Three movies in one day!

I can't remember the last time I got in three flickers in one day. Whether back-to-back or spacing it out, it's easier when you're in high school or college. But, as time goes on, it gets more and more difficult to put away three movies in 14 hours. No matter what vitamins one may take.

I'll list these three in reverse viewing order.

Just finished The Diving Bell and The Butterfly. Kristen and I saw this in the theatre as soon as it hit LA in late 2007. In a year full of surprisingly good films, Diving Bell was a full head above the rest. It was my favorite artistically, literally, visually, spiritually, emotionally, and the soundtrack is just fantastic. There are moments in it where I feel like I'm watching the rebirth of cinema. And it reminds me why I feel like cinema is the great art with so many artists and artisans struggling together to make each heartbeat work. There is no exaggeration of recommendation that would be inappropriate for this. No only is it great art, but it is simultaneously deeply sad and joyous, insanely erotic, and humbling. Schnabel is a genius.

In the afternoon I watched John Turturro's Romance & Cigarettes. It was unfortunate that he had such trouble getting this picked up for distribution, though I do understand why. I mean, what American company wants to release a musical about a miserable blue-collar family? James Gandolfini, Susan Sarandon, and Kate Winslet are the leads while Steve Buscemi, Christopher Walken, Mandy Moore, Amy Sedaris, Eddie Izzard, and Mary Louise-Parker are supporting. Yeah, awesome cast. And the fact that this movie is so bluntly sexual is why I can't help but recommend it. I mean every scene is about rutting and every other line of dialogue fashions graphic descriptions of the act. If you're a Kate Winslet fan, yeah, you're going to want to watch this. Unless of course you'd rather not listen to her spout lasciviously about what she wants to do with specific parts of her/your body, in a British accent. And I still have something for Susan Sarandon (62 years hot, yeah believe it). Enough about the cast, how's the actual filmmaking? The musical idea is bold and works most of the time. The actual emotional journeys of the characters aren't holding up so well under deep reflection, but the general insanity that ensues in the process is refreshing and unique enough to hold its own.

I started my morning with A Clockwork Orange. That idea I don't recommend. I also would not suggest watching this movie with a loved one. The film is cold, cruel, bitter, and disturbing. It's one of the few movies that I'd rather wasn't made, but will defend to the death Kubrick's right to make it. The focus on rape and the destruction of the feminine can be a little overwhelming. This was my second pass at the Burgess-adapted experience. The first round, while in film school, elicited a blindingly negative response from some angry serotonin alcove of mine. I wanted to give it another pass when I could watch it on my own with pauses for hydration and walks in the sun.

When it was released, Ebert hated it while Vincent Camby loved it. I'm somewhere in the middle. Kubrick is brilliant and I'm fascinated in this divide that I've found in his career. I will defend his work pre-Clockwork every time, but post-Clockwork...well...it takes more effort to find the positives, let alone brilliance. Some sort of split happened in his filmmaking and the work seems more uneven -- Barry Lyndon, Shining, Full Metal Jacket, and Eyes Wide Shut -- and entirely lacking brevity. Clockwork's satire reaches for so many targets, striking some better than others, that it seems like a different filmmaker was left it its wake. Maybe it had to do with the public and legal response. Needless to say, it still strikes a raw nerve. I can't imagine a film with that much sexual violence and nihilism getting distributed in America today.

Baseball Motivation, Pt. 2

As promised, I'm checking back in with you about those new-contract-year players and their possible plummeting motivation. Click here for the original post. I did say that I'd revisit this at the end of the year, but the anticipation was killing me. Okay, maybe I was just a little bit curious.

The batters' charts are below:

41 games through the season on the left; 81 games through the season on the right --

The pitchers' charts are below:
41 through the season on the left; 81 through the season on the right --

2008 estimates courtesy of ESPN.

Here's the color key again:

Red = Large decline in production or serious injury during season.

Pink = Small, but noticeable decline in production and/or minor injury.

Gray = Generally equal to previous year.

Light Blue = Small, but noticeable increase in production.

Blue = Large increase in production

At the quarter mark -- Pitchers: 2 had a large increase, 1 had a small increase, 6 remained similar, 3 had a small decline, while 11 had a large decline. 48% large decrease, 61% noticeable or worse decrease.

Batters: 0 had a large increase in production, 3 had a small increase, 2 remained similar, 3 had a small decline, 14 had a large decrease. 64% experienced a large decrease, 77% experienced at least a noticeable decrease.

Now at the halfway point -- Pitchers: 2 had a large increase, 3 had a small increase, 5 remained similar, 5 had a small decline, while 8 had a large decline. 35% large decrease, 56% noticeable or worse decrease.

Batters: 1 had a large increase, 1 had a small increase, 5 remained similar, 4 had a small decline, 11 had a large decline. 50% had a large decrease, 68% had at least a noticeable increase.

So despite the larger sample of games, there isn't a large change, though there is a noticeable trend towards the center, see below for another color-coded example of the results:

Pitchers 1/4 mark: 2 - 1 - 6 - 3 - 11

Pitchers 1/2 mark: 2 - 3 - 5 - 5 - 8

Batters 1/4 mark: 0 - 3 - 2 - 3 - 14

Batters 1/2 mark: 1 - 1 - 5 - 4 - 11

If you look at each set of the three center (light blue, gray, and pink) numbers, the non-extreme categories, the pitcher total went from 43% to 57%, while the batter total went from 36% to 45%. My bet is that it continues to trend towards the middle like reliable larger samples should.

Still, GMs are only getting a positive (increased) return on their investments 15% of the time while they're seeing a decline 62% of the time.

It will also be interesting to see what happens in terms of injuries to these players. At the moment exactly 1/3rd of them have been hurt during the season. If one of my crap theories from before is true, then we should see a lot of injuries due to an adjustment in many of the players' supplements. Also the injury factor should play a large role if another of my crap theories is true: overpaying for older players.

Here are some other thoughts......Robinson Cano hits like Luis Castillo every first half, then hits like Lance Berkman every second half, so he'll likely be able to pull up to .280-ish and about 20 HRs by year end. Unless he gets hurt. Miguel Cabrera is making me sad. I really thought that he and Pujols would be racing to 3000 hits and 700 HRs 15 years from now. Ryan Howard also has great second halfs (halves?). Unless he gets hurt. Holliday will never catch up to last year's numbers. Halladay will. Again and again. Unless he gets hurt. Despite the Tigers' recent run, MAN did they do a bunch of bad signings. K-Rod, Nathan, and Mo Rivera are studs, and deserve their dough. I cannot prove anything that I just typed in this paragraph. Yet.

"A Black Ave Maria for you"

Just watched Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song. This kinetic firecracker with a core of powerful sexuality, starring (and I quote) The Black Community, is a piece of almost pure cinema. Shot on the very very very cheap, there's little sync sound which lets the camera go anywhere and everywhere. So the movie never stops moving, like Sweetback himself.

You see, Sweetback's on the run from Whitey after he smacks two cops around with his handcuffs. Melvin Van Peebles (as Sweetback, the director, producer, editor, writer, caterer, grip, and Lord) fashions an indie Odyssey as our hero makes his run from central L.A. to Mexico. The best Greek Chorus in cinema urges him on with "Run Mother----er Run!" Okay, henceforth and evermore it shall be referred to as the Sweetback Chorus instead.

There's a sequence of note that ends in a cop car bursting into flames. I know we've all seen this happen hundreds of times in movies and TV shows, but never is it as therapeutic as it is here. It meant a lot to me and I'm a 2008 Caucasian.

One doesn't need to be Huey Newton to appreciate S.S.B.S.'s strengths -- and there can be (and has been) much discussion about emancipation via a good shtup -- but as a piece of filmmaking it's crisp and alive so I recommend this one to anyone with an open mind or has "had enough of the Man".

Movie in a Minute (x4)

Let me take you for a quick spin around the four visually intense (intensely visual?) films that I've watched recently:

Thief of Baghdad -- Up to the minute and thought-provoking, this story about George W. Bush......okay, okay, sit down, it was a joke.

Okay, this 1940 Technicolor Arabian Night adventure story is available on DVD with a vibrant transfer thanks to the wonderful magical Criterion Nerds. Not only that, it has a commentary courtesy of Coppola and Scorsese! Marty says that the viewer has to just lose himself in the picture in order to truly appreciate it, apparently overlooking any filmmaking weaknesses. Though that's entirely true, giving your heart over to a film is lovely, there's also an edge to what he says since it seems to criticize those of us who titter at some of the dated silliness.

Look, I get it. It's admirable to make a picture full of youth and void of irony. But when you have one of the best villains, Jaffar (played with bravura by Conrad Veidt), in cinema history, you cannot have your Prince Ahmed played skinny, boring, fey, and with smears of purple eye shadow. Technically young Abu (played by Sabu) is the real hero, but when the lovers (not Ahmed and Abu, technically) don't even register in Technicolor, how is that a strength? And when a hero is stranded in the middle of nowhere, thousands of miles away from saving the day, it is never acceptable for a screenwriter to suddenly send him inexplicably to The Magical Land Where Anything Can Happen in order to finish the story. That's called cheating.

Pierrot Le Fou -- I have had a 10-year struggle with Godard that I'm trying to unwind and deconstruct. It shall rear it's head in many future postings. You can count on that. Now that time has passed I'm taking in his cinema again, not because I'm supposed to like it, but because I'm trying to find some sort of armistice here. Pierrot Le Fou has all of the stuff I love and hate about Godard.

There is no other director who loves the potential of the moving image like Godard or at least there is no other director who chased that potential to the edge of the medium like he. And Pierrot Le Fou is full of so much cinematic love and excitement. (Anna Karina co-stars and that is OK in my book, cinematically, whatever.) The early party sequence where everyone's dialogue has been reduced to regurgitating commercials......I love it, can someone just steal (pay homage) to that every year? It wouldn't be original but it would be true and false at the same time.

But amidst dabbling in painting, poetry, and fracturing all of storytelling rules, Godard's self-obsessed "characters" vomit out communist propaganda, loaded with chunks of anarchy. Sound like his Weekend? Though I agree with most of it, it comes off so proud, smug, and self-important that I almost turn into a capitalist. For a moment. But the image on screen is brilliant. And I see how he chose the opposite direction that Dylan took. Godard believes that the artist can or must be political, because if art can free your soul shouldn't it fight the forces that try to snuff out the spirit? I don't know, but 9 out 10 times it's so obnoxious that I disagree with him even though I agree with him. But 10% of the time......

There's this one scene where the two main characters put on a play about the Vietnam conflict. They stand there face to face screaming gibberish at each other. And I thought to myself, "Two individuals in costume screaming nonsense back and forth until it becomes absurd. This is War, is it not?"

So I guess Godard wins this round.

Southland Tales -- This is our generation's Dune. With its melancholy synth score, volumes of story rushed out through voice over and in-scene dialogue, heavy handed New Testament references, and stilted absurd lines delivered with the utmost monotoned severity, Southland Tales constantly reminded me of Lynch's take on Herbert's sci-fi tale. But I kinda like Dune. There's something about its moody somnambulism that I always remember wistfully.

I'm not saying that Southland is bad. Rich Kelly seems to take the impatient chili-making approach to filmmaking -- throw a bunch of ingredients into the pot and keep playing with them hoping that the end result is...well...chili.


I am glad he made this movie and I hope that he gets financial backing to continue his unusual career. He certainly got a fine performance out of his lead. Dwayne Johnson (yes, The Rock) has a great screen presence, not just because he's totally yoked, but he's got a great voice, expressive face, and is comfortable with self-parody.

If you do see this epic Venice Beach-filmed movie-thing, let me know what your favorite scenes are. My two favorites are the dancing sequences. Yeah, dancing. It was this close to being a musical about the apocalypse. How about a sequel?

Shortbus -- I'll keep this one brief. It took more courage to make this than any of the above films. John Cameron Mitchell (the brilliant sprite who made the electric Hedwig & the Angry Inch) and his co-writing cast put everything out there. And I do mean everything. Recently European filmmakers have been putting real sex on screen more often, but these films have been negative and depressing. Mitchell wanted to throw unsimulated everything up there for us to see without making us hate being human. To me, he succeeds. Do I recommend this? Well, if the thought of one man singing the Star Spangled Banner into the arsehole of another man while in the act of love strikes you as offensive or nauseating, then this is not for you.

Air Marshall Carlin

(When writing this column, I have refrained from using language that would make this site more than G-rated. This was not to censor, but rather a challenge to reach for other words to fulfill my thoughts and feelings. In this post in honor of GC, fuck it.)

As I'm sure most of you have read or seen, Sensei Carlin left us last Sunday. At St. John's Hospital, his heart stopped and his soul rejoined the river of the universe. It is likely that he would have found this outpouring of attention from major media outlets very funny. They have obviously never listened to anything he has said.

But I have listened. And it wasn't his humor that affected me. It was his mind. He, possibly more than anyone else, helped structure my very thought process in the years between my bar mitzvah and my high school graduation. I didn't quite realize this until I listened to his Jammin' in New York album this week. For four years I must have parroted the first 30 minutes of that album. The best that I feel like I can do right now to honor him is to provide recap his wisdom from this album. (ALSO, if you've never heard or read his Baseball versus Football mediation, it's here.)

He boils down warfare (especially the previous Iraq "War") to a bunch of phallic thrusting brought about by insecure masculinity:

"You don't have to be an historian or political scientist to see The Bigger Dick Foreign Policy theory at work. It sounds like this: 'What? They have bigger dicks? Bomb them!' And of course all of the bombs and the rockets and the bullets are all shaped like dicks. It's a subconscious need to project the penis into other people's affairs. It's called fucking with people!"

He analyzes (read: thrashes and demolishes) the abuse of language -- how we misuse or add words to make something sound more important when it isn't. This rant boils down to the punchline:

"You know what I tell these people. Go pre-suck my genital situation! And they seem to know what I'm talking about."

He riffs on the bizarro-speak that airlines use:

"Please check around your immediate seating area......SEAT! It's a goddamn seat. Check around your seat."

"...for any personal belongings.....what other kind of belongings are there besides personal? Public belongings? Do these people honestly think I might be travelling with the fountain I stole from the park?"

"...you might have brought on board......well, I might have brought my arrowhead collection. I didn't. So I'm not going to look for it! I'm going to look for things I brought on board. It would seem to enhance the likelihood of me finding something, wouldn't you say?"

"And who made this man a "captain", may I ask? Did I sleep through some sort of armed forces swearing in ceremony or something? Captain? He's a fucking pilot and let him be happy with that. If those sightseeing announcements are any mark of his intellect he's lucky to be working at all. Tell the Captain that Air Marshall Carlin says, Go Fuck Yourself."

And my favorite: "Get on the plane. Get on the plane. Fuck you, I'm getting in the plane."

He takes a multitude of stabs at American values. Here's a joke that I've used a dozen times, always crediting its source:

"Beverly Hills has a brand new restaurant specifically for bulimia victims. It's called the Scarf and Barf. Well they were going to call it The Fork and Bucket. Thank God better taste prevailed."

Towards the end of this second half of the show, he drifts away from standup and goes after conservatives, liberals, business people, environmentalists, religion, and plastic bags.

"Besides there is nothing wrong with the planet. Nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine. The people are fucked."

"The planet isn't going anywhere. We are. We're goin' away. Pack your shit, folks. We're going away......just another failed mutation......the planet will shake us off like a bad case of fleas."

He progressively loses his inebriated audience until there isn't much laughter. He seems to be in some sort of vitriolic trance. And while I may agree with about half of what he says, it's exhilarating. And he ends with the following:

"I think we're part of a greater wisdom than we'll ever understand. A higher order. Call it what you want. You know what I call it? The Big Electron. It doesn't punish. It doesn't reward. It doesn't judge at all it. It just is. And so are we. For a little while."

Food & Sports

I have the crib to myself this week. Cooking for one is not much fun, though cooking for two is the thing to do.


I whipped up some really swell Mahi Mahi (the dolphin fish so nice, they had to name it twice) Tacos. They're so swell that if I can find someone else (Kristen) who will like them then I'll share the procedure.


Strange week in sports. Golf was exciting and basketball was bo-ring. I like to watch golf on TV, but I've noticed that if Tiger Woods isn't playing, my golf attention span drops from two hours to five minutes. As for the b-ball finals, our LA radio stations overhyped the matchup so much that I didn't even listen to it on the radio. If that doesn't sound extreme consider that I listened to parts of 40+ regular season Laker games and most of the playoff games. And I don't even like the Lakers. Traffic is Hell.

To me, though Tiger and Kobe are the best at their respective sports, I have different viewing relationships with them. Kobe is SportsCenter good. His skills are best viewed as a 30-60 second highlight reel on ESPN. But Tiger is a thrill to watch live. There's always the sense that something miraculous is going to happen at any moment. Example: Woods beating every single professional golfer at the US Open...while he had only one functioning leg. His playoff against Rocco was better than any sports movie, ever. Thank you USOpen.com for streaming that. Yet when Kobe dropped 81 points on Toronto, it made for a perfect SportsCenter segment. I could watch the highlights for a couple minutes and didn't feel like I missed a thing.

The Yankees won last night, but The Farns did his darnedest to prevent that from happening. I am rooting for Joba Chamberlain to make a successful transition to starter, but here's the problem......there's no Joba Chamberlain in the bullpen to save his arse once he throws too many pitches.


My favorite Yankee right now is The 'Stache. Not the guy wearing The 'Stache, but The 'Stache itself. It seems to have magic powers. With it, a seemingly washed up player suddenly plays like he's 10 years younger and on the juice. But 'Roids ain't got nothing on The 'Stache. Go The 'Stache Go! Put the team on your hairy shoulders and carry them through October! My second favorite Yankee remains Jorge Posada's Batting Without Batting Gloves. That's right. That is so manly that I will refrain from going into further description.


On a side note: Moises Alou versus David Ortiz.

For those who don't know, a couple years ago Moises Alou told an interviewer that he urinates on his hands (in the shower) to toughen them up for hitting barehanded during games. There was a large "Ewww Gross" backlash that followed against him and it's still a running joke. I think that's silly. Pee is largely bacteria-free and 90-95% water. What a guy does in his shower is his business, plus it's not like he was pissing on his hands in the on deck circle. Though that would be awesome if he did that once. Plus he's a great hitter when he isn't screwing up his legs. Maybe he should wee on his knee once in a while too.

Then there's David Ortiz. Largely regarded as an absolute saint, the man spits a loog on his batting gloves and rubs them together before every at bat. THAT is disgusting. He might as well just spit right on the dugout boy 5 times a game. And no high-fives. D.O. is that to help grip the bat better? Why don't you just blow a snot rocket into your spikes to help grip the dirt on your home run trots?

Whoa, totally slackin'

The pause between posts has been much too long. My apologies! Last night I wrote a post so massive and without pictures, that I'm going to have to hack it in two and fix it up today. So there should be two posts -- Sports & Food and Music & Movies -- coming up soon.