What happens when you lose track of movies as stories, as self-contained constructed objects, and start thinking of them as ghostly records of dead people moving through lost locations in a piece of time that you can never recover? What do you say to that, Mrs. Jean-Paul?

another catch-all thread–this time for disposable entertainment that goes down easy but doesn’t warrant much analysis. recently in this genre for me: the flight of the phoenix via hbo ondemand. apparently, this is a remake of some b-movie from the 60s. i don’t know if i would have been happy paying $8.50 for this but free it was worth every cent. a bunch of people crash-landed/stranded in the gobi desert (which looks suspiciously like the sahara) rebuild their plane and fly out (what? did the name of the film not already give this away?). dennis quaid as a bit of an arrogant jackass whose arrogance causes the crash (but no one seems too upset when they find out); giovanni ribisi having a very good time as a fop of uncertain origin (in the role originally played by hardy kruger!); and a lot of sandstorms. in many ways this was like a slimmed down version of “lost”: a bunch of people stranded in the middle of nowhere with no one coming for them, danger both from nature and from “others”, one passenger who reveals remarkable hidden abilities; but most importantly: no stupid backstories. unfortunately, also no evangeline lilly. but you can’t have everything.

as homer would say, “i didn’t learn a thing”–except maybe to not go out alone to pee in the dark in the middle of a sandstorm–and thank god for that.

1. They are good with bombs, beer, and whimsy. Make that and/or.

2. The older they get, the more likely they are to win the lottery. And, it goes without saying, our hearts.

3. Unwed mothers are irascible but firmly loving of their bastard children.

3a. Irish children are filthy.

4. The British are snooty, snotty, and humorless. No need for the and/or. (And, yes, this means you, Howell. And Stokes, if you still peep in.)
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When I was dissing Eastwood’s Baby, I was speaking out of turn, as I hadn’t seen it, and was playing off summaries and my own sense of his filmmaking to rant. Having since viewed it, I perhaps grudgingly admit its workmanship and persist in my rant about its cheap sentimentalized cliches about disability and remain firmly underwhelmed by aforementioned workmanship. But I wasn’t sure why, or maybe just how to pitch those complaints in a fresh way. I mean, it wasn’t Raging Bull, but it wasn’t trying to be. How do we talk about and critique its scaled-down ambitions, without pulling out masterpieces to beat it over the head?

Here’s how: (more…)

I was hoping to see ‘Syriana’ today but it turns out that there are no “selected movie theaters” in Ohio, so I watched ‘Jarhead’ instead. It was much better than I expected, given the way the trailer is cut and the New York Times review. ‘Three Kings’ is the obvious comparison, and it lacks the absurdism of that movie and its emotional detachment from either war or the main characters. ‘Jarhead’ is not as good a movie as ‘Three Kings.’ But it is trying to do different things, and it ends up being a pretty damn good movie.

A few random thoughts. First, its subversiveness is more clumsy and obvious than ‘Three Kings,’ but it is nonetheless devastating. The failed equipment, the charred bodies on the Highway of Death, the way the first Gulf War was oversold, the stupidity of the military commanders, all add up to an indictment of the war, and the connections to what is happening today are made quite clear.
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