Birdman's Pretty Cool, Machete Kills Isn't

For somebody who considers himself a film buff, I have the embarrassing habit of not getting around to seeing a movie until well after the rest of the cinephile community has watched it, analyzed it, and moved on some other motion picture phenomenon. Shit, if I'm being totally and brutally honest, there are movies practically everyone in the world has seen—at any rate, everyone in my generation and possibly the ones before and after it—that I still haven't gotten around to, or saw half an hour of and never made an effort to go back and fill in the gaps in the narrative. To date, I haven't seen all of The Breakfast Club, Ferris Beuller's Day Off, The Sound of Music, Point Break, I've never watched a frame of Truffaut outside of Fahrenheit 451, and no Terrence Malick outside of The Tree of Life (which nearly put me to sleep), all because I'm at heart a dilettante who doesn't have the time or the inclination to watch every fucking thing committed to film or captured on whatever the hell digital video is made out of.

That's why I've only now seen Birdman close to two months after it won the Oscar for Best Picture. Like a lot of people, I'd never heard of it until it had that award bestowed upon it, a fact that says a lot about how the Academy looks at movies compared to the rest of the viewing public. Not because the greater mass of filmgoers are idiots and the august men and women (it isn't just men, is it?) who vote awards into the hands of Hollywood's elect are true connoisseurs of the art with refined taste both unassailable and indefinable, but because most people go to the movies to have fun and the Academy votes for movies it collectively believes make it look smart, politically correct, or fully appreciative of the way actors can ham up a scene, all while trying to seem relevant in a way that doesn't come off as transparent or ham-fisted.

The fear of irrelevancy is the heart beating at the center of Birdman; Micheal Keaton plays a washed-up actor formerly known for playing an absurd superhero called Birdman in a trio of films from years before. Now he wants to be taken seriously, and what better way to do that than by staging one of Raymond Carver's better-known stories on the Broadway stage? Despite his best efforts, no one takes him seriously, not his drug-addict daughter (played by Emma Stone), not the asshole actor he's hired to fill out the cast (played with expert douchiness by Edward Norton), not by the evil, vindictive New York theater critic who vows, to his face, to trash his play regardless of how good or bad it is because How dare he?! Along the way he suffers most of a nervous breakdown, maybe flies but probably not, has delusions of being able to move objects with his mind, and hears an inner voice that is essentially his comic book alter ego egging him on to give up plays and get back to the business of doing what he loves to do: making Hollywood blockbusters for the masses.

Of course this movie won Best Picture. There is nothing on this Earth Hollywood loves more than movies about itself, about how phony and full of shit it is (one offscreen character even calls out to Keaton “You're all so full of shit!”), about pretentiousness and prestige and the lust for legitimacy. I think it's because producers and stars and directors like to think of themselves as fully self-aware, totally hip to what they really are and what the nature of their business really is, and want to let some portion of the viewing public know Hey, we're not actually a bunch of clueless, self-important assholes—look, we even made a movie about how we think we're self-important assholes! It's meta! 

It's a smart movie in a lot of ways, and it has interesting things to say about the nature of the entertainment industry and the lives of performers, but it's also not without its flaws. It's a very actor-y, director-y movie, loaded with technical flourishes and Big Actor Moments, lots of speeches about Life and Everything Else, and it feels very much like it wants to be a big movie about something big. I can't really tell if it's decrying the descent Hollywood has made in recent years into an obsession with superheroes and comic books, lampooning the clichéd outrage towards such a descent, or both. It can certainly bemoan the lack of subtlety and nuance in current Hollywood fare, the emphasis on special effects over story and character, the lack of anything real on the screen—an idea it underscores by having Keaton shoot his own nose off during a performance and accidentally becoming a sensation all over again as a result. Can't get any more real than that.

I really like the theme of irrelevancy, mainly because I think it's one of the defining elements of our age. We're all now experiencing an era in which change happens at such a ridiculous pace it's become all too easy to fall behind if you don't make the effort to keep up. Ever watch old people try to make their way around a computer? It's sad to see, you can sense the mingled frustration and regret, the dire feeling of being woefully, irredeemably out of place with the times. What's sadder still is that it happens to everybody. The hippest, most up-to-date young people living today will, decades from now, find themselves in the same boat as people my age and older who find themselves increasingly out of step with what's going on. There is a brief window in which you find yourself on the cutting edge, often without really trying, and then you're done. 

The notion of legitimacy in Birdman is interesting in light of the fact that Carver, whose work is used in the story as a yardstick for true artistic integrity, was the focus of controversy some time after his death when it came to light that Gordon Lish, an editor at Esquire who had published many of Carver's early stories and edited his published books of short fiction, had rewritten Carver's original drafts so extensively as to be considered a co-author of the pieces, to a degree that he is sometimes credited with himself creating the spare Hemingway-on-cough-syrup minimalist style long recognized as the hallmark of Carver's writing. When in Carver's final book, Cathedral, his style appeared far more effusive, it was assumed to be the result of artistic maturation; in light of the later revelations, it seemed to be a result of not having Lish rewrite the stories. None of which is mentioned in Birdman, but it does serve as fertile subtext for the film.

As long as I'm on the subject of irrelevancy, I might as well mention that I watched Robert Rodriguez' Machete Kills. I liked the first Machete for what it was, a goofy, outrageous homage to Seventies exploitation, a ball Rodriguez and Tarantino got rolling with Grindhouse (or, if I want to be a little more accurate, that Tarantino got rolling with Kill Bill) and that Rodriguez has tragically not been able to get away from. I say tragically because Rodriguez is clearly a gifted creative force, acting as a one-man production company on all of his films, capable, at least in theory, of making significant, ground-breaking work. Instead, he's stuck in the seventh grade, still doodling pictures of decapitated zombies and big-titted models on his PeeChee, longing to recreate the gory excesses and indifferent campiness of his favorite films from a bygone era. This really seems to be the only kind of thing he's able to do apart from kids' movies—and honestly, they're all kids' movies of one kind or another. His best film in my opinion, the first Sin City, is a panel-for-panel adaptation of a simplistic, violently-obsessed comic series by the possibly mentally unstable Frank Miller, which doesn't say much for Rodriguez' taste or future potential, particularly because he recently released a sequel to that film. Machete Kills feels lazy, immensely dull for all the digitally-enhanced action Rodriguez squeezes into the run time, and well past its prime as a concept.  My attention wandered an average of every two minutes. Not a single joke lands, not a single bullet wound or severed limb carries an impact. Maybe he made this in an attempt to make up for the box office failure of Sin City 2, but it would have been better, and it's probably about time, if he moved on to something else, something with an adult audience in mind that addresses more adult themes. My only concern is that he might not have it in him to do it.

High On Fire at Club Congress: Embrace the Awesome

On April 7th I attended a High On Fire show at Club Congress here in Tucson, with Godhunter and Saviours opening. I'm racking my brain for the last time I went to a metal show in the last, say, six or so years, and I'm drawing a blank unless I count the last time I saw High On Fire, and that was back in 2007. Although I love the genre, for one reason or another I've never really attended that many metal shows, which owes as much to the fact that I'm cheap as it does to opportunity.

In my home town of Mount Vernon, between about '88 to '91, there used to be a band called Cranial Decomposition whose sound was equal parts metal and punk, and I'm pretty sure they have the distinction of being the first metal band I ever saw live. I was sixteen, drunk on whiskey I'd chugged in the bushes outside Hillcrest Lodge with a couple of friends, and probably stoned as well. As that show also had my first mosh pit, I put out the best effort I could by running around in circles like a fool until one of the buddies of a band member's older brother, a leather-jacketed guy in his twenties and at least twice my size, slammed into me going the opposite way, knocking me clean off my feet and sending me in an arc into the welcoming arms of some people on the periphery of the pit, who then shoved me off of them like a sack of potatoes they hated.

I'm in my early forties now and the evening of April 7th reminded me of something I knew unconsciously going in but realize with complete clarity now—I'm getting a little old for live metal. Oh, I can watch it, there's no personal harm in that, but I sure as hell can't get in there and mosh. No fucking way. I didn't try—I wasn't about to try—but I saw enough to confirm I'd made the wisest choice.

Things started off calmly with the first two bands, both of which were loud and energetic. The audience stood and watched, bobbed their heads to the beat, drank their respective beverages in peaceful contemplation. Well, I thought, this sure is a sedate crowd. The last time I'd seen High On Fire a small but insistent portion of the crowd had been insane. One guy did spinning karate kicks, and a couple of other guys I'm pretty sure went outside to do meth, because they left the club crazy and came back a few minutes later crazy as fuck. Karate guy got shoved to the ground by a big frat dude mid-spin kick, people were ejected from the club (Plush, now The Flycatcher, which no longer books very interesting shows), I'm almost positive blood was shed.

But these folks were chill. I assumed, based on the evidence around me, that the tenor of this show was going to be different.

Then High On Fire took the stage. They played their first fast song of the set. A little guy standing behind me took off his t-shirt, tied it around his head and face like he was planning to carry out an anarchist black mask direct action, and ran full tilt into the part of the crowd nearest the stage, swinging his arms, shoving, jumping like an overcaffeinated chimpanzee. A few minutes passed and more people joined in, until before long there was what appeared, for all intents and purposes, to be a brawl happening in the middle of the club floor. To the right of the stage was an emergency exit with one of those push handles that runs the width of the door; more than once people were pushed into it, sending them out of the club and onto the sidewalk. An older guy a few feet from me (who am I kidding? He was probably exactly my age) sneered when somebody knocked into him and made him spill his beer on himself. Crowd surfers who wound up on stage got picked up by roadies of intimidating strength and placed back into the fray. I kept my hands up and prepared to repel any errant moshers who might come my way.

Like an idiot, I forgot to bring earplugs with me. I'd thought of it and then promptly dismissed the thought from my mind. A High On Fire album is like a power drill the size of an elephant boring a hole into the middle of your forehead. Live, that drill grows into a whale. Lead guitarist Matt Pike's sound is as muddy and sludgy as anything I've ever heard (no surprise from a former member of über-sludge metal band Sleep) and comes at you like a hail of cinderblocks. After the show I heard nothing but a high dentist drill whine in both of my ears and the very muffled sounds of the street. When I walked by people I strained to hear bits of conversation and caught nothing but what sounded like a radio station broadcasting from fifty miles away.

The other annoying thing is I walked right past Matt Pike on the sidewalk outside of Club Congress and didn't say hi. Chalk it up to being mostly deaf and not wanting to make an ass of myself. It was just one of many times I've been within feet of someone whose work I admire and didn't say anything. When Built To Spill played at Dry River here in town, I was five feet from Doug Martsch and, as with Mr. Pike, didn't say a damn thing. Because I'm sure to run into him again. At the Gastown Pub in Vancouver back in '95 where the Melvins were playing with Godhead Silo I could have reached out and touched Buzz Osbourne while he was playing pool, but thought better of it. I've always wanted to tell that guy how much his music has meant to me; it actually would mean more to say it now than it would have then. At least I got to interview Dale (and the bassist they were recording with at the time, who came off as a dick) for the 'zine a friend and I were doing. I attended two days of a John Woo film festival at the Seattle Art Museum in, I think, '94, and while other people got in line to have him sign their stuff I hung back and wimped out. Much less importantly, I saw actor Mandy Patinkin (you might remember him as Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride, or the bald alien detective Sam Francisco in Alien Nation) at the Tucson International Airport as I was coming off a flight. I've never wanted to meet him, but still...celebrity sighting. Oh, and when Elmore Leonard spoke at the University of Arizona Festival of Books, he stuck around to sign books and, as with John Woo, I didn't make the effort. He's dead now, so I know for a fact that was my one shot to meet him. One of these days I'll get over my sheepishness and just say “Hey, I love your work” to somebody I think deserves to hear it, even if they turn out to be an entitled douche who hears that all the time. 

So, if you're Matt Pike, and you happen to read this—Love your work.

Paranormal Activity Keeps Going, Like It or Not

Now that it appears that the Paranormal Activity series will continue later this year with a Part 6, maybe this is as good a time as any to look back at what worked and what didn't for those movies.

I really liked the first one a lot, and owing to the fact that I watched it in a dark living room late at night, it kind of scared the shit out of me. Not a lot of movies share that distinction. While I consider myself a horror fan for the most part (I was much more serious about the genre in my teens, but my enthusiasm for it has tapered off as the years have gone by), the majority of horror movies bore the shit out of me. Too silly, too tongue-in-cheek, and I've seen most of the tropes before. Actual scares like what I felt when I saw The Exorcist or Night of the Living Dead for the first time are very, very rare indeed. So when something comes along that has me looking over my shoulder days or weeks later, I tend to take it seriously. Even if, as in the case of PA and its four sequels (I know I'll probably get sick of typing the full title over and over, so it's PA from here on out) it's cheap, derivative and not up to repeat viewings.

What's funny is that if you kept up with the series, repeat viewing was exactly what you were doing. Oh I know, there's a half-assed story about a witches coven that sort of develops around Part 3, but it's just there to give the audience the illusion that they aren't watching the same thing again and again. Part 2 is virtually identical to Part 1. Part 3 travels back to the poorly-simulated 80s to fill in some backstory. Part 4 jumps back to the present day to continue the bare bones storyline.

The scares never, ever varied, and tended to use the kind of effects that don't cost very much money. Doors slowly creak open, chandeliers swing by themselves, strange thumping noises come from other rooms. Somebody always, always gets picked up and dragged around by an invisible force (okay, in Part 4 the dad gets thrown around at the end, but same difference), and a possessed person gets a case of scary monster face.

By Part 4 the endings get incredibly weak, though that was essentially true by the second film. I watched it about a week ago and I thought, Really? That's it? A crowd of evil women and more monster face? Jesus, that's lazy. Everything about the PA series feels lazy, not to mention cynical. The producers knew they didn't really have to change up anything, and didn't bother until, I assume, the fourth movie failed to perform well.

That's when the big change happened. Parts 1 through 4 deal exclusively with well-to-do white suburbanites. Then suddenly, with Part 5, the setting changes to a working class, urban Hispanic family, replete with pandering racial humor. Why? My guess is that the producers felt the series might still be viable if they switched the demographic focus. I live in Tucson, and for a few months a billboard just west of Grant and Alvernon showed an ad for PA 5. You never see movie ads on billboards in Tucson. The only reason for the sudden presence of one is that the city has a significant Hispanic population, and that was Part 5's target audience. As if they hadn't been watching the series already, along with everyone else.

I don't think that late-in-the-game change-up worked. PA movies used to come fast because they're relatively cheap and easy to make, at least one a year if not more, and it's been almost a couple of years since Part 5. I haven't looked at the numbers, but I'm betting it fell on its face. Like all the others, it's derivative, though this time it borrows from Chronicle instead of just The Blair Witch Project and the previous installments in the series.

Though I wish it were otherwise, Part 5, weak as it was, won't spell the end of the series. I bear no ill will toward the series creators (how can I have ill will toward people I don't know?), but their pessimistic money grab is a little more than insulting to its audience, even if that audience is often too young to know better. Besides, there are much better found footage movies out there, such as the two VHS movies, The Den, Lucky Bastard, and The Taking of Deborah Logan (not to mention, in no particular order, Cloverfield, Europa Report, the unfairly maligned Apollo 18, Grave Encounters 2, The Conspiracy, and probably about a dozen others). Unlike some people, I have nothing against the found footage genre in and of itself—what slasher movies were to schlocky exploitation in the 80s, found footage movies are to the present day. Some are good and some aren't, just like anything else.

That is PA's cinematic legacy. There's so much found footage stuff now, from the recent Twister remake Into the Storm to mocumentary series like Veep and Parks and Recreation, that the style is clearly fixed well into the near future of pop culture. Some of it even gets past the common mistake of expecting people to believe that a character experiencing mortal terror can shoot expertly composed video and keep their subject squarely in frame.

I doubt it'll go away any time soon. Smartphone cameras and Skyping, or something else like them, are going to be with us forever, and found footage movies make too much sense in that context. The only question is how inventively filmmakers apply the style. PA gave up on inventiveness a while back, and eventually the diminishing returns will finish if off for good.