Do You Remember Rock n' Roll Radio?

All right kids, listen up, because this NEVER happens. I am having, as they say, one of those nights. Is it everything finally catching up to me? MAYBE. But I've been thinking a lot about high school lately, and that always makes me sad. Because...and I enjoy being out here on my own, doing my own thing, and I love the friends I have out here. I do.

But I think about the Playwriting Festival, and I think about Tech. And I don't regret not pursuing those in college, I don't even regret getting out of Film. There's too much paperwork, too much union crap out here in the good old real world. But I miss that feeling when the lights went down and it was all on this group of people you couldn't believe you were lucky enough to be a part of.

I applied to the LA program here at Emerson, where you spend the second semester of Senior Year living, working, and learning in LA. Now, LA isn't the place I want to spend my life. But I thought, if I got into it, at least I could be back on the West Coast, with fairer winters and just a more laid-back attitude. Boston is...Boston's fine, but there's no comparison to the West Coast. I hate riding the subway.

But I didn't get into the LA Program, you know. So that's another...well, probably eight months out here with the way the lease works.

So I think about high school a lot. And I think about how much is lost since then, and how thankful I am that I'm still friends with the people I'm still friends with, but how GONE that community is. By which I mean you could rely on anyone you knew even the slightest bit if something was hitting the skids, at least just for a conversation. I don't want to get overly dramatic, but remember how it felt coming back from the Encounter? Or the Senior Pilgrimage, or Silent Retreat? Not how it was, but how it FELT. Now...messages go unanswered, Outsiders Looking In is a shell of its former self, and people just don't have the time they did before. Or that's what you hear.

I know I'm being unrealistic. Things happen, people drift away, even the ones you least expect. But this wasn't how it was supposed to be.

Now, I know...chances are whoever's reading this, you're not the people I'm talking about. That's just the way it is. But besides this just being a general, maybe pointless rant, I just want to say how thankful I am. I was in the apartment on my own this Thanksgiving, which was fine, didn't really bother me that much. But I took a moment to think about what I'm really, really thankful for.

And it's you guys. I've got a lot else to be thankful for, but above all else it's you guys, reading this now. I guess I don't know who all doesn't read this, but I know some of who does. And this is me, to you, saying thanks. For sticking by, for calling that week a little while back, for keeping alive that stuff that mattered to me the most after four years at JHS. It kills me (it does) that I won't be able to spend next summer with you. It goes beyond finances; I could find someone to live in my apartment (creepy as that may be to me) - I just have to be on my own now. Comes a certain time, you just can't live under your parents' roof anymore. Gotta strike out on your own, and that's what next summer, more so than the school year, is about.

But I can't wait for Christmas. This is probably the most excited I've been for the break...at least since Freshman year. I'll only be there for three weeks this year (Dec 20 through Jan 12), but I fully expect the level of excellence we've brought to those weeks in the years past.

So again, I thank you, and ask that you help me never let this go.

Your regularly scheduled inanity will continue next time.

"I think it was just about change. I think I needed some change in my life, and I ended up staying in Portland. I fell in love with the city and that whole different environment. Fantastic people. In New York you get very stingy with your time and space; you get very guarded with your time and space. If somebody came to the door and buzzed the door without you knowing they were coming you'd be like, 'OH MY GOD! THE NERVE!' I didn't really like that side of myself, but I saw most people were like that there. In Portland I suddenly felt open to things and people and available. It became this amazing feeling of rebirth."
-Todd Haynes, writer/director of "I'm Not There" (which rules)

Whatever Happened to All This Season's Losers of the Year?

Who'd have thought anyone would rally behind The Crystals? That's awesome.

I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to this weekend. Not Thanksgiving Day as much, because just generally, in life, I hate having a really set schedule. I know it's a part of life and you have to be certain places at certain times, but there aren't a lot of planned social activities that I end up enjoying all that much. Maybe it's because I have no option of escape, I dunno. I just prefer to have some breathing room in my life.

But other than that one day, I have a lot to do whenever I damn well please. Mostly movies...ideally, I'll knock out all six this weekend, and that's just theatrically. But I also have to write either a revision of a short story or a new short story for next Tuesday, and...well, I'm sure there's other stuff but who knows. Oh, yeah, I have to write a service piece for Magazine Writing. A service piece is like those "How to Build a Tool Shed for $89!" or "Hottest Night Clubs That Won't Refuse You at the Door!" Y'know, something that sort of helps people or gives them guidance. I don't really have any good ideas (at the pitch session, I suggested "How to Put a Home Theater Together On The Cheap," but I stole that from Cinematical).

I want to listen to the new Bruce Springsteen album but I really gotta conserve my cash...damn it all. I'll buckle eventually, I'm sure.

It snowed for the first time today, but it was that crappy snow that just hits the ground and melts.

Yesterday the city turned our water off from 9 AM to 2 PM, which gave me a very good excuse to stay home and do nothing, especially since once the water did come back on, the faucets sprayed nothing but brown hate for another half an hour. And who the hell would shower in that anyway? It did make the morning trip to the bathroom a little rough, and luckily I had old water bottles sitting around or I'd never have brushed my teeth.

I'm so tired today. I've been in the habit of getting around five hours of sleep before my Tuesday-Thursday schedule, because getting to bed by midnight is impossible and getting 6 to 7 hours of sleep usually catches me at a bad point in my REM and I wake up filled with unhappiness, but man, this was one of those mornings when that just did not fly. Maybe it's because I stayed up 'til 5 AM the night before for no reason whatsoever and woke up at 11:30 for even more baffling reasons, but it's all I can do to get from place to place today, much less retain basic critical thinking skills in class.

Three days 'til Christmas music.

Oh, damn, Black Friday's on Friday! I've always wanted to stay up and hit Best Buy's early morning sale...temptation so strong...

All right, that's enough, I'm cutting myself off here. Problem is when I'm this tired there's nothing else to do but try to busy myself to stay awake, and these blog posts are the easiest way. But this has gone on long enough.

Ruffles Have Ridges

Some of you may think I'm a good source for wisdom and guidance. Most of you know better, but for the rest of you...I'm on campus right now, having just finished meeting up for a group project, going to dinner with a friend in the area at 7, and didn't at all foresee the possibility that maybe those two events wouldn't meet as smoothly as I'd hoped. And so I brought along...no work! Not the two short stories I have to read and comment on. Not the sheet that tells me what the journal entry is to be about. Nothing! So now I've got...twoish hours. Good times.

Now I'm just waiting for people to leave the Quiet Room (a food-free zone) so I can loudly munch on my Ruffles, a potato chip I have not enjoyed in some time. Over the summer I became a convert to Tim's Cascade, but they're a NW-only chip, and so over here I proudly consume Cape Cod. But even Lays (you should really click on that one) I've had recently. But Ruffles? I think you'd have to go back a year or two. Senior Year I ate them all the time, but I can't think of a time since.

It used to be really easy to refer to high school, 'cause if I referenced "Sophomore Year" or "Freshman Year" you couldn't really confuse it with college, but now when I talk about "the summer after Sophomore Year" I have to note which one. Post-graduation life will blow.

So the other day (this'd be Friday), my roommate Gray and I were sitting in the theater, waiting for No Country for Old Men to start, when they inexplicably started playing this fantastic chick pop group. "Who could this be," I asked. "Oh, The Pipettes," Gray said. "They're awesome." "Are they ever!," I said, "I want to put this on and listen to it all day!" They only got like halfway through some song I don't recall specifically, but that was it, man - now I'm listening to this thing repeatedly. They're so fantastic and I can't believe they even exist. They're sort of a throwback to 60s chick pop groups (like The Supremes, The Chiffons, The Crystals, The Ronettes, etc.), but they sort of amp it up...almost power-pop, but just on the edge. And they're "about" section on their website immediately dismisses The Beatles to discuss (read: worship) Phil Spector, which is a good way to immediately endear yourself to me. And God damn are they great. I know I'm hardly the first person to say this, but I swear this music was made just for me.

Of course, I still have an uphill battle to convince the world that "Then He Kissed Me" by The Crystals is one of the greatest songs ever written.

Only a week and a half until I can listen to Christmas music and not get crap for it! I need to get a fake tree, too...I wonder what that'd cost to mail order...

Amazon will sell me a three-footer for $20. I think I'll take that.

Since I've been in here, two people have left. Two to go (I'm not counting the guy in the corner who's sleeping).

Yeah, all these other places are pretty spendy...one sells a four-footer for $150. Jesus.

After all the crap on the last few weeks, I was great concerned I would become one of those people who takes life seriously. But so far, not such business has occurred. Thank God.

The last two guys left, and ten minutes later a chick came in. I got like three chips in between all that. Goodbye chips! They weren't as good as I remember anyway...

What Kind of Day Has it Been

I'm in the Quiet Room at Emerson College, my go-to when I need to buckle down and get some work done (turning out well so far, don't you agree?). Because I have a lot, an obscene amount, to get done for my 6:00 class, which means skipping my 2:00. I also have a meeting at 4:30 that's been slipping my mind.

So Sunday...after everything, I started to get my ducks in a row and figure out what I had to do for Monday. Then I remembered we had a big project for Radio Studies, the proposal for which was due last Wednesday. So that's my 4:30 meeting. Then I remembered I had a short story due Tuesday (today) for Creative Writing. Then I was pretty much screwed.

Writing comes fairly easy for me, and I like to think it turns out decently. But this Creative Writing class is one of the few classes I've taken that I've actually enjoyed, and the pressure to do something original is pretty strong. It's a workshop class, see, and I take criticism extraordinarily well if I'm relatively proud the draft in question. If it's just a pile, it's all I can do just to endure the comments, most of which I know before we start. So to spare myself that, I like to do good work. And, I'm not one to brag, but they actually liked my last story (this isn't a self-delusion thing, I got really good criticism too, but two people came up and personally told me it was good, and I got a classroom applause, which was a bit much), so there is some need to make this one good as well.

So basically I spent the entire day struggling to get something out. I couldn't do any of the reading for the class yet, lest I ruin the process, and I put off my work for my 6:00 class 'cause I had no idea the short story would take so frickin' long. But I got it done, it's not great, I wish I had more time on it, but I'm pretty satisfied.

Show up to class this morning, Prof passes around the schedule to remind people when their stories are due...mine's not due for another week. Of course.

I'm not terribly mad about it, but still, y'know...that was a solid 8 hours I was putting into the story in one form or another that could've been used in so many other ways.

Anyway. I just need to get through today (only another 7 hours, 40 minutes), and the rest of this week will be relatively simple. I think.

I need to get a planner...the time's come.

Hey

Thanks everyone who called and IMed and everything. If I don't get back to you, don't take it personally - this was a busy time for me already, and all this made it even more so. But the messages alone mean a lot, so really, thank you. Hope all's well with you all.

"The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool."

As bad as the last few weeks were, things just got a lot, lot worse. I hate using the blog to spout off about personal stuff, but I really, really need your guys' support right now and I'll explain it then. So yeah...no more DVD stuff, not a whole lot of anything for a bit, don't know how long. Pray for me if nothing else.

My Life in Anamorphic Widescreen: A Clockwork Orange

There are two films every well-adjusted guy should see around the time he turns 17 – Fight Club, and A Clockwork Orange. And maybe girls should see them, too, I don’t know. And I say “well-adjusted” because, well…if you’ve seen A Clockwork Orange, you know. If not…it’s definitely something you have to have reached a certain level of maturity to see, because it’s a film for adults, but its politics, its message, its…energy, is very much for the young people. That was phrased wrong, but it’s politically a young film. Winston Churchill said that if you’re not a liberal by 20, you have no heart, and if you’re not a conservative by 40, you have no brain. And 17 is about when your average, well-adjusted kid is starting to think that all the crap he’s been fed is, well, crap, and anything that goes against The Man is awesome, and the fact is that A Clockwork Orange is about as great a film about sticking it to the man as they come.

In my review for Eyes Wide Shut, I talked about some of the films I saw when I was 17, 18 that really changed me and how I looked at the world – Fight Club, The Big Lebowski, American Beauty, all these great films that basically told me that everything They try to make you into is wrong, and will ultimately corrupt. A Clockwork Orange was one of those.

I saw A Clockwork Orange for the first time…I can’t pinpoint when, but I believe it was around the start of Senior year of high school, which would put me at age 18. But I know where I saw it – The Clinton Street Theater in Portland, OR – as dirty and grimy and filthy and great a theater as you can imagine. When I talk about The Ramones, the way I always describe their music is like you scraped it off the bathroom floor. The Clinton Street Theater is kinda like that. There’s absolutely no heating (so it had to be near the beginning of Senior year, ‘cause I didn’t want to kill myself the whole time), and it’s kind of a “you’re on your own” anytime you go to the bathroom.


And man, what a setting for that film – A Clockwork Orange remains my second favorite Kubrick film, largely because it was the first I saw, and…man, I remember just not being able to process the sheer chaos in front of me. I mean, by this point I’d seen Fight Club, so it wasn’t the first, but man, NOTHING prepares you for that movie, especially the first act. And nothing prepares you for how you’ll react. You’ll find yourself laughing out loud (it is a comedy, after all), but then immediately shut up and feel embarrassed and horrified for having just done so.

And as much as this is a towering achievement for its director, this is as much Malcolm McDowell’s film as it is Kubrick’s. In the commentary on this new release, you find out just how many roles were cast by McDowell himself, but even that aside, his performance as Alex is just astonishing. It’s still my favorite single performance in any film, and it’s the absolute epitome of Kubrick’s “realistic is good, interesting is better” acting philosophy. In spite of everything Alex does that really is just horrific, you’re drawn in by him. And I’m not saying anything new here, but McDowell is so charming and magnetic…I’ve seen this film four or five times, and it’s always McDowell that carries me through it. And you do end up feeling sorry for the poor bastard in spite of it all.

When I talk about how A Clockwork Orange changed my life, anyone remotely familiar with the film gives me kind of a cock-eyed “really?” And it’s not like I’m some hooligan, raping and pillaging and plundering as a result, and I certainly don’t look up to Alex – anyone who does misses the whole point of the film. But A Clockwork Orange changed the way I watch movies (certainly the way I watch Singin' in the Rain), and since movies are such a huge part of my life, it changed my life. It’s violent without being graphic, sexual without being pornographic, political without bashing you over the head with it. And its politics…it’s such a fine line, because its message is incredibly obvious, but you don’t have to think about the politics to appreciate the film. Paddy Chayefsky, who wrote Network and thus knows a thing or two, said that you can have all the message in the world, but films are meant to entertain first, and everything else, the message especially, is just gravy. Because Alex’s character arc is very strong, and it’s a thoroughly entertaining (or at least engaging) film full of lively performances (as strong as McDowell is, nobody in the film makes me laugh as hard as Michael Bates as the chief prison guard), A Clockwork Orange succeeds there as well.



VIDEO

Easily the best the film’s looked (aside potentially from its Blu-Ray and HD-DVD releases, which coincided with this DVD release). I’ve seen the film twice in theaters, and own the previous DVD, and while this isn’t a revolutionary presentation, it shouldn’t be. But the image is much more vivid than in the past. And WB was smart and released it in anamorphic widescreen, but if you look closely there are slight black bars on the left and right to maintain its aspect ratio of 1.66:1. They could’ve filled the whole screen and most people wouldn’t care, but those are the kind of touches that set this apart.

9 out of 10

AUDIO

You know the drill.

EXTRAS

The commentary by Malcolm McDowell and historian Nick Redman is fantastic. McDowell is totally open and honest about the process, and it’s refreshing that after all these years, he’s still willing to talk about it in such depth and with such energy. Redman is there mostly to fill in with facts that McDowell didn’t know, but he also asks fantastic questions and give great prompts that get McDowell talking. And he talks about everything, from what it’s like working alongside Kubrick to the extreme reaction on both sides when the film was released, his process in creating Alex, and of course the incredible physicality of the role (all great performances require the actor to give some of themselves, but man…you don’t know from commitment until you know what McDowell went through to make this film). If this was the only feature on the disc, it’d be an easy recommendation.

But there’s more!

“Still Tickin’: The Return of A Clockwork Orange” is about the film’s re-release in Britain in 2000 (Kubrick received death threats after the film inspired a ton of teen violence in the country, and didn’t allow the film to be shown in any form in that country through his entire life). It’s pretty clearly of its time, as it’s mostly famous people in England talking about how they managed to get a hold of the film, and how it ended up having a sort of mythic status in that country. Pretty interesting.

“Great Bolshy Yarblockos! Making A Clockwork Orange” is pretty much what it says, and delivers on what it promises. There’s some information that overlaps, and some that contradicts, what we’re told on the commentary, so that’s a little confusing, but it’s still worth a watch.

Finally, there’s a feature-length career profile of Malcolm McDowell called “O Lucky Malcolm!” I didn’t realize how long it was, and there’s a screening of Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales tonight, so I wasn’t able to watch it. My apologies there, but honestly, it can only sweeten the package.

10 out of 10

My Life in Anamorphic Widescreen: Eyes Wide Shut

OR: WELL, IT'S STILL THURSDAY IN MOST PARTS OF THE COUNTRY.

That's not the DVD cover art, but I love that image so much - it sums it all up.

I was about to say there isn’t an inch of this film that’s realistic, but that’s not quite true. But first let’s see why it is.

Eyes Wide Shut is a dream. I don’t mean literally; Tom Cruise can only jump off so many rooftops to wake up in his life. But in some ways more than Vanilla Sky, Eyes Wide Shut feels very true to a dream. The characters drift from one place to another, in situations that get weirder and weirder (only Kubrick could produce a scene as simple as an Eastern European man trying to seduce Nicole Kidman and have it come out that way). And while, plot-wise, there’s almost nothing that works realistically, you're willing to believe in it.


The truth is that…it feels idiotic saying this now, but when I first saw the film, man, I WAS Bill Harford in that great scene where he and Alice are stoned (not so much in the being stoned...or with some hot chick...but mentally). Bill, as a DOCTOR, is telling Alice that women just won’t think about sex like men do, and Alice gives him that unbelievable stare and says, “If you men only knew…”

And look, I’ve been close friends with girls as long as I’ve had close friends, but that line just punched me right in the face. And yeah, now I know better, but then? It was one of those sudden realizations that really makes you go “how much do I really know?”



And I’ll ALWAYS be close to films like that. When Will Hunting talked about the honor and reward of physical labor. When Sam Elliot told The Dude to take it easy, and he just said, “The Dude abides.” Sure, it helped that I saw these films very within a very specific time, a very formative time, when school was telling me to go to University and make as much money as possible, having Tyler Durden tell me, “You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank.” Man, that just about saved me. Or ruined me, depending on your world perspective.

And Eyes Wide Shut is kinda like that. I appreciate it for so much other stuff, but this was the first forum that was presented to me that said, “Hey, sex happens, and there’s a lot of screwed-up shit that goes along with it that’s fascinating. Let’s talk.” Health class? Forget about it. Maybe some class somewhere, but not at Jesuit High School, man. Religion classes didn’t talk about it either. Knights, the support group for us young men, was as close as it got, but it was still a Church thing and you can only talk so much. Eyes Wide Shut just opened up and laid everything bare.

I have to mention really fast how absolutely unbelievably great Nicole Kidman is in this film. “Realistic is good, interesting is better.”



I mean, look at THAT.

I said up top that I was inclined to say the film was almost entirely unrealistic, but it’s not really true. The plot is pretty far-out, and there are whole groups of people who will point out the geometric and architectural inaccuracies of the New York sets (everything, even the street scenes, were constructed and shot in a studio), but the film gets real where it counts – between Bill and Alice. The film’s flaws come largely from a ridiculous thriller subplot that eventually is literally explained point by point, but that’s just a hook to get people in their seats. The film is as great as it is because of everything going on between Bill and Alice, and how Bill deals with (and doesn’t deal with) a story Alice tells him of her sexual desire. The thriller stuff was interesting the first few times, but watching it again it just felt overdone. I could write a whole essay about just that, but it’s for another time.

I should mention that this new DVD release contains, for the first time in North America, the uncensored cut. Basically, there’s an orgy scene (hang with me here), and after Stanley Kubrick died, WB realized they had an NC-17 film on their hands. Rather than cut around it (which is probably what Kubrick would’ve done, but who am I to say), they used computers and stuck in people to block out all the raunchier stuff. It amounts to like a minute of footage, and honestly, there’s not a huge difference in how it plays. It’s still very surreal, perhaps even more so in its new, original form, but you’re still getting a great scene either way.

VIDEO

Get ready to learn!

Eyes Wide Shut is presented, for the first time on DVD, in anamorphic widescreen (1.78:1, its original theatrical ratio). Now’s as good a time as any to explain this…there’s a lot about it, but this shortest version imaginable is that when a film is mastered in anamorphic widescreen, it’s set to fill the entirety of a widescreen TV. It also is a MUCH higher picture quality, but honestly (and tech nuts will slay me for this) the average consumer can’t tell the difference. It’s only when you watch these damn things over and over again.

Anyway, the other controversy with this release is that the original DVD came out in full frame (1.33:1, or roughly what broadcast television is formatted for). This is because for everything Stanley Kubrick made after 2001: A Space Odyssey, he shot for widescreen but protected for full frame*, so it wouldn’t get screwed when it hit VHS (this was before it was expected for films to be released in their correct, theatrical aspect ratios). First, this makes Stanley Kubrick a genius, since he basically composed his frame two ways, and second, it lead to years of speculation regarding which one was actually intended.

For my part, I prefer the full frame (especially in the case of The Shining). There’s a certain way the sets move by as the camera floats behind the characters, along with some extra room around the actors’ heads that just seizes me, and for my money this widescreen transfer isn’t miles above the old one.

*A Clockwork Orange and Barry Lyndon were actually shot in 1.66:1, but his last three films (The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, Eyes Wide Shut) followed that aforementioned process

8 out of 10

SOUND

Still no surround sound. Call back later.

EXTRAS

Damn you WB!

When this DVD was first announced, it was to have a commentary with Sydney Pollack (who acts in this film, but is also a director and an all-around smart guy) and Peter Loewenberg, a historian and psychologist who’s published some articles dealing with Eyes Wide Shut. More than maybe any of the other commentaries, this was the one I was looking forward to the most. It’s one of Kubrick’s films that’s most open to interpretation, and since there was never any plans to really explore 2001: A Space Odyssey on its DVD, I figured I’d hit the jackpot with this commentary.

Then two months back they pulled it, but nobody updated their articles to reflect this and I didn’t find out until a day or so it was released. No reason given so far, of course. I cannot express how disappointed I am.

But that wouldn’t matter if they had something worthwhile here. Well, I should partially take that back…

“The Lost Films of Stanley Kubrick” is a great mini-documentary exploring the work he left unfinished, especially his planned Napoleon project (coolest bit of trivia – Kubrick had a filing cabinet that had a file for every day of Napoleon’s life).

Kubrick received the Director’s Guild DW Griffith award, named after the director maybe the most responsible for establishing many of the rules now taken for granted (we’re talking about simple stuff, just the most basic ways of telling a story on film). This disc has his speech, one of the few video recordings of Kubrick.

But did WB include anything dealing with Eyes Wide Shut? In short, not really. There’s an interview gallery with Cruise, Kidman, and Steven Spielberg carted over from the last DVD release. Each tell fantastic stories, especially one in which Kubrick told Spielberg he wants to one day expand the possibilities of cinema. Spielberg says, didn’t you already do that with 2001? Kubrick says, “almost.”

There’s a documentary called “The Last Movie: Stanley Kubrick and Eyes Wide Shut,” but it’s mostly a lot of fond farewells from a few years after Kubrick died, with some stuff from the interview gallery mixed in. Not that there's not good stuff in there, but there's almost nothing really dealing with Eyes Wide Shut.

Nothing on the making of the film, no critical analysis, no interpretation. This is a fine example of having a lot but giving us nothing.

Any other film, this score would be a lot higher, but given that they ripped us off with the commentary track and put no effort into exploring this film at all, I’m docking it.

6 out of 10 (purely for “The Lost Films” and Kubrick’s acceptance speech)

CONCLUSION

Eyes Wide Shut is my fourth or fifth favorite Kubrick film (constantly going between this and 2001), but its the one I have the most personal connection with. It's not without its flaws, especially in its more conventional thriller elements, but those are spare enough to keep us consistently engaged where it matters - Bill and Alice Harford. It also contains one of the best endings in cinematic history (Kubrick had a touch for endings unlike any other director).