The End

As you might have noticed if you're looking, the end has come for Collective Myth. It was fun, but a bit stifling to write only about movies. Now, I have a new blog here, a blog I'm co-writing with Joe, formerly of Handbasket Travel Ventures. Check it out. Many thanks to those who read this one.

I don't think she's right for you.

The first DVD I ever owned was Rushmore, that 1998 film starring Jason Schwartzman as Max Fischer and Bill Murray as Herman Blume. I remember thinking how cool and hi-tech it was that my new computer could function as a DVD player, and Rushmore was on sale, so I couldn’t resist. Still, nearly ten years later, Rushmore remains one of my favorites.

But what makes it so good? Perhaps the most distinct thing about Rushmore is that it has a central character who is a young adolescent, but who seems to have a talent for getting particular adults to treat him as an adult, to give him adult-like responsibilities and allow him to deal with R-rated material in the plays he writes and directs. After one play, which involved live gunfire and drug trade, Blume buys Max a whiskey at a fancy restaurant. And then there’s the irresistibly cool scene early in the film when Max expresses concern to his father that he’s spending too much time on extra-curricular activities and not enough time scoring chicks, which seems to Max to be all anyone cares about. You’re like one of those old clipper ship captains, Max’s father says, you’re married to the sea. Yes, Max replies, that’s true. But I’ve been out to sea for a long time. During this brief exchange, Max and his father stop just outside the door to their modest home, as though the dialogue were so important that it demanded their undivided attention, and as though Max had been a bachelor for decades.

The perfect compliment to Max’s teen precociousness is Herman Blume, a rich industrialist who often acts like a teenager. For instance, both Blume and Max have a crush on Ms. Cross, a teacher at Rushmore. Blume uses his cell phone to call Max and tell him that he doesn’t think Ms. Cross is that great and that she’s not right for Max. At the same time, he’s sneaking through the school grounds to peak at Ms. Cross through her schoolroom window. On his way, he speeds up momentarily so as to cross the basketball court just in time to reject a small child who’s taking a shot. There’s something wildly amusing about the sight of a grown man in a suit seriously rejecting a little kid back into what would be about the fifth row if it were an arena rather than a school playground. And of course, this is Bridger’s favorite moment of the film, and he likes to say “I don’t think she’s right for you” before breaking up passes on the ultimate field.

Along with Blume and Max comes an amazing cast of rad minor characters. There’s Margaret Yang, a role played by Sara Tanaka before her infamous role as Megan Huang in Old School. She’s just as precocious as Max, but cute and savvy to the ways of the public school where Max finds himself after being expelled from Rushmore. She flies a remote controlled plane and acts in one of Max’s plays. There’s Dirk Calloway, Max’s much younger best friend whose mom is rather hot, which generated the rumor that Max picked Dirk as a chapel partner simply to get a piece from Dirk’s mom in her Jaguar. And who could forget Mr. LittleJeans, the Rushmore groundskeeper who laughs in the most creepy and hysterical way at the end of Max’s play at the public school. All of these characters and others give life to Rushmore’s bizarre setting.

I suppose that what it comes down to is that Rushmore is funny, but not laugh-out-loud funny. It’s more like amusingly absurd; for that reason, it’s precisely the sort of movie I’d like.

The Masculine Glory of Figure Skating??

Mariah and I sometimes argue about whether figure skating is really a sport. I say no for a simple reason: sport involves direct and objective competition against others. In track, for instance, the athletes compete directly with each other to see who can get the best time. They can see the other athletes next to them trying to run faster. In tennis, one competes directly against the opponent across the net. But in figure skating, the skaters simply try to impress judges who, in turn, seem to give their scores for completely subjective reasons. Sure, there are certain penalties for falling and missteps, but then sometimes the judges seem to discount them or increase them. And what about artistic merit? That’s the most subjective thing on Earth. But let me be clear: I don’t intend at all to belittle the strength, dexterity, training, and general physical prowess necessary to do the things that figure skaters do; I simply do not consider that activity a sport because there is no direct, objective competition between the skaters.

Into this semantic mess comes Blades of Glory, a brilliant figure skating comedy starring Jon Heder and Will Ferrell. Mariah and I first saw it in Chicago with Megan on a day when JJ had so much to write about Hegel that he couldn’t come with us.. The film mocks all of the ridiculous crap about figure skating that, in my view, comes from the lack of direct, objective competition between skaters. For instance, it mocks the possibility of ties when officials give two skaters the same score by having Chazz Michael Michaels (Ferrell) and Jimmy MacElroy (Heder) both win the gold at the beginning of the movie. All of the shoving and jostling for position atop the gold medal platform eventually escalates into a full-out fight between the two rivals, hinting at all of the needless tension that must exist between all of these highly trained athletes who have no way of really competing with each other in a fair way for the medals. Between Michaels and MacElroy, each skater believes himself to have earned the medal and performed better than the other, but there’s absolutely no way to settle the dispute on the ice. In real sports, such a dispute would be settled by an overtime period, or a tiebreaker method involving the comparison of win-loss records against identical competition; it would be settled by actual athletic performance, not by a bunch of pretentious, politically influenced fops posing as judges at a table.

But a wonderful side-effect of the absurdity of real-life figure skating is that it puts Will Ferrell at his best. I cannot stop laughing when he slaps the table, or whatever surface is around, and yells “Boom!” after making an offensive or egotistical statement at his circus-style press conferences or during other opportunities to speak. However, the highlight has to be the unglamorous masculinity Ferrell brings to a sport whose male population (so the stereotype goes) generally includes only effeminate prettyboys like MacElroy. But with Michaels, the skating world gets a hairy, slightly chubby, sex-addicted bad boy. While the film suggests that the female population as a whole finds Michaels irresistible, he’s clearly not very attractive, and it’s in these kinds of absurd situations that Ferrell is at his best.

Admittedly, no blog about Blades of Glory written by a straight dude would be complete without at least a brief discussion of Jenna Fischer and her role as the sister of the evil pairs team Stranz and Fairchild. The mainstream discussion of her attractiveness always focuses on how she “dresses down” in The Office so as to look like “an ordinary woman.” While this suggests that “ordinary women” are somehow less attractive than airbrushed, dolled-up movie stars, I happen to think that so-called “ordinary women” are often quite attractive! And in Blades of Glory, Jenna Fischer has another opportunity to “dress down” because she’s playing the role of the supposedly plain sister of the glamorous Stranz and Fairchild. Of course, she’s terribly attractive in that role. Her everygirlness, if that term makes sense, is irresistible. She even manages to bring that characteristic to the scene where she gets all dolled-up because her brother and sister have guilted her into trying to seduce the sex-addicted Michaels in order to create conflict between Michaels and MacElroy, the all-male skating pair. At any rate, Jenna Fischer’s appeal in Blades of Glory, though comedic, does compare to other legendarily attractive female performances like Penelope Cruz in Abre los Ojos and Parminder Nagra in Bend it Like Beckham.

We’ll see how Blades of Glory holds up in the long run, but I suspect that it will take its place alongside titles like Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, Grosse Pointe Blank, and Old School in the pantheon of great comedies that are always circulating in my DVD player.

Bond

Daniel Craig revolutionized James Bond. Casino Royale reminded the world that secret agents must often be muscle-bound badasses. And while they might look good in tuxedos and wear them when they have to, just as often they’re covered in blood after beating the shit of someone with their bare hands.

Casino Royale makes that claim right from the start. During the opening scene in Africa, Bond goes after a guy whose parkour is so good it makes him look superhuman. But Bond chases him down, punches the crap out of him, causes his leg to be shot, and finally blows him away execution style on camera and in front of some kind of ambassador. If that weren’t enough, there is also the most painful looking torture scene in modern film. The bad guy puts Bond in a chair with the seat mostly cut out and then proceeds to bull-whip his testicles with a massive, heavy rope. Bond, clearly in pain, still refuses to divulge valuable information and even laughs at his torturer.

Perhaps Casino Royale’s rougher take on Bond was in part a response to XXX, where a ripped and stereotypically masculine Vin Diesel plays a secret agent. One particular scene of that vastly different take on international crime fighting draws the comparison. There, an incompetent agent sticks out like an Isaac Mizrahi-clad Natalie Portman on the South Side of Chicago. He’s wearing a black and white tuxedo to a gathering of hardened, tattooed, underground criminals who make a living by trafficking in drugs and weapons. Not only does he fail in his mission and find out nothing, but he also gets his ass kicked in the process. The scene suggests that the days of slick, tuxedo-wearing, martini-sipping secret agents are over; now, the government needs ex-criminal tough guys like Vin Diesel to accomplish any real international crime fighting. If such a thing demanded a response, Casino Royale answered the call.

The Rain & the Drama

Today’s rain delay might be depressing, but it provides a fantastic occasion to say a few things about Wimbledon and why it makes for great television. Unlike so many of the TV dramas and reality shows, Wimbledon is completely unpredictable. For instance, in 2005, 31-year-old journeywoman Jill Craybas took out world #4 Serena Williams on Centre Court. How improbable was that? Craybas has never in her career been ranked higher than 47th in the world, and even that had been quite a few years ago. She’s a small woman who does not hit with much power, while Serena Williams might hit the ball harder than anyone else on the WTA tour. Grass is a surface that favors big hitters. Craybas had never in more than a decade on tour defeated anyone ranked in the top twenty. And yet, there it was, the most improbable kind of upset in tennis, a small, older player in the twilight of her career took out the formidable Serena Williams.

Wimbledon also provides some of the most exiting points in tennis because players can dive onto the grass, and thus reach for shots much farther away from them than they could on a hard court. In one of the highest level matches I’ve ever seen, Patrick Rafter beat Andre Agassi in a five-set extravaganza in the 2000 Wimbledon semi-finals. Rafter charged the net and dove for winning volley after volley, barely dinking Agassi’s world-class passing shots back over the net with so much backspin that even quick-footed Agassi couldn’t run in quickly enough to get them. Agassi played the best tennis I’ve ever seen him play, and it still wasn’t enough to beat Rafter at his all-time best. The only bad part of the match was that it tired Rafter out enough for Sampras to beat him in four sets in the final. Still, it was great television that I was fortunate enough to watch on Mike E.’s little TV in the infamous, Skyla Court place in Missoula.

Another great Wimbledon memory comes from the 2004 women’s final. On a tiny TV getting reception from bunny ears on the top floor of an old Toronto bed and breakfast, Mariah and I watched the attractive, teenage Maria Sharapova out hit the heavily favored Serena Williams. She beat Williams at her own hard-hitting game, and at that moment, the tennis world knew that the domination of the two Williams sisters over the women’s circuit was over. It was the end of an era, and for many, it meant that the game would become more exciting since we wouldn’t be seeing the same two women in every Grand Slam final. The previous two women’s finals had been boring, error-filled Venus vs. Serena matches. When Sharapova won, it was the first time in five years that a Williams sister hadn’t taken home the trophy. It was glorious.

This year, we are spending the middle weekend in Seattle with Simon and Ginny. While rain has prevented much of the play since we’ve been here, we did see a spectacular Blake diving volley against “The Mosquito,” Juan Carlos Ferrero. The Mosquito prevailed, and he has been playing as well as I’ve seen him play since he won the French many years ago. Roddick stands as the only American man left in the draw, but will he finally be able to bring his A-game to a match-up with four-time champ Roger Federer? Will a Frenchman win the title for the first time in more than twenty years? Will an Englishman win a doubles title for the first time in more than forty-five years? All of these things are still possible. The rain will certainly let up sometime, and then we’ll find out.

In Search of Wine and Women

When I come across reviews of Sideways, which I still do somehow from time to time despite the fact that it’s been three years since the release date, I’m always surprised by the fact that so many reviewers mention that both protagonists are unlikable. Some go so far as to describe them as “completely unsympathetic.” I mean, I understand that Jack (Thomas Haden Church) is pretty much a tool and that Miles (Paul Giamatti) is some kind of self-confidence-less downer, but I rather like the pair of them, and I think that their faults are part of what makes them sympathetic.

The fact that the road trip Jack and Miles take to California wine country is supposed to be some kind of bachelor party for Jack, who is getting married in less than a week, does quite well at highlighting Jack’s less than desirable qualities. Namely, he wants to get laid before he gets married, and he makes various “you need to get your joint worked on” types of comments to Miles, and acts completely insensitive with respect to Miles’ plans for the trip. I can see how unappealing some of those moments are; after all, who wants to hang out with some horn-dog who makes uncomfortably chauvinistic comments in public and is trying madly to cheat on his fiancé at any cost while being a selfish prick? But I think that what’s really underneath that façade is a man uncertain about a very significant and grown-up life choice. And who wants to grow up? Who’s comfortable with “settling down?” While most of us do that eventually, and are ultimately happy with the decision, change is almost always painful, and thus we can sympathize with Jack. After all, what he really wants is merely to post-pone big change for just a little bit, and that’s understandable even if it’s not admirable. I find that when I watch Sideways, I’m actually rooting for Jack to get laid, even though he’s doing to at the potential expense of his future marriage. Through him, I can see, and experience vicariously to a certain degree, that which I did not (and never would) do during my own bachelor party.

And then there’s Miles. He’s such a downer because he’s still depressed about his divorce years after the fact, and he never wants to do anything on the trip. All he wants is to drink fine wine, eat great food, and crash at the motel. While none of those things sound particularly bad or undesirable, they do sound as though they’re missing something bachelor party-wise. So he’s depressed and boring, hardly the recipe for the protagonist of a great film or a character that audiences will love and find sympathetic. But the things that make him likable for me are his knowledge of fine wine and his appreciation for good literature. The scenes where Miles talks about how to taste wine or about particular varietals evoke high sensory pleasures, the things that really enable one to escape the rigors of the day-to-day grind, or, depending on your point of view, to appreciate this life. Knowledge of those pleasures provides a kind of transcendent perception which enables one to see that there actually is good in the world despite frequent appearances to the contrary. Miles’ depressed personality coupled with this transcendent perception highlight the very same contrast. While he might not seem like much on the surface, an examination for his qualities reveals something worthwhile. As Sarah Vowell says in “California as an Island,” one of the best essays in her magnificent collection entitled The Party Cloudy Patriot, “There’s something educational about trying to see the good in things, holding some old picture in your hands and telling another person why it’s significant and excellent, special.” I’ve always loved that admirable and positive statement and how it avoids cheesy sentimentality. Like the antique maps Vowell sells in that essay, Miles and Jack provide viewers with a chance to see beyond outward appearances, to transcend the everyday and see something “significant and excellent, special.”

It's Mooby Time!

As my old tennis buddy Melanie said once, when a naked Chris Rock falls out of the sky, you know it’s a good time. And what about Salma Hayek in pigtails and a plaid skirt with a stripper pole between her legs? And Matt Damon laying waste to a bunch of good-for-nothing corporate whores by blowing them away at point blank range? Only Kevin Smith could (or, perhaps, would) bring scenes like those into a movie about Christianity. But then again, why shouldn’t saving the world be a good time?

Of course, every religiously affiliated good time needs a symbol, so Dogma gives us the Buddy Christ. George Carlin, as Cardinal Ignatius Glick, introduces the Buddy Christ statue in the context of retiring the crucifix and replacing it with something a little more friendly in order to attract new faithful to Catholicism. Carlin’s reassuring tone and broad gestures as he speaks at the podium are more those of a politician than those of a priest, which creates a rather slimy character. And then, when the Buddy Christ statue is unveiled, sheer absurdity takes over. The idea of Christ performing a cheesy wink while pointing at the congregation with both hands is fabulous because it’s so far off from everything that the crucifix stands for. Should the prevalent symbol of the faith say “remember my suffering” or some combination of “heaaaaaaay” and “what up, yo?” It’s a tough question.

And there are other tough questions. For instance, how should the Christian faithful deal with the problem of corrupt corporate CEOs who make gobs of money by doing reprehensible things? The clear answer, of course, is to list back to them aloud their most heinous sins in front of their co-workers, taunt them with a voodoo doll, then blow them away with a handgun. I wonder what Kevin Smith was doing when he came up with that one. Maybe he was thinking of what he should do as he sat in the comfort of his spot on the pew some Sunday morning and looked across the aisle at some guy who beat up his sister (who, oddly enough, plays the Caged Animal Masturbator in Clerks) and put sugar in his gas tank while pretending to be a good Catholic. While these certainly wouldn’t be the worst of what people pretending to be good Catholics have done over the course of history, I could understand why Kevin Smith would then come up with something like the aforementioned corporate scene where Matt Damon blows away all but one of the Mooby’s board of directors.

But from the blowing away corporate guys scene, Salma Hayek’s stripper scene takes up the panache a level. As Serendipity, Hayek plays a muse, an inspirer of others. In this case, as she says, she inspires idiots to empty their wallets. It is clear what words do no do justice to the glasses with pigtails and plaid skirt look that she has going on in that scene, but something can be said for her practical knowledge of Christian tradition and her lack of fear in applying it even in the face of the massive Golgothan. After all, there’s nothing like a gorgeous stripper who then turns out to be quite intelligent and full of all kinds of practical tips about saving the world. I do remember that it’s Silent Bob who actually lays waste to the Golgothan, but I recall Serendipity hiding under the bar preparing some kind of holy water and alcohol bomb. She’s so practical, that one. And isn’t it absurd how the Golgothan itself actually looks kind of cute when it finally emerges from the bathroom stall? If it weren’t a shit-demon, I might almost think that it was someone’s crazy manimal-style pet. Ah, the face and little ears of evil.

Beyond its bizarre take on good and evil, though, what I like about Dogma above all is its treatment of Christianity as not only a complex system of thought, but also as a way of life that involves some fun and excitement. I think that it’s quite nice considering what so many people think of as “Christianity” these days.