Of Walking In Ice by Werner Herzog

I hate to admit to being underwhelmed by anything Herzog, but Of Walking In Ice just didn’t do it for me.  In 1974, Herzog walks from Munich to Paris, presumably because he feels that if he does so, he can help keep alive esteemed German film critic Lotte Eisner, who has fallen ill in France.  In and of itself that’s great.  Plus the weather sucks.  That adds drama.  Along the way he keeps a journal.  It is a diaristic ramble, to be sure.   He breaks into houses along the way to sleep.  That’s kind of cool in a 70s way.  There are definitely some prime Herzogian philosophical nuggets, but for me, it was pretty darned unfocused.  What kept me going was the scant page count.  I know I will be hated and hunted down by the lovers of cinema for this review.  But I’ll take my chances.

Black Hole by Bucky Sinister

Bucky Sinister is one of my all time favorite poets, both on the page and at readings. After years slugging it out in the poetry trenches, he’s just published Black Hole, his debut novel. Exciting stuff. 

Black Hole is fantastic.  Sinister would be the first to admit that it owes a debt to Philip K. Dick.  A Scanner Darkly jumps to mind, as Black Hole is drenched in drug-fueled sadness as we bear witness to a character losing his mind, and quite disturbingly, his hold on time. Black Hole features an ageing hipster, Chuck, with an insatiable appetite for drugs.  But the drugs that he dabbles in are new designer drugs, the side effects not quite known. Chuck has not quite figured out how to grow up. He’s a 40 year old drug addict who hasn’t given up the party. His friends are either dead or have grown up, shedding their punk rock leathers for family man garages. On top of that, his beloved Mission is undergoing a rapid change. In with tech, out with warehouses, squats, and Mission eccentrics. He's at a loss how to move into middle age. He's become the weird old guy at the party. 

Chuck is at loose ends, and as he dabbles with new designer drugs, he spins in and out of control. The drugs are making him black out.  When he awakes he seems to be skipping through time.  He time travels to the near past, forced to relive the mistakes and trials of his youth over and over again. He gets opportunities to fix his mistakes, but he’s not that smart or lucky.

Black Hole is at its best when it addresses how we approach middle age, especially for those who cut their teeth in the punk universe. What happens when you recognize that the world around you has changed, but you can’t figure out how or where you fit into the new order of things? Worse yet, what if you realize there is no place for you? 

How we approach change is central to Black Hole and as Chuck grapples with change at the personal level, he is confronted with a rapidly gentrifying San Francisco. Black Hole becomes a great vehicle for exploring the current changes in the Mission.  No worries though, Black Hole is not shrill or didactic.  It’s equal parts funny and melancholy.  Sinister has been honing his chops as a stand-up comedian for the last ten years and Black Hole is full of funny.  It features a world where the nouveau tech crowd are clamoring to buy mini whales, the hottest status symbol pet on the market. It also laments a world where a crazy person, running around the Mission covered in feces, is no longer acceptable. 

Ultimately though, Black Hole is filled with longing and sadness. It’s a toast to a time gone by, a time that is being brushed under the carpet of history. It’s not a condemnation of the new Mission, but a rumination on how we experience change and stagnation. 

Inherent Vice vs. Play It As It Lays

I’m on a 60s LA kick.  Just finished up Joan Didion’s Play It As It Lays and Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice.  Ira Levin’s The Stepford Wives is on deck, which could serve as a nice capper to this run.

Play It As It Lays and Inherent Vice share a frayed vision of the 60s, but the similarities stop there.  Play It As It Lays is desperate, sad, and heartbreaking. It is steeped in melancholy.  If the 60s were supposed to be liberating and life affirming, the characters in this book never got the memo.  It’s a crashing dream.  We get snippets of the life of Maria.  Model turned actress turned Hollywood wife heading for a crack up.  All the booze, the drugs and loose morals do nothing but undermine her self-worth.  It’s a haunting book.  Play It As It Lays, written in 1970, seems ahead of its time in re-evaluating the 60s or certainly poking holes in the Eden-esque 60s mythology.

Inherent Vice, on the other hand, fully plays into that myth.  Free love and free drugs abound.  Surf music is on the radio, rock and roll is in the streets, and revolution is in the air.  But this is a crime novel, so not all is well.  A Cointelpro sting, a drug ring, and a bizarre real-estate scandal threaten the stoners’ surf paradise. However, Pynchon’s characters remain oblivious to the menace, having a rollicking good time.  They all are just too stoned to be too concerned.

Plopped down in 1969, months after the Manson murders, Inherent Vice is a hazy, drug-fueled noir.  It owes a huge debt to Raymond Chandler, but floats in a psychedelic fog. I loved it at times, but at other points the haze got a bit thick.  With an intensely convoluted plot, filled with oodles of characters, the narrative slip slides around in a cloud of pot smoke, oft times obscuring the narrative.  At some level that approach leaves you with some impressionistic scenes, but with so many plot turns to keep track of, confusion ensues.  Interestingly, I heard an interview with Paul Thomas Anderson, who adapted Inherent Vice for the screen last year.  I have yet to see the movie, but he talks about using Robert Altman’s 1973 adaptation of The Long Goodbye as a model for his film.  This completely informed my reading of Inherent Vice.  Altman’s take on Chandler is narratively challenged and heavy on vibe.  It’s elusive and hard to pin down.  I was never the hugest fan, but the mood of that film has stuck with me years after viewing.  Though I didn’t love Inherent Vice throughout, it actually has fueled my interest to take in the movie.  It seems ripe for the screen, a dizzying visual ride, prone to slipping in and out of the narrative fold.  I can get behind that.

On a side note, I haven’t read Pynchon since college.  I loved him then, but haven’t read any of the comeback novels.  I couldn’t help being struck by how wacky and goofy Inherent Vice was.  Great heaps of Carl Hiaasen craziness abound in these pages.  So my question is whether Hiaasen’s books are hugely influenced by early Pynchon or whether Pynchon has succumbed to influences by more modern writers?  And speaking of modern influences, there a bit of James Ellroy and bit of The Big Lebowski floating around in this Inherent stew.

Some Quick Thoughts About TV

Peaky Blinders—Let’s talk Netflix Original deep cuts.  When I was first laid up with my bad back in December, I cruised through this British Series.  Set in the 20s, it focuses on the mean streets of industrial Birmingham.  It’s a melting pot of trouble.  Commies, cops, IRA, and The Peaky Blinders, the local gang, are all doing battle in this hardscrabble universe filled with young men deeply scarred by their experiences in WWI. It’s a far remove from Downton Abbey.  There are flashes of excitement, especially when the show gets political, as it does at the outset.  Will the factory workers fight for their rights?  Will they embrace a socialist movement? Will they embrace revolutionary moment? Or will they fall into the hands of the local gangs, offering a quick buck.  Unfortunately, as the show develops, politics become an afterthought, and the show’s plot turns toward simple gang warfare.  Not bad, I just feel that the politics of England between-the-wars carries with it a seed of originality that simple gang warfare fails to bring.  I did stick out for both seasons.

Veep—OK, I’m four seasons late to the party here, but this is brilliant funny stuff.  Never watched it, but then I shot an Evening with Veep for San Francisco Sketchfest this year and I was intrigued.  I had no idea that Armando Iannucci, one of the creative minds behind I’m Alan Partridge and In The Loop was behind this.  The writing is great, as is the acting.  Full marks here.

House of Cards—Watching House of Cards and Veep at the same time is a bit surreal, since the plot lines are nearly identical, featuring Vice Presidents climbing the ladder to the Presidency.  A shocking number of plot points start converging.  The two shows represent an interesting exercise in taking similar broad plot points and creating two very different experiences. Enough of that, let’s talk House of Cards. I loved the first two seasons.  Now that I’m more than halfway through season 3, I can’t say I’m feeling it so much.  The first two seasons focus on Frank Underwood’s rise to power.  His end game becomes clear and is the driving force of the series.  Now that he is fully in power in season 3, the show seems to lose focus.  As President he seems rudderless.  Other than maintaining power and flaunting his power, he seems adrift with no political agenda.  It seems odd to me that someone who is a career politician, who was so focused on achieving the Presidency, would get there and then have no clear policies that he wants to enact.  As the season progresses, he pushes policy through, but it all seems so reactive as opposed to proactive.  It strikes me as a bit of lazy writing.  Given the strength of the writing and acting in the first two seasons, I’ll play out the string, but I’m starting to think the five hour investment I have in front of me could be better spent. 

Girls—I’ve been mixed on Girls.  I like Lena Dunham. That said, the show, at times has irritated.  I dug season 1.  Season 2 made my skin crawl a bit.  I skipped season 3.  I’m digging Season 4.  I find myself looking forward to each episode.  Isn’t that the draw of TV?  There you have it.  Have I mentioned how every time I look at Lena Dunham, I think of 90s underground filmmaker, Sarah Jacobson?  I think Dunham, whether she realizes it or not, took the mantle Jacobson was blazing before her untimely death, and has run with it.  I think Sarah would be proud to see someone like Dunham strutting her stuff so boldly on TV. That thought makes me happy.

Togetherness—I’m a big Mark Duplass fan.  I really enjoyed the first season of Togethrness, which features a married couple moving in different directions after becoming parents.  It seems real. It seems heartfelt. It seems wounded.  The characters aren’t always sympathetic, but they are not in a good place.  The side story of the directionless sister and the best friend, who is an out of work actor, feels real as well.  What happens when you approach middle age and all your hopes and dreams seem forever out of reach?  Togetherness goes there and it’s good stuff.

Hockey—I watch a lot of hockey.  The Sharks, my team, are a bit of sideshow this year. They’re offering up as much drama as some of the shows on this list.  As the regular season comes to an end, and it becomes increasingly likely they won’t make the playoffs, I keep watching.  I suppose it’s the masochist in me.  Sports fans understand. 

Citizen Four

I’ve been fascinated by the Edward Snowden case since it broke in 2013. Snowden revealed a bevvy of NSA documents, showing the government’s far-reaching surveillance abilities.  Particularly disconcerting was the government’s ability to access phone records and internet communications. Snowden became privy to NSA documents while working for the consulting firm of Booz Hamilton. Disturbed by what he perceived as a government overstepping its bounds, Snowden turned whistleblower.  

Citizen Four, directed by Laura Poitras, documents the days leading up to Snowden’s revelations and the aftermath.  Snowden was not interested in publishing the documents WikiLeaks-style for fear that he would reveal info that would jeopardize legitimate intelligent operations and individuals involved in such operations.  Instead, Snowden contacts Poitras, whose documentary work he respected, Salon’s Glenn Greenwald, and The Guardian’s Ewan MacAskill.  Working as a team, they decide the best way to release the information.

Snowden is not only cognizant of the havoc his revelations will unleash, but also understands the personal risks.  Not only will he be cut-off from friends and family, but he’ll face treason charges under the auspices of the Espionage Act.  The film opens with Snowden’s cat and mouse courting of Poitras.  We see and hear a series of email exchanges.  Dribs and drabs of heavily encrypted information flow between the two.  Poitras is sucked in and the team assembles in Hong Kong, where Snowden has taken refuge, aware that Hong Kong is unlikely to extradite Snowden once his allegations are revealed.

This section of the film is fascinating.  The film’s subjects are strangers, undertaking a damning project, rife with danger.  Watching the group strategizing is a fascinating process.  Once the documents are leaked, Snowden is forced underground and his journey takes him from Hong Kong to Moscow.  From this point on we rarely see Snowden, most of his communication now coming in the form of encrypted emails. Snowden’s disappearance certainly has a chilling effect.  He’s at the center of the storm, yet is effectively silenced by his precarious political standing.  He’s granted asylum in Moscow, but that asylum seems tenuous at best. 

The Snowden story is fascinating on many levels.  As digital citizens, I think it’s important that we are aware of who has access to our communications. I think it’s important that we understand our conversations are not private.  We live in a digital age where we live so much of our lives on-line. I have a middle schooler. My son and his friends will live their entire lives sharing information on-line.  Their digital footprint will be huge.  What will these intrusions on privacy mean to them?  

One of the central concerns at the core of the case is whether we should be willing to give up some of our civil liberties for increased safety against terrorism. The film certainly addresses this, but if I had a complaint about the movie, it’s that due to the film’s vérité nature, Citizen Four is sometimes hard to read.  Clearly Poitras, along with Snowden, believe that the government’s surveillance and obfuscation of justice is detrimental to free speech, and that has far-reaching, negative implications.  That critique was clear to me, but I don’t know if that critique will hit home to those who might be skeptical to this line of thinking.  

Any filmmaker that takes on a controversial subject should be aware that their film has skeptics. Presumably you want to win over those skeptics, get them to change their opinions on a hot-button issue. Otherwise, you’re just preaching to the converted. Many people watching this doc are probably anti-Snowden, anti-whistleblower, and fear terrorist attacks to the point that they would be willing to give up a certain level of privacy to prevent future attacks.  I’m not sure Citizen Four’s approach is enough to get them to change their opinions.  I return to my middle-schooler.  He’s not doing anything treasonous on-line.  Why should he care if the government has access to his email?  What are they going to find out?  That he’s mad at his math teacher?  I walked into Citizen Four thinking that this film would need to be required viewing for any young person navigating today’s digital landscape.  But I’m not sure that your average teen would be able to fully understand the socio-political critique. I wanted Citizen Four to have the impact of An Inconvenient Truth.  Direct and chilling.  Citizen Four doesn’t quite deliver in that way.  That’s not how it’s designed, but I wish it had been.

Still, it’s a must see.

Birdman, Leviathan, The Big Screen

1.

There’s nothing like seeing an amazing moving.  Nothing like sitting in a dark theater, immersed into another world.  Images, sounds and words, pushing you farther and farther back in your seat.  Or pulling you to the front of your seat.  Someone’s visions burning bright. Seeing that brilliance unfold before you.

2.

On the other hand, there’s nothing more frustrating than seeing some mediocre piece of crap.  How many people did it take to make that?

3.

Last week I saw two great films.  Two in one week, that’s pretty good.  Renews your faith in the cinema.

4.

Birdman.  Brilliant.  The Writing. The Camerawork. The Acting. The Score.  A drum score!!!! Wow. Who would have thought of that?  The acting! Everyone is talking about Michael Keaton.  He’s great.  Deserving of all the praise. But how about Edward Norton? Steals the show. The camerawork is insane.  It’s no gimmick.  It creates a dizzying universe, a world spiraling out of control.  Camerawork that throws caution to the wind, necessitates fearless performances from the actors.   A universe where editing won’t save you or hide subpar moments.  The writing.  I was letting out the occasional belly laugh…while the rest of the audience remained silent.  So many great lines.  One of the best films ever about artistic ambition and artistic insecurity.  Mamet-esque. Altman-esque. PT Andersen-esque. Gilliam-esque.

5.

I worry about a world without theaters.  A world where we only see movies on our tvs and our devices.  Some movies need a big screen, better allowing you to sink deep into the images.  On the small screen it’s too easy to get distracted, especially if the movie is slow or challenging.  In the theater, you’re not going anywhere.  You’re not checking your phone. You’re not logging onto IMDB to see who that bit player is, or what the running time of the movie is, or what the reviewers are saying.  You’re in the theater. You have no choice but to surrender. 

6. 

Which bring me to Leviathan.  A doc.  On a fishing boat. Poetic. Experimental. Vérité. No interviews.  Nary a word.  Just beautiful visuals. Abstract visuals. Very long shots. Very, very long shots. Long shots that are hard to read.  Water on the lens. Distorting the images.  Lots of sound.  An industrial score. A mechanical score.  Cold. Menacing.  Brutality on the sea.  A critique? A reflection of life as it is?  However you interpret it, I found it fascinating. Energetic. Daring.  Would I have lasted through the first shot, had I been watching it on tv, at home?  I’m not sure. But in the darkened theater, on the big screen, I was mesmerized.

Black Snow by Mikhail Bulgakov

Black Snow is one of those books that is easy to read but hard to pick up.  You know the type.  Fun, light, well-written, but for some reason you’re just not sucked in.  You look at it sitting on the nightstand, beckoning you, but you just groan and waste a little more time checking Facebook or hustling up another Words With Friends game.  Black Snow is a farce by Mikhail Bulgakov, writer of the brilliant The Master and Margarita and Heart of a Dog.  Black Snow is a fictionalized account of Bulgakov’s attempt to adapt his novel The White Guard for the stage at the Moscow Art Theater.  It’s clear that his experience was frustrating.  There are some funny parts, but it’s so absurd, and so many characters flit in and out of its pages, that it’s hard to care too much about the travails of Bulgakov’s alter ego Maxudov.  Without a doubt Bulgakov has many scores to settle, but perhaps the 1920s microscene squabbles of the Russian theater world don’t have the impact they should in 2014.  Bulgakov’s biggest target in Black Snow is none other than theater great Konstantin Stanislavski.  There’s something exciting about this feud and Bulgakov is merciless, treating Stanislavski like a fool. At the end of day, I wish Black Snow was more biting, but somehow it just seems silly. 

Black By Design: A 2-Tone Memoir by Pauline Black

In the early 80s, I loved British Ska. I couldn’t get enough of the likes of the Specials and The Selecter.  I can’t say I listen to those bands much any more and I haven’t been tempted by any of the reunion tours cycling around.  Regardless, they all have a place deep in my heart.  Out book shopping recently, I came across Black By Design, an autobiography of Pauline Black from The Selecter. I picked it up on a whim, figuring it would be a good summer read.

The first third of the book is very strong. Black’s upbringing is a truly interesting window into England of the 50s and 60s, particularly since Black views it from the perspective of a black woman.  Black was adopted by white working class parents in the 50s.  This was not a common occurrence in England at the time, and though her family was, by all accounts, loving, her black heritage was a mystery.  She was the only black girl in town and she felt the sting of racism.  However, she could share her feelings with nobody.  Not family or friends.  She was aware that her blackness set her apart from her contemporaries, but her nascent black pride could only be nurtured alone.  She was fascinated by the race issues in America and looked to the black power movement in America as a guidepost for her own behavior.  Though her parents were kind, they did not love when Pauline would assert her blackness. Once she left for college, she never looked back.

The middle part of the book talks about her time in The Selecter and the 2-Tone scene that was exploding in Coventry where she was based.  While I enjoyed this section of the book, I really wanted more.  Granted it’s a memoir, and Black talks honestly from her perspective, but I felt I wanted deeper insight into why the movement was happening, who all the players were, and what fueled the coming together and the division of the various audience groups (the punks, the mods, and the skins).   Black addresses it all, but not with the depth I hoped for.  I’d be up for a juicy oral history from all the players of that scene.

It’s also interesting to note that The Selecter’s time in the limelight was incredibly brief.  The Selecter track that appeared as a b-side on the first 2-Tone release was a hit.  But that track was really a solo endeavor by guitarist Neol Davies using the name The Selecter.  Once he had a hit, he needed a band.  The band was still being formed even though they were already in demand and on the rise, riding the coattails of The Specials.  Almost from the outset, the band is at odds with each other, fighting about producers and musical direction. The band implodes in about two years time.  The rise and fall is equal parts exciting and dour.

Black is at her best and most passionate when she talks about the difficulties of being a black artist and a woman artist.  The 2-Tone ethos was the perfect vehicle for her message.  After the break up of The Selecter she struggled finding her way.  Musical projects were mostly ignored.  She found her way to the stage and television.  She was moderately successful in those arenas. She found her way.  Not as exciting as The Selecter in their heyday, but she made inroads as a working artist.  The book, however, gets a bit dreary for my likes.  It becomes the memoir of someone struggling, but eking out a living.  The highs aren’t that high. The lows aren’t that low.  I have nothing but respect for all that Black has done, and her political view of the world is spot-on, but the writing isn’t strong enough to elevate this into a must read.  

The Monuments Men

I approached The Monuments Men with a bit of trepidation.  I’m not the hugest fan of George Clooney, the director.  I love the politics of his films.  I love the intentions of his films, yet I don’t love the films.  To me they’ve come across as a bit preachy without the cinematic chops.

That said, I looked forward to a war movie about art and the importance of art in society an culture.  What’s not to like about that premise?  Ultimately, The Monuments Men experience was an odd one.  Am I glad I saw the movie?  I guess I am.  The story, about an international troop of artists and art scholars trying to save European classics from the hands of the Nazis was not a story I was familiar with.  I learned a lot.  But the movie?  Oy, what a mess. 

It was a movie that could not figure out what it wanted to be.  The tone and tenor of the piece was all over the map.  A plucky, feel-good 50s war movie? A witty, rapacious comedy a la MASH?  An emotional, Spielbergian drama?   It was a real mish-mash of styles that sadly never found its footing.

The editing was equally sloppy. There was lots of narrative confusion. In the big picture, characters are spread out over Europe on certain missions, yet they continually rendezvous and meet up.  As a viewer there’s no sense of timeline.  Did those missions take days, weeks?  Why do they reconvene only to spread back out again?  Was there a purpose to the rendezvous other than to have all the stars back together again?   And many individual scenes also seemed devoid of finesse, leaving potentially dramatic scenes flat and uninspired. I don’t want to hand out any spoilers, but one particular scene that was poorly handled was a scene in which a main character dies.  I’ll only say that there was basic narrative confusion as to the set up of the death, the circumstances of the death, and ultimately no drama to the death. 

The film was devoid of tension, which is just not acceptable for a war movie.  There should have been tension.  The Nazi occupation of France, the Nazi retreat and their scorched earth policy, the brewing showdown between the Americans and the Russian, death on the battlefield.   All those plot points are broached in the movie, but none seemed particularly urgent.  

A frustrating film to be sure.  At the end of the day, I felt like I often do when I see well-intentioned docs that aren’t well put together.  I’m glad I saw it, but I just wish there was more art in the filmmaking. 

Lucking Out by James Wolcott

I'm a sucker for reading about NYC in the 70s.  It's an endlessly fascinating era.  The dirt, the crime, the art, and the culture have an amazing allure.   That fascination drew me to James Wolcott's memoir, Lucking Out.  Wolcott cut his teeth in the art and culture world of New York City in the 70s.  He got a break from Norman Mailer, wrote for the Village Voice, was part of Pauline Kael’s inner circle, and was on the ground floor of the CBGB universe.  Wolcott also turns his attention to the sleazoid universe of Times Square before falling in love with the ballet. 

The book is most exciting as Wolcott recounts his time with Kael, going to press screenings of countless seminal films from the 70s.  His view into Kael’s universe is worth the price of admission for the book alone.  But from that point forward, Lucking Out covers material already covered in greater depth in other NY 70s memoirs/scene overviews.  If you’ve already read Please Kill Me, Just Kids, Love Goes To Buildings On Fire, Tales of Time Square, The Other Hollywood, then you are already pretty familiar with the material covered here.  Maybe I'm hitting my saturation point with hearing about this era.

At a personal level, I've definitely reached my saturation point on the glorification of Patti Smith.  Don't get me wrong, I love Patti Smith.  I love her book.  I love her music.  I love what she stands for.  But I don’t need to hear anyone else deify her in print.  I'm over it.

As far as Lucking Out goes, not a bad read, but not a mind-blower.  

1980s, I Apologize To You, Pt. II

NOTE: Lots of problems with my blog lately, particularly in Safari. I recommend reading it in Firefox or Internet Explorer. I'm re-posting this post, since it only appears intermittently in Safari. Sorry for the inconvenience. But I did add two more films!

More and more I see a certain reverence of and fascination with the 80s. Nostalgia for the 80s has been cropping up in movies and tv with increasing frequency. Certainly, some of my college students are seeking inspiration in that particular rear view mirror.

I think I’ve written about this before, but I can’t help feeling that my experience in the 80s has nothing to do with this current house of mirrors reinterpretation of the 80s. The entirety of my high school and college experience, as well as my move to San Francisco all happened in the 80s. Three significant life moments all went down, yet I don’t see a stitch of my world view represented by the current wave of 80s nostalgia. I suppose nostalgia is about reducing an era down to its main signifiers and amplifying their importance at the expense of the margins and bit players from said era. If you head down the path of subculture, your experience gets weeded out even more as the decades pass.

In any event, I didn’t like Thriller, MTV was not that important to me, I’ve never seen Top Gun, and I never cared for Hall and Oates. And while there are certainly some John Hughes movies I like, I can honestly say I don’t hold any of those dear to my heart.

So why bring all this up now? For some reason, I got to thinking about movies from the 80s that impacted me. And whenever I think about the 80s and movies, my immediate reaction is to put the decade down. My kneejerk reaction is to think it a somewhat barren decade from a cinematic perspective. I can easily pick out films from every era that I love, that moved me, and that I hold in high regard. Yet when it comes to movies of the 80s, I usually draw a blank.

As a little exercise to myself I decided to quickly come up with a list of movies that had an immediate impact on me when I saw them in the theaters in the 80s. Not films that I discovered later on vhs or dvd. I wanted to focus solely on films I saw in a movie theater while the decade was unfolding. And I kept it fairly above ground as well. I’m sure I’ve forgotten a bunch, but here they are.

I’m sure I could write a lot about how many of these films have not resonated in the public consciousness much beyond their release date. I could talk about how this selection of films sheds a lot of light on why I’m not on board with the current 80s nostalgia train. But for now, I’ll just list them.

Altered States (1980)
The Last Metro (1980)
Breaker Morant (1980)
Stardust Memories (1980)

Stripes (1981)
Body Heat (1981)
Das Boot (1981)
Gallipoli (1981)
URGH: A Music War (1981)
Dance Craze (1981)
Montenegro (1981)

Blade Runner (1982)
Eating Raoul (1982)
Fanny & Alexander (1982)
Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982)
Fitzcarraldo (1982)
Koyaanisqatsi (1982)
Time Stands Still (1982)

Zelig (1983)
Baby, It’s You (1983)
Star 80 (1983)

Paris, Texas (1984)
Brother From Another Planet (1984)
Broadway Danny Rose (1984)
Streetwise (1984)

After Hours (1985)
Fool For Love (1985)
Hail Mary (1985)
Kiss of The Spider Woman (1985)

Aliens (1986)
River’s Edge (1986)
Down By Law (1986)

Matewan (1987)
Hope and Glory (1987)
Evil Dead II (1987)

Hairspray (1988)

Do The Right Thing (1989)
The Cook, The Thief, The Wife, and His Lover (1989)

As I look at the list, it’s pretty solid. Maybe they don’t all hold up and maybe it’s still not the greatest film decade ever, but I apologize to you 1980s, you're not all leg warmers and spandex.

1980s, I Apologize To You

More and more I see a certain reverence of and fascination with the 80s. Nostalgia for the 80s has been cropping up in movies and tv with increasing frequency. Certainly, some of my college students are seeking inspiration in that particular rear view mirror.

I think I’ve written about this before, but I can’t help feeling that my experience in the 80s has nothing to do with this current house of mirrors reinterpretation of the 80s. The entirety of my high school and college experience, as well as my move to San Francisco all happened in the 80s. Three significant life moments all went down, yet I don’t see a stitch of my world view represented by the current wave of 80s nostalgia. I suppose nostalgia is about reducing an era down to its main signifiers and amplifying their importance at the expense of the margins and bit players from said era. If you head down the path of subculture, your experience gets weeded out even more as the decades pass.

In any event, I didn’t like Thriller, MTV was not that important to me, I’ve never seen Top Gun, and I never cared for Hall and Oates. And while there are certainly some John Hughes movies I like, I can honestly say I don’t hold any of those dear to my heart.

So why bring all this up now? For some reason, I got to thinking about movies from the 80s that impacted me. And whenever I think about the 80s and movies, my immediate reaction is to put the decade down. My kneejerk reaction is to think it a somewhat barren decade from a cinematic perspective. I can easily pick out films from every era that I love, that moved me, and that I hold in high regard. Yet when it comes to movies of the 80s, I usually draw a blank.

As a little exercise to myself I decided to quickly come up with a list of movies that had an immediate impact on me when I saw them in the theaters in the 80s. Not films that I discovered later on vhs or dvd. I wanted to focus solely on films I saw in a movie theater while the decade was unfolding. And I kept it fairly above ground as well. I’m sure I’ve forgotten a bunch, but here they are.

I’m sure I could write a lot about how many of these films have not resonated in the public consciousness much beyond their release date. I could talk about how this selection of films sheds a lot of light on why I’m not on board with the current 80s nostalgia train. But for now, I’ll just list them.

Altered States (1980)

The Last Metro (1980)

Stardust Memories (1980)

Stripes (1981)

Body Heat (1981)
Das Boot (1981)

URGH: A Music War (1981)

Dance Craze (1981)

Montenegro (1981)

Blade Runner (1982)

Eating Raoul (1982)

Fanny & Alexander (1982)

Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982)

Fitzcarraldo (1982)

Koyaanisqatsi (1982)

Time Stands Still (1982)

Zelig (1983)

Baby, It’s You (1983)

Star 80 (1983)

Paris, Texas (1984)

Brother From Another Planet (1984)

Broadway Danny Rose (1984)

Streetwise (1984)

After Hours (1985)

Fool For Love (1985)

Hail Mary (1985)

Kiss of The Spider Woman (1985)

Aliens (1986)

River’s Edge (1986)
Down By Law (1986)

Matewan (1987)

Hope and Glory (1987)

Evil Dead II (1987)

Hairspray (1988)

Do The Right Thing (1989)

The Cook, The Thief, The Wife, and His Lover (1989)

As I look at the list, it’s pretty solid. Maybe they don’t all hold up and maybe it’s still not the greatest film decade ever, but I apologize to you 1980s, you're not all leg warmers and spandex.

RIP Phillip Guilbeau

It’s interesting as you get towards middle age and friends start to die. Recently I’ve had three friends pass away. All were involved in the art scene in a variety of ways. They all were instrumental in shaping people’s lives, but they were also artists whose careers never achieved household name recognition. It makes me sad thinking about the number of artists toiling away for years whose work never reached a large enough audience.

I just wanted to shed some light on one of those. I first met Phillip Guilbeau shortly after moving to SF in 1987. I have no idea where I first saw one of his films. At Club Kommotion? The Firehouse? The Artists’ Television Access? I don’t remember where it was, but I certainly remember what it was. The Psychosis of Tony Lambert was a bizarre, no-budget, super 8 blast of anger and aggression. The legendary Gary Floyd (of the Dicks and Sister Double Happiness) played both quack psychiatrist and patient Tony Lambert, driven to psychosis by society’s lack of understanding of his homosexuality. There was bad language, cross dressing, and wild gesticulations and facial contortions courtesy of Floyd. The film was nearly unwatchable at a technical level, but so full of life, energy and attitude that I was hooked and couldn’t wait to watch the film over and over. And it turned out Phillip had a trilogy of Lambert films under his belt. When I finally met Phillip, I found him to be one of the sweetest, quietest, kindest people I’d ever met. And his gentle Texas lilt was always so calming.

I immediately identified Phillip as a kindred spirit. A nice, quiet kid making insane films full of punk rock energy. We did lots of shows together. I put out one of the Lambert films on my first video compilation and screened his films countless times throughout the 80s and 90s.

As life does, we drifted apart. The number of times I talked to Phillip in the last ten years is miniscule. At some point, Phillip moved to Michigan to go to grad school at U of M (my alma mater). He reached out to me several weeks back, asking me to give him a call. We never spoke. I left a message. Phillip called back and left a message on my phone. The message was riddled with dropouts and bad reception and I heard almost nothing. I called back and left a message. And that’s it. Cancer. He passed away at his home in Texas with his family this week.

Not sure when the last time it was that he made a film. Not sure how many people will remember him as a filmmaker. His name likely won’t be included in film history books, but I know his work had impact. It certainly had an impact on me.

Rest In Peace - Phillip Guilbeau.

Who Needs The Internet? The Revenge of Print!!!!

“Who needs the internet?” I ask. I recently have been included in 4 different print projects, which, I must admit, sends a delightful retro chill down my spine. I’ve had articles published in two fantastic zines—8 Track Mind and The Molten Rectangle, and have had my work dissected (or vivisected) in two new fantastic tomes, Destroy All Movies and Radical Light. Here’s the skinny.

8 Track Mind, hopefully won’t need an introduction to most, but since it’s been 10 years or so since it’s last issue, all bets are off. 8 Track Mind was/is a fantastic zine, put together by media archeologist and all around good guy Russ Forster. 8 Track Mind has been the foremost publication willing to dig deep into the 8 Track subculture. For purveyors of discarded and forgotten technology, the zine featured some of the finest reportage geared toward 8 Track collectors and cultural connoisseurs of media and concepts abandoned to the dust heap of history. As part of the Revenge of Print Challenge issued forth from Baltimore’s Atomic Books and Chicago’s Quimby’s Books, Russ is back with a print-only issue that abandons the 8 Track theme and focuses on the pros vs. cons of the blogs vs. zine universe that we live in today. Articles from Joe Carducci, Kim Cooper, V. Vale, Lance Laurie and other luminaries, including myself, grace the pages. Hop down to Tower Records or your local zine shoppe and pick one up. If that doesn't work, send Russ $4 via paypal to russelforster@hotmail.com.

The Molten Rectangle is a film lover’s mag that is the brainchild of Gene Booth. The latest issue (number 3) features heaps of good think pieces about film and film history. Pieces on The African Queen, Burn, Pleasantville, and Million Dollar Baby fill the mag. But the standout is the oral history of Chicago’s now abandoned Parkway Theater. As an awesome bonus, The Molten Rectangle comes with a bonus DVD. How’s that for old school! The 3 film DVD contains a film by yours truly (Dumbass From Dundas), Jet Evelth’s Our Last Session (a Maria Bamford-ish trip to the shrink piece) and Booth’s own absurdist collage Skillz, wherein a trio of urban dwellers head to a video arcade only to have their dialogue stripped away and reconstituted for comic purposes. You can pick up a copy here.

Destroy All Movies: The Complete Guide To Punks On Film (edited by Zack Carlson & Bryan Connolly).
Have you been hankering for a movie encyclopedia about punk rock movies? Well, if so, here you have it. Destroy All Movies is the real deal. It’s monstrous, it’s beautifully laid out, and it’s expertly written. The book covers it all, from the obvious like the Decline movies and Suburbia to the No Wave Films to The Cinema of Transgression to the no budget, sub-underground shenanigans of folks like Dave Markey, Jon Moritsugu, and myself. I had no idea I was even in the book until I saw a copy at the MOMA. Like the narcissist that I am, I thumbed through the index, found my name and quickly flipped to page 179 for the review of I’m Not Fascinating. Brutal and funny. Fascinating gets dubbed as “The least likely punk feature ever shot,” and labeled as a “self-loathing vanity project”. Backhanded compliments and outright disdain for the film ensue, but I must say this is one of the best/funniest reviews of the movie ever, so I’m down. But in all seriousness the book is fantastic. It is equal parts reverential and snarky. Amidst the onslaught of reviews, the book intersperses interviews and with players like Markey, Alan Arkush (Rock and Roll High School) and Slava Tsukerman (Liquid Sky). As for the reviews, every movie that ever featured a punk in passing comes under the microscope. No shit, Hannah and Her Sisters is in this thing. Now that’s punk!

Radical Light: Alternative Film & Video in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945-2000 (edited by Steve Anker, Kathy Geritz, Steve Seid).
Could there be two film books more different in tone than Destroy All Movies and Radical Light? I don’t think so, but I do know that I and am proud to be in both. I always contended that my films were a mixture of highbrow and lowbrow art. Being included in both of these books makes me feel, that perhaps, I’m not full of hot air on that account. I just picked up Radical Light at the library and am not that deep in yet, but I am blown away. Radical Light looks at the history of Bay Area experimental cinema from its roots in the 40s through the early part of this century. It’s a loving homage to the city, to its artists, and to the institutions that fostered the creativity within the Bay Area art scene. Interviews, essays and ephemera fill the pages. Reminisces and insights delivered by curators, art historians and the filmmakers themselves give the book academic and cultural heft. The book also connects the dots between the various art and cultural movements at play in the Bay. San Francisco has always exhibited a distinctive brand of counterculture, subversion, and pranksterism. The Bay Area has always been a place where experimentalism has often trumped careerism. Radical Light does much to unearth how and why that spirit of adventure has come to be and developed such strong roots. Can’t wait to really dig in.

Source Code and Blank City

Super fun double bill at the movies yesterday.

It’s summer. And as at teacher, that means some spare time and lazy summer afternoons. What better reason to start seeing a lot of movies. I started it with a foray downtown for Source Code, which is surprisingly still showing in one theater in town and followed it up with No Wave doc Blank City.

Source Code

I was a big fan of the Kubrick-esque solitude of Moon and was interested in Duncan Jones’ follow up. Got to say I dug it in a big way. Several years back I talked about a new generation of intelligent sci-fi films emerging out of Hollywood, and Source Code fits that bill. Jake Gyllenhaal plays a soldier on a mission, traveling to an alternate time-line to change future events. I will say there are some questionable moments from a logic perspective, but Jones does a great job constructing a foreboding universe. For all the apocalyptic trappings of his mission, the film is really about Gyllenhaal’s isolation and his personal journey of trying to find trustworthy characters in a landscape he has little control over. As with Moon, Jones wears his influences on his sleeve. Hitchcockian suspense, Kubrickian solitude, Johnny Got His Gun creepiness, with a little Run Lola Run thrown into the mix. But, as with Moon he makes it feel fresh and exciting and brings enough of his own ideas into the mix to make it all hum.

Blank City

Absolutely loved Blank City, Celine Danhier’s documentary on NYC No Wave filmmaking and the Cinema of Transgression. Set against the backdrop of a dangerous, decaying, and bankrupt NYC, No Wave filmmakers like Amos Poe, Eric Mitchell, Scott and Beth B, Charlie Ahearn, Jim Jarmusch, Steve Buscemi, and others set about making films that owe equal debt to punk rock nihilism, French New Wave filmmaking, Warhol/Morrissey Factory fair like Trash and Heat, as well as the lo-rent mania of John Waters. Mostly shot on super 8, the films are no budget, no frills, featuring no real actors, let loose on the streets of NYC and lower east side apartments. The films often have a loose hold on narrative at best. In reality many of these films are barely watchable in their entirety, but still have an impact as we see a group of artists trying to make sense of their universe on the margins. Blank City does a great job interviewing many of the folks at the center of the storm and does a fantastic job of culling great clips that capture the sense of urgency, desperation, and fearlessness that fuel these films. I’m reminded of a collection of super 8 films from Berlin released on a dvd called Berlin Super 80. The films themselves are not so interesting, but as a collection the films paint such a stark and distinctive picture of the time, the place, and the people. You’re left with a better impression of that era than any narrative film looking back at that era could provide. Blank City and the films of the No Wave operate in a similar sphere.

Also, by watching how this film scene grows and changes, the film does a great job looking at the development of NYC from it’s bankrupt state of menace in the mid-70s to the bustling, monied universe of the late Regan era. This is a nice bit of filmmaking, to tell the story of NYC through the story and the experience of these filmmakers.

The film also does a nice job looking at the crossover between the NYC art scenes at the time. Fine Art, CBGBs, Max’s, No Wave music, and the birth of hip hop all come into play as the players from these scenes cross over. I never realized that Wild Style, in fact, came out of the No Wave film scene. And finally, the No Wave films ultimately pave the way for the more abrasive Cinema of Transgression, populated by the likes of Nick Zedd, Richard Kern, and Lydia Lunch, a scene that I’m certainly more familiar with.

The film is going to want to make you seek out some of these films. It’s a mixed bag to be certain, and the shorter films tend to be more palatable. I certainly am a big fan of the Scott & Beth B shorts. Regardless, any fan of outsider movements, NYC, America in the 70s or punk ought to love this film.

Trailer for Blank City here.

2010: Old Farts At Play

When I was young and hip I always joked about being an old curmudgeon. I couldn’t wait to sit on my porch, eat some pickled eggs, and yell at the kids to keep off my lawn. Now that I’m older and increasingly bitter, I realize that, in fact, I want nothing to do with bitterness. I don’t mind being old, but I’ll pass on the bitter herbs. In that spirit, as I look back at the year from a cultural perspective, I think 2010 was a year to celebrate old codgers.

Let’s raise a toast to the folks aging gracefully.

Music

The number one record of the year for me was Roky Erickson’s True Love Cast Out All Evil. The Rok is someone who has spent his adult life not aging gracefully. Drugs, mental problems, and a spotty post-13^th Floor Elevators career were all encapsulated in the You’re Gonna Miss Me doc. That film came on the heels of a two cd retrospective release, I Have Always Been Here Before, which did a great job culling the nuggets from Erickson’s solo career. None of that prepared me for the beauty, the anguish, and the rock of the new record. On True Love, Erickson finally seems to have some perspective on the difficult road he has traveled. Instead of screaming about bloody hammers, Lucifer, and two-headed dogs, Erickson seems able to look back and comment on the difficult journey he has taken.

If you haven’t heard it, just listen to Please Judge, a particular moving piece where Erickson pleads with a Judge to not lock him away. Songs about finding salvation in family and friends abound and are set against the backdrop of a life derailed by incarceration and missteps. Given Erickson’s history, this is poignant and heavy stuff. True Love is a beautiful record, filled with beautiful songs. Hats off to the folks from Okervill River for helping Erickson channel these songs.

Best Live Shows

The number one highlight—seeing the GBV reunion at the Warfield. During the 90s I steered clear of all reunion shows. They seemed kind of sad to me. I didn’t want to be like a 50 year old Eagles’ fan shelling out big coin and reliving my youth. But now that I approach 50, I kind of get the appeal. It’s a pretty simple formula. Music that I love. Music that I know all the words to. All the while being surrounded by people like me. Hooray, I fit in. GBV ruled. My other favorite shows this year. Cheap Trick, Grinderman, and Sharon Jones. What do they all have in common? Old people.

Books

Best Book of the year. Patti Smith’s Just Kids. I wrote about it here. This book won a National Book Award and is deserving. Smith was always a women of the letters, loving poetry more than any other rock and roller you could name. It’s only fitting then that this book is such a triumph. Her best moment since Horses? Maybe not, but then again, maybe so. Regardless, the book is a fond look back and being in love with the world. The writing shows wisdom and insight that only someone who has lived a full life could obtain.

Movies

One of the Best Movies of the Year: Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work. I wrote about this one as well. Is there anyone older than Joan still kicking out the jams? I don’t think so. This doc does a great job questioning why someone of that age still needs to kick out the jams.

In short, 2010 was ruled by old farts at play, and that’s all right by me.

Other Records I Loved:

The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night, Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings - I Learned The Hard Way, Grinderman II, Band Of Horses – Infinite Arms, Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan - Hawk

Other Records I Liked

Black Keys – Brothers, LCD Soundsystem – This is Happening, Dead Weather –Sea of Cowards

Other Movies I Really Liked

Exit Through The Gift Shop, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, The Social Network, Get Him To The Greek, The Town, Toy Story 3, DTour, It Came From Kuchar, Black Swan, Winnebago Man

The Magic of Radio II: With The Radio On

I never much listen to the radio anymore, but there is something inherently exciting about driving around in your car with the radio on. You may be alone, but if you’re listening to the radio, you’re having a shared experience. It’s exciting to think that while you’re singing along with the Temptations, at the top of your lungs, somebody else is doing the same. You’ll never meet them, you’ll never know them, but at that moment, you’re sharing the same mental space. I was reminded of that recently when I got a text from my wife to put on 103.7. Classic rock radio. Ah yeah. Burning For You by B.O.C. Awesome. She was listening, I was listening. We were both rocking. I was reminded of that again this past Saturday night when listening to my fave radio show, JJ On The Radio. KPOO. Saturday Night. Vintage soul sounds off of the original 45 rpm records. Scratches and all. JJ has been doing it for years. It’s always good. One of my favorite things about SF. Outta site.

It’s been awhile since I’ve seen it, but that feeling of the radio connecting us all lies at the heart of American Graffiti. Maybe it’s time to watch that again. I always did love Cindy Williams.

My Week At The Movies--Inception vs. Exit Through The Gift Shop

Inception by Christopher Nolan
I can’t begin to express how much I disliked this movie. Unnecessarily confusing, incomprehensible, and ultimately boring. Two and a half hours of monotone acting. Every line uttered with an air of hushed-tone importance. 30-40 minutes of tedious explanatory sequences, meticulously detailing the rules of the dream world, all of which I couldn’t follow. The one rule I picked up, ‘If you die in the dream, you wake up,’ gets abandoned as soon as that rule hampers the plot. Oh well, I guess rules are made to be broken…if they become inconvenient. I felt pretty bad for all the poor souls on date nights, trying to make sense of this mess on the way out of the theater. If the writing, the direction, and the acting weren’t bad enough, I was pretty bothered by Leonardo DiCaprio’s mustache. I’ve seen 16 year olds with better upper lip coverage. And how come all the actors looked like they were in a neo-noir movie while Ellen Page looked like she was in a romantic comedy? Come on people. Yuck.

Exit Through The Gift Shop by Banksy
Just saw this last night and I’m still digesting it, but what an awesome movie. Exit Through The Gift Shop is a doc by street art hotshot Banksy detailing the street art scene from its roots in the 90s through its rise and acceptance by the fine art world in the 2000s. The movie is in parts fun, irreverent, insightful, and at the end of the day, perhaps a big hoax. The film follows the scene through the eyes of filmmaker Thierry Guetta, an affable Frenchman who tirelessly documents the likes of Banksy, Shepard Fairey (of Andre The Giant stickerdom fame), and other street art luminaries. Over the course of the film, we see Banksy and his cohorts move from quasi-legal artists playing cat and mouse with the fuzz while trying to avoid anti-graffiti laws, to highly sought after artists, selling their pieces for huge coin.

Over the course of the film Thierry moves from someone documenting the scene to someone who becomes a major artist (aka Mr. Brainwash) within the scene, much to the mystification of his peers. The film ultimately critiques the fine art world. Banksy seems to suggest that the curators snapping up street art at exorbitant prices don’t really understand the art, its value, and the quality of what they’re bidding on.

The success of the highly derivative Mr. Brainwash is at the core of this critique. But is Mr. Brainwash even real? He could be real. He could be a fabrication for viewers of the film. He could be an elaborate hoax played on the Los Angeles art world. I couldn’t figure it out, but regardless, it's brilliant.

Best film I saw this week!