Democratic National Sleep Aid

I've watched the DNC for a grand total of 18 seconds, long enough to see Teresa Heinz Kerry fight a losing battle with the English language. Her fight was much like the one I fight daily in this blog. It struck a chord.

That was the only thing that struck me, and the experience lasted 16 seconds too long. The other two don't count because that's how long it took my brain to realize what I was watching. If I had quicker reflexes, or even a remote control, it could have been over much sooner.

It's an affront to my senses and an assault on my decency. It would surely make Ignatius J Reilly's valve close off forever. Of course, I'm not one of the > 50% or whatever of people who don't know what Kerry stands for. For these people the DNC might be useful.

The 18 seconds thing was actually a lie, I watched the NBC news broadcast before the start of the convention. The thing that struck me then was how jubilant these people were pretending to be. They were acting like John Kerry was some leftist messiah. He's not, obviously. He's the de facto placeholder that is least offensive to the most people and therefore stands the best chance of being swept to office on the wave of anti-Bush sentiment.

You know you have problems connecting with voters when your running mate--that is vice presidential pick--has a 24-point higher approval rating than you do. I wonder what this guy's approval ratings are. He's Kerry Edwards. Look at that smile. Is he some kind of sexy African-American synthesis of the two men? Probably, and it looks like he's going to be rich soon. Maybe we should rethink our nominee.

Every analyst I hear spouts the same mantra: Kerry has to ignite the base. This is probably true, but unrealistic and a little unfair. Asking him to electrify America is as futile as asking the same of a lightning rod. He's no orator. He's wordier than I am. C'mon George Stephanopoulos, you have a giant head, use it.

I do feel a little cheated though, John Kerry actually excited me once. It was probably almost two years ago now. I was living in what passes for the ghetto of Spokane, Washington. We rented a big house with bars on the windows. The bars couldn't keep prowlers out of the gaping holes in the crumbling foundation. Luckily most of the foundation was obscured by hundreds of rosebushes, which inexplicably bloomed nine months out of the year. It was an oddly magical house, and one that stank of cat urine.

The previous tenant's wife fell in with some sort of sex cult and left him with four children and no second income. He was one person and could barely manage the rent. Later, we would be six people and would still barely manage the rent.

Needless to say, the poor guy had things on his mind, and forwarding magazine subscriptions wasn't a priority. He moved and got himself a more managable life; We got his subscription to Men's Journal.

On the cover of this particular issue, August 2002, Kerry sat astride a Harley-Davidson in a fringed black leather jacket. He talked about interesting things, said that if he decided to run, it'd be nice if John McCain, his buddy, would run with him. The Bi-Partisanship he hinted at in the article was kind of nice. He seemed intent on unifying the country. He took stands on issues, he was vocal and--though this might just be clever editing--he was concise. He seemed to have something approaching the charisma of Bill Clinton, which is good, as no one ignited the base like Bill Clinton. Of course, Clinton was also a winner--which automatically fires up a group of consistent losers.

Read the full thing here.

Mitigating my shaky-cam hatred

I've discussed this with a friend and I didn't really make it known that shaky-cam has a place. For example Gladiator and Saving Private Ryan, despite how I made it sound, were good uses of shaky cam.

It also may have started more with Heat, which I don't remember really but Michael Mann has always done the handheld Soderbergh thing, so that's not so hard to believe.

The problem is that, as I mentioned, it's become Zeitgeist. It's hip, so people use it in bad places.

Bad places like in a climactic fight between two trained killers. These men know what they're doing. I want to see them pick each other apart piece by piece. I don't want to hear an "oooof" and wonder if Damon just broke homeboy's knee or poked his eye out.

A carefully choreographed fight scene is wasted on shaky-cam antics. Granted the Bourne fight scene isn't meant to be Kill Bill vol 3, as it employs the same 'imperfection' that makes the rest of the movie so good. It's a gritty scene. Spit flies, eyes bug out. It's down and dirty. So maybe a little shaky is good. But when 15 seconds of a scene is devoted to Damon's spasmodically lurching right thigh I say, "Meh"--regardless of how sexy that thigh may be. When even running down the street gets the shaky treatment I start to get annoyed.

It should be a tool to exploit, not a gimmick upon which to build 120 minutes of film.

Read the full thing here.

I like to watch movies

Brian Cox does something for the niche role of the grizzled CIA mucky-muck that I will measure all future clandestine bureaucrats against. Unlike so much that is wrong with action movies, and so much of what is right with the Bourne Supremacy, there's nothing archetypal about his character.

He’s not righteous in the face of evil. He’s not pure evil himself. He’s not a double agent.

He’s greedy, he’s out to cover his own ass, he seems tubercular. He has constructed a grandiose self-image to beat back his pangs of conscience. He'’s human.

Brian Cox is never the star of any movie I’'ve seen him in, but he’s usually the brightest spot.

It’s articulate characterization like this that makes the Bourne Supremacy work despite the annoying inconsistencies that plague all action movies.

There’s a part early on--this bothered me greatly; I'm sure you'’re going to think I’'m crazy. Jason is in India, laying low. He'’s got a bungalow, he’'s got a cute German girlfriend, he's "off the grid"--he’'s living the life. Then Jason sees him, the guy he’s never seen before. This guy, Bourne knows, is there--in that country, on that subcontinent--just to kill him. How does he know this?

"“It’'s all wrong, he’s dressed all wrong, that car’'s all wrong."” True, he’s white, has a sniper rifle flung over his shoulder, and the car's a gleaming new Kia Optima. Way out of place.

That's just good sleuthing.

About 45 minutes later we’re following the CIA operatives at work in Germany. They’re acting very stealthily. They slink out of their hotel. They mouth something into their cufflinks. They have trench coats and don’t look German in the least. They nonchalantly look both ways before getting into their . . . Chryslers?

Here is where I ask the film makers to take advice from their own script. I know nothing about the spy trade, but I know that if I'’m a German bad guy, and I see a half-dozen suits get into a half-dozen jet black Dodge Caravans, I walk the other way. Dodge Caravans. The CIA field office in Berlin thought it better to ship a bunch of American-made minivans rather than buying a fleet of CITROËN like everybody else.

A few minutes later, Bourne steals his German assassin friend's Jeep Grand Cherokee. It's not enough that, against all odds, clandestine American operatives drive American minivans, but Director Paul Greengrass expects us to believe their German counterparts are driving American SUVs as well? There could be a unicorn wearing a monocle riding shotgun and we couldn'’t get any deeper into FantasyLand.

Right, Jeep and Dodge are all Chrysler, which is owned by Daimler, a German Company. But I’ve been to Germany. Number of Chrysler’s I saw there? Zero.

I understand marketing is an important way for producers to recoup the costs of making a big-budget film. What is unforgivable is letting product placement get in the way of characterization and common sense.

The other big problem I have with this movie is the cinematography. God how I despise the shaky-cam action sequence. I don'’t know who started this. I think I saw it first in Gladiator, or maybe Saving Private Ryan. As much as I like him, Spielberg should be hung from the top floor of DreamWorks SKG by his flowing pepper gray hair until he apologizes for setting the frenetic, over-caffeinated, jiggle-tron zeitgeist upon an unsuspecting world [correction: I'm now told it was probably Ridley Scott and GI Jane that started this trend]. It’'s not that I'’m missing what the shaky fight scene is trying to do. I understand its purpose: frantic realism. I like realism. But when I choose between realistic cinema and putting off that next grand mal seizure, I choose the latter.

I'’m picking at these details because I liked the movie a lot.

I wanted perfection. In the end though, what I ended up liking the most was its dogged imperfection. Not the stuff above, that’'s still just stupid. I’m talking about the problem that thrillers have of trying to attain total completeness. We’'ll call it the Usual Suspects syndrome (see also: The Game syndrome). You take a convoluted plot and three dozen characters you don’t think anyone will ever be able to wade through, much less wrap their heads around, bring everything to a boil, then drop the pieces one by one into the audience’s lap. QED. In the above two movies that was fun, and done well. In the deluge of films that have done it since, I haven'’t been as impressed.

Luckily Greengrass doesn'’t fall into that trap. There aren'’t any epiphanies, there aren'’t any archetypal struggles of good vs evil, Bourne never dangles above a tank of piranhas while Cox dictates his whole maniacal plan. These are all very, very good things, though I'’m sure that most people will see a flaw where I see strength.

The plot wasn'’t taught enough.

Taught and thriller appear together so often they'’ve become synonymous. That bothers me. There’'s nothing taught about real life, even at it’s most thrilling. The pieces never really fit right. Screenwriter Gilroy seems to get this. Good for him.

There'’s also a surprisingly great chase scene. All chase scenes have the good and bad guys slamming into each other. This one has the good and bad guys pinballing a third motorist between them pong-style. I also liked how, despite his status as uber-agent, Bourne’'s driving isn’'t perfect. He screws up, he gets tagged by oncoming traffic. He does some amazing things, but he also gets blindsided by a truck--—not the bad guy’s truck.

As I said, comparing The Bourne Supremacy to Shakespeare is stupid. I’'m with Comrade Snowball on this one: Each movie to the best of its ability.

Read the full thing here.

Why does every movie have Nazis?

Are there any new angles from which to examine Nazism that haven't been beaten into total pastiche? Yes. Well, maybe not anymore--but there was, until Facing Windows found it. I'm not going to say any more because it's one of the film's little secrets, the central mystery. The Reich connection is slowly hinted at, nudged into your consciousness. At times I thought I had a leg up on the movie, like I'd won the battle of wits. And that's true, to a point. It's really great work, giving you this info early enough on that it sits there at the back of your mind, stewing enough that it almost seems familiar. Then, just when you're comfortable with it, in comes the obligatory twist. It's not shocking the way The Crying Game is shocking, it's more of a tragic, drawn-out moment. The results are, well, great.

I thought the movie was brilliantly written. The story is content to draw you along at it's own pace, gradually revealing the mysteries of four lives that become entangled when an unhappily married couple stops to help a senile old man who can't remember anything about himself. One of the few screenplays in a long time that has made me absolutely sick with envy.

And it's Italian, so be prepared to read.

Read the full thing here.