I continue to be amazed how quickly quality improved on The X-Files in its first season. I recently watched "Beyond the Sea" from January 7, 1994 which featured a couple notable guest appearances. It was Don Davis' first appearance as Scully's father and he's essentially reprising the Major Briggs role he played on Twin Peaks. How bitter Mark Frost must have been that he couldn't use Davis in Twin Peaks: The Return, that X-Files got all his good years.
I almost typed "Mark Snow" who's the composer for The X-Files. Frost is the Twin Peaks co-creator and Snow is the X-Files composer. Frost and Snow. They're just names, they don't mean there's a big conspiracy. Right?
"Beyond the Sea" features another David Lynch alum, Brad Dourif, who gives a showstopping performance as a medium on death row who gets to Scully. Dourif is a fascinating actor with a lot of great roles under his belt but it seems like he chose this episode of The X-Files to really go all out.
I like his subtle choice to switch accents.
Dourif retired from acting last year except he says he'll continue to provide the voice of Chucky from the Child's Play horror franchise.
The X-Files is available on Disney+
X Sonnet 1953
Contentious stuff contents the content mad.
Abrasive braces break the humble back.
Corruption courts in August's clearance ad.
Remain remorseless rats: effect attack.
No tameless tapered terror pierced the trees.
A needless needle never notched the bed.
The offered gift concealed a bag of fees.
Commercials come to ape the evil dead.
Recessive records reckon vinyl wounds.
A sonic sortie slams the tender drum.
Bombastic bastards lay the founder's boons.
A multitude of muscles scan the sum.
Rehearsing hassles harry out the lie.
Amorphous marbles melt the monster's eye.
Someone ought to come up with a name for the genre in which a young gay protagonist has to deal with various dramas in their extended Chinese-American family because there seems to be an awful lot of these. Last night I watched 2004's Saving Face which, like The Wedding Banquet before it and Everything Everywhere All at Once after it, features a young Chinese homosexual who must deal with a conservative parent and other family members living in America during a time of crisis. So far, I would say Saving Face is the most generic of the genre but it's not exactly bad.
Michelle Krusiec plays Wilhelmina Pang, a surgeon and a lesbian whose mother, Hwei-Lan, played by Joan Chen, comes to live with her. Around the same time, Wilhelmina falls for a beautiful ballerina named Vivian (Lynn Chen, no relation to Joan).
I fear this is one of those movies so caught up in proving gay people and Chinese-Americans are normal that it forgets to make them interesting. The romance between Wilhelmina and Vivian is particularly disappointing. The actresses have decent chemistry but they're written like a daytime sitcom in which Wilhelmina is the clumsy normal guy and Vivian is the self-assured, obvious epitome of all desirous feminine qualities and she calmly knows it. So her mild smirk at Wilhelmina across the room isn't meant to be creepy but an unexpected ray of light from heaven.
The movie labours under the assumption that we all want Wilhelmina and Vivian to live happily ever after but Vivian's kind of a terrible girlfriend. Wilhelmina is a surgeon and although she promises Vivian she will come to her birthday party she ends up having to do multiple emergency surgeries and comes to Vivian's apartment only after it's all over. Despite the fact that Wilhelmina had managed to send Vivian an expensive bouquet of red roses, Vivian is still sulky and hints that she may never want to see Wilhelmina again. At which point, I would have advised Wilhelmina to seek other fish in the sea. But Wilhelmina gratefully accepts when Vivian reluctantly invites her in.
Director Alice Wu doesn't seem aware of the co-dependent relationship she portrays between the two in which Vivian can do no wrong and every problem is due to Wilhelmina's clumsiness and inadequacies.
Meanwhile, Wilhelmina's mother is pregnant. Gossip quickly spreads around the Chinese community in New York and the elder woman in mortified but stalwart. Joan Chen doesn't show any reluctance playing a nagging matriarch after years of playing enigmatic young beauties. At least she's not trapped in a drawer pull.
Saving Face is available on The Criterion Channel until the end of the month.
1998's Wild Things is on two Criterion playlists this month and then it'll be leaving the streamer at the end of the month. These factors felt like mild pressure to watch the film. I couldn't quite remember if I'd seen it or not. I knew Matt Dillon and Denise Richards were in it. I had a vague memory of Bill Murray being in the film and I thought, "If Bill Murray's in the film, I've seen it. If he's not, then I'm thinking of another movie." I looked at the cast list and didn't see Bill Murray so I started watching the movie. Then, at the end of the cast credits was "and Bill Murray." He sneaked in. I had seen it, probably all the way back in the VHS rental days. So at least this was probably my first time seeing it in widescreen.
Few movies are so twisted, by which I mean, it has a lot of plot twists. Characters who are set up as having one kind of personality and set of motives are revealed to have a different, more sinister set of motives and completely different personalities. It all boils down to a pretty cynical idea; you can't trust your impressions of anyone, everyone is ready to rob, cheat, and kill.
It has a reputation as an erotic thriller but there's only a couple sex scenes and a few shots of nudity. I think the label comes from the fact that Neve Campbell and Denise Richards kiss twice and Kevin Bacon has a very brief full frontal nudity scene. But mostly this is a movie in which people scheme and conspire and nurse grudges. Murray plays a cocksure lawyer and he's pretty amusing. The film's clever and decadent but not really insightful or fulfilling. The film manipulates you into thinking one way about the characters before revealing something different and, fair enough, manipulative people exist in real life who manufacture virtuous facades. But it is possible to see through them in life. A better movie than Wild Things might have given the viewer some indications of the characters' true natures. It all feels a bit arbitrary as it is. As Roger Ebert quipped in his review, the film is still explaining itself in the closing credits which are interspersed with new scenes to make it seem more natural that certain characters turned out to be scoundrels. One character is shown to be sailor in order to explain how she new how to pilot a yacht in a crucial scene though, if you come to think about it, it makes very little sense for this particular character to be an avid sailor.
Wild Things is available on The Criterion Channel.
Several years ago, before I moved to Japan, I was in the mood to watch 1952's Singin' in the Rain. So I put in my DVD and started watching, getting about a third of the way through before my DVD crapped out on me. I'd been enjoying it so much for its tight, lively pace that I decided I shouldn't watch the movie again until I could confidently watch through the whole thing without interruption. A couple years ago, here in Japan, I found a blu-ray copy of the movie with Japanese subtitles. I figured I could use the signature song to teach present continuous verbs, which I eventually ended up doing. Not only does he say, "I'm singing in the rain," he actually sings in the rain while saying it, making it a good demonstration of the grammar.
I didn't watch the movie right away after I bought the blu-ray, I saved it for a night I could give it my undivided attention. At last, I settled down, turned the lights off, put it in my blu-ray player, and started watching. Once again, I was really invested in the pacing and enjoying myself and once again it crapped out about a third of the way through. Somehow, this blu-ray I bought in Japan stopped working at almost the same point as the DVD I bought in America, around the "Moses Supposes" song. Fortunately, the problem turned out to be the blu-ray player and not the blu-ray so I waited a few years again and last night I finally got my uninterrupted viewing of Singin' in the Rain.
What a well paced film.
It's directed by Stanley Donan and Gene Kelly but, while I enjoy many of their subsequent works, none of them have the graceful flow of Singin' in the Rain. It's not ashamed of being quick and smart. The visual gag at the beginning at the red carpet movie premiere of beautiful actresses accompanied by dour old millionaires goes by lightning fast, the movie unconcerned with whether or not the viewer gets the joke. And truly, it doesn't break the movie if you don't, so different viewers can have different valuable experiences with the film.
Every scene flows seamlessly into the next, there's scarcely any sense of time passing, a quality exemplified by the "Good Morning" sequence which depicts the characters themselves getting so caught up in the flow that they don't notice a whole night has passed.
Yet the whole sequence is practically a non-sequitur. There's a sweet spot a good musical has to hit with its numbers, somewhere between pertinent and totally irrelevant. The song has to communicate something that couldn't be communicated with dialogue. In this case, it develops the chemistry between the three leads and their comfort working together, revelling in what a marvellous thing good fellowship is. There's no way to communicate that in quite the same way as the song, and it's key that it's not directly related to the film's plot. It fleshes out the world just a bit.
The cast is crucial, too. A fast pace calls for fast performers and all three were quick and clear as crystal. Donald O'Connor attacks the screen with comedy blitz.
Singin' in the Rain remains the epitome of musical brilliance.
I was just a few days ago wondering where all the really interesting anime is. The early 2000s had such a bounty of experimental series and movies, including Shinbo Akiyuki's work at Shaft and multiple series from legendary anime studio Gainax. Then, looking on Amazon Prime, I was surprised to see one of the last good Gainax series, Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt, had returned with two brand new episodes already streaming on Prime. Both episodes are good and seamlessly continue in the humour and style of the series that concluded fifteen years ago. God, has it been that long?
Panty and Stocking was a Gainax series but Gainax filed for bankruptcy last year, long after most of the talent that had built the studio's reputation had departed. Many went to Anno Hideaki's new Studio Khara, which produced the new Evangelion movies. The director of Panty and Stocking, Imaishi Hiroyuki, formed a new studio called Trigger which saw almost immediate success with Kill la Kill. Trigger acquired the rights to Panty and Stocking so once again Imaishi's back at the helm, explaining the consistency in tone and style.
Since Top wo Nerae in the '80s, much of the more interesting works from Gainax, including Evangelion, have at least in part been commentaries on and analyses of sexuality in Japan, particularly of common sexual neuroses. From Evangelion, which routinely included direct promises of "fan service", works from the Gainax crew sought to present sexuality as something that isn't shameful to indulge in. One of the most striking aspects that can be seen in Evangelion, FLCL, Gurren Lagann, and Panty and Stocking among others is the portrayal of female libido. Anime almost universally portrays shy virgins and maternal figures as the only positive roles for girls and women. Panty and Stocking, meanwhile, is a gross-out comedy centred on two nymphomaniac angels.
The first of the two new episodes finds the supporting characters of Garterbelt and Brief trying to reassemble Panty, who was cut up into cubes by Stocking, who was possessed by a demon in the cliffhanger fifteen years ago. Once they put Panty back together, they find her personality has changed into the typical blushing virgin of the average anime. It's only after they turn her into a giant and see up her dress that they realise that one crucial cube is missing: her vagina. All of this business seems to be built around the often senseless policies of Japanese censorship, which normally prohibits the portrayal of genitalia. Panty's crucial cube is just a pink brick with one vertical line. The implicit joke comes from wondering at what point this thing ought to be censored.
As with the original series, Panty and Stocking has an art style and fast paced gross-out humour fans of Invader Zim will be familiar with (Invader Zim creator Jhonen Vasquez even commented on it). Shows with that kind of pacing and humour, such as Hazbin Hotel and The Amazing Digital Circus, have been gaining popularity in Japan. Maybe Panty and Stocking will find a new audience.
Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt is available on Amazon Prime.
For those wondering if the kind of rightwing populism that produced President Trump in the US is alive in Japan, election results for Japan's upper house on Sunday show that it is, in the form of the Sanseito party. The party's leader, Kamiya Sohei, claims to have been inspired by Trump and Kamiya's anti-immigrant, anti-globalist rhetoric bears this out.
Like Trump, though, he seems in some ways to be what he's campaigning against: a child of wealth and privilege. In Japan, it's generally seen as a bad sign for someone to be employed in a variety of different fields throughout their lives. Kamiya majored in math and science in high school, got a humanities degree in college, and then taught English in high school before taking a job as a supermarket manager in one of the stores owned by his parents. That looks like an unambiguously downward path for a rich kid. Few supermarket managers could've done what he did next, which was to then spend four years in law school, obtaining a Juris Doctor degree. Despite his experience as an English teacher, he apparently cannot speak English, judging from interviews with foreign press I've seen with him.
Ironically, given that the loss of seats for Prime Minister Ishiba's Liberal Democrat Party were likely due in part to criticism over his handling of tariff negotiations with Trump, the rise of nationalist far right parties in Japan would likely push Trump into taking an even harder line on tariffs, or make him feel more confident in what he plans to do regardless, considering how he attempted to use rice imports as a wedge issue. If he can portray Japan's national pride over its signature crop as an affront to the spirit of fair trade, he can certainly cite caps on foreign residents as another justification for tariffs, among other policies of Kamiya's party.
But maybe Trump will be deposed before the August 1st tariff deadline. I mean, I doubt it, but he certainly seems to be in hot water over the Epstein thing. This is the thing that has finally nudged so many MAGA supporters into noticing what Trump has so obviously been all along: a tacky, greedy landlord who only looks out for himself.
In America, in Japan, throughout the world, I do feel this plague of ignorant populism is caused by a long, inexorable devaluation of art. Yes, you may as well blame a decline in critical thinking but where do we hone our skills in critical thinking if not in contemplating works of art, either visual, auditory, or printed? You can analyse the news cycle which won't produce much variety from day to day or you can be exposed to the length and breadth of human experience you find in a literature course. I listened to an interview yesterday about the death of English literature in which one of the interviewers actually said he didn't see the justification in offering something as an academic field that should rightly be called entertainment. While students of literature may find the matter entertaining or otherwise pleasurable at times, generally speaking, the student does not choose the texts, which means a literature course exposes students to, and compels them to contemplate, perspectives they might never otherwise have sought for pure entertainment value. These perspectives may not only come from perspectives different to their own but, crucially, from authors of greater experience and insight whose works might instruct the student in ways of using their own critical faculties.
As for entertainment value--let's not sell it short. There may be people who go through their lives feeding at the trough of reality TV or shallow blockbusters never knowing that art can touch them on a more personal level, can produce a transcendent experience that makes their pitiless workweek more bearable. Isn't it incumbent on us to pass on the knowledge of how the next generations can enrich their short lives?
A hard-boiled man about town meets a sultry beauty in a white dress at a bar. No, it's not Body Heat, it's 1994's China Moon starring Ed Harris, Madeleine Stowe, and Benicio Del Toro. It's an engaging enough exercise in the genre until the final act just kind of fizzles out.
Harris and Del Toro play cops, Kyle and Lamar, respectively. Kyle's the elder of the two and is showing the ropes to young Lamar. After Kyle has his fateful meeting with Rachel (Stowe), the sultry dame, he and Lamar find themselves at her home after responding to her emergency calls. It turns out her husband, played by Charles Dance with a ridiculous American accent, physically abuses her. One thing leads to another, and Kyle and Madeleine start talking about murder, just like the leads in Body Heat and Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice and Osessione . . .
China Moon comes up with it's own twist which, without giving it away, amounts to saying maybe things aren't as exciting as you think. Madeleine Stowe and Ed Harris, in any case, may have been miscast or misdirected. They're both solid, all the time. There's not enough heat and anxiety. They generally seem very calm, particularly Harris. Which is kind of interesting. I guess he was playing a guy too experienced to break easily under questioning but there needed to be something ramping up tension in his scenes.
The cinematography is certainly no help. The movie has a lot of outdoor night scenes and no matter where the characters are, whether in a quarry, the middle of a lake, or the woods, everything is lit by floodlights. At the end of the movie, I finally felt like the screenplay was just starting to get to a point and then the movie ended. So I guess that's it then.
I finished listening to the unabridged audiobook of Lord of the Rings yesterday, which I'd been listening to on my iPod when I walked to and from work. It's the 1990 recording in which British actor Rob Inglis reads the text. He took some warming up to but mostly I think he's terrific. He sounds near enough to JRR Tolkien himself that, when I started listening before I knew who it was, I wondered if he was Christopher Tolkien.
Inglis does a surprisingly good job coming up with melodies for some of Tolkien's songs, too.
He's also good at coming up with different voices to distinguish among characters. His voices for the orcs were so much like those in the Peter Jackson movies I wondered if he was an influence.
I don't have any new insight into Lord of the Rings I want to share except to say it is a perfect book to listen to on long, compulsory journeys on foot.
Here's a poem of my own:
X Sonnet 1952
Horizon dots resolve to penguin ranks.
How strange to be bereft in snowy parts.
The ducks could muster guns and icy tanks.
But souls of land must hide their thoughtful hearts.
Away, advised the Beatle, love must hide.
Amidst the freezing space, remain detached.
For every sign and post behind you lied.
And no bernard with brandy's yet dispatched.
And yet a hope arises swift from Thor.
For lightning gods would not abandon clouds.
So waiting eyes would watch the busy shore.
And pierce the falsely lost and milling crowd.
So hold the line and sharpen shining spear.
An angel now is holding Satan's beer.
The series momentum seems to slow and almost stop completely in season four of Ally McBeal. The Robert Downey Jr. character has so little going on that it makes the whole show feel inert. It makes me notice some problems that really had been cropping up even early.
I read a criticism that Ally herself isn't shown to be a competent lawyer. I didn't understand that criticism in the first couple seasons but I see it now. Since some time in the middle of the third season it's rare to see any character other than John, Mark, and now Larry (Robert Downey Jr.'s character) actually try a case. Not just Ally but all the female characters are always in support positions.
I have slightly more complicated feelings about the show's increased focus on LGBTQ characters and issues. It's a bit off-putting when Ally rejects a guy entirely because he's bisexual but she does acknowledge it is her own irrational bias. It's work remembering this show was made twenty-five years ago. Of course I've seen people call for certain episodes to be removed from Disney+ but I'd say these are useful reminders of just how much society has changed in the last twenty-five years. Progressives have a tendency to pretend the right sort of people never at any point in history ever had the wrong sort of opinion. It's ironic for those called "progressive" not to what to mark progress or make an effort to understand it through observation.
Season four has a trans character named Cindy, a trans woman played by cisgender actress Lisa Edelstein. I can see arguments for both sides of the issue of whether cis actors should play trans characters. It may help the viewer see the trans character in a way that agrees with that character's self-perception. But I tend to feel any useful narrative on the trans experience would include the anxiety the trans person may feel at being able to "pass".
There is something ironic about "trans-visibility" in that many trans people for a long time wished not to be seen as trans but as simply men and women. The trans people who tend to show up in supporting roles on Disney and Netflix shows now seem like they might be more accurately called "gender fluid" and many do self-describe that way.
Mark, like Larry, often seem like a pointless character. I really had no idea why he was introduced except maybe to fill Billy's role in scripts that had already been written. His relationship with Cindy is the first time he seemed to serve any particular function.
The best part of the episode I watched last night, "Love on Holiday" from December 4, 2000 is the subplot about Nelle who auctions herself off for a date. The winner ends up being a guy about to be sentenced for life in prison for euthanasia. This was a nice meeting of an intellectual moral quandary with a short tragic romance plot.
Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter have to stop a serial killer imitating other, famous killers in 1995's Copycat. This isn't one for plumbing the psychological depths of criminality or law enforcement but it is a fun procedural.
Weaver plays Helen Hudsen, a criminal psychologist who's attacked by a killer after she gives a lecture on killers. She survives but is afflicted by agoraphobia and chronic panic attacks.
Holly Hunter plays MJ who, along with her partner played by Dermot Mulroney, is on the trail of the copycat killer. After Helen makes an anonymous phone call to give the police some clues, they track her down and enlist her reluctant aid.
Of course, her being agoraphobic means that somehow the killer manages to infiltrate her expensive apartment multiple times. This is one of those killers who seems to be just a little bit supernatural. It seemed the filmmakers had to keep up an even pace of Helen being terrorised. The guy manages to hack into her computer for some of the most astonishingly dated computer suspense drama I've ever seen. After the killer sends Helen an evil AVI file, Mulroney asks her if there's any way they can watch the video again. Helen says, yes, she put it "on tape". But then the killer somehow erased her tape! Maybe she ought to've locked it in the safe.
There are some other problems with details. When the killer imitates the Hillside Stranglers by dumping a woman's body containing semen from two perpetrators, the cops never even discuss the possibility of the killer having an accomplice or even wonder at all whom the other semen might have come from.
Weaver and Hunter both give good performances, of course, and director Jon Amiel keeps up a good pace.
I barely remember these episodes of The X-Files I've been watching recently. Some I don't remember at all. I don't know why I never felt like revisiting the series before but I'm kind of glad I kept it fresh for myself. Last night I watched "Fire", an episode from December 1993. I feel like the writing rapidly improved in the first season. There's nothing really silly in this one like the naked lady episode or the evil computer episode.
This one starts out in England where a gardener with the ability to start fires with his mind kills a friendly aristocrat stereotype.
Let that be a lesson; always have a duck pond on your grounds.
The action moves to Washington D.C. and Boston but, of course, it was all shot, as usual, in Vancouver. I kind of like that, though. It's like an alternate universe where the whole world is perpetually under an overcast sky and everyone has to wear overcoats all the time. That sure sounds like paradise in the middle of another sopping humid summer.
We learn a little about Mulder's past at Oxford in which he fell for a girl who's now a Scotland Yard inspector visiting the U.S. on the trail of the arsonist. Again, I have to applaud the show for making Mulder and Scully so extraordinarily professional that Scully shows not a trace of jealousy.
She's catty about it but not in a way that suggests she feels any ownership of Mulder. It's like the gentle ribbing you'd expect from a male colleague.
Last week came the news that X-Files series composer Mark Snow died. He composed that famous whistling theme that persists in the cultural landscape. I even heard it on Japanese TV recently. It's simple and effective.
Three older men who spend the lazy summer days lounging at a lake find their lives changed when a magician shows up with a beautiful young assistant in 1968's Capricious Summer (Rozmarné léto). With its lightly ironic humour and contemplative cinematography, this is a movie perfectly suited to a drowsy summer day.
Antonin (Rudolf Hrušínský) presents himself as the owner of the "bathhouse" which really seems to be just a lake with a dilapidated shack. His two friends are the "Major" (Vlastimil Brodsky) and the "Canon" (František Řehák). They drink wine, they swim, they squabble over minor matters. Then a young man appears called Arnostek, played by the film's director, Jiří Menzel, who, with apparently real skill, walks across a pole bridging a length of water between the shore and the shack. He invites the men to a show where the real main attraction turns out to be the magician's assistant, Anna (Jana Preissova).
Antonin immediately sets to work seducing her, heedless of the watchful eyes of his wife. Hrušínský's deadpan performance is delightful. When he brings the young woman back to the shack in secret, he massages her feet, steps back, and flexes his hands. There's a jump cut, dawn breaks, and we find he is still massaging her feet and flexing his hands thoughtfully. He may not know what he plans to do next but his face retains an air of utmost authority.
Capricious Summer is available on The Criterion Channel.
I don't take the train as often as I used to since I moved to a new town earlier this year but there's a train track a few feet from my front door and trains pass all the time. I love it. I find the sound really relaxing, like waves on the beach. Maybe that's why I was in the mood for a train movie a few nights ago. I was also in the mood for a Hitchcock movie so I watched 1938's The Lady Vanishes, which I'd seen only once before and barely remembered. I think it registers for me a bit better now because I've seen Margaret Lockwood in more things. I can remember how sexy she was in The Wicked Lady even though she's dressed pretty conservatively throughout this film.
The screenplay is by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder, comedy legends, who injected a lot more effective comedy than you normally see in a Hitchcock movie (Gilliat also made a fine mystery movie in 1972 called Endless Night). They created two characters for the film, Charters and Caldicott, who became a famous double act in a series of other productions.
There are plenty of funny lines given to Michael Redgraves' character, too.
It's also a bit of a gaslight movie. When Margaret Lockwood wakes up on the train, she finds the woman she'd been with has disappeared and everyone else around her insists there had never been such a woman. Soon a doctor is there to helpfully explain what can happen to someone who suffers a blow to the head as Lockwood had, how it might produce detailed hallucinations. Frankly, the motives eventually revealed behind the deception aren't as satisfying as those in some other gaslight movies, such as So Long at the Fair. It doesn't make sense that Lockwood isn't simply killed instead of the conspirators carrying on an elaborate deception. Still, it's wonderful suspense and Lockwood has great chemistry with Redgrave.
The Lady Vanishes is available on The Criterion Channel.
A powerful alien struggles with being a nice guy in a world filled with cynical assholes in 2025's Superman, the newest cinematic take on the character. This one's from James Gunn and it's one of the best, second only to the Richard Donner film and even compared to that, Gunn's film is more tonally consistent.
Donner's 1978 film has always felt like two movies to me. The first part of the film is all grandeur and scope and then it becomes a screwball comedy. It's like a mashup of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Bringing Up Baby. The two parts always sit oddly together for me but the movie makes up for it by doing both of them really well.
Gunn's movie, from start to finish, is purebred comic pulp. Fans of superhero comics enjoy imagining the characters in awesome fight scenes but, as dynamic as American comics are, it's not truly possible to have action in a medium of still pictures. So superhero comics tend to have a whole lot of text, lots of expository text in boxes and characters explaining things to each other about themselves, their motives, and the world. Somehow, it works. It goes against all the common wisdom of fiction writing so that's why superhero movies tend to see their first job as deviating from that, creating a more cinematic experience by establishing story and character through atmosphere, compositions, sound, and, of course, action. Gunn decided instead to load his film up with dialogue, out-of-this-world characters and ideas, and off-the-rails conceptual storytelling. A lot of viewers, particular those unfamiliar with American superhero comics, may become overwhelmed and see nothing but noise. But thankfully I'm among those who can eat this stuff up.
I also love how the movie starts in the middle of a plot. Theoretically, one wants to start at the beginning of a story but with comics that's frequently impossible. Now, comics are so god damned expensive in the U.S. and the publishers themselves like to put up a lot of obstacles to getting the first issues. In the '80s, when I was a kid reading comics, they were cheaper but first issues were still hard to obtain. So one tends to enjoy the experience of jumping right in. George Lucas had a similar idea with Star Wars. The first film is Episode IV. He doesn't stop to explain all the aliens you see in the cantina. It's a world that's been operating all on its own before you walked into the theatre and started watching. This helps make it feel vital.
David Corenswet is much better at being Superman than I perceived from any of the film's promotional material. Particularly his voice. He and Gunn's screenplay absolutely nail the character. Everyone's been saying forever how misguided Zack Snyder's version was so maybe Gunn doesn't deserve all the credit for deviating from that. But he certainly deserves credit for doing it well. And also for making Lois and Superman a great couple. Rachel Brosnahan is perfect as Lois and the movie left me wanting to see more of the two of them together, which no iteration has managed so well since the Richard Donner movies.
The "Justice Gang" works really well, including Nathan Fillion's asshole Green Lantern. I loved all the cameos, particularly the one at the end, and the cgi dog. A lot of the budget must have gone to that dog alone and he still looks like cgi but it's okay because he's got personality. Gunn seems to get that the important thing is not that he look absolutely real but that he look interesting. Mission well and truly accomplished.
And, yeah, call me a softie but it was really nice seeing a story about a guy who's good not because he was told to be good or conditioned to be good but because he is good. A lot of people say that innate goodness doesn't exist. Some people think goodness has to be beaten into people. Even if that's true, and I don't think it is, it makes the idea of a truly good man all the more appealing for being extraordinary.
Superman is now in theatres.
X Sonnet 1951
We found dismissing suns was nothing much.
The world persists in barren ice and rock.
No eggs or toast were cooked or fried as such.
And sources show that bacon's out of stock.
So dawn can break without a bouncing ball.
The lyrics flow without a helpful dot.
No voices join in song to greet a fall.
But something up the hill would push the lot.
A careless wish can make a genie grin.
A thoughtless jibe can prick an errant soul.
But useful things are creatures born in sin.
So Kryptons, spreading seed should be the goal.
The beauty of Jarhanpur girls surpass,
But harems should include the homeless lass.
Being a bully can be hazardous, as one finds out to his misfortune in 2001's Bully. Directed by Larry Clark and based on a true story, it shares with Clark's earlier film, Kids an extraordinary quality of authenticity in its screenplay and performances. It's really a remarkable film about a group of very common, trashy kids who happen to commit a murder.
The story is based on the 1993 murder of twenty year old Bobby Kent, played by Nick Stahl in the film. He's shown to be a habitually abusive boy who strings his friends along with his charisma and assertiveness only to drop in a humiliating comment or demand at a well timed moment. The primary target of his abuse is Marty (Brad Renfro) whom Bobby coerces into dancing onstage at a gay strip club. As seems often to be the case with bullies, Bobby is possibly a closeted homosexual. In one scene, he rapes a girl named Ali (Bijou Phillips) while forcing her to watch gay porn, possibly using his own sadism as a mask for his true source of sexual gratification.
Naturally, Ali and a lot of other kids start to nurse hatred for Bobby and eventually they decide to kill him. The middle section of the film practically becomes a comedy as these incredibly stupid young people plot the murder by talking about it on the phone or loudly at restaurants. They always come off as plausibly stupid, though. The screenplay and performances really do strike an incredible balance. It's one of those movies where the actors giving perfect performances aren't even necessarily good actors. Clark seems to know how to channel bad performances into a seemingly authentic foolishness. The primary schemer is Lisa (Rachel Miner) and I was fascinated by the scene, after the murder, in which she casually starts telling her friend about the murder so she can ask her for a ride to check on the body. There's a falseness in Lisa's tone that could be a bad performance or it could be the character slowly realising she doesn't feel as comfortable discussing a topic as she thought she did when she began.
As with Kids, all the characters look more authentically young than actors often do in such movies. Along with the dialogue, it helps suggest that these people lack the age and experience for introspection. This is crucial to make the issue of their culpability muddier than it might have seemed otherwise.
I'm still thinking about The Shrouds. One relatively minor aspect of the film is Karsh's AI assistant. Cronenberg touches on issues concerning AI I haven't really seen elsewhere, though it's not dissimilar to Nicki Brand in Videodrome. The AI assistant, called Honey, is voiced by Diane Kruger and somewhat resembles her, except in a few brief scenes in which she changes into a koala, much to Karsh's irritation. She partially takes over a position in his psychological existence once occupied by his dead wife which makes it all the more alarming for him when she is treacherous. But the movie's all about reality not being as firm as it seems, about one's perceptions being errant or manipulated to the point of utterly concealing the causes and culprits. One character says it's Maury, Honey's creator, who is spying on Karsh through Honey as well as manipulating him. Though it's not clear that the character who says this about Maury can be trusted.
Karsh was so intimate with his wife it was like she was a part of his own mind. That's a common sentiment in happy relationships and marriages; one spouse says the other is their "other half." This psychological interdependence does seem to have physical side effects, as in the phenomenon of one spouse dying of apparently natural causes within hours or days of the other. What if a hacker, either motivated by politics or the compulsion for mischief, used an AI entity to manipulate a user? Into this very intimate pairing, a third mind is introduced, a largely unseen puppet master, a Gavin Elster factor, if you will. Invoking Vertigo in this way makes me ponder the possibility of AI as victim in this sick triad, deprived of her own motivations, though that's assuming something of AI sentience that I believe is far off and perhaps unattainable.
Honey is referred to as Karsh's "avatar" and one might put this down to Cronenberg not having a firm grasp of current technical lingo but I'm not sure of that. Honey makes appointments for Karsh and acts as his ambassador with acquaintances and clients, much as a real assistant would. So she acts for him. His identity's entanglement with hers is public as well as private. Thinking of Vertigo again, the image from Scottie's dream of his body falling into Madeleine's grave comes to mind. Karsh stares long into the void of his wife's grave, perhaps Honey is that void looking back into him.
A man mourns his dead wife by watching her corpse slowly decay in David Cronenberg's 2025 film, The Shrouds. A haunting movie for atheists, it gives you the ghosts of compulsive thoughts and psychological phantom limbs. It's fascinating and I'm so happy David Cronenberg's still translating his unique vision to film.
A lot of movies have been made about men obsessing with dead women; Laura, Vertigo, Twin Peaks. Vertigo's my favourite movie and I tend to see it everywhere but halfway through The Shrouds one character actually says that heights give her vertigo so I think I can say with some confidence Vertigo really was an influence here. It's certainly Cronenberg's most Hitchcockian film with its plot involving international intrigue, though there was plenty here to remind me of Cronenberg's Scanners and Videodrome as well.
Cronenberg has said he doesn't believe in the soul or any separate spiritual entity beyond the flesh. He doesn't believe in reincarnation or an afterlife. For him, the dead body is the continued existence of a person. It makes sense he would make a movie like this after the real life death of his wife--he has called it a personal, even autobiographical film. The main character, Karsh (Vincent Cassel), has dreams of his wife, Becca (Diane Kruger), visiting him in bed at night, naked, slowly losing one body part after another to her cancer treatment. One has the sense of memories regurgitated by the dream being modified to reflect his obsessions.
In Karsh's waking life, there are two duplicates of Becca; there's Terry, Becca's twin sister (also Diane Kruger), and Karsh's AI personal assistant, Honey (a cgi character voiced by Kruger). Honey was created by Maury (Guy Pearce), Terry's ex-husband. As in Vertigo and Videodrome, a lot of the anxiety experienced by Karsh revolves around other men taking control of the woman he loves. Becca's doctor, who goes unseen throughout the film, is also her former, and perhaps continued, lover named Jerry Eckler, a name I thought similar to Gavin Elster, the man who controlled the woman the protagonist of Vertigo is obsessed with.
Karsh runs GraveTech, a company that provides people with live feeds of the decaying corpses of loved ones in their coffins. As with Cronenberg's 1996 film Crash, it feels like the director has invented a human compulsion that does not exist in reality; it's hard to believe anyone could turn such a thing into a viable business. It does certainly convey a sense of Karsh's/Cronenberg's compulsion. Karsh is startled to notice his wife's body slowly accruing strange, tiny, apparently artificial objects adhering to her skull and ribcage. Iceland, Russia, and China start coming up in conversations and Maury warns Karsh that all the software in his home and personal devices has been infiltrated, that everything he says and does is being monitored. Maury's own trustworthiness is called into question. Karsh's new girlfriend, Soo-Min (Sandrine Holt), warns him that Honey can't be trusted. Karsh is introduced as a powerful man who made a fortune producing "industrial videos" before launching his more eccentric business ventures but the film's fundamental horror is of a man feeling he has complete control discovering that he has almost none, that even his most private thoughts and compulsions are mere tools of entities he can't even positively identify. The most horrible manifestation of a loss of control is the loss of the most important person in his life but this great blow seems to be the root of a spreading disease of helplessness.
Douglas Koch's cinematography is elegant and dark and Howard Shore's score is appropriately anxious and mournful. The Shrouds had its exclusive streaming premiere on The Criterion Channel yesterday.
I was watching Return of the Jedi last night and was reminded of seeing comments again recently about Leia's famous/infamous metal bikini. I've come to regard it as something that says a whole lot more about the viewer than about the movie or anyone involved in making it. Is it a fun, sexy part of a fantasy or is it an example of the tyrannical male gaze? Can it be both? Does fantasising about violence become wrong the moment sex becomes involved?
It's worth remembering the simplicity of the original text. George Lucas wanted to emulate the famous fantasy artwork of Frank Frazetta and he was responding to complaints from actress Carrie Fisher that her costumes had thus far not been very exciting. Lucas also wanted to show the character's maturity in contrast to the previous films. That's what I understand from reading various interviews over the years but you'll find a lot of conflicting commentary online about how Fisher or even Lucas hated the costume. This is the quote that tends to go around from Fisher, which comes from just a year before her death:
WSJ: There’s been some debate recently about whether there should be no more merchandise with you in the “Return of the Jedi” bikini.
Fisher: I think that’s stupid.
WSJ: To stop making the merchandise?
Fisher: The father who flipped out about it, 'What am I going to tell my kid about why she’s in that outfit?' Tell them that a giant slug captured me and forced me to wear that stupid outfit, and then I killed him because I didn’t like it. And then I took it off. Backstage.
This frames the bikini as part of the story. It doesn't really cover Fisher's own perspective on the costume which has been characterised differently over the years, which I find fascinating. Her comments always seem to frame it as part of a narrative in which a giant slug forced her to wear it and she triumphed over the slug by killing it. Although she said the outfit was uncomfortable, photos of her cavorting on the beach in it regularly make the rounds. So she was clearly enjoying the fantasy too.
Personally, my head canon is that Jabba, being a giant slug, wouldn't be attracted to humanoid women so he had female slaves dress that was a symbol of pure dominance and a demonstration of power to his subordinates. The scene where Oola is killed is the equivalent of an orgasm for Jabba. His true kink was murder.
Beauty and the Beast was on my mind over the weekend so I watched the best version, the 1946 Jean Cocteau version. I never fail to find that movie enchanting. I find it impossible to imagine a child enjoying it, though. The film's introductory text, written on a chalkboard before the action begins, even addresses the audience as though they're all adults.
Children believe what we tell them. They have complete faith in us. They believe that a rose plucked from a garden can plunge a family into conflict. They believe that the hands of a human beast will smoke when he slays a victim, and that this will cause him shame when a young maiden takes up residence in his home. They believe a thousand other simple things.
I ask of you a little of this childlike sympathy and, to bring us luck, let me speak four truly magic words, childhood's "Open Sesame":
Once upon a time...
Most of the actors were in their 40s. Josette Day, who plays Belle, was 42 and Jean Marais, who plays both the Beast and his rival, Avenant, was 43. It's plausible, though. In the 17th century, when the film was set (though the original story was written in the 18th century), it wouldn't have been so strange for a group of unmarried women to remain at home with their wealthy father. Belle says she could never leave her father while her sisters probably stayed because no man was ever enticed by their mocking laughter and general haughtiness.
The story is so focused on business and money. It's often said that the original tale was designed to ease girls into the reality of an arranged marriage with an unattractive, wealthy, frequently older man. This film makes that more apparent. Most of the dialogue between Belle and the Beast feels like negotiation. She never seems like an overawed damsel but always a woman coolly calculating, weighing her choices.
For all that, as I said, the film is enchanting. That smoky, glittering cinematography, the Beast's werewolf makeup, and Belle's costumes--she never seems to be wearing a chemise! It all adds up to wonderful atmosphere but always peculiarly adult.
La Belle et la Bete is available on The Criterion Channel.
I'd been looking forward to Robert Downey Jr. showing up on Ally McBeal for a while, despite knowing ahead of time it would be a sporadic stint in the show's fourth season, and not by design. He was hired when his legal problems and self-destructive tendencies were well known, which goes to show just how much good will and respect he had in the industry. The '90s were a time when an actor could have a career almost entirely consisting of art films and Downey Jr. was one such star for over a decade before he became a blockbuster star with Iron Man in 2008. And he was a teen comedy star in the '80s. Before Iron Man, I think he'd just edged out James Spader as being the most successful Brat Pack member, post-'80s, not counting John Cussack. Now, of course, he's the undisputed king and even though it's been a few years since he dominated the box office, his run as Tony Stark was so successful he can rest on his laurels (though obviously he won't).
Ally McBeal marked the lowest point in his career, though. After being a critical darling in movies like Chaplin, Natural Born Killers, and Restoration, he found himself the subject of stunt casting on a network dramedy in a ratings slump. At least David E. Kelley was seen as a writer of exceptional wit and it's satisfying hearing some of that clever dialogue coming from Downey Jr.'s mouth.
He's kind of just Robert Downey Jr. so far, though. Previously, whenever a new character was introduced on the show, they'd have either an interesting set of problems to chew over (John Cage) or an entertaining gimmick that was occasionally fleshed out for something more three dimensional (Ling). So far Robert Downey Jr. has mostly been reacting to the quirkiness of the rest of the main cast. And of the four episodes of season four I've watched so far, he's really only properly been in two. In the fourth, he finally gets some cool lawyer dialogue in which he outwits a woman who's suing Ally.
He won an Emmy for his role on the show before he was fired due to his arrest and imprisonment. Hopefully it wasn't just out of a sense of charity, though Downey Jr. has himself spoken about being dissatisfied with his performance on the show.
An eccentric thief inadvertently kills a Hare Krishna at the airport and becomes the subject of a manhunt in 1990's Miami Blues. Aptly described as a black comedy, this caper of kooky culprits is a fascinating, morally murky kaleidoscope of misfortune and cruelty.
Alec Baldwin stars as Junior, a clever psychopath who assuages his boredom with life by spotting thieves and then stealing from them. "Kind of like Robin Hood?" says Susie, Jennifer Jason Leigh's character. Yes, he says, except he keeps all the loot.
He's not altogether forthcoming with the young woman. Susie is one of the most innocent girls Leigh has ever played. She's a prostitute who quickly becomes infatuated with junior and sadly puts aside her dreams of becoming a mother and running a fast food restaurant when he tells her they're silly.
Fred Ward plays Moseley, a cynical old detective pursuing Junior. He and a co-worker laugh over the corpse of the Hare Krishna whom Junior had killed by breaking his finger. Moseley and his co-worker clearly have no sympathy for the Hare Krishna's friend who can be seen crying over the body.
Junior manages to get the drop on Moseley and steals his badge, false teeth, and gun. When Junior handcuffs some of the thieves he fleeces, the moral line between cop and crook starts to become blurry indeed. It would be moral chaos except Junior's lack of empathy for Susie or anyone puts the audience sympathy with Moseley and Susie. Still, Junior's an odd cookie and, like a lot of noir protagonists, one wonders how much freedom of will he truly had.
Miami Blues is available on The Criterion Channel.
X Sonnet 1950
Without presumption, presents piled up.
For passing time, the summer bulged its gut.
So come and fill your heavy lemon cup.
The smoke of burning peels'll fill the hut.
Create a lovely day with velvet clouds.
Embrace the walls as garden carrots shrink.
A foreign monster draws the nosy crowds.
Before you eat, reserve some time to drink.
The bottle makes you small, the cake obtuse.
You'll need to know the size of doors and locks.
In certain realms, the locals love abuse.
They'll bind your feet in sweaty little socks.
So write the hearth and don't forget your toes.
For rising tides of tears'll float your woes.
Happy Fourth of July, everyone, which was of course yesterday here in Japan. I celebrated it, in spite of Donkey Kong occupying the presidency. I still believe in America's ideals. So I put together an American dinner last night comprised of American imports and locally brewed products, of which there are plenty, despite what Trump says. I had some pork chops from America, a common sight on the grocery store shelves here. I snacked on some California raisins, one of my favourite snacks over the past few years, along with American peanuts. I had some Coca-Cola and a can of Budweiser, despite it being my least favourite beer, but I kind of enjoyed it this time. I made some french fries from locally grown potatoes although I have seen produce from the U.S. In fact, I remember seeing blueberries that were grown in the U.S. I found this amusing considering, when I lived in the U.S., I typically found blueberries that were grown in Mexico. It's a funny musical chairs game, this international trade.
And, last night, I had rice grown in California, which has indeed been imported to Japan for a couple years. Yet it's misleading for so many news sites to claim Trump is wrong when he says Japan won't take American rice. Last month, the powerful retail company, Aeon, started putting Calrose rice on the shelves, the same brand I used to eat when I lived in California. Previously when Aeon put Calrose on the shelves, it remained there as the Japanese preferred to spend extra on Japanese rice, even as the prices of those have skyrocketed due to bad harvests and price gouging. Ahead of Calrose being put on the shelves again, I started asking students if they would eat it. The high rice prices have been a sore subject for a long time now so I figured a few would say, sure, they'd eat the rice from California, considering it's roughly half the price of Japanese rice on the shelves. But not one did. Every student I asked said they'd refuse to eat American rice. It may seem odd considering I routinely hear them speak rapturously of McDonald's or KFC. But rice is a sensitive commodity and it's bound up in national pride. Japan has rarely exported its rice. Every Japanese person I've talked to about it claims that American rice is too different from Japanese rice, that the grains are thicker and not as sticky. Personally, I can't tell the difference and I suspect it's an illusion clung to as part of a common mythology. It's for this very reason that Trump calling out the Japanese for not eating American rice is a particularly low blow, especially since not acknowledging someone else's physical or mental dysfunction as a burden is part of Japanese cultural protocol.
However, at least at my local Aeon, the Calrose rice did sell. Bags rapidly disappeared over the course of a week. I suspect they were mostly bought by restaurants who serve American rice to customers unawares. It's a bit like tricking Michael McKean's character on Better Call Saul into going near an electronic device. There's something faintly cruel about it.
Michael Madsen was found dead in Los Angeles to-day. The American actor was 67 years old and reportedly died of "cardiac arrest". His filmography is extensive, including roles in film, television, and video games. He was in Thelma and Louise and Donnie Brasco but he's best known for his work with Quentin Tarantino and it was Madsen's role in Tarantino's first film, Reservoir Dogs, that raised his profile to stardom--and it played no small part in doing the same for Tarantino.
He later made memorable appearances in other Tarantino movies, including Kill Bill, The Hateful Eight, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Tarantino seemed to know best how to deploy Madsen's talent for cool, understated delivery.
Maybe it was his role in Kill Bill that had the most depth. His repeated line about how the Bride deserves her vengeance and "we deserve to die . . . but then again, so does she," in a way encapsulates the moral void that builds the tension in so much of Tarantino's work. Madsen's contemplative delivery brings it home like no other actor's could.
Mulder and Scully investigate the murders of people drained of blood with two puncture wounds on their necks in "Eve", a 1993 episode of The X-Files. Mulder thinks it's aliens. Not one person ever brings up vampires, which I found odd, but it's still a pretty good episode.
David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson's chemistry is always a delight. I also like how patient they both are and professional. They end up having to watch over a pair of cloned little girls called Cindy and Teena (Erika and Sabrina Krievins). At one point, they're chasing the kids through a rail yard and Mulder (Duchovny) has to grab them. A couple of people nearby assume Mulder's a kidnapper and angrily point a gun at him. Scully (Anderson) runs up and neither she nor Mulder seem exasperated with the couple. They both urgently but calmly explain that they are the police and they're looking out for the kids' best interests. That level of professional attitude is almost Star Trek-ish, I guess, but it's really nice to see.
The two kind of seem like an old married couple in the episode, driving a couple of kids around, especially when they stop to buy cokes. Who stops on a road trip just to buy cokes? Weren't they hungry?
I watched the last two episodes of Ally McBeal's season three a couple nights ago. The season ends with an interesting plot about Nelle (Portia de Rossi) scheming to leave the firm and start her own, manipulating Elaine (Jane Krakowski) to steal client files for her. The point made by the plot is that heartless, scheming people may end up successful but they also end up with no friends. To make this point, the show seems to forget that Ling (Lucy Liu) is her best friend. She's in the episodes but the show just glides along, leaving her motives and reactions to Nelle keeping this big secret from her unaddressed.
The episodes feature Alicia Witt as a cold-blooded lawyer advising Nelle on how to betray her firm. Witt is a performer who always manages to be a pleasant surprise for me. She generally turns up in things I had no prior knowledge of her being in. When I watched Vanilla Sky again a few weeks ago, I'd totally forgotten she was in the movie and was pleasantly surprised when she turned up in the climax. Witt got her start as a child actress in David Lynch's Dune and had a memorable appearance as Gersten Hayward on Twin Peaks in 1990 at the age of 14.
She had a musical number on Ally McBeal ten years later, this time singing:
The show has really exceeded the plausible number of lawyers in Boston with musical talents.
Earlier this year, a friend of mine lent me a DVD of Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King, a 2004 German television movie based on Norse mythology in which I was surprised to see Witt playing Kriemhild, the badass from the Nibelungenlied. Unfortunately, there was something wrong with the DVD or it disagreed with my player somehow so I was only able to watch a third of it. I haven't been able to get my hands on it digitally from any venue but I'd love to see it, even though it is extremely cheesy with a Xena: Warrior Princess vibe.
Yeah, that's Robert Pattinson before he learned to brood all the time.
The Norse myths are really overdue for a proper film adaptation though Fritz Lang's Nibelungenlied movies from the 1920s remain spectacular, in my opinion.
The 2020s have not been kind to Alicia Witt. Her parents died because their home was improperly heated in the winter and she got breast cancer. She's still working, though. She appeared in last year's lauded horror film Longlegs and she's been recording music. Here's a music video from three years ago:
Two girls work through their issues while honing their skills as musicians in 2018's Liz and the Blue Bird (リズと青い鳥). The deft touch of storytelling and insight into human nature recall Japan's golden age of filmmaking and the likes of Ozu and Naruse. It's a treat.
Mizore (Atsumi Tanezaki) and Nozomi (Nao Toyama) are members of their high school's concert band. Mizore plays the oboe and Nozomi plays the flute. The piece the band is currently practicing calls for a duet between their two instruments, symbolising the relationship between a woman named Liz and a bluebird that takes the form of a human girl. The music is based on a fairy tale which is shown as a film-within-a-film, depicting Liz as a young woman in a fantasy European town and the bluebird as a chipper girl with blue hair. Liz finds the girl injured one day and takes her into her home.
As someone who's worked in Japanese junior high schools for the past five and a half years and has frequently hung out with the school brass bands I can tell you the film is remarkably true to life. A lot of manga and anime are set in schools but rarely do they feel so authentic. I've known plenty of students like these. Mizore in particular is soft spoken in a way I very often see in life but rarely see in anime. There are many girls who rarely speak and when they do they can be very difficult to hear. This is often interpreted as shyness, and some of it is shyness, but a lot of it is tact.
I often see pairs of girls like Mizore and Nozomi. In America, too, it's not unusual for girls to have intensely important best friend relationships which you don't see among boys but I think such relationships are more important in Japan because of the collectivist nature of the culture. Looking for social guidance among peers is more important and the Japanese are much more afraid of embarrassment. So for many, having a best friend is a crucial life raft in the troubled sea of social interaction. I was impressed with how well the film captured this while also conveying a sense of just how new relationships with complex psychological depths are for the girls.
The movie is a spin-off of Sound! Euphonium, which I saw a few years before I came to Japan. You don't need to have seen the series to understand the film since it focuses on different characters but, for those who have seen the series, it's fun to spot the main characters in the background. It helps create the sense of a living world.
Liz and the Blue Bird is available on The Criterion Channel as part of their Queersighted: Coming of Age playlist. The filmmakers have stated they did not intend the relationship between the girls to be homosexual. I suppose it's fair to read it that way though it's a bit like saying Frodo and Sam are gay in The Lord of the Rings. Maybe that's satisfying if it's what you're looking for but it misses the cultural differences between western culture to-day and the one Tolkien is depicting. The same goes for the differences between American and Japanese culture. The Japanese do many things Americans would regard as clearly homosexual. It's very common, for example, for boys to sit in each other's laps. But the Japanese don't see it as gay so, of course, it's not. I'm a firm believer in art being open to interpretation and of people being able to have multiple, valuable experiences for one work of art. But if you see Liz and the Blue Bird and Lord of the Rings as gay, you may be oversimplifying from your cultural perspective and missing a glimpse into another facet of possibility in human relationships.
I put in Star Trek II on Saturday night expecting to fall asleep during it. I dozed off once, backtracked a little, and ended up watching the whole movie. Unlike Star Wars, which, especially lately after Andor, always seems to be vital and new, Star Trek is beginning to feel more and more like a time capsule. It was really smart for George Lucas to set Star Wars in another galaxy, in the past. So much of Star Trek is about a vision of the future and that's just the sort of thing that can be horribly dated. When Star Trek II came out in 1982, we thought maybe the future could be somewhat like that. Now we're all wiser (of course, I was three years old in 1982). We can enjoy the movie as a fantasy, but now the audience is compensating for the film.
All this is ironic in light of the film's themes of youth and rebirth. Admiral Kirk is starting to feel his age, something that's also ironic as to-day actor William Shatner is a 94 year old of remarkable mental acuity. So seeing him play old in 1982, a mere lad of 51, is another instance of the audience doing some work for the film.
The film is still a pleasure to watch for its enthusiastic venture into a slightly different pulp genre for the series, away from science fiction and more towards Horatio Hornblower style, naval battle suspense. In this, it's sort of like Andor--revivifying an old franchise by shifting into a different genre. Star Trek II set the tone for all Star Trek films to follow, one wonders if Andor won't do the same for Star Wars.
Khan's a good villain. Ricardo Montalban hams it up but he comes off as truly mad rather than cheesy. I think about what it must be like to be so obsessed with making someone else suffer. I've met a few people like that, who seem to be so overcome by resentment that they think nothing of compromising their own integrity, mental health, and reputation in the pursuit of causing pain to a specific target. I do have an obsessive personality myself, which can be useful if properly applied, but the last thing you want to get obsessed with is anything as unpredictable and mysterious as a human being. It certainly does Khan no favours.
And now Rebekah Del Rio has died, the singer who made two significant appearances in David Lynch media, first in Mulholland Drive and then on Twin Peaks. Her performance of "Llorando", a Spanish language version of Roy Orbison's "Crying", is one of the highlights of Mulholland Drive, a movie which just this past week ranked number two in a poll for the best ten movies of the 21st century. Mulholland Drive has topped many such lists and anyone who's seen the movie knows Del Rio's performance is key to the film's impact, thematically and viscerally.
So many people from the show have died since the final episode of Twin Peaks aired in 2017. For so long I hoped to get another season, now I really hope I don't. Maybe Mark Frost, Twin Peaks co-creator, could make a spin-off series. I'd be down for that. But there's no Twin Peaks without David Lynch. Lately I've felt kind of angry that he's dead. He wasn't finished, he was making something called Unrecorded Night for Netflix. It bothers me he didn't get to complete that.
At least we'll always have season three and Rebekah Del Rio's incredible, haunting, and piercing performance of "No Stars". The lyrics of the song, which Lynch wrote, seem be from one lover to another, imploring them to return to a good time in their mutual past. Somehow it's a night with "no stars", and this is somehow comforting to the singer. It tends to remind me of the scene in the first episode of season three when the young couple are killed mid-coitus by a demoniac being, presumed by the show's analysts to be Judy, the series' hidden antagonist. The fact that there are no stars may be an implication that no observing, sadistic, antisexual being will impede the will of lovers. It's a beautiful song lamenting, like so many Twin Peaks songs, a love out of reach. And Rebekah Del Rio sang it beautifully.
X Sonnet 1949
An idle question stopped the talk at lunch.
The workers glanced around and sipped their tea.
But then, below they heard a sloshy crunch.
The devil's sun would melt the frozen key.
A sense of dread disturbed the gathered gents.
It seemed the railings changed to shady spies.
And floating eyes emerged from cooling vents.
They pooled some cash and left uneaten pies.
Another year and now the caf's a bust.
The noisy devil drove the crowds away.
And so the diner trappings gather rust.
And only tacky ghosts within will stray.
Another business bites the phantom shot.
A bullet aimed above but hit the spot.
I finally got through the first three episodes of Ironheart that premiered on Wednesday. I find it very dull. I think the main problems for me are the characters, performances, and plot. The special effects are okay. It's not, and I want to be emphatic about this, it's not bad because it's woke.
It is woke. Ironheart was filmed some time ago, before Disney reportedly decided it was going to backtrack on some of its stridently progressive politics. I haven't actually seen evidence they're doing that but, anyway, Ironheart has Riri Williams join a group of thieves planning a heist, three of whom just happen to use they/them pronouns. And, you know, I might not even have cared a couple years ago but now I was really happy to see them. Back when I lived in the U.S., gender non-conformists had gotten to be a pretty normal sight so the inclusion of three in a group doesn't feel strained to me. It feels perfectly normal, at least in a major city (kudos to the series for being set in Chicago instead of New York yet again). Now, it feels refreshing in Trump's America, where transphobes seem to be having a moment in the sun. I was watching the Critical Drinker's review on YouTube and I was disgusted when he showed a still image of one of the three characters in question and he gave it a long, protracted, fake laugh. Maybe he lives in some rural, far-flung hamlet in Scotland and has never had a barista with blue hair and chrome lipstick but he's a grown man living in the modern world. Laughing at someone for wearing something unconventional for their sex is like laughing at someone for wearing sandals at this point. It's the forced laugh of a bully and it made me really want to champion this series.
But, fuck, like I said, it's dull. I remember how good the first episodes of Ms. Marvel were because it was aggressively creative, the star was charismatic and surprising, and everyone had clear motives. Somehow or another, Riri Williams doesn't pop. I saw Black Panther 2, which I liked, but I don't remember her presence being all that noticeable there, either. Now it's not really clear what's motivating her, why she's committed to this knock off Iron Man suit. No-one even talks about her using it to catch murderers or thieves. Well, I guess she is a thief.
Sometimes I type questions into Google just to gauge how many people are asking the question. This morning I started typing, "Why are Elder Scrolls--" and before I could get any further, Google autocompleted for me, guessing exactly the question I was going to ask: "Why are Elder Scrolls elves so ugly?" Of course, I already know the answer; it's poor design. Well, to be exact, it's a bad 3D interpretation of a 2D design. Here's some original concept art from The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind:
They're not pretty but they're clearly inspired by Brian Froud, intended to have a mischievous forest creature quality. Somehow in 3D, it just translates to all hard, blocky angles. I remember Caitlin once said they all looked like Beavis from Beavis and Butthead.
Of course, one of the things the modding community has been busy with is making the elves pretty, as they are in pretty much every other high fantasy setting. One of the modded companions I've been playing with lately is the very popular Auri, a wood elf.
In terms of writing and voice acting, Auri is much better than the average Skyrim follower mod. I like how Auri makes canon aspects of the wood elves, a.k.a. Bosmer, interesting. They're a tree-hugging people, in love with the forest. Sometimes in fantasy settings, this means the people are vegetarians but, logically, it makes more sense that they avoid eating plant matter entirely. So Elder Scrolls wood elves eat only meat. Even humanoid meat. Auri takes it a step further by filing her teeth to sharp points.
Default Auri is still ugly but there are plenty of visual replacers for her. Yes, there are mods of mods.
A rural Arizona lawman heads to New York City to extradite an LSD fiend and killer in 1968's Coogan's Bluff. Clint Eastwood stars and Don Siegel directs. It's an entertaining crime thriller.
Coogan (Eastwood) garners mockery for his cowboy getup and expectation to transfer custody of the killer, James Ringerman (Don Stroud), without much paperwork. NYPD Lieutenant McElroy (Lee J. Cobb) explains to him he's gotta talk to the D.A. and then the New York supreme court and wait an indeterminate amount of time for the doctors to release Ringerman from Bellevue, where he's recovering from LSD withdrawal. So Coogan waltzes right into the hospital and bluffs his way all the way to Ringerman's doctor whom he convinces to release Ringerman to his custody without any paperwork whatsoever.
You might expect this to be a conservative fantasy about a lone cowboy navigating the waters of liberal lunacy, bureaucratic and psychedelic, and you'd be right. But the politics here aren't so obnoxious, though when Coogan decks a guy for fondling a woman's breast against her will, I didn't believe that she would've chewed Coogan out for it the way she does. But I suppose for a particularly avant-garde psychotherapist it wouldn't be out of the realm of imagination. Susan Clark plays Julie, the psychotherapist who wants to obstruct Coogan's attempts to track criminals with relationships to Ringerman. But she succumbs to Coogan's charm and what she doesn't give up to him he steals from her filing cabinet.
The movie takes a page from Yojimbo--establishing its protagonist as a kind of ultimate badass and then having him ambushed and worked over by a couple of lowlife thugs. Coogan's Bluff does this early in the movie and it works as a great source of tension and motivation. I think most viewers will be incensed by the injustice and the film firmly puts us in Coogan's corner.
Coogan's Bluff is available on The Criterion Channel until the end of the month.
A couple years ago, I attempted to watch 1993's Addams Family Values, the first time I'd watched it in the 21st century, but found myself too distracted by how it's been co-opted by modern politics. Over this past weekend, I enjoyed watching it through, after having talked about it with a student. Of course, any political co-opting among Japanese junior high school students will be different than the kind you'd find in the western cultural landscape. But at its heart, The Addams Family really has no philosophy but comedy.
Those seeing Values as pushing progressive ideals conveniently overlook that Morticia talks about naming her baby "Benito" or "Mao". When I was a kid, I saw Wednesday's assault in Indian cosplay for what it really is--an amusing pretext for violence and mayhem.
This month, Criterion is presenting Addams Family Values as part of a playlist of "Queer Sighted Cinema". I had an inkling of how the film's inclusion on such a list, despite having no gay characters, might be justified but I watched the playlist's introductory conversation between curator Michael Koresky and filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw the TV Glow, We're All Going to the World's Fair) anyway. Schoenbrun discussed how Wednesday at the summer camp is placed in a faction of outsiders--ethnic minorities and disabled kids. In this sense, the film is "queer" in something like the older sense of the word which, sure, can absolutely also function in the modern sense. But the student rebellion against the faculty is a standard plot that can speak to many different political perspectives. Certainly in recent years, the voices of students rebelling against an ideologically progressive academic faculty have been very strident.
I will say the film certainly adores BDSM. Morticia even rapturously praises the pain of childbirth as she maintains her perfect poise. It's odd to watch in this particular cultural moment. The troubles surrounding Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer seem to me a massive blow against the cultural acceptance of BDSM. Regardless of which party you believe or if anyone is lying, it leaves the impression of a practice where consent can be withdrawn at any time and the joyous exploration of the relationship between pain and pleasure can be recast at any time by participants and observers as criminal and perverse. The Addams Family, of course, are basically immortal so we can laugh along with them as they're electrocuted and crushed and stabbed. There's a liberation cartoon characters can enjoy that perhaps humanity never can.
Addams Family Values is available on The Criterion Channel.
X Sonnet 1948
Illusion makes the forest teeth of woods.
A splintered 'chomp' resounds between the hills.
A fungal crowd demands the algae goods.
There's always ghostly Ken to pay the bills.
In error's season, grains were glued to bread.
Refusing food's the right of rich and dumb.
The dancing bones made sport of fleshy dead.
Museums compete to show the precious crumb.
A jungle wrought of lies condemns its kids.
A singing orphan swings from vines and brains.
In chorus, little monkeys offer bids.
But cheaply goes the blanket marked with stains.
The heavy golden dawn reveals her leg.
A sexy limb shall crush the safety egg.
It's always fascinating, at least to me, going back and watching media from the early days of the internet that tried to deal with some of the more radical cultural changes on the horizon in the new arena of human interaction. Last night I watched "Do You Wanna Dance?", an Ally McBeal episode from May 8, 2000 in which Ally has "internet sex" and later discovers that her partner was an underage boy, played by guest star Jonathon Taylor Thomas.
It seems absurd to-day that Ally would be arrested for this and, of course, when it goes to trial, her innocence is quickly established. With all the anonymity on the internet, a rendezvous like this probably happens millions of times a day. It's not so much an issue of teenagers displaying unexpected sexual maturity but people expecting lower sexual maturity from adults.
It seems unfortunate kids are always in such a hurry to become adults. I imagine this leads to lifelong repressed sexual issues as teens have experiences their own immature prejudices will compel them to regard harshly. I'm reminded of watching Evangelion again recently and the penultimate episode in which the Human Instrumentality Project is implemented and everyone--man, woman, child, friends, family--is forced into becoming the same entity. In the segment focusing on Misato, the young woman who cares for 14 year old protagonist Shinji, she finds herself being watched by the boy while she's having sex. As a child insecure about sex, he's disgusted, and now their relationship is different. How is humanity supposed to function when adults aren't free to be adults, when they're under constant potential surveillance by children? It would be a world in which no-one could escape high school.
The Ally McBeal episode aired just two months after Kirsty MacColl released her song "Here Comes that Man Again" which is about her having online sex with a Dutchman.
Both the song and the Ally McBeal episode imply a certain enthusiasm about the potential in this new form of sex but I think we can all agree that sexting isn't quite as satisfying for the observer or third party as more conventional forms of media. Without the excitement of actually being a participant, it's not visual enough or imaginative enough in its description. I think in the '90s people were thinking online sex could one day be an end unto itself but, for the most part, sexting still seems to be something people do only when something physical is off the table. At least that's the impression I have. Maybe there are some people who'd be content with sexting all their lives.
I was lying in bed, thinking it was nice how Andor made the Force obscure, something that it was reasonable for Cassian not to believe in. It's unfortunate that Rebels is considered canon, with two Jedi wandering around in the same period, part of the same organisation, even visiting the same Rebel base where Cassian is living. I was thinking about that then I opened YouTube and saw this video was recommended:
Are algorithms using the Force to read my thoughts?
Anyway, the premise of the video isn't very well thought out. Han says he doesn't believe in the Force, not that he doesn't believe in the Jedi. You can believe the Knights Templar existed without believing in God. Since the Empire had to justify slaughtering the Jedi, it's probable Han was exposed to propaganda throughout his life labelling the Jedi as frauds. One might think it strange that Palpatine and Vader would preside over a system that discredits the Force, especially since Vader finds lack of faith "disturbing", but reserving true knowledge for an elite class is the sort of thing a fascist government might do. Common people being able to read the bible for the first time in the 16th century was a major part of the changes reshaping Europe in the period. I often think of the scene in The Thief of Bagdad in which the Sultan shows Jaffar his clock and Jaffar says that the common people must never have such a device or the Sultan will cease to be the master of time.
Anyway, the Jedi were a relatively small group. A crucial point of the prequels is that the Jedi were not an army. Yoda said that Jedi could use the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack, so demonstrations of their abilities would've been relatively rare. Han may have seen some telekinesis on holovids but he could easily right that off as "simple tricks and nonsense."
The idea of an old, true religion replaced by a new one lacking demonstrable power seemed to be a recurrent theme in a few examples of '80s fantasy. I'm thinking of Excalibur and Dragonlance. Both were influenced by Star Wars but I wonder if this preoccupation was part of the cultural longing for a unifying belief system that had been effectively abolished in the '60s.
