Like Anna Karina's Sweater

Hell Hath No Fury Like a Fanboy Scorned (or: Why exactly must Keith Uhlich die?)

Why so serious indeed?

If ever a tagline was perfectly suited to a film (and the critical/audience adoration of it) it would have to be this three word gem created by a marketing superhero for Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, the film that currently sits at #1 on the IMDB Top 250 films of all time, and has been proven to cure cancer, put an end to all wars, and solve erectile dysfunction.

As with most long-underwear films (why must superheroes wear tights?), it's not uncommon for the legion of fanboys (and girls) to take it as a personal affront when confronted with a dissenting opinion. However, if you consider the emotional and financial investment given to comic books, figurines and other items related to the mythology, it's not terribly surprising that anyone daring to criticize the celluloid representation of their idol is treated like a heretic.

Yet with The Dark Knight, the seething anger and raging bile that's been ejaculated on dozens (if not hundreds) of pages of comments all over the Interweb far exceeds the typical zealotry. Nolan's film is stirring up reactions and emotions that I've heretofore never encountered, and I've spent the past few days trying to figure out why.

First, a confession. I saw The Dark Knight, and, well, I had a grand time. Compared to other summer blockbusters I suffered through (Indiana Jones and the Zzzz..., Iron Man) Nolan's film more than adequately delivered what I want from a Hollywood mega-production. Well written (though painfully overearnest), gorgeous to look at (some of the IMAX sequences were stunning), genuine suspense, and top-notch performances from (nearly) all. Doubly impressive when you consider that it's the single-most marketed masscult object of the year. I just refuse to take it as seriously as Nolan would like me to.

That's not to say I didn't have problems with it. [Note: potential spoilers follow.] The kill-or-be-killed conundrum of the third act was vastly overdone, and the kind of scenario you'd expect to find on an Introduction to Ethics final exam. Yet rather than truly explore the idea (such as Fukasaku did in Battle Royale), Nolan uses it as a cheap (and unnecessary) narrative device to illustrate the already obvious dichotomy between Batman and The Joker's respective world views, while at the same time exposing the audience's prejudice with a haughty condescension that is a more than a tad unbearable. (Thank you, Professor Nolan, for teaching me that large, black male convicts can be human after all. I never would have imagined...)

That the entire film is painted in such broad strokes is its greatest offense, and this may be the root cause of the war that's being waged online. As co-screenwriters, brothers Christopher and Jonathan Nolan have filled their screenplay with basic philosophical/ethical/moral struggles that will hardly come as a revelation to anybody who has ever picked up a work by Hobbes, Sartre, Nietzsche, or Kant, or knows a thing or two about deontological ethics. Chaos/order, chance/fate, free will/determinism, the rule of law and the rejection of reason — these are but a few of the themes that the brothers touch upon in discourse-heavy scenes that clearly have had an impact on impressionable minds. (Not since The Matrix has a populist work tried this hard to convey "deep thoughts." I wonder if Zizek will write a book about this one as well.)

In his pan of the film, Armond White opens with the line, "Every generation has a right to its own Batman." Though he hated the film's "hip, nihilistic tendencies," I think this is precisely why the film has stuck so deep a chord with so many, for The Dark Knight addresses the zeitgeist of our post-9/11 world, but does so without the annoying complexity of real-world issues. There's no ideology, or clash of cultures/religion at play here — the Joker is unquestionably a terrorist and Batman unquestionably good, even though he occasionally employs methods that are ethically/legally questionable. (Sound familiar?) What the film does do well is capture this new age of anxiety in which we live, and its nihilism is perfectly suited to these dark times. With a senseless war being fought overseas, an imaginary war on terror at home, and a collapsing economy to boot, people seem to be taking comfort in the film, and, judging by some of the comments I've read, its effect has been outright cathartic. How else to explain such vitriol when faced with a negative review?

There's been much debate over the film's politics, and both sides of the spectrum have claimed Batman as one of their own. (Andrew Klavan's Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal comparing Batman to Bush is particularly pathetic.) I haven't spent much time thinking about its political bent (nor do I care to), but on the surface it appears, like most Hollywood films these days, to play it extremely safe, ensuring that neither side is offended. Batman violates civil liberties, but only to fight evil, but then destroys it blah blah blah. Yawn. Imagine if people spent half as much time thinking about gross political violations occurring in the real world...

Critics who refused to swallow the red pill have been treated as enemy combatants. About.com's Jürgen Fauth and The House Next Door's Keith Uhlich (both friends, I should add) are two such critics. Neither of their reviews was intended to provoke, nor were they playing the contrarian — they simply didn't like the film. As of this writing there are 938 comments in response to these reviews. (Both at their sites as well as their links on Rotten Tomatoes.) Some go no deeper than Fag!; some are actually amusing -  Keep your head in Little Women and Suffrage texts you pansy, but others are downright ugly. On Rotten Tomatoes, someone felt it would be beneficial to post as many personal details about Jürgen that they could find, while another likened his crime to Joan of Arc's:

This guy is a terd [sic], let him rot. Lets [sic] burn him at the stake!

The comments left for Keith are even more vile, particularly this one, which the author later claimed was written while channeling his inner Joker. Yikes. (All [sic]):

You know, some people have been so enraged by your little opinion piece that they want you to kill yourself. Please DON'T!!! You know why, because I am going to have so much fun killing you myself! I promise, it WON'T be painless. I am going to carve a smile in your face. And then I am going to carve you stomach. And you know why? Because i just want my phone call. You're my bitch now! I am going to track you down through your IP address and then I am going to f@#%!%* kill you!!!

Oh the humanity! Perhaps the Joker is right and that, given the slightest push, we one day truly will destroy ourselves. 

As I said, I believe this to be more than a merely a case of "when fanboys attack". The Dark Knight has become a religion, an opiate, and an ethos. It's Thus Spoke Zarathustra for the post-literate set. (Ouch...now who's guilty of haughty condescension?)   

Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Round 16, Week 17

Now that global warming has made going Green all the rage, it's interesting to see just how progressive and prophetic 1971's Godzilla vs. Hedorah (aka Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster), a treatise on the dangers of being eco-unfriendly, actually was.

Probably the strangest and certainly the trippiest film in the lizard king's oeuvre, Yoshimitsu Banno's message movie teaches us what can happen as a result of our pollutin' ways. With its psychedelic fuzz-guitar soundtrack and an inconvenient monster who does bong hits off smoke stacks, Godzilla vs. Hedorah is something of a last-gasp of 60s culture and sensibilities. An interesting side note about the film (and one I wrote about in the early days of this blog) -- director Banno modeled Hedorah's eyes on female genitalia because, in his own words, "vaginas are scary!" Um......

There were several questions about the alt-text clue: the Japanese name for Godzilla (Gojira) is a combination of gorira (gorilla) and kujira (whale). That so many of you guessed it from the second half of the clue simply warmed my heart, for I had no idea there were so many Bill "Smog" Callahan fans out there. Let's all celebrate by listening to Red Apple Falls and getting very, very depressed.

This week: A rather generic looking Manhattan street scene -- 9 West 57th, to be exact. Yet there's something there that doesn't quite belong. Name the film. Submit your answers to this address. Good luck!

Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Round 16, Week 16

Had I used a shot of Jef Costello in his signature fedora, there would have no doubt been hundreds of correct responses. Yet a scene of Alain's wife Nathalie Delon (along with the profile of François Périer) from Melville's sublime Le Samourai apparently didn't ring a bell for many of you.

With borrowed elements from the classic American gangster film synthesized into a work that manages to be something entirely new while remaining reverent to the genre, Melville's film is a postmodern thriller extraordinaire, and one in which not a whole heck of a lot happens. Congratulations to those that got it.

I've not yet seen The Dark Knight (am I the last in America?) but will do so later tonight in all its IMAX glory. I'm honestly a bit freaked out that it is already the #1 movie on the IMDB top 250. Top that off with the profanity-ridden insanity that ensues when anybody dares to speak a bad word about the film, and I begin to wonder if there isn't something sinister going on once the lights go down. Subliminal messages and/or mass hypnosis perhaps? I cannot recall a level of vitriol that even comes close to what is being ejaculated on blogs all over the net. Do people truly love it that much, or is just the result of an incredibly effective (and particularly viral) marketing campaign? Can the opinion of another truly result in that much unrest? Crikey!

This week: Ok...this is a difficult one as it's not a particularly good film (though I'm admittedly quite fond of it) nor is it one that is terribly well known, yet it is more relevant today than ever. I will say that it's not Jean Luc-Godard's Numéro deux, which I admit this screen shot resembles. Part of the film's title is in the image, if that helps. Name the film. Submit your answers to this address. Good luck!

New York I Love You, But You're Bringing Me Down (or: Der Himmel über Shea)

[This post is my weeks-overdue contribution to the Derelict's New York City blogathon. I was inspired to write it after reading the Self-Styled Siren's magnificent entry, the must-read New York City of the Mind.]

New York I Love You
But you're bringing me down
Like a death of the heart
Jesus, where do I start?
But you're still the one pool
Where I'd happily drown
And oh.. Take me off your mailing list
For kids who think it still exists
Yes, for those who think it still exists
— LCD Soundsystem

As many born-and-raised New Yorkers around my age will no doubt attest, the city we grew up in is no longer. Sure, it's perhaps safer and cleaner than it was in the 70s, but these superficial changes came with a tremendous cost — a significant chunk of the city's heart, soul, and moxie. The middle-class has all but been ejected from Manhattan, which has turned into a haven for the haves and have-mores, judging by the seemingly never-ending appearance of mile-high condos where once brownstones stood. It's a friendlier island to be sure, with establishments like Applebee's, Dave & Buster's, and Cold Stone Creamery making the millions of tourists from the heartland feel a bit more at home as they tool around the city in giant double-decker tour buses cum billboards that snake their way up and down every fucking street. 

I recently caught a documentary called New York 77, which brilliantly captured that tumultuous year. While it's true that the city was an economic disaster, crime was running rampant (it was the summer of Sam to boot), and the city almost destroyed itself during the blackout, there was a vibrancy and immediacy that even this precocious 12 year-old was able to pick up on. (Who can forget disco v. punk?) Today, more often than not, I feel a stranger in the place I've called home for all but about six years of my life. The malling/mauling of Manhattan has robbed the city of the primal essence that once permeated every nook and cranny. Travis Bickle may have prophesied the great rain that would wash the scum from the streets, but I'll take the junkies at Disco Donut over weekend DIY-ers at Home Depot any day.

Enough ranting.

When it comes to Gotham on film, naturally I melt for just about anything from the late 60s through the early 80s. In fact, over the past two years I've been tracking down as many forgotten films from that era that I can get my hands on, some of which I've actually written about. Even the worst of these films provide a certain layer of comfort, if just for the shots of buildings, stores, and neighborhoods that are long gone.   

There probably isn't a national cinema that doesn't have at least one film shot in NYC, and I don't think I'll ever tire of seeing the various ways the city has been portrayed. With American cinema, it's often easy to tell if the director is a denizen or merely passing through. Local directors avoid the clichés — specific locales, at times even unrecognizable to natives. (I'm thinking Hal Hartley's Amateur, or some of those wonderful restaurants/bars Woody Allen always manages to find.)

I've always felt that foreign films shot in NYC are the most revealing, as they tend to expose those elements of the city that made the greatest impression on the director. In many cases these are things that the average New Yorker wouldn't think twice about, and probably wouldn't bother to include in a film. A perfect example of this is Wim Wenders' Alice in den Städten (Alice in the Cities) from 1974. One of Wim's many road movies, the film's first third is set in NYC, and Wenders and cinematographer Robby Müller manage to find a few pockets of the city rarely depicted on film.

Wenders regular Rüdiger Vogler plays Phil Winter, a German journalist commissioned (but unable) to write a think piece on the US of A. Early in the film he arrives in NYC by car, in a scene that recalls Kerouac's The Town and the City, which describes the first appearance of the Manhattan skyline from New Jersey, and the journey into Manhattan via the Lincoln Tunnel.   

 

We then find ourselves amidst the chop shops of Queens, situated in a no-man's land between Shea Stadium and La Guardia Airport, where Phil has driven to sell his car. (Ramin Bahrani's recent Chop Shop is one of the few films since to be set in the same area.) As Phil attempts to negotiate the deal, organ music can be heard in the distance. "Sounds like an organ", he says. "Yeah, dats de organ from Shea Stadium." We then cut to a wide shot of the stadium (attendance is abysmal) and then pan over to the booth where a patterned paint-suited organist bangs out a rendition of The Candy Man. We then cut back to Phil, who is now waiting for the 7 train at the Willets Pt. station. He boards, and the image and music fade out together.

 

What's most interesting about the sequence is the shift in perspective, which up until this point had been exclusively that of Phil's. This sudden omniscient perspective is Wenders at his most indulgent, and one of the few (only?) scenes that have nothing to do with advancing plot or character. Was this interlude a happy accident? Was the music in the car selling scene unplanned? It certainly feels that way.Obviously Wenders had to get permission to film within the stadium, but I can't help wonder if this wasn't an afterthought.

This rather innocuous sequence is unlikely to be remembered in the annals of film history. However, it is nonetheless a distinctly unique NYC scene — a simple, poetic moment that has stayed with me all these years. That Wenders found inspiration from one of the least captivating corners of the city is quite an achievement. 

Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Round 16, Week 15

[I will amend this text later this morning. Right now it is 3:30 in the AM, and I have just returned home from an all-drinking, all-singing Karaoke night that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that film bloggers can indeed belt out a tune, regardless of how much bourbon, beer, or sake has been poured into them. Should the whole film criticism thing not pan out, the Cinetrix, Kevin Lee, Alison Willmore, and Aaron Hillis (as well as yours truly) are available for weddings, Bar Miztvahs, etc. Back in a few hours with a no doubt hungover update....]

UPDATED: Though the disembodied head of James Stewart floating in the middle of the frame is missing, many of you were able to recognize the trippy dream sequence from Vertigo. Another popular guess was 2001, with one entrant being so confident of his guess, he swore he'd eat a large black monolith if incorrect. No comment.

I heard the following at a party last Friday night: "Didn't you used to be a film blogger?" Sigh. Yes, yes, I know....there's nothing more web 1.0 than a blogger whining about why he hasn't posted in a dog's age. Rather than run down a list of reasons both legitimate and lame, I'll just leave it at this: I will be back. Soon.

This week: Oh the French and their Postmodern cinema. Name the actress and the film. Submit your answers to this address. Good luck!

Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Round 16, Week 14

The most popular question asked in the last seven days has been, "You own that on DVD?" My quasi-disdain for post-E.T. Steven Spielberg is no secret, and many found it odd that I should have Jurassic Park, the source of Jeff Goldblum's Michelangelo-esque pose (thanks, Will) from last week's quiz, in my collection. Well, the entire Jurassic trilogy was given to me as a gift by a well-intentioned former colleague who, when handing me the box set, said "you like movies, right?" Truth be told, I find the first of the three to be a pretty decent suspense thriller, though I've never made it through II and haven't even looked at III.

Most had no trouble identifying the film, though a few went for The Fly, which, admittedly, also had its fair share of Goldblum flesh, though I believe without the Jurassic paunch.

I received the following email today (as I'm sure many others did) and I have to say I'm tempted as I'm a sucker for a good Marilyn-Kennedy-Cuban Missile Crisis conspiracy theory. Note: [sic] for all.

Andrew

After 40 years of speculation about Marilyn Monroe's death, Dr, Jack Hattem
psychologist hired for the Marilyn Monroe "suicide" investigation, has
uncovered a murder conspiracy that confirms who killed Marilyn Monroe, why
she was killed and how the Cuban Missle Crisis played a part in her death.

Dr. Hattem as well as two other sources who were involved in the
investigation would like the opportunity to discuss with you their findings
and provide FBI documentation. Please let me know of your availabiltiy so we
can schedule a discussion. With Marilyn's anniversary approaching on Aug.
the 2nd, it would be a great time to help her rest in peace.

Naturally, I want to do whatever I can to help Norma Jean's restless spirit find the peace it deserves. Still, as Freud said, sometime a missile is just a missile.

This week: Speaking of blonde conspiracies....this film has so many wonderful capture opportunities. I spent a good ninety minutes choosing between eight of them before settling on this more abstract shot. Cinephiles should guess this one in no time. Name the film. Submit your answers to this address. Good luck!

Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Round 16, Week 13

There's a brief moment in Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind where you see a VHS rack full of the films that have been sweded, and one of them is Harmony Korine's Gummo, the source of last week's quiz. I'm disappointed Gondry didn't shoot scenes of their version of the film, for who wouldn't want to see Jack Black with electrical tape over his nipples?

Gummo has always been a polarizing film, and the responses to last week's quiz more often than not contained some sort of opinion on the film, be it pro or contra. I recall being highly impressed back in '97, though I was nowhere near as passionate as Werner Herzog, who loved the film so much he agreed to appear in Korine's sophomore effort, Julian Donkey Boy. Though its look and home-grown feel have been thoroughly co-opted by mainstream media (not to mention about a million videos on YouTube), it still maintains its sense of originality.

As you can see, I've decided to extend the quiz by a few more weeks to make up for the lost entries. Hopefully this doesn't ruffle too many feathers...

This week: Speaking of nipples, how well do you know your Goldblum? Yes, Jeff in his sexy pose is terribly easy, but as it's 2:30 in the morning and I'm happily inebriated, it's the best I could come with in a pinch. I know -- shame on me. Name the film. Submit your answers to this address. Good luck!