One of the first posts I did for this website in this category was about The New Adventures of Captain S. The people over at PBC Productions worked on a small, barely existing budget to create a love letter to after school specials and video games (even if it was Sega. Yuck!). Over the course of several episodes they called a season, they created a movie, one full of charm. Yet, life got in the way and halted the series, and it is now cancelled. Years later, I still mourn this loss.
Around the time I started watching the videos of PBC productions, I was introduced to The Game Jew, now more known as Jonathan Mann. Today, he writes a song a day and you can find him at his website Rock Bottom Cookie. He even got national coverage when he wrote a song about Paul Krugman and was featured on This Week on ABC. To me, however, he will always be The Game Jew.
The Game Jew wrote songs and performed happy skits about the Nintendo Wii during its launch. They were memorable tunes that never rang false or cynical. TGJ wasn’t being ironic in his love of Nintendo, and it is always wonderful to see someone be honest about their loves, even if those around him didn’t share the same enthusiasm. I remember him singing a love song to his girlfriend about the Wii, which if you can believe it wasn’t dripping with innuendo. Then, I remember the sadness he felt when that relationship ended. He shaved his head and wrote a song about it. I don’t recall him singing that love song ever again.
He’s done so much. He went to Venice, wrote a Mario opera, and continues today to write a song a day. He might distant himself today from his Game Jew roots, but I’ll always remember him for that, and for the joy his songs brought me.
Magnolia is such a brutal, unrelenting movie. I swear there's a section midway through the film where the camera doesn't stop pushing in or out and the music isn't constantly playing. It feels like it goes on forever, and it's grinding your groins in an unforgiving and unpleasurable manner. Except, at the end, one thing provides redemption.
I was somewhere in my teens when I first saw the film. It's odd that during this time foul language would turn me off a film, but I wasn't bothered by it in this movie. If anything, the harsh and crude language was compelling. For a movie that says "fuck" nearly 200 times, the language never seemed excessive. It's odd how a setting or something can make it work just right.
This was the third major film by Paul Thomas Anderson. I've still yet to see Hard Eight, but Boogie Nights was his smash opening for me. I think there was an old quote somewhere attributed to Stanley Kubrick that a high class porn film was impossible. It's as if Anderson heard this and took upon the challenge. There's an audacity to it all, from barely R rated sex scenes to the final image on screen, an homage to Raging Bull, with Marky-Mark and his "star". The movie is looking hard at you, but with a smirk. I can see why Quentin Tarantino says this is Anderson's best work.
Myself, I used to trade off between Magnolia and Boogie Nights until There Will Be Blood took the crown. Like Tarantino and Kubrick, the writer/director/auteur relationship ensures hit after hit, with no duds. Each of those three directors haven't made a bad movie yet.
Magnolia is like Boogie Nights but without that smirk. There's no brevity to be found in the film. No release. Julianne Moore is vile, Philip Baker Hall is unforgivable, and Tom Cruise, in his best performance that should have won him the Oscar over "Princes of Maine", quietly judging you. They're all sad, pathetic, with little hope... until the end.
I know it's coming. In my despair, I sit and watch and wait. After everything, one thing gets me every time and makes me cry. She's sitting on the bed. The ending song is playing. There's not much time left. Hurry! Who's talking? It's John C. Riley! Come on. Smile. Damnit. Smile. Smile.
And she smiles. For a moment, there's hope in this world.
Perhaps there is something cathartic about virtually conquering our fears. In one respect, this is something film can do quite easily for the timid. Afraid of heights? Sit comfortably on the couch and watch Vertigo. Then again, I doubt watching Jaws will help someone with a fear of water. The healing process for everyone is different.
I long resisted watching Requiem for a Dream because of its subject matter. I don't like movies about drugs. I no longer have a good, close friend because of the self-absorbed nature of addiction. Couple this topic with sex and I'll freak out. So, much to my surprise, finally sitting down to watch the film wasn't that much of an ordeal. Had enough time passed to allow me to watch the film and not be worried? Regardless, the film is a triumph in paranoia and self-destruction. The immediate gratification from the fix is achieved through the fast cutting and subjective camera work. The only thing that troubles as well as befuddles me is the adoration drug addicts and misfits worship this film rather than fear it. It's like a fat man scolding a smoker. It makes no sense. Drugstore Cowboy broke me into these types of movies, and with Requiem under my belt, perhaps I'm ready for Kids? Ha!
"There are times when I look at people and I see nothing worth liking. I want to earn enough money that I can get away from everyone." I still can't write much about this movie because of how personally it hit me. When a few days before you're drunk on a balcony chewing on a steak with your hands, and then see it on a giant screen with an audience laughing inappropriately, the gut hurts. The heart hurts. People use the word "everyone" and exclude some people, such as a wife or friends or family. When Plainview says it, when I hear it and feel it, I mean everyone - and that's hard for some people to understand, some close to you.
If you think too much you can't be happy. This seems to be the dilemna of Woody Allen and Bergman. To ponder our mortality and place in the universe is a form of mental masturbation. It is impossible to conclude with certainty and is a waste of time. Yet, we as a people do this. There is gratifaction in the search for something more than us, but when we reach the end of that thought, we are still alone in the world with no higher power. And man can be content with being evil. Crimes and Misdemeanors ponders morality, ends in bleakness, and is sprinkled with humor. Man is alone, or God does not care about evil - and thus cannot exist. Sometimes, evil goes unpunished, the blameless become blind, and life goes on when it wants to.
The Office is becoming a car crash that your have to stare at because your boss is making you.
What the hell is going on with the Office? People complained right after the mishandled baby episode that the tracks were coming off the rail, but now things are skidding into the side of a mountain. Perhaps Yucca Mountain filled with nuclear weapons and a bunch of pissed off Indians. The most recent episode, Michael’s Last Dundies, was a mess.
Holly was a great edition to the show. She provided a great romantic counterpart to Michael after his disastrous relationships with several women. If the show runners kept having Michael strike out with women without finding any happiness, it would be like kicking a puppy repeatedly without letting it lick your face just once. Since everyone loves puppies, everyone should have loved Holly. But, msyoginism and the like brought people down. She wasn’t THAT pretty. Well, she was pretty darn adorable in The Wire back in 2003 so fuck anyone who hates her. The cute awkwardness that Holly brought to those initial episodes of the Office were refreshing and allowed Michael to develop, slowly, in the span of a season.
Then, there was his trip to Nashville where he suffered a meltdown (typical for the character but in a grander scale) when his love had moved on to another man. This two part episode was important because it showed just how necessary Holly was to Michael and to the show. In this same road trip Rashida Jones came back, but no one really cared. She was just... there. Pam didn’t really react, nor Michael (outside of his comment asking if the baby was Jim’s), and Rashida didn’t really give a damn either because she moved on to someone else. No one likes being replaced. That is, unless both people replace one another and one of them gets knocked up.
Of course, maybe this means more to people who have found their Holly but lost them to someone else or to the circumstances of life. Mine was dressed in a pink shirt and acid jeans sitting beside a pool. Mine was sleepy on a bus and rested her head against my shoulder on a 8 hour drive over night. Mine had a jean jacket. Mine had an infectious laugh.
Well, not mine.
Luckily, Holly came back. For Michael. And, he is allowed his happiness. He deserves it because even if he screws up all of the time, he’s a good person. There’s a reason why the GLBT group didn’t complain when Michael made homophobic remarks to Oscar but DID complain about that stupid Ron Howard movie.
The simple point is this: Holly is great. Not Big. Not Small. Perfect boobs. She’s like a lady baker.
So where is she? She had to leave to Colorado, I suppose, but in these final episodes of Michael, she needs to be there to remind the office WHY he is leaving. The way the show is handling it, no one cares about the characters but about the actors. Yes, Steve Carell is gone. But Michael? What is he doing? He’s hosting the last Dundies. What about the first we all saw in the series?
Episode 1 of the Second Season essentially started the show. The first 6 episodes of Season One were too similar to the British show. That is, they were much more awkward and mean. Michael, rather than being a lovable oaf was an ass.
So, what made The Dundies episode so great? Well, it firmly planted a flag that became the entire reason for the first 5 seasons of the Office. When will Pam and Jim get together? There was never a question on the “if” of their relationship, but the “when”. This is one of the great things about the show. Rather than be like Friends were there’s a constant “will they won’t they” nonsense (because everyone knew it would happen eventually), the show fess up’ed and said “YES THEY WILL GET TOGETHER WHEN WE DAMN WELL SAY THEY WILL” and let it happen organically.
Imagine how Jim felt when he saw Pam with Roy. Imagine Michael thinking of Holly
There’s one magical moment in the Dundies episode that makes it one of my favorite moments in all of television. Jim is madly taken by Pam, but he can’t do anything. She’s taken, and he’s too much of a nice guy to do anything about it. He can only watch. And, Pam, even if she might have feelings for Jim, knows she is taken and can’t hurt Roy. Star-crossed lovers.
So there they are. Sitting next to one another. And she’s drunk. And he’s not. And they love each other. And she nods her head with such a seriousness and a sweetness that seems impossible to fake. At that moment, Pam loves him, and he loves her, and it’s their moment. It’s the sweetest thing in the world. It’s their moment.
Of course, it’s a show, and it’s fake.
But, for any star-crossed lover, it’s impossible to have a dry eye.
None of this is in the new Dundie’s episode. Rather, we get an uncomfortable breakup between two characters that no one liked together and a new host who we don’t know how to feel about (he makes an employee drink soap. We are suppose to like him?).
The Dundies mean something. They used to mean something.
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