a Maverickian extension of his need for speed, or, more accurately, stress release and an escape.

The typical Dardennes camera style is maintained: handheld and documentary style. Yet, they also spend quite a bit of time on fluid
tracking shots of Cyril.

The color scheme calls attention to itself. Cyril always wears red, except for one shot. In color theory, primary red’s complimentary hue is primary cyan. In Le gamin au vèlo, Cyril appears in the first shot wearing a primary cyan tee under his zip-up primary red jacket. I actually believe right now that cyan represents Cyril’s spirit. (Other instances where primary cyan occurs are: the nighttime interiors when Cyril sleeps; and to a lesser extent, the accents in Cyril’s bedroom on the estate, and the clothes worn by other boys he encounters on the streets—notice which men wear black.) Finally, there is a crucial moment in the third act wear Cyril wears a primary cyan tee under a denim jacket, with no red—the only time in the film—and, during this scene, the one chance Cyril felt to be worthy of actually living as a boy with a spirit, it just so happens that life is a little more complicated and I’ll leave it at that. (You know it wouldn’t be a Dardenne brothers movie without that awesome "this can’t last" kind of dénouement, like Sirk at his best.)

The Dardennes are still the masters of minimalism when it comes to music. In Le gamin au vèlo, their sixth narrative feature, they use non-diegetic music for the first time—but it’s hardly anything resembling an actual score. The Beethoven cues really feel like the way Bresson portioned out the Mozart in certain moments during Un condamné à mort s' est èchappè ou Le vent souffle où il veut (1956, Bresson).

Basically, I identify most strongly with Cyril’s wild side; especially considering that pretty much all he’s after, underneath it all in the end, is someone to love him. That, to me, is a beautiful paradox: one’s wild animal nature ferociously fighting to find peace and love.

And the fact that movies this simple can still be made still remains a feat to me. I think its a wonder to be able to watch stories play out that can feel this honest and modern, with such lack of fuss over spectacle or high production values in the serivce of genre conventions.

--Dregs

Great Urinals of the Pacific Northwest

Gus Solomon Courthouse.

The Most Hollywood Un-Hollywood Movie Ever Made

Last night, an acquaintance of mine invited me to attend a theatrical screening of a 35mm print of Mulholland Dr. (2001, David Lynch) and I immediately decided this was something I could not pass up. My previous encounter with this challenging narrative, from quite possibly the most challenging auteur to tread the boundary between commercial and arthouse, from both within and outside of Hollywood, simultaneously, was about 10 years ago. A longtime David Lynch fan, I'd always gone out of my way to actively engage with his works, in my own way, finding my own meanings. Then, I kind of got burnt out after Inland Empire (2006, Lynch) and walked away for about 5 years--until last night.

So, I used to try to figure out what Mulhollalnd Dr. was about. Then, I decided that was no use. After returning to this film, 10 years wiser about life and with a recent BS in film production added to my cinematically analytic arsenal, I think I'd like to give another shot at attempting to explain what I think Mulholland Dr. is about--my apologies to David Lynch, as I assume he discourages this type of discourse.

Part 1: Decoding Messages

1A (Follow your dream)--In the 1940s, it was common to hear Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer described as "The Dream Factory." The first shots of the Jitterbug Competition in Mulholland Dr. accompany a POV shot of someone going to sleep, setting up the potential to read the following film as some one's dream.

1B (Sequence between the two gentlemen in Winkie's on Sunset)--This may be a key to decode the entire narrative. The key elements are:

• One person telling another about a dream they had with the other person in it.
• That first person then becoming frightened after seeing that the account of the dream scares the listener.
• That first person then attempting to confront the dream, in reality, and being killed by it.

My conclusion is that this structure is a model for the film in two other instances: The first part of the film (Betty wants to be a star and falls for Rita) and the second part (Diane Selwyn wants to be a star and falls for Camila Rhodes). Now, an important distinction here is that the structure of Mulholland Dr. is one that supports an emotional truth, rather than a conventional realism typically associated with Hollywood movies. Furthermore, the film is ridden with double symbols. Perhaps the most startling discovery for me last night was the scene where Betty and Rita first discover the corpse of Diane Selwyn and run out into the front yard--the photographic effect used is a double exposure--because it suggests that the entire film is an instance of the collision between dream (Betty plot) and reality (Diane Selwyn plot), cinematically expressed as one image exposed onto a film negative that has already been exposed and the perplexing nature of this effect; or, the collision between dream and nightmare; or, the collision between Old Hollywood clichés and New Hollywood auteur riffs; or, the collision between youthful naiveté and aged cynicism.

Personally, I'm currently obsessed with filtering my entire existence through the lens of a paradox--or, the collision between opposing forces.

1C (Hollywood movies and their formal characteristics)--In addition to the significance of where Lynch has employed the double exposure shot in Mulholland Dr., there are other instances of double meanings derived from decoding cinematic techniques and the implicit meaning therein.

Next, there's the old couple, Irene and her companion. For me, they're nothing more than a gratuitous symbol of the language of conventional Hollywood film language from the twentieth century. Consider this: we see them at the beginning and end of the film. They are a coin that shows first, the side of how Hollwood movies communicate a dream--in the car they don't speak, but by how they're filmed, we, the audience, imbue them with meaning (jubilation) because of the slow motion (or, overcranking the shutter speed)--then, second, they show how Hollywood movies communicate a nightmare--again they don't speak, but the fast motion (undercranking the shutter speed of the camera) imbues them with a terrifying, threatening menace.

1D (Hollywood Movies and their formal characteristics, continued)--The scene where we first are introduced to Naomi Watts as Diane Selwyn is a huge turn from the entire narrative thrust up until that point. It's jarring. It's bizarre. It doesn't really make sense. But, Lynch blocks this by intentionally Jumping the 180° Line (the convention established in Hollywood movies whereby spatial orientation through blocking and editing establishes a realistic visual geography for viewers) and actually seems to be the first director I've seen to do so, in a way, suggesting an almost cannibalistic comment he's making about his super un-hollywood Hollywood movie. Sorry, I prefer cannibalistic to meta--I don't like using the term meta too much.

1E (Hollywood Movies and their formal characteristics, continued more)--Lastly, I'll suggest that the opening scene of Betty's idealized image of herself as movie star appears overly white (or technically, burned out--a term in cinematography that means over exposed), implying that the type of "exposure" she seeks is "overblown;" or even that that pinnacle (as Valley of the Dolls hypothesized) of fame is the point at which one falls victim to Hollywood Burnout.

Part 2: Hollywood Burnout

2A (Hollywood Burnout as a model for Betty and Diane Selwyn's respective emotional cores in Mulholland Dr.)--For me, Hollywood Burnout is a symptom evinced in Betty's emotional requisition of her romantic object of desire (Rita). The symptom is, again, getting to the point where attaining your dream destroys your personal identity. The link is that of the realization that it won't last, no matter how desperate you may want it to--whether it be attaining the career of a movie star or attaining a chance to be with the love of your life--because it's all an illusion, albeit one that we believe we have mutually contracted ourselves into, and once we realize it's disintegrating, we often are unable to survive from.

2B (The director, Adam Kesher)--He also suffers from Hollywood Burnout, of the variety wherein he's gone from auteur to commercial hack. A very telling line of dialogue occurs when he's told by a financier, "it's no longer your film."

Part 3: References to Other Hollywood Movies

3A (Part 1, Old Hollywood)--Mulholland Dr. begins with an inventory of Old Hollywood bright-eyed, overly sentimental idealism. And we get all of the most saccharine chestnuts one could imagine: comical references to dog poop and a kagaroo that destroyed a courtyard; slapstick (the entire botched hitman thread is a comment on Hollywood violence because it's all gratuitous and goes absolutely nowhere and has practically nothing to do with the rest of the plot); etc...

3B (Part 2, New Hollywood)--Lynch's over the top lesbian scene is nothing other than Camp of the most intentional type. It's hilarious, not erotic.

3C (Specific references)--I'd always found the line Betty says to Rita before her audition hilarious: "...And don't drink all the Coke!" Anyone remember the line in Showgirls (1995, Paul Verhoeven) where Nomi is off to work and tells her roomate in a similarly overacted delivery: "...And don't eat all the chips!"?

There's obviously a ton more of these, but I'll just limit my observations to Showgirls and The Wizard of Oz (1939, ???Victor Fleming??? and way too many others). One of the biggest narrative devices that helped me understand Mulholland Dr. was that the second part is reality, because Diane Selwyn has obviously awakend from a dream and the people in her reality are versions of characters she'd created in her dream, just as Dorothy had done in The Wizard of Oz. In fact, the exact moment this occurs, Coco (Ann Miller) exclaims to Diane: "So you just flew in from Kansas... is that it?"

Conclusion

This movie is so close to the themes I find most important in films: feminine identity, Hollywood Melodrama, and artifice as a means to achieve aesthetic emotion are the big ones; but also, of course, the illusion of love and its analog, the illusion of movies. Or, as Mulholland Dr. says: "There is no band, but we hear music." Of course, the entire Club Silencio is an analog for watching movies, as important, if not more than the haunted house shown in Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974, Jacques Rivette).

Ahh, these are just a few thoughts off the top of my head that I wanted to jot down while they're fresh. There's no telling what this movie will mean to me in the future, but I'm guessing a lot.

--Dregs

with mean disdain: Michael Gira, Great American Music Hall, 15mar2012

I had half an idea what I was in for when I bought my first Swans tape. You knew, if you were a record nerd, even if you were just a high-school weenie like me, that the Swans were serious business, scary stuff.

The tape--TIME IS MONEY (BASTARD)/A SCREW, apparently a pair of singles--was as "relentless" and "oppressive" as advertised. I found it exhausting. There was a wall of sound, it was featureless and impenetrable, but everything sounded the same. It seemed perfect that the lyrics in the J-card were all-caps punctuationless blocks of text: no nuance there, either.

It's a safe bet I still have that cassette tucked into one of my half-dozen fossil tape racks somewhere in my storage space; it's a decent bet that I haven't actually played the thing since the years still started "19". But not long after I picked up that tape (and put it down in favor of The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste, which had funny samples and sex-free violence) I do remember being struck by the note-perfect cover of "love will tear us apart" and the groany dirge "god damn the sun". (I actually loved that last one so much I went off and wrote my own groany dirge whose first line was "god damn the sun"...)

After that, I was mostly busy cordially kind of ignoring the Swans. I didn't have any particular use for deep-voiced mourning ragers with weird sexual politics and an outsized sense of personal drama, even if they had once been in a powerful and inflential noise band. But enough of Nick Cave: I wasn't that interested in the Swans or in their prime mover Michael Gira for many years.

But, then, a couple weeks back, I was, as is my wont, cooking some vegetarian slop and doing pushups in the kitchen while listening to KALX. There was a longish interview with Michael Gira, and it was a damned compelling interview: most notably, he displayed an actual sense of humor, and I swear at least one time he made a joke at his own expense. I know. I hollered at Noodles to see if she were interested in hitting up the show. Basically ready anywhen to see whatevs*, she speedily acquiesced. Bonus--the oft'-heard-of-him figure Sir Richard Bishop was set to open!

The couple-three Bishop songs we caught were terrific. Improvised guitar noise, atmospheric and still purposeful. And his goth-baiting between-song banter found an appreciative listener with this reporter.

Gira came out slowly. Grey suit, huge Stetson. Deliberate steps around the stage, impossibly lengthy guitar tuning process. Great American security types bustled about, hustling to inform front-row types that "Michael has asked that there not be any phones or cameras".

A couple songs in, Noodles turned and whispered "I'm terrified of this guy." To that point, he'd been incredibly formal, extremely reserved. Just him, some baritone grinding, an acoustic guitar. Not a lot of banter, but a bit. Until the crowd started to want to be a little more part of the show than just party to it. One guy asked "Hey, play a song for my grandpa. He just died." Gira muttered "I'm sorry to hear that." and there it wasn't left, because audience dude had to follow up his mouth with something that led Gira to slowly elaborate "I don't have any special power...I'm just up here doing my work..." followed by what I can only speculate was the least appropriate "song for my recently deceased grandfather" ever written--unless your grandfather was into heavy drugs and bad sex.

I made some crack about wanting to do my own interview with him, just to ask how you handle playing shows for people almost completely devoid of a sense of humor; Noodles trumped me instanter by noting "with mean disdain". Which was robustly confirmed when somebody shouted for Gira to move his massive Stetson off of the mic stand he'd propped it on, apparently blocking somebody's view. "Fuck, why don't you move?" wondered the seated singer.

A few more good songs, served not particularly well by being stripped of ornate orchestration and presented with just a limited voice and a few chords. (One song ripped the chords from "heroin" wholesale--a move I endorse entirely. Gonna steal, steal from the best songs you can find.) More utterly mortifying exchanges. "I got three left..." "(scattered 'AWWW')" "Well, actually, I'm going to go backstage and get a blowjob, then come back out here." "Hey, if you haven't lined up that blowjob yet..."

Later, during an introductory guitar part, he half-smiled through a "Shut the fuck up. No, seriously...shut the fuck up. I'm singing up here." that received some titters, a couple nervous smirks, and me making a thoughtful frowny who's-in-the-right-here face. (Who is in the right? the diva look-at-me guy or the inexplicably yakky drunk shithead?)

Worst was the intro "I wrote this song...for a five-year-old--" "WAS SHE HOT?"

"Fuck you, man. Fuck. You people don't care about me."

Around here Noodles nailed it (again): "This is a good show for an audience of submissives."

Exactly. The songs were mostly fine, though suffering somewhat from a lack of musical variety and a lyrical perspective heavy on will-to-power my-wounds-are-the-worst-wounds egocentricity. Much prefer Gira's style to the aforementioned Cave's, though, and the performance did come with a charisma that absolutely compelled attention even through the not-my-favorite music and frankly icky audience/artist interaction dynamics.

If Gira comes to your town, buy a ticket. Stand up front. Have an extra drink to open up the emotional pores. Leave your phone at home.** Remember that the show isn't actually about you, even though you're there. And enjoy. We sure did.

--Fat, more of a crypto-hippie aging rocker, not so much a goth

*Srsly: I've dragged her to Red Fang, Fucked Up...
**You can go ahead and do that at all the shows, actually.

Too Perfect

The cult of David Fincher as auteur probably share diverse notions as to what his draw is. Perhaps foremost among them is his reputation for being a methodical, calculating perfectionist and demanding exorbitant amounts of takes in much of the same manner Kubrick is known for. Additionally, his work is often characterized by scenes showing a surgical precision exacted in getting deep into the viscera of the audience. But, on a more subtle level, the guy is uncanny when it comes to the focus he preserves throughout his vision, considering how large the scale of his work often is and how varied his source material has been.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011, Fincher) is only disappointing because the franchise it's based on is a series of international best selling novels. I get apprehensive about any movie that is poised to open across the world; you know, the big ones. Because in the end, mass market entertainment kind of has to be diluted, once it is served in such a large quantity.

Why does The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo work in Fincher's hands? Because he exceeds when it comes to this antiseptic, dark, cold Scandinavian milieu. The design of this film comes across as almost high tech in a sense. It just feels so modern. The barren landscape is complimented by desolate production design. I still feel the cold from that house--someone let that cat in!

In addition to the production design and art direction, Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor again contribute to the soundtrack with post industrial electronic ambient soundscape type percussion that further advances on the styles they'd experimented with for The Social Network (2010, Fincher). These elements are also crucial to the Fincher touch.

The plot is banal and bores me.

The timeless, exquisite beauty of Rooney Mara is supported by her talent to deliver a convincing performance as Lisbeth Salander--the emotional core of this movie and the primary reason Fincher has captured my adoration here. This girl is modern in the sense that she epitomizes the counter culture of her generation. In the 50s, JDs wore leather jackets, white tee shirts, greased back hair, smoked cigarettes and rode motorcycles--this is Lisbeth's lineage--and in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the self-imposed Hollywood cigarette boycott is clearly flouted. So in a sense, Lisbeth seems like a return to the sure footing of the 50s, as opposed to the chaos and divergent cultural identities that marked, say, the late 60s. Or, should I say, she's a classic rebel, lacking political pretense. And who's she pine over? Who does any upwardly mobile Greaser go for? A Soc!

The denouement is more sugary than it was undoubtedly intended. She's supposed to be scarred, but it just feels like a small bruise. Nevertheless, I identify with, empathize with and root with her for the whole two and a half hours she's up there.

This is too black and white, good guy vs. bad guy for me. But, I'll admit, seeing a rapist get his comeuppance still generates that special brand of catharsis that hits me on the most rudimentary level. The bloodlust that comes with the urge for revenge against anyone who has harmed innocent women or children is one of the instances I'm most vulnerable to being manipulated when I watch films: and that in itself is an entirely different matter to delve into--I just know I try to keep an eye on that. For me though, it's almost a little like Fincher's talent is wasted on this kind of thing--he can usually find plot points that appear more unexpected.

I think his insight into the minutia of historical tabloid operas is his greatest strength. Don't get me wrong though: since Zodiac (2007, Fincher), I find all of David Fincher's movies endlessly rewarding. For me, he's the best working director in the business (uh-oh, superlative praise? I think it's warranted here).

--Dregs

What If Salt Wasn't a Cartoon?

With another low end mid sized budget, Haywire (2012) is Steven Soderbergh's latest foray into serving two masters at the box office. The movie appeals to those who will be entertained watching Mallory Kane (Gina Carano) running and getting into hand to hand combat, in no less than five sequences, spanning the entire duration of this whopping ninety minute powder keg; and, it similarly holds a draw for those entertained by watching the conspiratorial intricacies of the ensemble unfold, at an explosive pace, before diving back into themselves for somewhat of a coda.

Late in the film, there's a scene where Michal Douglas plays a high ranking government official who makes comments effectively pathologizing the type of personality Mallory Kane has, which in a way represents the two halves of the audience and how they need each other. He says he knows how it must feel for her to run around, always looking over your shoulder, and how she needs that rush. So, he's admitting that he's exploiting her and that he knows exactly how to do so.

It feels like that's what Soderbergh's done, successfully.

However, it may be unfortunate that there just isn't enough time to connect with any of these characters on any significant level. Moreover, all of the events depicted in the film occur in only eight days. But this unfortunate characteristic distills the very nature of Mallory Kane: she doesn't have time for any of this either, due to the nature of her lifestyle. We're made to feel what it's like to be swept up in her roller coaster of an existence--one second running, the next chasing, constantly.

Most of the film's urban locations are complimented with what sounds like 70s Blacksploitation funk-fused chase tunes. The music never felt intrusive or like it suffered from caricaturing the lead protagonist, which could easily have been the case because of the fantastically high stakes this young woman must negotiate. If however, that sort of thing is your bag, Salt (2010, Phillip Noyce) is nothing short of an absurdist cartoon of the female spy on the run plot. I enjoy Salt, but the difference with Haywire is that I actually think while enjoying it, and can buy into the story.

The cinematography wasn't as expressionistic as Contagion (2011, Soderbergh), which is interesting because it shows Soderbergh's restraint. Or, what I'm trying to say is he could have gone a lot bigger and louder with this, but I like the understated approach. He's still managed to film in predominately daylight (overly blue) or tungsten (overly orange, or yellow) settings, to provide some added dimension to the locations dramatically. And the black and white shots from the mission to rescue Jiang are employed nicely, to distinguish this single narrative thread from a total of three concurrently played out onscreen, ending with all three threads converging in black and white. On the technical side though, the dolly shots tracking Mallory running through the Barcelona back alleys are marvelously fluid and alive with open air realism.

The editing of Mallory's part in the Barcelona mission is so quick and effective. Soderbergh and Stephen Mirrione are able to achieve such precision that it's almost something I take for granted. With Haywire, I wasn't disappointed.

--Dregs