Apologia

You may be axing yerself, where’s the Dan Jardine who was producing a half dozen reviews a week? Have ye lost yer will to write? Yer strength of purpose? Yer mental acuity and spiritual fortitude?

Hummmm…The honest truth I’ve still been watching ‘em, and thinking madly about ‘em. I’ve even been doing a little bit of writing about ‘em for Apollo Guide. But I’ve let ‘er slide here on the ol’ blog, and for that I apologize. Mea culpa. Mea maxa culpa. I’ve become blocked up with a backlog of nearly a dozen films and a buncha non-film related books rattling around my head and bouncing offa the pages of my notebook, and it’s time to defecate or get offa the pot. So, I’m here to announce that I’m gonna start pinching ‘em off again, beginning with some quick hits on the books I’ve been diving into so gustily as of late. And not a single movie-related title in the bunch.

A Short History of Nearly Everything (Bill Bryson) AKA Is This How it Is?
I confess to being a newcomer to the prose stylings of Mr. Bryson, but apparently he’s a pretty well respected travel writer, and a friend recommended this here tome, so I visited my local library and scooped up a copy. Well, I’m here to tell you that this here book knocked my socks off: This one is the Real Deal. Undertaking a whole ‘nuther type of journey here, Bryson writes in a quietly confident conversational manner about matters as complex and mind-blowing as the origin of the universe, quantum physics and super novas. I think the secret to this book’s success is that Bryson comes at these subjects as a neophyte, full of a newcomers uncertainty, and therefore unafraid to axe the sorta questions that might have the experts smirking, but which get to the very root of the abundant and seemingly incomprehensible scientific conundrums that surround us in ways that allow us a glimpse of the searing white-light brightness that had blinded generations of laymen before us. Sorry about the labyrinthine nature of that there sentence; it’s just about the exact opposite, stylistically speaking, of what Mr. Bryson does in this here terrific bit of scientific journalism. Anyways, this is stellar stuff, and I just wanted to give this book a big shout out. It’s certainly earned it.

Score: 88/100

You Shall Know Our Velocity (David Eggers) AKA A Hearbreaking Work of Competence
I really enjoyed Mr. Eggers first effort, the autobiographical and oh-so-self-consciously mocking and ironically titled A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius which detailed the way he and his brother Topher rebuilt their lives together after the sudden and shocking deaths of both parents over a horrific six week period. It was a stylish and painfully self-deprecatory work that got to the emotional nut of the situation without (well, not much anyways) resorting to the sort of ironical commentary that distances the audience from the traumatic truths rabbited within. Which is to say, it was a very promising authorial debut, and warranted comparisons to the works of David Foster Wallace. While Velocity is Eggers first completely fictional work, a commonality of themes remains. In both we have protagonists that are male and partnered, Dave and Topher in Genius, Will and Hand in Velocity, and in both they are dealing w/ terrible loss (it is a best friend this time). Also, in both books their reaction is similar; they run away--Dave and Topher to the west coast, while Hand and Will circle the globe attempting to give away tens of thousands of dollars in cash to those less fortunate. No surprise then that Velocity begs comparison to Genius, and it is predictable to listen to critics complain that it lacks the panache and punch of the first work. However, I’m more inclined to give Mr. Eggers the benefit of a doubt. He is still a young writer of terrific promise, and while Velocity suggests he has not yet fulfilled that promise, neither has he fallen off the edge of a cliff, career-wise. While the tale is sometimes self-indulgent, there’s plenty here to sink yer teeth into, and I warrant that when we get a chance a decade or two hence to put Egger’s career into perspective, we’ll see Velocity for what it is, a flawed but interesting work in a minor key that good writers oughta be allowed to indulge in on occasion (after all, DFW has his own closeted skeletons, too—The Broom of the System, anyone?).

Score: 70/100

Kingdom of Fear (Hunter S. Thompson) AKA Fear and Loathing of the Apocalypse
You know America is in trouble when Hunter S. Thompson notes w/ considerable consternation that his current president makes him yearn for the (relatively-speaking) kinder, gentler days of Richard M. Nixon, a figure of near-unique awfulness whose fear and loathing for great swaths of people in the land he governed is the story of legend, but whose foreign policy at least inclined towards making the world a safer place. The movie character the current president resembles most is the presidential candidate (played by Jeb Bartlett!) in The Dead Zone, a figure hell-bent on up-turning universal peace and ushering in the apocalypse. Thompson’s dread about Dubya is palpable throughout Kingdom of Fear, and while the book’s shotgun (heh) approach to contemporary politics is sometimes awkwardly and even haphazardly assembled, and thus lacking the singularity of purpose and vision of his best works, Kingdom of Fear is nonetheless riddled with the sort of elemental underground analysis of the players and issues currently dominating today’s world stage that we just ain’t getting through mainstream media sources. HST’s still barking, but most encouraging of all, this dog has not lost any of his bite despite decades of counter-cultural infamy. Thompson’s piercing voice still howls in the wilderness, and I’m happy as hell that there’s still an audience hovering out here in the fringes, applauding every beautiful note.

Score: 79/100

Just an American Boy (a film about Steve Earle) (USA, 2003, Amos Poe) AKA What’s So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding?

Now, I’ve been a big fan of Steve Earle’s for as long as he’s been making records—I have ridiculous affection for everything he’s done, from Guitar Town, Exit 0 and Copperhead Road right on through to his post-prison productions that includes El Corazon, Transcendental Blues and Jerusalem. So, before moving on to discuss the documentary of his last concert tour, Just an American Boy, lemme fess up that I consider Earle one of the most important voices in contemporary American music. While his roots are in country and bluegrass music, he ain’t afraid to rock out, and his eclectic sound is gritty and grounded in a way that reveals heartland poseurs like John Mellancamp for the pussies that they are. The one constant in his music is Steve’s voice; he is an achingly honest, humane man whose advocacy for life’s downtrodden is a constant inspiration. Interestingly, he’d refuse to accept accolades for this, instead suggesting his deeds are borne out of selfishness. He champions life’s powerless and gives them a voice not cuz he’s an idealist, but cuz he doesn’t wanna go to Hell.

The bulk of Just an American Boy covers Earle’s tour in support of Jersulem, one of the most important American-produced albums of the post-9/11 era. Laying it on the line with tunes like Amerika v. 6.0 and John Walker’s Blues, Steve issues a challenge to accepted conventional social and political thought that cries out for blood, rather than seeking justice or offering forgiveness. However, instead of examining these provocative ideas, Just an American Boy cuts away from things just when serious analysis is called for. For instance, as Earle borrows John Walker’s voice to sing about that young man’s experiences in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, a disembodied voice reminds us that if Earle tried to challenge authorities in that country the way he does in America, he’d have his tongue cut out and/or his hands cut off. Wouldn’t it have made for a more interesting film if Earle had been confronted w/ this question and asked to defend his politics? The film is directed by Amos Poe, whose spotty big screen efforts include the critically derided Alphabet City and Frogs for Snakes, and there is evidence throughout this documentary of his workman’s eye. There’s a lotta unfinished business in this documentary—while it provokes and tantalizes, it lacks the finishing touch of a master. It’s too bad that Poe isn’t as committed to getting this message out as Earle is, preferring to linger backstage on images of Earle with his dog, among many other banal moments. Rather than examine how Earle’s activism fits into the conservative contemporary music scene, or illuminating Earle’s place, historically, socially or musically, in such rich traditions, Poe stays on the surface—a few brief snippets from radio interviews sprinkled here and there, but without the sorta context that would give us something to hang it all on.

Fortunately, his subject matter is so interesting and intelligent , not to mention a damn fine songwriter and performer--those of you who’ve seen a Steve Earle concert know of what I speak. The man was born to be on a stage--that I was able to get by Poe’s directorial passivity to get to the jagged truths hidden beneath the veneer. What makes Just an American Boy an important film, regardless of Poe’s inadequacies as a director, is Earle’s fearless prodding of the powers that be. In this age of unquestioning acquiescence to authority, he doesn’t shy from calling the tactics of self-proclaimed patriots who wanna stifle dissent for the bullying that it is. Sitting comfortably on the fringes of society—he’s a convicted felon (heroine/cocaine possession),a left-wing anti-capital punishment crusader living and recording music in the ultra-conservative Nashville Tennessee—gives Earle a vantage pt he can exploit. He has nothing to fear; he can’t be pushed any further to the periphery that he’s already more than willing to reside. Channeling the social protest spirit of Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, and Joan Baez, in Just an American Boy Earle proves that he just may be the most important American troubadour of his generation.

Score: 76/100

Kill Bill Vol 2(USA, 2004, Quentin Tarantino) AKA The Bride Wore Yellow

With Quentin Tarantino, it seems unlikely that we will ever have a failure to communicate. Simply put, the guy loves to talk, and, more to the point, he loves to fill his character’s mouths with, to borrow from Hamlet, "words, words, words." Sometimes, that leads to the sort of moments of verbal dexterity and conversational beauty—as in the opening coffee house scene of Reservoir Dogs, or the numerous dialogues between Sam Jackson and John Travolta in Pulp Fiction--rarely found in mainstream American films. Sometimes, however, you sense that Tarantino becomes infatuated with the sound of his own voice, and as a result, unnecessarily clutters up his films w/ extraneous and overtly self-congratulatory monologues that scream "look at me! Aren’t I clever?" There are a couple of moments in Kill Bill Vol. 2 that fall into this camp—the laconic Michael Madsen’s Budd has a few too many lines of languorous dialogue, while the film’s finale, the much-anticipated showdown between The Bride and Her Man Bill, is jammed up w/ the sort of verbose over-explanation normally reserved for the weaker James Bond films. Yes, sad but true, Kill Bill Vol. 2 is a little flabby, which is ironic for a film dedicated to paying its respects to the great grind house movies from around the globe, particularly given those muscular film’s dedication to the efficient development of their cinematic product.

But and still, and while it toils unfavourably in the shadow of the great first volume in this series , there is plenty to applaud in QT’s latest effort. What leaps up at you immediately with vol. 2 is that the completion of this story cycle marks a startling tonal shift from vol. 1. These are two very different films. Whereas the opening chapters were pure adrenaline rush—Tarantino, a la Miike, engaging in extreme filmmaking, if you will—the closing chapters are more chatty, the scenes more loosely structured, as Tarantino fills in the back stories of the key characters. Naturally, he never resors to the most modern urge to understand the character’s deepest, darkest psychologies, as his interests lie not within the characters, but rather within the cinematic world he creates for them to move around in. Tarantino is not an introspective storyteller, so he does not examine the forces that mold his characters, but rather, those things being a given, he looks at how the characters behave in the movie-inspired world in which they exist. Simply put, he says, "You are who you are, now what are you gonna do about it?"

Any discussion of Tarantino film in incomplete without a look at his near-peerless talent of choosing the right music to augment the reverberant imagery. There is nothing here that quite matches the best of Vol. 1’s consistently terrific use of music, such RZA’s heraldry of O-Ren’s entrance into the Inn of the Blue Leaves, or Zamfir’s Lonely Shephard accompanying the Bride’s post-apocalyptic flight stateside. Like the film itself, the hook-up of sound and mood is less flashy in Vol. 2, if only somewhat less effective. Set mostly in the dusty western USA desert, Vol. 2 pays homage to the conventions of the spaghetti western, so the specific inclusion of large dollops of Sergio Leone’s favourite composer, Ennio Morricone, is sensible. Morricone's distinctive ambience-enhancing sound wafts in, out and around the action, and where it may lack the immediacy of the best of Vol. 1, it has a haunting quality that helps us understand the fundamental bitter-sweetness that marks the achievement of any Grand Quest, and the conclusion of this ultra-violent revenge flick.

And while vol. 2’s tone shifts markedly away from the visceral to the more contemplative (all things being relative, of course. Tarantino will never be mistaken for Tarkovsky), the aforementioned flabbiness of this film does not extend itself to the film’s set piece showcases. Show stoppers, such as The Vanishing-like burial scene, and the trailer-set face off between the Distaff Gargantuans, with the doppelganger-ish Ambitious Blonde Avenging Angels played by Uma and Darryl Hannah facing off in the sorta battle of the titans that you’d normally hafta dial up WWE to find, hit their mark perfectly. Further, there is some stellar acting on display here, primarily by the elemental Uma Thurman and the loquacious David Carradine. Indeed, the latter pretty much steals the film with his Caine-like self-contained and self-referential turn as the Bride’s nemesis, the titular Bill who is to be Killed. Given some terrific and pithy dialogue to munch on, a grinning and drawling Carradine charms the pants off of the audience. 70s pop-culture meister that Tarantino is, the inclusion of iconic figures like David Carradine’s Kung Fu-tinged Charlie of Charlie’s Angels-like mentor, running an almost exclusively female Deadly Viper Assassination Squad (DIVAS, for short. Natch) providing evidence of his affection for the sort of low brow culture that will almost certainly keep him on the outside looking in come critical accolades and awards time, but which seems certain to continue to endear him to a dedicated and devoted fan base. It appears, with the satisfying though not-quite-thrilling conclusion of this Chop Socky/Spaghetti Western Revenge Epic, that he is in no hurry to sacrifice the latter in order to lay claim to the former.

Score: 79/100