Mr. Smith

Dear Macy

I'm playing some catch up, much like the narrative of Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park. Having endured Van Sant's Death Trilogy (Gerry, Elephant, Last Days) I've been waiting to see Paranoid Park, and its well earned appearance on quite a few top 10 lists this year has finally given me that final push to watch.

The film is very much a continuation of the seemingly art house Gus with its slow ponderous tracking shots courtesy of a first class DP (Christopher Doyle) and its barebones narrative which can be described in just a sentence. IMDB adequately summarizes the movie, "A teenage skateboarder's life begins to fray after he is involved in the accidental death of a security guard." And yet, this is a refinement of the previous three films where things feel much more resonant and meangful. Rather than set a single mood and tone like the aimless school hallways in Elephant or the endless desert trails in Gerry, each long tracking shot plums more emotional depth as we begin to unravel the narrative that Alex is presenting. Each time we repeat the same sequence which we have seen before, something Van Sant did really confusingly and annoyingling in Last Days, rather than feel like it's some trick to make the run time feature length, it just gets us further in the head space of Alex.

While the film starts out slowly, and a little confusingly with the narrative trick of the narrator realizing he should start a bit earlier, circling around the most major event, and it takes some time to adjust to the nonactors, the film is sublimely rewarding, and by the end, you as a viewer will feel the same release Alex has by telling his story. Really, like Slumdog Millionaire, this is another 2008 film that cleverly engages the audience through the act of storytelling itself.

Now bring on Milk.

Baby Steps

It really has been forever since I've blogged, which is what I seem to be saying every time I start back up, but I really feel it's going to take the help of Dr. Leo Marvin to start again. It's not that I don't find that I have plenty to talk about between movies, television, Blago's corruption scandal, my horrendous job search, and just plain living, but let's just take this one step at a time.

There Ain't Going to Be a Jumbotron

"This year is going to be different."

It was almost surprising how efficient the season premiere of Friday Night Lights was providing all the exposition for its third season.

While the Taylor family still bickers with the same rhythms and realism as ever, a lot has changed. Smash injured his knee and lost his scholarship (which I can't recall happening at the end of last season so I assume happened in the interim), Riggins is the new tailback, leaving the team struggling. A new quarterback has come to Dillon to shake things up and maybe take Matt's QB1 position. Coach Taylor's job is seemingly in danger after not taking the team far enough last season.Tami is now principal of Dillon. Lyla has given up on Jesus and rebounded with Riggins, and lastly, Tyra and Landry are just friends again. Unfortunately Street and his pregant waitress are nowhere to be seen, but in contrast to that, it at least seems we are forever rid of the Latino stereotypes of Carlotta and Santiago as well as that damn Jesus freak Logan Huntzberger. And, oh yeah, the show is about football again.

And now that we're all caught up, I can say that this was quite a welcome return. I personally never had a horrible problem with Season 2, although watching this episode and thinking back, I really feel like the show has found itself again. I'm no sports fan, and so the very idea of the show focusing more on football doesn't exactly excite me, but that hardly matters. What really works about this show is that by focusing on football and the team, it's able to capture the smaller moments in the characters lives around it, instead of becoming a show about grand moments and inanane melodrama as it did last season.

This might sound like some attempt to be overly profound, but by actually being about football, the show actually gets to be about so much more that feels real. In a way, Tami's current conflict with the school budget seems to be a commentary on season 2 as she is concerned with everything else but football at Dillon, including the students, the teachers, the textbooks, and meanwhile while she struggles with the budget, the coaches have new computersand working AC. It's especially telling when Buddy starts telling Tami "Clear Eyes, Full Hearts..." and Tami saying "Let's not go there." It's as if the writers are saying that as great as football is, there are other things that matter.

And what really matters about the show is the people and their lives. Really, this show is about the Taylors and how they inspire and support everyone around them. While the vice principal tells Tyra that there is no way she is getting out, and will be lucky to get into a tech college, Tami lets her know that she can do anything she wants as long as she works hard enough. And in the best scene of the episode, which got me pumped the way the best moments in the run of the series have, Coach Taylor plays a game of raquetball with Brian "Smash" Williams, and tells him that he will play football again and make it onto a college team, and he won't give up on him until it happens because he needs something good to happen. The scene is especially powerful because not only does Coach tell him, but he shows him that he can be fast again as we watch him move around that raquetball court and implicitly understand that while he's a half second slower now, Smash will play again.

Take That, Day Job!

Out of complete and utter boredom, I guess I can blog on request as my week has left me plenty of time to catch up on some television, read, and see the worst movie of the summer. It's pouring outside, so it's not as if I am going to have any customers to distract me.

Since I was 15, I have worked at CD City, a small and always struggling independent music store. Yet, no matter how bad business gets, the owner always manages to find the money to go on extravagant family vacations to New York, the Bahamas, or the Caribbean. Meanwhile, I am left to tend shop with a customer base that wants nobody but the owner of the store and thinks I know nothing, leaving the struggling business with even less customers, and leaving me with nothing to do but browse the internet and watch DVDs on my laptop. That, and and the combination of staying at my mom's for the week while she blabbers too loudly and too early in the morning on the phone about temple gossip and misinformed politics,as well as giving me a hard time about what I'm going to do about finding a job, is enough to drive nearly anyone insane.
With my newfound free time I was able to finish Series One of Doctor Who. If you don't know, Doctor Who is the story of the last Time Lord traveling across space and time in the TARDIS, a ship disguised as a police box of the 1960s (though I'm sure you already knew all that). The premise in itself is pretty brilliant because it allows the show to go anywhere and do anything. Past, present, future, the plots are limitless and the feel of the show is filled with the kind of excitement and wonder appropriate for that sense of narrative freedom.

Cleverly, in order to avoid the problems of a leaving star, the show came up with the solution of regeneration. Every time the Doctor is about to die, he is able to live on by regenerating into a new body. Same memories, same person, but a different actor with a different personality and new eyes.

I've always heard that people remain the biggest fan of their first Doctor (which is usually the scarf wearing Tom Baker who played the Doctor from 1974-1981), and having only seen random episodes here and there of the 11th Doctor, David Tennant (my first doctor), I came into Series One with some trepidation. The theory does hold up, as I find David Tennant far more playful and enjoyable than the pained and brooding Doctor that Chris Eccleston plays, but by the end of the series, I definitely warmed up to Eccleston. And I'd have to say that this is by design.

Eccleston begins the season after facing the destruction of all Time Lords in the Time War, leaving him alone and with the guilt of the death of his people on his hands. Before finding Rose Tyler, we don't know how long he has been traveling alone, but in some ways, it has stripped the Doctor of true joy, emotion, and humanity. It isn't until a full season of traveling with Rose as his companion, as well as Jack Harkness, and working with those who are close to Rose (Jackie and Mickey) and everyone they face on their travels that the Doctor lightens up and begins to enjoy life again. Nowhere is this made more clear than in the Steven Moffat penned "The Doctor Dances." It would have been interesting to see where Eccleston would have taken the role after that first series, but I'd still take Tennant over him any day.

And yes, I realize that Time Lord, TARDIS, regeneration; it all sounds pretty geeky, and of course it is, when on top of that you have television budgeted special effects and a stretched out piece of skin as the last human, but it doesn't matter when it's just so fun to watch, so while most of you probably glossed over any mere mention of Doctor Who, you should really give it a try.
DO NOT SEE THE ROCKER! No matter how funny you think Rainn Wilson is in The Office or Six Feet Under! I even thought that Rainn Wilson made House of 1,000 Corpses just a little more watchable, but not this dreck. This film plays like a bad made-for-Disney Channel movie, with a wealth of wasted comedic talent including Jeff Garlin, Jane Lynch, Will Arnett, Fred Armisen, and Jane Krakowski.
Instead of featuring Rainn Wilson in the publicity for this film, they should have been honest. This film was designed to highlight Teddy Geiger, the young singer-songwriter who somehow achieved some semblance of celebrity by being featured on the quickly canceled Love Monkey. Geiger plays Curtis, a sensitive and prolific songwriter and performer (he's got notebooks filled with songs, though the movie only features about two of them), who still hurts from his paternal abandonment. No, he's not bitter.

And neither is Rainn Wilson, who was kicked out of 80's glam rockers Vesuvius, and now catches his big break playing with his nephew Matt's band, A.D.D., headed by Geiger, and also featuring Emma Stone as Amelia on bass and vocals, who is so stone-cold that her major character arc is whether or not she'll crack a smile by the films end.

And you won't smile either as Rainn Wilson goes through the ringer with physical comedy in which he plays drums naked, falls down, and repeatedly gets hit in the face and balls. This is what the film considers comedy.

And just to make everything a little more contrived, as the drama and supposed heart of the film, we're asked to wonder whether Rainn Wilson will get with Christina Applegate (playing Curtis' mother who also used to rock but is horribly underdeveloped and due to Applegate's recent medical problems in real life is also distracting), whether Curtis will get with Amelia, and whether Matt will get with that weird girl who keeps showing up to all of ADD's shows.

If you can't tell, this is just predictable garbage.

Lastly:
I better do my homework.

Has Anything Bad Ever Happened to You?

Today at the library I was surprised to see a small indie "mumblecore" film like Dance Party, USA on the DVD shelf. While at first it would seem that the film effectively presents a unique coming of age and redemptive story, as Gus, eighteen in a week, realizes the wrongs of his fronting and womanizing ways, even a quick second thought leads me to believe that the film is simply a moral duping.

The opening shots of a young Jessica waking up to a house full of people sleeping on the floor after a recognizable suburban house party is as gorgeous as much of the dialogue free portions of the film, set to minimal piano music, and far transcends the Mumblecore label, but it's when the character's begin to talk that the film finds itself on very rocky and awkward footing. I first rolled my eyes at Bill and Gus as they discussed the girls they got with or wanted to get with, but mistakenly thought the film would follow the more innocent seeming Bill with a crush on Gus's ex-girlfriend. Instead, the film tells quite a different story about Gus who we hear recount stories about getting blow jobs through brown bags, and sleeping with the hottest fourteen year old (Kate) at a party. It's later that the story of sleeping with Kate is revised, as Gus decides to tell Jessica the truth, that he raped Kate.

By making the party atmosphere and the characters feel so real, it's hard not to first get caught up in sympathizing with Gus who clearly has regrets for what he's done, and who is oh so stereotypically sensitive because he thinks about studying "like art, or photography" but ultimately, the film attempts to just give him a pass because of how guilty he feels, and even worse, excuses it because he goes to Kate and she doesn't recall anything so horrible ever happening to her. Beyond that, the film tries to make you forget that right before even telling Jessica the truth, Gus sleeps with yet another girl, and really, what is his motivation for talking to Jessica other than seeing a pretty girl sitting alone. In the end, it seems Gus only lets his guard down because Jessica's defenses are so far up as she is aware of Gus's reputation.

The film seems to want to make a statement about lost innocence, growing up, and moral honestly. The problem is that it does it in such a morally dishonest way by asking the audience to absolve Gus of such a horrible act simply because no one remembers it but him. And on top of that, he somehow gets the girl.

I'm Finished

Again, it's been over a month since I last blogged, and a few posts since I actually wrote anything, so first a little catch up.

Yes, I am finished! July 29th and 30th, 2008 were the two days I took the IL Bar Exam, and if I passed that most daunting of exams, I will officially be a licensed attorney in November. As for Day 1 of the exam, which was all essays, the morning had me pumped up as they were some of the easiest essay topics I could have asked for, but that afternoon had me freaked out. It's frustrating to spend a whole summer learning and memorizing 14 areas of law and inane acronyms, anticipating that the bar examiners could throw anything at you, including the impossibly confusing Secured Transactions, only to get a bunch of essays on the MBE topics (Torts, Contracts, Constitutional Law, Real Property, Criminal Law, Evidence). Day 2 was the multiple choice. While I had done my fair share of practice problems over the course of the summer, it's still nearly impossible to say how it really went. It's a long wait until October to see how it went, and I'm trying not to think about it too much, but it's obviously a nerveracking wait.
I still can't believe I had to wait a week and a half to see The Dark Knight. The summer Batman Begins came out, I was going to every midnight screening I could (although I was also living in the suburbs with my mom so entertainment was short at hand), but thanks to the Bar Exam, I had to wait. Seeing it the night before the Bar Exam was not the great idea it seemed it would be. I had heard from a lot of people that one should unwind, relax, and distract one's self by catching a movie before the exam. When that was suggested, no one probably had a sold out show at the Navy Pier Imax in mind. It wasn't quite as bad as the time I watched Beatrix Kiddo get buried alive the day of my Poppy's funeral, but it probably ranks right under as one of my worst theater going experiences. And no, this does not reflect on the film, which I thought was very good, but not the masterpiece that some are claiming (Ah, if only I had a large readership who could flame me in my comments for not saying it's perfect). With all the commercials claiming, "It must be seen twice," what I like to think is that they mean, "You must see it twice if you saw it under a high stress situation seated next to a little girl who could not have been more than 2 years old who babbled endlessly and clapped every time the Joker was on screen while her brother rummaged through plastic bags next to you for ten minutes searching for snacks and a distraction because he was also too young to see the film and was scared." Please, leave the kids at home next time. I am the Batman.
Luckily, I've been able to stay pretty busy since taking the Bar Exam as I am now currently funemployed and my days are wide open. Even the day after, I went to my sister's law firm and picked up a small assignment. After spending a whole summer studying, it felt suprisingly light and easy and fortunately paid extremely well. Then, it was off to Lollapalooza for the weekend. I also am trying to avoid making comparisons to last year, because it at least felt like a let down, but I think that's a little unfair. It's easy to look back at last year and only think of the highs like dancing at Interpol or standing in the rain at Spoon and forget about the down times when this year also had its own share of highs and lows. Mark Ronson blew me away, Bloc Party reminded me that I forgot how enjoyable they are, Foals and Flogging Molly were energetic highlights, and Nine Inch Nails were a suprisingly fun way to end the festival by singing along to Hurt and jumping around to Head Like a Hole. While I claimed countless times that this might be my last year of the festival, we'll see if I can resist next year.
Yesterday I saw Pineapple Express. While it was really funny and James Franco was hilarious (so nice to see him in something good), it was definitely on the lower tier of Apatow productions. With another script by Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen, the heart of the film couldn't help but feel like a retread of Superbad, being about male comradare and friendship. With the announcement of Knocked Up, I was so excited to hear that Seth Rogen would be a Hollywood lead, but two years later, Rogen already seems to be overstaying his welcome with his limited range and annoying laugh. Again, I didn't hate the film. The first three quarters were really funny, but the last quarter simply fell apart by transforming into an action movie. I felt the film was trying to do what Hot Fuzz did so well and become a parody of action films with such over the top and cliche action, but the problem is with the direction. David Gordon Green grounds so much of the film in some semblance of reality, shooting the over the top action in a way that still makes the viewer wince and groan, that when Red gets shot for a third time, it's hard to know whether to just laugh and accept it, or roll your eyes at such implausability. Still, it was a good time at the movies.

Wrapping up, my time is honestly wide open right now expect for a short stint at CD City in 11 days where although I will be "working," my time will comprably be just as free. I'm thinking of doing something comprable to what I did when I was watching Skins and blogging every episode of a series, but can't decide what to do it with. If I can figure it out, I may add a poll (although I don't actually know if I have enough readers to actually vote) but in the running are Mad Men, Doctor Who, and Battlestar Galactica.