I had plans for to-day but I think I'm mostly just going to eat snacks. I got a bunch of Christmas snacks and candy from students and teachers yesterday at a Christmas party for the junior high school's ESS or English club. It also happened to be my last day at the school and my last chance to see the third year students at school. I knew I was going to miss them but I don't think I counted on just how much. In the almost five years I've spent as an English teacher in Japan, working with this group has been by far the most rewarding English teaching experience. It was rewarding for their friendship and for the ability to work with them somewhat unfettered by standard Japanese English education procedure. It's with enormous pleasure I can say these third year students are now among the strongest English speakers I've worked with. One boy in particular exhibits an astonishing capacity for communication in English. We'd gotten to the point where we could have real casual conversations every morning that went beyond the usual small talk about the weather into genuinely novel topics such as the particular details of individual interests as well as opinions and perceptions of events and ideas.
But all of the club's students have impressed me in one way or another. Two of the girls are about as good as the boy I mention. I could always rely on them to give intelligible responses to questions that went beyond simple greetings. I can't take all the credit because a lot of their success in learning English comes from their extraordinary individual courage and curiosity. I can only hope I'll be lucky enough to work with another group like that again in such a productive environment.
X Sonnet #1906
A silent beach was mirror flat at noon.
The thought of gulls was naught but fancy's flight.
Ahead, a broken box contains a demon's boon.
Your hand would freeze before its burden's sight.
A buried orange provoked a stranded thought.
As time dissolved the soil, ghosts arose.
A million tides distort the picture lot.
Another Christmas charts how silence grows.
The cakey chalk constructs a lively base.
Detectives gather late to study Yule.
The warmth of life adopts a fleeting pace.
But pockets form to dodge a savage rule.
As candy days depart behind a screen
The metal clouds descend to end a scene.
We have a new Superman trailer. At first I wasn't enthusiast. Shots of Superman bloodied in the snow and flashbacks to the Kent farmstead with golden sunlight behind silhouetted figures seemed like a retread of Zack Snyder. The titles announce it's directed by James Gunn and note that he's the director of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. I thought, yeah, you need to point that out to generate any excitement from this lacklustre trailer. But then Gunn's new angle starts to become clear when Superman is rescued by none other than Krypto, the Super Dog. Miscellaneous superheroes are thrown in including Hawk Girl and a Green Lantern with an unflattering bowl haircut. Gunn's version will, to some extent, and for the first time in any Superman movie or TV series, embrace some of the super whimsy of the comics.
Any tempted to proclaim this will never work would do well to remember than Gunn made the talking racoon work in the Guardians movies. In the latter half of the trailer, an electric guitar version of John Williams' theme from the Christopher Reeve movies kicks in and my hopes were genuinely raised for this movie. Really, that should just always be Superman's theme. Why reinvent the wheel? Bryan Singer used it for his Superman movie, too, and it's one of the things he definitely got right.
I like the concept that's being pitched for the movie in which Superman must show kindness in a world where kindness has become devalued. That's certainly relevant. Rachel Brosnahan looks like a dynamite Lois. I'm still not sold on David Corenswet but I can see him growing on me.
Gunn's The Suicide Squad is a movie I love to rewatch and I think his Guardians movies got better and better. Peacemaker was a terrific TV series, too, so I think there is a fair chance of this being a good movie.
Last night's new Skeleton Crew was fine, I suppose. It mostly felt like filler, which is odd considering it was directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, writers and directors of Everything Everywhere All at Once. This is their follow-up to that awards darling? Well, okay. It was written, once again, like most episodes of the series, by Christopher Ford and John Watts.
The crew find themselves on a ruined duplicate of their homeworld, At Attin, called At Achrann. Immediately I thought, here's a budget minded episode. Sure enough, most of the sets from the first episode are reused here. Gangs, constantly at war, control this world and their costumes are all cobbled together presumably from whatever was lying around the Lucasfilm wardrobe department.
The show continues to not quite succeed at making the kids into Disney's Stranger Things crew. I wish they'd have let go of that idea early in development and reduced the number of children to two. At this point, Wim, supposedly the lead, feels totally superfluous. The kids should've just been Fern and Neel. KB is obviously meant to be the Spock but there's no time to give her the nuance a Spock character needs. They could've just made Fern a little more compulsively logical or dumped that whole aspect of the group entirely.
Now the kids are slightly more reluctant to kill people though they still seem oddly attracted to violence. Maybe it's because I've spent so much time around Japanese children (I've been working in Japan for the past four and a half years) who generally aren't as violent as American children. Still, there's something oddly forced about how into guns the kids are. It reminds me of the really odd moment at the end of the Obi-Wan series when Obi-Wan gave Leia a holster. It's like executives at Disney had a conference that concluded with the idea that kids love guns, no-one knows why, but every show should be stuffed wherever possible with moments of kids expressing their affection for weaponry. I mean, sure, I liked to play with toy guns when I was a kid and I still like violent video games now but the behaviour exhibited by these kids feels alien to me.
Neel's relationship with the girl soldier was cute and I liked the moment where he tried to describe Slap Ball. But the arc ended with one of those moments that often seem to come on Disney Star Wars shows where I know how the scene is going to end from the beginning. As soon as it started, I knew she was going to kiss Neel. At that moment, their whole little arc felt like something that came from a TV writing handbook.
I think Wim's question about the gang war being between children and adults was meant to be a reference to the episode of Star Trek called "Miri", which again shows the problem of trying to do Stranger Things without the ability to use actual pop cultural references. We would know why a kid in the real world would make that connexion but the only way we can get anything from Wim's observation is to see the show through a slightly detached, postmodern lens. It's one of those things that keeps the show from feeling organic and unlike an algorithm produced it.
Two women trying to make careers for themselves in the women's section of a castle find themselves confronting a demon in 2024's Mononoke the Movie: Phantom in the Rain (劇場版モノノ怪 唐傘). This is basically a feature length episode of the Mononoke television series from 2007, which in turn was a spin-off of another series, none of which I knew when I hit play on the movie's Netflix thumbnail. I guess that explains why the animation seemed slightly cheap and the plot felt somehow incomplete despite being a self-contained story. I kind of enjoyed it. It was relaxing.
Asa (Kurosawa Tomoyo) is an ascetic young woman who surprises the gatekeepers of the Inner Chambers (the women's section) when she reveals she has no attachment to objects in this world. This marks the beginning of her meteoric rise in the ranks of these ladies who abjure all worldly things to focus on looking beautiful and being demure. Asa befriends a more free spirited new girl named Kame (Yuki Aoi) who has lots of precious keepsakes from her hometown. In the spirit of going with the flow, though, she gamely tosses her precious snacks from home into the ceremonial pit.
There's a demon afoot and it's up to the travelling Medicine Seller (Kamiya Hiroshi) to investigate and sort it out. I found out later he's the main character of the series but like the women there's not a whole lot more to his personality than his looks. The anime's aesthetic is flat and brightly coloured with few, if any, shadows. I think it was meant to look like a mural painted on a screen. It reminded me of some of the experimental scenes in Shaft anime series though this comes from a studio called EOTA. It's interesting at first but becomes a bit dull after about fifteen minutes. I do like the idea of a demon residing in the relationships of people in a place, though, as this ends up being. Well, there's also a haunted umbrella.
Despite being set in what is essentially a harem, this is a modern Japanese movie so don't expect any sex.
Mononoke the Movie is available on Netflix. This is not to be confused with Miyazaki Hayao's Princess Mononoke. A mononoke is a kind of ghost or monster.
A little girl is critically ill and only one brave canine can save her in 1995's Balto. The last traditionally animated film from Amblin Entertainment, I remember my friends and I turning our noses up at it at the time of its release as just another Disney imitator but now I see it's an excellent artefact of an all but lost art in America.
Sure, a lot of the dogs look like they were cribbed straight from Oliver and Company and Lady and the Tramp. But the talent and dedication that went into such expressive and fluid animation are no less admirable.
Balto is loosely based on a true story. The real life Balto was a purebred husky while the film's Balto is made half wolf in order to give the story a racial conflict theme. It kind of works; the fact that we're talking about dogs and wolves, divorcing the story from human racial groups, gives the conflict a valuable universal quality.
When Balto catches up with the benighted sled carrying the urgently required medicine, he has to deal with the egotistical leader of the dogs who won't hand the reins to a half breed. Then he has to deal with an implausible number of obstacles and action sequences that put a little too much strain on the audience's suspension of disbelief. Still, the animation never stops being amazing.
I think the film is primarily loved now among furries. "Balto head" is almost ubiquitous among male furries. I don't want to kink-shame but I have to admit I've never come close to understanding furry culture which seems to me populated by people who got lost in some intricate self-constructed irony trap. Fortunately, one doesn't need to be a furry to appreciate Balto.
X Sonnet #1905: Viking Raid Edition
Approaching ships were marked with walrus blood.
Their ragged crews digest the frozen north.
The splintered hulls were patched with mould and mud.
To brittle shores the vessels struggle forth.
The breakfast fog admits a single maid.
The cold and fertile beach would yield a clam.
'Twas she who spied the nigh approaching raid.
But ships to her could seem but ghostly sham.
Like grains of glass, the sand was crushed by boot.
Some burning eyes beheld the wayward mouse.
Now tearing dreams of grass conduct to root.
The looming fire dwells in ax and house.
Confusion warps the wooden beams to grey.
A hidden girl discerns no end of day.
Sharon Stone falls for a cheesy voyeur in the sleazy 1993 thriller Sliver. But when I saw the screenplay was by Joe Eszterhas I knew what I was in for and was quite prepared to enjoy his distinctive brand of greasy imitation Hitchcock.
I think the concept here, either conceived by Eszterhas or Ira Levin (who wrote the source novel), was of a world where Marion Craine fell for Norman Bates. Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins would've made a slightly more plausible couple, though, than Sharon Stone and William Baldwin. There's a reason William never approached top Baldwin status.
Stone plays Carly, a book editor who, as one character directly states, likes to be in control. She counters this by saying that she stayed in a bad marriage for seven years. So she certainly has her subservient side, which becomes clear when she succumbs to the advances of the wealthy owner of her apartment building. She stays with him even after she finds out he has a secret room filled with television screens monitoring everyone in the building, including her. So he's seen her doing such things as masturbating in the shower.
Baldwin's character, Zeke, tells her his mother was a soap opera actress and, for him, watching the private lives of his tenants is clearly like watching soap operas. This is Eszterhas world so it turns out everyone does behave as though life is a soap opera in their private lives. The screens show scenes of dramatic revelations and racy sex scenes. One shot of a woman shaving her face with an electric razor is the only nod to the truly embarrassing things people are likely to do when they think no-one's watching.
Audiences and critics didn't go along for Eszterhas on this one, they evidently preferred his version of Vertigo (Basic Instinct) to his version of Psycho. The real problem is that Zeke is never for a moment attractive. Eszterhas wants him to be some kind of dark, Phantom of the Opera anti-hero but he just comes off as a pathetic dweeb. The film originally had an ending more sympathetic to him but test audiences disliked it for being "immoral". I think you can get audiences to vicariously enjoy immoral behaviour, as in A Clockwork Orange. The problem is that voyeurs aren't just immoral, they're pathetic. You can give a worm all the dramatic noir lighting you like; a worm is still a worm. Most people watching this movie are rooting for Carly to dump this guy and it's somewhat satisfying when she finally does. But the fact that she was in any way attracted to him remains inexplicable.
I'd avoided watching 1993's Falling Down for decades. Everything I ever heard about it told me it wasn't something that would interest me and the fact that it was directed by Joel Schumacher did nothing to commend it. But a friend asked me to watch it a couple weeks ago so I finally did. It's pretty much what I expected but I was more entertained than I had anticipated.
I shouldn't dismiss Schumacher out of hand, I did like Lost Boys. Just because I didn't like his Batman movies or Phantom of the Opera adaptation shouldn't make me assume I'd always hate one of his work. I guess it's easy to see the recurrence of a dark or anti-hero in these movies. Michael Douglas' Bill Foster in Falling Down is certainly closer to an actual anti-hero than how the term is usually meant to-day. He occupies the space of a protagonist for much of the movie but he engages in villainous actions. Robert Duvall plays a cop with extraordinary patience and empathy for contrast. As Bill responds to small infractions with excessive violence, Duvall's character, Prendergast, responds with excessive restraint to his extraordinarily abusive wife and co-workers. Prendergast's journey in the film is to somewhere in the middle while Bill's journey is to somewhere further out to sea, "past the point of no return," as he says. Was this a reference to The Phantom of the Opera?
A lot of critics of the movie scold its fans for sympathising with Bill. I don't know how many people actually do. It should take no more than the barest scrap of intelligence to see that, yes, it's silly McDonalds stops serving breakfast at 10am but, no, pulling an uzi on the store manager is not a constructive response.
Both Duvall and Douglas give good performances but I found Schumacher and screenwriter Ebbe Roe Smith's manipulations a little too broad to take as anything more than campy fun. It's easy to see that at the start of the filmmaking process they set a rule, "Everyone in this world is an asshole," and proceeding accordingly. It's hot and there's a traffic jam but everyone, from the drivers to the motorcycle cop who stops to get Bill's car out of the road, is about ten times angrier than is natural for the situation. The panhandler who tries to scam Bill by telling him he's starving is actually holding a hot dog at eye level the whole time. It's true, sometimes panhandlers can be surprisingly stupid but they're never as persistent as this guy is when Bill walks away from him. Generally the last thing these guys want to do is cause a big scene.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised to get this kind of material from the guy who's primarily known now for putting nipples on Batman's costume.
There are a lot of pointless remakes out there but I think I've seen the most pointless remake of all time. I got Netflix for the month for a few reasons, one of them being I really wanted to see the new Ranma 1/2 series. It's an adaptation of the same first volumes of the manga that the first anime series adapted back in 1989. In many cases, it's a shot for shot replica of the old series only now it's drawn and coloured on computers instead of with pencil, ink, and paint. Nudity has been censored with "doll anatomy" and it has a new score by a different composer.
Even many of the voice actors are the same. Hayashibara Megumi returns as girl-type Ranma and she's still great. But many of the actors playing teenagers certainly don't sound like teenagers, particularly the character of Nabiki who now sounds like an old woman.
I don't know why this thing was made. I work in Japanese schools and I hear kids talking about Ranma 1/2 exactly as often as I heard them talk about it before this new series came out.
Was there anything I liked? The scene where Ranma meets Kuno has the same dialogue--Kuno demands to know Ranma's name but before Ranma can reply Kuno says it's better form to give his own name first. In the new version there's a slight pause and Ranma says awkwardly "douzo", "go ahead." That was kind of funny but it didn't justify a whole remake.
Ranma 1/2 (the new one) is available on Netflix. Oddly, when I searched for "Ranma", it wasn't even the first title that came up. I'm not sure what that means but if it means the show's not popular I wouldn't be surprised. Some people on YouTube have made compilations of clips comparing the new and old versions. Sometimes the dialogue overlaps precisely:
I guess this is like when Gus Van Sant remade Psycho. At least he had a new cast and shot it in colour so he made some effort to be different.
X Sonnet #1904
Exhausted words for "red" deplete the shade.
Infernal rings diffuse the air and sky.
With phony coins, the counterfeiter's paid.
The only dream became a daily lie.
Surprising spots of time return to mind.
Betrayal lurks in slowly boiled brains.
The ghost of vengeance seeks a kill to find.
The story's told in blood and whisky stains.
Reforming cities never costs a god.
Deserving roads obey the wheels above.
Some greater damage rusts a metal rod.
The lack of lightning killed a demon dove.
A couple eggs were lost beneath the grill.
For making yoghurt, raise a local mill.
Teenagers rebelling against the social order and the demented adults trying to put them down all attract the ironic sympathy of the filmmaker in 1990's Cry-Baby. I don't know if it's John Waters' best movie but maybe it's his most appreciable, coming at a transition period from his wilder early films into his attempts at somewhat more mainstream fare. He's helped immensely by Johnny Depp who makes the titular Cry-Baby a character the audience can feel more than ironic affection for.
It's an affectionate parody of '50s delinquent films. Depp's Cry-Baby is cut from the same cloth as James Dean and young Marlon Brando characters but he's in a movie world that is closer to cheap knock-offs of those movies. The supporting cast including Traci Lords and Ricki Lake recall things more like Girls Town and The Beatniks.
The story's just an excuse for musical numbers and equally ornamental campy dialogue. Allison (Amy Locane) is the good girl from a good family who can't help being attracted to the low life Cry-Baby (Depp). Waters adores Cry-Baby's trashy relatives, he adores the preppy guys who burn Cry-Baby's prized motorcycle, he adores how sensitive Cry-Baby is about it. I suppose you can just take these characters straight on but it's easier to appreciate the movie as fetishised mediocrity. To simply enjoy watching the parade of the odd, awkward, and pretty in their Sunday best, earnestly singing their hearts out at the jailhouse.
Cry-Baby is available on The Criterion Channel this month as part of a playlist of John Waters movies.
The third episode of Skeleton Crew is definitely an improvement on the previous two despite being directed by David Lowery, director of that detestable adaptation of The Green Knight from a couple years ago. At the same time, I'm getting a better sense of the show's fundamental flaws.
Episode three works entirely because of Jude Law's character, both for the writing and Law's performance. He's obviously patterned on Long John Silver and his position in the story is very similar to Long John's position in Treasure Island--he's a surrogate father figure for the point of view child protagonist and the problem of his true moral character is constantly in play.
I don't like the name "Crimson Jack". I know, having written pirate fiction myself, how difficult and yet tempting it is to find variations of "Red" and "Black" and other simple, lurid adjectives invoking death and violence. But for a pirate's name, it has to be something you believe people would casually say in conversation and "Crimson Jack" doesn't roll off the tongue like Long John Silver.
Law's performance is good and you can see the layers of thought in his mannerisms and line deliveries. I like the moment where he's challenged with a line about never leaving a man behind being a Jedi ethic. He starts saying, "That's not--" and then catches himself and says, "That's not a Jedi thing." Just something about Law's attitude and inflection makes me feel like he was about to say, "That's not true." I think the idea hit close to home, that he feels he was left behind by Jedi he formerly trusted. The fact that I'm compelled to speculate and read into his motives is an indicator the character has been effectively created.
I also liked the line from the otherwise lame owl alien character in which she cautions one of the kids not to listen to her gut but to her head. It's believable that someone would stridently offer this advice and yet, at the same time, it's not really useful since, when we talk about our gut, we are actually talking about our heads. In a dangerous situation where the kids have to make decisions quickly they don't always have the luxury of doing so with all possible evidence gathered. So it sounds like logical advice but really all it does is raise the tension.
Unfortunately, the episode also highlighted how poorly conceived and written the children are. Their home planet's odd resemblance to Earth is like a bone fracture that gets worse the more the show walks on it. The worse part was when the two kids were so excited to shoot at the X-Wings chasing them. What in their backgrounds has made them so eager to shoot at people? When Long John Silver gave Jim Hawkins a pistol, Jim wasn't chomping at the bit to blow someone's brains out. The scene was obviously meant to echo the Death Star escape from the first Star Wars movie but the makers of Skeleton Crew evidently don't understand what motivated Han and Luke shooting at the TIE Fighters. Luke had been dreaming of being a fighter pilot all his life and now he and Han were both fighting for their survival. The kids in Skeleton Crew don't know if the X-Wings are trying to kill them and, as far as we know, all they've been dreaming about are sterile descriptions of Jedi on tablets. The problem is the kids are written more as Star Wars fans than as characters who are organically part of this universe. I wonder if this show was originally conceived as something more like The Last Starfighter; maybe the kids were originally supposed to actually be from Earth but someone at Disney or Lucasfilm thought the idea was too far outside of what Star Wars should be. I would agree, but the fact that filmmakers are looking for postmodern concepts shows their imagination is somehow blocked from properly exploring what should be a galaxy sized field of opportunity.
2009's Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans has been on Criterion Channel for a while so I watched it again. I can't believe it's fifteen years old, it still feels like a recent movie. Legendary director Werner Herzog makes movies all the time, often attracting star talent, but it's kind of rare for any of his movies to break through into mainstream consciousness. His Bad Lieutenant achieved some notice thanks to the perfect casting of its star, Nicholas Cage, delivering one of his most memorable madman performances.
The key to his character is that he suffers a back injury at the start of the film that leaves him in constant physical pain for the rest of his life. You can see that pain in every second of Cage's performance, too.
The movie is somewhat mysteriously linked to Abel Ferrara's 1992 film Bad Lieutenant--some sources say Herzog's film was meant to be a second in a franchise all along, some say the two stories had nothing to do with each other, that Herzog's film was slapped with the name but some opportunistic producer. But it's hard not to see Herzog's film as a counterargument to Ferrara's, which is about a bad cop played by Harvey Keitel who has a religious experience, leading to him becoming a true agent of justice. Herzog's film argues that this hypothetical lieutenant can be good and bad at the same time, shifting from circumstance to circumstance for occasionally explicable reasons. The man is in constant pain, most of us can't imagine what that's like, so it puts a perpetual asterisk on all of his actions. How much responsibility does he have for his actions, does he bear more responsibility for some actions than he does for others? It's a very noir kind of existential question.
The movie is so "street", with it's intimate and complex knowledge of drug and police culture in New Orleans, it hardly feels like a Herzog film. Herzog's presence is better felt in dreamlike moments like Cage's visions of iguanas and his line at the end, pondering whether or not fish dream.
His relationship with Eva Mendes' character is strangely sweet. She's really sexy in this movie and it was nice screenwriter William Finkelstein didn't write her as the typical strung out shrew.
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is available on The Criterion Channel.
X Sonnet #1903
Including hay, the horse's home was full.
Aversion choked the guest from ringing bells.
A linen flag depicts a frightened bull.
Arranged about his hooves are seven hells.
Like boxing rocks, the pointless fight was dumb.
Consorting crabs would stick their pincers out.
Dominions damned the life of Wrigley's gum.
It clogged the cruel crustacean's kettle spout.
The aging picture cleaned the error town.
Abroad, the place retained a scruffy life.
The people play beneath a sky of brown.
The clouds were thick beyond the cutting knife.
A turtle team invades the peaceful cloud.
Attack was swift and cruel but never loud.
Last night I dreamt I was watching an animated movie written by Dave Filoni and directed by Robert Rodriguez. It was terrible, which is no surprise from Dave Filoni but I thought I was a Robert Rodriguez fan. Maybe my subconscious isn't anymore. Hypnotic was underwhelming but I didn't hate Book of Boba Fett as much as most people seemed to. Still, it was far from his best work.
The movie in my dream was hand drawn animation and seemed to be emulating Ghibli, which wouldn't be a first for Filoni. It was only an hour and twelve minutes but the credits didn't stop until 58 minutes in. Mostly executive producers and producers taking a piece of the inflated budget pie as usual. I don't remember much about the movie itself except it took place in a forest and was derivative and bland.
Fortunately, this film is only available in my subconscious.
Somehow, David E. Kelley's writing really improves on Ally McBeal season two, which premiered in September 1998. Maybe it's the contrast with scripts produced under the influence of heavy fatigue at the end of the previous season. I'm still amazed he wrote every single episode while also working on The Practice.
The first three episodes of the second season bring in Portia di Rossi and Lucy Liu as new characters who become regulars. This is the role that made Liu a star. Her performance and character hold up. She seems like a twenty-four hour ball-buster but then she can suddenly be convincingly vulnerable. Hers and de Rossi's characters are pretty similar. I don't remember which of them Jane Krakowski's character suddenly makes a rather graphic joke about; "Maybe her gynaecologist pulled the wrong tooth." I'm not sure if this is the last show I expected a vagina dentata joke from but it's gotta be close.
The second episode features Wayne Newton of all people playing a Howard Stern clone called Harold Wick. Liu's character sues him for something he said on the radio and it all ends up somehow being a pretext for Ally to go on Harold's show so he can ask to see her naked and make comments about her short skirt. You know, her skirt was really short. I wonder if many lawyers actually wore skirts like that in the '90s.
It goes to show just how big Howard Stern used to be. Now, people criticise Kamala Harris for not going on Joe Rogan's show. No-one even mentions the fact that she went on Howard Stern's show. He's become a non-entity in the pop cultural landscape. It's hardly a surprise; he's walked away from everything that made him successful. He didn't ask Harris even one question about sex. Of course, she never would've done his show if he were the old Howard. I guess when he got to a certain age it felt better to be part of the establishment than to be a rabble rouser.
Ally McBeal is available on Hulu in the U.S. and on Disney+ elsewhere.
It looked like Notre Dame Cathedral was done for. Five years and over 800 million euros later and it's back in business. December 8 is the official reopening and present at the ceremony were U.S. President-elect Donald Trump as well as his prominent supporter Elon Musk. As an affirmation of the glory of ancient cultural splendour, it's fitting that the reopening should coincide with a political triumph of conservatives, or at least the right.
Also present at the ceremony was Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a somewhat odd fit considering that Putin has rhetorically tied his dreams of conquest with a resurgence of institutional Christianity. The pope, who was not present at Notre Dame's reopening ceremony, has even mildly encouraged Ukraine to surrender. Of course, French Catholicism has historically had its differences with the pope.
So yes, solidarity beneath the grandeur of Heaven, sort of.
I don't mean to suggest I'm unhappy about the cathedral's reopening. I'm overjoyed. For me, art is the most important thing humanity has ever made, and few examples of artistry can rival Notre Dame. It fulfills the objective of a Gothic cathedral admirably, inspiring awe with its splendour. Could that 800 million have been spent on starving families instead? Well, theoretically, yes, practically, no, if you have any idea of the maze of politics and bureaucracy that this money would have to navigate. And at some point, I still think it's worthwhile to consider what humanity can achieve beyond survival. If just living to see another day is your highest goal, you're already losing.
These cultural edifices serve a less quantifiable public good. That's certainly clear here in Japan where, every year, people of all political stripes and economic strata gather at ancient shrines and temples. Large and ornate, these places give dignity to people and culture beyond the ugly day to day struggle for physical and professional survival.
Last night I found myself watching Carl Dreyer's 1928 film, The Passion of Joan of Arc. I didn't even mean to watch the whole thing but, like a lot of great works of art, it's hard to look away from it. Mostly it's because of all those closeups on Renee Jeanne Falconetti but all those sanctimonious and subtly twisted men sitting in judgement of her are also fascinating to watch. Their authority is so absolute, their verdict so preordained, woven by a web of cultural, professional, and personal interest. This beautiful, earnest soul, committed to the same God these men are meant to be representing, is a tool for their own validation and, increasingly as the film proceeds, their sadism.
These cultural edifices can lift everyone up but it's worth remembering that sometimes they can be used to crush misfits.
You know the economy's bad when Great Depression movies start to hit close to home. 1933's Man's Castle stars Spencer Tracy and Loretta Young as a homeless couple who scrape out a living with odd jobs and scams. Both stars are great in the movie and some of Tracy's diatribes sound like they could've been taken from Reddit.
Shortly after she meets him, Trina (Young) finds herself being escorted to a swanky restaurant by Bill (Tracy). But despite his top hat and tails, he's just as penniless as she. He reveals this by calling the restaurant manager and berating him with a speech about how restaurants throw away food while people starve in the streets, a practice mirrored by American agriculture disposing of enormous amounts of edible food. These remain good points.
He's not exactly homeless. He lives in a shanty town by the river. He and Young strip and swim naked in it because this is a pre-Code movie. Another thing this movie can get away with because it's pre-Code is that characters can get away with crimes without legal or supernatural repercussions. Despite being a hell of a good movie, it wasn't popular on its original release. I guess everyone preferred to fantasise about being rich with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies rather than examine the reality of being poor.
Man's Castle is available on The Criterion Channel this movie as part of a playlist celebrating pre-Code Columbia films.
X Sonnet #1902
The bubble bev'rage cleared the ace's throat.
Corrosive coke condemned the bee to flight.
Important planes conveyed the vocal goat.
The cola sky returned to make the night.
A term of noise concludes with purple space.
Advancing visions cut the Christmas short.
Observing matter changed the raptor's pace.
Prolonged decisions plagued the faerie court.
Potato time devoured nights at home.
The dream of books was just a wall to knock.
No knowledge kept as well as ancient Rome.
Apostates breed a crew of thinking stock.
Determined foes were quiet kings of rust.
The feathered creep would find a chop to bust.
Lately I've been reading The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien again and The Making of Modern Japan by Marius B. Jansen. Those are both heavy hardback books so when I need something lighter to take on the train I've been reading Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess' Stardust. In one of the boxes of my old books that my grandmother sent to me was my trade paperback copy of the novel with the original Charles Vess illustrations. It was a lucky find many years ago at a Barnes and Noble. I wish it were the hardback, though, because the cover's become a bit delicate over time.
The novel was adapted as a film in 2007 starring Charlie Cox and Claire Danes, with Peter O'Toole, Robert DeNiro, and Michelle Pfeiffer. I've only seen it once and didn't hate it but I greatly prefer the novel, particularly with the Charles Vess illustrations. His aesthetic along with Gaiman's Lord Dunsany inspired narrative tone provides a vastly different experience to the film's big budget Princess Bride concept.
Now I have to read it amid the controversy of "sexual assault" allegations against Gaiman. I put that in quotes because one thing I find especially creepy about the coverage is how strong language is applied to matters that really aren't resolved and definitely aren't clear. But the novel, which includes at least one scene of a young man kissing a woman who does not express her consent beforehand, would be seen as a smoking gun by some critics. Such critics would be arguing in bad faith since spontaneity has been a part of romantic portrayals since, well, always. The madness of modern western Puritanism, which the results of the recent presidential election were largely a reaction against, as usual assumes not only the obvious correctness of its new moral dictates, but retroactively applies them to the whole of preceding history.
The sad thing is that the one paraphrased quote from Gaiman that seems to have the most traction is his characterisation of his pushing writer Julia Hobsbawm onto a sofa and kissing her. He says it was a young man misreading a situation. So he feels he acted wrongly, that he made a mistake, but has apparently over the years forgiven himself. One might detect some indignation in his response at the idea that a public who are not participants in a piece of his private history feels entitled to pass judgement on it. Which I'd say is reasonable. But woe to the celebrity who dares question the public's right to pass judgement on any celebrity's private life, however biased and incomplete the coverage.
I'm not really sure if Star Wars: Skeleton Crew is a good show. I didn't like the trailers and watching the first two episodes didn't raise my enthusiasm. I didn't like the concept of '80s American suburban kids in the Star Wars universe and the show has done nothing to convince me I should. But, on the other hand, if you do like the concept, it's entirely possible you'll like the episodes. They have a basic competence in their execution. They come from John Watts and Christopher Ford, the minds behind Spider-Man: Homecoming, and I did like that movie.
Why can't I get behind this concept? It seems only natural. Elliot in E.T. and a few other kids in those many junior high school aged stories of the '80s were seen playing with Star Wars toys. What could be more natural than putting such a kid in a Star Wars story? Oddly, it drains the show of nostalgia because, unlike Stranger Things, older viewers like me can't look at what the kids are interested in and say, "Oh, wow, I remember liking that." These kids like Jedi and Jedi is all they know. It's not just the nostalgia, it kind of shaves the tree down to the trunk. There's no sense of fullness to it. Like a lot of Disney Star Wars stuff, the galaxy it depicts feels very small and the odd similarity to '80s suburbs makes it feel even smaller.
The elephant kid is kind of cute. Maybe this show will win me over, I don't know.
Have you even thought about killer bees lately? What if they overrun your home, as in Rockne S. O'Bannon's 1995 TV movie Deadly Invasion: The Killer Bee Nightmare? Think about it, won't you? Well, it's a competently made, sometimes pleasantly cheesy, movie.
There are two moments that stick out for me. One is a teenage couple going joyriding in the desert in a convertible with the top down. The girl sits on the headrest of her seat and takes her top off for a passing trucker who nearly drives off the road. Then the couple find a spot by an old billboard where a hive of killer bees are hidden. Of course, the bees morally punish our teens for their immodesty. Puritanism lives on in the bees!
The other part I liked was when the bees attack an outdoor wedding. The bride spots a kid curled up in a foetal position so she drops her veil to use it like a beekeeper's hood and goes out to save him. Now that's some clever thinking.
The movie stars Robert Hays as the patriarch trying to keep his family safe. You might remember him from Airplane!. It's a bit odd having the star of a panic movie parody starring in a sincere panic movie. Among reasons it was difficult to take the movie seriously it ranks a little low, though. Still, it was fun.
X Sonnet #1901
Comedic dishes sink to murder bowls.
A time of hills was passed to mountain shade.
Inverted ears resemble rabbit holes.
So hither came the nymphs to cupid's glade.
Relentless eyes demand a death a day.
The killing time was based in broken clocks.
Conniving winter rigged a ghost of May.
A Christmas gift was bound in metal socks.
In water times, the sand was never shown.
Convincing coral not to blanch was wrong.
The gauge of flesh was dark beside the bone.
Confusing bees would sing a troubled song.
Returning films were laden full of gold.
The metal demon's never getting old.
A poor young man with aristocratic tastes finds his fortunes rise when he meets a beautiful heiress. But all's not as it seems in 1972's Endless Night. Based on a 1967 Agatha Christie novel, it follows in the footsteps of Peeping Tom and Psycho to portray a seemingly innocent young man with a hidden, dark persona. It's part cosy English mystery, part psychological nightmare and I got a kick out of it.
It was the last film of the filmmaking team of Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder, a duo primarily known for comedies in the '50s. They prove they were just as capable of making a murder mystery and they're helped a lot by a score from Bernard Herrmann and a terrific cast.
Hywel Bennett plays Michael, a chauffeur who likes to visit art galleries in his spare time. One day, taking photos in the countryside, he runs into Ellie, a beautiful American girl played by Hayley Mills. Mills' American accent is never convincing for a moment but it didn't bother me too much. It turns out she's rich and after they're married Michael draws the cagey suspicion of Ellie's lawyer uncle played by George Sanders, who committed suicide the same year. He does seem slightly detached in the film but he still gives a perfectly good performance.
Britt Ekland plays Ellie's domineering German assistant, Greta, whom Michael seems to detest.
The film's filled with subtle hints. We get some glimpses into Michael's childhood and the significant presence of a picture of God's eye in his bedroom, which seems to haunt him like the Eye of Sauron. As in Peeping Tom, there's a sense of Michael being psychologically damaged by not having privacy in his youth. I was also reminded of Lost Highway and Fred Madison's fear of cameras and video preventing him from remembering things his own way. Of course, I also think of Detour and Black Angel. Endless Night is a nice addition to this psycho tradition.
An architectural historian is shocked to find gargoyles coming to life in France and tearing people's heads off. 2009's Rise of the Gargoyles is a SyFy channel movie with cheap cgi and actors from daytime soap operas. I found the screenplay's inscrutable chain of logic kind of interesting.
One question no-one asks is, "Why?" Why are gargoyles coming to life and killing people? Why some people and not others? The architectural historian, Jack (Eric Balfour), has to be coaxed by a friend into visiting an 19th century church that's about to be demolished. Why does he have to be coaxed if this is his specialty? They rouse the wrath of they gargoyle for reasons that aren't clear. Jack manages to get some footage--his camera is busted in the escape but some news reporters manage to retrieve the footage. However, all the data is wiped the next morning as part of a routine in which all systems are rebooted at the news station. Why?
So Inspector Gibert can't see it of course. He's played by Welsh actor Ifan Huw Dafydd who puts on the most ridiculous, Pepe Le Pew accent you can imagine for the role, which stands in contrast to actual French speaker Caroline Neron who plays the news reporter--she's Canadian. The movie was shot at least partially in France, why doesn't it have any French actors? These are the enduring mysteries of Rise of the Gargoyles.
What happens when someone with no political acumen and poor education but with a reputation for honesty enters the arena of American politics? You get a madcap comedy like 1984's Protocol starring Goldie Hawn as a cocktail waitress who rises to political fame after saving a Middle Eastern politician from assassination. Oh, the innocence of '80s political comedy.
Quickly, a cadre of political handlers swoop in and try to control Sunny's (Hawn) rising stardom. But she foils them again and again by doing things like taking dignitaries to the local bar for a good old fashioned American time of drinking and carousing, presumably things that are not done in the fictional middle eastern country of Otah.
Despite all the scandal and hijinks that ensue, the public loves Sunny because she seems real and just like them, eventually propelling her to political office. Just imagine something like that happening in real life!
Lots of couples have troubled relationships, few are so lucky to have their woes set to music by Tom Waits. It leads to the dreamy atmosphere of Francis Ford Coppola's 1982 film One from the Heart. It's never been a popular film, certainly not enough to justify its massive budget (a recurrent theme in Coppola's career), but an excellent film if you like Tom Waits and film history.
Waits is joined by Crystal Gayle on vocals and Coppola lets their lyrics play out, accompanied by scenes of Hank (Frederic Forrest) and Frannie (Teri Garr) fighting, reconciling, and sleeping with other people in a deliberately artificial movie version of Las Vegas. This was piano jazz era Tom Waits and the mellow, whiskey lounge vibe of his music pairs smoothly with Crystal Gayle's crystalline vocals.
A lot of people criticised the characters for being too thin. They are kind of archetypes more than characters and I think the film is set in the same universe as the 1941 Thief of Bagdad, a film with which Coppola is obsessed. The artistic artificiality of the film's aesthetic is very similar. There's even an appearance by the All Seeing Eye from The Thief of Bagdad, marvelled over by Nastassja Kinski as a circus girl called Leila. Teri Garr's performance lends a lot of humanity to Frannie but I actually found Kinski's character more intriguing.
While Hank is being unfaithful with Leila, Frannie has a tryst with Ray (Raul Julia), a down on his luck piano player. They have some good moments, too.
Maybe the film is no magnificent epic but it sure put me in a great, mellow mood.
One from the Heart is available on The Criterion Channel until December 1.
Happy Thanksgiving from Japan, everyone, where most people haven't heard of it. Of course, it's actually now Friday here, and most people have heard of Black Friday because shops can't pass up an excuse for a sale. Black Friday sales are pretty pathetic here, though. 30 or 40 percent off, yay.
This week I've been making burritos with roast chicken and boiled pumpkin. Maybe I should call them wraps since they have no beans. I guess they're kind of Thanksgiving-ish. Turkey is notoriously difficult to get in Japan though I've heard kids have been getting it at Universal Studios Japan. I plan to celebrate this weekend with a few glasses of Wild Turkey, as usual.
Last night I watched The Maltese Falcon--it's about a bird, anyway--and some of the annual Mystery Science Theatre 3000 Turkey Day Marathon, which, as I write, is still streaming. This year they're doing some kind of "Potluck of the Stars" with occasional cameos from celebrities. I think Mark Hamill shows up.
X Sonnet #1901
A score of cats began to climb a dream.
My open dream to which the moon was sent.
Some critters caper up the silver beam.
But stooges smelled her sweat and effort spent.
Eternal teens usurped the office ball.
Returning champs were naught but paper bags.
The human beings aped coyote's call.
With stupid games, the sickly morning sags.
Unlucky birds became the blackened toast.
Before the mob acquired sales, they ate.
Another bird was found to slowly roast.
We left an ear of corn as tempting bait.
With thanks, the giving gnomes destroyed the pot.
The oven served to cook the basted lot.
Jim Abrahams passed away at the age of 80 on Tuesday. Best known for directing absurdist comedies like Airplane! and The Naked Gun, Abrahams made a lot of movies I haven't seen since I was a kid but I still remember a whole lot of dialogue from. Watching a bunch of '70s panic movies recently, I was compelled to remember the running gag in Airplane! of Lloyd Bridges ruefully observing it was a bad time to stop smoking/drinking/doing cocaine.
I have a very clear memory of the kids on my street being really pumped to see Hot Shots: Part Deux. I'm not sure if I ever even saw the first one but I was excited to go along with everyone for the second.
Periodically, I have to watch clips from Police Squad, which Abrahams co-created, to maintain my sanity.
Not all of Abrahams' films were absurdist comedies. Last night I watched his 1990 film Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael. It stars Winona Ryder as a misfit teen named Dinkie who lives in a small, gaudy town obsessed with a legendary former resident, the Roxy Carmichael of the title. Ryder's performance is great and I found it to be an insightful film about a teenage girl desperate for a role model. It's not Abrahams' typical absurdist comedy and yet there's definitely a surreal element at play. No-one's quite sure why Roxy is so famous, she's like a tall tale that would've been more at home in another era, like Paul Bunyan or Hercules.
Abrahams directs from a screenplay by Karen Leigh Hopkins to make a film that connects a slightly dreamlike reality with a girl's struggle against normalcy and with a simultaneous need for validation. It's nothing I'd have expected from Abrahams. It's available on The Criterion Channel now as a part of a Winona Ryder playlist.
I watched the finale of Ally McBeal season one a few days ago and who should I see but Bob Gunton. I've also been watching Daredevil season one which also features Bob Gunton and I also saw him in Bats, the cheesy '90s sci fi movie in which he plays a prick scientist. He always plays a prick. In fact, someone made a supercut of him being a prick on Daredevil.
And, of course, he's most famous as the warden in Shawshank Redemption, a prince of pricks.
There are rare occasions when he's not a prick. Apparently, he was in Ghostbusters: Afterlife as Egon Spengler--he was the stand-in on whom Harold Ramis' digital likeness was superimposed. And on Ally McBeal he was kind of a nice guy. He plays the rich head of a company whose best friend is a janitor. The two want to have a heart transplant--the janitor wants to give his healthy one to the rich man so the rich man's kids don't grow up without a father. Gunton is kind of not a prick in the episode. It has to be believable that someone would want to trade internal organs with him.
He was also a prick on "The Wounded", a good Star Trek: The Next Generation episode written by the recently deceased Jeri Taylor. He's still alive but I see, aside from Ghostbusters, he hasn't been in anything since 2019. I hope he's okay.
As much as I like the Coen Brothers, I hadn't seen 1987's Raising Arizona in a very long time, not since the early '90s, I think. This month, Criterion has a playlist of Coen Brothers films so I thought I'd reacquaint myself with this one. It's a zanier comedy than I was in the mood for, I think, but still has its charms.
I love the way Nicolas Cage and Holly Hunter meet, how he starts flirting with her as she, a police officer, is taking his mug shots. Nicholas Cage in this movie made me feel like I was actually more in the mood to watch Wild at Heart.
The Arizona kitsch aesthetic of Raising Arizona isn't as pronounced as the visual and tonal themes of later Coen Brothers films but I still appreciated shots of gaudy wardrobe set against landscapes of cacti and sand.
Raising Arizona is available on The Criterion Channel.
X Sonnet #1900
A wicked plant deployed its poison seeds.
Across the sky, the thorny stars would run.
A goblin girl was hid among the reeds.
At dawn, the locals found a poison bun.
Abundant killers clog the morning bar.
Beside the train, a hundred villains scheme.
The nearest cop was really very far.
But fools will trade a cap to thread a dream.
Informed dismissals rat the kitchen out.
Regressing staff remind their gods to eat.
Another time recalls a noodle bout.
The deadly pasta built a home for meat.
Arriving meals would break the diner flat.
The truth was writ on someone's welcome mat.
I watched Captain America: Civil War, the first time I'd seen it since I saw it in the theatre when it came out in 2016. Now that the novelty factors have worn off--the introduction of Spider-Man and the concept of superheroes fighting each other--it's kind of a disappointing movie. I never feel convinced the two groups would actually come to blows over the issues at play.
It is kind of neat seeing the beginnings of the romance between Vision and Wanda. When WandaVision came out, it seemed like their relationship was something just barely touched on by the movies. Now I find myself watching it closer, looking for some hint as to what drew these two people together to begin with. I'm still not sure about that but they are a cute couple.
Civil War's based on a 2006 comic storyline. I wish they'd adapt classic stories from the '60s, '70s, and '80s more. Some actual Stan Lee stuff. It'd be great if the new X-Men movies just adapted Chris Clairemont's run that began in the '70s.
Robert Downey Jr. gives a good performance in Civil War and I can kind of believe him going off on Bucky at the end, particularly with the footage of his parents. Ironically, by attacking Bucky, Tony proves the point of his side of the argument that superheroes need some supervision.
Captain America: Civil War is available on Disney+.
A woman is murdered and police are frustrated to find that no two people can offer the same account of her personality. 1950's The Woman in Question is an English film that came out two months after Rashomon, though I think it unlikely the makers of The Woman in Question saw the Japanese film. I guess it was an example of two minds thinking alike though The Woman in Question is not as subtle or profound as Rashomon. In Kurosawa's film, truth seems like an unattainable objective, buried beneath nuance and perspective. In The Woman in Question, it's simply a question of different people having degrees of fondness for a woman, and one of them is lying (the murderer).
Jean Kent gives a terrific performance as Astra, the murdered woman, as she adopts a different persona for each flashback, from the account of each person interviewed by police. There's her sister, who remembers her as a scoundrel; there's the pet shop owner across the street who remembers her as a saint; there's the landlady who remembers her as a refined lady down on her luck; and there's the Irish sailor who was in love with her and remembers her as, er, Irish. At least, she speaks with an Irish accent in his flashback.
Dirk Bogarde plays another of her suitors and at first I thought his American accent was terrible. Then, in one scene, he admits to her that he was born in Liverpool and has never been outside of England. So he was intentionally doing a bad American accent! That's pretty impressive. Compare that to Hollywood movies at the time in which characters from a variety of countries regularly spoke with American accents.
The Woman in Question is available on The Criterion Channel.
Star Trek fans wanting to see William Shatner return to the role of James T. Kirk finally got their wish a few days ago with the release of "Unification", a ten minute film officially produced to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Star Trek: Generations. You can view the whole thing on YouTube:
Obviously the cgi isn't perfect. When you can't even make Shatner's hair look more realistic than his toupee, you know your special effects method is flawed. It was still cool seeing Shatner take on the role again. His face, his particular patterns of expression, are familiar to me from very early childhood and on down the years, which I know is the case for a lot of people. The YouTube comments I've looked at come from people in their 70s and 80s who remember watching the original series when it aired in the late 1960s.
I'm not sure I'd really enjoy the film if it weren't for Shatner. There's not much to it. It leans on a lot of cliche shots, including the one of some guy running his hand through tall grass. Who was the first one to do that, Ridley Scott? I kind of can't believe people are still copying it.
I suspect Paramount is testing the waters for a proper return of Shatner's Kirk, which would seem like an obviously good idea after the success of Picard season three and the fact that Shatner, at the age of 93, is in astonishingly good health. His voice hasn't even changed. I'd certainly watch it though I hope it would be less derivative than Picard was and have the guts to try some new things. Maybe the inclusion of Shatner would even be enough to lure Tarantino back to the table.
Rock Paper Scissors, or Jan-ken, is really important among children in Japan. It's frequently played to make decisions. This morning I saw that YouTube's "The History Guy" produced a video on the game and gives a detailed account of the game's journey from China to Japan to the West.
It's funny he compulsively pronounces the j in Jan-ken like a Spanish j. Otherwise, it's an accurate video, to the best of my knowledge.
Students have taught me various rude gestures, which I'm always delighted to learn. Apparently putting the backs of your hands together in a sort of reverse prayer pose is an insulting gesture. Unfortunately, or fortunately, it's not one available to me as the particular configuration of my joints won't allow me to comfortably twist my arms that way.
A few years ago, a student taught me what seemed to be an extremely rude gesture I copied into a notebook I've sadly misplaced. I still don't know what precisely it meant because she wouldn't explain it. Sounds like a good start of an MR James story. Which reminds me, we're getting into MR James season, I should start reading him again.
It has stars, fabulous international locations, and all the bare bones of a movie. But 1957's Interpol, aka Pickup Alley, hardly feels like a proper movie. It's like a sandwich made entirely of bread.
Victor Mature stars as Charles Sturgis, on the trail of an international drug fiend, McNally, played by Trevor Howard. Howard plays the role surprisingly broad, putting on a cartoon villain's sneering tone and maintaining it at all times. His favourite victim is Gina, played by the always glorious Anita Ekberg. The best moment in the movie is when she shoots a guy who's trying to assault her and there's some hints at a plot revolving around her legal peril in the aftermath, but there's little drama in it.
Mostly it's just a movie about a good cop chasing a bad drug dealer, a procedural but not one with much of a sense of authenticity, portraying its villains as the usual raving madmen stereotypes you see in most '50s movies about drugs. I guess the filmmakers may've felt justified in building a movie around such a plain plot by using real locations in London, Rome, and New York. Maybe in the '50s that would've been enough but I don't think so, judging from all the film's unimpressed contemporaneous reviews.
Pickup Alley is available on The Criterion Channel.
X Sonnet #1899
The biggest sandwich ever fully crushed the shop.
Courageous cads condemn the use of boats.
United suits promote the android cop.
The naked castles sold their stylish moats.
A plane of smoke was flat against the face.
A bunch of bags were burnt to harvest prunes.
The warping deck rejects its only ace.
A vital source was killed and writ in runes.
The shapes if friends were burnt across the glass.
With savage dreams, the pickle cured the roast.
Balloons arise, propelled with magic gas.
No science hat was won with idle boast.
The lying dogs would dream of honest cats.
The walls were filled with stupid, greedy rats.
Yesterday came the news that Japan has fallen even further from its already low ranking in English proficiency. It ranks 92 out of a list of 112 countries where English is not the primary language. Notably, it ranks far below South Korea, which is at number 50. Since the difficulty for Korean speakers in learning English is comparable for a Japanese speaker learning English, this deepens the mystery of Japan's consistent decline.
A lot of articles and videos have been made offering various theories and explanations. One common criticism, with which I certainly agree, is that Japan focuses too much on grammar and translation, leading to a deficiency in oral communication skills. The impression I often have in a Japanese English classroom is of watching an alien autopsy. English is the cold and bizarre corpse on the slab whose minutiae are endlessly described in technical details to an audience which struggles to pay attention.
I intend to write at greater length about my own experiences teaching English in Japan but I want to work in a bigger city before I offer a comprehensive view. I currently work in a town particularly hostile to English, which I think is a useful experience in truly understanding the problem but not enough in itself. I can see this from how Japanese teachers from out of town are astonished by the culture here. I've even heard students ask Japanese people from the city if they're "gaijin", foreigners.
I think one thing that sets Japan apart from other countries with low English proficiency is that Japan seems to believe it's very good at English. One might judge this from the abundance of English signage throughout the country. All over the world. certainly in America, people marvel at the apparently professionally produced signs in weak English. Here's an example from the town I live in:
It's hard to imagine what "For your JUST" is even supposed to mean. In this case, the English is accompanied by Japanese to give us a clue: "あなたの暮らしに、ちょうどいい。" It means something like, "Exactly the right thing for your professional life." The sign is for an electronics store similar to Best Buy.
This sign must have gone through layers of the bureaucracy Japan is famous for. One might wonder, how do signs like these consistently make it through committees of people who have been studying English since elementary school? The problem is that confidence levels are disproportionate to proficiency levels because the whole educational system is geared towards something different from actual language learning. I've frequently noticed that students who are best able to communicate with me in English do poorly on the tests while students who routinely get scores of around 100 are unable to have simple conversations with me. So the vast majority of students must have the sense of working towards something and achieving it after struggle. Who wants to be told that their whole struggle was meaningless? But, of course, the flipside is that students who deserve praise for their English skills frequently receive abuse instead.
A team of researchers face off against cgi sharks in 1999's Deep Blue Sea. If you're looking for an effective shark horror movie, watch Jaws. If you're looking for a big ball of cheese clutched in a massive ham fist, you might enjoy Deep Blue Sea.
What's the best way to research cures for Alzheimer's? Turns out it's to genetically modify sharks into massive killing machines. Well, except when they're small enough to swim around half flooded corridors and chase LL Cool J and a parrot.
What a cast. Samuel L. Jackson, Stellan Skarsgard, and Thomas Jane. I feel like, this late in a solid career of supporting roles, Skarsgard has only recently crossed over into true stardom thanks to Andor. It's funny seeing him in this role in which his character is put through quite a lot that does not require a performance of any quality from Skarsgard. A big chuck of it is him strapped to a gurney with a mask covering most of his face. He has very few lines.
Thomas Jane is the right guy to lead a movie like this. Someone really needs to give him a breakout Duke Nukem kind of role. Maybe he should play Duke Nukem? Does anyone still care about Duke Nukem? I guess I should say, someone should give him a role like Bruce Campbell's in Evil Dead or Roddy Piper's in They Live--you know, one of the characters Duke Nukem ripped off.
I was really surprised by how bad the cgi was. I think there's a "bad cgi valley" from the late '90s to about 2010. Sure, there's a lot of bad cgi now but I think that was a period, after the scrupulous work on Jurassic Park, when people routinely underestimated how much effort it actually required to make cgi look good.
Anyway, who doesn't like some cheese now and then? Deep Blue Sea is directed by Renny Harlin, a man practically made of gouda.
I couldn't sleep a few nights ago and found myself watching Naruse Miko's final film, 1967's Scattered Clouds. I hadn't seen it since coming to Japan and, like all Japanese movies I saw in the U.S., I see it through a much different lens now.
One thing I often marvel at with these older movies is how much they look exactly like the Japan I live in to-day. The trains look different but I see the same rows of wooden posts by the tracks. Apartment buildings look the same with the same external utility boxes and pipe systems.
Scattered Clouds was one of the few colour films Naruse made. It has a lovely, doggedly consistent colour palette. Pale greens like matcha paired with yellowish tans and faded pinks.
I found myself noticing how much the music seems to borrow from Bernard Herrmann's Hitchcock scores. The story is about a man and woman in a strange romance, which is a little like Hitchcock, I guess. There's certainly a lot of tension in it.
Yumiko (Tsukasa Yoko) is a young woman whose husband is killed after being struck by a car. The car was driven by a man named Mishima (Kayama Yuzo). It was found to be an accident but Mishima, a deeply conscientious man, feels the weight of responsibility and wants to give the widow any financial aid he can. She, however, wants nothing to do with him or his money.
Yet, fate draws the two of them together and they have an accidental meeting at a hotel where they deliver drunken speeches to each other. As time passes, they develop feelings for each other. But of course Yumiko can never forget her first husband.
You could look at the movie as a more melodramatic version of Tokyo Monogatari. Is Yumiko really so devoted to her first husband or is her pulling away from Mishima motivated by a guilt over how disloyal she truly is in her heart? She cares for Mishima when he falls ill which excites her sympathy for him. It's suggested also the psychological pain he feels for having killed her husband also attracts her. It's a short step from that to wondering if she's attracted to him, on some level, because he killed her husband.
It's such a sedate, gentle film but the premise ultimately recalls the idea of brides won in battle and how fundamentally a woman might be attracted to status, even against her will. It could be seen as a war between Yumiko's morals and Yumiko's instincts. Mishima's, too. Considering how guilty he felt, surely, every time he takes the liberty of smiling at Yumiko, some part of him must say, "I have no right."
Scattered Clouds is available on The Criterion Channel.
Twitter Sonnet #1898
The little minds would steal a soul a day.
With empty hearts, the bugs devour life.
The ugly stamp of brutal feet delay.
The glacial tackle blunts a lazy knife.
Averted war has left a stock of bombs.
A cloudless sky was choked with ash and ghosts.
Ironic fields distort the peace of psalms.
The wayward lad was took by heartless hosts.
A raven passed through countries sans a name.
A blend of birds obscured the view of God.
A morning song would shift the guilt to Mame.
But luck would spare nor even yet nor odd.
Pervasive sloth reduced the woods to mulch.
The river cut has trickled down to gulch.
A wild grizzly starts eating people but has cute cubs in 1999's Wild Grizzly, an unmistakably made-for-TV movie set in a beautiful mountain town and featuring Daniel Baldwin in a minor role. It's exactly what you'd expect but there's something oddly sincere I found engrossing about it.
So the grizzly eats a guy's leg one night and it's tranqed by a guy inexplicably dressed as Indiana Jones (as a fedora wearer myself, I shouldn't laugh). There's a town hall meeting about having the bear with her cubs displayed in the middle of town. Daniel Baldwin and the mayor (John O'Hurley, J. Peterman from Seinfeld), being villains, oppose this idea. With a grin of malevolent satisfaction, Baldwin plots to kill the bears so that he and the mayor can get rich . . . somehow. The nature of their scheme is never remotely clear.
Rachel (Michele Greene) and her moody teenage son, Josh (Riley Smith), move to the small town from L.A. When Josh accidentally breaks the windshield on a sheriff's car, the sheriff (Fred Dryer) drafts Josh to help take care of the grizzly and her cubs. Naturally, Josh is framed when they escape. In his attempts to capture the bear, which he alone realises is suffering from a toothache, he's joined by a plucky blonde with a captivating rack (Courtney Peldon). The writers give her a lot of stuff that's supposed to be endearing and quirky but come of as psychotic. When Josh is sneaking around the woods looking for the animal, she sneaks up on him with a recording of a bear roar and a bear claw glove to grab him on the shoulder. This is after the bear has killed someone.
Sometimes I thought the movie might be intentionally bad, like someone was aiming for "it's so bad it's good." Whenever a filmmaker claims this about their own film, I tend to doubt their sincerity (to be clear, I don't know if this filmmaker has done so). But there are shots that are so flagrantly lazy that I wonder. In the first attack scene, the man's little boy sneaks out of the safety of the car, ironically to retrieve his teddy bear. We get a shot of the teddy bear and the boy runs into frame, picks up the item with a blank expression, then turns to look off camera with an expression that clearly says, "Okay, I hit my mark. Now what?"
But the weirdest bits were when the grizzly ate people. There are these long, slow shots of people writhing in stage blood and guts and shots of the actual bear and shots of the dummy bear head being shoved in the fake gore. There's something so peculiarly detached about the tone of these shots, I can't explain it. It's like the filmmaker had no instinct for composing violent sequences but decided to just linger anyway hoping inspiration would eventually strike. As though he were gently contemplating his inability to express any feelings in the shots. It's sort of like listening to a tone deaf person sing "Ave Maria" with a total lack of self-consciousness. I guess that sums up the movie.
I read the newest Sirenia Digest to-day, which contains a new series of vignettes by Caitlin R. Kiernan called "THE ULTRAVIOLET ALPHABET". Each vignette corresponds to a letter, from A to M. A few of them are just like nice miniature lectures from a palaeontologist, which Caitlin indeed happens to be. I particularly liked "K is for Komodo Dragon" which discusses the komodo dragon's effect on the human imagination since its relatively recent discovery in 1910. Caitlin also goes into detail about an Australian ancestor of the komodo dragon, a much larger lizard that coexisted with aboriginal humans. I hadn't heard about it and it was interesting.
Other vignettes harken back to the Digest's original purpose, as a showcase of Caitlin's weird erotica. "C is for Clit" is an affectionate rumination on that renowned female body part while "J is for Journey" ponders a strange and exceedingly beautiful naked woman. All the vignettes have good qualities though I was a little puzzled by a reference to An American in Paris paired with a reference to Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn. Was Caitlin thinking of Funny Face? I enjoyed the vignettes in any case.
I walked along a river to work yesterday and got this song stuck in my head:
Peter Lorre immigrates to America only to find remarkably evil luck in 1941's The Face Behind the Mask. His luck is so bad as to defy credibility but Lorre is an excellent anchor for this nightmare.
Janos (Lorre) is an improbably talented young man arrived from Hungary in New York. He's an expert watch maker and a pilot so his hopes of getting a job and being able to send for his girlfriend back home are not unreasonable. Unfortunately, the hotel his stays in burns down and the fire hideously scars his face. Unable to find work or even kindness in the law-abiding world, he turns for aid to the first man too kind to be bothered by his looks, a cheap crook hanging out on the docks.
Janos gets a creepy mask and turns his talents to crime like a Batman villain without a Batman. Lorre is vulnerable and tenacious, dominating the screen and breathing a lot of life into this noir melodrama. The sequence of extremely bad luck put me in mind of Detour, though The Face Behind the Mask doesn't lend itself to an "unreliable narrator" interpretation, due to multiple points of view. I suppose it's best taken simply as a particularly cruel nightmare, which it succeeds at being.
The Face Behind the Mask is available on The Criterion Channel and on YouTube.
Above is the only picture on my Instagram so far, real_setsuled. It's a weasel I saw on my way to work recently. "Real" because, if you remember, I was banned from Instagram despite never having used it. I had somehow violated their terms. My best guess is that someone impersonated me on Instagram at some point.
It felt like such a triumph to finally get an Instagram but now I don't know what to do with it. I usually post photos here on my blog. It may end up like my tumblr or other online platform accounts I created which I've forgotten about.
I've seen a few weasels around here but they're usually too quick for me to photograph. The above photo is cropped, here's the full image:
He was jumping back and forth across that little irrigation canal.
X Sonnet #1897
Another Swiftie shook the haters off.
Another frisbee took the schnauzer's air.
Another bug forsook a stranger's cough.
Another army brooked the serpent's dare.
Diminished dimes revert to metal lumps.
A standard gold replaced the running tabs.
Across the stars, we felt the spacial bumps.
A stack of kings control the haunted cabs.
Repeated masks conceal the smothered face.
As digits stick to dials, feathers fly.
The paper birds collide with wooden grace.
There's many tales to scar the storied sky.
A team of monkeys smuggled steel to phones.
Diverging planes could write a cloudy tome.
Christopher Reeve and Kirstie Alley team up to fight a town of white haired kids in 1995's Villageof the Damned, John Carpenter's remake of the 1960 film of the same name. It's not as effective as the original film, and drifts pretty far into camp, but it's an effective premise. The first act is the best part.
One day, for no apparent reason, everyone falls asleep in a small town. When they wake up, all the women are pregnant. That's a great start. All the mystery and dread is both personal and public. Alley plays a swaggering FBI agent who comes to investigate and she, along with Mark Hamill in a small role as a priest, is primarily responsible for bringing the camp.
Hamill almost sounds like he's doing his Joker voice. There's nothing in his dialogue to suggest he's evil, I guess it was an interpretation Hamill decided to bring. I guess maybe he figured there just aren't enough evil priests in American cinema.
Christopher Reeve gives a more earnest performance. That poor guy should've gotten more work. So what if he was really buff. I guess that's what kept him from a diversity of roles. It is kind of odd here that this small town doctor just happens to look like Superman.
Actually, I'd say the most effective performance in the film is Meredith Salenger as a virgin who's impregnated by the phenomenon, something I was surprised the priest didn't make more of. Her husband dies in a car crash and she's unsurprisingly depressed. She was the one sincere note in the movie that otherwise felt very tongue-in-cheek, perhaps unintentionally, once the kids started showing up and being creepy. That stuff is fun, though.
Gloria Grahame is trapped in an extraordinarily tangled web of abuse and misogyny in 1954's Human Desire. Fritz Lang directed this film noir based on Emile Zola's 1890 novel La Bete humaine, deviating from the source material in intriguing ways. The film ends on an oddly ambiguous note but I suppose, in the '50s, it was the best possible conclusion to such an impressively messy human drama.
Grahame plays Vicki, the wife of a big train conductor named Carl (Broderick Crawford). She used to work at a magazine stand where he started flirting with her. The two eventually married despite, as is repeated several times throughout the film, the fact that he was substantially older than her--my guess would be about 20 years. It could be no less than that for it to be seen an issue in the '50s.
One really interesting point where the film deviates from the novel is that, after losing his job on the train, Carl sends Vicki to see his boss, Owens (Grandon Rhodes), who's implied to have once had feelings for Vicki. Carl seems to insinuate that Vicki ought to seduce Owens to some degree in exchange for getting Carl his job. What else could Carl think he was doing by telling her to go see him alone? And yet, when she's gone, he works himself into a jealous rage as though the idea were only just occurring to him.
Vicki is very much at the centre of the film and the problem she finds herself in is captivating as you wonder along with her just how she's supposed to navigate these waters of psychosis, how she's supposed to deal with the man who will hit her for doing what he told her to do, what she'd made clear she didn't want to do. It's hard to be loyal to a spouse who can't control his own train of thought.
Top billing goes to Glenn Ford who plays another railroad worker. He's poised as one of those noir heroes torn between the sweet girl next door (played in this case by Kathleen Case) and the femme fatale (Vicki). But Vicki, while positioned as the deceiving, adulterous woman, always has good intentions but is presented with impossible choices. There seems to be some attempt near the end to morally simplify her, to make the film fit into a more typical framework, but the ambiguity remains strong enough that most people watching will be hard pressed to imagine what Vicki ought to have done.
I was kind of reminded of Francois Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player, which has a similar problem of a woman's infidelity arising from her loyalty to her husband. Shoot the Piano Player presents a more plausible and effectively tragic scenario but Human Desire is plenty impressive.
Human Desire is available on The Criterion Channel.
In addition to Trump getting voted into office again, there were a few smaller stories that caused me to despair for humanity a bit. Many young American voters are now unable to sign their names, causing "chaos" with mail-in ballots. It's funny, in Japan, people are trying to phase out the hanko, the traditional stamp used as a personal sign on documents, in favour of written signatures. Maybe the U.S. should switch to hanko. Eventually perhaps the pantomime of digital signatures will be done away with as various algorithms assign to happily accepting users a lifetime of work and consumer habits.
The other story that made an impression on me was the unprecedented turnout of Amish voters for Trump. The Amish, a religious community in Pennsylvania dedicated to living without modern technology, as long been a quaint, bemusing presence in the U.S. But they're not so cute when the reason they're voting for Trump is that they feel the government was overreaching by investigating illnesses related to milk production at an Amish farm. Hey, I love traditions. But everyone getting sick from bad milk doesn't sound like a good one to me. Fucking idiots. And I'd bet good money Trump isn't going to do shit about this issue.
