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Heckler

heckler1

Directed by Michael Addis

Grade: C+

One of the most universally despised person in all of the creative world is the heckler. Contrary to some odd misguided belief, comedians do not like hecklers even though their take downs of the offenders often get big laughs. People who yell out asinine things at shows completely ruin them and they’re best served to just keep their mouths shut. The documentary Heckler is Jamie Kennedy’s attempt at understanding the mind, the effects, and even the origin of these dumbasses. At least it starts off that way, a little less than halfway in the movie turns into a bunch of comedians and directors and actors whining about unfair criticism of their work. The performers and artists come off as petulant children, well not all of them but enough that it’s a problem, who can’t understand why anybody should ever challenge what they’re trying to do. After all, they’re just trying to entertain people, right? What kind of sick, soulless human being could ever dare criticize someone for attempting something so pure and good? The movie falls apart in this section because it equates critics to hecklers.

The film centers around Jamie Kennedy, who just released Son of the Mask to critical and commercial failure, as he explores an increasingly critical world. He interviews artists, critics, and even “professional” hecklers. The latter of this group come off just as pathetic as you’d think, as though they are owed something from comedians and feel obligated to inform them, loudly, when they’re not being entertained sufficiently. The first third, or the good third, of this movie centers around comedians of varying ages, styles, and success sharing stories of being heckled. Comedians are naturally great storytellers and them ripping apart hecklers and the nature of people that heckle is highly entertaining and engaging. To hear David Cross, Lewis Black, Louis Anderson, Dave Attell and many others offer up their experiences on stage is something I could sit and listen to all day, or at least for a two hour running time.

The problem is that there is a complete misunderstanding of the purpose of criticism in this movie. Kennedy, and many of the other artists, seem to think that critics are a wholly unhappy people who only live to rip apart others creations (there is even a quote from George Lucas who equates critics to “destroyers”) and make themselves sound smarter than everybody else. Are there some critics who do this? Of course, but that’s not really relevant to what the job is. Criticism is part of art, it always has been, and always will be. It’s not so simple to just reduce it to creators and destroyers, or the clichéd those who can do, those who can’t teach. This is wrong and it reeks of sour grapes. Yes, I’ll agree that criticism is wrong when it slams the actual people in a movie/performance rather than the piece itself. Good criticism should always try to separate the person from the art. However, a critics job is not to just simply echo what the popular culture seems to believe. Just because Transformers made a lot of money should the critics of the world just simply say, “Yeah it was great.” No, that would be disingenuous and stupid and a complete disservice to film. Like it or not, film and comedy and literature are an integral part of the human experience and people are going to respond strongly to it. Critics, the good ones, don’t need you to agree with them, they only ask you to think about what they’ve said and respond to it. There is a section where they make fun of Roger Ebert a bit because the one time he tried to write a movie it kind of sucked. They offer this up as proof that they’re better than him and all critics should just shut their goddamn mouths. Unfortunately, what they miss is that Ebert’s skill wasn’t in making movies, it was in understanding movies and responding to them in ways his readers enjoyed, and increased their enjoyment and understanding of films. That is the true value of the critic.

In one disturbing section of Heckler, Lewis Black, who I have the utmost respect for, offers up the tired analogy of the blogger sitting at home in his parents’ basement, writing whatever drivel they want to without consequence. Black is better than this and unfortunately took an easy joke there. People who make fun of bloggers forget that, despite the indisputable fact that many, many bloggers are truly terrible and offer no insight or opinion and can sometimes be morally and intellectually bankrupt, a lot of the best journalism, in news, sports and arts, come from the blogosphere. Bloggers are not owned by corporations or special interest groups, and what they lack in resources they make up for in fresh opinions and honest agendas.

Another problematic rant is when Jon Lovitz explains that despite his knowledge of baseball he would make a terrible manager. This analogy attempt to explain that just because someone can write about movies doesn’t mean they can make movies. That analogy falls apart because it assumes that the only job in Major League Baseball is the manager. It takes a huge staff to run a team successfully. Also, there are these people called journalists who write about the sport every day, and without them public interest would in all likelihood fade a great deal.

I don’t want this to be all negative, and obviously I have a bit of a personal stake in this as a blogging critic myself, so I should point out that many of the comics featured in this documentary, namely David Cross and Patton Oswalt, go out of their way to clarify that they appreciate a well thought out criticism of their work, as long as it’s just not slanderous bullshit. That’s completely fair and I have no problem with that. Most artists do have that understanding and can get along with critics. The only real problem I have is that this movie is called Heckler and the majority of the film seems to center on critics which is naturally going to lead to the viewer equating them as one and the same.

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Captain Phillips

captain phillips

Directed by Paul Greengrass
Starring Tom Hanks and Barkhad Abdi

Grade: A

There are two men and each have a plan. One of them needs to board a ship, take the crew hostage and demand ransom money, while the other needs to stop that from happening. Both succeed to a degree and both fail spectacularly. Captain Phillips is about the building desperation of best laid plans gone awry. Many of you will remember this story from the news a few years ago and bring expectations because of it, especially since we kind of already know how it ends, but director Paul Greengrass keeps the tension level up so high, while giving us plenty of moments of real humanity, to get around whatever preconceived expectations we bring with us.

Philips is played by Tom Hanks, who is at his best, at least in dramatic roles, when he’s playing an everyman. This is his best acting work in years. He is not an action hero, and don’t expect him to be here, but he is a seasoned ship captain who understands the very real risk of piracy, even when his men don’t. Phillips is a bit of a hard-ass boss, with no patience for laziness or extending breaks longer than the allotted time. He plays by the book at all costs, and when pirates led by Muse (Barkhad Abdi) raid his ship, the book works. He defeats the pirates on the first run, and very nearly defeats them on the second. But Phillips’ plan can’t work forever. The moment is perfectly executed when Muse leaps from his small boat and latches onto the ladder connecting to the ship, the soundtrack cuts and we see, for the first time, Phillips understands the trouble they’re in.
Captain Phillips wisely stays mostly apolitical. It’s not interested in good guys and bad guys, and Abdi shines in his role as a young man accepting of his life and his obligations, but carrying a certain sadness. He’s smarter than all of his associates, meaning he understands the folly of their actions, not just from a moral standpoint, but a practical one. He knows that even if he brings back millions of dollars, he and his friends will only see the smallest percentage of that. “I have bosses,” he tells Phillips, and that one line tells us everything we need to know. Muse’s plan goes wrong and he shows a knack for improvising his way through situations, but the world is far bigger and more powerful than he is, and he knows it, but his circumstances will not let him back down.

This film, despite all action scenes and tension building, is really just about these two men. They both understand that things are going to go poorly for Muse and his friends, the only wild card is what happens to Phillips in the process. Hanks brings a world weariness and a certain naiveté to the title role. He’s a man who understands the threat of piracy, and instinctively knows what to do in the grim situations, but he is also completely unprepared to deal with the fact that, even in the face of hopeless odds, these pirates won’t back down. The consequences of these young men simply giving up and running back home with their tail between their legs is far more dire than whatever the American military can give them. In the last scene in the movie, a beautifully acted one, Hanks is reduced to bumbling tears and the state of a child as his first world upbringing has failed to prepare him for the violence and trauma he just experienced.

There is no real subtext here, just story. Greengrass can’t resist making a couple statements, like the fact that giant western commercial fishing boats catch all the fish from the ocean, taking away fisherman’s livelihoods, and then being surprised when they turn to piracy. But mostly, it’s just these two men, decent people trying to ride the wave as best they can, and their plans and their desperation in the face of failure.

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Waking from the Dream by David L. Chappell

waking from the dream

Grade: B+

Note: This book’s release date is January 14th, 2014.

Not to take anything away from the man and his life and his deeds, but the true power of Martin Luther King Jr. seems to be in his name. Just think of what invoking his name can do for a cause. Too often, we forget that the civil rights battle in this country didn’t end with King, but still rages on to this day. And further, his battle didn’t end when he was killed either. His name and legacy have been channeled for five decades now in his absence. In the book Waking from the Dream: The Struggle for Civil Rights in the Shadow of Martin Luther King, Jr. author David L. Chappell examines and details this unfortunately oft overlooked concept. Throughout the book, Chappell takes us through the Civil Rights Act of 1968, the black political conventions of the 70’s, battles for employment bills, the idea of a holiday in King’s honor, Jesse Jackson’s rise, and even the controversial, and almost never discussed, failings of King’s character. Waking from the Dream makes for an interesting read as it shines a light on recent history in just unique enough of a way to drive the narrative and come off fresh.

The controversy over King’s character relates to his marital infidelity, something most people are vaguely aware of. It’s interesting that, as a society, we’ve simply agreed it’s not something we want to talk about. Americans cannot tolerate their heroes being tainted in any way. What is less known, even on that same casual level, is that King, in all likelihood, plagiarized his doctorate dissertation. Chappell tackles this the only way he can, with a detached honesty. He remains a historian throughout, and doesn’t let, for the most part, his own personal feelings get in the way of the facts. It is not an easy thing to discuss the failings of such an iconic man, but Chappell handles it admirably and factually. In fact, an argument is presented, though not dwelled on because that’s not the author’s agenda, that King disliked the idea of lionizing public figures to such an extent that maybe this discredit to his character is not such a terrible thing. It can keep us honest about the deeds of the person rather than the aura of a hero.

Time is spent on the Reverend Jesse Jackson throughout this book, and Jackson does not come off looking great in this book, though it’s hardly an attack on him either. The man is polarizing, he’s charismatic in ways that rivaled King himself, but seems to understand the power of charisma too. Jackson used his influence and power to become an icon in the Democratic Party rather than a pure force for equality. Other figures central in the fight for civil rights are presented too, though none get nearly as much ink as the Reverend.

One of the, possibly unintended, truly fascinating aspects of this book is how little politics have really changed over the past few decades. Chappell, taking us into congressional debates on the Housing Act and King’s national holiday, shows us that the same rhetoric and ideology, with some variation admittedly, has saturated our government throughout modern history. The people change, sort of, and the arguments focus on different angles, but they never really change. Though, easily, the most refreshing thing about this book is that Chappell details his research extensively. A third of the book is citations. In other words, this isn’t bullshit mainstream history in the vein of Bill O’reilly’s Killing Famous People series, but series academic history.

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Gravity

gravity

Directed by Alfonso Cuaron
Starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney

Grade: A

Gravity is about life and death, birth and rebirth, and isolation and community. It’s also about the visceral fear of survival in an environment that doesn’t permit life. This film, directed by Alfonso Cuaron, succeeds in both stated objectives, entertainment and subtext are both given equal attention. I imagine the physics can be picked apart, though the science felt very real and plausible to me, but if you’re focusing on the believability of a movie set in space then I would suggest you’re doing yourself a disservice. Gravity is not interested in being the most accurate scientific movie of all time, though it takes care to make it passable, it’s goal is to thrill the audience and remind that even we’re literally cut off from the world and surrounded by millions of miles of emptiness, we’re never truly alone. The lack of cynicism in this movie, without passing into sentimentality, is its greatest achievement.

The plot is simple. There is an accident on a satellite and Doctor Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock), on her first trip to the space, is cast off into space along with seasoned veteran Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) and together they must survive and make it back to Earth. In some ways, I suppose, it’s Open Water set in space, though there are no space sharks (new movie idea: Space Sharks!). They’re forced to use their limited resources and fall back on every small piece of training they received in order to get home. Obviously, there are many setbacks and hardships along the way. A lesser movie would be mostly concerned with awesome looking set pieces and visual graphics, while offering a foregone conclusion of their safe return, but Gravity actually cares about whether they survive or not and each set piece is constructed with that in mind.

George Clooney has recently made a string of movies, namely The American and Up in the Air, where the lesson the protagonist learns is that no man is an island, that people need people, or as Ryan Bingham says in the latter movie: “Life is better with company.” Those movies, though, have a cynical edge in that the lesson is learned but too late to do anything about it. Gravity has the same lesson but doesn’t seem to suggest it’s ever too late to learn such a thing (whether they survive or not is not relevant to this lesson and you’ll get no spoilers from me as to the outcome of that). The final shot of this movie is gorgeous and life-affirming and all that shit I usually hate but it’s done so well here that I’m completely sold.

Sandra Bullock brings fear and a quiet desperation to this role. As Doctor Ryan Stone, a name that is representative of both man and woman, and yes she represents all of us, she is a grieving mother, who lost her daughter to an unfortunate and simple accident. She has severed all ties to the world and, both literally and figuratively, and doesn’t really seem to care whether she lives or dies. This is until, of course, she is actually faced with death and must confront all that it means to live and to die. Maybe it’s a simple plot device, force a miserable person to fight for their life and thus teach them to live, I mean it’s been done a shit ton of times, sure, but it works so well here that it feels new and fresh despite the cliché. I don’t know that Bullock or Clooney deserve any acting awards for these performances, the movie itself seems like the star to me, but Bullock in particular, who I usually am not a huge fan of, brings her A game and sells the role to near perfection. There are a couple of cringe worthy lines of dialogue and a very heavy handed scene where she resembles a fetus in a womb, but they are small gripes overall. Clooney, meanwhile, brings his usual sleazy charm that provides levity and experience, and Stone’s last chance at a human connection.

See this movie in IMAX if you can. I couldn’t because apparently the greater Phoenix area would rather play Elysium in its IMAX theaters rather than a space epic, but I did see it in 3D and thought for once it added a worthy element to the movie, rather than just looking vaguely cool. The depth of space seems more infinite and terrifying and wonderful in three dimensions. I was so engrossed by the end of this film that I walked out to my car still wearing my 3D glasses. I probably looked like an idiot, but I feel that proves how good this movie was, and I’m pretty used to looking like an idiot, so no big deal.

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Louder Than Hell

LouderThanHell_cover

Edited by Jon Wiederhorn and Katherine Turman

Grade: C-

Heavy metal, as an art form, has it pretty tough. It’s often dismissed as juvenile and silly on one end, and evil and corrupting on the other. People assume because it’s loud and obtrusive and abrasive and, yes, kind of obnoxious, that it lacks any sort of artistic merit. This is, needless to say, not true. It’s a different essay (maybe that I’ll write sometime in the near future?), so I won’t go too far into it here, but Heavy Metal connects with its audience in a unique way and offers something that other genres lack. So when the book Louder Than Hell: The Definitive Oral History of Metal, collected by Jon Wiederhorn and Katherine Turman was released, it became a chance to give the musical genre a shot of legitimacy. Unfortunately, it fails to do this. This book is far more interested in a bunch of machismo dudes talking about how many chicks they’ve banged and how many drugs they’ve taken and how much ass they’ve kicked. There is almost no attempt to tackle the musicality of these, in many cases, very talented bands. No journey into the song-writing minds or insight into the heavy metal experience. Here’s a hint: If you want to read about sex with groupies and getting super wasted you can read a mediocre biography or history of literally any musical genre ever. These things are not unique to metal, no matter how much some want to pretend they are. Whatever chance the genre has of being viewed seriously was seriously blown by this collection of bullshit quotes.

For someone who is new to heavy metal, maybe a new fan or somebody who’s just trying to learn a bit about the music, there is some good information here. Louder Than Hell does offer a decent chronology of metal, tracing the lineage from Black Sabbath all the way through the various groups started in the new millennium. Since it’s an oral history, you get to hear stories and anecdotes and insights directly from the source, and a few different perspectives from their peers. The problem is, for the already initiated, which most reading this book will be, the stories are already familiar. There aren’t a lot of new tales, no lost musings from Ozzy, or Mustaine, or Dio. For metal fans, those of us that thirst for new details of the genre, this comes as a disappointment. Instead of focusing on how much coke Ozzy could consume, can we maybe talk about why they felt compelled to craft nihilistic lyrics about the absence of God and the hopelessness of the world? It’s not enough to just acknowledge how talented most of these guys are/were as musicians, let’s discuss just what made them great. Unfortunately, Louder Than Hell isn’t really interested in any deep insight, only the wildness of the lifestyle of rockstars. Frankly, it’s kind of boring. The one mildly fascinating thing that comes out of this book, which clocks in at 683 pages, is that every generation of metal, no matter how they think they’ve grown and matured from their predecessors, are really just an updated model of the same thing.

Heavy Metal is an angry art form. It arose out of poverty, isolation, and a distrust of all authority, including and especially God. Yes, there are also wizards and dragons and such, but nerds can be pissed off too. A good history of the genre would focus on why it’s a necessary subsection of Rock n’ Roll, why the anger still burns just as fierce as it ever did, and how Dio used dragons and Vikings as metaphors for celebrating the outcasts of the world (at least I think that’s what he was doing, the dude used a shit ton of metaphors). Instead, what we get is Jonathan Davis talking about how many chicks he banged in a single night and how none of these guys seems to have one ounce of respect for any woman they’ve ever met. As we get older, we all kind of suspect our childhood heroes were severe douchebags all along, but maybe give us some of their redeeming qualities as well. The thing is, I know these guys aren’t all bad, because I’m a fan and a nerd and have read an awful lot about these bands. Widerhorn and Turman just picked the quotes and interviews that painted them to look like really shitty and uninteresting human beings. I’m not saying ignore the debauchery, because that’s clearly a big part of being a metal star, or any rock star for that matter, but maybe keep the focus on the power and the uniqueness of Heavy Metal.


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