The Ballad of Vina and Italo

If the NMAs had a category for "best stop-action animation featuring wine bottles on a hero's journey," I'd say this video created by Jessie, Eric, their pal Mitch, and myself on Saturday night would be a lock for 2008. Enjoy.

Synecdoche, New York

Sigh. Well, kittens, here's another movie I feel like I'm going to be defending to its many vehement detractors for a good long while.

Seems like consensus is that Synecdoche, New York is a mess, but my god, what a wonderfully beautiful mess. Aside from the various and sundry easily recognizable Charlie Kaufman mindfuck tropes, it's also full of his signature "the unknowable-ness of the other" pessimism, but it's rendered delicately enough that, though I disagree with the spirit of the argument, I didn't mind it at all. It actually feels positively Kubrickian in its depiction of a unit destroying itself from within--the unit being Philip Seymour Hoffman's body, mind, and soul. In fact, I intuitively sensed I'd love the film as soon as I read Owen Gleiberman's dismissive review in Entertainment Weekly, which was so reminiscent of his totally-missing-the-point write-up of Eyes Wide Shut back in the day. And, wow, is the comparison ever apt: there's the fantasia version of a blandly stage-y New York on one hand and, on the other, there's the odyssey of a man wandering and fucking his way through a landscape of gorgeous, powerful women, most of whom end up being dreamlike, endlessly recursive stand-ins for each other--for whom he's no match physically, emotionally, sexually, or intellectually--while at least one vaguely ominiscent, or at least omnipresent, man tracks his every step. (Not to mention the subplot involving a lengthy trip to Berlin, which even links it to the German-language source material Traumnovella.) There's also shades of the highly controversial ending of AI, when Hoffman's character reveals his desire to re-perform and thus re-live "the happiest day of his life." I hated much of AI, mostly for the places that Spielberg's influence was felt heaviest, but I've always been a staunch defender of that "happy" ending because I feel that everyone misinterprets how darkly Freudian it actually is. Far from feeling like Synecdoche rides off the rails about halfway through, I felt like the weirdness it just keeps descending into actually becomes richer and deeper and more rewarding, even as it becomes more and more willfully incomprehensible. The actor-priest's monologue near the end may be a wee bit on the nose, but I was thankful for its paving the way for the introduction of the summarizing notion that "everyone is everyone," which set up that final scene in which Hoffman pathetically yet tenderly apologizes to a near-stranger who's clearly a stand-in, for, well, everyone. Then again, I'm a sucker for that kind of thematic/narrative trick.

And, fuck me, what a cast. Hoffman is brilliant as ever (the role is actually a perfect companion piece to what he's doing in The Savages), but, as mentioned above, the women are especially phenomenal. I never tire of watching Catherine Keener (like Mary-Louise Parker and Frances McDormand, she's becoming impossibly foxier with every year she ages). It's been a while since I've seen Samantha Morton in anything--I forgot how marvelous she can be, and her slightly plump physique felt like a welcome breath of reality. It seems, after her appearances here and in Brokeback Mountain and I'm Not There, that Michelle Williams is happily turning into quite the actress, and, as she's lost the Dawson's Creek-era baby fat in her face, she's becoming more and more heartbreakingly lovely, somehow evading the dreaded too-skinny stickbug look, ending up somehow slim yet womanly. As I mentioned in my review of The Nines, Hope Davis is always a welcome presence, even in the tiniest role, and getting Emily Watson to double Morton was both hilarious and inspired. And, saving Dianne Wiest's appearance for the end was the absolutely perfect flourish to an already incredible roster of talent.

Longtime Wrestling Entropy readers know that I tend to prefer and privilege these ambitious movies that swing for the fences, even when they don't succeed 100 percent of the way, so it should be no surprise that I adored Synecdoche. It's deeply, deeply sad, but really worth it. As CTLA always used to say, I laughed, I cried, I took notes.

UPDATE, Jan. 15, 2009: For those of you who may have stumbled through to this blog by Google searching for "priest monologue synecdoche, new york," I'm happy to (finally) be able to point you to a transcription here.

A New Beginning

In stark contrast to the morning after last time, the sun is out today, the sky is bright blue, the air is unseasonably warm, the trees are still full of glowing, fiery foliage, and, as I wrote here, TV on the Radio's "Golden Age" was the first thing that popped into my head when I woke up and opened my eyes. Let's not get ahead of ourselves or anything, but damn. This feels good. Proud of Chicago, proud of us all.

Early November Pop Notes

SB asked me recently, "don't you have to write about the TV on the Radio show on your blog?" Truth is, I wasn't really planning on it. I just didn't feel like I needed to pile on them again after my Dear Science review. As I mentioned to Parowpyro over email, I can't think of another band I like as much as TVotR that's left me as resoundingly underwhelmed as they have recently (aside from perhaps Bloc Party--I could barely get through Intimacy). I'm glad I finally had a chance to see them live and all, but the show did absolutely nothing for me. Unlike a lot of folks, I actively enjoy Sitek's overstuffed production aesthetic, so the songs, translated live, were missing quite a bit of oomph for me, even when they brought a whole shitload of people onstage for a percussion jam and sent the horn section up into one of the boxes. I swear, I'm not trying to be stubborn or contrarian or whatevs, I just wasn't feeling it.

Openers the Dirtbombs fell a little bit to one side of the too-loud/too-heavy spectrum for my taste to make me want to listen to their stuff on a regular basis, but they were enjoyable enough live. The one thing that really endeared them to me, though, was the way they utilized what's usually just dead-air space after their set: their lead singer/guitarist and one of their drummers (yes, sigh, one of their drummers) started to unplug and pack up their gear as the lights came up, while the other guitar player, the other drummer, and the bassist continued to vamp on a nice little groove. As the bassist, and then the guitar player, began to drop out, splinter off, and pack up, the drummer kept his backbeat steady, even as the roadies began to disassemble the drum kit out from underneath him, until he was just banging on the side of the kick drum. It was a highly amusing use of that transitional time, and a fun challenge to see how long they could keep it going. I cheered way louder for that stunt that I did for any of their other songs that night. I just appreciated that extra little bit of silliness and playing with the form of "rock show opening set."

Movie-wise, I made damn sure to get my ass out to see Rachel Getting Married and loved it, loved it, loved it. I don't know if it's just because I've been to four weddings this year since mid-August (with a fifth coming up this weekend!), but it just totally wrecked me. A handful of the people I've talked to about the film have complained about the meandering pace and the ridiculously idealized/utopian vision of the attendees, the music and other entertainment at the reception, and of course the wedding itself. Aside from the fact that I have an inherent soft spot for these kinds of movies where so much of the pleasure of the piece is derived from watching beautiful, talented people give of their beauty and talent in what feels like real time (it reminded me a lot of sentimental fave The Anniversary Party), I think it's precisely those elements that are key to the film's success. You need them to be able to breathe a bit, to unwind from all the horrifyingly tense scenes of family drama. It would just be too relentlessly unpleasant, claustrophobic, and even melodramatic otherwise. I just felt like it was extraordinarily well paced, both from scene to scene and from front to back, especially as information about Rachel gets parceled out. The right to happiness you see she's earned so dearly by the time she's ready to walk down the aisle absolutely destroyed me. It just hit me in a deeply personal place. Seriously, I was a mess there in the theater. I wouldn't say that Anne Hathaway is brilliant, though she's used extremely effectively and certainly has scenes of brilliance (the cringe-inducing speech at the rehearsal dinner stands out especially). Kudos to the ever-enjoyable Bill Irwin for elevating what could have been a boring patriarch character (the malaprop "hungabungas" for "hamburgers"--whether improvised or appearing in the actual script--made me want to barf with glee, it was such a perfectly dead-on one-word encapsulation of his genial suburban dad attitude), and, all my recent carping about TVotR to one side, I thought the casting of Tunde Adebimpe was inspired. He's clearly very attractive, but not in an over-the-top kind of way (imagine if the part had been played by Taye Diggs or whoever--egad), and he's got such a quiet, gentle strength in his onscreen presence that was absolutely necessary for getting you to connect with the otherwise underwritten character. I'm not necessarily recommending this movie to you--if your expectations are too high from all the glowing write-ups it's received already, I don't want to contribute to the disappointment they'll probably engender in you if/when you eventually see it. Plus, I'm just not in the mood to fight about it too much, because, as I said, I loved it, full stop, and just kind of want to keep my warm feelings about it for a little while longer.

I also had a chance to catch up with Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, which I'd been hoping would be a teenage, indie rock Before Sunrise set in New York, but ended up being more like a millennial indie rock Adventures in Babysitting set in New York without the urban scariness (the city is definitely a benevolent presence throughout in that by-now cliched "the city is another character!" kind of way). Not that that's entirely a bad thing, but...expectation management and all. Cera's charm, while not exactly wearing thin quite yet, could just use a fresher environment to flourish in; I'll be eager, for obvious reasons, to see how he fares in the Scott Pilgrim movie.

I just can't get enough of the Sea and Cake's new one. Honestly, I now think a lot of my indie rock fatigue from last month was really just disappointment that none of those new releases was Car Alarm. After growing to love Everybody so much last year, I didn't really realize how much I was looking forward to the follow-up. It's dandy. Just really easy on the ears--and I mean that as the highest possible compliment. My dad and a fellow musician friend of his always used to say of their favorite jazz soloists "they play it the way you want to hear it played," and I think the same is eminently true of the Sea and Cake in general.

Juana Molina's Un Dia has also gotten quite a bit of play recently. Kittens, this is music to blow the remaining autumn leaves right off the treetops. Either that or to keep those lonely ones left over plastered right where they are, melancholy but vibrant, lit from inside with a dying fire, in perpetuity. Everything I've ever read about Molina has led me to believe I'd respond really well to her work, and I'm happy not to have been wrong in that assumption.

"And then, he DJ'ed the afterparty." Hallelujah. Bring it.

Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found

Quite simply one of the best books I've read in a long damn time.

If you're the type of person who's likely to initiate a conversation with me by asking "so what are you reading these days?" you've inevitably been bored by the response I've been giving since about mid-June: "still slogging through that book about Bombay." Despite being employed in the publishing industry (or perhaps because of it), my reading habits are ridiculously erratic, and, even though I've been eager to check this book out since I first read the wonderful interview with author Suketu Mehta in the February 2008 issue of The Believer on the plane home from visiting my brother in San Francisco, I had a hard time tackling this 556-page behemoth. Partly, it was because of the book's structure: nearly half is dominated by the front-loaded section entitled "Power" that focuses on riots, gangs, cops, politics, Muslim vs. Hindu tension and other sensitive issues that inspire such brutality on the city's streets. It's fascinating stuff, and insanely well reported, but just not all that inherently interesting to me. It was only when the book finally opened into part two, "Pleasure" (and then beyond that into part three, "Passages"), that I felt myself becoming truly drawn in. Of course, the deeper I got into the book, the more I realized how ingenious the structure actually is. Like some sort of journalistic interpretation of Zeno's dichotomy paradox, it makes its way across this incredible distance by dividing itself in half, then in half again, then half again. And, much like a too-long, too-much Bollywood movie, with every chunk of prose that Mehta churns out, giving you pages and pages about a character or an issue, not exactly numbing you as a reader, but lulling you into a false sense of placid receptivity, he'll then cap the section with an incredibly potent paragraph or page that cuts to the juiciest, bloodiest part of the heart of the matter. I got somewhat addicted to that wonderful feeling of being intellectually punched in the throat, feeling more than a little breathless with emotion, marveling at his pacing and his ability to give you the exact punctuation that you didn't even know you needed. The book is littered with these gems, and if you look at my copy of the book, you'll see dog-eared corners marking them (beginning, yes, about halfway through), like little winks or high-fives, to myself or to Mehta or maybe both of us, I can't quite tell. Earlier this year I picked up the Jane Jacobs classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities, and, um, failed to finish it. Not for lack of interest--I'm sure I'll go back to it again one day, perhaps sooner rather that later--but it just wasn't the right book for me at the right time. It's polite and wonderfully sensible, and even a bit droll in places. But, with my recently renewed and reconfirmed passion for cities and the type of life it's possible to live in them, I think I wanted it to be more like Maximum City: absolutely pulsating with life, crying out in extremes of despair and ecstasy and every possible recombinant variation of the two, a profound meditation on the atomic essence of people, places, and things at their most raw and unfiltered. Highly, highly recommended, kittens.