happy birthday danny boyle

The Master of Image & Sound. One of my favorite directors. You deserve a long post about what your work means to me, but I haven't the time right now. I am going to a radical bookfair in Baltimore today. I haven't been to B-more in years.

is drag always queer?

I'm currently looking up books to add to the bibliography for my thesis. I typed in the keyword "drag" and the results are a combination of three things: what I am looking for (stuff about drag queens and kings), drag racing, and anything else that has "drag" or "dragged" in the title, such as "Look What the Cat Dragged In!"

Ironic, no? Drag queens and drag racing.

up-to-date randomity

1.) Anyone else think The Primitives "Crash" should have played throughout the end credits of Crash (2004)? It'd have been funny, and perhaps we'd like something about the movie then.

2.) I just recognized there aren't many words with three Us in them. Isn't that unusual?

3.) Anyone else underwhelmed by the films currently out? Will the movie season get any better? Eh. I'm eagerly anticipating I'm Not There (2007) because you know how I hate the conventional biopic; Control (2007) because it's about Joy Division and I want to see how it compares to 24 Hour Party People (2002); and Atonement (2007) because... well, for obvious reasons.

4.) I came out as queer to a class I was teaching, about the diversity of LGBT people, cultures, and issues. My fellow Q&A panelists weren't expecting it, but I don't think they were shocked.

5.) I don't want to wait till next fuckin' summer for the second season of "Mad Men" (2007-present). Tuesday means the season finale of the other show I have been committed to watching since its premiere: "Damages" (2007-present). 'Bout time. It's a bit too drawn out. But I like it.

6.) "Pushing Daisies" (2007-present) is too cute for words. I want the complete series of "Wonderfalls" (2004) on DVD. Right now.

happy birthday steve coogan

If you remember, Steve Coogan is in the triumvirate of people who I really like to watch. That makes me sound like a big fat voyeur, like a perv, but film is voyeuristic. I don't need to get into any psychoanalytical theories of cinema. It's neither here nor there.

Anyway, Steve Coogan is fun to watch because he's funny. This is probably one of the most obvious things someone can say about him. That is, if they even like him and/or what he puts out into the world. However, it's a bit more difficult for me to articulate why I think he is so funny. It just seems to me that his sense of humor is much more layered, textured, than we are accustomed to.

If we look at his most famous creation, Alan Partridge (who, it should be noted, may be the result of a collaboration among Coogan, Peter Baynham, and Armando Iannucci), we see a middleaged radio disc jockey who used to be famous and who still thinks he is famous. At least he wants more than what he's got following the cancellation of his talk show. We might see that he's an idiot, a fool, a bit of a social retard, a racist, a sexist. I understand he is hard to watch for some people because he is so inappropriate, offensive, and stupid. In fact, it is his ignorance that is most offensive.

More than this though, there is something else going on with Alan. He's middleaged. Divorced. His wife is sleeping with a new, young lover. He has a son called Fernando (big ABBA fan) that doesn't like him. He lives in a hotel off the motorway for fuck's sake. His personal assistant is his only real friend and it's never certain that she even likes him. She can't possibly like working for him. He doesn't need a personal assistant, really. She's filling another void for him. The staff of the hotel enjoy ridiculing him behind his back while just barely tolerating him when they're face-to-face. I am not suggesting that the staff is morally reprehensible for being so two-faced, so disingenuous. He probably deserves it. But on top of all of this, he wants more than to be a radio personality In Norwich. He's not really fit for that sort of work anyway; his taste in music is questionable. Elitists wouldn't approve of his easy-listening playlists. But Alan's not fit for TV, either. But he doesn't get it.

And then there is this show we're watching, what someone might call a sitcom, though I would disagree with that label. Yes, there may be a laugh track and perhaps the subplot in the grand scheme of Alan's narrative arc resolves itself in 22 minutes, but it's just that: his narrative arc which I briefly described in the previous paragraph already gives Alan more texture than most sitcoms, which are loosely tied together episodes in the characters' lives. "I'm Alan Partridge" (1997, 2002) is more like a mini-series in that way. Plus Alan isn't confined to a set.

In any case, I've described a character that doesn't sound like he belongs in a comedy. But he is. And there's something to be said for painting such a depressing portrait of a man and ridiculing him. It's easiest to laugh at his stupidity, but really you just pity him. Brilliant. Which other character on TV is so simple-minded given his dark, complex circumstances?

So obviously, when I watch that particular show or anything else that Steve has done, I see Alan. Perhaps what is so interesting about Steve is how his gift for impersonations and character development sort of serves as an impediment to understanding "the real Steve Coogan." What I mean is that we so often mistake his characters for the actor, the performer, himself. For instance, there have been some who believe his brilliant turn in 24 Hour Party People (2002) as the late TV personality/journalist Tony Wilson was just him playing Alan again. I'm not going to get into the reasons why this is not true (I don't want to write a comparative study of "Alan" and "Tony"). Of course there is the possibility of seeing Alan in Tony. They're both played by Steve. His physical appearance, despite the assistance of some makeup and wigs, doesn't change all that much. Some mannerisms might be the same because, again, it's Steve. Both men are usually misunderstood, too into their own heads (and egos).

I appreciate Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (2005) mostly for its being a rumination on celebrity, performance, and authenticity. Steve, of course, is not the only actor playing "himself" here. Rob Brydon matches him, but I'm not sure Rob has a history of celebrity quite like Steve's, so Rob playing himself doesn't come off the same way. And why should it? They're two different people. And even if their on-screen personas in this film are nothing like who they really are, it doesn't really matter. Their on-screen dynamic works. (Of course I should admit that when I watch Tristram Shandy, I see the rivalry between Steve's Tony Wilson and Rob's Ryan Letts from Party People play out, as a sort of background to their performances as rivals.)

Tristam Shandy may be about a film crew trying to adapt Laurence Sterne's unfilmmable though highly cinematic novel into a film. But there is more to it because it's about "the actor Steve Coogan." It glimpses him through various lenses: Steve as the gossip rag fodder, the actor known for his previous performances, the aspiring family man, the comedic rival, the artist philosopher, the man approaching middle age who has body issues and sexually frustrating encounters. Of course not everything here is true. It's the engagement of these themes from Steve Coogan's life that makes the film so interesting. Listening to the audio commentary by Steve and Rob on the DVD only adds more layers.

This is why Steve is fun to watch. As a chameleon who never quite sheds his skin completely with each new role, he defies being pigeonholed. He constantly tries new things (see Happy Endings [2005] and Around the World in 80 Days [2004] for more information). He constantly pokes fun at himself (in addition to Tristram, there is Coffee and Cigarettes [2003], and his conversation with Alfred Molina is the best of the little vignettes). While engaging with the constant construction of his persona, he seems candid, but he also keeps you as the viewer at a distance.

As an enigma, he's fun to watch. So happy birthday to him.

he's got a lust for life

Last week it was Hitchcock. Tonight it was Trainspotting (1996). Anyone else notice the very blatant references to that oh-so-favorite film of mine in the new, second episode of the very ridiculous "Chuck" (2007-present)? As if "Lust for Life" and running/chasing after someone (yeah, in the parking lot) weren't enough, they had to go and let Chuck fall back like Renton does in the very beginning. Only for Chuck it ain't heroin; it's the U.S. government's "secrets" that makes him fall back, straight down on his heels.

happy birthday communist china

You're 58 years old today. Funny, you don't look a day over six milennia old.

it ain't no chick flick

I understand it's been about four months since it hit theatres, but I finally saw Knocked Up (2007). In general, I liked it. It was very funny and made me feel warm and fuzzy. I do not think it is as hilarious as everyone (read: Stephanie) has told me. I really didn't like Judd Apatow's most recent effort as writer-director: The 40-Year-Old Virgin. But Knocked Up, I agree, is a whole lot better. It's believable, where Steve Carell as a virgin is not. But that is neither here nor there.

I wanted to post about Knocked Up because I appreciated its attempts to reinvent the romantic comedy genre. While I find it very successful in the ways which I will soon point out below, I still must refer to them as "attempts" because the film did not work to completely overhaul the genre. Not since Shakespeare in Love (1998) has there been a clever reworking of the romantic comedy.

These are what I picked out as nice little spices to the formula:

1.) The PREMISE itself. There have been some movies about one-night stands. Better Than Sex (2000) comes to mind. But I mean even more generally there is a very important plot point in films where a one-night stand figures prominently, as in: the guy finds out he's a dad sometime during the film. Such as Big Daddy (1999).

Anyway, this film starts with a drunken night of sex, an awkward morning-after, and then the decision to raise a kid together. After they've ruled out abortion, they go one step further in their plans: they figure they've seven months (at that point) to get to know each other. So that neither is raising the baby with a complete stranger. And they unexpectedly fall in love. I understand this "they unexpectedly fall in love" makes it sound like Pride & Prejudice (see any version), but I think using that wonderful convention and twisting it a bit because of the premise (an unwanted pregnancy) is very clever.

2.) There's NO CHASE. You know how much I hate those damn things. With less than five minutes left of the screentime, the guy or girl realizes he or she wants to be with the other so much they literally race against the clock--whether it's through traffic in downtown Manhattan or London or on the highway on a bridge--to get to his or her beloved. It's unrealistic, especially the ones where weddings are crashed. I especially hate the ones where they have to race to the airport before the lover boards a plane, usually out of the country! But I digress.

Knocked Up conforms to the formula in that they have a fight in the middle of their relationship. Seth Rogen as slacker-stoner Ben Stone doesn't chase after Katherine Heigl's TV-reporter Alison Scott. He just waits for them both to cool off a bit and then goes to her niece's birthday party with the hope of explaining himself to Alison. She rejects him again, but eventually they get together, when their baby comes.

3.) There's NO REAL LADYFRIEND SIDEKICK. At first I found it really strange and interesting that Alison, a successful young woman with her head on her shoulders, wasn't spending most of her on-screen time away from Ben with a group of girlfriends a la "Sex and the City" (1998-2004). You know, getting advice and talking about vibrators. Whatever. The usually multiracial circle of ladyfriends is really tired, and it is such an old convention that the ladyfriends really feel like a waste of time and energy, like they're always just standing in the background. None--aside from the show previously mentioned--are as well developed as the leading lady.

I know what you're thinking: what about Debbie (Leslie Mann), Alison's sister? Well, yes, she is Alison's friend and source of guidance, but she's got her own storyline, which is sometimes humorous and sometimes a bit heartbreaking. What is not advertised for the film is the meaty subplot revolving around Debbie's marriage to Pete (sexy Paul Rudd; wait till you see him in a suit!). Alison (and sometimes Ben) are often Debbie's sidekicks when she deals with her problems. There are reciprocities in their relationships that you don't often see between the leads and the supporting characters in romantic comedies. For that, Knocked Up gets some brownie points, especially since it made me like Leslie Mann (for more info, see: Big Daddy [1999] and The Cable Guy [1996]).

I'm sure there are other things, but I can't think of any others right now. I'm opening it up and asking for your observations: how does Knocked Up try to reinvent the romantic comedy?

But here are some of the bits I didn't like:

1.) Ben's slackerdom and slacker friends. I didn't find his roommates very funny. Crude humor isn't my thing, really, so I found other bits much more entertaining. Ben's being a pothead didn't endear me to him either. I sort of wish he hadn't been a stoner-slacker. Perhaps it would have been funnier if he actually had a job (not white collar) and fewer roommates who try to steal the attention with their crude jokes.

2.) It's really dated. There are so many references to very current pop culture (such as Spider-Man 3 [2007]) that Knocked Up will forever be placed in that 2007 time capsule of pop culture, in the context of the rise of the Apatow comedy entourage. However, I should say I LOVED the Back to the Future (1985) reference, especially since Alison didn't get it at the time.

3.) Its length. Is it really necessary to have a semi-gross out comedy that runs over two hours? Then again, perhaps this subverts the (romantic) comedy genre, too. I should note that Apatow is not the first to do this. The Brothers Farrelly did it first.

life as prosthetic memory

I think I have mentioned before that I am behind in my reading for some of my classes. I've caught up for my "Race and Nation in Twentieth Century US Cinema" class, which is very good news. On the other hand, I have yet to receive from the on-campus bookstore my textbooks for my "Sexuality in the Cinema" class. But that is neither here nor there.

Today I started reading Alison Landsberg's Prosthetic Memory: The Transformation of American Remembrance in the Age of Mass Culture for the US Cinema course. Very interesting. Landsberg defines "prosthetic memory"--and I'm paraphrasing here--as the site where an individual comes face-to-face with an historical narrative that the individual did not directly experience or live through. These historical narratives can be from another time or even ones that mainly just affected people of another race, class, gender, nationality, etc. Anyway, at this moment of confrontation, the person does not just understand the moment's significance, she also absorbs it as a sort of past experience that occupies for her as equal a space in her memory as any event in her archive of actual personal experiences. This sort of memory is important not just because it allows for the historical narrative or event to shape the individual's outlook and "subjectivity," it also allows for empathy.

Landsberg argues that films and experiential museums are the sites where such memory-making moments occur. This is why we're reading it for the class; to see how films can physically and emotionally move audiences to believe they are experiencing an historical moment that they themselves never actually experienced. OK. An example: the Holocaust. There are numerous films about this important event in history, and certainly not all the people who saw Schindler's List (1993) or Life is Beautiful (1997) were Jewish. If these films are filed in a viewer's memory regardless of her race, ethnicity, religion, age, gender, and so on then she may later recall the events depicted in these films, for instance, and confuse them as real events she lived through or experienced. The realism of the cinematic medium can blur the line between what is real and what is imagined, what is "authentic" and what is "inauthentic." Of course, I don't mean that Landsberg actually thinks someone can feel themselves a Holocaust victim or survivor based on seeing one film; what I mean to say is that as viewers we may imagine a past historical event as how we remember seeing it enacted in a film. And because of this, we are more likely to empathize with those who actually experienced it. Not to mention, we're also likely to identify with people who had a similar experience watching the film; we recognize we're similar because we have new "prosthetic memories."

The book is fascinating, and it got me thinking a lot since Landsberg started to deconstruct what she meant by "prosthetic memories" through using modern sci-fi epics Blade Runner (1982) and Total Recall (1990). To start there simply because sci-fi as a genre allows for an imagined future where anything is possible and where memory plays a different role in forming people's identities--as is the case in these two films--wasn't enough of a sell for me. I tried to think of other genres and films where "prosthetic memories" play a central role. And I've thought of three.

The most obvious one being Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004). Without going into too much detail about the film because I assume you've seen it, recall how Jim Carrey is racing against the clock to salvage memories before they are taken away from him. To hold onto Kate Winslet, the crazy girlfriend he would rather not forget after all, he decides to take her to memories where she did not appear. In this way, she experiences his boyhood memories of being picked on, watching from under the table an attractive friend of his mother's, and bathing in the kitchen sink. Not only can this change his memory of these past events in his life (now boyhood isn't so lonely), she has also taken on memories of times when she didn't know him and these memories of his have become hers too, informing her perspective on him, her life, and love.

The next example I thought of was Before Sunset (2004). The one-time lovers Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy reflect during this chance meeting in Paris on their affair through Vienna nine years before, as chronicled in Before Sunrise (1995). They also explicitly discuss how this chance meeting can change their memory of the past. For instance, as Delpy's Celine points out, he can no longer go on thinking his return to Vienna was an awful experience. After all, it was fodder for his first bestselling novel. Let's face it: if they had met, perhaps his book would have a different ending. His not knowing what kept her led him to leave the book open-ended because he didn't even want to imagine what an ending to their romance would be like.

But, knowing her reason for not turning up to their planned reunion changes his memory of the event. For it's now likely that he will forever connect her not showing up in Vienna to their chance meeting in Paris where they were able to discuss all sorts of things.

More to the point, the realism and the unique narrative structure (just fly-on-the-wall views of a long, intimate conversation between two strangers-turned-lovers in Sunrise and one between two past lovers in Sunset) allow the viewer to develop a "prosthetic memory" of their rendezvous. More specifically, Before Sunset invites the audience to remember the prequel through splicing scenes from Sunrise into the moments where Hawke's Jesse recognizes Celine. Their conversation that stretches out along the winding backstreets of Paris and along the Seine returns again and again to the topic of their meeting and falling in love. I think that through their words it is possible to follow their love story even if the viewer has never seen Before Sunrise. Since I saw Sunrise before Sunset, every time I watch Sunset, as they talk about the night in Vienna, I am reminded of the actual events that took place in Sunrise. The acting and writing are so superb in each that the film can and does lead one to believe they are real people. This is an effect of "prosthetic memory," I think; Jesse and Celine are real lovers. I remember them meeting in Vienna and later in Paris.

My last example is Zelig (1983). I just saw it last night for the first time. I thought it was absolutely brilliant. It satirizes society through examining in the best mockumentary fashion a human chameleon (Woody Allen as Leonard Zelig). Not only is he present for many historical moments in the 1920s and 30s, hobnobbing with the rich and famous and the regular Joes, he also takes on their physical and emotional characteristics while he is with them. He is able to fool people into thinking he is Native American, for example, because he looks and he acts like he is. Talk about "authenticity"! Talk about extreme empathy! (It's not exactly sympathy because none of his identities is permanent and thus his identities can be thought of as transient, always changing. He has no permanent self from which he can be sympathetic to one group or another all the time as the groups he assumes may be in conflict with each other.)

Then a love interest enters the story in the form of psychiatrist Eudora Fletcher (Mia Farrow). She attempts to cure him of this psychological disorder, concerned he is being taken advantage of by the media. She also wants him to develop a personality of his own.

In any case, a fascination with this period of American history had to have been one of the contributing factors for Allen's making this film. Casting himself in the role of Zelig allows him to play around with history, to imagine how his infamously neurotic self would interact with the times. Of course the story is completely fictional; it is not as if he has transferred any real story or real experience of his to this time. But, fundamentally, the film shows what it is like to insert yourself into all the historical events you wished you saw, strung together by a seemingly ridiculous but ultimately insightful narrative. In other words, the film represents a reclamation of collective history and memory and illuminates how the collective memory of history is subjective and "prosthetic."

kick out your tv

Well, I have gone and done it. After months of talking about it, after weeks of sitting on the fence about it and feeling ashamed that it never looked like I was going to, I have moved the TV out of my room.

What? Were you expecting me to say that I got a tattoo?

Feeling daunted by all the reading I have to complete this week and realizing this amount of work is only likely to continue, I decided the only way I was going to get done what I needed to was if I simulated as closely as possible my room in England. No, I didn't move around any furniture, but I figured that if I could live/survive without a TV for eight months, I could do it here, too. After all, there are TVs everywhere in this house and I happen to live with two people who like to keep them on especially when they are not in the same room as they TV they profess to be in control of. Yes, this means that their noises might hamper my plans on having quiet, reading-full days. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

I have resolved to limit my hours of TV to no more than a couple hours a day. And I really shouldn't watch TV during the day. Evenings can be for relaxation if I am productive during the day. Hopefully these plans will go so well that I will feel motivated to work on studying for the GRE and preparing grad school applications. (Where am I applying, first of all?)

I'll keep you updated on my progress.

the worst toilet in ikea?

I had the strangest dream last night.

It was winter. We were all in our heavy coats and sweaters. I was with my father, brother, and sister meeting family friends for lunch. This part of the dream was not the most important part. At least, the lunch started in medias res. So I don't know who exactly we were meeting. I didn't get a good look at their faces.

As we were getting in the car, I realized that I should probably use the restroom. It was a long ride home and we were likely to get caught in traffic. Instead of going to use the facilities at the diner, I decided to go to the furniture and housewares store next door. Knowing how much they hate it whenever I say I need to pee, I vowed to try to make their wait for me as quick and as painless as possible.

There is no name for this store because it doesn't actually exist. The best way I can describe it now is that it was unbelievably huge. It looked like an upscale IKEA, perhaps like Habitat only much, much bigger. And as I went through it trying to locate the bathroom, it unfolded and unfolded in a bizarre fantasy and adventure video game sort of way.

As soon as I entered, I looked about and found a place in the back of the main room where all the women were standing outside a door. "Women" was labeled on the door. I waited, chattering my teeth. When I finally got in, when a cubicle was available for me, I realized it was a shower. I looked around and saw that the bathroom was even bigger than I originally thought, with more stalls and even rows of women in black bathing suits getting pedicures. I ditched the room without really wondering why this sort of thing existed in a furniture and housewares store. I went about looking for the toilet again.

I climbed through themed room after themed room. I even asked employees where I could find it. I followed each one's directions to a tee, but each time I found nothing. It was like a maze. I felt like every room opened up into another, putting the toilet further and further out of reach for me. It was like being stuck in Harrod's. People everywhere. But no room was as garishly decorated and there weren't multiple levels. My search for the toilet took place on mainly one level, but sometimes it was split.

Eventually, after what seemed like thirty minutes to me (was this a lucid dream?), I asked the last salesperson, and she could sense the desperation in my voice. That and I think I was probably sweating. She took me directly to this really high white shelving unit. About two feet above my head was a toaster labeled "Women." That's seriously all I saw. I pushed the button down, the same way you would push the bread slices into the toaster and wait for them to pop up. Then a tall cabinet the size of an airplane toilet appeared inside the shelving unit. I didn't want to go inside. I mean, I couldn't even get up in it, for it was raised at least two feet off the ground.

And that's where my dream ends. Sort of. No, I didn't piss my pants. And I never got in the box. I must have blinked here. I don't remember what I did to relieve myself. All I can remember is walking back to the car as soon as I could find my way out of the store. My family was pissed I took so long. I didn't tell them I didn't even go.

What does this mean? Am I afraid of peeing? Of not being able to pee? Or, rather, not peeing able to find a toilet? This is not news to me. I have always felt this way, which is why I have always "gone before leaving home" without even the insistence of my mother.

Does the peeing stand in for something else?

which african tribe are you?

I just wrote an email to a family friend and mentioned that I needed to watch The Birth of a Nation (1915) for a class this week. Flanking my message in Gmail were adverts for online counseling to help you trace your genealogy back to African tribes such as the Zulu, Hutu, and Berber.