PARIS, NO MERCI, ( Not France )

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

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!!!

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

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!

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

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)

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???