Caroline... a.k.a. Go Oregon

Coraline (in 3-D) was one of the most deeply unsettling movies I've seen in years. And I loved it.

It was somewhere along the lines of a zombie movie (for me). I've always said, the only thing that scares me is zombie movies. Although, now, I can probably add Coraline to that list.

The art direction. The use of 3-D. The story. The progression. All nearly flawless. Outside of the slow exposition, there's little I could see to change. It's deeply seated in the structure and archetypes of the regular childern's movie. (Absent parents. The need to create an internal loci. The unimportance of objects, possessions and well-being versus the importance of the "other." All there.)

Yet, tonally, the only thing it compares to is a zombie movie. The majority of the movie takes place in utter isolation. A world where, like the world after a zombie event, has only the protagonist as the rational, connected sense of how things actually are. And should be.

I've always liked to watch zombie movies, and they have always already been the only thing that gives me nightmares. I'd like to think that I could stand up to a completely irrational, violent world. One where everyone wants to destroy me and nothing is as it was. And that I could completely survive based on superior intellect alone. But I wouldn't want to.

It's the same with Coraline. I think I could resist and fight my way out of that ideal world.

But I'm not sure I'd want to.

Tipping points

1) Facebook.

There are now, officially, too many people on Facebook. People whom I don't like. People I think are too old to be on. And, mostly, people who take it too seriously.

The last part is the biggest issue. Facebook, with its focus on sharing comments and pictures and statuses and more comments and more pictures, ends up being something that tells people I really don't know and people I really don't like what I'm doing right now. What I looked like at that party last Friday. That I went to a party last week. Et cetera.

Now, there's many of you I'm fine with knowing what I'm doing. Or that I like knowing what I'm doing. Although you may or may not care. But there are those others. And they're becoming a larger group every day... it seems. (They may work for Ben Linus too. Although he may not be evil.)

So I'm thiking of quiting. (Which is to say "deactivating" my profile, since Facebook doesn't let you quit unless you post porn.)

2) Censorship.

I don't really feel a sting or a shock when I hear, read or see vulgar language. But I'm in the minority. As this blog has stretched over time, more and more people read it. Friends. Family. Co-workers. Ex-girlfriends.

I've liked it being a kind of random, open and free exchange of thinking and information.

And yet, I can't help but think that the use, and overuse, of the word "fuck" shows an inability to creatively put together a more interesting and challenging set of images, phrases, similes or metaphors.

So I'm not going to allow them any more. Which is to say that I am going to begin using my editorial powers. (Don't worry, your sentence fragments and typos are safe for me.)

Likewise for "shit."

Into the Void

Dead Space
Atmosphere. It can make or break a game -- particularly one as derivative as Dead Space. If you don't buy into the game's mise-en-scène, Dead Space is going to feel like a shallow rehashing of Resident Evil 4's over-the-back game mechanics with a cynical splash of BioShock and Half-Life [does every FPS have to shoehorn in a telekinesis function now?]. Which, to be perfectly clear, it kind of is.

But - and this is a precipitous but - the stunningly cinematic environments may also have you suspending your disbelief and stealthily lurking down the eerily lit corridors of the USG Ishimura because you are honestly a little bit scared of what might be lurking behind the next blind-spot -- even though it is just another silly game.

Perhaps the highest compliment I can give: as soon as this game was over, I couldn't wait to start over and play through it again.

Grade: A-

Album Covers That Remind Me Of You (A Photo Essay)

Mark


Ben


Sam


Nell


Brad

WT the F

This food pantry smells awful. The fucking line stretches all the way down to Eastern Parkway and it's fucking cold and rainy and it's more clear than ever that everything is fucked.

How did things get so fucked so fast?

I first realized things were getting bad when I ran into my dad's fourth ex-wife and she told me the annual ski trip to Aspen was switched to Vermont because it's within driving distance of the city and the lift tickets are like half the price. But I never thought things would get this fucked.

I asked the lady who checked my FEMA i.d. card at the door if there were any meat alternatives available.

"Like canned food?"

"No. Like tofu."

This lady, her name tag says Aisatou, whatever the fuck that is, she has this crazy weave in her hair, like she used to get it done all the time but now it's all fucked up because she's fucked like the rest of us and there's no chance of getting your weave done.

"They stopped sending non-essentials months ago, sir."

"Who did your braids? They look good."

I figure if sweet talk whatever the fuck her name is she'd let me in on the secret stash of Newman Os and seitan jerky that I know don't exist but "Ritz style" crackers fucking suck so what the fuck.

"Once I wrote a story about this woman in Flatbush who was walking home from KFC with her kids late at night and they got hit by a car and the little boy died and the mom was in a coma. I asked her brother what she did for work and he said she did braids. So I went to the place where she rented a chair and talked to her friends and I saw a lot of braiding."

I don't remember when that was exactly. It's when I used to pop Xanax like candy. Man I wish I had some Xanax. Fuck the tofu.

My paper was one of the last three in the country before it went under. I worked for two meals a day in the months before they let me go. I got got when the four papers in town folded into one to take on USA Today and Bloomberg News-AP. Those fuckers at Gannett liquidated every asset they had outside Virginia. Everybody got fired. They kept all the pensions and matching retirement funds and sold all the buildings and equipment and put it all into that fucking awful paper that I used to wipe my ass for three straight weeks. Those pricks didn't even cover the President's funeral.

What's her name told me to pick whatever I want from the canned goods and take one each of the proteins, fruits, vegetables and grains. What a fucking waste of time college was. The girl with the bad weave doesn't give a fuck what school I went to and she's the only person I need to impress these days.

When I got laid off, when my 401 k was frozen by the government, when the Wall Street was bombed, when my house was foreclosed, when credit lines dried up, I stopped having that dream where I was still in high school and I couldn't get out even though I was an adult and I'd been to college and grad school. I figured, what the fuck. Things always seem to get worked out.

Then I got shot.

O

Unsurprising picks for what is sure to be an unsurprising night.

Bold = will win
Italics = should win

Best Supporting Actor

99.96% Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight)
.01% Josh Brolin (Milk)
.01% Robert Downey, Jr. (Tropic Thunder)
.01% Philip Seymour Hoffman (Doubt)
.01% Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road)

No surprise here -- but let's face it: Heath Ledger deserved a Best Actor nod. Anthony Hopkins was only in The Silence of the Lambs for 22 minutes and he still managed to grab a Best Actor statue. Same for Forrest Whitaker and Denzel Washington. My personal pick is Michael Shannon (who was also amazing in Shotgun Stories) in a performance that miraculously upstaged both Leo and Kate and was the only redeemable element of Revolutionary Road.

Best Supporting Actress

20% Amy Adams (Doubt)
20% Penélope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona)
20% Viola Davis (Doubt)
20% Taraji P. Henson (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
20% Marisa Tomei (The Wrestler)

I have no idea what to make of this category. And I don't think anybody else does either. This is going to make or break Oscar pools.

Best Animated Short

89% Presto
6% La Maison En Petits Cubes
3% This Way Up
1% Lavatory - Lovestory
1% Oktapodi

Let's not kid ourselves: Pixar is going to win, but I much prefer the dark humour of This Way Up. A special WTF? to Le Maison for not being released on iTunes.

Best Live Action Short

34% The Pig
29% New Boy
28% Toyland
6% On the Line
3% Manon On the Asphalt

All five shorts are worth watching (and only 1.99 on iTunes) and in many ways more interesting than the Best Picture nominees. Toyland is by far the weakest, but still manages a sniffle or two out of its ludicrous Holocaust fable that is sure to garner an unfortunate amount of Academy votes. New Boy has a good shot at winning; it is a simple and effective story of an African refugee trying to adjust to his new school. I might be in complete denial, but I think voters are going to be equally as charmed by The Pig, a wonderfully comic allegory on the paradoxical right to free speech in a democratic nation.

Best Documentary Feature

40% Trouble the Water
35% Man on Wire
10% Nerakhoon (The Betrayal)
10% Encounters at the End of the World
5% The Garden

A tough call. Man on Wire is exhilarating, but I feel voters may try to balance out the frivolity of Slumdog with a weightier documentary pick. Big ups to Herzog for finally getting his first Oscar nomination, but there is no way he wins. Encounters is pretty much a two hour-long middle finger to the 2006 winner March of the Penguins.

Best Foreign Language Film

40% Waltz with Bashir (Israel)
30% The Class (France)
20% The Baader Meinhof Complex (Germany)
5% Revanche (Austria)
5% Departures (Japan)

I have only seen one of these, which is vexing. I don't understand why distributors would delay releasing these movies into theaters. Surely more viewers are going to be enticed by a potential winner than a once-runner. I am particularly incensed by The Class, which has had trailers in theaters for months, still hasn't been released. Hopefully, in a few years these are the kind of movies that bypass crowded cineplexes and head straight to digital distribution.

Best Actress

75% Kate Winslet (The Reader)
15% Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married)
7% Melissa Leo (Frozen River)
2% Meryl Streep (Doubt)
1% Angelina Jolie (Changeling)

Ricky Gervais was right. And I still haven't seen Frozen River, but surely Melissa Leo's performance has to be the best by the sheer improbability of her nomination alone.

Best Actor

36% Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler)
32% Sean Penn (Milk)
15% Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon)
4% Richard Jenkins (The Visitor)
3% Brad Pitt (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)

I think this is going to be tighter than most people suspect. Rourke put in a masterfully physical performance, but it is hard not to be dazzled by Penn acting against type -- and I hate it when people win for awards for historical mimicry. Anybody can win and I would be content. Mostly I am just happy for Jenkins. What a great guy.

Best Director

89% Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire)
5% Gus Van Sant (Milk)
3% Stephen Daldry (The Reader)
2% David Fincher (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
1% Ron Howard (Frost/Nixon)

It is a shame that Danny Boyle is getting accolades for his worst movie, but I certainly won't be unhappy when he takes the stage. Boyle is a relentlessly eclectic filmmaker and while his movies aren't always perfect, they are unfailingly interesting. Except Slumdog, which plays like a Disneyfied City of God. C'est la vie. It wouldn't be the Oscars if we weren't rewarding mediocrity and underachieving.

Best Picture

65% Slumdog Millionaire
35% Milk
7% The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
2% The Reader
1% Frost/Nixon

A Slumdog win is going to be a terribly anti-climactic end to the ceremony, but in case anybody forgot: Warner Independent Pictures was going to release this movie straight to DVD. Let me repeat that: STRAIGHT TO DVD. It is going to be a real travesty if anybody but Loveleen Tandan accepts this award.

Post Post

This week, on one of the most-read pieces of newsprint in the country, was a blatantly racist cartoon that evoked violence against the first black president of the United States.

I saw the comic early the other morning when I was still in bed. I read the New York Post and Daily News cover to cover everyday. It's a habit I developed when I was a staff reporter at the Post, where I worked until late 2008.

When I saw Page Six -- the notoriously edgy gossip section of the paper that most would argue is the only profitable piece of the tabloid -- I threw the paper across the room in disgust. Sean Delonas -- a regular editorial cartoonist for the section -- drew for that day's paper a dead chimp lying in a pool of blood, one white police officer with his smoking gun still in hand, and another white officer next to him with a text bubble that reads, "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill."

For those who need the context, a 200 pound pet chimp named Travis attacked his owner's friend on Monday, leaving her near death. The owner tried to stop the crazed animal, but when cops showed up and Travis went after them, they had no choice but to shoot him. He staggered into his cage and collapsed dead in a pool of blood. It was a great tabloid story.

On the heels of President Obama's signing of the stimulus bill, Delonas and the editors at the Post have done something that goes beyond disgraceful. There is only one way to interpret this cartoon: the dead monkey is Barack Obama. Everyone knows (and Al Sharpton was quick to point out) that racists have long tried to dehumanize black people, often by comparing them to monkeys.

There is no doubt in my mind that the editors who allowed this cartoon to be printed understood what it meant. The people who run the paper are not idiots -- in fact they're quite intelligent. Perhaps they underestimated how much outcry there would be (I'm told the phone didn't stopped ringing at the Post all day). Or perhaps they did. The Post thrives on the sensational. This was a good way to get attention.

The Post was one of a handful of papers in the country that did not support Barack Obama in the general election. The Post's political reporters even lost their seat on Obama's airplane toward the end of the campaign season to make room for other press. Obviously editorial boards have the right to support or not support whomever they chose, but this depiction is the lowest blow imaginable. The cartoon might as well show a burning cross on the White House front lawn.

This is hardly the first time I've been appalled by my former paper's racism. They've dished it out to Al Sharpton, Sean Bell, supporters of the Khalil Gibran International Academy in Brooklyn, and more. One of the reasons I left the paper last year was to distance myself from a place with such a despicable track record.

I have no illusions about the fate of the newspaper business. I'm 24 years old. I know that the chances of working for a paper all my life are slim. The death of American papers makes me sad. But perhaps the New York Post is one paper we all can do without.

2008: The answer comes before the question.

So yeah.

2008 was probably the worst year for film since I have been born [1982 for those playing at home].

I can't tell you how many times I walked out of the theater regretting the time and money I invested. It is not that the movies were particularly bad (except Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull -- that was horrible), but most were unimaginative and dull.

Disappointing was my single most used adjective.

I can't even muster the energy to rank these movies, let alone talk about them.

Instead, I present to you 10 movies you might have not seen, plus one that you most definitely did see, that exceeded expectations (ie. did not disappoint) -- whatever that might mean.

I have half-heartedly order them by preference. I'll let you guess which direction.

The Fall


Role Models


Shotgun Stories


The Edge of Heaven


Man On Wire


Rachel Getting Married


Let The Right One In


Waltz With Bashir


JCVD


Encounters at the End of the World



The Dark Knight

It is the year 20XX...

Mega Man 9
I am of two minds about this game. On one hand, I love that Capcom fearlessly embraced a retro aesthetic for Mega Man 9 and ported it to all the major gaming systems (as opposed to just marginalizing nostalgia to the DS). On the other hand, these throwback games (e.g. Contra 4) tend to exaggerate the difficultly level of 8-bit gaming (except for Battletoads, you could not possible fathom a more punishing game).

While the franchise had its share of controller throwing moments (those Quick Man beams should send most old schoolers into a cold-sweat), Mega Man 9 packs quite a few of them - in each level. Which is fine. A challenge is a challenge, and it is a nice change of pace from games that confuse length with difficulty. But Nintendo games were designed with re-playability in mind. I don't think I will ever attempt some of these levels again. Woe to the gamer that attempts to unlock the achievement of beating the entire game without being hit.

Grade: B

Why didn't anyone tell me?

IN-N-OUT Burger. Draper. Fall 09.

A problem of scale.

Fable II
Let's face it: you make a fantasy adventure game, you are going to be compared against Zelda. And while Fable II is absolutely gorgeous and manages to create a fairly deep and believable world, it fails in the most critical of areas: incentive. The Zelda formula consistently works because it is built around puzzle-like dungeons that require the accumulation of items which in turn allow you to unlock previously inaccessible areas. That conspicuous boulder? Going to need some bombs! One-eyed statues? Let me find a bow and arrow! It may not be sophisticated, but it is immensely rewarding.

Fable II, in contrast, allows you to work menial jobs (mini games that involve minimal hand-eye coordination) that reap seismically disproportionate amount of money. Within a couple hours of starting that the game, I had enough gold to purchase the best weapons and clothing. Suddenly quests became a joke. My threads made everyone instantly love me and my swords made adventures a tedious exercise in button mashing (which might have been forgivable if the dungeons weren't repetitive and unimaginative). Even hidden treasures lost their luster: why even bother digging for an item that I could buy a thousand times over? [I won't even go into the clumsy interface and unforgivable one-slot save system which make me wonder if anyone bothered beta-testing this game.]

Which is a shame. Because there is a lot to like about Fable II. But clearly Microsoft has a ways to go before it threatens Nintendo's cherished franchise.

Grade: B-

"We ain't no hooligans, this ain't a football song."

For my football hooligani: the CONCACAF 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification begins in earnest tomorrow with a matchup between Mexico and the U.S.A. in Columbus at 7:00 EST.

The U.S.A. team is probably fielding the best team in the CONCACAF and Mexico just barely sneaked into the fourth round on goal differential, but the intensity of the rivalry and the weather conditions in Ohio should make this an interesting matchup.

4:04 p.m.

Imagine this: You move into a nice apartment. Really nice. It’s big, and it has everything you were looking for. (Two bedrooms. Washer/Dryer hookups.) The rent is good too.

Almost immediately there’s a problem you can’t shake: a gripping feeling that someone is watching you.

It varies throughout the day. It’s worse when you’re alone. But it’s there all the time.

On a fall day, you’re cleaning the bathroom. The toilet. The bathtub. Running the shower to rinse it away. You sit in the front room to take a break, and there’s the downstairs neighbor’s brother in your front yard. He’s looking through the front window, skulking, and he takes off as soon as he sees you. Sees that you see him.

Of course, everyone tries to convince you that maybe you didn’t see things quite right. Or there was a reason. He was looking for a package. He was checking the mail. He was walking around the house from his car.

Really, there’s no reason for him to be there. And you know that. So do they. (Friends and family always seem so ready to defend what you could call “reality.” Even if they don’t believe it.)

So you decide to push the feeing aside. As much as you can. To forget what could happen, and focus on what is happening. For a few months—with new locks on the doors, a chain, and a motion sensor camera—it almost works.

But things aren’t exactly right. And you know that—even if you can’t say why. As much as you try. You dread being at home, and you can’t quite live your life like normal.

It’s little things. How the brother always seems to be getting in or out of his car after you take a shower. How they seem to go in and out of their house more often when you have people over. Slamming the doors. Loitering on the stairs. In the shared foyer.

After a few months, you aren’t quite as nervous, but you’re not yourself.

Then it’s New Year’s Day, a Thursday. You have houseguests, friends from out-of-town, and your playing Rock Band. You’ve haven’t been opening your windows, but you do. Because why not. People are there. Your husband is home. So when you see your neighbor looking through your windows again, you’re surprised. Kind of.

And really that’s the end of the story. I loosely tried to convince Rachel to ignore it again. But not really. If it happens once, it could be an innocent misunderstanding. Twice, and it’s not.

What made it obvious that we had to move out, however, is the two times I talked to the neighbor about it. The first was the Monday after it happened. We’d waited two days, for some reason, to cal the police. The officer recommends that he make a visit, which he did on Saturday. The neighbor must have stewed over it for two days. Then on Monday, he walked up to our door, and told me they had every right to look through our windows if they were open, and if we didn’t want them to we’d have to keep our blinds closed.

Something I noticed: We hadn’t caught the neighbor looking through the windows. Just his brother. But he kept saying “we.” “We are” this. Or “we are” that. “We were just curious who lived above us.” “We don’t want to worry your going to call the police if we walk by and you have your windows open.”

He kept talking about how his brother didn’t live there. He lived an hour away in Saratoga Springs. Even though we could hear him early in the morning, 4 a.m. early, and late at night. We didn’t want him to live there of course. But it’s not like that’s why we called the police.

I talked to him one more time. Rachel and I went to his door. Told him we weren’t trying to make him feel threatened. We just wanted them to mind their own business. But also that, if we saw his brother in the front yard again, we would call the police.

He didn’t say much. Except to repeat the same thing he had kept saying a few days before. My brother doesn’t live here. I felt it was clear we shouldn’t stay.

These were strange people anyway. They rarely left their apartment. They never had visitors. And he would scream and yell at his kids all hours of the day. (We assumed he was unemployed.) His kids, by the way, could only have been three and four at the oldest.

What made the decision for me, though, was that neither my neighbor nor his brother apologized for looking in the windows. (If I had a misunderstanding where someone thought I was looking in his or her windows, I would apologize. Wouldn’t you?) And he seemed too eager to convince us that his brother didn’t live there.

Even if they aren’t perverts, I wasn’t willing to risk my wife’s safety. No matter how much I didn’t want to have to move, that’s not something I would even wager—especially against the integrity of weirdoes that I don’t know.

I can, of course, never know what the best decision was. But I’m confident about the one I made. Because here’s my end to this story: We were moving the last of our furniture out. Rachel wasn’t there. My Dad was in the bathroom. And I decided to check the mail one last time.

The neighbor’s brother was walking up the alley. He didn’t see me, so I went back inside and watched him through the window. He stopped at the top of the driveway, turned around and stared at our apartment for what had to be two minutes. He finally started walking up the street, so I walked outside to get the mail. And I saw him stopped two houses down and stare through the windows of a house on the corner. For even longer this time. Long enough that I almost had time to run inside so my Dad could see.

Almost.

[plug]

Coraline. You should see it.

It's based on a Neil Gaiman novella. It has received good reviews. And it is in 3-D!

More importantly, I had a friend who worked on it and it would be really good for him and the entire Portland economy (Laika is based in Tualatin) for this movie to have a successful opening weekend.

[/plug]

Criterion Collection 001: Grand Illusion

Grand Illusion, Jean Renoir, 1937
Goebbels labeled it "Cinematic Public Enemy No. 1." I simply call it the greatest film by the greatest filmmaker of all time. Released on the brink of World War II, Grand Illusion is a paradoxical clarion call from the Popular Front to the people of France: we must go to war out of the hope that it will be the last one. Structured as a narrative triptych, the movie implodes all essentialist notions of class, race, and nation. The titular allegory can be read multiple ways (e.g. the aristocracy is a relic of an old world and like Rauffenstein himself - shattered and broken, held together only by metal plates - ready to collapse at any moment), but I find it best symbolized in the final haunting image: of a snowy plain that erases all borders and affirms that our arbitrary social distinctions are simply illusion.

Highly Recommended

On the pecking order.

My downstairs neighbors have a small menagerie in the front yard. Chickens. Ducks. Rabbits. People walking by often stop and marvel. The whole scene is rather exotic for the industrial east side. Edenic almost.

Almost.

I have always had a vague idea in my head of the pecking order. Of social dominance established by the beak. But relentless brutality is the only way I can describe the behavior I have witnessed, without any seeming concern over food or mate.

It is hard not to anthropomorphize here. [Sadisitic.]

Or make the scene representative of some larger world view that it could not possibly sustain. [A world made of stone.]

But looking at a chicken as it is pinned to the ground and pecked, unyielding and without mercy, invoked the image of a boot stamping on a human face -- forever.