See that fish up
there? He’s a piece of graffiti in my neighborhood, and whenever he’s painted
over, he appears again in a few days. That fish rules, and is an inspiration.
Go, Fish! GO!
Wow! The time I have
been taking between posts is inexcusable!
I do apologize, but
lack of writing for LERNER INTERNATIONAL certainly doesn’t mean that I haven’t
been busy.
Oh lordy, have I been
busy!
[* = Odyseuss? He’s the guy who
wrote Green Eggs and
Circe’s Curse and The Scylla & Charyrbdis
in the Hat, remember?]
But as anyone not
stupid will tell you, times are tough.
While I won’t go into
details as not to jinx myself, fingers are crossed! Good things are on the
horizon, but unfortunately however, this has resulted in almost no writing of a
fun sort, and a grand reduction in entertainment consumption.
And honestly, through
no one’s fault but my own (mea culpa, mea
culpa, mea maxima culpa!) my life’s been a tad hellish at times lately.
Then this cold! It really cramps my
style! (But certainly provides many fascinating images…)
(And just because I’m
finally publishing again does not mean my schedule is getting back to normal—if
anything I shamed myself into finally finishing this.)
Now onto the Movies!
GRAVITY is the Best
Science Fiction, Best Contemporary “Man-Against-Nature Fight For Survival” and/or
Best Animated Film of the Year!
Originally seen in October 2013, Gravity (2013;
Alfonso Cuaron) is a wonderful hybrid: the best genuine “hard science”
science-fiction film that has been made in ages—as opposed to fantasy or Star Trek-like supertech that might as
well be magic— and the film is also the finest “Man Against Nature Fight For
Survival” movie released in a long time. Gravity
is a nerve-wracking nail-biting thriller. Fantastic stuff that really should be
seen in the theater.
Technically superb, Gravity is a simple tale, told intensely
with so much style and verve that the flick almost becomes experimental—without
gravity, there are no points of reference, no up, no down—Director Cuaron is
kind enough to always frame the actors so their heads are pointing “up,” but
after that the audience is given no breaks, and some might find themselves
nauseous from vertigo.
The camera circles
and spins around weightless astronauts being tormented by the Laws of
Thermodynamics, especially that one about “bodies in motion…” The
weightlessness is so flawless that I have to wonder how much of this movie is animated.
I almost want to say that Gravity is
also the best animated film of the year.
As sci-fi, it is
almost perfect, as there is nothing “made up” in this flick, except perhaps our
protagonist’s incredible luck.
I’ve heard of genuine astronauts scoffing at Gravity, but the film is entirely based off of what actually exists, what is known
to work in the “real world,” and extrapolating off of that data, the filmmakers
give us a grueling, almost psychedelic thriller.
Despite being set in
on the edge of the vastness of space, the flick is strangely and incredibly
claustrophobic (we’re trapped in those astro-suits as well), and packed full of
Lovecraftian cosmic dread and terror: The Universe seems actively hostile
towards humans.
This is a mind-blowing/tension-packed
film, creating anxiety that’s almost unbearable. It’s a grueling, incredible
tale of survival. After a swarm of space junk clobbers the NASA space shuttle,
astronauts George Clooney and Sandra Bullock (“I hate space,” she gripes)
struggle to make it to “safety” on the International Space Station. It’s an
insane chance, but better than just floating away and dying.
Cuaron continues to
impress—it’s been a few years since Children
of Men, but there is no doubt the director has been busy. Gravity looks like a logistical
nightmare, at least from an effects point of view. It’s also the best kind of
remake: an unofficial one that doesn’t remind you at all of its sub-par
“source” material—in this case, John Sturges’ lumbering Marooned (1969), a flick I like, but cannot recommend
(watch the “bad” Apollo 18 before the “classic” Marooned).
The funny thing is
that some of the best most intelligent and hard-science-driven science fiction
films have needed to “make stuff up:”
Both 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Andromeda Strain needed aliens to drive their plots
(in the former, the extraterrestrials were incredibly advanced; in the later,
incredibly simple).
Thankfully, Gravity doesn’t introduce
ultraterrestrials of any sort, and so becomes intensely existential—
Our hero is reborn
(via some heavy-handed symbolism) into a new human being, one living in the
NOW.
This is why I
sometimes find myself arguing that an “okay” flick like 1974's Earthquake is better sci-fi than GREAT flicks because those classics have to
rely on fantastical/impossible elements like alien life, while everything in
Chuck Heston's disaster soap opera, or something like The China Syndrome, is
already in place to happen—like with Gravity,
it just takes one little thing to launch a maelstrom of destruction!
Speaking of
“gravity”—I would love to see Hal Clement’s old school science fiction classic
Mission of Gravity faithfully adapted into a film—it’s a simple tale of an
Earth astronaut’s survival and exploration, but set on a very weird planet
(shaped like an egg), whose gravity stretches between 3g and 700g, and whose
inhabitants are intelligent centipede-creatures. After the aliens learn
English, the book concentrates on survival in such a strange environment (on
parts of their world, despite their hard shells, a fall of approximately an
inch could kill them).
Almost an
ultra-detailed Popular Mechanics article,
Mission of Gravity is fun stuff that
still holds up.
Here’s The Cinema
Screened In
November 2013
Utu (1983; Geoff
Murphy) Anzac revisionist western/
Not the typical
revenge flick/Great performances, and good action/kind of a sleeper, a bit too
self-consciously “quirky”—but this made it more interesting as well.
Pretty Poison (1968;
Noel Black) Classic Tony Perkins/Tuesday Weld “good girl secretly evil” flick
that needs to be seen by everyone. Part of Weld’s “Secret Homosexual” trilogy
from the 1960s, that included Lord Love a
Duck and Soldier in the Rain.
Bonnie’s Kids (1973;
Arthur Marks) A new fave! Reviewed HERE!
Rudyard Kipling’s The
Man Who Would Be King (1975; John Huston) Saw this as a kid during its original
run in Times Square, loved it then, still love it now. Almost perfect
filmmaking that really showed Huston’s mastery. The direction feels effortless,
but the storytelling is as intricate as a Swiss watch. Connery & Caine are
superb, but I can’t help but wish I could also see that alternate universe
version of The Man Who Would Be King
that Huston wanted to make in the 1940s with Bogart and Clark Gable.
Grabbers (2012; Jon
Wright) is a very Irish movie, almost to the point of annoyance. Goofy “Paddy”
humor interferes with a potentially interesting story of an alien invasion
thwarted by alcoholics. What we have feels like a short that’s been, heh-heh, padded out a bit too much. Despite my
gripes, Grabbers is worth a look for
weirdness/uniqueness value.
“Fall Out” The
Prisoner (1968; episode written & directed by Patrick McGoohan)
Probably one of the
greatest moments in TV history. The final episode of one of the greatest and
weirdest television shows ever, where questions grow exponentially, but it sort
of doesn’t matter: “I! I! I! I!”
Here Are the Films Viewed During Those Halcyon Days of
December 2013
The Brute Man (1946; Jean
Yarbrough) Like Freaks or Michael
Winner’s The Sentinel or Coffin Joe’s
movies, The Brute Man is sleazy and exploitative—a.k.a.
wonderful—in how it uses genuine human deformity for our entertainment and sick
fascination. In this case, star Rondo Hatton, whose infamous mug was courtesy
of the disease acromegaly, but whose acting was genuine, guileless and directly
from the soul. Hatton is a merciless psychokiller in the film, but he’s also an
everyman out of a Bukowski story—at odds with the world and only wanting to be
left along, and his scenes with a blind girl are moving.
The film had zero
budget and reuses stock footage relentlessly, but also moves at a brisk pace—matched
by the sly banter between the two smart-aleck cops assigned to the case, and
Hatton’s soulful emoting.
Iron Sky (2012; Timo
Vuorensola) Turned my cousin on to this magnificent piece of satire, that I’ve praised before.
Iron Sky is really a new fave of mine:
weird, smart, seditious, and sometimes silly, it uses the outrageous plot of Nazis
hiding on the Dark Side of the Moon (which is a fallacy: there is a Far Side of
the Moon—one side always pointed away from Earth, but no Dark Side—that side
gets plenty of sunlight. But anyway….I’m a nerd).
The Lunar National
Socialists are planning an eventual conquest of Earth, and the film uses this
to take potshots at popular culture, especially American politics. Wisely the
movie doesn’t get bogged down in small, petty details—like how did
the Nazis get to the Moon in 1945?—and sticks to twisted, very European swipes
at super-nationalism and resulting brainpower loss.
In a reelection bid (as
well as the secret mission of finding super-fuel Helium-3), the
Sarah-Palin-like U.S. President has returned America to the Moon. Surprised by
Moon Nazis, one astronaut is killed and the other captured—but the Germans are
flummoxed when they discover the survivor is an African-American.
Meanwhile, Renata,
born and raised on the Nazi Moonbase (shaped like a swastika), is a
schoolteacher (and fiancé to the next Moon-Fuhrer), who was raised under Nazi
propaganda, but is genuinely sweet and caring. Just misinformed. She believes
that Hitler’s message was of love—and she wants to go to Earth and spread the
“Love.”
A Finnish, German,
and Australian co-production, shot in those nations, but also in New York City,
Iron Sky is the type of political
satire that is never made in the U.S., unless on some ridiculous micro-budget.
Without giving away
any of the plot (this film should really be seen cold), I genuinely feel Iron
Sky deserves to be on the shelf next to the best work of Alex Cox and Terry
Gilliam: visually inventive (this film is a steampunk delight!), and subversive
on many socio-political-racial-artistic levels—while being packed with detail
and incident, but with a truly swift pace. A Five-Star Must-See, if you ask me!
Homeland: Season Two
(2012; series created by Howard Gordon & Alex Gansa) Wow, this soap opera
is really getting illogical—although I love its (perhaps unintentional) thesis
that all intelligence analysts are borderline psychos who cause more damage
than they prevent. However, this nonsense that Al Quaeda is anything more than
a gaggle of reckless rabble has got to stop.
Hannah Arendt (2012; Margarethe
von Trotta) is a perfect biopic: I feel biopics should only concentrate on their
subject’s most important five to ten years. The movies that go from birth to
death (the Andy Kaufman bio, Malcolm X)
are absolute snoozefests. Good biopics, like Patton or Ed Wood, stick
to a limited timeframe. Hannah Arendt
does the same, sticking to the years where the eponymous philosopher developed
her theories on The Banality of Evil, and all the controversy it caused. A thoughtful
film that inspires reflection.
Sightseers (2012; Ben
Whatley) Whatley is a filmmaker to watch. Just because none of his films I’ve
seen have really resonated with me doesn’t mean I don’t think he hasn’t got a
certain “something.” Sightseers is a
black comedy about murderous nitpickers on a caravan holiday in the UK’s more dull
places—and there’s plenty to like about the movie, but like Whatley’s previous Kill List, I couldn’t completely
connect with the flick. Maybe with the next one, eh?
Stoker (2013; Park
Chan-wook) So brilliant; one of the year’s best [reviewed here].
The Wire: Season Four
(2006; created by David Simon) Such an incredible series! This is the second
(or third) time I’ve watched the episodes centering on Baltimore’s struggling
education system. As someone who is planning a career switch into teaching,
watching Prezbo’s imitation into the meatgrinder of the public schools was
certainly sobering, if not shocking and moving.
Books, etc. read in November 2013
(“(*)” means I’ve read it before)
(*) ALIEN (script) by Walter Hill &
David Giler, based on a screenplay by Dan O’Bannon, from a story by Dan
O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett—
A classic script, deservedly
praised for its stripped-down, almost-haiku-like style—a real game-changer in
how screenplays were written. All cinema students should read it.
Literary Outlaw: The Life and
Times of William S. Burroughs by Ted Morgan—fascinating, illuminating stuff; a great
biography as it brings its subject very much to life, despite/because of the
contradictions. Helps if you’re already a fan of Uncle Bill, though; then much
of the book is attention-seizing.
The Amazing Screw-On Head, and
Other Curious Objects by Mike Mignola
(graphic novel)—fantastic and fantastical stuff; very steampunk—but I honestly
think that the short film of this is actually better than the book!
That said, I’m
reading and rereading this comic as many times as I can before I have to return
it to the library. Jeez, I love Mignola’s art! Beautiful!
Baltimore: The Plague Ships,
Volume One by Mike Mignola,
Christopher Golden and Ben Stenbeck (graphic novel)—spooky horror tale, that’s
also very moody and depressing. I didn’t love it, and cannot recommend it.
Books, etc. Read in December 2013
I’d Like to Apologize to Every
Teacher I Ever Had: My Year as a Rookie Teacher at Northeast High by Tony Danza—Moving,
inspirational and full of hints for the new and undaunted teacher.
Raising Hell: Ken Russell and the
Unmaking of “The Devils” by Richard Crouse—
Good stuff about the
making and impact of one of the greatest films ever made—Ken Russell’s The Devils (1971)—but the book is too
much like a magazine article that’s been very padded out: full of unnecessary
fluff. Only for monstro-fans of director Russell, star Oliver Reed, or the film
The Devils itself.
Fires in the Bathroom: Advice for
Teachers From High School Students by Kathleen Cushman (and the students of What Kids
Can Do Inc.)—
Honest answers from
HS students about what they need and expect from teachers. Short version: Be
very organized; take authority; have high expectations; and don’t worry about
understanding, just be respectful.
Hellboy: House of the Living Dead by Mike Mignola and Richard
Corben (graphic novel)—
A fab tribute to Mexican
wrestling/horror flicks that really captures those movies’ insane
twists-and-turns, as well as their inexplicable religious cosmology: a mutant
combo of blood-drenched Catholicism and Aztec Sun God sacrifices. A must-read
for horror fans, even the ones unfamiliar with the character of Hellboy. And
Corben’s art certainly deserves a shout-out!
WISH ME LUCK!
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