Iron Man in Apparent 3D!

Yes, that’s right, I said “apparent 3D”. I hear you asking yourself: “Did he watch this movie in 3D?” And the answer is no. A resounding, childishly enthusiastic NO! Well, sort of…

I have seen exactly one “3D” movie in my entire life. It was one of the Transformers movies (I forget which one), and I found watching the movie in question in 3D to be a decidedly underwhelming experience. Part of the reason for this was probably that it was not the first of the Transformers movies, and it was, thus, a second-rate film. There was, however, another contributing factor to the low level of enjoyment I experienced while watching this movie: I got ripped off!

Like McCoy, I don’t like to pay to watch movies. Well, that’s not entirely true, I don’t mind paying to watch a movie, as long as I do not have to pay the full price—what am I, made of money!? Considering that I had paid full price and then some (an extra R20 or R30) to watch this movie “in 3D”, I was expecting great things. As I walked into the cinema I thought: “This is going to be great! This new technology is bound to greatly enhance my movie-going experience! People have told me that it seems like the animals/monsters/cars are really coming right at you and you’ll be ducking and diving for cover! By golly, I’m excited!”

I was expecting a fundamentally different movie experience, and I was thoroughly disappointed. What I had failed to grasp before watching that movie “in 3D” (i.e. three dimensions) was that every non-animated movie that I had ever watched prior to that was shot in three dimensions, and I therefore perceived the characters to be moving in a three-dimensional space. Thanks to the miracle of film (and the phenomena known as the depth of field and prespective) and my complex human brain, I had in fact watched these movies “in 3D”. Sure, the film executives probably didn’t see it that way, but I would argue strongly against them. Not once, in all my years of watching films, have I watched as a tiny out-of-focus car (in the background) approaches a large in-focus person (in the foreground) in the two dimensions of the screen and thought, “Oh no! That car is about to crash into that person!”

And therein lies the crux of my argument. I don’t need a silly pair of glasses and a film shot and projected “in 3D” in order to see that chain of events occurring in three dimensions. And I am therefore not willing to pay exorbitant amounts of money to get these things. In my opinion, the “3D” movie is a Hollywood gimic which has been devised to increase profits, without actually providing an enhanced experience for the movie-goer.

The only thing that is worse than paying a large amount of money to go and see a movie in 3D, is paying that amount of money to go and see a movie that you’ve already seen, in 3D! It annoys me that Hollywood directors are recycling plots left, right and centre, and expecting us to pay to see depictions of the same stories over again. What really grinds my gears is that they are now not even bothering to make new movies (and by this I mean at least doing an original take on what might be an old story), but simply digitally “enhancing” these movies and then re-releasing them “in 3D” and expecting us, the moviegoers, to pay more to see them than we did the first time! It’s ridiculous!

And that is why I did not see Iron Man 3 “in 3D”. To this day, I am happy that I made that decision, because I am of the opinion that my movie-going experience would not have been enhanced in any meaningful way had I gone for the “3D” option.

Also, I agree with McCoy—Iron Man 3 was most enjoyable. I got the sense that those who made the movie knew exactly what they were going for. They didn’t try too hard, and they put together an action-adventure film with some great characters, some great one-liners and plenty of big explosions.

"Bullshit Walter!!!"

A Western in the greatest sense, the Coen Brothers The Big Lebowski nestles us nicely into the ethos of the American West and explores the ramifications of living in George Bush's (41) America. The cold war has ended, our global terrors have loosened; the sixties is long over and idealism is for the weak. Gorbachev did indeed "tear down this wall," so to speak. This is Ronald Reagan's American; RICHARD NIXON'S AMERICA!!! Los Angeles style. (These were California men after all.) Pornography? Drinking during the day? Recreational drug use? The occasional acid flash-back? Sure. Why not? This is freedom after all. Death to all those who would whimper and cry. War with Iraq? It's nothing. Pure, unadulterated realism. Dreams: failure. Our better angels have crashed and burned. What are we left with? Bowling?

Well, yeah. Sort of. If Sam Elliot is right, and The Dude is the man for his time and place - a characterization made possible by contingent circumstances, bred by environment, successful inasmch as evolution decrees existence to be a victory of sorts; a great arrival of all that is real Los Angeles - then what other conclusion would we draw. The Dude is a hero, the man for his time and place (again); he fits right in there. Does that mean woe to the American Dream; the idealizations of Manifest Destiny? Is this to be the new paragon of western masculinity? Of course it is.

This is the freedom we fought so hard for. The freedom we wanted. To be loosed of societal and larger concerns and responsibilities. To chart our own course. To create our own identities. Call The Dude lazy; call him a freeloader. A free society will always suffer from free-riders; parasites.

We love The Dude for all that he is - a freak. God bless the freaks, as they say. This is not meant in some sort of carnival barker, old weird traveling sideshow, sort of way. The Dude is specifically not like us; maybe not like anyone we have ever met. He stands in opposition to "the square-community," that everything tells us we are supposed to prize. Woe to the world if everyone listened to whale sounds during a candle-lit bath alone. But he alone who perseveres in the face of the certain spiritual devastation facing us all: that's a good job by him. Viewed in light of our broader, self-imposed roles and rules themselves: this is The Dude.

Maybe he speaks to the less ambitious aspects of our unexplored longings. Surely we might each dream of great things: fame and renown. But can't we not, as well, dream of a small apartment, slippers and robe, nights at our super's experimental theater performances? Where our greatest desires and encumbrances can be spoken of as we also are addressing ten pins, a narrow lane and a ball? Only in our weaker moments? Why? Who says so? This is freedom. We are free to create reality as we see fit. Everything is possible. What do we choose?

We can call him hero; only as we remember that it is contrast to our own deadness.

If indeed, The Dude abides. Then I, too, am left with a measure of comfort in that.

"I Know I Haven't Been At My Best This Past Decade"

A few years ago, I read a biography of Daniel Boone by Robert Morgan (succinctly entitled Boone: A Biography). Knowing, basically, nothing about Boone before-hand, it was alright. (I am pretty sure it inspired a pretty good June Carter Cash song, "The Road to Kaintuck," though haven't attempted to corroborate that with any evidence.) What stuck with me about the work was Morgan's thesis that (great?) men have, roughly, a decade in their lives which is pivotal. If they are prepared properly, and a little lucky, this decade is their best. Everything beforehand prepares them for this, while afterwards their life is largely dealing with the consequences, and, inevitably, a bit of a let down. To whit: Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.

Zissou is clearly a man past his prime. That he is portrayed by Bill Murray may have seen, at the time, to be a bit of a harsh judgment on Murray - though the past decade has certainly been a renaissance for him. We can read in Zissou/Murray, a man trying to make sense of the notion that while he is still the same, it no longer seems good enough. Of course begging the question: was it ever? Among other ideas, The Life Aquatic wonders what happens after the curtain falls. If, as Morgan suggests, we all have our big performance, how do we make sense of what comes after? Or, as Jack Black asks in High Fidelity:

"Is it wrong to criticize a once-great artist for his latter day sins? Is it better to burn out, or to slowly fade away."

I think he is quoting Patton.

How do each of us find peace when our motivations are outlasted? How do we continually become in a manner suited to our world?

Maybe I AM willing to pay for movies...

... just not that one.

You know how, a few years ago, you'd be watching a movie you'd acquired through completely legal means? The picture would be kind of pixel-y, the sound fluctuated from ear-splitting when anything blew up to inaudible during dialogue, you could see the shadows of people on the screen, frames were missing or repeated, and the experience, overall, was just kind of shit?

But you didn't mind; you hadn't paid any money to watch that movie, because of the absolutely legitimate way that you'd got hold of it, so you had no right to complain.

Well, today I had that experience. But I DID mind this time, because I'd paid actual money for it, and I was in an actual cinema.

We watched Epic today at the "cinema" in Welkom. I wouldn't recommend it.

That's all.

"Don't Let the Fuckers Get You Down"

Ahhh.... Youth!

As a friend of mine would say in our more reprehensible, unabashedly glorious moments gone-by. The energy and the enthusiasms of the (predominantly male, white) beliefs, efforts and disenchantments of the young american. The crackling, uncertain energy. The fierce desire and passionate longing - all-too-often manifest in form of self-tacking, wayward compassing, drifting hither and yon - that in a confessional sense resonate, at once tired and explosively novel, with each generation of the misunderstood; always in their own eyes. More contemporary shallowness than the unceasing voice of the dismissed longing of the voiceless? Unquestionably. Absolute freedom from responsibility turns only selfishly inward, as, I think, Jonathan Franzen writes. Resonance endures.

"Don't let the fuckers get you down!" Viggo Mortenson (Burroughs?) declares. And he is right. A worthy creed to be certain. The sparkling, the crackling energy of the film On the Road feels like Kerouac. Ginsberg too, perhaps. Energy, excitement, youthful enthusiasm: all worthy of celebration. The outcomes? The expenses to be paid for indiscretion? Surely just as necessary for their inclusion. Where does the end bring us after the night? This too is non-trivial. Journeys inward also are held accountable for the morning after.

Truthfully it could be argued that the message of Kerouac is only for the elite, for the comfortable. Selfish journeys of attempted disconnection from comfort. A particularly cynical interpretation for anyone's longings - nonetheless worthy of reflection. Yet such disparagings do not marginalize the reality of experience. Longings are felt across the spectrum of humanity, the reality of each is accountable only to the pilgrim along the way. Such a message speaks in contradiction. So, too, do our journeys.

"From Here On In I Rag Nobody"

Bang the Drum Slowly is a tale that grows in the telling. Much as the New York Mammoths become more invested in each other and come together around a common, albeit heart-breaking common experience, we too are drawn in to the world of Bruce, Henry and the team. From TEGWAR to Dutch's hot-tub visits, perhaps baseball, and the common experience of team, is best understood as a nexus of relationships - an ensemble of differences that is forced to constantly invent something new. An exercise in rhetoric.

The question I walked away with surrounds the combined experience of the dead march, as "The Streets of Laredo" or "The Cowboy's Lament" would put it, and that which brings men together. Do we think more (or less) of a group of men who gather around a teammate/friend/acquaintance only once his days are numbered? Through what prism do we view the subtle tragedy of the smile on Bruce's face? Do we see a man invested in his last days, fully free? Or, do we see only the young cowboy, desperately hoping to have is story told? The joy in camaraderie that he feels is evident - and saddening. That we know it cannot last; that such joy is finally felt - a pinnacle of effort in life's strivings - creates tragedy. Yet Bruce's smile is too an arrival; an event of co-creation. His final days, his enduring joy, could never have become without the composition of each man. Henry may defend Bruce and work to ensure the peace and strength of his last journey, but he cannot do it alone. Bruce's last days emerge from the better angels of those around him.

If we are to look for the core of Bang the Drum Slowly, it, too is an event of arrival. The core of the film is the passage between individuals; how we can, and do, co-create the world. The whole transcends the pieces, in the film, and life.

Thanks, Chief

All The President's Men: a moment:

“Once when I was reporting, Lyndon Johnson’s top guy gave me the word they were looking for a successor to J. Edgar Hoover. I wrote it and the day it appeared Johnson called a press conference and appointed Hoover head of the FBI for life. And when he was done, he turned to his top guy and the President said, ‘Call Ben Bradlee and tell him ‘fuck you.” 

The Man, himself.

Worshipping at the Altar of Disposable Income

There is a moment, toward the end of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, in which Jay stands outside of Daisy’s window, watching. Myrtle is dead – killed on the road by the very woman she conspires in cuckolding. Daisy and Tom have retreated inside, never to really emerge again. At least, not for Gatsby. Nick departs, Gatsby remains, watching, Fitzgerald tells us, over nothing.

It is no fantastic insight to offer the following: Baz Luhrmann is simply not the calibre of artist that F. Scott Fitzgerald was. Shock! Horror! Blasphemer! Alas, it’s true. And in the balance, his Gatsby suffers most by comparison. Luhrmann is simply not equal to the task of the nuance, the quiet moments in-between the raucous frivolity that make up the soul of The Great Gatsby. In the filling station, as Tom talks down Wilson, even the quiet moment of two desperate men feels like a crazy and confused wheeling, beyond normalcy and control. A riotous party of emotions. The lights shine, to illuminate, nothing.

These quieter, though more passionate, dear, and heart-breaking moments transcend the age within which the story unfolds. Risk and reward, life and death, the illusions we are held by, our inability to transcend ourselves – any story dealing with such recurrent tragedies of the human situation, and the human spirit, ring as contemporary and of immediate necessity. (A contradiction to what I have said: how different is our own time if the relationship between wealth and profligacy does not seem so foreign?) Luhrmann’s Gatsby beats us over the head with certain, simplified points. Yes, Leo, we understand, you think the past is repeatable. The film has selected certain aspects of Fitzgerald’s broader landscape and thrust them upon us. No nuance here. Yet, divorced from the wider pastiche, what remains is flat. Soulless. No, better said, of a different soul entirely. One less variegated and nuanced. Listen to me, the film seems to cry out. In its insistence that we understand, it dooms itself. Fitzgerald’s is a small story about us all. Luhrmann’s is a grand tale of no one.

Val Kilmer's Pony-tail: A Not So Subtle Inversion

There was some vague assertion that Heat was supposed to be a pretty good movie. I suppose it was. Is it wrong that I think that everything it did was done more successfully by The Departed? (I know, I know, The Departed is an America remake of Infernal Affairs.) You’re right, Michael Mann, sometimes the lives of good and bad are not that simple. Sometimes we are forced into dubious positions. Point taken.

Hermes Does Not Know My Friend.

Hermes, is not Pontius Pilate.

Ostensibly, he, therefore, does not know Pilate's friend, Biggus Dickus.


Nevertheless, Jason and the Argonauts is entirely enjoyable.

What Manner of God Could This Be?

The Ark of the Covenant is meant to represent the manifestation of the Lord’s own fealty to his people, Israel. In essence it is a sign that the great Destroyer, ruler of the desert, recognizes the special place of the Jews within creation and has come to dwell with them. So the Hebrews built the Temple of Solomon to house the Ark, thus providing an embodied, literal, sanctuary for their expressed relationship to God.

Turns out, as that great piece of history Raiders of the Lost Ark tells us, history and the (literal and figurative) sands of time, intervene. The Temple of Solomon was sacked, subsequently destroyed, and the Ark of the Covenant was lost. This much history – biblical or Spielburgian – seems to agree upon. That the Ark would be pursued requires no fanciful invention. Thus, it is really only the smallest flight of fancy to suppose a world (even if it is in an already past time) in which said Ark might be found. After many hijinks, brawls, chase-scenes, and devil-may-care, ruggedly handsome camera shots of Harrison Ford, this is exactly what happens. With the help of Karen Allen (whose attractiveness remains undiminished by the intervening years) snakes are avoided, death is cheated and traps are sprung, only to see our heroes shackled helplessly as the Nazis unleash what is certain to be a weapon of ultimate power.

As becomes face-meltingly obvious to the Furher’s henchmen, things don’t turn out so well. Han Solo and Katie (Animal House) escape back to Washington D.C. and, in what appears to be another sign of strange US military intelligence decision making, the Ark is put into storage with a bunch of other boxes (signifying what, exactly? That the US intelligence community has a vast store of divine weapons that it simply couldn’t be bothered to do anything with except properly catalog?).

The question thus posed: what sort of God is this? The evidence stands as such: the Lord is finally tamed to a relationship with Israel. He thus creates a symbol of their union that is so terrible to behold, simply looking upon it leads to an unspeakable death (perhaps worse). The wrath of Jehovah, at least to those not represented in his covenant, defies description. And yet, this same deity allows for his only manifestation on Earth to be buried for ages, uncovered only in a sort-of academic pissing contest, marched through the desert, only to be opened to wreak havoc upon those who gaze upon it. With these seeming unworthies out of the way, it is easily transported to some government storage crypt, where it will most likely be opened by some poor government functionary in years to come. The Lord is apparently unspeakably powerful and terrible, yet, plays no part in securing, moving, influencing, or dealing with his manifestation on Earth. He is at once destructive beyond comprehension and absent beyond question.  Is this the “small, soft voice” or the pillar of fire? If, as has been argued, he is both, then what a strange way to make decisions. What sort of priorities does this Lord/God have? What if his seeming absence is only meant to challenge the faithful? Are those who seek His manifestation thus rewarded with their own assured destruction? Is He suggesting that to seek him in this world is folly? Or, that to seek beyond the everyday for him brings a curse? Once again, oh Lord, your ways are mysterious. Such apparent contradiction seems to demand that we accept your presence/absence unquestionably; that you demand nothing less than fealty. So why does the adventurer and medium by which your manifestation is uncovered get the girl?