Critical Mass

As I mentioned a post or two back, my pal Rik has been sounding off about film critics and criticism theory in general lately. If you didn't take the opportunity to read his blog at the time, you can follow this handy link here. I recommend you read his entries, and perhaps bookmark the page, as it's updated a helluva lot more regularly AND appeals to many of the same interests as my blog. Plus it's all around entertaining and informative. I bring this up today because he's got me thinking about how I rate movies, and rather than post a reply on his blog that would rival the original posts in length, I moved it over here. I know he checks the site out occasionally, so I'm not worried about him missing it.

On top of Rik's regular blog posts, he recently invited me over to facebook, which has an addictively fast paced movie review application called Flixster. With a lot of time to surf the web during downtime at work, I have quickly rated a few thousand films(3085 have at least simple 1 thru 5 ratings, a fair portion of those I've taken the time to actually say something about). The question this ability raises is, how do I rate a film? What criteria should I use when judging what number to give a film? Basically I went with the breakdown provided to me by Flixster, because I figured it was a pretty general platform that would be recognizable to anyone who would look through my movie ratings. The system goes like this:

5- I was Amazed

4- I loved it

3- I liked it

2- It was OK

1- I hated it

Now, I just went back to Facebook to double check I had the wording correct, and could not find confirmation that this is exactly what the numbers stand for. However, I am certain that 2, 3 & 4 are ranked as I have explained them.

This is actually a pretty loose ratings system, and a lot more subjective than even regular criticism. All any of these ratings mean is that the reviewer either did or didn't like it. However, with that in mind, I'm still occasionally shocked at the criteria most users have. For instance, too many times I've come across a distressing amount of reviews with some variation of the phrase; "I didn't see it all, but it was really (good/bad)". If you don't watch a movie from start to finish, you can't expect to impose your opinions on other people. Of course, as I said, Flixster is pretty loose, and this isn't quite on the level of even a local newspapers movie section. This is just one step above people bullshitting in their living room with their friends about what movies they've seen lately. So maybe I'm taking this a little too seriously.

Still, the question remains; what criteria should I use when I 'review' a movie on this site? Or rate it for my friends- or anyone who's interested- to see. When I began writing on this site, my critical responses to movies were basically; "I liked it. I didn't like it. I thought this scene was cool." Etc... I may have gone a bit deeper than that on certain films, but more often than not all I bothered with was whether or not I enjoyed myself. But now that I find myself putting my thoughts out there for public perusal, I feel obligated to make more informed observations. Before each of my movie posts, even for movies I've seen before, I usually make time for research. A quick trip to IMDB & Wikipedia are mandatory, with maybe a few google searches on top of that. I'll also make an effort to watch a new movie more than once, although the second time around I'll either be watching the commentary or doing something like folding laundry while the movie is on in the background. It's not a very in-depth viewing, but it does allow me to see a few things again with the entire movie in mind.

You see, unlike many critics you probably know of(Roger Ebert, Owen Gleiberman), I have no real experience in this field, and I've done no real study of film theory. Hell, I don't even have a journalism degree. A lot of my faults as a critic I can attribute to my youth, however, I'm not quite so young anymore. You could also chalk it up to plain inexperience, which I'm happier with. Indeed, as I read over these posts I do feel as though I'm improving my skills. And even if I'm not improving, I'm more comfortable with it now than I was when I began this project.

Still, that question remains; how do I rate these films? Well, on my blog site I've avoided this problem by not rating the movies at all, I simply put my thoughts down and let the reader know what I think of a film. Before Flixster I had experimented with my own rating system, one that went into negative numbers. This was an idea inspired by the massive amounts of suckitude I discovered when working my way through discount horror DVD bins. The scale would have gone from 5 to -5. A 5 would obviously be my idea of a perfect movie, whereas a -5 would be for those movies that not only suck, but suck your will to live. I'm thinking of the Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing vehicle Scream and Scream again, which seemed to dehydrate my brain as I watched it, or Manos the Hands of Fate, which was so bad not even the Mystery Science Theatre crew could make it enjoyable.

This rating system was short lived, and really only ever existed in theory, because I could never really settle upon any type of criteria. How should I judge what a perfect movie is? Has one been made yet? And if so, how long will that perfection last until the rules of the game are changed, and something even better comes along? Should I use a bell curve? Obviously not. I tend to review a film based on what the film tries to do, and try to avoid the whole 'It could have been better if it had done such and such." And besides, too many of the movies I love are films I recognise as being patently horrible, and would only recommend to friends whose tastes I was familiar with. This is the genius of Roger Ebert's thumbs up/down review style(used only on his show, he has a more gradated 4 star rating on his website); it tells you instantly if he liked it or not, while allowing his explanation to go into more specifics. Many times I've seen him give positive reviews to films he didn't seem to like much, admitting that the film succeeded in it's goals and would appeal to it's intended audience.

Generally I'm of the opinion that films, in major publications at least, should only be reviewed by people in that films target audience, because people have usually made up their mind about whether or not to see it before hearing any hyperbolic summary. This is why I tend to trust a critic like Roger Ebert, who gauges the movie against it's own criteria. And I tend to do that as well. Rik is correct in asserting that there is no objectivity in criticism, and perhaps I've been a bit too strict in my own self-imposed rule about not putting my personal life into my blog(which I've broken whenever it suited me), because you can't truly understand someones tastes unless you understand the person. Ebert(I know I keep mentioning him, but he's the only critic I read on a regular basis at this point), or whichever critic you listen to, is trusted partly because of your experience with them in the past; what films they turned you on to, what favorites of yours they shared or didn't share, etc.

So I've got that answered, or maybe I don't. I've decided to just review the movies completely subjectively, putting up my thoughts as they occur and trusting that the people who read this will understand where I'm coming from. The question I have now is; why do I do this at all? Why do I sit and review these movies when most of my friends have heard me talk about them already, or were there when I saw them? Well, I've said before that I use this site primarily to hone my rusty writing skills, and that's true... to a point. In the documentary on the 3-disc Brazil set that Criterion put out, Jack Mathews said that he views it as his duty as a critic to find great, hidden gems and share them with the rest of the world. I think that's a great sentiment, and the one that most informs what I do here. I don't pretend that I'm unearthing any hidden treasures, but I do like sharing with people, letting them in on these great things I've found. I think they're great, and I think you, the reader, would enjoy them too. Unless they're really awful, then I'm trying to spare you. It's about half egoism, half love.

Okay, maybe 60-40.

70-30.

The End of an Era

This week two separate but related eras in my pop-culture 'career' have come to an end. Both ends came about from random and spur of the moment perusals of second hand stores; one for books, one for music. At local used book store Title Wave, which I don't frequent nearly as much as I used to due to outrageous pricing and a shrinking selection of books(to make room for hilarious arty magnets, of course), I came across the one Kurt Vonnegut novel I had yet to read; Slapstick. And then yesterday, on a break from my aforementioned community service I stopped in at a record store I normally can't stand(and won't advertise here), and found a used copy of Good for Your Soul, the long out of print Oingo Boingo album, and the only one I had not been able to track down at a reasonable price. Sure, I could have spent 50 bucks or more on Amazon, or gambled on eBay, but I held out hope that what happened yesterday would eventually occur.

I really got into the Oingo Boingo very late in the game, with their final release Boingo(not to be confused with Boi-ngo). This was, of course, a hair's breadth away from their disbanding in 1995, but keep in mind I was 16 at the time, which I think is a perfectly respectable age to get into Oingo Boingo. Of course, I had heard them previously, but it was before I was consciously aware of music. There was a great summer in the mid-80s, when I was 7 or 8, where I was in love with the song Weird Science and would scan the car radio endlessly hoping to catch it, and would then sing along happily to the chorus. But I wasn't aware of them as a band, I knew the song, but not who did it. It wasn't until my teens that I started cultivating anything that could be described as some semblance of taste. It was bad enough at the time knowing that they were through as a band, but I still had a fairly sizable back catalog to hunt down. As much as I wanted to gather up all of their releases, I always secretly relished having a new Oingo Boingo album to look forward to one day.

That's over now, and soon it will be over for Kurt Vonnegut, as soon as I read Slapstick. Of course I'm not too despondent. I now have a really kick ass album to listen to whenever I want, and another Vonnegut book to read and reread, but as any pop-culture collector or sleazy frat boy can tell you, the thrill of the hunt is a major part of the fun.

On a side note, I have to express some continuing surprise that Danny Elfman hasn't done anything other than film scores and classical pieces for the past 12 years. I know his composing keeps him busy, and I enjoy most of it, but it still strikes me as odd that he hasn't had the itch to sing and rock out again. I'm not asking for an Oingo Boingo reunion, I understand perfectly why he wouldn't want to do that, but I'd still like another Elfman project. Maybe a solo effort along the lines of So-Lo.

Now, Kurt Vonnegut and Oingo Boingo actually have a few things in common. Both had heydays in the 80s, both are known for their sometimes morbid, often manic, always idiosyncratic styles, and both had cameos in the Rodney Dangerfield comedy Back To School.

Since his death in April, I have been re-reading all of Kurt Vonnegut's novels, some of which have been lost or borrowed over the years. Which is why I found myself scanning the shelves for his name at Title Wave, and how I found Slapstick, a book I had somehow remained unaware of. Don't ask me how this happened, I have no excuse. Kurt Vonnegut was apparently not too thrilled with the result, giving it the grade of 'D', but even sub par Vonnegut is a worthwhile read. It's there in the pile now, but I'm saving it for last in my Vonnegut revival.

I had been wanting to make note of Kurt Vonnegut's passing a few months back, but couldn't come up with anything that I thought would be fitting. Vonnegut is probably my favorite author, and I didn't trust my own writing abilities enough to pay fitting tribute to such a brilliant man. Vonnegut fell into a class of author that, even if not stylistically comparable, puts him alongside Alan Moore and Joss Whedon in my book. Now, by that I mean this: In each of Vonnegut's books, or Moore's comics, or Whedon's shows/films, there comes a moment where everything flips in my mind. I'm going along, enjoying the ride, thinking I'm seeing one thing, and then the rug is pulled out from under me, and the ideas expand to areas I never would have imagined. I think I'm walking down a pleasant valley and it turns out it's the Grand Canyon. Moore & Whedon tend to do this with genre tweaks, adding depth to what starts out as a simple, straightforward affair. Vonnegut did this, for me, with his unceasing love for humanity.

The other day I got into a slight argument with a coworker over this. He referred to Kurt Vonnegut as nihilistic, a charge I disagree with, and I think Mr. Vonnegut would have as well. It's true that most of his books are bleak, and the tend to finish with the end of the world, either figuratively or literally, but his sense of optimism and wry enjoyment are palpable throughout. Before anything else, Kurt Vonnegut was a humane and agreeable person, a man who believed everyone deserved to be loved, even if he couldn't always practice that belief. If anything Kurt Vonnegut showed a surprising lack cynicism considering his life, which included being one of the very few to survive the firebombing of Dresden in WWII as a POW(POWs were kept in an underground meat locker and hence escaped the carnage, inspiring his novel Slaughterhouse 5). There is a sadness prevalent in all of his books, I'll admit that, but I believe in the end that he was hopeful for humanity.

In April Kurt Vonnegut passed away at the age of 84 from brain injuries sustained in a fall. It's probably been pointed out already, but it's extremely ironic that such a witty and intelligent man would eventually be killed by his own brain. Vonnegut would have said this was proof that god had a sense of humor, if he hadn't already said that about gonnorrhea.

I could end this with any number of great Vonnegut quotes, but in the interest of brevity, I'll keep this to one, that I think sums it up:

"And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, "If this isn't nice, I don't know what is." "

Or this one... couldn't resist:

If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC

Everybody Out of the Pool! (redux)

[I've been going over old posts, and decided this one deserved to be reposted. Mainly because I've come across a few updated numbers and have a couple of other ideas I felt like sharing.]

Spent some time surfing the net today, and decided to check up on a group of people I haven't thought much about since college; the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, or VHEMT(pronounced Vehement). When I first stumbled upon their home page a few years back, I was amused and took it for a joke, but in actuality they seem like intelligent, nice enough people. Maybe a little unbalanced, and they give off some of the same vibe that hardcore christian fundamentalists do, but they don't seem too bad, all in all. Certainly not as bad as christian fundamentalists. They just don't want humans around, and have banded together to find like minded people willing to vow never to breed. It's a cause I can relate to.

Now, that probably sounded callous, seeing as how I have a lovely three year old daughter, and just because I can relate doesn't mean I wish I had never had kids. Far from it, my daughter is the most important thing in the world to me, and the time I spend at home with her is always the highlight of my day. And I don't really want the human race to become extinct, I don't think that's going to solve anything any more than the path we're going on. That being said, I just want other people to stop having kids. Seriously, enough already.

This visit with the VHEMT prompted a trip over to the Census Bureau web site to satisfy some curiousity regarding population booms. According to the International Programs Center of the US Census Bureau, there's an estimated 6,506,534,698 people living today, with another 6 million being added each month(yes, that factors in mortality). Compare that to the figures for 1930 which figured the world population to be only 2 billion. That means that in 76 years, still within an average human lifetime, the human population has more than tripled. The global population doubled between 1968 and 1999, 38 years! In the entire 100 years previous(1830-1930) the population had only doubled, which means as more people are born, our rate of reproduction increases. Even though the global birthrate has been declining in recent years, more people are out there ready to have kids. You hear figures like that, and you begin to wonder if it's too late to turn around all the damage we've done to this planet. I don't want to hear any whining about not being able to prove global warming; of course we can! 6 and a half billion people in the world, and look at how much trash YOU alone throw out in one week.

This sort of information also makes me think twice about every medical breakthrough I hear about that purports to extend the human lifetime. Just what we need. More people. People want to ride without seatbelts? More power to them, their cleaning out the gene pool.

Now, I've never been one to believe that the world is going to end in one fiery ball of nuclear radiation. I may be proven wrong, but I think the changes will be more gradual than that, which only makes them more dangerous. If we're not being slapped in the face immediately with the repercussions of our actions, than we tend to forget about them. Which is why my daughter is going to be inheriting a world that I can't help but believe will be more difficult than mine. SO STOP HAVING KIDS! The reason I like the VHEMT, I think, is that all important V in the front. Voluntary. I don't condone mandatory birth control, or any of those dystopian ideas, instead I'd like everyone to think about it. I know everyone wants pride in continuing their genetic line, but really, whats the point? Just go ahead and adopt if you really want kids, their just going to rebel and become your opposite anyway.

Or imagine this: Currently the worldwide average for family size is just under three children.That means, using my basic algebra math skills, that for every 2 people getting together on earth we're getting 3 people added to the population. Factor in all the people who never have children, and the orphans that don't get counted, and we're still increasing at a geometric rate. If everyone voluntarily decided to have only 2 children, or, even better, only one, a lot of our overcrowding would disappear, and we'd be able to get a handle on all of our environmental concerns. But then of course we'd have a whole new can of worms concerning our global economy, which would have to adjust. It's an idealistic fantasy, something I'm not honestly considering, but it's a fantasy nonetheless.

And so, I support the VHEMT, and although I've already broken their one and only rule, I raise my voice with theirs: May we live long and die out!

Or at least slow down.

The Decline of Western Civilization

Due to my own movie watching habits, which are pretty much all inclusive(meaning I'll give anything a chance), I end up watching a lot of movies I'm not particularly interested in. Just take a look at my Facebook profile, and check out all of my movie ratings. There are quite a few crappy looking movies that are listed under 'want to see it', even though I have no real expectations of greatness. And even the ones listed as 'not interested' I'd sit down and watch were it on TV some slow night. Sometimes these movies prove me wrong, defy all expectations and entertain me. The 2006 remake of the Omen was not one of those films.

Now, as a rule I am against remakes. If a movie worked the first time, I see no point in trying to cash in on that artistic success. That said, I realized recently just how many good remakes there are out there. Some of my favorite films are, in fact, remakes. John Carpenter's The Thing, The Fly, the Donald Sutherland version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I could go on and on, and probably fill up an entire post all about the good horror remakes out there, but the fact remains that for every Blob remake, we get a House of Wax or The Hills Have Eyes. I can't honestly call the Omen a huge step down, because about 5 minutes into the movie that old feeling, so familiar from the original film, began to creep over me; boredom.

I know I know, the Omen is largely regarded as a classic, and many of my friends will be upset with me saying I don't like the original, but what can I say? It just wasn't my cup of tea. I found it dull and uninteresting. I had been interested in seeing the remake, however, based on some fairly positive reviews from trusted sources, and I'm generally a fan of Liev Schreiber, who takes on the Gregory Peck role. However, whatever interest I had left me after the cliche opening sequence which charts the events that have led the Vatican to believe the end times are upon us. This scene wasn't that bad in and of itself, but it left me fairly blase about the rest of the proceedings. I will, however, express my amusement in the fact that Damien can only be killed by a ritual bloodletting over a church's altar. An incongruously pagan sacrifice in a film so invested in catholic minutiae.

Good horror movies tend to tap into our societal fears about the world around us, whether it's communism, nuclear power, or infectious diseases, and this is something the Omen recognizes, with 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the war in Iraq all used as proof of the coming apocalypse. The problem is, the movie brings up these fears, and then erases them instantly by putting the blame squarely on the devil, and taking all human responsibility out of the equation. If, according to the movie's logic, God is great, and has a plan for us all, then what's the point in worrying? We'll all die, and live forever in heaven, right? The religious-horror films that bypass this problem tend to be very personal, such as The Exorcist or Rosemary's Baby, focusing more on the spiritual than the worldly. The Omen does focus more on the spiritual, but puts it in a very worldly context, which works against the momentum the film tries to build up.

Add to this some of the laziest CGI I've ever seen outside of a Sci-Fi channel original(I'm sorry, that's unfair... to the Sci-Fi channel), and the wasted talents of numerous actors who don't deserve this(Pete Postlethwaite, David Thewlis, Michael Gambon, Liev Schreiber). I was going to make some pithy comment here about how this movie is one of the signs of the apocalypse, but that would be overestimating this film's worth to a ridiculous degree. In the end it's a very middle of the road affair. But hey, maybe that's the true sign of the end of the world; when we start to allow sub par crap like this pass for entertainment.

Jiminy Glick in La La Wood

There are some films that I give a lot of slack when it comes to my own personal ratings. Films that I intellectually realize are awful, or mediocre at best, and yet have their own aspects that affect me enough that I'll let their faults slide. Any horror movie that has a monster, preferably an intricate costume and not CGI, gets points from me, and I'll at least enjoy myself while it's happening. I don't, however, go so far as to blindly enjoy any movie in a particular genre. There was a time when I would have said that Zombies make every film better, but that was proven incorrect when I had to force myself to finish Zombie Lake and some of the later films in the Italian Zombi series. The cinematic debut of Martin Short's celebrity interviewer who subconsciously hates celebrities, Jiminy Glick, is one of those films that, despite it's faults, I ended up enjoying much more than I really should have.

There's actually a theme there, in that my personal enjoyment of Martin Short usually means I'll sit through an otherwise awful movie at least once. I'm not really sure where this comes from, although I suppose it could tie in to SCTV, in that I have a similar reaction to just about every other member of that outfit. Rick Moranis, John Candy, Dave Thomas? All of them get love for their contributions to that show that causes me to overlook some of their(often numerous) missteps. And it's a good thing for Mr. Short, too, since I don't exactly go out of my way to watch comedies in which the main actor uses prosthetic makeup, including a fat-suit, to play several roles.

The plot is a bit hard to describe accurately, because it's fairly convoluted while also, strangely, very thin. It concerns Jiminy travelling to the Toronto Film Festival with his wife and two(of his 4, according to the TV show) sons. This is of course an excuse for Short, as Glick, to interact with various celebrities, and these scenes are definitely amusing, and a few laughs can be had from them. Had the movie focused more on this aspect, it would most likely have been a lot funnier, if not as interesting. Instead Mr. Short has decided to use this template as a chance to make a very broad, and vague, attack on indie filmmaking and the marketplace feeding frenzy that film festivals have become. This is admirable, and I actually respect the film more for it's slight ambition than if it had simply gone the easy route, but the problem remains that the film's portrayal of indie films rarely rises above the level of Cartman's claim on South Park that all indie films are about gay cowboys eating pudding.

Recently, over on my friend Rik's blogsite, he's been discussing film criticism, and his personal attitude when approaching the disection of a movie. In this discussion he brought up David Manning, the nonexistent 'critic' Columbia Pictures created to give their film posters catchy blurbs. I mention this because it actually has relevance to the plot of this film, which has Jiminy Glick becoming the most buzzed about property at the festival after giving the only positive review to Ben DiCarlo's obviously awful film "Growing Up Gandhi." He falls asleep in the theatre, and instead of admitting he hasn't seen the film he improvises a list of generic, gushing blurbs. The producer of "Growing Up Gandhi" latches on to this and grants Jiminy a rare interview with Mr. DiCarlo, gaining this small town, local-TV critic national acclaim. Soon, everyone at the festival wants to meet with Jiminy Glick in the hopes of getting a profile boost.

This is probably the most successful of the films plots, but it too is a bit underdone. Instead of exploring this event, the film veers from subplot to subplot with so little attention given to any of them that it feels like a collection of sketch ideas instead of an actual story. There's a gangsta rap group that shows up so rarely, so infrequently, and so pointlessly that it's hard to see why they were in the film at all even after playing a pivotal role in the finale. The main plot of the film involves Jiminy becoming entwined in a murder mystery that echoes the famous Lana Turner/Johnny Stompanato incident, and David Lynch as a one man Shakespearean chorus.

And there is the aspect of this movie that urges me to lighten up on it's faults. Anyone who knows me is aware of my David Lynch fandom, and I make no effort to hide the fact that yes, I like this film primarily because it features a spot on David Lynch impersonation. But not just an impersonation, the film creates, at times, a pretty good approximation of a David Lynch film, with lots of fading into a candle flame, flickering lights, and highways at night. The accent, mannerisms, and speech patterns are all spot on, and become the source of some of the funniest bits in the movies. Unfortunately, Lynch as a character is relegated to a few odd appearances , until the film's plot finally becomes apparent... in the films last half hour. Overall the film meanders, fairly pointlessly, until the finale comes out of nowhere.

This unevenness is most likely a result of the movie being almost completely improvised, which is by nature hit & miss. That isn't to say a great movie can't come out of improvising(look at the 40 year Old Virgin, Borat, or Christopher Guest's entire filmography), this just isn't one of them. The film's comedy reeks of desperation, of people trying to think of something funny and coming up with only obvious, base sexual innuendos. That isn't to say that everything is subpar in this film. Martin Short is almost always funny, particularly when he's simply reacting to his cast mates, and John Michael Higgins is one of the standout performers. He, too, gets bogged down in crass sexual jokes, but he seems a bit more on the ball than most of the others.

So yes, I'd recommend this to non-Lynch fans, although I wouldn't suggest you buy it, as I did. It's a great rental, or look for it on cable. But being a Lynch fan does help.

Buy a Bag... Go Home In A Box

My friends are always confused and, oddly, upset by the major gaps in my movie knowledge. They assume that, because I spend an obscene amount of time lost in one movie or another, I must have seen every classic out there. "What? You haven't seen(insert favorite movie here)?!? How can YOU not have seen that movie?!" is a very common question for me. The first problem with that assumption is that everyone's definition of 'classic' is different, and just because Ratboy totally saved your life in Jr. High doesn't mean it's anything more than a dull Sondra Locke flick about a boy(actually played by a girl) in bad rat makeup. The second problem is that, even if I live forever, I won't be able to see every 'classic' movie out there. Sometimes that bothers me, but more often than not I enjoy always having something new and unknown to look forward to.

And so it happened that one night I was introduced to Popcorn, a movie that I somehow missed out on in 1991. Admittedly this was before my horror movie fixation, but usually I'm at least aware of these films. I probably saw a trailer or two back in the day, but when Amber brought it up I was completely ignorant. And when I use the phrase 'ignorance is bliss' here, it isn't a slam on the film itself. I mean that I really enjoyed this film, and I attribute that greatly to my ignorance going in, a theory tested and supported by a recent rewatching. To say I enjoyed this movie less the second time around is also no big slam, as I still found it enjoyable and worthwhile.

The story follows Maggie, a film student plagued by laughably 'deep' dreams of a little girl being chased by an unknown man. She walks around recalling these dreams into a mini-tape recorder, composing her first screenplay and comparing it to Citizen Kane, of all things. These dreams may or may not be connected to the laughably 'deep' films of LSD saturated cult leader Lanyard Gates(hint, they ARE connected). There's a fine line in those dream sequences that the film doesn't quite tread, but in this they are most definitely not alone. It's hard in film to be believably symbolic and yet still let the audience know it's intentionally pretentious. What usually happens, as happens here, is that the result comes out as merely silly.

Maggie and her fellow film students, under the guidance of Mr. Davis(Tony Roberts), decides to host a one-night only midnight movie marathon, complete with William Castle inspired shock gimmicks(joy buzzers under seats, Aroma-Rama...). And to this I say; if it was this easy to find a grand old theatre and renovate it and get clearance to play these films, I would have done it years ago. Still, suspension of disbelief is required in just about every horror film, so I'll let it slide. Unfortunately for this little group of would-be filmmakers, Maggie's dreams are going to start haunting her in real life. It turns out the cult leader who is inspiring her nightmares killed his wife and daughter at a showing for his final film, burning the theatre down and killing everyone inside. When eerie things start happening around her, Maggie begins running around the theatre, convinced that Lanyard Gates is still alive and trying to kill her.

For the most part, the deaths in this movie go unnoticed by the majority of the characters until the end of the film, so it's actually not that obnoxious when nobody believes her and goes along like it's business as usual. The deaths are nothing mind blowing, but a couple are a step above the normal slasher film in their inventiveness, and there's some really good makeup effects in some of the scenes involving the killer, whose face has been horribly burned and has been literally stapled in place. The real draw of this film, however, are the horror movies being shown, which are all pretty accurate-and funny- recreations of certain horror archetypes. There's The Stench(complete with aroma-rama, which strikes me as possibly bad for your health), a Japanese film about, well, really bad smells. Mosquito! is your typical bug radiated to massive proportions movie. The standout is The Amazing Electrified Man, about a convict, who, with the help of a mad scientist, survives the electric chair to go on a killing spree. You see only glimpses of these films, but they are a welcome addition. All in all these elements make the film feel like the type of project that Joe Dante might attach himself to, although with not half as much fun and good humor.

The rest of the film doesn't acquit itself quite as well. The story is fairly predictable, even if the killer isn't who you would at first suspect(I only figured it out early because of the actor's... unique voice). Aside from the film parodies, there isn't a lot of self awareness in here. The plot and(most of) the murders are very much by the book, and the acting and dialogue are about what you'd expect. The most inventive thing about the film, actually, is it's reggae heavy soundtrack, which confused me until I saw that the entire film was made in Jamaica. This also probably explains the sudden, all too brief appearance of Ray Walston as the proprietor of a film-memorabilia business. He's actually too good for this film, but a paid vacation in Jamaica for one day's work? It's understandable.

In the end I can't, in good faith, call this a good movie. But it was fun, and I did get a certain enjoyment out of it on each viewing. If you haven't seen it, I can think of much worse ways to spend a Friday evening.

Crime and Punishment

At the end of last year, I was arrested. It was actually the week before Christmas, a fact that I was reminded of by every officer in booking("Want an extra mug shot for your mom's Christmas card?"). Now, I'd like to have a great story to go along with this, like I was involved in one of those drunken bar fights you see on TV all the time, or that I had been framed by a one armed man, but the truth is infinitely more mundane. I was driving without insurance. That's a misdemeanor in Alaska, and so I was handcuffed, put into the backseat, and taken to jail.. I should say that the arresting officer was very polite and even apologetic, but the officers in booking are complete douche bags. The man searching my pockets before allowing me into the jail was a diminutive, portly man who tried VERY hard to be intimidating but only tested my ability to hold in laughter. For the rest of my time in booking(I never went into the jail, I got out on bail before that happened) he would walk by and threaten me with violent cavity searches if I couldn't come up with 1,500 dollars in bail. Cash. Yes, 1,500 dollars for driving without insurance. That would only be the beginning of what is becoming a very large shakedown.

In court, following a long line of people there for similar offenses(some a bit more serious, but most traffic violations), the judge gave me 30 days in jail, 30 suspended(the point being that if any similar crime on my part were to occur, I would have to serve that jail time, and it's always on my record), around 1000 dollars in court costs(not counting the 500 to get my car out of impound), and 80 hours of community service. A little known fact: You have to pay for community service. I went to the Community Work Service building to sign up, and they wouldn't allow me to work until I gave them 85 dollars. What a fucking system. The next night I was watching one of those Dateline Internet Predators shows, which I normally don't care for(I'm all for exposing and embarrassing these sickos to the entire world, hell, I'm for doing more than that, but I think these shows are a little too close to the line between vigilantism and fascism), and they caught a man who had 4(count em, 4!) prior convictions, and was currently on trial for a 5th incident at the time. They followed his case through to sentencing, and he got a smaller fine than I did, no jail time, and 50 hours of community service.

What was my crime, essentially? Not paying the right people. And why do you think I(or anyone else) would commit this crime? To intentionally screw the government? Of course not, it's a matter of money. I didn't have the money to pay for insurance, and although I knew it was stupid, I went without. I'm pretty sure that's the same explanation almost everyone caught without insurance will give you. And what is the punishment? Horribly inappropriate fines that shouldn't be administered to people who can't even afford insurance, and community service. The community service is even worse, because for that you have to take time off work, and therefore earn less money. And on top of that you have to PAY for the privilege of cleaning up old beer cans along the side of the road.

I bring this story up not as to draw attention to my misfortune, but as an opportunity to touch on a greater problem with our society. I could easily use this to rant about the ongoing war against the poor in this country, but I'd like to try and illuminate a deeper, more distressing problem. Our legal system, as it is currently set up, is all about punishment, and very little care given to actually helping people. Even in those cases where someone is helped, the actual system is more about punishing the perceived wrongdoer. This ties back into my earlier post about torture porn, because I think this is the same thing, only in the 'real' world, not fictionalized on screen. Our entire culture, from children's tales on up, is about finding the person who's done us wrong and making them pay.

On a grander scale, take the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I'm not going to debate the morality of that event, but the outcome is something worth noting. I don't consider myself an expert on Japanese culture by any means(so all apologies if I offend anyone here), but I've seen my share of films, read my share of books, taken my share of college courses. I've read postwar books that deal directly with the outcome of those two horrendous bombings, and a funny thing started to become clear; there's very little anger pointed towards America. Here is a country that by all means should hate us; we completely obliterated two entire cities, and then forcefully changed their entire way of life. And yet nothing. A friend in Japan told me of an incident in which an elderly person came up to him on the street to thank him for the way the Americans treated Japan after the war.

As you can imagine this confused me, and I guess upset me a bit. My white liberal guilt almost demanded that someone be angry with us. Where was the outrage? The righteous anger at all that meaningless death? Well, it was still there, even if all you know of Japanese culture is Godzilla, the anger towards that horrible event is evident. It's just not directed anywhere that I would initially think of. There is a great anger, and a great sadness, but it's directed internally just as much as it is externally. The bombs dropped, and almost instantly the country of Japan had a moment of catharsis, a giant 'what the hell were we doing' moment. The sadness I sense when reading about the bombs dropping is one of 'how could we let ourselves get to this point? How could the world let itself get to this point?'

Juxtapose that with how we respond when faced with national crises. September 11th was a horrible event, absolutely horrible. It's something that took me a very long time to come to grips with, but what affected me more than the actual event was how we as a society reacted. Where Japan stepped back and took a more passive approach while healing those wounds, we immediately responded like a shaken hornet's nest. Without even waiting to fully verify who was attacking us, we were calling for war on a handful of countries, all middle eastern. We didn't even bother to think of a reason why we might be under attack. Quick; what is the officially stated reason Al-Qaeda attacked us? Has one even been issued? Has our government even bothered to tell us WHY these people hate us so much? And no, 'because they hate freedom' doesn't count. With no information, no reason, we are ready to strike out and risk everything to get vengeance. That attitude is confused an awful lot with justice.

So, culturally, what is it that separates us from Japan? What causes our reactions to be so completely different? You could argue that Japan, for all it's harsh and draconian rules offers everyone a position. Everyone in Japan has a place to fit in, and a goal premade for them. This is a sensation foreign to almost every American. We have more freedoms, but have the anxieties and mental disorders to match. You could also argue that our religion is to blame, that Christianity is, in essence, all about punishment. From God in the old testament to Jesus being punished for our sins. It's ingrained since birth that everything requires vengeance. You could argue many things, and honestly I'm not sure what I think the culprit is.

As a country we have somehow allowed our feelings of power and masculinity to get tied up with our feelings of victimization. White Americans, who have everything, and have faced no real historical persecution, are constantly complaining about their existence being whittled away by outside influences, Affirmative Action or the NAACP. We like to pretend we're being persecuted because it makes our strength(or the perception of it) all the more impressive. In an individual this type of behavior would be seen as a cry for attention, but what do we call it when it applies to an entire country? This is a dysfunction that I believe is killing this nation.

Always playing the victim role, it's still seen as a sign of weakness to offer or accept help. People like to laugh at all of the mis-spoken phrases our President uses, but take a closer look at what he's actually saying. Whenever he speaks of social improvement or humanitarian undertakings he stutters and uses the wrong words, but listen to him talk about punishing our enemies and he's very lucid and well spoken, showing where his priorities lie. Look what happened with Hurricane Katrina. There was an outpouring of offers for aide, but Bush denied most of them. Venezuela has offered many times to donate oil to the lower income families in America who need it, but has been blocked several times(he's gotten around that by selling at a discounted rate to low income families who apply). On the other end of that spectrum, we view the help WE give with disdain as well, both to those giving it and those receiving it. Welfare is a prime example. Many hate the agencies that make welfare possible, and there's a social stigma associated with receiving it. I myself received aid from the government in the form of Denali Kid Care when Amber was pregnant through my daughter's first year or so, and without it we wouldn't have been able to afford the nice family practitioner we now have, and my daughter may not have had the healthcare she now enjoys. The point is, neither I nor my girlfriend were lazy, drug addicted, or any of the other descriptions used for welfare recipients. I, at the time, was working as a manager at a retail store and 2 other part time jobs.

The point is, this cycle of punishment is one of the main causes of this rift in our culture today. Things are no longer as much about race as they are about class. Our entire society cultivates a mistrust and often hatred of our neighbors for the most inconsequential things. I'm going to borrow(steal) an analogy from a man who is far more knowledgeable about this than I am. Imagine America as a tree, and imagine you put a wedge into that tree's trunk, causing it to branch off in two directions. Now the tree keeps growing, and may become quite great, but with that wedge the two sides of the tree keep growing in different directions. And we all know what happens then; the branches snap.

This Social Darwinism, a concept upheld by many republicans whether they know the phrase or not, is one of the most asinine ideas I've ever heard, and yet it pervades almost every aspect of our culture. The entire point of a society is the advancement of every individual in the group. Without helping our neighbors, society doesn't advance.

(To Be Continued....)