Category: Reviews

Poolhall Junkies is top of the line fare, as Christopher Walken B-movies go. We’re talking The Prophecy quality here, albeit in a completely different kind of flick.

The star of the movie is a guy named Mars Callahan, who also wrote and directed the thing. His sister is America Martin, which is completely irrelevant but I thought it was cool. Anyhow, he overdirects about half the time — it’s way too stylized in places, and some of the jokes are dead corny — but when you get right down to it what you’ve got is a hustler movie with some good dialogue and an excuse for Walken and Chazz Palminteri to swagger around and do that macho cool thing they both do so well.

Also, Rick Schroder is stand-out good in this and he should get more roles. Trust me on this one. Or don’t, since it’s out on DVD as of last week.

Comic book pick of the week: Scarlet Traces. Ian Edington wrote it, and D’Israeli did the art. The story is a nifty little murder mystery, and the gimmick is that it’s set in England ten years after Wells’ War Of The Worlds.

“The Martians’ unwitting bequest to their would-be slaves was a form of technology as then undreamt of by mankind. Within a decade our brightest minds had unravelled its secrets, their machineries of war and subjugation adapted and assimilated into our everyday usage. The noble steed — our companion and carriage for millenia is replaced by a clockwork toy! Homes are heated and lit by a version of the once-dreaded heat ray. The great mills and factories of the North are now vast, mechanized estates. The British Empire is now truly a world power without peer, but I cannot help but wonder if we have lost something in the process.”

It’s kind of pricy, at $15 for 72 pages of story, but I like the sturdy hardcover format. It actually rather reminds me of Tintin, which I suspect is no coincidence — Edington and D’Israeli use the same regular grid as Herge, and some of the characters have those distinctive accents Herge loved to use.

Plus the world is a completely cool concept. The big panoramic views of London are beautiful; you can see a few of them here. Very striking.

Without my TiVo, I’d never have gotten around to seeing Audition, which would have been a pity. I think. As is, I spent half the weekend severely creeped out. For a movie without any supernatural trappings, it was about the most horrific thing I’ve seen since The Blair Witch Project. (Pre-hype.)

Confessional: I normally find Japanese movies a bit slow. I know it’s part of the cinematic culture in Japan and all; I just don’t have the mental pathways I’d need to appreciate the style properly. I’d been hearing about this Takashi Miike guy for a while, though; he cranks out five or six movies a year, he’s supposed to be totally transgressive and daring, and people either love him or hate him. So I snagged Audition from the Sundance Channel, cause what could it hurt?

I expected it to be a pretty sloppy gore-fest. I figured Miike was infamous for the boundaries he crossed, rather than the skill with which he crossed them. I also expected yet another Japanese movie with moments of action mixed with long slow interludes of mood development. An hour into Audition, as I was appreciating the patient build and the elegant cinematography and the sharp interjections of tension — ah, that canvas bag — I’d learned different.

The movie starts out as a romantic tragedy. Shigeharu Aoyama’s wife dies, and seven years later, he’s still dealing with his grief. There’s not a hint of anything beyond a quiet little drama which could easily open up into a story about a man who finds love again; it’s incredibly restrained. Sure, it’s kind of creepy to stage a movie audition in order to find a new wife… but you feel for Aoyama, and maybe it’ll work out. And that’s the first hour of the movie. Could be any TV drama of the week, except skillfully filmed.

Then, without a bump in the transition, the movie takes a left turn into a deranged mix of David Lynch and Tobe Hooper. There’s no gore for gore’s sake, but the camera doesn’t turn away from the horror for a single second. The layered flashbacks and dream sequences are a much-needed counterpoint to the terrible things which happen in the present, but even in that escape you can see the seeds of the tragedy to come.

I can’t emphasize enough how nasty things get. Think Meet The Feebles, except much better technically, real actors, and more blood. I also can’t say enough good things about Miike’s evocation of Japanese relationships. It’s a hard contrast to wrap my mind around, because despite the occasional flashes of brilliance from Wes Craven, you don’t normally get real social commentary from a movie as bloody as Audition.

Fascinating movie, but watch it at your own risk.

Since 1978, he’s released 34 albums. That’s sort of the standard entry point for discussing Jandek, because there’s not much else to say. There’s no conclusive evidence about the person who makes the records, and the music is inaccessible and dark. He lives in Houston, he releases about a record every year, and he charges $8 apiece for them (or $4 apiece if you order 20 or more). It’s sort of bluesy, sort of folky, sort of out of tune. Alas, since his record label reissued all the old vinyl on CD, you can’t easily find his songs on the Internet anymore.

A Guide to Jandek is the definitive web site. Jandek on Corwood will be the definitive documentary.

Cory Doctorow’s written a short story, "Truncat", set in the same world as Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. It’s on Salon so you’ll need to wander through their day pass thing. But hey, it’s a good day for it. You get Kaufman agreeing with me on Pedro, a nifty article on Bollywood, and some Al Franken miscellanea.

Where was I? Ah, yeah; it’s not a bad story. It’s more transfictionalist stuff, which is all good, but there’s still a tendency to neglect the characters in service of the cool technological concept. Campbell would love Doctorow, which is not a bad thing. Worth reading.

Under the Banner of Heaven is the new book from Jon Krakauer, who appears to want to shed the outdoors adventure label. With this book, he does a pretty good job.

One thread of the book is the story of Ron and Dan Lafferty, fundamentalist Mormons who killed their sister-in-law and niece. It’s an exploration of how two relatively typical men became — pardon the freighted language, but it’s accurate — insane religious fanatics. The brothers believed that God ordered them to carry out the killings.

Krakauer intertwines this with the history of Mormon fundamentalism, which is not simply conservative Mormonism; rather, it’s a blanket term for Mormon splinter sects which reject the teachings of the current Prophet. He does a good job exploring the somewhat xenophobic history of Mormonism, shining light on what was once a near-civil war between Utah and the federal government. He also draws a connection between the Mormon tradition of direct revelation and the beliefs of the Lafferty brothers.

Along the way, he talks about the polygamist settlements still thriving in the United States and Canada. (For example, Colorado City, Arizona.) It’s interesting stuff, shedding light on a subculture that produces people like the Laffertys and Brian David Mitchell.

However, I think Krakauer fell short. He considered the phenomenon of fundamentalist Mormonism in isolation, which gives the impression that there’s something uniquely Mormon about the anti-government rhetoric of the Laffertys. He fails to make the link between the Laffertys and the similar views found in the Christian Identity movement. It doesn’t make Under the Banner a bad book, but I think he missed a good opportunity to be more informative.

Lee Benson writes, in the Mormon newspaper Deseret News, “Throughout history, perfectly respectable religions have been used as the jumping-off spot for hundreds and thousands of people aiming for an orbit outside what’s right.” He’s right: the factors which drove the Laffertys into isolation and madness echo David Neiwart’s material with chilling precision.

The same economic downturn drives the Laffertys and the Montana Freeman; the problems of Idaho and Montana are not very far removed from the problems of Utah. That should be no surprise — while Utah is separated from other Northwestern states culturally, the economic forces which act upon it are the same. The Laffertys would fit perfectly into the world Neiwart describes in In God’s Country.

On the other hand, the Church of the Latter Day Saints is in theory a moderating factor in hard economic times. That’s a pretty important difference; those who fall into the Patriot movement are often those who can’t find help or comfort anywhere else. In theory, Mormons help their own. Did the Laffertys just slip through the cracks? Or does the streak of Mormon xenophobia, to whatever degree it really exists, act as an isolating factor and thus balance out the aid available from the Church?

Always more questions. Still, it’s a really interesting book — definitely recommended.

You probably aren’t going to be able to see Masked and Anonymous — it’s not playing in Boston or San Francisco anymore, so unless you live in New York or Los Angeles you may be out of luck. (Seattle’s got it, though.) The critics really savaged it. Me, I thought it was brilliant.

I’m lost, sleeping in an alley
I’m lost, I had some family
I’m lost, I’m here, I’m lost.

Short synopsis: It’s a sideways America with a dictatorial President; America as if it were a damaged third world nation. Uncle Sweetheart has Jack Fate (that’d be Dylan) sprung from prison so he can put on a benefit concert and steal enough money to pay off a couple of really insistent creditors. Jack Fate interacts with a bunch of people, including a journalist, an old lover, and his old running buddy Bobby Cupid. A couple of things happen, and the movie ends.

On the wrong side of town, in a dark apartment
We gave up trying so long ago.

And yeah, looked at one way, there’s about that much narrative tension. Jack Fate is stone-faced throughout the majority of the movie; he’s a rock, and the other characters bounce off him with varying degrees of success. There’s no damned plot.

All the lights go out
Evenings go on and on
The sun goes down and up too fast
To ever, ever be found.

But I think that looking at it that way misses the point. About two-thirds of the way through the movie, there’s a revelation that suffuses everything that’s happened with retrospective meaning. It becomes obvious that Jack Fate is holding his emotions at a strict minimum for a reason — the last time he let them out, there were consequences. There’s no direct causal line between what happened then and the America of the movie, but there are shadowy hints and underground rumblings. It’s enough for me.

She gives me her cheek
When I want her lips
Oh, but I don’t have the strength to go.

Besides which, it’s a beautiful movie. Jessica Lange is drop-dead gorgeous, even around the edges where the makeup thins — or maybe that’s why she’s beautiful. Mickey Rourke swaggers brilliantly. Penelope Cruz is fragile and convincing. There’s a scene in the beginning where Fate walks past a Grecian temple covered with graffiti that made me hold my breath. The only thing that didn’t click from me from a sensual point of view was Val Kilmer’s bit.

Do you wake up at the wheel
Headed for the shoulder of the road
Screaming “God please save my soul!”
Well, I do, I do, I do — a lot of crazy things.

Still, even that last fits into the vision of a damaged America. Some critics bitched that there’s no explanation of how America came to the place it is in the movie. Again, that’s missing the point. This is our America, seen through a lens darkly. The best speculation is always about what’s already there.

Now that highway’s coming through
So you all gotta move
This bottom rung ain’t no fun at all.

Oh, and the music is spectacular, although I probably would not say that if I wasn’t fond of Dylan in the first place.

Well, I used to live the limelight
But now the limelight’s using me
Too many times I had to panic
Cause there’s too many people watching me.

So: it’s a treasure. It’s the American Brazil. It’s self-indulgent Bob Dylan ego made manifest. I’m really glad I saw it.

Whatever happened, I apologize
Dry your tears, and baby, walk outside
It’s the Fourth of July.

(Thanks are owed, as has been the case since I bought the album sixteen years ago, to John and Exene and the rest of the band.)

Pleasingly, Columbia just released the Once Upon A Time In China series on a two-DVD set for a mere twenty-five bucks or so. Each movie is on one side of a DVD, so there’s no quality compromise. Alas, they left out the commentary from their previous edition of Once Upon A Time In China I, but one can’t have everything and it was just a commentary from a Hong Kong film expert rather than anyone connected with the production.

The picture quality is great, blowing away my memories of the scratchy print I saw in the Towne lo these many years ago. And it’s three of Jet Li’s best flicks for $25. I can’t think of any reason other than having the single movie editions why a Hong Kong action movie fan wouldn’t want these.

Bravo started airing reruns of West Wing today with a six show marathon, so of course I watched the whole thing. Now I really recognize the vibe Mr. Sterling failed to achieve. Yep, that’s Sorkin, all right.

I liked it OK. Snappy dialogue, noble and honest politicians and staffers. My new theory is that Democratic resentment of Bush arises from his failure to live up to the example set by President Bartlet. (Sure, I’m joking.) But it’s a good show, and I like the impossibly witty characters.

So here’s my million dollar TV show idea. It’s a one hour drama, set in, say, Chicago. It focuses on a few families which are linked in some unlikely fashion; some are rich, some are poor, but all of them are doing something that matters. Oh, I know: it’s a newspaper drama! So you can have the spunky young hungry reporter and her husband and the editor and the owner and so on.

Half an hour of each show is written by Joss Whedon. Half an hour is written by Aaron Sorkin. Whedon owns the teenage kids. Sorkin owns the grownups. They can always throw plot twists at each other; Sorkin has to have the owner react when his daughter is caught smoking pot with the son of the hungry reporter, for example.

Ratings gold. The only problem with it is that David Kelley will be very miffed at being left out.

John Tynes claims, accurately, that Dirty Pretty Things is the “best damn film of the year.” So far, true. Stephen Frears has turned out another little gem. He paints the story using the edges of society, creating art with the conventions of the dark thriller genre. It’s not just a thriller, and it’s not just one of his social pieces; it’s an elegant braid of both.

Audrey Tautou kind of slips into the impish Amelie persona once or twice, which is a little odd for someone playing a Turkish immigrant, but it more or less works. The rest of the acting was superb. Benedict Wong was especially good, and got the best line in the movie in the best scene of the movie. Lucky guy.

I kind of want to be more descriptive, but it’d be a shame to rob anyone of the pleasure of letting the movie unfold. The setting is great, and the art direction is very evocative. There are moments, when the lead is suffering from nasty sleep deprivation, when Frears captures that feeling without falling back on the grainy filmstock and heightened contrast that’s already become a cliche.

It makes me want to go back to The Hit (mmm, Tim Roth) and watch all the Frears in order, excepting maybe the one with Julia Roberts.