Blogging Buffy - Wrapping up Season 1

Season 1 had Buffy (the series, as well as the character) finding its/her footing, bit by bit. The show at this point is still pretty much monster-of-the-week, but what’s admirable is how consistent and tangible the Buffy-verse itself already is. Pretty much everything can happen, but the world these characters live in is not without rules, and fairly consistent - which is more than can be said for many new shows, which undermine their own mythology at every turn. Also, characters who will play a part later (Harmony, Amy, Ms. Calendar) are set up in a natural, unobtrusive way, so that they don’t just appear out of this air later. Then: episode by episode.

1.09 The Puppet Show

“I know Principal Flutie would have said, “Kids need understanding. Kids are human beings.” That’s the kind of wooly-headed liberal thinking that leads to being eaten.” Principal Snyder

Fitna - a review

So, it is done. Wilders’ creation has been unleashed on the interwebs. And…it’s a huge anticlimax because it’s not by far as bad as in everyone’s imagination. I wanted to review it purely based on artistic merit, discounting the issues I might have with the content, but truth be told… it has little, if any. It’s amateurish cut-and-paste work, employing the same techniques Michael Moore often does (most notably superposition to imply a causal connection), but without the skill (and humor) that make Moore’s work bearable.

The one even slightly interesting artistic choice is to show video clips (of 9-11, the attacks in Madrid, imams shouting crazy stuff etc.) framed as if they are in a book, which is suggested to be the Koran. If only it had been done less clumsily. Also, the attempts at manipulation (a hand starts turning a page, the screen fades to black… then a text tells us we just heard a phone book being torn) are crass and obvious. The problem? Crass as the manipulation is, some people are sure to fall for it.

I could go on. About the lack of original material, about the violation of “show, don’t tell”. About its vain attempt to appropriate powerful material (those shots of 9-11, especially, still carry a wallop). But in the end, the so-called “movie” violates the most important rule: it’s boring.

Ironically enough, the ideological content of Wilders’ film might not violate any laws…but it looks like he did violate copyright laws: he used one of the Danish cartoons without asking for permission, and the author is pissed.

I’m fairly radical in my defense of free speech. I think Wilders should be allowed to air his movie. I, in turn, think I should be allowed to dismiss it, and ignore its existence from now on.

Weekend Double Feature: Apocalytic fun

Among my friends, it’s rather the consensus that I “like weird movies”. I tend to find this statement a little broad, but it’s not untrue. A more nuanced way of putting it, is that I like to be surprised: after watching so many movies and recognizing so many familiar patterns in them, it’s nice to be taken aback, to be amazed. And well, to do that…often takes a little weirdness.

Oddly enough, the reason I like noir is exactly the opposite: noirs have so many familiar elements, so many tropes and customs, that it’s fun just to see them all appear. Chiaroscuro lighting? check. A conflicted, maybe-not-entirely-moral man in an entirely immoral world he can’t keep up with? check. A femme fatale? check. A delightfully depressing downer denouement*? check.

So really, it’s no wonder I liked Kiss Me Deadly. And that I thought the Richard Kelly disaster it engendered was… well, you can read my reaction to that after the jump.

Michel Gondry: je t’aime

I’m not actually supposed to write about Be Kind Rewind yet. Not until May 15th in fact. But my editor (commenter Remko) can be assured: a review this is not. It’s a declaration.

Michel, Michel… I just wish I could live in your head. Share your brain, see the world as you do. I want to be as wildly creative, and have as much fun as you do creating. Making something where first there was only a spark of imagination.

I owe you an apology, too. When I first saw and fell in love with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I gave all the credit to Charlie Kaufman. I empathized with Kaufman, because if Adaptation is to believed, he’s a struggler like I am, a laborer, someone for whom creation is hard, sometimes excruciating, it’s work. Kaufman reassures me that just because I sometimes yell in frustration at dear old Larry because a sentence won’t come out right, doesn’t mean I should give up. I’ll never get to his level, but it’s a comfort, somehow, to know even geniuses can have a hard time.

Weekend Double Feature: Ripley

I know, I know, Wednesday very early morning is a bit late for a weekend double feature, but I had some trouble finding a suitable pair. I could have gone for McCabe and Mrs. Miller/Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, but truth be told, they don’t have that much in common, aside both being slow, meandering westerns from the early seventies. As for pairing the latter with I’m Not There, the Billy the Kid segment might have sprung from the Peckinpah movie, but it has very little in common with it. I considered Plein Soleil/The Lady From Shanghai, for the boat scenes, mostly, but I couldn’t find many other correspondances. After all, Orson Welles and his embarrassing Irish brogue want the lady in that movie, and doesn’t care about the money, while Ripley in Plein Soleil only wants the lady because she’s part of the lifestyle he aspires to.

Of course, the logical pairing for Plein Soleil is The Talented Mr. Ripley, the director of which, Anthony Minghella, sadly passed on yesterday. While that’s the double feature I’d recommend, I already discussed it a while ago, and I’d like the weekend double features to include at least one truly new feature. And so, tonight, I watched Ripley Under Ground.

Punch-Drunk Love

I went over to my friend Stefan’s place tonight. To watch “a movie”: we hadn’t quite determined which one. I’d brought the three DVDs I bought today (Bogart&Bacall in To Have and Have Not and in The Big Sleep, and Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth in The Lady From Shanghai), but mostly to show them off. He had quite an impressive amount of films on his computer. We almost settled on In Cold Blood, but it was over two hours long, and considered Punch-Drunk Love instead.

“What’s it about?”, he asked. “I’m not sure”, I answered honestly. “I think it’s supposed to be an oddball rom-com. It’s from the guy who did There Will Be Blood and Magnolia.”

Punch-Drunk Love it was.  A housemate was called in, and got the same reaction. And in the first fifteen, twenty minutes, many “huh?”s ensued.

Blogging Buffy - Intro & 1.01-1.08

For my birthday, faithful commenter & colleague Kaj gave me the first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD. Whedon fan as I am, I was delighted, and have since watched the first 8 with a friend, who was up until now a Buffy-virgin. We’re planning to continue, 2 episodes at the time, until the end of season seven or until we get sick of it - whichever comes first. And here, I will be blogging along.

(Truth be told, I was planning a post on the pleasures of pulp TV, especially that involving immortal men (with recent examples Moonlight and New Amsterdam), going on into a diatribe about the lack of female immortals in lead roles, complaining that those who did seem to have an extended lifespan never for everlasting youth like their male counterparts… but following my post about not-getting an intellectual film like Caché with that seemed a tad too embarrassing. At least it’s more or less intellectually accepted to love Buffy.)

Don’t expect recaps - that’s what Wikipedia, imdb, TWOP or one of the countless other sites are for. Nor will I engage on a regular basis in thorough analysis, though I can’t promise I won’t get carried away every once in a while. I’ll simple offer a few observations about each episode, and try to look at how single episodes fit into the series as a whole, how they illustrate the concept. That, and I’ll of course remind you of some cool quotes. There will be spoilers, but I think it might be interesting to read even for people who haven’t seen every episode, maybe even for those who’ve never seen the show.

Ok. So here goes: after the jump, the first 8 episodes.

Caché

It’s been almost a week since I finally saw Caché, Michael Haneke’s lauded 2005 film about a couple that discovers they’re being watched. And the reason it’s taken me so long to write about it, I’m almost ashamed to admit, is that I was extremely underwhelmed.

Did I miss something? Was I too tired when I watched it, too relaxed, not concentrated enough? An 8.3 on metacritic, 88% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes…I kept examining myself, trying to figure out what it was in me that prevented me from liking this movie.

But what could it be?

Weekend double feature: Killer Lovers

Having hit an all-time visitor high with the Washinton Times thing, I thought the time was ripe for a new, hopefully weekly-ish feature: the weekend double feature, in which I examine a duo of movies linked by… something. Perhaps they share a core story. Perhaps a director, or writer. Perhaps one was a big influence on the other, and perhaps - like in this case - they’re both based on the same true story.

Raymond Fernandez was a con-man who answered Lonely Hearts ads and cheated women out of their money. Martha Beck was an overweight nurse he met through these ads. She fell madly in love with him, and they became partners in crime, Martha posing as Raymond’s sister to lend him an air of respectability. However, Martha was extremey jealous, and the pair of them killed at least two women - and the 2 yo daughter of one of them as well. Seventeen other murders were attributed to the pair. They were both executed in 1951.

In 1970, Leonard Kastle made a B-movie -his only movie - about the case, with Shirley Stoler as Martha and an unctuous Tony Lo Bianco as Ray, The Honeymoon Killers, which was shown the IFFR in February. 36 years later Todd Robinson, the grandson of one of the policemen assigned to the case, cast the considerably prettier Salma Hayek and Jared Leto in the same roles in his film Lonely Hearts.

Quoted

I am… amazed. Flabbergasted. And somewhat intimidated, seeing how every word I write now will be weighed against the fact THAT I WAS QUOTED IN THE F***ING WASHINTON TIMES.

Ahem. Excuse the yelling, But you’ll understand this has me slightly psyched. Or, you know, absolutely manic with glee. The jumping up and down and grinning uncontrollably kind.

I almost feel I need to give some kind of acceptance speech. Thanking Paul, for organizing the Muriels and making it such an inspiring environment, his friend Victor for apparently pulling some strings, and Craig for devoting a post to my little triumph!