Fassbinder was my way into melodrama. True enough, I grew up catching my grandma’s stories with her. I never quite recoiled from reality TV the way I was supposed to. Just because I could appreciate the virtues of ham, did not, however, mean I understood its purpose. It’s one thing to feel touched by swelling orchestral music and Scarlett O’Hara’s tears; it’s another entirely to see what’s gained by going big. Aside from the goosebumps, the heightened feelings, that come... Read more
Strongmen face a paradox: you need your guys. They must be skilled, capable, and efficient. Otherwise, you won’t be staying strong for long. They can’t, however, be too skilled, too capable. If they make connections too easily or become too independently powerful, they pose a threat. An ally becomes an enemy. And so, you’ve got to get rid of them. But now you’re back at square one. There’s no good help anymore! On account of miserliness, foresight, or both, the... Read more
Michael Moore suicide bombing Mount Rushmore. A Parisian rue paved with cobblestones shaped like croissants. Kim Jong-il taking a moment from his Skeletor-esque machinations to sing about his loneliness. The Eifel Tower, the Louvre, and the Arc de Triomphe, located only feet apart, destroyed in seconds by an American strike team. A long, graphic puppet sex scene cut over and over by the MPAA. Indeed, all the above with puppets. Puppets exploding into bloody goo. Puppets kissing and sword fighting,... Read more
There’s an episode from one of my favorite childhood cartoons, Recess (1997-2001), called “The Game.” The game is a puzzle-based quasi-Pokémon rip-off called “Ajimbo” that leaves its players decrepit husks, determined to collect more and more little silver owls and yellow chickens. Their dead eyes, however, did not deter me. I remember wishing we had that game in real life. “Ajimbo” represented a global (or schoolwide) social cohesion that began to disappear by late middle school. The episode closes and... Read more
Greta Gerwig’s Barbie (2023) is what the ads led you to believe. Barbieland is stunning in both accuracy (or so I’m told) and aesthetic quality. Margot Robbie (as Stereotypical Barbie) moves as if made of plastic, gliding down a pristine slide from her dream house, straight out of a yassified The Ladies Man (1961). There is no liquid. Ken’s job is “beach,” and he does it well. In an age of rampant CGI, the sets are a pristine reminder, ironically... Read more
There’s a reason no one’s ever found Jimmy Hoffa’s body. Ask anyone lucky enough to inhabit the north-central part of the Garden State and you’ll learn the truth: this is a densely populated, paved-over swamp. It’s such a bog that we have a whole national wildlife refuge named the “Great Swamp.” Mosquitos multiply like plague-ridden fleas; summers are humid enough to make the sweat stick to your skin day-in and day-out. But it has its benefits, and we get an... Read more
While watching Luchino Visconti’s The Damned (1969), my wife blurted out: “The Nazi budget for banners and armbands must’ve been enormous!” As the movie progresses, more and more swastikas show up, multiplying from a single lapel pin at a family dinner to crowding, eye-thieving backdrops, competing with acts of unimaginable cruelty. My wife’s comment is right on the mark, sums Visconti’s masterpiece up better than I could have: this work proposes a unity of opposites, at once loud, campy, and... Read more
A recent book review asks: “There are Herzog memes, but no Fassbinder memes. Why is that?” The answer, I think, lies in the scowling, gleeful sardonicism of his movies. His work is always prophetic, topical, and utterly alien. Form and content coil around each other, comingling even as they snap at each other’s underbellies. Inevitably, they turn on themselves too. All is soon strangled. Even more-straightforward works like Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974) and Eight Hours Don’t Make a... Read more
After absorbing Federico Fellini’s La Strada (1954) I didn’t say much for a few hours. I was tired and sweaty and had to run to catch a train; my wife was also tired, sweaty, and had to catch a train. But the exhausting rush home provided a fitting backdrop for the dark-matter pit brewing in my gut. Fellini’s film left me with what might otherwise seem opposite feelings: sympathy for the world and everyone in it and a sense of... Read more
Elmer Gantry (1960) is an easy movie to reduce to one of its elements. You could fairly easily see it as a straightforward critique of organized religion, some avant-garde assault not just on today’s blatant televangelists and cult leaders but on the whole of faith as such. You could just as simply call it a saccharine bit of old-fashioned wisdom literature, a film only a step or two removed from shlock like Reefer Madness (1936). It is indeed moralistic and... Read more
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