November, 2006

Creatively Paranoid

Posted on November 20, 2006. Written by Glenn Vance.

There is a film that premiered at Cannes this year called Shortbus. I don’t expect you to have heard about it or John Cameron Mitchell, the director of the film, but I read about this stuff, hence my knowledge of its existence. The film is pretty much political porn, at least that’s what Mitchell says it is.

“It’s a little bit of a cri de coeur to us, a little bit of a call to arms” against the prevailing conservatism, he told a media conference, adding that his country was living in “the era of Bush, which is about clamping down, being scared.” The 43-year-old, whose previous work was Hedwig and the Angry Inch, about a transsexual rock singer, said the film was his own small act of defiance against Bush. “If you can’t do elections you might as well do erections,” he said.

More…

One scene likely to create controversy in the United States and some other countries shows a gay threesome in which one participant joyfully bellows “The Star Spangled Banner.” The actor with the singing voice, PJ Deboy, said he did the scene to show that he was as American as anyone, despite resistance to gays in parts of the country, including Washington.

“I thought to myself: “Can I do it…?’ And I decided I could, because it is a patriotic act…. There’s nothing un-American about gay sex and there’s nothing unpatriotic about it,” he said.

Tim Robbins, an actor I’ve liked for a long time, is currently starring in a stage production of George Orwell’s “1984?. His thoughts on the play -

“We have right now a media that is willfully ignoring the high crimes and misdemeanors of the president of the United States…”"(Bush) got us into (the Iraq) war based on lies that he knew were lies. … His war has recruited more al-Qaeda members than Osama bin Laden could ever have dreamed for … yet no one in the media is calling for impeachment,” he said.

“Unfortunately, the book and the play is more relevant now than it ever has been,” he said. “(It) talks about continuous warfare as a means to control the Western economy, and as a way to control rebel elements within society through the use of fear, constant fear.”

“In my country we seem to be sanctioning renditioning of innocent people without trial… put them in jail without telling anyone… and torture them out of suspicion of what we think they might do,” Robbins said.

“This is exactly what Orwell was talking about when he spoke of thought crimes,” he added.

You may not know this, but as soon as the 3 people above said what they said, they were whisked away to a secret CIA prison camp where they were tortured and humiliated for saying and doing what they did.

Yeah, right.

Why do film makers feel that they’re under constant persecution, when they live in the freest country in the world? Many places, they wouldn’t be able to even make these films or say what they are saying. It’s just foolish.

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I’m Lost

Posted on November 7, 2006. Written by Glenn Vance.

I’ve been feeling it for awhile, and I’ve started seeing the same thoughts I’m having start popping up across the internet : I’m probably done with Lost. It was nice and fine when it began, but I think it’s over with.

I thought it was a great concept – 40ish people crash land on a deserted island and have to survive. Meanwhile strange things start happening. What’s causing it? Well, tune in next week and learn some more. In the mean time you’ll learn about the people that you’re following through flashbacks to their lives off of the island. Not a bad idea for a show.

And I stayed around for months, years now. Two and a half years as it is, and I tune in dutifully week after week, like all of the other people who have been there from the beginning or got hooked on the show at some point during its run. Every Wednesday at 8 pm was Lost, and you watched it for clues and then you talked about it the next day at work, and you pondered the meaning of little things and hoped and prayed that your theory(s) would be addressed at some point.

What is the monster? What was Walt’s power? How did he draw animals to him? How did he manifest himself when he was somewhere else? Who was the guy that Jack thought was his father? Who’s the guy that Eko thought was his brother? Was it the smoke monster? How did Locke lose the ability to walk? Was Charlie ever doing more heroin on the island that he found in the plane that Eko’s brother showed up in? Why did Boone have to die? What happened to Desmond’s boat? What was the deal with that shark that had a Dharma logo on it? Where did Rose’s cancer go? What’s with the magnetism on the island? And what the hell do the Numbers matter for?

All are some of the questions I’ve got about this show, and I know from the episode where Jack watches the Boston Red Sox win the World Series that they’re only 70 days into their stay on the island. At this rate Sun will finally have her baby along about season 12 or so. Time moves slower here, things happen more rapidly on the island than in our world, since we wait an entire week to watch one or two days on the island.

And it’s getting tedious. There are better, far better, shows out there (Battlestar Galatica) and shows that are more interesting (Heroes), so why stick around for Lost anymore? The ratings for the season 3 opener of Lost were down 1 million viewers from the season 2 finale. One million viewers is a lot of ad dollars to ABC. Are they going to start prodding the show’s creators to start giving more information to get people back?

If they would just cough up some big plot points (Why the crashed, who the Others are, where the island is, what the monster is) they could always create new plot points, like they did in the season 2 finale with the huge stone foot Sayid saw on the beach. But instead they drip out minutia week after freaking week with no secrets revealed.

Why should I stick around for a show that I feel takes me for granted? Why should I watch a show where I know almost no more about the Lostie’s situation now than I did when it began? Will ABC force changes to the show in order to get people back? And since it’s not even my favorite show on TV anymore, why should I care about Lost now?

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Kids Cussing in Movies

Posted on November 1, 2006. Written by Glenn Vance.

I’m not a fan of kids cussing in movies. I’m not talking teenagers or college-aged kids letting fly with a stream, I mean little kids, 5, 8, 10 years old cussing in films. Two cases in point – Jerry Maquire and Mrs. Doubtfire. While Jerry and Jonathan Lipnicki’s character, Ray, are getting to know one another right after they first meet there is this charming exchange –

RAY
Let’s go right now. Let’s go to the zoo.

JERRY
Aw, the fucking thing…I mean, the zoo is closed.

RAY
You said ‘fuck’.

JERRY
Yeah I know. I did.

Lipnicki at the time was 5 or 6 years old.

Point two, Mrs. Doubtfire -

NATALIE
We’re his goddamn kids too.

[Miranda gives Daniel a look]

DANIEL

Heh heh, kids say the darnedest things.

Why does this always get a laugh? It’s like when you’re watching a movie and for a cheap gag the director will throw in a commercial that everyone knows. It’s lazy filmmaking.

And what is it with the child’s parents that allow them to do this to their kids? Is stardom really so unattainable that you have to make your kid say ‘fuck’ in a movie when they’re not even in first grade yet? I have to say, judging by Lipnicki’s career, saying that in Jerry Maguire has definitely helped his career. And what about poor little Mara Wilson, who played Natalie in Mrs. Doubtfire? The last screen credit she has is in 2000 in a ”Thomas the Tank Engine” movie. She’s currently at NYU studying drama, probably hoping to rekindle her career.

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