Category Archives: Movies

January 26, 2012

A Downer and a Half: 5 Music Documentaries About Failure & Disappointment

By Jorge Farah

Music documentaries are often flat-lined, ordinary hagiographies that follow a fairly straightforward formula: humble beginnings, rise to prominence, personal/artistic decline, settling into stable elder-statesmanship. This progression is usually punctuated by lurid tales of scandal and drama, and manufactured (or, more often than not, Hollywood-heightened) inner turmoil that inevitably leads to the temporary implosion of the project, only to be followed by the rise back to the top (or, more accurately, the comfortable plateau they’ve convinced themselves is the top).

A big reason for this, and what most musicians refuse to believe, is that their lives are generally not that interesting. The generic template results in a story that has been told thousands of times before, in hundreds of different permutations. Generally, the artists being made films about are the same artists who are doing well enough to have secured the proper attention, funding and general interest to justify a feature film; chances are they’ve gone through the same process as those that came before them, resulting in yet another rise-fall-rise story. To be clear: not all of these “standard” stories make for boring films. A good filmmaker will draw attention away from the pedestrian story to provide insights on the music itself, create a visual representation of the musician’s general aesthetic, or simply show the musician in their environment, doing what they do best. These approaches are generally preferable to the Vh1 Behind the Music band biography format, and will generally result in more satisfying viewing.

For the last couple of months I’ve been thinking about failure quite a lot. I realize that’s a bit unusual, but it makes sense; I’m kicking several projects into gear and my mind veers into the turgid waters of “what if it doesn’t work out?”. I’ve been fascinated with documentaries that deal with disappointment. Stories of struggling to make a mark in the music world and either succeeding temporarily and then disastrously falling from grace, or never succeeding at all. Stories without the victorious third-act rise from the ashes. Stories about people falling out of love with music, and the crushing sadness that such a small thing can entail. Stories that leave you a bit uneasy. The humble retreat away from the limelight. Here are a few examples of those types of films.

“Let’s Get Lost” (1988)

Chet Baker has long been one of my favorite jazz singers and trumpet players, and I can’t think of another example of someone’s singing voice sounding so remarkably similar to their instrument; they both convey an understated, quiet sadness in their registers and melodic turns. It’s the same sadness that runs through the whole of  Bruce Weber’s brilliant “Let’s Get Lost”, a beautiful and desolate study of the most iconic and troubled figure in the West Coast jazz scene of the 1950s.

The movie shows us two Chet Bakers– the early Baker, charming, impossibly handsome and the living embodiment of the word “smooth”– in sharp contrast with latter-day Baker, a detached, embittered, crumbling statue of a man. Baker’s story is told in subdued black and white, interviews with friends, family members and lovers interspersed with live footage from his later years, with gorgeous music serving as the glue that holds the narrative together. What really gets to me the most about this film is the crushing honesty and unadorned detachment with which some of it is presented, then quickly turning its protagonist human again for just the right amount of time. Much like Chet Baker himself, his unpredictable temperament made all the more intense by the drugs. 

There are no excuses made here for Chet. No cognitive reframing. The downfall is not a consequence of the capricious shifts in a fickle industry. The blame is put entirely on our protagonist, who remains oddly unperturbed by it. Going from working with legends like Charlie Parker and Gerry Mulligan to struggling to find work in the span of a few years, it becomes apparent that his genius took a backseat to his crippling addiction. We see a man whose world gradually whittles down to one thing: the high that “scares everyone else to death”. A devastating portrait of a tragic figure.

“Do it Again” (2010)

The Kinks have the peculiar distinction of being simultaneously legendary and tragically underrated. As far as I’m concerned, Ray Davies and company should be mentioned in the same breath as The Beatles, The Who and other British luminaries of the 1960s– as it stands, this happens almost exclusively in the internet, where legions of obnoxious bloggers bray indignantly about how underrated they are. I am glad to join their ranks with this post.

This wonderfully odd film is not so much about The Kinks themselves as it is about a man coming to grips with the end of his youth. Geoff Edgers, reporter for the Boston Globe and avid Kinks fanatic, in a wide-eyed quest to remind the world of how amazing the band was, decides to try to get them back together. He initiates a campaign that involves everything from busking in Hyde Park to coercing his interview subjects into joining him on impromptu singalongs of their favorite Kinks tunes (which provides plenty of comedic awkwardness to the whole ordeal– Paul Weller outright refuses, Sting embarrasses himself by forgetting the words to “You Really Got Me”, and Zooey Deschanel, surprisingly, turns out to be the most knowledgeable and enthusiastic of all interviewees).

The film itself hinges on the likability of Edgers and his contagious enthusiasm for the project– with his stuttering rants on the power of music and his endearingly awkward demeanor, we pull for him as an audience, even knowing that his quest is doomed from the start. When faced with Dave Davies, one of the few people who could revive The Kinks, he meets a rude awakening: the project is dead– the time has passed, the wounds are too deep and everyone involved just wants to move on with their lives, leaving Edgers out in the cold. In the end, it’s a lesson in humility, managing expectations and letting go. The scene playing as the credits roll is a rousing acoustic rendition of Weird Al’s parody of Kinks classic “Lola”– “Yoda”– delivered in a classroom full of preschoolers. After 90 minutes of following Edgers around the world and trying hard to get his favorite back together, it’s a bittersweet moment that manages to weave humor and disappointment into something sublime.

“Dig!” (2004)

“Dig!” is a film that is so outrageous and ludicrous at times, you get the distinct feeling you’re watching a mockumentary. A study of the overlapping histories of two bands I’d thought of as entirely independent and insulated– The Dandy Warhols and The Brian Jonestown Massacre– and their contrasting career trajectories, this film places you smack-dab in the middle of what I guess is called a “scene”. These bands are determined to work together to start a new indie revolution, their relationship slowly souring when one of them is picked up by a major label and the other starts to slowly fall apart at the seams. It’s an indie-rock reality show… set to great music.

Though represented least favorably here (in terms of mental stability and general human decency), the film’s most fascinating player is Anton Newcombe, frontman for The Brian Jonestown Massacre.  The volatile temper and brash arrogance displayed in this film can steal attention away from the man’s immense musical genius. A prolific and innovative songwriter, it kind of hurts to see his work overlooked in favor of The Dandy’s (still interesting, yet decidedly blander) work, and you genuinely take his side for a bit– before you remember he’s kind of an unreasonable jerk.

As the film winds down, however, we learn that neither band really took off, and the “revolution” amounted to little more than a few drunken punchups and a mountain of debt. But with tunes this sick, does it even really matter?

“The Devil and Daniel Johnston” (2005)

I watched this film online just the other night, for the first time since I first saw it in the 2006 Buenos Aires Independent Film Festival, and it got me thinking about Daniel’s music again. In some ways, I kind of wish it didn’t exist. Not because it’s bad– in fact, it’s an incredible film, not just because of its genuinely moving story but it’s also a great piece of documentary filmmaking in its own right. But it does seem, at times, like an unnecessary explanation. For years and years, Daniel’s haunting and fragile songs confounded the world– just what is this guy babbling about? Is he for real? Can he sing? Is he putting on a voice? Is he a mad genius?– and this film provides actual answers. Makes Daniel less of a tormented cartoon character. Makes him real. At times, terrifyingly so.

But no, I’m glad it does exist, because Daniel’s story is wonderful in the same measure as it is tragic and a little scary. This is the story of a man wrestling against his own demons– for him, quite literally, as he became convinced he was possessed by the devil– and using his musical instruments to purge his soul, resulting in low-fi recordings that would prove to be reasonable facsimiles of majestic pop songs. His struggles with bipolar disorder and self destructive behavior, his crushingly sad love story and fixation on death occupy the same place in his lyrics as they do in his everyday life; these are real specters hanging over his head, waiting.

Today, Daniel lives with his elderly parents. He’s gotten better, and has been recording and performing live more often. He’s drawing more, his crude illustrations selling for numbers that would make most artists incredibly jealous. And, thanks in part to this film, his status as a cult hero is more firmly cemented in music history. But in his eyes and in his words, there’s an inexorable sadness, an emptiness; it’s like he’s not even with us anymore.

“End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones” (2003) 

Nothing about the Ramones screams “rock stars”, so they weren’t. As much as they perfected the art of the four-chord pop song, incorporating heavy rock riffs into melodic teenage love songs, a group of denim-clad dorky-looking weirdos singing about sniffing glue and pinheads was never going to be topping the charts. I’ve already told my own Ramones story; they’ve always been one of the most significant and influential bands in my life, yet for the longest time I knew absolutely nothing about them. I kind of liked it that way, keeping a certain mythical air to them; in certain ways, they’re like costumed superheros, or a fictional street gang, or a pack of fucking wolves with guitars. Much like with the Daniel Johnston documentary, this was my first exposure to them as actual people. And it was… something.

This film starts off by putting you in the cultural context that led to the existence of the Ramones: mid-70s NYC, the grown-ups have abandoned the city in favor of the suburbs, music was boring and muted except for a few bands like the Stooges and New York Dolls. And so The Ramones came together, combining the aggression of those bands with the melodic sensibilities of Phil Spector, The Beatles and the Beach Boys, and played together for over 20 years in a career rife with drama, mental disorder, a string of disappointments, without so much as a hit to show for it. The anger surrounding their inability to break through to the mainstream even when everything seemed to accommodate it (the mid-90s punk boom), is reflected in interviews with the band members, friends and peers in the industry.

The personality conflicts present in the band are also explored in the documentary. Notably, Johnny (guitar) and Joey (vocals) were complete opposites; Johnny being a right-wing disciplinarian, Joey being a left-wing hypochondriac. Not only that, but Johnny actually took Joey’s girl from him (a betrayal which completely killed their relationship, and they went without talking to each other for 15 years– even while being in the same band and playing shows together every night). Dee Dee was a heroin-addicted nut, the drummers (Tommy, Marky, Richie and then Marky again) were all flakes or alcoholics. Radio wasn’t playing their songs. 20 years into their career, they were still playing tiny clubs. And yet, they kept on. Because there was nothing else for a group of people this dysfunctional to do.

The movie ends with a small vindication of sorts– after Joey’s death from Lymphoma, the band is finally recognized for all their hard work and influence, and are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Dee Dee, finally clean and sober, steals the show with his humor. It’s all smiles. All pats in the back. But then backstage, as we see Dee Dee turn down a hall, we are told that a couple of months later he dies of a heroin overdose. And it hits like a ton of bricks.

And you kind of wish they had stayed fictional, in your mind, forever.

1 comment | posted in Movies, Music

January 12, 2012

Bedhead Melodies #3: The Magnetic Fields- “You’re My Only Home”

By Jorge Farah

I caught “Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields” at the tail end of the BAFICI festival a couple years ago. Somehow I’ve developed this bizarre habit of bookending my BAFICI itinerary every year with films about music. Last year it was “Look at What the Light Did Now” and “Upside Down”. The year before that, it had been “Strange Powers” that served as the sullen denouement to a week and a half of not sleeping enough. It was a fitting end to the festival, the walk back home at 2 AM being more or less the equivalent to that dirgy post-carnival scene; rides and stands boarding up, leaving behind only the torn-up tickets in the wet grass. And the wonderfully sad songs of Stephin Merritt playing in my headphones, lulling me back into routine.

As a film– as a documentary– “Strange Powers” is simply okay. Culled together from 10 years’ worth of footage and stories, it still manages to feel stretched out too thin, its analysis superficial and lightweight. Putting too much stock on the wry likability of its subject, it ends up coming across as a fluff piece and borderline hagiography. But for someone who’s already well attuned to the Magnetic Fields sound and aesthetic, it is nothing less than a treat, especially for the brief peeks and glimpses it allows into the creative process of Stephin Merritt and his band.

I will admit to not having an encyclopedic knowledge on The Magnetic Fields. And it breaks my heart, because I really love their music; their elegant wordplay, their almost compulsive eclecticism, the boldness and width of their sonic palette. There’s a sense of adventure in their records, one that challenges that silly notion that “genre exercise” is somehow a dirty concept, something to stay away from lest one be perceived as a musical tourist. And while it could be argued that Merritt– a songwriter who is very much in the vein of the Gershwins and Porters of old– takes an approach that values craftsmanship over inspiration, it only takes a listen to his magnum opus 69 Love Songs to obliterate the notion that this approach can’t result in gorgeous and thrilling pop songs.


69 Love Songs is the crowning achievement in a career that’s been all about attempting to separate the “love” from the love song. As the title implies, it is a record made up of 69 songs, spread over 3 LPs, covering a wide range of genres (most falling within the amplest definitions of “pop”), with the one unifying thread being the topic of love in all its forms. While that sounds like it’d make for a mildly interesting yet ultimately desultory collection, Merritt creates an album rich in melody and charm that more than holds up throughout its 172-minute playing time. Each song a gem in its own way– some silly, some sad, some over-the-top saccharine and some breathtakingly stark.

“You’re My Only Home” is one of the quieter tracks, a beauty buried in track 9 of volume 2. The music is made up entirely of thick globs of synthesizer; an impossibly deep and serene synth line being pulled up by the harmonies surrounding it, settling into a circular melody line. It’s a song of complete surrender and total devotion, underscored by a deep sadness and fear; fear of rejection, of being left alone. It’s a different kind of torch song; Merritt’s crooning voice is not impassioned or perfervid, like the rousing moments in Sinatra’s “One for My Baby”; there’s no fire simmering underneath his words. Instead, his voice sounds tired, listless, resigned. This song isn’t a grandiose statement of devotion. It is a languid plea.

A big chunk of “Strange Powers” is spent discussing Merritt’s ability to write these impersonal, yet beautiful, love songs. To remove himself and that dreaded confessional quality from his music and to create three-minute fictions. And throughout most of 69 Love Songs, this rings true– surely “Papa Was a Rodeo” isn’t autobiographical, and “Zebra” sounds like a musical number from a forgotten 1950s movie– but somehow “You’re My Only Home” feels genuine, honest. It feels like the only song in the album in which Merritt isn’t wearing a mask. And maybe that’s why it resonates so much with me. Or maybe it’s that sweet-ass synth line. Who knows.


Listen to the lovely “You’re My Only Home” here:

“Bedhead Melodies” is a really ridiculous term I am using to refer to a very specific kind of song– usually quiet, sad and romantic– that will pop up on my iPod’s shuffle mode late late at night and put me in a special kind of mood. A weepy, mushy, waffley, write-long-emails-to-ex-girlfriends mood. Yes. The next morning I’m embarrassed, they’re embarrassed, nobody’s happy. Basically, what I’m saying is, I should really go to bed.

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January 4, 2012

375 Hours: A Resolution

By Jorge Farah

I thought about naming it something dramatic, like Project250 (meant to be read as “two-fifty”, for extra awesomeness) or Film Challenge 2012 or even just FC2012 (the shortened name making it sound more like a summer blockbuster or sporting event), but in the end, it is what it is: a resolution.

Liz demonstrates what I intend to do in the next 12 months. I mean, sorta.

The idea had its genesis in an online message board (internet message boards being the springboard for pretty much every good idea in the history of the world) when someone, on one of those end-of-year retrospective posts about the movies of 2011, started off with the disclaimer “I watched very few movies this year, about 160 instead of the usual 200ish”. I stopped reading right there. 160 movies in a year qualifies as “very few”? And 200 movies is some sort of agreed-upon movie-buff normative? And… holy shit… if so, just how far behind am I?

Of course, being the ruthless internet tough-guy that I am, this post triggered the usual impulse to go “NEERRDDD!”. I held back, though, partly because the poster was a genuinely nice guy and probably made that post without a tinge of snideness or condescension, and partly because I recognized the opportunity to put one of my New Year’s resolutions into practice: to be kinder to strangers on the internet (a resolution that was broken shortly afterwards, however, on a thread about “How I Met Your Mother”). But my dismay was genuine.

I feel like I should clarify, lest I come off as a poseur dilettante, that I’m a fanatic of the Seventh Art. A would-be filmmaker, I fancy myself a true movie buff; no film is too obscure, too mainstream, too indie or too foreign, I devour them with the enthusiastic dilligence of a homeless man digging into a piece of rotisserie chicken (please note: I am having a bad metaphor day). I review movies for other sites. I take residence in film festivals. And yet, 200 in a year seemed like such a ridiculous amount. How does one remain social and productive while routinely watching 200 movies, on average, over the course of one year? How can one maintain some semblance of a life?

And then that got me thinking about the amount of movies I actually watch. One thing my father instilled in me from childhood was the habit of going to the movie theater by myself when I need to clear my head. It’s something I still do to this day from time to time. The movie theater is still one of my favorite things to do with friends and on dates since it provides great conversational fodder. All in all, I’d say I go to the movies about once a week, on average. Then there’s the movies I watch at home, either by renting or through other, less conventional methods. I’d say, being realistic, that’s about two a week (again, on average; there are weeks I’ll be too consumed by work to watch anything at all, and then there are weeks where I’ll go on binges and burn through entire filmographies). Then I’m left with film festivals, of which I’m a huge fan, but only go to about three of them a year.

Some bespectacled jackass at the Buenos Aires International Film Festival: an off-center indie-film pig-out of epic proportions. New resolution: stop saying "of epic proportions".

I was shocked at the results of my calculations. According to my– fairly conservative– estimates of how many movies I watch every week at home, in the movie theater and at film festivals, I’m actually at 206 movies a year. That’s 309 hours of fictions. That’s 1854 minutes of sitting on my ass and taking in the diegeses that someone else has put together. And all of a sudden, the number doesn’t seem that daunting at all. It actually seems pretty reasonable, for a young film enthusiast. In fact, it actually sort of feels… a bit slight.

Someone else pointed out, in that very discussion, that taking in inordinate amounts of cinema is helpful in shaping someone’s creative vision. And considering 2012 is a year in which I’m going to try to get my film made, I’m going to step it up a notch, keeping it realistic considering the restraints of my schedule. For 2012, I am watching 250 movies, or 375 hours, and writing about each one. Whatever it may be: a Dreamworks animated film about a spaniard cat, a dense-as-fuck Greek shock film about a transvestite murdering prostitute, massive-budget superhero flicks or tiny Canadian mumblecore melodramas. I’ll sit down here and write my impressions– scant as they may be– about every movie I watch this year. I’ll take in what worked. I’ll deconstruct what didn’t, and why.

The updates may not come immediately. I might do it in chunks at a time. And they may not be pretty– I reserve the right to be as brief, acerbic, messy and disjointed as the mood strikes. But it’ll all be here. There will be entries categorized under the “375 hours” tag that will go into detail on every movie I’d seen since the last one. Now, I’ve always been terrible at keeping New Year’s resolutions, but something tells me this one will be a good time.

And now, to pick the inaugural title.

4 comments | posted in 375 hours, Movies

September 11, 2011

The Reinvention of a Filmmaker: Anarchy as Narrative in Kevin Smith’s “Red State”

By Jorge Farah

“Red State” is not so much the natural progression of Kevin Smith’s directorial oeuvre as it is a necessary detour. The controversial filmmaker, after exhausting the limits of the quick-witted slacker comedy stylings he pioneered in years past, has made a movie that would be considered unusual by any measure, let alone in comparison to the bulk of his filmography.

“Clerks”, “Mallrats” and “Chasing Amy”– retrospectively dubbed “the Jersey trilogy”– were paeans to male adolescence; a glorification of the trials and tribulations of the ennui-ridden 90s manchild as he waxes philosophical on Star Wars minutiae, quotes superhero movies and struggles with his own insecurities.  ”Dogma” and “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” both marked growth, in opposing directions; “J&SBSB” expanded on the over-the-top cartoonish  inclinations of “Mallrats”, while “Dogma” saw Smith tackling weightier topics– in this case, organized religion.

From that point on, Smith’s output became a little erratic. “Jersey Girl” was a syrupy ode to fatherhood that got a critical lashing and lukewarm box office results. “Clerks 2″ was a back-to-the-well kneejerk reaction to “JG” that was wildly entertaining as well as emotionally resonant, but ultimately felt contrived, lightweight and a little hokey. It was hard not to perceive “Zack & Miri Make a Porno” as an attempt by Smith to capitalize on the Apatow contingent, while “Cop Out”, Smith’s first (and probably only) foray into the world of director-for-hire, was an uneven mess of a buddy-cop movie that received the worst reviews of his career. Such ups-and-downs are not uncommon in a director’s career, however, Smith’s life in Hollywood has been marked by a number of fairly unique twists and turns; his parallel calling as a standup comedian of sorts, his highly successful comic book work, his complicated relationship with film critics, the infamous Southwest Airlines incident, and most recently, the building of a large 24/7 podcasting network titled S.I.R.– Smodcast Internet Radio, named after the podcast he started only a couple years ago, as a lark, with frequent collaborator Scott Mosier.

So just like Smith’s career has not followed a traditional path, there’s remarkably little that’s traditional about “Red State”. Smith’s first genuinely independent feature since Clerks (even “Chasing Amy” was financed by Miramax), “Red State” was made on a shoestring budget– just under 4 million dollars, which is close to nothing by Hollywood standards. Surprisingly, the biggest source of controversy this time around wasn’t the incendiary content of the movie, but its method of distribution. Debuting at Sundance, Smith and his new production company The Harvey Boys (a nod to his longtime mentor Harvey Weinstein) had announced that they would pick their distributor in the room, auction-style. A room filled with industry insiders itching to be the ones to show this movie around the world (or maybe not, we’ll never know) were shocked when the auction was cut short by Smith’s own winning 20$ bid, after which he stepped up to the podium, apologized for his ruse and delivered a heartfelt speech.

Perceived by some as a bridge-burning diatribe, and by others as an inspirational call-to-arms, Smith’s rallying cry disassembled Hollywood finances and laid out the strategy behind Red State’s release: self-distribution. A city-by-city tour, like in the olden days of cinema, after which a more traditional theatrical release would follow. The gamble raised a lot of eyebrows at the time, but it seems to have paid off: already firmly in profit months before the theatrical release date, the film is currently racking up downloads via Video On Demand.

The movie itself is perhaps just as unorthodox as its backstory. “Red State” starts off not unlike a Kevin Smith movie, with three young boys talking about getting laid. Travis, Jared and Billy Ray discuss hooking up with a woman on an online casual encounters site (“like Craigslist for people who wanna get fucked”). She lives 30 minutes away and wants to have sex with all three of them at the same time. Too good to be true? Well…  yeah.

This nameless Jezebel turns out to be a trap by members of pastor Abin Cooper’s radical Christian fundamentalist church, Five Points. Cooper and his church are infamous for their staunchly anti-homosexual views, protesting funerals and holding up signs, yelling loudly at grieving families, taking delight in their belief that the homosexual is burning in hell. If this sounds familiar, it’s because Abin and his church are based on Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. Just like Phelps, the Coopers are a small, tight-knit group, consisting almost entirely of blood relatives, and hold private daily services, decrying the end of civilization as brought upon by the gays. Unlike Phelps, the Coopers take things a little further, actually carrying out God’s will by luring the sexually devious into their traps and bringing them back to the church for a little taste of their version of God’s love.

Travis, Jared and Billy Ray are drugged, bound and placed in line for the service, when something goes wrong; a minor incident near the start of the film results in some unforeseen complications, and the Feds get involved. To go any further on plot details would be to reveal too much, and rob the movie of some of its impact.

And it does carry a mighty clout. Within the span of just a few moments, the movie goes from bawdy comedy to disturbing horror to political thriller (Smith neatly divides the cast credit into three sections– sex, religion and politics). “Red State” is a tense, disconcerting and sometimes exasperating ride, one that is all the more rewarding if you stick it out and allow yourself to be taken by it, instead of trying to make sense of it from the viewpoint of traditional dramatic structure. Indeed, it is the movie’s freewheeling spin on dramatic conflict that gives it much of its power.

At the heart of classic storytelling, there is conflict. The conflict is generated by a protagonist trying to accomplish a certain goal, and an opposing force, an antagonist, working against them. This leads to the classic three-act structure, with arcs and subplots contained within that resolve themselves in parallel throughout the running time of the movie. “Red State” operates outside of this mold, with no clearly defined protagonist; just when you think you’re following a certain character, you’re thrown a curve ball. Smith keeps you on your toes at all times, with tension that rises and recedes like waves, culminating in a strangely horrifying sequence.

All of that aside, one of this movie’s key strengths is the incredible acting chops of– well, most everybody in the cast. Michael Parks is unquestionably the star of the show, delivering a masterful performance of a profoundly evil person who also manages to be fascinating and likable– indeed, a 10-minute sermon scene would be a real momentum killer in most movies, but Parks makes it an enrapturing 10 minutes, drawing you in with every phrase. Melissa Leo is also remarkable as Cooper’s deranged daughter Sarah. John Goodman gives a credible, and very human, performance as an ATF officer caught between what’s right and what’s expected of him. Kerry Bishé is outstanding as a member of Cooper’s clan, effectively a beacon in the darkness that is the Five Points Trinity Church. And I can’t not mention the performances by the three young actors Michael Angarano, Kyle Gallner and Nicholas Braun.

It’s not a perfect movie. We have an inordinate amount of expositional dialogue, which I understand is a necessity for a movie of this nature. But on three different occasions, we see John Goodman on the phone with his superiors, receiving orders and relaying the information to the audience by means of unnecessary response dialogue. It furthers the plot, sure, but it’s also tedious watching and feels forced and unnatural. “Red State” also falls trap to the old action-movie trope– the more shots are fired, the less each shot matters. At a certain point, the deafening cacophony of machine guns becomes white noise, and we care very little any time someone dies on camera (although this is cleverly subverted at a certain point, with the most shocking death in the movie feeling genuinely disturbing and senseless).

A lot of the negative reviews are focusing on what “Red State” isn’t, not what it is. And what it is is a chilling morality tale about belief, fear and entitlement, that’s best enjoyed as a rollercoaster ride rather than a neat three-act narrative. Because Smith is a cinephile who knows the rules of classic storytelling so well, he is able to operate just outside of those bounds and deliver a deeply affecting story. His fluctuating career has brought along a lot of unlikely projects, but nothing quite as unlikely as “Red State”. For someone who constantly declares himself a “creature of fear”, Smith has never been more fearless.

Order “Red State” on Video On Demand here.

2 comments | posted in Movies

September 7, 2011

How Batman Changed My Life.

By Jorge Farah

When I was about six years old, my life was completely dominated by two enormous, all-consuming obsessions: Batman and Popeye. I was captured by these characters. Everything they represented, all that they stood for; they were everything I could ever wish to be. And yet they were so different– Batman was a dark shadow prowling the streets at night smiting the wicked, defending the helpless, bringing down corruption one lousily-costumed villain at a time. Popeye was just a one-eyed sailor with a taste for canned vegetables, just looking to get laid. But he kicked so much ass.

But Batman was always the predominant obsession. My grandpa Jaime, my mom’s father and someone who I have written about here before, used to sit with me every saturday morning to watch the Batman shows that would play on Canal A– Supefriends, that stupid Bat-o-Mite cartoon from the seventies, and the once-inescapable 60′s Batman TV Show, with the cheesy sound effects and the even-cheesier dialogue. I was a huge fan of it all. I felt the sudden rush of emotion when Bruce Wayne slid down that bat-pole and came out in Bat-attire. When Batman came out and hit the bad guys with an onomatopoeic ass-whopping, I felt saved. I felt justified. I felt righteous. Every kid has a childhood idol. Mine was Batman.

So imagine my excitement when one day, after we’re done watching the television, he turns to me and proudly announces “Jorgito, the new Batman movie opens next wednesday. We are gonna go see it!”. My eyes went wide as I smiled from ear to ear and gave my grandpa a big hug. Batman!! On the BIG SCREEN, imagine that? At that time I had only seen a couple movies in a movie theatre and all of them animated. I had seen the first Batman movie as well as the original 1960′s feature-length TV show spinoff, but on the small screen. This was gonna be the first time I had a real Batman movie watching experience. This was to bring me closer to the object of my adoration than I had ever been. This was gonna change my life.

So for the following week the Batman movie thing served as leverage for my parents to keep me tamed. Any time I misbehaved, or threatened to do so, my mom or my dad would throw a sharp, cold “if you don’t stop doing that, there’ll be no Batman movie for you on wednesday” to which I reacted by immediately obliging and fix whatever I had broken or quit whatever I was doing and give them a big smile. My six year old existence knew no other purpose during that week but to live at least long enough to watch the Batman movie. There was nothing more horrifying than the thought of missing out on what was definitely gonna be the event that shaped the rest of my life. At six years old, I knew that watching Batman give the villains hell was gonna give some meaning to my life and anything that could possibly maybe slightly almost threaten the possibility of it happening was to be avoided at all cost. So during that week, probably the happiest week in my parents’ lives, I was obedient. I was clean. I was orderly and I was quiet. Nothing was gonna ruin this.

Wednesday rolled along. My mom had dressed me up in my best clothes– my red buttoned shirt with yellow horizontal stripes, more ironed than I’d ever seen it, my navy blue pants and my dark grey Batman sneakers. My hair was slicked back and my teeth had been brushed particularly vigorously. I wanted to look perfect for my date with my hero. But Grandpa Jaime took his time. I waited impatiently and pretended to look repeatedly at the clock like I had seen grownups do when they were waiting for something, too. About a half hour later, grandpa shows up, apologizes for being late muttering something about the traffic, and off we went.

The film that made me into the stumbling, bumbling dork I am today.

The Capri was this dodgy, worn-down theater in Barranquilla where I went for a number of years to watch movies. For years it was the most popular theater in Barranquilla, where the only real alternatives were El Metro or Cinerama 84. The Capri was generally thought of as better because it had a larger screen and I guess a nicer-looking front. The place was by no means really good and found its demise when the Villa Country opened its multiplex facility and showed our insignificant city what movie theaters should aspire to be. The Villa Country cinema was more modernized in a lot of ways and was the first taste that Barranquilla got of a real movie theater, but Capri remained open for a number of years after the obviously superior Villa Country took over and was frequented by people looking for a sudden rush of nostalgia. There was something very charming about the place, how shitty it really was, how there always seemed to be stale popcorn stuck to the floor and how it wasn’t unusual to see some stray cat wandering across the isles during a movie.

This is where I was to see the film. Well before the Villa Country cinemas, this was the coolest theater in Barranquilla and where I would get to meet my personal role model up close. We got to the place and there was no line outside, which struck me as odd seeing how it was the premiere of the movie. As we went to buy tickets, the horrible reality of it all sits before us: the box office had closed, the doors were shut and the movie was already playing inside. We were late. I was gonna miss my movie. To say I was devastated would be an understatement– I never experienced such grief before in my brief lifespan. My grandpa could tell how disappointed I was, and patted me on the back reassuringly. “It’s okay, Jorgito”, he said, “we’ll catch it tomorrow. Come on. Let’s go home.”

But I didn’t want to go home. I walked over to the stairs which led up to the entrance and sat on one. My grandpa sat beside me. I looked down at my Batman sneakers– the embedded Bat-shield now looking up at me harshly, judgemental. Like it was disappointed at me. I couldn’t bear the thought of just “catching it tomorrow”, ’cause to me tomorrow didn’t even exist. I had missed my window. It stung. And I started to sob. After a few seconds, I was crying uncontrollably at the foot of the theater and my grandpa, ever the sensitive soul, was moved by my sadness and started crying himself. There we both were– a six year old chubby boy and a sixty year old man, sitting outside a cinema while people were inside watching a movie, crying our eyes off because we couldn’t get in. It was heartbreaking and, to be honest, quite pathetic.

An older, slightly overweight man in a suit walked up to my grandpa and asked him what was wrong. In between sobs, he related the whole story– my adoration for all things Batman, the promise of a movie, being late ’cause of traffic– all as I wept quite loudly in the background. The man seemed interested in the story, and after my grandpa was done, removed his glasses and remained in thought for a few seconds. He then told us he was the manager of the movie theater and he was so touched by our story that he was gonna see what he could do. He disappeared for a minute and then came back, peering from inside the box office and telling us to follow him. We walked in and he led us into the theater. The place was packed full and most of the audience were kids my age and their parents. I looked around, awestruck. The movie had already started but was only about ten minutes in. I saw no available seats and wondered if we were gonna have to watch the movie standing up. When I turn around, I see the manager guy had pulled up three plastic chairs and set them right there at the door, giving us a look like “will this do?”.

He provided us with free popcorn and soda. Never charged us for entry. I was totally blown away by the movie even if most of it went over my head at the time– I was just so fucking thrilled to be there. Whenever Batman showed up in costume, the entire audience exploded in cheers and applause, just like I did inside any time I saw the Caped Crusader pop up in the small screen. After the movie was over, the guy talked to my grandpa for a while and showed us the projection room. It was the first time I ever saw how movies worked and I was amazed by it. It seemed so magical and unearthly. After giving me an overly simplified explanation of how it worked, he started to say goodbye, but then stopped himself with a snap of the fingers and an “oh! Hold on” as he hurried excitedly to the back of the room. A few seconds later, he came back with a huge promotional poster for the movie– the Bat-symbol placed on top of a black background and the word “RETURNS” in big white letters underneath it. He shook both our hands and bid us farewell.

That was one of the greatest days of my life. I remember it as being a hallmark and a catalyst for the person I was yet to become. That afternoon, I was changed in more ways than one. If it weren’t for that man, who knows what I’d be doing with my life now. I wonder if he knows how his actions influenced that chubby little six year old. People don’t often think of how their actions are going to affect people in the long run. One little act of kindness like that was enough to shape the way the rest of my life was going to be.

It’s remarkable, how this life works.

A decades-long obsession. It's endearing... right? Not just creepy. ... Right?

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July 23, 2011

Raiders of the Lost Dignity (no, really, this is a clever title)

By Jorge Farah

Steven Spielberg took the stage at the San Diego Comic-Con the other day, for the first time ever, and delivered the soul-crushing news that a new “Jurassic Park” movie is in the works. Because the world really needs another installment in the fascinating series of movies about dinosaurs running around stomping on shit.

Seriously, more of this shit.

I mean, just think of all the possibilities. Like, dinosaurs eat people! And, people flee in terror! Really, the sky's the limit.

You know, I remember a time when Spielberg’s name was almost synonymous with cinema; a far-reaching world of imagination and endless possibility, a quixotic and inspiring beacon of childlike wonder in a medium populated with cynics catering to audiences hopelessly enamored with the grim & gritty.

I’m of exactly the right age to have grown up at a time when Spielberg had already established himself firmly in the pop culture landscape as a dreamweaver, and right before his artistic decline. The first Spielberg movie I saw in the theater was “Hook”. I was five years old at the time and I remember being blown away by what I was seeing. I came upon some of his other movies through video rentals, not because I sought them out, but because… well, they were the movies you would rent back then. “ET” marked me, “Raiders of the Lost Ark” thrilled me, “Jaws” terrified me, and I had absolutely no idea they were made by the same person. To me, they were just magic. When you’re a kid, everything seems possible, and Spielberg’s work tapped into that and somehow augmented it.

I guess years go on and every artist is bound to start running dry. Gradually, Spielberg’s work started seeming less magic and more hokey, contrived, boring. And who could possibly hold it against him? That run of movies from “Jaws” ’til maybe “Saving Private Ryan” (which, mind you, amounts to over 20 fucking years of awesomeness) is pretty amazing and if he had retired after that, he would’ve gone out a legend. But he didn’t.

Oh Steven.

Hip. The word you're looking for is "hip".

What he did instead was stick around and make a number of adequately mediocre features that, although matching the eclectic and scattershot tapestry of the first half of his filmography, fail to connect on the ever-important human level, like his best work did. He re-released some of his old work, making much-derided edits and changes to it several decades after the fact. He licensed. He cross-marketed. He produced en masse, in bulk, all the while sporting a knowing wink at the audience; a “hey, remember this? And hey, didn’t we have all kinds of fun back then?”.

Oh man.

"Boy we... we had some fun times, huh? What say we dust off ol' Brucey and give it another go? Just one more, for old times' sake?"

Nowadays– especially after the catastrophically ill-conceived “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” and especially after the recent announcement of a possible fourth “Jurassic Park”– Spielberg seems like a nostalgic old fogey, desperately clinging to past glories. Out of fashion, out of touch, finger far from the pulse of the moviegoing public but with a built-in fanbase of hopeless optimists.

And I’ll be right there at every premiere with them, hoping to recapture that magical wide-eyed amazement that used to be synonymous with the name “Spielberg”. Holding on to the hope that maybe we’ll stumble upon it one day and be reminded of why we fell in love with cinema in the first place. But we won’t. Or we’ll think we did, but then it turns out to just be bad gas. Either way. It’s gonna shit.

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June 17, 2011

More Bullshit Posturing.

By Jorge Farah

The problem is that Truffaut and Godard not only had something to say, they had something to prove– the fundamental right of an artist to make art theirs. That this wasn’t some crazy, outdated idea in cinema. That films could still be visceral, that you as an artist could pour yourself into your work and effectively become part of it– to have your vision reflected upon the silver screen. La politique des Auteurs was a rousing call to arms and Les cuatre cents coups was the victorious coup d’etat. There’s more there than a bright-eyed well-read kid with a story to tell. This is the problem with my recycled generation– we have learned from the masters but haven’t really added anything of value of our own. The search for a voice as a filmmaker, of an artistic identity, is as stifling as it has ever been because everybody believes they have something new and original to say when really, everybody just wants to be a 21st century Cassavettes. We’re world-weary and post-modern and smart-alecky. Everybody is eternally stuck in these moments of doubt and uncertainty and the things we say all sound the same. I’m certain we have stories to tell. I don’t quite know if we have anything left to prove.

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September 6, 2010

Another irritating call…

By Jorge Farah

in which I spout factually incorrect nonsense about movies and prove how obsessed with Tommy Wiseau’s “The Room” I really am.

Click click click here! Do it!

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July 24, 2010

What more Batman talk what

By Jorge Farah

Listen to this clip

… in which I talk about Batman a lot, nearly get in a fight with a radio host regarding time zones, and refer to current Hollywood A-listers by the wrong name, demonstrating how hip I really am.

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June 20, 2010

Ugh. UGH.

By Jorge Farah

So I realize I’m about 6 years late to the party but I was sort of cornered into a situation where I had to see Todd Solondz’s “Palindromes”. School assignment. Knowing a little bit about Solondz’s style of filmmaking, this isn’t a film I would pick up to watch on my own, but there I was.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film that has ellicited a more visceral reaction from me. I hated it with every fiber of my being. And the hate was immediate and automatic, from the moment the first character uttered the first line of dialogue, and was only solidified throughout. It offended me on an aesthetic level. On a narrative level. On an emotional and an intellectual level. I literally had to go take a walk to cool down from my frustration. I couldn’t understand it. It’s certainly not the product of incompetence, although the acting was atrocious. The way I see it, this movie was designed to be an ugly, uncomfortable viewing experience. The terrible acting was, I’m assuming, a casting decision. The pace. The dialogue. The editing. Everything. It was a movie designed to be as displeasing as possible — except it didn’t seem to use that ugliness as a means to an end. Whatever hamfisted point it tried to make sank beneath its own ponderousness, or was so obvious that it got lost in the gimmicky starkness of it all. It was ugly for the sake of ugly. Unlike “Happiness”, there was absolutely nothing redeeming about this turgid mess of a movie. It’s a badly-written, ill-conceived, destructive piece of art, and it ruined my day.

Fuck you Todd Solondz. I hate you with all my heart.

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June 13, 2010

“You’re just a chicken, chip chip chiiiip”

By Jorge Farah

I’ve been pretty much obsessed with Tommy Wiseau’s brilliantly incompetent The Room for the last six months or so. I put together this video of my favorite bits. Watch it. You won’t be sorry you did.

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April 22, 2010

I will stay if you let me stay. I will go if you let me go.

By Jorge Farah

The last couple of weeks have been wonderful. The BAFICI was everything I could ever hope for and more. Over the span of ten days I saw 22 movies of varying degrees of quality. From fiercely independent mumblecore features to bigger, lushly animated productions to absurd experiments. It was all an adventure because, although they provide a little booklet with a synopsis of each of the films, you really had no idea what you were getting yourself into. Good or bad or inexplicably strange, it was a wonderful experience.

I’m not gonna write about all the movies I saw. Here are some highlights.

I started the festival off with a beautiful documentary on legendary jazz bassist Charlie Haden called “Rambling Boy” (USA). It follows him from his rural0 upbringing in country music through his revolutionary work with Ornette Coleman, through his experiments at the forefront of the jazz avant garde. They go into deep detail of his technique as well as the emotional core of his music. Thorough and insightful and compelling film. It got me listening to this beautiful record again.

Next off, “Silver Girls” (Germany) is a beautifully shot, touching documentary about a group of over-the-hill prostitutes living in Berlin. The contrast between their unremarkable middle-class existence and their jobs makes for a compelling look at three very lonely women quickly slipping into elderly irrelevance. “No Heart Feelings” (Canada) is a really funny, quirky little indie flick. It feels at times like a love letter to Toronto. All the characters are young, attractive, wealthy and impossibly witty, but the story and dialogue are so charming you’re not annoyed by these cardboard cutouts.

“The Haunted World of El Superbeasto” (USA), Rob Zombie’s nutty, Flash-animated feature. This reminded me of vintage Warner Brothers cartoons, albeit with Satanic debauchery. Lots of tits and guns in this, as was expected. Laugh-out-loud hilarious at times, ridiculously over-the-top through and through. “Black Dynamite” (USA), a 1970s blaxploitation pastiche, complete with a gun-toting alpha male protagonist. This movie is apparently already out on video in the States, but hasn’t really done very well, which is I guess why it’s making the rounds in the festival circuit. This was all in all really clever and well done. The audience was in stitches. A lot of fun.

I was also really looking forward to “Leslie My Name is Evil” (Canada), Reginald Harkema’s followup to the awesomely militant “Monkey Warfare”. It completely lived up to my expectations. A 1960s Charles Manson fantasy. Solid flick with a lot of great performances (especially Kristen Hager as the title character) and some really interesting cinematography. I was taken to see “Twigson” (Norway) a children’s story about a boy and his imaginary friend, a tree branch named Twigson. It tells a surprisingly mature tale of isolation and adaptation. A kid’s movie, definitely, but one oozing with charm. Speaking of children’s movies, “McDull- Kung Fu Kingergarten” (China) was an incredibly cute little movie.

I was also pleasantly surprised by “Summer Wars” (Japan), an anime fever dream of a hyper-evolved social networking “parallel world”. The contrast between Japanese family drama and the online craziness makes this a really interesting little flick. And this is coming from somebody who has real problems taking anime seriously, especially the type of anime that delves deeply into the genre’s cliches. This was really well done, though.

I was really taken with two rock and roll documentaries. “Do it Again” (USA) is a documentary about a man on a quest to see The Kinks reunite. On the way, he attempts to get celebrities to join in an impromptu and unrehearsed Kinks singalong. A really captivating feature on the power of rock and roll through generations. The other one I really liked was “Femme Rock Doc” (Chile), an awesome documentary about girl punk bands from Chile. Great, great music.

Another music documentary I loved (and the last film of the festival I could see) was the documentary on Magnetic Fields frontman Stephen Merritt, “Strange Powers”. An awesome movie and a great look into the mind of one of the most polarizing figures in indie-rock. Stephen is really funny and wry and gay.

I’d also like to mention as a highlight (because of how memorable it is, not necessarily because of how GOOD it was), the new Harmony Korine feature. “Trash Humpers” (USA), easily the weirdest movie in the festival so far. Shot and edited on VHS, it’s basically 90 minutes of people in old-people masks, humping trash cans, killing people and masturbating. No discernible plot to speak of. Absolutely no narrative. There was something captivating and macabre about certain shots, and I found myself deeply disturbed by others, but more than anything what stayed with me about this movie was what it said about what movies are. It was an interesting exercise in totally egoless filmmaking, albeit overlong, overwrought and downright boring at parts.

422 films were screened over 10 days. I’m glad to have caught the ones I did. There were others I wanted to see but time just didn’t allow. I have to say, I’ll miss jumping in and out of diegeses every day. If nothing else, this made me want to go see more movies. Not just at home, but at the movie theater. This reaffirmed my love for cinema, and inspired me as a learning filmmaker. I’d call that a huge success.

In other news, I turned 23, I’ve been listening to Broken Social Scene obsessively and Flor is leaving to Mendoza for a couple months. This does not help my abandonment complex. I’ll manage though. I hope.

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April 8, 2010

Which will

By Jorge Farah

It’s become a ridiculous struggle to get me out of bed every morning. I’m not entirely sure if it’s just because I’m simply going to bed later or if there’s an underlying problem with my drive, my lust for life, my joie de vivre, if you will. But it seems like every time I wake up the feeling that washes over me is that of suddenly finding myself walking up a down escalator. More on this later, I suppose.

So I spent a big chunk of last Friday in line at the Hoyts cinema inside the Abasto shopping mall, clutching tightly a copy of the program for this year’s Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival. The Abasto mall is probably my favorite shopping mall in Buenos Aires, I suspect in large part by virtue of their awesome multiplex. It’s one of the few cinemas I’ve ever been in that literally will not let you into the theater once the show has started. That pretty much tells you all you need to know about the place. They have real respect for the screenings. That’s really rare these days. At least in this part of the world.

I was joined by an old, old acquaintance, from back when I was an incredibly awkward preteen brimming with enthusiasm and untapped potential. Catalina was the editor for the school newspaper that year, and she reached out to me to handle the primary school section– a section that for the longest time had been relegated to a 2-page spread with collages of ridiculous drawings and one or two 50-word articles. Catalina expanded the primary section to make up a big chunk of the school newspaper, and 70% of the articles were written by me. I wish I had a copy of that. I think I found some of those articles a couple years ago and they were so charmingly naive attempts at post-modernism. I was pretty obsessed with Space Ghost: Coast to Coast back then, see. Well, still am, I guess.

Catalina was in Buenos Aires for about a week. It was extremely strange to see her again. We had been corresponding via Facebook for the last year or so, but the last time I actually saw her face-to-face was easily 8 or 9 years ago in Barranquilla. She’s a bit of a webcelebrity now, having amassed a sizable following on Twitter, running several blogging websites at a time and having worked at SoHo magazine (a slightly-higher-brow Colombian version of Maxim). I remember her as an awkward teenager, now she’s a force to be reckoned with. It brought back a lot of memories.

The festival starts tomorrow. I’m extremely excited about it, although I don’t know if that necessarily has to do with the movies I’m watching rather than just wanting something to cling on to to take my mind off my increasingly alienating situation at work. But if this festival is even half as fun as the 2008 BAFICI, it’s still going to be an awesome experience. Seriously, the 2008 edition of the festival I will always look back on as some of the happiest days of my life. I practically lived in those movie theaters, diving in and hopping out of diegeses like some sort of interdimensional timetraveller. And of course, 2007 was a high point being the year that fucking TOM WAITS came to visit.

I set up my program for this year based around the movies I can realistically watch without interfering with school or work, so I’m not watching as many as I possibly could. All in all, I bought 23 movie tickets and I hope I get to see every one of them. I’m particularly excited about “Meat”, a German sex theater drama, as well as “Leslie My Name is Evil”, the new Reginald Harkema flick. I’m excited about that one after being so inspired by “Monkey Warfare” which screened in the 2008 edition of the festival. Also psyched for “Black Dynamite”, which I’ll be watching minutes before I turn 23, Saturday night. I wanted to watch Haneke’s “The White Ribbon” but of course, that sold out as soon as it went on sale.

And another thing that I’ll be watching is a short piece called “Massage the History”, which is, from what I understand, a mini-documentary of sorts about the geniuses behind the “Peer Pressure” video on youtube. If you haven’t seen it, it’s one of the most confounding and inexplicable and wonderfully strange pieces of footage ever. Follow this link if you dare take the leap. Be warned, this video will change you.

My first festival movie is at 10:30 tomorrow morning. A documentary about Charlie Haden. Seems appropriate.

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March 18, 2010

I haven’t seen you in ages but it’s not as bleak as it seems

By Jorge Farah

Well, “Alice in Wonderland” couldn’t even live up to my considerably lowered expectations. The fact that it failed to even deliver 90 minutes of entertainment says a lot about the type of filmmaker Tim Burton is these days. It was a lazy script with horrible dialogue, a ridiculous plot that seemed more like a halfhearted attempt to imitate the “epic movie” template rather than the joyfully disjointed and nonsensical nature of the original books. The ending was ridiculous. The only good thing I can say about the movie is it had a talking dog. Any movie that has a talking dog in it automatically has at least some redeemable value.

Seriously, even the visuals weren’t even half as interesting or striking as the much-simpler, almost quaint cheap CGI in Terry Gilliam’s “The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus”. There was heart in those imaginary landscapes. Not only that, but, say what you will about the movie itself, it was visually dazzling in ways that transcend the CGI. The camera angles, the framing, the lighting, everything. And the story! And Tom Waits as the devil! Maybe it was unfair to watch Alice in Wonderland right after having finally watched The Imaginarium. But then again, Terry Gilliam is in a whole other level. Anyone who even thinks to equate Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam deserves a slap in the face. Not even a hard one. Just a pansy, rightfully indignant slap in the face.

I’ve been listening to The Magnetic Fields’ 69 Love Songs for the first time in forever. Not sure why, exactly. But I’m not complaining.

Spent St. Patrick’s day at an Irishman’s house, with a bunch of people from all kinds of nationalities joining in the joys of drunkenness. Except of course for my new SxE friend from Pittsburgh, whom I was so excited to meet because she’s the first Straight Edge person I’ve actually met! I realize it sounds ridiculous and ignorant and insulated but I thought sXe people were either complete antisocial freaks or outright myths. ‘Cause seriously, who doesn’t like to get shitfaced every once in a while? But I met Sofia at a bar (ironically enough) about a month and a half ago and she’s just really awesome. So is her friend of dubious origin, Amina. They make a great team.

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March 12, 2010

And your eyes fall down on me

By Jorge Farah

Seeing “Alice in Wonderland” tonight with Flor. The last Tim Burton movie I really remember looking forward to was “Big Fish”, also perhaps his last great movie. The Argentinean fascination for Tim Burton films has been a pet peeve of mine since I came to live here, but I understand the appeal. I’ve found I’m mostly annoyed by directors I perceive as being “too in love with” their own idiosyncratic style– Wes Anderson and Quentin Tarantino come to mind. I feel like brilliant movies are sometimes damaged by their little quirks and fixations (“Inglorious Basterds”, for instance. Dude, the spaghetti-western score works perfectly for Kill Bill and Grindhouse, but not a movie set in 1940s Europe, yannow? It just seems jarring).

(And of course I’m NOT saying all movies should be nameless and uniform– shit, I’m as much of a politique des auteurs advocate as any Truffaut fan– I’m just saying you sometimes sacrifice the integrity of the film itself, the story itself, by making these… I dunno… self-concessions?, to leave your stamp as it were, on a movie that’s already, for all intents and purposes, yours).

Anyway. I’m looking forward to “Alice in Wonderland”. Not having read the stories the movie is based on, I’m curious to see if the story is as dark and fucked up as I keep hearing about. Of course, it’s Tim Burton, so I really won’t know how much of that “darkness” is really from the source material or just his version of it. My coworker Florencia (different from the other Flor– god there are a lot of Flors in Buenos Aires, gosh) got me interested in the story of Lewis Carroll and Alice Liddell, his subject for the stories, and how there seems to be a public confusion about the extent of their relationship. From what I understand, Lewis was obviously quite fixated on her. By most accounts, nothing actually ever happened between them, and to Alice’s innocent perception, they were probably just “platonic friends”. Or maybe he was “like a brother” to her. That’s what they always say, right? How often is that actually true, though? Just think– how devastating a word like “friend” or “brother” to a guy who’s yearning for more.

Anyway, nobody really knows anything. Perhaps my perception is colored by the Tom Waits album, “Alice”, which is a dark story of feverish obsession. Tom’s album is probably my favorite album by any artist ever, a slow, trudging piece of baroque jazz, with Tom’s fractured “junkyard orchestra” in full European ballad form, giving these songs a somber, understated orchestration. It’s sometimes beautiful, quiet and desolate, sometimes deeply disturbing. The lyrics are absolutely heartbreaking and poetic. Listening to this record in full is like taking a swim in the dark of the night. Which of course I wouldn’t do due to my irrational fear of sharks but that’s what it feels like.

You know, I think it’s interesting how probably my two favorite records by my two favorite musicians– “Alice” and Elvis Costello’s “North”– are slow, sad, piano-driven jazzy tearjerkers. You’d get the impression I’m this insufferable emo douchebag. Oh wait.

I swear to God, this entry started off being about something and now I’m rambling about Tom Waits and Elvis Costello again. Jesus Christ.

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January 31, 2010

“What a nice young man”

By Jorge Farah

I made my debut on American radio this weekend, on the Jordan Rich show on WBZ Boston. Listen to my endearingly jumpy rants by clicking on this beautiful little link below.

Jordan Rich interviews me

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