In the last month or so, I have seen two bloody, gory, sickeningly violent movies, one of which I loved (Inglourious Basterds) and one of which I hated (District 9). I spent a good amount of my theatre-going time buried in my husband's shoulder, and during both films I briefly considered Walking Out.* Then later I made a solemn vow which came back to bite me in the ass. Won't you read on??

The violence in Inglourious Basterds is typically Tarantino - gratuitous and shocking-on-purpose - but underneath it was such a pretty, clever story that I forgot about a lot of it, like it was limp lettuce and a mealy tomato before an excellent dinner. I try to hate Tarantino. It's not clear to me why, unless it's because I can't stand listening to him talk, but I usually end up being all captivated and whatnot. It's the isolated quirky elements that end up bugging me almost more than somebody beating someone else's head in with a baseball bat in a sequence that is two minutes longer than it needs to be. He's always throwing in titles and narration where they don't belong, in an effort to show how much he treasures his influences, I imagine. Sometimes it works for me, sometimes it doesn't. In Inglourious Basterds, it doesn't work, but I'll put it aside with the lettuce and tomato - a too-thick slice of yellow onion. It was there, and I bit into it hopefully, but my disappointment with it was forgotten when I tasted the main course. These onion moments ALMOST bother me more than the grossness, but not quite. Well, I should say, not as much as the miggles** that erupt all around every time someone's head explodes in a shower of brain and skull and scalp. They even laughed during the scene in which Hitler laughs at a violent movie (though inwardly, I'm sure, they were dealing with some really troubling self-comparisons that are sure to have kept them up late that night.)

District 9, guys, was stupidly the exact opposite. The film began with a neat allegorical premise (aliens, deposited in Johannesburg through no fault of their own, are hated by everyone else, who think they're pretty gross, so they get stuck in their own ghetto, aaand we have Apartheid.) (Although you gotta wonder about the implications of this - the aliens, except one guy who has big Wall-E eyes and is therefore acceptable, are pretty much made out to be worthy of everyone's hatred and disgust). Half false documentary, the film could have been something special, but instead it leaned farther and farther into the action/thrills genre until it stumbled over the line and became a sci-fi action flick.

So anyway, after all the chunks of alien/human meat flying around all the time, I swore off violent movies for awhile. Instead, I've been devoting every spare second to watching the BBC television phenomenon, Monarch of the Glen. It's a sprightly show about a young Scottish guy who is sort of thrown into managing his family estate. Every episode ends satisfyingly, there are one or two seriously good jokes, and I enjoy the rampant sexual tension between just about everybody. Plus I get to see beautiful highland scenery (every scene is shot before some kind of fantastic waterfall, it feels like), beautiful highland guys, and hilarious archetypes of old, rich aristocrats. Best of all, nobody's body explodes before my eyes! Win/win!

Unfortunately, I watched about ten episodes in a row this weekend while I struggling with some sort of stomach illness. As a result, the cheerful saxophone theme song and the garish lines of plaid that intersect the opening titles now fill me with Pavlovian nausea. Bitter irony?

* It's so liberating to do that, but also constricting because you want to save that insult of all insults for only the truly despicable boils upon the face of cinema. Not to mention that so many terrible movies are so terrible that one enjoys feeling gleeful contempt and wants to see it through so that every drop of suck that can be wrung from it will be duly appreciated and mocked. But sometimes things just blow, and when it not only blows but murders Beatles songs, I'm outta there.

**Noun, man giggles. Made up by my sister last week. Sooo much more useful than you might think.

No complaints thus far. Of the movies I've seen lately, I've only got nitpicking to do. John Dillinger puts the sexy in sexism in Public Enemies. I was angry at myself for rooting for a chauvenist with a fairly inconsistent regard for human life, but it wasn't my fault. Michael Mann threw Johnny Depp at me, who was able to complete a movie without indulging in any delightfully spooky makeup or characterization. I wouldn't have even recognized him if I hadn't seen his face in my dreams every night. Have I said too much.

He robs banks and orders women to be his life partners! Yet I am smitten!

Last week I finally caught Away We Go, which I'd heard was only meh. Sure, it was typically over the top with tiny emotional climaxes, as Sam Mendes is wont to do, but brush all that painful poignancy aside, and you've got a funny couple with that charming tousled-and-a-little-lost look, who are refreshingly devoid of relationship problems. It's not that they're better than you, it's that they are you. In some ways it's the opposite of his last picture, Revolutionary Road. Solid couple with a really imperfect life that turns out to be perfect anyway. Just reverse all those meanings and you've got ol' Leo and Kate, chasing each other through the woods and having awkward affairs.

I'm not sure I could find much fault with Drag Me to Hell, however. Adorable, deliciously scary (as opposed to the kind of scary that keeps you up at night. Maliciously scary?), and impeccably timed are things I would say. But no matter how much I try, I can't get anyone to believe me. "It's campy and great!" I say. "The trailer is terrifying. I'm not into being scared," they say before not sharing their chips. Bitchez! I'm not into being scared either. What's wrong with my guarantee that you will not wake up in the middle of the night terrified that the corpse of an old woman will spew embalming fluid on you?

On DVD, I've had some good finds lately as well. I don't know why it took me so long to watch Mystery Train, having warmly embraced most of Jim Jarmusch's other films long ago. I think a girl in a class I had once gave a long boring presentation about it, so in my mind the poor movie would be tedious and involve a lot of Xeroxed handouts. It's Jarmusch in Memphis, only more colorful than usual, and a little more precious than most of his older films. Other than that, it's been a lot of True Blood and The Wire lately, as I just moved house, and our energy at night isn't what it used to be. I mean, like, a month ago.

While packing I re-re-rediscovered some brilliant Mr. Show moments. Discover Josh Fenderman, won't you?

With all the right, what the public didn\'t see coming were all the wrongs

I had a conversation last night that provoked such a strong reaction from me that I felt a little disturbed by it. You know when a movie comes out like Spider-Man or X-Men and it creates a nationwide surge of interest in the older Spider-Man or X-Men stuff, and there’s always that annoying friend you have that’s like “Look, I basically am the biggest Spider-Man fan ever, no one knows more about Spider-Man than me.” And you’re like “Wait, really? I’ve never heard you mention Spider-Man before, but that’s cool, I…” And they get all fired up and start blushing furiously and basically spitting poison with each word and say stuff like, “I have been watching Spider-Man MY ENTIRE LIFE. My mom basically swaddled me in spiderweb. My middle name is Peter Parker. I wrote my thesis on wall-climbing. And I POSSESS this concept, and every time you even THINK about going to see that movie, you owe me a dollar.” And you’re sitting there wondering if they will actually start throwing punches if you try to offer up your opinion on the movie. The only safe way out is to say “Oh, I thought it was pretty good, but I don’t really know much about Spider-Man,” but then you still have to deal with your friend’s disgust that the filmmakers “TOTALLY LEFT OUT THE MOST IMPORTANT CHARACTER” and the story “MAKES NO SENSE” without the “TWENTY-FIVE YEARS” of backstory and a genealogy of who’s actually related to whom.

It’s possible that someone might have to remind me of how obnoxious this is when the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie comes out.

I’m not going to lie to you. I am a girl. I have never been a tomboy. I liked unicorns and Laura Ingalls Wilder and all that stuff, and I never read comics or played with action figures. It never seemed odd, however, that I was glued to the television every afternoon at 4:00 pm to watch what is possibly the weirdest and most addictive craze ever to hit the FOX airwaves.

The premise is this. This rat learns martial arts from his master, the master gets screwed over by this bad guy, and the rat vows to avenge him. Luckily the rat happens upon some radioactive ooze and becomes a giant mutant rat. Four turtles also wander into the ooze, and now everyone’s a mutant ninja and they live in New York. Each turtle has a distinct and entertaining personality, color, and weapon, and they’re teenagers, which means the rat has trouble keeping them in line. They fight bad guys, with the help of two humans, Casey Jones and April O’Neil, which I have just realized are going to be the names of my children.

By all accounts, it would seem ridiculous for a prissy kid like me who hated getting dirty and thought almost exclusively about the Baby-Sitters Club to get into a bunch of muscular turtles. But get into it I did, and my mom and I meticulously put together an April O’Neil costume for me that the other kids could only envy. I drew the Turtles constantly, usually eating pizza and always in glorious color. And every afternoon I fought an inward battle over who was my favorite Turtle. It usually went back and forth between Raphael and Donatello, but I’d occasionally have a weak moment for Leonardo. It was his sense of honor that killed me, and the ninja swords are a sexy weapon, I don’t care what you say.

I haven’t yet been able to decode exactly where the all-consuming appeal of these teenage, mutant, ninja turtles comes from, but it’s overwhelming, for me at least. When it was brought up last night, the amount of stuff I remembered from the TV show and the original movie was astounding. It must have been a really well-written show, because I seriously thought I was feeling tears well up. How embarrassing would it have been to get choked up about a radioactive rat? “What’s up with Susan? Did she just stumble out of the bar in tears?” “Splinter, dude, Splinter.”

He is kind of cute though.

I’m pretty sure I’m not alone here. And I think we can all share ownership of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (that’s a fact, Jack!) even if it’s just because, to quote a friend, they made pizza cool.

I had a conversation last night that provoked such a strong reaction from me that I felt a little disturbed by it. You know when a movie comes out like Spider-Man or X-Men and it creates a nationwide surge of interest in the older Spider-Man or X-Men stuff, and there’s always that annoying friend you have that’s like “Look, I basically am the biggest Spider-Man fan ever, no one knows more about Spider-Man than me.” And you’re like “Wait, really? I’ve never heard you mention Spider-Man before, but that’s cool, I…” And they get all fired up and start blushing furiously and basically spitting poison with each word and say stuff like, “I have been watching Spider-Man MY ENTIRE LIFE. My mom basically swaddled me in spiderweb. My middle name is Peter Parker. I wrote my thesis on wall-climbing. And I POSSESS this concept, and every time you even THINK about going to see that movie, you owe me a dollar.” And you’re sitting there wondering if they will actually start throwing punches if you try to offer up your opinion on the movie. The only safe way out is to say “Oh, I thought it was pretty good, but I don’t really know much about Spider-Man,” but then you still have to deal with your friend’s disgust that the filmmakers “TOTALLY LEFT OUT THE MOST IMPORTANT CHARACTER” and the story “MAKES NO SENSE” without the “TWENTY-FIVE YEARS” of backstory and a genealogy of who’s actually related to whom.

It’s possible that someone might have to remind me of how obnoxious this is when the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie comes out.

I’m not going to lie to you. I am a girl. I have never been a tomboy. I liked unicorns and Laura Ingalls Wilder and all that stuff, and I never read comics or played with action figures. It never seemed odd, however, that I was glued to the television every afternoon at 4:00 pm to watch what is possibly the weirdest and most addictive craze ever to hit the FOX airwaves.

The premise is this. This rat learns martial arts from his master, the master gets screwed over by this bad guy, and the rat vows to avenge him. Luckily the rat happens upon some radioactive ooze and becomes a giant mutant rat. Four turtles also wander into the ooze, and now everyone’s a mutant ninja and they live in New York. Each turtle has a distinct and entertaining personality, color, and weapon, and they’re teenagers, which means the rat has trouble keeping them in line. They fight bad guys, with the help of two humans, Casey Jones and April O’Neil, which I have just realized are going to be the names of my children.

By all accounts, it would seem ridiculous for a prissy kid like me who hated getting dirty and thought almost exclusively about the Baby-Sitters Club to get into a bunch of muscular turtles. But get into it I did, and my mom and I meticulously put together an April O’Neil costume for me that the other kids could only envy. I drew the Turtles constantly, usually eating pizza and always in glorious color. And every afternoon I fought an inward battle over who was my favorite Turtle. It usually went back and forth between Raphael and Donatello, but I’d occasionally have a weak moment for Leonardo. It was his sense of honor that killed me, and the ninja swords are a sexy weapon, I don’t care what you say.

I haven’t yet been able to decode exactly where the all-consuming appeal of these teenage, mutant, ninja turtles comes from, but it’s overwhelming, for me at least. When it was brought up last night, the amount of stuff I remembered from the TV show and the original movie was astounding. It must have been a really well-written show, because I seriously thought I was feeling tears well up. How embarrassing would it have been to get choked up about a radioactive rat? “What’s up with Susan? Did she just stumble out of the bar in tears?” “Splinter, dude, Splinter.”

He is kind of cute though.

I’m pretty sure I’m not alone here. And I think we can all share ownership of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (that’s a fact, Jack!) even if it’s just because, to quote a friend, they made pizza cool.

Larry Charles, 2006

In an effort to catch up on my film-watching and director-berating, I spent much of this past weekend staring at various screens. Borat was the main event, but I also experienced that sense of productivity that only Netflix users with a giant queue can feel and watched a documentary, a comedy, and the end of a popular TV show’s brilliant second season.

I will tell you this: Borat is leaps and bounds better than Sacha Baron Cohen’s first attempt at a feature-length story behind one of his characters – Ali G Indahouse – that failed to harness what makes Cohen humorous: the way in which he interacts with real people. Da Ali G Show’s Borat segments revolve around the premise that Borat is a real guy, a TV journalist for Kazakhstan, who travels around interviewing people and covering footage for the folks back home. Borat talks to people who actually believe that the segment is legit, and the beauty comes from watching them struggle to remain professional and polite in an increasingly inappropriate and wholly artificial “culture clash.”

The film version is a pretty genius integration of these interviews with “real” documentary footage of Borat and his producer Azamat traveling across the USA, interacting and embarrassing more people along the way. Even if they’ve been tipped off beforehand (as a lot of the time you imagine they must be), they still create an air of authentic discomfort as only an actual Texan stuck in an elevator with two naked men can. And because they aren’t actors being paid to look horrified, as in Ali G Indahouse, their stricken faces allow for that much more hilarity.

There’s another aspect to this that everybody’s fixating on: the way in which he’s captured and exposed the breathtaking ignorance of middle and rural America. Luckily for Cohen, Borat’s been hailed as a highly intelligent comment on how stupid people are in our country, but, like, other than a couple scenes with some frat boys that make me physically nauseous and a rodeo in my (mortifying) home state, this doesn’t really happen that much. Most of the people he talks to reject his anti-feminist, anti-Semitic, and anti-most-things-now-protected-by-law, thank goodness. It’s their spirited and angry reaction to his “unintentionally” obscene remarks that make it funny and not too sad.

I mean, if he had spent the entire movie with the frat boys (who I hear are now suing him), I could understand why this would be a groundbreaking expose, but as it is, it was just successfully funny in a fresh way. Go see it, but don’t expect to have your mind blown, especially if you’ve just taken my advice and rented…….

Unknown White Male

Rupert Murray, 2005

Ok, if I seem a little blasé about Borat, you’ll have to forgive me, because I’d watched this documentary the night before (jumping on the bandwagon late) and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It’s the story of a hot guy who wakes up on a train in Coney Island and wonders first what the hell am I doing in Coney Island and second who the hell am I? Luckily for us, he’s loaded and doesn’t have to scramble for money, so we get to go with him on his videotaped quests to figure out who he is. Eventually, his friend Rupert Murray decides to put his (annoyingly self-conscious yet forgivable) filmmaking capabilities to work and make sense of it all.

The questions Murray raises at the beginning of the film are sort of unnecessary – how much of our personality is crafted from previous experiences and how much is “pure us”? What the film actually asks is, “If you lose your history with everyone you know, do you still have an obligation to hang out with them, listen to their advice, visit them for the holidays?” At a certain point in the film, as Doug goes on for a couple years without getting his memory back, you start to understand the casual way in which he says that he doesn’t care if he gets it back or not.

I didn’t realize that there was such controversy over whether or not this story is a hoax. I want to be on board with the naysayers because I get sick pleasure in exposing how gullible people are, but I just don’t buy that somebody made all of this up. For one, the reasons behind that argument seem to revolve around:

1. He probably wanted to be able to just get a clean slate and start over.
2. He’s too good-looking to be a real person.

Please note that this guy is already a millionaire who retired at the age of 30 to reinvent his life two years before the event even happened. Seems like he could buy his clean break without making up something this elaborate. And come on, too good-looking? My boyfriend is good-looking, and if he won a MacArthur Genius Grant* and somebody wanted to make a film about him, I would certainly hope that his grant-winning capabilities wouldn’t be questioned just because he’s a little hotter than average.

But it doesn’t matter anyway, because Unknown White Male’s authenticity is irrelevant. Eternal Sunshine was fiction and raised related questions, why can’t this film?

Miscellany

I’ll try to wrap this up. I also saw Thank You for Smoking and thought it was clever, original, and worth your time. I feel bad that it was eclipsed by the above two movies, so make it up to Aaron Eckhart’s chin and rent the DVD, if only so you can see that it is possible to make a funny movie about smoking in which not one cigarette is lit throughout.

Lost is pretty much the most compelling show ever (besides my girl Veronica Mars), and as is Lost tradition, the season finale features Jack, Sawyer, and Sayid in a topless medley. It’s worth waiting all season for the removal of this clothing and the subsequent force of the electromagnetic disturbance it creates.

And finally, nothing is funnier than Andy Samberg dressed up like a jogger from 1992 and trying to catch his breath while talking about Crystal Pepsi. You just can’t rent that on DVD.

* Is it seriously too much to ask for just one MacArthur Genius Grant once in awhile?

And also, I want to be able to get home from class at 10 pm and be in bed by 11.

Such is the beauty of Netflix! I can get almost any TV show I want on DVD, sent disc by disc to my house. I still get the thrill of anticipating the next episode, only I wait two days for it, not a week, and I get four episodes at a time, not one. With a productive yet depressing schedule like mine,* it’s mandatory to have something to look forward to. In fact, most of the other graduate school suckas I know – or really anybody I know who works long hours and still squeezes in a band/school/second job/sport – are similarly obsessed with starting from the beginning of a series and working their sweet way through. In fact, I see my friend Ashley a fair amount and I think it’s pretty much 80% of what we talk about (the other 20% being the customary “How are you and how’s school?” questions). She’s doing Grey's Anatomynow, and I just wrapped up Veronica Marsand am blowing through Gilmore Girls.

Actually, now that I mention it, that’s how I interact with most of my friends. I feel a little closer to my friend Christophile, who’s in grad school in DC, because I can tell on Netflix that she’s just started Entouragefrom the beginning. My roommate Kelly and I have conflicting schedules, but it’s a good thing, otherwise I wouldn’t get any homework done because I’d be hooked on whatever show she’s into this month in addition to my own.

It’s comforting to know that it’s not just me who’s tired of a constantly stressful life that rarely changes. And I’m not the only one who instead takes solace in other people’s lives – fictional people, yes, but because they’re fictional, their daily activities are so much more fascinating than mine.

As an added bonus, I can spy on Rory, Lorelai, Logan, the other Logan, Sheriff Lamb, Sawyer, Ross, and Rachel ten times more often than I would if they were just movie characters. And I can do it in neatly packaged 47-minute increments, leaving me enough time to get some enjoyment out of my evening but not riddling me with guilt that I haven’t left myself enough time to read Milton.

There are some caveats to becoming a TV on DVD addict – there are a limited number of really good shows. After you finish one, you experience a strange sense of loss and skepticism that you’ll find another one up to par. My friend Emily and her boyfriend just ran into this after they finished The Sopranos. Luckily, she started Lostdirectly afterwards, but what if she’d tried Will & Graceor Romeby accident? She might have sunk into post-Soprano depression permanently. Or at least until the next season starts.

For this reason, I’m going to give you a list of shows I think have that special something, and shows that I haven’t gotten to yet, but I’ve heard are marvelous.

Shows I Can Vouch For:
Veronica Mars – a UPN show (now CW) that is extremely clever, surprising, and confusing if you don’t pay attention. Includes both small town and high school drama and occasionally features a tiny bit of cheesiness. Try if you liked: Gilmore Girls, Buffy, X-Files (there’s a lot of conspiracy theory).
Gilmore Girls – WB show known for its super-fast and super-smart dialogue. Known in my circles for Luke Danes and Jess Mariano, the surly love interests. Small town minutia and realistic teenagers. Pretty sure they reference every band you like.

The Sopranos – HBO, so includes lots of cursing and blood. I watched this in total and then tried to switch to 24, but couldn’t take the non-cursing, non-bloody network show seriously. I might try it again now that it’s been a couple years and my Stars Hollow fixation has mellowed me out enough so that the 24 action might seem exciting again.

Lost – Don’t resist jumping on this bandwagon. There’s a reason it’s so popular.

The Blue Planet – A BBC documentary series about the ocean that is mesmerizing, addictive, and often tear-provoking.

The Office – the BBC version. I laugh at the American version, but Jim is no Tim and Pam is no Dawn etc. You must watch this 12-episode-plus-an-amazing-special at least four times. I recommend subtitles and someone to cringe behind.

Arrested Development – Ah, the must-see of 2004. We’ve all lost interest in the last season due to repeated “It’s cancelled! It’s totally not cancelled!” debates, but it’s still one of the funniest shows ever made and will always be a DVD favorite.

Mr. Show – Long dead but still alive in the minds of those guys you know who only speak in quotations. The good thing about having Mr. Show discs around is that you don’t need to watch them in sequence. Takes the stress out of Netflix.

Friends – It’s like 22 minutes of candy while you’re waiting for someone to pick you up or make you dinner.

Shows I Plan to Give A(nother) Shot:
Six Feet Under
Desperate Housewives
Buffy (if I get desperate enough, and only because Kelly owns every season)
Monarch of the Glen
24
Extras

*Work, gym, homework, class, homework, limited phone time with long-distance HD, bed.