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Answered Prayers

I don't want to start any blasphemous rumors, but I think that God has a sick sense of humor.

Can you hear my schadenfreude? Check this out, courtesy of Dana:

Actor Jim Caviezel has been struck by lightning while playing Jesus in Mel Gibson's controversial film The Passion Of Christ. The lightning bolt hit Caviezel and the film's assistant director Jan Michelini while they were filming in a remote location a few hours from Rome. It was the second time Michelini had been hit by lightning during the shoot.

If I recall, the Almighty didn't show Caviezel much mercy in the editing suite for The Thin Red Line, either...

Three is a magic number

You're all familiar with the notion of celebrity [and other deaths] occurring in threes, but I gotta say this set is pretty weird: Elliott Smith, Fred Rerun Berry, and Madame Chiang Kai-Shek.

Smith, of course, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song for "Miss Misery" from Good Will Hunting. Rerun recently appeared as himself in Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star. And cinetrix crush Maggie Cheung starred as Madame Chiang's elder sister Ching-ling in the Hong Kong biopic The Soong Sisters, about China's answer to the Mitfords.

Here's hoping that the former Mai-Ling Soong didn't drop dead at the notion of Julia "Pretty Woman" Roberts playing a professor at her beloved Wellesley in December's Mona Lisa Smile. I'm still not certain I won't [although I'm quite excited about Maggie Gyllenhaal's character, even though I am afraid she might be playing a nervy "ethnic" [read Jewish] intellectual bohemian, based on her character's name. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But how tiresome.]

lifts mere dialogue into the realm of poetry

Over at About Last Night, Terry Teachout drives some traffic here to the nosebleed seats of the blogosphere [wretched term] and does a much better job of talking about Clint Eastwood's score for Mystic River than I ever could. Especially because he doesn't mention Paint Your Wagon even once.

Plus, there's this great bit from film composer Bernard Hermann:

I feel that music on the screen can seek out and intensify the inner thoughts of the characters. It can invest a scene with terror, grandeur, gaiety or misery. It can propel narrative swiftly forward, or slow it down. It often lifts mere dialogue into the realm of poetry. Finally, it is the communicating link between the screen and the audience, reaching out and enveloping all into one single experience.

In the case of Mystic River, it's sort of a schmaltzy treacly flood of molasses [for which an appropriateness argument might be made, given the film's Boston locale]...

On a personal note, I'm still waiting for mobile phones in the US to catch up with Europe and Asia so that one day, when my mobile gets a call, my ringtone will be Hermann's gorgeous circular theme from Vertigo. A cinetrix can dream...

Jesus died for someone's sins, but not mine

The ongoing Mel Gibson movie brouhaha has me longing for an angry, Old Testament god-style comeuppance. Here's the latest: The film is being released on February 25, 2004--Ash Wednesday.

You'll excuse me. The cinetrix needs to put on some loud godless music, slam some doors, and kick things with her steel-toed clogs.

That Riggs sure is crazy, huh, Murtaugh?

I enjoy being a girl: full throttle

Ah, blissful anodyne to indie film angst! That would be Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, which the 'Fesser and I watched last night. I must admit, I kept shrieking with glee at all the boldfaced steals from other movies: Drew throwing down shots just like Karen Allen in the Nepal drinking contest in Raiders, girl welders a la Flashdance, a creeptastic villian straight out of the Cape Fear remake, an Angel-on-Angel showdown at the Griffith Park Observatory from Rebel without a Cause, and a saucy, risque Fosse-style cabaret number that had me looking for Shirley and Chita and Stubby, even.

Yes, Demi Moore sucked, and Bernie Mac's role was so retrograde it made Ernie Hudson's character in Ghostbusters almost twenty years ago seem progressive by comparision. But the onslaught of cameos was great--where else would you get to see Carrie Fisher shrug into the habit of the Penguin from the Blues Brothers so many years after Jake Blues pushed her face down in the muddy sewer? Plus, a blonde Asian cowgirl and Cameron Diaz in the best bull-dyke mullett ever. I suspect Gwyneth Paltrow could learn a few things from the Angels about really reveling in being young, beautiful, and well compensated without feeling compelled to suffer--and tell us that she's suffering--for her art.

CA: FT is what Graham Greene would have called an entertainment, to be sure. But it is just as obviously in love with the movies. Yet how to explain my joyful abandon in the face of such hyper-calculated Hollywood detritus?

The 'Fesser reminded me that Anthony Lane had struggled with this problem in his review of The Saint. It's true. Lane pins it down in the lede, when he describes a scene

that may, in time, come to be viewed as a critical moment in American movies.... As the action unfolded, I sat there with my jaw resting lightly on the floor, and I thought, This is it. This is what we have been heading for all these years. Here is a film that makes no sense at all. That is no reason, of course, not to see it. On the contrary, there's something rather bracing in the thought that [the studio] chose to offload enormous sums of money on what is essentially a dadaist experiment.

I'll say. In fact, fuck it--I can't wait to watch Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle again. And indie cred be damned.

I Wanna Be Your Dog

I wanted to encourage everyone to pre-order multiple copies of this excellent tome from Da Capo, scheduled for publication just in time for the holiday season. Yes, punk rock aerobics may sound counterintuitive, but really it makes sense the same way that being a pink Goth named Becky does.

It's a perfect exercise solution for all of you full-of-scorn extroverted introverts who want that hipster, body-by-heroin physique without all those nasty needles and without giving up beer. I, for one, am a shameless devotee and thrill to working out to the Modern Lovers, Gang of Four, the Rapture, Mission of Burma, Sleater Kinney and the like. And, I can assure you, there is nothing more abject than doing crunches to Iggy Pop on a scummy club floor that still smells of stale beer and mop water, kids!

Soon you can recreate my treasured Saturday afternoon ritual in the comfort of your own [one hopes tidier] home.

Punk Rock Aerobics
75 Killer Moves, 50 Punk Classics, And 25 Reasons To Get Off Your Ass And Exercise
by Hilken Mancini and Maura Jasper
Paperback
Availability Date: 12/18/03
Available Dec 2003
Retail Price: $17.95
($27.95 Can./£13.99 UK)

Da Capo Press
ISBN: 0-306-81339-4

* Would you flee in terror if confronted with a room full of sweaty people in spandex thongs?
* Are you not immune to the occasional Van Halen-style air guitar jump?
* Have you been known to push aside your coffee table and dance like crazy in your living room?

If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, here at last is your workout book. As simple as throwing on that old Ramones (or even White Stripes) record, punk meets a high- and low-impact workout in an exercise craze that is spreading like wildfire amongst teens and aging rockers alike: Punk Rock Aerobics. Unlikely bedfellows though they seem, punk has always been about image--from Iggy's abs to the Sex Pistols' carefully cultivated outfits. Back in the good old days cigarettes would suffice to keep rockers slim, but to have real punk energy, say these rockers-turned-certified-aerobics-instructors, you need to drop those chips and get off the couch.

Chock-full of easy-to-follow moves in an accessible, home-exercise-friendly format, Punk Rock Aerobics contains photos and instructions for DIY, heart-pumping (and thigh-slimming) retro moves like the "Air Guitar," the "Skank," and the "Fire Hydrant," while suggesting songs by the Sex Pistols, Blondie, and the Stooges for a perfect workout soundtrack. With sidebars and Q&A's with rockers like J. Mascis and Evan Dando, this is definitely "not your mom's aerobics class" (Boston Globe).

Coppola Smart Mob Strikes Again

Maud mentions Kalefa Sanneh's article on the Shins in today's Times. [I had gotten halfway through a post myself when Explorer decided to take a destructive little nap.]

I learned about the Shins from my pal Tommy in December 2001, when he sent me this challenge:

Test your indie creds: the sub pop web page has this video for The Shins' song NEW SLANG (and you figure with a name like THE SHINS there would be at least one korean guy but nope). It's a great concept video in which they re-enact famous indie rock album covers.

He's right. It's a great video.

But while I was searching for the link today, I came across this terrifying manifestation of the many-fingered Coppola Smart Mob. It's like waking up with a horse's head in your bed; there's no escaping them.

I'm particularly chagrined because it was listening to the Shins' album Oh, Inverted World that gave me the idea of assembling a fake Wes Anderson soundtrack in the first place. Now I learn that in 2002, Roman was directing Scarlett, Zooey, Ashton, and Jay in a Gap ad with music by Mr. Mercer of the Shins. Between the Coppolas and the McSweeneys crowd, there'll soon be no room left for independent cultural production.

If you need me, I'll be down on khaki street, only I'll be wearing my bike helmet to ride my cruiser.

A Quick One While He's Away

Announcing The Life Aquatic Soundtrack Contest

I've thought for some time now that it would be quite easy to assemble a plausible soundtrack to an untitled Wes Anderson project, fictitious or otherwise. Think about it. How hard could it be to convince people that you had the goods? After three films, the blueprint is unmistakable. In addition to various Mark Mothersbaugh compositions with clever names refering to plot points, you'd need a little second-tier Beatles [solo projects and covers are OK and less expensive]. Some sunshiney vintage British Invasion music [or perhaps a well-chosen Guided by Voices track?]. And a song or two bent double under Weimar-weight melancholy. Check out the track listings for Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, and The Royal Tenenbaums, respectively, then give it a go.

Here, I'll start.
The Life Aquatic
1. Santo Loquasto - Mark Mothersbaugh
2. New Slang - The Shins
3. Canto de Lamanja - Smokey & Miho
4. The Jaguar Shark (Part One) - Mark Mothersbaugh
5. Cry, Baby, Cry - Throwing Muses
6. Ocean - Velvet Underground
7. Bathysphere - Cat Power
8. Ned's Inheritance - Mark Mothersbaugh
9. Oceanographic Explorer - Mark Mothersbaugh
10. Shangri-La - Versus
11. Piranhas are a Very Tricky Species from Rushmore - Mark Mothersbaugh
12. Zissou Calypso - Mark Mothersbaugh
13. The Jaguar Shark (Part Two) - Mark Mothersbaugh
14. Femme Fatale - Big Star

See how easy? Now it's your turn.

I enjoy being a girl

Still recovering from the singularly depressing experience of watching Karen Moncrieff's debut feature, Blue Car, last night. Well-acted and compelling, this story nonetheless suffered from too much muchness. Agnes Bruckner plays Meg, a gifted young poet with an absent, in-over-her-head single mom and a little sister who is slipping further away from reality every day. Meg takes refuge in the encouragement of her AP English teacher [David Straithairn], the amusingly named [at least to me] and initially well-intentioned Mr. Auster.

Then. things. get. icky.

The little sister dies. Mom flips out. Meg gets fired for stealing and leaves home. And caring Mr. Auster puts the moves on Meg while they [and his wife and high-school-aged son] are in Florida for a national writing contest. Meg realizes that Auster is a phony, and the film ends with her sadder, wiser, and well on her way to becoming a good poet.

Director Moncrieff developed this film under the auspices of the Sundance lab, and it shows. There's the surfeit of bathos too many earnest first films are prone to. I keep thinking of the concept of dayenu. It would have been enough to have a hapless single mom, without also having a one-girl Virgin Suicides in the cutting/anorexic/delusional/suicidal little sister and a dalliance with a school friend's on-probation older brother that involves stealing filled prescriptions from a pharmacy. Plus, let's not forget, the bad-touch teacher.

The good thing is that it reminded me of another Sundance lab product, which I originally saw introduced by writer/director Lisa Krueger at the 1996 Boston Women's Film Festival, Manny & Lo, starring Mary Kay Place and a very young Scarlett Johansson. It, too, has fine performances and at least one plot element too many. But you should check it out: Johansson had that grave mien and low voice at age 10.

when it comes to Americans, it's not so much they have a problem with blood; they have a problem with the color red

Damn Jack Valenti. For so many reasons, but in this particular instance because I was trying to finally get some work done when I read this article about the importance of violent films getting an audience-friendly R rating. Or, as I like to think of it, the Times going to the Tarantino well yet again.

Here's what got me. MPAA President-for-Life Jack Valenti explained why Kill Bill got the lucrative R rating, and not the dread NC-17, even though "some critics have called [it] the most violent movie ever made," thusly

Mr. Valenti said that at one point while watching the main character, the Bride, stab, decapitate or cut the limbs off of at least 100 gangsters in a 20-minute sword fight, he said he thought: "Why didn't one of those men take out a gun and just kill her? I think even an impressionable child would go in and say they've seen worse on Wile E. Coyote."

His choice of the hapless Wile E. Coyote is particularly interesting given the discussion the 'Fesser and I had just last night. His students are reading John Berger's Ways of Seeing, and class discussion touched on how the experience of an original work of art usually carries with it the knowledge of its reproduction, adaption, or co-option. As an example, and an attempt to reach out to the kiddies, the 'Fesser invoked the Warner Bros. classic cartoon "What's Opera, Doc?" as shading one's subsequent experience of Wagner. Great example, only none of the kids had seen it.

Valenti's belief that people's understanding of filmic violence is shaped by old cartoons serves as yet another reminder of what an evil, out-of-touch old bastard that Reagan crony is. I won't even get into the Oscar screener fracas here. I'll just end with this fun fact: the MPAA holds copyright on the "G," "PG," "PG-13," and "R" ratings. If you want to release your film in the US, all roads lead to that whited sepulcher Valenti.