I should be writing business school apps, I really should. Unfortunately, my mind has been as prone to wandering as it has been to focus lately. As a result, I find myself writing again, but nothing even remotely practical.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about life, about what it means to be successful, and ultimately what makes us happy. If you’ve been around me long enough, you’ve probably heard me ramble about eternal recurrence-a theory of individual life postulated by Nietzsche. An unattainable ideal, eternal recurrence is the idea that we should be prepared to be reincarnated in perpetuity, but living the exact same life for all eternity. You’d relive every heart-warming success and agonizing defeat on repeat for infinity.
I asked myself: what would make me comfortable with that scenario? What makes people successful on their own terms, regardless of background or creed? In the simplest terms, I guess this question could be asked another way: what do people regret at the end of their life?
As I reflected, I came to the conclusion that the things we live to regret are rarely the things that we do, but are almost always the things we don’t. The one that got away. Man I wish I’d told her how I’d felt when I had the chance. Or just kissed her, been a man. The career that we never tried. I always knew I’d make a great lawyer, always. Monuments they skipped, countries they never visited, and events they’d found some lame excuse to miss. Even when we take a big risk, we are rarely more disappointed than we would have been with ourselves for not trying. At the very least, pushing ourselves outside of our comfort zone makes us feel alive, even if it’s not for us. No one has ever been exhilarated from their living room couch.
Sure, we can live to regret the way we treated people, the marriages that didn’t work, and the opportunities we tried to take hold of, but squandered. I’d just rather live with that regret ninety nine times out of a hundred over seeing a coward looking back at me in the mirror.
Now, I’m not saying that I’m going to go base jumping or some equally foolhardy attempt to get myself killed; I’m still a risk averse person deep down and venturing outside my comfort zone is a skill that I’m learning in a lot of capacities despite what my forays into sky diving and bungee jumping might lead you to believe. All I’m saying is that I’ve taken the leap a few times over the past few years, gambling on myself, and it’s been an incredible experience. I’ve taken risks in love, my friendships, and my professional career that have required a bravado and honesty, both to myself and others, that I was previously unable to summon from within.
Taking a broader view, it’s clear that those deserving of our respect, from professional athletes to entrepreneurs to presidents, have taken calculated risks in the face of others calling them crazy or, worse, hopeless dreamers. No one has ever changed anything by playing it safe; the trick is knowing when to take a calculated risk and when to give up. Sure, it means more failure, but what does the inability to take these risks and gamble on ourselves say about who we are? The most successful entrepreneurs, for instance, are prepared to fail 10 or 11 times before hitting it big. A venture capital firm only needs to hit a few home runs in its entire portfolio to be a tremendous success, meaning that it must become extremely comfortable with repeated failure.
Examining myself, I know that I don’t need to found the next Google, but my own personal hell would be a world where I’ve stopped growing as a person and settled into a comfortable bureaucratic role somewhere, rubber stamping forms for eternity. Where my journey will lead me, I’m not sure, but I do know that I need to continue to push myself towards taking the kinds of risks that will ultimately enrich my life, scary or not.
Call me an unrepentant existentialist (and I am), but I want to be able to lie on my deathbed comfortable with the choices that I’ve made, the man I’ve become, and the lives that I’ve touched. I want to be prepared to relive this life on repeat, as absurd as that may sound. I could throw a million clichés out there about what that means: fortune favors the bold. You can never burn a bridge without looking back. Etc, etc, etc. In the end, I think we just need to admit ourselves that sometimes the biggest risk is not taking one at all.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Best Thought Provoking Movies
A few weeks ago, a friend sent around a thoughtful review of “Inglourious Basterds” that triggered something. Another friend commented that he passes up almost all Hollywood films because they lack depth beyond superficial plot summary and sunshine/puppies, but he was inspired to go watch Tarantino’s latest. I challenged his presumption, arguing that the democratization of technology has led to an incredible amount of quality independent films, while acknowledging the sorry philosophical state of the mainstream film. He asked me to recommend five intellectual films.
I’d like to discuss my recommendation to him and then get into a more comprehensive discussion of intellectual cinema. Lots of films have philosophical inklings in them without being considered intellectual films. Even Indiana Jones flirts with Kierkegaard’s “leap of faith “as he leaps onto an invisible bridge, armed only with the presumption that he will be saved.
First, the recommendations. When I was backpacking this weekend, my brother and I discussed this issue for a several hours on the trail, but more in the sense of the five intellectual movies we’d use to get someone going, not necessarily an all-time list. We decided on the following.
Recommended List
1) “I Heart Huckabees” – An entertaining comedy with an all-star cast that showcase a literal battle for souls waged by philosophy’s extremes, a sexy brooding nihilist and existential detectives who believe the universe is brilliantly interconnected. It’s a skillful and beautiful contrast of the philosophies that strikes a nice balance in the end.
2) “Waking Life” – Probably my favorite philosophical film of all-time, it is a loosely-connected set of 5-10 minute philosophical lectures that features Nietzsche scholar Robert Solomon on existentialism, a scathing philosophical indictment of the political system, and Ethan Hawke on dreams, among others. Richard Linklater laboriously shot the film and then animated it frame by frame on his Mac. It’s beautiful and there’s nothing else like it.
3) “The Graduate” – Not as overtly philosophical, but unbelievably sharp satire of the American dream in the 1960’s. The cinematography and clever screenplay accompany the all-time performance by Dustin Hoffman as he searches for meaning in suburbia after graduating from college.
4) “A Clockwork Orange” – Disturbing but unparalleled, like any great Kubrick film. It’s a futuristic nightmare that is also a meditation on crime and punishment, free will, and what society has the right to impose in the name of justice. You droogs won’t forget this film.
5) “Synecdoche, New York” – Perhaps my favorite of the postmodern films in the tradition of Fellini. Kaufman (scribe of “Being John Malkovich” and “Eternal Sunshine”) finally writes and directs the same movie, ensuring complete creative control. The result is his finest, densest work, one that expands on “Adaptation” by diving deeper into the postmodern void and the meaning of an individual life in the face of the new reality. Philip Seymour Hoffman is unbelievable as a genius trying to put on a play that will do justice to the authentic human experience.
That’d be my “starter kit,” so to speak, but now I’ll try to get into a more “all-time” discussion below. Here we go! Also, I haven’t seen some of the serious heavyweights, like “La Dolce Vita,” “Wild Strawberries” or “My Dinner with Andre,” so forgive me if your favorite isn’t on here.
All-Time Classics
“8 ½” –An all-time classic and the greatest postmodern film, Fellini deconstructs cinema as he chronicles the struggles of director Guido, who’s making a movie that falls apart. While the iconic balloon at the beach scene is the most famous, this entire movie is wildly influential. Characterized by a slow descent into self-immolation and complete disorder, by the end the cast and crew are dancing around a giant wooden rocket ship.
“The Seventh Seal” - A man playing chess with the Grim Reaper while pondering existence and God, ‘nuff said.
“A Clockwork Orange”
“Apocalypse Now” –The greatest war movie ever made is based on Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of
Darkness.” It explores the depth of the human soul as Martin Sheen travels deeper and deeper into the darkness of the jungle in search of Brando’s Kurtz. Simply unbelievable.
“2001: A Space Odyssey” –A one-of-a-kind film that discusses the implications of alien life, the ethics and infallibility of robots, and what makes us human.
“Waking Life”
"Straw Dogs" -Peckinpah's ultraviolent film about becoming a man stars Dustin Hoffman and is tough to watch but a truly great movie. It's fascinating to watch Hoffman simmer into a slow boil and stand up for his family.
Still Great
“Synecdoche, New York”
“Being There” –Peter Sellers is set into the world armed only with what he could learn on TV. A classic.
“I Heart Huckabees”
“The Graduate”
“The Believer” –Intellectually superior to “American History X.” Ryan Gosling plays a self-loathing Jew whose philosophical disagreements with his religion lead him to become a neo-Nazi. Very thought provoking and well written.
“American History X” –Edward Norton is eerily convincing as a white supremacist that gives extremely articulate representations of his hateful positions. After he blows his top in the famous curb-stomping scene, his intellectual redemption is satisfying and the film doesn’t shy away some of the harsher realities in race relations.
“Memento” –In addition to the incredible mind-fuck that is the structure of “Memento,” the loss of all memory is a convenient plot device to explore free will, the evil in humanity, and some really painful tattoos. This is why you know Guy Pearce, admit it.
"The Big Lebowski" -Can't believe I left this off initially. Say you will about the tenets of national socialism, at least it's an ethos.
Traumatic Viewing Experiences, But Ultimately Successful Ones
“Deer Hunter” –Did any movie short of “Apocalypse Now” showcase the darkness in Vietnam better than this?
“Pulp Fiction” –So many movies strive to be profound by adding political subtext to the “Pulp Fiction” style. Often imitated, never duplicated, “Pulp Fiction” is the first of to weave of a maze of interconnected plots and lives as they clash into one another.
“Traffic” –Maybe the best of the “Pulp Fiction” imitators, does an incredible job showing the different fronts of the drug war.
“Amores Perros”/“21 Grams”/“City of God” -Shudder to think about these movies.
“Requiem for a Dream” –Hard to watch rise and fall film about three characters who experience the highs and desolate lows of addiction. Really haunting.
"Taxi Driver" -To this day, the only movie I've ever watched, rewound, and watched again in one sitting. You talking to me?!
Weird Successes
“Night of the Living Dead” –I’ll stand by this one. Romero is the king of subversive horror commentary. Zombies can highlight our fears about communism, the consumerist nightmare, our herd mentality, and even what makes human (since those zombies are clearly not, where do we draw the line?). More effective political commentary than you think.
“Natural Born Killers” –Ultraviolent Oliver Stone film about media-fueled violence and our society’s addiction to it. Robert Downey Jr. was perfectly ridiculous.
“Fight Club” –Society has destroyed what’s important, turned us into mindless consumers, and castrated men of their manhood, so they fight each other to get it back. As their fight club descends into anarchistic terrorism, Pitt and Norton get darker and darker.
“eXistenZ” –You’ve probably never even heard of it, but it’s superior to “The Matrix” and just as thought-provoking about reality and the human brain. Jude Law shines in this twisting mind-fuck by Cronenberg where they test a videogame you plug into your brain that gets too real.
“The Matrix” –The first installment of the Wachowski’s disappointing trilogy was still excellent. It challenged our reality and was packed with philosophy. It discussed Plato’s “The Cave,” free will vs. determinism, and was filled with biblical imagery around Keanu (that felt weird to type).
“Being John Malkovich” –Bizarre examination of the human identity as John Cusack finds a way to control John Malkovich’s brain for 10 minutes at a time before being dumped onto the turnpike. Kaufman’s first big movie was quite a trip.
“Mulholland Drive” –The cinematic equivalent of a Dali painting, this Lynch film is a surreal, fever dream that won’t really make sense no matter how many times you watch it. Ebert tried it with 400 film students and the original script. You never stop picking up more details every time you watch it.
The Human Condition
“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” –There’s nothing else like it, go see it. After a stroke leaves him only able to blink one eye, the protagonist manages to write a book with his speech therapist and celebrate life, not wallow in the pity of his condition. This one is not depressing, I promise.
“Good Will Hunting”
“The Pianist” –This was just so hard to watch.
“One Flew Over a Cuckoo’s Nest” –I find Kesey’s philosophical problems with the theatrical version of his book to be fascinating.
“Harold and Maude”
“Easy Rider”
“The Fountain” –The reaches of what we can do for love and man’s inability to accept what we cannot fix.
“Shawshank Redemption” –Beautiful film. Andy Dufruesne knows why the cage bird sings.
“Razor’s Edge” –After coming back from war, Bill Murray searches the globe for the meaning of life. He negotiated getting to make this one in exchange for doing “Ghostbusters.” Wonder which one he’ll be remembered for.
“Adaptation” –With this and “American Beauty,” I’m less impressed by the profundity of my former favorites every time I watch them. Still, pretty solid postmodern cinema that chronicles the adaptation of an impossible book as deconstructs itself and descends into the Hollywood madness Kaufman looks down upon. Nicholas Cage, Chris Cooper, and Meryl Streep are fantastic. "God help you if you find yourself using voiceover, my friend."
“American Beauty” –Still love the movie’s tone as it captures a suburban zombie’s spiritual awakening, but has not aged well. Makes you think about how you’re living your life a bit though.
“Dead Poets Society”
“Life is Beautiful” –Bennini is annoying, but he was amazing here.
Pretty Good
“Revolutionary Road” –Perhaps the darkest film about the destructive power of suburbia. Based on the Yates novel.
“No Country For Old Men” –Some interesting ideas here.
“Groundhog Day” –Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence teaches a spoiled brat how he should behave.
“Pleasantville” –Bonus points for use of Miles Davis, creative use of color.
“Donnie Darko” –Explores death, free will, the physics of wormholes, creation through destruction/chaos, and pretty much everything else in this genre buster that’s still not quite a classic. It’s still a great watch though. RIP Swayze, you were super creepy in this one.
"Magnolia" -I forgot to throw this one in there, but a truly weird and original Paul Thomas Anderson movie that examines the human soul. Some really incredible acting here.
“Matrix Reloaded” –Big drop off from part 1.
Really Out There
“Contact” –Based on a Carl Sagan novel, it was a pretty good film about alien life and the philosophy of the cosmos. Super long though.
“Minority Report” –A futuristic battle over freewill, the crime clairvoyants accuse Tom Cruise of murder and he refuses to turn himself in. Some cool explosions too.
"A Scanner Darkly" -I originally debated putting this in, Adomian convinced me. Really dark movie based on addiction eerily similar to crystal meth that is definitely worth a viewing. Linklater shot this one and had animators go over the footage rather than doing it himself.
“Devils Rejects” –Rob Zombie rebounded from his horrific debut with a tough to stomach chase picture that blurs the line beyond good and bad with outlaws and Johnny Law. There are not a lot of redeeming figures here and maybe that’s the point, but this movie has stuck with me for a long time. And no one has ever used “Freebird” better, seriously.
Not As Deep As The Director Thought
“Crash” –Straight-up derivative of “Pulp Fiction,” it was interesting to think about the alienation of society and how our isolation causes us to violently crash together. There are no role models here; everyone makes good and bad decisions with heavy doses of their prejudices.
“Munich” –This movie didn’t really do that much to show the moral gray zone for as much as it was lauded. As someone who’s studied the Holocaust a fair amount, anything that refers to the show trial of Adolf Eichmann as justice doesn’t pass the sniff test.
"Syriana"/"Babel" -The twin faces of the worst movies made in the tradition of "Pulp Fiction." "Syriana" attempts to chronicle every single potential aspect of terrorism and becomes a bloated, barely connected mess, but "Babel" substituted muted sound and dramatic orchestral music for substance. Both of them needed to lose about an hour.
“Matrix Revolutions” –Wachowski brothers, years later we still wonder how you managed to blow a slam-dunk trilogy like that.
“Garden State” –Years later, it just seems whiny. I do like the notion of our generation searching for a fleeting sense of home, however.
“Hostel” –F* you, Eli Roth. He’s the prime example of why a sophisticated intellectual argument can still leave you with a piece of nauseating drivel.
I’d like to discuss my recommendation to him and then get into a more comprehensive discussion of intellectual cinema. Lots of films have philosophical inklings in them without being considered intellectual films. Even Indiana Jones flirts with Kierkegaard’s “leap of faith “as he leaps onto an invisible bridge, armed only with the presumption that he will be saved.
First, the recommendations. When I was backpacking this weekend, my brother and I discussed this issue for a several hours on the trail, but more in the sense of the five intellectual movies we’d use to get someone going, not necessarily an all-time list. We decided on the following.
Recommended List
1) “I Heart Huckabees” – An entertaining comedy with an all-star cast that showcase a literal battle for souls waged by philosophy’s extremes, a sexy brooding nihilist and existential detectives who believe the universe is brilliantly interconnected. It’s a skillful and beautiful contrast of the philosophies that strikes a nice balance in the end.
2) “Waking Life” – Probably my favorite philosophical film of all-time, it is a loosely-connected set of 5-10 minute philosophical lectures that features Nietzsche scholar Robert Solomon on existentialism, a scathing philosophical indictment of the political system, and Ethan Hawke on dreams, among others. Richard Linklater laboriously shot the film and then animated it frame by frame on his Mac. It’s beautiful and there’s nothing else like it.
3) “The Graduate” – Not as overtly philosophical, but unbelievably sharp satire of the American dream in the 1960’s. The cinematography and clever screenplay accompany the all-time performance by Dustin Hoffman as he searches for meaning in suburbia after graduating from college.
4) “A Clockwork Orange” – Disturbing but unparalleled, like any great Kubrick film. It’s a futuristic nightmare that is also a meditation on crime and punishment, free will, and what society has the right to impose in the name of justice. You droogs won’t forget this film.
5) “Synecdoche, New York” – Perhaps my favorite of the postmodern films in the tradition of Fellini. Kaufman (scribe of “Being John Malkovich” and “Eternal Sunshine”) finally writes and directs the same movie, ensuring complete creative control. The result is his finest, densest work, one that expands on “Adaptation” by diving deeper into the postmodern void and the meaning of an individual life in the face of the new reality. Philip Seymour Hoffman is unbelievable as a genius trying to put on a play that will do justice to the authentic human experience.
That’d be my “starter kit,” so to speak, but now I’ll try to get into a more “all-time” discussion below. Here we go! Also, I haven’t seen some of the serious heavyweights, like “La Dolce Vita,” “Wild Strawberries” or “My Dinner with Andre,” so forgive me if your favorite isn’t on here.
All-Time Classics
“8 ½” –An all-time classic and the greatest postmodern film, Fellini deconstructs cinema as he chronicles the struggles of director Guido, who’s making a movie that falls apart. While the iconic balloon at the beach scene is the most famous, this entire movie is wildly influential. Characterized by a slow descent into self-immolation and complete disorder, by the end the cast and crew are dancing around a giant wooden rocket ship.
“The Seventh Seal” - A man playing chess with the Grim Reaper while pondering existence and God, ‘nuff said.
“A Clockwork Orange”
“Apocalypse Now” –The greatest war movie ever made is based on Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of
Darkness.” It explores the depth of the human soul as Martin Sheen travels deeper and deeper into the darkness of the jungle in search of Brando’s Kurtz. Simply unbelievable.
“2001: A Space Odyssey” –A one-of-a-kind film that discusses the implications of alien life, the ethics and infallibility of robots, and what makes us human.
“Waking Life”
"Straw Dogs" -Peckinpah's ultraviolent film about becoming a man stars Dustin Hoffman and is tough to watch but a truly great movie. It's fascinating to watch Hoffman simmer into a slow boil and stand up for his family.
Still Great
“Synecdoche, New York”
“Being There” –Peter Sellers is set into the world armed only with what he could learn on TV. A classic.
“I Heart Huckabees”
“The Graduate”
“The Believer” –Intellectually superior to “American History X.” Ryan Gosling plays a self-loathing Jew whose philosophical disagreements with his religion lead him to become a neo-Nazi. Very thought provoking and well written.
“American History X” –Edward Norton is eerily convincing as a white supremacist that gives extremely articulate representations of his hateful positions. After he blows his top in the famous curb-stomping scene, his intellectual redemption is satisfying and the film doesn’t shy away some of the harsher realities in race relations.
“Memento” –In addition to the incredible mind-fuck that is the structure of “Memento,” the loss of all memory is a convenient plot device to explore free will, the evil in humanity, and some really painful tattoos. This is why you know Guy Pearce, admit it.
"The Big Lebowski" -Can't believe I left this off initially. Say you will about the tenets of national socialism, at least it's an ethos.
Traumatic Viewing Experiences, But Ultimately Successful Ones
“Deer Hunter” –Did any movie short of “Apocalypse Now” showcase the darkness in Vietnam better than this?
“Pulp Fiction” –So many movies strive to be profound by adding political subtext to the “Pulp Fiction” style. Often imitated, never duplicated, “Pulp Fiction” is the first of to weave of a maze of interconnected plots and lives as they clash into one another.
“Traffic” –Maybe the best of the “Pulp Fiction” imitators, does an incredible job showing the different fronts of the drug war.
“Amores Perros”/“21 Grams”/“City of God” -Shudder to think about these movies.
“Requiem for a Dream” –Hard to watch rise and fall film about three characters who experience the highs and desolate lows of addiction. Really haunting.
"Taxi Driver" -To this day, the only movie I've ever watched, rewound, and watched again in one sitting. You talking to me?!
Weird Successes
“Night of the Living Dead” –I’ll stand by this one. Romero is the king of subversive horror commentary. Zombies can highlight our fears about communism, the consumerist nightmare, our herd mentality, and even what makes human (since those zombies are clearly not, where do we draw the line?). More effective political commentary than you think.
“Natural Born Killers” –Ultraviolent Oliver Stone film about media-fueled violence and our society’s addiction to it. Robert Downey Jr. was perfectly ridiculous.
“Fight Club” –Society has destroyed what’s important, turned us into mindless consumers, and castrated men of their manhood, so they fight each other to get it back. As their fight club descends into anarchistic terrorism, Pitt and Norton get darker and darker.
“eXistenZ” –You’ve probably never even heard of it, but it’s superior to “The Matrix” and just as thought-provoking about reality and the human brain. Jude Law shines in this twisting mind-fuck by Cronenberg where they test a videogame you plug into your brain that gets too real.
“The Matrix” –The first installment of the Wachowski’s disappointing trilogy was still excellent. It challenged our reality and was packed with philosophy. It discussed Plato’s “The Cave,” free will vs. determinism, and was filled with biblical imagery around Keanu (that felt weird to type).
“Being John Malkovich” –Bizarre examination of the human identity as John Cusack finds a way to control John Malkovich’s brain for 10 minutes at a time before being dumped onto the turnpike. Kaufman’s first big movie was quite a trip.
“Mulholland Drive” –The cinematic equivalent of a Dali painting, this Lynch film is a surreal, fever dream that won’t really make sense no matter how many times you watch it. Ebert tried it with 400 film students and the original script. You never stop picking up more details every time you watch it.
The Human Condition
“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” –There’s nothing else like it, go see it. After a stroke leaves him only able to blink one eye, the protagonist manages to write a book with his speech therapist and celebrate life, not wallow in the pity of his condition. This one is not depressing, I promise.
“Good Will Hunting”
“The Pianist” –This was just so hard to watch.
“One Flew Over a Cuckoo’s Nest” –I find Kesey’s philosophical problems with the theatrical version of his book to be fascinating.
“Harold and Maude”
“Easy Rider”
“The Fountain” –The reaches of what we can do for love and man’s inability to accept what we cannot fix.
“Shawshank Redemption” –Beautiful film. Andy Dufruesne knows why the cage bird sings.
“Razor’s Edge” –After coming back from war, Bill Murray searches the globe for the meaning of life. He negotiated getting to make this one in exchange for doing “Ghostbusters.” Wonder which one he’ll be remembered for.
“Adaptation” –With this and “American Beauty,” I’m less impressed by the profundity of my former favorites every time I watch them. Still, pretty solid postmodern cinema that chronicles the adaptation of an impossible book as deconstructs itself and descends into the Hollywood madness Kaufman looks down upon. Nicholas Cage, Chris Cooper, and Meryl Streep are fantastic. "God help you if you find yourself using voiceover, my friend."
“American Beauty” –Still love the movie’s tone as it captures a suburban zombie’s spiritual awakening, but has not aged well. Makes you think about how you’re living your life a bit though.
“Dead Poets Society”
“Life is Beautiful” –Bennini is annoying, but he was amazing here.
Pretty Good
“Revolutionary Road” –Perhaps the darkest film about the destructive power of suburbia. Based on the Yates novel.
“No Country For Old Men” –Some interesting ideas here.
“Groundhog Day” –Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence teaches a spoiled brat how he should behave.
“Pleasantville” –Bonus points for use of Miles Davis, creative use of color.
“Donnie Darko” –Explores death, free will, the physics of wormholes, creation through destruction/chaos, and pretty much everything else in this genre buster that’s still not quite a classic. It’s still a great watch though. RIP Swayze, you were super creepy in this one.
"Magnolia" -I forgot to throw this one in there, but a truly weird and original Paul Thomas Anderson movie that examines the human soul. Some really incredible acting here.
“Matrix Reloaded” –Big drop off from part 1.
Really Out There
“Contact” –Based on a Carl Sagan novel, it was a pretty good film about alien life and the philosophy of the cosmos. Super long though.
“Minority Report” –A futuristic battle over freewill, the crime clairvoyants accuse Tom Cruise of murder and he refuses to turn himself in. Some cool explosions too.
"A Scanner Darkly" -I originally debated putting this in, Adomian convinced me. Really dark movie based on addiction eerily similar to crystal meth that is definitely worth a viewing. Linklater shot this one and had animators go over the footage rather than doing it himself.
“Devils Rejects” –Rob Zombie rebounded from his horrific debut with a tough to stomach chase picture that blurs the line beyond good and bad with outlaws and Johnny Law. There are not a lot of redeeming figures here and maybe that’s the point, but this movie has stuck with me for a long time. And no one has ever used “Freebird” better, seriously.
Not As Deep As The Director Thought
“Crash” –Straight-up derivative of “Pulp Fiction,” it was interesting to think about the alienation of society and how our isolation causes us to violently crash together. There are no role models here; everyone makes good and bad decisions with heavy doses of their prejudices.
“Munich” –This movie didn’t really do that much to show the moral gray zone for as much as it was lauded. As someone who’s studied the Holocaust a fair amount, anything that refers to the show trial of Adolf Eichmann as justice doesn’t pass the sniff test.
"Syriana"/"Babel" -The twin faces of the worst movies made in the tradition of "Pulp Fiction." "Syriana" attempts to chronicle every single potential aspect of terrorism and becomes a bloated, barely connected mess, but "Babel" substituted muted sound and dramatic orchestral music for substance. Both of them needed to lose about an hour.
“Matrix Revolutions” –Wachowski brothers, years later we still wonder how you managed to blow a slam-dunk trilogy like that.
“Garden State” –Years later, it just seems whiny. I do like the notion of our generation searching for a fleeting sense of home, however.
“Hostel” –F* you, Eli Roth. He’s the prime example of why a sophisticated intellectual argument can still leave you with a piece of nauseating drivel.
“Observe and Report”: Deceptively good?
“Observe and Report” is the kind of movie that you are always surprised got made after you finish watching it. “They got THAT in there?” you mutter to yourself as you ponder the nation going to hell in a hand basket. Honestly though, I wouldn’t be surprised if this movie became an absolute cult classic on DVD in five years.
In a lot of ways, “Observe and Report” is one of the more skillful smattering of pop culture and indictment of the American dream we've had in recent years. Ronnie Barnhardt (surprisingly well-played by Rogen, an actor I’ve tired of in recent years) is the 21st century Travis Bickle from “Taxi Driver,” a rent-a-cop who’s a bipolar byproduct of the “Breakfast Club” generation. Ronnie believes he’s special in the way that parents tell their kindergartners and follows his dreams to reckless extremes.
Ronnie is narcissistic, paranoid, and delusional. His reality is totally skewed, from the importance of his job as “head of mall security” to his incessant interference with police investigations. He misses the cute girl at the food court to fake a relationship with Brandi (Anna Faris), a vacuous and nauseating tease from behind the cosmetics counter who is one of the most despicable women I’ve ever seen put to film. She’s truly awful, but Ronnie describes her as “the most beautiful woman in the mall, maybe the world.”Our protagonist frames his world in grandiose terms, good and evil. He’s a mall cop version of Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity. I envision him blasting either heavy metal or Rush Limbaugh to get psyched in the morning. His speeches sound like they come from a preposterous comic book (“The world needs a fucking hero”). He’s the epitome of the American nightmare, unable to grasp what’s going on but incredibly aggressive in the fact that he’s in control and has the right solution. As a result, his methods are extreme; we see him beating skateboarders over the head and tazing people over parking tickets.
After failing to become a police officer, the mall becomes of otherworldly importance to Ronnie and he’ll do anything to protect it. When there is a flasher running amok in his mall, traumatizing his clientele and his love, Ronnie sees this “case” as his chance for redemption, to do good on his dream. Throughout the film, I never doubted Ronnie’s intentions. He always thought he was doing the right thing, even if he deluded himself when necessary. It was just appalling to see how much damage a well-intentioned human being, or country, can do when it flails about unable to lucidly engage reality.
I’m sure you’re thinking back, how did he possibly like this character? There are some real moments of tenderness with his alcoholic mother, brilliantly played by Celia Weston (“I’m making a change too, son. I’m switching to beer. I can pound that shit all day and keep my shit together”). When she has trouble, Ronnie does a good job taking care of her. He tries to make her proud like he was still six. It’s kind of sweet to watch her help him get ready for his big date.
The movie has a great supporting cast. Ray Liotta is stellar as Ronnie’s nemesis, a real cop who’s trying to solve the case. Michael Pena is phenomenal as Ronnie’s #2, his right hand in the crack team of rent-a-cops. Jesse Plemons (Landry from “Friday Night Lights”), Aziz Ansari (“Parks and Recreation”), and Patton Oswalt make effective cameos as well. This movie is so far outside lines that these actors relish the freedom that comes along with breaking all the rules in a film. “Observe and Report” was highly controversial when it came out because of a quasi-date rape scene and high levels of offensive language towards women and minorities.In the end, it’s hard for me to tell how much I really liked this movie and how much I was just impressed by its subversive bravery. Additionally, I’ll be the first to admit I had pretty low expectations going in. It’s such homage to the annals of Hollywood that it’s hard to decide if it’s derivative or a Quentin Tarantino-esque film about a loser. I can tell you that I respected the repulsive moments and sickening violence much more than I felt in the half-hearted mess that was “Pineapple Express.” “Pineapple” refused to choose what kind of movie it was and ultimately failed, an uneven and unsatisfying movie with a decidedly superior first half. “Observe and Report” knew all along what it was and went for it without reservations. You have to respect that.
We never know what the filmmaker thought about Ronnie, but his indecision here seems purposeful. Does his success vindicate his insanity? More importantly, did the film work? All I know for sure is that when Ronnie finally triumphs, solving the case and getting the girl, he pumped his fist in the air a la “Breakfast Club” and I wanted to pump mine along with him. I won’t forget about you, Ronnie, and anyone who slams Patton Oswalt’s head into an oven door (hands down my favorite part of the movie) is A-OK with me.
Grade: B+
Monday, August 31, 2009
Great Sentence
"You could chalk it up to the virtuosic navel-gazing of the Facebook generation, whose self-regard for its own passing cultural experiences bests even that of the boomers."
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2009/08/why-is-third-eye-blind-so-popular-again.html
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2009/08/why-is-third-eye-blind-so-popular-again.html
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Is "District 9" an All-Time Great?
In my opinion, "District 9" is not a great movie, but let me clarify what I mean by that. A movie with a premise that clever and innovative can go one of two ways when it is forced to introduce a plot into its universe: it can rise to the occasion and execute well enough to keep the momentum alive or it can be dragged down by the artificial introduction. Movies that are all-time great, execute with precision and don't feel forced. You allow yourself to forget you are watching a movie and get lost in the action, suspending your disbelief. You can allow yourself to feel emotionally attached to the characters and their destinies.
The ones that fail ride well-worn trails of cliches, Hollywood schlock, and contain cheesy, gimmicky plots that insult your intelligence. Style over substance. We've all seen Michael Bay's sorry excuse for character development and movies that never had a real concept in the first place. "District 9" is by no means a failure, it's a very good movie, but it sputters and ultimately fails to deliver on its promise. I felt there was no momentum left by the end.
WARNING SPOILERS BELOW: you may want to stop reading if you haven't seen the film
I loved the first 30 minutes. Loved them. The documentary style, the Office-like humor, the incredible detail and seamless special effects, visually stunning but understated. The set-up was perfect and the commentary was evident without overwhelming. Then the plot hit. In and of itself, Wikus turning into an alien wasn't necessarily a bad idea; however, the way it came to fruition was. Blomkamp himself said in an interview he tried to pander to a popcorn level to avoid being too serious. Instead of creating what could have been all-time great, he settled for well-worn action cliches.
There are directors who can get away with applying a formula without getting called on it. Spike Lee comes to mind. In Blomkamp's first picture, he shows promise but is not quite deft enough to completely pull it off. I think I've seen the oppressor-gets-alienated-by-his-kind-and-teams-up-with-one-of-the-oppressed plotline about 100 times. I'm sure this isn't true, yet I feel like I have heard the exact line Wikus utters when he stays to fight the bad guys, heroically knowing he will probably die. I thought the "Training Day" ending was OK, but we can hardly call it original. The metamorphosis is straight from "The Fly." It's hard not to draw comparisons to "Robocop", "Aliens", "Alien Nation", and basically every other science fiction film you've ever seen. When he's making the flower for his wife as a full-on Prawn, I felt sick to my stomach.
Furthermore, the commentary didn't quite work when it became an incoherent rant against multinational corporations (the preeminent generic sci-fi cliche, as Slate can tell you better than I: http://www.slate.com/id/2225285/). Where was the documentary aspect after about 30 minutes? If only both halves were of similar quality. Frankly, the 6 minute "Alive in Joburg" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlgtbEdqVsk) it's based on is better. With alien interviews where they're pleading for necessities and gritty news footage, it does more in 6 minutes to effectively illustrate the allegory to apartheid than the feature film did in 2 hours. It evokes more feeling too. If you want to see an amazing movie where monsters bring out the monsters in men, watch "The Host." Amazing movie.
Anyway, where does District 9 stand in the halls of science fiction? I'm going to make an informal list with Rotten Tomato Tomatometer %. Rotten Tomatoes tracks the % of critics that would recommend seeing the movie, thumbs up or down. Please note that I'm doing modern era, so I'm not putting "Metropolis", "The Day the Earth Stood Still", or anything like that. I'm also excluding comic book movies (not graphic novels) and comedies like "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" or "Ghostbusters." Straight sci-fi. I will also admit I haven't seen any other "Star Trek" movies, "Serenity", or "District B13". I am exempting animation because I know virtually nothing about it.
All-Time Greats:
2001 (96%)
Alien, Aliens (97%, 100%)
A Clockwork Orange (91%)
Terminator, T2 (100%, 97%)
Star Wars (93%,) <-- I'm only putting one, so deal with it.
The Matrix (86%)
Blade Runner (94%)
Brazil (98%)
ET (98%)
Still Great, But Clearly Tier II:
Solaris (98%)
Road Warrior (100%)
Minority Report (91%)
The Host (92%)
Children of Men (92%)
Gattaca (78%)
The Fly (91%)
WALL-E (96%)
Tier III:
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (95%)
Planet of the Apes (88%)
Twelve Monkeys (85%)
The Abyss (84%)
Donnie Darko (91%)
Sunshine (75%)
Scanner Darkly (67%)
The Thing (77%)
The Fountain (51%)--> I love this movie, I don't care if it got mixed responses. It's moving and beautiful, gets me every time. Total success, sometimes obscurity can be rewarding.
The Best of the Action Packed, Not Too Serious Flicks
Robocop (88%)
District 9 (89%)
Total Recall (79%)
Escape from New York (81%)
Predator (76%)
Fifth Element (70%)
Highly Flawed, but Strove for Greatness:
AI (73%)
Dark City (77%)
Matrix Reloaded (76%)
Pretty Good, but Don't Quite Deliver on Premise:
Star Trek (2009) (95%)
V for Vendetta (73%)
Cloverfield (77%)
I Am Legend (69%)
War of the Worlds (73%)
Dumber Action Films:
Starship Troopers (60%)
Independence Day (62%)
I, Robot (58%)
Event Horizon (21%)
Equilibrium (36%)
Total Failures:
Alien 3 (34%)
Stargate (43%)
Armageddon (41%)
Matrix Revolutions (37%)
The Island (40%)
Godzilla (2000) (26%)
Doom (20%)
Alien vs. Predator (22%)
The ones that fail ride well-worn trails of cliches, Hollywood schlock, and contain cheesy, gimmicky plots that insult your intelligence. Style over substance. We've all seen Michael Bay's sorry excuse for character development and movies that never had a real concept in the first place. "District 9" is by no means a failure, it's a very good movie, but it sputters and ultimately fails to deliver on its promise. I felt there was no momentum left by the end.
WARNING SPOILERS BELOW: you may want to stop reading if you haven't seen the film
I loved the first 30 minutes. Loved them. The documentary style, the Office-like humor, the incredible detail and seamless special effects, visually stunning but understated. The set-up was perfect and the commentary was evident without overwhelming. Then the plot hit. In and of itself, Wikus turning into an alien wasn't necessarily a bad idea; however, the way it came to fruition was. Blomkamp himself said in an interview he tried to pander to a popcorn level to avoid being too serious. Instead of creating what could have been all-time great, he settled for well-worn action cliches.
There are directors who can get away with applying a formula without getting called on it. Spike Lee comes to mind. In Blomkamp's first picture, he shows promise but is not quite deft enough to completely pull it off. I think I've seen the oppressor-gets-alienated-by-his-kind-and-teams-up-with-one-of-the-oppressed plotline about 100 times. I'm sure this isn't true, yet I feel like I have heard the exact line Wikus utters when he stays to fight the bad guys, heroically knowing he will probably die. I thought the "Training Day" ending was OK, but we can hardly call it original. The metamorphosis is straight from "The Fly." It's hard not to draw comparisons to "Robocop", "Aliens", "Alien Nation", and basically every other science fiction film you've ever seen. When he's making the flower for his wife as a full-on Prawn, I felt sick to my stomach.
Furthermore, the commentary didn't quite work when it became an incoherent rant against multinational corporations (the preeminent generic sci-fi cliche, as Slate can tell you better than I: http://www.slate.com/id/2225285/). Where was the documentary aspect after about 30 minutes? If only both halves were of similar quality. Frankly, the 6 minute "Alive in Joburg" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlgtbEdqVsk) it's based on is better. With alien interviews where they're pleading for necessities and gritty news footage, it does more in 6 minutes to effectively illustrate the allegory to apartheid than the feature film did in 2 hours. It evokes more feeling too. If you want to see an amazing movie where monsters bring out the monsters in men, watch "The Host." Amazing movie.
Anyway, where does District 9 stand in the halls of science fiction? I'm going to make an informal list with Rotten Tomato Tomatometer %. Rotten Tomatoes tracks the % of critics that would recommend seeing the movie, thumbs up or down. Please note that I'm doing modern era, so I'm not putting "Metropolis", "The Day the Earth Stood Still", or anything like that. I'm also excluding comic book movies (not graphic novels) and comedies like "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" or "Ghostbusters." Straight sci-fi. I will also admit I haven't seen any other "Star Trek" movies, "Serenity", or "District B13". I am exempting animation because I know virtually nothing about it.
All-Time Greats:
2001 (96%)
Alien, Aliens (97%, 100%)
A Clockwork Orange (91%)
Terminator, T2 (100%, 97%)
Star Wars (93%,) <-- I'm only putting one, so deal with it.
The Matrix (86%)
Blade Runner (94%)
Brazil (98%)
ET (98%)
Still Great, But Clearly Tier II:
Solaris (98%)
Road Warrior (100%)
Minority Report (91%)
The Host (92%)
Children of Men (92%)
Gattaca (78%)
The Fly (91%)
WALL-E (96%)
Tier III:
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (95%)
Planet of the Apes (88%)
Twelve Monkeys (85%)
The Abyss (84%)
Donnie Darko (91%)
Sunshine (75%)
Scanner Darkly (67%)
The Thing (77%)
The Fountain (51%)--> I love this movie, I don't care if it got mixed responses. It's moving and beautiful, gets me every time. Total success, sometimes obscurity can be rewarding.
The Best of the Action Packed, Not Too Serious Flicks
Robocop (88%)
District 9 (89%)
Total Recall (79%)
Escape from New York (81%)
Predator (76%)
Fifth Element (70%)
Highly Flawed, but Strove for Greatness:
AI (73%)
Dark City (77%)
Matrix Reloaded (76%)
Pretty Good, but Don't Quite Deliver on Premise:
Star Trek (2009) (95%)
V for Vendetta (73%)
Cloverfield (77%)
I Am Legend (69%)
War of the Worlds (73%)
Dumber Action Films:
Starship Troopers (60%)
Independence Day (62%)
I, Robot (58%)
Event Horizon (21%)
Equilibrium (36%)
Total Failures:
Alien 3 (34%)
Stargate (43%)
Armageddon (41%)
Matrix Revolutions (37%)
The Island (40%)
Godzilla (2000) (26%)
Doom (20%)
Alien vs. Predator (22%)
Friday, August 7, 2009
Today Was a Good Day Extended Version
Old news I know, but in case people haven't seen it, here's the extended version of the Nike SB commercial. The Kobester makes an appearance.
Aphorisms
-If you read one thing today, please let it be this article on health care from the Harvard Business Review. A few gems:
"Americans spend more on products, and receive less services. Americans realize amongst the poorest health outcomes of developed nations. Americans have the lowest life expectancy amongst developed nations — 78.1 years, compared to 81 in the UK, and 82 in Switzerland. Lower levels of service and more money spent on the same drugs, translate, as you might reasonably expect, into poorer outcomes."
"Healthcare in America is a textbook example of thin value. The healthcare industry maintains significantly supernormal profitability — yet, those profits are divorced from people being relatively better off. An American healthcare industry that "creates value" by limiting how much better off people are is simply transferring value from society to shareholders."
The disincentives within health care are unbelievable. These insurance providers are publicly traded entities that must constantly compete with one another for best in class payout metrics and push higher and higher margins at the expense of care. Finding technicalities to avoid payment and cleansing unprofitable accounts is different when it's human lives at stake. We won't fix health care until we make care the primary goal of insurers, not shareholder return. I've heard it before from a friend, but I believe non-profit insurance entities are the close thing to a "solution" that I've heard.
-I like to believe that my efforts sending Lamar Odom articles with reasons to join the Lakers on twitter and my blog post on this humble establishment helped lobby him to LA. That and the Lakers offered more money, home, and a chance to win another championship. I believe he had serious consideration for Miami and I have to say D-Wade was able to scare me, but I think Lamar Odom belongs in LA. I'm very very excited about the NBA season this year.
-The Lakers are the clear favorite to win the championship. If Artest buys in and steps up his defense, we're going to be very very scary. Assuming Bynum is able to regain some of the form he's shown in flashes and stays healthy, hoping that Farmar/Brown take the quantum leap (3rd year for Mr. Farmar I believe), and seeing Sasha Vujacic actually shoot the ball and we're talking about a potentially dominant team. Just like last year when I was so frustrated with this 65 win club (how is that even possible) because they only scratched the surface of their potential so often with their lackadaisical commitment to defense and inability to care as much as teams need to be great. But I have to give it to them: they flipped a switch during that Nuggets series and developed another gear against Orlando. No one in the NBA could have beaten us in that series.
Before the championship, you would say the Lakers had three mortal weaknesses on defense: fast point guards, three point shooting and spacing the floor, and pick and roll defense. Orlando exploited all three of these Achilles' heels in the regular season, crushing the Lakers. In the Finals, the Lakers had amazing weak-side help defense on Dwight but rotated fast enough to prevent open threes, shut down Alston and Nelson for much of the series, and defended the pick and roll like men possessed. They lived up to their potential. Phil Jackson outcoached Van Gundy-never underestimate the importance of this after he was outcoached by Brown and Thibodeau. Notice I didn't say Rivers. Lamar Odom played consistently. Kobe was Kobe. Role players stepped up. If this team carries that hunger, if Kobe is able to inspire them like Michael did the Bulls in '96, we could see something really special. The Lakers have a potentially all-time great offense this year, but if they really commit on D, they could be unstoppable.
-The disparity between the have's and have nots in the NBA is unbelievable, but I think the long-time rivalries like the Lakers and the Celtics in the 80's and eras with superpowers are better sometimes. The NFL has amazing parity and that does some great things, but I think the rise of the evil Patriots empire is one of the best things to ever happen to the league. The Giants toppling that Leviathan in such dramatic fashion is surely more unbelievable than a random team from the AFC like the Jaguars in their first Superbowl. When Eli Manning stopped a 18-0 Juggernaut on the verge of adding to its dynasty, it became unbelievable. When David topples Goliath, when Jordan beats the Showtime Lakers...
-I think I'm going to get NBA league pass and write a lot more during the season. These are real goals people.
-Do yourself a favor and watch this music video promoting the new Nike Hyperize sneakers. Durantula, AI, Rashard, and Mo Williams all exceed expectations and I actually like the song.
-For someone who expends so much energy dismissing metaphysics, I subconciously hold things to such incredible standards. Recognizing the imperfections in people and institutions and accepting them is critical to life.
-I'm a different person than I was at the end of 2008. I've matured a lot in my outlook. Growth happens in concentrated spurts and the last few months will be among my most memorable for a lot of reasons. I finally "got it" in a lot of ways.
-Part of that outlook is recognizing that it's time for a step-change in life. I feel it coming. Yes, it's jargon, but weirdly appropriate. I've spent too much time thinking about strategic frameworks. Too much time.
-I made an unbelievably cathartic playlist on iTunes today. Called it "Show Me the Good Life" after the Blu & Exile song. That Blu & Exile album is unbelievable, have been bumping it non-stop for a week.
-The playlist is almost entirely hip-hop but contains one indie rock song, Matt & Kim "Lessons Learned." For seem reason it seems oddly appropriate. The hip-hop is a has a bunch of contemplative songs like "Staring Through My Rear View", "Moment of Clarity", etc. It also has a number of songs about victory and celebration, like "Good Life", "Back in the Day", and "Encore." Ups an downs I suppose.
.
-There's a lot I want to accomplish in the next few months. I need to take the GMAT, apply to b-school, and establish a better routine. I've realized that you are what you do every day and must create the habits that make you the person that you want to become. This has a lot of implications. I need to read more booksI digest a lot of information, but less books than I want to. I want to establish a better gym routine, which get disrupted too often with so much travel.
-Watched "White Men Can't Jump" over 4-5 nights as I was falling asleep. Awesome movie. I mean obviously no Oscar contender, but pretty creative comedy with some decent basketball thrown in there. I laughed quite a bit. I like Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson and both are pretty funny and charismatic here. Woody Harrelson is more believably good at basketball than I expected too. Plus, those 90's outfits were straight nostalgia. Not to mention awesome. The beach volleyball hat!
"Americans spend more on products, and receive less services. Americans realize amongst the poorest health outcomes of developed nations. Americans have the lowest life expectancy amongst developed nations — 78.1 years, compared to 81 in the UK, and 82 in Switzerland. Lower levels of service and more money spent on the same drugs, translate, as you might reasonably expect, into poorer outcomes."
"Healthcare in America is a textbook example of thin value. The healthcare industry maintains significantly supernormal profitability — yet, those profits are divorced from people being relatively better off. An American healthcare industry that "creates value" by limiting how much better off people are is simply transferring value from society to shareholders."
The disincentives within health care are unbelievable. These insurance providers are publicly traded entities that must constantly compete with one another for best in class payout metrics and push higher and higher margins at the expense of care. Finding technicalities to avoid payment and cleansing unprofitable accounts is different when it's human lives at stake. We won't fix health care until we make care the primary goal of insurers, not shareholder return. I've heard it before from a friend, but I believe non-profit insurance entities are the close thing to a "solution" that I've heard.
-I like to believe that my efforts sending Lamar Odom articles with reasons to join the Lakers on twitter and my blog post on this humble establishment helped lobby him to LA. That and the Lakers offered more money, home, and a chance to win another championship. I believe he had serious consideration for Miami and I have to say D-Wade was able to scare me, but I think Lamar Odom belongs in LA. I'm very very excited about the NBA season this year.-The Lakers are the clear favorite to win the championship. If Artest buys in and steps up his defense, we're going to be very very scary. Assuming Bynum is able to regain some of the form he's shown in flashes and stays healthy, hoping that Farmar/Brown take the quantum leap (3rd year for Mr. Farmar I believe), and seeing Sasha Vujacic actually shoot the ball and we're talking about a potentially dominant team. Just like last year when I was so frustrated with this 65 win club (how is that even possible) because they only scratched the surface of their potential so often with their lackadaisical commitment to defense and inability to care as much as teams need to be great. But I have to give it to them: they flipped a switch during that Nuggets series and developed another gear against Orlando. No one in the NBA could have beaten us in that series.
Before the championship, you would say the Lakers had three mortal weaknesses on defense: fast point guards, three point shooting and spacing the floor, and pick and roll defense. Orlando exploited all three of these Achilles' heels in the regular season, crushing the Lakers. In the Finals, the Lakers had amazing weak-side help defense on Dwight but rotated fast enough to prevent open threes, shut down Alston and Nelson for much of the series, and defended the pick and roll like men possessed. They lived up to their potential. Phil Jackson outcoached Van Gundy-never underestimate the importance of this after he was outcoached by Brown and Thibodeau. Notice I didn't say Rivers. Lamar Odom played consistently. Kobe was Kobe. Role players stepped up. If this team carries that hunger, if Kobe is able to inspire them like Michael did the Bulls in '96, we could see something really special. The Lakers have a potentially all-time great offense this year, but if they really commit on D, they could be unstoppable.
-The disparity between the have's and have nots in the NBA is unbelievable, but I think the long-time rivalries like the Lakers and the Celtics in the 80's and eras with superpowers are better sometimes. The NFL has amazing parity and that does some great things, but I think the rise of the evil Patriots empire is one of the best things to ever happen to the league. The Giants toppling that Leviathan in such dramatic fashion is surely more unbelievable than a random team from the AFC like the Jaguars in their first Superbowl. When Eli Manning stopped a 18-0 Juggernaut on the verge of adding to its dynasty, it became unbelievable. When David topples Goliath, when Jordan beats the Showtime Lakers...-I think I'm going to get NBA league pass and write a lot more during the season. These are real goals people.
-Do yourself a favor and watch this music video promoting the new Nike Hyperize sneakers. Durantula, AI, Rashard, and Mo Williams all exceed expectations and I actually like the song.
-For someone who expends so much energy dismissing metaphysics, I subconciously hold things to such incredible standards. Recognizing the imperfections in people and institutions and accepting them is critical to life.
-I'm a different person than I was at the end of 2008. I've matured a lot in my outlook. Growth happens in concentrated spurts and the last few months will be among my most memorable for a lot of reasons. I finally "got it" in a lot of ways.
-Part of that outlook is recognizing that it's time for a step-change in life. I feel it coming. Yes, it's jargon, but weirdly appropriate. I've spent too much time thinking about strategic frameworks. Too much time.
-I made an unbelievably cathartic playlist on iTunes today. Called it "Show Me the Good Life" after the Blu & Exile song. That Blu & Exile album is unbelievable, have been bumping it non-stop for a week.
-The playlist is almost entirely hip-hop but contains one indie rock song, Matt & Kim "Lessons Learned." For seem reason it seems oddly appropriate. The hip-hop is a has a bunch of contemplative songs like "Staring Through My Rear View", "Moment of Clarity", etc. It also has a number of songs about victory and celebration, like "Good Life", "Back in the Day", and "Encore." Ups an downs I suppose.
.
-There's a lot I want to accomplish in the next few months. I need to take the GMAT, apply to b-school, and establish a better routine. I've realized that you are what you do every day and must create the habits that make you the person that you want to become. This has a lot of implications. I need to read more booksI digest a lot of information, but less books than I want to. I want to establish a better gym routine, which get disrupted too often with so much travel.
-Watched "White Men Can't Jump" over 4-5 nights as I was falling asleep. Awesome movie. I mean obviously no Oscar contender, but pretty creative comedy with some decent basketball thrown in there. I laughed quite a bit. I like Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson and both are pretty funny and charismatic here. Woody Harrelson is more believably good at basketball than I expected too. Plus, those 90's outfits were straight nostalgia. Not to mention awesome. The beach volleyball hat!
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
LeBron James: Old School Figure or New Media Failure?
We're living an age of unprecedented access to celebrities. With the advent of Twitter, we are exposed to their thoughts, unfiltered and without a PR representative in the middle. The NBA has arguably been the community to embrace Twitter the most rapidly, with much of the league getting involved by following Shaq's example and interacting with fans and journalists alike. We've seen Kevin Love break news of his coach's firing, Shaquille O'Neal give away tickets online, a race to 50,000 between Chris Bosh and Charlie Villanueva (a really really irritating race if you follow Bosh), and folks like Dwight Howard build up a following by providing unfettered access to their stream of consciousness.
LeBron James, however, has not followed the path of his peers like D. Wade and has yet to really utilize the kind of proximity that social media can provide him to his fans. This really should not surprise us though, since he has entered the league he has obsessively controlled his image and thus his marketability to sponsors. The difference between LeBron James and most NBA players, even those taken from high school, is that his NBA status has been extremely obvious since early high school at the latest. He was King James by the time he came into the league and his junior year he graced the Sports Illustrated cover in an article where GM's insisted they'd trade anything for him at that point. The dude has had plenty of time to prepare his image and you better believe he's been thoughtful about how he's perceived from the get-go.
James has surrounded himself with high school friends who have ultimately ended up being yes men. He has a great relationship with Jay-Z, who is one of the more secretive rappers about his personal life. Where Kobe and MJ had one singular goal in their lives: to win, LBJ's main goal is to be a billionaire. Even winning is secondary for him. In terms of media presence, I feel he's more Machiavellian and less trustworthy than Kobe. His appearances are more obviously calculated and low risk. The most I've ever read about his personal interactions has been with sponsors. Even Kobe's teammates, like Smush Parker and Derek Fisher, have been in the press with things to say about the Black Mamba, good or bad. I've never heard anyone say anything either way about LeBron as a teammate or a human being. But we sure know a lot about LeBron James the marketing gimmick.
It's interesting to watch this strategy backfire because LeBron James has a very good on-court persona, but we don't know enough about him personally to put his off-court mistakes in context. Clearly he's very competitive, but it's hard to place where he lies on that continuum. After Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals, LeBron stomped out of the arena without shaking hands. Later, he justified his behavior because he didn't want to shake hands after a loss. LeBron the sore loser, eh? Not only did he spark a media firestorm, he also started a whole new round of LeBron to NYC in 2010 rumors by wearing a Yankees hat in his interviews where he defended himself. Very subtle, LeBron.
More recently, LeBron confiscated videotape of him being "posterized" at his camp by Jordan Crawford, a sophomore at Xavier. After the dunk, he whispered in the ear of the Nike representatives, who literally stole the videotapes from the cameras to protect their investment. Of course, the story got out and people hated on LeBron for it. Why wouldn't we? Getting posterized, to an intelligent basketball fan, is usually not a shame. It means you're rotating and covering a man at the last second and get caught. It means you're putting your body in the line of duty to draw a charge. It means you're trying on defense. Anyways, the longer we waited to see even a Zapruder version of this tape, the more our imaginations went wild. Blogs posted pictures of VC over Frederic Weis in anticipation when TMZ declared it would release the video yesterday.
Guess what happened when the video leaked? See for yourself, it wasn't even the slightest bit embarrassing. LeBron didn't even get dunked on really. He was a little late to contest the shot. I get it, you're supposed to be the best basketball player in the world, but the cover-up was the only shameful job by LeBron. The video was going to get out, either by cell phone camera or by some device you didn't know was there. It turns out there were TWO additional sets of footage, not just one. And now LeBron not only looks like a narcissistic brat, but the PR backlash and subsequent imaginary posterizations in our head were way worse than what might have happened if he'd just shrugged it off. Even MJ shrugged it off when he lost in one on one to a mutual fund CEO, what else could he do?
I guess I'm looking for the moral of the story for our fair hero LeBron. I think what all this shows is a permanent paradigm shift in the media/celebrity relationship. Think about the Erin Andrews video that horribly surfaced this week, the Stephon Marbury Q&A on Ustream, the Kobe Bryant cell phone video ("Trade Bynum y'all"), and the Kevin Love tweet. There's no privacy anymore in public. Anytime you are in the view of other people, they could be recording you, they will blog about it, and you can't escape the consequences. The Worldwide Leader has had a huge part in the shift from coverage of sports to coverage of athletes as TMZ-style celebrities (unless you're Ben Roethlisberger apparently), but it's not all ESPN. Technology has fundamentally shifted interactions and humanized athletes in a way few of us dreamed was possible. In the new media, you can't hide, you just can't. Instead, you have to embrace it and control your image the best you can. Brand yourself on Twitter.
James would love it to be old-school. Think about the amazing image that MJ enjoyed, despite his personal shortcomings (that's another post all-together). Michael Jordan is truly the Beatles of the NBA, the right star at the right time who's image has since blown up out of proportion and has made him untouchable. He made the league and was its star in ways that no one else ever could be because he transformed the NBA. It's too established as a league now, it doesn't need another Jordan. Similarly, there will never be a collection of sneakers as influential as the Air Jordans. He's just an impossible standard to live up to. LeBron will never win 6 championships in a league with such parity (and such a crappy team), which he has to come to terms with. He also needs to understand the new media and what that means about controlling his image.
I have to think you're a likable dude Lebron, but please do us all a favor and show us that humanity. Embrace technology and the media, use it to your advantage. We've seen how it works out when you try to fight it. We'll all be witnesses, like it or not.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
A Plea for Lamar Odom
I don't write about sports nearly enough on here, even with my Lakers winning a championship! I figure that I read more sports writing than any human being should (you don't even want to see my Google Reader) and if it's a pretty big passion of mine, I should start writing about it more. That and I'm still debating if I can plausibly write a Lakers season review with grades without it being too late. I have plenty of time for that though, seeing as we're surviving in sports purgatory with only the MLB and Tour De France these days, and I'll think of something when I watch that glorious season recap DVD I haven't gotten around to buying yet...
Anyways, I've been talking a lot about Lamar Odom with anyone who will listen. Perhaps ranting is a better word. Obsessing. I've never wanted a free agent to re-sign like this before. Look, I'm a big Dodgers fan and freaked out about Manny last year, but Manny didn't just help us win a championship. He's still a rental anyway. Come to think of it, there's no one who's come even close.
As a Lakers fan, I'm used to winning that free agent battle. LA is a destination, you're a star baby. Sure, we've lost some battles, but we win the big ones. We got Shaq from Orlando. Kobe was never going to leave in 2004. In my entire life, I can't remember being devastated the way I imagine T'wolves fans were when KG got traded (well, maybe McHale waited long enough that that wasn't true) or the way those Magic fans felt when the Big Buckeye abandoned ship with what seemed like several championships waiting in the wings.
It's not just about that though. I could handle losing Gasol better than this, really I could. Lamar isn't just a Laker, he's probably my favorite Laker. I remember the first time I ever really watched LO, on the 2004 Olympic team, ironically not too long before he was traded to LA. I knew who he was but I didn't know him outside of his Clipper-hood and drug busts. I remember being so impressed with LO doing everything for that team, one of those who never quit, playing impromptu center and blocking shot after shot as his teammates allowed one fast break after another. LO was the goalie and kept going until he was literally wagging his tongue, exhausted. That image of Lamar Odom, the versatile talent shamelessly doing whatever needed to be done for a flawed team, endured until this year's title.
It's easy to speak in superlatives about Lamar Odom, on the court and off the court. You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone in the L who's had a tougher childhood or has a better attitude about it now. He smiles like Magic Johnson and has a lot of joy in his life. You can see it on the court and you can only laugh along with him when he does things like eat candy for breakfast. Of course Lamar Odom is the candyman!
On the court, he's been whatever the Lakers have needed him for. He learned to be a great PF and defended bigs like Tim Duncan and Garnett when no one else stepped up. He can do EVERYTHING imaginable at 6'10". He can run the court, pass, shoot (apparently, 3's now too), rebound, block shots, toss in a baby hook, you name it. Now that we have bigs and have relegated him to 6th man, he's simply turned into a premier help defender and is a policeman for that childish second unit and turning the Lakers bench into the league's finest. How'd they look when Lamar was starting and Josh Powell was out there?
In retrospect, he's an obvious choice for my favorite Laker. You have to love Kobe aesthetically and because of his skill, but he's a stone cold assassin and a jerk sometimes, even though I believe he's grown up a lot. He's too Machiavellian a figure for you to ever buy his sincerity that much. I like Pau, don't get me wrong, but he's too goofy and hasn't been around long enough. Bynum is super-frustrating. I understand why people on OTHER teams hate Sasha sometimes. D-Fish is the man, but his 15 foot pull-up jumpers automatically remove him from contention. Who doesn't love Mbenga but come on...
Lamar is the most human and relatable player on the roster. He's an emotional open book and I've shared the ride, the ups and downs, on his expressions over the years. When the Shaq trade wasn't really working out, I always blamed Caron and never LO. I've stuck with him since he came to the Lakers and my attachment to him has grown over the years as I've watched him mature and learn to control his dazzling array of talents. He's been as frustrating as he's been electric the last few years. I can't tell you how many times I've been dripping sweat as he takes an ill-advised shot or free throws at the end of a game. He's been inconsistent as a second banana, there's no other way to say it.
I defended his performance in the 2008 Finals, he put up 20/11/4 and 19/10/4 in games 4 and 5 people, and have defended his tenure as a Laker ("All-Star numbers until he got hurt") in ways I've never defended Kobe. I'm obliged to defend Kobe, but for the most part any defense of Kobe starts with a some serious concessions and caveats anyway.
There were a lot of redemption stories on that championship team. Phil got his 10th, Kupchak did it, Kobe did it without Shaq, Euros like Gasol are winners, Derek Fisher wasn't done yet, etc. But the one that meant the most to me was Lamar Odom's redemption. He went from a flawed sidekick that was never quite going to be Kobe's Pippen to a human Swiss army knife who sublimated his role to win. When held up to the standard of his talent, he was always a failure, but winning a championship as a vital and clutch player of critical importance, that's the stuff of legend. He's a star here forever.
I understand why he'd leave if he was making more money. At this point, the sentiments of the Heat still may win him over, but he shouldn't leave for less and a worse basketball situation. I get that he doesn't feel appreciated; the NBA is a business, but it's an intensely personal one. The number one priority is respect and the Lakers aren't exactly oozing it. He's still the only Laker not getting paid, but no one else can pay more, so he has little leverage unfortunately. It's not just about the front office. The fans love Lamar and he has a real home here in the community. The Lakers are still his best chance of winning. Winning a lot and paying more. The Heat are still probably a 48-49 win team at best if they do some fancy maneuvering with Jermaine O'Neal's expiring contract, but the Lakers could be a dynasty. That's not happening in South Beach. Wade's probably out in 2010 anyway.
But Lamar, this isn't just about winning and the title you have to defend. This is about where you belong, in the offense where your basketball skills are divine. This is your team and your place in the universe. Yeah, Kobe is no doubt the leader of this team, but you are its heart, its compass. Kobe is always fantastic, but the Lakers live and die by Lamar Odom. The kids look up to him and the veterans respect him. We'll work on a star in Hollywood for you Lamar, but please get to work on another Larry O'Brien trophy marching down Figueroa. It wouldn't be the same without you.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
"500 Days of Summer" and "Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father"
Wow. Coincidentally, I have been treated to two absolute tour de forces in two days and both have managed to knock me out with their raw emotional power. These films, "500 Days of Summer" and "Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father," speak to the power of human emotion and the way that life doesn't always work out the way we want it to.
"500 Days of Summer"
"500 Days of Summer" was a fantastic film. It's a wonderfully shot story of a relationship, 500 days of Tom (Joseph Gordon Levitt) and Summer (Zoey Deschanel). Another film that is hard to do justice to, "Summer" would technically be classified as a romantic comedy, but it's really a movie about the little things and the emotional intimacies of a relationship. Tom and Summer don't make it, I'm afraid, and it's something we know from the very beginning, which makes the story have a certain gravitas as it unfolds, with us looking for little details and hints of how it ends along the way.
"Summer" is the story of Tom, a greeting card writer, who meets Summer when she starts as an assistant at his work. They connect over The Smiths on the elevator and have a brief courtship highlighted by an amazing work function at a karaoke bar. The music has been carefully chosen and is a defining element of the film, helping set the tone and convey its meaning. The film is non-linear and jumps back and forth between the different stages of the relationship, from the courtship to the inevitable end.
This is director Mark Webb's first feature film, having come from a background in music videos, and he has an incredible eye for beauty in his cinematography. He has slick transitions between moments, split screens, and creative innovations in story-telling combined with a real understanding of the human heart. "Summer" manages to weave an engaging and gorgeous around this failed relationship. Summer was never going to marry Tom and sometimes life doesn't work out like the way we want it to. This is a hard lesson for Tom and we really feel his pain, but we also feel the joy along the ride and really come to understand why he loves her. Levitt and Deschanel are both incredible in their roles, which serves to elevate the film even further. This one will require multiple viewings to catch all of the intricacies. I can't wait.
Grade: A-
"Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father"
Simply put, this movie destroyed me and left me emotionally raw in a way that only a few movies ever have. It is on the short-list for most devastating picture I've ever experienced and that's saying a lot, trust me. When I reflect, I've only been affected to the point of tears a few times in my life: "I Am Sam", "Requiem for a Dream", "American History X", "United 93", and now "Dear Zachary." Of the bunch, "Zachary" and "United 93" had the biggest visceral impact, perhaps because of the power that the truth of the story provides their narrative. I know that "Requiem for a Dream" didn't happen, as attached as I am to the characters, and there's something to be said for the credibility that a true story or a documentary attaches to the emotional impact.
"Zachary" is the story of Andrew Bagby, who was murdered by his pregnant girlfriend, as told by the director Kurt Kuenne, who is a child-hood friend that made many an amateur film with Andrew growing up. Zachary is Andrew's son and Kurt wants him to know his father. He has some incredible footage and photographs to work with here, but that's not where he shines. Kurt tirelessly travels the country to interview those that knew and loved Andrew. He interviews extended family, classmates, co-workers, and, most extensively, his parents.
Andrew seems like he was an incredible kid, a best friend to many and a great son, who found his niche as a doctor. After a rough break-up with his fiance, he started dating a much older woman who didn't seem quite right to his friends, who ignored it because they wanted to see him happy. He eventually broke up with her and sent her home on a plane, thinking it was over. She drove across the country and murdered him.
The film is a testament to those that loved Andrew with its immeasurable warmth and personal touch, but during filming Andrew's murderer is released and receives custody of their child. It changes the direction of the film dramatically and provides it with additional urgency, not that it really needed it. The movie packs emotional punch after emotional bunch, but it's better not to release anymore of the plot points and you should know as little as possible heading into the film.
Trust me, bring tissues. This film is truly overwhelming. It's almost impossible to compare it to anything else or assign it any kind of relative value. However, I always say that the point of art is to convey the emotion and experience of the human condition. By that measure, few films, if any, will stack up to this one.
Grade: A
"500 Days of Summer"
"500 Days of Summer" was a fantastic film. It's a wonderfully shot story of a relationship, 500 days of Tom (Joseph Gordon Levitt) and Summer (Zoey Deschanel). Another film that is hard to do justice to, "Summer" would technically be classified as a romantic comedy, but it's really a movie about the little things and the emotional intimacies of a relationship. Tom and Summer don't make it, I'm afraid, and it's something we know from the very beginning, which makes the story have a certain gravitas as it unfolds, with us looking for little details and hints of how it ends along the way.
"Summer" is the story of Tom, a greeting card writer, who meets Summer when she starts as an assistant at his work. They connect over The Smiths on the elevator and have a brief courtship highlighted by an amazing work function at a karaoke bar. The music has been carefully chosen and is a defining element of the film, helping set the tone and convey its meaning. The film is non-linear and jumps back and forth between the different stages of the relationship, from the courtship to the inevitable end.
This is director Mark Webb's first feature film, having come from a background in music videos, and he has an incredible eye for beauty in his cinematography. He has slick transitions between moments, split screens, and creative innovations in story-telling combined with a real understanding of the human heart. "Summer" manages to weave an engaging and gorgeous around this failed relationship. Summer was never going to marry Tom and sometimes life doesn't work out like the way we want it to. This is a hard lesson for Tom and we really feel his pain, but we also feel the joy along the ride and really come to understand why he loves her. Levitt and Deschanel are both incredible in their roles, which serves to elevate the film even further. This one will require multiple viewings to catch all of the intricacies. I can't wait.
Grade: A-
"Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father"
Simply put, this movie destroyed me and left me emotionally raw in a way that only a few movies ever have. It is on the short-list for most devastating picture I've ever experienced and that's saying a lot, trust me. When I reflect, I've only been affected to the point of tears a few times in my life: "I Am Sam", "Requiem for a Dream", "American History X", "United 93", and now "Dear Zachary." Of the bunch, "Zachary" and "United 93" had the biggest visceral impact, perhaps because of the power that the truth of the story provides their narrative. I know that "Requiem for a Dream" didn't happen, as attached as I am to the characters, and there's something to be said for the credibility that a true story or a documentary attaches to the emotional impact.
"Zachary" is the story of Andrew Bagby, who was murdered by his pregnant girlfriend, as told by the director Kurt Kuenne, who is a child-hood friend that made many an amateur film with Andrew growing up. Zachary is Andrew's son and Kurt wants him to know his father. He has some incredible footage and photographs to work with here, but that's not where he shines. Kurt tirelessly travels the country to interview those that knew and loved Andrew. He interviews extended family, classmates, co-workers, and, most extensively, his parents.
Andrew seems like he was an incredible kid, a best friend to many and a great son, who found his niche as a doctor. After a rough break-up with his fiance, he started dating a much older woman who didn't seem quite right to his friends, who ignored it because they wanted to see him happy. He eventually broke up with her and sent her home on a plane, thinking it was over. She drove across the country and murdered him.
The film is a testament to those that loved Andrew with its immeasurable warmth and personal touch, but during filming Andrew's murderer is released and receives custody of their child. It changes the direction of the film dramatically and provides it with additional urgency, not that it really needed it. The movie packs emotional punch after emotional bunch, but it's better not to release anymore of the plot points and you should know as little as possible heading into the film.
Trust me, bring tissues. This film is truly overwhelming. It's almost impossible to compare it to anything else or assign it any kind of relative value. However, I always say that the point of art is to convey the emotion and experience of the human condition. By that measure, few films, if any, will stack up to this one.
Grade: A
Saturday, July 11, 2009
"The Hurt Locker" Review: A+ - Go go see it now
I can already tell "The Hurt Locker" is going to be difficult to give its proper due. Part of me thinks it's going to be dismissed as another Iraq movie rather than a serious contender for best picture or, frankly, among the best war films ever made. At the very least, it's the defining film on the Iraq war. "The Hurt Locker" uses the vehicle of a war to make a film about human nature, living on the edge, and the things that motivate us. As a result, it looks for insight into the human experience during war rather than a cheap politically dig.
I'll be upfront about it, I'm getting tired of the brash nature of political commentary in films today-all most accomplish is an excessively negative and basic criticism that rarely, if ever, borders on something nearly as constructive as most of the love and diversity messages in children's television. Don't get me wrong, it can be well executed like "Wall-E", but documentaries are the most successful medium here. Most of Hollywood's attempts seem self-serving or so shallow you wish they'd never tried in the first place.
For my money, movies that have genuine insight into human relationships are the ones I'm bound to find profound. Last year's "Rachel Get Married" blew me away on that front and films like "Requiem for a Dream" and "American Beauty" get multiple viewings a year in my house. If the end of art is to communicate experience, I think that films that really put you into someone else's shoes are so much more incredible than these cheap-thrills-huge-special-effects-so-dumb-you-don't-even-have-to-think blockbusters. Besides, I'll take the thrills in "The Hurt Locker" against pretty much anything else anyway. I was borderline exhausted entering the theatre, but my adrenaline pumped for 2 hours and 13 minutes and the classic Craig falling asleep in a movie he really wants to see trap never had a chance.
"The Hurt Locker" follows Jeremy Renner (the marine from "28 Weeks Later") who deserves Oscar consideration for his portrayal of Staff Sergeant William James, a bomb specialist working with Anthony Mackie (Papa Doc from "8 Mile"), also masterful as his by-the-book Sergeant Sanborn, to diffuse the IED's, car bombs, and suicide bombings that happen all too frequently in Iraq.
It is the grittiest, most realistic portayal of a soldier's life in Iraq I've seen and goes much further than "Three Kings" did years ago. It's 2004 and Renner replaces Guy Pearce, who played it safe and still gets dusted in the first five minutes. Renner is reckless-he refuses to use the bomb robot and while diffusing a huge car bomb he takes off his protective suit saying, "If I'm going to die, I'm going to die comfortably." He's a badass because, despite his bravado, he's incredible at his job; he can think like the bomb maker and stays in the line of danger until the very last second.
The movie opens with the line "War is a drug" and the adrenaline is something that keeps Renner hooked on war. He's disabled 873 bombs, which is an absolutely staggering amount and makes it tough to balance his need to be with his family. This isn't unique to bomb techs-those who publish newspapers or become investment bankers get hooked on the constant rush and often can't settle into less exciting environments; however, the adjustment is so extreme for those coming home from war, from fighting for life and death on a daily basis to the mundane of the American routine. We feel for Renner, who, despite his swagger, is a good guy who's just a little nuts. You have to be a little crazy for that job, right?
The movie itself is excellent-it's taut and provides the kind of details that bring the soldier's experience to life. Pinned down by snipers, the soldiers must remain alert for hours and hours after they're pretty sure they've finished them off. They can't take chances. Running out of water packets, they are fighting fatigue and dehydration as they bake in the heat. You feel how brutal that must be. One of the squad members constantly struggles with his fear of the front-line ("Does be all you can be mean dead on the streets of Baghdad") against the party line of the military psychiatrist ("War doesn't have to be a bad time in your life.") and the tension is palpable.
The cinematography and direction are perfect here, really illuminating the story without making it feel too Hollywood or dramatic. The attention to detail, from the details on the bombs to the realism of the scenarios, lets this incredible reality speak for itself rather than dramatize the situation. I recently watched "Pearl Harbor" at the behest of a friend and I feel grateful for a war movie that doesn't feel the least bit exploitative. The characters in "Pearl Harbor" feel shallow and unlikable and you come to understand and admire the ones here.
I could really talk about this movie all-day and I suspect I've already spoken about it too much. Do yourself a favor and go see it, I'm going to go see it again soon.
Grade: A+
I'll be upfront about it, I'm getting tired of the brash nature of political commentary in films today-all most accomplish is an excessively negative and basic criticism that rarely, if ever, borders on something nearly as constructive as most of the love and diversity messages in children's television. Don't get me wrong, it can be well executed like "Wall-E", but documentaries are the most successful medium here. Most of Hollywood's attempts seem self-serving or so shallow you wish they'd never tried in the first place.
For my money, movies that have genuine insight into human relationships are the ones I'm bound to find profound. Last year's "Rachel Get Married" blew me away on that front and films like "Requiem for a Dream" and "American Beauty" get multiple viewings a year in my house. If the end of art is to communicate experience, I think that films that really put you into someone else's shoes are so much more incredible than these cheap-thrills-huge-special-effects-so-dumb-you-don't-even-have-to-think blockbusters. Besides, I'll take the thrills in "The Hurt Locker" against pretty much anything else anyway. I was borderline exhausted entering the theatre, but my adrenaline pumped for 2 hours and 13 minutes and the classic Craig falling asleep in a movie he really wants to see trap never had a chance.
"The Hurt Locker" follows Jeremy Renner (the marine from "28 Weeks Later") who deserves Oscar consideration for his portrayal of Staff Sergeant William James, a bomb specialist working with Anthony Mackie (Papa Doc from "8 Mile"), also masterful as his by-the-book Sergeant Sanborn, to diffuse the IED's, car bombs, and suicide bombings that happen all too frequently in Iraq.
It is the grittiest, most realistic portayal of a soldier's life in Iraq I've seen and goes much further than "Three Kings" did years ago. It's 2004 and Renner replaces Guy Pearce, who played it safe and still gets dusted in the first five minutes. Renner is reckless-he refuses to use the bomb robot and while diffusing a huge car bomb he takes off his protective suit saying, "If I'm going to die, I'm going to die comfortably." He's a badass because, despite his bravado, he's incredible at his job; he can think like the bomb maker and stays in the line of danger until the very last second.
The movie opens with the line "War is a drug" and the adrenaline is something that keeps Renner hooked on war. He's disabled 873 bombs, which is an absolutely staggering amount and makes it tough to balance his need to be with his family. This isn't unique to bomb techs-those who publish newspapers or become investment bankers get hooked on the constant rush and often can't settle into less exciting environments; however, the adjustment is so extreme for those coming home from war, from fighting for life and death on a daily basis to the mundane of the American routine. We feel for Renner, who, despite his swagger, is a good guy who's just a little nuts. You have to be a little crazy for that job, right?
The movie itself is excellent-it's taut and provides the kind of details that bring the soldier's experience to life. Pinned down by snipers, the soldiers must remain alert for hours and hours after they're pretty sure they've finished them off. They can't take chances. Running out of water packets, they are fighting fatigue and dehydration as they bake in the heat. You feel how brutal that must be. One of the squad members constantly struggles with his fear of the front-line ("Does be all you can be mean dead on the streets of Baghdad") against the party line of the military psychiatrist ("War doesn't have to be a bad time in your life.") and the tension is palpable.
The cinematography and direction are perfect here, really illuminating the story without making it feel too Hollywood or dramatic. The attention to detail, from the details on the bombs to the realism of the scenarios, lets this incredible reality speak for itself rather than dramatize the situation. I recently watched "Pearl Harbor" at the behest of a friend and I feel grateful for a war movie that doesn't feel the least bit exploitative. The characters in "Pearl Harbor" feel shallow and unlikable and you come to understand and admire the ones here.
I could really talk about this movie all-day and I suspect I've already spoken about it too much. Do yourself a favor and go see it, I'm going to go see it again soon.
Grade: A+
Monday, June 29, 2009
The Platonic Ideal?
I'm not a man who believes in the existence of the ideal, metaphysical or otherwise. I don't think it's something we can accomplish on Earth and I'm there with Feuerbach that we should focus on the human aspect instead-what can we accomplish as men if we push ourselves to the limit? Nothing can ever reach perfection, but it's a worthy goal to see how much better you can become. As an extreme extrovert, I'm also someone who reflects a fair amount on his social relationships, thinking and overthinking these things.
So when my friend asked me if men and women could ever be Platonic best friends, I doubt she knew what she was getting into. It's an extremely interesting question and an impossible one to discuss without weaving in your own metanarrative, very difficult to stay impartial and leave out personal examples. Of course we didn't anyway, which certainly made it more colorful.
Personal gossip aside (yes, I learned from the whole LiveJournal thing in 8th grade), we came to some conclusions. Best friends are an interesting sort-it implies a ton of solo time together, a fair amount of family interaction, and a kind of devotion that is difficult to keep up with more than one person at a time. How can a man have a female best friend and a girlfriend at the same time? Other issues aside, it's an enormous time commitment that could really only be kept up in the utopian euphoria of high school or college where you might actually have enough leisure for that. One really can't develop both at the same time in the real world, unless there is the close coworker relationship. Like same project close.
Anyways, we aren't dealing with the common relationships of male and female best friends, we're looking at the fringes, the very possibility of the Platonic ideal. And, let's be honest with ourselves anyway, the vast majority of those friendships have at least one party (if not both) hopelessly in love with and serving the other anyway.
I think the very notion of the Platonic friendship stems from the idea that we can learn to sublimate our sensual side in favor of the spiritual, which in and of itself admits the way that nature really works here. I think that we can learn to sublimate certain things and trick ourselves, but eventually human nature prevails. Similar to the way that our most animal instincts will rear their ugly head in crisis and our tribal affiliations in times of war, the basic sexual attraction of men and women is difficult to permanently eliminate or "civilize."
Men and women constantly reevaluate those around them as potential partners, consciously or subconsciously, and best friends who really get to know each other often cross that line because they find they love the person as they get to know them. Those who manage to control this urge usually have a huge opportunity cost or deterrent to getting together-they're together with someone they love more, etc. Often times, the best friends I've seen as male/female pairings are those who've been together and realize they love each other but don't work romantically.
Still, I think it's ultimately impossible to do more than sublimate in these situations, it's an ideal we like to convince ourselves of because it's not really an option to be together, for whatever reason. As we age and pair off with life partners, it becomes extremely difficult to be friends with people that aren't also paired off into couples and it can spark huge issues when you hang out 1 on 1 with someone. It's painful to consider, but most of these relationships trail off into the sunset as we begin a life as a family, dedicating what used to be friend time to family time. Friendships are maintained through yearly trips, Fourth of July rituals, and Christmas cards, but they're never afforded the time you could give when you were single and your network of friends is powerless to avoid its inevitable decline.
A friend of mine once told me that you can never really be friends with the opposite sex, at least long term anyway. I think he's wrong, but there's some truth to the idea that those relationships are much more difficult to maintain. Like most things in life, we've got a fundamental inability to alter our circumstances; if we're lucky enough to understand them a little bit before they dramatically change, that's all you can ask for. Armed with foresight, you can at least set expectations. Even for the prematurely sagacious, life is full of surprises, wonder, and bemusement.
So when my friend asked me if men and women could ever be Platonic best friends, I doubt she knew what she was getting into. It's an extremely interesting question and an impossible one to discuss without weaving in your own metanarrative, very difficult to stay impartial and leave out personal examples. Of course we didn't anyway, which certainly made it more colorful.
Personal gossip aside (yes, I learned from the whole LiveJournal thing in 8th grade), we came to some conclusions. Best friends are an interesting sort-it implies a ton of solo time together, a fair amount of family interaction, and a kind of devotion that is difficult to keep up with more than one person at a time. How can a man have a female best friend and a girlfriend at the same time? Other issues aside, it's an enormous time commitment that could really only be kept up in the utopian euphoria of high school or college where you might actually have enough leisure for that. One really can't develop both at the same time in the real world, unless there is the close coworker relationship. Like same project close.
Anyways, we aren't dealing with the common relationships of male and female best friends, we're looking at the fringes, the very possibility of the Platonic ideal. And, let's be honest with ourselves anyway, the vast majority of those friendships have at least one party (if not both) hopelessly in love with and serving the other anyway.
I think the very notion of the Platonic friendship stems from the idea that we can learn to sublimate our sensual side in favor of the spiritual, which in and of itself admits the way that nature really works here. I think that we can learn to sublimate certain things and trick ourselves, but eventually human nature prevails. Similar to the way that our most animal instincts will rear their ugly head in crisis and our tribal affiliations in times of war, the basic sexual attraction of men and women is difficult to permanently eliminate or "civilize."
Men and women constantly reevaluate those around them as potential partners, consciously or subconsciously, and best friends who really get to know each other often cross that line because they find they love the person as they get to know them. Those who manage to control this urge usually have a huge opportunity cost or deterrent to getting together-they're together with someone they love more, etc. Often times, the best friends I've seen as male/female pairings are those who've been together and realize they love each other but don't work romantically.
Still, I think it's ultimately impossible to do more than sublimate in these situations, it's an ideal we like to convince ourselves of because it's not really an option to be together, for whatever reason. As we age and pair off with life partners, it becomes extremely difficult to be friends with people that aren't also paired off into couples and it can spark huge issues when you hang out 1 on 1 with someone. It's painful to consider, but most of these relationships trail off into the sunset as we begin a life as a family, dedicating what used to be friend time to family time. Friendships are maintained through yearly trips, Fourth of July rituals, and Christmas cards, but they're never afforded the time you could give when you were single and your network of friends is powerless to avoid its inevitable decline.
A friend of mine once told me that you can never really be friends with the opposite sex, at least long term anyway. I think he's wrong, but there's some truth to the idea that those relationships are much more difficult to maintain. Like most things in life, we've got a fundamental inability to alter our circumstances; if we're lucky enough to understand them a little bit before they dramatically change, that's all you can ask for. Armed with foresight, you can at least set expectations. Even for the prematurely sagacious, life is full of surprises, wonder, and bemusement.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Memories in the Making
The last few months have seen a pretty significant number of hallmark events, memories, and soon-to-be epic stories that I could tangibly feel becoming family/personal lore as I was experiencing them. This kind of self-awareness is novel to me and I can't really recall when else I'd had this feeling except my college graduation a few years back.
The short-list of memories includes:
-Staying up all night for bro's graduation
-Post-graduation road trip across the US of A (Pittsburgh to LA in 36 hours, whoo!)
-Cousin's wedding and post-wedding bar hopping with family patriarchs
-Laker's championship and my attendance of Game 2 (the Courtney Lee layup)
-My parent's 30th wedding anniversary party and all the epic times that endured there
These are hallmark events as much for their context as much as their good times. Of course I'm going to remember the trip to see my brother graduate or my cousin get married-they're important people in my life and it will be something we can reminisce about for years to come-but there's a deeper reason why these memories will be the ones I focus on when I'm old and grey: the narrow windows in my life where I get to see these people.
I mean, and let's be honest with ourselves here, we see less and less people as we age. Once you have kids, forget about it - you maybe get a couple of escapes a year if you're lucky, but there is a steady growth throughout our lives in responsibilities and time commitments. After college, good lucky getting 4 months off every summer. Once you have a wife, fat chance you'll see your buddies 5 nights a week to gamble, watch sports, and shoot the shit. Add in the fact that many of your best friends and family members will disperse around the globe, requiring special trips to see them, and what chance do we have to really keep in touch long term?
My cousin's wedding was special because it tied two people who truly love each other together, but for me it was particularly special because I got to see family members I hadn't seen in nearly 10 years for the first time as an adult. It was the night of the reception that I first realized how truly small our window of interaction can be with people, even people that are critically important. I see my grandparents maybe 3x a year, for instance. As we age, that window gets smaller except for a select few that can stay in your inner circle. This realization dawned on me and I came to an important conclusion: carpe diem.
So cliche, I know, but far from trite. I mean carpe diem more narrowly than the traditional notion of living life to the fullest; to me, carpe diem is a mantra for maximizing the opportunities we have with the people around us and recognizing how limited they can be. At my cousin's wedding, I forced my family to go out after the wedding for some drinks and it ended up being a great story we'll tell at reunions for the rest of our lives. How many of these opportunities have we passed up in our lives only to realize the window for seeing our friends and loved ones was smaller than we once thought?
When I started work, I had a tight-knit group that started with me and we all seemed destined be one unit, hanging out all the time and really enjoying each other's company. Two years later, I feel I haven't made enough of an effort and am not nearly as close as I wish I'd been. Some of my friends have left and so has my opportunity to get to know them better. I'm not trying to lament about friends lost and friends made, we all make choices and have to live with them; rather, I'm trying to impress the importance of making the most of the chances we've got.
That's why I took the opportunity of my parent's 30th wedding anniversary this weekend to really make the best impression that I could with the guests I had never met or hadn't seen in years. I took the time to have short 5 minute conversations with people to get to know them and see who I am a bit. Obviously I couldn't talk to all 110 people, but I think I did about as well as could be expected catching up with people, meeting new ones, and generally trying to maximize that time while still enjoying myself and checking out the dance floor. And, you know what, I think they appreciated the effort too.
The short-list of memories includes:
-Staying up all night for bro's graduation
-Post-graduation road trip across the US of A (Pittsburgh to LA in 36 hours, whoo!)
-Cousin's wedding and post-wedding bar hopping with family patriarchs
-Laker's championship and my attendance of Game 2 (the Courtney Lee layup)
-My parent's 30th wedding anniversary party and all the epic times that endured there
These are hallmark events as much for their context as much as their good times. Of course I'm going to remember the trip to see my brother graduate or my cousin get married-they're important people in my life and it will be something we can reminisce about for years to come-but there's a deeper reason why these memories will be the ones I focus on when I'm old and grey: the narrow windows in my life where I get to see these people.
I mean, and let's be honest with ourselves here, we see less and less people as we age. Once you have kids, forget about it - you maybe get a couple of escapes a year if you're lucky, but there is a steady growth throughout our lives in responsibilities and time commitments. After college, good lucky getting 4 months off every summer. Once you have a wife, fat chance you'll see your buddies 5 nights a week to gamble, watch sports, and shoot the shit. Add in the fact that many of your best friends and family members will disperse around the globe, requiring special trips to see them, and what chance do we have to really keep in touch long term?
My cousin's wedding was special because it tied two people who truly love each other together, but for me it was particularly special because I got to see family members I hadn't seen in nearly 10 years for the first time as an adult. It was the night of the reception that I first realized how truly small our window of interaction can be with people, even people that are critically important. I see my grandparents maybe 3x a year, for instance. As we age, that window gets smaller except for a select few that can stay in your inner circle. This realization dawned on me and I came to an important conclusion: carpe diem.
So cliche, I know, but far from trite. I mean carpe diem more narrowly than the traditional notion of living life to the fullest; to me, carpe diem is a mantra for maximizing the opportunities we have with the people around us and recognizing how limited they can be. At my cousin's wedding, I forced my family to go out after the wedding for some drinks and it ended up being a great story we'll tell at reunions for the rest of our lives. How many of these opportunities have we passed up in our lives only to realize the window for seeing our friends and loved ones was smaller than we once thought?
When I started work, I had a tight-knit group that started with me and we all seemed destined be one unit, hanging out all the time and really enjoying each other's company. Two years later, I feel I haven't made enough of an effort and am not nearly as close as I wish I'd been. Some of my friends have left and so has my opportunity to get to know them better. I'm not trying to lament about friends lost and friends made, we all make choices and have to live with them; rather, I'm trying to impress the importance of making the most of the chances we've got.
That's why I took the opportunity of my parent's 30th wedding anniversary this weekend to really make the best impression that I could with the guests I had never met or hadn't seen in years. I took the time to have short 5 minute conversations with people to get to know them and see who I am a bit. Obviously I couldn't talk to all 110 people, but I think I did about as well as could be expected catching up with people, meeting new ones, and generally trying to maximize that time while still enjoying myself and checking out the dance floor. And, you know what, I think they appreciated the effort too.
Monday, February 2, 2009
In Defense of Bruce Springsteen: Why the Boss is Boss
I’ve taken some crap lately for my appreciation of the Boss recently and I would like to articulate why I like Bruce Springsteen in more thoughtful prose than a discussion (see: yelling match) over loud music, sports, or even a game of beer pong. I’ve even heard ridiculous comparisons of Bruce Springsteen to acts like Bon Jovi who are inferior and evoke certain connotations about quality I believe that are less than apt descriptions for the Boss.
I think Bruce Springsteen is generally unappreciated by my generation, whose exposure to the Boss has been limited to his Born in the U.S.A. arena anthems (i.e. Glory Days, Dancing in the Dark, and Born in the U.S.A.). Our generation has mostly seen his commercial failures (the folk days in the 1990’s, the Tracks box set, Human Touch, and Tunnel of Love) within our living memory. The only real successes I actually remember by Springsteen before this year’s “The Wrestler” have been his Academy Award for “Streets of Philadelphia” and the release of “The Rising.”
So why does Bruce Springsteen deserve my time, you might ask? I’m fond of dismissing bands like Interpol with the question, “Why would I listen to them when it’s a rip-off of Joy Division and represents such an opportunity cost for good music or original bands?” Why would I listen to Bruce Springsteen for my dose of American singer songwriters when you have Dylan and Young, who I believe to be better than the Boss (although it’s pretty damn close call with Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen for me)? And with all those anthems permeating the airwaves as unfit microcosms of his catalog, I’m sure some people are debating why I’d even consider him a singer songwriter.
Bruce’s first two albums, both in 1973, were much more in the vein of Bob Dylan or Van Morrison than “Born in the U.S.A.” They just barely scratched the surface of his potential and had people giving him the Next singer/songwriter tag, particularly the Next Dylan. By 1975 when “Born to Run” was released, Morrison was dead, the Beatles were done, Hendrix was out of the picture, and Janis Joplin had already passed. The surviving rock royalty like Led Zeppelin, the Who, and Pink Floyd had all peaked and were about to start their declines. There was a vacuum in rock and roll and Bruce Springsteen released what was his breakthrough album, “Born to Run,” which saw his transition from folk music influences to rock and roll.
I’ll be honest with you when I say that I used to dislike Bruce Springsteen. My dad played him all the time and I didn’t even start to like him until high school. My brother and I mercilessly mocked him all the time and sang the most outlandish lyrics from his “Tracks” collection (“You do the crying/ba ba/I’ll do the dishessss”) back at him. Bruce Springsteen took some weird risks and definitely didn’t bat 1.000, let me tell you that. But neither did anyone else, including fan favorites like the Beatles, Zep, the Rolling Stones, or the great rock’n’roll savior himself, Bobbie Dylan. Everyone who takes enough risks or plays long enough fails a fair amount. Artists who don’t take any risks aren’t really artists after a point.
So when did the change happen? Did I wake up and all of the sudden appreciate the man? The answer is no, it happened grudgingly and over time. I really started to like the Boss when I was forced to watch a DVD of a live concert where it was impossible to deny his greatness as a performer or watch his relentless energy and not be amazed. The man puts on an incredible show. As someone who has seen a lot of shows with performers that mail it in or only perform their new albums (I’m looking at you, Ray Davies!), it’s always a breath of fresh air when someone understands that selling a million records is as much of an obligation as it is a release from the bonds of your fans.
Still, it wasn’t until I saw him live in person and was able to gauge him for myself that I really bought into Bruce Springsteen as a bona fide legend. The thing that had always held me back was whether I bought the amount of emotion in his work; I think that it is both his greatest strength and his most divisive weakness. He’s intensely personal and no one questions his sincerity, but I really think most people dislike Bruce Springsteen because they can’t handle the overpowering emotion and drama that sometimes dominate his songs. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if a line should make you wince or appreciate the glorification. When I saw him live, it ceased to be cheese and I began to view his work as a passionate, romanticized vision of America from the perspective of a blue collar kid from New Jersey.
Getting back to “Born to Run,” this album saw the boss fully embrace his lens of ordinary life as something more beautiful and heavier than it seemed. The Boss created a world that understood the reckless passions of youth and saw the seedy underbelly of New Jersey as a battleground for their souls. It wasn’t about the cold realities; instead, the everyday routines were fantastic and just maybe life would be OK if you busted town with your sweetheart. It is this Bruce Springsteen that really drew me in. It’s no secret that the American dream is one of my great passions, both in the rosy optimism of a rags to riches story that engenders hope and the crushing disillusionment for those that find a failed education system and a de facto aristocracy resulting from America’s failure to close the income gap between the have’s and the have nots. To me, Bruce Springsteen represents the incredible highs and lows of the American experience. Even when Bruce Springsteen was at his peak, he never lost his devotion to this America.
The Boss may not be the preeminent modern American storyteller (he’s not), but the way he portrays the lives of Americans conveys the hope and the substance of their stories. He’s made songs about the dreams of high school kids, small towners who peaked on their high school football teams, the plight of Vietnam vets, police brutality, and ultimately the American psyche after 9/11. His catalog rides the drama up and down in a way that leads me to suspect the Boss himself can’t really control them, similar to the bipolar writings of Hunter S. Thompson and Jack Kerouac as they explored and struggled to embrace the opportunities and contradictions underlying the American dream.
As an American storyteller and singer songwriter, Bruce Springsteen is most commonly compared to the other greats, notably Bob Dylan and Neil Young. If you don’t buy that the Boss transcends the cheese in his music, you probably compare him to Bob Seger, who suffers from my Interpol argument in terms of listening hours on my iPod. Dylan and Young are the more apt comparison. The three are moralists in how they frame the world and tell their stories of the late 20th century American experience. Among them, the Boss is the most prone to glorify the mundane and give it an epic treatment. He’s also largely credited as the best performer, although I think all three are probably exceptional.
Dylan is more about the metaphysical context of the injustices and his storytelling was the least straight forward of the three. He has the most folk records in his catalog and is the best lyricist. He’s also clearly had the most influential career-the other two largely succeeded because of the ground that Dylan broke before them. Young is much more similar to Bruce Springsteen; he’s taken the weird chances and has played more rock and roll than Dylan. Young was more about the conflicts and idealism swirling around internally than Bruce. He tackled the longing of the American heart, both through his voice and his words, and struck a powerful chord. Neil Young wrote the nine, ten minute epics like “Cortez the Killer” and “Like a Hurricane” and, in the modern era, writes among the most explicitly political songs around. Young and Springsteen have both been extremely vocal critics of the former (former!) president Bush.
Although there’s a lot more to say, I think that the other point I wanted to touch on was “The Rising,” which was what really cemented him as an icon in my mind. “The Rising” may not be the most articulate expression of post-9/11 America, but Bruce Springsteen is not known for his lyrical eloquence or verbal craftiness. To me, the point of art is to convey an emotion, an experience, or capture a feeling. The Boss can be better at that than almost anyone, he makes you soar and sink with him, and “The Rising” proves to be no exception. It is an album that follows the Boss as he tries to make sense of such a horrific occurrence. It has somber tones and joyous choruses, hope and loss, confusion and warnings. ‘The Rising” embodies cautious optimism for the future without anger and warns against acting impulsively. The record shows the resilience and strength that it takes to be hopeful and rebuild from an unprecedented tragedy. Someone will find the right words, but I haven’t felt anyone capture the tone and the mood of a backpedaling America the same way since.
Bruce Springsteen is not for everyone certainly. Some people will simply never like him or be unable to get past the cheese that is inherent to his brand of dramatization. But I think he should be recognized for more than his arena anthems or he’d really be no better than Bob Seger. He’s a great songwriter and has been a powerful voice in music for over a generation. He's an authentic artist who has not pandered and can never be accused of not trying when far more artists quit than we'd like to admit. He belongs in the echelon of rock and roll royalty, love him or hate him.
I think Bruce Springsteen is generally unappreciated by my generation, whose exposure to the Boss has been limited to his Born in the U.S.A. arena anthems (i.e. Glory Days, Dancing in the Dark, and Born in the U.S.A.). Our generation has mostly seen his commercial failures (the folk days in the 1990’s, the Tracks box set, Human Touch, and Tunnel of Love) within our living memory. The only real successes I actually remember by Springsteen before this year’s “The Wrestler” have been his Academy Award for “Streets of Philadelphia” and the release of “The Rising.”
So why does Bruce Springsteen deserve my time, you might ask? I’m fond of dismissing bands like Interpol with the question, “Why would I listen to them when it’s a rip-off of Joy Division and represents such an opportunity cost for good music or original bands?” Why would I listen to Bruce Springsteen for my dose of American singer songwriters when you have Dylan and Young, who I believe to be better than the Boss (although it’s pretty damn close call with Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen for me)? And with all those anthems permeating the airwaves as unfit microcosms of his catalog, I’m sure some people are debating why I’d even consider him a singer songwriter.
Bruce’s first two albums, both in 1973, were much more in the vein of Bob Dylan or Van Morrison than “Born in the U.S.A.” They just barely scratched the surface of his potential and had people giving him the Next singer/songwriter tag, particularly the Next Dylan. By 1975 when “Born to Run” was released, Morrison was dead, the Beatles were done, Hendrix was out of the picture, and Janis Joplin had already passed. The surviving rock royalty like Led Zeppelin, the Who, and Pink Floyd had all peaked and were about to start their declines. There was a vacuum in rock and roll and Bruce Springsteen released what was his breakthrough album, “Born to Run,” which saw his transition from folk music influences to rock and roll.
I’ll be honest with you when I say that I used to dislike Bruce Springsteen. My dad played him all the time and I didn’t even start to like him until high school. My brother and I mercilessly mocked him all the time and sang the most outlandish lyrics from his “Tracks” collection (“You do the crying/ba ba/I’ll do the dishessss”) back at him. Bruce Springsteen took some weird risks and definitely didn’t bat 1.000, let me tell you that. But neither did anyone else, including fan favorites like the Beatles, Zep, the Rolling Stones, or the great rock’n’roll savior himself, Bobbie Dylan. Everyone who takes enough risks or plays long enough fails a fair amount. Artists who don’t take any risks aren’t really artists after a point.
So when did the change happen? Did I wake up and all of the sudden appreciate the man? The answer is no, it happened grudgingly and over time. I really started to like the Boss when I was forced to watch a DVD of a live concert where it was impossible to deny his greatness as a performer or watch his relentless energy and not be amazed. The man puts on an incredible show. As someone who has seen a lot of shows with performers that mail it in or only perform their new albums (I’m looking at you, Ray Davies!), it’s always a breath of fresh air when someone understands that selling a million records is as much of an obligation as it is a release from the bonds of your fans.
Still, it wasn’t until I saw him live in person and was able to gauge him for myself that I really bought into Bruce Springsteen as a bona fide legend. The thing that had always held me back was whether I bought the amount of emotion in his work; I think that it is both his greatest strength and his most divisive weakness. He’s intensely personal and no one questions his sincerity, but I really think most people dislike Bruce Springsteen because they can’t handle the overpowering emotion and drama that sometimes dominate his songs. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if a line should make you wince or appreciate the glorification. When I saw him live, it ceased to be cheese and I began to view his work as a passionate, romanticized vision of America from the perspective of a blue collar kid from New Jersey.
Getting back to “Born to Run,” this album saw the boss fully embrace his lens of ordinary life as something more beautiful and heavier than it seemed. The Boss created a world that understood the reckless passions of youth and saw the seedy underbelly of New Jersey as a battleground for their souls. It wasn’t about the cold realities; instead, the everyday routines were fantastic and just maybe life would be OK if you busted town with your sweetheart. It is this Bruce Springsteen that really drew me in. It’s no secret that the American dream is one of my great passions, both in the rosy optimism of a rags to riches story that engenders hope and the crushing disillusionment for those that find a failed education system and a de facto aristocracy resulting from America’s failure to close the income gap between the have’s and the have nots. To me, Bruce Springsteen represents the incredible highs and lows of the American experience. Even when Bruce Springsteen was at his peak, he never lost his devotion to this America.
The Boss may not be the preeminent modern American storyteller (he’s not), but the way he portrays the lives of Americans conveys the hope and the substance of their stories. He’s made songs about the dreams of high school kids, small towners who peaked on their high school football teams, the plight of Vietnam vets, police brutality, and ultimately the American psyche after 9/11. His catalog rides the drama up and down in a way that leads me to suspect the Boss himself can’t really control them, similar to the bipolar writings of Hunter S. Thompson and Jack Kerouac as they explored and struggled to embrace the opportunities and contradictions underlying the American dream.
As an American storyteller and singer songwriter, Bruce Springsteen is most commonly compared to the other greats, notably Bob Dylan and Neil Young. If you don’t buy that the Boss transcends the cheese in his music, you probably compare him to Bob Seger, who suffers from my Interpol argument in terms of listening hours on my iPod. Dylan and Young are the more apt comparison. The three are moralists in how they frame the world and tell their stories of the late 20th century American experience. Among them, the Boss is the most prone to glorify the mundane and give it an epic treatment. He’s also largely credited as the best performer, although I think all three are probably exceptional.
Dylan is more about the metaphysical context of the injustices and his storytelling was the least straight forward of the three. He has the most folk records in his catalog and is the best lyricist. He’s also clearly had the most influential career-the other two largely succeeded because of the ground that Dylan broke before them. Young is much more similar to Bruce Springsteen; he’s taken the weird chances and has played more rock and roll than Dylan. Young was more about the conflicts and idealism swirling around internally than Bruce. He tackled the longing of the American heart, both through his voice and his words, and struck a powerful chord. Neil Young wrote the nine, ten minute epics like “Cortez the Killer” and “Like a Hurricane” and, in the modern era, writes among the most explicitly political songs around. Young and Springsteen have both been extremely vocal critics of the former (former!) president Bush.
Although there’s a lot more to say, I think that the other point I wanted to touch on was “The Rising,” which was what really cemented him as an icon in my mind. “The Rising” may not be the most articulate expression of post-9/11 America, but Bruce Springsteen is not known for his lyrical eloquence or verbal craftiness. To me, the point of art is to convey an emotion, an experience, or capture a feeling. The Boss can be better at that than almost anyone, he makes you soar and sink with him, and “The Rising” proves to be no exception. It is an album that follows the Boss as he tries to make sense of such a horrific occurrence. It has somber tones and joyous choruses, hope and loss, confusion and warnings. ‘The Rising” embodies cautious optimism for the future without anger and warns against acting impulsively. The record shows the resilience and strength that it takes to be hopeful and rebuild from an unprecedented tragedy. Someone will find the right words, but I haven’t felt anyone capture the tone and the mood of a backpedaling America the same way since.
Bruce Springsteen is not for everyone certainly. Some people will simply never like him or be unable to get past the cheese that is inherent to his brand of dramatization. But I think he should be recognized for more than his arena anthems or he’d really be no better than Bob Seger. He’s a great songwriter and has been a powerful voice in music for over a generation. He's an authentic artist who has not pandered and can never be accused of not trying when far more artists quit than we'd like to admit. He belongs in the echelon of rock and roll royalty, love him or hate him.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
