Shake Me Baby

Anyone else feel that earthquake last night? As far as I'm concerned, any quake where the power doesn't go out is pretty small potatoes. I mean, as long as I can sit there and still surf the web and listen to my Velvet Underground, who really cares? Did they feel it up in Sac-town?

Number Four: Raiders of the Lost Ark (Spielberg, 1981)

I wanted to be an architect when I grew up. My mother still insists on telling everyone about how I used to build ramshackle cities made of anything with vaguely building-like materials. There were bristle-blocks next to Legos next to cooking utensils. Later I graduated to drawing Tolkeinesque maps and using them to plan out elaborate Dungeons and Dragons adventures. I never actually played with anyone because I had no friends. It's more fun to think up the adventures than to play anyway.

My Medieval dreams were shattered one day when an actual architect, a friend of my parents, asked to look at the plans I had made for a tavern. She said that it looked good but that I would have to redesign it because some of the rooms had no windows. I was taken aback. Surely building regulations were somewhat more relaxed in 10th Century England I said. She nodded but stated again that all taverns, even in those days, would have windows. Confronted with the terrible limitations of reality, I decided that architecture was not for me.

What was left to want to be when I grew up? The answer was obvious-I wanted to be a treasure-hunting, Nazi-killing, whip-wielding Professor of Archeology named Indiana Jones. Say what you will about George Lucas and "Episodes" I-III, the man can create characters better than anyone since Charles Dickens. So what if they're 90% Buck Rogers ripoffs, it's the last 10% that makes a character memorable.

One of the things I like so much about Indiana is that he's an adventurer, not a fighter. Compare him to Bruce Willis in Die Hard or other conventional action movie heroes. Those guys win by brute force, the plots of their movies leading them on inextricably to victory. Indy solves puzzles, goes into weird places, and half the time wins by running away! He falls somewhere in the same category as the Ghostbusters and Marty McFly, heroes so implausible that you identify with them all the more for it. Why ghosts? Why the 50's? Why archeology? If they explained that the movies wouldn't be half as fun. I can't think of any films that fall into this category that weren't released in the 80's. All the other heroes were trying too hard to be cool. Indiana Jones and Peter Venkman just were cool.

I could say more about other aspects of this film, but that other stuff doesn't really matter. Oh sure, Spielberg's directing probably helped-but the truth is I love this movie for one reason, and that's my powerful desire to become a...well I listed all the stuff earlier. So if you see any openings for a Professor of Archeology let me know. The rest will come naturally.

More Sprinkles on the Perfect Sundae

Yesterday has seen the addition of two fine new DVDs to the almost unholy Little Earl collection. Yoggoth has already summarized the appeal of Pickpocket better than I ever could. The Philadelphia Story is a terrifically saucy old Hollywood classic, back when movie stars were movie stars and their names on the poster really meant something. It's the only appearance in my collection so far for either Katherine Hepburn or Cary Grant; Jimmy Stewart, on the other hand, is making his fourth. Maybe he wasn't the greatest actor ever, but it's possible he starred in more great movies than anybody else - at least for his era. The man knew how to pick 'em.

Pickpocket
New, restored high-definition digital transfer
Audio commentary by film scholar James Quandt
New video introduction by writer-director Paul Schrader
The Models of "Pickpocket," a 2003 documentary by filmmaker Babette Mangolte, featuring actors from the film
A 1960 interview with Bresson, from the French television program Cinepanorama
Q&A on Pickpocket, with actress Marika Green and filmmakers Paul Vecchiali and Jean-Pierre Ameris fielding questions at a 2000 screening of the film
Footage of sleight-of-hand artist and Pickpocket consultant Kassagi, from a 1962 episode of the French television show La piste aux etoiles
Original theatrical poster
New and improved English subtitle translation
A new essay by novelist and culture critic Gary Indiana

The Philadelphia Story
Disc 1: Digitally Remastered Movie with Commentary by Film Historian Jeannine Basinger
George Cukor Movie Trailer Gallery
Disc 2: Two Documentaries About the Star and Director: Katharine Hepburn: All About Me - A Self-Portrait and The Men Who Made the Movies: George Cukor
Robert Benchley Short: That Inferior Feeling
Cartoon: The Homeless Flea
Audio-Only Bonus: Two Radio Adaptations Featuring the Movie's Three Stars

Worst Album Cover Ever?

Shotgun Willie sits around in his underwear
Bitin' on a bullet, pullin' out all of his hair
Shotgun Willie got all of his family there

You can't make a record if you ain't got nothin' to say
You can't make a record if you ain't got nothin' to say
You can't play music if you don't know nothin' to play

(Repeat 1st verse)

Well, John T. Fours was a' workin' with the Klu Klux Klan
The six foot five John T was a hell of a man
Made a lot of money sellin' sheets on the family plan

(Repeat 1st verse)

Tom Stoppard on Pink Floyd...sort of

Yoggoth recently called my attention to an article in Vanity Fair by playwright Tom Stoppard about how Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett apparently inspired his latest theatrical effort. I've read the article twice now and I still don't understand what the hell Syd Barrett had to do with his play, but that's neither here nor there. What's interesting (and what Yoggoth knew I would appreciate) is that Tom Stoppard agrees with me that Barrett-era Pink Floyd isn't all that great and he doesn't understand why his friend would call Waters/Gilmour-era Pink Floyd "lugubrious, pretentious." Also, Stoppard's comments about having "no understanding of music, none at all" remind me ever-so-slightly of similarly enthusiastic statements that have come from the mouth of my fellow blogger. Although I've occasionally poked fun at him for his musical naivete, ultimately I agree. Who needs to "understand" music anyway? I say the less understanding the better. Well, maybe it depends. Maybe the best musicians need to find a good balance of understanding and naivete. Actually, that's sort of what Pink Floyd did, come to think of it. Oh yeah!

4. Back To The Future (Zemeckis, 1985) [LE]

That photo scared the shit out of me as a child. No, not the one above, but that one of Marty McFly with his brother and sister, where they gradually start disappearing one by one. God that was freaky. And whenever the scene with Marty's hand disappearing came on TV I would leave the room. Egads.

Yes, this movie is well-cast, and very well-written, and we'd all love to have a DeLorean time machine. But I think the underlying power of Back To The Future lies in a theme so obvious it's almost rarely mentioned: the human relationship to time and our desire (and/or failure) to control or understand it.

Ultimately you'd like to think that if you went back in time, you could solve all kinds of problems and fix a lot of unpleasant things and so on and so forth. But what Marty McFly realizes is that by going back in time, you can actually screw everything up and unwittingly erase yourself from existence! What could be worse? Yeah, you thought it would be all cool to travel through time and meet Abraham Lincoln and Napoleon and Socrates and everybody, but really you're just fucking everything up! The irony is that Marty now has to go around and try to make life happen exactly the way it happened in the first place, which isn't really interesting at all. If anything, it's a big fat pain in the ass. Sure everything works out eventually and when Marty goes back to the '80s his family is way better off than it was before he left. But I think if given the chance, Marty would have preferred not to have had to worry about whether or not he was still going to be existing.

Indeed, the movie could be seen as a cautionary tale regarding the dangers of unchecked scientific progress. Doc constantly talks about the "space-time continuum": the idea that the universe has a grand cosmic order and that we must do everything in our power to avoid altering it. If we do, as Marty discovers, we stand to upset the proper order of human events.

Ultimately I don't think the science of Back to the Future holds up to too much scrutiny. Because everything is so interdependent with everything else, if you went back in time and changed one little thing, it would basically change everything. Back to the Future acts as if the only people who will ever be affected by Doc Brown's screwing up the time-space continuum are the members of the McFly family (Part II, of course, explores this idea with more credibility, if not with better dramatic results). Rather, I think the science of the movie works best on a metaphorical level. Just what is man's proper relationship to science? And how much is too much? At what point are we Icarus, flying too close to the sun?

Back To The Future also has another very powerful theme running through it: the lack of humans' ability to put their own lives into perspective. The people from the '50s have all sorts of ideas about the '80s - almost all of them wrong. Indeed, many of the film's best jokes poke fun at how mistaken people are in their assumptions about the future. Some of my favorites:

[1955 Doc is watching a video of 1985 Doc]
Dr. Emmett Brown: What on Earth's this thing I'm wearing?
Marty McFly: Ah, this, this is a radiation suit.
Dr. Emmett Brown: Radiation suit? Of course, because of all the fallout from the atomic wars.

[Dr. Emmett Brown is doubting Marty McFly's story about that he is from the future]
Dr. Emmett Brown: Then tell me, "Future Boy", who's President in the United States in 1985?
Marty McFly: Ronald Reagan.
Dr. Emmett Brown: Ronald Reagan? The actor?
[chuckles in disbelief]
Dr. Emmett Brown: Then who's VICE-President? Jerry Lewis?
[later he rushes outside, down a hill and toward his laboratory]
Dr. Emmett Brown: I suppose Jane Wyman is the First Lady!
Marty McFly: [following Doc] Whoa! Wait! Doc!
Dr. Emmett Brown: And Jack Benny, the Secretary of the Treasury.

Marty McFly: Wait a minute, Doc, are you trying to tell me that my mother has got the hots for me?
Dr. Emmett Brown: Precisely.
Marty McFly: Whoa, this is heavy.
Dr. Emmett Brown: There's that word again; "heavy". Why are things so heavy in the future? Is there a problem with the earth's gravitational pull?

Dr. Emmett Brown: I'm sure in 1985 plutonium is available at every corner drugstore, but in 1955 it's a little hard to come by.

Marty McFly: [watching a Honeymooners episode in 1955] Hey, hey, I've seen this one. I've seen this one. This is a classic. This is the one where Ralph dresses up as the man from space.
Milton Baines: What do you mean, you've seen this? It's brand new.
Marty McFly: Yeah, well, I saw it on a...
[realizing]
Marty McFly: ...rerun.
Milton Baines: What's a rerun?
Marty McFly: You'll find out.

Lorraine Baines: Our first television set. Dad just bought it today. Do you have a television set?
Marty McFly: Well, yeah! You know we have... two of them.
Milton Baines: Wow! You must be rich!
Stella Baines: Oh, honey, he's teasing you. Nobody has two television sets.

George McFly: Last night, Darth Vader came down from planet Vulcan and told me that if I didn't take Lorraine out that he'd melt my brain.

The humor of these scenes lies in the audience's knowledge of both the past and the present. We *know* that all Marty did was simply play some Van Halen on his walkman and crib from Star Wars and Star Trek, but we *also* can understand why George would be totally amazed by the experience. We *know* what re-runs are, but we can understand why people in 1955 would have never even thought of such a thing as re-runs. We *know* that there have been no atomic wars, but we also understand that given the climate of the '50s, it's a pretty good guess on Doc's part. The point is, humans are pathetic little creatures left to twist in the wind at the mercy of their perceptive limitations, at least compared to an alien race such as Kurt Vonnegut's Tralfamadorians, who can grasp all of time instantaneously and find most human insight comical.

There are jokes aplenty, but the movie occasionally utilitizes its time-travel conceit to approach moments of profound sadness, such as the scene where Lorraine tries to put the moves on Marty before the dance:

[Lorraine takes a sip from a liquor bottle]
Marty McFly: [grabbing the bottle from Lorraine] Lorraine, Lorraine, What are you doin'?
Lorraine Baines: [starting to laugh] I swiped it from the old lady's liquor cabinet.
Marty McFly: Yeah, well, you shouldn't drink.
Lorraine Baines: Why not?
Marty McFly: Because you - you might regret it later in life.
Lorraine Baines: Marty, don't be such a square. Everybody who's anybody drinks.
[Marty takes a sip from Lorraine's bottle then spit-takes as he notices Lorraine lighting a cigarette]
Marty McFly: [nauseatingly] Geez! You smoke too?
Lorraine Baines: Marty, you're beginning to sound just like my mother!

This scene is funny, but it's also heartbreakingly sad, because Marty knows what his mother doesn't: that she'll grow up to be a pathetic alcoholic housewife. What she thinks of as being so "rebellious" and "cool" Marty sees exactly for what it is - the waste of perfectly good health and potential. He almost wishes he could take her into the future and just show her what the results of her actions are going to be. His comment that she'll "regret it later in life" is one of the most compassionate and insightful moments he has in the whole film.

The way this scene ends, with George punching out Biff, is inspiring. The irony here is that Marty has gone to great lengths to map out some crazy scheme in which George will punch out Marty and win Lorraine's affection, but only when Marty's plans are thwarted does the situation work itself out to a positive conclusion. The filmmakers do a really great job of taking the reins out from under this scene. Frankly, the way it plays out, it appears that Biff is essentially going to rape Lorraine. You can believe that George would be so disgusted/horrified that he would summon up the strength within himself to beat the living shit out of Biff. He knows that if he doesn't act, no one else will. Thus, Marty's parents' relationship is not only saved, but strengthened - and it only could have happened through the presence of real danger, not scripted danger.

Despite all the Freudian melodrama, however, the central relationship of the movie remains the one between Marty and Doc. People forget that right before he goes back in time, Marty witnesses Doc's death. When he meets Doc again in the '50s, the whole experience is coated with Marty's knowledge that the Doc of the future has actually died. That's "heavy." He tries, on several occasions, to somehow prevent Doc from being shot by the Libyans, in the end writing Doc a letter, but Doc quickly tears it up, insisting, "You cannot alter the time-space continuum!"

Marty's brain understands the concept, but his heart does not. At the last minute, he decides to set the time machine back 10 minutes earlier, so that he can prevent Doc from dying. Alas, the DeLorean stalls for good and by the time he gets to the mall, he's too late. As he mourns over the body of Doc, suddenly the eyes of the mad scientist open with the familiar fiery stare. Doc explains that he did, eventually, read the letter. Marty is aghast. "What about all that talk about screwing up future events, the space-time continuum?" Doc's answer is probably the greatest line of dialogue in the film, not just because it's funny, but because it says so much about what makes us human as opposed to machines:

"Well, I figured, what the hell."


Footnote: Marty's mom is smokin' hot. If I were Marty I would have done my mom with no protection and had...myself.

An Open Letter To Wes Anderson

Dear Wes,

Yoggoth and Little Earl want you to know that they tried their best to see The Darjeeling Limited last night. Well, actually, they did manage to see half of The Darjeeling Limited. But they weren't able to see all of it. You see, the whole episode was really quite Andersonian.

Yoggoth and Little Earl both felt a strong desire to see your new movie, but the problem is, they live in different cities. Little Earl suggested they circumvent this obstacle by agreeing on a convenient halfway point and trying to find a theater somewhere in the vicinity of that halfway point (that also would be playing your movie). After a little research on the web, Little Earl found what he assumed would be the perfect location: Pleasant Hill. There was a theater in Pleasant Hill called CineArts, and it was playing your movie at both 7:10 and 9:30. Not wishing to stay out too late, Yoggoth and Little Earl aimed for the 7:10 showing. After a skillfull navigation of BART by Little Earl, and an expert handling of traffic by Yoggoth, the two managed to meet at the Pleasant Hill BART station. They soon discoved that, contrary to its name, there are no hills anywhere and the general aura of the town is not particularly pleasant.

Driving through a thick, syrupy drizzle, they attempted to locate the CineArts theater (the whole experience heightened by the presence of Nuggets II: Golden Artyfacts From The British Empire and Beyond playing on the stereo). According to Google Maps, the location of the theater was 2314 Monument Dr. At first the two ended up at the Century Theater, which was not playing your movie at all. Then they seemed to find themselves heading in the correct direction on Monument Dr. They passed 1800 Monument Dr., then they suddenly found themselves at 2600 Monument Dr. They re-traced their steps several times over. When the last ditch hope that the theater was in the back of the Costco parking lot failed to prove to their advantage, it was already quite past 7:10. Undaunted, they continued to search for the theatre in hopes of catching the 9:30 showing (after some dinner, perhaps).

Pleasant Hill was proving itself to be the Bermuda Triangle of the East Bay. Yoggoth and Little Earl were never quite sure whether they were heading north or south. They got on the freeway and got off several times. Familiar landmarks would pop up in unfamiliar places. After turning into the parking lot of Bally Fitness Center, they finally found it: CineArts Theater. There was a big marquee in front of the box office; it's just too bad that it didn't happen to be turned on. Immediately next door was a sleazy-looking nightclub with a pair of (possible?) prostitutes standing outside smoking. A fitting location for a Wes Anderson movie.

Terrified of the looming showdown over their choice of dinner eating establishment, they managed to stumble upon a diner named the Capitola Grille, which was apparently still in the throes of its "grand opening." The menu proved quite eclectic and satisfying. Little Earl made his way with a chili bread bowl, while Yoggoth proved more adventurous with a strange pork sandwich concoction. Despite a troublesome credit card slot at the register, The Capitola Grille was the one unqualified success of the evening.

Back at the CineArts, they discovered that the only entrance to the particular screen showing your movie could only be found by following a yellow painted line that swerved around to the back of the building. When the previews started up, the projection faltered once or twice. Then it seemed to find its groove.

Yoggoth and Little Earl try to reserve full judgment of your films until the credits roll. Sadly, they did not get that chance, as about an hour of the way through, the projector finally seemed to falter for good. An usher came out and told the audience that they were working on fixing it and that the movie would resume after ten minutes. After fifteen minutes, a manager came out and told the audience that the projector was beyond repair and that everyone was welcome to ask for a refund. Yoggoth and Little Earl understood; they'd worked in a movie theater before. But they feared that you, Wes Anderson, might not.

So it was simply not to be. But rest assured, they gave it everything they had.

Sincerely,

Yoggoth and Little Earl

p.s. Yoggoth then managed to scrape the front of his car against the curb. Little Earl was unable to push his seat back because of a gigantic tire that Yoggoth had resting in the back seat for some reason that was left unexplained to Little Earl. Little Earl's BART ride was slowed down by a twenty-minute layover at MacArthur station; apparently his car had to wait for all the other cars before heading back to the city. A group of drunken Friday night revelers found their way into Little Earl's BART car. One of the girls began filming him with her camcorder. She asked him if he was having a good Friday night, but he couldn't hear her because he had his headphones on. He took his headphones off and she asked him again. He paused, and then answered "...Sure." She said, "'Sure'? That's not an answer. Are you having a good night or a bad night?" Little Earl emphatically said, "Yes!" and she said "OK, good." Little Earl was glad that at least someone was pleased.

Number Five: Blade Runner (Scott, 1982) [Y]

I love Harrison Ford movies that don't make me cringe. He's such a likable guy that I sometimes find myself laughing along to movies like Six Days Seven Nights and have to go listen to Unknown Pleasures to balance things out. Blade Runner is the Harrison Ford movie I can watch on a cold, dark, lonely night and still feel depressed about afterwards.

Blade Runner also gets the distinction of having the most attractive cyborgs in cinematic history--'acrobatic sexbot' was the role Daryl Hannah was born to play, although I'm more of a Sean Young kind of guy. Rutger Hauer is the big brother cyborg we never had. The cyborgs are such great villains. My sympathy for them increases as the movie goes on, and by the time Roy is breaking Rick's fingers its Roy I feel sorry for. It's funny that my entire analysis so far has been about likable characters in Blade Runner of all movies. I find it easier to identify with odd, tragic characters. It's okay if there's a happy ending but they better go through a lot of crap to get there.

These attractive cyborgs have a problem. They were built with a failsafe mechanism that will kill them after a predetermined number of years. They come to Earth searching for their designer in hopes that this failsafe can be turned off in some way. Deckard, in the process of searching for the group of replicants ends up falling in love with a different one. There is some debate over whether Deckard himself is a replicant. I'd say he probably is based upon the movie, but it doesn't really matter. The point is that you don't want to know your own fate. The replicants choose suicide over their artificial shutoff date. This may seem paradoxical on the surface but it's understandable. At least they have some control over things that way. Why doesn't Deckard pursue evidence of his own humanity if he isn't a cyborg? Again, it doesn't matter. What matters is that he can maintain the illusion of his own immortality-a necessary illusion for the functioning of society (and perhaps a hint at why the society of Blade Runner is failing). Deckard is even okay with his loved one being damned by an inferior creature's whim-as long as it isn't him. He's saving her so he doesn't have to save himself.

There are few movies that can rely completely on atmosphere with little or no discernible plot and still reach the top 5 of a Yoggoth top 10 list. Blade Runner is one of those movies. You might think that Blade Runner suffers from this defect because it has to cram an entire book onto film. You'd be wrong. I've read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the Phillip K. Dick novel the movie was based on, and if anything it has less plot than Blade Runner. I would actually recommend watching the movie first to help you figure out what the book is even about. Phillip K. Dick is a 60's writer who immediately skipped ahead to the 80's in terms of sentiment and this movie reflects that. Aside from the replicants themselves there is very little futuristic technology in the movie. There are the requisite flying cars but other than that Los Angeles looks pretty much like 1982 Los Angeles, or at least like 1982 Seattle during a solar eclipse, and that's close enough. Garish neon advertisements and new genetic technologies, along with growing ecological concerns, were just as much a part of the 80's as greed and hairstyles. The corporate demagogue gets his comeuppance in Blade Runner but that's only mentioned as an aside. The actual conclusion to the film is less bombastic and more believable than most 80's endings. Deckard is just one man running from the system because he's found love. This ending would be echoed in a later 80s movie...but that's a post for another day.

Interesting Interviews at the Onion A.V. Club

Malcolm Mcdowell seems like a good guy.

"You're telling me to do a love scene, you actually have to have penetration? That's absolutely beyond pathetic. If you can't think of any way of making that exciting, you're in the wrong job."

This one with Wes Anderson is decent. But this one with Uwe Boll is better.

"If you want a career in Germany as a filmmaker, you shoot another fucking movie about "My old uncle tried to kill Hitler." Right? You do Sophie's Choice Part 11, and you get an L.A. agent and make a career in America because you showed you were against Hitler. But in reality, 98 percent of the people were not against Hitler."

5. The Empire Strikes Back (Kershner, 1980) [LE]

He's his father? He's his father? Can you believe he's his father?!

Apparently at some point I told Yoggoth that this film was "overrated," and yet funny how it comes in at number five on my list and number six on his. Maybe that's just a testament to my overall low opinion of the '80s. Hell, it's possible that The Empire Strikes Back is actually the best film of the decade, but, as Yoggoth so expertly stated, it's hard to tell, because it's almost impossible to judge the first three Star Wars films as separate entities in and of themselves. Lucas, big bonehead that he is, has made it even more impossible thanks to the whole prequel business.

Part of me wishes that Lucas had just stopped at Star Wars and moved on. Yeah, that's right, even though I will freely admit that, as the conventional wisdom goes, Empire is superior in many ways to Star Wars, still by opening the floodgates for Ewoks and Jar Jar Binks and "Hold me like you held me on Naboo" and all that silliness, he diluted the power of the first film. Spielberg made the right call in leaving the Jaws sequels to someone else; now you can judge Jaws completely on its own as a Spielberg movie and not even think of the sequels as being spun from the same cloth. Lucas took a gamble that seemed to pay off big at first, but increasingly came to look like a mistake. In other words, he really screwed himself by raising the bar too high.

It's like Oasis. Definitely Maybe was a perfect little blast of rock 'n roll euphoria, but everybody figured it was a one-shot deal. Then when they came out with (What's the Story) Morning Glory, everybody thought, "Wow, they're doing ballads and orchestrations and stuff we never even thought they'd be able to do. Maybe they can do anything!" And then Be Here Now was like the bloated regurgitation of everything they'd already done and they had nowhere else to go and they basically laid a big fat fart on everybody's expectations. And now they just keep releasing albums even though the magic is totally gone in every possible way and you just want to scream out to Noel Gallagher "Please, Noel, stop, for the love of God!!"

So when Empire Strikes Back came out and it was better than Star Wars, I think all the fans just assumed that Lucas would be like the Beatles and that every movie would be better than the last. Hey if you can do it once, you can do it again, right? He he. I remember my father coming out of the theater after seeing Return of the Jedi. "Another death star? They went back to Tatooine? God what a letdown." But Lucas had been asking for it by making Empire so rewarding. And I'm partially of the mind that if an artist can't deliver on the whole story, then he shouldn't even bother to expand it.

And yet, and yet...Empire is so good. Yoda lifting the X-wing fighter out of the swamp, whispering to Luke "That is why you fail"; Vader kneeling before the Emperor, discussing a potential new ally; Obi-Wan's ghost suggesting "There is another"; Leia telling Han "I love you" before Han is frozen in carbonite, and Han responding "I know." Imperial walkers. Cloud City. "I am your father." Come on, buddy, was it really that hard to come up with this stuff?

Apaprently so. But just because Lucas never delivered on the promise of The Empire Strikes Back, can you really hold that against the movie itself?

Probably not.