Monthly Archives: May 2005

Gayness, Star Wars

The Best Line From a Star Wars Review

Leave a comment

… the winner of the best line from a Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith review goes to David Edelstein over at Slate, where, in “The Passion of the Sith: I dream of Jedi” he wrote:

McDiarmid isn’t the subtlest of satanic tempters. With his lisp and his clammy little leer, he looks like an old queen keen on trading an aging butt-boy (Count Dooku) for fresh meat—which leaves Anakin looking more and more like a 15-watt bulb.

Maybe this is why the movie disappointed me. The whole Emperor/Anakin thing sorta did gross me out because it seemed as if the Emperor was totally hot for him… giving gays everywhere a bad name. (And also resurrecting one of the oldest gay stereotypes: the old gay man/lesbian tempting the young, innocent into the ways of queerness.)

Mysterious Skin, SIFF 2005

Starting Mysterious Skin

2 Comments

Mysterious Skin
In my continual stop-and-start of book reading (I recently started, then stopped, Infinite Jest, then I started, then stopped, Speculum of the Other Woman [for the third time]), and now I’m starting yet another book. This time, though, I need to finish it since I’m seeing the movie it was based on in a couple of weeks.

My next book is Mysterious Skin by Scott Heim.

I don’t know too much about the book, except for the fact that is is probably gay-themed and involves alien abductions (that probably aren’t really done by aliens). I know nothing about the author, so this should be pretty exciting.

I’m reading it because on June 2, I will be seeing the film version of Mysterious Skin as part of the Seattle International Film Festival. Greg Araki, who directed two movies I absolutely love: The Doom Generation and Nowhere.

Araki’s other movies are very sexual and surreal. Nowhere, in fact, seems to have been very inspired by the Bret Easton Ellis novel Less Than Zero. The film version of Less Than Zero absolutely sucks, so I just pretend that Nowhere was the real adapatation.

That said, I’m excited to start reading this novel. With the except of Infinite Jest (which, of course, I took a break from reading), I haven’t read a nonfiction book for a few months (The Handmaid’s Tale was the last one I read).

Movies, Seattle, SIFF 2005, Wong Kar-Wai

Feast Your Eyes

Leave a comment

Seattle International Film Festival cover
Last year I was a bad Seattle-ite and didn’t get around to going to any of the Seattle International Film Festival showings. I tried going to see The Corporation, but I didn’t understand the whole pass/buy-your-ticket-in-advance concept back then and I ended up not seeing it when I wanted. But that was last year. And I am glad to say I learned from my mistake.

This year, I am going to go much more full-force with the whole SIFF thing. So far we’re only about four days into the festival, and I’ve seen three SIFF showings — yay for me.

On Friday night and Saturday afternoon (yes, twice) I went to see 2046. Readers of my blog should know that I’ve already seen the movie twice (first review of 2046, second review of 2046). I gotta say that seeing it three, then four, times only made me love the movie more. Every time I’ve watched it I’ve picked up on something different and understood things a bit differently.

Bai Ling
At the Saturday showing the woman from SIFF who introduced the film said a few interesting things. First, she said that she had worked with Wong Kar-Wai on his last five movies and that she asked him to come to Seattle for the debut of 2046. Second, she said that he had to decline because he was working on his next movie, The Lady From Shanghai with Nicole Kidman. As of right now, the Internet Movie Database notes that the film is in production without any cast listed. There are some rumors on the message board that Nicole Kidman would be involved, but nothing concrete… so, it seems to me that we may have been the first to really find out for certain that Kidman is in the next WKW movie. That is awesome. Finally, the woman said that WKW thanked us for seeing the film at SIFF and not going to Scarecrow Video to rent the bootleg/import version of the film. Oops. Well, I guess he didn’t personally thank me, but hey, I saw the SIFF screening twice, so it’s not like I took away business.

Speaking of 2046, when I first mentioned that it would be showing at SIFF I noted that there are apparently two edits of the film. After its Cannes 2004 premiere, WKW went and edited a bit so that it made more sense. I am 90% sure that the version I saw at SIFF was different than the version I watched on DVD. The “2046” and “2047” segments were longer and overall the film made more sense, though that could be due to the fact I had seen it so many times before and the fact I was watching it on a big screen.

Finally, and this is my last comment about 2046 and SIFF, but I have to say that The Neptune theatre in the University District is by far the worst movie ever to see subtitled films at. The floor isn’t sloped enough so the head of the person in front of you is always in the way. Again, learning from my past, when I went on Saturday afternoon we got the front row seats on the balcony, which at least gave us a chance to read all of the subtitles… as for the comfort, that still left a lot to be desired. That place needs new seats!

Secret Festival pass
In addition to the regular films at the festival, my coworker learned about this thing called The Secret Festival. Every year SIFF (and this is, I understand, pretty unique to SIFF) does this additional set of movies that you can see but not talk about. How serious are they about not talking about it? Well, pretty serious, apparently. Using my pretty keen Google-fu, I couldn’t find anything online about what has been shown in the past. Additionally, when you get the pass, you sign what is basically a nondisclosure agreement:

I, the undersigned, do hereby solemnly swear that I will never divulge the titles of discuss any of the films screened at the 2005 SIFF Secret Festival. Futhermore, I agree that I will not commit to print, broadcast on radio/television, on-line service or any other media form information regarding any of the 2005 Secret Festival screenings. I understand that the Seattle International Film Festival can and will pursue legal action against me in order to recover punitive and financial damages caused by my breach of this contract. I understand that no recording device is allowed into festival venues and that I may be subject to physical search of my person or personal property upon entrance to festival venues.

So yah, don’t expect any more information about the Secret Festival showings.

As for the other films, this is what I plan to see:

  • Ronda Nocturna @ Harvard Exit @ May 25, 2005 9:30 p.m.
  • Childstar @ Neptune Theatre @ May 27, 2005 7:15 p.m.
  • Izo @ Egyptian Theatre @ May 28, 2005 11:55 p.m.
  • November @ Neptune Theatre @ May 31, 2005 9:30 p.m.
  • Mysterious Skin @ Egyptian Theatre @ Jun 2, 2005 9:15 p.m.
  • A Hole in My Heart @ Egyptian Theatre @ Jun 4, 2005 11:55 p.m.
  • L’Amant @ Harvard Exit @ Jun 5, 2005 6:30 p.m.
  • Clean @ Harvard Exit @ Jun 7, 2005 9:30 p.m.
  • Ellie Parker @ Neptune Theatre @ Jun 11, 2005 2:00 p.m.
  • Frozen @ Harvard Exit @ Jun 12, 2005 4:15 p.m.

So yeah, within the next month my ass will become very sore and I will be an expert at taking the 7 bus route between my place and the U-District (for the Neptune showings).

It would be totally awesome for people to join me at any of these movies. And I do intend to review each film I see as much as possible, though it could become rather overwhelming.

What am I most excited about? Right now, Mysterious Skin because I love Greg Araki (Nowhere, The Doom Generation) and I love Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I am also excited about Clean because Maggie Cheung was great in In the Mood For Love and because the film involves heroin addicts and rock stars. As for the rest, we’ll see.

Wish me luck!

Movie Reviews, Wong Kar-Wai

Closer

Leave a comment

Clive Owen, Natalie Portman, Julia Roberts, and Jude Law in Closer
Watching the movie Closer tonight seemed to tie together a lot of thoughts I’ve been having about various things lately. Allow me to elaborate (in a bit).

First, I’ll say that I loved the movie. I wasn’t sure whether I would, given that the movie had some non-hype hype… that is, although I guess it wasn’t a huge mainstream success, it seemed to do pretty well in the theatres (i.e. it wasn’t a total indie art film). Though, after seeing that this is the director that did Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (which, yes, I really love), now I understand why the movie was so good.

As for the acting, after seeing Revenge of the Sith the other day, it was nice to be reminded that Natalie Portman (Alice) can act (which, I know, is probably the #1 cliché written by critics reviewing both Closer and Garden State, but whatever) and I forgot how much I love Julia Roberts’ (Anna) voice. Oh, and I loved Natalie Portman’s hair and how it changed so often.

I can’t/won’t say much about Clive Owen (Larry) and Jude Law (Dan). I guess their performances were okay (though Clive Owen was nominated for his role, so others must have been impressed). I didn’t like their characters at all, and I thought it was bizarre that both of the male characters were British, but oh well.

In regard to the two themes that this movie touched on that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately:

Love as a Coincidence/Temporal Anomaly

I think 2046 really got me started on this whole thought process, but Closer really reassured me that maybe all love is is timing. All of the times that the four characters meet one-on-one are all a matter of chance — Dan seeing Alice get hit by a car, Dan meeting Anna at a photo shoot, Dan tricking Larry into meeting Anna, and Larry finding Alice at a strip club. Nobody had a lot in common with each other. Love was just something that happened to them.

When Dan in Closer and Chow in 2046 try to “outsmart” love, or don’t really accept the reality of it, they end up getting burned. Dan is a hypocrite in Closer for cheating on Alice with Anna and then getting angry at Anna for sleeping with Larry again. Then after ruining his relationship with Alice only to ruin the subsequence relationship with Anna, he assumes that Alice will always love him and that he can return to her. In the end, however, he’s left alone and rather pathetic. I wouldn’t say that Chow is necessarily pathetic, but the fact he never gets over Su Lizhen from In the Mood for Love and doesn’t realize the temporality of the relationship leaves him, in the end, alone.

Jude Law as Dan and Natalie Portman as Alice

Wanting All the Details After Being Cheated On

When I re-watched Short Cuts the other week, the scene in which Julianne Moore’s character’s (Marian) husband Ralph questions her about a time years ago when she got with some artist named Mitchell Andrews reminded me of something that has bothered me about men for a long time: whenever they are cheated on, they want all the details, as explicitly as possible along with a comparison of “was he better than me?”

After seeing Short Cuts, I actually started a post and saved it in draft so I could work on a larger post about this idea, but Closer totally broke it into the open.

When Anna first cheats on Larry, he wants all the details (“Did he make you cum?”, “How many times?”, “Was he better than me?”, etc.) when she decides to tell him that her and Dan had been seeing each other for a year. Likewise, when, at the end, Alice tells Dan that she slept with Larry, Dan demands details about their encounter.

In both movies, the men seem to want to know everything. Also, in both movies, the women don’t want to reveal what happened. They believe that either the details don’t matter or don’t want the men they are with to know in the first place. But, as seen in Closer via the actions of Larry and Dan, when they don’t know the details it drives them nuts, and then when they do get the details, it drives them more nuts.

I know there are tons more movies where this happens (sorta in Lost Highway when Peter demands that Alice tells him about how she met Mr. Eddy), and I am also sure there are cases where the women want to know everything from their men. If anyone has more examples, that would be awesome.

From a critical theory standpoint, I would situate this phenomenon into my one of my favorite topics: the presence of an absence. The absence, in this case, is the knowledge about the hookup. The men know that it exists, but they don’t know anything about it. Instead of being filled with concrete details, the absence remains an empty shell into which they can project whatever they want. And the fact that it remains in such a state, means that they can project the most extraordinary and bizarre details into the situation. I’m sure that the men, castrated by the presence of the unknown, imagine the sex to be mind-blowingly good. Even when they women assure them that they regret the hookup or that it was only sex, the men are not satisfied. They hope that, somehow, by gaining knowledge, they will be able to face the unknown and turn the absence into something they can understand and reject and be angry about.

From a non-critical common-sense standpoint, I would situate this phenomenon into one of my least-favorite topics: competition/jealousy. I’m sure this is a more easily understandable concept, so if my presence of an absence description is whack, just realize it’s a fancy way of saying jealousy.

Overall, Closer was a great movie. I’m not sure about all these reviews commenting on it’s explicit and “brutally honest” portrayal of sex (compared to other films I’ve watched, it was tame), but whatever. The acting was great, the directing (I imagine) was also superb, and the writing was “write”-on. I would love to see the stage version of Closer if ever given the chance. I also love that the film helped me go deeper into some things I’ve been thinking a lot about lately — it got me closer to coming up with some more solid conclusions and more thought-out studies.

Food, Star Wars

The Dark Side (of chocolate)

3 Comments

M&M guy
What is the deal with these supposed dark chocolate M&M candies that were supposed to come out to coincide with the release of Revenge of the Sith?? I can find the stupid Flash-heavy promotional site (click on “Choose the Dark Side” on the left for more information), but I can’t find the chocolates anywhere in the stores!

I love dark chocolate and M&Ms (for a while I was “addicted” — or really really loved) those crispy ones (in the blue bag) and the almond ones (in the beige bag) have always really good, too.

But please, where are the dark ones! I’ve looked at QFC, Bartell, and various vending machines. Maybe target? I just don’t know.

On the site, there is a Shop M&Ms section where you can special order M&Ms in various colors (I like “Hoth Snow” and “Death Star Silver” and “Emperor Red”) and even add little messages, but, alas, there is a note: “Sorry, custom M&Ms are not available in dark chocolate.” What is the point!

Point of the story: If anyone can let me know where they have seen or purchased dark chocolate M&Ms, I will be very happy.

Star Wars

Revenge of the Sith

3 Comments

Okay, I won’t do a full-fledged review since it’s almost 3 a.m., but let it be said that: yes, I saw Revenge of the Sith at midnight; and no, I didn’t love it.

In fact, I was rather surprised that the initial reviews were so good. There was some dialoge that was just too cheesy for words, and the Emperor/Darth Sidius acted just plain silly quite a few times.

I was also disappointed that there weren’t any major revelations. Some of the reviews I read said that we were going to learn a few really surprising things that would make us want to re-watch the original trilogy again. I’m not quite sure what those big things are… maybe I just read too many spoilers? I dunno.

All that said, however, I’m still glad I saw it. I may do a more in-depth review sometime soon. I do intend on seeing it again next week.

Playlists

Troy March 2005 / Songs

4 Comments

(this is a mix CD that I made for my friend Troy a couple of months ago)

Because this mix CD needs a Philosophical Introduction

  1. “Come Into My World” (Fischerspooner remix) by Kylie Minogue from Fever

    This song serves two purposes: 1. the phrase “come into my world” can represent the fact that by listening to these songs you are entering my world; 2. I love Kylie Minogue and I love Fischerspooner and this remix is totally awesome.

Emotional (i.e. sad) Songs

  1. “All we Have is Now” by the Flaming Lips from Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
    I think that this song is the pinnacle of my recently-created “Songs about Time Travel” play list. I love the idea of a person coming from the future to tell you that a relationship (or something) won’t work out, but to cherish the experience anyway — even if, in the end, it isn’t meant to be. It sorts connects to existential philosophy in that way— it is the journey, not the destination, that matters.
  2. “Avalyn I” by Slowdive from the Slowdive EP
    Even though this song has no lyrics, you can just tell from the way it sounds that it was written to convey sadness and beauty. I first heard this song in the opening of he movie Nowhere, which seems to be inspired by Bret Easton Ellis’ Less Than Zero.
  3. “Wild Horses” by the Sundays from Blind
    When this song plays during the prom episode of Buffy, I cannot help but cry. The Rolling Stones did the original version.
  4. “Sexy Boy” by Air from Moon Safari
    The video for this song inspired my buddy icon. Sexy Boy is a gorilla who travels to the moon.
  5. Bachelorette by Bjork from Homogenic
    I’m not sure why, but this song just seems really bitter yet loving and it has amazingly surreal lyrics (“I’m a tree that grows hearts / one for each that you take”). It’s probably one of my all-time top 10 songs. And the video, directed by Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine and Human Behavior) is out of this world.

The Song You Need to Hear by the “Best Band Ever”

  1. “Nothing Better” by the Postal Service from Give Up
    The Postal Service is basically considered to be one of the best bands around today. They are even played on the O.C. One of the members is from Bellingham (and also a member of the band Death Cab for Cutie), so people in Washington especially love them.

The Song from Lost in Translation

  1. “Fuck the Pain Away” by the Peaches from The Teaches of Peaches
    It’s a fun song. If you ever feel sad just listen to this or fuck the pain away yourself.

The song that started the Club/Dance music scene (in Manchester, England, at least)

  1. “Hallelujah” by the Happy Mondays from Pills ‘n’ Thrills and Bellyaches
    According to the movie 24 Hour Party People this song started the whole dance music movement which apparently originated in Manchester, England. While this claim may be slightly dubious, it’s a fun song anyway and I like to pretend it started techno music.

Because You Are Gay

  1. “4 My People” by Missy Elliott from …So Addictive
    Someday I might write a paper/essay about how Missy’s album …So Addictive is her gay album. Every gay boy I know who likes Missy loves this album. This is less hip-hop and more electronic/dance, so it makes sense. The album itself follows themes of ecstasy and dancing and clubs and sex — pretty gay, yah?
  2. “You Spin me Round (Like A Record)” by Dead or Alive from Nukleopatra
    Apparently if you have this mp3 shared on your computer the Recording Industry Association of American might come and sue you — this is one of the most frequently shared songs so they figure if you are sharing it you have tons of mp3s and deserve to get sued.
  3. “Break 4 Love” by Peter Rauhofer + The Pet Shop Boys = Collaboration from the Break 4 Love single
    Okay, so Peter Rauhofer is a really well-known DJ among gays. Okay, so the Pet Shop Boys are a really well-known group among gays. Okay, so The Collaboration between the two is like the gayest thing over. But it’s a good song. And I heard it on Queer as Folk.
  4. “Save A Prayer” by 56k from the Save A Prayer single
    Originally this song was done by the group Duran Duran, but I think this dancey version is awesome. I used the lyric “But fear is in your soul… / Some people call it a one night stand / But we can call it paradise / Don’t say a prayer for me now, save it the morning after” at the top of my paper about AIDS, abjection, and gay bodies.
  5. “Raspberry swirl” by Tori Amos from From the Choirgirl Hotel
    Although a “raspberry swirl” may refer to a lesbian sex-act, it’s still a groovy song and what gay boy doesn’t love Tori Amos? (I’ve seen her twice in concert).

Because I Also Want to Expand Your Horizons

  1. “Debaser” by the Pixies from Doolittle
    The Pixies are the true alternative rock group. They inspired Nirvana. They are also my all-time favorite band. This song is about the movie Un Chien Andalou (trans. The Andalusian Dog) by Salvador Bali and Luis Bunnel.
  2. “Some Velvet Morning” by Primal Scream from Evil Heat
    The original version was sung by Nancy Sinatra. This version is sung by Kate Moss. Can you get any better than that?
  3. “Hurdy Gurdy Man” by Donovan
    It’s an old song from the 1960s that I love. It’s also used in the movie (and the trailer— where it is even more amazing) L.I.E.
  4. “U Don’t Know” by Jay-Z from The Blueprint
    This is my favorite Jay-Z song. And it’s a good introduction to hip-hop music, I guess. That sample of “You don’t know what you’re doing” is actually from an old R&B song and sung by a guy. The producer, Kanye West, is known for taking old samples and speeding them up to give them a higher, more female-like sound. Also, the album The Blueprint is Jay-Z’s best album.
Pervert in the Pulpit

The Po-Mo Puritan

Leave a comment

Lynch follows themes found throughout American fiction, especially that with a Puritanical background:

He follows an intrinsically American moralistic obsession with the ideas of innate depravity (13).

Lynch’s villains… are drawn from the same archetypes that populate American fiction (13).

… effigies of anomie, incubi of chaos, are particularly American demons (14).

American national identity: that of the individual battling not only the wilderness — nature itself — but the sundry demonic and heathen creatures as well (14).

Two American dream myths:

  1. Old Testament: paradise lost
  2. New Testament: new American paradise

In other words, American writers and critics seem inherently preoccupied with guilt, sin, and redemption (15).

Is it Americans or Western (i.e. Christian) writers/critics?

… All of these themes place Lynch into the American Gothic lineage of artists. Johnson notes that John Alexander, in The Films of David Lynch, makes the same conclusion.

Regarding the ideas of cynicism and irony in Lynch’s films:

nostalgia is never ironic for Lynch (15).

The trouble is, Lynch believes in the cliché. His irony, in practice, seems more like self-defense (17).

Puritanism:

equated the growth of the nation with the realization of a virtuous national character (16).

a view to improving the moral character of the individual, and to reflecting thereby a virtuous nation protected, if not by God, then by sound moral reasoning and self-righteousness (16).

establishing a normative value against which a convenient “other” could be constructed (17).

identifying “good” as “not that” (17).

On religion and the good/evil split:

evil was not a feature of reality, but a lack of goodness. The more good a thing has, the more real it is. God being all good, was most real (18).

John Calvin, whose concept of Christianity relied on the inherent depravity of man (18).

Calvin also taught that worldly success was a sign of God’s approval, poverty a sign of God’s disfavor (18).

On the American Romantics (aka American Gothics)

embrace a darker vision of man’s relationship with himself and the world (18).

[The authors are] men seeking truth in the dark crevices between the material world and the imagination (19).

In Lynch’s movies:

[Lynch’s characters] are forced to rely on their intuition more than their reason, frequently surrendering themselves to inexplicable forces beyond their conscious control (19).

guilt results from their imagination acting to remove them from the immediacy of perception (20).

Lynch deliberately blurs the binary distinction between dreams and reality, hesitating to separate too distinctly the conscious and unconscious minds (21).

He subverts expectations, allowing dream logic to leak seamlessly into the surface story. Narrative information — the string of events and images that shape the storyline — often ends up performing the theme instead of representing it. His films, in this sense, do not stand for another meaning but become the meaning: the narrative sequence does not transcend itself (21).

Movies

Building an Empire

Leave a comment

Harry Dean Stanton, Jeremy Irons, Laura Dern, Justin Theroux
After seeing Mulholland Drive, I honestly figured that it would be David Lynch’s final film. It basically synthesized aspects of all of his previous movies into one very bizzare film. I assumed that with the completion of that film, Lynch would spend most of his time and energy on his davidlynch.com website.

Well, I was wrong.

As reported today on Dugpa.com, Lynch has begun work on a new film called Inland Empire. Variety has more information in Lynch invades an ‘Empire’: Digital pic details a mystery, including cast information (mostly previous Lynch collaborators) and technical details (the film will be shot on digital).

The cast includes Harry Dean Stanton (from Wild at Heart, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, and The Straight Story), Jeremy Irons (a first-time Lynch actor), Laura Dern (from Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart), and Justin Theroux (from Mulholland Drive).

It’ll be interesting to see how this film pans out. Apparently Lynch’s studio wants the film ready for Cannes next year.

To be honest, I’m skeptical that this film will be as good as his other’s. Like I said, I really think that for Mulholland Drive Lynch basically exhausted his creativity, but I could be wrong. We’ll see. I’m excited either way.

Books

Pervert in the Coffin

Leave a comment

FYI — I finished reading Perfevert in the Pulpit. I’ve concluded that I’m horribly lazy when it comes to this idea of “blogging the book,” as I’ve only managed to do notes on the first chapter of the book. Oh well. I do intend to get notes about the rest, it just may take a while.

Now that I’m done with that book, and since the last few books I’ve read (two volumes of the History of Sexuality) were theory/philosophy-based, and since my friend Brook read The Handmaid’s Tale based on my recommendation and now I owe reading a book she recommends, I’m going to be starting an infinite journey reading Infinite Jest: A Novel. This book is a massive 1088 pages and, I’m guessing, will take me a few months to read if I maintain my normal reading schedule.

That said, I will not be “blogging” this book. Wish me luck.