Loopy

I’ve been watching a little bit of the first season of The West Wingon DVD recently, and while it’s an enjoyable show, there’s something about the idealism of it all that prevents me from really loving it. The show is witty, fast-paced, and compelling, but it’s run through with a streak of sunny moderate optimism that sometimes undercuts the drama. I guess that’s to be expected from a show that casts Martin Sheen as a Democratic president that somehow combines elements of Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter with the affable persona of Ronald Reagan. Crises arise that test the resolve and the ideals of the President and his staff, and idealism and savvy politics usually win out the day. When compromise rears its head, these seasoned DC veterans almost always find a way to worm around the thorny ethical questions with a bit of parlimentarian jiujitsu.

Which is why it was so refreshing to see In The Loop this weekend. Where The West Wing feels like a sunshiney promise that the good will triumph through strength of character, In The Loop paints a much more plausible picture of competing interests scrambling to subvert, undermine, intimidate, spin, counterspin, suppress, and expose each other in various layers of subterfuge and blind groping in the dark. TheWest Wing’s  Bartlett administration is constantly finding ways to have its cake and eat it too, while the various players of In The Loop are more concerned with what the cake is currently being called in the press, who’s currently slicing it, if they’re going to get a piece, and whether or not this cake even exists.

To call the film fast-paced would be like calling Usain Bolt a brisk runner. Not more than three minutes in, the shit hits the fan, and from that point on, the British communications director unleashes a deluge of brow-beating profanity punctuated by withering denigrations, in a desperate (and hilarious) attempt to contain the damage from a radio interview in which a foppish and ineffectual minister called a potential Middle Eastern conflict as unforeseeable. Nobody ever has quite the full picture, but it never stops anyone from trying to twist the latest development to their favor.

The action (if a series of official and unofficial meetings, conferences, and asides can be called action) doesn’t let up, as the political machinery of two countries tumbles haphazardly into what may or may not be a war, for motives that are never entirely clear but are nevertheless passionately advocated. Or, equally passionately dissembled upon, int he hopes of appearing neither too favorable or too unfavorable. One imagines this must be how these things actually come about, amidst a jumble of confusion and disinformation, with those who can’t keep track of the play hoping only to land in a position that will do them the least political damage, rather than the one that will create the greatest good.

Revenge of the Top 5

1. Summer in Seattle

Also known as “the best weekend of the year”.

2. Emerald City Supporters

Seattle has definitely welcomed it’s newest sporting institution, the Seattle Sounders MLS team, with open arms and sold-out games, but no one has welcomed them with more cheering, singing, drinking, and tifo-making than the ECS. If you’re planning on checking out a home game, or a viewing party for an away game, you should think about joining up. The t-shirt and scarf alone are worth the $30 membership, and the camaraderie and spirit are nothing to laugh at either.

3. Oddfellows Cafe & Bar (1525 10th Ave.)

Located in the Oddfellows building across from Cal Anderson park, this wide-open, high ceilingedroom is meticulously decorated with a relentless eye for detail. From the aged photographs, the vintage fixtures, and even the retro-styled Boylans’ sodas and old-timey candy and gum at the counter, everything feels straight out of a turn-of-the-century general shop. Plus, the massive slices of paninibread toast (served with jam and butter for only $2.50) look mouth-watering.

4. Star Trek (J. J. Abrams, 2009)

 I don’t remember which Star Trek movie was the last one I saw, but I remember it sucked. Hard. It was a Next Generation spinoff that looked and felt like an overly long TV episode, with a slightly upgraded budget and a poorly thought out plot. I remember mocking it loudly in the mostly empty theater with my friends, and we were high school nerds, firmly in the target market for this type of movie. This new reboot takes everything that was wrong with the tired franchise and chucks it out entirely, starting from the very beginning of the original crew’s story, but with a more accessible, less fanboy-centric aesthetic. The people who had managed this property had run it into the ground, and it took an outsider to take it over, revamp it, and make it into something that new audiences could be excited about again. All this, and they managed to keep the hardcore fans (mostly) happy as well. As someone who was never more than a casual fan, and one who had lost interest years ago, this is a welcome return to form.

5. Turning 30 at the Cha Cha Lounge

A low key affair that somehow combined good friends, giant crabs, margaritas, pitchers of Stella Artois, broken glass, frightened hipsters, helium voices, and a trip to IHOP that felt like a scene from Twin Peaks. And that’s about all I have to say about that…

The Top 5

1. Doodle Jump (iPhone/iPod Touch game, Lima Sky)

The game industry is continually rushing forward, adding more pixels, more polygons, bigger levels, more interaction, higher framerates…But it’s addictive simplicity that makes the most classic games what they are. Doodle Jump has exactly two controls. Tilt your iPod to change the direction your character bounces, and tap the screen to shoot a pellet towards the top of the screen. It’s a continuous world of platforms and squiggly bacteria-like monsters drawn on lined paper that gets progressively more challenging, and constantly changes. Like Tetris, it takes seconds to understand, and stays challenging the longer you play. The cute, hand-drawn aesthetic adds to the charm, making it both accessible, and irresistible.

2. The Beatles Remasters (Capitol/EMI Records, 9/9/09)

This one has been coming a long time, and it’s interesting that it’s coming at the very end of the CD era, as many have noted. Will it sell? Will it matter? Will anyone still care, beyond the aging boomers and the first generation of post-60s kids who were raised on the legacy of the albums, at a distance? Is this a last minute cash-grab, rushed out so there was still a possibility of making some money by selling a physical artifact containing music? Will it be a victim of the loudness wars, overmastered into a brittle, bright, squarewave butcher job? News about the actual process is encouraging, but we shall see…

3. Yeah Yeah Yeahs: It’s Blitz (Interscope/DGC/Dress Up)

I’ve been lukewarm on this band for a while: some superb singles, and some lackluster filler. Their previous album, Show Your Bones, didn’t do much for me, so I sort of wrote them off. But It’s Blitz kicks off with a stunning dance-pop track, and doesn’t quit. Softshock in particular does it the right way, with driving electronics and a delicate synth line backing Karen O’s forceful delivery. It’s different than their previous, punkier material, with an added sheen that emphasizes their strengths.

4. La Jetée (Chris Marker, 1962)

This French short film, constructed almost entirely from still photographs and voiceover, was the inspiration for Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys, one of my favorite sci-fi films. Gilliam grabbed most of the plot, fleshed it out an various ways, and changed some of the details, but kept the sense of doomed romance that makes this so compelling. La Jetée provides the thematic core of one of the smartest time travel movies around.

5. Rachel Maddow & Ana Marie Cox on Tea Bagging (The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC)

The only thing I laughed at while sick on Friday. Just watch it.

Deus Ex

I’ve had a few days now to digest the grand finale of Battlestar Galactica. I was a late-comer to the series, watching it in marathon sessions on DVD while Season 2.5 was airing, then catching up and watching weekly on TV or via download for the remainder. It was one of those shows that grabbed you right from the start; I just finished re-watching the first season and the original 3-hour kick off and kept remembering why this was such a great show. But re-visiting those first episodes also makes me remember how occasionally frustrating the last stretch has been, and how pieced together some elements were. The finale had elements of both.

First, the good.

You can’t argue with an hour-long epic action sequence, especially not one that raises the stakes above anything we’ve seen before. There have been plenty of giant space battles, but there’s never been one where the shows namesake truly seemed to be destined for destruction. Sure, there have been plots that put the ship, or the entire fleet, in jeopardy, but you know things will work out OK when it happens mid-season. But the final episode of the final season? That’s a more credible threat. The writers could conceivably end things with a Pyrrhic victory, and that made the final assault on the Cylon colony more effective. End the giant battle with the unwinding of some long-brewing double-crosses, and you’ve got the recipe for some satisfying television.

But this has always been a character driven show, tying it’s sweeping storylines to the turmoil of individual lives in a way that made you feel the conflict, and the struggle inehrent in the premise of the show. The ending didn’t disappoint int hat regard, bringing all the major character arcs to some sort of resolution; victory and redemption for some, loss or defeat for others. Bringing up the events from the beginning of the season in a way that truly affected the outcome of the final standoff was a nice touch, too. The emotional core of the story closed in a satisfying way.

It’s not all great though. It was especially clear to me, having revisited the beginnings of the show so recently, just how far from the original plan the story had strayed. This isn’t a problem in itself. You can only bring a series so far with a Cylons-chase-humans/political-crisis formula. The evolution of the show opened up new possibilities along the way. But it wasn’t a neat and tidy evolution. Plot threads got lost, or disregarded. The ending tried to wrap up some of these, and too many others got left along the wayside. And even worse, too many were wrapped up in a dismissive, lazy manner.

The biggest problem I had was that the plot wrapped up in the biggest Deus ex Machina I’ve ever seen. Now obviously, the show has always referenced divine intervention, and supernatural occurrences guiding the action. But it’s always been just that; guiding. All along, the supernatural has arisen as a consequence of the decisions and actions undertaken by the various characters and factions. By the end of the finale, it was clear that the writers didn’t know how to resolve some of these ideas, and instead of making the characters make difficult choices, like they did in the original miniseries and the following seasons, they let the hand of God sweep in and deliver them to salvation. Denying the cast a role in the conclusion of the drama felt contrary to the spirit of the show.

In the end, what did it matter, all of the struggle and strife? The discovery of Earth (Earth 2? More on that in a second) didn’t feel like a consequence of anything that had happened before. It was delivered on a silver platter at the darkest moment in the story of the remaining human civilization. Having Hera made no difference to the continued survival of the human race or the “good” Cylons (since they already had the resurrection technology). The destruction of the Cylon colony, while ensuring the safety of the remaining humans, had no bearing on their discovery of Earth. God just chose that moment to deliver it to them.

The two discoveries of Earth reveal, I think, a real conflict among the creative team about the direction of the show. There’s the impulse to take it in a darker direction; to give humanity their salvation in the form of a broken and desolate planet, as happened at the end of the first half of the season. Take away all hope for the future. Then, there’s the impulse for the happy ending. Take us to the promised land, and give us a new home, instead of dooming us to wander the stars with finite resources, and the odds against us. End it, with some degree of promise that this cycle, spoken of so often, is over.

They tried to have it both ways, but it doesn’t really work. This second discovery of Earth cheapens the first one. It robs it of it’s significance and impact. And worse yet, it makes it look like the writers just wanted a do-over. Earth has been the storied endpoint of the show since the miniseries. They brought us to that endpoint, and it wasn’t what had been promised, and the characters now have to deal with this disappointment. Do they carry on? What do they live for now? These are questions that were touched on in the second half of season 4. But by the end, with a new Earth suddenly entering the picture, these questions are rendered irrelevant. If the promised land isn’t what was promised, God will just give you another one.

During the final season, I was reminded a lot of the anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion. That was an apocalyptic sci-fi show that had the guts to bring its storyline to the dark conclusion that was necessary; to bring the protagonists to their knees and let them fail, if that was what the plot required. I’m not saying that Battlestar Galacticahad to end that way, but it tried to, then gave up on the courageous story choices it had made. Is it just that American audiences don’t have the stomach for a bittersweet ending, let alone a tragic one? Did the writers lose their nerve? If they wanted to give their audience a happy ending, they could have done so without robbing the power of that low point of Earth’s first discovery. Instead, they just made another Earth appear as if by magic, and whatever rang true about the ending (Adama next to Roslyn’s grave, Sam’s final words) was cheapened by how easy this ending was.

Best News I’ve Heard This Week

I really hope this story is true. I saw the stage production of C.D. Payne’s Youth In Revolt back in Santa Rosa, after reading the book (multiple times). It was a tiny little show that only touched on the first chunk of the rather large and engrossing story, and the no-budget production with age-inappropriate actors didn’t exactly leave me thrilled. But  Michael Cera would be perfect for the part of Nick Twisp, so as long as there’s a decent director involved, this should be good. Hopefully Hollywood doesn’t fuck this one up.

Quotable

“Since gin to artifice bears the same relation as tears to mascara…” (Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s)

From my current reading. Wickedly funny, ten times more so than the cinematic version. And it would have to be, wouldn’t it? I mean, on a wickedness scale of 1 to 100, imagine where Audrey Hepburn would fall, as opposed to Mr. Capote. The movie will definitely bear some re-watching when I’m done with this, as I have a feeling the experience will be much different.

Oh Sweet Jesus…

A Scanner Darkly trailer is up at Ifilm.

I think I need to go change my pants.

More later….

The Life Neurotic

Whoo hoo. After a bit of a break from this sort of thing, I played at North Light open mic again last night. I ran through the Magnetic Fields’ “Come Back From San Fransisco” and Track Star’s “Feet First”, with reasonable levels of success on both. Go me. I was thinking of doing Bowie’s “Life on Mars” (prominently featured on the soundtrack for The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou), but that song really doesn’t work on guitar alone. It really needs the stomping grandeur of the huge piano chords and sweeping string section to really make it work. Well, it needs something beyond a sparse acoustic guitar/vocal arrangement at least. Ah well….

Speaking of The Life Aquatic…what an odd movie. I enjoyed it. Immensely. It was not Wes Anderson’s finest hour though. In many ways, it was a mess, a cacophonous sprawling thing that overreached and spread thin, revisiting areas that have been played to perfection in his previous films. In other ways, it was spot-on perfect in small ways, small moments. Massively entertaining and also somewhat frustrating.

I’ve read a little bit of the critical response to the film (which has been somewhat lukewarm), and I’m surprised nobody mentions how…meta it gets in places. It’s essentially a film about a filmmaker, transposed into an exaggerated oceanographic setting. From the opening film festival scene onward, Murray’s character seems to work as a stand-in for Anderson in some ways. Was this intentional, light-hearted self-deprecation, or some unintended, subconciously revealed side-effect?

The scene the really drives this point home to me is the scene that takes place in the cutaway-view set of the Team Zissou vessel, the Belafonte. This set is introduced early in the movie, for a brief fourth-wall breaking scene describing the contents of the ship, but the set is used again briefly later on in the film, for a scene following several of the characters through the ship during a conversation. The dollhouse-nature of the set is exaggerated and pointed out repeatedly, to great comic effect, and in high contrast to the rest of the ship-bound scenes, which are filmed on and inside the actual vessel. The culmination of the scene is a pulled-back shot, with several cutaway-rooms in the frame, and characters looking over and around the cutaway walls as Bill Murray’s character proclaims “But this is a documentary! This is really happening!” The dissonance of Murray’s claims to veracity against the obviously fantastic set piece was one of my favorite moments of the film. And, coming from a filmmaker who has been criticized before for his obliquely absurd and stage-like production design, this scene can easily be read as a jab at his critics laments of lacking realism.

Anyhow. That was longer than I thought it would be. But at least it pushes my drunken motivational speech down the page a bit….

Still working on my EP…the mixing process is going to take a bit longer than I’d thought, although I’m definitely making some progress there. Joey just picked up some new speakers that I’m gonna do a little mixing on. Mixing on headphones isn’t exactly ideal but it’s been the best I could do until recently. And it’d be nice to have as accurate and widely listenable mix as possible before I send it off for mastering. I’m somewhat stalled on the artwork, as I decide which of 3 directions to take for the cover…

More later. Blah de blah…

Primer

Most movies these days can be more or less fully appreciated after a single viewing, maybe occasionally a second. You’re getting pretty lucky if you can watch a recent movie for a third time, and still get something new out of it. Memento benefits from a second viewing due to the fact that the “ending” completely changes the meaning of everything else in the movie. Watching it again is like watching a whole new movie, due to the new context. Details of double crosses are clearer, mysteries are less ambiguous a second time around. The same goes for Fight Club, the Sixth Sense (but maybe not M. Night Shyamalan’s other films) and, to a degree, Donnie Darko.

But in Primer we have a film that not only encourages repeated viewings, but seems to require them. Some feel that this is a drawback of the film, and I’d be hard pressed to fully disagree. However, it’s a rare event to have a movie that holds it secrets close to it’s chest. Is the plot incomprehensible because it’s dealing with a subject that is essentially incomprehensible? I don’t think this is the case. Time travel movies have been done to death, and even casual sci-fi fans are familiar with the tropes of the genre, the Grandfather paradox, alternate timelines, causality, etc. But here the tropes are avoided in favor of a wide-eyed and brain-bending mystery. There’s no attempt to explain the science behind the time travel, just a relatively clear outlining of what appear to be the “rules” in this particular film’s theory of time travel. The characters don’t understand fully what’s happening, and the audience has to work from their knowledge.

While other time travel films tend to end up as parables of abusing poorly understood technology, or the inherent dangers of progress, Primer is a more human morality tale. In the end, it’s not sheer technological hubris or blind idealism that doom the characters, but it’s a noir-like tendency towards distrust, greed, and human error that brings the house of cards down. When Abe and Aaron start involving themselves in elaborate double-crosses involving multiple revisions of the same events, everything spirals out of control in unpredictable (to us) yet inevitable ways.

The strength of Primer lies in it’s devotion to it’s core ideas, rather than spectacle or surface. A $7,000 budget for a film (as in celluloid, not digital) leaves no room for sets, special effects, or any other distracting glitz. If this film succeeds or fails, it’s entirely on grounds of substance, since there is no exterior concerns. This is how science fiction is supposed to work, by positing a consequential change to our familiar world, and examining it’s consequences (see Philip K. Dick’s attempt at defining science fiction as a literature of ideas, separate from space opera, for further discussion). Primer owes a heavy debt to Dick, and his onion-layered narratives. In fact, if A Scanner Darkly wasn’t already in someone else’s hands, I’d hope for Shane Carruth to get his hands on it. This would be the perfect style for Dick’s meditation on drugs, paranoia, and the fragility of identity, a modern suburban utopia tweaked ever so slightly into the realm of speculative fiction.

For all it’s strengths and ambition, Primer ultimately suffers from a lack of exposition. The audience is expected to go along for the ride, feeling the topsy-turvy loopbacks rather than understanding them. This works perfectly on the right type of audience (such as yours truly), an audience who is willing to put in the effort to piece together a working theory of what exactly just happened in repeat viewings and post-film discussions. But to evaluate the film on a strictly narrative level finds it sorely lacking in clarity. To most viewers, this is a serious drawback, not an invitation to engage the film on a basic level. Obviously, this is not exactly the fault of the film or the filmmaker, but I can’t help feeling that there could have been a little more effort put into the presentation of the essential storyline. Certain events are ambiguous and debatable, most notably one of the key turning points towards the middle of the film, when a third time traveler is discovered. While the characters don’t know how he came into the game, and this seems to excuse the lack of explanation from the film, it is also a disservice to the audience who is willing to try to piece the events together in some semblance of logical progression.

Altogether, Primer is a fascinating, difficult film that is made all the more impressive by the fact that a first-time filmmaker created it on a budget that wouldn’t pay for the catering bill of a Hollywood film. Highly recommended, with the caveat that frustration and confusion are in store if you’re not willing to put in some effort.

Breaking News: Nothing Happening!

Oh, it’s been so long, where to begin…

I watched the Wilco documentary, I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, last night. It was pretty cool, but didn’t really tell me a lot I didn’t already know from reading articles about the whole Yankee Hotel Foxtrot debacle. I guess I was hoping for more behind the scenes looks at the actual sessions, and more of an opportunity to see how big an effect Jim O’Rourke and Glen Kotche had on the sessions. There were plenty of alternate and early takes, but I didn’t get as much a feel for the evolution of the songs as I’d hoped. The live performances and studio shots were pretty great though, and it’s nice to have a clearer picture of the other members of the band, aside from Tweedy. And there was even a cameo by some locals (props to the Last Record Store!)

The whole Tweedy-Bennett meltdown scene, during the mixing of “Heavy Metal Drummer” was fascinating, and unnerving, especially when the cameraman followed Tweedy into the bathroom, and slung the camera over the stall as he was throwing up. Pretty intense moment….

I rented Coffee & Cigarettes also, but I haven’t watched that yet. It’s due tomorrow, so I better get on that tonight.

Anyhow. My downloading spree has pretty much become a way of life, although I have, of course, been supplementing it with actual CD purchases. I got the new Archeopteryx CD-R, and M83’s album on Friday. The Archeopteryx was exactly what I’d expect. The M83 is interesting…when it’s good, it’s very, very good, but some tracks are a little weak. Still a good buy. I’m planning on picking up Battles’ EP B, after seeing it at the Last Record Store and downloading EP C. Or vice versa…can’t remember. But they’re a cool band, with members of Don Caballero and Helmet, and they’re on a cool label, Dim Mak. Speaking of Don Cab, and post-Don Cab bands, I can’t find the self-titled Storm and Stress album anywhere. Usually, slsk serves me well, but the only copy of this album I can find is at 128kbps, and that’s just unacceptable.

I went to Rock and Roll Sunday School at Anthony’s for the first time last Sunday ( a week ago yesterday), and got thoroughly schooled by a couple of White Russians, some scotch, and a screwdriver. There are rumors some dancing occurred, but I don’t know about that. sure doesn’t sound like me. Nope. Especially not on a work night. At 2am. I’d love to DJ there sometime though, slip in some danceable glitch music or something…it’d be interesting to see how far I could take that.

Started working on a new clothing song, but I’m not sure how far that’ll go. I’ve got another few songs in various states of completion, as usual. I hope to finish this new one (tentative title: “Sweater”) pretty quickly, but the best laid plans….

Well well. More later.