Printing Legends
Now Playing: Frank Sinatra--"I've Got You Under My Skin"
My grandfather passed away Sunday at the age of seventy-eight. He died, strangely enough, right as I was watching a BBC John Ford documentary (hosted by the late great Lindsay Anderson, of all people) that was on the DVD set of Young Mr. Lincoln. Grandpa was a huge Ford fan, and I think he would have liked to know that. It honestly didn't come as a great shock; he'd been in ill-health for some while with a variety of ailments. Of all my relatives, Grandpa Jack was probably the one I most enjoyed visiting out of the blue, which I occasionally did when I still lived in Baton Rouge. All the lame pop sociology about "blue states" and "red states" meant little when talking to my grandfather, much more conservative than myself (or his eldest son, or his youngest daughter, or his second-oldest grandson, or, as we recently discovered, one of his granddaughters) but probably a lot more liberal than the rest of the family. hanging out with he and Slater or Dad in his garage, amusingly described by Slater at the funeral as a "Fortress of Manliness," was something of an experience, with college football on TV, beer cold enough to disguise its identity of Coors or Michelob, a complex setup of weightlifting equipment, and what I'm fairly certain was just about every action, or adventure, or Western flick broadcast on TBS during the VCR's twenty-year reign over home video technology, stored and meticulously filed in some of my favorite wood-paneled drawers ever. At least one of those took with me. Those were priceless Saturday afternoons, and will continue forever in my memory. Thanks, Grandpa, and RIP.

Beat Them Gherkins
Now Playing: Kelly Jean Caldwell--"O Do Not Be Afraid!"
New blog name? Maybe. Or "The Gherkins Deal"; there's one that just screams epic scope.

I was mistaken for the member of a company the other day. It was the weirdest thing; La Jefa had sent me to take a delivery over to a downtown office building, a gorgeous old place that used to be the city's main organ factory, and there were still a few well-preserved specimens in the lobby (musical, not biological) that I examined on the way out (like I know shit about organs). The office looked like the popular image of one of those myriad dotcoms that went under in the late 90s, with goateed boy geniuses in toque hats knocking hackysacks around while chatting via mildly primitive cellphones to their brokers on NASDAQ. Or what have you. My customary attire on outdoor excursions is a wool hat, jacket, and scarf, the latter frequently worn over my mouth and nose, as the wind's been especially lacerating recently. Before taking the elevator back down, I put it all on and joined a couple of those "business guys," as Mike Nelson calls them.

"Down?"

I nodded and inserted myself between them as unobtrusively as possible.

"That is a fantastic-looking office," said one.

"Yeah, this place used to be an organ factory." The guy turns to me. "How long have you guys been there?" He obviously hasn't seen the chef pants, although I guess I should be relieved that he hasn't been looking there in the first place.

I raise my hands in a noncommittal shrug.

The other guy shakes his head. "That's not his company, man."

"That's not your company?" the guy asks me in apparent disbelief.

I shake my head. Mind you, it was a cool office.

"You don't work here?"

Again the shake.

"Who the hell are you?" asks the other guy, laughing. "Take off that mask!"

The elevator reaches ground level and we all have a good chuckle.

"It's cold out there," I whimper in partial explanation.

I hope I get sent there more often. I had to go there again that day, and was that time hassled by one of those homeless guys, the one who goes around screaming religious invective in a manner recalling Arsenio Hall's preacher character from Coming To America. La Jefa broke the news of my second traipse in sorrow-laden tones, not realizing that she was just throwing me in the briar patch.

Madisonfest: A Farewell Show (2007): Shawn Wernette's documentary portrait of this, which I was able to see in a rough cut Thursday evening at the Bluish Barn, a very cool little place north of Kerrytown, home to local musician Timothy Mephi and a number of friends. They're showing a different movie every Thursday, and the next few weeks' roster strongly tempts me to become a semi-regular patron. I'd had a number of enjoyable and increasingly intoxicated conversations with Shawn and Ryan Balderas about movies, and was thrilled to find out that he'd finally edited all the footage together and was showing it in Ann Arbor. I'm a little biased, but I think it's wonderful. Some of the performances onscreen maybe last a little long in comparison to others, but that's the only major criticism that sprang to mind. One of the big pleasures was to see performances I'd missed at the time (I tried my damnedest, but even I can't entirely make it through a nearly twelve-hour set of music without a break). Of those, Zach Curd was probably the most impressive, with one foot in folk and another in the kind of quasi-cabaret stuff that worked such wonders for Bowie around the time of Hunky Dory. There were also priceless bits of performances I'd seen but hadn't wholly appreciated--viz. Vince and Matt's facial expressions during the Dabenport set. Glorious. I'd actually expected it to be a straightforward portrayal of the music, and so I was very pleased to find a timely and well-placed selection of interviews in between performances and leading into them, with Ryan, Brandon, Fred Thomas, and Steven from Canada, all of whom put their own contributions into the context of the local music scene, and particularly the opportunities Ann Arbor allows folk musicians, in contrast to garage rock's longtime predominance in Detroit. Brandon waxes particularly eloquent over Great Lakes Myth Society and how they have to deal with the potential trivialization of their subject matter in non-Michigander eyes by artists like Sufjan Stevens. I watched it with an audience that had an often distractingly--but in the end bracingly--critical attitude towards the performances. I won't mention the specific performer, but she was playing with a poor glockenspielerin who got a merciless (though somewhat justified, in my mind) ragging from the peanut gallery in back. "The glockenspiel player doesn't give a fuck!" "She's wearing business casual!!" (the latter hissed in a manner others might reserve for... I don't know, live infant evisceration or something). The film led, as the show did in real life, to Chris Bathgate's supremely evocative performance of "We Die," the final song ever played at the Madison House. The credits played, alongside Adam's photos, to Saturday Looks Good To Me's "When You Got To New York." It's weirdly appropriate in two ways--the last song on the most recent record of probably the best-known Ann Arbor band (2004's Every Night), and a reference to Brandon's present life in Brooklyn. Full disclosure: I'm thanked in the credits; I still have little idea why.

Pan's Labyrinth (2006): A genuine Grimm-style fairy tale modernized (well, 1940s, anyway) and fully realized. Even the interminable commercials through which one must helplessly sit at Showcase Cinemas in Ypsilanti found redemption through the movie's greatness. It was strange, too, as it took me half the movie to warm to it (when I did, though, I did with a vengeance). Many disparate themes come together towards the end in a rewarding and in one case very gutsy manner. Guillermo del Toro's work has somewhat eluded me in the past; I enjoyed Cronos but didn't like The Devil's Backbone as much as I thought I would (probably a case of thinking it was going to be the most awesome movie ever made from the reviews--that's screwed me over more than once). Young Ofelia (the amazing Ivana Baquero) finds herself and her invalid mother saddled with a wicked stepfather who also happens to be a captain in Franco's army. It's 1944 and though the Spanish Civil War has been over for half a decade, there are still isolated pockets of resistance in the northern mountains (the dialogue hints at Aragon). Ofelia quickly discovers the nearby woods to be haunted by ancient spirits, who assign her a quest that will take her away from her wretched mortal existence. After a rocky start, del Toro ably contrasts Ofelia's "fantasy" world with the oppression and degradation of the "real" one, all the while subtly (and sometimes not so much) hinting at similarities between the two. As in all the best horror movies, themes of sacrifice surface in a way that recall some of the best specimens of the genre. All that takes place against a truly gorgeous physical backdrop. The verdant, mountainous countryside is fine enough, but the fantasy scenes make for delicious icing on the cake; the "banqueting hall" is one of the most evocative and well-rendered sets I've ever seen in a movie, period. Sergi Lopez makes a superb villain as the stepfather; the most horrific scenes in the movie are the ones in which he tortures suspects (or, more precisely, is about to torture them). Now I'll have a movie to root for at the Oscars!

Young Mr. Lincoln (1939): In his excellent essay "Hero in Waiting" that accompanies the DVD, film scholar Geoffrey O'Brien makes a case that John Ford's biographical masterpiece was something of an American answer to totalitarian propaganda titans like Triumph of the Will and Alexander Nevsky (and wouldn't you know it, Sergei Eisenstein's 1945 essay "Mr. Lincoln by Mr. Ford" appears right after O'Brien's). There's a definite ambivalence towards "the American way" in this one; as O'Brien observes, Lincoln's relations with the Springfield townspeople epitomize the constant tug-o-war between individual and society. An ostensible account of Lincoln's early Illinois legal career in the 1830s, Young Mr. Lincoln makes its subject (Henry Fonda, whose garish false nose one forgets after about five minutes) human while making the frequent historical foreshadows part of that humanity, instead of turning the man into a statue (which does happen, quite literally, but only at the very end of the movie). There's a dominating plot concerning Lincoln's defense of a pair of brothers accused of murder, but it's the little touches that shine through for me, particularly the appearances of a hilariously smug Stephen Douglas (Milburn Stone)--every time there's a shot of his face while Lincoln's speaking (particularly in medium or long shots), you can just tell he's thinking "hick moron!!!" Along with that comes a plethora of small-town Americana: covered wagons, state fairs, lynch mobs, pie-eating contests, parades... the kind of deceptive and occasionally corny wholesomeness that Ford's genius turns to high drama, and a perfect stage for his subject. Lincoln, the most fascinating of Americans, needed no such transformation, but Ford renders him an American cinema hero for the ages.

Loving Plans, Coming Together
Now Playing: The Stone Roses--"Standing Here"
WARNING: The following post contains mature subject matter. If you can call it that.

This past week saw the thirty-fourth anniversary of Roe v. Wade, a landmark achievement in women's--and consequently human--rights in this country. Several blogs and websites encouraged pro-choice bloggers to post on why they're pro-choice. I'm not a woman, but I am human at the very least, and have participated in an active volunteer basis for three years in promoting reproductive rights, and so I should probably say something.

First off, dropping the bomb, I voted for Ralph Nader in the presidential election of 2000, and have heartily repented ever since then (actually more since he refused to endorse Wellstone for the Minnesota Senate race two years later, but you know what I mean). I still have my doubts as to whether he was the proximate cause of Bush's "victory" on historical accuracy grounds, but I'm just as culpable regardless because he could have been. I've considered myself pro-choice ever since I was aware of the reproductive rights struggle, and once took part in a counter-demonstration outside the Delta Women's Clinic in Baton Rouge when Operation Rescue blew through town in the early 90s. I'm hazy these days on the details, but I believe the right to abortion in Louisiana was in one of its periodical legal limbos, with various court decisions challenging and counter-challenging, that opened a window for abortions to be performed despite questionable legality. I think. In any case, I ended up outside said clinic with a couple of friend and a bunch of other counter-demonstrators--some local and some out-of-state--facing a group of Randall Terry's slavering little disciples. I vividly remember one fellow carrying a cross with a papier-mache bleeding Jesus or some such (how's that for a band name?), looking like he was about to speak in tongues, and reminding me of nothing less than a medieval flagellant. In 1992.

Why mention the Nader thing? When the election came around, I associated Gore rather too closely with Clinton (and therefore with an overly precipitate welfare reform, the ruinous and counterproductive
"drug war" at home and abroad, etc.). What essentially happened is that I took abortion rights (and, as it turned out, a great deal else) for granted. Some could plausibly argue that I oculd afford to do so due to my gender and therefore privileged status in American society and culture.* In any event, I harbored a pretty impressive (if I do say so myself) stockpile of guilt over the election, and the abortion thing figured heavily in it.

When I moved to Ann Arbor, I quickly became depressed over my job and how little the city measured up to my initial expectations, and figured a good way to get out of it was to volunteer at... something. I got on an internet volunteer exchange and noticed that the local Planned Parenthood chapter was looking for volunteers. It sounded interesting, and so I got in contact with my now good friend Jessica, the volunteer coordinator. Ann Arbor is in many ways a deceptively liberal town, and so I thought there might be some friction there--I pictured myself getting hassled by wackos or something, occasionally laughing at some fundamentalist preacher holding up a bloody fetus poster outside the offices and asking him if he'd ever seen Poltergeist 2. I began by putting together patient billing statements (a lot of those), other administrative work, and eventually moved to manning booths at popular local events like Art Fair and OutFest. I branched out, through the good offices of Planned Parenthood staffer Meredith, to other volunteer stuff like the WRAP library project. Wednesday I actually got to go to a lunch and was named one of two Volunteers of the Year for 2005. It's been a lot of fun and I hope to continue doing my best at it for as long as I'm here.

So why pro-choice, then? For one thing, the arguments have perennially seemed miles more valid. Birth's always meant "birth" to me; call me old-fashioned. The right-wing caricature of irresponsible whores getting abortions just for the hell of it has no real bssis in fact, and it's primarily a result of sexual asault, lack of birth control aids, or lack of sex education. One effect of working as a volunteer has been to impress on me what an excellent job its staff does at trying to improve women's and men's access to the information they need to lead healthy sex lives and reduce the number of abortions, and how these different issues are interlinked. It's also one of the few issues (gay marriage being another) where the desires of the individual dovetail precisely with the needs of society. On several social issues, like gun ownership and the death penalty, I'm somewhat torn between "liberal" and "conservative" arguments--not so with these. Also, though it seems a little negative, it's instructive to judge the pro-choice cause by its enemies, mostly older men who will never have to worry about the effects of an abortion or the lack of birth control.** What they--and for the last six years the government--have been aiming at is the elimination of the right to abortion, birth control, and sex education (and fellas, if moral arguments don't move you, to paraphrase--maybe quote, I don't remember, Dan Savage--we're next--don't think they'll stop at masturbation's edge). It's effectively the elimination of women's ability to govern their own lives. They're fellow citizens and that ability should belong to every one of us. So there are my reasons.

*I never forget it these days, no matter how down and out I feel. One thing that occasionally dredges up guilt is the way in which I make myself feel better through the misery of others. Whenever my boss becomes too annoying for words, or I realize I can't go out for two weeks, I just tell myself "at least you're not a starving child in Darfur" (or, for that matter, a woman in any number of states who needs an abortion--or someone in Falluja, etc.). I feel good, then I feel bad, and then my head hurts and I tell myself a qualified "life's too short."

**An attitude expressing itself in a particularly grotesque way through the ludicrously unfair practice in many corporations of making Viagra available through health insurance but not birth control. I couldn't have made up that shit while drunk (and I've probably tried).

Carpet of Leeks
Now Playing: Adrian Belew--"Big Blue Sun"
I work, as some of you may have gleaned, in a restaurant in the United States. As such, I see a truly staggering amount of food wasted every day. People are actually better about cleaning their plates in my present workplace than they were at my old job at the high-end Italian place in Akron, where they were a lot more profligate with the kitchen's bounty. One of the factors behind my recent decision to actively pursue a culinary career has been to try and reverse, in however insignificant a fashion, this appalling habit. There's more than one way to go down with a ship. While some might protest, in the manner of one of Dickens' more celebrated characters, that the state of things helps to curb the excess population, their reasoning doesn't quite face up to how many more resources the relatively few well-to-do consume in contrast to the many impoverished.

This isn't a fresh discovery on my part--even while watching the egregious Nickelodeon game show Double Dare (in middle school, I think--such an irresponsible show could only have come about during or after Reagan), where groups of screeching preteens slid along waves of chocolate or whipped cream, I couldn't help thinking "I know all those sweets are horrible for you (not that it'll stop me from eating their ilk) but couldn't something more constructive be done with them?" My present quasi-poverty has made me more personally knowledgeable as to the benefits of food conservation, but even my ill-fated attempt to use egg whites in frying potatoes (I used the yolks to make homemade mayonnaise and didn't know what else to do with the remainder) wasn't enough to deter me from new endeavors in this cause. So I went for Food Gatherers, which I'd been meaning to do for a while.

Food Gatherers is a local organization that takes food from donors, mostly restaurants and grocery stores with product they can't or won't use, and then distributes it to those in need. These latter are a variety of local organizations including the Delonis Community Center Kitchen, where I made a commitment to volunteer for a couple of hours the third Saturday of every month. The kitchen is located in the downtown shelter building, which has a wide array of services for the hard-luck and homeless. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I wanted to use my experience to some good purpose. I'd been able to do so once before, at a Planned Parenthood reception in the house of a wealthy patron, where I was able to use my bussing skills (yes, bussing skills) to smooth things along. This gig promised to be a little more substantial.

I arrived at the kitchen in the wake of a church group who apparently do this every Saturday. Paula, the kitchen manager, promptly assigned us all duties and told us we'd have our orientation after we'd finished. This was actually refreshing, as I got to skip the awkward "sitting around, being the new guy" thing (although it's nowhere near as bad as it used to be; I don't picture people in their underwear--well, some less than others--so much as in Eddie Murphy-style Gumby outfits), and get straight to work. Paula had me unloading the delivery truck, making coffee (odd as I usually don't like it), and then teaming up with John, an avuncular gent in his sixties, to make salads.

The whole ethos of the kitchen is to use what you have. This should hold true of any kitchen, but it's a welcome escape from the tyranny of set recipes and it helped that Paula told us to use our own judgment. Her only contribution was to add corn to the salads, which I'd never have considered, but apparently people seem to like it. I got the tossing into an assembly-line format, with John chopping carrots and I parsley (and ripping romaine leaves to make them more edible for people with severe dental problems) and then back again. It was great fun and I was happy to be doing something useful with my abilities. Afterwards, Paula gave us the orientation session, which amounted to a brief history of the organization and how it worked. I could really get used to the kitchen as a monthly deal; their mission lies in exactly the direction in which I want to fashion my own life.

That night, I made vichysoisse.

Vichysoisse

3 tsp butter
8 leeks
3 medium potatoes
5 cups chicken or vegetable stock
salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 cup cream
milk or water to thin

Melt butter in pot. Clean and chop leeks, and add to pot. Stir while cooking for 20 mins. on low heat. Peel, slice, and stir in potatoes, then add stock. Bring to boil and then simmer until potatoes soften, about 30 mins. Puree until smooth. Season with salt to taste and pepper. Add cream. Thin with water and milk if necessary, then serve hot or cold.

This was my first cream-based homemade soup. Those are fraught with danger at my workplace, as our stovetop has two settings--"scald" and "off"--and easily burn. This happens a lot less nowadays, but you never know. I won't lie--vichysoisse was fun to make. I'd already eaten, so there was little rush. Leeks are interesting things--sweeter and milder than onions, and they have an equally lovely smell while cooking, only different. I tried a bit of the chopped raw, and it went down so much better than raw onions; I can definitely see how they would be excellent on salads. Softening and sauteing in the butter, they're a joy, and they reduce really fast--it was like watching a jungle in my soup pot transform into a marsh. I was even able to play with the leeks' texture a little, chopping them into waves and then smoothing them into a carpet.

I'd brought down my stereo to listen to CBC Radio 3--one of the fun things about cooking for me is the music. They did some Strokes, Franz Ferdinand, Tom Waits (as well as a lot of obscure Canadian bands, which is really the appeal for me), and then a report from one of the Arcade Fire's "secret shows" from Montreal. I tried to dispel the leeks' aroma, which, while very pleasant, was close to suffocating, and remembering we had a blower atop the oven, I also realized that we had a small kitchen light much dimmer and softer than the main (and very harsh) ceiling light. Turning off the main, I turned on the oven light, and then kitchen was transformed. I was alone in the dim glow, snow all around the house and visible through the window, and stirring a pot. I felt like a wtich, maybe Sleeping Beauty's spurned, malefic would-be godmother plotting mischief aplenty. I doubt she was listening to Wolf Parade (maybe a wolf parade), but then I guess these comparisons only go so far. After stirring in the potatoes (and using the spare simmering time to bake off two spare cod fillets I had in the fridge), I found that the half hour had rendered the soup so soft and tender that I saw little reason to puree anything. Potage parmentier (vichysoisse without the cream) may be one of the basic French soups, but it was my kitchen, dammit. After all, this is presumably how they did it before food processors, and the peasants never needed any of those to go on jacquerie (though invented by a French chef around the turn of the last century, the soup's potato-leek base makes it great peasant food). I added the cream, gave it a stir, and then some milk and just a little water. The soups I make at work are good, but we got panned (if one can call it that) in the local paper (if one can call it that) for our soups being more like stews, velvety (our server's favorite description) and thick. I prefer it thus, but I know many like their soups thin, fluid and reedy (the last makes no sense, but it goes well with the other two in prose, I think), so I tried to overdo it with the water (it didn't "help"). I poured a small bowl, and stuck the rest in the fridge. It was great--stracciatella was okay, but this was so much better. The leeks and cream made it sweet while just a little bit spicy and mysterious.

I felt very satisfied with the day.

Watching Ripples Change Their Size
Now Playing: Vashti Bunyan--"Jog Along Bess"
I've decided not to go to library school. The plan for the past couple of years has been to go to library school, hopefully here, with cooking or culinary school as a backup option. Thing is, though--I love what I'm doing. For a long time, I thought my chosen work would only be worthwhile if done in an academic setting, which I now see to be ludicrous. My boss and the money excepted, I enjoy my coworkers, I enjoy interacting with customers (a colossal turnaround from just about every other restaurant job I've had), and most of all, I love cooking. It's strange to think I barely even knew how before I was twenty-five. I never really cooked before grad school, when I learned to cook a few simple fish and poultry dishes, but now I see doing new recipes as pretty much the highlight of my week. If I'm more interested in the backup option than the main plan anyway, why go through with the latter at all? I moved up to Ann Arbor originally to go to the Michigan School of Information, but shouldn't view my years here as wasted simply because I've changed my mind. Learning is never wasted. In that spirit I offer:

Merluzzo Livornese (serves 4)

1 potato
1 lb. fresh cod fillets
1 1/2 tbsp. corn oil
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 garlic clove, crushed
2 tsp chopped fresh parsley
salt and pepper
1/4 tsp dried hot peppers
1 cup tomato sauce

Boil potato, peel, and set aside. Saute both sides of cod in corn oil until brown. Discard oil. In skillet saute garlic and parsley in olive oil until garlic is pale gold. Stir in salt, peppers, and tomato sauce. After 5 mins. add fish. After another 5 mins. add potato. When sauce amalgamated and oily, serve with French or Italian bread.

It turned out great (maybe a little salty), although there was no specification as to how the fish should look, and it eventually separated into chunks while I stirred. Part of the whole point of cooking is to find new ways and new recipes, but I may have inadvertently offended a few coastal Tuscan gourmets. My apologies. I cooked while watching A Hard Day's Night, and, figuring I should watch something Italian, ate wile watching Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow from the same year, the latter a lovely romantic comedy trilogy from Vittorio de Sica starring a ravishing Sophia Loren (who does one of two famous stripteases, if I remember, in the final act), and an endearing Marcello Mastroianni (Aldo Giuffre, so memmorable in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly as the drunken Union colonel at the bridge, pops up as their friend in the first act who's faced with a difficult choice). In the first, I find a phenomenon where I always notice something different every time I watch. In this case, shortly after Paul's identified his grandfather (the wonderful Wilfrid Brambell, he of Steptoe and Son, the Jonathan Miller Alice in Wonderland, and the inexplicable Witchfinder General cameo) as a leading source of "breach-of-promise cases," the just as great Norman Rossington, as the boys' manager, takes the old coot away, assuring the lads that everything will be fine: "I'll just bind him to me with promises." Ha!

Jesse's Departure As Metaphor
Now Playing: Ivy--"Ocean City Girl"
Just Deserts: The best band in Michigan has a sweet writeup in the MetroTimes. We got to hear them at the Blind Pig Thursday night in one of the tightest shows they've ever done. Afterwards it was back to the SE house for partying way too late and ending with an eerily cinematic scene at 4:30 a.m. at the corner of State and North University. My thanks to Sara, Margot and Adam for a great time.

Newsflash: On the morning of 9 January, I heard a report from CBC Radio 2 on the completion of Bush's "reshuffling" of Iraq advisors and how the plan for a troop escalation cuts against the wishes of the vast majority of Americans. While warming up some stracciatella for breakfast downstairs, I briefly turned on the TV to find Meredith Vieira grilling Ted Kennedy on the Today show over whether or not we'd "prevail" in Iraq. Prevail. Like it's a medieval tournament. That's the difference between a (relatively) independent media and a gaggle of lackeys. That's why I usually stay away from this stuff; I can get depressed enough on my own.

Brokeback Mountain (2005): There's a scene in The Blue Lagoon (which I saw in college to much hilarity at the end of a garbage-bag sledding session--make of that what you will) where Christopher Atkins and Brooke Shields are wrestling around in their unbelievably elaborate lean-to or some such and Brooke runs away with Atkins in the doorway laughing. There's then a moment of silence in which his smile fades and he understandably looks down at his cock (guarded by a conch shell or something else I'd rather not remember). Subtle. The same thought occurred to me several times while watching Brokeback, which had a lot of good things in it but which was so grand and momentous that I suspect the centrifugal forces ripped apart the cohesion of what was, essentially, a short story put on film (and those are, I suspect, harder than they look to begin with). There's a weird disjointedness to this thing that makes it more a collection of okay ingredients rather than an actual movie, a whole much less than the sum of its parts. I've had a soft spot for Michelle Williams for ages, and she's excellent as Alma, Heath Ledger's wife, her incomprehension and feelings of betrayal leading to a kind of silent explosion. I didn't enjoy Anne Hathaway nearly as much (as Jake Gyllenhaal's wife), but she did have a great moment when Ledger calls her asking for him. I've liked Ledger ever since the decidedly underrated A Knight's Tale, but found myself preferring Gyllenhal by the end (there's a great scene where he gains control of a Thanksgiving dinner from his odious father-in-law). The grand treatment mentioned earlier actually works, despite misgivings, with the spectacular scenery and the music, which relies ona pretty simple tune but which gets reinforced throughout until it's slapping me: "This is a big Oscar-worthy movie! Don't give me that look! You know you want it!" etc. etc. I usually resent that kind of thing intensely (John Barry never had to sink to that level, at least before the eighties), but it got me in the end, sure enough. Wish I knew how to quit it, really.

Prey (1977): Speaking of troubled gay relationships... take a huge house somewhere in the English countryside, meld softcore lesbian porn with an alien-infiltration story, and you've got Norman J. Warren's bizarre but not un-entertaining (in a good way, too) thriller. "Anderson" (Barry Stokes) shows up at a secluded mansion tenanted by lovers Jessica (Glory Annan) and Jo (the great Sally Faulkner)--or, as I like to call them, "Anne of Green Gables" (Jessica's Canadian, too) and "Mistress of the Lash." It quickly turns out that none of the characters are quite as they seem, to put it mildly. There's a fair deal of nudity and a little gore (thankfully, the latter is nowhere near the level I expected--I'm a huge fan of bare flesh and consensual sex in movies, but the red stuff's definitely optional). We even get an extended shot of one character nearly drowning in a pond that I found reminiscent (of all things) of Amos Gitai's grueling 2000 film Kippur, the story of a squad of Israeli medics on the Golan Heights during the 1973 war. In Kippur, I'm guessing the effect was to convey the grinding inhumanity of war and how monotonous it can become. In Prey... not sure there was a point, really, beyond getting Annan all nice and wet, but it's a nifty effect all the same. Anderson's enigmatic (his eye-level relationship with Jessica's parrot is hilariously compelling, as is a dance scene with Jo), and Jessica's extremely sweet though mildly dopey, but it's Jo who's alternately annoying and hypnotic, her domineering ways with Jessica and her strange unfolding kinship with Anderson well-communicatied by Faulkner. This is the third performance I've seen from Sally Faulkner, and it's amazing to watch a kind of generational evolution take place--first the vivacious, slightly scatterbrained photographer Isobel Watkins in the 1968 Doctor Who classic "The Invasion," then the warm, earth-mothery artiste Harriet in Jose Larraz' bewitching but appallingly flawed 1974 Vampyres, and now the suspicious, pretentious androphobe Jo. Excepting certain plot details, I can easily imagine all three dramas to be chapters in the life of a single person. All in all, it's an unexpectedly thought-provoking thriller and a refreshingly good example of British horror from the late 1970s.

Inside Man (2005): I haven't seen nearly enough Spike Lee movies--She's Gotta Have It, Jungle Fever, Malcolm X, Crooklyn, Summer of Sam, and Bamboozled, basically. I'm going to try and get Do The Right Thing out of the way this month, but my housemate checked out Inside Man from the library and I figured I'd take the opportunity. It's apparently his attempt at a blockbuster, and it works great, but with odd little touches and a refreshingly offbeat pace and feel ensuring one that Michael Bay or Tony Scott aren't in charge--Terence Blanchard's jazzy score is a welcome change from the pompous cookie-cutter Hollywood music that generally punches the cards on these flicks. It almost sounds like John Barry mind-melded with Miles Davis. In many ways, Inside Man's a combination of The Negotiator and The Usual Suspects (without Kevin Spacey) with generous helpings of New York flavor. Denzel Washington and Chiwetel Ejiofor (who has a very funny moment in quoting The Godfather--again, the up-and-coming British cult faves with the Godfather quoting--see Tristram Shandy) are detectives who get called in to help another officer (Willem Dafoe) on a robbery / hostage-taking at a downtown bank carried out by Clive Owen. Jodie Foster shows up as a shady high-roller who may know more than she's saying about what's going on inside. I'm no particular friend of the auteur theory (sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't) but you know a director's actually in charge on this one, from the unorthodox narrative structure (the interviews with the released hostages are frequently hilarious, giving Washington some particularly good moments--you know, as if he needed them) right down to Lee's trademark bizarro dolly shots. If I knew more Hollywood action movies would be this enjoyable, I might make it out to the theatre more often.

Dwelling On Trivial Skirmishes
Now Playing: Nick Drake--"Poor Boy"
Yes, it's one of those "2006 retrospective arts blog posts with an Italian soup recipe" things.

Stracciatella: 3 cups chicken or vegetable stock
(simmer in medium saucepan)
1 large egg
1 1/2 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
1 tbsp dried breadcrumbs
2 tbsp chopped parsley
1 small clove garlic, minced
(stir mixture rapidly into simmering stock and continue until egg sets, 30-60 secs.)
Ground nutmeg or grated lemon zest (for garnish)

Music: My favorite new album of the year was the long-awaited final release of Clouded Staircase by Starling Electric, my favorite local band, who recently toured with Guided By Voices and can hold their own against any other act in the country, especially now that Sleater-Kinney's broken up. That, by the way, was the most unwelcome musical development of the year. I'd found One Beat to be a little shrill, but understandable given the political winds at the time it was released. It took me a little time to get into The Woods, but once I did, I was eager to see what they'd do next ("What's Mine Is Yours," "Modern Girl," and "Rollercoaster" were magnificent). Though they're no more, they left some great memories, and I salute them anew as the best American musical act of the nineties. I thought outside the music box more last year than at any point in the past five. Much of my musical tastes in Akron came from outside influences (with wonderful results; I owe Pere Ubu, Television, Rocket From The Tombs, pretty much all the pre-punk and new wave stuff to Matt Hiner, and the Super Furry Animals to Matthew Keller). Once I'd discovered the local scene in Ann Arbor, I pretty much delved into area music, exploring whatever took my fancy at house shows and other venues, and only really came up for air last summer. Probably my favorite album of any sort I heard besides Clouded Staircase was The Go! Team's mindblowing Thunder, Lightning, Strike. Honorable, less recent mentions go to Bowie's Hunky Dory (I would drunkenly belt out "Life on Mars?" in the company of others at full blast twice before the year's end--oh, and happy 60th, by the way!), Aimee Mann's thirteen-year-old solo debut Whatever, Margot and the Nuclear So-and-So's with The Dust of Retreat, some of which I heard the year before when they played the Blind Pig, and Brian Eno's Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) , which, being released in November 1974, actually shares my own age (highlights: "Mother Whale Eyeless," "The Fat Lady of Limburg," and especially "The True Wheel," on which Eno shares guitar with ex-Roxy Music colleague Phil Manzanera).

Cinema: I've been trying to avoid going to the actual movie theatre for both financial and aesthetic reasons. My boss recently came through on my Go!Pass (which allows certain employees of downtown Ann Arbor businesses free travel on city buses to alleviate the parking situation in the "city center"), so getting to the googolplex will be slightly easier. The days are over when I would go see 24 Hour Party People four times (twice at the Michigan and twice at the State). Most of the movies I saw last year were on DVD. The only three I can remember seeing in the theatre last year were The Descent, Borat and Casino Royale. The first two were okay, and I greatly enjoyed the third. I always thought Craig would do fine (he did), but was disappointed in the somewhat lackluster villain and the sheer wastage of Jeffrey Wright (who usually saves otherwise lugubrious movies like Ride With The Devil and Basquiat or just-plain-unfortunate ones like the Shaft remake from being complete timewasters). The greatest movie I probably saw last year was Visconti's forty-three-year-old The Leopard--a huge visual canvas, majestic scenery, towering performances, and a nifty little twist towards the end that (a) works great and (b) isn't absolutely integral to the plot. Spoiler alert: We do not discover that Burt Lancaster's Prince di Salina is an alien intelligence whose ill-health furstrates his plans to conquer Earth. Many directors, Mr. Shyamalan, think that the twist is the whole point of the movie--I occasionally find Mario Bava tiresome as a result--probably because they hear "twist ending" and think "cool! I'll be compared to Hitchcock!" No.

Literature: Reading is pretty much like eating or drinking--actually, more like breathing--to me, and so I don't think I take as much notice of the books I read as of the purely visual or audio media I ingest, which is something I ought to work on. The best novel I read this year? Angela Carter's Wise Children, published right around her death in 1992, a funny and moving saga of two sisters and their adventures on the stage in 20th century Britain and America. Browsing through the Kiwanis bookshelves one Saturday morning brought me into contact with the hilarious Laurie Notaro, whose The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club, based on the author's experiences as a twenty-something ne'er-do-well in Arizona, was one of the best examples of written humor I'd found since Mike Nelson or David Sedaris. I relearned that reading can be addictive after working through Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles and House of Niccolo historical fiction series (with refreshingly weird, twisted central characters and supporting cast) of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. I can't pass this way, of course, without mentioning the stuff on the British Horror Films forum, particularly the work of Neil Christopher, whose novellas "Test of Faith" (post-apocalyptic trial by ordeal) and "Cerberus Rising" (Cold War werewolves) blew most of the rest of us out of the water. Last but not least, I finally knocked out Robert Hughes' superb biography of Goya (my own favorite visual artist of all time)--as the (rightfully) obsequious book jacket put it, "one genius writing at full capacity about another."

Television: I got a DVD player this year, and have been trolling through the ages...I owned a VCR for over a decade, and only began to buy movies five years or so into that time. I've owned the DVD player for a little under a year, and I already own eleven movies, four individual epsiodes of the old Dr. Who, two seasons of Family Guy (thanks, Slater and Kenissa!) and the complete series of Blackadder the Third and Firefly. Our local library has masses of stuff, too. I've made it through the first series of Deadwood and part of Rome ("Brutus, me old cock!") and am really unsure which of those I prefer--the last scenes of the former's final episode were so beautiful to almost wrench tears. They've also all three series of Father Ted, some of them with commentary from Graham Linehan and Ardal O'Hanlon, which is great. I'm planning to watch the entire Wire at some point to see if it's as good as everyone says it is.

And there'll be more, I'm sure. I mean, "I'm afraid."

Resolutions and Revolutions
Now Playing: Brian Eno--"Mother Whale Eyeless"
First, I'd like to apologize--the actor who played Greg Brady is in fact Barry Williams and not Barry McDonald. God knows where that came from; Angelfire's being dicky and won't let me edit my posts.

The title will actually make some sort of sense for a change. One uneventful holiday just over, and another rears its ugly head. I suspect my own New Year's Eve will be rather low-key, much unlike the past two, an idea which rather appeals to me. I got out of the habit of making New Year's resolutions some time ago, but will venture a few this year. Couldn't hurt.

1. Treat other people better.

2. Get other stories published. I had two last year in The First BHF Book of Horror Stories and might have two this year in the Third. There are two others that I'm planning to send to other venues; I just need to get off my ass and do it.

3. Write other stories; I've fallen into a slump over the past couple of months, I fear.

4. Find a job in which I'm not considered retarded and at which I make more money. It's not as important as happiness, obviously, and I'd probably be relatively happy in this job (I like cooking, I like interacting with customers) if my boss wasn't so shallow and manipulative, but those student loans and prospective travel costs won't pay themselves.

5. Try and learn a different recipe each weekend. I'd planned to do this some time back, and can now fix cookies (doesn't sound like much, but I made the dough from scratch and without a scoop), biscones, olliebollen (after a fashion), quiche provencale, tomato and goat cheese quiche (no fancy name of French or Italian geographical derivation, so far as I know), and pan-fried steak. This weekend (hopefully): sirloin in Basque cheese sauce (chuleton al Idiazabal).

6. Get into a library school program at Michigan (or Wayne State) or somewhere that offers a lot of financial aid. If it all falls through, move somewhere else and pursue the cooking. Anywhere, probably a large city in which I don't need to drive (preferably New York or Chicago, but I wouldn't rule out Detroit or Cleveland). It's been a decent past two years, but wanderlust begins to knock again...

7. Exercise more and eat better. This includes drinking more wine instead of beer. Life is too short, but I may as well give it a go.

8. Read all those doorstop novels--Ulysses, Rememberance of Things Past, The Man Without Qualities, A Dance To The Music of Time... I might as well get them out of the way. I will be at death's door, though, before I attempt Finnegan's Wake.

9. Volunteer more. While I'm here (or anywhere) I should do my best to be a good citizen. Having put up the library at WRAP, I'm hardly there anymore. I still potter around Planned Parenthood, but feel conscious of the need for another vol-venue. Sara suggested Food Gatherers a while back. I seem to remember Arbor Brewing does some sort of volunteer thing. I just need to get off my ass and make arrangements. A lot of getting off my ass needs to be done all round. Speaking of which...

10. Spend less time on the internet. It's only about half an hour to an hour a day, all told, but it still feels like too much, and I don't even have access at home. I suspect part of my slight leeriness about the career path I've chosen (and will embark on with a second choice standing tall in the distance) is due to its present reliance on the internet and computer search engines and data collections. All very well, but what happens when the power runs out?

The Cetan Clawson Revolution: The new CCR were an area band who asked me to come to their Blind Pig show Friday night with flattering aggression. I was rather intrigued, largely because I'd be hearing a group with whom I had no personal connection whatsoever. I'd also get to hear Chrome Mali again (hadn't heard them in a while--band member Frank occasionally visits Chateau Fluffy and knows our much-missed business consultant/one-time manager). I dressed down for the occasion (I'm usually ludicrously overdressed, although a friend flatteringly referred to the results as "casual elegance") and hopped on down only to find that the show had been cancelled (God knows why). After a beer at Babs', I drifted into Ashley's on my way home. Ashley's was my bar of choice for about the first year I lived here, and though it's out of favor with some of the local intelligentsia (probably because of all the Michigan students and the meat-market aura it sometimes exudes), their beer selection really is out of this world (and when I was there, they had the friendliest and most attractive staff in town). Brian still works there and it was good to see him again. I also ran into John Fossum at Borders, where we had a chat--probably the most effervescently pleasant person I know in the Ann Arbor music scene (hell, in Ann Arbor period). All in all, despite the disappointing cancellation, Friday night was a happily low-pressure time, when I could flit hither and thither, etc. I do hope, though, to hear the Cetan Clawsons at some point.

Feliz Ano Nuevo!

A Bargain In Infants
Now Playing: Aimee Mann--"Jacob Marley's Chain"
Holiday Festivities:

1. The Gray-Jones party, thrown by Matt and Carol, where I got in touch with my inner cookie-cutting demon. Hopefully he'll stay in the box until next year; quite frankly, I'm frightened of the forces I've unleashed.

2. The McLay-Ross party, thrown by Jess and Matt (another one), at which I proudly flaunted my low-techery (there was supposed to be a CD exchange; I don't have a CD burner--nor do I think I need one, any more than I need an iPod--and misunderstood the concept, so I showed up with a cassette tape, when everyone else arrived with 14 or so mix CDs--each), as well as a quiche provencale (another of which I cooked for Christmas Eve dinner--the next day it was pan-fried steak and Caesar salad). It was good to see Jess and Matt again, and I departed with a memorable gift from Jess' cousin Paul--namely, a sidesplitting alternate interpretation of the Doors song "L.A. Woman" which still has me giggling at every other moment.

3. Mittenfest at the Corner Brewery in Ypsilanti. Brandon, on leave from New York, organized an all-day folk fest at this location, a sort of Ypsi branch of the Arbor Brewing Company, and it was wonderful to see him again, as it was Annie, who I also haven't seen in a while. The whole thing was set up as a benefit for 826michigan, a writing program aimed at teens and younger for which many local musicians have done benefits in the past. I finally got to check out the resultant writing in the published collection Vacansopapurosophobia (described as "the fear of a blank page"), and was reminded again of my envy for children's sense of whimsy and surrealism that we adults must sometimes strain to achieve. It was an especial pleasure to come across Aja Bamberger's story "The House on Cherry Street," which had earlier appeared in the Current and which is crying out for a sequel. I also finally got to sample the Hungarian Cream Cheese Spread available from Zingerman's Creamery, and listened to Emily Bate's set and half of Need-Based Paint's. The former was particularly good; I'd heard her at one of the shows at Arborvitae and found (and find) her a rather more soulful Joni Mitchell. I sadly had to leave early to prepare for the aforementioned party.

The rest of Christmas pretty much involved me staying at home, drinking, eating, and watching movies...

Let's Scare Jessica To Death (1971): I last saw this when about ten, on the much-missed Commander USA's Groovie Movies, and was even then struck by how light was used to create a sense of dread, something too few horror movies do these days (one expects scary things in the dark). Jessica (Zohra Lampert, one of ther early pioneers of Second City and Warren Beatty's ravishing Italian wife towards the end of Splendor in the Grass) has just been released from an asylum and "returns to the country" to farm with her husband and their best friend. On discovering Emily, a mysterious drifter, already living there, Jessica also finds weird voices that may or may not be all in her head. This was a good one, with a refreshingly offbeat take on the townie-country hostility so beloved in post-Easy Rider cinema, and a frustrating yet ultimately successful performance by Lampert. It's very easy to believe that she was just let out of "supervision", and yet I find myself wondering if any drugs were taken on set (given the time, likely) and if so, what kind and how much. Her performance keeps one on edge, but it's a situation that actually increases the likelihood of getting into the movie's flow.

God Is Great And I'm Not (2001): There's a dark suspicion in the back of my mind that Audrey Tautou is the Meg Ryan of France. I mean, look at the evidence--huge, glowing eyes, a winning smile, and oversaturated adorability that leaves the viewer feeling dazed and, frankly, a little used (and I haven't even seen Amelie yet). She even stars in movies with Tom Hanks. I didn't have it in me to resist this flick, which doesn't steer as dangerously close to sentimental mawkishness as the other Tautou movie I saw, A Very Long Engagement. Of course, I saw both films for the exact same reason: Julie Depardieu, my latest actress fascination. I think it's the combination of beauty and battiness that work for me (first seeing her opposite her father in The Count of Monte Cristo as Valentine, a saintly, drippy character that she managed to redeem with her performance). Here she plays the "wacky best friend" and housemate of Tautou--who in turn plays a model falling in love with Francois (Edouard Baer), a non-practicing Jewish veterinarian who gets pissed when his new girlfriend treats the religion with which he has a love-hate relationship as her latest spirituality craze. In this country, nutty hijinks would ensue (and there are a couple of those) but everything's shaded just a bit darker, with a wonderfully inconclusive ending. Baer in particular is the most amusingly hangdog actor I've seen in a movie since "Sweater-vest guy" in Night Watch.

Wild In The Streets (1967): I actually fell asleep during this one when I first saw it about fifteen years ago, odd when given its reputation as one of the most batshit movies made during the sixties. I think the problem is that it takes itself way too seriously for a movie in which the voting age is lowered to fourteen. Pop star Max Frost (the phenomenally irritating Christopher Jones) comes from a troubled childhood (his screwed-up mother played by Shelley Winters and one of his younger selves played by Greg Brady himself, Barry McDonald) and decides to use the new cultural power apparently given him through musical success with his band (including drummer Richard Pryor, in his first screen role) to front slimy, "with-it" California senator Johnny Fergus (Hal Holbrook) in a bid for political power (to the great suspicion of the latter's wife, played by a lusciously repressed Millie Perkins). At the end of the movie, all those over thirty have been sent to reeducation camps and forcibly fed hallucinogens, Frost has his own stormtrooper division of prepubescent youngsters (so he's basically a combination of Elvis, Mao and Joseph Kony), and some of these latter begin to plan the seizure of power from all people over ten. The best scene: loopy band member--and former child star!--Sally (Diane Varsi) is elected to fill a congressional seat and shows up in the hallowed halls wearing little more than a bicorne hat and shaking a tambourine. The most ridiculous aspect: we're asked to believe in the band's initial success in the California music scene. Forget Moby Grape--the Mike Curb Congregation could blow these people out of the water. But then, I'm taking it too seriously, and Wild In The Streets already does that way too much for anyone.

Shattered Glass (2003): I'll always remember Shattered Glass for one thing--a criminally underappreciated parody sketch on Saturday Night Live when guest host Peter Sarsgaard upbraids his Cat Fancy magazine underling Seth Meyers for making up stories: "This is CAT FANCY magazine! We have a responsibility to every elderly recluse and shut-in in America!!" The weird clannishness suggested to me by the world of political journalism and (these days) political blogs comes through brilliantly in this enjoyably squirmy portrayal of Stephen Glass' downfall. Glass (Hayden Christensen), a young reporter in a field full of the type, habitually fabricated stories for The New Republic (which, to read Eric Alterman among other commentators, had been declining anyway under the ownership of Marty Peretz since the early Reagan years) throughout the late 1990s, eventually paving the way for Jayson Blair in the pantheon of journalistic "shame"--not that Glass himself seems to understand such behavior. Christensen is great at getting the viewer to feel awkward and embarrassed despite the enormity of Glass' actions; Sarsgaard is excellent as his unpopular colleague and then editor, who takes the brunt of the fallout with the revelation of Glass' lies. The cast all-round is terrific; the always welcome Melanie Lynskey (see above mention of Julie Depardieu, etc.) shines as a policy wonk drudge trying to escape into Glass' more rarified world, and Steve Zahn and Rosario Dawson (see Lynskey, Depardieu, et al.) are fun as Forbes Digital reporters who begin to unravel Glass' paper trail--or lack thereof (although the screenplay slips a little, I think, in presenting the story too obviously, too "Hollywood," as a conflict between well-established journals--The New Republic's been around since 1914--and newer media like the internet and print media about the internet). Even Chloe Sevigny doesn't annoy me as much as usual. The most alarming thing I gleaned was the speed with which everyone in this supposedly sophisticated bubble was taken in by Glass' frequent (and hilariously portrayed) overselling, although with the media's sorry performance these days in the face of so many horrific challenges, it probably shouldn't surprise me.

Fat Girl (2001): Rather grim fare for Christmas Eve, I should say; a baffling, gripping movie with a shocking and unsettling ending. I suspect if I squinted really hard, Catherine Breillat's story of adolescent jealousy and longing might resolve itself into a creepy modern-day fairy tale. Twelve-year-old Anais (Anais Reboux), the title character, spends her vacation at a beach with her family and her much more conventionally attractive older sister (Roxane Mesquida), who in turn becomes enamored of an Italian college student and loses her virginity to him. Much of the action centers around Anais' interpretation of events (Reboux is hypnotic), which range from affection to jealousy and horror and back again. The acting is low-key but effective, with the two young actresses especially good at conveying the love-hate feelings many siblings feel towards each other, especially when younger. At an extreme, the finale can be seen as a kind of Freudian wish fulfillment, but I'll have to think on it. A lot.

Gas-s-s! (1970): The other side of the Wild in the Streets DVD (one of MGM's "Midnite Movie" releases) contains Roger Corman's utterly berserk satire of generation-gap politics, a sort of cross between John Christopher and the Firesign Theater, when (in an inventive little animated sequence at the beginning, courtesy of Murakami Wolf) U.S. military scientists accidentally release a gas into the atmosphere that kills everyone over 25. In the ensuing mayhem, a group of free spirits (the two alternately annoying and endearing "did we ever see them again?" leads are backed by Ben Vereen and Bud Cort, as well as Talia Shire--billed here as Tally Coppola--and Cindy Williams in their first film roles, so far as I know) try to make it across the Southwest to a mystical pueblo with the "answer." I often find sixties satires to be somewhat dated, but many of the jokes and sight gags in this one are still funny (Edgar Allan Poe riding aroudn the desert on a motorcycle, football players establishing a fascist empire in west Texas, the voice of God heard over a Country Joe and the Fish show as an elderly Jewish man); sometimes hilariously so. There's nothing funnier, I think, than the way lead actress Elaine Giftos (the more "endearing" half) introduces herself: "I'm Dr. Harvey Murder's mistress... and lab assistant." Given time, though, I'm sure people can find their own favorites.

Claire's Knee (1969): Watching a smug, "intellectual" middle-aged jackass (Jean-Claude Brialy) attempt to seduce two teenage girls and then talk about it (and talk about it, and talk about it) with his affianced best friend proved much more interesting and educational than I figured. One of the chapters in Eric Rohmer's "Moral Tales" series (which include 1972's Chloe in the Afternoon and a bunch of movies I've never seen), Claire's Knee is a mercilessly talky attempt (admittedly, with some stunning location footage of the Savoyard countryside around Geneva and Annecy) to dissect the anatomy of human (okay, male) desire. It sounds ridiculous, and I might have found it so had I seen this in a different mood, but the whole subject can become so utterly insane that it's good at timets to hear things thought through in a movie rather than acted upon.

The Leopard (1963): I was worried about watching a movie centered on a Burt Lancaster lead performance dubbed into Italian, but found my fears groundless after experiencing what may be the perfect cinematic example of style married to substance. Luchino Visconti's masterpiece brilliantly interprets Giuseepe di Lampedusa's 1958 novel of the Risorgimento (Italy's struggle for unification during the 19th century; I read the book due to my fascination with the subject some years back but stayed away from the movie until now) as seen through the eyes of an ailing Sicilian aristocrat (Burt). Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale, possibly the best-looking onscreen couple in film history, costar as his nephew and niece-in-law. It's over three hours long, but it's one of those rare movies that actually deserves to be. There's both epic sweep and intimate perspective, battle scenes and private moments, political and personal savvy (especially when the two are one and the same), and above all a problematic and tangled perspective (like Lampedusa, Visconti was an Italian aristocrat of ancient ancestry, but like many Italian filmmakers of the period--Pasolini, for example--he was also a Communist) that adds immense richness to this already fascinating tale. I forgot Burt was being dubbed after about twenty minutes; it's that good. This one's begging to be re-released in American theatres on the big screen, if it hasn't already.

My Son The Fanatic (1997): The late, great Om Puri was one of those actors whose presence was always welcome and helpful, even when it was in crap like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (in which, I'm afraid, he played the high priest of Kali). In this involving little slice-of-life drama set in northern England, Parvez (Puri) is a taxi driver who hasn't found much in the way of success over twenty years after he first arrived from Pakistan with a young family to support. Worse than that, his son Farid has grown tired of the rituals of modern Western life, turning to fundamentalist Islam, complete with a "charismatic" imam. Parvez, after being disgusted with the hypocrisy of his own religious upbringing, has his own take on life, which includes drinking and listening to jazz, as well as befriending Sandra (Rachel Griffiths), a prostitute who frequents his cab. Encounteres with Sandra and Schitz (Stellan Skarsgard), a visiting German businessman, lead to a violent rearrangement of his own life that's tragic, inevitable, and inspiring all at the same time. The 87-minute running time should shame many Hollywood movies of the aughts (which all seem to be two hours minimum at present).

The Earth A Common Treasury
Now Playing: Arcade Fire--"In the Backseat"
I can't seem to get enough of the cinema these days. It's a chore to go to the googolplex, especially with some of the crap that's been coming out (stop with the remakes! There's no fucking excuse and you know it!!), but that's no reason to ignore the art entirely. First in reverse chronological order, three on British politics:

The Queen (2006): I actually saw this shortly after Prime Suspect 7, so it was pretty much the whole Helen Mirren experience this month (now all I have to do is see O Lucky Man! again). I'm not a big fan of royalty or this particular family, but this was a sympathetic portrayal by Stephen Frears that recounted the week after Princess Diana's death in 1997, and really belongs to the actors. I don't think I've ever seen Mirren bad in anything... seventeen film and TV productions that I've seen off the top of my head, and she was great in all, even Teaching Mrs. Tingle, which sucked--as, of course, did Caligula. The family's good for laughs--James Cromwell is somewhat out of place as uber-chode Prince Philip, but Sylvia Syms and Alex Jennings are good as the Queen Mum and a dopey Prince Charles. The most entertaining turns come from Roger Allam as the Queen's faithful secretary (the man's destiny to play the "late model" in a Christopher Hitchens biopic is hopefully not far off) and Michael Sheen, whose deadly performances in okay (but why the sequels?) stuff like Underworld and gloriously insane crap like Timeline have apparently led to his casting as Tony Blair. Nailing the man's too-eager, shit-eating grin to perfection, he's probably best in his scenes with the great Helen McCrory as Cherie, when she realizes he's just a sellout like the rest of them.

A Very British Coup (1988): Ray McAnally had a long and diverse career, but probably had his finest hour shortly before his untimely death as Harry Perkins, steelworker turned British Labour Prime Minister in this excellent miniseries whose main drawbacks are (a) its relative tameness in this Bush 'n' Blair era when elected politicians think it's barely worth trying to conceal their contempt for democracy and (b) the overbearing, tinny synthesizer music so common to British TV of this era (and that made the late classic period of Doctor Who so occasionally excruciating). Once in power, Perkins tries to phase out U.S. bases, nuclear power, and restore the power of labor, and is opposed every step of the way by his own secret service and the Americans. The generally downbeat trend to the story, which makes one think it's all been seen before, is redeemed by a gripping, inspiring, and strangely inevitable ending, one of the best I've ever seen for a TV movie.

Winstanley (1975): Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo wrote a strange chapter in movie history by producing and financing their remarkable alternate history film It Happened Here (released in 1966) which looked at the effects of a German occupation of Britain during the Second World War. Ten years later, they told the story of the Diggers, a group of dissidents who grew out of the English Civil War and established various communes throughout the countryside after the war's end in 1649. Pressures from without and within forced their collapse within a decade, but not before leaving a legacy of folk memories (described in detail in Christopher Hill's 1972 analysis The World Turned Upside Down). It's a simple story, shot in brooding black-and-white, but features a weirdly moving central performance from non-actor Miles Halliwell as the title character, as well as an impressively handled low-budget battle sequence of the beginning that looks at times like it might have come from an Eisenstein movie (and unsurprisingly uses Prokofiev's score from Alexander Nevsky). Perhaps even more interesting than the actual movie is the behind-the-scenes documentary on the DVD, which painstakingly details the directors' efforts at historical accuracy (using period armor and weapons from the Tower of London, as well as varieties of pigs and chickens kept up only by historical breeding enthusiasts).

And the others...

Batman Begins (2005): I really like Christian Bale, and find him all the more impressive for recovering from stuff like Newsies and Swing Kids (even his wasted performance in Shaft was neutralized by everyone else's wastage, with the exception of Jeffrey Wright). I also enjoyed director Christopher Nolan's Memento. I don't really have anything invested in the Batman "mythos" (at least the non-Adam West versions), but I had to admit that it was pretty good. The strong cast helped--Michael Caine as Alfred, Morgan Freeman as a reclusive weapons expert, Liam Neeson as Bruce Wayne's onetime spiritual advisor, Gary Oldman as a Serpico-style anathematized cop, even Rutger Hauer as a crooked businessman. I'm not into Katie Holmes, but was pleasantly surprised to find she became less unbelievable as the movie progressed. The Chinese scenes at the beginning were gorgeous. I'm less a fan of the Gotham stuff, as I tink the melodramatic urban hellhole-ness so beloved of these movies (no, not a Crow fan) is generally expressive of anti-urban undertones that haven't done much good for recent human settlement patterns, especially in this country. Still, for a movie so intent on wallowing in arty urban miasma, Batman Begins carries itself well.

A Very Long Engagement (2003): I never saw Amelie, and didn't know what to expect from Audrey Tautou in this post-WW1 flick based on Sebastien Japrisot's novel that I feared would turn into an English Patient lite, with Tautou as a French girl who goes looking for her fiance, the latter missing in action at the front. She was good, and the movie, though I found it a little longish, was better than I expected, with murderous hookers and lots of quirkiness (even if the latter too often veers towards the cutesy) to balance out the "our love is stronger than death" stuff that always makes me think of Daniel Day-Lewis in Last of the Mohicans. The visuals are sumptuous and filling--both the scenes in the trenches and those of civilian life--with at least one surprise cameo making me jump in my seat (as will you, probably, if you didn't know about it). My main beef is that there should have been much more Julie Depardieu. I won't go any further, but really. That aside, Engagement is one of those I probably should have seen in the theater. I hope there's no lesson there.