watching

Living in Los Angeles has its benefits. Within walking distance from my apartment are not one, but two indie/revival landmarks. The New Beverly Cinema, recently purchased by Quentin Tarantino, screens hand-picked classics and under-the-radar genre films, often as double-features. A mile down the road, The Silent Movie Theatre serves as home to the Cinefamily, a non-profit organization dedicated to showing strange, wonderful, and overlooked films you’d never see anywhere else. This month, the latter is running a series called What’s Up, Docs? in conjunction with Cinema Eye — whose mission is celebrating the craft of non-fiction film-making.

Recently I had the pleasure of catching one of the nominees for this year’s Cinema Eye Honors: a documentary titled 45365, which you’d be forgiven for not knowing as the zip code for Sidney, Ohio. On hand were the filmmakers, Bill & Turner Ross, as well as AJ Schnack from Cinema Eye.

Both before the film and during the Q&A afterward, AJ made some remarks that were especially noteworthy. He described how part of their goal at Cinema Eye was to reinforce that documentaries aren’t just about exposing scandals or taking a stance on current events. Though he resisted citing examples and denigrating any films of this under-appreciated category, his point was that The Cove or Food, Inc. certainly have their place, but so do non-fiction films without a political agenda. Riveting films like Capturing the Friedmans or Man on Wire deserve just as much fanfare for their great storytelling as do those where film-making overlaps with journalism or editorial opinion.

His comments were reminiscent of a point Ira Glass has also made about This American Life, which Glass himself has described as (and this is paraphrasing) “applying the rigors of journalism to the stories of regular people”. After all, the world is full of fascinating characters and events, and not all of them have to end with a call to action; some just help us see the world through someone else’s eyes.

The comparison is especially apt with 45365. In making their love letter to the town they grew up in, the Ross brothers opted not to follow any individual story arc, instead floating from scene to scene in an unnarrated slice-of-life collage. They give equal attention to small town politics, teen drama, local talk radio, county fairs, cops and criminals and kids. They spend sad, lonely moments with strange old men and listen in on the off-color chatter of funny old women. The result is a sort of tone poem that resembles This American Life’s honest look at the everyday without either endorsing or condescending to its subjects.

What 45365 does better than anything is create a sense of place — and what it feels like to be in that place — and in that regard its willfully obscure title makes sense. The zip code of Sidney, Ohio is an extremely specific designation for the small town they’ve captured so well. But at the same time, this anonymous-seeming five digit code could correspond to any rural county, and the people whose lives we visit could as easily be in Idaho or Iowa or Alabama. 45365 isn’t the story of Sidney, but an encapsulation of the sweet, funny, peculiar and profound moments of small town life. For all of us who’ve grown up and moved on to the big city to find ourselves, it’s a warm feeling to return for these 90 minutes and remember fondly where we came from.

……….

[Hat tip to Lawrence Everson, friend and sound magician, who worked on the film and brought it to my attention. 45365 is currently playing a limited run at the Downtown Independent in LA, and is very much worth catching while you can. See the official 45365 site for future screenings and cross your fingers it pops up on Netflix or cable if you miss your chance.]

watching

Critics often whine about our media-saturated, short-attention-span culture for making us dumber. Admittedly, it is difficult to watch the meatheads of Jersey Shore ascend to icon status without wanting to stockpile supplies for the looming ab-pocalypse. But not every side effect of the entertainment explosion is purely negative. There are people like Steven Johnson who say we’re actually getting smarter; it’s just a different kind of smart. More importantly, there are the artists whose response to our evolving sensibility is to adapt with equally evolved forms of expression.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in comedy. The masters of the past, even in classics like Fletch or Caddyshack, feel a bit sluggish by today’s standards. Though geniuses in their time, their appeal today is more nostalgic than visceral. While there are moments that still work, they seem to lack a certain energy. Our media-saturation is certainly to blame here; we’re so well-trained in the tropes of entertainment that it’s harder than ever to be funny. Comedy relies on the unexpected, and the more you’ve seen, the more it feels like you’ve seen it all before. What was groundbreaking a generation ago formed the foundation for what’s generic today.

As a result, it takes more to get us off, comedically speaking. Some shows and films have adapted by going the crude, shocking, or non sequitur route, but that’s a lazy way to push boundaries. Some stand-up artists like Demetri Martin have gone more cerebral, but that’s hard to sustain through anything with a plot or character arc. But for audiences passionate about comedy — those well-versed fans who appreciate not just a good joke but the craftsmanship that goes into great humor — one tactic seems to work best, and consistently produce today’s funniest stuff. Those are the writers able to pull off not only joke quality, but joke density.

[Keep reading »]

podcasts

After holiday madness in December and a January spent writing our biggest and possibly best post ever, we’re back with our first episode of 2010. We even got our friend Gino to join us again so he could drop some serious counterarguments into our movie talk.

As usual, write in with in comments or questions on anything we discuss here or you’d want us to discuss next time, and we’ll try to read and respond to them on the next episode. Either in the comments section below or via email, we love getting feedback.

Speaking of which, if you’re a regular listener, please review our show in the iTunes store too. Good ratings help us get more listeners and keep us motivated to record more shows. The goal for this year is one per month and now that we’re back in the saddle chances are good.

Download The Under Culture Podcast: #8 - Bring Own Bag

Subscribe in iTunes for automatic updates.

(Show notes below…)

[Keep reading »]

watching

On first viewing, it’s easy to be dazzled by Avatar. Its otherworldly vistas and lush alien ecosystem have a mesmerizing effect. The Na’vi people — on top of being beautiful physical specimens who spend their lives mostly unclothed — are the most convincing computer-generated characters yet put to film. And with a canvas as grand as his imaginary Pandora, Cameron stages action scenes an order of magnitude larger than anything a puny planet like Earth could contain.

It all makes the act of watching Avatar a race to simply process the wonders assaulting our eyeballs. There are certainly faults with the film, but the spectacle is such that most viewers will walk out of the theater feeling little else than awe.

On repeat viewing the wow-factor wears off somewhat. The high points are still high: Cameron crafts action scenes to beat the best of them, delivering huge aerial battles, massive disasters, and soldiers in robot suits fighting dinosaurs, which can’t help but be fucking sweet. Yet once you get over the high of that new-planet smell, the cheese factor starts wafting in. For one, the writing is incredibly trite, lacking even the charm of a willfully schlocky action blockbuster. Try a little test, if you’ve seen it. Attempt to recall a single memorable line of dialogue; any snippet worth quoting, repeating, or even remembering. Even after two viewings, it remains a challenge.

Then there’s the story as a whole, which does little more than pull together things we’ve seen before. Dances With Wolves and Pocahontas are popular comparisons — only more, you know, blue. He even borrows from himself with hints of Titanic, just short of having Sully scream “I’m king of the world!” while flying a giant dragon. The acting, though not offensive, is merely serviceable, though credit is due to Zoe Saldana for injecting some personal emotional moments into the film as the fetching native Neytiri (she represents nature, get it? Subtlety: also not Avatar’s strong suit). Of course, she’s also the only character with anything at stake, since it’s her world being invaded and her boyfriend trying to save it. Everyone else is only present to do their job, both as characters and, seemingly, as actors.

Overall, Avatar serves as a cross between a Disney movie and Terminator 2. Like T2, the action sequences are not only exciting, they’re ground-breaking. But let’s be honest, there are some really lame moments and a lot of the dialogue can’t be taken seriously. Like a Disney fairy tale, it’s a warm, fuzzy, overcoming-of-obstacles story where eventually some good guys beat back some bad guys so everyone can live happily ever after. Simple, broad, and too cut and dry to have much dramatic weight.

Without a doubt, both types of movies have something to offer. They’re loved and valued parts of film canon, as Avatar should be. More importantly though, neither are worthy of an Oscar for Best Picture, yet somehow Avatar finds itself in serious contention. Hence the problem.

[Keep reading »]

playing

Everyone loves Uncharted 2. It’s brought in stellar ratings and multiple Game of the Year awards. Even the more high-brow game bloggers, who go out of their way to resist the blockbuster hype, have sung its praises. The general sentiment is that, if you like games, you should really like this one. A lot.

Much of this is well-deserved, as Uncharted does a lot of things better than most. For example: action game dialogue tends to sound like it’s delivered by newly brought-to-life mannequins, forced to read scripts penned by nerds who substituted midnight movies for college composition. To Naughty Dog’s credit, the characters of Uncharted sound like humans talking to other humans. The central love triangle of Nate, Chloe and Elena even achieves a degree of on-screen chemistry, which is probably this game’s greatest achievement. If there were awards for Most Believable Humans of the Year, there would be no contest.

Uncharted 2 also offers several of the most memorable chase sequences of the year. It’s not giving away much to say that in an adventure game, you’ll spend time fighting atop moving vehicles, barely making leaps across yawning chasms, or running for cover from an oncoming military vehicle; those are all part of the United Nations’ treaty on required action game sequences. But through deft use of motion capture and camera angle — zoomed in tight on a flailing Drake just narrowly surviving each narrow escape — Uncharted 2 makes these sequences look as spectacular and feel as fresh as the first time you saw Arnold gun his Harley down the LA River in T2. If there were yet another award for Most Exciting 90 Seconds in a Single Player Game, Uncharted would have to be in the running for that too.

However, a game is made of more than just dialogue and short bursts of adrenaline (isn’t it?), so it’s only fair to look at the bigger picture. Never mind the occasional moments of cognitive dissonance (Has any man in history ever almost-but-not-quite fallen to his death, only to be saved by grabbing a friend’s hand at the last possible second, as often as Nathan Drake? Has any supposedly nice guy ever killed enough people over the course of a few days to fill a Tibetan mystery temple, and still come out the other end, not only not a psychological wreck, but chipper enough to make cute jokes and get the girl?). For better or worse, these are problems common to many games, and a topic for a much larger discussion.

No, Uncharted 2’s most troubling element is its approach to puzzles; the game has an apparent distaste for genuine problem-solving, or ever making the player stop and figure something out. And its an issue made even more troubling by the fact that many players may not see it as a problem at all.

To elaborate, let’s compare it quickly to a few other historical conspiracy adventures: fellow triple-A holiday release Assassin’s Creed II, and for argument’s sake, the wildly popular book The Da Vinci Code.

[Keep reading »]

side notes

Admit it. Half the time when making a top ten list for the year, by the seventh or eighth slot you’re starting to get generous. A few choices you ‘respect’ but didn’t enjoy that much if you’re being honest. A favorite artist’s latest work was sort of a let down. At least one gets put on solely for credibility. We all know it happens.

So at Under Culture we nixed the top tens, top fives, top nine of ‘09 or what have you. Instead, we sat down for an epic virtual discussion of our absolute favorites of the year — in every category we could think of covering movies, TV, games, books, comics, music, and more — and set about explaining why each one made the list. This way you know everything that shows up here really deserves it. If your favorite isn’t mentioned, maybe it’s because we didn’t get around to it. Or it came in a close second. Or you are simply wrong. If so, let us have it in the comments with your own choices.

Some of these we’ve probably discussed on our podcast too, but it helps to have all the best stuff collected in one place. If you’d like to hear about what we love on a monthly basis, why not subscribe to that while you’re here?

And because we can’t resist a bad pun, we’ve dubbed these awards The Undies. So here they are: three pages of our favorite shit from 2009, in the second annual Undie Awards.

[Keep reading »]

watching

I’ve never seen Survivor. The idea of sitting down to watch American Idol makes me cringe. Despite the Jersey Shore mania that has taken over in the past weeks, and the near-constant re-runs I keep scrolling past in the program guide, I refuse to succumb to the fad of guido-mockery.

Maybe because I remember watching MTV back at the beginning, when the first Real World set the ball in motion. Back when it was about casting an eclectic mix of interesting people and watching their ideals clash, long before it all went horribly wrong. Before they settled for hiring a bunch of fame-hungry, borderline-alcoholic airheads to yell at each other between swimming naked and screwing in front of night-vision cameras. Before it was accepted that one could find love on The Bachelor by winning a cut-throat contest against a score of desperate gold-diggers. Before people knew what a Kardashian or a Kendra was.

The point is, I seriously hate the current reality television machine.

I know plenty of people who can’t get enough though, and I’ve never understood it. Sure, there’s a voyeuristic pleasure in watching people argue or cry from a safe distance. But the way today’s shows create such artificial, manipulated drama isn’t satisfying. It’s mind-numbing, like a morphine button. Nothing is learned, gained, or created by anyone involved. It’s drama as sport: pure spectacle.

The central question I can’t answer is this: with such a parade of jackasses dominating television, how can anyone like these people enough to care about what happens to them? Is the American audience so low-brow that they genuinely relate to a bunch of shallow, mean attention whores constantly bickering? Or is it the opposite: are we all so insecure in ourselves that only the daily idiocies of the dregs of society can make us feel like worthwhile human beings in comparison?

What I’d much rather think is that the majority of us are better than that. That it’s easier to relate to smart people working hard perfecting a craft, and preferable to be inspired by our betters than reassured of our superiority to the worst among us. That’s why a few of the more successful, less offensive shows like Project Runway or Top Chef are at least watchable; they cast people who have talent and work at something more creative than douchey pick-up lines or the art of backstabbing. They have passion and drive. I may not care enough about designing cocktail dresses or pan-searing hors d’oeuvres to watch those shows religiously, but at least their existence doesn’t make me despair for the state of mankind.

……….

Then, to all our surprise and sudden fascination, in rolls 2010, with what may remain the best moments in reality television of this newly minted decade.

[Keep reading »]

watching

I don’t know about you, but I found Wanted to be a pretty big disappointment. Even as a big-budget spectacle, it was too uneven and unintentionally silly to be what it could have been, and what it should have focused on being: a lot of fun. Its attempts at Fight Club nihilism feel out of place, its turns into mysticism totally unnecessary (so wait, you’re telling me the world is controlled by a bunch of textile hobbyists?). Writers, director, whoever might be to blame: your movie is about superhuman assassins who can do crazy shit with guns and cars. If said movie isn’t 98% fun to watch, then the problem is not the concept, but the execution. It’s obvious that somewhere between Mark Millar’s original comic work and the film that followed, something was lost in translation.

But now a new crew is having a go at taking the dark and violent Millarverse to the big screen with Kick-Ass, out this April. And based on the clips so far, director Matthew Vaughn is taking the exact opposite angle on the project — which is to say the exact right angle — and just making this movie a hilariously twisted and brutal good time. It’s got a nerdy teen who thinks he can be a super-hero. A foul-mouthed tween named Hit Girl who seriously fucks up bad guys left and right with her plentiful blades and bullets. And a chance to make Nicholas Cage both likable and cool again — though maybe not quite enough to make up for Ghost Rider.

As we round out Oscar season and its year-end dump of serious award-bait flicks, it’s good to know that just around the corner are the next round of fun action-comedies; especially R-rated ones that don’t play it down for the kiddies. For now, this one is definitely at the top of the “can’t-wait” list for 2010.

To ease the wait though, check out this Kick-Ass widget full of trailers, posters, and other bloody goodness.

[Keep reading »]

side notes

On our last podcast we discussed what Paranormal Activity did right and what it could have done better. I was a fan of how it played on our fear of the unknown, and thought the vague sense of terror it created was the movie’s strongest point. Spencer, on the other hand, wanted more screen time given to the back story, suggesting that would have made it a better film, not just a string of fun scares.

Attempting to fill in some of those gaps is Paranormal Activity: The Search for Katie, an iTunes-exclusive comic that picks up where the film left off (found via io9).

Since we so recently debated whether the movie needed to elaborate on its core mythology (and the comic was only 99 cents to download), I decided to give it a look. Unfortunately, what you get for those 99 cents is flimsy and tangential instead of elucidating.

Complaining about a dollar comic may sound petulant, but at any price, one has to ask, “What does this supplemental work hope to accomplish?” If the intent was to fill out the story of the film, then 40 iPhone panels (which might equate to 10 printed pages), doesn’t offer much space to do it in. But even in this compact form, it could have elaborated on several questions the film didn’t answer. The story of Katie’s childhood trauma might have made for a strong short piece. What the two paranormal experts were doing that night, or have done in other cases like this one, would be interesting to find out. Either would expand the fiction in a way that’s germane to the movie that people saw and enjoyed.

How any rational person could interpret the popularity of this haunted-house movie into a desire for a CSI/X-Files hybrid spin-off, which is what the comic attempts to be, is simply puzzling. The story in The Search for Katie prompts more questions and introduces new characters instead of clarifying anything the movie left us wondering, and it shifts tonally from horror to supernatural noir. It also treats the events of the film like the crime that launches an investigation into something — of course — “much bigger than we thought”. Now the awesome scary movie we just saw is like the murder in an episode of Law & Order: over by the opening credits and followed by a lot of people talking about it. Oh, and there’s no actual searching for Katie either.

Essentially, it feels like either a cash grab — “Quick, this is popular, let’s find a way to rake in some micro-payments!” — or a misread on the part of the makers. You already made a popular horror movie; don’t turn it into a story of supernatural detectives tackling a demonic conspiracy. Or if you do, hold off until you have a real story to tell so fans have something more to buy into than just the hype. If from the beginning the movie had been conceived as a cool pilot episode to a new comic or TV series about demonology, it might have been genius; but then they should have put more of that element into the film. Trying to staple on extended plots after the fact just feels like exploitation.

The only save would be if future installments came included with the price, or got better and worth paying for as a real story developed. But even then, do we need future installments of a ghost chase thriller based on Paranormal Activity? Do we have to live in a world where anything that people respond to gets milked and leveraged and franchised to death and there’s no such thing as a self-contained creative work? Some people may have wanted more of the background to show up on the screen to fill out the story. Lots of people thought the film was perfectly successful at what it set out to do already.  This comic, sadly, doesn’t do much for fans in either camp.

playing

Modern Warfare 2 earns the title of fastest-selling game of all time. The team at Infinity Ward are among the most skilled action-game makers in the business, and their latest shooter is on par with any Hollywood blockbuster in terms of epic scale and moment-to-moment thrills. On the technical side, controlling your character is fluid and flawless in a way few games can match, and the presentation overall is stellar.

Then add to that a multi-player environment whose wealth of game types and unlockable rewards will keep players coming back for weeks and months to come. A mode that’s so good, in fact, that it’s the primary reason millions rushed out to buy the game; earning experience points to help trick out your soldier is so addictively fun it justifies a purchase all on its own. Taken together, in terms of both quality and quantity, the entertainment value of this disc easily exceeds what gamers get in an average sixty dollar package.

In essence, what this game does makes it a must-buy. But what this game says, and how it says it, is a much more fascinating question. Especially considering the record-breaking number of people playing it as we speak, possibly mindless to the messages it’s sending. [Full spoilers ahead, naturally.]

[Keep reading »]