two sides of unlikability

Two of the better films I've seen this year have been Nicolas Cage vehicles that tell the tales of men doing less-than-honorable jobs at making their ways through life. Lord of War was - as they tend to say - a tour-de-force about an arms dealer who wrestles with his occupation, how it affects those closest to him and the impact it has upon his very soul. The Weather Man, which opened Friday, is about a man whose occupation requires far less effort, yet who hasn't made great strides in his personal life and is left with a very empty, stumbling existence. Both men try to do some things right, or as you and I would deem them right, and in some instances they make baby steps of progress and in others they fall flat. Lord of War is the superior film - it is the cold steel bullet that would easily shatter The Weather Man's sad archer.

But both films are highly recommended for the fact that Nicolas Cage is strong as ever - an affecting cinematic presence in films that deserve attention (whether they get them or not). I was concerned after a string of action-oriented films that - while enjoyable - weren't up to the caliber of material that I came to know Cage for. If you consider every film he starred in up to the Oscar winner (Leaving Las Vegas), he rarely went for the easy game. But statue in hand, there were strings of clunky, loud popcorn-machines. And let me reiterate: they were all enjoyable movies. But now, films like Adaptation, LoW and TWM have (in this writer's humble opinion) elevated him back to a plane of dramatic content that feels a little more weighty. There's some heft to the ride, and I highly suggest you seek out these films and give them a shot.

really into chekhov

Ensign Pavel Chekhov always seemed to be a confused young man. The way his brow would furrow when faced with a difficult situation, well, you just knew he was ripe for a scam artist or slick operator to have their way with him.

But this week, we learned that George Takei came out of the closet, and it all becomes clear now. Sulu could have lulled Chekhov into some sordid experimentation with little more than the promise of a cute, trilling tribble and some Saurian brandy back in his quarters. It just seems so obvious: Sulu never made a play for Lt. Uhura, but his evil alternate universe doppelganger did. And in a lost episode, Sulu volunteered to head up the Federation Musical Theater Company.

To boldly go where no man has gone before, indeed.




photon torpedo ready, captain!

the armload

What a mixed bag I have for you today.

-GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK
-A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE
(both in theaters)

Easily two of the year's very best films. I can't say enough good about them. Clooney's Good Night is especially surprising in its simplistic, easy strength, humor and message, which applies so directly to our country right now that it's just eerie. These are both winners, and worth your time and money to see in first-run release.

-SERENITY
(in theaters)

Having never watched an episode of Firefly but having heard everyone gush over Fox's now defunct space western, I was naturally skeptical of whether Serenity would be any good or not. Well, surprise. Highly entertaining, very enjoyable, and dark enough in places to make George Lucas jealous. And not so much CG that you forget you're watching a story unfold.

-THE AMITYVILLE HORROR (remake)
-THE FOG (remake)
(DVD/in theaters, respectively)

One is vile, the other just dull. Neither were really necessary. Both are chock-full of those slam-in-your-face, loud-blast-of-music scares that have become the norm in most contemporary movies. Unfortunately, this is also one of the most annoying and unpleasant devices found in film today. Note to filmmakers: please stop.. You're giving us headaches.

-MAN WITH THE SCREAMING BRAIN
(DVD)

Yikes. Wow, I never imagined something could be so ineptly written and filmed that even Bruce Campbell wouldn't be entertaining. Unfortunately this Z-grade horror-comedy was written and directed by Bruce Campbell. So poorly done that the people of Bulgaria should feel deep shame for allowing it to be made in their country.

-IT'S ALL GONE PETE TONG
(DVD)

Pseudo-documentary of a drugged-out DJ who loses his hearing and then tries to clean up his act and become a human being. The last 30 minutes are quite good, but the hour that precedes them is an unpleasant, cliche-ridden look at someone whose habit has gotten away from them, and we've seen this sort of thing a dozen times before in far better films. Ask and I'll recommend a few. If that's your kind of thing.

-MY SUMMER OF LOVE
(DVD)

My annoying, boring, stupid summer of teenage girls acting out. It's like a luridly bad version of Heavenly Creatures, or Thirteen without Holly Hunter but with British accents.

-THE BROWN BUNNY
(DVD)

A jarringly static film. It leaves me wondering about director Vincent Gallo's intentions, what he wanted to show or achieve with this very admirable but complete failure of a film. I'm just shaking my head. Rent Buffalo '66 instead.

-SCHULTZE GETS THE BLUES
(DVD)

Really delightful tale of a retired German man who plays polka accordion, and then one day discovers Zydeco music and travels to America. Very nice film. Check it out.

-DOOM
(in theaters)

Nobody's going to mistake this for Good Night, and Good Luck. But it is fun and gory and exciting and fun. If you like that sort of thing, run right out and soak your toes in the grue.

Enjoy!

dunn bros. poetry grind slam results

Preparing for a slam, for me, is a strange and wonderful thing. I have loads of material to pick from, and I suddenly find all of it lacking. I flounder, I settle, and I gather what I can and move forward. I took three pieces last night to the Dunn Bros. Poetry Grind slam, in a very nice joint in Addison, which is a hell of a lot closer to home than Deep Ellum.

Of the three pieces, I knew halfway through the slam that some of the judges would hate the one I was planning as my second, so I changed my order and did my "backup" piece second.

It killed.

Unfortunately, my first piece, which I happened to like, did poorly, though I maintain that being the first one up made me the score-creep sacrifice. Oh, well.

So with the mediocre beginning and the awesome finish, I somehow managed to pull out a third place showing. I was really quite shocked.

So there you go.

While it is not my intention to be part of a slam team, I have to admit a certain thrill at the prospect of doing decently amongst the giants of Dallas poetry. Or at least amongst the giants that show up.

So, I can't wait to see what happens next. And I get the added plus of feeling slightly more inspired about writing in general. But we all know how dubious that sensation can be.

genuflecting over nostalgia

I'm not even sure now what sparked this one, but I recently recalled a place from childhood that I held very dear.

When I lived in Colorado Springs during my elementary years (kindergarten through my first year of junior high), there were many sites that I remember fondly: movie theaters, for instance. There was a spherical theater that was on the top of a hill across from a mall, and I went there many Saturday mornings for old science fiction films as well as contemporary movies. It may have been the precursor to today's "stadium-seating" concept. It was in this theater I saw Latitude Zero, with Richard Jaeckel and Caesar Romero. LZ was the tale of explorers who go so far under the ocean they find an upside-down realm where monsters still live, and they must save the world from a megalomaniac who intends total domination. I think. Understand, all of these memories are anointed with childhood haze. Some of the details might be under the influence of subconscious creative license.

Far as I can tell, you can't find this film any more. It's on a short list of potentially out-of-print movies I have listed over the years, including Hearts of Darkness, Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, Candy Mountain, Straight to Hell, Walker, Cemetery Man and Island of Terror.

Other theaters include the downtown hole in the wall that premiered Rollerball, the two level tri-plex up the street from it, the dual theater closer to home with a drive-in behind it and the tiny, blink-and-you-miss-it college theater that I went to with my mother to see The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob. There was also the local shopping center that had theaters on either end, one of which was beside a Shakey's Pizza. I saw Jaws the year it opened in that theater. I was 12.

Apart from theaters, I remember the storm-drain canyons that we rode our bikes through to go miles from home and play like there was no such concept as danger in the world. There was a cave in one of the local parks that was shaped like the upper torso of a man. There was a huge resort where I learned to ski. And of course, there was Pike's Peak and the white-capped mountain range I woke to every day.

But this latest memory was of something I haven't thought about for decades: the bike shop. The bike shop was a ratty little business where they sold bikes and accessories as well as did repairs. But my greater joy was the two rows of shelves where they kept old comic books. This was back in the years when old, frayed, torn comic books were a joy. You didn't care if they weren't perfect, because the stories and images inside were so incredibly cool. Running in, seeing a cover that made your eyes light up, and reading through the flimsy thing in the back seat of the car before you ever got home. Devouring those stories was one of the biggest joys of childhood, and really is the reason comics are cool. It's not the mylar bags or special editions or cover variations...it was the simple fun of the stories and the wild, unbelievable action.

Perhaps this is the giddiness my son will use when telling his children about videogames...I don't know.

I love my childhood, because I think I really did have it all. Seeming freedom, inventive and exhausting play, beautiful vistas and the purity of musty comic book bike shops and uniquely memorable movie theaters. A first-grade girlfriend with a bunny hutch in her backyard. A sixth-grade girlfriend whose name is the same as my wife's. A classically diverse group of friends and neighbors. Creature Features. Hot Wheels and Matchbox, though Hot Wheels' creators, Mattel, came up with the track (which I ran all through our home).

Scrambling around, making everything work, making everything count. Being a kid, with the occasional dog-eared page.

recent observations: overlooked!

Well, the Nobel committee has once again snubbed me in favor of a short list of international bons vivants and know-it-alls.

I guess it really is all about who you know. Bona fide, indeed!

return of the chosen profession

occupation


…and then there was jack kerouac
who looked like a loathsome car salesman,
and in truth, sounded like a bored car salesman,
one with no fire left, no remaining pitch,
but enough rough, good looks to
make it with the ladies and occasionally
get a free drink from some young kid
who mistook him for a retired ballplayer;
but mostly he just seemed glum about everything,
a man who seemed to scorn the very road
he helped to pave…

…down the street hobbled whitman and burroughs,
census takers in their square, pallbearer suits…

…poe was an irritated barber…

…gunn was a mechanic who specialized
in refitting the engines of classic beasts…

…carney ran a pawn shop in the worst part of town…

…baraka was a grocer who handed out penny candy,
but only to children who were polite and told the truth…

…and di prima led the women’s choir in the temperance league,
yet harbored insatiable lust beneath her woolen cloak.

scn/8-1-5

house fever

House, M.D. (Fox, Tuesday nights) – Hugh Laurie drama about a doctor with a decidedly different approach to live and work. Good stuff. Could do without the CSI guts-cam.

House of D (on DVD) – David Duchovny’s film about growing up in the sixties, or something. Frankly, I don’t care. The best thing I ever saw David Duchovny in was an episode of The Larry Sanders Show.

House of Blues (in a metropolitan center near you) – the Blues Brothers-inspired club chain and commerce center that only slightly bypasses the Hard Rock Café world of cheesy venues.

House of Leaves (possibly in a book store near you, but most likely being discussed right now in a thousand fevered chat rooms) – Mark Danielewski’s twisted novel about strange goings on…nuff said.

House of Flying Daggers (on DVD) – Zhang Yimou’s follow-up to the emotionally superior and more sumptuously designed Hero, but still a great movie, with an ending that blows everything before it away.

House of Sand and Fog (on DVD and cable) – Depressing, depressing, oh dear good lord how depressing.

House of Wax (on DVD) – Stupid twenty-something remake of the classic Vincent Price horror film. Does not completely suck.

House of Games (on DVD) – The film that started it all for me on David Mamet. Dated now, but still priceless.

House of 1000 Corpses (on DVD) – Really awful feature by Rob Zombie which preceded The Devil’s Rejects, also by Mr. Zombie, which is quite good.

House of the Dead (unfortunately surviving on DVD) – Worse than 1000 Corpses? I got two words for ya…Uwe Boll. This stinking adaptation of the videogame of the same name is so bad you’ll slap yourself for not reading more books.



momma told me not to come

and don't come back

HBO cancelled the Lisa Kudrow vehicle The Comeback, a show so uncomfortably disengaging in its straightforward disdain for celebrity that it actually made Larry David wince. I don’t understand the cancellation, though. This is an organization that kept Arliss on the air for more years than I can remember. The Comeback, despite its kick-to-the-throat sensitivities, at least had some critical word of mouth behind it.

Hell, Carnivale got two seasons.

your daily shame

There was a piece in the paper roughly two weeks ago that stated Oprah Winfrey “allowed” the CEO of Hermes to apologize on air for her treatment in Paris a couple of months back. She said, “Everybody who’s ever been snubbed because you were not chic enough or the right class or the right color or whatever…you know that that is very humiliating, and that is exactly what happened to me.” (Quote from Dallas Morning News, provided by AP wire service)

What she fails to mention - again - is that she arrived at the famous boutique 15 minutes after closing time, when any other person, despite their race, class or level of chicary, would have been denied entry. Oprah Winfrey chose to placate her own embarrassment by using her celebrity status to create a sort of mini-cause that she could rally her audience around in the name of treating people right. And that’s wrong.

a month of woe

Too eventful of late for so many reasons, and not many of them good.

I haven't blogged out of sheer exhaustion, a severe inability to string more than three or four words together, let alone whole paragraphs, in the pursuit of snarky observation.

First, Katrina, Nawlins Destroyah, Mississippi Carnate Queen, rides the e-ticket of massive devastation through our fair southern brothers’ palisade, flattening or submerging their territories. Americans become caring again, as they are want to do during times of crisis. Why it takes a disaster in this country to bring us together as a singularly focused nation I’ll never understand. Perhaps that old Twilight Zone tale of creating an alien enemy to unify the global will of the people wasn’t so far off the mark. There was some (admittedly understandable) bashing of the president, sure, and the talking heads all railed and pointed fingers, but overall we saw people acting like a God’s children; we saw the best of what our capabilities will allow.

So a few weeks pass, and here comes Rita. But Rita was a bit of a tease, especially to those of us in the Dallas area. We were girded for a weekend of harsh storms and high winds, and we got the same sunny, humid days we'd been experiencing for the past...seven months.

Then came a layoff at my place of employment. One year after the last layoff, and almost 4 years after the last layoff by which I was adversely impacted. My department had been showing signs of improvement, five people doing the work of 6 or 7, and due to a re-focusing of corporate efforts to strengthen another division of the business, they let a number of people go. Unfortunately they let 2 of our 5 go also, and now 3 are handling the entire workload. This is frustrating and difficult, but also challenging in the best ways. My hope is that our minimalist team will pull through and end up looking better for the wear. But I cannot pretend that I am not feeling stress at levels I have not felt since being out of work, and since that is the alternative, it seems like these should be better times.

So we're a little frayed around the edges here at Casa de Controlled Burning, but my soul is intact. My son just turned 16, I’m writing again with a slightly more determined focus, and I've got Burnout Revenge to buoy the lower moments.



neither bought for gold, nor to the devil sold