reasons and reasoning

as anyone who monitors my cinematic viewing patterns by perusing the the dear diary section directly to the left already knows, i have recently and very unintentionally completed a weeks worth of film spectatorship that contained three films that dealt with various themes of race relations. at this point i will concede that the discussion henceforth will not deal with my own thoughts on the issue, but instead with how well, or in instances not too well, clint eastwood's gran torino, tom mccarthy's the visior, and alan clarke's made in britain present their somewhat pre-structuralized takes on the issue.

in addition to serving as the endcap to this threesome, my viewing of made in britain also served as my introduction to the supposedly realist world of english resident genius filmmaker alan clarke. as one of a series of clarke films that deal with the structural failings of the conformity seeking mentality of the english educational system, the film started off well enough as clarke used his camera to calmly record, without much in the way of emotional hystrionics or pyrotechnics, a young tim roth's maniacal rampage against society. i begin to fall in love with the long tracking shots that casually observe the goings on with an almost bemused view of the anarchist rebellion on display and i convince myself that i am truly watching a master of the kitchen sink realism as clarke is allowing me to calmly observe while allowing me to reserve judgment for a later time, if not suspending it altogether. but then clarke does something that seems a bit out of character for the aesthetic that he has previously built. just as the film reaches the crux of it's issue, and finds itself at a point where it can finally provide some clarification on tim roth's seemingly unprovoked rebellion against society, it really seems to chicken out, allowing roth's character to babble incoherently and unconvincingly about the supposed fall of england being somehow tied to the influx of various non-native cultures. it is at this point that i am unsure whether clarke is making some blanket statement about racism being a crutch of the unenlightened or if he is just rendering his character as completely idiotic, therefore taking the stance that the rebellion has no idea what is even causing it to rebel. for argument's sake i will choose the latter, because it will allow me the room to compare clarke's ideology with that of the establishment educational system that he seems to distrust. when clarke hangs roth out to dry in that interogation scene, he essentially makes the point that these kids have no choice but to rebel because they aren't bright enough to see the systems at work that keep them in place, for only smart guys like alan clarke(or the english government) can do that. so they misplace their hate in petty things like racism until hopefully one day they see a slice of alan clarke's realism on the telly and realize the bullshit system in place and make a change. nope. clarke dips his otherwise aesthetically appealing film into the realm of smug intellectual finger pointing and therefore renders his "realism" as both artless and uninspired and he fails to reach the standards that accompany his premature annointment among the greats of british realism like leigh and loach. nice try alan, but next time save the political meanderings and intellectual superiority complex and just stick with the facts.

similar in smug intellectual approach is tom mccarthy's lackluster follow up to his heartfelt, emotionally complex station agent, the visitor. where in the station agent the battles toward forging a friendship and emotional connection are hard fought, the ones in the visitor are often times too easy. it's like, so let me get this straight, a cold, lonely, grieving, introspective prig of a professor comes back to his long abandoned old apartment in the city and finds two illegal immigrants have taken up residence and two seconds after everyone calms down from the all too quick emotional outbursts, this prig instantly becomes a neo-hippie, socialist who starts a commune for illegal immigrants in his apartment and sits around in his underwear playing in drum circles. really? that fast? shit doesn't change like that in two seconds. nerdy economists don't just adopt new personalities and become extroverted immigration law challengers over night because a few things happen to them or they witness some shit. it takes time to develop a new voice like that. it takes fighting and biting and piss and vigor. it's hardfought, like the station agent. and it's this lack of understanding of simple concepts of human personality that essentially negates mccarthy's right headed, sense of understanding between cultures as merely pre-programmed liberal agenda. this is a lite version of a film for the new yorker reading set who like to feel that they only have time for "important" films. i can't believe that the generally amiable and spot on richard jenkins pulled an oscar nom for a softball lobbing, walk in the park role like this one.

and that clint eastwood didn't for his badass turn as walt kowalski in gran torino. to be honest, i have never been a big fan of eastwood as a director, but i do love this film because it ascends to seemingly higher plane of human understanding than his usual turns at revisionist demythologising. while eastwood still relies on some tropes of genre to deconstruct the very essence of the "macho" myth of male behavior, i find that this time around eastwood id finding a bit of beauty in the gray area between violent reaction and a more peaceful resistance. whereas the eastwood demystification machine has previously stuck to the credo that violence, especially the unwarranted variety, only leads to more violence, and there is that message in this film too, this time he seems to revel in it. he seems to goad the audience into wanting an outlaw josey wales type response where clint goes in and mows down everyone. we want the violence and when we get the more intellectual resolution we are not entirely pleased or displeased. and the endpiece is more effective because of it. clint wins again with his level headed, anti-dirty harry, anti-"shoot first" mentality. but this time he does so in a way that doesn't condemn the violent reactions and responses in anyone. in clint's "shade of grey" world racists, who behave as such with a certain amount of dignity and reasoning, can be good people. people who lend a hand one minute can be bad news the next. things and minds are fluid, everchanging things, yet the essentials will always ring true. good people will find other good people even if they have to climb through all sorts of bullshit to do it. that and the mind is a better problem solver than the fists. good lessons, indeed.

is wayne brady gonna have to choke a bitch?

as many of my people already know, i have become increasingly disappointed with our 44th president lately as he continues to eschew the "change" that we were promised and instead just plugs various members from the clinton administration into his cabinent. ram emmanuel? cool dude, but not change. hillary? she said it best when she said, "now that's change you can xerox!"

i suppose i am sad because i feel that, with a support camp that rival's the number of tila tequilla's friends on myspace, he could have made much more interesting and possibly better selections. that's where i come in.

so to right the wrongs of my man barry, i present to you...the dream cabinent.

secretary of the treasury: oprah winfrey. because that bitch practically prints money already. shit, oprah could buy up all the sub primes by herself and save this ship from having to bail water. as an added bonus, you know at some point there would be a photo op that would produce a picture of oprah standing next to alan greenspan...i'm practically designing the frame for it as i type.

surgeon general: dr phil. hell i don't even know if he's a real doctor, but really what the fuck does the surgeon general do anyway besides pimp out medic alert bracelets to the elderly on the tv like my guy c. everett koop. dr. phil could do that...and with a twangy drawl no less.

white house press secretary: steven spielberg. because that fuck can turn any old garbage into gold. i mean, did you see a.i.? yeah, me too unfortunately. but tis the genius of old steven, his name alone pretty much insures that we as an audience will swallow garbage and then say it's ok.

the secretary of defense: denzel washington. because when denzel gets agitated behind the podium and starts banging his fist, people listen. i dream of his "by any means necessary" speech where he states that we didn't land on 9/11, 9/11 landed on us, right before he lays waste to the desert with the nuclear holocaust. king kong indeed. (if denzel doesn't want to do it, wayne brady could also substitute)

and finally secretary of state: tony dungy. because for one, he ain't got no job. and two, if obama truly is the second coming of jim caveziel, then he's gonna need to bring along some disciples. and there is no better place to start than with saint dungy, the patron saint of one and done. i mean, everybody loves this guy, right? i think it's his muppet voice that sounds like a cross between a young kermit and an old yoda. fresh and wise simultaneously.

as for the other positions, mr. obama can handle those. although i do implore him to keep condoleeza rice around because condi is kinda foxy in an all-powerful, gap toothed sort of way.

an essay in the mold of la ronde(with apologies to max ophuls)

once upon a time, long before the director known as eyebrows was awarded a "lifetime achievement" oscar for his incredibly cheesy film the departed, i remember sitting in a film class the day after eminem was awarded one for his song from his movie when out of nowhere, in the middle of his lecture, venerable professor dennis bingham blurts out, "i can't believe i live in a world where eminem has an oscar and martin scorsese doesn't." it kinda reminds me of kate winslet, who, if she doesn't get her lifetime achievement oscar for essentially playing the same characters she always plays, will probably have to resort to offing herself to join the likes of another probable oscar winner because i couldn't possibly live in a world where heath ledger has an oscar and kate winslet doesn't, right? but, who cares? she got two globes, so at least one of them has to carry through to oscar night, right? the oscars, who needs em?

kudos to the golden globes for giving one to sally hawkins. happy go lucky is one of my favorite films of the year and she is wonderful in it as a girl who very much knows the occasional darkness of humanity and still chooses to almost cast herself as an ever cheerful, do-gooder dingbat in the mold of the great comedienes of the past like gracie allen or judy holiday. mike leigh has fashioned another complex tale around a character who knowingly play other characters within the lives of the people they portray as if he understands that human beings are constantly choosing what roles to take on in social acting classes everyday. sally hawkins, as poppy, seems like someone one could possibly come across in real life, as opposed to the shattered messes who wear their constantly changing emotions all over their "actor's visage" like the two aformentioned likely oscar winners.

and speaking of real life, i recently watched the lovely little film dan in real life. and while it is does not exactly portray what i would call "real life," i did enjoy it because any movie where anybody, in this case steve carell, steals a girl from dane cook(especially when dane cook is their brother) is a.o.k. with me despite its failed claims at some sort of realism. i am, however, completely sold on the idea of having sondre lerche music ambiently play over all the poignant moments in my life. we gotta make that a reality.

real. like this jam(please read on afterward)


that video goes a long way in proving the idea that as long as their are featured artist slots open in the realm of hip hop, no artist, no matter how played out or irrelevant, is ever truly career dead. except hammer. and vanilla ice, but i said rappers. congrats andre 3000 for momentarily forgetting your rampant uncle tom-ism and stylistic posturing formula and hopping on board a good jam. i didn't know you still had it in you.

speaking of formula, laurent firode's film happenstance totally rips off the structure of max ophul's luscious film la ronde, but completely forgets to tap into an ounce of ophul's abuntant visual poetry. and as i sit back and ponder it now, i think of la ronde and how good that movie is(simone signoret...yum) and even attempting to copy it seems quite sadistic, if not downright satanic.

and speaking of satan, this is for everyone, who like myself, thinks that michael mcdonald is the devil(please read on afterwards)


i have to admit, i learned of that killer video from bill simmons, the sports guy at espn.com. it was a link in one of his mailbag columns from a few weeks ago. we here at beer cannes whole heartedly suggest that once you are done reading this, that you head on over to espn.com and check him out if you don't already do so. karate kid and teen wolf references mixed with nba talk make for some interesting columns that explode from the chemical combination of sports, pop culture and humor. his mail bags responses are the best. go read his old shit.

and speaking of old shit, how about rachel getting married resurfacing at landmark? what's up with that, frost/nixon? jcvd? nope, you get rachel getting married! again.

is it sad that when i read that it was returning, i immediately thought that it would make topical the blog about it that i have been wanting to unleash for some time now? i guess no more sad than the fact that it's wednesday and i still haven't typed it up. that sucks too, because it is pretty good as it borrows, from an incredible book called flickers by gilbert adair, this fantastic argument about modernism and how antonioni and hitchcock fell on different sides of it and then discusses that argument in terms of rachel getting married and its modernist aspirations. i hope i get around to writing it soon, but i wouldn't hold my breath if i were you. as i sit here holding mine in anticipation of the wrestler, i just can't be bothered with old shit right now.

except for this old shit, reimagined...


beer cannes highly recommends checking out flickers. even as a personal, investigative chronicle of the first hundred years of cinema, it remains a relatively light, easy read. it is easy and fun, much like the book i am reading now, acting male by dennis bingham. i have only gotten through the quite long, twenty page introduction, but i am already sure of its status among all those things that we consider as "winners."

in his introduction, bingham writes of the acting style of jack nicholson, that he was a "post-modern actor" constantly taking on roles as people who spent a great deal of their time playing roles in public, not their "true selves"(whatever that is). and that he garnered much of his cultural cache as a great actor by essentially being the actor who was "cool enough" to pull off such character within a character mechanisms. this playing of a character which knowingly "wears a social mask" reminds me of sally hawkins as poppy in happy-go-lucky, which is anothe cool performance.

and with that, anton wolbrook says, the carousel has come full circle(and then some) and the ride is over. please dismount thine steed and exit to your left. thanks for stopping by.

the beer cannes hall of awesomeness

some may recall bolo yeung as the neck breaking baddie from such martial arts faire as enter the dragon and various jean claude van damme films. but we here at the b.c. feel that bolo's main claim to fame lies in the huge boulders that he carries around on his chest. big boob bolo, or b3 if you will, was the type of dude that didn't take no shit from anyone. witness the primal death scream released on ray jackson in the uber-classic bloodsport. as my bro zach said the other day, it is primal in a way that suggests "sexual release." but i think that he might just be lactating. pretty fucking badass, but not heartless.

no, despite his murderous rage, one really can't call bolo heartless. in fact, it's more like heart-loss, as his heart is probably just hidden beneath those huge fucking pectoral muscles. i mean really, has anyone else ever seen an asian built like that? it's like he has been on horse steroids since the age of five. huge boobs. i am udderly impressed.

so with that in mind, beer cannes makes its innaugural entry into the beer cannes hall of fame...erm awesomeness, and we salute the work of big boob bolo yeung: professional badass. so to the only man to have a style of necktie named after him i say, welcome to the hall, bolo.



i wanna see jcvd

a case against milk

on the promotional poster for the new film milk, there is a statement (from the director of good will hunting) that i find particularly instructive when viewing and subsequently reviewing the film. with this one statement, the producers seem to be implying that the last decade or so, one of the most creative periods of output by any film director ever by the way, never actually happened. and while i find it insulting to forget films like paranoid park, elephant, and gerry, i think overall this might be a useful tool in breaking down the reasonings behind my lukewarm reaction to gus van sant's latest work, as this is by far the most commercial (i.e. linear, straightforward narrative) product that van sant has put forth in a long time.

the film begins with harvey milk offering up his story into a microphone as if conducting a self interview. this vehichle will serve as a framing device throughout the narrative, bookending the film and occasionally popping up in the middle to over-emphasize parts that don't really need any additional emphasis. this rather traditional narrative structure, which would seem completely out of place in recent van sant work, fits right in with a film from the "director of good will hunting." i think of the journal in paranoid park, which serves as the narrator in that film, and how it mesmerised the audience with it's seeming inability to get to the point, to the crux of the matter. with it, the film became not necessarilly suspenseful, but more questioning, more probing, as if the viewer were being taken further and further down to the film's/event's emotional core. in this film there is no real searching for the heart of the matter, as its complete lack of subtlety takes hold frame one and doesn't really allow for any self discovery. we know from word one that milk is fighting for an issue of great imporatance, an issue that the film seems more than happy to make him a figurehead of.

in the role of harvey milk, sean penn physically resembles a grocery bag attempting to keep a nuclear bombs worth of kinetic energy bottled up. this is probably due to his uncontained excitement at the prospect of another oscar nomination, but for argument's sake we will contend that this energy comes from a man that can be bound up no longer. and that is all well and good, if the film made me think for at least one minute that harvey milk was the type of guy that could ever be bound up like that. unfortunately the film does not, as it seems to rest on this idea of harvey milk, not necessarily being a character, or a man, but as a representation of a much larger thing.(in this case the gay rights movement) ultimately, i left the theater with not so much of an understanding of milk the man, but with an understanding that milk was representative of an important cause.

i think that is because the film doesn't allow harvey milk to transcend his gayness and develop into an individual who has much more to offer than just that. i mean seriously, is it too much to ask that this man be given one character trait that doesn't involve his homosexuality. and no the interspersed title cards that told me what milk stood for(seniors, education) are not the types of character shading i was looking for as they merely seem to be trying to pile stuff on to a one dimensional character.

it is funny, but on the ride home from the film, i started daydreaming about van sant making a film about the one interesting character, supervisor dan white. i thought about how incredible a film structured like paranoid park with white as the film's center would be. how his journal reading as narration would create an enormously arresting picture of a man that van sant already tends to shade as a closet case. now that would be a worm hole worth going into, as i feel that white, played brilliantly by josh brolin, was the only character allowed any sort of greater emotional depth in milk. that, and as a confused, conflicted, possible homosexual, i feel he would have fit right in with other latter day van sant protagonists, about whom more interesting fare than milk centered around.

but unfortunately for me, milk isn't really a "gus van sant film," but rather a film by the "director of good will hunting." it's sad, but there is a difference. good will hunting's director is forced by his cast, by his studio's need for awards, by an issue too big into a straightforward, kind of bland narrative structure that leads to a big, important, utterly forgettable film. milk feels like a film thats issues are "too important" to be overshadowed by the type of "great film" that van sant normally makes. it makes me wonder if all the hoopla and applause that followed my viewing were directed at the film, or at the championaing of a cause that anybody with a sembelance of intelligence can get behind. my belief is that people are cheering for championing the cause, and looking past the fact that it is a mediocre film doing it.

hang in there...

hang in there with me, dear friends. i promise to go on a blog rampage shortly after the new years, at which time one will want to check back a couple of times a week.

but for right now, i'm still on holiday vacation, and although i spend time gathering materials, i don't do any mental lifting during the holidays.

hence, no work. at least not lately.

but fear not, nose goes back to grindstone on january 3rd.

i promise.

the only thing i want for christmas...

is for this fucking guy to make a full album...

tis the season

since films like revolutionary road and doubt are often cited as oscar bait, does that make the process of making such a film oscarbation.

are sam mendes and phillip seymour hoffman mere oscarbators?

cause i heard that just causes movies like blindness.

everyone's a winner...

well it looks like zach wins the mix tape by default. i will assume that this is due to an unbelievable plague of writer's block that hit the blogosphere while i was gone and not to the lack of want for the prize in question. anyway zach will recieve his awesome prize sometime soon.

as for the rest of you, since i am feeling generous i will give you the info on a dope new website and on the recent upgrades to an old favorite. because here, everyone's a winner.

over at the criterion collection website they have undergone a rather interesting facelift in their attempt to spread the message of cinematic history to the masses. through the application of streaming video and a partnership with another site that i will rhapsodize about later in this post, criterion is now allowing their catalog to be "rented" for online viewing. titles can be viewed as many times as one desires over the span of one week for the nominal fee of five u.s. dollars. then, if one decides to buy the dvd hard copy of the film(with all the delicious extras criterion is famous for) the five dollars will be credited to the purchase on the site. it's a try before you buy preview that rolls over into a sort of gift certificate. how sweet is that?

almost as sweet as the site of its partners in this venture, the auteurs. the auteurs is a site dedicated to the cinephile. in addition to the numerous forums available to sound off on all things cinematic, it also hosts quite a large collection of films in high def for your viewing pleasue. some of the films cost a fiver but the majority of them are free to view simply by clicking on the play button. in addition to great films from all over the planet like the dardenne's l'enfant and jia's the world, the auteurs also includes in their selections every month a programmed festival of films from the criterion catalog for free viewing. this month the festival is titled "cruel stories of youth" and includes films like victor erice's spirit of the beehive(the best film ever made) as well as louis malle's au revoir les enfants, catherine breillat's fat girl, and peter brook's lord of the flies, which i watched last night and which looks great(much better than the similar netflix apparatus)

so if you find yourself sickened by the slew of hollywood shit like four christmases this season, and you just can't wait for the new despelchin or aronofsky's the wrestler, do yourself a favor and click on the links above. it's the gift that keeps on giving from your friends here at beer cannes.

vive la cine.

holler at your boy

some of you may have heard the rumor, and let me assure you it is true. the old beer cannes is taking this highwire act on the road to the bahamas for a week of swim up bars and on site sports book. but fear not, dear readers as i am leaving you with a fair bit of intrigue.

for a while now, i have been wanting to find a way to make the good old b.c. a little bit more fan friendly, a little bit more lively. also for a while i have been wanting to distribute prizes as a way into this new, interactive frenzy of my dreams. but up until lately i couldn't figure out what to distribute. then a few posts ago i wrote an old fashioned ode to the glory of a mixtape, and it hit me. why don't i give one of those away?

so that is what we are doing. in the first of hopefully many beer cannes contests to come the prize shall be a mix tape personally made by hand from the staff here at beer cannes. and it will be awesome.

right now i imagine all my readers jumping up in amazement and asking in a fairly boisterous fashion, "how do i win this...i want it so bad."

well i will tell you how you can win it.

as great fans of the diverse voices of the myriad peoples out in cyberspace, we here at the beer cannes are first and foremost about a good read. we check blogs daily, usually in the morning as if they were the gosphel that the good old star definitely is not. we know there are many talented writers out there that we know of, and probably a million more that we as of yet do not know.

so with this in mind, we are sponsoring the first ever beer cannes short essay contest.

in the comment section of this post, beer cannes asks that you write your best essay that consists of no more than three paragraphs. these pieces can be about anything that is running through your mind and are bound by no rules beyond those mandated by common decency, not that i figure that will be a problem. the winner will be judged on content, artistic merit, and basic je ne sais quoi by the staff here at beer cannes and beer cannnes alone. the contest ends on the friday after thanksgiving at noon and the winner will be chosen shortly thereafter, most likely opening to rave reviews of their verbal virtuosity on this here site. their awesome, hand made, kick ass mix tape will be made by the czar of beer cannes and delivered before christmas. one entry per person please.

good luck. i look forward to some genius, as it will be required in the quest for this tape

i will appreciate the struggles while i am giving thanks and eating turkey on the beach.
don't freeze...peace.

is 2112 a fraternity?

i remember walking on campus at iupui in front of the old library on my way to a class in cavanaugh hall. it was early in the semester and scribbled in chalk along the pavement were advertisements for fraternities and sororities. join alpha epsilon! rush delta nu! and as i caught myself thinking, does iupui even have frats? and if so...why? but then that thought was cast assunder in a most meaningful way when toward the end of the line read a quite elaborate(for a chalk drawing) sign asking me to rush 2112.

i thought about it for a minute. and in that minute, i decided that if i were going to ever join a drinking institution...urm...fraternity, that i would probably be inclined to join this one over all the other, more greecian formula choices at my disposal.

but then i thought, nah..fuck that. i like to drink alone.

see i guess the thing is, i don't really "get" rush. and i am writing this blog because i feel that a good portion of the people who occasionally get down on here are indeed rush fans(fanatics) and i am honestly just looking for some input. i mean, i get that they are extremely talented musicians and that they employ quite intricate song structures and all, but i just really am having a hard time finding anything catchy in their songs.

given, all i ever hear are the songs the old q95 and jack recycle on two for tuesdays and shit.(freewill, tom sawyer and what not) and all those songgs play like bland pseudo- anthems. which sucks becausea i am the type of guy that judges songs based on a first listen's instant impression and second time's singability, so i needs my songs catchy ans sig-a-longable. i don't find either of those qualities in rush, but feel that it could be that i am just not hearing the undiscovered pop gems of their oeuvre. i mean, so many people seem to love them, so i figure it has to be in their somewhere, but still i ask: do rush write poppy songs? ever?

because i might like to hear them as they will give me a reason to sing along to rush other than for the joy of knowing that i, and everyone else...ever, have a better voice.

oh yeah, and fuck the red sox!

an infinite playlist

lately, i have been feeling really nostalgic for the pop culture artifacts from my past that i believed i had moved on from. i've been playing vice city(my favorite game from my college years) i've been talking incessantly with my cousin jon about the britpop that provided the soundtrack for my high school years. i've even been allowing my co-worker buzz to listen to hank fm at work on the chance that i may hear an old randy travis or george strait song that my mom used to listen to when i was a child.

but the thing i have been jonesing for the most is mix tapes.

in our ipod, cd rewriter universe the mix tape seems to have rapidly gone the way of the buffalo. and that is just sad as mix tapes often provided the best, most effective way to produce a cohesive playlist. i never really got into the mix cd thing because to make one, one didn't even need to listen to the songs that were being put on them. most mix cd's ended up as just a jumble of random songs that generally didn't have the flow or continuity that marked the best mix tapes. i don't have an ipod, but i imagine the same problems exist.

there was a very distinct artform to the mix tape. i used to make like one a week in my teens as i was on this journey , this stoned quest to find the optimal track listing. i took it as a personal challenge to my musical knowledge to find the perfect follow up to songs like big star's thirteen or suede's trash or ride's vapour trail. and while they weren't often perfect, they at least had alot of thought and alot of time put into them. and for that they ruled. i knew mix cd's basically sucked from the beginning when i realized i was putting more time and effort into the designing of the covers than i was into the designing of the playlist. hell, on most of the mix tapes i made, i never even made a cover or a track listing because the individual songs didn't matter as much as the overall feel of the tape.

i miss cassettes and mourn their near extinction. occasionally, i will still attempt to make one, but i usually give up about halfway through as i know i am doing it only for myself. you can't really give one to anybody anymore because you never know who even has the aparatus with which to play it. and that is just sad because it has led me to a time in which i may never know what song or songs could create a bridge between lil wayne and led zeppelin. taylor swift may never sit next to alex chilton. and i may never again get to use them all in an attempt to extend the olive branch of friendship to a fellow music lover.

if i were gonna make a mix tape right now these songs would be on it:

my list in lists

i did my patriotic duty today, and i hope everyone else did as well.

therefore i figure, this,of all days, is the day to be positive. right?

i figure, this is the day to get out from under the funk of the negative attitude towards everything that's been exposed lately. let's just get up and brush that dirt off our shoulders. let's put good vibe out in the world.

i figure, what's the worst that could happen?
so here goes, the things i feel positive about.

has everyone read the latest post over on ryan's blog, my year in lists. that is a pretty darn good, short read. and i highly recommend checking it out. that is a very welcome edition of his often essay deprived column, and i hope he keeps them coming. as for the guy maddin vs. kevin smith argument...

i have not yet made it to the zach and miri porno film as i know, like ryan, pretty much exactly what i am going to get. unlike ryan however, this perturbs me greatly as i still long for the glory days of the original trilogy, especially mallrats which i love more as time goes by. snoochie boochies. the argument about kevin smith's lack of visual prowess, actually makes me more pissed at kevin smith because i realize that his comedy is derived mostly from the writing and the general tomfoolery amongst the film's component parts. the fact that his act has grown stale is far more disheartening than what i find from maddin, as it tends to represent a more constrained, less willing to take some serious chances style for smith. i mean, clerks 2. i almost cried after i saw that piece of shit. that donkey scene alone seemed so contrived for the post tom green generation that it about made me want to puke.

but then i remember that it doesn't matter and this is an exercise in positivity and that even if you wanted to, you couldn't cross out all the fuck you's in the world. and i don't want to try. and i definitely don't want to be just another fuck you so... on with positivity, and on to guy maddin.

a friend and i recently got drunk and watched brand upon the brain! the lush criterion packaging had this really awesome feature that allowed us to pick our narrator for the film from a list of people who had done live readings at various screenings of the film worldwide. being that we was like, under the influence and such, we absolutely had to listen to crispin glover narration. and it was well worth it. freaking awesome.

and while my man ryan raises some valid criticisms of the relative staleness guy maddin's work, i tend to see it more as this continuing exploration of his own unique style. unlike gonzales-inaritu and merelies, he doesn't just work from the exact same template of both style and emotions every time out. brand upon the brain! is not my favorite(probably dracula or the saddest music) but it is at least an interesting take on what he does. it is dreamy, it is caught up in the genre-specific workings of the late silent/early talkie film, but it is also a fascinating exploration of memory and its relation to time and place that delves deeper than any of his film's have delved before. his clever staccatto editing patterns really drove home the utter nonexistence of the differentiation between memory and hallucination, as they both become thoughts on an equal plane through their interrelation to temporal and physical properties. and keep in mind that it was made to be an experienced work of art employing orchestral accompanyment and on the spot story telling principles to help his film transcend the usual boundries of merely sitting in front of a screen and viewing cookie cutter shit.

in guy maddin, i still see an artist growing and redefining his craft. he is immensely talented and works in a style that really allows that idiosyncratic talent to shine through. even though i will end up seeing zach and miri, i believe kevin smith, at this point is just shoveling out police academy IV, a shit sequel to his two already bad sequels to a good film.

in the old days, they just got some hack off the street to put his name as the director of that shit and you took producer credit. whatever. oh well, kev...up with jersey girl 9, and go run your little college tours for all i give a fuck

huckabee/palin 2012!!!

four more beers!

president of what...

man, this election season has been a letdown. all these jackasses in powersuits talking about this and that and the economy and taxes and schools and such. but nobody really seems to be talking about the real reasons behind these problems. nobody wants to do a little introspection.

honestly, do you wanna know why america is fucked up? america is fucked up because americans are fucked up. i mean look around. our populace in its current incarnation is probably the least likely in history to take up the role of the good semaritan. hell, we can't even find time in our busy schedule of accumulating things to be polite to one another anymore. everybody is so concerned with getting their one dollar double cheeseburger that they don't care who they cut in the mcdonald's line. just so long as they get to stuff their obese, uncouth faces.

face it jack, americans are lazy, fat, ignorant and above all, perfectly content to be as such. they want to work their forty hours, go out and buy big screen tv's and houses out of their budget, and then cry when the repo man comes to collect. all because they were too stupid to realize that just because you see it on mtv cribs doesn't really mean that it is necessary for survival(or that it is affordable)

and all this rampant consumerism has just made us more greedy, less fulfilled, and ultimately unhappy because our life isn't filled with the type of everything promised by our fucked up idea of what the american dream is. it is the pursuit of happiness. but in our fast food culture, if happiness isn't served up in bio-degradable paper wrapping, we want no part of it. i mean seriously, do they expect us to work for the products that should rightfully be ours as americans?

and then we have the nerve to try to tell other cultures that this is the way to live. fuck us.

america sucks right now because the average american sucks right now. learn how to say please and thanks. learn how to be thankful for the oppurtunities you have. do this and maybe we will begin to climb out of the murderous, poverty stricken, verge of financial ruin hellhole that our nation has become.

fuck obama, fuck mccain. change starts from within. change yourself first, and stop looking at others as some sort of messsiah that will make all your troubles go away. because even if they did, your greedy ass will just make new ones.

either that or learn to be a fat american living in the hellhole which we deserve.

because make no mistake, our behavior dictates that we do indeed deserve exactly what we get.

trick or treat.

have a take, don't suck...

on the jim rome radio show, there is but one rule of the jungle...have a take, don't suck. i often think this mandate should be applied to basically all forms of communication. if one is talking to another on the phone, they ought be something. come correct, be original. have a take, don't suck. if one decides to waste time and watch television, don't watch some cheese ball fake shit like the big bang theory, watch something that has an idea, watch entourage, something that has a take and doesn't suck. and for god's sake and mine as well, if one is going to attempt to make some kind of piece of cinema(and i use that term loosely) then by all means, please follow the ultimate rule of the jungle. have a take, don't suck.

with his latest effort, w., oliver stone has failed miserably on both accounts. often hailed as some sort of provacateur, stone really bitched out on this one. there is no sense of detail, no underlying nuance that gave any sort of credibility to the freshman year psych/dr. phil daddy issues that stone uses to explain away the philosophical/mental defects that played into possibly the worst eight year presidency in the history of our nation. instead stone goes for a sugar ray greatest hits album type of feel, going over the "gems" of the slim bush timeline as if they aren't already played again and again on the radio "every morning" (hell yeah...a sugar ray joke!) mark mcgrath for president!

but really, oliver stone sucks now. whatever flare he had in the past is gone now. when he took all the bareknuckle journalistic investigation of barbara walters onto the set, he broke the law of the jungle. he made a movie about george w. bush, somebody everybody has a take on, and didn't even have a take. he made a shitty reenactment for the not so substantial a&e biography of bush II. and for that...

he sucks.

next caller.

a moment of zen

for my boy justin, who has been in the mood to watch westerns lately...

a scene from the best, howard hawks lovely little film rio bravo.

creatures of habitat

in last week's issue of indy.com or intake or whatever it is being called this month, the cover begged a rather interesting question. is indianapolis cool proof? naturally, as is normal for the same publishers of the star, a lack of journalistic integrity led not to an unearthing of answers, or an honest look at this question, but to merely a hipster friendly list of goods and services provided by towns that the rag deems as "cooler" than ours(what can we expect from a shit mag that employs joe shearer as a film reviwer) but, while the story inside proved to be bunk, the question on the cover was indeed a valid one and one that we here at the beer cannes have been mulling over for the last week, unable to find an angle from which to approach even the smallest beginnings of an answer.

and then this week's edition of the rival paper nuvo dropped into my lap the origins of a thesis on this particular quandry.

on its cover and within its pages, the issue presented the latest local "it" band of the moment margot and the nuclear so and so's on the verge of the release of its major label debut. to my suprise the story related seemed to offer a fairly interesting take on the question posed a week earlier.

the story relates the struggle between the band and their new benefactors at sony in coming to terms with a set list that is acceptable to both sides. margot wanted to put out one version, sony their own version. incredibly a compromise was reached and both sides got to release their own versions on specific formats(vinyl/cd/itunes)

and while this is a lovely little story of corporate compromise and all, it also seems to me a symptom of the greater problem of indianapolis' alledged "cool proof" ness in that when some entity,in this case margot,around these parts attains a certain level of cool, they automatically get thrust into this strange vortex where they begin to believe that they are much much cooler than they actually are.

i mean, who the fuck do margot and the nuclear so and so's think they are?

while they are so busy whining about how their songs need to go in this very particular order, there are literally a thousand bands around here that would kill to be in their position. good bands like red light driver and small arms fire would love to be reaping the promotional and touring benefits that come with releasing a major label album. yet all margot can do is whine and bitch about their "artistic integrity."

it makes me think about one of my favorite bands, van halen. i mean, can you picture eddie and david lee roth sitting around all mopey, wanting to release a different version of their first album because they wanted jamie's crying to come before running with the devil chronologically. no, they were just some future rock gods from pennsylvania that were ecstatic to be in a position to have their music heard beyond the region in which they lived. they got big heads much later, you know, after they had actually done something relevant.

margot pulls diva shit now, with marginal talent and an even smaller fan base because their songs are not memorable(unlike jamie's crying) so they try to pedestal themselves as true "artistes"

and that in a nutshell is something that is fundamentally flawed in this city. it's not that we are cool proof...it's that we are cool allergic. we get a little cool in our system and we can't handle it and we puff up like the mumps and blow things completely out of proportion.

when something becomes a big fish in our rather small pond, it goes straight to their head and they almost instantly become pretentious as all hell. like margot.

seriously, artists: just keep your nose to the grind and let your work speak for itself. if your shit is any good it won't matter what order it is placed in. it won't matter if some are b-sides and some are a's. if margot's songs are any good they will get out there. if the work on the album is any good, it will show through, no matter which version it is. just shut the hell up, and i might be able to take you seriously.

but as we here at the beer cannes are big big fans of humility, we can not in good faith recommend this trite bullshit. if you absolutely must drop coin on an album in the near future, buy the album by a tight little scottish outfit known as glasvegas. besides the fact that the singer croons like the new billy bragg, they strike me as the type of dudes who wouldn't bitch at their record label over whether geraldine comes before daddy's gone on the track listing because they are thankful for the oppurtunity just to get out of the hell hole that is glasgow, scotland. (or buy the red light driver album on itunes)shameless plug!

glasvegas-daddy's gone


glasvegas-geraldine(not the official video...but better)


red light driver

nothing that you didn't think about sex in the second grade...a question i have to ask

can somebody, anybody explain woody allen to me?

because personally, i don't see the appeal.

i've cycled through the majority of his exercises in genre, be it his neurotic rom-com's(annie hall) his murder capers(match point, manhattan murder mystery), his old man fetish films(the jazz cycle-sweet and lowdown,deconstructing harry) his phony fake gene kelly, jaques demy ode(everyone says i love you) and even half of interiors(his "bergman" series) and all i see is a mere stylist, i.e. not an auteur on the sarris scale, working his neurotic way through the popular genres of his probably disheveled youth. he adds these overly-idiosyncratic touches and a grab bag of borrowed and already tired tricks from sixties european art films and mangles them into the pre-existing codes of traditional genre in a way that isn't really interesting at all.

last night i troubled myself to watch possibly his most uninspired and abominable take on the bawdy comedy when i watched the sickening everything you always wanted to know about sex but were afraid to ask. seriously, did he write that piece of sophmoric trash when he was eight after his first glimpse of a playboy magazine. no, probably not as that would be far too freudian and therefore interesting on some level, as opposed to this film which is not interesting on any level.

if one were able to get over his appaling godard rip-off when allen himself breaks the fourth wall with his most unsophisticated impersonation of groucho marx musings(a privledge only granted to characters played by the egomaniac himself) then i imagine one would surely be offput by the locker room humor of a giant, blob-like breast and the terrible one liners that accompany its arrival. but, however, if one is to mercifully look past this and press on, then surely they cannot condone the vast uninclusiveness as almost every fetish is welcome just so long as it is heterosexual. the most unappealing scene being that when woody allen playing a neurotic sperm makes the most detestable face at the thought that he could be discharged in a homosexual encounter. apperantly the 70's were a time of thoughtless bigotry, either that or in woody's world it's okay to date your stepchildren, so long as it isn't a same sex courtship.

hmm...inbreeders or homosexuals? not so tough a question...i will take homosexuals every day.
they are more fun...and generally have better/all of their teeth.

and besides all that liberal-agenda bullshit that i mention above...it's just not funny. not funny at all.

so seriously, why is this ass hat revered as a cinematic god of sorts?

on a happier note: it's my jam(s) of the week(both new school and old)

new(ish) school...with all apologies to vanessa hudgens whose song i'm amazed would be here if it had an official video(damn disney!)


old school

we're caught in a trap, i can't walk out

this horribly embarassing gap in publishing owes itself to the fact that the publisher in question has momentarily lost his mind. i am not sure where or when or how exactly this occurred, but i know that it has, indeed, occurred and i feel that before a solution can be engineered, we must first identify and diagnose the problem.

and what exactly is the problem, one might ask. and with the way my mind is working right at the moment, i would have to answer that the answer to that question is quite tricky. but, as i am trying now to focus this free range mind of mine right now, i will put it as simply as i can.

lately, i haven't been able to clearly, coherently judge films.

which is actually a problem when my small little sliver of cyberspace is devoted primarily to the art in question. it seems to me that, as of late, i am unable to even come up with a positive or negative opinion on the films that aren't blatently one way or the other. what i mean by this is that, unless a film has been either spectacular(rare) or spectacularly bad(sometimes), i can't seem to pull any sort of focused analasys from them that would color my opinion one way or the other. everything seems so caught in the middle, whether the work in question can be deemed to be mediocre or not.

a case study of my recent viewing activities will hopefully shed some light upon this problem, so that we may press forward and attempt to remedy this overarching case of the "blah's."

at this point, i wish everything were as easy to evaluate as the film 27 dresses. this is a film so mired in cliche, so caught up in the unexamined tropes of the most banal aspects of the genre of romantic comedy, that even actors the quality of the otherwise lovely judy greer seem to realize that they are floating in the middle of a shit andwich that only serves to attempt to enhance the box office appeal of the utterly awful and unlikable bitch princess katherine heigl. she sniffs my nuts. fucking terrible, but sadly enough the only slam dunk review that the week handed me.

beyond that garbage, everything else handed me a big bag of mixed emotions, or perhaps just thoughts that conflicted with knee jerk emotions, which in the end is what this is really all about anyway.

which brings me to the centerpieces of our quandry: the emotionally sublime, yet intelectually upsetting nick and norah's infinite playlist and the feeling deprived, thought provoking joe swanberg "mumblecore nadir" hannah takes the stairs.

nick and norah pasted a goofy, high school crush grim on my face from moment one and pretty much kept it there during its entire duration. i thoroughly enjoyed sitting through this film, but unfortunately when it was over, the details were almost completely forgotten like a hazy recollection of a great time spent drinking one's mind away. and then the old intellect kicked in, and i started chipping away at its lovely veneer with the type of philosophical gripes that often take over post viewing.

i complain, because it is another in a long line of films that portray the urban experience of youth in new york city as if it were the only urban atmosphere where youth can have a formative experience. just once i would like to see a film about young urban nightlife in a city more like the one i inhabit. not the "infinite" possibility of a vast metropolis. i bitch because of the relative objectification of michael cera's previous romance with tris and how it makes me feel that he is somehow more vapid than his sensitive demeanor would indicate. and oddly that makes me happy as i believe that that somehow vindicates my stereotypical belief that most indie rock dudes are like that and not like the sensitive, artistic types that they act like.

and all this leaves me questioning whether i should truly be recommending this film to people or not. i mean, i did have a good time...but it left me with a bad taste in my mouth. what to make of this film?

and then there was hannah and her stairs. this movie elicited approximately the same response as 27 dresses as while i was watching it, i was convinced that i was watching a complete turd, with a heroine as unappealing as bitch katerine herself. i found myself counting down the seconds during the awkward interactions between greta gurwig and andrew bujalski, who was terrible in reprising his sad sack role from his own deft, touching film funny ha ha,(he should stick to directing) waiting for either the end, or the infinitely cool mark duplass to come back, or fore more gratuitous nudity. i just wanted this 85 minutes to end. and it did, thankfully.

but then i started thinking. and i really dug the fact that the entire film, outside of a few exterior shots of hannah waiting for public transportation, was shot in what seemed to be rented apartment spaces. and when i thought about it i realized that this film probably cost about two bucks to make and i really started to respect that they got all that mileage out of two bucks. then i started to be impressed with the spontinaeity of the ramdom acts of nothingness that occur in this film and how they never tried to put a humorous spin on them a la seinfeld, but merely chose to let them represent themselves of acts inspired by the often times monotonous and boring existence of the every man. and a funny thing happened. i actually started to enjoy this film in hindsight.

and that got me all fucked up.

i mean, seriously, how am i supposed to rate these films on netflix?

that is what it all boils down to. it comes down to questions. what is a film's purpose? is it meant to intellectualy stimulate, or is it merely meant as a momentary diversion? is it brain candy, or food for the soul? personally, right now i don't know and i don't really care as either way, i am no closer to sipping mai-tais on the beach with my girl ashley tisdale.

but right now i am okay admitting that i have no idea, so i think i will rate them both as a three star rating on the old netflix. because i guess i liked them both, only at different times during the process and in different ways.

i wish i could find the inverse of 27 dresses...a slam dunk masterpiece.

that would make this all so much easier.

peaches.

the top five things i'm looking forward to

i know, i know. i haven't been keeping up lately. and while my audience might be compelled to call me lazy, i would first like to plead my case before judgement is passed.

i was originally going to do this week's version of the tuesday tops about my vast collection of film literature, and i even wrote a draft to that effect. but sometime before i hit the publish button, i changed my mind and decided because of it's length to leave it for a slower week down the road. i came across information that let me know that this was gonna be a big week for new releases(thanks john peddie) and i decided that i may want to save this weeks list for the purpose of running down the newest cinematic offerings to this city. this week offers numerous choices for one's viewing enjoyment. this weekend is pretty huge.

so with that in mind here is this week's top 5 things to do with your weekend...

1. nick and norah's infinite playlist looks awesome. i mean, i like cool music. i like cute girls. and i freaking love michael cera. (especially when he gets the girl) but i think what i am most looking forward to is the (hopefully) triumphant return of director peter sollett whose wonderfully charming film raising victor vargas was among my favorite films released to castleton arts during my tenure there. i expect something touchingly, sweetly humanistic, and i doubt i will be disappointed.

2. blindness, the new film from fernando merelies, is well worth a watch. thanks to heather for allowing me to take an early sneak peek. mark ruffalo is great as always in a film that goes a long way to destroy nick and norah's good feeling towards humanity. this film doesn't have a ton of faith in people, which is easy to understand yet still a turn off, but it's wonderfully gritty style carries it into that rarefied air of something that becomes both ugly and beautiful simultaneously. an infinitely interesting work that probably didn't deserve the shelling it recieved as the opening night selection at this year's cannes film festival. plus gael garcia bernal sings the most hillariously placed song for a rare moment of levity.

3. after sollett makes you think people are wonderful, and after merelies makes you think they are awful, bill maher and larry charles film religulous will do its best to make you think that people are just plain stupid. borat with bill maher on the subject of god, i'm there.

after seeing all three one will probably have a pretty good overview of all that humanity has to offer. it's glorious and heartbreaking and occasionally leads one to believe that we are spiraling toward a large scale disaster.

4. and that disaster is taking place via the chicago cubs this weekend. it's sad, but i really am looking forward to another offseason of dissapointment for cub's fans, especially the one's who have insisted all summer that this is "their year." it isn't. and it won't be next year, or the year after that, or the year after that or any year in the entire future history of years to come.

they are the cubs. they lose. get used to it and become a happier person.

i have.