Bomb the System

Directed by Adam Bhala Lough
Written by Adam Bhala Lough

In the stairwell of my building there is an old closet door, probably removed from an apartment one or two renovations ago, left by the stairs and thoroughly forgotten. As I pass this old door leaning against the wall week after week on my way to and from the laundry room on 3, I’m noticing that one of my fellow residents has taken to writing on it, the markings growing greater in number, and greater in graphic sexuality, as the weeks pass. The weird thing is that as increasingly bold and sexual the graffiti gets, it is always on, and only on, this old closet door, the walls around the rest of the stairwell retaining their dingy, dusty off-white, making me think that as incredibly disturbed (you should see some of this stuff) and misguided as this kid (and he’s got to be a kid – again, you should see some of this stuff) is, he remains strangely considerate and respectful of his fellow residents by limiting his perverse writing to only this loose, forgotten, and easily disposed of closet door. Weird.

I wonder what would this kid make of Adam Bhala Lough's Bomb the System? Hard enough to sort out my own feelings for this particular piece of cinema.

The few things I’d heard about this new movie intrigued me enough to justify the trek up to Cinema Village on Friday evening (ever since I switched from the monthly subway pass back to paying per ride, it’s been harder and harder for me to get my cheap ass anywhere above, say, Canal Street). With the buzz this film has been generating in certain circles, I went into the theater prepared to feel thoroughly unhip. This was not helped by the fact that I appeared to be the only one in attendance who was not either actively involved in or friends with someone who was actively involved in the production.

Story: Anthony/BLEST (Mark Webber) and his friends Justin/BUCK50 (Gano Grills) and Kevin/LUNE (Jade Yorker) spend their nights writing graffiti along the streets of Lower Manhattan, partying, and dodging the Vandal Squad of the NYPD, as personified by the ex-graff-writer-gone-straight Shorts (Bonz Malone) and the corrupt and increasingly violent Bobby Cox (Al Sapienza). Though Anthony lives a seemingly charmed life within the graffiti subculture (his works and exploits are well-known, if not legendary, in and among his fellow graff-writers, and he has free room and board in the apartment of his friend Hazer (Joey Dedio), a soap actor on Telemundo), he still feels that he’s living in the shadow of his brother, another famous graff-writer who actually died while on a “bombing” expedition twelve years ago. After the Vandal Squad violently harasses the young Kevin, Justin is ready to declare war on the city, on the police, and especially on Bobby Cox. Anthony, however, is distracted by two new things in his life: his acceptance into an art college in San Francisco (and the accompanying possibility of going straight, i.e. selling out) and his new girlfriend Alex (Jaclyn DeSantis), who comes with both her own style of graffiti and her own beliefs in how to use it to change society.

So, will Anthony sell out by leaving for art school, channel his energy and talent into making a difference, or continue down the same path as his brother? His ultimate choice, and his ultimate fate, don’t make a whole lot of sense, either to the story or even to the rest of this film (when you see it, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about).

It’s hard to dislike a movie so pure in its intentions, and according to the people sitting in my theater, everything apparently rang true, that graff writers truly are the unsung, existential philosopher poet kings of New York that this film would have them be rather than, you know, vandals. Still, Lough's utterly cartoonish portrayal of the Vandal Squad was bothersome, and I didn’t see any cops standing up to say how accurate their portrayal was. Still, the cast of mostly unknowns (truly the only recognizable face here is Kumar from the Wes Anderson movies, though it was later pointed out to me that Mark Webber was the guy who played Scooby in Todd Solondz’s Storytelling, and Jade Yorker played the younger Jesus in Spike Lee’s He Got Game) did an excellent job with the little material they had. Unfortunately, the characters they play fairly one dimensional, and Lough doesn't really give them much to do, either - life (at least my life) is so much more about the bleary-eyed morning after than it is about the wild night before.

The character of the cop called Shortz is potentially interesting, possibly deserving of his own movie, as he waxes poetical about the importance of graffiti among the underprivileged, disaffected youth of the city, but never justifies why he would choose to turn around and persecute said writers with such gusto.

I’m not there, so I don’t know. If this movie is about you, you’ll likely enjoy seeing yourself and your friends vindicated on the big screen. If you’re like me, you’ll see little more than a disjointed and uneven story about kids who would rather be hated than anonymous. Which would make them sort of the equivalent of those people who talk at the movies, right? I mean, those people who go to the movies just to talk and to be annoying.

Which leads me to my new pet project: Run, Girl!, the definitive film examining the exciting and sometimes dangerous subculture of theater-talkers. I've already cut a trailer, which I will describe to you here:

Fade in:

A darkened, crowded movie theater. Everyone is trying their best to ignore the small group of kids in the front row, dancing, yakking on their cell phones TO EACH OTHER, throwing things, jumping between rows.

MISGUIDED WUSSY THEATERGOER: Excuse me, could you please be quiet?
OUR HEROINE: I CAN TALK HERE IF I WANT!

Cut to our heroine sitting in a generic “authority” office – could be for a guidance counselor, a store detective, etc.

CONCERNED AUTHORITY FIGURE: You have a gift, girl. The gift of observational comedy. You could be a stand-up comedienne, or a writer for television.

Cut to another darkened, crowded theater. This time the group is watching the movie, but screaming things at the screen, laughing and pointing inappropriately.

Cut to our heroine and a TEENAGED BOY on the street outside the theater.

BOY: Hey, I like your jokes. What’s your name?

Cut to our heroine’s Urban Outfitters-decked out bedroom. Our heroine and the teenaged boy make out passionately. He pulls off her shirt.

Cut to our heroine and her TIRED MOTHER at the breakfast table.

OUR HEROINE: Talking in the theater is the only thing that’s ever meant anything to me!

TIRED MOTHER slaps our heroine.

TIRED MOTHER: I had to sit by and watch what theater talking did to your brother, I’ll be DAMNED if I have to sit by and watch the same thing happen to you!

Cut to our heroine and the teenaged boy on the street outside the theater.

BOY: How can you even THINK of giving up now? This is the night we’ve been waiting for all our lives!

Cut to the inside of the darkened, crowded theater. Our heroine is pulled out of her seat and dragged up the aisle by the THEATER USHER.

OUR HEROINE: NOOOOOOOOO!!!

Run, Girl! Come on, it's brilliant. Someone give me a million bucks, and this movie will be coming to a theater near you shortly.

*Star Wars : Episode III : Revenge of the Sith

Directed by George Lucas
Written by George Lucas

The Ziegfeld, Wednesday night, 12:01 AM, counting down with the rest of them, fighting for my free t-shirt (Fantastic 4), looking at all the guys and the few chicks in costume, makeup, with props. Props. And I’m thinking, who the fuck are these people?

Fanboys (and fangirls). Just like me. Notoriously both the harshest and most forgiving of critics. And I’m here to tell you that everything you have heard about this movie, good and bad, is true, it’s all true. Yes, it’s dark. Yes, it’s sad. Yes, it is pure heartbreak.

All the weird cutesiness, which was always annoying and never appropriate, all the worse here when contrasted with subject matter so, so self-consciously dark.

It’s not a bad movie - quite the contrary. It’s definitely the best of the prequels, and maybe even better than I expected it to be. But it still annoyed me. And, being a fanboy, it annoyed me beyond all reason, beyond all proportion.

The acting isn’t great, but I’m told that the acting in Star Wars was never great, and that’s not why we’re here. I wholly disagree. The acting, when it’s good, always had a naturalistic grace to it, even with dialogue so obviously heinous. Mark, Carrie, Harrison, and Sir Alec all had it. James Earl Jones has it. Samuel L. Jackson has it (though he’s appeared in enough good-bad and bad-bad movies to have it down). Same, Christopher Lee. Ian McDiarmid most definitely has it. Ewan McGregor almost has it, if he could just stop from appearing in physical pain whenever he has to, say, sit down at a 50’s diner on Coruscant and ask for a Jawa Juice. Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman, god bless their little acting souls, most definitely do not have it.

And, of course, there are the requisite Episodes IV-VI tie-ins. Okay, the idea of Obi-Wan having spent 17 years on Tatooine possibly communing with Qui-Gon Jinn is admittedly an intriguing thought. But, other than that, seriously, why does it matter that Chewbacca helped save Yoda from the post-Order 66 clones on Kashyyk? Does it add anything to the story that 3P0 was created by Anakin, and that R2 has apparently bore silent witness to all of these events, from Naboo all the way to Endor? Of course not. If anything, it detracts from the overall story. I, for one, loved so much more the idea that Boba Fett was just a gun for hire, not some kid who’s harbored a 20-year grudge against the people who killed his father (or whatever).

Face it, it’s all pandering. Despite George’s insistence that all of these movies were written and fully conceived in his head some 30 years ago, Attack of the Clones and now Return of the Sith very much go down the list of everything the fans cried out for, and against. Fans don’t like Jar Jar – check. Fans like Boba Fett – check. Fans probably like the Sony PSP – check. Fans need more material to justify the importance and relevance of Star Wars to today’s political situation – check. Fans want to see Chewbacca – check. Fans want a “darker” movie, a more violent movie, a PG-13 movie – check, check, and check.

And fans (including this one) love it when Yoda gets all medieval. The biggest cheer of the night comes when Yoda trashes the Imperial Guards.

As much as Sith tries to tie up every single loose end, it still didn’t answer any of the questions raised by Clones, namely who was Jedi Sifodyas, how could he requisition an entire army without anyone else knowing about it, and, most bewildering to me, why NO ONE EVER ASKS WHY. Okay, I could buy that the Jedis would send in the clones (har) as an emergency measure to fight their way out of the trap laid for them on Geonosis (though, at the time that Yoda had flown off to Kamino to check out this army, there was no way of knowing that said trap had been set). What I don’t understand is why no one ever questions the fact that out of nowhere there is this army of clones defending the Republic, an army apparently requisitioned by an impostor pretending to be a Jedi (so “Sifodyas” as known to Lama Su and Taun We is actually Dooku, right?) , let alone the fact that they are all clones of the man hired by Dooku to assassinate a senator, and who is in fact himself being ARMED by the Kaminoans as well (let us not forget that the Kaminoans are not only expert cloners, but apparently expert manufacturers of armor and weapons as well). I mean, seriously, what is up with that?

Rant end.

It’s been said, and I suppose it’s true, I guess, that it’s to George’s credit that there are still some surprises left in this movie. Well, they’re not surprises, actually, though at this point anything that hasn’t already been 100% predicated would be considered a surprise, e.g., that zero-g water show thing is a surprise.

The big surprise is supposed to be, I guess, the fact that Anakin’s final and official turn to the Dark Side happens because he has a vision that Padme’s going to die in childbirth, and thinks the Dark powers will let him prevent this. And the fact that he’s the one who basically ends up killing her is supposed to be, I guess, some grand irony or something (snore).

Anakin’s real turn, everyone knows, happens way back in Clones, with the slaughter of the Sand People (“And not just the men…but the women! And the children, too! They’re like animals, and I slaughtered them like animals! I HATE THEM!” Thank you, thank you very much, next show’s at 11, try the fish, I hear it’s good.).

But it all comes down to the fact that, in Anakin’s eyes, Palpatine is the only one who takes him seriously. I think the audience is supposed to realize that everyone is just too scared of his power to give him too much of it, but no one is ever given nearly enough screen time to convey this, least of all Ewan McGregor, who I think is supposed to feel this most of all. No, what we get is everyone just treating him like a kid, as a “less-than”. They make him a part of the Jedi Council, but will not confer upon him the title of Master, despite the fact that he is at least as powerful a Jedi as…that green chick, you know, the one with the horns (George misses a golden opportunity to flesh out some of these Jedis, actually making their deaths tragic rather than simply telling us that their deaths are tragic. But, a good story is not something I should be expecting from a Star Wars movie, I am told).

Anyone who’s seen Clone Wars knows that Anakin is allowed to cut off his braid without even having to go through the Trials – geez, kid, what more do you want??

So I guess Anakin’s turn to the Dark is more interesting here than his turn in Clones. I mean, it all comes down to his thinking that no one takes him seriously, which I think may be rooted in his thinking that he really isn’t helping out as much as he could be, or should be – a trait not terribly unsubtly (though for the very first time, and completely out of nowhere) showing up in the opening dogfight (which, incidentally, is spectacular). In Clones, Anakin comes off as a petulant kid raging that he should get the big lolly if he wants the big lolly, whereas in Sith he just wants to be respected as an equal. I guess.

The visuals in Sith are amazing. The fight scenes are appropriately grand. General Grievous is set up to be much more of a bad-ass than his short screen time allows, and the importance of the fact that his innards are partly organic was completely lost on me, and probably to George himself. The multi-layered lightsaber battle was excellent – some claim that it goes on for too long, I like to think that its length makes up for the 20-second lightsaber battle in Clones (Fans thought the light saber duel in Clones was too short – check).

So, in the end, does any of it pay off, really?

First of all, you’re not going to see or not see this movie based on what people are going to tell you about it. If you’re a fan, of course you’re going to see it. If you’re not a fan, you already know you’re going to hate it, so why would you even go? If you really have a free night and $10.75 (thank you very much, Regal Cinemas – hey, I didn’t hear that this was going to be a very special season of Joey, could you possibly turn up the volume on these commercials ANY LOUDER? Asses.) just laying around like that, I recommend you pick up a couple issues of Finder or Global Frequency. Unless you’re here because you’re dating a Star Wars fan, in which case, hey, good luck with that. I recommend that you check out my review of Fever Pitch (though not the movie itself).

Anyway, as I was saying, in the end, does any of it pay off, really? Let me put it to you this way: I doubt that even the great Sir Alec Guinness could have pulled off the word “younglings” with a straight face.

CG Temeura Morrison – creepy.
CG Peter Cushing – creepier.
Jimmy Smits in a flying ’57 Johnny Lightning – just plain weird. Cherry, but weird.

*The Interpreter

Directed by Sydney Pollack
Written by Martin Stellman (story), Brian Ward (story), Charles Randolph (screenplay), Scott Frank (screenplay), Steven Zaillian (screenplay)

I’m just about the least political person I know. I find most of the political discourse happening around me to be varying degrees of memetic recitation (I was about to say “regurgitation”, but these are my friends after all). I know people who refused to see this movie on political grounds. I (initally) refused to see this movie because Sean Penn was in it.

All I know about simultaneous translation is from Audrey Hepburn in Charade. Okay, so it wasn’t the UN, but it still looked hard.

Nicole Kidman plays Sylvia Broome, a French-to-English simultaneous translator (just like Audrey Hepburn!) at the UN. One night, while in the soundbox after hours, she happens to hear what sounds to her very much like the plotting of the assassination of a very unpopular African dictator Zuwanie of the (fictitious) nation of Matobo. The facts that Sylvia herself is Matoboan, has some interesting connections with Zuwanie, and in fact has every reason to want him dead are not lost on the two feds (Sean Penn and Catherine Keener) assigned to protect her. Why wouldn't she just keep her mouth shut, let them kill the bastard? Because she doesn't believe in violence, doesn't believe in revenge - that's why (cue James Newton Howard) she works at the UN. Oh, plus, the conspirators maybe spotted her.

How best to approach The Interpreter? Best not to look for any deep political insight (the major one of which appears to be that The System Works). The film is best approached as part character study, part straightforward procedural, part thriller (and a tight, efficient, economical one it is at that), and...wholly a commercial for UN and the power of diplomacy, of words, to help, to heal, etc. Agree or disagree, it’s a handsome building.

And ah, Sydney Pollack. We know we are in the hands of an experienced director right away – the plot moves quickly, and in a few deft scenes we learn all that we need to know about these characters, before they are let go to inevitability (especially admirable given the number of people who had to substantially rewrite the script after Mr. Pollack decided to completely change the ending). The climactic confrontation between Sylvia and Zuwanie strained plausibility, but was forgiveable given its emotional truth. And the fact that we can speak of emotions in what is basically a police procedural dealing in global diplomacy scores this film a few points in the win column.

[In order to fully appreciate this feat, consider for a moment, say, Attack of the Clones, another police procedural dealing in global diplomacy, which was absolutely devoid of emotion despite its operatic settings and what I suppose we are meant to take as a grand melodramatic romance.]

The casting (more than the acting) is uniformly good . Nicole Kidman, who I usually like anyway, is excellent as the haunted UN interpreter with a past. Certain well-known critics have commented on her casting, loudly wondering how much more interesting and powerful a movie this would be had Dreamworks cast a black actress in the role. I choose to non-cynically believe that Kidman was cast simply because she was the best actress for the role, not for her potential box office draw, and had they cast an Angela Bassett (I hate what they’re doing to you on Alias, by the way) or, gag-of-all-gags, a Halle Barry in the role, these same critics would just as loudly wonder how much more interesting and powerful a movie this would be had they cast a white actress in the role.

Sean Penn, whose unique brand of pompous, humorless, squinched-face whinging somehow continues to win him endless accolades, is also used to great effect as the tired fed with a tragic past. Again, as interesting an idea it would have been to have, say, a John Cusak or a John C. Reilly in the role, this part really did call for a pompous, humorless, squinched-face whinge, and honestly, when I say the words "pompous, humorless, squinched-face whinge", what's the first name you think of? Meanwhile, Catherine Keener, who admittedly plays the world-weary wisenheimer in every movie she’s in, has what turns out to be a pretty good supporting role here.

“Haunted”, “tired”, and “world-weary” were words that kept coming to me as I watched and listened to the characters in this film. Indeed, the New York City portrayed in this film is the City as I know it (though not necessarily like it) best – foggy, drizzly, cold, and very, very grey. So pervasive is the grey that, with its deep colors and rich woods, the UN is (an intentional choice, I’m sure) almost warm and intimate by comparison. The beat, tired, and world-weary characters in this film have witnessed and survived enough to deserve to be as cynical as they are. The attempt of some of these characters to rise above their cynicism, their desire to believe that there is anything more to life than more heartache and death, this is what the movie is really about. The simple fact that Pollack does not loudly and continuously beat us over the head with this idea alone is proof that we are in excellent hands.

If you require more proof, the bus scene alone is worth the price of admission.

A word about the Vespa: Chief UN interpreter Brigitte Andreassier-Pearl, who served as a character model for Nicole Kidman, has famously scoffed that “no one comes to work on a Vespa in New York.” My friend Doug, who has crashed his beloved Vespa on the streets of this fair city more times than most people have even rode on one, got a good laugh out of that one.