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Author: Bryant

Second barrel

August 28, 2004
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Kerry continues to be not-Dukakis. The following quote is from Ben Barnes, former Lieutenant Governor of Texas.

Let’s talk a minute about John Kerry and George Bush and I know them both. And I’m not name dropping to say I know ‘em both. I got a young man named George W. Bush in the National Guard when I was Lt. Gov. of Texas and I’m not necessarily proud of that. But I did it. And I got a lot of other people into the National Guard because I thought that was what people should do, when you’re in office you helped a lot of rich people. And I walked through the Vietnam Memorial the other day and I looked at the names of the people that died in Vietnam and I became more ashamed of myself than I have ever been because it was the worst thing that I did was that I helped a lot of wealthy supporters and a lot of people who had family names of importance get into the National Guard and I’m very sorry about that and I’m very ashamed and I apologize to you as voters of Texas.

Here’s the video.

The kicker? This clip is reportedly from a June 8th rally. Kerry’s been sitting on this until the Swift Boat Vets started smearing, because it’s most effective when it stands in contrast to Kerry’s service in Vietnam. Of course, Barnes is a Democrat, and thus partisan, but that hardly means he’s lying and it doesn’t mean this won’t be effective.

Missing tears

August 27, 2004
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Last Life in the Universe is exactly as good as everyone says it is. I’d compare it to Lost in Translation, but then I’d have to get into saying which one is better, and neither of them is: and the expectations might be wrong, of course. So just take a taste of that sad meeting of two divergent people, and move on.

Tadanobu Asano’s Kenji is tired of life. Sinitta Boonyasak’s Noi doesn’t know what she wants out of life. It would be cliched to watch them find each other and come out of their shells, except that the story is punctuated with the unexpected, constantly cutting across the cliches. I went in knowing a little too much about the movie, but even knowing what was coming I was startled by the eloquence of the reveals.

It is an incredibly quiet movie, both figuratively and literally: there are vast swathes of the movie with no music and little incidental sound, and the pacing of the movie will not satisfy you if you’re expecting anything close to action. It is also incredibly beautiful, thanks in part to Christopher Doyle’s cinematography and in part to strong performances from Tadanobu Asano and Sinitta Boonyasak and in large part to Pen-Ek Ratanaruang’s understated direction. The long uninterrupted pans across the Thai landscape are worth looking at, because not only is the surface beautiful, the movie rewards examination.

And then — more punctuation — there are swift bursts of violence, filmed from the side or in darkness or head on so that you can’t avoid them. It’s a movie of contrast. Some slow movies are just slow, paced that way for the sake of the director’s vision of developing story. The Last Life in the Universe is slow so that the few shockingly quick moments are heightened by contrast, just as it’s funny in order to heighten the sorrow (and vice versa). Just as it’s erotic to heighten the distance between people.

You probably missed it in the theaters. It might show up at a film festival, and it will be out on DVD next year.

You've reached

August 27, 2004
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I just wrote up a little fictional piece, but it sucked and while I know what I need to write, I don’t currently have the brainpower to write it. So here’s the straight dope.

Jerry Russell is a right-wing talk radio host at KTLK, in LA. He has a medium-sized and devoted following; he pushes the talking points of his ideological friends and runs down the opposition like any good talk show host on any side of the political spectrum. He rules the airwaves from midnight to 4 AM, and has always been a little nervous about trying to go daytime. In fact, he’s turned down opportunities more than once because he’s afraid he couldn’t compete with the big boys.

He is not a Michael Savage or an Ann Coulter. He has a bit of Art Bell in him, ranting about conspiracies from time to time. He does not tell people that the moon landing was a hoax, however.

A year ago, Jerry Russell and his entire production crew at KTLK were killed and turned into vampires by a small coterie with a yen for irony. He doesn’t know anything else but broadcasting, so — he’s still broadcasting. He has the station manager under his Discipline-enhanced thumb, and he has sleeping quarters for him and his crew in the station. Just as he was worried about venturing into the rough world of daytime talk, so he worries about going out into the night and meeting other vampires. Besides, he has to keep to his schedule.

I’m not entirely sure where the premise goes, but that’s the setup.

Shush

August 26, 2004
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CNN:

President Bush wants to work with Sen. John McCain to take legal action against “shadowy” outside groups that have been spending millions of dollars on ads criticizing the president and Democratic rival Sen. John Kerry, the White House said Thursday.

Pesky free speech. What are you gonna do?

The thing is, Bush doesn’t get credit for the moral argument against 527s. It is possible to argue that 527s are bad because they tilt the political playing field towards the people with the most money, which of course they do. However, Bush has demonstrated that he doesn’t care about that principle, insofar as he opted out of the public financing system in the primaries. If he cared about an even playing field, he wouldn’t have done that. The same applies to the schedule of the RNC; it’s unusually late so that Bush has more time to spend the money he’s already collected before public financing laws kick in.

So he can’t legitimately argue that he’s doing this to create an even playing field. The only explanation left is that he doesn’t want people to be able to speak out against politicians. Or, I suppose, that he only minds a tilted playing field when it’s tilted against him.

In like Mitt

August 18, 2004
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From time to time, people talk about Mitt Romney running for President of the United States. For those uncertain, Mitt Romney is the Republican Governor of Massachusetts; he also ran the fairly successful (if you ignore the scandals) Salt Lake City Olympics a few years back. He is a Mormon.

(Yes, Massachusetts has a Republican Mormon Governor. Please don’t let that shake your belief that Massachusetts is some kind of a Communist protectorate, though; it’s always fun watching people underestimate Massachusetts and its politicians.)

Anyway, as occurs with all successful Massachusetts politicians, people are talking about Romney as a potential candidate for President a few years down the line. This strikes me as a wonderful possibility, not so much because I want to see Mitt running this country but because I think his candidacy could strike some of the fracture lines in the Republican coalition. I think it would be fun watching the conservative Christian faction within the party grappling with a Romney candidacy, let alone a Romney nomination.

So this is a thumbs up for a Romney run. You heard it here first. Alas, the guy’s probably smart enough to know he’d go the way of Orrin Hatch.

Travel plans

August 17, 2004
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Hey, I hear I’m going to be at GenCon. So, they say, are some of you.

I am not going to post my full schedule because nothing horrifies me more than people knowing where I’m going to be. Shudder. However, I will be at the Indie RPG Awards on Wednesday night around 9, and before that I will swing by Nicky Blaines since there’s a rumor that some people I know will be there, if they don’t mind me crashing the party. Hopefully the fine people at Nicky Blaines will have forgotten me from last year.

I will also be at the D&D Thirtieth Anniversary Party. I think this is Thursday night.

If anyone local needs me to pick anything up while I’m there, let me know — in particular, harder to find indie stuff. The No Press Anthology, the Iron Game Chef Fantasy Compilation, Nine Worlds, and Dogs in the Vineyard will be out. Mmm mmm good.

Blind eye

August 16, 2004
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Zatoichi reminded me of Twin Peaks. Where David Lynch uses the iconic FBI agent as the entrance point into his off-kilter Pacific Northwest, Takeshi Kitano uses the iconic figure of Zatoichi as the entrance point into bushido. Now, obviously Kitano isn’t Lynch — there are no midgets — but there are distinct similarities in the precedence Kitano gives metaphor over reality. Does it make sense for a group of peasants to dance in the middle of a long shot? Does it matter, if the metaphor is there?

Zatoichi is a chambara movie in the same way that Twin Peaks is an FBI series. Kitano’s interested in the people and the tragedies; the swordplay is frequent, but it’s not the flashy lengthy battles one might expect. It’s punctuation that (sometimes) lessens the tension built up by the tight unspoken relationships between the characters.

Hm; come to think of it, the tension is also built up by the score, which is nothing short of incredible. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a movie in which the score was so perfectly integrated into and essential to the movie. I mentioned the peasants dancing; that’s one example, but even when there’s not something whimsically musical going on, the sound design is immaculate.

The other thing I found really striking — well, besides Kitano’s screen presence, which is always impressive — was the texture of the movie. The use of flashbacks is precise and skilled. There’s one scene, another dance scene, in which past is intercut with present to make a certain point about how the past affects the now. Just when you don’t want to see another intercut, just when it’s getting gimmicky, Kitano provides a reaction shot and resets the entire scene. Masterfully done.

There’s also some really spiffy stuff going on with masks and who wears them and who (if anyone) does not. Consider that Zatoichi, in his guise as a masseuse, is in effect wearing a mask. So are an awful lot of other characters. It struck me that the most noble character, or at least the the most honest character, is Gennosuke Hattori the ronin. (Parenthetically, he plays the lead in Last Life in the Universe, which I’m getting more and more excited about every day.) He’s certainly one of only a handful of characters who doesn’t hide behind something.

This is just opening wide (in the arthouse sense of the word) in the US. If you’re patient and you don’t mind giving a movie room to breathe, take the time to see it.