Happy New Year

Happy New Year, everyone. Year of the Dragon. Above you can see the little toys I've collected from packaged New Years mochi. I arrived in Japan in March of the Year of the Rat (2020), so I couldn't get the rat toy. But I got the cow, the tiger, and the rabbit. In March of Year of the Dragon, I'll have been in Japan four years.

I've always been fond of dragons. I used to doodle them all the time as a kid. Not infrequently as an adult, too.

This is the time of year I usually post my ranking of the previous year's movies but I want to wait until I've seen a few more of them. Later this week, I promise.

To-day, I'll rank TV shows I saw:

9. Secret Invasion

It was hard to choose between this and Ahsoka for worst new show I saw this year but Secret Invasion wasn't just bad, it's become an emblem of all that's wrong with the MCU from bad special effects, lazy, committee filtered writing, and overall absence of creative spark.

8. Ahsoka

But Ahsoka was also terrible. I wonder if generations to come will ever know Ahsoka was actually a cool character at one point if this clod is all they have to go by.

7. Good Omens Season Two

It was cute, if generally lacking in stakes and tension.

6. The Mandalorian Season Three

Some decent moments are scattered through this overall lethargic season. Unlike some reactionary viewers, I actually like the idea of Katee Sackoff taking over the show. I only wish she had.

5. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Season Three

I love that love Hashira but the show has never been able to hit the high water mark of its first season. It's gotten bogged down in Dragonball pre-fight dialogue, my least favourite kind of anime.

4. The Doctor Who Specials

"Wild Blue Yonder" is so good, it elevates the group all on its own. The others aren't bad and "The Church on Ruby Road" is a decent introduction for a Doctor and Companion as well as being one of the better Christmas specials. It seems this was the year for David Tennant to be gay, on this and on Good Omens. I'm happy for those of you who really wanted this to happen.

3. Only Murders in the Building Season Three

Selena Gomez's cleavage and Meryl Streep made this a fantastic season. It was also a great showcase for Martin Short.

2. Star Trek: Picard Season Three

They went to Nostalgia Factor 100 with this one but actually made it a pretty engaging story in its own right, even if the first half was a remake of Star Trek II.

1. Loki Season Two

This show was an almost unremitting blast. With a perfect cast, exhilarating pace, and effective character drama, it's hard to believe something this good came out of this MCU slump era.

This Rock

A solemnly earnest group of people of various backgrounds gather in 2023's Asteroid City. Wes Anderson, more than ever with this film, seems intent more on creating an aesthetic than a story. It's a nice aesthetic but, even though it's not a very long film, under two hours, it feels a bit too long.

The saturated colour seems meant to resemble 1950s postcards from Arizona or New Mexico. Or Monument Valley, which the deliberately artificial backgrounds seem to evoke.

It kind of reminds me of the desert stage in Mario Kart 64 shot in Eastmancolor. The mid-50s atomic space age humour reminded me of the Fallout games.

Jason Schwartzman plays a war photographer having trouble emotionally processing his wife's recent death. The wife is played by Margot Robbie and although she doesn't have a scene as the character, she has a brief scene as the fictional actress playing the character (the whole movie has a "film within a film" structure) which was kind of a nice idea for a haunting.

Scarlett Johansson plays a famous actress plagued with depression. She has a brief nude scene, the most exciting scene in the film. Andserson's movies are not usually devoid of excitement. His deadpan humour belies it a bit but also enhances it. Aside from that one nude scene, which is a flirtation between her and Schwartzman, Asteroid City never quite gets on its feet but lies drowsing in the haze of deadpan.

Bill Murray was originally cast in the film but had to drop out due to having contracted Covid. He did, however, appear in a promotional short for the film. He evidently wanted to be involved so badly he showed up to set and Anderson improvised the short just before sets were dismantled. I am posting the short here in the effort to boost the Bill Murray signal.

Asteroid City is available on Amazon Prime.

X Sonnet #1803

On saintly snow, a desert mind was sunk.
With fire low, the sky arose to suns.
A child calls a query placed a dunk.
By oven lamps, the frosting slowly runs.
Desult-ry pieces puke across the board.
Descending teeth revealed the bloody gums.
Reflective disks comprise the holy hoard.
Increasing gloom enhanced the beating drums.
A whirl of rain has clogged the busy sky.
Tomato suns reveal a brood of seeds.
Another life consigns the shirt to dye.
A tiger watched behind the shaking weeds.
Deserting days confer a final hare.
With running rodents, carrots wouldn't dare.

Straw Men in Peril

A group of wealthy stereotypes find themselves stranded during an apocalyptic event in 2023's Leave the World Behind. Sometimes, director Sam Esmail successfully distracts from the simplistic characters and cheap moral messages with well orchestrated, Hitchcockian tension.

Amanda (Julia Roberts) and Clay (Ethan Hawke) are a wealthy couple living in New York with their kids, a mopey, sarcastic teenage boy and a smart and virtuous prepubescent girl. Amanda is a Karen and Clay is a Privileged White Man.

Amanda makes reservations at a rental home without discussing the matter with Clay because she knows (as his name suggests) he's malleable. The life of privilege has made him laid back and generous in good situations but panicky and indecisive in difficult situations, which come later. At the rental home one night, they're surprised and Amanda exhibits micro-aggression racism when a black man, George (Maharshala Ali), and his daughter, Ruth (Myha'la), show up claiming that the rental home belongs to them. According to George, they instinctively retreated to the house when a blackout overcame New York City, something of which Amanda and Clay are not yet aware because the internet and phones are down.

George is the Good Black Man in All Situations while his daughter is woke. Naturally, all of Amanda's instincts about them are symptoms of racism and paranoia as George proves again and again with his unfailing purity and wisdom.

It soon becomes clear that the problem is much bigger than a blackout or temporary loss of internet. A few news alerts that manage to get through on the phones and TVs inform them that a cyberattack has taken down everything, including satellites. It's also somehow caused a problem with the migratory patterns of various animals, which doesn't really explain the scenes of hundreds of deer standing and staring directly at the two girls.

I don't really mind this. It seemed an obvious nod to The Birds and one could take the implication that technology has expanded its influence into the natural world much further than anyone has realised. The score by Mac Quayle is also pretty nice and loaded with tension. The story does have some worthy food for thought and I think it's very healthy for people to contemplate a world without the internet. Myha'la also wears skimpy clothes throughout the film and she's a knock-out.

Leave the World Behind is available on Netflix.

A Light

What about the man who found a way to destroy the world? 2023's Oppenheimer follows the brilliant physicist who led the development of the atomic bomb, a psychological portrait of a complex man who was nonetheless dwarfed by his own grim achievement. Christopher Nolan directs a film with great momentum and solemnity. It's like a funeral where all the mourners are frightened.

It's a three hour movie but it maintains its pace and focus relentlessly, captivating the viewer, better than most of Christopher Nolan's films and in a way that frankly reminded me of Citizen Kane. But Robert Oppenheimer, portrayed with fine, intense subtlety by Cillian Murphy, is no egoist out to save the world. He may have ego, he may indeed wish to aid the war effort, particularly as his fellow Jews are being massacred in Europe. But primarily he's a physicist, contemplating possibilities and the nature of reality at a level more fundamental than had ever been contemplated before.

His relationships with women are an important part of the film, more important than many reviews seem to suggest, some of them going so far as to say Nolan doesn't know how to portray women. His films are generally about men and so is Oppenheimer but the prominent places two women play in the central character's life reflect and illustrate his relationship with his work.

After having heard Florence Pugh's nude scenes called gratuitous and pointless, I was surprised to find they were in fact deeply meaningful. I really am disturbed by how increasingly deranged the perspective on women's sexuality has become among media commentators in the Anglosphere. I still remember five minutes ago when "free the nipple" promoted the idea of desexualising women's breasts by showing them as casually as men's. But one scene in which Cillian Murphy and Florence Pugh are both nude while having an intellectual conversation is called gratuitous. Aren't people contradictory creatures?

In the film's actual conversations about physics, Oppenheimer continually comes back to ideas of contradiction and paradox, of the categorically impossible nonetheless proving to be true. Pugh's character, Jean, is contradictory and unclear about what she wants from her relationship with Oppenheimer. She wants to break up with him but then he naturally asks why she keeps calling him if that's the case. She tells him to stop answering the phone. Oppenheimer's behaviour with Jean adds depth to his behaviour associated with his work. I suppose now that we live in a climate where the "No means no" message is particularly strident, it's particularly offensive to many that a woman would be portrayed whose inclinations are so at odds with her conceptions. Of course, I live in Japan where very often even yes means no.

What about Japan? As you can imagine, if you're one of the few in America who bothered to think about Japan amid the Barbenheimer phenomenon, people in Japan were generally displeased by the memes pairing a grinning Barbie with images of mushroom clouds. Despite no counterargument voiced among proponents of Barbenheimer, it didn't much seem to slow the phenomenon. It seemed people just decided not to think about Japan.

To be fair, I don't think Japanese media has done itself any favours with its own treatment of the atomic bomb in recent years. This year's Godzilla: Minus One basically turned the bomb into a toy for a silly soap opera. But using a grave issue for cheap thrills can come off differently when it comes from another country, particularly if that other country was the home of the perpetrator. I'm not surprised that Christopher Nolan has not indulged in any of the Barbenheimer commentary. Anyone who watches the movie will see he takes the issue much too seriously, as he damned well should.

We see Oppenheimer tormented by the devastation his bombs caused. In one scene with President Truman (Gary Oldman), he says he feels he has blood on his hands. To which Truman replies that it has nothing to do with Oppenheimer, it's Truman himself who bears the responsibility of actually giving the order. I thought perhaps Truman was attempting to lighten the burden on Oppenheimer's soul but then we overhear Truman referring to Oppenheimer as a "crybaby". I don't know if this is historically accurate but something I wish the movie had done more of was to show some of the wartime propaganda, some of the collective fervour deliberately stoked among the populace for attaining victory. In our neurotic times, it's hard to imagine psychological manipulation on that scale being so easy (though it absolutely occurs to-day). One could argue it has no place in a film focused on one man, but it plays a part in his psychological state, particularly in the scene where he's giving a victory speech to the assembled populace of Los Alamos.

Ultimately, if Japan still culturally exists in twenty or thirty years in any form like it does to-day, I don't think Oppenheimer will be seen as controversial. It's by no means a celebration of the bomb nor the U.S.'s victory in World War II, though considering how morally simplistic Japanese films have become on the topic, it's not surprising people in Japan would expect an American film to be just as simplistically nationalistic. The film is another entry in this new era of World War II mythology but it's a particularly complex one in which the depths of one man's soul take on aspects of the collective imagination: the tormented, compulsive introspection that has cropped up in American art and literature in the decades since the second World War.

I wondered if Nolan took any inspiration from Twin Peaks season three and the memorable eighth episode portraying the atomic bomb test in New Mexico. Visually, I'd say he did, with many of the abstract images of clouds and flashing lights. Musically, too, Ludwig Goransson's score often resembles the "Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima" David Lynch used for the Twin Peaks episode. I feel both works feature references to the fruit of knowledge in the Garden of Eden, Oppenheimer even featuring an apple significantly in an early scene. It's Oppenheimer himself who chooses whether or not to give the apple, and death, to Niels Bohr. Already, Oppenheimer is playing God. And, already, the consequences of his godlike acts are more than can be borne by one man, even one so brilliant as Oppenheimer.

More Spiders

Had enough of multiverses? Too bad, because there's still 2023's Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse for me to talk about. It's not a bad movie, though not quite as good as its predecessor, Into the Spider-Verse.

My favourite stuff was in the first third or so of the movie when it focused on Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld) (from whose point of view the movie mostly is), Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), their relationship, and their awkward teenage lives.

As for the bulk of the plot, though, I was surprised by just how much this movie resembled other multiverse stories. Like the recent Flash movie, it has the City on the Edge of Forever premise about the bad things that need to happen to preserve a better future. Like Loki in the recent season two of Loki, Miles finds himself periodically physically overcome by a jittery time anomaly. Like the Time Variance Authority, a society of interdimensional Spider-People police the multiverse (they even have a version of Miss Minutes). Their civilisation is also reminiscent of the civilisation of Ricks on Rick and Morty, the show that seems to be largely at fault for the multiverse trend.

At an hour and twenty minutes, Across the Spider-Verse is a long movie and the runtime really doesn't feel justified. There are a lot of repetitive scenes about Miles and Gwen agonising over their secret identities, and Miles getting into trouble because he's unreliable and always late, the same kind of stuff Tobey Maguire was doing twenty years ago.

The animation style has a lot of distracting noise but not so distracting that I didn't notice the characters seemed to have oddly limited expressiveness this time. Maybe I've just been watching too much hand-drawn animation lately.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is available on Netflix in the US.

X Sonnet #1802

With oven eyes, invasive squirrels'll cook.
A mischief sold as moral right was taped.
Where critters change their vests, they'll steal a look.
On darker deeds, a clumsy joke is draped.
Alone, the cleaning man discovers song.
A quiet day would still console the lass.
Persistent chills recall a brittle wrong.
A frozen pipe was broke as banshees pass.
Offensive clouds condemn the very air.
Above, about, corruption rolls the mould.
Pervasive gunk betrays the coward's stare.
Acidic sap encased the captive's hold.
To make an even ground, the lives were cut.
But mem'ries yet torment the seer's gut.

Days Drift through Pain and Light

A quiet old man lives through a spartan existence, cleaning toilets and listening to classic rock, in Wim Wenders' 2023 film Perfect Days. At times tranquil but also terribly devastating, this is a strange film. What started as a promotion for a project in Tokyo in which 17 toilets were redesigned became something much different and greater in Wenders' hands.

Koji Yakusho stars as Hirayama, the quiet old man. He doesn't speak at all for the first ten minutes or so of the movie and then says very little throughout the rest of the film. I thought perhaps this was a way for Wenders to identify with the Japanese man despite being unable to speak much Japanese. As the film progresses, it seems clear that Hirayama reserves his voice for particular people and situations; he maintains separate worlds in his life. Why?

He takes spiritual pleasure in gazing at trees or shadows speckling the concrete. He listens to classic rock cassette tapes--Van Morrison, Patti Smith, and, of course, Lou Reed, whose "Perfect Day" does play a significant role in the film. Wenders makes it clear how important the songs are by continually matching up lyrics with imagery. When "Brown Eyed Girl" mentions "when the rains came", Hirayama is driving through a rainstorm. When the song mentions sun, we see the sun suddenly shine between the skyscrapers at Hirayama's car.

All the songs should've had Japanese subtitles. I think Wenders overestimated the English abilities of his Japanese audience. I've heard "I'm Sticking with You" by The Velvet Underground at the mall. There's no scandal because no-one understands the lyrics about the guy hanging from a tree or the bit about fighting the Viet Cong. A few weeks ago, I showed Sinead O'Connor's "Nothing Compares 2 U" to some of the higher level English students. I had to explain the title but 90% of that song is English they'd been studying for years. It's very simple English, "I go out every night and sleep all day," etc. But they couldn't recognise it until I played the song for them line by line.

One day, Hirayama finds himself driving his co-worker (Tokio Emoto) and his co-worker's girlfriend, Aya, (Aoi Yamada) around. Aya is fascinated by the cover of Patti Smith's Horses and asks to listen to it. The music starts from "Redondo Beach" and Aya finds herself enthralled by the lyrics.

I thought, here's a typical old man's fantasy--meeting a beautiful young woman who's surprised to find she prefers the old man's taste to the antics of her inadequate young boyfriend. As the movie continues, though, Hirayama encounters different young women and we start to get a sense of his loneliness and inability to connect with the women who attract him.

Koji Yakusho is best known in the west for Shall We Dance, a comedy from over twenty years ago about a married man who spots a beautiful dance instructor and enrolls in her classes to get closer to her. Over the course of the film, he realises it's not the girl he needs, just a new perspective and a new hobby. Perfect Days is kind of an anti-Shall We Dance. Hirayama has tried to deal with his loneliness by adopting a zenlike perspective, partaking of simple pleasures and leading a humble life. Is that really enough? Wenders' love for Ozu is clear in this film, which feels much more like a Japanese film from 70 years ago than one from to-day. It has mono no aware, the Japanese aesthetic concept that revolves around acknowledgement of life's beauty but also inevitable inadequacy. In this context, Lou Reed's "Perfect Day" is a brilliant choice, a song that seems jubilant from one angle but shifts to an overwhelming despair from another angle. In the final shot of the film, Wenders uses a Nina Simone song with a similar impact and Yakusho delivers an incredible performance.

Perfect Days is now in theatres in Germany and Japan.

Goblin Season

Merry Christmas again, and this year you can tell by the Doctor Who special. I always liked the tradition of a Doctor Who special for Christmas, I'm glad Russell T Davies brought it back, and to-day's was a particularly good one, despite the fact that I think the director was a weak link.

Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson are both good and, despite him being an openly gay Doctor, the episode ended with unmistakably romantic vibes between the two. Which is slightly puzzling but, whatever, it has the subtle excitement to it that distinguished the relationships in Davies' first run.

I was sold on Millie Gibson in the scene when she's on the phone with the woman informing her that her birth parents couldn't be located. I've always found that particular stock plot, of the character searching in vain for their birth parents, kind of lame. I don't know, maybe there's a fanbase of orphans out there who get really invested in these stories but I sense that's probably not the case. But Ruby trying to restrain the heartbreak in her voice was pretty effective acting from Gibson.

Gatwa has charisma and I like his big broad grin, it kind of reminds me of Tom Baker. His choice to wear a kilt is great though the scene of him dancing in the club was one of many that made me wish the episode had a different director. His cross-cutting and compositions show no evidence of instinct. Mostly there are just too many damned close-ups, which is a problem that has plagued British television for a long time.

I really liked the main goblin plot. I'm sure a lot of people will be reminded of Gremlins (which I was watching yesterday!) but I suspect even more people will be reminded of Labyrinth. When the buildup started for the reveal of the Goblin King, I half expected it to be Jareth. No such luck.

But really, it was great. I loved how the ship was run on a rope system of luck and coincidence and the Doctor had to figure out how to speak the language in minutes. It was a fresh context for the usual Doctor business and it worked great.

Ruby getting temporarily erased from time was a nice It's a Wonderful Life moment as we see how her adoptive mother and grandmother led poorer lives without her. Gatwa's performance in the scene was also marvellous. Davies still hasn't made up for the bi-regeneration thing (I gather I'm far from the only one who disliked it) and I miss the usual post-regeneration disorientation. But this was a good Christmas special.

I also didn't like the tacked on ending of the Doctor saving the woman who was killed by the falling Christmas tree. If they really didn't want to kill her, they could've shown her just managing to get out of the way. It doesn't make sense that the Doctor even knew about her or what happened to her. It feels like a hasty, late rewrite, like Clara being saved at the end of "Last Christmas". I thought Davies had strong-armed himself into a position of creative freedom. Maybe not? It would be really annoying if no-one's allowed to die now on Doctor Who. Or even regenerate!

New Doctor Who episodes are available globally on Disney+. In the UK it's on the BBC iPlayer.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, everyone. This is about the time of year a lot of people listen to and/or post links to "Fairytale of New York".

Of course, it means a little more this year with the recent passing of Shane MacGowan. I decided to honour him I'd drink like him. With perhaps a touch more moderation.

I googled interviews and articles and found out his favourite whiskey was Tullamore Dew. So that's what I've been drinking. It's pretty good, a little more complex than Jameson, which is the Irish whiskey I usually drink.

There is an official Pogues whiskey, named for MacGowan's band, and it happens to be available at the mall right here in Kashihara, Japan, where I'd be surprised if two people have heard of the Pogues or Shane MacGowan. I guess I didn't buy it because I suspect MacGowan probably just signed a license agreement, took a check, then went off and bought bottles of Tullamore Dew. But who knows, maybe he actually went and scouted distillery locations and took discriminating sips from ladles before giving an okay symbol to his handpicked staff. I'm sure I'll try the whiskey at some point.

I also read an interview in which he said, when writing "Fairytale of New York", he ate peanuts and drank sherry to pretend it was Christmas. So I've been eating peanuts and drinking sherry. I love sherry but, as with all wines, it gives me some of the worst hangovers, I've basically felt like I was transmitting my life from another planet for three days. That's with just two glasses of sherry a night (three last night). I never realised how well sherry paired with peanuts, though.

Anyway, Merry Christmas, everyone.

X Sonnet #1801

"But that's the tree," she said, recalling late.
Another sign the crooked road returned.
She paused and checked her book; another date.
"It's wrong," she said, "as prying eyes'll learn."
A stolen car commenced the extra slice.
A touch of blue could chill a drowsy room.
"We need some tools," said she, "and something nice.
"A string of lights could sew a gangster's doom."
Divesting her of tinsel traps, she starts.
A dozen twink'ling eyes beheld her path.
"You see the plan," she traced her scribbled charts.
"We wake with love then sleep with spirit wrath."
Her bank was built of metal orbs and canes.
"The blizzard comes," she says, "and evening wanes."

Good Will Towards Cats, Bats, and Penguins

Now appearing on many ironic Christmas movie lists is Batman Returns, and that's what I watched last night. Honestly, though, the best ironic Christmas films don't feel exactly ironic. Batman Returns and Eyes Wide Shut seem more like atypically mature appreciations of the holiday. Brazil, okay, that one's ironic.

Batman Returns actually touches on some honestly Christmas themes; how do people get along with each other, how do you practice generosity in a world of heartless competition?

Both Catwoman and Penguin are genuinely sympathetic villains, out for revenge. Batman is also famously out for revenge against the criminal element but, as we see in this film, he's governed more by a sense of justice. It's important to acknowledge the reality of the pain that compels people to take vengeance before you talk to them about the wisdom of refraining from perpetuating it.

The dialogue in this movie is so fun. I love the key lines about mistletoe between Bruce and Selena. And Penguin is so wonderfully vicious. I love when he finally turns the Elephant Man line; "I am not a human being! I am an animal!"

Batman Returns is available on Max.

Dancing for the Dancer

A taciturn professional killer seeks to avenge her best friend's suicide in 2023's Ballerina. No, this isn't a movie about a killer who trained as a ballerina--that's next year's John Wick spin-off movie. But 2023's Ballerina shows plenty of John Wick influence, along with healthy doses of Nicolas Winding Refn, Quentin Tarantino, and Atomic Blonde. It never rises to the quality of any of its influences but it's not a bad film. Certainly the cinematography is lovely.

Ok-ju (Jeon Jong-seo) is a preternaturally skilled bodyguard and occasional vigilante who finds herself feeling a bit blue on her birthday. She goes to buy herself a cake and the girl working the counter, Min-hee (Park Yu-rim), turns out to be an old classmate.

Min-hee's bubbly, affectionate personality causes Ok-ju's cold exterior to thaw a bit. So you can imagine Ok-ju is later upset to find Min-hee in a bathtub with slit wrists and a note, left in a box with Min-hee's ballet slippers (Min-hee is the eponymous ballerina), asking Ok-ju to exact bloody revenge on her behalf. So Ok-ju sets out on the grim journey through neon-lit backrooms and shiny nighttime streets.

Eventually she tracks down the gangster and murderous BDSM fetishist, Choi Pro (Kim Ji-hoon). It turns out Choi Pro had been extorting young women with footage he'd secretly taken of them having kinky sex with him.

Fight scenes happen. Despite a plot revolving around sexual exploitation, the movie has no nudity or explicit sex, so I guess it's safe to watch for the kiddies who just like ultraviolence.

The fight scenes aren't especially well choreographed and rely heavily on editing and rapid cuts through closeup shots. The odds are artificially stacked in Ok-ju's favour several times, like in one absurd scene where she has a whole room full of gangsters at her mercy because . . . she points a gun at them! Still, the cinematography, even if it is a shameless Nicolas Windig Refn imitation, is always pretty, as are the actresses. Bombay Sapphire obviously provided some funding, but the famous blue bottles are well incorporated into shot compositions.

Ok-ju's passion for the famous brand of gin reminded me of Charlize Theron's love for vodka in Atomic Blonde. As with that movie's vodka, Ballerina left me with a yen for that certain liquor. Fortunately, I happen to have a bottle of Bombay Sapphire . . .

Ballerina is available on Netflix.

Whose Spine is It Anyway?

A young man is stuck in the hospital with a spinal injury. Meanwhile, his best friend is getting lost in the criminal underworld in 1950's Backfire (though the film was shot in 1948, it was shelved for two years). This is one of those peculiar, dreamlike noirs, somewhat in the vein of Detour, that may be viewed as much more surreal than it was intended to be. That's really the only way it's effective.

Bob (Gordon MacRae) is bedridden, recovering from a series of spinal surgeries. His best friend and war buddy, Steve (Edmond O'Brien), confers with the doctor who informs him Bob shouldn't be doing anything more strenuous than lifting a pencil for a long time. That puts a damper on Bob and Steve's dream to start a ranch together. However, Steve just can't bring himself to break the news to Bob. So he goes off alone, presumably to make the ranch happen without Bob's help.

One night, when Bob is heavily sedated, a mysterious woman with a European accent (Viveca Lindfors) appears and informs him Steve also has a spinal injury now and wants to die. She asks Bob if she should help Steve die or if she should insist that he live. Bob struggles to wakefulness and pleads for the latter. Afterwards, everyone tells him this was a hallucination, that there was no record of a mysterious European woman visiting the hospital.

Finally, Bob gets the okay to leave, but he's still perturbed by Steve's disappearance. It turns out, the police are looking for Steve too; he's wanted for murder. Bob won't believe it for a second so he and his girlfriend, Julie (Virginia Mayo), conduct their own investigation which mostly involves interviews.

And these interviews mostly involve extensive flashbacks. In fact, an extraordinary amount of the film consists of flashbacks of Steve, which is one of the chief complaints about the film from critics and even from the film's own director, who only took the job reluctantly. However, the flashbacks are so strangely pervasive, it adds to the dreamlike quality of the film. The linking of Bob and Steve--both have the same goal (a ranch), both suffer spinal injuries--suggests the men may be two sides of one personality, or two personalities in one mind. Is Steve the repository for all of the guilty deeds Bob's unwilling to own up to?

Backfire is available on The Criterion Channel as part of their Holiday Noir collection (there are some scenes set during Christmas).

Time is Here Again

My Christmas tree this year. To-day's feeling fairly Christmasy, too; it's been snowing for the past couple hours. Proper cold came late this year. I said it'd come a few weeks ago but that one day turned out to be a fluke. It's only this week I've been wearing my heavy Inverness coat and long underwear.

Yesterday was my last day at my current school and it was also the day the school's English club had a Christmas party. I was especially sad to say goodbye to them as most of them are second year students and will therefore be third year students, and no longer participating in club activities, if I go back next year at the same time. They read from "A Visit from Saint Nicholas" and I showed them A Charlie Brown Christmas, which one student particularly seemed to like. The same student student brought balloons and had come up with a balloon volleyball game which we played. The kids really enjoyed it and I was happy to see some of the quieter ones coming out of their shells.

On Monday, we played our last Dungeons and Dragons game, from the original Dragonlance module I started them on last year. They voyaged to the heart of Xak Tsaroth, which I copied onto large sheets of graph paper, and faced the black dragon Khisanth, for which I'd made a little origami dragon. It was a hard battle, but they prevailed.

I also gave them candy canes I'd gotten on Amazon, just like last year. I remember last year it was so cold and snowy that I slipped on the ice outside my door, breaking some of the candy canes. No broken candy canes this year, so that's something.

X Sonnet #1800

Deceptive colours slice the temple lime.
With thoughts of horses, sleep at night descends.
A distant word reduces thought to time.
On shaky ropes, the fate of tongues depends.
A frigid castle broke the ice for kings.
No naming code could talk to me of words.
The eyes denied the worth of golden rings.
Dissolving shops amassed a dozen herds.
Balloons rebound from busy fingertips.
A table net preserves the space of play.
A fearful sky is full of watchful ships.
Conceptions ever dampen down the day.
Beyond the grasp of tortured brains it shines.
Escape was hid on garbage destined rinds.

Working It Out

Last night I watched "The Equation", another episode from the first season of Fringe. It's another episode that feels distinctly X-Files-ish, with a plot about geniuses being abducted to solve a mysterious equation.

The main appeal of the show continues to be Walter Bishop, the heroic mad scientist, who in this episode returns to the dreaded mental institution to interview an inmate. He doesn't want to go back but he can't in good conscience avoid an opportunity to find a clue that might lead to finding a kidnapped child. John Noble, who I knew primarily as Denethor from Peter Jackson's film of Return of the King, gives a performance that's an intriguing mix of deadpan and vulnerable. He's good for a joke here and there but you also worry for him.

The kidnapped child is a musical genius whose composition turns out to be the important equation, transposed to musical notes. There are lots of fan covers of the song on YouTube, which is by Michael Giacchino.

Fringe is available on Max.

Let's Look at One Way Plastic has Changed the World

2023's Barbie has a notoriously pink palette but, spiritually, I'd say it's more of a taupe. It's a bland, neutral colour, lacking any true inventiveness. I was honestly surprised by how lifeless it is.

I think the main problem is there are too many layers of concept. I found myself comparing it to Who Framed Roger Rabbit. One reason Roger Rabbit worked is because it started with a fairly simple prompt; zany cartoon world meets film noir world. In Barbie, there's the magical Barbie World, which is apparently based on real world girls playing with Barbies (despite the film's ostensibly progressive politcs, no boys are portrayed playing with Barbies), and then there's wacky comedy world with doofusy Will Farrell as CEO of Mattel.

He's so dumb, he doesn't know how to work a turnstyle, but the movie is also presenting itself as a commentary on real world patriarchy. People have pointed out that, despite what the film shows, Mattel actually does have women on its board of directors. I suppose Mattel, which produced the film, wouldn't have liked a too accurate portrayal of themselves. But the real world is otherwise portrayed as unrealistic, with the denizens of Venice Beach catcalling Barbie and Ken like people from a 1980s SNL sketch.

A lot of the gags feel like well-trodden territory as Barbie and Ken have been satirised so many times by so many people at this point. The main feature seems to be that it's material is restrained by the currently popular morality. Margot Robbie, despite being perfect casting as the original Barbie, is referred to as "Stereotypical Barbie". I suppose "Typical Barbie", while more accurate, seemed too positive, but it's not like Mattel is labelling their toys "Stereotypical". There's a basic false logic at play in the mechanics of this, and many other, jokes that ensure they'll only be funny to people who are mentally living in a particular reality.

Even in terms of design and choreography, there's nothing much that pops about the film. Costumes resemble real Barbie clothes but not in any strikingly creative way. I suspect the film might have worked better with Barbie World portrayed in stop motion or even cgi.

The film concludes with the idea that a new, realistically ordinary Barbie, with depression and cellulite, would sell better than any current model. Someone needs to show Greta Gerwig Sullivan's Travels.

Barbie is available on Max.