Little Zio's Movies

Real No Impact Man

2010-02-11T00:48:00.000-08:00

by Yervand Kochar

When the second plane flew into the World Trade Center, our family friend, Albert, who was watching the attack on TV in Armenia, had a major heart attack. His sister was working in the second tower. Three hours later, she called him. Her voice was trembling; she had a nervous breakdown but she was uninjured. My friend heard the good news in the emergency room. He died two weeks later at the age of 54.

Albert was the last casualty of 9/11 that I know of. Although, I am sure there are more people who were indirectly impacted by the attack to some serious and even fatal degree.

Albert was also famous for his devastating sense of humor, so when I read about the highly heralded eco-melodramatic documentary “No Impact Man,” I vividly imagined Albert ripping this self-righteous excretion of bored urban utopians a new one.
Here’s the premise from the “No Impact Man” film website:

Colin Beavan decides to completely eliminate his personal impact on the environment for the next year. It means eating vegetarian, buying only local food, and turning off the refrigerator. It also means no elevators, no television, no cars, buses, or airplanes, no toxic cleaning products, no electricity, no material consumption, and no garbage. No problem – at least for Colin – but he and his family live in Manhattan. So when his espresso-guzzling, retail-worshipping wife Michelle and their two-year-old daughter are dragged into the fray, the No Impact Project has an unforeseen impact of its own.

This is so cute; I am going to melt now. This kind of eco-experimentation is cute when it is acted out in Manhattan of 2009 and it is tragic when it is experienced in Armenia of 1992 where Albert lived in the center of the capital, Yerevan, in a neo-classically influenced apartment building with massive wooden doors.

Those doors ignited my imagination; as a kid, I even wrote a poem in which I visualized the doors as a portal to a different dimension. Years later, in the cover of a pitch-black winter night of 1992, my friends and I dismantled and stole those century-old doors, chopped them into many pieces and shared them among ourselves for wood to heat our homes. We had to because we had no electricity and it was incredibly cold.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Armenia found itself engaged in full-scale war with Azerbaijan. As a consequence of the deliberately interdependent Soviet infrastructure, Armenian’s economic and energy routes lay through Azerbaijani territory. The Azerbaijani blockade that followed (and is still in place) cast the unprepared and newly formed Republic of Armenia into a horrible economic and energy crisis.

Not only there was a scarcity of supplies in every arena, but there was virtually no gas or electricity to heat our homes. For two years, we would have electricity for a total of two hours a day.

Those winters—which, of course, happened to be some of the coldest in the modern history of Armenia—caused many deaths of unprepared people in their own homes.

The daily two hours of electricity were anticipated with the devotional reverence of a desert tribe welcoming rain. People would try to squeeze in anything from laundry to cooking, watching TV to just enjoying the magic of the electric bulb.

When the hours of electricity expired, like cavemen we would gather around the fireplace, quiet and collectively depressed, with no impact on the world or even on our immediate surroundings. Only in times like that is one capable of understanding the true magic and liberating power that technology gives to man. The ability to be free and proud, strong and happy, are based not on our merging with nature but on our ability to master nature, to control and oppose its powers, to use our reason and skill to elevate ourselves from the dark and wild realm of frightened beasts struggling merely to survive under the whim of capricious surrounding.

Two hours of electricity during the cold winter was not enough to heat our homes and city apartments, so people started chopping trees on the streets and parks for firewood.

Old beautiful trees were rapidly disappearing from city streets, turning the famously green Yerevan into a bare skeleton of itself. People needed heat to survive—between preserving trees and watching babies freeze to death; there was not much of a choice.

The demand for firewood was huge, though, and people became protective of their territories. Tree chopping gangs, armed with axes and machetes, formed to protect their neighborhood trees and distribute the wood among them.

In savagery and ragged outlook, these gangs were not much different from prehistoric territorial tribes. Police would not dare to confront them, especially when their own reservoir of gas was almost non-existent and they could not even promptly respond to many serious emergencies.

Fierce fights would ensue if someone tried to cut a tree in someone else’s yard or park. My friends and I, soft and spoiled city slackers, were now thrown into this anarchic struggle for life, spending hours in bread lines and chopping wood, dismantling wooden doors and benches in the parks to which we used to be taken by our parents in our not-so-distant childhood.

It was through chopping wood that I came to identify with Abraham Lincoln in such a way that years later I would make a very personal film about his legacy.

There was something comforting in knowing that the President of that faraway country that my friends and I idealized so much would also chop wood and go through harsh times before he was able to make an impact… and boy, we wanted to make an impact!

From our shared experience of the ‘dark age’ we carried out a zealous urge to make an impact, to claim our existence in the family of nations, to tell everyone that we are alive, that we are human, that we matter, that we want to achieve something, and that we don’t want to perish in this damn darkness of animal fear.

And then there is, of course, Albert, who was fatally impacted by the acts of 19 evil men whom he’d never met or heard of. Sorry for the doors, my friend. I’ll plant a tree in your memory in this faraway land that you and your sister loved. I’ll plant it for all the trees that I had to cut back home. Those beautiful trees that helped us survive through the nightmares of those ‘unimpactful’ winters of ‘92 through ‘94.

HUNG UP

2009-09-05T23:06:00.000-07:00

by The Stranger

How does a parent, older brother, sister, relative or friend reply to a child’s innocent question “What does THAT mean? ” when they are driving in a car, or walking along a street somewhere these days and they see a signboard promoting the cable TV show HUNG? At which point is a child or youngster expected to know the meaning of that word? And what are we to make of a culture ramming a word like that down our collective throats?

I was channel-surfing a couple of nights ago, and suddenly there was a promo for the new season of Beverly Hills 90210 and here’s what I caught of it: two female high school students talking about a hot guy on the show. And one of the girls says “He’s huge,” and she has both of her hands indicating a width of ten to twelve inches, and the next line she says to her girlfriend is … “BIG AND MEATY!!” This promo was aired on prime time network TV. Again, what does a parent say to a child who asks “What are they talking about, mommy (or )daddy?

What’s happening to us as a country, a culture? One of the things that’s happening is that we are becoming ever more crass, vulgar and cheap by the second. I never imagined I’d be living in a time when things that were once considered too cheap, coarse and in bad taste to be even expressed in mixed company would be exposing themselves to me in my living room during prime time, or there in front of me on signboards as I simply move about the city I live in.

Television is reducing us all collectively to our lowest common denominators. Brainwashing degeneration into us. Think I’m kidding? I’m not. Television is the anti - Christ today. And its addicts walk around like zombies glued to the TV screens that have been reduced to bite size components they carry around in their hands twenty-four hours a day.

When’s the last time you’ve seen a person under the age of thirty-five NOT walking around or driving or doing almost ANYTHING at all when they weren’t glued to a screen in their hand? And the level of addiction appears to grow exponentially with the image these zombies have of themselves as someone attractive, desirable, or upwardly mobile.

Whether or not they actually are any of those things is beside the point - it’s the image they have of themselves that they are, may be, or wannabe perceived that way that glues them to the cell phones in their mitts. To them, using the latest technological gadgets, or to be seen using them are so many proclamations of honor proclaiming “See how hot, how in demand, how connected I am!” But the real question is: CONNECTED TO WHAT??

(Pictyre by http://www.flickr.com/photos/30894058@N03/2934189914/)

The answer to that one is simply how lost and addicted these zombies appear to be to everything that lies outside themselves. How dislocated they appear to be to the well-springs of their own existence - THEIR OWN BEING.

So, Michael Jackson died of an over-dose of drugs. The doctor who gave him the shot that killed him will be made out as the villain. But the doctor who gave him that shot was simply some schmuck who was willing to go just one step farther than the next guy - to make a buck. Michael Jackson put him on his payroll simply because the doc could be persuaded to give the king of pop what he wanted whenever he wanted it. End of story.

Michael Jackson is simply the latest example, as were Elvis and Marilyn Monroe - of the spiritual vacuity that is …. AMERICA - the crassness, vulgarity, and most of all the GREED that has been and is today the life-blood of the land of the free.

A greed that is anything but free. A greed that is costing us as a country, a culture, a land - the innocence of our youth, a constant and unremitting decline in the human values of decency, kindness and good taste that has resulted in a spiritual impoverishment deteriorating everything that once made us - America The Great.

Michael Jackson got everything out of life that he, like our culture at large, lusts after the most. Finally, just before his 51st birthday, Michael Jackson, after years of gorging himself on those values, found himself still alive, if one whose life consists of hiding from life can actually be called to be among the living - simply took matters into his own hands and decided to end it all himself, by having himself shot up with a drug that would end his dis-ease, with himself and his life.

I think the thing that people feel most regarding the death of the so-called and self-proclaimed king of pop - is sadness, not for him per se, but for - ourselves - because it puts us all, on some level, in touch with how separated we‘ve become, as a nation, from all that is real, true - and quite simply, all that is missing in the fabric of how we live our lives in 2009.

Yah, Michael Jackson got everything he ever wanted, all right, except unconditional acceptance from anyone he really cared for, or a genuine intimacy with anyone NOT on his payroll, or even someone who might have offered him real friendship, not for being the king of pop, but for being simply a human being who hungered all his life for the one thing he never received from anyone on a personal, intimate level - unconditional LOVE.

LIPSTICK JUNGLE

2009-01-17T09:03:00.000-08:00

by The Stranger
When did it become the norm that male actors on TV began wearing lipstick? I haven’t heard anyone bringing this up. But, surely I can’t be the only person to have noticed this. Haven’t read anything in print either. Is it just me, or is this - or not …. WEIRD?

Recently I purchased one of those new, incredibly clear picture LCD TV‘s. Prior to that, I had an old RCA. It was good enough, but now and again, even watching that TV, I would see an actor on a show, and wonder “Is that guy wearing lipstick? Example: the guy who plays Superman on SMALLVILLE. Well, on my new TV I can see clearly and without a doubt that, this actor DOES, in fact, wear lipstick. And I can see clearly that he’s not alone, not by a long shot.

Guys on TV have begun looking like Michael Jackson in real Life. But WHY? Is it because of Hi Def? Or is it something else? I mean, yeah well sure I’ve always noticed a woman’s lips, as well as her lipstick. That, to me, is part her allure. But what the hell’s going on here? Are we now expected to pay attention to a man’s lips these days? And, if so, who in the Hell came up with that one?

There’s a a new show on the tube called THE MENTALIST. And the actor playing the lead is good. He’s attractive without the hi-lites to his hair, and the lipstick he wears on the show. And I’ve thought that maybe he could be a star. Anyhow, I saw that actor’s face on the cover of a TV magazine that’s out now, and I read some of the article on him in it. And, in the article, he’s quoted talking about another actor’s penis. And, all of a sudden whatever charisma this actor may or may not have, simply went up in smoke. Here he was talking about something that, in my opinion, is simply in bad taste, especially in a family magazine. And, yet its not that dissimilar to a lot of the references to the male organ proliferating TV shows these days. All of a sudden though, that actor seemed to me to be no different than most other performers these days - who are - making spectacles of themselves, whenever they have the chance to expose themselves. What he exposed to me was a lack of class, and taste. And a desire to run with the crowd. I’m not a prude.
But it seems to me that there is one quality these days that no one in show biz no longer knows anything about - MYSTERY.

Movie Stars, some of them, once had that quality. But its gone, baby, gone these days. And the culprit is the boob tube. Most actors these days have about as much charisma and mystery as Regis & Kathy Lee, or Regis and whoever the Barbi Doll is that he’s teamed up with at the present time. OK, I know her name is Kelly Ripa. TV seems to flatten and homogenize performers, chewing them up, and spitting them out. One minute they’re discovered, the next they’re old news; over-exposed. Think Tom Cruise. The only way Mr. Cruise could come up with, to at least offset the jumping up and down on the couch on Oprah, was to completely disappear for awhile. I know he’s due out soon in a new film, but I’m not so sure the public may soon, if ever, forget the weirdness of his TV exposures.

I’d had enough of him before his bad luck run on TV. If I never see him in a film again, I won’t miss him. Tom Cruise never had mystery. But I think people thought he was cute, and I guess his big career on film may have accounted for at least some interest or admiration on the part of the public.

Lastly, there is Clint Eastwood. Opening recently in a new film, Gran Torino. Sometimes I have a kind of admiration for Mr. Eastwood, sometimes I absolutely do NOT. For example, I admired the fact that a couple of years ago with the success of Million Dollar Baby, he escorted his mother to the Academy Awards. I remember feeling “How cool is that?” What a lovely thing to do, and to share with your mother. But then, there are times that I feel Mr. Eastwood is amazingly fond of promoting himself, and in ways that, to me, seem really at odds with the way he seems to want the public to view his image, as a man‘s man.

I remember, in the film Every Which Way But Loose, which I believe he directed in addition to starring in, there was a scene of Clint and his co-star ( the Orangutan, Clyde ) sitting in the front seat of a truck. And I noticed that Mr. Eastwood had his arm positioned in the window of the truck in such a way as to show off his flexed bicep. In other words, he was showing me he wanted the viewer to notice his muscularity onscreen. That he had a hot bod. Or rather, that he thought that he did, and that’s what he wanted the audience to notice. An example of unabated narcissism. Exactly what’s at work again in his image of himself in all the ads for Gran Torino.

No one at Warner Brothers Studio, the studio that bankrolls all of Mr. Eastwood’s films tells Mr. Eastwood what he can or cannot do. He is completely in charge of every aspect of all of his films, including the image of himself that’s used to promote himself in the ads for his films. Having said that, tell me if the image Mr. Eastwood is using to promote in all the ads for that film doesn’t want you to notice how toned and lean and how absolutely buff Mr. Eastwood is? Here’s a dude pushing eighty, who wears a form fitting T-shirt, and angles himself into camera precisely so that you’ll notice how flat his stomach is and what a lean machine he is, and what a hottie this image is supposed to tell us that - he STILL is.

I’m sorry, Mr. Eastwood, but you look more like a geriatric male model than a real person to me in those ads. Also, the rumors floating around that this might be your swan-song performance as an actor are simply manipulation, on your part. You want an Academy Award for your acting, and that’s the way you’re promoting yourself as an actor to get it. By telling the Academy its their last shot to vote for you, their last chance to give you an Oscar for your acting.

Without having to see the film, I can tell from all the promos for the film, you are simply doing Dirty Harry, yet one more time, no matter how you appear to be dressing this project up. Its another example of Clint Eastwood blowing away all the bad guys, by the end of the film. Yah, right its your last role as an actor - until the next script comes across your desk that’s about some old geezer who blows away the next wild bunch of bad guys. And gets to say lines like “I finish things - that’s what I do.” Indeed.

But the truly amazingly disappointing thing to me about you is the fact that, yes, you ARE almost eighty years old, and yet, incredibly - you are still trying to promote yourself as a sex symbol. Instead of giving us a character who looks and behaves like a real person of a rather mature age, a character who’s lived long enough to give an audience something, perhaps a kind of a HUMANITY, or a richness and depth and generosity of spirit we might be inspired by, someone we might be able to identify with - instead, what we get in Gran Torino is yet another of the cartoon macho men/comic book pseudo - superheroes you’ve specialized in your whole career as an actor.

To me, there is something a bit perverse and downright weird about a man your age being so concerned - about his looks, about his own image in the way that you appear to be. And working so damn hard to show us what a truly macho, tough guy you think you are. Yes, I’m feelin’ lucky today, punk - but not quite lucky enough to want to see Gran Torino without knowing how bored I’d be spending a couple of more hours watching YOU onscreen doing what you’ve been doing for far too long now, again in this film, too. But, hey, that’s just me. Oh well, at least, Mr. Eastwood, as far as I can tell from the ads and promos of Gran Torino - you don’t appear to be wearing lipstick.

Manifesto of Denouncement of Leftist Establishment’s Use of Movies and Art for Propaganda

2008-12-29T18:35:00.000-08:00

The mindset that permeates the arts today is undeniably leftist, in bondage to leftist ideologies and serving political and social goals of the movement.

This humiliating servitude is poisonous for humanity. Art is where laboring humanity goes to be soothed with light, to cast their cares away and see beauty where they saw none before. Art, therefore, is beyond left and right. It must not serve any ideology and must not become an instrument of any mass movement. It should not involve mass amounts of money from private funds of the rich to soil the minds of the middle class.

The Marxist approach of using art as a hammer of social change is absolutely destructive to the essence of art as much as Marxist ideology was and still is destructive to the actual social order whenever applied.

There is not a more dangerous place where this tragic ideology is played out than in the movies, TV and any medium that reaches millions at a time.Movies are particularly destructive when used to slay minds for an ideology, since the medium has a threefold power of visuals, sound and music in one space.

It is not the subject of the movies that should be free from political undertones. It is the goal of art that must not be political. Art must transcend politics through the power of beauty. Art must give ‘a living water’ not a muddy political solution. Any political and social solution is incomplete and for an artist to act as a proponent of a political change or, worse, as its propagator is a violation of the basic principles of art.

Anti-human and naturally rejected radical leftist ideology has grounded itself in the cultural mainstream and attempts to coin itself into a standard by using movies above all. By using movies as the spokes of a propaganda machine, they destroy the very essence of the art of moviemaking and hinder its progress. Today movies are corrupt; they serve purposes of various corporate-political structures. They are not moved from within but only by external movements of organized entities. Many filmmakers have become ‘useful idiots’ for a well-structured mechanism that is abusing the evolution of filmmaking as an art.

Regardless one’s political views, one must not allow filmmaking to be the whore of a democratic-socialist party, environmentalist movement, anti-war movement, gay movement, racial equality movement, sexual liberation movement and all these movements and isms…

Propaganda is destroying movies and culture in general. Truth is beautiful and it needs to be simply shown. It is lies and only lies that need propaganda to live. All the technology and money cannot save movies today from the boredom and tastelessness of an establishment sanctioned social realism style. Yet, all that money can indoctrinate masses of innocent people, unaware of the truth of history, as it is veiled in lies and deceit to the viewer.

We denounce any form of abuse of filmmaking by any movement. If democrats want to win elections, let them do it using their own political means. LET ART BE FREE! If environmentalists want to save the globe from melting, let them drive less limousines and fly less private jets. LET ART BE FREE! If the anti-war crowd wants the troops out of Iraq, let them protest all day long but LET ART BE FREE!

We denounce any form of political agenda buying us by sponsoring our festivals and giving us grants. We denounce film as a tool to be used as a form of manipulation and mass hypnosis. We denounce the use of subliminal messages and subtle implications that promote your causes and ruin our ART.

You have your goals we have our own. If we believe in your causes we will help in other ways but we will not use art to do your work for you anymore. If you are so confident in your message of truth, then go and convince people and talk to them directly. Take away your political apparatchik implants from our fields of dreams. We need to produce ‘a living bread’ not manufactured ideological meat you need to sell to your voters and consumers.

We need to bring beauty down to the world again and allow truth to speak volumes through the screen without complying with your cultural establishment’s anti-art plan.

Years of leftist control of the movie industry have proved to be ruinous and impending the growth of movies as an art and entertainment form.

We denounce your establishment to use our minds and control our freedoms anymore. Have the guts to finish your damn revolution on your own without mass mind control!

Let the movies and art alone and remember that your days are counted for we have risen!

Jeani DiCarlo & Yervand Kochar

THIS IS GOD

2008-10-27T01:30:00.001-07:00

by The Stanger

This isn’t a religion thing. Or a gender thing. Or an age thing. In fact, I’m not at all sure what kind of a thing this is. Its happened to me four times in my life. Once in a movie theatre. Three times in the course of simply living my life. Four times I’ve heard the same voice, say the same thing to me, in completely different circumstances, at different periods of my life.

The first time was in a dentist chair. In Dr. Hill’s office. He was the only dentist I had ever gone to. And on one particular day, it was to be the last time I would ever have an appointment with him, because he was retiring.

Dr. Hill was a man I had never really had a conversation with. He was so painfully shy that it always seemed inappropriate to make any attempt at small talk. And I wasn’t exactly into small talk myself. I’d see him sometimes at family parties. But I never knew for sure exactly whose friend of the family he was. He was always just Dr. Hill, our dentist. He was married. That’s all I knew of his personal life. And I knew this, too: he never charged any of my family for his dental services. Ever. How exactly that came about I never found out. But I did know why. I was from a large family of eight children; Dad was a truck driver. That was the reason.
He never said a word about that to anyone. He simply did his work. And never charged our family a cent.

Anyhow, on this last day in his dental chair, there we were, Dr. Hill and I. He, working on my teeth. Me, with my mouth open. With really nowhere else to look except up into his face. He wore glasses, and was bald. There was a meekness, a humility and a kindness to that face. And, always that almost aching shyness. Both of us aware that this wouldn’t be the last time we’d ever see one another. There’d still be family parties. But it was to be the end of our dentist/patient relationship.

We weren’t having a conversation when the moment happened. He was just working away, and I was there looking up into his face when out of nowhere this voice comes to me and it says: “This is God.” And in that moment I knew who Dr. Hill was. And everything about him was, in that moment, poetry and grace. The work he was performing. The manner in which he was doing it, and for how long he‘d been extending this service. And suddenly, too, I had the awareness that this moment was my last chance to see what I hadn’t seen before. That moment happened a very long time ago. And yet I’ve never forgotten it. Never will.

The next incident happened every single time I ever set foot in his shop. The shop of Willie the shoemaker. I haven’t gone into the shop in years. But its still there, on the same street, Cahuenga Boulevard in the heart of Hollywood. When I moved to another part of town, I stopped going to Willie’s. I never had a conversation with the man except once. I was picking up a pair of shoes from Willie one time and I noticed a picture of Paul Newman on the wall and I asked “Is he a customer?” And Willie said “Yes.” That’s all. Nothing more.

There wasn’t one time that I ever went into Willie’s to drop off or to pick up a pair of my shoes that if Willie was there in the store waiting on me that I didn’t hear that same voice say exactly the same thing to me that it had said that last time in Dr. Hill’s office: “ This is God.” There was something about Willie, in the way he looked at me. In the way he waited on me. I felt lifted up into some higher place because of the way Willie looked at me. It was also the way he way he performed his duties as a shoemaker.

Its hard to describe, but one of the words I used before seems to also be the best one to use in this instance also: GRACE. I know the reason I don’t stop by Willie’s these days. I’m afraid he won’t be there. That someone else will be. And that if Willie no longer works there, to me the place won’t mean what its always meant to me: the place where God works. The shop still says Willie’s Shoe Repair on the window of it. Somehow I’m not up to checking it out. Maybe one day I’ll change my mind.

The next incident took place in a movie theatre. A revival house where I had gone to see the film IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE, for the first time. I was loving it. Every moment of it. And then came the scene around a dinner table. Jimmy Stewart talking to his father in the film. And he says to his father, something like: “Dad, did I ever tell you what a great guy you are?” And the actor playing the father has his head down staring at the dinner table when he hears this line; his hands are folded on the table in front of him.
And there was something about the way that actor responded to those words, with silence and absolute stillness that allowed me to see and feel the love and depth of feeling passing back and forth between the father and the son, that absolutely heightened that moment. Made it, to me, INDELIBLE. And, in the middle of it, and it really is only a moment in the film as I was watching the actor playing the father, I heard a voice say “This is God.”

There are some films I love so much I won’t watch them because I’m afraid of wearing out the phosphorus or gossamer quality of the magic of the film. A bunch of years go by and then I’ll watch it again. And every time I see that film, at that moment in the film, when I see the actor who plays the father at the dinner table - I hear that same voice say: This is God.”

The most recent incident began happening several months ago. The man’s name is Erwin. He could be an illegal immigrant. He speaks almost no English. And his job is that of a parking lot attendant. In the heart of Hollywood. I see him four days a week. When I pull into the lot in my car to drop it off on my way to work. Willie directs me to where I should park. And, without my ever having to ask him to do it, he gives me a space where my car may be safe from dents caused by other cars. He’ll even hold a spot like that for me until I show up.
And every morning as I enter the lot, and in the evening as I’m leaving it, Erwin nods to me, and smiles. As though he’s happy to do this for me.

I’ve thought to myself : “Maybe I should offer to pay him.” But I’ve also wondered if perhaps that would reduce the kindness he’s been extending to me to something based on a monetary exchange. And that maybe what he’s doing has nothing at all to do with money. I noticed a pair of shoes in my closet recently that I had stopped wearing. Noticed Erwin’s shoes were the same size, and gave them to him. And when I see him these days, those are the shoes he’s wearing.

But his smile, and his kindness haven’t gotten any more so than from the beginning. To me they look the same as the first time I ever saw the man. Erwin could be in his forties, or maybe older. He has a weathered look. As though he’s worked a lot with his hands, worked a lot outdoors. He’s very quiet. And alert. He appears to be happy as he works.

Sometimes I see him kicking a ball around the lot. He could have been a soccer player. But there is something in his eyes … a kindness one doesn’t often see these days that’s unmistakable. A look I marvel at. Because Erwin has a very taxing job. During the summer he’s out in the heat all day, and he’s told me he works there in that lot seven days a week.

One of the summer days it was mild, and I said to him “Its nice today.“ And Irwin said “America is wonderful!“ And there was this broad smile on his face. Each time I’ve ever seen Erwin, from the very first time until the last time just a couple of days ago, the moment I see him a voice says to me: “This is God.”

BEING (not) THERE

2008-10-27T01:27:00.000-07:00

by The Stanger

The actor Paul Newman passed away last week at the age of eighty-three. I was momentarily struck by the news when I first heard it. I’ve loved some of the films he was in, notably Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, The Sting, The Hustler, Hud. Less than a week later, I’m over it, or rather him.

Wonder why? Perhaps its to do with this: those movies were good, as were the stories and characters he portrayed in the films. And he performed them well. He was, to me, entertainment. Something more in an actor is required for me to feel in my heart - LOSS. The kind of feeling one can experience losing a loved one. I had a dog named Shep when I was a boy whom I’ve never completely gotten over losing. Probably, never will.

I once saw a documentary on James Dean. In it was a screen test for the film East Of Eden in which two actors were being tested for the same role (Cal): James Dean and Paul Newman. There was footage of both actors being interviewed together onscreen. And I noticed that the only one of the two my eye went to was not Paul Newman, but James Dean. They weren’t acting. They were simply being there on-screen together. And one of them, in the presence of the other completely disappeared. I found myself thinking about that.

Wondering why? Both actors were close to the same age. Newman was actually a few years older than Dean. But Dean’s face told a different story than Newman’s. His face looked as though it had seen more of life, had suffered some, been knocked around. Newman’s simply didn’t. One face had more character in it than the other, more depth. More PRESENCE.

Such a mysterious and compelling word: presence. No one knows much about it. Everyone recognizes it when they see it. No one knows where it comes from or how to get it .What’s mysterious about it also is that a person who is a performer can have it in person and not on film. Two examples: Elvis Presley and Madonna. Elvis wanted to be James Dean. Madonna’s wanted to be Marilyn Monroe. Both Elvis and Madonna have no presence on screen.

No matter the power of their superstar status - nothing happens onscreen. Put Elvis on stage, and he didn’t have to do anything except BE THERE; he was magic. He had IT onstage. Put him on film as an actor, and he had nothing. His films made money. It had nothing to do with his acting. And all to do with what he looked like to mostly teen age girls. And that’s pretty much what we have today.

Actors called superstars, whose films make money, because of their looks: Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Denzel Washington, Wil Smith, Angelina Jolie. And, oh yah - Miley Cyrus: but her popularity isn’t because of her looks. Its because of her voracious appetite for attention, the limelight; her immense need to be the center of attention, to be famous, a Superstar. But getting back to the others, it is only about their looks and nothing else.

I remember reading an article once on Brad Pitt in which the writer remarked that it looked like the worst thing that had ever happened to him was that maybe, once, he hadn’t gotten some part he’d auditioned for. I guess I remember that because that’s my response to him whenever I see him onscreen. After ten minutes I’m bored. That wasn’t true for me with James Dean, Steve McQueen, Montgomery Clift, Marlon Brando, Vanessa Redgrave or John Wayne - but only when he wasn’t playing The Duke. I mean his presence in these movies: The Searchers, Red River and The Quiet Man.

There’s an actor making a comeback of a sorts today who once had presence, or some of it: Mickey Rourke. He had it in Diner. But then he began to destroy it by falling in love with the image he had of himself and the one he turned to cosmetic surgery chasing after. Sure he hurt himself by his own destructive behavior. But the real reason Hollywood stopped hiring him was that he no longer resembled Mickey Rourke. He began to look like a plastic, cosmetic version of himself. He’s opening in a film soon that there’s been some good press on: The Wrestler. I wish him well. But he makes me think that presence is a gift that a person can lose if he isn’t careful.

In fact, when I saw The Island of Dr. Moreau, I remember feeling that Marlon Brando was missing something I never imagined I’d see him without: presence. In his case, he destroyed the great gift of the presence he once had in great abundance because of his own - laziness. He lived a life of indulgence and decay for so long that the gift somehow vanished. I knew his life was running out when I saw that.

To cut to the chase: PRESENCE is a spiritual energy. And the reason I no longer often see films today is because PRESENCE is no longer a quality America values. Simply because our culture has nothing to do with the spiritual and everything to do with the material. Nothing to do with depth and everything to do with the superficial. Nothing to do with the lasting or eternal and everything to do with the momentary.

Another name for America is GREED. A country in which almost everyone is lusting after one thing and one thing only: MONEY. It’s a land whose inhabitants want only one thing: to be millionaires. And the fact that there are no real actors today with genuine presence is because as a culture and a country, we get that which our collective unconscious values and demands, and only that. The people we call stars today, political or cinematic, are the reflections of our own collective unconscious as a nation, as a culture. Its why Bush is in office. And even more to the point … Cheney.

Presence has been replaced by addiction: to technology. Try to find a person under the age of thirty walking or being anywhere (or sitting behind a wheel) without a cell phone in their hands or glued to their ear. People no longer walk down the street; they talk down the street, on phones.

When’s the last time you saw a person moving through space unattached to some form of technology? Its all become addiction and hypnosis to screens, to technical gadgets. Under the guise of multi-tasking. Is that what the Metro driver Sanchez was up to when his negligence caused the deaths of so many people recently? Was he multi-tasking or had he simply become addicted to distracting himself from BEING THERE on job where he was supposed to be, by text-messaging someone instead? Oblivious to his responsibilities as a conductor? A wake up call if there ever was one.

How many times while driving in your car have you glanced into a car around you to notice the person behind the wheel completely unconscious of their responsibilities as a driver, completely engrossed in a conversation on a cell phone? How many times have you thought to yourself “There’s an accident waiting to happen?” The one that recently happened was one such: Big Time!

Kinda hope and pray these days that soon, our collective unconscious may demand once again something more from those we look to as guides, as inspiration , examples, heroes: Stars. Whether they are running the country, or gracing the silver screen. Individuals who display something more than merely their looks or will power - who may, once again, demonstrate the real thing …PRESENCE. Individuals who are more than addicts to technology, greed, self-love. Individuals who inhabit space ….life itself, with a grandeur and a grace that communicates the supreme spiritual potential each of us carries within our own hearts and souls. Sometimes other human beings can lead us in the direction of our own awareness of the most that we can be. I think that, once, that’s what some politicians and movie stars were about: FDR …James Stewart (IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE).

Here’s looking at you, kid, and to the possibility of seeing once again someone in office, or up there on the silver screen, who can give us a sense of really and truly …BEING THERE.

PARIS, NO MERCI, ( Not France )

2008-09-25T23:25:00.001-07:00

The Stranger

A new Documentary was screened recently at the Toronto Film Festival: PARIS, NOT FRANCE. A film about Paris Hilton. What can possibly be next? A documentary about Kathy Lee Gifford? Or Oprah Winfrey’s non-lesbian girlfriend?

There will be interest in the film. But from who? That’s the question. And what could anyone hope to learn or care to learn about a celebrity whose main ambition in life is to be famous? That she’s self-centered? Who could that possibly be news to? That she’s dumb, except on behalf of her own relentless self-promotion? Who could that be news to, as well?

In the review of the film was a comment that Ms. Hilton was at the premiere, and that “as is her habit, she had nothing to say.” That’s not a habit, that’s a fact of who she is: its not that she’s being savvy or coy - its that she truly has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to say. All she craves is our attention and once she has it - there is no there, there.

I remember being struck by a response in a newspaper article she gave shortly after she got out of jail last year when she was asked if jail-time had changed her in any way in terms of any new insights about herself or life in general, and she replied: “Yes, I would like my voice to be deeper when I get upset.” No there, there, at all. No way, no how. Here, to me, is what is truly scary: there are people who admire and want to be (like) Paris Hilton. Pubescent girls. Not only, but I’m afraid - primarily. What does this say about the values of these young persons? About the households they are being raised in? About their parents?

A new film opens also this week: THE WOMEN. Women in the entertainment industry, with the exception of one of them - Diane Lane,* have become BORING. When they talk about themselves these days all they want us to know is how powerful and self-sufficient they are. How STRONG and MACHO. How strong the relationships with the other women in their lives are.

I find myself wondering if, because of how strong these ties are to the women in their lives if they ever talk to one another about how focused they are on their own looks and how desperate they are to be seen as sex objects? These days when I see these women on TV, over the age of let’s say thirty two, and the ceiling is dropping fast, being interviewed, the first thing my attention goes to are the faces, and how much work they’ve had done on them. Many of them look like guppies with swollen lips: i.e. Calista Flockheart, to name just one.

Meg Ryan stars in THE WOMEN. Here’s an actress that began fooling around with her face when she was in her late twenties. Has messed around with it continually since. So much so that the review I saw of the film declares that she “now has the face of Goldie Hawn.” YIKES!! Dat ain’t no complement!

Recently I’ve seen interviews of Carol Burnett and Mary Tyler Moore. Who’ve both had wonderful careers in the entertainment industry. But, my God - look at their faces!! The work they have both had done on those faces! For who …. for what? And mostly - WHY?? Don’t either of them have any idea at all that their successes never had a thing to do with them being sex objects, or their looks. And everything to do with something God given - their talent. Or maybe they’ve both simply had way too much time on their hands. Its like they’ve no concept at all of the phrase …. “aging gracefully.”

Diane English directs THE WOMEN. She made her name on Murphy Brown. So its no surprise to learn the film, or rather, her version of the story of the film is a love story between two women. What else is new? Men? Nah, there isn’t a man mentioned as even being in the film, except for some cheating bastard of a husband who is married to Meg Ryan’s character in the story.

Why are women today having so much plastic surgery done on themselves? It certainly can’t have anything to do with men. Because, to hear women talk these days, men are almost always left out of the equation. Women want to be thought of as so self sufficient they no longer need men. Men are no longer essential to women is what these women would have us believe. So then, who is all the plastic work being done for? Other women?? I mean, last time I checked there were just two sexes in the world.

I can’t remember the last time I read about or heard a woman connected with the entertainment industry talking about the man in her life as being great, or charming or even OK. Or that the reason she cares about her looks having anything at all to do with men. With these women, its as though there are no men at all on the planet.

How refreshing it would be to have Meg Ryan say the reason she’s had so much work done on her face (and who knows what else ) has had everything to do with the fact that she desperately needs to be thought of as beautiful and desirable and sexy by the opposite sex, more than anything else in her life. And that she’s been desperately seeking this since her late twenties, at least.

For years women in the entertainment business bitched about men having all the power ….
Men having all the best parts in films .… the best careers …. that men relegated women to careers as mere sex objects. I wondered to myself what might happen when women got their shot, got into some positions of power - what might they do? The answer: absolutely nothing new.

The few women in power simply use their position to make chick flicks. Actresses like Sandra Bullock, and Bette Midler when they attained power surrounded themselves with women in their careers, left men completely out of the picture - and have paid the price:
they made movies no one cared to see.

They completely overlooked the fact that the reason they both became stars in the first place had everything to do with MEN writing and directing and photographing them, and creating stories that made the public fall in love with them. When women got their chance, all they’ve done is to do to men what they accused men of doing to them.

I’m bored to death with the women in the entertainment industry. All your talk about strength and power and self-sufficiency: GET OVER IT!! Maybe one day, one of you will begin to suspect something you have completely overlooked today: the greatest movies ever made were celebrations of the complementary energies - the polarity between men and women, not women and women.

WOMEN ( of the entertainment industry) - PLEASE …. PLEASE….

GET REAL!!! You don’t ever catch Paris Hilton talking or behaving that way. And who is more real than Ms. Hilton? Come on - she even has a sex tape of herself to prove it. And now there’s a documentary on her, as well. So there!

Anyhow, why sugar coat it? What I really want to say is this: the MOST BEAUTIFUL, SEXY AND POWERFUL WOMEN are NOT those being photographed or filmed on camera.
And for sure, they are NOT actresses, models or the so-called singers. They’re nowhere near the entertainment industry.

The most beautiful, sexy and powerful women are those in grocery stores, behind cash registers; the CHECKERS. Those in restaurants and coffee shops, the WAITRESSES, who take our orders and serve us, the public. LADY BUS DRIVERS , SECRETARIES and RECEPTIONISTS - the women we interact with on a daily basis all across America. Who serve and perform the most vital and essential jobs and services in the workplace that make our country the greatest in the world. I’m not being flippant. I mean it. They are pound for pound, and inch for inch some of the most gorgeous physical specimens I have ever seen on the planet. Also the most intelligent, charming, and sexy. Period!

And they don’t need smoke and mirrors and plastic work to present themselves to us. Because, by and large they simply cannot be bothered to be that desperate or even overly concerned about what they look like. They’re too busy being the real women of America. And, in my opinion, the real role models. For my money, they should be the ones getting all the press coverage, having documentaries made about them, not the Paris Hiltons of the world.

These are the women who enjoy men. Enjoy sharing the planet with them. Beauties too relevant and truthful to spout off feminist jargon about how powerful they are, how independent and self-sufficient they are, and that they don’t need men blah, blah, blah. If you don’t believe me, you haven’t been paying attention to the real world. You’ve been taken in by the media and the artificial world, that has never been the real world which is the entertainment industry.

The biggest decision a Paris Hilton has each day is trying to decide which shade of lipstick, or panties to wear. The women I’m referring are too busy making our country run and run smoothly to have any time at all for the superficial concerns and values of the Paris Hiltons, or Madonnas, of the media and entertainment worlds.

We’ve lost sight of who the real stars in our culture are. They’re not the privileged hotel heiress wannabes, or fifty year old crotch grabbers, unimaginably self-centered and living solely on behalf of the most superficial concerns, values, and goals imaginable. No, the women I’m referring to, the REAL WOMEN OF AMERICA possess a generosity of spirit that begins where the self-love of a Paris, Madonna, or Janet Jackson stops!

I’m referring to all the women in our society today NOT in the entertainment industry - who are being overlooked, simply because they have way too much class, character, self-respect, and genuine love in their hearts and spirits to make spectacles of themselves. Think I’m kidding? Try to find a sex tape on-line or for sale in a video store of one of them. To these ladies, making love isn’t something you do to get noticed. Or something you use in a documentary about yourself to promote yourself.

It's something a lady does because her heart and soul: her SPIRIT- is made of it: LOVE. And if some guy is lucky enough to be on the receiving end of that kind of a blessing being extended to him - he begins to discover why he’s alive, what he’s here for. And, if he’s smart his every action for the rest of his life is his way of serving up to that blessing, of showing that he’s worthy to receive it. And any guy who’s lucky enough to know what the hell I’m talking about here, knows that his heart pumps not blood but GRATITUDE - for HER.

I’m sorry, Paris. But where you are concerned, and this is just one person’s opinion: THANKS BUT NO THANKS - AND I DO NOT MEAN FRANCE!! I mean you, Ms. Hilton.

* Diane Lane’s a fox - what can I say.

THE FUTURE OF THE INDEPENDENT FILM

2008-09-12T02:11:00.000-07:00

by Yervand Von Kochar

There is a dark cloud hovering over an independent film these days. There are fears that as a production mode and as an artistic expression the independent film is dying.

One of the reasons of the downfall is the fact that seeing the potential of an independently produced film, the studios launched their own independent wings that eventually crippled the spirit of an independent film. The filmmakers who were not expecting studio profits all of a sudden became involved with the studios and eventually succumbed to the dynamic of its machine; some out of greed some out of necessity.

Another popular cause was the sheer amount of the independent film that had a double effect. It saturated the market, lowered the overall quality and hurt the independent brand on one hand and pushed independents toward becoming more and more commercial in order to get their movies sold and seen.

The technological revolution made the filmmaking process accessible to the masses and anyone who could follow their dog on a skateboard with a video camera felt that they had to conquer Hollywood next. A cinematographer friend of mine calls this brand of camera owners ‘Seven/Eleven’ filmmakers.

The process of democratization of cinema was similar to that of the popularization of sculpting when the costly and exclusive art of sculpting became the property of the craftsmen and they overwhelmed the market with cheesy imitations of Michelangelo’s “David”.
Now anyone could make a statue but still few could become sculptors.

The same happened after Gutenberg’s invention, when publishing gradually became a popular enterprise, on the bright side giving someone like Ben Franklin a shot at expressing his transformational ideas to the people of Philadelphia and on the flip side giving Howard Zinn a chance to corrupt his students and completely undo Matt Damon’s already fragile mind.
Let’s pray hard that they don’t democratize medical equipment next, or at least do it very, very slowly.

The democratization brought upon another cause of the downfall; the so-called ‘edge’. Nothing has ever been more destructive to cinema than the concept of it being “edgy’. Edge became the marketing advantage, the way to stand out from a flood of similar attempts at a movie.

By ‘edgy’ most understood being gross, disrespectful, dumb, idiotic, addicted, pro-Democrat party, anti-establishment, loose, pro-Che Guevara, moronic, violent, Marxist, anti-middle class, promiscuous, depressed, suicidal, dogmatically open-minded, cocky, spoiled, perverted and indiscriminately liberal.

This edge was so far from the center of not even the American life but a relatively sane human life in general that it made people equate an independent film with a bad acid trip. In a way, this generation’s experiments with the moving images were like the previous one’s experiments with hallucinogenic substances. They did it, had fun, some sex, then got over it and, as a result, managed to dent the culture with an impassable lameness.
The independent film is summarized perfectly by Cartman from the ‘South Park’ when he warns his friends not to watch independent movies since they are always about gay cowboys eating pudding. This was prophetic because this was done years before ‘The Brokeback Mountain’ emerged as an alternative Western movie.

In any event, these are just some of the causes of the sad state of the independent film today. It is hard to pinpoint which one of these is the overriding cause or if there is even one. It may be just a natural cycle, after all. Studios had their worse days and kept coming back. It’s life! Sometimes even, “It’s a Wonderful Life”!

Yet, there is something that makes me think that the problem cannot be explained solely within the framework of a movie industry. That something is the similarity of the downfall of the movies and the downfall of many other and different factors that constitute our society and culture.

And that something is the lack of seriousness!
The approach to life is not serious, it is not real. Everything is a game, a reality show. The life passes us by; yet, we act as if it is a video game, or a contestant game, or just a fun game, sometimes not even that fun but still a game.
Something somewhere made it all seem illusionary and not serious. Being dumb and superficial became a standard. Life was turned into a televised game; the climate was turned into a game of a global warming, statesmanship turned into a race and gender contest.

The overall approach became that of a gambler not of an owner, a consumer and not of a citizen. Our fantasies became our realities, ideal superheroes became our heroes, and the heroes fighting for us became our villains. We devalued and grounded fantasy by allowing it to substitute reality instead of abstracting it.
All the complex ingredients that constituted a real human being were substituted by a single organic formula that promised health but deprived us from meaning. We have traded the mystery of who we are for being ‘edgy’, and dismissed the directedionality of our evolution for a cheap contest.

The lack of seriousness in life is the lack of now, of being here at this time, in this place and owning our time and our space NOW! We broke the chain of time and timed out.
If we are to claim our life as it is given to us in this time and in this space, we have to become serious about ourselves, of what we say, of how we act and what we see.

In this permeating foolishness, a truly strong and successful independent film is an exception, because true independent film is not a noncommercial film but an artistic film that touches people.

Art is what touches people; it is something that the public finds because it craves it. They are not going to find an independently done non serious movie, because the studios will serve it to them much better and in a much better package.
People want someone who talks to them seriously, not about serious things necessarily, but seriously, earnestly, HONESTLY!
The word ‘Serious’ stems from Old French words ‘earnest, honest’.
So, the serious communication is above all earnest and honest communication. Or, honest communication will express itself through seriousness.

This is what is missing from our life and from its expression through moving images!
An independent movie that is earnest and honest will connect with audiences and it will make people buy tickets and wait for more.
For many years the independent film and the culture in general has been under the spell of relativism and libertine philosophy. The simple direct emotional communication through screen became considered as primitive and lacking a nuance. The plots became complicated and the characters became weak. Movies lost their masculinity and femininity and became metrosexual. It is easy to complicate, after all.

Independent (and in general) movies became dishonest and politically partisan. The independent film particularly dedicated itself to promotion of libertine and Marxist causes exclusively.
The independent film completely ignored the entire part of the human psyche, namely, its traditionalism and conservatism.
Conservatism not even in a political sense but as an innate condition of a human nature.

Traditional truths that passed the test of time, the truths that manifested the ability to renew with times were frontally attacked with alternative methods which failed to produce a result in real life but found a refuge in the movies. This became a cause of major disconnect between the truths and functions of life and the way those truths were ignored on the screen. In an attempt to be original, the independent film became untrue to reality, yet, zealously dedicated to ideology. It tried to shape reality which in itself is a Marxist approach to art, in which, art becomes an instrument of revolution.

The future success of independent film is in restoring the balance between reality and its understanding through an honest examination of life. As such it is inevitably going to turn conservative after a prolonged liberal reign. The return to the eternal values that have been conserved because of their worthiness and reality will return on the screen and it will be an unstoppable process.

Although, it will have a political effect to some degree, the real change is going to happen on a much deeper level. The process will be that of restoring the equilibrium and that will include conservation of all the worthy art of the liberal age as well.
Yet, the liberal power play with reality proved to be a complete failure. It was partly a reaction to an overly conservationist approach to cinematic and cultural values and in its early stage it had a moral force behind it. As everything progressive, though, it eventually became corrupt and hijacked by movements and ideologies that degraded the art form and violated its fundamental laws.

Reality is a combination of things seen and unseen and as such it is a much deeper concept than it is comprehended by those who try to alter it through artificial means.
The less the reality was understood, the more it was altered and distorted.
The end of this corrosion is near and the flower that is going to spring from under the pebble of the collapsing machine will have a conservative scent.
It is a truth that will not be kindly accepted by many, but it is a process that is beyond anyone’s control. Those filmmakers who stand on the threshold of this process will be violently opposed by the old guard, some will be broken, some will triumph but the power of reality will undo the artificial resistance and the equilibrium will be restored.

God Speed!

CRY, BABY - CRY!!!

2008-09-02T00:44:00.000-07:00

The Stranger

When did the TV screen become the place where CRYING became the only game in town?

I remember the first time I ever saw someone cry on TV. A man was being interviewed. His daughter had been murdered. As he attempted to talk about the experience, I remember the huge, overwhelming sense of the emotions that began to surface in this man. There was about the man, a great dignity that in this moment was being threatened. And there he was onscreen, fighting as though his very life depended upon it, for composure, to not be overwhelmed by the size and weight of these emotions. His suffering was palpable, as was the tremendous sense of love and of loss in this noble soul.

And I remember thinking “My God - this kind of intimacy is something I’ve never imagined would appear on TV.” I was moved. Extremely. I felt for the man. Felt his loss. Felt the bravery he exhibited in this interview. It made an indelible impression on me. I remember feeling that I was indeed in the presence of real emotions. And how they are handled in real life. As opposed to reel life. I’ve never forgotten that experience. Also noticed how the camera kept a discreet distance from the man. Allowed him some measure of privacy. Respecting the intimacy of the moment. Unlike today.

In 2008, everybody on TV cries. And they cry. AND THEY CRY. If they win, they cry. If they lose, they cry. If they’re told they’re good, they cry. If they’re told they’re lousy, and they’re gonna get booted off, they sob. If they’re told they’re not gonna get booted off, they sob. And the camera is right in there, tight as can be, because CRYING is the big money shot. Everyone today who is a host, or an interviewer - are all Barbara Walters clones or wannabes going for the jugular …. the money shot: The shot in which the person on-camera - CRIES!

And never before has crying and the shedding of tears become so meaningless. All that it is, is business as usual on TV. Everyone on the idiot box playing the same game. And like just about everything else that TV really excels at - its cheapened emotions. Cheapened the individuals who partake in these endless displays. Who show no reluctance whatsoever to spilling their guts in front of the world this way, simply because they are coached and directed by the producers of the shows they are on to give these displays. Their compliance and willingness to do whatever is asked of them has everything to do with why they’ve been selected to be on these shows in the first place.

But what its done to the viewer, TO YOU AND I - is to desensitized us to anything but the most vulgar and crass. Which is really all that TV is about these days - expanding the boundaries of the crude, the vulgar, and the crass. There’s a show on TV, GOSSIP GIRL, that touts itself on signboards around town with quotes like “Completely Inappropriate,” and others similar to that, that are meant to entice the viewer. Perverse advertising that assumes the viewer won’t be able to resist something that’s especially in bad taste, vulgar, or offensive.

TV’s THE medium that creates its own stars after its own image. The stars of American Culture, World culture. How else could a no-talent fifty year old woman be touring the globe these days whose sole message her entire career has been the promotion of her vagina? What’s the name of her current offering… The Sweet , Sticky something Tour.…. or whatever the hell its called? You might say TV didn’t create her. Oh, but it did. Nothing to do with talent. Everything to do with crassness, vulgarity and crudeness: MTV.

God, am I glad the Olympics ended when they did. If I had to be exposed to one more close-up of Michael Phelps’ mother trying to figure out how to manage and/or contort her face on behalf of one more closeup reaction shot to her son’s winning his next gold medal…..I was never sure if the big Olympic story was Michael Phelps going for eight gold medals, or his mother seeing if she could look dazed and confused and ecstatic over and over, and over and over.

The Olympics: TV’s latest success story of how to trivialize anything into just another Soap Opera. The anti-christ is alive and flourishing these days, folks. Its right in our living rooms. And by the way, and this isn’t solely a reference to the Olympics, but to the cutting edge of our culture’s crudeness, vulgarity and crassness - the rest of the world’s catching up to us - have you noticed? I’m not just referring to Usain Bolt, either. Its because its easier to run downhill. They’re catching up to us, alright. Fast!! I know what you’re thinking:

Its enough to make you cry.

WOMBS OF LIGHT

2008-08-08T00:22:00.000-07:00

The Stranger

Once upon a time, I saw movies - often. They were, for me, like going to church. Not a religious experience. A SPIRITUAL one. That I aspired to have, every time I stood at the box office, and paid for my ticket at the entrance to a movie house. Yes, sometimes I was also seeking escape, entertainment. I had some awareness of that. But what I had only an intermittent awareness of, at best, was that, on its deepest level, the impulse to go to a movie was a spiritual hunger at the very center of my being, that was leading me.

A great movie, for example, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, seemed to me, to speak to, inform, and even to nourish this hunger, this need. In a way that, sometimes even my real life was unable to. There was, in the performance Gregory Peck gave in the film, as Atticus Finch, something about that indefinable, mysterious energy: Grace. And how it might be channeled through a human being and into the world in which we live. An example of how an individual had the potential to conduct himself, not only onscreen in a darkened movie theatre - but, in REAL LIFE. That’s how seriously I took films, or wanted to - once upon a time.

But something changed. Some several years ago, I began to get bored watching what was up there on the screen. Tried to force myself to remain in my seat in movie houses. And found, that more and more often I was unable to stay put until the end of the film I had paid to see. I began to wonder, not about what was up there on the screen, but instead, what I was missing outside of the movie theatre? Like, maybe a beautiful sunset? Or maybe, just - real life. Instead of reel life.

Some actors, to me, were also more than only actors. They were guides or examples. Of humanity, generosity of spirit. For example James Stewart in IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE.

Or Maria Falconetti, as Jeanne d’ Arc in the 1928 film of Carl Dryer THE PASSION OF JOAN of ARC, or Vanessa Redgrave in the movie, JULIA. It almost felt like a transfusion was taking place, between the actor onscreen and my very heart and soul, when I was in the presence of a certain kind of a performance by an actor. When it happened I walked out of the theatre, not quite the same person as the one who had walked into it. I treasured that exchange. I believed in it, believed in the power of FILM. I still do.

I remember a line in the movie, SWINGERS: “You’re so money!” And I think perhaps its what’s caused me to come to my computer this afternoon to see if there is anything inside in the way of an insight as to why I almost NEVER take the time anymore to see movies. I’ve the sense that the only consideration giving birth to most movies being made today is one thing and one thing only: MONEY!!

Its invaded every aspect of what’s being put up on the screen. Including the very faces of the actors who are the biggest stars today. For example, George Clooney. “You’re so money, Georgie boy.” And, again, just for me, I can’t find anything else up there on that screen when you’re in front of the camera than the sense that “You are so money.” Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Of course, money matters. Its just that there doesn’t seem to me to be ANYTHING ELSE that also matters. I look at George Clooney, and there is nothing up there on the screen that compels me to KEEP looking at him. He’s no guide or example to me. Except for - how to appear to be - The Last Movie Star.

And then there’s Brad and Angelina. Pretty people. And until a couple of years ago when I stopped watching them - again, for me, nothing other than that. Prettiness holds my attention, for seconds, no more. The people making films today believe that prettiness is all that matters. Its why an Ashton and a Cameron above the title of a film are all the producers of that movie feel the folks out there need to see to run and see their film. And, did they run to see it, or stay away, in droves?

There once was something more than appearance that anchored an actor’s presence onscreen. I don’t see or feel it anymore. Watch a Robert DeNiro movie these days. Any one - it doesn’t matter which one. There’re all the same, because he’s the same in all of them. He hasn’t evolved as an actor in the last twenty five years, at least. Not since he decided to become a movie star. Its why comics can so successfully parody him now. Its because of how successfully he parodies himself, film after film.

He makes faces at the camera, and calls it acting. And gets paid millions of dollars for it. LIKE JACK! See a movie like FIVE EASY PIECES, and then watch anything Jack Nicholson has done after it. And you’ll see JACK beginning to be JACK!!! - and nothing else ever since.

I’m afraid its happening right now to my favorite actor alive - Morgan Freeman. I’m hearing the ads for the new film he’s in with Angelina Jolie, WANTED - and for the very first time there is something that rings artificial in his voiceover for the film. As though my favorite actor is now all about- money!

Say it isn’t so, Morgan, say it isn’t so that you’ve become:

“YOU’RE SO MONEY!”

Once, movie houses were, to me, WOMBS OF LIGHT. They were spaces where sometimes miraculous energy appeared, and was circulated. The vibrations of a person’s cells could be altered. He or she could be QUICKENED. Today they’ve become nothing more than cages of emptiness…. Cash registers of boredom.

....

Spend a couple of hours, either in a movie house or by yourself, watching Yasujiro Ozu’s TOKYO STORY (1953). See if there isn’t something that passes from that film and into your heart, something not unlike …. LIGHT.

It's a bird! It's a planet! It's the millionth time you're going to see the same superhero movie in the summer!

2008-07-30T01:35:00.000-07:00

by Yervand Kochar

The flood of superhero movies in the last several years has been so overwhelming that it makes the rest of the Hollywood landscape look like the streets of New Orleans after Katrina. The filmmakers who did not yet make a superhero movie seem like those people on the roofs of the flooded city waving at the helicopters.

‘Why didn’t we leave this damn town?’ they think. ‘We were warned’, they lament, ‘they told us that a hurricane of superhero movies was coming, but we never thought it could break the levees. Damn it, we can’t even blame Bush anymore? We should’ve at least gotten ourselves a boat by making some teenage pregnancy movies.’

The flood gets increasingly worse, though. Superman, Batman, Spiderman, IronMan, X-Man and, oops, Catwoman and what? Underdog…these bustards are everywhere and they keep coming… now even bums are superheroes- Hancock. Ogres are superheroes-Hulk. It is so bad that even the creatures of underworld are being enlisted into a superhero category and I don’t mean Al Gore. (Although even documentaries are about superheroes…what the hell you think Al Gore was doing in his documentary if not saving the world?) I mean another superhero- Hellboy. Now, this creep looks so evil that the logline feels compelled to explain ‘believe it or not he is a good guy.’
Hollywood is triumphant. It’s been a record profit year. Forget those people on the roofs; they should’ve not relied on the system so much. It’s Self-reliance, stupid. Remember? The record profits of Hollywood are like the salaries of CEO’s of Enron. A three to four movies make most of the profit and then… someone sends helicopters to those who still did not die, rape or kill each other in the flooded city.

As more superhero movies and their sequels, prequels and in betweens are coming like in a bad hurricane season even those who left the town worry about their safety. Even I am worried, and I am usually calm like the 9th Wave. But I do not intend to spend the rest of my life on the roof waiting for Hollywood aid; I am working on my own superhero screenplay.
It is about a superhero who saves movies from nerds who create comic book characters. He haunts and drugs them one by one from out of their mother’s basements and sends them to the same faraway planet where Tom Cruise is from so they never ever pitch their infantile crap to an imbecile producer anymore.

How much of this nonsense can the public take? In its dynamic, this superhero hysteria is reminiscent of the escapism and their outlet, the 30’s musicals… but only in its dynamic. Essentially, escapism was not a deception but a convention to ease the burden of everyday life. People who went to see the musicals were very much aware of their economic hardship; they just didn’t want to deal with it for a couple of hours.

Superhero movies are simply lies. They are not lies because they are fantasies and they take us into the imaginary worlds but precisely because they are not fantasies and products of imagination. Superhero movies are a guilt trip. Superhero movies are substitutes for the real story of real heroes that is not being told. And that real story is the story of the men and women of the US Military.

It is the greatest story that is not allowed to be told, the real superhero movie. After their country is attacked these ordinary people discover a power within to go and combat the evil order of powerful demons who spread fear and terror around the world. The world does not support these ordinary people; most of their countrymen do not support them out of the fear of demons. But these ordinary people succeed. Outnumbered, only 100 thousand in the country of 25 million, under excruciating heat and danger hidden behind every stone they continue to fight the evil as their own city now wants to abandon them and make pacts with Jokers, Octopuses and the armies of hell.

Superhero movies as a genre are fine. I am not waging war on the genre, after all remember that ‘nuclear weapons may only irritate Godzilla.' I am just stunned by their sheer quantity, frequency and, of course, stupidity.
In the world were real beheadings are being videographed and pitched to major networks, I guess, it is hard to find an appropriate form to express the gravity and seriousness of our struggle. Our instinct of self preservation wants a black and white image of good fighting evil but our rainbow cultural establishment will not allow making a movie about real issues. Pink is the new black.

We know we can’t escape, although the musical is surely coming back (only Mama Mia could compete with Batman at the box-office). We cannot escape but we still did not develop the guts to tell what is really going on. We are afraid to call the evil to account and we are afraid to call our own sons and daughters the real heroes. The only time they are shown in their real form is when they mess up, like in Abu Graib , or whatever that shit hole is called, or when we rush to condemn them, like in the movie ‘Redacted’ by De Palma or whatever that shit head is called.

Here is another superhero movie idea. This villain finds Brian De Palma and hangs him upside down by his feet from the Empire State Building. This evil supernatural villain says, 'De Palma, when you made a movie in which you condemned US soldiers of the atrocities committed in Hadita before the trial, did you realize, that your graphic, documentary-like depiction of the rape and murder of Iraqi civilians may interfere with justice and condemn presumably innocent American soldiers before the trial?' And then the villain says, “They were acquitted; it was a fabricated story by the anti-US Iraqis. Those soldiers didn’t do it, but what are you gonna do about your movie? Are you gonna burn it or should I kick your…’ As the villain is about to devour De Palma, our superhero rushes to his rescue to the United Nations Security Council to forge a multilateral support for the great director.

To conclude, superhero movies are fun. So the next time, when you spit in the face of an Iraqi war veteran during the San Francisco peace march and a pissed off worshiper of a Joker god sets a bomb off and/or tries to behead you, make sure to call Batman… if he is not busy beating up his mother and sister he will be there in no time to save the day.

IN A MOMENT

2008-07-16T01:17:00.000-07:00

The Stranger

I am alone in my apartment. July 4, 2008. Awaiting the phone call that may occur, in a moment - this one or the next - telling me that my mother has passed away. A moment I have always known would one day appear in my life, is upon me. I’ve always, too, had the sense that the weight or size of this moment would be more than I could bear. And, to tell the truth - it is.

Were it not for something beyond the rather wan, and somewhat pathetic man that I, appear to myself to sometimes be - I wouldn’t be here at my computer attempting to put into words the most profoundly moving experience of my life.

My mother, the person who carried me for nine months, and through whom I came into the world - is leaving this experience we call life. And leaving me behind. There was a time I loved her and my father so, that I remember feeling “I hope I die before either mom or dad dies.” I didn’t do that before dad left. Won’t before my mother goes. I’ll still be here, and in a moment neither of my parents will be here with me ever again in this life. And what of it? And how is it that I am here alone attempting to make sense of something so much bigger than I?

I wish I had a perspective. But I don’t. I am a man. But I don’t quite feel like one in a moment like this. There is a part of me, I’m afraid, that has always remained or retained a kind of a quality somehow, someway connected to - childhood. I felt that quality threatened when dad died. But not overcome, because my mother had NOT. But in a moment, I won’t ever again be able to depend on either of them to retain this connection to that magic land. If I am to have it from here on it’ll have to come elsewhere. A place I never thought of looking for it before is - inside myself!

Why am I writing this? And to whom? I’ve no answer. I’m …. in darkness. Not only outside, but especially, within. With only the vaguest sense that a lot may be at stake in terms of how I respond to this moment. Again, something inside feels threatened. Something that, if lost or severed from my being, may, indeed will, alter me for the rest of my life in a way I’d prefer not to live. I referred earlier to a sense of “something beyond.” What is it? Again, no answer. But, something IS helping me …. almost bearing me up in the face of the weight of this moment.

I’m reminded of a quote by philosopher, Baudelaire: “Genius is the recovery of childhood at will.” I think if Steven Spielberg had never made another movie other than E.T., I would always think of him as a genius. To me, that film is one of the greatest examples of an adult in full possession of that part of himself that is CHILDHOOD. I don’t know if he had to recover it or not, but he had it then. Had to - or he couldn’t have given birth to that film. Because, everything in it speaks to the eternal childhood in each of us, and it’s a work of genius because it ALWAYS will.

There is a moment in the film when a group of kids on bicycles who are attempting to remove E.T. from harm’s way, are faced with an insurmountable obstacle. They are racing through a forest on their bicycles, and at the very last second when it appears they will be apprehended …. slowly they begin…. on their bicycles and cradling E.T. on one of them …. TO RAISE UP AND INTO THE SKY AND BECOME AIRBORN!!

One of the most exhilarating and exalted moments ever to grace the screen. And you don’t have to be a particular age, race, or gender, or have a particular life experience to become airborn with them. All you have to do is to be there, wherever you are - watching that film. And suddenly, you are not in your seat any longer - YOU ARE UP THERE IN THE SKY, TOO - ONE OF THEM!! I don’t know if Mr. Spielberg is still in possession of that magic quality. Saw THE COLOR PURPLE, saw SCHINDLER’S LIST. He’ll never make a bad film. But they are not E.T. And, to be honest about it, there isn’t one of his films that I’ve seen since E.T. that has touched my heart the way that film did.

So what, and what of it? I’m lost and its the only thing I know for sure. In danger of losing something. Not even sure what it is. But why am I thinking of E.T.? And …. CHILDHOOD? All that’s coming to me in this moment is to …. pray. First and foremost and lastly - for my mother. And then - for just the slightest sliver of light to enter the darkness. Maybe it can help me know what to do about something she said to me in our conversation, the very last day she had the strength enough to speak to me and she said …. “Don’t give up.”

The sound of firecrackers being set off in the neighborhood for the last hour or so has stopped. In their place, the sound of my A/C ….. and underneath that sound …. an awesome …. SILENCE …. awaiting now ….

Only the sound of a telephone, that will surely ring ….

IN A MOMENT.

P.S.

From here on, perhaps …. the stars overhead in the sky are to become my shelter …. the sun and the moon my parents …. life itself …. my family…. and you …. my brothers and sisters ….

P.P.S.

Watching my fingertips …. inching along the tops of books …. in a small cherry wood bookcase, a gift from mom, that I keep in my bedroom. Not sure what they’re looking for. They come to rest on one …. I can feel what it is before I see the title …. sense the paragraph before I see it on the page with my eyes:

“Childhood is not a thing which dies within us and dries
up as soon as it has completed its cycle. It is not a memory.
It is the most living of treasures, and it continues to enrich us
without our knowing it … Woe to the man who cannot
remember his childhood, recapture it within himself, like a
body inside his own body, a new blood in the old blood:
he is dead as soon as it leaves him.”
The Poetics of Reverie

There it is - the sliver of light ….

DIRTY OLD ICONS (OR NOT)

2008-07-07T00:52:00.000-07:00

The Stranger

Sometimes I wonder about Clint Eastwood. The same sort of thing I used to wonder about Woody Allen. Whether, or not, each of them hasn’t perhaps used their cache as filmmakers … to troll - for babes. And, more to the point - are they both still? Yah, sure they’re both directors. And directors need actresses for their films. They both also are and have been before they became directors - actors. With reputations for liking the ladies.

Used to notice how often Woody seemed to surround himself, when he was directing one of his movies, and / or starring in it as well, with this or that current cute young thing of the moment (at the present time, think Scarlett Johansson). In MANHATTAN, for instance, it was Mariel Hemingway who he was quoted as announcing to the world in a newspaper article as “the most beautiful girl the world has yet seen.” I also remember him writing a line for himself to say in the film to her character: “Get that filthy look off your face.” Which had to do with the way she had looked at him in a moment of the film. Indicating that when she saw Woody she was completely overpowered by lust - FOR WOODY! My response to that moment was “Yah, right! In your dreams, Woodman!” But when you are the producer, writer, star and director - and you’re loved by the critics, you can manipulate moments like that and get away with the façade that its true. Even if you look like Woody Allen. And if you don’t look like Woody Allen, but you look like Warren Beatty instead, and you are the producer, writer, and star of a movie called SHAMPOO at a pivotal moment in the film you can have an academy award winning actress like Julie Christie say the line to you around a dinner table filled with people “I want to suck your cock!”

Kinda wondered about MILLION DOLLAR BABY - whether something may have been up or not between Clint and Hilary Swank. Remembered how when she won the Academy Award for BOYS DON’T CRY, in her acceptance speech, she thanked everyone she could possibly think of - and totally forgot to mention her husband(Chad Lowe). I remember thinking “How long will these two last?” And the answer apparently turned out to be - as long as it took Clint to come riding in on his charger, and to direct her( and whatever else) to another Academy Award.

It was shortly after that, that she and her husband divorced. The husband is also an actor, and kind of a laid back type. Sort of like, Brad Pitt. Whose main squeeze, St. Angelina, is starring in a film that has recently been produced and directed by guess who? Clint Eastwood.

I guess Ms. Lips Galore is ok as an actor. But, let’s face it she’s a star because of what she looks like. Like Brad Pitt.

I suppose Clint Eastwood may have some sense of whether or not an actor possesses a measure of talent. I’m not a hundred percent sure of that, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. What I am very sure about is that he does (still) have an eye for the ladies, and what a great way for him to co-mingle with whomever suits his fancy by offering them a role in one of his films. Also, what a great way to do whatever the hell he pleases, in front of the world so to speak - and get away with it any damn time he feels like it.

I remember hearing of endless so-called casting sessions being conducted by Warren Beatty for projects that never materialized. Who was always on the lookout for the next cute thing. In fact, I remember reading an interview on Woody Allen in which he was quoted as saying that if there was such a thing as reincarnation he hoped he would be coming back as “Warren Beatty’s fingertips.” A reference not to Mr. Beatty’s skills as a filmmaker, but rather to his success - trolling for babes. In fact, when Mr. Beatty co-opted Mr. Allen’s leading lady, Diane Keaton right from under Mr. Allen’s nose and put her into his personal life and his own films (REDS), he then had to suffer Mr. Allen’s wrath in the form of the movie Woody made about Mr. Beatty called “Zelig.” ( 1983: A “Documentary about a man who can look and act like whoever he’s around, and meets various, famous people.”)

WHEW! To make a film that is a thinly disguised put-down of a guy who steals your girlfriend in real life. How trite can you get? And the really interesting thing was how all the critics that praised the film were completely unaware of why it was made in the first place, and what it was really about - which was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! But a primadonna’s bruised ego. People like these icons, or as they’re called today, legends - do get older, but the game they play remains the same: trolling for babes.

WOW! To have all that power, all that position and influence - and to use it simply to get laid. Makes me wonder like I said at the very beginning - what else could it be used for???? Unless, of course you’re not doing whatever it is you’re doing to get laid, and instead are using your position to make a difference - to serve, to inspire, to elevate - to enlighten. And, I guess the only one to whom it matters, is you and I, the viewer, who pays for his or her ticket, and sits in a darkened theatre - and looks up at that screen. On some level we, you and I are the only ones who KNOW whether, or not, up there on that screen there is or is not - SUBSTANCE.

Seen any GOOD films, lately???

THE THIEF IN THE NIGHT

2008-06-29T23:58:00.000-07:00

By Bean-girl

Have you ever had an encounter with a thief breaking into your home? If not how many times have you read about their sudden attacks in newspapers and TV? Scary, right? Don’t want it to happen to you. Well, got some bad news for yah all... it already has.

Yes, I realized something long ago, most thieves in the night are your local newspapers and news shows, your high end fashion magazines, almost all of Hollywood movies and TV shows.

Oh, yes, you heard me right; they come into your life as innocent as a Vogue magazine, or a TV show and they steal your soul. Only you don’t realize it until it is way too late. One day you wake up and go through: ‘I feel so tired’, or ‘I am no good’, or ‘Why does he or she hate me so? or worse of all, ‘America is bad, I can’t believe I live here!’ Well when this happens it is a damn good sign you have been struck by the thief in the night.

I grew up with so many thieves unaware, I thought it was all me. Why does the media do this? Mind control, my friends, the Marxists call it Psyhcopolitics. It is their way to take over a country without bombs. How else can you explain the actions of the murderers of the spirit?
They have good reasons in their hearts; these are thieves that work on people’s minds for a specific reason. They need you to do their bidding, like voting for a certain person whom caries their agenda, or making sure everyone in America has a lousy HDTV, or breaking the spirit of boys so they never become men, thus, no Army! They do all this and so much more while you believe they are spotless humans whom do no wrong.

Think of “The View”. The best classic example of a bogus mind altering TV show. They throw in a token Conservative girl who was a host on a cable beauty show and make her look like the daily fool. Of course, she is not, but she is a novelty, she is weak. They want you to see her as weak. Think of it, all Conservatives are weak!!! All liberals are strong!... and let’s tell another scary nightmare bedtime story.

If these people were real they would have an Ann Coulter or a Michelle Malkin on the panel, someone who can fight as good as they can. Or anyone, for that matter, with the brains and the heart to take the panel of four liberals to one Conservative to task.
But this is what a thief in the night does; they steal. My friends, every time you allow them to enter your home via your ‘soon to be replaced by a new edition’ HDTV they steal from you.
They seal you soul, your heart, your children, your money. Believe me, you can be killed with evil words and evil images.

That stupid song we used to sing when we were young. ‘Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me.’ How untrue that statement is. Almost everyone I know has a dysfunction due to words that were shoved down their throats like rocks. Hook up with the abuser on TV, Madison Ave or Hollywood; the slick ones with all intellect and no wisdom and you are done in.
So how do you STOP the thief in the night from stealing a large part of your life from you? Aah, this is where it gets tough. You can be a victim at any time if your guard is down. What does this mean and how can I keep myself protected you think?

First you must use something we all posses but are not taught to use from grade school up; wisdom. When you listen and watch or read, engage with the box or words in your home, do not jump. I repeat, do not jump into the flame. Watch, wait and listen, think and think again. All the road signs are there if you take the time to really hear and see what this person says and how this person acts. Look up the ramifications of their actions, like larger taxes, no army, social health care, the fairness doctrine, hate laws, etc. All these are designed, DESIGNED to take your freedom away!

So the next time you open a fashion magazine and read the headline of some famous actress who has done nothing in her life except learn how to read lines and put fake tears in her eyes without messing up her makeup, telling you who to vote for… run, RUN from that page. Just look at the clothes, don’t even read a word.

When you see the full page adds for “kids for peace”, rip it out. I am not kidding, rip it out, make a ball of it and throw it in your trash. Why? Because, as we teach our kids to worship the peace symbol, the Islamists, and Fascists and Marxists are laughing at us fools. Get it, they are laughing as it is a matter of a few years that they can take over our country and close down those back ass magazines, and put the people in jail who don’t do as they say. They will steal your possessions and homes for real and divide it up for the masses. And then the hippies for “peace” will wail and cry, for what the hell will they do without their HDTV’s? FIN

(The Photo of Reverend Al Gore by Giovanni Calia http://www.flickr.com/photos/estragon_flickr/ )

WOMEN ARE THE NEW MEN

2008-06-25T00:49:00.000-07:00

by The Stranger

Turn on the TV these days and what you see mostly are strident, angry women. In your face, particularly if it’s the face of a male. Sarcastically putting the males in their places. Lately, and increasingly, punching the lights out of the men when its called for and sometimes when its not - just to let the men know who the bosses are these days: WOMEN: THE NEW MEN!!!

Why is it that in most commercials being shown on TV the man is the goofball, the doofus? In family commercials Dad is the dummy of the household, butt of derision, the one who is lame, who needs to be brought up to speed, often by the kids in the family. And if they’re not the ones doing it, then there’s the man of the house - MOM!! - the authority figure, the one who wears the pants (think Hilary Clinton) - the one with the BALLS (again, think Hilary Clinton). Poor dad - he no longer knows best. Its all about mom now.

The silent majority, the oppressed, the disenfranchised, life force being discriminated against, and disrespected today - are men. Man as hero - where has he gone? The closest thing we have these days to a heroic man are ….. males who appear to be geeks and nerds .The real endangered species these days are guys who are admirable, comfortable in their own skins, masculine without trying to be - guys, in short, who feel no need to jump up and down on couches ( uhh - he ain’t one of ‘em).

In my opinion the losers in this equation are the women. In the name of equality and feminism- women have begun to act like men. Look at an old episode of Murphy Brown. Then look at a current episode of a show that’s on TV today, Boston Legal - and compare Candace Bergen in both shows. Formerly she sounded, in the quality of her voice, like a woman.

Today she sounds like a MAN. Look at the clothes she wears on the show (again, think Hilary Clinton). She’s become manly…. A manly woman: The NEW WOMAN.

What’s being lost is the polarity between the sexes. La Difference: The celebration between the male energy and the female energy. Men have noticed this. But aren’t saying anything, because its not politically correct. Today, political correctness means celebrating feminine empowerment (think Sex and The City, Desperate Housewives, Army Wives ad nauseum), woman as goddess etc. - all the Oprah bullshit. And speaking of the goddess of ego-speak, Ms. Winfrey - why whatever happened to the studmuffin in your life - Steadman?

There is something about Oprah that is, to me, off-putting. Is it me or does her voice sound like that of a 12 or 13 year old boy’s? And her mannerisms, too, seem to me to lack femininity. In some strange way she seems devoid of womanliness.

I also believe and its mostly to do with her financial success, that Oprah is the pre-eminent role model of what it is to be a woman today. There is, to me, something scary about this, if its so. That has nothing at all to do with the success she’s become, nor with her fortune or her supposed independence. What’s scary to me is - HER- the woman she appears to be. There is nothing about her I find or am able to feel from her - of genuine warmth, or vulnerability. Nothing about her as a woman that is alluring to me as a man. I’m not sure she can be moved viscerally by male energy (unless perhaps it takes the form of jumping up and down on her couch). When it comes to the opposite sex, Oprah seems to be - somewhere else. To me she is a strange role model unless all a role model needs to be is fabulously wealthy. It has nothing to do with her color, or her girth; c’mon, I can see why Queen Latifa is a star - she’s a babe. She digs men. She’s a lady, too. But, Oprah as role model…. Like I said, to me, THAT IS SCARY. People tend to imitate role models. They try to model themselves after the way they see them behave. YIKES!!

Men are hungry for women who make them feel good. About them being men ….about them being themselves….about there being women in the world that they can be friends with, associates with and sometimes lovers with….relishing all those qualities that women have always possessed that have captivated, and elevated us as men that I no longer see absolutely any trace of on afternoon talk shows or in my living room any more watching TV.

I saw a Country & Western Awards show on TV some months ago. I noticed that all the women performers (Reba &co,) were singing songs that all had the same message: “I am woman, hear me roar” …“ I’m a powerful woman who doesn’t need a man” blah, blah, blah. At one point in the show Country superstar George Strait sang a song “HOW ABOUT THEM COWGIRLS.” And just for a moment - there it was! A man singing about the beauty that is WOMAN. Celebrating it ….singing about it/ admiring and loving the all that is the feminine energy in a country song. WOW!! He nailed it! He stopped the show.

I saw the faces of the men AND THE WOMEN in the audience. It was a moment - a baptism of LOVE / POLARITY and MUTUAL ADMIRATION- a celebration of the polarity between the male and the female energy! And it was so refreshing to see - just for that moment the absolute GRACE of the male and the female energy COMPLEMENTING ONE ANOTHER. And it had absolutely nothing at all to do with competition, with women acting like men, acting tough, or physically behaving as though “I’m gonna kick your ass!”

The truly, truly great love stories that I have seen in a motion picture theatre like CASABLANCA, A PLACE IN THE SUN, GONE WITH THE WIND, (The French Film) HAPPY NEW YEAR, SOUNDER, SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE, (even) THE ENGLISH PATIENT to name just a very few - are all centered around a man and a woman who love one another and whose love, each for the other is a COMPLEMENT the audience bears witness to that is the very essence of the grace that exists at the very center of who and what we are as human beings, male AND female: TOGETHER.

Yes, indeed and Amen, too. We need more a that kind of celebratin’. We need more a that: men being just men - and women actin’like …. well, then, there, now …… ACTIN’ LIKE WOMEN….INSTEADA’….. LIKE MEN.

..............

(Artwork of Kali in the article by Manohar Saini)

TRUE OR FALSE

2008-06-17T15:55:00.000-07:00

by The Stranger

On6/1/08, in the Sunday Times was a book review of a new bio:
POSTHUMOUS KEATS, the life and work of poet John Keats who died at the age of 25, far from home, poor, in Rome. Family members were either dead, or estranged from him. The woman he loved was convinced they had no future together. He had no reputation, or success. What must it be like to die at that age, in those circumstances? The review mentions that today Keats “ranks with Shakespeare now, in talent if not in achievement, and the homes where he so suffered in Italy and England have become museums. His grave in Rome is a pilgrimage site, the poems he scrawled and saw decried are everywhere anthologized….and this Mozart of musical language has become the very emblem of romantic gain and loss.”

I was reminded of the same feelings of awe, admiration, and inspiration that I had reading DEAR THEO, Vincent Van Gogh’s book of letters to his brother and sole benefactor, Theo. Van Gogh sold just one painting during his lifetime. He also died destitute, alone, in obscurity. Who is “now a multimillion-dollar franchise on the auction block.”

I was driving down Robertson Blvd. this afternoon. And all of a sudden there was a pack of paparazzi surrounding a woman whose last name is Kardashian. I heard someone say “She’s famous for being famous.” And that “She comes from a wealthy family.” The paparazzi were behaving like she was someone important, and as though what they were doing at that moment was life and death. Paris Hilton, Nichole Richie, Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan have become the new standard bearers. But - of what? The lust for fame? The greed for attention?

Keats and Van Gogh lived for the highest sense of a creative expression that each of them believed existed. They were willing to sacrifice their very lives on behalf of that possibility. They lived and died attempting to attain that pinnacle of achievement. And achieve it they did. But not during each of their lifetimes. The recognition, and acceptance; the success and the fame came to them only after they had gone. And what they left behind - the poems and paintings - thrills, moves and inspires us so today because they labored on behalf of a LOVE that had nothing to do with fame or wanting to be famous. And everything to do with Beauty. With Truth. With what it means to be Human in the fullest, deepest, richest sense of that word.
They left this for us, for all of us. What will someone like a Paris Hilton leave us? Or the Kardashian lady who is simply “famous for being famous?” What they seem to be leaving me with, even though neither one of them has gone anywhere, except perhaps to the nearest mall, is a sense of misdirected, misguided energy.

The great Russian filmmaker, Andrey Tarkovsky writes in his exceptional book Sculpting In Time that: “My function is to make whoever sees my films aware of his need to love and to give his love, and aware that beauty is summoning him.” What has this to do with fame and wanting to be famous.

(A Scene from Tarkovsky's film "Stalker")

My intention in this instance is neither to be, nor appear to be mean-spirited toward Ms. Hilton, nor Ms. Kardashian. And perhaps these words have nothing at all to do with anyone who aspires to celebrity and or fame over and above all else. But they do have to do with something we all are a part of and in the process of evolving together: the human condition. I suppose there exists a need in the world today for a Paris Hilton, a Britney Spears, a lady named Kardashian. But …..

Thank God for a Keats….a Van Gogh….A Tarkovsky. “By their works shall ye know them.” Read the poems …. Look at the paintings …. See just one of the films ….

------------Keats Room in Rome -------------------------Van Gogh's Room

-----Room from Tarkovsky's "Mirror"

"I am sorry, that with reverence I did not entertain thee as thou art"

2008-06-10T18:31:00.001-07:00

by Yervand Kochar

At an early stage movies, and arts in general, were not, yet, divided into entertainment and pure art. The art for its own sake is a relatively new and in a way conventional concept.
I can't imagine Leonardo DaVinci thinking about whether he should entertain or create something of an eternal value. He did what he felt doing in tune with the sensibilities of his time and people.

Great art is always entertaining but
entertainment, even great entertainment,
cannot be art. In other words, Chaplin was entertaining and could have had his own late night show just like David Letterman but Letterman cannot be Chaplin.
By the same token, Shakespeare’s plays are entertaining and are great art at the same time.
Yet, numberless other plays at the Globe theatre in the 16th century London were probably even more entertaining to the public but they had never reached the level of mastery as the Shakespeare’s works did.

On the other hand, the entertainers of London theatres could very well do without Shakespeare (as they did before and after) but Shakespeare could not be possible without all the 16century theatrical entertainment.
All the great masters and masterpieces of great art were possible in the environments where the level of mere entertainment was elevated and stimulating.
The stronger the environment the stronger the master for the master and his art is a culmination of his and her surrounding.
Had Leonardo been not born during the cultural upheaval in Italy, were ordinary people’s interest and sensibility in visual arts was heightened and profound, he would have had less chances to flourish to the degree he did.

To understand the relation of art and entertainment it is helpful to clarify their etymology.
The very genesis of the English verb "to entertain" implies continuity for it is derivative from Latin inter 'among' and tenere 'to hold'. Entertain means to maintain, to continue. But what is it that it is supposed to maintain or to continue?
In Shakespeare's time and a little later the verb obtained an additional meaning that of 'maintaining in a certain condition', 'treating in a certain way', and/or 'showing hospitality'.
In "Henry VI", Part i, Shakespeare uses the verb with this new meaning,
"I am sorry, that with reverence I did not entertain thee as thou art".
The variations of meaning of the word point in a direction that implies a certain way of doing things, a way that needs to be preserved, a way 'it ought to be', a way it is worth to continue. This, in turn, implies a reality or a state of mind that needs to be entertained, or continued, or maintained. So one cannot entertain without a knowledge of the assumed reality or the knowledge of its existence. Entertainment is derivative of a reality beyond itself and is pointed to that reality.

It was only in the 18th century when the noun 'entertainment' implied a public performance intended to amuse an audience. Now, the word amusement was not equated to entertainment until the 17th century. Originally meaning 'deception', amuser came from the Old French, from a- expressing a causal effect and muser 'stare stupidly'. The Oxford Dictionary of Word Histories notes: 'Current senses relating to entertainment date from 17th century at the time when the noun amusement (from French) is recorded meaning 'musing, diversion of attention'.

There is a fundamental difference between the concept of entertainment and amusement. The former leads to a reality beyond itself, the latter tricks the observer into believing that it is a self-sustained reality. Entertainment is a key to the unknown; amusement is using that unknown to lock the door and focus attention on itself.

This is the essence of magic tricks where an effort is put to make the audience believe (or muser -'stare stupidly') that the reality of the trick is self-sufficient. The trick does not move you to a reality beyond itself, it is not incentive to understanding the process that makes it possible because the process is that of a deception and delusion. It is literally, a 'diversion of attention" from a reality of its own process.

Amusement has elements of entertainment but unlike entertainment it does not lead to a higher form of expression, art. Entertainment depends on the elements of amusement, yet, by definition has to overcome them, or elevate them to next step.

Art depends on the entertainment.

This is why strong and solid entertainment is a sign of great art on the horizon.
This is why good entertainment is important. A cultural establishment cannot create an artist but it can create a solid foundation for an artist to build upon.
What happens today, in the movies and elsewhere, is a very perverted process. Solid entertainment is replaced by a strange extroverted showcase so unrealistically labeled as a reality show, barely acceptable entertainment is marketed as great art and great art is made impossible. In other words, amusement is considered entertainment, entertainment is elevated to the status of art and art is deemed unnecessary.

The quality of entertainment and its style feeds from the wholeness of cultural, political, economic and national factors and experiences. In our confused and relativist times when ambiguity of thought and inability to focus is sold as thoughtfulness, clarity is an archaic fancy. Our culture is a disguised pornography, politics is a partisan warfare, economics is permeated with fear and the idea of people as nation dismissed as fascism. Any attempt to create a clear and simple form of action and communication, whether in politics, economics or culture is met with a disarming 'Baby, it's not John Wayne's time anymore' line.

There are laws of human art are the are laws of Spirit and Nature. These laws are clear and simple, which allows for a complex human construction upon them. Those who do not understand the simplicity of laws create rules to complicate them and confuse complexity with perplexity. Complexity, though, is an elaborate simplicity. A complex, multilayer building is constructed by simple known laws and their variations, not by an ambigiuty and by laws of relaitvity. The constructions of the entertainment-industrial complex today are shaky and dangerous. The day is not far when this irresponsibly built lawless construction buries its occupants under its rubble.

The demand creates reality and we were trained to demand mediocrity. We have been taught to be satisfied with entertainment that does not resonate within us and does not move us in depth. We were indoctrinated to accept light with darkness and got used to living in a good apartment in a bad neighborhood. So, we pointlessly float on the surface in the hope that the good stream will take us to that lonely island not infected, yet, with the deseases of our time.
We comfort ourselves with a hope that artists will be artists anyway and will do their art regardless how low the common denominator is dropped for the culture in general. It is a very comforting thought, a false but comforting thought.

The same people who are responsible for littering the cultural highways wage an environmental war for pure arts. They scout for people who are not entirely in the gutter and proclaim them artists. This is the only reason why such a dull and fake movie as “There Will Be Blood” was proclaimed an American classic and socially concerned but essentially meaningless Paul Thomas Anderson as the new George Orson Wells.
This is why men conflicted about their sexuality are coined as leading male protagonists, hysterical women who overpower those men are elevated to a goddess status and mediocre directors are put in charge of the overall offensive.

The solid entertainment must have a direction. It should be a helpful push, a key to unlocking the door to mysteries of life through the arts. However silly and superficial, entertainment must be an emanation and an imitation of great art, a simpler formalistic expression of a complex source. It should be simplified for the masses in order for them to reconnect with the realities, which will require some extra steps to enter.

Today, the cheap and meaningless entertainment industry dictates our tastes and moods. Current entertainment is not just stupid; it is arrogant for it assumes to be more important than its source. Without a sense of direction and with proud self-gratification, it leads people away from a possibility to know arts and eventually to know themselves.
It also destroys the seeds of artistry in people who need a solid foundation and mileage on their way to mastery.
In its essence, all this silliness and glorification of dumb and dull is evil masquerading as entertainment. It is evil because it takes one away from good and there are no buffer zones or border states between good and evil. This is a reality from which the modern thought defended itself with a shield of relativism. Yet, there is no hiding from the fact that deceptive entertainment is not even an amusement but simply wrong and evil.

As all evil it has no staying power but possesses very strong marketing tools and an ability to undo good and delay great.

YOU DON’T MESS WITH MR. SUCCESS

2008-06-07T17:02:00.000-07:00

by The Stranger

First off, the very first moment I saw Adam Sandler, and I believe it was his very first appearance on Johnny Carson’s The Tonight Show, I remember thinking “This guy is FUNNY.” I’ve never felt that way, for example, about Will Farrell. If he is in a story that is funny, and in some circumstances that are funny, he can benefit from the assumption of the audience that it must be Mr. Farrell who is actually the funny component.
But it AIN’T him dat’s funny. Richard Pryor….. And the original comic genius of them all JONATHAN WINTERS….
These were funny individuals. All they needed to do to make you laugh is - to simply show up. I think of Adam Sandler in that same category, albeit to a lesser degree.

Pryor and Winters were comic genius personified. Exactly what Robin Williams has aspired to be, but ain’t, never was, never will be. I am worn out by his manic, forced life force within a moment or two of any exposure to him. And Chris Rock….He thinks that if HE acts as though he believes himself to be funny, then you will, too. He wishes he were Richard Pryor, but he’s not, never has been, never will be. He’s a shock meister, like Madonna, and he’s not funny in the same way she ain’t talented. Their talent is getting you to notice them, that they’re alive and on the planet at the same time you and I are. But once either of them has my attention - after two seconds I’m bored to death.

But getting back to Adam Sandler - could anyone other than him actually get a film made about a guy who is a terrorist fighter, who wants to be a hairstylist???? I haven’t seen "You Don't Mess with the ZOHAN", and I’m pretty sure I won’t. In spite of the fact that the premise of the film… well, I mean who couldn’t identify with the inherent universality of this premise RIGHT???? Where did he think this one up? But really, he’s already laughing all the way to the bank - he got Hollywood to go along with his goof: “ WOW - wait till I tell the guys.”

And, oh yah - Mike Myers is also about to open in a new movie "The Love Guru". Who’s the first person YOU thought of when you saw the ad for the film? Did someone say to Mr. Myers: “Charles Manson. Now he’s funny!” Charlie baby ain’t, never was, never will be.

Whatever happened to great ideas and great possibilities as premises for movies - that inspired you and I to reach for the stars? By “stars “ - I don’t mean Adam Sandler or Mike Myers.
I mean the ones ABOVE.

CANNES' VOYAGE TO NEVERLAND

2008-06-02T20:15:00.001-07:00

by Yervand Kochar

During the 1963 Moscow International Film Festival few had a doubt that Federico Fellini’s “8 ½” was not just a masterpiece but a milestone achievement that will signal a new epoch in filmmaking. The film was not merely contending for the Grand Prize; it was clear that no conventional prize can put a tag on the sheer artistic genius and refreshing power of the movie. Threatened by Fellini’s highly formalistic language, the Communist party’s movie department that was behind making the decisions of the festival, as usually, suspected something potentially harmful for the cause of the international proletariat. They began putting pressure on the head of the jury, a Soviet filmmaker Grigori Chukhrai not to award the Grand Prize to “8 ½ ”.

Chukhrai was in a tight spot. He had his share of problems with the system with his 1959 war movie “The Ballad of a Soldier” where he did not depict the Nazis as stupid animals but rather as a highly organized and evil intelligence. Because of that, some in the government tried to ban Chukhrai and tried to label him as a Nazi sympathizer.
They failed for, first, Chukhrai’s movies about the war were Soviet classics and Chukrai himself was a war hero who fought his way all the way to Berlin, involved virtually in every major battle of the war.
So when Chukhrai refused to back down the pack sensed an opportunity for a sweet revenge. Chukhrai claimed that depriving 8 ½ would not only be a blunt error of cinematic judgment but a political disaster for an A class festival. He claimed that when people see the movie in the West and learn that Moscow did not award it, the credibility of the festival would be ruined beyond repair. Chukhrai got into a power play with some very dangerous people who warned him that if Fellini gets the Grand Prize, Chukhrai will not be able to make another movie anytime soon, or ever…

Fellini’s ‘8 ½’ won the Moscow’s Grand Prize. It triumphed all over the world afterwards as a masterpiece acknowledged first at the Moscow International Film Festival. As a result, as promised, from now on Chukhrai had to fight for his every subsequent movie and was sabotaged and attacked for years to come.
It is easy to underestimate the magnitude of Chukrai’ sacrifice. Yet, it was tremendous. He bet his career, fame and ability to create his own movies for abstract ideals of truth and art. This was a character of the man who fought in World War , a man who saw and knew evil and never gave in to it. He was a real judge, a judge whose verdict meant something. His judgment of life and arts had a repercussion for him first of all. His judgment was substantiated by his character. He was responsible for his judgment and he paid for it dearly.
However great “8 ½” was, Chukhrai’s action made it even more precious.

Now, what are the power and the value of Sean Penn’s judgment as the President of the Jury of the 2008 Cannes Film Festival?
This is a man who within two years met with three tyrants and validated,(in an insignificant but well promoted way) regimes and people who have blood and repression of artistic and human rights as their basic operational procedure. Appointing Sean Penn as a grand judge of the Cannes film festival was like appointing Bonnie and Clyde as the secretary of treasury. Of all the politically active celebrities Sean Penn was the only one who made the same idiotic move three times in a row. If his fellow tyrant praising filmmakers, like Spielberg and Stone, had a crush on only one antiquated imbecile, namely Fidel Castro; Sean Penn felt that he needs to understand and shake hands with the whole trio- Castro, Ahmadenijad and Chavez.

I mean, Leni Riefenstahl was undoubtedly a much more talented filmmaker than Penn, but even Neo-Nazis would agree that she was not fit to judge a major film festival after she kind of misjudged (or was forced to by history) the real character of that Austrian psychopath.

Ok, let’s put Sean’s politics aside, after all, celebrities (not artists) are usually aligning on the wrong tracks of a political locomotive. This is natural since they both rotate in self-imposed sphere of worldly power and feel akin to each other’s contest to replace God.

Let’s leave the politics aside and see what are the artistic merits by which Sean Penn was considered to lead the pack of jurors in an attempt to set the tone for the contemporary world cinema. Let’s assume that he is a fine actor, since I don’t think anyone in their sane mind would claim him as one of the greats. (I personally think that he brings a nervous, irritating energy onto the screen…kind of like his pal Ahmadenijad to politics). But again let’s assume that he is a fine actor. Ok, but there are many fine even finer actors. So what separates Sean Penn from his colleagues, what is the criterion by which he is chosen to establish the trend?
He directed a movie, one may say. Oh, that’s right. Well, this surely separates him from the only twelve remaining fine actors who haven’t yet tried to direct a movie based on an ‘edgy’ screenplay. I mean, common, why didn’t they choose George Clooney as the president of the jury? He is another fine actor who directed a movie and also loves foreign dictators.

I just really care about this festival. There were times when Cannes was praising masters. People who came here to tell the world something that the world didn’t know or didn’t know how to express. This was a great cultural event that inspired people and made them see something that affected their minds and souls.

Today Cannes just signals the decline of the cinema as an art form. It shows how bankrupt the movies have become. And this probably, better than anything, explains the choice of Sean Penn as the chief justice of the festival. He is just perfectly representative of everything that went wrong with cinematic expression. The movies today communicate exactly what Sean Penn communicates through his life and on the screen: a confused and weak character moved by anger and immersed in despair; artistically dead and socially wired; cowardly to fight, yet, anxious to be in peace; unable to discern good from evil, relative in truth and absolute in fallacy …and above all impure in every single move.

It is this impurity that leads to the clinically bizarre fascination with tyrants and mass murderers like Che Guevara by weasels like Steven Soderbergh. I mean think about this Cannes’ usual. To be able to make a movie about his private proletarian murderer hero, Soderbergh must once in a while make a movie about the pinnacle of American capitalism, a Las Vegas casino. Again, it’s like Bonnie and Clyde making a home security system infomercial video. Oh, I get it, Soderbergh is just a genius. He is robbing capitalist Americans by selling them his crappy Ocean movies in order to make real movies about communist heroes. Now I get it. But, wait, doesn’t it make him a bit of a traitor? Actually, a big time traitor?
Shame on me! Now I sound like Senator McCarthy. Actually, yes, I am acting just like McCarthy. I am accusing a guy who made a move about a communist hero for being a communist sympathizer. That’s unfair to Soderbergh. I hope I don’t hurt his infantile hunger for an international revolution that proved to be a mass murdering failure, let’s see, only about every time it was applied.

If these filmmakers continue to be the moral and artistic compasses of our time, our next stop is an iceberg.

Cannes, actually, lost its virginity when they gave the Palme D’Ore to, a McDonalds ‘aficionado’ turned filmmaker, Michael Moore. His “Fahrenheit 911” was such a deceptive documentary that even professional Bush-haters detested it as a gross fabrication.
By the way, in the film Michael Moore went into great length depicting pre- invasion Saddam’s Iraq as Milton’s Paradise Lost. Rosy cheeked happy children playing as their happy and well dressed mothers watch them with humility… and (the part omitted by Moore) their fathers, the players of Iraqi national soccer team being tortured by Saddam’s sons Uddai and Hussei for loosing a World Cup qualifier to the Saudi Arabia team.

Not only did Cannes not bother to check the facts of Moore’s vomit, but it didn’t even consider that what they were making was not a political statement by an artistic community but a primitive and partisan attempt to affect a political election of a participant country. They basically ignored a tradition of a great movie event that always praised an independent artistic spirit, in favor of …yes, a vision of a hysterical political hack who made an election propaganda documentary. How disrespectful was that to the filmmakers of other countries that had to see their beloved festival sacrificed for the benefit of the American political infighting. Then we wonder why people hate America.

By the way the President of Jury that year, the man who awarded it to Michael Moore with a prideful smile, was, a guy who turned watching Blockbuster movies for free into an art form, Quentin Tarantino. Here is another psychopathic megalomaniac who marketed his sickness into a standard and was given the privilege to teach this year’s Master Class at Cannes. His major lesson to filmmakers was to demonstrate that after they tell you that you made it, you can begin swearing in the presence of people in tuxedos, tell them how great you are because you worked in a Blockbuster for a year and, yet, made it, as opposed to a mundane Chukrai, for instance, who spent four years in the trenches fighting the Nazis, then was banned by the Communists and, yet, made it. And, yes, I almost forgot, another precious lesson that Tarantino gave to the filmmakers. ‘Just do it’, he said, ‘just go ahead and do your f…g movie.’ Now, is that what you people call a Master Class? You don’t have to go to Cannes for this and spend a fortune on a hotel room. Nike has been saying this same crap on TV for years trying to sell their sneakers to kids in the ghettoes.

Wake up people! Antonioni was a master. Kurosawa was a master. These people, today, are just tricksters.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not trying to say that because of their moral bankruptcy these people are not good artists. They have their talents, they have their moments but they are not masters. They are not people who are supposed to set the bar. And setting the bar is precisely what festivals like Cannes do. They set the tone and they tell what goes and what does not.

Cannes is in part responsible for the visionary development of the human race. By entrusting the wheel to a filthy mouthed boatswain Tarantino and a Persian pirate’s parrot Sean Penn, Cannes gradually takes its ship to the ‘Neverland’ of becoming an irrelevant film event that ignores real masters, people like Chukhrai who will prefer an oblivion to a festival that increasingly becomes to the art of movies what Michael Jackson is to child development.

(The image above is by artist David Shannon http://www.everypicture.com/show_product.php?id=2955&sc=1&sc=1)

CUTTING EDGE OF CRASSNESS

2008-05-31T12:56:00.000-07:00

by The Stranger

In 5/26/08 LA TIMES there’s an article in Calendar on actress Denise Richards. She’s quoted saying that she’s “attracted to men who are generously endowed.” Why would a person want others to know this kind of information about oneself? And the answer is, over and above whether its true or not - its designed to get people to talk about her. And, in a nutshell its all that has become ‘the only game in town’ these days regarding stardom, celebrity, entertainment. Which has little, or let’s be honest about it, nothing whatsoever to do with merit, substance or quality.

Do people care if Denise Richards is into balloon dicks? If they do, more power to her, I guess. But, for me its what you do, I suppose, when you are an actress whom has been around for a while who is perhaps not on too many of the wish lists of vital filmmakers wanting to work with her. You say things in articles about you that are designed to get people to talk about you. What about wanting people to respect you? And by the way Ms. Richards - aren’t you the mother of two very small children?????

Last night on PBS there was a documentary on Harry Truman.
I found it so refreshing. Here was a man who wanted nothing at all to do with becoming President of the United States. Circumstances….Life forced him into that position. Unlike the Clintons whose lives and relationship with one another and the world around them has only one purpose…Ambition in the name of the presidency/power/position.

Truman became someone special because on some level his character and substance as a person had earned it, and deserved it.
What’s happened to us as a culture?
It seems today people will do and say anything just to get attention. The most savy and crass individual at this game was/is Madonna. Who, it seems to me, changed the playing field from merit to vulgarity, from talent to self-centered cunning and self-love. She begat Britney, begat Paris, begat Lindsay etc.; begat the biggest out of control ego the planet has ever seen - OPRAH!!!!

Yah, Denise… “You go, girl!!!!”

Hollywood Loses a Class Act

2008-05-29T01:55:00.000-07:00

by The Stranger

With the passing of Sydney Pollack, Hollywood has truly lost one of its finest lights. He stood for CLASS in every sense of the word, as an artist, as a person.

He began as an actor, then moved into directing, and this imbued his work with actors with an empathy, and a generosity and depth of spirit and sensitivity that allowed many of them not only to establish themselves as actors, but also to soar to creative heights they may not have experienced otherwise; in some cases via his guidance - attaining Stardom , such as Robert Redford.

I had the good fortune to have met him once. Socially. On the beach at Malibu. A heightened sense of aliveness, humility, a gentleman. He’ll be missed.

PRESUMPTIOUS

2008-05-26T22:53:00.000-07:00

by The Stranger

It recently occurred to me with the promos for the film WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS that there was/is a glaring sense of entitlement, unwarranted and unearned, regarding the use of the two stars of the film’s FIRST NAMES only (Cameron/Ashton). This smacks of an over the top sense of presumption on the part of the makers and promoters of the film. As though, all that’s really required to put seats into theatres is simply the two first names of these two stars. SAYS WHO??? I mean, give me a break!!

Tracy & Hepburn …. Martin & Lewis …. Redford & Newman ….Laurel & Hardy …. Crosby & Hope …. Bogart & Bacall -

these were legitimate stars who had earned their stardom with quality and consistency over years rather than minutes and months. And none of them, either the stars themselves or the filmmakers and promoters of their films EVER went so far as to presume that, on a marquee all that was ever required was their first names to attract audiences.

What the forces behind WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS seem to me to be saying to the public is that Cameron ‘s(Diaz) and Ashton’s (Kutcher ) first names on a marquee are all that is really necessary for people to want to see the film. And that is really more important than anything else. REALLY??? Let’s hope these same filmmakers and promoters don’t team up on a film about the just recently ended season of American Idol: “coming to a theatre near you”…. DAVID & DAVID blah blah blah….

Presumption …. A false sense of entitlement are just a couple of responses that come to me.

Iron Man

2008-05-15T22:18:00.000-07:00

by Michael Widman

Iron Man" is the story of billionaire weapons developer Tony Stark (played by Robert Downey Jr.) who finds himself kidnapped by a fanatical militia whilst on a business trip to the Middle East and must fashion an impenetrable, iron super-suit in order to escape. Once back in America, he grows a conscience, puts the final touches on that super-suit, and proceeds to lay waste to the murderous weapons he helped create as well as any villains that would stand in the way.
This the official story, but the real story is far more interesting: Universal and Marvel’s attempt not only to create a lucrative new franchise, which is perfectly understandable, but also to rebirth Robert Downey Jr. as the family-friendly driver of this ultra expensive racecar – ala Johnny Depp in Disney’s Pirates of the Carribean. I don’t think it is going to work as well for Universal and Marvel as it did for Disney. No disrespect to Downey, who is a fine actor, but Tony Stark is no Captain Jack: he’s just not as fun or funny or interesting. Plus, there is a slight difference in the real-life baggage of the two actors involved: one trashed a hotel room once and was found in criminal possession of lame-ass sunglasses and a ski cap; the other was injecting smack and introducing himself to his Malibu neighbors while in bed – their bed, not his.

By the way, the idea that these guys like Depp or Downey (or even Travolta with Pulp Fiction, for that matter) have finally “arrived” after years of struggling is a bit much. After all, I wouldn’t call making millions per movie (albeit often bad ones) over the years struggling – it’s not as if they had to support themselves by working as “mobile pet groomers” like most actors in L.A have to. But I digress… Supporting cast is impressive enough – Gwyneth Paltrow as Tony Stark’s loyal assistant “Pepper Potts”, Terence Howard as military man “Jim Rhodes” and Jeff Bridges as… well, I don’t really remember the character’s name, but boy he looked terrible! If I may paraphrase the late, great John Vernon, who played Dean Wormer in “Animal House”: fat, bald and Grizzly Adams-bearded is no way to go through life, son! But then, that’s why he’s the villain! Did you just..? You didn’t just… OH, SON OF A BITCH!!!!!

Speaking of Gwyneth Paltrow, she’s looking as fetching as ever. I don’t care what Kathy Griffin says – I’d nail her! And I’m guessing by the razor-thin depth that her character Pepper was imbued with by the writer, that was the intention all along, so I’m safe! Don’t hate me!
Besides, Gwyneth Paltrow still owes me and the rest of the world a debt which she will probably be paying off for the rest of her natural life. This is for a crime she committed about 10 years ago and not only was not prosecuted for at the time, but was actually rewarded for: yes, I’m speaking of “Shakespeare In Love.” How many suicides could have been prevented by never releasing that damn movie? Sadly, we’ll never know for sure. Terence Howard plays “Jim Rhodes” – military liaison to Tony Stark. Terence Howard…Terence Howard…wasn’t he one of the guys in the movie “Crash?” Hey, that movie won Best Picture, didn’t it? Yeah, it beat… “Brokeback Mountain!”… Give me a break.

Anyway, Iron Man is directed by John Favreau. It is rated PG13. It has a running time of about 126 minutes, and it will probably make a billion dollars at the box office. What the hell do I know any way. Go check it out, buy lots of popcorn, and try not to blow your brains out.

"Valley of the Fools: Turkey"

2008-05-15T22:13:00.000-07:00

by Yervand Kochar

The recent Turkish movie "Valley of the Wolves: Iraq" is, yet, another worthy picture in the collection of the Deranged Mind Gallery.

The Washington Time reports that,"Valley of the Wolves" is not the work of independents or amateurs. With a budget of $10 million, it's the biggest-spending Turkish film in history. The international cast includes Hollywood actor Billy Zane of "Titanic."
Within three days of its release, the movie had been seen by 1.2 million people, a 40 percent increase on the previous viewing record. At a gala performance earlier this month, the actors rubbed shoulders with Turkey's elite.
"I feel so proud of them all," said Emine Erdogan, wife of the prime minister, comfortably ensconced in a seat next to the actor playing Alemdar."

The movie opens with a real-life incident: the arrest in July 2003 of Turkish special forces in Sulaymaniyah, northern Iraq. The soldiers were led out of their headquarters at gunpoint, with hoods over their heads. America later apologized, but it appears the offence ran deep. At the time Turkey took the incident as national humiliation. In this film the fictional hero sets out for revenge.

It depicts Americans as bloodthirsty villains who massacre civilians at the wedding (wasn't that Muslims in Jordan who did that?), kill innocent Iraqis for the sport of it and occasionally blow up a friendly neighborhood mosque during evening prayer. There are multiple summary executions. And for the first time, the real-life abuses by American soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison are played out on the big screen, (most likely, a product placement for ACLU.)
Then there is naturally a Jewish doctor, (you knew that was coming) who sells organs of killed Iraqis to clients in New York, Tel-Aviv and London (the Western axis of evil).

The movie is a box office success all over Europe, especially in Germany, which has a huge Turkish-immigrant population. The Muslims all over Europe are inspired by the message of the movie. Not “Wizard of Oz kind of” inspired but quote "If I see an American when I get out of here I feel like taking a hood and putting it over their head" inspired.
The outraged Turks and Muslims come out of the theatres with tears in their eyes looking for an American tourist to behead. This should be some movie, ha? It is really in touch with people’s feelings and their everyday life. Certainly George Clooney can learn a lot from his Turkish colleagues.

At the end of the movie an outraged and righteous Turkish hero (note: righteous Turkish hero cannot be translated into Greek) eventually sticks a dagger into a heart of an American GI. As rightly calculated, in Berlin, this scene resonated with disenfranchised Turkish-immigrant audience, which at that moment cheerfully exploded in applauds while shouting, “Allah is Great!”(or as the Greek say, "Give me a break".)

The Turkish producers are pushing this “new cinematic triumph” off to America to the theatre near you. So, if you tired of movies written by gay writers about gay cowboys getting into accidents with transsexual terrorists in Munich, there finally comes a breath of fresh air- a movie about how bad American GI's are and that Iraq is the new Vietnam.
I am sure everyone in America is eager to see this movie, except, perhaps, for Michael Moore and Oliver Stone. This piece of work is going to put them out of business. This is sad, indeed, because then the Jewish doctor must replace Michael Moore's shrinking stomach with an Iraqi one, and that, unfortunately, will require half-the city of Karbalah executed.

I should say though that this Turkish film should not be stopped, after all everyone is entitled to his or her mental syphilis. We here in America, especially, have no right to stop this film from destroying more Muslims minds. Remember, that it was our brave and outspoken American political filmmakers who inspired them to challenge the authority. The Turks simply followed. They are challenging the authority...the American authority (not thier own, of course.)

Even in its agony, Hollywood continues to inspire half intellectual filmmakers all over the world. It sets the tone. It is the endless America-bashing and vilification that creates these ugly film entities in other parts of the world. These weapons, which are used against us, are animated in the labs of Hollywood drawn with pencils of hate on boards of lies. The Turkish franchise is simply a secure investment in the devaluating market of confused images, a market that used to be a beautiful temple.

My fellow Americans, citizens of the most guilty country in the world, we should be ashamed for the examples we are setting for countries like Turkey which massacred one million and a half Armenians within two weeks in 1915.
By trying to protect ourselves from people who beat up a flag with a stick over a cartoon, we make the Turks angry, and we should not, because the last time they got angry they systematically wiped off their entire non-Muslim population. (If there are no Armenians around, ask a Christian Greek for facts, he's got a lot, keep your children’s ears closed, though.)

After a screening of the movie in Germany, an inspired 18-year-old Turk told a reporter that,
"America is evil (the Muslim standard). Look what they did to Native Americans and people in Vietnam, and now in Iraq."
I wish there was someone to remind the young Turkish boy about the whole generation of Armenian orphans who grew up in the slums of Marseilles with images of their mothers raped and sisters thrown off the cliff by drunken Turkish soldiers shouting, "Fly, infidels, fly".

I wish the young Turk would be reminded of Turkish soldiers slitting the wombs of pregnant Armenian women open to stab a baby in front of a dying mother and, finally, I hope that one day the Turkish boy will grow up to become a filmmaker and make a movie that criticizes his own government, which still denies the Armenian Genocide and dumps billions of dollars and enormous political pressure on the US Congress not to accept it either. I hope the 18 year old Turkish boy who so sincerely cares about the extinction of the Hopi Indians in the US, will care about his history as well and make a movie about the genocides of many Christian Balkan nations by the Turkish Ottoman Empire.
I hope so, but I am afraid that by the time the boy enters his prime and chooses a subject for his first movie, there will be a whole herd of USC and UCLA film school graduates creating enough generic marxist garbage to clog the poor young Turks pipe to the truth of his own history.

On the Dangers of Praying on the Screen

2008-05-15T21:43:00.000-07:00

by Yervand Kochar

Did you notice that each time anyone prayers in the movies or TV something of a terrible nature, usually involving a lots of blood, happens to him or her?

Just observe: Whenever someone decides to communicate with God in the movies, he or she or it is being shot, beaten, blown, stabbed, slashed, cracked, squashed by anything from a vampire to a terrorist, an organized crime, a car, a truck, a psychopath, a UFO, a meteor, the IRA member, serial killer, samurai sword, baseball bat or anything animated or inanimate that can hit, destroy, demolish, decompose, explode, mutilate in short make sure that you get a very subliminal message that prayer is a phony exercise that ultimately cannot protect you from the reality of life (such as, for example, a meteor hitting a praying man in his basement followed with an attack by a serial killer who drives a truck and has a baseball bat).

It seems that prayer is the most dangerous human activity on the screen. See it for yourself- see how many movies you can count from 1971 till present where a hero was able to complete any prayer, even a short one, without being interrupted by some kind of a life threatening attack. It becomes habitual, as soon as someone kneels to pray you know something bloody is on the way to happen.
So after seeing a good man after a good woman being attacked by some horrifying creature as they pray, one simply concludes that prayer is a dangerous activity, to be avoided, at least in public.
Our image addicted mind being systematically exposed to the variation of the same image, subconsciously creates a simple defense mechanism such as "prayer=danger" or "prayer is no safe." The more natural is the image of someone's skull cracked during the prayer becomes to us, the more the defense mechanism solidifies itself regardless of our will.
We are being indoctrinated image by image, here and there. Even the knowledge of it being a dirty manipulation cannot resist to the logic of an imaginative mind, which believes what is sees not what it’s told.

Well, one can argue that it is not done on purpose but simply to add a dramatic effect. It makes sense within the pathetic frames of our contemporary culture in which the only way to achieve anything close to dramatic is by mocking the sacred and meaningful and the only way to be courageous is by ridiculing a sacred ritual or a tradition, (with no repercussions, by the way).
Although this makes sense, as most of the things that make sense, it is not true.
Prayer used to be considered a powerful weapon against everything evil, in fact, the only secure weapon in the uncertain universe of ours. Prayer used to be the impregnable castle of our higher being, a castle where we could safely retreat from the injustice and vanity of the world. It used to be until 1960's when the movie industry in the United States of America became fatally infected by the virus of Christ-hating Communist scum imported from the Soviet Union. The virus was injected in 30's and it took only three decades to fully destroy the immature and naive imaginative immunity of American cinema.

Lenin said, "Cinema is the most important among the arts" and this, in turn, became a mantra of Communist infiltrators who systematically invaded Hollywood in 1930's.The atheist-demons demolished thousands of churches and hanged clergymen all over Russia. Within twenty years after the revolution, the Bolsheviks successfully removed everything sacred from the landscape of the religious Russian soul. Now it was time for America.
They knew that America communicated to the world and within itself through cinema. Being a young culture not equipped by an extensive mythology, America, more than any other land, was deeply rooted and dependant on the movies as a source of a national imagination. Movies for America were as important as the Iliad for the Greeks, and planting commies in Hollywood was nothing short of sending a wooden horse to the Trojans.
The scope of the communist infiltration is immense and frightening. It was one of the most effective, cheaply done and brilliant political moves ever executed. In fact, it's impact was so powerful and enduring, that till this very day, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, we still see its destructive tendencies rolling in our movies by the inertia of ignorance.

Unbeknownst to many well-intentioned filmmakers, it is still the same Trojan horse of nihilist-demonic religion of ugly antichrists that is peacefully parked in the castle of our imagination. And because some of us still reject our staggering defeat and stupidity and naivety that let us accept the gift of our enemies, they still make movies trying to glorify those who came to destroy us as they destroyed the God-fearing and God-Loving Russian peasant who was not allowed to go to church anymore and witnessing the horrors of Christian persecutions was now afraid to pray at all.
They tortured and murdered Christians in Russia and unable to do so in America, they tortured and murdered them in the movies, in the imagination of sick and hateful writers and directors.Mutilating praying people in the movies was just a preview of this gruesome historic series. But it was powerful enough to inspire many sequels, till today.And as well-calculated, in time, these sequels, were not produced by Communist spies but by our “own Homers” who were not only blind as their Greek forefather but also stupid and desperately ignorant of the fact that they were telling the story of their enemy.