Breaking the Ice
Though I've never asked outright, I suspect that anyone who meets me will know, after about 10 minutes, that I'm a very indecisive person. Hell, thy name is perfectionism, and such is a hobgoblin I hope to free myself of - or at least control to an extent - with the re-establishment of my online blogging here. Same name, same basic format, now with a more flexible URL and a clean slate to begin anew. The Projection Booth 1.0 and the reviews on it will remain untouched, but the direction I'd like to go in almost demands my being able to start fresh. It already feels like a breath of fresh air.
Among the many damned drawbacks to wanting everything done just right is the fact that, more often than not, nothing ends up being accomplished at all. Hence, you will probably notice that the site has a very rough look to it at this point, and many changes will indeed be taking place over the coming days and weeks. Much as I may grapple with it, the white text on black background is truer to my heart, though I hope to tweak things for both readability and a bit of flair. On the right, you'll notice some defunct links, long out-of-date features and even a months-old "Now in Theaters" roster. I hope you'll forgive me as I get this beast up and running amidst doing the same thing for my life proper, as I'm not going through times both nerve-wracking, exciting, and exhausting, as I look at cementing the next step in a long-term relationship as well as securing a job that may very well see me debt-free within the half-decade (you know you've "grown up" when you find yourself thinking in such terms).
I'll make no hard promises or declarations here, lest I go against the wisdom of Al Swearengen and provoke God's laughter. What I can assure you all of, though, is frequency of discussion, though my hope is that I won't be holding up both sides of the conversation. Whether it's the latest stinkbomb to hit DVD (see below) or the latest life lesson on my mind, I see this outlet less as one for conclusive "reviews" (which, in a way, I've come to disdain) than as one for communal thoughts. I'm indebted to my dedicated (too strong a word?) readers for their contributions to my posts in the past, and hope to take things in such a direction so that such will be the norm rather than the exception.
Not half an hour ago, I read Keith Uhlich's latest Confessions piece at The House Next Door. His work there - along with, specifically, Jim Emerson's output at Scanners - is an inspiration to me in how it seamlessly fuses life experiences, cinema, and online activities into a singular whole that stands as more than the sum of its parts. Such is part of my own aspirations towards self-actualization, but even aside from these matters, this latest article struck a particularly deep blow (it may be my single favorite work of his to date). I'd love to discuss similar inflictions from my own youth (the relics of which I would cling to forever if able), but I'll let his altogether naked 6½ paragraphs speak for themselves. Already, they're rattling down near the bottom of my soul.
In closing (sleep awaits these eyes), let me say that if the second half of Vantage Point is anything even remotely comparable to the first, then I may have already come upon the years worst film -- I may just give up on it now and award it the title in advance. Forty-five minutes of head slapping, eye rolling, impromptu laughter and intense cravings for Percocet... movies like this only serve to remind me that life is too short for them in the first place. Good films, like Wall-E (a movie I very much want to describe with the M word, though for now I'll catch myself and simply call it great; check out the IMDb Top 250, where the movie is already ranked at number 9), fulfill the soul and enrich life, waxing our experiences and perspectives, sharpening our tools for understanding ourselves and our fellow men (and machines). I feel more complete after having seen them, wiser and truer and happier. Wall-E may not be the best film so far this year, but I suspect its relatively universal appeal will make it a likely contender for end-of-year recognition (already, some are tossing around Best Picture hopes/predictions). More on this adorable little fella soon, and count me in as a loyal supporter until the end.
Vantage Point, waaaaaay on the other end of the scale, is pure, music-deprived noise -- condescending faux-serious, faux-complex apolitical bullshit made for morons who need everything spelled out for them with lots of fancy distractions to keep them interested (yeah, I said it). The first half could have easily been covered in 10-15 minutes sans wonky stylistic filler, so I'll assume, for now, that the whole film could have been but a 20 minute short, or a half hour special tops. Damn the makers, then, for wasting countless hours of human life. Damn them for their shrill slow-motion techniques and fucking cantankerous sound design. Damn them for giving non-linear storytelling a bad name. Damn them for making movies a hollow and emotion-deprived sensory bombast. Damn - no, scratch that, fuck 'em. Because they just fucked my head like an escaped convict might a lost teenager, and life's too short for this shit.
On that note, welcome to my new abode. Enjoy your freedom of speech and, above all, let the freak flags fly. Normality will not be tolerated.
Among the many damned drawbacks to wanting everything done just right is the fact that, more often than not, nothing ends up being accomplished at all. Hence, you will probably notice that the site has a very rough look to it at this point, and many changes will indeed be taking place over the coming days and weeks. Much as I may grapple with it, the white text on black background is truer to my heart, though I hope to tweak things for both readability and a bit of flair. On the right, you'll notice some defunct links, long out-of-date features and even a months-old "Now in Theaters" roster. I hope you'll forgive me as I get this beast up and running amidst doing the same thing for my life proper, as I'm not going through times both nerve-wracking, exciting, and exhausting, as I look at cementing the next step in a long-term relationship as well as securing a job that may very well see me debt-free within the half-decade (you know you've "grown up" when you find yourself thinking in such terms).
I'll make no hard promises or declarations here, lest I go against the wisdom of Al Swearengen and provoke God's laughter. What I can assure you all of, though, is frequency of discussion, though my hope is that I won't be holding up both sides of the conversation. Whether it's the latest stinkbomb to hit DVD (see below) or the latest life lesson on my mind, I see this outlet less as one for conclusive "reviews" (which, in a way, I've come to disdain) than as one for communal thoughts. I'm indebted to my dedicated (too strong a word?) readers for their contributions to my posts in the past, and hope to take things in such a direction so that such will be the norm rather than the exception.
Not half an hour ago, I read Keith Uhlich's latest Confessions piece at The House Next Door. His work there - along with, specifically, Jim Emerson's output at Scanners - is an inspiration to me in how it seamlessly fuses life experiences, cinema, and online activities into a singular whole that stands as more than the sum of its parts. Such is part of my own aspirations towards self-actualization, but even aside from these matters, this latest article struck a particularly deep blow (it may be my single favorite work of his to date). I'd love to discuss similar inflictions from my own youth (the relics of which I would cling to forever if able), but I'll let his altogether naked 6½ paragraphs speak for themselves. Already, they're rattling down near the bottom of my soul.In closing (sleep awaits these eyes), let me say that if the second half of Vantage Point is anything even remotely comparable to the first, then I may have already come upon the years worst film -- I may just give up on it now and award it the title in advance. Forty-five minutes of head slapping, eye rolling, impromptu laughter and intense cravings for Percocet... movies like this only serve to remind me that life is too short for them in the first place. Good films, like Wall-E (a movie I very much want to describe with the M word, though for now I'll catch myself and simply call it great; check out the IMDb Top 250, where the movie is already ranked at number 9), fulfill the soul and enrich life, waxing our experiences and perspectives, sharpening our tools for understanding ourselves and our fellow men (and machines). I feel more complete after having seen them, wiser and truer and happier. Wall-E may not be the best film so far this year, but I suspect its relatively universal appeal will make it a likely contender for end-of-year recognition (already, some are tossing around Best Picture hopes/predictions). More on this adorable little fella soon, and count me in as a loyal supporter until the end.Vantage Point, waaaaaay on the other end of the scale, is pure, music-deprived noise -- condescending faux-serious, faux-complex apolitical bullshit made for morons who need everything spelled out for them with lots of fancy distractions to keep them interested (yeah, I said it). The first half could have easily been covered in 10-15 minutes sans wonky stylistic filler, so I'll assume, for now, that the whole film could have been but a 20 minute short, or a half hour special tops. Damn the makers, then, for wasting countless hours of human life. Damn them for their shrill slow-motion techniques and fucking cantankerous sound design. Damn them for giving non-linear storytelling a bad name. Damn them for making movies a hollow and emotion-deprived sensory bombast. Damn - no, scratch that, fuck 'em. Because they just fucked my head like an escaped convict might a lost teenager, and life's too short for this shit.
On that note, welcome to my new abode. Enjoy your freedom of speech and, above all, let the freak flags fly. Normality will not be tolerated.
Labels: keith uhlich, misc, vantage point, wall-e
Oh c'mon, what's stopping you from dropping the M-word for WALL-E? If you've read Joe Morgenstern's review, you would've seen that he wrestled with the same issue, but in the end he decided to release his inhibitions and go over the moon with the little guy.
What did you see from earlier this year that you thought was better?
Posted by
Fei Meng |
June 30, 2008 at 5:17 AM
In closing (sleep awaits these eyes), let me say that if the second half of Vantage Point is anything even remotely comparable to the first, then I may have already come upon the years worst film
Listen to Odie: STOP WATCHING THAT MOVIE! If you were pissed off at the kid in peril scenes in Crash, this will kill you. Plus, the movie is so sloppy it makes a huge mistake/cheat. Sue me for actually trying to pay attention to this stupid movie. The best thing about it is Forest Whitaker's new body, which was probably CGI.
Vantage Point it playing footsie with The Love Guru on my ten worst list, UFC-fighting it for the top spot so far. Stop watching now! Don't say I didn't warn you.
As for WALL-E, I just couldn't surrender completely to it like most people. I liked it, but it felt too much like Idiocracy with an infinitely better script and more preachiness. Plus, if I were a kid, the last thing I'd want is a WALL-E toy. Maybe it's my growing up in the hood, but I damn sure don't want a dirty robot in my house, especially one that has roaches.
However, that Eve thing looked like a cross between an iPod and a sex toy--the iBrator. It was the Pixar equivalent of Angelina Jolie. Sleek, sexy, and with serious PMS-inspired gun violence! Beep-beep Midol!!! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! I'm in luv! Somebody get that thing a role in the next Sex and the City movie!
Posted by
odienator |
June 30, 2008 at 4:26 PM
ydgmdlu: That, my friend, will hopefully be published sometime tonight after midnight. Christ I love lists, even when they're pointless...
odie: I think I can dig your perspective, and there was something about Wall-E - just a smidgen, but there nonetheless - that kept me from going overboard with love for it. At this point, I think I'm over the moon with about 85% of it, which felt like some cross between 2001 and City Lights that, while inferior, was just as blissful and beautiful. The rest did invoke Idiocracy for me too, and I'm going to need another viewing if only to sort out my issues with that.
Yeah, I think I've given up on that P.O.S. Is it bad to list something on a worst-of list without seeing the whole thing? I think not, seeing as how 1/2 of that thing was already worse than plenty of other "worst" films in their entirety...
The iBrator. I love it.
Posted by
rob humanick |
June 30, 2008 at 5:31 PM
You know what—to be perfectly honest, there actually is something about WALL-E that is just a little off or lacking to prevent it from being 100% satisfying. I've already seen it a second time, which smoothed some issues that I had the first time and allowed me to appreciate the movie much more. I'm hoping that I'll love it even more with additional viewings.
Still, I think that it's Pixar's greatest achievement and certainly a masterpiece. My mind tells me so, but my heart is not quite up there. That's why I'm now obsessed with seeing it up to ten times (total) in the theater.
For me, the brilliance of the movie is not so much in the satire or political message—which I consider daring for a "kids' movie" but not terribly original or Earth-shattering (heh)—nor is it in the love story per se—which I find to be conventional—but rather in how the story works the audience's emotions and the intellectual implications of the very premise of two robots in love.
By that, I mean that you really have to marvel at how Stanton and co. get the audience to care and feel for a pair of fictional artificial intelligences with non-humanoid, faceless bodies. The robots have a more or less limited repertory of sounds and behaviors, all of which are diegetically artificial, which intelligent viewers should be able to realize, and yet we somehow buy that these robots "love" each other and "feel" emotion (even though the behavioral indicators of emotion could just be pre-programmed responses to stimuli—such as EVE being "tickled" when the cockroach crawls all over her).
Why they come to love each other is also important and interesting, and it says something about what love is. If WALL-E and EVE were humans, the former would be a quirky garbageman, and the latter would be sexy assassin or super-soldier, and we'd probably never buy them as a couple. They would be incredibly mismatched. Yet, because they are robots, and because of the circumstances under which they are presented to us and developed as characters, we find their relationship totally comprehensible and plausible.
What's more, this is one of those rare stories in which sexual attraction is completely absent from the romantic relationship. Sure, WALL-E is impressed with EVE's elegance and style, but these robots have no concept of sex, especially not with each other. Their "love" comes out of a deep attachment to and appreciation of each other, recognition that they are "soul mates" who relieve each other's loneliness and grant each other "humanity" or "soul" by their acts of kindness. And because sex is never an issue, we never think about the physical aspect of their mutual attraction. Again, if these were humans, we'd be thinking about it all the time.
To me, that's what Stanton is saying that love really is, beyond any emotional bundles underpinned by our biological urges for procreation and social contact. This message is embodied by the recurring image of hand-holding and how much the robots come to desire it: Thus, according to Stanton, love is when you want to reach out and touch someone, and someone reaches back and reciprocates that want. It is the need for a connection and the granting of the connection.
What's also fascinating, in a much more meta sense, is how Stanton manipulates and trusts the audience to read romance into WALL-E and EVE's relationship. Because there is no sexual underpinning to the relationship, one could argue that it's merely a close friendship. But all the visual and narrative cues, plus how cleverly gender is encoded into these essentially sexless characters, encourage us to recognize a romance, rather than mere friendship.
On another level, I kind of see this movie as "having a dialogue" with its chief inspiration, 2001: A Space Odyssey, to borrow a phrase from postmodern criticism. WALL-E is a thoroughly postmodern piece of pop art, the perfect counterpoint and complement to Kubrick's high-art piece de resistance. The human odyssey through space, time, and evolution is given a contrary spin, as is the conception of artificial intelligence. Whereas HAL transcended his programming through inadvertently developing paranoia by being ordered to lie to the crew of the Discovery, WALL-E and EVE transcend their programming by developing individuality and "emotional" bonds. Thus, HAL's humanization turned him evil, while WALL-E and EVE's humanization gave them souls. (Note: Both movies not coincidentally feature AIs who seem more human than the actual humans.)
And there's so much more to appreciate and read from the movie. It's so rich that the only appropriate word to my mind for it is "masterpiece." Now, if I could only work out that indescribable something that isn't clicking for me...
Posted by
Fei Meng |
June 30, 2008 at 9:11 PM
Also, I consider WALL-E to be a much more successful exploration of the question of how love is defined in artificial intelligence—and how "genuine" it is—than Spielberg's A.I., which I think is a very good movie but whose approach to that subject I find too philosophical and flat/one-note. I mean, just think about how David "loves" Monica. For me at least, the emotional journey for the lead characters of WALL-E is much more satisfying and complete.
Posted by
Fei Meng |
June 30, 2008 at 9:24 PM
Best of luck with the new location and your personal pursuits.
Wrote off Vantage Point when it became known that Dennis Quaid is in it. I remember reading a piece a few years ago about Quaid's egregious fart smell of a career. The stench has only gotten worse.
Waiting a couple of more days to see WALL-E. Still shaken from seeing Ratatouille on opening weekend and having a 5-year-old vomit on me.
Saw Wanted instead. Over the top and hyper violent, to be sure, but done with crowd-pleasing flair, at least for the first 50 minutes. A larger question to be answered later: Is this the cinematic year of animals as weapons?
Posted by
paul |
June 30, 2008 at 10:09 PM
Paul: Still shaken from seeing Ratatouille on opening weekend and having a 5-year-old vomit on me.
Why were you a)sitting by kids and b)at an early showing of Ratatouille? I go see these movies as late at night as possible, so even if kids are there, they wind up falling asleep because their dumb ass parents have them up at 10:30 PM.
You can wait as long as you want to, but I'll bet there are going to be kids at your screening of WALL-E. Projectile vomit kids, descendants of Mr. Creosote, looking for you. "Hi, remember us from Ratatouille? We just drank six ICEE's and ate two boxes of Sno-Caps! Ooh a thin mint!"
Something at WALL-E almost made me throw up: a trailer for BOLT, the new Disney cartoon featuring John Revolta as a dog. "Teaching the world about Scientology in Disney 3-D!" screamed the trailer. (OK, I added the part about 3-D. I mean the part about Scientology.)
Was it me or did WALL-E constantly call the iBrator "Eva" instead of "Eve?" If you called a woman some other chick's name, and that woman has an uber gun on her hand, wouldn't she blast you into a million little pieces like James Frey? My favorite moment was when the iBrator says "WALL-E!!!" all pissed off, and the eyes narrow. I tell you, I'm in love with that thing. "Odie!" it would yell angrily before blowing up my car.
If Pixar programmed it to shake its head like an angry Black woman, I would dump my girlfriend in a heartbeat. I hope she's not reading this. "Aw honey, c'mon! I'm a programmer, for Chrissakes!"
Posted by
odienator |
July 1, 2008 at 4:04 AM
And also, it's nice to know that Carol Channing will be scaring the shit out of people 700 years from now. But I wish WALL-E had found a tape of Sondheim's Company instead of Hell No, Dolly! That would have made for a much different love story.
Posted by
odienator |
July 1, 2008 at 4:07 AM
Odie: Didn't have much choice on Ratatouille, as my girlfriend wanted to see it right away. Over the years, I've learned it's better just to say, "Sure, sweetie" than face the wrath of Khaness.
Funny, but WALL-E doesn't interest her very much. Talking animals? You bet. Talking toys? Check. Robots? Not so much. Hey, fine with me.
Descendants of Mr. Creosote - LOL! Maybe at the theater I can wander around the lobby asking if any kiddies want to sit on my lap or which of these parasites would like to share some candy with me. Hmm, seeing movie in peace versus near-certain detainment at Guantanamo. Dammit, I'll take my chances!
Posted by
paul |
July 1, 2008 at 10:04 AM
Over the years, I've learned it's better just to say, "Sure, sweetie" than face the wrath of Khaness.
Smart man! You have mastered the ways of the heterosexual universe, which boil down to just saying "yes, dear!" It's best you keep your girlfriend from WALL-E anyway; she'll get ideas for when you do something wrong...
Paul's girlfriend: "PAUL-E!! (pulls out uber-gun) BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!!" (Paul's house explodes.)
I think ydgmdlu's take on the movie and its central love story is an interesting, well-crafted read, but I can't say I buy it. I'd be more inclined to believe that the hand-holding aspect of the movie is some thinly veiled abstinence only message, not some take on eternal love. WALL-E is merely mimicking what he saw in "Hello, Doll-E," a scene where two people sing and hold hands as a precursor to far more "nefarious" purposes (ie, fucking).
Also: EVE the iBrator gives WALL-E a version of the "Kiss of Life," just like the Artist Rendering Known as Prince Charming gives Snow White hers. They're playing a truncated robotic take on human behavior, which is why we recognize that they are programmatically in love. Stanton didn't do anything groundbreaking in that regard.
I think I figured out where that nagging feeling I got at WALL-E came from, the feeling that made it impossible for me to completely surrender to it and call it a masterpiece: The movie stops being about the robots themselves and starts using them in a preachy message about people. Suddenly, the movie isn't their story anymore, it's their story filtered through this new story about people. Suddenly WALL-E and EVE become Sidekick Negroes in their own movie!
Posted by
odienator |
July 1, 2008 at 4:03 PM
Sheesh...this is like the tenth website you've had in the time I've known you!
Though congrats on the fresh start and clean slate, as they say. I respect you for breaking your shackles, at the very least.
Posted by
Anonymous |
July 1, 2008 at 6:52 PM
Odie: Don't give her any ideas!
Posted by
paul |
July 1, 2008 at 11:56 PM