tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69436924195403107872024-03-08T04:37:00.212-08:00The Love LettersThe Loverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16663755945185209454noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6943692419540310787.post-23582837441381846032012-08-29T13:19:00.000-07:002012-08-29T13:19:04.870-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The energy and impact of this scene is undeniable. Its placement in the narrative of the film as far as Officer Brian O'Connor's ambiguous and ambivalent concept of his own identity and loyalties is beautifully expressed in the different shots of him in different stages of taking the protective/concealing/anonymity projecting headgear on and off. There is a consistent lack of diagetic sound, we hear no sounds from the actual events on the screen, just the song, until one moment......immediately after the humiliating and public arrest of Johnny Tran at his home while eating dinner with his rather extended family, his father walks down the wall to his son, now on his knees being dragged away. Here we see the look of disgust in the eyes of the father and that of shame in the son's. This is the first time we see Johnny in a position of weakness, not physically (which he obviously is, having been cuffed), but egoistically. Let's face it, that looming fear of the father's disapproval is some classic and primal shit. And few things have the peg down knocking powers that does. And when Johnny's father slaps him across the face, we hear it. We hear nothing else besides the song this whole scene, but that slap pierces through the otherwise consistently obeyed established audio rules for this sequence. A father's disapproval can puncture the walls. </div>
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One of the core themes of the Fast and Furious films is the brotherhood and familial ties that are forged, especially in the absence of clear or present father figures, but more on fast and furious later....you bet your ass more on fast and furious later.</div>
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The Loverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16663755945185209454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6943692419540310787.post-42467276717441784972012-08-29T12:53:00.002-07:002012-08-29T12:53:35.100-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The next time your friend complains to you about the fact that you always take forever to leave the house when they come to pick you up I want you to show them this scene. The next time someone tries to rush you I want you to watch this scene. The next time you start to get mad at yourself because you always are forgetting things and have to go back home and delay yourself I want you to watch this scene. The next time you get nervous looking at the clock because you have to be somewhere but you're not quite ready and you're getting all mad at yourself because why the hell can't you ever get to places on time and every red light you hit makes you want to scream and you do scream I want you to watch this scene. The next time you're getting antsy because your friend is taking too long and how can they keep circling their room gathering things before they leave and they stop to look around and think about what they might be forgetting and you're just about to lose it I want you to watch this scene. The next time you feel like a loser because you're not quite where you want to be at in life and look at your shitty apartment and how is everyone else so ahead of you and there already and why are things taking longer for you I want you to watch this scene. The Loverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16663755945185209454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6943692419540310787.post-38795762191128085492012-08-29T12:40:00.001-07:002012-08-29T12:40:07.135-07:00Jade I: Noir, Chinatown, The Universe is Empty, and your brain wants you dead
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“You know what, be like David Caruso in Jade.”</div>
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“Ok…..I know exactly what you’re talking about.”</div>
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So there’s this part in the 40 year old virgin where seth
rogen is giving the virgin guy advice about how to act around women so that
they’ll be more inclined to sleep with him and so he won’t be a virgin anymore
and he says that ya gotta be a little bit of a dick and stuff like that then he
brings it home with the clarifying line above. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s funny because who the hell has actually
seen jade and who refs jade and who gets jade refs?? Right?? Ha!!!!</div>
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Well I’ve seen Jade. And let me tell you that that joke is
also great because it’s totally good advice. David Caruso as David Corelli is
the complete epitome of the attractive, calm, cool, noir hero. He cracks the wise
and he’s casual while being reprimanded by authority and he keeps his libido in
check and femme fatales have trouble swaying him and he’s a ginger on top of
everything! I mean, anyone can be a calm cool collected noir anti-hero if
you’re all tall like Bogart and all that kind of Robert Mitchum status or
something, but how many do it and do it RIGHT as a redhead? One. (And look, I’m
not saying redheads just couldn’t pull it off man I’m saying that the Hollywood
machine has seldom allowed for it because they don’t fit into the template that
Hollywood even created!!! and gimme a break.) This is just one of the things
that makes Jade special.</div>
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“Ever hear of the sixth amendment? He’s entitled to the best
council he can buy….I mean get.”</div>
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Usually in noir, our hero used to be involved in more
established detective work for the actual police force, but has become all
jaded (wait a minute….) and now works for himself and there’s some fun scene
wherein Sam spade or Jake Gittes or whoever runs into some old colleagues who
are still suckers working for the man and they have some fun back and forth.
Jade’s David Corelli is the Assistant District Attorney of San Francisco,
though after the events of the film, I wonder how long that’s gonna last. This
is a story of Corelli’s becoming jaded. Jade-ed. Jesus this film just keeps on
giving. </div>
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“If my name even shows up on the periphery of this, David,
you better get the fuck out of the state of California because you’ll have as
much future here as Jerry Brown.”</div>
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I once heard in some documentary about film noir that the
core ethos of the whole “genre” is the dialogue of the hero/victim (in noir
they’re the same person!) and the “universe” that goes something like:</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“why is this
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“no reason”</div>
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Yeah, see, of course nothing ever works out for you and of
course no matter how hard you struggle against the current, you end of failing
and shriveling up in the corner into a crumpled pile of your own weakness, this
much we know. But, if we could at least pinpoint a reason for this….if we could
point to a villain, without whom we would have succeeded, or maybe an
oppressive government, without which we could have been free to blossom or
SOMETHING. Our defeat might be a bit more palatable if we only had some insight
into its source…if someone was working against us, if the universe were
conspiring against us, just being aware of that order (twisted and hostile, but
still rational) might serve as somewhat of a consolation prize. But in the noir
(our) world, the real terror comes from the absence of any identifiable cause
to the madness. The universe doesn’t care enough about you to even bother being
against you. It has no idea you’re even here and doesn’t have any interest in
finding out. It is cold and it is nothing and that’s where we live. Sure, a
world full of nightmare experiences and pain is a horrible thing, but a world
where we can’t even trace the source or the cause, left only to assume that
that’s just what grows up from our own bullshit…well that’s some next level. And
Jade is some next level. </div>
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“There’s only three fun things in life, paeson…money, sex,
and power.”</div>
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There is no moral or principled thrust that is causing so
much mayhem and violence and sorrow in the noir universe. No matter what you
try to accomplish, you won’t and you’ll fail because life is pain. Like, maybe
you try to plan the perfect heist like in The Killing and everything that could
possibly go wrong does despite your using that wonderfully, beautifully logical
human brain of yours to predict all the angles. Or maybe you enter into a plot
to kill your girl’s husband and it turns out you were a pawn in her plan to
kill her husband and get his money and also kill you too. Good stuff, right? Then
again, maybe it’s all good and fine when shady yet likeable people try to get
what they want but end up losing out. Like, they probably shouldn’t have been
pulling these heists and killing husbands anyway….but there’s something weirdly
moralistic about that, considering how amoral and undirected and chaotic all
this noir action is supposed to be……the REAL good stuff is in the noir films
where the hero’s attempts to do some real good actually results in more harm
than would have been there in the first place. In the world gone MAD of film
noir, the attempt to do the right thing is almost immoral since it ends up
causing harm (depending on your view of blah blah blah). </div>
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This is some serious Chinatown territory “I tried to keep
someone from being hurt, and ended up making sure that she was hurt.” I mean
that’s the stuff right? What’s particularly tragic in Chinatown is that Jake is
already coming from a place of having misguidedly trying to help someone only
to lead her to her end BEFORE the events of the film even begin….. and yet he
does this AGAIN during the course of the film. Even though he seems to fancy
himself a self-aware, appropriately jaded private investigator, the re-jading
to take place will be so much more shattering and so much more hollowing. Sure,
Jake is aware of how shitty everyone is and how empty and cold the universe is
and all that fun stuff we love to feel shot down our throats by film noir, and
it’s just that confidence on his part that he’s seen it all that he’s been to
hell and back already so what the hell else could he possibly be surprised by
now but there’s more there’s a whole lot more. His vain faith in the protective
abilities of his own casual amorality and detachment is exactly what propels
him to believe he’s going to be able to navigate the unfolding mystery and save
the girl. Of course, he doesn’t, just like before, and he confronts an evil he
never encountered before (Noah Cross, John Huston, the father/rapist of the
girl he’s trying to save). Sure, he probably saw a lot of weak people do a lot
of horrible things and a lot of powerful people do a lot of oppressive things
but I don’t think he had met EVIL until Noah. And so he gets beaten down so
much further than before. It’s this re-jading of Jake that is so doubly tragic
and so completely shattering, and this whole thing already happened to him and
he thought he was now going about things more realistically and detached and
still, still, still……..Jake’s tragic and ultimately destructive flaw is his
drive to do good, to protect, and his belief in his own ability to bridge the
gap between use his own detective ingenuity and chops to get through the
labyrinth and master it. </div>
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“Cristal, beluga, wolfgang puck……it’s a fuckhouse.”</div>
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But Jade is some next level. It is not only A.D.A. Corelli’s
attempt to do good (and get to the bottom of the murder mystery spiraling out
of control all around him) that causes more harm, it is his very desire to do
good and his belief that he can, and you know what….it’s his old world
conceptualization of the universe as a superset of identifiable mysteries that
can be solved….. or, at least his faith in his faculties for perceiving such a
mystery (let alone being capable of solving it). Usually in these types of
murder mystery thriller things there’s a murder at the beginning and then some
detective figure gets on it and then more murders happen and the detective
keeps on it and chases leads and clues all over town and then the detective
finds those responsible and maybe puts them to justice or maybe not…….so if
it’s a “dark” movie maybe the killer gets away with it or something, but still
our detective knows who did it and all that wonderful logical detective work
was good for finding out at least what was going down (Chinatown)……even if it
didn’t result in some “justice” whatever the hell that is at this stage in the
game for the characters it’s kind of still reassuring and reaffirming just for
the audience when we see the detective process yielding an awareness of the big
picture…isn’t it great that with a little hard work and skill and brains we can
gain all this wonderful awareness of the puzzling world that surrounds us?
Stories of this ilk are typically like this….seemingly counter- and dark on one
level, but comforting and usual on this other….the victory of our logical
faculties….we may fail to do good but it’s because hey we live in that crazy
cold noir world! or because we were misled or manipulated! but we’re always in
the end aware of what’s been going on. In Chinatown (produced, like Jade, by
mack daddy Robert Evans), Jake does end up getting to the bottom of everything
and was right in following a few of his hunches and did some smart detective
work that often rewarded him with insight about the bigger picture, and he was
correct in perceiving that there was a mystery that he could dive into and bust
open. His tragic flaw is the belief that he can do anything about it, not that
he can perceive it……</div>
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“You’re going to tell your attorney that I have pictures of
you fucking the governor of California and then you’re going to tell him that
those pictures are going to ruin the governor’s career…..and you know what’s
going to happen then, Patrice? Your attorney is going to tell you to go fuck
yourself and hang up on you.”</div>
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Okay. So. Gonna be some “spoilers” here bout Jade. The film
begins with a murder. David Corelli attempts to figure out who’s behind it, and
for why. As he investigates there are more murders. This is pretty S.O.P. for a
story of this type…..in the end we’ll find out who was responsible for all the
killings and maybe they’ll be put to justice, maybe not, whatever. But, no, in
Jade it turns out Corelli’s investigation after the initial murder was the
impetus for the film’s other murders, perpetrated by other figures not
connected to the original murderer, for completely different reasons. David was
just doin the detective thing after that first murder…interviewing people who
seemed to be acquainted with the victim, going over crime scenes, following up
on “clues,” all that good stuff that when combined with the mighty logical
powers of the mighty human brain will culminate in a satisfying, and just
result. Except during David’s investigation, he makes a few other people
nervous that he’s going to uncover and expose certain other bad things that
they’ve done. These people had nothing to do with the murder he’s
investigating, but they proceed to start knocking off a few other people to
prevent David from getting closer to them. As these killings pile up, our hero
believes himself to be chasing down a single murderer (or at least a united
front of murderers) through a directed plot. What is the connection, and who is
behind all this? He believes himself to be gaining gradual insight into the big
picture of a series of connected murders with a unified motive and perpetrator.
He believes himself to be detached and looking in from the outside, just like
we all believe our wonderful brains are somehow detached from our
bodies/emotions/urges and can somehow give us some objective insight into the
true nature of things. But the brain is down in there in the shit with
everything else mucking around, and David Corelli is down there at the center
of this chaotically exploding pastiche of murders….he’s even indirectly the
cause of most of them. The closing showdown sequence at the Gavin mansion
between Corelli features an almost comically increasing number of murderers
(characters from different, previously unconnected parts of the narrative).</div>
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David never learns of the true nature of the original murder
(though he tragically believes he has it figured out, resigning himself to be
powerless to put those responsible to justice), but we do….and it is of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>genesis of pure, frightening, irrational,
passionate rage. There is little it has to do with the more rationally
motivated killings to follow, In Jade, it is the underestimation of the role of
these “uncontrollable urges” and the prioritization of the belief in a logical,
overriding superstructure that causes the most harm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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More on Jade to come! Still have to get to the film’s visual
style and “motifs,” its placement in the oeuvre of director William Friedkin
(The Exorcist, Bug, Killer Joe) and of writer Joe Ezsterhas (Basic Instinct,
Showgirls), the post-feminist recontextualization of the femme fatale trope,
the film’s thematic and visual proto-ness to Eyes Wide Shut, the Rites of
Spring, the over marginalization of Asian culture, its placement in a series of
latter day 90s neo-noirs, and the literally nonexistent discussion of any
merits of this film. But for now let’s take a break…..I mean jesus am I right?</div>
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The Loverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16663755945185209454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6943692419540310787.post-87792860140204838332012-08-10T19:18:00.002-07:002012-08-10T19:20:01.320-07:00Starship Troopers<br />
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“<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">This year in history, we talked about the failure of democracy, how
the social scientists of the 21st Century brought our world to the brink of
chaos. We talked about the veterans, how they took control and imposed the
stability that has lasted for generations since.”</span></div>
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…..the over-the-top, larger-than-life pulpy cinematic vision
of Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoven who manages to both epitomize and satirize American
action genre tropes…abiding by the formula while simultaneously pushing it to
its logical/absurdist conclusion? The pitch perfect performances of its cast?
Were Casper van Dien and Jake Busey and Denise Richards and Dina Meyer entitled
to an appreciation or awareness of the satirical agenda of the film? Are they
able to play it so straight because that’s what it was for them? How this film
came out at that magic time after Neil Patrick Harris was a household icon but
before he became self-aware and started to consciously capitalize on his
post-stardom persona (between Doogie Howser and Harold and Kumar)? The score by
Basil Poledouris is triumphant and magical and militaristic and wonderful. His
daughter Zoe sings two amazing songs during the high school dance sequence, one
of which is a cover of the Bowie/Eno track “I Have not Been to Oxford town,”
which appears on their latter day collaboration from 1995!! Jeez I’d love to
just write about that soundtrack choice….the fact that the setting is Buenos
Aires and every character has a last name of Hispanic origin, yet we mostly see
Aryans everywhere, the quietly established world domination of the white, western
world………</div>
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It is not my aim to clutter up this review with plot
summaries or snap judgments (both of which seem to comprise the vast majority
of film “journalism” at this point), but to share some of the reflections I
have of the film at this moment in my life….it’s pretty much all I can honestly
do…..if you already like the film, maybe this will deepen your appreciation for
it….if you don’t, maybe this will make you reconsider….if you haven’t seen the
film, maybe this’ll pique your interest……</div>
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Starship Troopers has been a huge part of my experience with
cinema since I first saw it at the age of 12 (and has definitely shaped the way
I look at films today). Of course, back then all me and my friends knew to say
about it was just how cool the bugs were, how great it was to see Diz’s
breasts, maybe how funny the “do you want to know more” stuff was…..I don’t
know, did I even get that back then? Phil Tippet (the special effects artist
whose team created the bugs for the film) has said that their mistake was
making a rated R kids movie. And let’s face it….few films have been able to
instantly capture the hearts of pre-adolescent males than this one. It was such
a shock to me years later when I began to realize that the film had a negative
reputation. Everyone in my world thought it was amazing!! I just member when
the guy and the girl are about to have sex and then the guy’s boss comes in and
says “you gotta be on duty in ten minutes” and then he sees that the guy’s with
the girl whose boobs we just saw and then he says “make it twenty minutes”
haha!</div>
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But this is selling it short. Insultingly short. One of the
amazing things about Starship Troopers is its ability to exist in multiple
cinematic planes of analysis and interpretation. It simultaneously is a rated R
kids movie (and a remarkably successful and complete one), while being a brilliantly
sophisticated satire of capitalism/imperialism, WHILE ALSO being a poignant
musing on the tragic lack of any sort of agency and awareness we have as
individuals in our society. </div>
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The satirical agenda of the film at this point has been
pretty well discussed. At first, no one seemed to notice that about the film,
probably because no one who would think about things like that bothered to see
the film. People seem to have a lot of unselfconscious faith in the judgment of
the advertisers and marketing teams that oversee the distribution of
films…..it’s weird, but when we sense a film is being marketed to a demographic
that’s not us, we won’t go. We all seem to be really eager to fall in line with
the demographic delineations that have been set forth for us by our corporate
dogwalkers. I just want you all to know that those demographic concepts were
made up and imposed on us to make it easier for studios to most easily maximize
the audience profits for their movies……that’s not us. That’s not who we are. We
can watch anything we want and approach it with any set of expectations we
choose! It’s sad because for most viewers, when they approach a film assuming
it’s going to be “dumb” they don’t look for anything smart and so they don’t
see anything smart. It spits back at you the assumptions you brought with you.
It’s time to cut that out.</div>
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Especially unfortunate about the satire of the film being
ignored and maybe even unnoticed is that it is directed by Paul Verhoven, whose
films are often said to be all satires, but that is an oversimplification. The
satire is baked into the bones of his filmic universe so much that there is
never a time when he winks at us, reassuring us that this is a joke. The
commentary we attribute to him seems to have been put into place so early in
development that the finished products all read as sincerely believing the
doctrines they are attacking. He and screenwriter Ed Neumeier collaborated ten
years prior on Robocop, a film that sports many of the same strengths as
Starship Troopers but which enjoys more street cred and benefits of the doubt
as far as its intelligence and its “it meant to do that” badge…..</div>
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The news clip “Everyone is Doing Their Part!” showing a
group of kids gleefully and forcefully squashing a bunch of terran bugs….the
mother maniacally laughing and cheering them on. I mean, that single image is
pretty much in a nutshell not only the fervor with which we are primed to hate
our enemies but how we treat those near us who seem to have some loose relation
to them…..ethnically, religiously, species-ly.</div>
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Less confident satires put the audience in the position of
pure observers….there is a strict division between us and the characters. This
makes it easier for us to feel superior and smarter than they are as well as
the society that victimizes them. But here, we are right in there with
them….one of the most admirable achievements of the film is its ability to
seduce us into the ideology of the society it satirizes…without directly
addressing that. There is this dual (at LEAST dual) experience of watching
Starship Troopers that’s part awareness of the satire and part succumbing to
that which is satirized. This is why the film is so successful even for kids
and kid-adults who don’t know about/don’t give a shit about the more
sophisticated elements at work. It is both. It is all. Even though it is
officially disgusting how completely the state has brainwashed its population, it
is a downright GLEEFUL experience when Johnny Rico blows up the giant beetle.……</div>
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like, he jumps on top of it and shoots his automatic rifle
into the shell and it makes a hole and he throws a grenade in the hole and it
makes this great sploosh sound and its like a pool of blood under that shell
and then he jumps off and turns around so he’s not even looking at the giant
explosion of the beetle and then I think that’s when he gets promoted by
Rasczak “till he dies or they find someone better” which he’s so happy about
cause he made the cut for now but he’s no one special cause you’re only
rewarded insofar as you can provide for the state and there’s nothing more
exhilarating than being rewarded by your superiors/father figures in that
fascist (but the good kind!) conditional way cause you know it’s fair and
structured and you measure up to the standards for now but you gotta keep
getting better and producing more for the good of everything</div>
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There are no characters in the movie who oppose the
oppressors. There is no underground. There is no resistance. There is no
brotherhood. The propaganda has been so successful and so all-encompassing that
there is no citizen OR civilian (important distinction in the film) who ever
voices any dissenting views. Usually these characters are important to have
because they’re what the audience is to identify with. Everyone who comes to
the movies to feel smart like to be able to relate to the characters who stand
up against tyranny and injustice and those who perpetrate it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We all have this bizarre belief that
those are the ones who represent us! That if there were serious injustice, we
all would somehow be one of the few throughout history who have dared to risk
anything let alone their lives to change things. Meanwhile in real life we’re
all just going along just trying to get through the day and take care of our
own shit, who is really sparing one second to truly stand up to these
oppressive structures, either on behalf of others or even ourselves? In
Starship Troopers we are supplied with no characters like this. These people
don’t exist in this film’s universe. Everyone is on board. The closest we get
is Johnny’s wealthy parents, whose comfortable financial situation has released
them from the necessity to strive for the benefits of citizenship (a privilege
awarded to those who enlist in military service). They don’t want Johnny to
join the fight not out of any political stance, but out of their desire to
spare their son the dangers of service, and perhaps to maintain their family’s
and family name’s high standing. “You’re going to Harvard and that’s the end of
it!” </div>
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Johnny’s father’s casual remark “I’d rather take ten lashes
in public square than see you ruin your life” has no tinge of irony, and no
hint of opposition to such brutal law enforcement. He merely cites it as an ordinary
fact of their existence, so ultimate and complete has been his indoctrination
and familiarization with the day-to-day life under fascism. </div>
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We never see one of these public lashings. Johnny is
disciplined during boot camp, but there is no imagery of police brutalizing its
populace and the like, which is more or less S.O.P. for a film dealing with
fascism. Such shocking imagery is useful to guide the audience into being
appalled at the government’s policies, but also allows us to divorce that which
we see in the film from our own experiences and our own government. ~Thank god
it’s not quite that bad for us, we get to think. Or maybe, this is where we are
headed, we gotta make sure we don’t get there. Or, this goes on sometimes and
some places, but we should be grateful it’s not right here and now. ~</div>
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There is no need for the government in Starship Troopers to
be so overtly brutal because the indoctrination of the citizenship has been so
thorough. Everyone just seems to already be making the decisions in accordance
with the needs of the state, because everyone has been gotten to from the
beginning in ideological terms. A fascist government can safely award its
people with freedoms when they are assured the people will “choose” to obey
anyway. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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There is also no depiction of evil, power-hungry leaders,
who pull all the strings out of their own insatiable greed…another staple of
films of this ilk. This provides the audience with a personified villain,
someone to hate, someone that if we could just get rid of them this might all
be okay. But the structure of Starship Troopers doesn’t seem to have anyone on
top. Even the Sky Marshall (the highest rank we see) voluntarily steps down out
of the shame of letting down his people and is replaced by another. Everyone is
a cog in the machine. The system itself is self-contained and self-sustained.
It is the society as it is built that is oppressive….everyone is merely doing
their jobs and is damned excited to do it. Who are we to relate to and who are
we to point the fingers at? </div>
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This is a society where there is no need for a military
draft because there is an abundance of civilians who have been so thoroughly
brainwashed that they WANT to sign up. There are too many, even. Most don’t
make the cut. Most aren’t good enough. In the film’s boot camp sequence, those
recruits who may be feeling unsure are encouraged to drop out, with no
consequences, other than the obvious relinquishing of citizenship and the
(probably more compelling) shame that comes with not being able to measure up
to the standards of the society. </div>
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Starship Troopers shows us what a society looks like when
everyone is happy and patriotic and chooses what they want to do on a daily
basis, while at the same time enjoying no true freedom and without ever having
had a say in the trajectory of their lives or even their own thoughts.</div>
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It’s also fun to consider the source material, a novel by
Robert Heinlein (Stranger in a Strange Land), that actually IS fascist. The
film’s playing fascism completely straight functions as a deeper and more
sophisticated satire than is often seen sure, BUT the book plays it straight
because it IS completely straight! Heinlein meant it! The book is a complete
endorsement of society being structured in this way and almost reads like a
blueprint of an ideal, militarized world where everything runs like a perfect
machine and oh what a wonderful world that would be. I was once laughed at by a
group of people for liking the movie over the book because “the book is
actually really smart but the movie’s just a dumb action movie haha.” Pretty
sure only one person in the group had actually read the novel, and the rest
were following suit and don’t get me wrong…that’s usually a perfectly accurate,
perfectly safe thing to say…..you’ll never not make friends at a party by
whining about how some movie wasn’t as good as the book and how dumb Hollywood
is but in the case of Starship Troopers it could not be less true. Seriously,
it couldn’t. The novel is adapted almost as a secondary source, a notch or two
below what Cronenberg tried for with Naked Lunch…..the film is a translation of
the plot and some characters in the book yeah, but it functions as a response
to the<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>ideas it contains, ideas
which the book sincerely endorses. The movie and book are in dialogue with each
other, and one could even say that the fascism promoted in Heinlein’s vision is
such the picture of insanity that the very act of depicting it on the screen
inherently implies satire….authors can get us to buy into all sorts things when
they’re pulling all the strings, but an image has an identity all its own.</div>
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The novel’s structure is more or less traced for the
film….we get a nice boot camp sequence, then our heroes are sent out to kill
the bugs. But the film adds a surprisingly lengthy introductory segment where
we see our characters finishing up high school. They play football, go to
dances, and just goof around. The time the film takes to establish these
characters’ youth and thus naïveté is pretty standard for a war satire…..THESE
ARE JUST KIDS these commentaries always hammer away. But what’s great about
Starship Troopers is the constant referring back to high school angst and emotions
to fuel the rest of the plot….Johnny joins the service in order to follow his
sweetie, he is able to earn the respect of his superiors in boot camp by
replicating moves he learned on the football field. Not only has society been
grooming the youth to grow up to become soldiers and perfect followers of the
state from the beginning, but these kids’ personal feelings of love are all
used to guide them right to where the state needs them to be……just….perfect.</div>
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The way the news/war propaganda media is constantly
interrupting the narrative…it just permeates the experience of the movie….never
dropping off up through the end. The voice of the state/media is a constant
force throughout. And its never contextualized into the logic of a scene….like,
we don’t see any characters actually watching these broadcasts….we’re the ones
made to watch them. We are right in there with the characters in this
society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are asked “would you
like to know more” with the option to click on additional related “news” items.
We even see a cursor move around the screen and select which stories we want to
know more about. It is selected for us, but it selects the ones we were gonna
ask about anyway……</div>
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When I watch Starship Troopers, I mourn the utter lack of
true agency in anyone’s life, I laugh at the ridiculous over the top satire of
this cartoonish war machine, and I genuinely and gung-ho-ly root for our heroes
victory over the bugs…..all at the same time…and that is the film’s true
success.</div>
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<br />
<br />
With Love.</div>
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<br /></div>The Loverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16663755945185209454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6943692419540310787.post-48346645339414015222012-08-10T19:18:00.000-07:002012-08-10T19:18:24.041-07:00It's time.<br />
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Whenever one of us lovers makes the mistake of letting on
that we are “really into movies,” that horrible question we dread is sure to
show its ugly face……</div>
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So, what’s your favorite movie?!?!?</div>
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What the hell is that supposed to mean? Are they asking out
of a genuine interest in your personal aesthetic? Are they testing you to see
if you’re smart enough and aware of the “right” movies? Are they just being
nice? </div>
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Usually when confronted with this, we babble something about
how it depends on our mood and how there are a lot of movies that we love and
then we end up saying something ridiculous like Citizen Kane or Vertigo or
Nights of Cabiria or something that has been officiated and canonized and
completely safe. Just so for the record everyone knows that we’re aware of the
classics and “actually do love them” or something. We’re smart enough and you
can trust us. We want to be the authority you come to for recommendations and
for help making up your mind on something you “don’t know how to feel about.”
We yearn for that niche in the clique. And we’ll fight to maintain that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And establishing that we’re in tune
with the canon that has been handed down from on high is a quick way to that
seat. </div>
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Look at any reputable critic’s (or movie “fan’s” for that
matter) top ten list and you pretty much see the same films over and over
again. There seems to be just a group of thirty or forty movies that one is
permitted to select ten from to make “your” list. A few films from the big boys
of the good ole days (Renoir, Kurosawa, Tarkovsky, Fellini, Truffaut, Bergman,
Godard, Hitchcock…..something from their golden, middle period…nothing too late
or shocking), a few from the 70s canonized bros (some Coppola, Scorsese, and
Altman will you do fine here….),<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>and once you’ve established that you’re legit and actually like what
you’ve always been told to like by those who came before you’re sometimes
entitled you finally pick one “fun” one to cap off the list and make it your
own! Maybe some 90s “guilty pleasure” that everyone agrees on or
something…Clueless, maybe? </div>
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Ugh. </div>
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Fuck. That. </div>
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You don’t need to prove anything to these people. These
haters. They’re smirking just waiting for you to say you like something that’s
been rejected by the established critical media empire just so they can deduce
that you’re after all just another drooling popcorn swallower like everyone
else. </div>
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Too many of us for too long have felt pressure to learn and
adapt to the guidelines of what makes a movie “good” or “bad,” and just fall in
line, joining the screaming chorus that’s been singing the same old song for
decades now. It is time to for us to examine what actually made us fall in love
with movies from the beginning and actually reflect on what they do for us on a
PERSONAL level. Statements like “It was really dumb but I liked it” need to be
dispensed with. You don’t need to purchase the right to like something by
alerting everyone to the fact that you “know it’s dumb.” It’s not dumb. </div>
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You’re a beautiful goddamned starfish, and no one is like
you and what you find beautiful and exciting and resonant in individual films
is a reflection of you as a unique person, with a specific set of experiences
and emotions and views and resentments and jealousies and romances and dreams
and fears and insecurities and hates and loves. The movies you love are the
ones that best express to the world who you are. I know that at the end of the
day we’re talking about products of studio systems masterminded by evil one
percenters who just cynically throw us shit they know we’ll “eat up,” and blah
blah blah but it’s us lovers who can make these product placement vehicles so
much more. </div>
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I’ve decided that instead of going off on the above rant
whenever asked about what my favorite movie is I should just have an answer
ready to give that best introduces people to what I find exciting about film,
and from there maybe we can actually have a new conversation about our own
individual takes on what makes cinema special, not just spray spiddle
everywhere while we talk about how they don’t make movies like the classics
anymore and how Michael bay sucks or whatever other conversations people just
seem to want to have over and over again. Let’s have a new conversation. </div>The Loverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16663755945185209454noreply@blogger.com2