Bill Maher Picks His Own Asshole(s)

Dickheads of the Year: My picks for the biggest assholes of 2007 - by Bill Maher (Rolling Stone)

One thing that I've always liked about Bill Maher's sense of humor is that he doesn't just tell jokes, he injects his jokes with his own unique (screwed up?) moral viewpoint.

The Morality of Gaming

I enjoyed this article at Gamasutra. It's basically a transcript of a speech given by Jonathan Blow about the present state of the video game industry. I've come to many of the same conclusions that Blow expresses in the speech. Most notably--game designers and publishers haven't acknowledged their major role in American, and worldwide, culture, and the unavoidable moral responsibility that comes with it. And no, I'm not talking about violence in Mortal Kombat, Manhunt 2, or their ilk. Check out the article; I think I'll write more about my thoughts later.

Musico-politics

If you don't like Fogerty's political stuff, maybe this is more your kind of thing LE.

Best Movies of the '80s: Runners-up [LE]

Yoggoth and I will now be presenting our own runners-up for each of our ten best movies of the '80s lists. In most cases, for me, what ultimately kept these runners-up from being included among my ten official selections is not exactly easy to pinpoint. Some of these movies I haven't seen in a really long time, and thus I'm not sure if they are as good as I remember them being. Others are extremely entertaining movies that just happen to be missing that extra "depth," however you choose to interpret that. In addition, many of the films that made Yoggoth's list could also very well appear here, despite my having left them out.

In alphabetical order:

The Blues Brothers (Landis, 1980)

Here is a film that fits perfectly into the category of "entertaining movies that don't have anything particularly profound to say." Maybe there's a message in here somewhere: how about "Any amount of criminal activity is worth it as long as you're trying to save an orphanage"? No, it's probably a waste of mental energy to find anything more redeeming about this film other than the endless pile of car crashes, delightful celebrity cameos (Carrie Fisher, Steven Spielberg), killer lineup of classic soul legends, and jokes about Illinois Nazis. Hell, just seeing James Brown, Aretha Franklin, and Ray Charles in the same movie alone is like the ultimate R&B hat trick. And then there's Cab Calloway's gritty, definitive version of "Minnie the Moocher" (although I'm never been sure what it ever had to do with the "blues" exactly). Oh, and did I mention the endless pile of car crashes?

Born on the Fourth of July (Stone, 1989)

Stone's biopic of anti-war activist Ron Kovic made a big impression on me as a kid; I actually saw it twice and loved it both times. However, having since revisited a lot of Oliver Stone films and having found most of them less impressive on repeated viewing, I feel like I would need to watch this again before I could feel confident calling it a truly great movie. Let me just say that it's probably one of Stone's least sensationalistic, most character-driven political films. And if you're curious whether or not Tom Cruise can actually act, this, as far as I'm concerned, is Exhibit A for the defense.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off (Hughes, 1986)

Just about the perfect archetype of an '80s film, with endlessly quotable references I'll refrain from reiterating for the hundredth time. There really aren't too many ways this movie could have been any better. So why didn't it make my top ten, you ask? Well, it's just that, when I imagine this movie being released in the '70s, alongside M*A*S*H, The Last Picture Show, and Taxi Driver, I just...I just...it's just not quite...there.

Field of Dreams (Robinson, 1989)

A movie so corny it literally takes place in the middle of a corn field - and yet, and yet, it's like the fluffiest, warmest cornbread your sweet Aunt Sally ever baked, or the crunchiest, most perfectly roasted corn dog you ever bought for 20 cents at the Topeka county fair. Truth is, the movie works because it knows it's corny, and the characters are just as skeptical as we are. "If you build it, he will come"? Yeah, sure, buddy, and I've got an iceberg I wanna sell you. Honestly, sometimes crazy, impractical dreams really aren't worth following, but with dialogue and acting this good (especially James Earl Jones as the misanthropic, Salinger-esque writer), who cares?

Fitzcarraldo (Herzog, 1982)

A mad dash of German insanity by way of the Amazon, this is the only "foreign" film from the '80s to be mentioned by me in this project, which means that either a) I need to see more foreign films from the '80s, or b) foreign films really stank during the '80s. You decide. At any rate, the story concerns a rubber baron whose dream it is to build a gigantic opera house in the middle of the jungle. In order to do this, he decides to lift an entire ship over a gigantic hillside. Ah, but here's the catch: Werner Herzog actually took a real ship and lifted it up a real mountain in the real jungle in order to film the movie. As you might guess, the filming was plagued with endless difficulties, much like its jungle cousin Apocalypse Now. However, having known Fitzcarraldo only for its gimmick and its tales of a troubled genesis, I was surprised to discover that it delivered a genuinely interesting story with a very subtle, dark humor.

Ghostbusters (Reitman, 1984)

Everybody loves an underdog, and what bigger underdog is there than the unemployed scientist? Well, Peter is really only a quasi-scientist, but Egon is the real deal: when their secretary asks him if he has any hobbies, he answers "I collect spores, molds, and fungus." Who could have forseen, then, that when the entire city of New York comes under attack from some kind of paranormal Egyptian Annie Lennox, the ones to come to the rescue would be...these guys? Frankly, every time that theme song comes on, it makes me feel like I can go out and do anything.

Victor/Victoria (Edwards, 1982)

In 1930s Paris, a female singer can't find any work, so her gay friend suggests she try to find work...as a man pretending to be a woman! Matters only become more complicated when a macho Chicago gangster begins to think he's falling for "Victor," even though he very well knows that she's really a man, right? One of the last truly good Hollywood musicals, and one of the most intelligent treatments of homosexuality in a mainstream film, the movie features delightful performances by Julie Andrews, Robert Preston (of Music Man fame), and James Garner (of Maverick fame), among others. Just be sure to keep your glass at a distance when Andrews starts into "The Shady Dame From Seville."

Shatner Sings Elton

Little Earl and Yoggoth's Top 10 Movies of the 1980s

Little Earl:

1. Gandhi (Attenborough, 1982)
2. The King of Comedy (Scorsese, 1983)
3. Down By Law (Jarmusch, 1986)
4. Back to the Future (Zemeckis, 1985)
5. The Empire Strikes Back (Kershner, 1980)
6. The Last Temptation of Christ (Scorsese, 1988)
7. Crimes and Misdemeanors (Allen, 1989)
8. The Right Stuff (Kaufman, 1983)
9. Do the Right Thing (Lee, 1989)
10. Sophie's Choice (Pakula, 1982)

Yoggoth:

1. Brazil (Gilliam, 1985)
2. sex, lies, and videotape (Soderbergh, 1989)
3. The Shining (Kubrick, 1980)
4. Raiders of the Lost Ark (Spielberg, 1981)
5. Blade Runner (Scott, 1982)
6. The Empire Strikes Back (Kershner, 1980)
7. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (Gilliam, 1988)
8. The Princess Bride (Reiner, 1987)
9. Grave of the Fireflies (Takahata, 1988)
10. Back to the Future (Zemeckis, 1985)

Introductory Essay
Runners-up: Little Earl
Runners-up: Yoggoth
How Do Other '80s Movie Lists Compare?
Clips: Little Earl

Number One: Brazil (Gilliam, 1985) [Y]

"Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away"

-Buffalo Springfield, 'For What It's Worth"

If Dr. Stranglove taught us how to stop worrying and love the bomb, Brazil is what happens when you stop worrying and learn to love paranoia. I remember a conversation with Little Earl over the work of Michel Foucault. In the book Discipline and Punish Foucault describes the Panopticon, a prison innovation used to observe all prisoners at all times. He then uses this as a metaphor for modern life. Our response: Who cares if someone is watching you as long as they aren't doing anything?

At some point it seemed novel for the government to spy on its subjects. Now it's old hat. I look at the set design of Brazil, heavy on ducts, and I recognize the local Chipotle restaurant. So does this mean Brazil doesn't have anything left to say to me? On the contrary, I think Brazil is the one movie from the 80's that transcends its decade completely.

The film moves back and forth between the protagonist's fantasys and his mundane life as a petty bureaucrat in a near future dystopia. As the film progresses it becomes more difficult to discern one from the other. The conflict of the film begins when Sam Lowry decides to do something to help a woman whose husband that has been arrested, tortured, and killed after a bug flies into a typewriter and the wrong name is recorded. The government intended to kill an insurgent plumber who fights against government utilities bureaucracy. In case you haven't seen the movie I won't say who plays him, but it's one of my favorite gratuitous cameos of all time. Along the way Sam meets a woman who looks just like a woman in his ever present fantasies and instantly falls in love.

After Sam decides to take a stand he discovers the real evil of the Panopticon. Sam's newfound morality and love attract the attention of the government that he has been trying to avoid through mediocrity. He takes a promotion secured by his influential mother in order to help the woman of his dreams. Unfortunately, every time Sam involves himself with the government's machinations he becomes more susceptible to their control. Terry Gilliam is protesting against this inversely proportional relationship in Brazil. As Vonnegut, another paragon of sci-fi dark humor, wrote, “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.” You can refrain from being bad all your life, Sam. It's when you try to do something good that they get ya.

Love, morality, and social responsibility should be the high points of life, those moments we are most proud of. The totalitarian social system acts upon those elements of our lives because they stand out and make us vulnerable. Terrorist attacks occur regularly in the world of Brazil. Industry has destroyed the natural environment and business advertisements block the resultant vista of ash and smoke. The government responds with bumbling bureaucracy and feel-good consumerist torture, always delivered with a smile.

Brazil presents a mid-way point between 1984 and Brave New World. The future isn't run by an evil ubermensch like O'Brien with his party. Nor is it run by technocrats using biological alterations to split humanity into manageable subspecies. Instead, it's a predictably inept descent into manic nostalgia for past mediocrities. The powers that be don't even control themselves, much less all of society. The do violence out of fear and anger when they realize how little control they have. However, as pathetic as this is, that's real flesh they're destroying.

I can't avoid a short comparison between our current political situation and that of Brazil. The parallels are just too numerous to ignore - vast governmental and corporate ineptitude, strong social pressure to accept mediocrity as triumph, and an absurd and ineffectual response to terrorism.

P.S. I'm about half-way done with Imperial Life in the Emerald City, by Rajiv Chandrasekaran. I highly recommend it if you go in for Brazil/Catch-22/Dr.Strangelove style dark humor.

He's Working On It, Folks

Yoggoth's #1 pick for best movie of the '80s should be arriving any day people. Do not despair, oh ye of little faith. I can already see a couple of paragraphs in the "draft" section he's already cooked up. Just think, when that moment finally arrives, how much sweeter will it be? I know I, for one, can hardly quell my suffocating anticipation.

Ebenezer Hitchens

Cruising Slate this morning, I caught a new piece by Christopher Hitchens entitled "Bah, Hanukkah." Keeping in mind Yoggoth's words to me a few weeks ago ("I've only been reading the Christopher Hitchens articles that aren't about Iraq"), I thought, "Hmm, this one's probably a good bet." Indeed, the piece, subtitled, "The Holiday celebrates the triumph of tribal Jewish backwardness," displays Hitchens in perhaps his most suitable role: that of the erudite Scrooge. Sometimes one has to wonder if Hitchens mistakenly thinks he is writing for the Onion. Nevertheless, intentional or unintentional, the man is definitely good for a Yuletide snicker.

Fogerty Testifies

Pitchfork has a great interview with John Fogerty up. I think of Fogerty as a litmus test songwriter: if you don't like his music, I don't have much to say to you other than "De gustibus non est disputandum." Knowing that Fogerty has found peace brings a bit of peace to me as well.