2017. Hope?

I was planning on writing out a list with comments, but I don't have the energy to do it. Even so, here is a link to my list of 2017 films that I haven't seen yet that I am cautiously optimistic about. 46 films. Out of thousands. But if even a portion of these deliver on their promise, then 2017 may be a good year in film after all. And I'm also sure that I've missed some gems. It is likely that it will be 3017 before we can recognize what unseen jewel was worth praising in 2017.

https://letterboxd.com/oedipuss_wrecks/list/must-see-2017/

And it’s an exhaustion. It’s an absolute, the end of expression.

"I will try now to give a coherent account of my disintegrated self, for when I turned away from you, the one God, and pursued a multitude of things, I went to pieces." -St. Augustine

Yesterday, I was driving a work van down Floral Ave and was the first car stopped at a red light at the Burbank intersection. The red light would not change to green. I waited. Cars behind me started to honk. There were loud shouts. The cars coming from the other direction were all going through the red light. I sat and waited. A woman walked up to the van and shouted at me that people behind me told her that the light was broken. I shouted back that it appeared to be working and that it was currently red, which meant that I could not drive through it. I asked her if she understood basic traffic laws and told her that I would not disobey those laws. More honking. More shouting. More cars from the other side going through the light. Eventually one car from behind me left the lane and passed about five cars to pass me and go through the light. A few minutes later, about eight cars did the same, traveling down the opposite lane and going through the red light while opposing traffic was continuing to go through. People passed me and yelled at me. At that point, I made a legal right turn on red to avoid being the cause of these idiots creating a giant traffic accident. I was sitting there for about ten minutes before I turned.

Really, I don't care about traffic laws. But it amused me in the moment to play a character who believes so strongly in obeying traffic laws that he will suffer through the disdain and outright hatred of his fellow man for doing so. I played it straight and did not break character. It was funny to me, but I didn't laugh. It was more important to me that this persona that I had adopted maintain its integrity than for me to get any immediate humor out of it. Except that that's the only reason that I committed to the action, because of the humor, maybe because of some core truth that strained toward integrity. There was a co-worker in the van with me that I had just picked up from a garage. Maybe the "joke" was for her, part of it being pressing her alternating embarrassment and amusement with my stubbornness. But I don't think that's entirely the case. It was for the cars behind me and the people walking by and the people passing happily going through the red light, for everyone who helpfully told me that the light was broken. Mostly, it was for myself, to be honest to a role that I may have just come up with at whim, but that I was fully committed to. Anything less seemed like a betrayal. Even the legal right turn seemed like a weak concession made by that character. The character that I was playing was going straight and would wait until it was legal and proper to do so. But the part of me that could reflect on having to deal with getting the work van hit by another car made the choice that it wasn't worth it.

And so when I write that Rick Alverson's Entertainment is a movie that I understand and appreciate with a deeply instinctive, personal passion, maybe that unfeigned love for such an abrasively rigorous film makes more sense in the context of a life of acting, of entertaining and being entertained. The stand-up stage (or any stage) offers a clear demarcation between face and mask, but we all wear different masks every day in the ways in which we present ourselves to the world. But to the extent that we do this, the mask becomes the face or vice versa. The other day, I had to "act mean" to kick some kids out of an apartment. I didn't really care about what these kids did, but my job was to play this role. And there's no way to "act mean" without channeling mean emotions, without actually being the mean guy. We sometimes forget that we are all actors, in that every thing that we *do* is an action, an act.

This always-consciousness of acting, though, is a bit of a curse. Those of us who are constantly evaluating our emotions and actions feel separate from our emotions and actions. They are costumes that we wear, but not ourselves. And if this is so, maybe our selves aren't really there, there is no core identity. There is only an emptiness. I believe that this emptiness is false, but the "feeling" is a reality. Exploring this reality of the disintegrated self has been Alverson's consistent project across his films.

In his book Why We Love Sociopaths: A Guide To Late Capitalist Television, Adam Kotsko evaluates the television show Dexter.

"Listening to Dexter's monologue about this gap between his performance and the feelings others supposedly "really" have, it struck me that his problem stems from the very fact that he thinks he's missing out on something. What is a genuinely nice guy, for instance, if not someone who is in the habit of acting like a nice guy? How many people, when consoling a friend, honestly feel empathy in any gut-level way? He believes that his performance of these rituals when he doesn't "really" feel the corresponding emotion makes him a kind of monster, when in reality everyone else is mostly just going through the motions as well. Other than his secret habit of ritually murdering people, the only thing preventing him from being a "normal" person is his very belief that there is an obstacle."

"At that time I was truly miserable, for I loved feeling sad and sought out whatever could cause me sadness. When the theme of a play dealt with other people’s tragedies—false and theatrical tragedies—it would please and attract me more powerfully the more it moved me to tears. I was an unhappy beast astray from your flock and resentful of your shepherding, so what wonder was it that I became infected with foul mange? My love for tragic scenes sprang from no inclination to be more deeply wounded by them, for I had no desire to undergo myself the woes I liked to watch. It was simply that when I listened to such doleful tales being told they enabled me superficially to scrape away at my itching self, with the result that these raking nails raised an inflamed swelling, and drew stinking discharge from a festering wound. Was that life I led any life at all, O my God?" -St. Augustine

I'm currently in the middle of a re-read of Augustine's Confessions. I highly recommend the book to all of you. The entire book is a prayer; I think that you would all appreciate prayer more if you ever heard anyone pray like Augustine! Most interestingly for this blog's purposes, there are many places in which Augustine interacts positively and negatively with the entertainments of his youth. I'm pretty sure that Rick Alverson would like The Confessions. Josh Larson of Filmspotting recently released a book titled Movies Are Prayers. I've only dipped into it a little bit (it's got a great introduction by Matt Zoller Seitz) so can't speak to the book as a whole, but I love the title (with some reservations, of course!). Relating this to Entertainment, I'm obviously suggesting that the film is a prayer. There is a yearning for connection and for reality, for Connection and Reality, for an integrated self instead of a disintegrated self, not "success" but being able to somehow feel whole and be whole. There are a few hints in Entertainment (not to mention Alverson's other work) that this fullness of Reality is to be found in the Creator and Sustainer, apart from which we disintegrate.

I do realize that most of this "film writing" here has not at all engaged with the details of Alverson's film. I could and maybe I will. I need repeated viewings. It deserves repeated viewings, which is probably the best praise I can give it. But for right now I refer you to the following review. It's not full-deep analysis, but it's a good review that actually understands the film. There is much more digging to do. "As each of these scenes grows progressively more surreal, The Comedian simultaneously recedes as a traditional character with legible feelings and emerges instead as the core of the film’s rich, abstract expression of the troubles of self-consciousness."
http://cinema-scope.com/features/funniest-joke-world-rick-alversons-entertainment/

And here's a great interview with Alverson and Turkington. The interviewer asks pretty basic questions and they respond with graciousness. Alverson is more aloof (though does answer mostly straightforwardly) while Turkington reveals himself as a basically sweet guy, open to communicating all of the secrets of his trade.
https://youtu.be/yhhXLZNL4IQ

And this piece is also definitely worth reading:
https://consequenceofsound.net/2015/11/the-end-of-expression-a-conversation-with-rick-alverson-and-gregg-turkington/
“Look at Bill Cosby. Here’s a guy who has the most sincere sort of stand-up,” Turkington observes. “But I dare say that’s more of a character than Neil Hamburger. Based on what we’re seeing in the news right now, that is a real mask that guy had on up there.”

As a side note, I've been aware of Neil Hamburger for nearly 20 years. It was the fall of '99 that I discovered Will Oldham (star of Alverson's New Jerusalem). In the next few years, looking through Drag City catalog listings, I'd come across the name of the "legendary" comedian Neil Hamburger. He was a mystery to me then. The internet hadn't had him pegged yet and I had little information. I never bought any of his recordings, but I was always hoping that I'd catch him live sometime. I never did.

As a side side note, my friend Dan introduced me to Oldham through this SubPop single: https://www.subpop.com/releases/bonnie_prince_billy/lets_start_a_family_a_whorehouse_is_any_house_limit_2. We'd listen to records in his dorm room often. And this specific time, I made him replay this 7" record over and over and over and over again. It was one of the best things I had ever heard. Soon enough, I found another friend (thank you, Kate) who made me a bootleg cassette of early Palace stuff. Dan was a huge film fan and encouraged me to make lists. '99 was a great year for many reasons and a great film year, but it was mostly great because Dan was there and because I was watching great films and listening to great music with him. Dan is dead now and I miss him greatly. I think that he would have loved Entertainment. Damn it, I'm crying writing this.

Entertainment.

The Big S(cht)ick

Are we doing this?

Because I'm here doing this.

Writing about movies on company time.

Yesterday, I went to Cinema Saver (probably my favorite place in Broome County; at least one of the staff knows me by name there).

I got out of work at 3pm. My family was at a family reunion and wouldn't be home. I could go late to the reunion, either smuggling in booze or wishing I had, or I could go to the movies.

I considered seeing The Little Hours at the Art Mission at 3pm, but to be honest I didn't really want to see it and it would have been tight trying to get there on time. The only reason that I wanted to see The Little Hours at all is that I had heard that it was a less raunchy adaptation of our own riotous Boccaccio adaptation from the mid-90s. In one of my early acting roles, I played the silent stranger while my friend Mike played all of the sexy nuns. Also featuring Josh and Nick. Good times.

(poster is a recent mock-up by my friend Josh)

I settled on the 3:30pm showing of The Big Sick at Cinema Saver. I hadn't read any reviews or seen the trailer, but I did know that it was positively received and near-universally loved by critics. I was vaguely familiar with Kumail Nanjiani. I had seen Zoe Kazan in other films, but didn't remember that until I just now looked her up.

The Big Sick is the worst adaptation of The Decameron that I have ever seen. Not even close. Terrible liberties were taken, characters changed or eliminated, and entire plotlines scrambled or removed. It's like no one involved actually read the source material.

It just barely works as a romantic comedy. It's more than a little bit weird that Nanjiani plays himself, acting out past events involving his wife with a woman other than his wife. There is some chemistry between Nanjiani and Kazan, maybe, but maybe it's just that Kazan works her smile for the big-time here and it works, big-time. Romano and Hunter have fun as the magic parents who welcome the outsider. Kher and Schroff have just as much fun as the lovably ethnic Pakistani parents smothering their son.

So, everyone's having fun. There's an undeniable lightness to it and it bounces along mostly harmless.

But because it's so airy, there's no bite to it, nothing to hold onto, no wonder stuff to fall in love with. There are some interesting moments of cultures in conflict ("If you didn't want me to act like an American, why did you bring me to America?"), but none of that is developed. It's all surface gloss, shiny and fun. Everything is so damned nice in the movie. Cheap laughs, surface laughs.

I didn't like it. But of course I liked it. It was movie magic. Everyone got what they wanted. Happily ever after was achieved. And most importantly, I was caught up in it. One of the reasons that I still love the cinema and force myself to go at least once a month is that it really does rejuvenate me in a way that tv at home does not. At the cinema, I can still resist the distraction of that text alert vibrating my pocket. I don't have to talk at all. I walk into a dark theater alone, sometimes with others around me, and I surrender myself to someone else, to other worlds, to other ways of viewing this world. 

I find Nanjiani's smarmy niceness a bit nauseating. It's a mask even if maybe he's wearing the same face under the mask. There are raw and real things that he could have explored, but instead we're given the Hollywood version each time. There are occasional glimpses of real pains and frustrations (for instance, in the Pakistani girls who come to audition as brides-to-bes), but every time they are packaged with a tidy Hollywood ribbon and bow.

Eh, meh.

That's all I've got. I don't want to put too much energy into this considering that Brandon has already given up on his new blog. :-)

So, Brandon's blogging again, eh?

Let's do this.

It's already August. How has 2017 been so far?

The crank in me says disappointing as usual.

Here's what I've seen and at least a sentence about each.

Ranked:

1) Get Out
I'm surprised that this one has stuck with me as the most impressive film of the year so far. I had problems with it coming out of it (mostly with the finale, that it moved to the broadly comic instead of staying the course of the horrific; maybe the alternate ending on the DVD will solve this problem for me?), but a discussion with my friend Ben (not MIA film club Ben) convinced me of the deep darkness of this film, that it is truly great.

2) War for the Planet of the Apes
This was my most anticipated film of the year. It was satisfying, but I was disappointed that there was no extravagantly wild set piece to match apes on horses on the Golden Gate Bridge or apes on tanks driving through a wall of flames. Instead, we get a weak avalanche of whiteness. Dawn is my favorite of the trilogy.

3) The Beguiled
This went to the Cinema Saver. I knew it wouldn't play for longer than a week so decided to catch it on a Monday afternoon, 4 something showing. I was the only one in the theater. The Beguiled delivers what it promises, a houseful of women/girls beguiled by a stranger, longing for change and any sort of good news, ready to believe the best in anyone. I only regret that it gets a bit explicit in its sexiness toward the end. If it weren't for that, it'd be a wonderful film to share with my older daughters.

4) Baby Driver
This one has already cooled in my mind. It was a fun trip, exhilarating for much of its run time, but I'm not sure that there's much to return to. I actually wish that there were more surface pleasure to it instead of a stretching for deep meaningfulness. It doesn't quite work as endlessly replayable music video or as serious thinkpiece.

5) Logan
Logan is supposed to be the end (telos) of the superhero movie, such a movie matured. I can't remember much about it. Except for the scene of the good family taking in Wolvie and Prof X and paying for it. And I guess that middle sequence alone makes this one worth thinking about.

6) Girlfriend's Day
Bob Odenkirk delivers a satisfying, if slight, comedy with a silly plot.

7) Okja
I lost interest after the pig was kidnapped. It was a bit of a slog to get through the second half of this.

8) Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
I remember being entertained by this. But it's a slick, corporate product even if it's aching to be otherwise.

9) Spider-Man: Homecoming
There were a few good moments, but as a Spidey fan for as long as I can remember, I was sorely disappointed. Spider-Man turns into Iron Man, Jr. in this movie. And that's only the beginning of the problems here.

10) Cars 3
It's a good kids' movie. It lost me when it gave an extended flashback at the end highlighting the themes of mentor/mentee that were already obvious throughout. I hate flashbacks that treat the audience like idiots.

11) Wonder Woman
I don't get the love for this one at all. It's another superhero slog.