Flights of Fancy

I meant to post this yesterday, but a bit of alcohol and all I wanted to think about was sleep.

I went to Cornell to do some recruiting. As usual, any university that's notable constantly builds new buildings. They built "Duffield" Hall, which sits in front of Phillips, which is the electrical engineering building. It effectively merges the building with other parts.

The result is that there is a wide open area at the bottom, and you can stare four or five floors up. This seems like a common theme for buildings. I was at the University of Illinois and the University of Washington, Seattle, and both computer science buildings create this open interior space.

The weather was perfectly miserable too. I can blame Hurricane Wilma, I suppose, but really, it's just typical Ithaca weather. Rainy and cold. All day long.

However, one plus was staying at the Statler Hotel. They should work out a deal where you get one day to stay at the hotel when you're a student. You might use this to arrange a special date, or something. In any case, it's a nice hotel, despite the fact that they forgot to return my on-flight pillow, which I spent way too much on. I need to call them about that.

Let me fast forward, past the cancelled flight to Philly, past the flight in a small noisy turboprop to Laguardia, and onto a huge plane to DC National. This plane should seat maybe 100 people. We had all of 15 on the flight. This one Latina girl was being particularly friendly, talking to people around her.

She insisted on finding out the middle name of a guy seated near her. He said she'd never find out. She said she'd tell him her middle name. Her first name was Alejandra, at least, I'm guessing that's how it's spelled. She asked him to guess her middle name. She only told him it was a male name and it started with "J". He wasn't able to guess, and so she told him, which means she told the entire plane.

Jorge. That's Hor-Hay. Her dad's name was Jorge, and so her middle name was Jorge.

Now she wanted to know his middle name. He said he wasn't going to tell. But she said hers, she pouted. OK, here's a hint: it's Scandanavian. So she guessed something like Bjornstromson or something atrociously long, and he said it was close. She made another guess that sounded more German than Scandanavian. He said it started with an "S" but was a last name.

Of course, I'm having fun, so I guess "Sven". He said, close, but it's a last name, so I guessed "Svensson", and he said that was right. So, eventually, she did find out his middle name. Michael Svensson.

He fit the look of some American with Scandanavian heritage. Tall and blond. He was there with a female companion that looked part Asian.

As it turned out, we got on the Metro, me, the guy I went to Cornell with, Michael Svensson and his female companion.

Normally, you don't get wacky (yet harmless) behavior on a plane. But when a plane is 70% empty, it seems the thing to do.

And naturally, my thought was---I need to blog this.

So Alejandra Jorge and Michael Svensson, you've been blogged.

Film Fest Marathon

Saturday, I decided to watch four films in a row. This was the last day of Reel Affirmations, a bad name, in my opinion, for a film festival. But it's in its fifteenth year, so they have to continue with the name.

At 2 PM, I saw 50 Ways To Say Fabulous. If there's one adjective that describes films out of Australia or New Zealand, it's quirky. And this one is too. Set in the 1970s, it tells the story of Billy, who's overweight, and not much good at rugby (his dad is into rugby), and his best friend and cousin, Lou, who's a tomboy. He sounds like a girl. She looks like a boy. Both are about twelve years old. Already, we're hitting gender bending issues.

New kid, Roy, is the awkward kid that comes to the small kiwi town that Billy lives in, and begins to fall for Billy. Billy's conflicted. He's not sure Roy's his type. When Jamie, a farmhand in search of a job, decides to live with Billy's family, Billy falls for Jamie, who's about 18 or so, and is another in the Brad Pitt type.

If anything, this film shares something of the sensibility of Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures. It depicts an idyllic New Zealand setting, with gay characters that resort to fantasies. In this case, Billy idolizes a female character in a science fiction TV series that resembles Lost in Space. The female character appears to be played by him, wearing a wig. The acting is a bit odd too. It isn't particularly naturalistic. Billy smiles a bit readily, almost in this antiseptic view of the 50s that's parodied nowadays.

The film doesn't even head to where you think it will go. In particular, you think Billy and Roy will get together. They don't make the perfect couple by any stretch. He's dealing with weight issues. Roy's just gawky. To the film's credit, none of the three leads are particularly photogenic, or even particularly likeable. The depiction of live in New Zealand resembles, I'd imagine, the kind of life in Welcome to the Dollhouse, where kids are particularly cruel to one another, even friends.

Setting the film in the past, and making it somewhat fantastical. makes dealing with the difficult subject matter of sexuality in early teens a bit less intense.

An interesting movie that doesn't quite end up where I thought it would.

Then, I watched a series of shorts. Some were awful. There was a short about three transvestives. One has bought a dress. She wants to meet a guy named Henri who dumped her, so he falls for her again, and she dumps him. She thinks the dress will work magic. Meanwhile, one of her roommates wants the dress, so she wears it, and her third roommate dumps ketchup all over it. There's not much more to it except some hijinks.

The next short was rather peculiar. It involves some guy who seems to have an internal monologue we can hear. He's looking for some photographer. He's drunk and drugged, and meets up with friends of sorts. It seems like a video from the early 80s, and frankly, made little sense to me. The best one, in my mind, was one about two brothers, who were close as kids. One brother was athletic, and always impressed dad. The other was less so, and always let dad down. To illustrate their relationship, the short opens with the two brothers in a swimming pool. One swims to the side, while the other is drowning, and dad is yelling at him to swim. The athletic brother jumps back in and helps his brother, thus setting the tone that the athletic brother helps his less athletic brother.

This theme has been explored in films like Gattaca, down to the swimming idea. In this case, once the kids have become teens, the shy brother kisses the elder, and eventually the two fall in love. To escape dad's wrath (dad is played by John Wesley Shipp who played the Flash in a short-lived series), the two run away. Then, it goes into Thelma and Louise. Deciding that they can't live without each other (the dad has sent the police to track them down), they decide
to dive in a pool, handcuff themselves to the ladder, embrace, and die drowning.

Shorts like this don't try to explain relationships. They generally don't have time. They set a mood and emotion, and to that extent it succeeds. I suppose it doesn't hurt that they make both brothers hot, though that always seems to be the way to deal with issues like incest. It certainly doesn't explain why incest happens, at least, nothing meaningful. I also found this film to be similar to Dead Ringers, also about two brothers, one successful and outgoing, and the other not so, and their strange closeness.

The next one was good, but hard to follow. It follows a guy who has sex with men in restrooms. There are images of dolls. It uses text printed on the screen to indicate what's going on. Done very much like an REM music video, it reminded me a lot of a darker, weirder, Peter Greenaway film. In particular, using text on the screen to convey information. There's some scene of a guy who loses control of his car, and kills a woman, and wants to hide her death. I couldn't quite recall if it was the kid's dad or what. It had a spooky feel that, say, MirrorMask didn't quite achieve.

There was also another film that was about an artist going blind, and a boy toy he has who paints for him. He doesn't particularly care for it. He has a lover that used to sleep with the artist, and tells him to kill the artist so he can be free of him and have his place. In the end, the guy can't do it, because he's essentially a good guy. I suppose it's trying to talk about art, and relationships between old and young, between those who can do art, and those who can't. Again, it's mostly an emotional piece, that doesn't try to explain how they got into this situation.

Then, I saw "The D Word". There was a a short prior to this, about some bookish lesbian, who wants to be involved in a wilder relationship. This eventually takes her to meet up with an ex into S and M. For some reason, probably due to dance numbers, it reminded me a little bit of Guy Maddin's Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary, though Maddin films in a style suited to the 1920s. Then, there was a series of episodes of The D Word. I've never seen The L Word, so I can't tell you how it compares.

From what the director/writer says, The L Word is pretty white. Her version is more diverse. It follows several stories. There's the basketball player who's basically closeted, and falls for a cheerleader type. There's the girlfriend of a guy, who finds it more exciting to be with the African American owner of a local bar. There's the two happy women trying to find a sperm donor to have kids. There's the dykish gal who can't remember who she's slept with, and has nice nails. There's the transsexual who looks like a teen, and sings. There's the cop lady. It seemed pretty funny, but more suited for a television series, than a film.

Finally, I watched Loggerheads. I expected this drama, about a woman finding her kid. But, instead, it was a slow-paced story, told in three sections. One part is Bonnie Hunt, playing a woman who now lives with her mother, and wants to find her son, who she gave up for adoption 17 years earlier. The other story is about a minister and his wife, who is the family that adopted the son, but he was gay, and ran away from home. The third is about the son, who is trying to save loggerhead turtles, and falls for a guy who owns a hotel on the North Carolina coast.

The story is basically told in pairs. Bonnie Hunt's character is trying to deal with the guilt of giving up her son, which her mother did, because she thought it was best for her daughter. The daughter hasn't had much of a life since then, having odd jobs, and once thinking of killing herself. The son seems like he's modelled a bit after Timothy Treadwell, who is featured in Grizzly Man, but really, it never goes to the same depths to show his love for saving turtles. Treadwell literally found more comfort with bears than people.

The heart of this Southern drama is really about the minister and his wife. They lead a pretty quiet life, trying to be good Christians. As time passes, the wife realizes that they didn't do enough to keep their son. They let him run away. The film is pretty even-handed about religion. The minister seems like a good man, who listens to his wife. Chris Sarandon does a good job of underplaying this role and never seems like a demon, even though he can't accept his gay adopted son. The son, too, isn't resentful of his mother, either one, and says he was a good kid.

The film tries to avoid too many stereotypes about the South, about how gay relations can be, and about religion. If anything, Loggerheads doesn't really tread any new ground, other than to deal with things in a deliberate pace, and to be fair to Southerners that often get stereotyped. If anything, the film lacks a strong payoff, but there's a sense that it's better this way. Lives aren't always about the excesses of emotion. The gay relationship isn't particularly strong, and is more of a friendship, than anything else, and tries to convey the sense that the South can accept gays, at least, to some degree.

In the Q&A, an audience member asked about similar films about the south, including Junebug. The director knows the director of Junebug well, and he says the two, having grown up in the South, want to depict the South more realistically, rather than dealing in stereotypes. Another person questioned whether the minister, when getting his haircut at the local barber, sees a teenage kid, and gets lost in thought. Is he thinking of the kid as his own son? Is he a child molester, and that's why his kid ran away? The director said he left that scene deliberately vague, though he didn't want it interpreted that the minister was a child molester. He says that was an unfortunate side effect of news related to Catholic priests.

The director felt the movie resonates because it's really more about adoption and for a mother wanting to find her child. However, I believe the other themes are important. The reason for having a gay son and religious parents is to point out the importance of religion in the South, and how the South tries to reconcile the two, even though they can be at odds. Ultimately, it says the answer is family and love, that this is more important in religion than deciding who is viewed as a sinner in God's eyes.

So, the parts I liked about Loggerheads. A fair treatment of life in the South. A relationship that's built slowly, and isn't particularly torrid. Oddly enough, I found the story of a woman seeking her own son less compelling. It's really about the decisions we make in our lives, and how we choose to deal with them. Both mothers made decisions that caused the loss of the son they shared. If anything, they might have played up more about the son's desire to save the turtles as a way to find meaning in his life, but already, the film had two strong stories it was trying to tell. Having his story be strong, may have made too many competing parts.

I expected to be exhaused after eight hours of watching films, but it wasn't all that bad. Of the films I watched, I suppose I would place Loggerheads and Race You To The Bottom at the top of the list. 50 Ways To Say Fabulous has a few too many odd pieces that don't fit, even though it's weirdness resonates in a way. I admire it more for its casting choices, which avoid picking cute moppets for its leads, and for dealing with difficult subject matter of growing up gay and gawky.

Since this is a genre festival (as much as gay and lesbian is a genre), the quality of film is expected to be somewhat lower than for a general film festival. Gay and lesbian films still focus a lot on certain popular themes. It may show a sign of maturity when it can move past making and remaking certain films (coming out films, in particular), and perhaps fusing with other genre pictures, such as spy films, science fiction, westerns, and so forth.

I wish film festivals could be watched more conveniently at home. Don't get me wrong. The Lincoln Theater is a really nice venue to watch films (except its screen is too tiny). Even so, having to make a trek to go out to watch is a pain, and knowing that the film only shows once also makes it tough to see the film I want to see.

Still, after all that, the big film people are still anticipating is Brokeback Mountain, and that film, while this festival would have loved to show it, couldn't nab something that big.

The Truman Show

I've watched several films that have been set in the near past, about 30 or 40 years ago. Good Night and Good Luck was set in the early 50s. 50 Ways to Say Fabulous was set in the 1970s. Capote was set in the 1960s.
Loggerheads was set just 5 years ago, mostly because of laws that applied then, but no longer now.

There are several reasons to set a story in the past. The most obvious reason is that it's historical, and you want to set history at the correct time in history. A second reason is to evoke a period in history. I suspect moviemakers enjoy the idea of recreating a period.

Capote is set from 1960-1965. Unlike Good Night and Good Luck which didn't offer much insight into who Edward Murrow was, Capote does offer some insight into Truman Capote, the gay writer from Alabama, famous for writing Breakfast at Tiffany's before penning the non-fiction account of the murders of Clutter family by Perry Smith and Dick Hickok.

Philip Seymour Hoffman turns in another great performance as Capote. The problem, I suppose, with biopics is the degree of impersonation. You don't have to get it right, per se. People admired Anthony Hopkins playing Richard Nixon, even if the impersonation isn't entirely faithful. It's even easier if no one knows who the person is. Richard Crenna once played Ross Perot, before Perot ran for President. If that film were made today, it would significantly narrow the choices of actors, because people would expect someone that resembled Perot.

The film, in many ways, parallels the story it's trying to tell. Capote is seen as someone who alternately cares for Perry Smith, seeing him as a darker side of himself. Both he and Perry were artists of sorts. Perry drew fairly well, and tried to read and use advanced vocabulary. Capote, of course, was well-known as an author. Both had mothers that were abusive and uncaring to one degree or another. Yet, as portrayed, Capote cared about his book and his own fame more than he cared about Perry. He was willing to like to Perry to get what he wanted, which was a good story.

To that extent, the film also dramatizes events. It was said Capote never wrote again after In Cold Blood, though he did write again, but just once. Other characters in his life are underplayed so Capote gets credit. This includes Harper Lee, who was Capote's best friend since youth. She's described as manly, but you never get a sense of that. Jack Dunphy is shown as, well, Capote's lover? I mean, you know they are friends, and perhaps more than that, but their relationship is never established better than that.

I once watched a horrible, horrible biopic about Dale Earnhardt. Half the dialogue seemed like a reading of Earnhardt's resume of wins. When Capote talks about his own work, at least, he's sounds egotistical. He loves to tell stories and to entertain crowds. He gains pleasure from the fame, and yet, they also want him to deal with the demons that favors the prisoners being executed so he can get a good story. There's some plausibility that he thinks he's writing the novel of the century.

If Capote is good, it's in its quiet portrayals and it's reproduction of the era, in its looks, but it resembles more of a photograph of the era than something really evocative. Again, Chris Cooper is excellent, in a supporting role, who plays the beleagured sheriff that wants to see the prisoners executed.

It's funny what you pay attention to in a film. Capote was a rather diminuitive man. Hoffman is about 5'10", not towering, but not exactly short. They must have played a few camera tricks to make him look short.

As with any film dealing with execution, there's always the issue of capital punishment. On the one hand, they show the grisly killing. On the other, they show the hanging (yeah, I was surprised about that too), and try to give the tension of what it must be like to be hung. Perry's breathing becomes elevated, his head covered in a black cloth, and the reaction of Hoffman reacting to the hanging.

There's supposed to be another Truman Capote film in the works, and that one will cover a longer period of time, especially a few years after this event. This isn't scheduled to come out until next year. It will be interesting to see how that one turns out. This kind of "movies in cluster" happens from time to time. For example, Dangerous Liasions and Valmont cover roughly the same story (based on the same play), though I much prefer the first. Valmont in particular has an ending that doesn't work for me.

Apparently, Milos Forman finds the thought of a woman that gets back together with a guy who seems to have control over her, then dumps him, to be rather emotionally intense, and uses it in this plot. Like Ebert, who recounts this story, I find it puzzling. He attributes it to European sensibility (or nonsensibility).

We'll see if the new Capote movie is any good or not.

I'll have to blog about the monster movie day I had yesterday, watching four consecutive movie offerings in a row. I wasn't exhausted really, so that bodes well for a life reporting at film festivals! :).

Home Of Phobia

Home Of Phobia. I mean, c'mon. That was really the title of a film? A romantic comedy? It might have been clever had it been, say, a horror film, with gay elements, or something, or even a family drama, but a romantic comedy? Clearly, someone must have agreed and decided to rename this to the nearly as bad, Freshman Orientation.

Coming out films are generally pretty popular in the gay genre films. Often populated by handsome, yet, conflicted teens, there's something that either appeals to folks as mementos of their youth, or, more than likely, discovering that someone, far better looking that you, has to deal with these issues. Coming out films are, almost always, dramas. The impact is discovery, and being judged by those who see you differently.

On the other hand, romantic comedies. This is a genre that manages to survive, despite resorting to cliches, and a story arc that is completely predictable. Presumably, so many of them are made because people still fall for its structure. Perhaps they are unaware that they are seeing the same plotline once again. Here's a romantic comedy plot. Boy meets girl. Boy falls for girl and vice versa. Boy and girl have a fight, and appear to break it off. Boy and girl reconcile, and all is well.

The devil is in the details. Sometimes, it's two boys, or two girls. I suppose there are a few where it's centered on the girl, though romantic comedies usually prefer following the guy. There's even the occasional movie that bucks all trends, like My Best Friend's Wedding, which is Julia Roberts trying to break up Dermot Mulroney and Cameron Diaz, until she discovers they're perfect for each other. It's really more screwball comedy than anything else.

Now, if I had to guess, I'd say Freshman Orientation was directed and written by someone gay, and yet the plotline, is rather peculiar. I can see how that can be both clever and offensive. Sam Huntington plays Clay Adams, who, I suppose is meant to be unlikeable at the beginning of the movie, though only in a sitcom sort of way, and learns something about himself.

OK, basic plot overview. Clay falls for a blond girl who's part of a sorority only because her mom got her in. Blond girl dislikes ex-cheerleader mom, but sees this as opportunity to get away from home, and the life she's supposed to lead. She gets a free ride at the sorority (why?). As part of initiation, each girl must find a stereotype (fat guy, Muslim), convince them to fall for her, invite them to a party, and dump them. The blond girl in question has to find a gay guy to fall for. Her "best friend" (not really) in the sorority is Jewish, and has to find a Muslim, but generally coaxes her to find a gay guy.

Enter Clay, who, trying to meet women, thinks joining a fraternity will help him score, and convince a guy who looks like young Clark Kent to join him. As part of hazing, they are thrown, while asleep and drunk, into the middle of some public area on campus, and everyone thinks they are gay. You have to admire the screenwriter for working this hard to have the plot make some plausible sense, yet, not.

Blond girl thinks Clay is gay, and Clay decides quite quickly that he is. Enter John Goodman, playing gay bar owner, to teach him otherwise. The film has a bevy of minor characters that populate it. Drunk horny lady. President of LGBT who is hot for Clay. Black, lesbian activist. Sassy, black professor. Blond frat guy who also wants blond. Head of sorority who seems to hate men, and has organized the dumpfest.

The film seems aware that what Clay is doing is repugnant (act gay to pick up women), and yet it works, so what's its real message? There was a film a few years ago about this guy who decides to be black to get admissions, and somehow learns about being black. Goodness, that idea was bad, and was the devil to execute (dark skin pigmentation does not make one black--there's facial structure as well, which is why Indians, as dark as African Americans, don't look like African Americans).

To be that heavy-handed a message movie would be hard to deal with, and Clay never really makes that kind of a transformation, because he's such a sitcom character to begin with. Huntington is all eyebrows and expressions.

If the film is enjoyable, it's in its tiny details. The audience I saw it with loved references to gay history sprinkled throughout, despite the story not really being gay friendly. It's a tricky tightrope of a story, which seems to suggest that being gay is a pretty good idea, but brings it as more of a choice, or at least, relatively fluid. One difficult thread has to do with Clay's roommate discovering he's gay and more than that, has fallen for Clay. But since Clay needs to fall for the blond, roommate has to find someone else to fall for, and since it isn't his story, that guy is someone even more closeted than himself.

The film is both ambitious and not, trying to juggle a bunch of people, most of whom are stereotypes. It barely addresses the much deeper topics that it hints at, such as the gay roommate that's in love, the possibility of gays being involved in unwelcome advances to straight guys, men-hating women. I think the audience enjoyed it, but I found it totally silly, and bordering on offensive. I have to say the writer, despite all sorts of contortions, makes it plausible for the two to get back together, given that the girl really has nothing to go back too, and as it turns out, neither does Clay.

Well, I may catch up to three films today. The first is a New Zealand coming-out story. The second is a lesbian comedy. The third is a family drama about a woman who wants to meet the son she gave up for adoption (who's gay). The trailer makes the title of the film way too precious. The title is Loggerheads, and is about the gay son's fascination with loggerhead turtles where the mother returns back to the same spot as where she gave birth. I mean, that's a huge amount of underlining. Of course, it has double meaning, as people come to "loggerheads", which means they fight, so there's expected to be a yelling match when they meet. Still, there are pretty good actors in this film, mostly, Bonnie Hunt, and the gay couple isn't hysterically good looking (like, Brokeback Mountain).

There's a fourth, that is a series of shorts, but I may have to miss that. We'll see. Four sets of movies would be quite daunting to watch. I've managed 2 before, possibly three with a break, but never four in sequence.

Bobo Skee Dottin Dottin

The first Bobo I can remember was Bobo Zivojinovic, who was a Croatian or Serbian player (can we say Yugoslavian). He did well one year at Wimbledon, and people loved his name. He was really Slobadan, but went by Bobo.

I recently checked out a blog entry from a friend who read Bobos in Paradise. The author, David Brooks, had lived a few years outside the US, and returned to find an interesting sociological trend.

The elite in America was an educational elite, who, instead of embracing blue blood and wealthy parentage, embraced education and the bohemian lifestyle. Bohemians, he noted, would like European coffees and poetry, but had a disdain for the search for wealth. However, there's a growing class of educated elite that embraces Bohemian lifestyle, while still seeking wealth.

Brooks refers to these folks as "Bobos" which are bourgeois bohemians (or vice versa).

I'm barely a chapter through this book, but it seems interesting so far. Brooks is detailing the fall of the traditional elite, where wealth was passed from parent to child, the old aristocracy, and the rise of the new elite, which was, ironically enough, encouraged to grow by the old elite, though likely without realizing the full consequences of what they were doing.

This is clearly a book written by bobos for bobos, as he makes numerous references that are aimed at those who have college degrees, and seek to be widely literate in the arts as well as business.

We'll see how it turns out. I know the term is used frequently by folks at Microsoft, and presumably any other comparable techie place (Google or Yahoo). It might be best I learn something about it.

Out and About

Wow, the Lincoln Theater is nice. No, no, not the Ford Theater, which is quite close to the E Street Landmark. The Lincoln Theater, which is on U Street and somewhere between 12th and 13th. Normally, Metro stops a few blocks from where you want to be. After all, it can't drop you off everywhere you want to go. And, yet, I stopped at the U Street Cardozo stop, which is the same stop to go to the 9:30 club, or the Black Cat, or the Studio Theater, each of which is a few blocks from the Metro stop.

Not the Lincoln Theater. Just get up on the 13th street exit, walk across the street, and you are there.

This was the 15th year of Reel Affirmations, what has to be the worst name for a Gay & Lesbian film festival (I suppose there are bisexual films--tonight's file might qualify, and aren't too many transgendered films either). Tonight I went to watch Race You To The Bottom. To be honest, I hadn't heard of any of the films at the festival, which isn't so surprising, since gay & lesbian films form a small (though vibrant) niche.

What's difficult about such films, at least, gay films, is coming up with stories that aren't weak gay versions of bad straight stories. Although they were able to get some (ok, one) star in Eating Out, the story line and the acting were weak. Those films tend to get audiences to watch it because you see skin.

Actually, there were two films on. Let me talk about the first film, which was Room Service, which, as it turns out, I had heard of from a bulletin board I read. This was a short film about a guy who lusted after a porn star. He discovers that the porn star has since become a hustler, and decides to arrange to meet him. Bringing his camera along, he wants to film his fantasy man.

Fortunately, it turns out a little better than the story line sounds. The guy who's filming it is a geek, who, although he's had a boyfriend, hasn't really been in a relationship. The porn star has washed out and his life is spent trying to eke out a living, since he no longer can do movies. There's a bit of humor, because the kid is completely awkward, and yet, by the end, they have a small connection. While the kid's background is a bit contrived, it's a nice effort.

The nice thing about twenty minute shorts is that it's unnecessary to do a lot of character development. You try to get in a few humorous moments, work in a little backstory, and don't go in too obvious a direction. I wish shorts were more common. Unfortunately, the only way to watch shorts are at film festivals. Personally, I'd like to see shorts prior to main features all the time.

Race You To The Bottom is primarily relationship driven. It's a road picture with the structure of a romantic comedy. Unlike a romantic comedy, the two main characters are well-established. He's a gay writer for a travel magazine. She's a temp. She's been tagging along his travel stories, and this time, they're headed to Napa to report on wineries. Of course, with a road trip, it's really about discussing their relationships.

To get a sense of this film, I can compare it to several other films. I recently saw Andrew Bujalski's Funny Ha-Ha. The acting and cinematography were much better in this film. Funny Ha-ha is all about the interactions of several guys to this girl, who is attractive, but awkward. The whole film is centered around awkward interactions. On the other hand, the characters in Russell Brown's film are confident, sassy, fun. Maggie and Nathan like each other because they're fun for each other.

Nathan is gay, but he likes her enough, so he fools around with her. You can see how she's eventually going to fall for him. What's remarkable about the film is how it establishes the history between the two characters. They like each other. They hate each other. He gives a hand job to a guy she pines after. She flirts with a guy he went to high school with. It's a tenuous relationship. He's willing to fool around, but he can't really fall in love, even though they get along great. She has feelings for him, and can't deal with his cruelty.

When I haven't heard of a film, and I hear it's independent, I tend to think it won't be very good. There are far more people who want to make films than those who have talent to make them well. So it's surprising when I find that it's an excellent movie. It's not as auspicious a start as Steven Soderbergh or even Shane Carruth, but it deals with an established relationships with remarkable realism.

Clearly, the film is aided by strong acting jobs by Amber Benson and Cole Williams. If I were a Buffy fan, I would have known she was in Buffy, but I'm not. She reminded me of a perky Scarlet Johanssen. As it turns out, I had seen Amber before. She was in a bit role as a waitress in Latter Days. Cole Williams comes across like Leo DiCaprio. Long hair, with a wisp of facial hair, he exudes a confidence, and yet, can't really commit.

As it progresses to its end, there's the problem of tying up loose ends. This isn't a comedy, so it would seem a bit sappy to make them get together, especially since he's supposed to be gay. The ending resembles Chasing Amy. Their lives move on. They have something great together, but it can only go so far.

Even if the story idea isn't so novel (although it is a little unusual to do a road trip with a gay guy and a straight gal), a film like this is all about execution and acting. It's much like Before Sunrise, except these two have history, and therefore know how to hurt each other.

Russell Brown also attended to do a Q&A session, but there were very few questions. I couldn't think of a good question either. I did briefly talk to him afterwards, but it seems directors aren't all that outgoing. I suppose these things are awkward enough. Kevin Smith, for example, can stretch an answer for ten minutes, if he has to.

Still, I'm impressed enough to want to see what he does next. Apparently, it's already been made, or at least, significant parts. However, he was very quiet.

This film is expected to go in general release next year.

Wow, the Lincoln Theater is nice. No, no, not the Ford Theater, which is quite close to the E Street Landmark. The Lincoln Theater, which is on U Street and somewhere between 12th and 13th. Normally, Metro stops a few blocks from where you want to be. After all, it can't drop you off everywhere you want to go. And, yet, I stopped at the U Street Cardozo stop, which is the same stop to go to the 9:30 club, or the Black Cat, or the Studio Theater, each of which is a few blocks from the Metro stop.

Not the Lincoln Theater. Just get up on the 13th street exit, walk across the street, and you are there.

This was the 15th year of Reel Affirmations, what has to be the worst name for a Gay & Lesbian film festival (I suppose there are bisexual films--tonight's file might qualify, and aren't too many transgendered films either). Tonight I went to watch Race You To The Bottom. To be honest, I hadn't heard of any of the films at the festival, which isn't so surprising, since gay & lesbian films form a small (though vibrant) niche.

What's difficult about such films, at least, gay films, is coming up with stories that aren't weak gay versions of bad straight stories. Although they were able to get some (ok, one) star in Eating Out, the story line and the acting were weak. Those films tend to get audiences to watch it because you see skin.

Actually, there were two films on. Let me talk about the first film, which was Room Service, which, as it turns out, I had heard of from a bulletin board I read. This was a short film about a guy who lusted after a porn star. He discovers that the porn star has since become a hustler, and decides to arrange to meet him. Bringing his camera along, he wants to film his fantasy man.

Fortunately, it turns out a little better than the story line sounds. The guy who's filming it is a geek, who, although he's had a boyfriend, hasn't really been in a relationship. The porn star has washed out and his life is spent trying to eke out a living, since he no longer can do movies. There's a bit of humor, because the kid is completely awkward, and yet, by the end, they have a small connection. While the kid's background is a bit contrived, it's a nice effort.

The nice thing about twenty minute shorts is that it's unnecessary to do a lot of character development. You try to get in a few humorous moments, work in a little backstory, and don't go in too obvious a direction. I wish shorts were more common. Unfortunately, the only way to watch shorts are at film festivals. Personally, I'd like to see shorts prior to main features all the time.

Race You To The Bottom is primarily relationship driven. It's a road picture with the structure of a romantic comedy. Unlike a romantic comedy, the two main characters are well-established. He's a gay writer for a travel magazine. She's a temp. She's been tagging along his travel stories, and this time, they're headed to Napa to report on wineries. Of course, with a road trip, it's really about discussing their relationships.

To get a sense of this film, I can compare it to several other films. I recently saw Andrew Bujalski's Funny Ha-Ha. The acting and cinematography were much better in this film. Funny Ha-ha is all about the interactions of several guys to this girl, who is attractive, but awkward. The whole film is centered around awkward interactions. On the other hand, the characters in Russell Brown's film are confident, sassy, fun. Maggie and Nathan like each other because they're fun for each other.

Nathan is gay, but he likes her enough, so he fools around with her. You can see how she's eventually going to fall for him. What's remarkable about the film is how it establishes the history between the two characters. They like each other. They hate each other. He gives a hand job to a guy she pines after. She flirts with a guy he went to high school with. It's a tenuous relationship. He's willing to fool around, but he can't really fall in love, even though they get along great. She has feelings for him, and can't deal with his cruelty.

When I haven't heard of a film, and I hear it's independent, I tend to think it won't be very good. There are far more people who want to make films than those who have talent to make them well. So it's surprising when I find that it's an excellent movie. It's not as auspicious a start as Steven Soderbergh or even Shane Carruth, but it deals with an established relationships with remarkable realism.

Clearly, the film is aided by strong acting jobs by Amber Benson and Cole Williams. If I were a Buffy fan, I would have known she was in Buffy, but I'm not. She reminded me of a perky Scarlet Johanssen. As it turns out, I had seen Amber before. She was in a bit role as a waitress in Latter Days. Cole Williams comes across like Leo DiCaprio. Long hair, with a wisp of facial hair, he exudes a confidence, and yet, can't really commit.

As it progresses to its end, there's the problem of tying up loose ends. This isn't a comedy, so it would seem a bit sappy to make them get together, especially since he's supposed to be gay. The ending resembles Chasing Amy. Their lives move on. They have something great together, but it can only go so far.

Even if the story idea isn't so novel (although it is a little unusual to do a road trip with a gay guy and a straight gal), a film like this is all about execution and acting. It's much like Before Sunrise, except these two have history, and therefore know how to hurt each other.

Russell Brown also attended to do a Q&A session, but there were very few questions. I couldn't think of a good question either. I did briefly talk to him afterwards, but it seems directors aren't all that outgoing. I suppose these things are awkward enough. Kevin Smith, for example, can stretch an answer for ten minutes, if he has to.

Still, I'm impressed enough to want to see what he does next. Apparently, it's already been made, or at least, significant parts. However, he was very quiet.

This film is expected to go in general release next year.

Gone To Murrow

Sometimes, it's the little touched that distinguish a good film from an ordinary one. If Good Night, and Good Luck were filmed in the sixties, I suspect it would follow a more traditional narrative, trying to detail what Edward R. Murrow did to bring down Joseph McCarthy. George Clooney directs and stars in this film that details this period in Murrow's life, which happened not so long ago.

Perhaps Hollywood, more than anyplace else, understood the significance of what McCarthy was doing. He wanted to root out communists. People were made to sign loyalty forms. People were told to accuse others of being disloyal, including accusing one's parents. Elia Kazan, who directed On the Waterfront, and ushered in a new kind of acting, with the budding arrival of Marlon Brando, was one of those finger-pointers, and many in Hollywood never forgave him for that. It's hard to believe that this event only happened some fifty years ago.

We can point to the innocent mindset of those living in the fifties, a world that hadn't embraced civil rights, that treated foreigners like second class citizens, that spread fear through propaganda on communism. We imagine such a thing can not happen today. This film is perhaps a commentary on life today. With the war on terrorism, those of Middle Eastern descent are being harassed, often without evidence. This gets little notice since the number of people who look "like terrorists" are a small percentage of society, where McCarthy saw anyone and everyone as being capable of falling towards communist influence.

It was Murrow, with his clout as a reporter from World War 2, who brought "This Is London" radio broadcasts back to Americans, and became a beacon of journalistic integrity in the early years of television, that would use McCarthy's own words, and his own eloquent use of the language, to bring "the junior senator from Wisconsin" down. Although it could seem like a complete gimmick, using real footage of McCarthy to present McCarthy seems to flow naturally throughout the film, even though it creates a distancing effect.

Upon viewing it, McCarthy doesn't really come across as terribly deranged. It sounds as if Murrow's commentary, and the American trust in what Murrow had to say, and even the thought of ratting out your parents, were enough to wake Americans up to a greater evil than communism, namely, a government that distrusts its citizens.

Clooney had several issues to tackle. What was Murrow really like? Perhaps the closest person to Murrow's stature would be someone like Walter Cronkite. Yet, there's a sense of being grandfatherly that makes Cronkite endearing. Clooney tends to opt for Murrow as iconic, reserved, and thoughtful. He is, effectively, who appears to be. A figure meant for television. There is no Murrow letting down his guard, nor losing control, nor reflecting on the person he is.

Instead, Clooney opts to catch him at his quiet moments. The seconds before the telecast. The incessant smoking that looks so utterly cool. The use of black and white creates a look that is crisper than reality, a kind of Life magazine view, with things in sharp Amsel Adamsian contrast. Strathairn becomes Murrow, and only his slight reactions with his eyebrows suggest what is really going on.

There's one scene that highlights this. Murrow is reduced to doing fluff journalism. He is interviewing Liberace, and talking about marriage, and finding the right person. Given our knowledge of Liberace's sexual orientation, we see the interview in two ways. First, that Liberace evades even the mention of finding the right woman, but wants the right person, and compares it to a female celebrity looking for the right man. Second, Murrow doing his job of being entertaining, yet suffering inside, for a show that has no meaning for him. And it is completely understated. A slight reaction of the face, not even disdain, but not exactly enjoyment. It is to sense his professionalism in doing a job that is to evolve to entertainment over journalism.

There's very little music in Good Night, and Good Luck except for several jazz pieces that are sung, which you eventually realize is part of the CBS telecasts. And the film shares this kind of improvisational feel. It is the quiet moments, sitting around a table, with smoke around that you sense about the film. The silence creating tension.

In the end, you don't learn much about investigative journalism. You don't see how the witchhunts affect anyone outside of CBS, except in footage. The CBS environment is a microcosm, isolated, and yet part of the world. You get impressions, and feelings, and the sense of the fifties, not its details, its facts. Despite the lack of much music, this film feels like listening to music. In the end, it's not exactly the story that matters, but the sense of an era.

Gotta Have Faith

Today is Yom Kippur. Observant Jews take the day off and do, well, nothing. During a 24 hour period, Jews are not supposed to work, not to set fires, use electricity, and so forth. It is a time of contemplation and prayer.

This meant, of course, that Tony Kornheiser did not do his show today, and so he had a "best of" show, which sounded like a replay of last week's show when he broadcast on Rosh Hashanah. Now, if he were more observant, he might take that day off for religious reasons. Some years, he said, he does braodcast. Some years he doesn't. It's something he wrestles with. On the years he does, he justifies it by saying that he's entertaining lots of people, so he's sharing happiness.

Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year. It is a two day celebration, where families get together. It's a time to repent for one's sins. This is a ten day period, known as the High Holy Days, and culminates in Yom Kippur, where Jews must fast, not engage in work, nor engage in other pleasures.

On the Rosh Hashanah episode, Tony spent a few minutes talking about faith. It's a topic that most are uncomfortable discussing, especially on a sports program. Andy, who is also Jewish, took the day off. One of his other colleagues is half Jewish, half Catholic, so he says that really messed him up. Stern, who's British, joked that he worshipped druids, which has to do with the ancient religion surrounding Stonehenge, and pre-Christian Britain.

Tony himself rebelled against religion as a youth, though he has made attempts to come back. He found, though, when he came back, that going to the synagogue was a foreign experience. The service was not conducted in English (presumably Hebrew), and those in attendance already knew the rituals, which Tony had never really learned. All in all, it was not something he felt at ease with.

In fact, he found the services geared to children far more enjoyable. It was conducted in English, and he could understand the motivation behind what the kids wer being taught. Once his kids were old enough to move to more mature services, Tony still wanted to stay with the little kids. Whether this is true or not, it reflects Tony's quest to find something with Judaism that would fit his comfort level.

I suspect this is one reason why Protestant churches that have split off from Catholicism have wanted to escape from the formality of the Catholic church. At one point in history, perhaps no more than fifty years ago, it wasn't uncommon to have services in Latin, rather than the language of those in attendance. Some churches have even used services to talk about politics, trying to engage followers in one political party or another. Frankly, I don't think that's their place, but it makes the message more immediate.

While I can understand the idea of religious folks who feel that the secular world despises them for simple-minded and dogmatic belief, I find it far more intriguing to listen to those who question the way they were raised. This is not an uncommon experience for children of immigrants, who question why parents want them to cling to a parent culture instead of embracing the allure of the new culture (and to avoid the taunts of those who can't stand anything new).

To Tony, what's more fascinating are those who switch faiths. He says that, among Jews, those that convert are to be praised. This is a transition that most are unwilling to take. It suggests a need for faith, and yet, being let down by the faith that one was raised in.

I used to be very uncomfortable with notions of faith, because I was raised in a rather secular manner. While people claim that Americans are deeply religious, it's still not so prevalent that it was in my face. Even those that attend church regularly often treat it as a private experience, which is, to me, just the way it should be.

At this point in my life, I'm not ready to put faith in religion. Nevertheless, I find it fascinating for those who do, and more importantly, for those who question their faith, for it is those people, I feel, that faith has meaning. When you can go to church or synagogue or mosque unquestioningly, that, to me, is not real faith. It is a kind of competition. Who can believe harder than me? It is a crutch.

I once heard an interview with Salman Rushdie, famous for having a fatwa set against him. He was raised as a Muslim, but basically abandoned the faith. He only regrets, that during the initial parts of the persecution, he reaffirmed his belief in Islam, which wouldn't have been a problem were he truly repentant, but really, he did it to avoid getting killed, and that wasn't a good enough reason in his mind.

He was asked, by a reporter, whether he envies those who wake up in the morning, secure in their faith. He said no, he does not, because it's a lie. No one knows the intention of God, neither the devout, nor the atheist. No one has ever known, and to believe strongly and fervently does not make it so.

I'm also reminded of Joe Simpson, who wrote Touching the Void, who was left for dead, when his climbing partner, Simon Yates, cut a rope, to save his own life. He managed to crawl back, with broken limbs, over several days, back to his base camp. He said, even at his most despairing, he did not pray to a God for forgiveness, which made him sure that he didn't really believe in a God.

So I find myself, with a few minutes on my hand, listening to a sports show, on the holiest of Jewish days, the Day of Atonement, thinking about faith.

Crazy Like a Fox

You'd think a man who has successfully helmed two successful shows would know what he's doing. Joss Whedon created Buffy the Vampire Slayer and followed it up with Angel. When Firefly came out some three years ago, you would have thought that networks would trust him.

But that's the problem with power. If you can't be the creative genius behind a television show or movie, you can be a network or studio executive and make decisions anyway. Once, Rosie O'Donnell (I think) told Harvey Weinstein, who heads up Miramax, that he should let M. Night Shymalayan to figure out creative stuff on his own, and he shouldn't interfere. He cursed up a storm, insulting her.

Similar, executives at Fox didn't want a television show that had a slow introduction, even though there were nine characters to introduce, an a universe to describe. They wanted a one hour intro, with action and comedy. Whedon didn't have the clout to argue, and so he made Firefly as the network wanted.

The show lasted all of 12 episodes before it was cancelled, and yet is one of the best written science fiction shows that has ever aired. Whedon's genius is his knowledge of genre conventions and his ability to play against what you expect. He leads you a certain way, and you think you know where things are heading, and he veers you off elsewhere.

The fans of the show tried to keep it alive. Brisk DVD sales lead to Serenity, the film. The cast really enjoyed working on the show (though DVD cast commentary tend to be sickeningly adoring) and felt they were working on something special.

On the one hand, people have to hand it to Fox that they greenlighted the series, given that no other network seems to have picked it up.

Now, television shows with ensemble casts, particularly, Lost are not so unusual, and it expects its fans to follow its twists and turns and revelations. It's now in its second season. Firefly should have been allowed to survive this way too.

Frankly, I doubt that executives at Fox thought they made an error. One of the producers of the show remarked that if the show managed a feature film (it was probably in the works even two years before it was released), that some executive would say "Hey, we should make a television series out of that", not realizing, of course, that it was the television series that brought it to the big screen.

It seems executives are the same everywhere.

Eat First

Lately, I haven't felt much like cooking. When I get back at 8 most evenings, I'd just rather eat out than cook for an hour or so. I'm plenty used to eating out by myself. Even on weekends, I find myself eating out rather than cooking for myself.

Yesterday, around 11 AM, I decided to head to Silver Spring to eat. A few years ago, I hardly ever went to Silver Spring, but in the last few years, they've spruced up the place. There's the AFI theater, which shows a combination of artsy flicks, retrospectives, the occasional foreign flick. There's a Borders, two ice cream places, and plenty of restaurants.

At first, I was going to a Thai restaurant, but then I saw Eggspectation. I've only eaten there maybe once or twice, once near my birthday. I said, I'm going to try it again. Usually I don't go because it's so crowded at lunch. But it was raining yesterday, and I entered the place. There was a 10-15 minute wait, unless I sat at the counters or the "hightops" which are tables for two people, elevated up on high chairs.

Now, Eggspecation has enough business that there are at least ten people on the waitstaff. I don't understand how waiters are trained. I understand it's a thankless job, and that, human nature is to remember the one horrible customer to the dozens of good customers. But how can half a dozen wait staff go by and not one ask how you're doing? I know there are wait staff that are assigned to certain tables, but honestly, are they trying to serve customers or themselves.

I had to ask someone to come to my table. Then, it was fine. They gave me coffee and a menu. However, I wasn't ready to order after the one minute the woman gave me. Then, she basically disappeared. I mean, she was around, passing me, one, two, three times, Five minutes passed. Then, ten minutes. Despite helping other people around, she didn't ask again. So I went to the guy behind the counter, wanted to pay for my coffee and leave. He said don't worry about it, and I left.

OK, maybe she was horrible. She didn't seem at all pleased that day. But even so, no one else around did anything to see how I was doing. This, to me, says something awful about the restaurant itself. That they are more concenrned with waiters preserving their territory than seeing how I'm doing.

Frankly, I'm also surprised that restaurants don't apply a rule that I've thought should be around. Always, always, always put a person eating by himself or herself first. If there's a table for six who showed up five minutes before the one person sitting by himself, you serve the person sitting by himself. Always. A person by themselves wants to eat and get out of there. They have no one to talk to. A group of two can deal with delays because they can talk to each other ten or fifteen minutes before getting irritated. It seems like a simple idea, and yet way too many restaurants still believe in first-come, first-serve. Stupid, really.

The solution, which is really simple, is to have a button at the table. Once the button is pressed, the waitstaff is timed. If it starts to go three, four minutes without a response, then some wandering waiter is sent to respond. If you find the waitstaff consistently going beyond a few minutes, then they restaurant is not doing their job. They need to hire more people.

Amazingly, this idea is not used. An ideal waitstaff would have someone serving your table and your table only. You raise a hand, and they are there in a second. Or even better, you have two or three people serving your own table. This happens at extremely expensive restaurants, where you pay three figures for a meal. But short of that, they should use a button to get the waitstaff. It won't happen because restaurants don't want to hire any more people. They'd rather work their waitstaff too hard.

Now I understand that wait staff are just above slave labor. Anytime you pay someone to serve you barely minimum wage, that amounts to slavery. Even so, I am used to the way restaurants do business, and that means prompt service. I find, as I get older, that I don't tolerate slow service as much.

I went upstairs, headed to a Vietnamese place, got seated right away, got in an order right away, had my food right away. I spent six bucks rather than ten plus bucks I would have spent at this restaurant. Needless to say, until I forget, I won't be heading to Eggspectation again any time soon. I know there are good people trying to do a good job, but really, they need to realize when someone is sitting there and do something about it. The problem is they have no idea how long they've been sitting. I understand that I have no idea how long they've been standing, but it's not my job to make their work conditions better.

The funny thing is that if you go to any restaurant that is African or Carribean or basically black that's not US, I simply expect the service to be deadly slow. Never go to one of these restaurants if you are in a rush. If I go, I expect slow service. Not so much slow service, but that it takes a long time to get the food out. I still want someone to see me right away, even if it takes forever for the food to get cooked.

The worst restaurant in this respect was the original Food Factory. You can order a dish where they just scoop it in a plate and be served immediately, or order a kebab and wait at least ten minutes. The problem is that they don't seem to realize any non-kebab dish takes a minute. It's quick. And yet, they pile it behind the kebab dishes. Worse still, they misplace orders. They wouldn't remember whether they had served a dish or not, so you could easily get caught waiting while others who ordered behind you got their orders. It's bad when they can't remember to make your dish.

Today, I read a review about a place called Ceviche, which serves Latin American cuisine. Normally, I'm not a huge fan of Latin cuisine. I'll see a Thai place and think "I'll give that a try", but not say the same about a Latin American restaurant.

Guess where this restaurant is. You know that Vietnamese place I ate lunch yesterday. It's up on the second floor where the other restaurant is located. Next door to it is a Thai restaurant. And next to it? Ceviche! I could have eaten there and tried something different. It looks good and sufficiently exotic. Next time, then.

Girl Interrupted

Just as all Asian foods are not the same---Korean food, for example, tends to be
spicy, emphasizes beef, and lots of appetizers in the form of cold kimchee, cold
bean sprouts, cold mini-fishes, so Asian cinema is also not all the same.

If you were to ask someone from Hong Kong what a typical Korean is like, they'd probably envision a more violent Asian. You don't want to mess with a Korean. This isn't the image I have of Korean grad students I've known. Males, in particular, are extremely quiet, as if the initiative to talk has been beaten out of them.

Hong Kong cinema is all flash and style. The violence is stylized. Nothing typifies this more than Chow Yun Fat, falling side ways, two guns in hand, blasting furiously, while champing on a cigarette, completely unmoving as he hits the ground, while doves fly around in slo-mo. This imagery is vintage Woo, and typical Hong Kong.

Even Wong Kar-wai, who deals with adult relationships, rather than young boys with guns, depicts violence in impressionistic blurs, with killers having existential crisis, with women mysteriously cleaning up their houses.

Last night, I caught a showing of Kim Ki-duk's Samaritan Girl. If anything, this film reminds me of Takeshi Kitano. Kitano is known for his ganster flicks such as Hana-bi, where vast amounts of time are spent in serenity. Images of a man painting, taking quiet walks with his dying wife, punctuated by violence, such as chopsticks to the eye. And yet, where Kitano has two disparate emotions in the same person as a personality quirk, Kim Ki-duk does it more naturally.

I've said before that Korean cinema is gritty. The violence, more palpable, more real. In Hong Kong cinema, you say "That is so cool" when you see guns ablazing and people dying. In Korean cinema, you say "I wouldn't want to get in an alley with that guy".

I was also reminded of Scorsese's take on what has been phrased as the Madonna/Whore complex, which, as I understand it, are the two fantasies men have about women. That they are saints (of sorts) meant to save them from sin, and that they are there to have glorious sex. This is clearly the dichotomy presented here, in what amounts to Kim Ki-duk's Taxi Driver (were I to have seen that film).

Kim Ki-duk's talents lie in his ability to convey information without dialogue. At an extreme is 3-iron, which is something of a revelation. Of the two main characters, a wandering vagabond Buddhist and an abused wide, only three words are spoken between them the entire film. Their communication is completely wordless, and yet you know what exactly what Kim is trying to tell us in his story.

The storyline is a bit fantastical. Jae-Young is a teen prostitute, whose trying to raise money for a trip to Europe. She's all smiles, who cares about the men she meets. She recounts the story of an Indian prostitute, Vasumitra, who slept with men who reformed their lives after having sex with her. This is perhaps the most blatant underlining in the film, and yet, unlike say, the Pied Piper from The Sweet Hereafter, the story is unfamiliar, and therefore not so grating. And really, it becomes the story of Yeo-Jin, her best friend (possibly more), who is her business partner, and becomes the story of her dad, the cop, who wants to protect her daughter, but realizes that he can only do so much (although what he does...).

Kim Ki-duk has been protrayed as a misogynist, and yet, his comment is really about all human behavior, that within us lie the ability for great good and great sin, and sin more operative than evil, for even within sin, there is the desire to be good. Violence and sex are both redemptive qualities, and yet seen as hideous qualities too. That the main story is so focused on something that seems right out of Breaking the Waves should not hide from the fact that Kim is trying to show that everything isn't black or white.

Everything is black and white.

Mind Games

This morning was overcast and drizzly, and this usually means one thing: slow Beltway traffic. I got up this morning a little after 7:30, checked my email, and read that my colleague had named his two newborn kittens: Oddjob and Jaws, after two James Bond villains. I had amusingly thought of two other Bond names that have to do with cats (one of them is in the same film as Oddjob).

As I get on the Beltway, traffic is jammed more than usual. It takes almost twenty minutes to go one mile. During that time, my mind is wandering, and I'm imagining the storyline of a James Bond movies.

Roger Ebert loves James Bond, even as most of the films, by modern action standards, drag at an interminable pace. One of my favorite Bond films, You Only Live Twice, which is a lot of fun, but gets bogged down by being a Japanese travelogue. Bond goes to a sumo wrestling competition. He has a traditional Japanese bath. He even gets married, in a plot deviation that honestly makes no sense at all.

Over time, I realize many Bond movies simply suck, and what I really want to see is some kind of Bond deconstruction film, somewhat like Unforgiven deconstructs the Western. I want it twisted, psychological, and basically a mindf**k. Unfortunately, I'm no Joss Whedon. I don't have particularly clever ideas.

But here's the one I thought of. (BTW, I copyright this idea, folks). Basically, the idea would revolve around a cloned James Bond, who doesn't know he's cloned. For a while, things are great, but as time progresses, he's starting to act more irrationally, wondering what's going on in his life. One humorous bit would be that this cloned Bond would sleep with all the folks that never get it. This includes Miss Moneypenny, the female M, and even Q (or some suitable Q replacement).

Initially, Bond is being hunted by what appears to be SPECTRE, and perhaps, initially it is them, but over time, the "real" James Bond, who is hardly seen in the film, has to go after the clone. As we head to the end of the film, it is revealed that Q was the one that created the cloned Bond, and there's a talk about why he did it, and as this cloned Bond tries to reconcile what he's thought of as his life.

I suppose the ending would have to be some kind of Bond vs. Bond fight. Part of me wants to make it some kind of variation of the end of Jedi, with cloned Bond playing Luke, Q as Vader, and original Bond as the Emperor. I'd also like to throw in some kind of comic relief type character, a la, Ran.

The idea really is to explore the Bond universe outside of Bond, where he's some kind of archetype, but then also to have the clone do all the thinking about why he does what he does, as a commentary on why Bond does what he does.

The idea isn't terribly original. Star Trek: Deep Space 9 has done a clone of O'Brien episode, which is decent. They've had a Picard clone. The key is not to make it that clever as far as that goes. The underlying story has to be able to hold up, and not be based purely on the trick.

Anyway, that's what I get to think of on a rainy drive on the Beltway.

Get Technical

At the University of Maryland, the computer science department and the math department are part of the same college. It's interesting that that has come about.

Computer science is a weird mishmash of disciplines that share one thing in common. The computer. No other major I can think of ties itself that closely to a technological device.

In most universities, computer science evolved out of one of two deparments. Either it came out of the math department, or it came from electrical engineering. It doesn't fit well with either.

The fundamentals of computer science lies in mathematics. At the turn of the century, mathematicians were running into paradoxes. There's the famous barber paradox by Betrand Russell. In a city, there are two kinds of barbers: those who cut their own hair, and those who don't. A barber declares that he shall cut exactly the barbers that don't but their own hair.

Then, he wonders, should he cut his own hair or not? After all, he is a barber. If he doesn't cut his own hair, then he would miss one barber who doesn't cut his own hair, namely, himself. If he does cut his own hair, then he would be a barber that cuts his own hair, and would have cut someone he said whose hair he said he wasn't going to cut. That's the dilemma.

This lead to mathematicians trying to shore up the fundamentals of mathematics. Georg Cantor, among others, wanted to formalize mathematics so precisely, that all paradoxes would go away. Betrand Russell, himself, worked with Alfred North Whitehead to co-author Principia Mathematica, which spent over a hundred pages before proving that one plus one was two.

These formalists believed that one could automatically prove any theorem. These were the precursors to automated theorem proving, the idea that you could write a computer program that could tell you if a statement was true or false. Of course, in those days, there were no computers, but they imagined that you could follow a recipe, really, an algorithm, to crank through mathematical symbols, whose final result was a proof.

Kurt Godel, an Austrian logician, blew a hole in this theory. He proved the incompleteness theorem which basically said that given a suitably powerful set of axioms, you could construct statements like "This statement is true", and be unable to prove it.

Later on, Alan Turing came up with the idea of a Turing machine, a mathematical model for a computer, and came up with the Turing hypothesis: anything that can be computed can be computed on a Turing machine. It may not be fast, but it can be done. It's a statement that can't really be considered true or false. It effectively defines computation.

What he says is true of mathematical computations. Some have suggested that quantum computing might be able to compute what a Turing machine can not. However, this has yet to be shown. It leads to questions of whether a human brain can be described by a computer program or not.

Johnny Von Neumann came up with the idea of the modern computer. He basically said that we could write programs using 0's and 1's. Thus, numbers could not only represent data, but also programs. It's a plenty powerful idea. Before that, computers were considered specialized. You built the computer to do a specific kind of computation, like a calculator. Thus, the smarts were effectively built in hardware.

By the 60s, people began worrying about how to measure the speed of an algorithm. Once upon a time, algorithms were measured by using the equivalent of a stopwatch. You ran the algorithm, timed it, and reported it.

To the budding computer scientists of the time, this was considered an abomination. If you used the stopwatch to measure time of an algorithm, then running it on a faster computer would work out better. You might, for example, have taken advantage of assembly instructions, yet have written generally horrible code.

Robert Tarjan and John Hopcroft decided that this was not the right way to measure algorithmic speed. They came up with the idea of big O notation, which described how the algorithm would run if you doubled the size of the input, or tripled the size of the input.

For example, suppose you want to print out the elements of an array. The array has 10 elements. If you double the size to 20, you'd expect it to take twice as long to print.

Some algorithms quadruple in time when you double the size of input. Some do even worse than that. Some do remarkably better. If you had to ask someone to guess a number between 1 and 1000, where each guess met with a response of "higher" or "lower", then it would only take ten guesses to get the right number. If you double the range from 1 to 2000, it would take one more guess (11 in the worst case). Every time you double it, it only adds one more.

This is called binary search, and it's remarkably efficient. The idea makes looking things up in a dictionary with several hundred thousand words extremely quick. If the words weren't in alphabetical order, good luck! You'd never use the dictionary. OK, maybe you don't.

There's a whole study of algorithms in computer science, as people try to discover what's the best way to solve certain problems, and even that there may be limits to the best way to solve certain problems. For example, suppose you had to alphabetize a list of names using a program. Theory shows that you can't do any better than O(n lg n) if you're forced to do comparisons. There are even problems that take effectively forever, and those you can't even figure out if you had the most powerful computers for all of time. People try to figure out where problems fit in this range of ease of solution.

After this entire discussion, you might think computer science is all math. While the foundations of computer science does come from math, the real world use of computers encompasses far more than math.

For example, have you used Word? Who decided what menu options there would be? Who decided on automatic capitalization of the first letter of a sentence? Or to auto-correct some words? Who decided on templates?

The answers to these questions are not at all math-based, but based on what some programmers and designers thought people wanted in order to be productive using a word processor. There's no right or wrong answers, at least, in a math sense. Instead, the answers are based on what people want, and what people think people want. And there lies a problem.

Microsoft wants you to buy Word, each and every version, if possible. But in order to do that, they need to offer new things for each release. There's an economic incentive for a software company to keep adding features, even as you're pretty satisfied with the way things work in say Word 2001. Admittedly, Microsoft hasn't done anything with Word since 2003.

Point is, once you have a means to create programs and add features, then people add them. Over time, they might decide the solution they came up with is bad for reasons that weren't obvious right away. Over time, they decide to come up with alternate ways to solve the problem. And since companies compete, everyone puts out their own version out there.

To give you a sense of how bad this could get, think about a car. You know the steering wheel, the gear shift, the speedometer, the brakes, the gas pedal. Most cars vary little with respect to this. No one has strayed that far from the steering wheel. This means that, for the most part, a person can drive any car. The biggest issue is manual or automatic, but except for that, the controls are nearly the same. This hasn't changed in years.

Software is not this way. There's no consistency on what features to provide or how to provide them, other than the general menu layout that was borrowed from Apple Macs (you know, File, Edit, etc). This means you're having to learn software over and over again, and with hundreds or thousands of features, it can take a great deal of time to get any good.

I've noticed that people fall into two categories when it comes to technology. Those who love it and those who don't. Most people fall into the second. Learning technology means to have to figure something out. It's not like biking where, once you learn it, that's it (unless you're into extreme sports). Everyone adds tons of features, things you didn't think you had to know, then a year later, they change it up on you, and then a year later, they're out of business.

Some people, even those that work in technology (like me), don't like having to learn more and more. They like what they know. Others are always looking to learn new stuff, even if what they're really learning isn't substantive learning. It's learning more bells and whistles in many different forms and wondering why they need to learn a gizmo and how a gizmo is important to what they do. And then doing it again and again and again.

One day I hope that technology will be far less complex, far easier to learn. So it goes.

Word Up!

I've now been blogging since about June or so, which is three months, maybe a little more. One reason I wanted to blog was to compel myself to practice writing. As I've mentioned before, writing blogs is a horrible way to write. I don't edit myself particularly well, nor are my thoughts always coherent. It results in sentences that don't make sense all in search of a complex twist of phrase or to use a word like solipsism, which I don't use in day-to-day life.

I should be inspired by the simplicity of Asimov, who liked to tell his stories simply, because his goal was to tell the story, not to exercise his mastery of the English language. Many, like fellow science fiction writer, Orson Scott Card, respect him for this. It takes work to present words that are simple and easy to read.

I can't help that I enjoy written pyrotechnics more. My inspiration for writing comes from an unlikely source: movie reviews. You'd think a Leonard Maltin review wouldn't yield literary fruit, but then I'm not talking about Leonard Maltin. I read Mike D'Angelo, and Theo Panayides, and Scott Renshaw, and Bryant Frazer. Mike, in particular, is particularly adept at, in Reader's Digest terms, writing picturesque speech.

They say you should learn to walk before you learn to run. This advice surely applies to writing as much as it does to ambulatory acumen, but I've been running and stumbling, all the while trying to sharpen my prose, all the while lacking fundamentals I so desperately need.

I write mostly by listening to what I write, seeing how it sounds, relying on years of experience listening to words as my litmus test for what passes muster. Really, though, I just write.

I've thought about an experiment. Gus Van Sant did a shot by shot recreation of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. During this exercise, he could, if asked, point to all the differences between Hitchcock's version and his own. I'm sure he gained a deep appreciation for how Hitchcock did what he did, even if critics argue it was a vanity exercise.

My experiment is far simpler. I just rewrite the reviews that my favorite online critics have written. What will this accomplish? After all, I've read these reviews enough times. There's something different writing something versus simply reading it. Making Psycho surely yielded far more understanding of Hitchcock than just watching it time and again. Ebert has done a shot by shot study of Hitchcock films. He's come the closest of anyone to understanding Hitchcock by a study of his films except for someone like Van Sant.

I must admit, the idea of writing down reviews sounds very much like a schoolkid's punishment ("I will not copy down other people's reviews!"), and yet, it's the simplest thing I can think of that might produce results.

The more I write, the more I realize the kind of skill writers have. Not only do they have the ability to phrase things better than I do, they have more inherent knowledge about what they're talking about. Even a entertainer/writer like Tony Kornheiser must keep up on all the latest Hollywood/music types so he's aware of who's who, and refer to them in his columns (which lately have shrunk to columnettes).

Wilbon said there's no deep secret to writing. You must write, write, write. I'd love to have an editor who knows what works and what doesn't so that I don't write blindly, trying to figure things as I go, never quite knowing if I'm headed to prose nirvana.

A Sufjan Came

Once upon a time, there was a player named Monica Seles. This was back before she had been stabbed by an out of work Graf fanatic named Gunter Parcher. One day, her whereabouts were unknown, and this lead to speculation of why Monica was being so evasive. It was rumored that she was pregnant. Instead, she was enjoying her schoolgirl antics, having fun with the media, basking in the attention they were giving her. It was an innocent time.

If celebrities hide behind a shroud of mystery and secrecy, we can try to imprint any image of who they are that we want. Many of these speculations will be flat wrong, and yet, it sates our need to know what celebrities are really like.

Sufjan Stevens, with his release of Come on and Bring The Illinoise, has become the critical darling. Many consider his album, the album of the year, once you get past the kinds of bands and groups that generates millions of sales, and get to those who actually care about the kind of music that's being written. True, much of this crowd tends to be white, college kids, who prefer their under-the-radar music.

Sufjan's music is a kind of alt-folk music that's gaining in popularity. Bands like Iron and Wine have raised awareness of folk music as something hip college students can listen to. Yet, many of Sufjan's songs, especially off the album Seven Swans, but even from his 50-state albums, make references to God and Christ. Normally, such religious allusions would ward off indie listeners like Mapplethorpe wards off conservatives.

When interviewed, Sufjan mostly ducks the issue, and that's where the speculation begins. In a recent article in the Washington Times, there are evangelicals who think that maybe his music may become a crossover with non-evangelicals, and believe, because he grew up in the tradition, that he must be an evangelical, and, yet, almost by the definition of being evangelical, he should try to convince others to see the Christian way.

It's also possible that his views on religion are more complicated. I know Catholics who find the conservative stance by the Catholic church to strict for them, and don't really adhere to Vatican doctrine, even as the church is still influential in their lives. Their leadership is more conservative than they are.

So it may be with Sufjan. He may believe that religion is important to him, but that he might not see eye-to-eye with those who believe that it is the obligation of Christians to spread the good word. Or, he may indeed believe that it's important to spread the word, but that he's not going to do it, because he wants to have a crossover audience, who might otherwise run away. Here's a man who wants to make music (well, he wants to write, but he's doing far better as a musician) and already has a large audience.

Perhaps Sufjan is an egotistical man. After all, he wants to write an album for each state. What crazy person would do such a thing? And, his songs often layer a dozen different instruments, most of which he plays when he records. His songs have elaborate titles that belie a literary sense, and yet he's just as likely to poke fun at the high-browed titles (such as his existential crisis in a maze somewhere in Illinois).

If you listen to him in recorded concerts, he sounds a little out of it. He doesn't talk about religion. He talks about the girlfriend he had when he was 14 years old and she was 18. Was young Sufjan innocent in this relationship, or did he satisfy an early urge towards manhood? These are the kinds of questions that you rarely hear answers to since the question itself is rude. Yo, Sufjan, when'd you first get laid?

He'd probably hem and haw at that one too, perhaps, show a sly smile, and want to talk about Carl Sandberg, or life in New York, or the crazy times he had in Chicago, even as he won't quite elaborate on that. What happened in your early life, Sufjan? What kind of emotional ups and downs were you going through. Are you a budding intellectual trapped in the backwater of northern Michigan? Is that why you fled to New York? How do you come to grips with where you were and where you're going?

Lately, Stevens has performed with a large ensemble, where he dresses up in a male cheerleader outfit. Is it a genuine sense of nostalgia for life in small town Illinois, where parents watch their kids in beat up high school football stands, where the shy kid wants to make out with the cheerleader, where the jocks taunt the freaks and the geeks. Is this the kind of America he relishes, or is his thinking more subversive. Does he wish to poke fun at the mentality of midwest America, where people care too much about sports, and too little about intellectual pursuits. That good honest men and women toil in poverty because they don't give a frick about math, science, English, history---all the stuff you go to school to learn, but don't because dammit, school is hard.

Is it some kind of fantasy to put himself into situations he was never part of, except at a distance, playing his oboe, mastering awful tunes of the 80s, hanging out with horny band types who got to spend many hours with the opposite sex? What is it about music and blowing and fingering that makes young teens and preteens so horny (pun almost intended)?

This is the vast realm of imagination, my Mirrormask, if you will, where I imprint all sorts of motivations and history on a man I barely even know, except through his songs, and even then, what do I know? I hardly pay attention to the lyrics that he slaved over, or maybe it was something simple--just because he liked the repetition of the words "Palisades, Palisades". I am the inquitistive press, and Sufjan my elusive Monica, and I wonder if he's pregnant and where he's hiding.

And Sufjan is laughing at the attention, on the one hand relishing his fade from obscurity, and on the other, amused at those who would seek to understand his soul. "I feed you crumbs, and from it, you make a cake? This is not me! This is not me!"
A man more clever and more simple than one would expect. Vanity and humility. Purity and sin.

Who is Sufjan Stevens? Why is he so vexing?

Undefeated, Barely

The Redskins are 3-0, as the radio announcers for the Redskins remind us, for the first time since 1991, the last year the Redskins won the Superbowl. Columnists like Mike Wilbon have said Mark Brunell is a new man, playing much better now, than a year ago, when, it was suspected, he had an injury that left him unable to throw deep passes.

Yet, the Redskins, after going up 17-3, slowly let the Seahawks back in. It was 17-10, then 17-all. The Redskins had the ball with a little over a minute to play, and right away, a pass meant for Clinton Portis grazed his fingertips, and was intercepted. The Seahawks marched to within 47 yards of the field goal, and asked Josh Brown to win the game for them. He had already nailed a 52 yarder earlier, though he had missed a 47 yarder as well. Clearly, the distance wasn't a problem.

The kick went up and had the length and...hit the left upright and bounced back. No good. A few inches to the right, and the positive accomplishments of the Redskins, nearly flawless in third down attempts at 13-18, many of them 3rd and 7 or longer. The Redskins controlled the clock. Brunell looked good. Yet, they still nearly lost it in regulation. Had they done so, none of the achievements would have been lauded. They would have said they let it slip away.

That's the funny thing about wins and losses. Essentially, this game was a toss-up. Yet like elections, the team will use it as a positive, try to use it to finally play consistently well from start to end. The defense, until the last quarter, had been effective keeping the powerful Seahawks offense at bay. With Hasselbeck and Shaun Alexander, the Seahawks can put up points in a hurry. Despite the defense having been highly ranked over five years, the media doesn't give the Redskins defense their due.

To be fair, Brunell made some impressive throws in overtime to give Nick Novak, former Maryland kicker, a chance to win in overtime. He had muffed an earlier field goal attempt which was blocked by the Seahawks, but was able to redeem himself at the end, making a 39 yarder.

So the Redskins are 3-0, and that's worth something. Yet, it's the most tenuous 3-0 ever. The first game, against hapless Chicago, playing with rookie Kyle Orton, because Rex Grossman got hurt again, mustered a 9-7 win off three field goals. The second game had the Redskins down 13-0 to hated Dallas at Dallas with five minutes left in the fourth quarter, before two deep passes to Santana Moss dug them out of a hole to a 14-13 win, and the defense came in to close, to prevent a field goal. This week, Washington was the one that withered a lead, and almost let the Seahawks come up with its own last minute heroics.

If the Redskins are to make a serious run, they need to score at least 20 points a game, and be able to keep a lead. The defense is still good enough to prevent most teams from going on a track meet, and making the Redskins play catch up. That's good, because the offense is still not potent enough to score as prodigiously as the now potent Giants or Indianapolis, which finally had Peyton and Harrison and Edgerrin clicking on offense, after relying on the defense (the Indy defense!) to win the first three games. At this point, Eli has been the better fantasy QB, tossing up more yards and touchdowns than brother Peyton. People expected Eli to be good, but not this quickly, not this year.

Forgive me if I don't think it's real yet. The Redskins are looking like Carolina of two years ago, that was able to squeeze out one close win after the next, but that kind of winning is prone to injuries. It's amazing the defense operates so well given that Lavar barely played the game. Makes you wonder what's going on with Gregg Williams. But as long as the defense keeps stymieing offenses, who's to argue?

Mirror, Mirror

The dilemma, in my mind, of Mirrormask is deciding whether to embrace the fantastical world, telling the story as a fairy-tale, or to take the their approach, which is treat it as a dreamworld where the dreamer, in this case, artsy Helena, whose rebelling against her circus parents, is aware she's in a dream, and therefore unfazed by the imagery presented.

And what imagery indeed! Part Burton, part Gilliam, the world of Mirrormask features Chesire cats, flying books, balloon like giants, chimpanzee-like birds, robotic women singing "Just Like You", fishes swimming across the sky. Were films judged solely on its looks, Mirrormask would win hands down. Underneath the pretty looks is that the dreamworld represents two halves of herself, a light and dark side, and also, representations of her mother, as light and dark as well. Her journey is part Alice in Wonderland, and part, Ebenezer Scrooge, especially in the way she learns to judge her own actions ("don't go with him--he's awful!).

The Freudian worldview gives the visions some substance, and yet, it's easy to be distracted by the shimmering glow of Helena's dreams. Her travel companion, Valentine, seems oddly out of place. At once, part of the world, where all human-like inhabitants wear masks, and yet, cynical, joking, and not at all typical of this fantastical place.

The contrast between dreamworld and real world isn't particularly large, given the fantastical circus run by Helena's parents, where she serves as juggler. The real world amounts to the circus itself, and the large, dilapidated Guggenheim squarish spiral that is the apartment complex where Helena family lives. From an American perspective, setting the film in England makes Helena's real world seem as unreal, or at least foreign, as the one she eventually visits. It takes a while to fully engage in her wonderland, because Helena herself seems not terribly impressed by her imagination. Yet, the visuals eventually permeate the brain, even if the story doesn't always.

It's too bad that such visual fancy amounts to a simple fairy-tale lesson, which is to remember what mum told you, and to look hard at for what you're looking for. Still, if all lessons look this fabulous, then I'll eat my greens and brush my teeth.

Serenity Now!

Mom and Dad, if your rebellious young daughter goes astray, maybe she'll have a dream so fantastical, so fairy-tale-like, that she will learn her lesson, and come to understand that Mum and Dad have their kid's best interests in mind.

Mirrormask brings a vision that recalls such fantasy luminaries as Terry Gilliam and Tim Burton. Created by graphic novelist, Neil Gaiman, and directed and written by, Dave McKean, this is a fantasy world that is part Alice in Wonderland, part Wizard of Oz. At its core is fairly simple story. Helena is a rebellious teenage girl whose parents run a circus that resembles some odd looking Cirque de Soleil. She doesn't want to perform as a juggler, and fights with her mom, wishing her dead.

When mom does fall over, and is sent to the hospital, daughter Helena feels that it's her fault. Dad has to put the circus on hold while Mom is in hospital and the small circus threatens to fall apart without his support. Helena feels even more guilty. Mom is scheduled to go to surgery...

This is when Mirrormask enters its fantastical world. Helena, who wants a life away from the circus, had sketched out drawings. She has hundreds on her wall, as she imagines worlds elsewhere. Her dreams take her to this world.

Although the visions of the new world, where fishes swim across the sky, where cats have human faces and rainbow rings, where bird like creatures with muscles and bills that keep falling off, and everything shimmers and glows in this visionary dreamlike world of the mind, even the real world has some fantastical images. The apartment complex that the family lives in looks like some Guggenheim spiral turned squarish, yet, dilapidated over years of neglect. The circus itself also looks strangely peculiar. This isn't your dad's circus. Well, maybe it is.

Unlike Burton, whose characters often embrace the strangeness of this world, Helena is not so wowed by her wonderland. This makes the visual spectacle something less than fantastic. Her companion, Valentine, played by Jason Barry, wears a mask and has a beard that looks like it's made from Play-doh. He jokes around with her, and also doesn't quite seem like part of the fantasy mindset. He's of the world visually, but a jokester and pragmatist, and more like the world Helena comes from.

As Helena's journey progresses, she, like Scrooge, looks into windows that show pictures of her life, and she learns some of the lessons of her life. She imagines that all the wrongdoings are due to her alter ego, the dark princess. She must save the white queen (who is her mother) from the dark queen (also her mother). The story of the dark and white queen is foreshadowed initially when Helena has one white sock with a picture of the white queen, and one black sock, with a picture of the dark queen on her feet, as she does sock puppet theater. This resembles, oddly enough, the opening of Me, You, and Everyone We Know.

If anything, the acting is a little weak. The mother is a bit too witchlike. Valentine, the travelling companion, seems like Shaggy from Scooby Doo. Yet, the kinds of images burn in the retinas. It's a dreamlike world, rather than a fairytale world, where emotions are muted, and the adventure is in the adventure, walking around, taking in the sights, seeing the weirdness around. Even if the emotional core revolves around a simple story, the visuals are amazing.

To catch Mirrormask, I was again rushing to get their on time. Maryland was hosting Virginia for a noon game, which meant traffice was backed up on route 1. I decided to head to Greenbelt, instead of catching the Metro at College Park, which is one exit closer.

Since the Greenbelt exit is at the end of the Green Line, the train often sits there for a few minutes before starting up. I could see it up there, and had no idea how long it would take to get there. I began to jog realizing that the train could leave anytime, and I'd have to wait ten minutes. But luckily enough, just as I arrived at the top of the escalator, the train was still there, and I got on, and it started to roll. Not a moment too late!

I usually get out of Gallery Place at 7th and F, since the Landmark Theater is on E street. That turns out not to be the best idea, since it's on 11th and E, which is 5 blocks away. The other exit is 9th and G, and even though that sounds further, it's only four blocks. To be fair, I might cross a block or so underground in the Metro station, so that may make little difference in the end. However, I convince myself that it's four blocks, and not three.

The previous evening, I had decided to eat with some coworkers. Originally, we were going to O'Learys, an Irish pub-like place nearby. It was crowded, so we headed to Chevy's nearby. Less crowded. I had a super size magarita called the Prickly Pear, some magenta colored drink, and a smothered burrito. This was mostly listening to a coworker rant about another coworker. And then later on, we came back to work, and it went on again. He's a bright guy, and knows a lot of stuff, but too bad that he lets this other guy bother him so much.

Anyway, since I ate with coworkers, I missed leaving and heading to watch Serenity last night, so I decided I'd go this afternoon. The timing was going to be close. Mirrormask started at noon. With ten minutes of previews, and possibly running at least an hour and a half, the film would end at 1:40. Serenity was showing at the Regal Cinema in Gallery Place. Fortunately, Gallery Place is also where Landmark is located.

Once the film ended, I jogged several blocks to get from 11th to 7th. I knew the theater was somewhere on 7th, but not exactly where. Fortunately, they had a sign that was fairly high up. They're located just adjacent to the MCI center. As I got closer, I realized I had been there before. When we went to Best of Youth, Dave and I stopped there, because Regal looks pretty nice, in a gaudy sort of way, from the outside and inside. He called Grecia from there, and we eventually met up with her.

By the time I got my tickets, it was already 2 PM, some fifteen minutes after the scheduled start time. Fortunately, film previews. I just caught the last preview before the film started.

A few Christmases back I had bought my brother all the episodes of Firefly. That would seem like a lot, but it's only 14 episodes. The show had barely gotten off the ground, before it got cancelled. Joss Whedon created the series, and was also creator of the popular cult-hit, Buffy, the Vampire Slayer and Angel. Due, I'm sure, to the Buffy fanbase, sales of Firefly were brisk. Brisk enough to create a movie version of the show.

There's a tradeoff when making a film based on a television series. On the one hand, fans of the series know a lot, and so they don't mind less exposition, and would prefer that the storyline take off from where they knew, giving credit to them as fans. On the other, it's an opportunity to introduce these characters to a broader audience, and so reintroducing characters helps those unfamiliar with the show get background.

The Star Trek films got away without much explanation of the characters. They figured so many people had already seen the series that there was no need to explain Spock, Kirk, and McCoy. Star Trek, in many ways, is the model for large, ensemble casts making the transition from television to movies, and highlights the challenges. In a TV series, a large crew is generally not a problem. With twenty or more episodes, you can devote at least one episode a season to all the characters.

In Star Trek: The Next Generation, the main characters eventually became Picard, Data, and Worf, in roughly that order, even though originally, Riker was supposed to be a more major character. Jonathan Frakes' acting perhaps contributed to less airtime. However, characters like Crusher (mother and son), Troi, Geordi, and O'Brien all had episodes devoted to their characters. In films, these characters are relegated to minor roles, to keep attention focused on the main three, figuring that it would be far too difficult to track more than three characters (however, see any Sayles movie and even a single Lord of the Rings).

Ironically, Firefly's brief television tenure makes it easier to move to a film. Whedon didn't have time to flesh out the details of all the characters, which, if you saw the series, he had intended to do. When writing a show, one has the luxury of revealing details slowly over time, and they simply ran out of time.

Star Trek also has an interesting historical tie-in for Firefly. Star Trek was originally pitched to television as Wagon Train in the stars. In the sixties, television westerns were still quite popular. Shows like Gunsmoke, originally a radio show, then a television show, and Bonanza were popular. Even Wild, Wild West which was a cross of Westerns and James Bond showed the enduring power of Westerns. Since the 70s, however, Westerns have mostly disappeared, occasionally appearing as Jesse James or Unforgiven.

Firefly imagines the future as a split between the Alliance, who seek to create a civilized group of worlds, and the outlaws, who want to live life on the wild frontier. The show invoked elements of Westerns, partly through its dialogue, using phrases that are just off enough to make it sound like the Old West. Chinese dialogue is interspersed, perhaps owing to Blade Runner, where a mishmash of English, Spanish, and Japanese has become vernacular in future Los Angeles (and Atari makes a comeback as a company).

Even though Star Wars introduced the notion of spaceships that weren't nice and clean (re: Millenium Falcon), it never reminded you of SF versions of excavators.

The crew of Serenity consists of Mal, former war hero, turned petty thief. He leads a band of outlaws, including the husband-wife pair of Wash and Zoe, the Firefly version of Helen and Tom Willis from the Jeffersons (Wash even looks a ltitle like Tom), Kaylee, the starry eyed engineered who's got a thing for Simon, the doctor. Simon has come on board to protect his sister, River, who is 90 lb trained killer. She is a psychic suffering from the trauma of brainwashing, and having escaped from reprogramming with the aid of her brother. Finally, there's Jayne, played by Adam Baldwin, who alas, is not one of the plethora of Baldwin brothers, who plays the tough guy, often trying to challenge Mal, and Inara, who essentially plays a 25th century hooker, but in the future, hookers are treated with great respect.

Whew! And that's not even the start of the film.

Like any of the recent Star Wars films, Serenity spends a great deal of time in moving the narrative forward. It's amazing Whedon can throw in character development while introducing so many characters. I had forgotten about the odd sort of dialogue from the television series, which is only part of the delight. Whedon, an expert writer, knows how to manipulate audiences, by working against expectations, and using his deadpan humor throughout. He walks a fine line between sentimentality and poking fun at sentimental scenes.

If there's emotional impact, it's due the film's willingness to kill off major characters. This is one problem that Star Trek: The Next Generation suffered from. They would consistently put the crew in danger, but no one would die. Thus, no tension. If Serenity wanted to build up emotional impact, it would have to be willing to kill off characters, and the times it does really pays off emotionally.

Whedon injects humor throughout. When they decide to meet Mr. Universe, you half-believe that they have hired Arnold Schwartzenegger for the role, gubenatorial duties be damned. Yet, it turns out to be this nebbish Jewish fella who's married a sex android, and owns the largest antenna beacon in the universe. How he managed to get control of this, one may never know. Even the sex android, played as a joke on first visit, becomes important later on.

Whedon knows his fan base doesn't want to see the same storyline as the show. They want to learn somthing new. And so they do. There's more exposition on the backstory of how the universe they live in came to be, and how River became the way she was. To be fair, Whedon resorts to the unstoppable aliens (called the Reevers), which add a zombie like element to the mix. Still, such aliens were in Star Trek: Deep Space 9 (the Jem Hedar), Star Trek: The Next Generation (the Borg), and even Lord of the Rings (the Uruk-hai), and of couse, the aliens from Alien and its three sequels. Fortunately, they're not a big part of the movie, even if they create an Aliens like confrontation (Whedon himself wrote part of the screenplay for the fourth Alien movie).

It's often said that a good film is as good as its bad guy. In this case, it's a guy simply known as The Operative. He intends to capture River Tam, the human killing machine, who looks a perpetually worried Christina Ricci playing Wednesday Addams. He's an assasin, yet, he's calm, assured. It's often risky making your bad guy black, unless the rest of the cast is too, which is perhaps why he's made to act as white as possible. Again, Whedon plays on expectations, making you simply want the Operative killed in the most inhumane way possible, and yet, dealing with him in an unexpected manner.

The odd vernacular makes the acting more palatable. None of the acting is all that superlative, even if that's par for the course in science fiction (Star Wars is hardly filled with great acting, but at least, many of the characters are likeable). Whedon understands the emotional impact of hand-to-hand combat, even if, like Westerns, the fights seem to go longer than the human body could hold out. It made me realize that Lucas managed to avoid any form of fighting in his films. It was either blasters or lightsabers in his universe. Did anyone ever punch anyone in any of the films? It didn't happen. Yet, it happens several times in Serenity.

Whedon has an incredible ability to introduce phrases, events, such that they show up later on, and you remember it. This talent rewards fans for paying attention. Perhaps with the success of Serenity, he'll go on to make other sequels, but he's running out of characters to kill off, and so he needs to find other ways to play up the drama.

Once the film ended I thought about eating sushi, since there are several restaurants in the Regal Cinema location. However, it looked closed. I think I just entered the restaurant from the back, and really had to enter it from the outside. Instead, I ate at Thai Chili eating wide noodles with chicken in basil. I also had a Fuzzy Fuzzy, which is vodka, Peach Schnapps, and orange juice. As I took the Metro back, I again got lucky, and managed to get on the train with only a minute of waiting time.

I was honestly thinking that it was my lucky day. Yet, there I was, at West Hyattsville, when they, surprise, told everyone to get off the train. We had to stand their ten minutes before the next train came by. What made no sense was that the train that left only had three stops more. Would it have hurt them to take us the next three stops before taking it out of service? Odd.

So I stood on the train near some guy wearing a lot of orange. An orange American Eagle cap, and carrying a large orange Adidas gym bag. If I didn't know any better, I'd think he was a Tennessee Volunteer fan.

Finally, got back to the house where Dan had dropped by to meet up with Jaime, around 5:30. He recounted his trip to Vienna, Prague, and Budapest, apparently, each location better than the last, and shortly thereafter, I slept for several hours, until about midnight. And here I am finally closing up a long day. I had intended to see Thumbsucker, but maybe it was good that I didn't. Two movies in a day--two good movies--seems good enough.