2.28.2004
once upon a time in mexico
ok, you're all gonna fight me on this one, but i have to say i enjoyed robert rodriguez's once upon a time in mexico. yeah, yeah, it's not great or anything, but i still fell for it. and to make matters worse, i have to also admit that i like desperado better than el mariachi, and maybe his underrated teen flick the faculty best of all.
i think rodriguez is "mainstream" in the best sense of the word. the way howard hawks was, i guess, in his time. rodriguez doesn't even have the love-of-schlock mentality of john waters or troma or something like that, which i would argue has generated a kind of bizarro "high art" status in spite of itself (note the artsy street cred of a flick like battle royale for example). rodriguez makes big, fun movies. he's lost all concern with with being dirty or provocative at this point-- the violence here is waaay tamer than that of desperado-- and he's sacrificed none of the momentum from his earlier, more underground fare in the process. it's very clear he's enjoying himself. i felt as if i could sense the fun he was having making this movie, which is why i enjoyed it myself. of course, the presence of botox nightmare mickey rourke (chihuahua in hand) didn't exactly hurt...
still, it's essentially a big mess... 600 subplots... too little screentime devoted to the campy goodness of banderas (too say nothing of the neglected, humanizing presence of ruben blades)... weird, unsatisfying action... too much screentime to the usually admirable johnny depp (he is HAM CITY in this one, and not in that fun pirate movie sort of way)...
and then there's the near inexcusable presence of enrique iglesias, which could have provided some of the finest wink-wink moments of the whole deal, but instead is every bit as lame as it sounds.
but i liked it despite all of this. make popcorn.
i think rodriguez is "mainstream" in the best sense of the word. the way howard hawks was, i guess, in his time. rodriguez doesn't even have the love-of-schlock mentality of john waters or troma or something like that, which i would argue has generated a kind of bizarro "high art" status in spite of itself (note the artsy street cred of a flick like battle royale for example). rodriguez makes big, fun movies. he's lost all concern with with being dirty or provocative at this point-- the violence here is waaay tamer than that of desperado-- and he's sacrificed none of the momentum from his earlier, more underground fare in the process. it's very clear he's enjoying himself. i felt as if i could sense the fun he was having making this movie, which is why i enjoyed it myself. of course, the presence of botox nightmare mickey rourke (chihuahua in hand) didn't exactly hurt...
still, it's essentially a big mess... 600 subplots... too little screentime devoted to the campy goodness of banderas (too say nothing of the neglected, humanizing presence of ruben blades)... weird, unsatisfying action... too much screentime to the usually admirable johnny depp (he is HAM CITY in this one, and not in that fun pirate movie sort of way)...
and then there's the near inexcusable presence of enrique iglesias, which could have provided some of the finest wink-wink moments of the whole deal, but instead is every bit as lame as it sounds.
but i liked it despite all of this. make popcorn.
2.24.2004
kerry on haiti
ok, folks... here's another news-sample-entry... kerry has just suggested that if he were in office, he would consider intervention in haiti. this is from a NYtimes story:
He said that if he were president, he would be pressing Haitian rebels to back off their goal of toppling Mr. Aristide, perhaps by threatening the deployment of an international peacekeeping force.
"I think you've got to be real and threatening," he said. His message to the rebels, he said, would be: "You're not going to take over, you're not kicking him out, this democracy is going to be sustained, we're willing to put in a new government, new prime minister, we're willing to work with you, but you're not going to succeed in your goal of exiling" Mr. Aristide. "And unless that's clear, you can't necessarily stop it in its tracks."
there is, in this admittedly tiny sound-bite (my second in a row... apologies), a kind of language that bothers me-- i.e. "we're willing to put in a new government". isn't this the same sort of brutish assumption of sovereignity utilized by rumsfeld, etc. during the war in iraq???
perhaps the biggest question in my brain in the wake of the iraq fiasco is the one of "intervention." the past few years have got me thinking more and more about the u.s. as part of a global picture, and this issue seems to me to be amazingly complex. it is also blurring the boundaries of right/left in a confusing, occasionally alienating way.
i don't know enough about haiti to have a bold opinion about whether or not intervention would be a good idea (i felt the same way about the issue of charles taylor in liberia). i know too little of the stakes of american interest in the region. but as the "world's only superpower," as the self-congratulatory phrasing goes, it seems to me that the issue of aid and intervention is in need of far greater debate.
the majority of the left-leaning publications i turn to (the nation, z-net, tompaine) all seem to lack a clear plan on this issue, and instead focus on criticism of our foreign policy decisions in the past, and the reprehensible lack of humanitarian funding of the present (whether it is towards fighting aids, rebuilding afghanistan, providing doctors and medical care... the list goes on). what emerges, at its worst, resembles a kind of old-right isolationism, albeit with less xenophobic sentiments in mind. an isolationism of good intentions, perhaps.
(i'm stealing that last thought, by the way, at least partially from "liberal hawk" christopher hitchens. while i ultimately don't agree with him in the least, his bitchy two-cents on these issues are extremely informative.)
at any rate, i'd like to leave this post as a question... i'm wondering what people's thoughts are on this??? when and where are interventions of this sort justified??
also, in a larger sense, if anyone knows of any resources to help mobilize change in our foreign aid policies, i'd love to hear them (perhaps future posts will share such discoveries). too often, the old criticism-of-foreign-policy approach comes as an afterthought (consider how democratic candidates today are debating the war in iraq as if it hasn't already occurred). as a citizen, i'm curious to find out where concern and dissent are needed, prior to disaster.
He said that if he were president, he would be pressing Haitian rebels to back off their goal of toppling Mr. Aristide, perhaps by threatening the deployment of an international peacekeeping force.
"I think you've got to be real and threatening," he said. His message to the rebels, he said, would be: "You're not going to take over, you're not kicking him out, this democracy is going to be sustained, we're willing to put in a new government, new prime minister, we're willing to work with you, but you're not going to succeed in your goal of exiling" Mr. Aristide. "And unless that's clear, you can't necessarily stop it in its tracks."
there is, in this admittedly tiny sound-bite (my second in a row... apologies), a kind of language that bothers me-- i.e. "we're willing to put in a new government". isn't this the same sort of brutish assumption of sovereignity utilized by rumsfeld, etc. during the war in iraq???
perhaps the biggest question in my brain in the wake of the iraq fiasco is the one of "intervention." the past few years have got me thinking more and more about the u.s. as part of a global picture, and this issue seems to me to be amazingly complex. it is also blurring the boundaries of right/left in a confusing, occasionally alienating way.
i don't know enough about haiti to have a bold opinion about whether or not intervention would be a good idea (i felt the same way about the issue of charles taylor in liberia). i know too little of the stakes of american interest in the region. but as the "world's only superpower," as the self-congratulatory phrasing goes, it seems to me that the issue of aid and intervention is in need of far greater debate.
the majority of the left-leaning publications i turn to (the nation, z-net, tompaine) all seem to lack a clear plan on this issue, and instead focus on criticism of our foreign policy decisions in the past, and the reprehensible lack of humanitarian funding of the present (whether it is towards fighting aids, rebuilding afghanistan, providing doctors and medical care... the list goes on). what emerges, at its worst, resembles a kind of old-right isolationism, albeit with less xenophobic sentiments in mind. an isolationism of good intentions, perhaps.
(i'm stealing that last thought, by the way, at least partially from "liberal hawk" christopher hitchens. while i ultimately don't agree with him in the least, his bitchy two-cents on these issues are extremely informative.)
at any rate, i'd like to leave this post as a question... i'm wondering what people's thoughts are on this??? when and where are interventions of this sort justified??
also, in a larger sense, if anyone knows of any resources to help mobilize change in our foreign aid policies, i'd love to hear them (perhaps future posts will share such discoveries). too often, the old criticism-of-foreign-policy approach comes as an afterthought (consider how democratic candidates today are debating the war in iraq as if it hasn't already occurred). as a citizen, i'm curious to find out where concern and dissent are needed, prior to disaster.
ahh-nuld on gay marriage
i was reading a few things tonight about gay marriage in san fran, and i'm realizing i need to read more. funny how there are so many boiling culture wars right now-- certainly the election is bound to be one, to say nothing of michael moore or bill o'reilly or mel gibson or or or or or....
anyway, here's a bit from a recent yahoo article on the subject... man, is that arnold ever surreal...
On Sunday, Schwarzenegger said he was worried about the potential for violence because of the controversial marriages.
"All of a sudden we see riots and we see protests and we see people clashing. The next thing we know is there's injured or there's dead people," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
i don't know which is more absurd... the miserable grammar or the blatant absurdity of such paranoia. its funny how blatant fucking bigotry can permeate political discourse as long as it's dressed up with a line or two about "sensitivity to lifestyle choices," or what have you. i mean, he is actually implying that gay marriage will result in death. what planet am i living on????
here in philly, in the past month alone, i have avoided ***actual human crap*** on the subway two seperate times. i miss california dearly. but i miss it a whole hell of a lot less when i think about that musclehead in office...
anyway, here's a bit from a recent yahoo article on the subject... man, is that arnold ever surreal...
On Sunday, Schwarzenegger said he was worried about the potential for violence because of the controversial marriages.
"All of a sudden we see riots and we see protests and we see people clashing. The next thing we know is there's injured or there's dead people," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
i don't know which is more absurd... the miserable grammar or the blatant absurdity of such paranoia. its funny how blatant fucking bigotry can permeate political discourse as long as it's dressed up with a line or two about "sensitivity to lifestyle choices," or what have you. i mean, he is actually implying that gay marriage will result in death. what planet am i living on????
here in philly, in the past month alone, i have avoided ***actual human crap*** on the subway two seperate times. i miss california dearly. but i miss it a whole hell of a lot less when i think about that musclehead in office...
2.22.2004
frog eyes
i've just listened to the golden river, a record by the band frog eyes, two times in a row on the way home from work. and i must say it's the most exciting music i've heard in a while...
the album uses as its raw materials the rock clichés i inevitably fall for: charismatic lead singer, drama and bombast in the structures/delivery, hooky turns, passionate howlings... the stuff, in essence, of great unsubtle rock music. think led zeppelin.
but then they put all these ingredients through the blender. the result, let's say, is a weird exquisite corpse of ziggy stardust and captain beefheart records. or something like that. it's aggressively daring, without succumbing to the passive, artsy pleasant-ness of "interesting" music. it makes me want to think and shake at the same time.
does that make any sense???
one of the peculiar glam-rock-reversals that make this album so exciting is the way that the guitars take a backseat in the mix. they occupy a position more akin to the bass in a typical rock song (laying a groundwork, etc.), and, instead, the focus is on vocals and drums. i'm not sure if i can convey this-- it's one of my favorite things about the record-- but somehow the drums and the vocals sound the same. they seem to be in a kind of otherworldy unison with each other, slipping and sliding around bits and pieces of bowie's hunky dory. this is great stuff, folks. check it out.
the album uses as its raw materials the rock clichés i inevitably fall for: charismatic lead singer, drama and bombast in the structures/delivery, hooky turns, passionate howlings... the stuff, in essence, of great unsubtle rock music. think led zeppelin.
but then they put all these ingredients through the blender. the result, let's say, is a weird exquisite corpse of ziggy stardust and captain beefheart records. or something like that. it's aggressively daring, without succumbing to the passive, artsy pleasant-ness of "interesting" music. it makes me want to think and shake at the same time.
does that make any sense???
one of the peculiar glam-rock-reversals that make this album so exciting is the way that the guitars take a backseat in the mix. they occupy a position more akin to the bass in a typical rock song (laying a groundwork, etc.), and, instead, the focus is on vocals and drums. i'm not sure if i can convey this-- it's one of my favorite things about the record-- but somehow the drums and the vocals sound the same. they seem to be in a kind of otherworldy unison with each other, slipping and sliding around bits and pieces of bowie's hunky dory. this is great stuff, folks. check it out.
