Monthly Archive for November, 2008

This issue of Pontifications will feature rapid-fire, ultra-fast statements. Rest assured that each of them is searing, undulating truth. You could, as they say, take these rock-solid affirmatives “to the bank,” but I’m not sure what the interest rate on voracity is right now, so don’t deposit just yet.

-My wife has an evil laugh. Have you ever heard this woman’s giggle? Ever partaken of her chuckle? They’re lovely, and they are absolutely maniacal. You might not notice it at first, but close your eyes and listen next time, you’ll be stunned. I think it’s because her first “ha” always crescendos, then decrescendos rapidly, creating the “aaahHAHAhahahaha” texture that Bond villains so love. To this day, I check our closet every night for doomsday devices or secret agents bound and gagged…just in case. 

-”Twilight” isn’t going to be that big of a hit. Yes, it’s going to have a booming opening weekend, but franchise success is a marathon, not a sprint. I’ve been paying attention, and everyone who’s seen this thing is saying the same thing: “meh.” So sure, the fangirls will hit the cinemas all weekend, but the movie’s not exciting people enough to last past the rush of seeing the story come to life. Teenage girls carried “Titanic” to a billion dollars on their skinny little shoulders, but they did it because the movie was good, and there was no book to compete for their attention. I predict the tweens will see it once, maybe twice, then go right back to reading; meanwhile, no one else will bother.

-”Fantastical” is the dumbest word in the English language and if you say it I’ll harm you physically. I seriously cannot listen to this thing uttered by anyone. Apart from the noisome, garbled fashion in which it exits the mouth, its meaning is redundant and can be expressed via other, more worthy adjectives. 

-Countess Bathory was one of the worst people to ever exist. Don’t look into what she did, it will erode your faith in humanity. I mention her only so you can avoid anything with her name near it from here on out. Some things just go beyond “wrong.”

-Don’t use cell phone car chargers. I had an enlightening talk with a source who will remain anonymous at Verizon; let’s just say this guy would know what the hell he was talking about. According to him, car chargers create a “false charge” that allows your phone to work, but saps the battery’s lifespan, not to mention its ability to function properly in the short-term. In general, cigarette lighter equals bad.

-The universe is speeding up. Back when the “Big Bang” theory was introduced, our natural assumption was that after the universe was created in a fiery explosion, its expansion would gradually run down to nothing over time, much like a car coming to a stop when you turn the engine off. New research definitively states exactly the opposite: the universe is getting exponentially bigger, and it’s doing so at faster and faster speed. Eventually, everything in existence is going to be so far away from everything else that life will be impossible. Yikes.

-Golf is a strategic game…not a sport. Whenever I make this point, I get mired in arguments where people offer, as a rebuttal, that golf is quite difficult; clearly they feel that I am intending to take something away from the game, which I am not. I agree that golf requires extraordinary skill and hard work, but so does chess, so that’s not enough. In the English language, a “sport” is classified as an athletic activity, and “athletic” is defined as pertaining to strength, agility or stamina; golf tests none of these. It is about physical discipline, yes, but it isn’t strenuous in any way, it’s about control and accuracy. Also, there’s no way that I’m calling a guy who drives a little car across the playing field while a lackey carries anything heavy an “athlete.” Not happening. Golf is one of the most difficult tactical competitions invented by man, but it’s not a sport.

-Denzel Washington may be the greatest male lead in Hollywood history. I’m not going to say he’s the best, I’m just going to say that nobody tops him. You have never watched a movie and thought, “Wow. that guy owns Denzel,” and you never will. 

-Denzel Washington is the greatest name ever constructed. That I WILL say definitively. Say it a few times, you’ll get chills.

-”Listerine” is the s**t. I apologize for the lame, bleeped-out profanity there, but it was just the perfect way to say it. “Listerine” doesn’t kill germs, it prosecutes them with extreme prejudice and then removes their names from written record. It should be federal law that you have to use the stuff twice a day to be permitted to stand near anyone in public. Yeah, it hurts when you gargle, and I’m okay with that, it’s part of the reason I use it. Recently, of course, Johnson and Johnson has gone the pansy route and started making a new, no-sting “Listerine;” I think this is ill-advised. Americans fundamentally love the idea of medicine so strong it might harm you a little, we’re “maximum strength” people. There is a very real market out there for a product that says, “You’re Damned Right it Hurts.” Stick to your guns, guys. 

-Wolves get their genitals stuck together after intercourse. It’s true, I’ve seen videos of it while attending accredited courses on sexual behavior at the College of William and Mary. Turns out, having privates that swell up and get stuck is an evolutionary advantage, because it keeps competitive males from interfering with fertilization. Of course, the animals themselves don’t really know that, so the look on their faces as they try to walk in opposite directions hurts me just thinking about it. There’s a lesson there somewhere, but it’s probably best left unsaid.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10.0 (for reference, I’d give “Casino Royale” a 9.6)

The main thing I keep hearing about “Quantum of Solace” is that it’s not “Casino Royale.” I disagree, I think that’s exactly what this movie is: a continuation and resolution of that masterpiece’s emotional story arc. A direct sequel is a very new thing in the Bond universe, but it was the right move, because we the audience haven’t recovered from Vesper Lynd’s death any more than James has, and we want to grieve with him. Director Marc Forster and the writing team comprised of Paul Haggis, Robert Wade and Peal Purvis were right on the money when they decided to drop us in right where we left off. 

The story ostensibly revolves around an organization called Quantum, and its nefarious attempts to unseat political establishment in Bolivia for its own purposes; cue James Bond to try and stop them, while befriending a few femme fatales along the way. The deeper story here is the bruised anguish hiding within 007, caused by the apparent betrayal and then death of the woman he loved. Like any rational person in his situation, Bond can’t decide how to feel, sometimes angry or indifferent towards Vesper’s memory, sometimes desperate to avenge her. The audience’s enormous sympathy for his plight is the story’s heart, and Forster and company know that and use it deftly. When I imagine Craig’s Bond in my mind, his cold eyes hungering for blood and scars all over his face, I am reminded of something that M says to him: “I think you’re so blinded by inconsolable rage that you don’t care who you hurt.”

I can’t get over the Shakespearian eloquence of that line, nor Judi Dench’s predictably forceful delivery of it. I think it speaks to what this film is really about: mourning. James Bond is a man who utterly exposed his heart, and had it returned broken and horrified; he doesn’t even have the comfort of a single person to blame. So he rages out of control, pretending he just wants to get the job done while he tries to find some kind of comfort in the haze of gunfire. It’s all he has now. 

Along the way, we encounter a beautiful and mysterious woman named Camille who is also after vengeance, but she’s been at it much longer, and she’s beginning to realize that the road leads nowhere. As she and James appraise each other, Bond sees a warning sign, and she sees a reflection of her younger self. We sense that both want to tell the other to stop, to walk away, to make peace with the past, but they are slaves to injuries they sustained long ago, and they keep going. They have no sexual chemistry and the movie doesn’t try to force them to; after all, it would feel bizarre to have another “Bond girl” in the traditional sense of the term now. No, these two people are partners in self-destruction, and what they learn from each other has nothing to do with romance. 

Meanwhile, M very accidentally finds herself caring for James like a mother, something she did not do in “Casino Royale.” The reasons are simple: she understands his suffering, she is the only person who really could, and she trusts his certainty and conviction, particularly since her bosses want her to ally with the same monsters she’s been sending 007 to exterminate. In a world where the enemy is uncertain, a headstrong assassin is oddly comforting. 

Okay, okay, so this is all fine, but what about the action? It’s absolutely dynamite. The opening car chase is more of a destruction derby than anything else, and it’s executed with serious style. Ditto for a winning aerial dogfight and all the hand-to-hand combat, the latter of which avoids the “shaky cam” tactics that diminished Greengrass’ “Bourne” films. There are stunts and spectacle aplenty, more than enough to satisfy any action movie fan. I liked the dirty, rough feel these scenes had; cars get torn up, suits get blood and sand all over them, the victors limp away and have to bandage themselves up. It doesn’t go so far as to feel un-Bond, but it definitely makes the punches land with a harder thud.

“Quantum of Solace” has been getting bad reviews from some people, there’s no question, and even the good ones are kind of hesitant. I don’t understand this at all, especially when “The Bourne Ultimatum” had far less story, offered almost nothing new, and everyone loved it. In every aspect of the production and execution, “Quantum” dutifully maintains the tone and character that “Casino Royale” established, even faithfully resolving Vesper’s story arc, but for some reason this isn’t good enough, and that kind of irritates me. I think the filmmakers wisely elected to make an egoless film, one that honors its predecessor and tries to do right by the characters. But much like the second guy to land on the moon, they get no credit for it.

I don’t mean to sound harsh here, but stop sounding disappointed because this movie isn’t revolutionary like “Casino” was. It shouldn’t be. Daniel Craig’s debut set the tone, and now it was this movie’s job to follow the example, and it did so adroitly. Craig is a great Bond, there was plenty of action, there were interesting Bond girls, there was a villain who was inevitably overcome. You knew that’s what you were getting when you bought the ticket, that’s what you wanted, and I think it’s a little hypocritical to look down your nose at them for doing their job.

Now, that being said, I do think this movie was imperfect, just not in the ways I keep hearing. For one thing, Mathieu Amalric’s Dominic Greene was never given enough screen time. The actor did a great job, and his character fascinated and terrified me, but they wouldn’t let us get any quality time with him. There’s a great scene where Greene asks his bodyguards if the man in front of them is “one of us.” They reply that he is not, so Greene shields his face and snarls, “Then he shouldn’t be looking at me.” There is something both pathetic and ferocious about this, and I was instantly interested in it, but I left the theater feeling shortchanged by his screen time.

Also, the resolution of Mathis’ character from the first film is unsatisfying. (SPOILER ALERT) Killing him off felt arbitrary and unfair, something about it just thudded in my emotional experience. (SPOILERS OVER) And lastly, I did want James to emote a little more than he did. I could sense the wound he was feeling underneath his hard exterior, but there were several moments where I thought it made sense for that wound to bleed openly and it just didn’t. It didn’t take away too much, but I think it would have locked the story’s undercurrent down more to let him open himself up.

Hey there, my beloved readers! I know, I know, I haven’t updated in a long time, and I apologize. Rest assured that we’ll be back on schedule with daily posts ASAP. 

Corelyn just started her new job the other day, working as a member of the support staff to a sales team for a company that’s been doing very well with the whole “health shakes” thing. We both feel this is a giant blessing from the Lord, and an answer to prayer: the people she works with seem very nice, the company clearly makes taking care of its employees its highest priority, and she’s able to get home by about 3 or 4 o’clock every day. The catch on that last one is that she has to be in at 6 a.m, since some of her bosses are on a different time zone than her, but let’s be honest here: mornings suck. It doesn’t matter if it’s 6 or 8 in the morning, the floor is always cold and the bed you’re leaving is always warm.

On a completely different note, Corelyn and I have been attending a local bar’s trivia night for a few weeks now with some friends of ours. I don’t honestly know why we do it, since we always get creamed, but normally it’s just about spending time with the people, so it’s all good. This past Tuesday, however, our typical mad scramble for intellectual survival was substituted with a surreal, almost dream-like coasting past the competition to achieve 3rd place. We were bestowed with a sheet of white printer paper that promised us ten entire dollars towards our next purchase. Given that our team is, at smallest, five people strong, I’m already fantasizing about where my two dollars will go. With wealth like this, one can’t help but scoff and wonder, “What economic crisis?” I think I’ll begin referring to myself as “landed gentry.”

Switching topics again, I am now officially a member of California’s public transit community, and I can report that they’ve clearly gotten their act together in the last few years. The buses are pretty clean, they move fast, and they’re on time. That being said, all public transportation has an axiomatic “inside joke” quality to it; when you first start, you are immediately of a sense that you don’t understand “how things are done around here.” It reminded me of when Cor and I went to a Catholic mass for one of her classes. We figured that these guys and gals were here to try and get a high-five from Christ the same as we were, so how different could it be? Thirty minutes later, we were such sore thumbs we practically felt ourselves throb. And, to be quite honest, the little things the congregation all knew how to do weren’t written down anywhere, ever. I imagine that’s part of the magic, you feel united by experience.

The bus is the same way. You assume the principles are so basically in agreement with your desires that nothing can go wrong, and it absolutely can. I won’t get into specifics, but I will tell you I ended up walking home yesterday after a misunderstanding about which bus stops correspond to which buses. 

Let me also say that I gravely overestimated a Los Angeles bus driver’s capacity for empathy. I was amazed that these men could see me flinging myself at them for asylum, body literally wrought with effort, and feel nothing. They are hardened misers, I tell you, worn down by cheap skates and liars. There simply aren’t enough Ghosts of Christmas Anything to get these people relating to the rest of their species anytime soon.

And, for my last turnabout in subject matter, Corelyn and I recently saw “Rachel Getting Married” at the Arclight. We give it very high marks as compelling drama with three dimensional characters. Yes, it is a dysfunctional family kind of flick, but the strong endorsement of the importance of family and the power of faith in God on display won me over. This is a movie that takes faith and family quite seriously, even if the titular ceremony is a little bit of a cultural oddity. Extra high praise for Anne Hathaway’s magnetic performance as Kym, the central character. It’s time to start talking about an Oscar for her.

John Carpenter’s “Halloween” was one of those movies that changed the landscape around it. Much like “Jaws” and “Star Wars,” its success re-wrote the rules in the Hollywood playbook and altered what people expect to see in a movie theater. Unlike the two other classics I just named, however, “Halloween” was a low-budget, independently financed picture that started with a pitiful little release in a smattering of theaters. There was no marketing campaign, there were very few commercials, and all signs indicated that this little horror flick about a madman stalking babysitters would fade into obscurity forever.

But then something magical happened, because John Carpenter’s little movie had one important thing in its corner: it never left an audience unsatisfied. Like a wildfire spreading from a tiny little flame, journalists and everyday people would run home and write up rave reviews about this new indie picture that had scared them half to death. One by one, nearby theaters starting picking it up, and the next thing anyone knew, “Halloween” was everywhere. In a time before internet, the buzz was still unstoppable; this film was so damned good it rode to worldwide distribution deals on the backs of satisfied customers, who happily did the heavy lifting. A sensation was born.

Watching “Halloween” now still hits with force, even though the plot conventions that Carpenter and co-writer Deborah Hill came by honestly are now tired and crass. Knock-offs like “Friday the 13th” have a trashy, low feel to them, but Michael Myer’s debut remains a great experience because it’s about something. It is a grave error to assume that just because a long succession of slasher flicks have offed promiscuous teenagers on tradition alone, “Halloween” must also fit this mold. It doesn’t. There is a deep psychological undercurrent beneath the surface which remains haunting long after the “boo” moments have worn off. “Halloween” is an elemental film.

I’ll do a twenty second plot recap, although I doubt it’s necessary: in the small town of Haddonfield, IL, a young boy named Michael Myers stabs his sister to death on Halloween night. He is quickly institutionalized and spends the next fifteen years in utter silence, invulnerable to any kind of rehabilitation. Then, as Halloween rolls around again, he escapes and returns home to continue what he started, trailed by his doctor, Sam Loomis, who is the only man fully aware of how evil his patient really is.

“Halloween” is separated from its clones first and foremost by the lessons that John Carpenter learned from his hero, Alfred Hitchcock. The first is to downplay not only the blood and gore, but even the bad guy himself; after all, the audience’s imagination will always render far scarier things than a movie can if you give it ammunition. Just like Janet Leigh’s death scene is etched in our collective memories because we saw little and imagined much, Michael Myers is at his scariest when all we can see is the white of his mask, hovering in the dark. The second is to keep the budget down. By the time Hitchcock made “Psycho,” he had the clout to bring in giant piles of money, but he deliberately shot on a shoestring budget, because he felt that low-rent horror films had a danger and edginess that studio pictures couldn’t duplicate. He was right, and Carpenter echoed the same principle into his bare bones production. Now it’s worth pointing out that “Halloween” couldn’t really afford disgusting special effects and piles of money, and consciously adapted to make the best of their situation; I don’t truly know if John Carpenter would have taken the high road if he hadn’t been forced to. After all, it’s a well-known fact that he re-shot several death scenes in “Halloween II” to make them more gruesome, even though the original director had wanted to honor his bloodless example. “Halloween,” it seems, may well exceed the talents of the people who made it.

Of course, the center of “Halloween”’s success is that it’s terrifying. Using slow-burn horror, Carpenter gently ratchets up the threat level on his unsuspecting protagonists, whose ignorance of the monster lurking so close to them becomes maddening. Scene after scene surprises the viewer with its outcome, Michael never does exactly what you expect him to. He waits patiently for his moment, observing potential victims with an off-putting curiosity. We the audience want to believe that Michael is just a crazy dude who’d like to kill something the first chance he gets, but somehow he’s up to something more.

And here we have stumbled on some of “Halloween”’s real genius: unlike too many other cinematic butchers, Michael has hints of a personality. We don’t consciously register his motive, but on a gut level, we recognize his behavior as social. Killing these girls is not an act of passion or malice for him, he simply wants to connect with them somehow, and he doesn’t know of any other way. This is why Michael’s stalking so frequently coincides with his targets talking about or engaging in sex: intercourse frustrates and befuddles the Shape (as he is referred to in the credits), because he is wired to desire the closeness that lovemaking provides, but his circuitry is broken and he cannot get to it. Murder is the only intimacy he has access to.

There is a single scene, which lasts around ten seconds, that perfectly captures this. We see Laurie Strode walking away from the camera down a sidewalk, singing a love song to herself: “I wish I had you all alone…just the two of us…” No music is playing, the birds chirp, the wind blows. Michael’s shoulder suddenly slides into frame, and now we are watching Laurie from his perspective, his breathing steadily flapping against his mask. There are two brilliant things here: firstly, Laurie is walking away from Michael, she is slowly escaping his grasp, even though she doesn’t know it. Second, the lyrics that Laurie hums to herself are likely echoing in the Shape’s mind, because just like his prey, Myers wants to feel intimacy with other people. This scene sets up the force that will drive Michael to try and murder this girl and her friends: he wants to connect to her, and he feels she is constantly slipping away.

And, of course, there is the prey: Laurie, virginal and overwhelmingly shy, is the heart of the story. Consider that she and Michael are very much alike: both of them are frustrated by an inability to be intimate with people even though they would like to be. Laurie has a crush on a boy named Ben Tramer, but she can’t develop the social vocabulary to inform him of this, even when she discovers the feeling is likely mutual. The major difference is that Myers has found an activity he can use to bridge the gap for himself, even though it destroys the other party, whereas Laurie would rather martyr herself into loneliness than harm someone else. It’s not up on the surface, but the fact that these two characters are so alike, and feel so many of the same emotions, tugs gently on your mind as you watch, and little things like this separate a movie you treasure many times from something you use and dispose of.

Next there’s Annie Brackett, one of Laurie’s two best friends, who is completely her opposite: loudmouthed, cocky, sexually experienced and cynical. Annie is the sheriff’s daughter, and it may be that she is too used to feeling safe and protected, even if she actually isn’t; of all the people killed in “Halloween,” she is the only one who never sees it coming. Despite her brash and mocking demeanor, she is intensely likable, probably because the actress who plays her, Nancy Loomis, has a natural maturity that contradicts her childish antics in a pleasing way. We always feel like she knows she’s being immature, and might snap out of it soon, and that makes her interesting. I doubt that Annie was anywhere near that sympathetic in the script, which just goes to show you the magic of casting.

Lastly, there is Lynda van der Klok, who is as blonde and ditzy as they come; we definitely do not get the impression that this one is going to grow out of it. Although P.J. Soles plays her well, there really isn’t an awfu lot to say about Lynda, because she is meant to personify the intellectual ambivalence that gets a lot of kids killed during this movie. Danger is very near here, and she simply doesn’t take the time to notice it.

And here we reach a central theme of “Halloween.” Many have suggested that a puritanical code of ethics is built into this movie, since only the virgin survives, but I think the truth is more intellectually compelling. The virgin does indeed survive, but not because sex is dirty and people who do it must suffer, but because these are teenagers who are playing with things they don’t understand. They smoke, drink and get laid without even pausing to consider the consequences, certain of their own invincibility. Michael Myers personifies the danger they don’t so much flirt with as ignore completely, so it’s appropriate that he is always hovering around while sex is happening or alcohol is being consumed. He is a symbol for the harsh realities of life, and his ability to sneak up on the girls while they aren’t looking is a powerful allegory about the dangers of careless youth.

Laurie, on the other hand, is too shy to adopt a devil may care attitude, so her eyes are more open to what’s happening around her. She catches Michael hanging around early on, and never takes her eyes off of him if she can help it. We should not think that Laurie is some paragon of feminine chastity that Carpenter is trying to hoist on his audience, because the “reward” for her virginity is a series of traumatic experiences that leave her emotionally wrecked as the credits roll. She doesn’t survive because she won’t have sex, she survives because her shyness makes her feel vulnerable, and that makes her pay attention. It’s also significant that Laurie never attempts to extract a motive from the Shape, even when he’s just watching her. Maybe she would have, but it never occurs to her to try, because loners understand each other, even when they don’t want to.

Ah, and of course, the great Donald Pleasance as Dr. Sam Loomis. A legendary British actor, Pleasance imbues his dialogue with solemn credibility, then just a sprinkle of cheesiness to keep things lively. He knows when to push the lines for maximum drama, and when to let them sink in gently. Loomis functions as the Cassandra of this movie, casting out prophecies of doom that no one will listen to. We the audience know he is right, however, and we heed his warnings gravely. Many compare him to Ahab, but I’ve always thought it was a bad parallel: Moby Dick’s adversary selfishly desired the white whale for his own sense of conquest, but Dr. Loomis’ obsession comes from moral obligation. He knows that he is the only person who can see what is about to happen, and he has to try and stop it.

One of the quirkiest things about “Halloween” is Michael’s inexplicable, supernatural threshold for punishment. This is a quality that is escalated to parody within a few movies’ time, but in the original it holds a haunting ambiguity. There is no attempt to justify how the Shape gets shot five times, falls out of a window, then gets up and runs away within ten seconds, but we never need one. In most movies this would completely shatter the suspension of disbelief, but in a film this masterful, it is simply the solemn confirmation of a fact we already knew: this man is something beyond a man.

“Halloween” has been ripped off for decades, and with each new iteration, the intellect that made it so powerful is slowly sapped away, leaving only the misogynistic ritual of watching girls get naked, then pretending to stab them to death (cough Rob Zombie’s unforgivable re-make cough). I hate these movies, and I hate that they trace their lineage back to Carpenter’s masterpiece. It breaks my heart that “Halloween” is sequeled over and over without even passing regard for what made the first one a landmark, and I fear it keeps people away from the movie who might appreciate quality horror. So, on this Halloween weekend, I felt it was approrpriate to signal my respect for this masterpiece of horror. What a great film.