guitar humor

knocked down

the reverse shot blog perfectly sums up my ambivalence toward knocked up:

Knocked Up defies gravity all right, and it’s a dismaying feat of gutlessness, turning away from the comic potential of true conflict, moral complication, or the truly dirty business of living. There are exceptional scenes (the scary, true-feeling break-up in the gynecologist's office comes to mind), but writer/director Judd Apatow is positively in love with his buoyancy and good intentions, and coasts right past plausibility into the realm – intentional or not – of willful, Focus on the Family conservatism.

The film’s greatest conflict comes courtesy of its premise – stoner geek impregnates hot chick, who decides to give both baby and stoner a go – which it then systematically declines to exploit for conflict. There’s an inevitability to the proceedings that’s killing, a “let’s watch the improbable happen as if it’s the most natural thing in the world,” that sounds – and reads – far more progressive than it really is. For in order to make the wish-fulfillment work so effortlessly, Apatow disregards the multitude of questions that trail behind the plot’s every gallop forward. Why not an abortion? (Apatow’s reluctance to have any of his characters even utter the word is hardly clever or astute – it’s cowardly, or worse, capitulating. Ah, if abortion would only just go away...) What about her career? What about pregnancy makes such an unpromising mate suddenly worth pursuing? Are there no other romantic prospects for her? For him? Why again doesn’t she have an abortion?

as much as i wanted to, i just couldn't buy the premise that a woman of alison's social status (young, attractive, career-oriented) would one, hook up w/ a guy like ben (flabby, unemployed man-child stoner) and two, bear his child. huh? i know i'm supposed to suspend disbelief when it comes to movies but this was a little too much. besides, isn't comedy genuinely funny when it's true? maybe this is why i found the marriage between paul rudd + leslie mann the funniest + most compelling part of the movie.

cassavetes, status, and "mumblecore"

one day in 2004 i caught andrew bujalski's funny ha ha on ifc. the film is about a woman named marnie who lives in boston + is aimless about what she wants to do w/ her post-college life. at the time i thought the film was amusing + refreshing + i sought information on bujalski. the few bits i found emphasized the influence john cassavetes had on bujalski. as time went by, i began to hear about joe swanberg's kissing on the mouth, LOL; the duplass brothers' the puffy chair; and a few other assorted "independent" films that have become known as part of the "mumblecore" movement. what is "mumblecore"? this, from a recent issue of filmmaker magazine, explains it:

What are the criteria for inclusion (besides “No jerks”)? The first aesthetic indicators — and, it must be stressed, not all friends of mumblecore make films like this — are improvised dialogue and naturalistic performances, often by non-actors. The films employ handheld, vérité-style digital camerawork and long takes. Budgets are tiny. The plots hinge on everyday events. The stories are often obvious reflections of the filmmakers’ lives. Most characters are white and educated and pursue creative endeavors when not pursuing one another. They are sensitive. They are sincere.

A lot of tension ensues over the answering or non-answering of cell-phone calls. Characters frequently attend and perform in sparsely populated weeknight music shows. There is an abundance of road trips.

Technology is ever present. Four Eyed Monsters is the story of its directors, Buice and Crumley. The two met online and decided to fall in love without speaking to each other in person, only via texts, emails, notes and MySpace. Swanberg especially, in LOL most of all, gets deep inside the effort to communicate through thick layers of screens. The Puffy Chair’s entire plot is set in motion by a phony eBay listing, perhaps a metaphor for the characters’ interpersonal misrepresentations. The suitcase-clutching heroine of Quiet City arrives in Brooklyn completely stranded, betrayed by her cell phone, waiting throughout the entire film for a voice mail to tell her where to go. She stumbles into a real, live connection in the meantime.

Above all, mumblecore films are about trying to communicate.

i used to work at this zine distro when i lived in portland (that has since relocated to indiana, of all places). during my stint there, several college kids came in to interview about our internship position. how many of these kids called back about the job? not a one. these instances would prompt my boss, joe, to rant about the uselessness of college students. "they spend all this time + money on school + then they just emerge like ping pong balls, not really sure where they're going, bouncing back + forth, generally bored by everything cuz it's all beneath them." portland is full of these types: the emo/indie/scene/zine type whose faces rock a constant rictus of both disgust + fright; the ones who tremble at the first whisper of a chilled wind; the ones who post inane pictures of burnt frozen pizza on their flickr pages; the ones who honestly think the arcade fire is "amazing"; the ones who swear they're liberal, yet only associate w/ white, middle- to upper-class college-educated young professionals; and on. i may have only seen a few "mumblecore" films, but i've lived it. i've walked amongst them. anyway, i get the impression that if you've seen one "mumblecore" film, you've seen them all. (if you want, you can view four eyed monsters (sic) in its entirety at youtube.)

cassavetes has become something of a patron saint amongst "indie" types, and while it's obvious why journalists would compare bujalski or swanberg to him (low budget, non-actors, improvisation, etc.), i think the comparison is unwarranted. cassavetes' films were about people in crises; his films were not "slices of life." his characters found themselves in situations that were going to make or break them-- lelia's racial rejection in shadows, richard + maria's disintegrating marriage in faces, mabel's breakdown in a woman under the influence, cosmo's debt + double cross in the killing of a chinese bookie, etc. arguably more important was cassavetes' interest in other people + other people's points of view. the common theme in the "mumblecore" movement is that the films are basically about the filmmakers + actors: white, middle- to upper-class, college-educated twentysomethings. i don't know, is this really unmined territory? could you not find the same demographic represented on whatever season of the real world? for example, look at this quote from swanberg:

I am glad that you bring up age, race, and caste, because it's important to note, and these considerations absolutely affected the way we made the film. I would never pretend to know what life after college was like for someone of another race, or more importantly, another income level. Because of this, I have no illusions about the film speaking to my entire generation. What we tried to do was speak very specifically about the things we have experienced and hope that others can relate. I have never been a believer in making anything more general as a way to appeal to a bigger audience. I would rather be very true to the characters and hope that the audience appreciates this and still finds human similarities even if there are no superficial similarities.

woody allen uses basically the same excuse to justify why "his" new york is magically devoid of minorities (nevermind that he's been schtupping one for years now). but it's bullshit, isn't it? shouldn't one of the goals of an artist be to at least try to understand "the other"? cassavetes wasn't a racially-mixed young girl in new york; he wasn't an unhappy, suburban housewife; he wasn't a freewheeling hippie; he wasn't a club owner; he wasn't a moody, sex-obsessed writer-- yet he made compelling, absolutely believable films about all of these people. why? because he understood that certain things are inevitable whatever your lot in life. on the surface, different people may have different problems, but we all feel/experience euphoria, anxiety, depression, loss, disease + death. i guess one can't ultimately fault these kids, as cassavetes himself once remarked that he couldn't expect privileged, comfortable people to understand and/or like his films. when your biggest upset in life so far has been post-college ennui, well, how could you be interested in the problems of others? personally, i'm more intrigued by the poorly-compensated honduran woman who has to clean up at the SXSE festival after the "liberal" middle-class hordes have left to return to brooklyn.

no chin, no jaw, no service

there are fewer entertainers i despise more than marilyn manson, which is why i cannot help but comment on his recent delusion of grandeur re: gerard way of my chemical romance:

On the cut 'Mutilation Is The Most Sincere Form Of Flattery' Manson sings, "You steal instead of borrow/ You take all the shapes that I make/ Mutilation's the most sincere form of flattery/ If you want to be me/ Then stand in line like the rest /F*ck you, f*ck you."

Manson went into more detail saying, "I'm embarrassed to be me because these people are doing a really sad, pitiful, shallow version of what I've done. If they want to identify with me then here's a razorblade. Call me when you're done and we'll talk."

say what? i wouldn't know an MCR song if it bukkaked me, but brian warner is a textbook narcissist if there ever was one. (note how he loves evan rachel wood solely because of what she does for him, how she accepts him wholly, etc.-- it's all about him. dita von teese was a liability because she expected some kind of effort out of him to be something other than a one-dimensional "shock rocker," i.e., an adult, a man, a husband, etc.) what amazes me about this particular gripe from brian is how dishonest he is in omitting the fact that he stole his whole schtick from rozz williams.

more oldies but goodies

prime movers: "strong as i am"



tangerine dream: "love on a real train"



devo: "satisfaction"



siouxsie + the banshees: "cities in dust"



duran duran: "save a prayer"