Day: September 21, 2007

Interesting, enjoyable, with some wonderful moments, but something of a letdown after ‘History of Violence.’ Whereas HoV is full of quiet menace, here the menace is right in your face, on the surface of the film. Cronenberg revels in the blood, from an opening assassination, through a bloody birth, to a remarkable scene in a public steambath which features a naked, tattooed Viggo Mortensen sliding in pools of blood. Whereas the transformation of the Mortensen character in HoV takes us by surprise, here he glowers and exudes power from the first moment we see him.

Some nice performances, especially Armin Mueller-Stahl, Naomi Watts, and Mortensen, when he lets his face crease and his hair flop a little. But I couldn’t help feeling that Cronenberg bought into the allure of the Russian mob a little too much. Oddly enough, this made me think fondly of a much earlier Mortensen film, ‘American Yakuza’: a true B-movie, but one that played with betrayal and honors in a mafia setting in ways that I found more satisfying than ‘Eastern Promises.’ [SPOILER] Continue reading Eastern Promises

to watch or not to watch this 15-hour documentary on PBS. Honestly, when I hear the name “Ken Burns” I flinch and suddenly wish to do something un-American, like join the Worker’s Party or mock an aging ballplayer. I don’t know why, since I have never seen anything by Ken Burns. have you? I fear that I will hear a great deal about what makes an American, thereby getting a rather precise measurement of my own alienation. I also fear another go-round with “The Greatest Generation”–hearing all those grizzled decent and unpretentious men talk about Guadalcanal and Anzio makes me more feel ever more effete, poring over my “cultural studies” assignments for my students and sorting my iTunes selections. I watched the many hours of Band of Brothers and even at the end was still entirely unable to identify a single character with any precision. I did not attend to Tom Brokaw’s edifying lessons. Ashamed, I realized I had no grandfathers or uncles who had made a heroic stand against the Hun and the Yellow Threat. All I had was my hothouse fanboy appreciation for Cross of Iron , Hell is for Heroes , The Big Red One and The Dirty Dozen . Thinking about Ken Burns makes me feel that Lee Marvin is sniggering at me.

I also fear the “intimate” approach, as apparently the documentary focuses on four soldiers from “quintessentially” American towns. Have we had enough of intimate approaches to huge historical-global events? Have we had enough of the homespun American heartland–especially considering the ideology that keeps getting deployed during this current war? And why is it “The War” according to Burns? others wars too complicated, ambiguous, etc.? Isn’t it about time to complicate “The War?” And why did we all have to wait around for Burns to package this neatly—with accompanying DVD, book and CD available at Barnes and Noble–when there must be thousands of reels of unseen footage languishing all over the country? Why does every consideration of the historical have to be an “event?”

Do I fear and carp too much? Has anybody seen other works by Burns? Any thoughts on this one? Will there be a well-modulated voice-over that makes me want to pull my own teeth out? Will there be…..teaching resources??

Hey, Lee, at least I never pranced around in a big-budget musical!