As Seen On TV

Analyzing Action

2011-09-16T01:37:00.000-07:00

A film critic named Jim Emerson recently deconstructed an action sequence from Dark Knight and claimed that it violated filmmaking rules and spacial relationships. He thought the sequence was indecipherable and that Christopher Nolan, when it comes to action, is essentially incompetent.

As gentlemanly as that sounds, the methodology he uses is inaccurate and misleading. I’m not out to destroy this guy, but his observations are so flawed it just can’t be left in the universe like that. With the internet being what it is, I'd rather not have this misguided laugh track become the Loose Change of film geeks. Plus, Emerson sounds like a prick.

I don’t have a problem of criticism. In fact, I love film criticism and think it is vital to the historical and cultural dialogue of cinema. Great criticism helps define our interpretation of art and is a canon of thought that shapes both future artists and audiences. A good critic is just as valuable to the cinema as the movies themselves, and I have learned as much reading as I have watching or making (note: criticism as in critical analysis is not always the same as "reviews").

However, there is a point where criticism is so flawed and the author is pontificating on an area that is so out of his area of expertise, he is basically talking out of his ass. That is Jim Emerson’s knowledge of film space and the “rules” he has regurgitated out of a basic textbook.

I am going to go over his major points and explain the flaws. I’m going to skip over as many “opinions” as I can as he has every right to hold them, however smug they may be. This would be things like his personal preferences of how guns should fire, marksmanship, or how characters should act. Instead, I simply want to address points he explains as “rules” – which are not. Basically, anything he states as a “violation” is what I’m after here.

We’ll start with an accusation from him, and then my response. I’ve occasionally embedded snippets of his video.

INTRO: “A filmmaker has two tools to convey information visually – composition and cutting.”

This is old film school thought. It’s not even oversimplification, it’s wrong. It stems from the technological origin of silent filmmaking. Film began as “film,” literal strips of pictures moving through some sort of isolated gate that unified an image in sequential progression creating an illusion of movement.

The addition of actually physically editing different strips created the idea of a “cut.” The delineation of composition and edits exists as a technical solution, but there is no conceptual reason why these two must live apart. The concept of a “shot” is a technical term that makes it easy to produce, but modern techniques like morphing and inverted blends can create cinematic ideas that are neither edits nor separated.

The idea that cinema exists “in the cut” implies that all filmmaking is based on some subconscious, comparative analysis of images. While the mind does naturally have a pattern recognition mode, it’s not the edit that triggers this. We are always doing this, in ALL ART, at ALL TIMES. In fact, as you get out of bed your mind is triggering a historical pattern response to orient you and make sure you don’t knock into your bedstand. It is not the placement of two images that creates the unique experience that is cinema. A typical motion graphics flash page on a website can fuck this concept in the ass.

Many of our old critical thoughts on the aesthetics of film are defined by the limitations of old technology and workflow. This includes sound, which was originally added as an afterthought and curiosity, but is as fundamental to cinematic technique as the concept of a “picture.” We again only separate because we must shoot sound separately from the picture, but this has nothing to do with the actual unit of a cinematic idea. David Lynch for one composes images with sound, and his images are inseparable from the audio.

As modern technology makes it easier and cheaper to access picture and sound and manipulate it, digital filmmaking will release our critical thinking from being so closely tied to shorthand production terminology, and reveal a purer cinematic ideal that is not afraid to embrace how we really experience movies.

Any analysis that views film from only from the prism of composition and editing, and excludes sound, has made a completely arbitrary line in the sand that does not reflect that actual totality of what you actually saw.

Now, Dark Knight.

CLAIM: Nolan violates the 180 degree rule, and this is confusing.

Emerson never explains why the 180 degree “rule” supposedly works. I have yet to read any precise technical papers on this, but it’s pretty obvious that as we tend to view images scanning on a horizontal plane during the course of a normal day - cars, lions and OJ Simpson will attack you from ground.

As a survival mechanism, evolution has trained the human race to stare at the white’s of each other’s eyes to decipher danger and direction. Thus when someone on a screen stares left, we will instinctually look left to follow their eyes. A person then on the left looking right will reciprocate an interaction as our eye shifts to their direction.

However, Emerson has discombobulated this with action sequences, demanding that they strictly adhere to eyelines and a constant screen direction, as if once set they can never change (why not?). Even on an evolutionary level, the white-eye left/right instinct can be overridden. Stand on the ledge of a tall building and all you’ll look is down. Enter a cave of falling stalactites. Architecture, danger, and kinetics can change and reset where you look, and how you look. Action scenes can be solidly designed with this in mind, and it happens all the time.

Furthermore, Emerson confuses screen direction with meaning. An example is how he professes confusion over where Harvey Dent is sitting in the back of the truck. The sequence begins with Harvey walking to the back of the truck, and clearly shows him sitting on the passenger side.

Emerson then claims he is completely lost as to where Dent is sitting for most of the action sequence because he is often “facing” the wrong direction in the chase. But Dent is an windowless contained space. 1) Part of his character’s perspective is to be isolated and confused to the outside world. It is ridiculous to flop around angles to match outside action as it defeats the subjectivity of his reactions 2) Yet the audience always knows he’s on the passenger side because 3) Nolan has chosen to constantly keep him framed on the identical right side to reinforce his positioning.

This is pattern recognition, and it overrides the 180 degree line. The audience cannot be convinced otherwise because Nolan locks it into their brains: Dent’s on the passenger side. And a character’s subjective perspective, how he feels about what he’s in, is something Emerson is tone deaf to in pursuing his eyelines.

Now I’m going to quickly analyze some of his criticisms:

CLAIM: “Again we don’t know but we assume since this is the only truck we’ve seen, that it’s the one Harvey’s in.”

Yes of course we know that’s Harvey’s truck because we’ve just cut to the “only truck we’ve seen.” Also, it has a fucking spotlight on it. He brings up a false question then answers it.

CLAIM: “This feels like a reverse angle which means this guy is now sitting where Harvey should be.”

Weird claim because by his own AXIS OF ACTION rules the cop is looking correctly from left to right, as the car is driving from left to right.

And Harvey’s reverse pivots correctly.

CLAIM: “This little bit doesn’t accomplish anything. Why would you cut away from a convoy just when it’s getting going?”

This question of why we cut away isn't really a question but an opinion - an opinion of how he would have personally directed the scene. Very cute. But masquerading as technical analysis, the opinion shows shocking disconnect from the plot mechanics of the story. This obviously establishes the Joker is setting up his plan. Hitchcock himself stipulated tension is built by showing a ticking bomb to an audience at the beginning of a scene - instead of just randomly blowing it up. This scene sets the danger of the Joker as the timer and now the audience gets to anticipate his arrival instead of passively watching.

Duh.

CLAIM: “The Joker shows up so brief it’s not really effective.”

Not effective? A guy in spooky white face and black eyes just popped out and kills a cop with a shotgun. What the fuck is he talking about?

CLAIM: “It would have been more ominous to just go straight into this next shot.”

Aside from ignoring Hitchcock for his directorial preference, this is where ignoring sound design would make you miss a wonderful detail: the shotgun blast echoes and raises the guitar hum in the next shot like an ear ringing. You still feel the Joker in the next sequence because you still hear him. This is sophisticated sound design working in tandem with the edit. All tools of cinema are at play here.

CLAIM: “A minor quibble, the previous shot sets this up to be a POV shot, and it isn’t a true POV shot. If it were, it would have to be three vehicles ahead of here...the imprecision of Nolan’s camera placement creates much more serious logistical problems later.”

Emerson just completely fucks this one up. There is simply no rule in cinema that states cutting to a person's face and eyeline automatically turns the next shot into a POV. In fact, it takes a lot of effort to convince the audience of any POV shot. It generally requires a hand held or steadicam feel amongst other signifiers. Establishing a POV from a car has a library of signifiers that clue the audience - namely is that there is a piece of the windshield to lock the viewer's position.

Furthermore, this is clearly a reverse master shot of the entire scene as the camera is placed higher than eye level and tracks in smooth, omniscient manner. One can only interpret camera meaning this poorly if your sense of visual aesthetics is completely broken.

On another note, the timing of the flame glow on the cop faces connects with the wreck as they pass. Emerson may not understand this, but that is a directorial choice that lead to a complicated rig of a moving car and special effect lighting. It is not a decision made lightly. Contrary to his assertion, Nolan’s camera and timing are methodical.

CLAIM: “Did I say 2, no in the next shot there are 3.”

He points out that in one shot there is an extra cop car in the back. This is obviously a continuity mistake in one shot. Shit happens. But you can clearly see they tried to edit around so that the third car is obscured quickly. In normal speed you really don’t see it. It is only seen for a couple frames before obscured by the lead car, and that microedit is the ONLY time it happens. This is precisely the type of editing fix that a filmmaker agonizes over to see what they can get away with but Emerson now uses a freeze frame as if the entire sequence is compromised.

CLAIM: “Where is this expendable guy?”

Emerson does have a point here (throw enough darts, I guess). This is the one beat where the action can legitimately be misconstrued. The guy is in the car in the front looking in his rearview mirror. Then the truck rams second car beside it, possibly insinuating he was in it.

However the solution is not to cut out the close-up as he implies (if he directed a chase sequence it would apparently never have a cutaway to any drivers). It needed a shot of the second car catching up to the truck to clarify, or the hit could have happened in his rearview mirror connected to his look. Or maybe not, it certainly isn't a deal breaker. But then Emerson fucks his point up with-

CLAIM: “We’re introduced to people in close-up or medium shot with no context, just a second or two before they’re dispatched.”

Context is highly relative by his terms. But adding reactions of drivers in multi-car chases is very common, humanizing, and not a sign of incompetence.

CLAIM: “You would think he would be looking in the direction he got hit, but wherever he is Harvey knows which way the van is traveling, why don’t we?”

Emerson makes a point that the truck got hit and Harvey faces the wrong direction for his reaction, but our critic has pulled a fast one. Using the same angle we use to establish Harvey’s seat in the truck, he actually turns first to his right toward the back during the hit, and then as he looks anxiously toward the drivers Emerson FREEZE FRAMES on his left turn, misleading the audience. Very unethical.

He then claims confusion as the editing violates the 180 degree line. But here is another example of how that “rule” is successfully broken. The action cut of Harvey being jolted is split with his head turn and the after shake of the SWAT drivers. The ACTION MATCH CUT clearly seams it together as the only thing we really react to is the impact.

The simple question that must be asked is what happened in this scene? Truck hits SWAT. Harvey jolts. SWAT drivers react and keep driving, and we know they are driving the truck. This is very clear without Emerson’s obfuscation of the 180 degree line.

CLAIM: “If we think of this less as a three dimensional space than a two dimensional graphic space, like three flat comic frames, then the shots do make a kind of sense.”

He uses this completely random thought game to justify his argument that the sequence doesn’t make sense. But not only is film not two dimensional, it’s not even three. It’s got the fourth dimension of time, and like any mathematical equation the simpler the dimension the less you can solve. That’s why it doesn’t work in his freeze framed two dimensions, but works in our active moving four and allows to factor in kinetics like shock cuts.

CLAIM: When the semi hits the SWAT van, it flies into the river in the wrong direction.

This claim is inexplicable.

The sequencing starts with the semi hitting the van and pushing it to the right.

The driver is thrown to the right off the impact as the van turns right.

The semi twists into the next lane, acting as the force of the impact, to the right.

The van flies off into the river to the right.

It’s all correct. Emerson is just confused.

CLAIM: “Didn’t the SWAT truck and the other two trucks used to be where the semi is now? With the river on the right?”

Water is on both sides, as bridges over rivers are apt to do. This is just trolling.

CLAIM: The Joker shooting gun/bazooka sequence violates the Axis of Action and is confusing.

This adherence to this generic axis of action just doesn’t correspond to how we grasp images, especially in high velocity car chases. The reality is that each action sequence can have it’s own internal architecture in which a number of factors can influence how we perceive it. Just as much as standing on the ledge of a building would shift your awareness downward from left to right (making the axis of action up and down), factors like the actual shape of the environment can rearrange how we orient our screen direction.

In this case, this is very precise geometric construction where two cars are driving down two narrow lanes, side by side, separated by a divider with columns that whiz by between them.

This helps orient us like standing on the the ledge of a tall building in that we are constantly calculating where our boundries are. The vice-like pathway also is abundant in movement reminders with passing background and passing columns in foreground. We clearly see how reversing shots between the Joker and SWAT drivers relate by the flipping movement of the backgrounds. If you only analyzed this sequence from a two dimensional axis of action, you would miss those four dimensional movements that frame each shot.

Then we factor that the semi truck looks very distinct from the SWAT truck, which reinforces symbolic, object, or pattern recognition (whatever you want to call it).

The problem with a clinical 180 degree line technique of filmmaking is that ignores human memory, as if all we did were look at screen direction. If this were so, POV shots would never work. Instead, POV’s work off of association where the audience naturally interprets the shot as from within someone’s head. The human mind is powerful: it can decipher information from many different ways. Symbolic association is one that Nolan is very good at, and the sequence is confidently made.

In fact, there is an actual line cross that Emerson praises. When the Joker fires into the truck, he exclaims that the cop inside is finally linked to what side he is sitting on. The cut from outside (right to left) to inside the truck (left to right) is a line cross that would “confuse” which directions he is going in, but works because it is a MATCH CUT on the bullets. But Emerson thinks this finally clues him into where he is oriented – using the association the rest of us already use during the whole sequence.

Here, axis of action gives an overall sense of direction, but only as an overall pointer.

CLAIM: Emerson has recut a sequence in where Batman crashes into the garbage truck. He claims he has fixed Nolan’s edit and that it is better.

All because he misunderstands a shot where the Batmobile crosses under the moving camera to build acceleration. Objects get faster as they come closer to camera. This is just a variation of a car flying over camera mounted to a road.

Also, that editorial “fix” is ridiculous.

CLAIM: The Batmobile jumping over the car with the explosion has a continuity problem with a disappearing SWAT truck.

Nobody’s perfect.

CLAIM: He claims Salt is better directed than this.

Nobody's perfect.*

*Yeah yeah, I know. I should talk.

ASIAN INVASION

2011-07-04T00:38:00.000-07:00

As we celebrate July 4th, it occurs to me that Josh Hutcherson, one of the stars of my upcoming movie DETENTION, has a patriotic film coming up called RED DAWN. This is a film I am looking forward to seeing because I liked the original, and it also stars my good friend Will Yun Lee as the bad guy. It’s a movie about America being invaded by a foreign country and a group of kids shooting back while eating deer meat. I am hoping they update this remake and have the kid who kills the deer be gay, so that the rest of the movie the kids have soy flavored, gluten free deer jerky as they fight for America.

However there is some controversy to the film. They had shot it with the invading country being China, but the Chinese government protested and the studio decided to digitally change the country to North Korea – a country that won’t protest because their movie projectors are made out of 1,000 starving schoolchildren making funny shapes with their bodies.

There is a lesson here, and it is not that Hollywood are pussies that bow to censorship at political pressure from thin skinned foreign governments. The lesson very clearly is this:

ALL ASIAN PEOPLE LOOK ALIKE.

OK white people, let's get the obvious out of the way: Asian people have slanted eyes. This allows us to see in cinemascope and paint excellent pictures of watercolored landscapes. The extra peripheral vision is very useful in blocking kung fu kicks. In ten percent of the population, the slanted eyes actually achieve night vision.

Though labelled yellow, Asian people come packaged in an assortment of colors. My friend Dan Ming is darker than Beyonce, but ironically, Dan Ming's karaoke is whiter than Frank Sinatra. Personally, my farmer's tan on my arms is darker than my chest, therefore I am proof that like Autobots, Asians come in duo-tone colors. Do not try to make out with an Asian who is grey. He's dead.

All Asians eat rice. Bread is ok, but rice is nice. In North Korea, there is no rice, so Asians eat each other. The grey ones taste terrible.

Now that I have described the basic physical traits of Asians, let's proceed to learn the differences between different Asian cultures. I will describe this within context of universal racial equality and a utopian ideal of peaceful coexistance.

I will compare Asians to aliens in Star Trek.

JAPANESE ARE VULCANS!!!

Vulcans used to be war-like but renounced their violent past to become a technologically sophisticated society based on peace and logic. However, during mating season, they go pretty fucking weird and watch animated porn with schoolgirls being raped by a giant octopus.

Example: that nerd on Heroes.

SOUTH KOREANS ARE ROMULANS!!!

Romulans are close cousins to Vulcans who embraced their war-like nature while still achieving a technologically advanced society. Romulans are fairly chill, but anger them and they will throw their Samsung plasma screens at your head. Also, they are not turned on by giant octopus.

Example: Will Yun Lee, Me.

NORTH KOREANS ARE KLINGONS!!!

Klingons have a Great Leader problem and a hard-on for photon torpedoes. They're basically nuts. Starfleet Federation has imposed economic sanctions, but this means crap because Great Leader thinks he was born from a giant egg. What the fuck.

Example: I hope to God I don't look like this guy when I grow up.

CHINESE ARE BORG!!!

Borg must assimilate the entire universe until everyone is Borg. One way to do this is by never being wrong. Even if you have a ferociously capitalistic market economy, just call it communism anyway. Because Borg are never wrong. That's right Taiwan, you must be assimilated.

Example: General Chang from Star Trek 6: Undiscovered Country*

*Hold on, Kahn, you say. General Chang is an actual Klingon! I say: his last name is Chang. That’s Chinese as fuck. And look at his Fu Manchu moustache. He looks like he wants to beat Jackie Chan’s ass in Drunken Master. Anyway, it’s my blog, my rules. Fuck you.

THAI'S ARE BETAZOIDS!!!

Betazoids are telepathic and empathetic. These are the nicest and politest Asians you will ever meet. Even when they have military coupe's, they're extremely polite. So assholes, stop sending your pedophiles to their country.

Example: DETENTION stunt coordinator/fight choreographer Don Therrada (example of polite Thai person, not pedophile).

VIETNAMESE ARE FERENGI!!!

Ferengi caused some controversy when they were first created because they were criticized as thinly veiled depictions of offensive Jewish stereotypes: greedy. But I will now usurp that offensive stereotype and place it on my Vietnamese friends, because you know you motherfuckers love money.

Example: Professional Poker Player

FILIPINO'S ARE RANDOM ALIEN CHICKS CAPTAIN KIRK BANGED!!!

So I was on this job and my Half Filipino producer thought a full Filipino crew girl might be good for someone she knew. But then the Filipino crew girl got drunk and started dancing the lesbian dance on top of the bar. I dunno, maybe it's the island thing.

Example: Damn.

And finally:

JEWS ARE CAPTAIN KIRK!!!

Captain Kirk banged a whole lot of alien women. I think he rarely hooked up with a human. If the girl had three eyes or teeth in her vagina, he was all up in it. You could say he had ALIEO FEVER. If there one subset of white men who bang a lot of Asian women, it’s Jewish men. They even asked why this is in the SOCIAL NETWORK, and I will answer it here:

There has been this racist thing where certain WASPs tell Jews they are not white enough culturally, and that they have physical traits that aren’t American enough. But to Asian people, ALL WHITE PEOPLE LOOK ALIKE. We can’t tell that Woody Allen isn’t Robert Redford. To an Asian girl, he’s white. He’s Brad Pitt. You don't have to luck out and be one of those super good looking Liev Shriebers. To Asian girls, all Jews are just really smart, successful Brad Pitts. And who really gives a shit about Christmas.

Jewish guys love Asian girls. Asian girls love Jewish guys. And secretly, they both know if they reproduce, their kids are going to end up being the Harvard versions of this:

Example: the Facebook guy.

Yeah. Their kids are going to be hot.

Bieber Is A Stupid Name

2011-02-22T05:50:00.000-08:00

Never in the history of entertainment has one risen so far and fast with such an incredibly stupid last name as Justin Bieber.

As a word “bieber” sounds like one of three things:

1) a piece of plastic you wear around your neck at Red Lobster

2) a flavor of German baby food marinated inside Bavarian sheep

3) dildo

Back in the old days (2003), the male sexmeat usually came to the plate with a bad ass last name that denoted both virility and awesome whiteness. Nick CARTER (Nordic Fire), Justin TIMBERLAKE (Southern Strength), Robbie WILLIAMS (English Elegance). Further back there were He-Men like Marky MARK (Archer), Frankie AVALON (I’m not Italian), and George MICHAEL (so hetero he had two male names).

There is no question “Bieber” is at the least a white last name. The name is simply too weak to survive in the rough world of the darker people. If he were a black guy in the NBA, “Bieber” would be a referee. If he were a Mexican crossing the border, “Bieber” would have his lung cavities stuffed full of cocaine. If he were Afghan, “Bieber” would be on a Unicef poster with one arm. If he were Chinese, “Bieber” would have been eaten by Xia Xedong second week in the shipping container.

Only in the nurturing fantasy world of white people can a name like Bieber be given a free pass to reproduce and subsequently give progeny ridiculous names like “Apple”, “River”, or “Topher Grace.”** So yes, Bieber is a white name, but the problem is it’s the name of a 1970’s Gimp. Bieber is the white guy you keep chained to the helicoptor in a Luchadore mask until white men named Avalon need it to make them a sandwich made from dead Cambodians.

**And white people have the balls to make fun of how black people name their kids...

So why is this guy the most popular entertainer in America?

Bieber is the dingleberry that fell short from the Timberlake tree. They are both white guys named Justin who sing and dance. Grasp that, people. Compute it. Flashback over the last ten years and and realize that we are cloning our ideas. If our baby comes out with a fucked up name and lesbian bob, we are ok with getting it just half done.

This is the stupidest form of American laziness since the country voted the second George Bush in because he shared an identical name with his father. Or giving Hillary a shot because her last name was Clinton. Or that JFK Jr. idiot who flew his plane into a fucking storm. Yes, idiot. If I did that, no nation would mourn me. The newspaper headline would read:

Now, it may seem strange that a well established pop music director like myself would complain about the taste of the general public in a bestselling artist. I don’t really have a problem with Bieber outside of his name and his Canadian mountie haircut. I really haven’t heard any Bieber songs, including the ones they sent me to write treatments on.

I guess I’m just more of a Timberlake guy. Stop trying to reboot him. The Sam Raimi version was fine.

SEX

2010-09-14T14:39:00.000-07:00

Detention is an independent movie completely financed by myself, some creative loans, outside funding including family cash, and even some crew money. At this point, I probably owe some money to Jabba the Hutt as well. But I have bartered cowriter Mark Palermo’s body away as collateral so I have some time here.

What this ultimately means is that it’s a truly independent movie that has given me the oppurtunity to call the shots exactly the way I want them. Zero interference, complete creative control. So this will come straght from my head into your body, just like a casting call with an A list video director.

In otherwords, rape.

Speaking of which, let’s talk about director sex. My director friend Paul Hunter visited the set the other night and commented how I always seem to have the hottest girls on my shoots, which is funny since I think the same of his sets. Every video director thinks the other director has hotter girls.

Essentially on a biblical level, we covet each other’s goats that Yahweh has forbidden us to eat. We nerds don't eat the goats - AKA screw the girls - because of one big reason:

Filmmakers are boring.

We're not rock stars. We're dentists. We look at people's teeth and think to ourselves, "could be whiter." If Rock 'n Roll is highschool, directors are yearbook staff. If actors are the brightly colored tangs and clowns in a fishtank, we're the ugly gray thing sucking on the glass to make it clean.

If we had real personality, we'd be in front of the camera. If we had a modicum of good looks, we probably wouldn't have had to fight so hard to be "The Man."

I actually think this is beyond sociological. It's pure evolution. Each abdominal muscle you lack equals $500,000 in net worth you must own to get laid with an equivalent quality of female that a man with a six pack would get. I would argue the better looking you are, the shittier director you probably are. This is Kahn's Recipricol Equation of Nerd Success.

Proof?

On a purely objective level, this face ain't gonna get him laid:

And neither will this guy's:

Now, if the three guys above made a television show about how they got rich and then started boning every starlett in Hollywood, that would still be a flop, because when the camera actually try to film these victory laps, there'd be no footage.

If the fellow ugly director by the name of Spike Lee made a film about my life, it would be titled: I Still Got No Game.

There is only so long you can fake being cool before you revert to your natural state of pussy-free comic book reading and Spielberg dvd marathons.

For the curious, the upkeep on a hot Hollywood girl is not terribly expensive for a reasonably successful director. It consists something along the lines of this:

1) Sushi and drinks, with a +2 guest list for her girlfriends ($500)

2) An occasional gift with Prada written somewhere on it ($2,000)

3) V.I.P. table at hollywood club with Cristal ($3000)

This gets you the starter package. This is either the young wide-eyed actress/singer/model who just got here from Iowa in her hoopty car, or the drunk old chick who has fucked her way down the food chain until she's left with pathetic you and even more pathetic stories about Kelly Slater back in 1994.

So ultimately, this will never work. You may get the sex, but she's just doing Kelly Slater's favorite positions when he was into Pearl Jam. And ultimately, you're gonna just wanna watch The Color Purple.

Spielberg. He knows your favorite positions.

Now on the flipside, there are the girls who actually dig your personality, your intelligence, and your passion for your artform.

These girls are called Pretentious^TM.

I have had two times in my life where I was going to get laid, but ended up in an argument where I have to defend Spielberg against her ranting on the superiority of independent movies, foreign films, or independent foreign films excluding the Republic of Ghana. Because Ghanans are sell outs.

The first time was when I was 19. I was a college dropout working behind a movie counter shuffling popcorn. Somehow I had convinced a local Texas model/aspiring filmmaker I was going to be a BIG SHOT one day, and it was inevitably going to lead to my spectacular de-virginification. But she felt Spielberg was a hack, and I defended him in a way she felt was over-simplifying and unintellectual.

She was 18 and modeled jeans at Target.

Years later I was in Puerto Rico on a location scout. A drunk American girl recognized me from television and invited me up to her apartment after the bars closed. This scenario does not happen as often as you think. Some aspiring directors imagine this kind of score as frequent as a basketball score of 86 to 84, but really, the score tally works more like low point soccer. Lots of running around and then standing at the end of the day trying to kick just one goddamn ball past the goalie.

And this drunk goalie blocked all my shots with one simple defense: The Spielberg-is-not-a-real-filmmaker knee to the groin. So instead of sex, I get an intellectual debate on my pathetic and shallow taste in movies. Puerto Rico 1, Spielberg 0.

I feel sorry for all you guys who want to be Michael Bay. Suckers.

My Lunch Meeting Yesterday

2010-08-06T21:29:00.000-07:00

Conversation with my Executive Producers yesterday...

The Conversation

2010-07-27T15:03:00.000-07:00

Just drove back from lunch with Mark Palermo. He pointed out that there is another Jennifer Aniston movie coming out.

Me: You love Jennifer Aniston.

MarkPalermo: You love Lisa Kudrow.

Me: You love Robin Givens.

MarkPalermo: You love Alfre Woodard.

Me: You love Jason Patrick.

Mark Palermo: You love David Boreanaz.

Me: You love Fran Drescher.

Mark Palermo: You love Annie Potts.

7-27-10. 2:34 PM. MARK PALERMO WIN.

***JUST ADDED. The Conversation SPECIAL DIRECTOR'S EDITION.

How To Be A Director

2010-06-06T23:40:00.000-07:00

How to be a director

I’m currently prepping an independent movie that I am spending my own money on. Hollywood rule number one is to never spend your own money on a project, but if you can’t invest in something you believe in, then burn your money anyway. I’ve been reluctant to make another movie unless a script comes across that I absolutely love, and that script has never surfaced. I think I hate the stories Hollywood wants to tell. They bore the shit out of me.

So with the Canadian Mark Palermo™ I wrote one. I’m assembling my video and commercial crew to make it in the way I want - no fucking interference. Anyone who follows my video work knows this is my modus operandi. I do one for them, I do one for me. Before I do my next studio feature, I just need to do one totally for me...and that may mean for you too. I’m going to make a movie I want to see, period. I think there are enough of you out there curious enough to see what that means.

So as I start my journey, let me help you with yours. I am going to help you aspiring filmmakers by posting advice I wrote a while ago.

How to be a director.

Let me break it down for you, brothers and sisters.

Lets begin with the basics.

The Closed Eye Camera Concentration Pose is a fundamental skill that must be mastered. Notice the light touch Oliver Stone has on the extended eyepiece and the graceful arch of his back. Everything comes together effortlessly. A collared long sleeve shirt creates a nice slimming v-line down the front, making him look like a natural born killer.

After about ten years, you can move on to Angry Director Pose in which the camera sits below you...

Here Mark Romanek demonstrates absolutely perfect form as his hand is extended onto a lens, mouth open, brows pressed. Notice how the video monitor lands right in front of the camera assistant's face, allowing us to take in the breathtaking power of the pose without distracting below-the-line interference.

Yet...you can still infer the assistant is female, thus granting Romanek a liberal, progressive political bent that will be very useful in wooing movie stars like Tom Hanks.

After decades of practice, your Angry Director Pose can reach undreamed levels of intimidation. Here, Stanley Kubrick asks for coffee.

Another critical skill a director must wield is the power to make an imaginary camera with your hands. There are many variations of this technique, but the most simple and elegant I have ever seen is Steven Spielberg's Victory Point.

I have attempted to use the Victory Point myself, but could not wrap my eyes between the points of the fingers, and the mysterious positioning of the thumb adds a level of thematic complexity that is hard to fathom. What is the thumb? Why is he smiling? What does it all mean?

In the hands of a benevolent Spielberg, the power of the Victory Point can bring joy and laughter to the world. However, in the hands of an angry Spielberg, the Victory Point can bring death and destruction. Here, Spielberg balls his fist and brings down a rain of locusts on Brett Ratner.

The Hands of Cinema, as demonstrated by Ridley Scott, is a classic, timeless tool of the director. Peering between your hands at an invisible movie screen brings much joy to actors. Notice the rare pacified look on Russell Crowe's face.

One of the most powerful moves in a directors arsenal, the Hands of Cinema should be used sparingly and in complete silence. Here Steven Spielberg accidentily spreads the fingers of his left hand. Five production assistants died of heart attacks.

When you reach Grand Master status as Martin Scorsese has here, the Hands of Cinema will project beams of light and Leonardo DiCaprio will sit in awe, offering prayers to your Immortal Power.

Now, this is a very advanced technique...

Coppola has broken the Hands of Cinema and uses the remaining energy to turn the photograph black and white. The visual impact of using one palm is so great that Coppola has hypnotized Steve Jobs to pay him money.

Moving along students, study the following closely:

Notice how Naomi Watts is in complete awe as David Lynch weilds The Palm. The sunken headphones add a nice touch as Lynch is sending mixed messages: his ears are open, but he denies her his eyes. This push/pull technique is highly effective at controlling your actors, allowing you to mindfuck and then bang your lead actress, thus achieving ultimate victory for you nerds.

Which brings us to:

Now I love M. Night films, but here he is in poor form. His shoulders are hunched, his face shows slight concern, and he has allowed a man in a sweater to lurch over his shoulder. Even though Night later had the man executed, I still think it was poor form to allow this to happen. In my opinion, the entire Assistant Director department should have been executed as well.

Now here Night is in top form. His tight expensive t-shirt flawlessly shows his biceps and his nipples peek out from a set of well developed pecs. I think it was a good call not to look into the camera otherwise his physique would not have been in perfect alignment. He looks very fuckable.

And finally:

Now at first glance this would seem to be an innocuous photo of David Fincher demonstrating the Closed Eye Camera Concentration Pose, but if you look closely, Fincher is looking through with his left eye. Fincher believes that the left eye is connected to the right creative hemisphere of the brain, so by using his left eye he can process images with more nuance. This true story - I shit you not - is a perfect application of creating a completely insane mystique about yourself and scaring the living daylights out of stoned film students.

I hope this has helped all of you. Go forth and rule the world.

Chinese Guy

2010-03-10T02:01:00.000-08:00

Jackie Chan does all his own stunts. But what you don’t know is before he does his insane leap from one building to another, he has another Chinese Guy jump first just to test it out. If that guy lives, then Jackie jumps on film.

Everybody should have a Chinese Guy.

Jackie has a Chinese Guy.

And I have a Chinese Guy. His name is Dan Ming.

Dan Ming

I recently shot a charity video for Haiti. Before I went into Haiti, sneaking through the Dominican Republic border, I sent Dan Ming in advance of me. He thought he was there to shoot some additional b-roll footage, but really I was just checking to see if he would die. Two days later, emaciated, hardened, living on a diet of ginseng roots and dried shark fins, it was clear Dan was only 56.75% likely to die from the experience.

That was good enough for me and TK.*

*TK organized the trip. Me, him, a Haitian production assistant, and whatever we could carry on our backs. A year ago I was shooting in Africa. When we were done, TK stayed behind and hitchhiked into the Congo where he spent a month in jail being accused of being a CIA agent. So the point is, we had no idea what the fuck we were doing in Haiti.

But his blog is not about Haiti. This blog is about How To Own Your Own Dan Ming.

First, ownership is not a hobby. It is a responsibility. Yes, owning a Dan Ming can be a very rewarding experience, but remember, Dan Ming was Made in China^TM. Do not let children under five years old play with him unsupervised in lieu of choking hazards.

I used to think he was C-3PO because there were many similarities between them. Skinny yellow robot, skinny yellow man. One is fluent in three million galactic languages, the other speaks three million forms of Friend Zone. You can detatch C-3PO's limbs; Dan likes yoga. They both like white chicks.

Dan Ming likes white chicks.

But having travelled the world over with my Chinese Protocol Droid, I realize he's not C-3PO at all. C-3PO wore the same yellow suit wherever he went. Dan Ming morphs. No matter what climate or culture we get dropped in, Dan is like a magical GI Joe figure with an endless line of accessories (though he was clearly designed by George Lucas). I have no idea where Dan stores the clothes he does for every location we go to. As far as I know, all he brings with him on the plane is his iphone, several thousand dollars*, and three or four relatives in the cargohold.

*Chinese people do not like debt and therefore avoid credit cards whenever possible. This makes them extremely attractive to home invading Korean thugs. But warning…Dan's ancestors were all eunuchs who got their balls chopped off - yet they still managed to breed. The only other creatures that ever managed to do this were the velociraptors in Jurassic Park.

When you buy your own Dan Ming, don't expect him to just start entertaining you with his fancy costumes and ability to pass off low waisted hugs as harmlessly platonic. First of all, when you open the box, you might be shocked to see how much assembly is required:

(extra small child labor hands sold seperately)

This may be an overwhelming challenge to assemble your first Dan Ming, but listen up White People, if you can take 30 minutes to assemble the Ikea Svortik Coffee table, you can take the fucking time to click Dan Ming's leg into place. Or at least activate Dan's head so that he can instruct your maid in Spanish to do the rest.

So now you've activated your Dan Ming. Where to start? What to do? I suggest exploring DESERT DAN mode.

This starter position is a good way to get acquainted with the basic survival mechanism of your Dan Ming, namely his uncanny ability to recirculate his urine internally to keep himself hydrated. In combination with Chinese herbal remedies, Dan Ming can survive indefinitely in the desert. Give him a supply of tiger penis powder, and he will actually turn into a terracotta soldier and live forever.*

*I have never eaten tiger penis powder, but I would assume it tastes something like Goretex- the waterproof material that covers rain gear and Canadians. One day scientists plan to clone human cells around Goretex creating artificial organs. I believe science has not only created that organ, it has created an entire man out of Goretex.

That man is Dan Ming.

GORETEX DAN is waterproof and virtually indestructible. His shiny high tech blue skin deflects gun shots and racial taunts.

However, he is not completely invincible as you can see below.

STRENGTH: 18 (+2)

STAMINA: 17 (+3)

CONSTITUTION: 14 (-1)

INTELLIGENCE: 18 (-1)

WISDOM: 17 (-2)

The blue goretex armour decreases his Wisdom enough that high level Wizards have a good shot at him. I would suggest using a MAGIC FIREBALL and aiming it at his iphone. After slaying him, collect gold coins, health potions, and $6300 in US cash.

For those of you who might still be thinking – "I like Dan, but…I wish he were more white." The new upgrade comes with a SCUBA DAN mode.

Aqua-Ming.

White chicks like to strap explosive water tanks onto their backs and swim underwater. White guys end up strapping on tanks and following them, sometimes to their own deaths. This is where western culture's fascination with mermaids comes from. Also, it's why Australia exists.

If Dan ever dies, it will surely be underwater trying to give a friend zone hug to a busted Nicole Kidman looking mermaid.

There are no mermaids in the Middle East, but there is IRAQI FREEDOM DAN.

GI Cho

If we're ever serious about catching Osama Bin Laden, activate five of these tough sons of bitches. There is no IED in the world that can blast through Dan's schzechuan skin.

Of course sometimes, Mings go bad. Bin Laden could get wise and offer him 72 busted Nicole Kidman looking mermaids to flip sides, and then we would have to contend with the ultimate weapon of mass destruction - AL QAEDA DAN.

His WMD is MSG.

Thankfully, an actual Ming did go to heaven and all that happened was the mermaids played Charlotte Gainsbourg records, nullifying Osama's offer.

Finally, for advanced collectors, you can play with Dan in the snow. Collect enough Mings and you can invade Planet Hoth and crush the Rebel Alliance once and for all.

Charlie don't ski.

Anyway, the point of this blog is that two weeks ago Dan died in a horrible sudoku accident. We will all miss him.*

* Obviously not true. It's hard to kill a man who drinks tiger penis powder.

Ten Best of the Decade

2009-12-23T18:21:00.000-08:00

This is my list of the ten best pieces of filmmaking in the last decade.

10. The Bad Boys 2 freeway chase (Michael Bay)

It’s a rock solid piece of classical filmmaking. Spielberg’s multiple planes of action and jeopardy are the bedrock of it’s structure. Action is clearly trackable and screen space is defined by car/camera/foreground pivots. Then it introduces a new dynamic to the action film vernacular – the Baybuster POV. Bay and his team invent a camera car with a sloped armored hood that allows direct crashes into the lens. Smacking objects into cameras isn’t new, but Bay elevates catastrophe ballet by completing these moments with geometric follow up reverses – the reverse of the cars flying the other way. That’s new shit. He violates Hitchcock’s contention that the camera should never be in a position a human being would not be and then blends it seamlessly with a perspective shifting reverse. It’s action cubism: flipping from one perspective and inverting it to another. It rewrote the playbook of how a car chase is conceptualized. Also, it kicks ass.

9. White Stripes Fell In Love With A Girl (Michel Gondry)

This is the quantum mechanics of music videos. It proves that Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer has always been overrated. Sledgehammer uses stop motion animation but it is all muscle. It’s simply a replication of the real world using substitutions. It’s beautiful, but it’s a demonstration. Gondry does something far different. He uses analog animation to break down images into the purest abstract shapes, and then dissolves the shapes with wipes and simulated morphs. It’s a three dimensional world collapsing into two dimensions. He’s testing the limits of human perception – between the psychological need to quantify reality and logic in real world space versus the non-spatial process of human musical thought. The purest expression of music as visuals ever made.

8. Nike “Fate” (David Fincher)

Contrary to popular belief, Fincher as a visualist has never been preeningly complex. He is a reductionist, organizing compositions in logical minimalist geometry. His lighting schemes as aesthetically beautiful as they are - are pretty basic. What makes him complex is the narrative completion of very simple graphic ideas, very much like Kubrick or Lynch. The whole is greater than the sum of it’s parts. It’s the moment between the edits that make Fincher special, the relationship between the shots, the cinematic moment you connect in your own head. Nike “Fate” is a commercial that crystallizes this process. The entire narrative is made of two football players who are on a collision course. Each shot is counterpart to the other, moving from left to right, then right to left, until they finally collide as adults. On a shot by shot basis, the visual execution is cold and precise. But the edits in between are spiritual.

7. British Television Comedies (The Office – Ricky Gervase, The IT Crowd – Graham Lineham)

It’s as if the Brits are so preoccupied with social class and structure, comedy gives them a rebellious outlet to deconstruct status, right down to the format of the medium itself. Technically, the mockumentary has been around forever, however Ricky Gervase and Steven Merchant enforce an extreme level of intrusion. The camera is used to trap and contain the subjects, and the characters are aware they are being watched and judged. This self reflexivity actually motivates their downfall, provoking them to do actions they wouldn’t do if they weren’t filmed. The Christmas Special takes it a step further, dealing with the impact of the documentary’s fame. It’s the ground zero of post modern comedy. Meanwhile as the world replicates this non traditional format, The IT Crowd returns to retro multicam that actually includes a laugh track. But it’s not really multicam, it only feels that way because of the laugh track and lighting. Camera placement is a big part of the show, selectively adding visual reveals and punchlines. Oddly, this is the only comedy today that successfully uses close-ups as punchlines – a comedy cardinal sin.

6. Survivor Season 19 (Mark Burnett)

This is filmmaking at it’s most manipulative. Survivor utilizes the tools of the trade with vicious accuracy. Music, sound, edits, camera, foreshadowing, narration, symbolism. All collectively constructed for maximum suspense, each episode expertly using misdirection to keep the audience witlessly guessing who will be voted off - every single episode. Season 19 is the masterpiece. It accomplishes what Geroge Lucas failed to do in his Star Wars prequels: root for Vader. Russell Hantz begins the season as an arrogant, manipulative, evil villain the audience absolutely despises. He sabotages his own tribe. Drinks all the water, burns all the socks, gloats. He does not change for the rest of the season - at all. Yet by the end, the audience is rooting for him. Because he has convinced us his compeitors are so stupid and shallow they deserve to lose, and the evidence supports him. This violates every screenwriting rule. An anti-hero that does not have an arc. That never redeems himself. That we fall in love with, even more so in failure. We change, not him, and not even the anti-hero of There Will Be Blood managed to do that to the audience. Joseph Campbell’s hero myth bites the dust.

5. Diesel SFW XXX (Keith Schofeld)

This is about as clever as it gets. It’s the work every hipster wished they came up with. It’s the best Spike Jonze work since Fatboy Slim’s “Praise You,” except Spike didn’t direct it. It is this decade’s culmination of a cultural meme began in the 90’s indie film explosion and videos like Sabotage. It is the recycled retro idea reinvented and re-energized. It’s part of the post modern lexicon of art: a dettachment to the real world in favor of Tarantino’s closed loop of visual sampling and insular cultural riffs. Sex as visual masturbation. Ultimate goal: itself.

On aside note, part of Sabotage’s appeal was that it effectively handled the Beastie Boy’s rap whiteness by mocking it, placing it in context of porno-macho cop shows and old dad clothes. Schofeld’s Diesel ad is a collary for white boy porn. The trick behind the spot isn’t just the fun use of creative censorship. The brilliance is that it knows you can identify every single hidden act because you have watched variations of it all online, and knows you are bored and jaded to all those positions. You are a fucking pervert.

4. AI & Munich (Steven Spielberg)

Steven Spielberg is the greatest cinematic artist that has ever lived and there are no contenders that remotely come close to his genius. Unfortunately, his filmmaking is so seamless I’ve rarely read an analysis of his methodology that remotely scratches the surface of what he does. He has the most naturally psychological eye in cinema. His style hasn’t even been replicated by anyone, because it is so difficult to conceptualize and so deeply personal and specific to him. Too much to get into here, so if you don’t see it, then you just don’t see it, and we'll just agree to differ.

3. The Reviews of Armond White

Filmmaking is a dialogue between the filmmaker and the audience. And let’s make no mistake, the audience has the last word, and the audience who writes that word down is the film critic. A good film critic speaks for the audience. A great film critic speaks for himself. Armond’s reviews are a volatile mix of race and politics and pop, often from an enigmatic personal view that defies classification. His deep thought approach to cinema often brings out some left field ideas and contrarian conclusions. The internet cannot register the films he champions and the idols he tears down. He is often stalked or dismissed. Armond makes such a volatile impact that a baffled Ebert resorted to calling him a troll. But Ebert misses the point here – Armond isn’t just here to celebrate our collective accuracy on which film is better than another. He engages the audience to actively confront or defend their beliefs. Films are made in the audience’s mind, and Armond White is filmmaking.

Also, he’s fucking right about Nicole Kidman.

2. Lost Season 3 (Cuse/Lindelof) / The Hitler Youtube Meme (Everyone)

If you haven’t seen Lost Season 3, skip this. Spoilers.

At the final episode of Season 3, Lost flips the audience’s expectation of form and turns flashbacks into flashforwards. It is a cinematic breakthrough in structural integrity, instantly changing the process in which the audience processes information. From now the audience does not trust the very edits that construct a narrative, signaling their brains to defend themselves. On a primal level, it is the same disorienting act of watching horror movies achieved outside of three dimensional screen space. An overload of disorientation can easily flip into comedy, and that is precisely what the Youtube Hitler videos do. These are two minute clips taken from the movie Downfall and re-subtitled by random people. As each person retitles the clip’s narrative, it plays off the audience’s increasing familiarity of it’s structure: Hitler’s plan, his revelation, his dismissal, his fury, the defeat of the staff, his resignment. Each expectation is imprinted into the audience, and the reveal in every variation works off your collective anticipation. Proof punchlines are structural. Between Lost and Hitler, a clear demonstration of the cinematic mechanics of fear and comedy.

1. 1. Avatar (James Cameron)

We are finally at a juncture where immersive photoreality is proven. William Gibson dislikes giant pop science fiction of this sort, but ironically, this is one of the culminations of his predictions. This is a taste of cyberspace. It is a matter of mass production and porting into other mediums. A world where the fantasy and reality are indestinguishable is a breakthrough beyond filmmaking with implications for politics, religion, sex, materialism, meaning, among others. Pandora isn’t a planet. It’s a box.

Pair of Normals

2009-10-23T02:39:00.000-07:00

I’m going to call out the most important film of the decade, and that movie is Paranormal Activity. We’ve still got two movie months left of the 2000’s, but Paranormal Activity crystallizes the decade’s most revealing cultural truth:

White people got boring.

This is a movie where the starring couple seems to have absolutely no defining personalities except for their whiteness. The girl is an English major – which between 1 to 10 on a White scale ranks about an 11. Her defining cute move in the opening of the movie is to play with drum sticks like she’s a cockblocking Joey Kramer from Aerosmith. White girls love to point drum sticks at their boyfriends and say no. It’s like a rock n roll sepulcher. Meanwhile, most of the movie is shot from the eye of her boyfriend, who may have the least qualified job skills to ever hold a camera – he’s a daytrader.

There is literally no effort to distinguish these two Mad Libs from any other (twentysomethings) with (finalcut) making (youtube films) in America. They emote in calibrated bursts, icily studying really fucked up shit in their house with Starbuckian remoteness. A door opens by itself and they are slightly miffed as if their latte were too warm.

All in all, the most racist, stereotypical depiction of white people since Survivor Season One. The ghosts didn’t want her soul. They wanted to crack Kanye West jokes with her.

There was a time when white people were not boring. This magical era was called the 80’s. The heyday of the wisecracking white male action hero (Stallone), or the coked out social climber (Tom Cruise), or a metaphorical combination thereof (Michael J. Fox in Teen Wolf).

No one could kill someone without a one liner Shane Black wrote on an inflated breast, and no depiction of an exciting stock sale could be acted without Oliver Stone‘s post Chinese hooker glow.

For white females actresses, they were the most desirable women in the world with simply no ethnic equivalent. There was simply no studio endorsed African American/Latina answer to a Brooke Shields or or Melanie Griffith or Julia Roberts.* For white males, it was Golden Era of larger than life male personalities in their prime in all their shades: Bruce Willis’s Jersey Blue. Harrison Ford’s Yellow corn-fed shucksiness. Robin William’s Psychedlic Rainbow. Jack Nicholson was so dementedly WASP he wore white make-up in Batman and permanently plastered his entitled smile. White people had personality. It was an era where whiteness was embraced and celebrated to the point that an Austrian with a scary Aryan accent became the defacto roided king of Hollywood.

*Lynda Carter aka Wonder Woman was actually half Mexican, but I didn’t know that until 2007, so she’s disqualified. Also it was through Wikipedia, so it could be bullshit anyway.

It was an era where white people were literally Gods, culminating in the ultimate charismatic white male who ever walked the earth – Ronald Reagan. And then, it was all downhill from there.

Because in the 90’s, white people started getting, well…weird.

They started doing things like shooting themselves (Kurt Cobain) or even worse, singing on stage and cryptically shaking their heads (Eddie Vedder). Shaking for yes? Shaking for no? No one could figure it out. White kids thought that was cool. Grunge was born.

There is a train of thought that in the 90’s black music and culture shifted from cross pollinating pop culture to dominating it, and as a result white culture became more fringe. As the rise of Snoop and Puff Daddy and Will Smith lobbed a grenade into the gentrified pop cityscape, a part of the white audience moved out further to the burbs and started new colonies. Hence the rise of indie films, music, food, or a combination of all three.*

*Moby.

But that kind of thinking is way too smart for me. So I will blame it on one thing:

Nicole Kidman.

A generation of white actors followed in her bland robot footsteps. The 2000’s were dominated by measured, calculated act-o-thons. I call this The Fincher Curve. It peaks at Fight Club in 1999 where Brad Pitt’s Tyler Durden is the de facto most charismatic white male of that decade, and then Fincher gives way to experlty measured performance pieces – Panic Room, Zodiac - and returns to Brad Pitt who is now a quite old man child cradled in the arms of Cate Blanchett’s Oscar statue (great flick btw).

It was as if white people wanted to be boring, ashamed of their excess in the 80’s, mistrustful of the nail that stuck out. White people prophetically were Turning Japanese (I don’t think so).

The most awesome white people in existance were being shunned by their own. Tom Cruise was castigated for being too awesome. Upstart wacko Ben Affleck’s head was too potato shaped, and his sexual infraction too Puerto Rican.* Nic Cage was actually handed the white death sentence: the charge of hamming it. He was having fun on screen, and in the 2000’s, white people do not have fun. In their place, a grim Batman, a deadly serious James Bond, Viggo’s stoic Lord of the Rings, Matt Damon’s smileless Jason Bourne.

*But mostly it was the potato head. White people prefer craniums to be shaped like a UFC fighter’s.

It is as if the white population is suddenly at odds with itself. On one side is a new truly multicultural America, filled with loud mixed people and music and spicy food, Britney & Justin, Pink & Gaga, in a sexualized world of bright clothing and an endlessly repeating 808 track, and everyone is invited to dance. On the other is Radiohead (and you just don’t get it).

As any internet chatboard seems to attest, the only criteria for “credibility” actors is that these actors are not talented, good looking, and funny at the same time. Essentially, they should not be Will Smith.

It seems the coolest white people today are gay, yet when the gay community finally got their shout out in Brokeback Mountain, the two white gay lovers were the most serious, boring gay people ever depicted on film, and to be honest, in actual human history. No proto Gaga or Kylie soundtrack. Just an Equadorian Indian on a xylophone - music I imagine the daytrader boyfriend of Paranormal Activity might try to score his movie to, if Spielberg didn’t put his foot down and smite his ass with a kick into the lens.

I miss Tom Cruise. I miss Nic Cage. I even miss Potato Head. I will go further and say bring back Bruce Willis when he kept cracking jokes about how shitty rap was, except make them clever this time – have Diablo Cody write Die Hard 5. And where the fuck are you Meg Ryan? Your movie relationship with Billy Crystal was trailblazing comparatively in the 80’s – afterall he had a Jewfro. Let my Shia go. It’s time that the non boring white people get out from the large chip Neil Young placed on their shoulder. Seriously, Neil Young sucks.

It’s time for regime change.*

*I’m looking at you, Richard Corliss.

X-Men & Sex Boys

2009-08-30T06:42:00.000-07:00

1) This is a major expansion of a previous blog of mine.

2) Before I start, let me address my credentials. I am a Spider-Man fan. I am such a geek I own over $100,000 of Spider-Man issues. Therefore I speak with authority, and I have a message to all you Batman lovers: get fucking laid.

Let’s backtrack here and get on neutral ground. Let’s enter the world of X-men.

There was a period of X-men where the comic book was actually a good read. The original Chris Claremont years were an interesting time specifically because he brought female teen angst into the picture. Sure you have your machismo Wolverine issues, but the angry Canadian (no such thing, btw) was often dealing with a team pussywhipped with estrogen: Kitty Pryde, Rogue, Storm, Jean Grey, Dazzler, Psylocke. When Stan Lee created the original X-men the ratio was a balanced gang bang: four guys to one girl. But by the time Claremont was through, the roster was so feminized the gang bang morphed into a girl/girl extravaganza, with Storm and her butch mohawk leading the way.

Unlike most comic books, X-men stories often revolved around the female heroines, and make no mistake, these were all horny girls.

The perception and common knowledge is that X-men is about racism or McCarthyism, but that is the defensively male-centric point of view. Different era’s produce different messages, and in the 80’s when the book was really clicking, plot lines mostly revolved around romances, escalating into marital issues and in the case of Cyclops and Jean Grey – loss of a child (Issue #200, AKA the Ashley Judd issue). X-Men wasn’t about racism or McCarthyism. X-men was Desperate Housewives with superpowers. The only thing Mutants were hiding from the public was the right for teenage boys to play Barbie.

So Bryan Singer got it right - but even more right than he thought. X-men is not an allegorical story where mainstream superheroes stand as metaphors for gay people. X-men is a mainstream superhero book for the teenage male readership to explore their gay side under the guise of fighting ridiculously fey villains - the Hellfire Club, or the supergroup that sounds like they popped out of a Village People song: The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.

Right. The lady doth protest too much.

Meanwhile, Wolverine is the most butch character in the Marvel Universe because he is a shining counterpart to the Spice Girls he is a part of. That’s right, for the shamed X-men reader, Wolverine is their beard.

This is the real practical lesson of X-men. We are all a little gay. And that’s fine by me.

Yet fanboys salivate at the theory of the “hardcore” X-men film with mutant powers exploding from Magneto’s hands (coincidentally played by gay gandalf Sir Ian Mckellan). They want “reality.” But like a James Bond villain with a giant laser scope aimed at his crotch, there is a forced tempered break in execution in order to fufill the audience’s wish. They don’t want to see Bond’s nuts vaporized, though that is the likeliest outcome when you are strapped to a table, and they don’t want to see their beard Wolverine die. So like a triumphant Wile E. Coyote, Wolverine manages to defeat Magneto, although his bones are made of metal and Magneto could easily crush him into anal beads for his next Paul Oakenfold rave.

Reality is a tricky thing to demand out of your superhero movies. The problem with asking for versimilitude is that the core superhero logic was designed for the brains of twelve year old boys. Even when the heroes get updated for the modern manchild who can afford $3.99 for a ten minute read, the supposedly complex themes now added to their cartoon origins can become ridiculous. For all the metaphors against anti-semitism X-men can try to infuse, it all gets muddled when you consider that there really are bad mutants trying to take over the world. For all of Xavier’s dreams of equal rights and that humans have no reason to fear mutants and their powers, he does call himself Homo Superior and he spends an awful lot of time trying to protect said human beings from Giant Blobs and crazy shape shifting killers trying to become President by murder. This is the equivalent of a Seinfeld episode in redneck Mississippi where Seinfeld saves their churches while fighting George Costanza, who is hurling bolting flames of World Bank Loans at Christians.

And so, no matter how “real” you may consider Heath Ledger’s portrayal of a preposterous criminal mastermind clown in a purple suit is, it’s still in service of a guy who barely covers his juicy rubber buttocks with a cape. Batman, as a concept, is fucking dumb.

Bruce Wayne is the richest man in Gotham and also the crime fighter who saves people from the city's rampant crime. Yet what causes crime? Poverty. What causes poverty? Poor business management and misappropriation of urban planning viz a vis mismanaged taxes and civic leadership. Who has the biggest business in Gotham? Bruce Wayne. Who has the most influence over urban planning and civic leadership? Bruce Wayne. Who apparently found tax loopholes to save money in his company and underfund Gotham's police force? Bruce Wayne.

The kicker is Bruce Wayne took his company private from the evil shareholders. So the poor workers can't even profit from investing in his stock as he rapes Gotham of every industrial contract he inevitably wins. In return for him running the city into the ground, Gotham gets the joy of Bruce Wayne running around in a rubber batsuit beating up on desperate poverty stricken criminals who do not get to go home to a mansion and a man servant at night. His gift to you: a scary bat to "keep you in line." Thanks, Bruce!

The story goes Bruce Wayne is righteous because his parents got shot. Cry him a river, because most of the criminals in Gotham never even knew their parents. They were abandoned while billionaire Bruce was closing down Wayne Industry shops and moving them to slave workers in China to manufacture 1,000 redundant bat ears (this is true, see Batman Begins). That is some straight up Enron shit.

Fanboys who like Batman better than Superman are fucking fascists. Not only that, they are pseudo-Republicans who spend in actuality more than Democrats and think like a 2003 Iraqi War council: Batman is supposedly a "real" superhero with no powers, except that with unlimited cash, he can fly (Bat-wing!), stop bullets (Bat-vest!), take down a heavily armed militia with just his karate chopping hands (Bat-surd!), and spread democracy to adoring, happy Muslims (Bat-fucked!).

Dark Knight? More like Douche Knight.

Reality and superheroes fit like Brandon Routh’s codpiece, bulging and snug because Warner Brothers needs to prove to their fanboy base that there’s nothing but heterosexual virality here. Not like those pussy X-Men at Fox. And definitely not like that queer nerd Peter Parker at Sony who is now in his emo/dancing musical phase.

Reality is the ultimate beard to wear on your manchild chin to prove that adaptations of grappling, near naked wrestlers with the uncanny power to freeze each other’s balls off are not gay. But there is always one way to queer-proof your Greek God fantasies: move on up to the next level. Replace your silly rubber suit with armour. Take away any unrealistic need for superhuman strength with a completely technologically sound exoskeleton for complete plausibility. Bonus points that your hero is a playboy, fucking hot models til his dick bleeds. And make sure he’s played by a completely heterosexual actor.

You know, like Robert Downey, Jr.

Transforming Michael Bay

2009-08-25T03:36:00.000-07:00

I swear to God not all of my blogs are going to be about race and movies but that seems to be the subject du jour this summer. Batter up: Transformers 2.

Somehow, the feral internet has come to the conclusion that Michael Bay is a flaming racist because of the jive talking, Autobot hood rats in disguise. First, let’s knock out one specious accusation– the hood rats never claimed to be illiterate, instead they stated they could not understand an ancient dead Cybertron language only Optimus could read. You see, I speak fanboy.

As to the very nature of the comic relief’s buffoonery, every comic character in TF2 is a cultural caricature. From Shia’s repressed white-geek sheik, to Turturro’s ethnically ambiguous mommy-whipness, to the Joe Pescian Little Ceasar with attitude, right down to the horny humping dogs. It’s telling that only the heroes have identifiable stereotypes. All the Decepticons, bureaucrats, and robot sex bitches are shaded this side of straightforward evil. While Optimus and Bumblebee brim with personality, Megatron or Starscream are almost indistinguishible from each other because they are just different pieces of the Armageddon asteroid. Michael Bay is the opposite of Quentin Tarantino: he loves his heroes far more than his villains.

And Michael Bay saves all his broadest strokes for the things that he loves. This is in fact a mantra of what we advertising/commercial directors do for a living. We are trained to identify the iconography that most moves us in the shortest blast of time, and express that with the most impact. In commercials, we train ourselves to connect with shorthand positive imagery to move ideas. Iconography is a sister to the broad stroke. As the great philosopher Stephen T. Colbert says…”truthiness.”

Thus. Michael Bay loves Megan Foxe’s wet lips. Michael Bay loves John Turturro. Michael Bay loves John Turturro’s ass. Michael Bay loves fart jokes. Michael Bay loves tracking into women’s legs. Michael Bay loves his jive talking Autobots because Michael Bay loves Sprite commercials starring wooden Penny Hardaway puppets.

And Michael bay loves those Sprite commercials because Michael Bay admires the truthiness of black ghetto humor. The question isn’t whether those robot characters were racist depictions, but whether the critics of them are aware that the attitudes of their personaes are not out of line with what makes African Americans laugh too. Because here is the questions fanboys should ask themselves: are you laughing at the robots, or are you laughing with them?

Look it’s often foolish for one race to speak for another. I guess I’ll come across as the lovestruck Asian American nerd espousing the beauty of African American culture that I have grown to cherish, but you know what, that’s what I am. So: there is a shared collective sense of inclusion in many black artforms. I truly believe the key to black culture is the open solidarity of shared active emotions. If you don’t actively participate in the emotional journey, you will miss much of the magic that these uniquely American artforms thrive in. Jazz is an inclusive interplay between the inventive performer and the actively responding reciever. Rap’s underlying power is it’s active demand that the listener keep in constant communication with the lyrics. And often the greatest black comedy is one in which the performer’s ebulliant personality isn’t the goal – like a space cadet Jim Carrey or Mike Meyers - but a journey to the inner truth of that personality’s origin. Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Bernie Mack. Laugh with me, not at me.

I am not claiming the Autobots are Pryor or Mack, however I do claim that they follow a tradition of black comedy that contains a difference. It’s clear the very act of their ghettoness is the inside joke in a big budget movie about a suburban nerdy white boy. They are not simple court jesters. Their ghettoness is funny because they shouldn’t be there in the fanboy party who get erect every time Optimus Prime speaks. They lob an ebonics grenade into Shia’s two story white picket fence world and it’s ultimately his exasperation we laugh at. You can feel the glee that the actual black comics who voiced these animations perform their magic with. We are laughing with them.

With. Not at.

But really this shouldn’t be news to most young kids today. They live in across cultural world where rap, rock, soul, pop, and sometimes country pop blend together. Black, White, Latin, Asian, whatever culture blend together with each Gnarls Barkley mash up and their receptors just get it. The delineation between how black kids and white kids dress on a mass pop level is shrinking rapidly into one American Apparel melting pot. I’m not worried about them. It’s these Gap dressing older fanboy motherfuckers who need to be set straight.

I don't think it's out of line to say that many of these TF2-is-racist critics have no interest in black culture in the first place - from music to comedy to films. There is an intolerant aversion to ebonics or street slang/culture that in the case of TF2, takes on an ugly opportunism from Michael Bay bashers. I don't see a lot of fanboys analyzing Tyler Perry movies. Yet somehow they take morbid glee in the idea that they can absolutely label Bay racist along with the sexism already attributed to him.

Bay may like booty, but he is definitely no racist.

The truly ironic thing is, unlike their de facto hero Peter Jackson, Bay's filmography is filled with heroic and cool black characters.

He staked the beginning of his film career on probably the riskiest crapshoot a white video director could do: a mid budget movie with two unknown black action leads - Bad Boys. Imagine the movie jail he would have been sent to if it didn't sell tickets. I love Fincher to death, but Bad Boys is culturally more ballsy move than Fight Club. It looks like the obvious Bruckheimer play only because it panned out. But it was an action movie with two non-action black stars. Even today you’d need to put a John Travolta or Russell Crowe into the mix to get the studio money for those extra three explosions.

Instead, Michael Bay made it with his two black stars. And when he wanted that extra explosion, he just wrote a personal check to the studio.

That alone gives him the right to tell everyone who calls him racist to fuck off.

District Nein

2009-08-20T19:24:00.000-07:00

Apartheid was a clear case of a government in the wrong. The white government of South Africa suppressed the indigenous Africans and the subsequent removal of power of these knuckleheads was a great turning point in history. Period.

Unfortunately, a good chunk of the much younger generation doesn’t understand what that was all about, nor even that it existed. Apartheid is as familiar or pivotal a concept to them as Harrison Ford. You know, the old guy in that Mexican alien movie starring Shia Labeouf.

So it’s no wonder they can watch District 9 and claim it is not a “racial” movie. The same audience that slept through Apartheid lessons also slept through the concept of allegories in literature class.

But as allegories go, District 9 is a mess.

Begin with the basic premise. In the 1970’s, thousands of black Africans were removed from their homes by the white Apartheid government in the infamous District 6 ghettos. In the movie, these Africans have been replaced by a metaphor: mindless, violent bug-like aliens that are addicted to catfood (drugs), robbery, murder, and prostitution…basically hella ghetto.

Depicting the negative ethnic stereotypes of another race through animal counterparts is always a questionable device, but we are asked by the film’s premise to give it a pass. We have to. The film never promises this, but we as decent human beings tolerate this race baiting because obviously the filmmakers have some ironic point in mind by the conclusion. After all, if they find the requisite message that “we are all violent, catfood eating insects who can kill people with one swipe of our impossibly strong arms”, then perhaps the film will earn the goodwill we naturally give it’s offensive set up.

Normally when it comes to this type of race badgering, it’s just polite to atleast include a token “civilized” character of the ethnic group you are condescending to. Like a Sallah or Joe Biden. But all the real black folk held nominal jobs while all the doctors and talking head psychologists were played by bad white actors. Having worked in South Africa a couple months ago, I can tell you, this is not fair. There are plenty of bad black actors to fill those roles too.

Instead, enter the primitive black Nigerian cannibal tribe whose members are having sex with giant bugs for weapons.

WTF?

Before one argues whether this is patterned after realistic cultural behaviour, one has to ask, what the fuck is this villainous portrayal doing in a movie that takes the liberty of depicting Africans as insects? The obvious answer?

Equivocation.

Take the following interview from Dark Horizons and the film’s director:

Question: Do you feel this is a comment on post-apartheid South Africa?

Blomkamp: Well, there’s no question that there’s a hell of a lot of important topics in there. But I definitely actively tried to not beat the audience over the head with it. And rather, take all of the elements about South Africa that interest me, and the real racial history, as well as the black-on-black xenophobic stuff that’s been happening since all of the Zimbabwe immigrants have been coming into the country. And I incorporated that, also. So really, I just used all of the elements of South Africa that make it South Africa.

Question: And District 6 existed during apartheid.

Blomkamp: Yeah, in Capetown. Yeah.

Question: So if you know about history, I guess there was that parallel as well.

Blomkamp: Yeah. And the forced removals, and all that, but, I mean, yeah. It was meant to incorporate all of the elements that make up South Africa’s background, but in a subtle sort of fabric in the movie. And the personal story is in the foreground.

So essentially the specific black on black xenophobia scenes are directly related to Zimbabwan refugees, but those are a minor subplot in the movie he “incorporated”. The greater plot is the historical Apartheid allegory of South Africa and District 6’s horrible race relocation...then they equivocated it all and mixed it up, and made a shakey cam action flick out of it.

This is the major problem with the film. It spends a lot of energy mixing two separate issues of South Africa that have very different politics, and ultimately neither works. The filmmaker is either madly detatched: are South African slums nothing more than a cool place to stage action scenes? Or is this white South African reluctance to separate those two issues – white Apartheid versus modern black immigration?

Furthermore, the allegory is so clumsily fused that it creates strange inconsistancies. The reality is in Apartheid white people were the aliens, when the black people were native. In the movie the aliens simply wanted to go home, but in Apartheid they already were home. Black people are South Africa. As a Zimbabwan refugee metaphor it only works if you erase the entire history of South African Apartheid from the collective discussion. And frankly, that is impossible and stupid to do in a race allegory set in South Africa.

On a story level, it’s the reason they delibrately made the Nigerians so over the top in their evilness - to force the counterpoint that “Africans discriminate too.” But Apartheid is a specific case of white people forcing natives out of their own homeland, which is different from Zimbabwan immigrants coming into a country causing inter-tribal friction.

District 9’s point doesn’t seem to be that Apartheid is horrible. District 9’s point is that the treatment of Zimbabwan refugees is just like Apartheid. District 9 is a South African race allegory with an asterick.*

*black people are racist too.