Showgirls: A Non-Perverted Re-Examination

Showgirls was a bomb in theatrical release. When it was
released on home video it made a $100 million profit. I
suppose the audience was more, um, "comfortable"
watching it the the privacy of their own homes.

It may be some form of social-distancing madness setting in, but when Showgirls (1995) appeared on cable last night in lurid HD I watched it all the way through. I realized it was only the second time I have watched this film (excepting the bits and pieces I would run across while channel-surfing). Showgirls was first released when I was in Los Angeles, if I recall at a decent venue, like the Chinese Theater: I was unable to persuade anybody to go see it with me.

Anyway, as this loud, garish anti-bildungsroman played out, I realized I may have a few things to say about it. I’m not actually recommending you to see Showgirls (I did that for you) but if you run across it and decide to take the challenge, I’m offering tools for a fresh re-evaluation.

This re-evaluation starts with an overview of Paul Verhoeven, a very successful director in the 1980s and 1990s, possessed of a very unusual auteur vision. The concepts and values he explores are so strange and unique they energize his films to this day. His major themes:

• 

Commodification - Paul Verhoeven’s films often explore the idea that human relationships are purely transactional, and human life can be converted into various forms of marketable property. RoboCop (1987) is about a person who is transformed into the property of Omni Consumer Products. Total Recall (1990) is about a company that creates pre-packaged memories— the core of human experience— and offer them up for a price, with optional add-ons.



• Corruption - Good government and sound corporate management are not things that exist in Verhoeven films. His films are populated with cutthroat and immoral executives, weak mayors, sociopathic governors and degenerate police detectives. America is shown as a country in deep moral decline. Democratic norms have been replaced by corporate rule and transactional graft.

The only time he shows a functioning governmental organization is in Starship Troopers (1997), which depicts the Mobile Infantry as a force capable of sound leadership, correcting it’s mistakes and achieving victory— however, this depiction is clearly marked as completely unreliable.

• Sexual Fear - I don’t know what happened to Paul Verhoeven when he was a kid (maybe it was some trauma from his childhood in occupied Holland living near a German V-2 rocket base) but something messed him up a little. Sexuality—especially female sexuality— is often depicted as destructive and menacing (Basic Instinct, Fourth Man) or, in the case of Showgirls, omnipotent. Attraction is always balanced with fear and, as mentioned above, weighed as a transaction.

On to Showgirls, which channels every aspect of Verhoeven’s auteur vision in an open, lurid, unsubtle way.

Nomi as we first meet her.

• A Brief Synopsis:  Nomi Malone (Elizabeth Berkeley), a beautiful young woman with a mysterious past, hitchhikes into Las Vegas. She manages to get a roommate and a job at Cheetahs, a nude club, where she gets the attention of a casino entertainment manager (Kyle MacLachlan) and the star of the casino’s topless show (Gina Gershon). They pull strings to get her a place in the show’s chorus, which begins a story of intense backstage rivalry as Nomi begins her ascent to star status.

And yes, Showgirls is NC-17 and all about titillation, filled end-to-end with nudity and sex acts. But take my word for it: after about 15 minutes or so, the visual spectacle becomes numbing. Women show up nude because that’s their job, nothing more.

Verhoeven protagonists are often new-born characters— ones that really didn’t exist before the start of the film. Nomi Malone enters the film from places unknown, with an unknown past, under an assumed name (“No Me, Alone”), no money, possessions stolen. RoboCop was a synthetic creation that in Act I only existed as an OCP boardroom proposal. Douglas Quade, the nice guy played by Arnold Schwarzenegger in Total Recall, may be an artificial personality implant. Verhoeven is not afraid to question the bedrock reality of his protagonists— and it’s always a neat way to kick off a movie.

• Las Vegas World - Showgirls is mostly about Las Vegas and what a deeply insane place it is. Founded as a city where any and all vices are accommodated, it is in Verhoeven’s vision the  capital of America, the final embodiment of the values of a corrupted, amoral country.

The system of Las Vegas— money is all-important, ends always justify means— is contrasted against, of all things, culture. Dance, theater, and music are all represented in Showgirls in one form or another— all crushed flat under the weight of the Vegas version of show business. Dance is stripping. Theater is a hugely overproduced topless show. Music is represented by a pop star who is nothing less than a sadistic rapist.

And Nomi fits right in: she is the trash princess of a trash city. She has no values outside of purely transactional ones. The value-free system that rules Vegas rewards her, over and over. Nomi Malone is a rags-to-riches success story, a Horatio Alger story with G-strings.

• Nomi the Verhoeven Protagonist - Nomi Malone is extremely unlikeable. She shares this unlikely protagonist quality with Michael Douglas in Basic Instinct (1992) and Kevin Bacon in Hollow Man (2000).

Nomi is selfish, vain, deeply ignorant (“I love Ver-sayse”) and has a hair-trigger temper. About half the one-on-one scenes Nomi has in the film end with an angry physical outburst. Part of the fun of Showgirls is how it reproduces the queasy feeling of being around someone with mental issues: you don’t know moment to moment what will trigger them, which keeps you on your toes.

Reviewer Mick LaSalle described Showgirls as a film that,
like most of the characters, puts on lipstick well past
the natural borders of the lips.

• The Narrative Synthesis. Here’s the part that makes this a truly weird, very telling Verhoeven film: Every other character loves Nomi Malone. Her roommate adores her, James the dancer is in love with her, and she manages to charm the entire staff of the Stardust Hotel and Casino. The star of the topless casino review she is in and the casino’s entertainment director compete for her affections.

This is the insane, coked-up, glitter-coated heart of Showgirls: one messy scene after another, all mismatched emotions and screaming and throwing things and storming out of rooms. The other characters watch her go, eyes wide in love and lust, eternally forgiving.

This isn’t some example of bad writing—though overall, it's not very good. Joe Eszterhas got $2 million for the script, and it ended his superstar career. It is not poor direction either. Paul Verhoeven is… hanging a lantern on it. For all his quirks he is a very capable director, and he would not have crafted such jarring interactions without a purpose. He WANTS you to notice how weird and off-putting it is to have every character in Showgirls sucking up to a horrible, vindictive person like Nomi Malone, who would just as soon spit in your face than thank you for a lovely dinner.* Why?



Why do people put up with Nomi’s shit? Because Nomi is America. She is the embodiment of Late Capitalist American values. Everyone else is simply trying to appeal to her to get ahead, much as Americans have to buy into the system, deal with corrupt corporations and no unions and no health coverage, to get ahead. We are all prepared to be screamed at, spat on, be thrown down the stairs.

Nomi succeeds because in Las Vegas sexuality is a commodity. She proves to everyone she is the most skilled at leveraging her sexuality to ascend the ladder of success. Everyone is constantly trying to figure out how to attach themselves to her success so they can succeed as well. It may look like love or lust but it's pure, heartless transaction.

Nail polish is another major thematic detail; it serves
as a metaphorical battleground between Nomi and
Cristal (Gina Gershon). Weird but effective.

One of the most telling details I noticed in this screening is one that only a director could add: Nomi’s eating habits. Burgers and fries, burgers and fries, burgers and fries. When confronted with a menu at a respectable restaurant (respectable for Vegas: it’s still laminated) she confesses “I don’t know what all this is,” and admits to, in the past, have been content eating dog food. This is a huge character tell. Nomi is Verhoeven’s perfect American: uncultured, selfish, amoral and ignorant— but also self-possessed, confident, and recklessly aggressive.

That’s the realization. Showgirls wasn’t just 131 minutes of tits and screaming in a hideous neon Las Vegas hell-scape: There’s a message in the middle of it, a sharp indictment, and in recent years it has only become more apparent it was a prescient message. In the 25 years since the premiere of Showgirls all the emotionally unstable trash people, the ones that swim in the muck of vice as if it was the River Jordan, moved out of the trash capitals and into our real one.

*There was as similar complaint voiced about the dramaturgy of Starship Troopers, that it was filled with incompetent, flat acting and childish relationship dynamics. It was called “Archie, Betty and Veronica in Outer Space.” Again, this style was chosen very much on purpose. We are supposed to notice how silly and clichéd the narrative elements were, because it’s a propaganda film from the future. The movie we’re seeing is not a movie: it’s a government-engineered work of fiction, designed to increase enlistments and validate a fascist military government. None of it was supposed to be “real.”

2019 Best Picture Nominees: Place Your Bets

For the first time in a long time, I actually saw all nine of the Best Picture nominees this year. Here’s what I found notable about them, and a stab at prognostication

FORD V FERRARI – It’s been called a “Dad Movie” and it is: A Boomer story about the one thing Boomers really care about: cars. In this film you can see the humble origins of all the obnoxious high-performance supercars currently being driven around by midlife-crisis millionaires and decadent oil-money royal nephews: Ferrari, Shelby, McLaren, etc. Feels like a fill-in nominee, but Christian Bale has a slim chance to score a win.

THE IRISHMAN – A Netflix offering from Martin Scorsese. I’d argue that, like JOKER, it's an imitation of a Scorsese core cinematic offering, despite the fact he directed it. Really more of a Robert De Niro film: he was instrumental in packaging the deal and bugging Joe Pesci 20+ times until he came out of retirement to participate. It’s overly long, which has a lot to do with the production oversight methods of Netflix (more below) then actually having three hours of story to tell. Look at a few acting nods, but not a Best.

JOJO RABBIT – This is the one film that I consistently forget is in the running. Not that it’s forgettable: it’s such a singular, unique film that it doesn’t fit into the mental framework of Oscar movies. It’s a comedy / drama about 10-year-old Hitler Youth member during the last months of World War II. His imaginary friend is Adolph Hitler, and his core beliefs are challenged when he discovers a Jewish girl hiding in the attic of his house. So it’s a strange setting for a comedy, but a very worthy film-- one that I’m afraid will get passed over because stories like this make some people queasy.

JOKER – Perhaps the first superhero movie (or rather a supervillain movie) from either major imprint to get a Best Picture nod. It may well take the big prize: JOKER has a polished look with solid art direction. It’s also a nihilistic story that is centered on explaining away the creation of a murderer as a product of hard times. It does not quite justify him, though, which is where Joaquin Phoenix’s remarkable performance comes in, pushing against the amoral narrative. It may well take the big prize.

LITTLE WOMEN – This is a fine film, filled with great performances and meticulous art direction (it will get Best Costume because, as we all know by now, Best Costume always goes to the movie where actors wear clothes that look like costumes). The story was given the Tarantino script-blender treatment, transformed from a time-linear narrative to a flashback / flash forward style that breathes a considerable amount of surprise and energy into the familiar tale. Great Gerwig did not get a Best Director nod, which usually means it won’t take the big prize.

ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD – QT really mended some fences with me with this film, which luxuriated in the sunny universe of Hollywood in 1969. It will appeal to Academy voters ‘cos it is a very flattering look at their own industry, giving it the standard glossy take as a creative, glamorous place where dreams come true. However the gory, historically inaccurate, needless ending will sink this film.

MARRIAGE STORY – Another Netflix joint. The performances by Scarlett Johansen and Adam Driver are electric, riveting and devastating. I get the feeling one or both will be rewarded. The film itself was… fairly good? It felt like a TV movie, and it suffered from the same problem most Netflix features have: it’s sloppy, underbaked, feeling a lot more like a first edit than a final cut. This has a lot to do with how these films are financed: Netflix is not trying to sell movie tickets. These films are made to generate buzz for a streaming service, which is trying to increase subscriptions. Absent the need to compete one-on-one, Netflix does not insist on one more script polish, one more effects pass, one more edit. Look at the downstream offerings on Netflix and you can really see this oversight philosophy in action.

PARASITE – This is, hands down, the best film of 2019. Enormous creative energy in the direction, photography and design, the acting is superb, and the story is both timely and utterly unique. It tells the story of a poor family which figures out a way of gaining the employment of a rich family through deception and clever thinking. Unfortunately it a Korean film in Korean: there are a certain percentage of film viewers who simply do not like reading subtitles. I HOPE it gets best picture, so I’ll just make it my personal pick.

1917 – a visually and technically superior gimmick film that is staged as one long continuous take. It tells the story of two young soldiers on a perilous mission to deliver a message behind enemy lines. The problem with gimmick movies is the gimmick overwhelms everything else, like story or acting performances. So even though it is a visual spectacle, 1917 is an emotionally static affair. I spent most of my time looking for the parts where they hid the cuts— when a tree is in the foreground or when the scene enters darkness. This film already took some significant pre-Oscar industry awards, and Hollywood may well reward it: they do love their bright, shiny objects.

In a few weeks, we’ll see how I did!

JOKER: Nihilism With a Purpose

How fascinating was Todd Phillips' Joker? I didn’t even realize until it was over that the movie was in 1.85:1, traditional spherical widescreen. We’re in an era where almost every theatrical film, tiny indie or major studio release, is in 2.39 ‘scope. It was presented in the period-correct aspect ratio, and the period-correct film washed over me so thoroughly I didn’t even see the frame— and I ALWAYS see the frame.

Controversy swirls around Joker like the cloud of delusions that define Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), the movie’s antihero. we’ll get to that later, but first an appreciation of the film’s star. Phoenix was given a lot to work with here and he delivers. In truth, he over-delivers: his character is mentally ill and unknowable and his performance never deviates from this condition. This lends his story and the larger story of Joker a disjointed, alienated feel.

Arthur is a clown-for-hire who aspires to be a stand-up comedian, except his illness leaves him basically without a sense of humor. Inappropriate laughter is his illness’s major symptom: we see him in a comedy club, trying very hard to understand how comedy works, writing notes and laughing at the set-ups, not the punchlines. And his laugh is not a chilling villain’s cackle: it’s a strangled, involuntary reflex he cannot control.

Joker is set in a realistic version of a fictional past: Gotham, the East Coast city from the Batman franchise, in the late 1970s or early 1980s. It has the look and feel of the gritty “New Hollywood” films shot in New York or Philadelphia at the time: trash in the streets, tagged up subway cars, theaters downtown devoted to pornography, and there is not a computer or cellphone in sight. You will think Todd Phillips is emulating Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976) to an extreme degree, and you‘d be right. But I’ll argue it’s worth it: the art direction, locations, sets and costumes are worth the price of admission by themselves. The attention to detail is remarkable and thorough. Joker only betrays its 21st-Century origins in the beauty of the images (Shot on an Arri Alexa 65) and the smoothness of camera movement (they have all sorts of magical tech gizmos to facilitate that). Back in the bad old days filmmakers like Scorsese and Melvin Van Peebles and Joseph Sargent and Gordon Parks had to make do with Arriflex IIc cameras loaded with grainy, pushed 35mm film, wooden sticks and Lowell incandescent lights.

Gordon parks, making do with an Arri IIc.

In my opinion Joker could have dispensed entirely with the entire DC Batman mythology. The film did not need it, and it added nothing to the core of what is essentially a psychological thriller. In fact, the baggage of the Joker mythology creates an ethical issue: we know that Joker will become a master criminal and an unrepentant, cold-blooded murderer: this aspect is part and parcel of Joker’s DC persona. But remove Arthur Fleck’s known fate to be a villain, and it becomes the story of one man’s mental disintegration during an era where isolation and alienation were practically the norm.

Martin Scorsese, behind a soundproofed Mitchell NCR.

It’s not a perfect film and it is not that easy to watch: Arthur Fleck is set up as a victim for most of it, and we see him on the ground getting his ass kicked twice. The first half of the film is set-up, and we see things in Arthur’s life, which started out bad, just get worse. The very conditions of urban life in the late 1970s are the antagonist here: Budget cut-backs eliminate Arthur’s weekly visits to a social worker and access to medication to keep his illness in check. He lives in a hideous apartment with his declining mother (Frances Conroy) in a neighborhood overflowing with trash. Adding humiliation to alienation, Arthur’s attempt at stand-up comedy is mocked by a late-night talk-show host (Robert De Niro, playing Jerry Lewis from The King of Comedy). His character is clearly being pushed towards a break with normality, and when it comes the only thing surprising about it is how gory it is.

Joaquin Phoenix, before an Arri Alexa 65.

It also makes Arthur Fleck’s eventual transformation into the Joker problematic. The film explains him away: he is the product of bad genes, a terrible childhood, an even more terrible environment, and horribly complete social isolation. This was the thrust of most of his comic-book origin stories as well: in the famous graphic novel “The Killing Joke,” The Joker is the result of one normal man after one very bad day.

At the point in the story where Arthur Fleck eventually snaps, everything in the film has been placed to make his move to villainy sympathetic. This makes Joker an exercise in pure cinematic nihilism: it’s a director deciding make a murderous villain his movie’s hero. And this is where the film goes from compelling but flawed to brilliant, because Joaquin Phoenix’s performance is the counterbalance to Todd Phillips’ nihilism. He portrays Arthur Fleck as disjointed and mercurial: his moods change from scene to scene, from somewhat sympathetic to completely alien. He leaves the audience with nothing to grab on to, which is the point. As much as the film tries to set up the origins of Joker as pitiable, Joaquin Phoenix pushes back, making sure you don’t feel shit for the guy. It is rare these days to see the an actor-versus-director dynamic play out onscreen, but that’s what we get here.

The “tell” of Joker— the element Todd Phillips and co-writer Steve Silver steered away from DC canon to stake out new narrative territory– is the portrayal of Bruce Wayne’s father, industrialist Thomas Wayne (an almost unrecognizable Brett Cullen). In the comics he is the just, benign father-figure of young Bruce, whose strong ethical sense set Bruce on the path to be a superhero. But in Joker he is a grasping, bloated capitalist who literally sneers at the poor: “Those of us who have accomplished something with our lives will always look down on those who have not as clowns.” Thomas Wayne's statement sparks deep resentment among Gotham’s beaten-down residents, and starts a clown-themed anti-establishment movement— not too far off from the Guy Fawkes thing from V for Vendetta— to topple the rich of the city.

And that is what makes Joker timely. Set in the 1970s, it nonetheless completely understands the cruelty of inequality in our time, and the fact that a society without empathy breeds monsters.

La La Land Successfully Updates A Genre

La La Land is a rare bird, a genre musical film— refreshing and uplifting, sincere and happy and melancholy, a much-needed anodyne for the darkness and cynicism of late cinema. It tells the story of the meeting of two young people, Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) the musician and Mia (Emma Stone) the struggling actress. Both are working marginal jobs, waiting for their moment to break into the careers they dream of. When they meet (after a few hilarious missteps) love begins to bloom— and in true musical manner, their emotions soar in the form of song and dance. This is what is wonderful about musicals: in their universe emotions cannot be contained by prosaic reality. They require the characters spontaneously burst into song. Narrative reality breaks loose and people levitate into a magical space where people dance in the middle of traffic jams and fly into the stars of a planetarium.

But it’s not all just a cinematic heaven of singing and lyrical passages of fancy: the eternal rival of romance and career soon takes over.  Mia and Seb inspire each other to take risks, work hard and strive to make their personal dreams come true. The cost of pushing career first soon becomes the central conflict of La La Land, which leads to one of the most soaring and beautiful and melancholy and moving conclusions I have seen in a modern film.

The third character own this film— the namesake— is it’s wonderful, make-believe Los Angeles: Angel’s Flight, Mulholland Drive, Griffith Park, palm trees and stately SoCal architecture under an endless blue sky or deep blue night. It’s a fun, vibrant place full of artist, actors, strivers and dreamers. It’s been too easy in films of late to see LA as some of late-capitalist hellscape (see Training Day): It’s refreshing to remind all of us that LA is a place where people still go to try to make their dreams come true.

Director Damien Chazelle’s last film was Whiplash, a sort of crazy stalker film set in the world of jazz music about an earnest drummer and his insane instructor (J. K. Simmons, who has a lovely cameo in this film).  Jazz plays heavily and strangely in La La Land as well: Sebastian is a young man obsessed with the world of jazz: he has posters of jazz greats in his apartments, Hoagy Carmichael’s piano stool and longs to open a real jazz club in Los Angeles. There are plenty of kids these days who passionately love alls sorts of dead or marginal forms of music: it never becomes clear of Seb is sincere or just really good at affecting his love of the genre.

"A Lovely Night" on location.

The most remarkable number— a real masterpiece of a shot— is “A Lovely Night,” which occurs near the beginning of the film. After a party in the Hollywood Hills where they accident meet up, Seb is helping Mia look for her car. They break into song and dance at a scenic overlook, the wash of lights in the LA basin below. The scene, which goes from real-world to singing to dance to tap-dance (!) is shot at the real location and very specific time: PAST “Magic Hour,” just after sunset, when the warm glow of the sunset underscores a deepening dark blue sky. The set lighting is low as to illuminate the actors and still leave the sunset and sky bright. This scene not only highlights the considerable singing acting talents of of Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, it shows off cutting-edge film technology: fine-grained, fast film stock (La La Land was mostly shot on 35mm film), fast anamorphic lenses and the latest light, agile camera packages. Were this a Golden Age musical, this shot would have happened on a soundstage. But instead, it is one long, six-minute shot at a very narrow, specific time of day. This makes it breathtaking on several levels.

Another nice PAST-magic hour shot.

La La Land is in many ways an updated classic movie, a pastiche of the conventions, narratives and styles of Hollywood musicals. It is not a breakthrough in and of itself: this isn’t pure storytelling and cinematic innovation like Mad Max: Fury Road was. It takes the best elements of a great genre, updates the sensibilities to contemporary morés and makes it all fresh and unexpected again. There’s a little Vincente Minelli here, some Gene Kelley there, a little Jaques Demy, Even a bit of Ross Hunter/ Doris Day and Paul Thomas Anderson.

Another girl in magical old Los Angeles, dreaming
of acting fame. Naomi Watts in Mulholland Dr.

Given all these obvious movie-history references it was then very, very strange that while La La Land played, the place I kept going to for a visual and stylistic reference was… David Lynch. I COULD NOT STOP thinking: “This is a light-hearted musical version of Mulholland Dr. (2001).” It shares a lot of the same qualities as Lynch’s masterpiece: striking cinematography filled with shots of strong primary colors; an abiding love of Los Angeles locations, show business, actors and the mechanics of filmmaking; flights of surrealism; and intimate close-ups, bursting with emotion. These films are on entirely different missions— light, uplifting musical surrealism versus a surreal dive into the darkest parts of the id— but there is a common thread as well, in look and feel.

I may well be mistaken and La La Land may have been released in the
original CinemaScope aspect ratio of 2.55:1. But that's not how I saw it
in Redwood City: they couldn't even manage to mask the screen right.

And, sorry to say, I have to disagree with both the opening title card and Dana Stevens’ review and report that La La Land is NOT in CinemaScope. That specific film format was proprietary for to 20th Century-Fox and Bausch and Lomb, who standardized the elements of anamorphic cinematography. CinemaScope lenses were not much used past 1960: these early models had distortion problems that caused actors’ faces to widen unnaturally: “CinemaScope Mumps,” they called it. Panavision fixed this problem by re-arranging lens elements to minimize distortion. This film is actually in Panavision: they used Series C lenses to shoot it. But this is a quibble: the widescreen compositions are so lovely and the mise-en-scene is so well developed and rich, it’s worth another viewing just to look for visual clues and symmetries.

If you love Hollywood genres old and new, this is a must-see.

Suicide Squad: Why So Serious?

Maybe reviewers saw the subtitle "Worst. Heroes. Ever."
and took it at face value.

After a week of reading many delicious, angry, mean reviews for Suicide Squad, the latest entry into the DC Extended Universe, I did something somewhat contrary to my usual instincts after feasting so well on such a banquet of snark: I went out and saw it.

I left the screening wondering if the film’s many critical detractors and I saw the same movie. I thought it was pretty enjoyable.

Let me clarify.

We’re living deep in the Comic Book Movie Era. Superhero movies rule box offices worldwide. They are now nothing less than a fully formed cinematic genre, with major and minor characters, multi—year story arcs, and very solid and reliable generic characteristics. So, as an new entry into this well-defined genre, Suicide Squad fulfills most of its expectations: it’s filled with action and cross-franchise references and juvenile humor and even more juvenile depictions of adult relationships. It’s PG-13, so they are holding back quite a bit on the gore on this one, but the body count is also near the normal level for this genre.

I kept getting the feeling that critics were slagging on Suicide Squad as a bad film— compared to the totality of Hollywood movies. Maybe that’s true: it isn’t as good as Chariots of Fire or Michael Clayton or L’Avventura or Dodgeball: a True Underdog Story. But as a comic-book movie, it’s truly right in the middle of the pack. If you approach Suicide Squad as an entry in a superhero universe franchise— but if you are NOT a comic book fan or even that familiar with comic books— than the film works perfectly well. We are introduced to a group of new characters via backstory, given the signposts and guides to these new characters inside the universe, and the plot is set into motion. Sure, it was dumbed-down and expository scene’ed to death, but without exposition most audiences would be totally out to sea because this films stars some decidely minor DC characters.*

Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) in a rare publicity still
with another character.

I agree with most the of reviews that in Suicide Squad there are things that work and things that don’t work. In the minus column, much has been made in the reviews of what a misfire the villain was: The Enchantress (Cara Delevigne). She was, according to some, a cookie-cutter villain whose ultimate goals were poorly defined. Funny, but to me that sounds a lot like MOST comic-book movie villains of late: Thanos (Guardians of the Galaxy) or Apocalypse (X-Men: Apocalypse) or General Zod (Man of Steel) or Ultron (Avengers: Age of Ultron) are not much more than an interchangeable bunch of power-seeking super beings.

The main story— a group of rag-tag villains is banded together to fight an evil superpower— is another misfire, poorly motivated from conception, really. The main characters are so unwilling to be heroic that at one point they all check out of the story and go get a drink in a bar. From a screenwriting perspective, this is hilariously telling. There is an uncanny and spooky effect in the writing process where characters who are stuck in bad plots will try to get out. They will talk to the writer: “This is stupid: I shouldn’t even be here!” There’s a scene in Avengers: Age of Ultron where Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) hangs a lantern on this effect: “The city is flying and we're fighting an army of robots. And I have a bow and arrow. Nothing makes sense.” But poorly motivated final battles are a hallmark of comic-book movies, so again: I don’t see what all the fuss is about.

What does work in Suicide Squad are the characters you see in every publicity still: Harley Quinn and The Joker. the sheer amount insane energy Margot Robbie and Jared Leto put into their interpretations is evident on-screen, and both are so vivid they make every other character fade into the background— even Deadshot (Will Smith). People have been looking forward to Harley Quinn’s big-screen debut with as much anticipation as Wonder Woman’s— and she does not disappoint. Funny, sexy, wisecracking and fearless— she’s a character who will go into battle with a super-powered villain armed with a baseball bat-- and think nothing of it. Very much looking forward to her inevitable solo movie.

The Joker, breaking the fourth wall to make you pee a little.
Bad teeth and no eyebrows are menacing enough.

Her relationship with The Joker is as weird and creepy as it is in the comics. He is an abuser who both loves Harley and has zero value for her life and well-being. Some have said Leto’s interpretation of The Joker is too creepy and off-putting. Well, not to sound like a fanboy, but: he’s supposed to be creepy. He’s a villain, a murderer. Even at his charismatic best he should still make you pee a little. I’d take Leto over Heath Ledger, who I thought was a bit too fussy and borderline silly. The Joker should make you uncomfortable. And what he has done to Harley Quinn should make you uncomfortable too.

Strangely, what this film reminded me of most was not another DC or even a Marvel movie: It looked and felt a lot like Mystery Men (1999) a high water mark of the heyday of the Dark Horse Cinematic Universe. It has the same colorful design, outlandish, hand-made-looking costumes and grungy detail. it also featured a rather large roster of fairly unknown comic-book characters, juvenile humor and a somewhat limp main story. Much better villain: tho: I’ll take Casanova Frankenstein over The Enchantress any day.

* Both Marvel and DC superhero movies bury easter eggs in the credits. True fans always advise to stick around for these. But the coda at the end of Suicide Squad— no spoiler— I swear is nothing but Viola Davis and Ben Affleck spewing dense comic-book implications at each other for three minutes. I didn’t understand any of it.

The Wonders Of (YouTube) Space

Glamorous Italian Laura
Fantuzzi and I enjoying
free cappuccino in the free
photo booth 

I have been to paradise; it is known as YouTube Space LA in Playa Del Rey.

This weekend as the result of my involvement with a web series called The Noir Bizarre, I got to spend the day in one of the studios that YouTube provides for some of their members. Specifically, members who have over 10,000 followers. To encourage these people, Google provides them with a free studio, and free use of lights, cameras, and editing equipment. Also not insignificantly, cappuccino. You just walk out to the lobby and ask. You could get a latte instead but let's face it, if it's free you may as well get the cap.

It's not easy to find, hidden away like many good things. There is a whole community being built around there right now and somehow Google maps hasn't been completely informed about all the closed roads. Still, once you get there parking is free. This is my way to telling the rest of the cast why I was late. Sorry guys!

The studio we were in was little more than an air-conditioned box with a green screen, fortunate for us because we decided to set the scene on Mars. I won't dwell on the details of the shoot because it was plenty boring but know that if we were a maybe not all that prepared, the place accommodated us just fine. Had we storyboarded everything in advance, I'm sure it would be the same. It's kind of like everything on YouTube yourself... you think of something, look it up, and there it is, for free. Unless someone files a copywrite takedown notice, selfish bastards. Sorry, tangent.

The place was bustling with eager young indie filmmakers, having discussions in the lobby, liking each other on Facebook, drinking cappuccinos and taking selfies in front of any handy logo. There are plenty, believe me.

It would have been fun to stick around and edit there (on Apple's Final Cut pro, surprisingly) but the Noir Bizarre folk have their own stuff at home thanks. I got to see the bays though and it looks like you could complete a mighty fine feature film in that place.

Note, clear it with them first, just as a courtesy.

I'll happily go back when the chance arises though I don't know if I PERSONALLY have 10k followers on the horizon. Cross your fingers.

TWELVE HOURS A SLAVE

I don't usually do extra work. I don't even peruse the listings. However, a couple of weeks ago one slipped into the speaking roles section of Actors Access and it caught my eye.

It described the Coen Brothers comedy Hail, Ceasar! about a studio head in 1950's Hollywood who is struggling to get through a day as his job and life crumbles around him. Josh Brolin plays the executive and it also features George Clooney, Scarlett Johansen, Tilda Swinton (as twins!) and others, but they had me at '50's Hollywood. Plus they needed Roman slaves. Among my favorite movies are The Ten Commandments, Ben Hur, and Spartacus. I love that nonsense.

So I submitted my headshot. And a few days later they called me and asked if I could send some selfies, looking weary an put-upon. I did, and included a shot that a friend of mine had recently talked me into. Landed the gig!

Yesterday I learned my call time would be 5am at the Big Sky Ranch in Simi Valley "but I should shoot for 4:45 because the shuttle." The Big Sky Ranch is enormous. It's the Ponderosa without all those troublesome pines. And it's vaguely familiar, which means it probably was the Ponderosa now and then. I arrived and they immediately routed me into body makeup where I stripped to briefs and they filthied me up. "Dance you mud turtles, dance!" they chortled. (No they didn't). From there to wardrobe where I was issued a tattered burlap schmatte and sandals and as a final touch this curly wig. 

We ate a little breakfast and then caught another shuttle to the set, a very long road studded  with monuments. It was about a quarter to seven by then but I can't be sure because I didn't bring my phone. I only had the burlap on my back and a lightweight blanket. The guy standing next to me only had a loincloth and body makeup to keep him warm. And it's cold in Simi Valley before sunrise!

I was looking around for clues to how the Coens were going to portray this genre and though I can't show you the set (again, no phone) it seems they're right in that Robe/Demetrius and the Gladiators groove. I spent the better part of the day as part of a slave team dragging a battering ram with a golden ram's head at the tip. I was whipped by gladiators who had those big red brushes on their helmets. In other words cliched and inauthentic in a very precise, controlled way. 

I wasn't expecting to see any Coens but they were both there. Ethan dresses like a rock star; Joel wore a t-shirt from a crane rental company called Ichabod Cranes. Neither one seemed to be having fun, but dear God those two are efficient. There were probably 300 extras trudging along that road at any given time and they still managed to get about a dozen shots in the can. A few of them will be for "tiling", the practice of cloning the extras to increase their numbers. I expect to be in the same shot three times, all unrecognizable from the distance.

When you see the movie, look for me as the guy pulling the battering ram rope on the right.

During a break in the shadow of a fiberglass obelisk (it went from uncomfortably cold to uncomfortably hot in no time) this guy asked me, "hey, what color are your eyes?" I'm not used to dudes asking that but I said, Hazel. "Mine too." He turned to another guy and asked again. Hazel. WE ALL HAD HAZEL EYES. Most of the slaves did. We figure that's why they picked us.

Now that I'm sitting in Starbucks, exhausted with every muscle aching because of all that walking in ill-fitting sandals, it occurs to me that extra work is at least a little like slavery. I mean, you do what they tell you, you don't talk back or there are terrible consequences. We could have escaped on foot but we were two tram rides away from our cars and besides they had all our street clothes. Of course, I wasn't subjugated and they let me go after 12 hours (11, but I'm including trip time) still, there are similarities. I'm just sayin'. And hell yes I'd do it again. Sadly, I hear they're wrapping this week. Attn Coens! When you need extras again, I'm your man! Especially if it's a scene in a nice quiet restaurant where older men are romancing beautiful women. In overstuffed chairs. 

Inherent Vice: Pynchon 101

This poster, aside from tweaking Leonardo DaVinci, gives an idea
of the many wonderful cameos in Inherent Vice. Martin Short
(far right) is particularly funny and strange.

After dinner last Friday, the wife and I stopped by the Redwood City 20 to see what was playing. We spontaneously decided to see Inherent Vice. I love that sort of thing-- we went in unprepared for Paul Thomas Anderson's newest film-- and it ended up being a total delight.

It's the story of "Doc" Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix) a hippie P.I. who is hired to find a missing girl who also happens to be his ex. thus begins Doc's strange journey through 1970 Los Angeles-- both helped and hindered by Detective "Bigfoot" Bjornsen (Josh Brolin), a flat-topped, hippie-hating, brutal/delusional LA cop who also carries a SAG card (we see him as an extra in "Adam-12," in fact). On the long, winding path of investigation Doc encounters all sorts of odd and historically appropriate types: Nazi bikers, cultists, a Laurel Canyon mansion full of hippies, a hidden cabal of dentists and drugs. Lots and lots and lots of drugs. River Phoenix does an amazing job, in fact, of conveying an amazing range of stoned: mellow high, totally baked, buzzed, flying' and everything in-between.

"Doc" Sportello (River Phoenix), doing what he does
dozens of times in the film.

Compared to any other sort of film, I'd say it was not unlike The Big Lebowski- but it's a LOT more like Kiss Me Deadly, a film noir saturated in the light of Los Angeles and the darkness cast by the greedy and evil.

This is the first Thomas Pynchon book ever committed to film, and the script was apparently personally approved by Pynchon as well. Thomas Pynchon and Paul Thomas Anderson were made for each other-- their mutual approach to storytelling is spacey and convoluted yet brimming with insight. Inherent Vice perfectly embodies a lot of Pynchon's favorite motifs: Los Angeles, complex whodunits, subtle mysticism and conspiracies by shadowy, powerful organizations. The 2009 book was considered considered "Pynchon Lite," one of his most accessible novels. If this is so, than the movie version is an even better introduction to his distinctive literary style. Pynchon 101.

Thomas Pynchon, as seen on "The Simpsons." According
to Josh Brolin, the reclusive author has a cameo in
Inherent Vice. Forget it: we'll never figure it out.

Paul Thomas Anderson has developed an elliptical and indirect narrative style, especially in his later films: Inherent Vice could be described as being comprised of a series of close-ups and medium shots of Joaquin Phoenix interacting and reacting. He is an example of a filmmaker whose core relationship with cinematic storytelling has clearly evolved: his beginnings as a teller of Tarantino-like multiple-storyline widescreen films like Boogie Nights and Magnolia to a focus on nuance and dialog, as in The Master and Inherent Vice. This refocusing gives these later films a rambling feel as the plot slowly snakes from one scene to another. It take a little getting used to, but when it all clicks together it's exhilarating.

Inherent Vice is also very funny-- which is sort of unusual. P.T. Anderson doesn't really do funny: There was some situational comedy in Boogie Nights, and Punch Drunk Love was supposed to be funny (it wasn't), but this is the first time he stretches out for some Coen Brothers-style sardonic humor.

Check it out, you'll enjoy it. See it high, and you might enjoy it even more.

Incubus: Malbenita Kulto Klasika

TCM screened a rarity last night-- a genuine cult classic for the rarified cults of indie horror, William Shatner, "The Outer Limits" and constructed languages: Incubus.

This 1966 film is set in an imaginary country and past and tells the story of a demonic cult of hot blondes-- a sort of succubus-in-training farm team-- who lure weak, corrupt men to the sea and drown them to hasten their souls to hell.  One member, Kai (Allyson Ames, the director's wife at the time), is tired of having to deal with douchebags who are already damned: she wants the thrill of ensnaring a clean, virtuous soul. Marc (William Shatner) embodies this goodness: a heroic soldier returning home to live with his sister Arndis (Ann Atmar).

Kia shows up at their house during an eclipse, tempts Marc away to the sea, intent on doing him in. But his goodness stops her (I guess) and they end up in a church, where she freaks out at all the holiness. Terrible things happen to Arndis: she goes blind and mute, she's kidnapped and raped. Eventually things get so out of hand an Incubus is invoked to help with Kia's goal, which she so miserably failed.  The Incubus (played with shirtless greasiness by Milos Milos) eventually gets into a Kirk-versus-Gorn wrestling match with Marc, and by the end everyone is dead or nearly so.

William Shatner and Allyson Ames. At one point in the film
he roughly grabs her by the shoulders and kisses the
heck out of her. That was widely identified as a classic
Captain Kirk move: this proves it was actually a
classic Shatner move.

Writer-director Leslie Stevens (the producer behind "The Outer Limits") manages to give the film a stark, spooky tone-- it reminded me strongly of some other supernatural classics of the era, Carnival of Souls (1962) and The Seventh Seal (1957). He was no doubt aided by one of the best DPs of the era, Conrad Hall, lensing his first feature film. Never a dull moment-- though there a lot of long, long sequences of actors walking through the countryside.

It's worth a look for several interesting reasons:

• The movie-- dialog and credits-- is entirely in Esperanto, an international common language invented by a Russian ophthalmologist in the 1890s. It's a bold experiment, aided by the film's rather simplified universe of dichotomies (man/woman, good/evil, dark/light, etc.) If it's a gimmick, it's a good one: Make an instant Foreign Film!

The Esperanto dialog-- aided by huge, hideous, black-blocked subtitles-- is remarkably easy to follow. The language is a sort of mash-up of Romance, Slavic and Germanic language forms, so it sounds startlingly familiar. Apparently, those with a better ear for Esperanto than I say that Shatner gives his line readings a French accent, which may have something to do with his Montreal upbringing.

Mission San Antonio. It looks just a rough now
as it did in 1966, and probably 1771.

• Incubus was filmed in my old backyard: Monterey County. Scenes take place on the coast at Big Sur, Carmel Valley and the back-country around Fort Hunter Liggett. The church in the film is Mission San Antonio de Padua-- a California mission in the middle of nowhere, take my word for it. The rugged beauty of the locations shines through the murky condition of the only remaining print (more below).

• Apparently a wandering hippie, unhappy with the rude way the Incubus film crew treated him, placed a curse on the production. If you are one to believe in such things as Hippie Curses, it was a quite effective-- if wildly uneven-- hex.

The film was released into the international festival circuit to generally positive acclaim. However, within a year: A) Milos Milos killed his wife, then himself; B) Ann Atmar committed suicide; C) Allyson Ames divorced Leslie Stevens; D) The film lab accidentally destroyed the master negative and most of the prints. Stevens, upset from the tragedies surrounding his film, withdrew it from release.

On the upside of this "curse," within the same year: A) William Shatner would land his iconic role as Captain Kirk on "Star Trek;" B) DP Conrad Hall would be nominated for an Academy Award (Morituri), then two more times in a row (The Professionals in 1966, In Cold Blood in 1967) , lens Harper and Cool Hand Luke, and win the Oscar in 1969 (For Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid)

Such is the simple dichotomy of Incubus, a cursed/not cursed cult classic.

The Ultimate Recursive Movie

The Cinerama film festival did not actually close October 4th with How the West Was Won: the festival folks had special unannounced treat for the widescreen cinema fans in attendance that night.

In The Picture (2012) is a brand-new 30-min film shot in actual 3-strip Cinerama, the first since 1962. David Strohmaier, a film editor with an abiding love of old film formats and one of the organizers of the Cinerama film festival, got hold of a Cinerama camera, had it rebuilt, got Fuji to donate some filmstock, and set out to to make a travelogue.

The results were delightful and quite spectacular. In the Picture closely follows the structure of Cinerama Holiday (1955), which was framed around two couples traveling around and seeing wonders in the US and Europe. But since In The Picture was made on the cheap, it used inexpensively accessed locations around Los Angeles-- Griffith Park Observatory, Angel's Flight, Mullholland Drive, etc.

Shooting In The Picture. Note the three film magazines.
This rig weighs over 200 pounds and required three
car batteries to drive all three mags.

The film features two stars from How The West Was Won: Stanley Livingston (Chip Douglas from "My Three Sons") and a cameo by Debbie Reynolds. It even emulated the stilted dialog style of Cinerama Holiday-- though that might have more to do with working with a vintage Cinerama camera. It was usually placed about two feet from the actors for medium shots and, not being blimped, made an unholy racket.

Recursion is when an element repeats into itself, a potentially endless loop.The recursive thing I was referring to was the ending of In The Picture, and it was uncanny-- and a little spooky, as it occurred on several levels, each more directly recursive than the next:

TOP LEVEL RECURSION - At the end of Cinerama Holiday the two couples go to the Warner Theater in New York, buy tickets to Cinerama Holiday, and see themselves on the big wide screen. In The Picture, faithful to the source, ends the same way, with the four actors buying tickets in the Arclight lobby, going to the Dome and seeing themselves. So far this is a familiar movie trick: I seem to remember Buster Keaton doing it. However:

DEEPER RECURSION - In The Picture was shot just a few months ago. It is very, very strange to see the exact same place Daniel and I were sitting in displayed up on the big screen, especially in outlandishly huge 3-strip Cinerama. The same ushers and ticket-takers we saw in the lobby were extras in this sequence, and the four actors sat down in the same section we were seated in. Not a little unsettling.

A still I took of In The Picture as it was being screened at
the Cinerama Dome. By coincidence, when the actors
see themselves on screen, this is the scene they see.

EVEN DEEPER RECURSION - During this screening, In The Picture's four principal actors were in attendance-- seated all around us, in fact. The movie had already invaded our intrinsic reality: with the actors there it was literally sharing our air. (This is my reaction, of course: I understand that if you live in LA this sort of thing happens all the time.)

DEEPEST RECURSION - The 30-minute short was followed by the screening of 15-minute video documentary called "The Last Days of Cinerama," which was about… The making of In The Picture. Daniel and I fully expected this doc be followed by a 7-minute short about the making of "The Last Days of Cinerama"-- but it was getting late, Dan had to work the next day, so we didn't stick around to find out.

The Wide, Wide West

It takes a good reason to get someone to drive 325 miles to see a movie. But if the reason is site-specific AND rare, you gotta make the trip. And so I attended the final days of the 60th Anniversary of Cinerama festival in Hollywood at the Pacific Cinerama Dome, one of only three theaters left in the world equipped to show the process.

The festival closed with a screening of How The West Was Won (1962), a star-studded* epic depicting 50s-era "manifest destiny," the American expansion west. It was one of only two narratives shot in Cinerama, a widescreen visual process that utilizes three strips of film set at angles that give a startling 146° angle of view. It was specifically designed to be shown on a deeply curved screen, which rectifies the wide angle of the collective image in an equally startling way. So when you watch a Cinerama movie the perspective seems amazingly natural, and you follow the action by turning your head, like you would in the real world. Conceptually, it's uncanny.

Practically, however, there are some strange limitations to the process. The seams between the triptych panels are never invisible: the optics of the time (Cinerama cameras were built in the early 1950s) couldn't make the edges blend perfectly. In How The West Was Won the filmmakers took great pains to hide the seams: they would position the actors so they were center in each lens, and often buildings or trees would coincide with the frame edges. One sequence near the end takes place in the interior of a house in Arizona: the wallpaper was a combination of little flowers, grey vertical stripes, and more grey vertical stripes. The frame edges were lost in a sea of stripes: Cinerama wallpaper.

An idea of just how wide the image is-- a frame from
HTWWW, probably a CinemaScope reduction print.
The seams are plainly visible, and you can see that each strip
is actually a tall rectangle.

Ultimately, the Cinerama process is so singular and unusual that it holds the narrative hostage. Since the cameras had only one set of lenses, close-ups were impossible. Medium shots were achieved by having the actors stand less than two feet from the camera, and even then the vastness of the settings dominated the frame. The overarching problem is the style of storytelling employed by the directors (yes, there were four directors): These old Hollywood pros came up in the Academy Format days, and it is obvious they were in their comfort zone with a single focus of action in each scene. An actor will talk: the other actors will look on blankly, as if they thought they were out of frame. So there is a lot of standing around and listening with the cast of this film. Even the wide-screen action sequences tend to have a stubbornly singular core of interest (be it a spectacular train wreck or a spectacular buffalo stampede). This center-of-frame emphasis tends to deaden the compositions, as richly designed as the sets were or amazing the location: They became just so much scenery.

(According to some commie social commentary I've read, regarding nature as "scenery" is a hallmark of bourgeois capitalism, the first step to the commodification of natural resources. That idea fits well here.)

Some folks have released HTWWW in "smilebox" format,
with a curvature added digitally.
This is how a medium shot works in Cinerama.

It took a new generation of filmmakers and a change in visual narrative language to get widescreen cinema to work more naturally. Mise en scene narrative, which uses the entirety of the cinematic canvas, sometimes in multiple centers of action over a widescreen frame, was just being defined at the time HTWWW was released. It would take visionary filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick, Jaques Tati and Blake Edwards to really open up the widescreen frame to it's unique storytelling potential.

With all of it's faults, HTWWW and Cinerama is still a marvel to behold. This film just does not work on video, HD or not: it does not even work in 'scope on a movie screen. It specifically designed for one and only one projection process, and I consider myself fortunate to have see it in it's proper grandeur.

*I picked out Harry Dean Stanton in an uncredited bit part as one of Eli Wallach's henchmen. How old IS that guy?

Jon Versus Kim, Smart TV versus Stupid TV

There is a fascinating exchange going on via the entertainment news, one that speaks volumes to the cultural conflicts raging through television and, by implication, the larger world. It's a war of words in a fight that is measuring the very viability of intelligence in public media.

It all started last week, when handsome, handsome actor Jon Hamm talked to Elle (UK) about the sad decline of public culture:

We’re at a place where the idea of being elite is somehow considered a negative. Whether it’s Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian or whoever, stupidity is certainly celebrated. Being a fucking idiot is a valuable commodity in this culture because you’re rewarded significantly. Incuriousness has become cool... It's celebrated. It doesn't make sense to me.

This is what I consider a lovely bit of portable wisdom. It ties in the latest trend in FNC/RNC name-calling (in 2012, "elite" is a GOP obscene epithet, even though the candidates could objectively be called nothing else) with the depths of reality TV, where there is nothing more telegenic and ratings-grabbing than the combination of wealthy people acting like total fools.

The point Mr. Hamm was making was quite clear-- but in doing so he also made a huge tactical blunder: he mentioned Kim Kardashian by name in public. There is no opportunity for public exposure too insignificant or obtuse for her to pursue. So of course, she weighed right in (via Twitter, which is about as thoughtful a medium as she uses):

I just heard about the comment Jon Hamm made about me in an interview. I respect Jon and I am a firm believer that everyone is entitled to their own opinion and that not everyone takes the same path in life. We're all working hard and we all have to respect one another. Calling someone who runs their own businesses, is a part of a successful TV show, produces, writes, designs, and creates, "stupid," is in my opinion careless.

At this point, you could step back and call this whole thing entirely superfluous-- the opinion of an actor being rebutted publicly by a… by a… I guess you could call her a reality-television personality. Anyway, some might see the antics of the Kardashians are harmless entertainment put out by people willing to make their private lives public in lieu of something that requires actual talent.

(I'm obviously taking Jon Hamm's side here-- especially when Kim claims to be someone who "produces, writes, designs, and creates." There are all sorts of levels of that kind of thing, and her level of reality-TV creativity is risible. The only creative guy in reality TV is that keyboard guy who puts the cymbal crashes on all the bug-eyed revelatory shots-- and, steady paycheck or not, the poor bugger probably contemplates suicide on a weekly basis.)

But that's not what this publicly conducted argument is actually about-- this is the inside view of an epic fight: The Battle for Television's Soul. On one side is scripted television: written and created by studio-level artisans and professionals, expertly produced, expensive and risky. On the other side is reality television: created by pandering cable-level producers, shot on the fly and cheaply, calculated to sensationalize the lives of the privileged and stupid. On basic cable, Reality TV tends to outdraw scripted shows: on the big nets, it's pretty much 50/50, "American Idol" and it's ilk versus everything else.

"Mad Men" is the standard-bearer for Smart TV:  Crazy melodrama aside, It takes great pains to recreate the world of the 1960s and explore the societal and cultural changes under way in that era. Watching it is often a history lesson, and we can glean much about how modern society was shaped by the larger conflicts raging in the subtext of every episode. Jon Hamm is the star of that show, and it's obvious to any viewer that the cool intelligence of Don Draper flows from him organically.

"Keeping Up with the Kardashians" and all the other grubby little satellite shows in it's orbit are, of course, the apex of Stupid TV, escapist, disposable entertainment. The intricacies of the human condition are indeed on display on Kardashian-centered entertainment, but in a debased form: envy, backbiting, awe in it's trashy McMansion splendor, and petty conflict. If it has any redeeming social value, it must be at such an ultra-sonic level of irony it's only understood by ironic dogs.

These shows often out-draw "Mad Men" in ratings. This is what motivated Jon Hamm to speak out: he and his show are on the parapets of traditional Hollywood, watching the hoard of Kardashians and Snookies and Real Housewives coming right at them. Notching an arrow in the bow and and letting fly is preferable to being overrun.

Jon Hamm did, in time, realize his tactical blunder, and via "Inside Hollywood" issued a response to Ms. Kardashian's barbed tweet. Don't call it an apology-- He's not about letting Reality TV off the hook anytime soon:

It’s surprising to me that it has become remotely a story… My quote was simply about that version of television and that version of American culture being celebrated. It’s not something that I particularly enjoy. The quote was obviously taken out of context, but I said what I said. I just wish it had been reported correctly. I don’t know Ms. Kardashian; I’ve never met her (and) I would never say anything personally about somebody that I’ve not met. What I said was meant to be more on pervasiveness of something in our culture, not personal, but she took offense to it and that is her right.

I'm sure it'll end here-- Too many big words for Kim to possibly match.

ADDENDA: Kim may be done, but apparently her proxies want to get in on this ginned-up "feud." Ms. Kardashian's best friend Jonathan Cheban has gone on the record with this reposte: "Jon Hamm just needs to shut up and stop being such a mad man." Um... zing, I guess.

2011 Oscar Noms: And Then There Were Nine

The cabal of statuette distributors at AMPAS, two years after doubling the Best Picture field from five to ten, have made another adjustment, paring it down to Nine contestant films. Why nine? Odd number magic? Cloud 9? Nine Levels of Hell?

Walter Hill once explained in the DVD extras section of The Warriors (1979) that nine was key number for a "Collective Hero" movie, the right number of members for a small group of adventurers to embody a full range of personalities and traits. Perhaps the nine nominees are this collective persona, showing all facets of the human condition, set out against a wilderness of adversity and indifferent Academy voters. Or maybe I'm thinking about this a bit too much.

Of course if they had stuck with ten films, the Academy could have considered including Drive, Young Adult or Bridesmaids. Sheesh. Speaking of which, Kristin Wiig got a writing nod for Bridesmaids but not an acting nomination-- but Melissa McCarthy snagged a Supporting nod (this year's Marisa Tomei?). And Terrence Malick got a Best Director nod for The Tree of Life, but not for screenplay-- because there wasn't one.

Okay, here are the nominees, coupled with even more overheated insight.

The Artist - Technically a foreign film, nonetheless this black and white silent is 100% Hollywood to the core. I think this is a litmus test for Academy voting sensibilities: If The Artist takes the top prize, I think it indicates the industry folks in the voting body have given up caring about the outside world.

The Descendants - Didn't see it. Looked like an Oscar movie right out of the gate, akin to Up In The Air (2009), complete with George Clooney. Still: go get 'em Alexander Payne!

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close - Really? I've read four major-paper reviews on it, and they each hated it. Is this the "Remember 9/11: it was really, really bad" nominee?

The Help - A studio mainstream summer-release film in the Best Picture category? What's this doing here? Actually, it is a fine film, a look at race and discrimination told from a simplified YA-style perspective.

Hugo - Like The Artist, This is another Hollywood self-referential nod, though it reaches back a little further than Golden Age Hollywood for it's source material.

Midnight in Paris - Hey, it's another film set in Paris featuring cameos by historical characters! Two in a year, what are the chances. Nice to see Woody Allen in the running again, how long has it been?

Moneyball - Just saw this one. Love to see it win, as it was a mature, complex film featuring recognizably grown-up characters.

The Tree of Life - My personal favorite film this year. It probably doesn't stand a chance of winning, as it didn't have a story per se. But it did have dinosaurs, Barton Springs Pool and Brad Pitt, and that's a powerful combination. The official line from AMPAS says the nominees for this film are "to be determined." Terrence Malick must be looking through piles of receipts to see who paid for everything.

War Horse - Quite a few reviewers intoned on the Old Hollywood Epic quality of War Horse, pointing out reverently that this movie was actually shot on film. I mentioned earlier that the last film camera was manufactured in 2009-- which makes the 'novelty' of a film actually shot on film yet another milestone in the triumph of digital filmmaking (and further evidence that Kodak's bankruptcy is sadly well-justified).

All in all, it's a typical year for Oscar-- a lot of artfully made, not particularly successful movies vying for prestige and an early 2012 re-release bump.