June 27, 2007
Recently I trekked north to Salem,
MA to visit the Peabody-Essex Museum
and see the Joseph Cornell exhibit. Pretty
much everybody knows about Cornell’s boxes, but his experimental films were new
to me, and a friend and myself sat in the screening room and watched,
entranced, a selection of his shorts. Most consisted of images of ordinary people and places and quotidian details, shot in long takes, silent,
often in black and white, and held
together by the barest of narrative or metaphorical structures. Or maybe held
together just by the sheer pleasure of
looking, of seeing something real through the illuminating medium of film.
At a certain point a mother brought her two kids in, a boy and
girl aged about 8 to 10, and I thought to myself, uh-oh, this will end soon and
badly. To our surprise, the kids seemed as rapt as 
we were, watching the films without a word and a fidget until their mother retrieved
them about a half hour later.
Weren’t kids that age, indeed, kids up the age of 24, supposed to
have a short attention span? How
is it that these two remained engrossed in
images of sunlight through leaves, of pigeons, old people, children and
fountains, that were vibrant and real and immediate on some autumn day fifty
years ago? Don’t kids demand the special effects and rapid fire editing that leaves
only a Pavlovian impression on their jaded but readily manipulated retinas? Or
is Hollywood
conning us, and kids would really prefer Bresson (I’m serious: what kid
wouldn’t like “Balthazar?”)? Has anyone done any studies on this? If not, they
should.
June 24, 2007
Not that he needs any more publicity for his upcoming film "Sicko," but here's a rough transcript of an interview I had with Michael Moore when he made an appearance in Manchester, New Hampshire to promote the movie
Q: You used to be print journalist. Want to go back to that? A little
easier?
MM: I often think about how much I like to write and how writing
is more peaceful and sometimes a more personally enjoyable way to spend my
time.
Q: Less controversial?
MM: I don’t mind that part of it. That’s what goes along with it.
I guess, you know, I don’t accept it. I don’t quite understand what the
controversy is about. What have I done? I’ve kind of thought about this a long
time. The things I’ve made films about --
a dying auto town, school shootings -- what’s the controversy? Is it because of
the things I propose as a result of the film, whatever?
Q: Your style maybe?
MM: The style is different from what they’re used to, it’s not
controversial. Roger & Me came
along and it wasn’t a traditional documentary. It wasn’t the traditional Fred
Wiseman approach. So people are saying,
what’s this?
Q: It’s more in your face than Wiseman.
MM: A lot more. And yet, and even though he claims that he
doesn’t have a point of view…
Q: … he actually admits that documentaries don’t have any
objectivity.
MM: I’m glad to hear that. Because people throw that at me all
the time. You could be like Fred Wiseman and be objective. That’s not
objective. He’s making a lot of decisions -- where to place the camera, who to
follow, and then he’s in the editing room. These are all subjective decisions.
So…
Q: When I first heard about this subject, I thought it sounded
tame. It shouldn’t be controversial. Most people would agree with your basic
premise that Health Care sucks. But it’s turned out to be this hot potato. Why?
MM: I think it’s because it’s me. The right wing, the Fox News
Channel have done a good job over the years of defining me. Almost in a sense
creating a fictional character. Called Michael Moore. And so they add little
stories in that character. Not just them, but all those in opposition to me. And I
read these stories some times and I kind of laugh because it’s kind of funny,
it’s not real. it’s humorous sometimes.
Q: Some of the points of controversy they dwell on include the
trip to Cuba.
Which is only a fraction of the movie. Looking back, would you have reconsidered
doing that?
MM: It really isn’t the focus of the audience’s attention. When
the audience sees the movie, they’re not focused on that; they’re moved by so
much of the other stuff. If anything, they’re happy about what’s good for the 9/11
rescue workers. They’re grateful for that. It’s kind of a manufactured
controversy. Essentially initiated by the Bush administration by going after
me. Which I thought was an usual thing to do. But it should never be
controversial for a free society to travel 90 miles from its own shores. When
you sit back and think about that. When they dig up this tape 30, 40, 50 years
from now they’ll look at it and go, that was like a big deal? They lived in a
free democracy and yet its own citizens couldn’t travel wherever they wanted?
Q: Unless things get remarkably worse.
MM: Oh, don’t say that.
Q: I was especially affected by the Cuban firefighters greeted
the 9/11 workers. But speaking about the Federal government, what is the latest on
that case? Will you be making a return trip to Guantanamo in a jumpsuit?
MM: It's still pending. I would like to go back and show the movie
to the Cuban people. I will. I’m not going to pay any attention to these people
in the Bush administration. They’re criminals. Criminals investigating me?
Seriously. The only investigation that needs to take place is of them. They
lied. They dragged us into a war that now has cost us 3500 lives…
Q: 14 in the last 48 hours…
MM: Is that right. Jeez, I
haven’t even seen the news today.
Q: When you hear about something like that or the Virginia Tech
shooting, do you feel like you’re banging your head against a wall?
MM: Yes. And I often think, and maybe this is just my Catholic
upbringing, but I often feel like… a failure.. I spend all this time trying to
get people to pay attention, to maybe do something. I take it out a lot on
myself, and say to myself, maybe you’re not doing it the right way. Maybe you’re not
reaching enough people and maybe you need to think about doing it differently.
And I’ll tell you a lot of thought went into that before this film. I’m not
criticising the other films. Because they’ll stand the test of time. They’ll
probably look prophetic in the years to come. Yet I’m not doing this to look
like a prophet here or a guy with a crystal ball who can guess that GM is going
to take a downslide. I’m not.That’s not why I started to do this. I started
with "Roger & Me" because I was hoping to do something to save my home town.
That didn’t happen. It’s in worse shape than ever. School shootings continue,
we’re in the fifth year of this war. You could make a case that Michael Moiore
is fairly ineffectual I terms of using his art to affect change. Maybe I’m
being too hard on myself. Maybe I’m taking the short view of this. In the long
run, it will have a cumulative effect. And I’ve
seen the change since I was booed off the Oscar stage four years ago..
Q: There were some cheers.
MM: Yes. I’ll tell you where I got the cheers from. I saw the
whole thing; you couldn’t see it on TV. The cheers came from my fellow members
of the Academy who were sitting down below. The nominees. Meryl Streep and
JUlianne Moore and Martin Scorsese and Harvey. People like that were cheering.
But up in the balcony in this one section, where they usually have the tickets
for the advertisers and sponsors, that’s where it was coming from. It was
pretty loud. the director was givig the cue to start the music, they started
lowering the mic. Remember they figured on not even having the Oscars. And then
we got the word three days before that they were going to have it, but a
shortened version, and they’d remove certain categories from the show. Like
documentary. So they were ready to deal me should I win.
Q: At the time about 80% were for the war. Now it’s reversed.
MM: Right. Now it’s about 70% against the war.
Q: So the will of the people means nothing.
MM: You mean right now? Well, we don’t have a Parliamentary
system, so you’re right, it doesn’t mean jack if you’re in between these four
years where you’re stuck with the guy that you
voted for and now you don’t like him or his war. Do you ever wionder
sometimes that some of this ooposition to the war isn’t anti-war but it’s more
like, jeez, we’re losing? I don’t wanna lose! I want victory! Let’s get out of
there! Sometimes I wonder.
Q: Harvey
wanted you to cut out the Hillary scene?
MM: He liked the first part…
Q: “Sexy, sassy, smart…”
MM: Right. It was the second part where I point out that she’s
the second largest recipient in the Senate of Health Care industry money.
Q: Still tight with him, though?
MM: Yeah. He was upset. But what’s he going to do? I got to tell
you something, too. Whatever else you’ve heard about Harvey, he’s been 100% in support of me,
complete creative freedom, no trouble whatsoever. That has been my continual
experience with him. It was that way with Fahrenheit
9/11, an earlier film of mine called The
Big One. I really have nothing negative to say about him or his brother.
Q: Since we’re in New
Hampshire, are you supporting any candidate? Are you
following the campaigns? How do you see this film affecting the outcome?
MM: I’ve not endorsed a candidate and have no intention to do so
any time in the near future. I want to see what they have to say and what their
plans are. There’s one candidate that I wish would get into the race because I
think he’d good for the discussion..
Q: Don’t say Ralph Nader…
MM: Please. Al Gore. I hope that he decides to run. And yes I
hope this film will have a significant effect on the election. And I hope this film helps put this
issue at the top of the agenda of things to be discussed. And that is why we
are here in New Hampshire.
Q: Except for Dennis Kucinich, it seems that most of the
Democratic candidates are pretending you don’t exist..
MM: Well, I know it’s a little rough on them, and people think of
me as this anti-Bush filmmaker. They obviously either forgot about me or weren’t
paying attention to me when Bill Clinton was in the White House. I was very
much on him, after him, through my writings, through my films. As I was when
Bush’s father was prseident. I mean, I’ve always done this sort of things. I
think that’sa my job. My job, you’re job, is to be right on top of the leaders
of this country and make sure they do the right thing.
Q: If the Democrats did take up your idea of universal health
care, don’t you worry that you’ll be helping a Republican victory in 2008?
MM: You just uttered a phrase there that’s physically impossible.
Q: What’s that?
MM: The Republicans
winning the next election.
June 20, 2007
Twenty-five years ago Ridley Scott made “Blade Runner,”
initiating the trend in adapting the works of sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick that
continues to this day. Soon, it is rumored, he’ll be working on an adaptation
of a different kind, starting what might be another trend in moviemaking and one that would seem right out of one of
Dick’s bleakest, satiric dystopian visions: he’s making a movie out of
“Monopoly.”
That’s right, the board game. Don’t these guys have a “Clue?”
Actually, that dismal 1985 failure is being remade also, and other games pitched
for the feature treatment include “Candy Land,” “Trivial Pursuit” and the Ouija
board.
But that should come as no surprise in a summer in which not only
half the releases are remakes and sequels (with many more remakes to come, as
reported here), two are adapted from
toys (“Transformers” and “Bratz”), at least a couple from video games (“DOA” and
"Resident Alien”) and one that is not only a sequel but an adaptation of an
amusement park ride (“Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End”). Nor when one
considers the fact that upcoming films have been planned around TV commercials
(The Burger King) and bad art (Thomas Kinkade).
This means more than just a bankruptcy of original ideas, I
think. It means that instead of taking their cue from great films or great
literature or art or human experience, moviemakers today are inspired by the
shit they wasted their allowances on while growing up: toys, video games, junk
food, retro board games, comic books. It means that far from being a viable,
unique art form, movies have become indistinguishable from their own
advertising and merchandising. The film, the ads and the line of spin-off
products are one and the same.
June 13, 2007
I'm sure no one wants to wait until next Thursday to read my review of "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer," which is when it will appear in print since the studio didn't screen it until yesterday, too late for the deadline for this week's issue of the Phoenix. Or perhaps even read it at all. Nonetheless, thanks to the magic of the Internet and probably to the annoyance of the folks at 20th Century Fox, here it is two days early.
x
FANTASTIC FOUR: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER
92 minutes |
Even as a 10-year-old Marvel Comics
fan I knew that the Silver Surfer (voiced by Laurence Fishburne) was a dumb
character: I mean, the guy travels through space on a surfboard. But he comes
as a stroke of genius compared to the mess Tim Story has made of this sequel.
Stretchy genius Mr. Fantastic (Ioan Gruffudd) plans to wed the Invisible Girl
(Jessica Alba), but she’s already started henpecking him, insisting that he
“focus on the wedding” instead of tending to his superhero duties. Her brother
the Human Torch (Chris Evans) remains as charming as an extra in a Coors beer
commercial, and the Thing (Michael Chiklis) still seems to be adjusting to
hands that look like rubber catcher’s mitts. When the Surfer drops in,
unleashing doomsday, they try to get their act together, and so does the movie.
But despite the gratuitous allusions to Gitmo, the third rate effects and
two-bit characters make this a summer wipeout.
_Peter Keough
June 13, 2007
I first started noticing this trend with the commercials. Here’s
just one of the more obnoxious ones, for Coors beer:
Wife in bathroom checking
to see if the strip for her pregnancy test has turned blue: “Honey, I
think this is what we’ve been waiting for…”
Oafish husband checking to see if label of his beer has turned
blue, indicating it has reached the perfect temperature for consumption: “Yes, I think it is!”
And so on.
It’s a familiar pattern, acted out in dozens of other ads, in
which the enjoyment of such guy things as drinking beer, eating junk food or watching
sports gets shunted aside because of some needy, homemaking, or reproducing
female. If the palimpsest of TV ads is correct, and it seldom lies, there is a
crisis in male sensibilities, a conflict between acting like a spoiled
nine-year-old dolt or becoming an emasculated, pussywhipped
boyfriend/husband/dad.
And the movies this summer are all over it. Take “Shrek the
Third” for example. Poor Shrek. All he wants is to hang out in his hovel in
the swamp, eating, sleeping, farting, doing the things an ogre likes to do. But the
beautiful princess he married has transformed into an ogress herself, demanding
he face up to responsibilities and take up her dad’s job as king. Who needs that shit? And then the coup de grace: she’s pregnant!
Or “Spiderman III.” 
Peter Parker as a superhero enjoying the
adulation of millions, getting all the chicks and fighting bad guys if he
didn’t have an idea in his head to marry his high school sweet heart, the
talentless singer and jealous, energy drain Mary Jane.
As for “Knocked Up,” what more to say? Only that the marriage
between the characters played by Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann, in which she hunts him down like a detective to find
out he’s two-timing her to play fantasy baseball with his pals (worse than
adultery in her mind), is one of the most pathological depictions of the
institution of marriage I’ve seen since "The War of the Roses." And it’s supposed to be a good thing!
And finally, and I’m sure that there are plenty of other examples
as well, there’s Fantastic Four: The Rise
of the Silver Surfer
in which bride-to-be Sue Storm, played by the
lusciously vapid Jessica Alba, has
forced her fiancé Reed, Mr. Fantastic no less, to do his earth-saving research
stuff on the sly because otherwise he’s not being “focused” on their wedding.
But honey, Galactus is about to suck all the energy out of the planet!
All of these films have happy endings, of sorts, all affirming
the sanctity of family values. But they also allow the guys a little wiggle
room to do what they do best -- be assholes. So, in the movies at least, the
blue slip of the pregnancy test and the blue label on the beer bottle can be
the same. I think this is what we’ve been waiting for.