ampersandology: film. culture. words.

Culture Snaps: February 7th, 2011

2012-02-07T17:21:00.000-03:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

WATCHING

Pina (3D presentation at TIFF Bell Lightbox)

I'm not, by any means, a spokesperson for 3D technology. But Pina, presented in 3D now at the TIFF Bell Lightbox, seems to be one of those films that the technology is made for. Combining dance and documentary to create a fully realized portrait of the legendary eponymous choreographer. The film was originally designed to feature Pina Bausch prominently in the story of her career, but after her unexpected death it was reshaped into a tribute by her fellow dancers that is at times touching, haunting and ethereal, not unlike the woman herself.

READING

And The Band Played On, by Randy Shilts.

Chilling and maddening in its accuracy, this history of the early days of the AIDS epidemic reads more like a thriller for which you wish you didn't already know the ending.

LISTENING

"Somebody That I Used to Know," Gotye (feat. Kimbra)

Mostly, I just like the pretty.

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The Spielberg Legacy

2012-01-04T13:24:00.002-03:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

I've long been saying the same thing, like a broken record with no self-awareness: that Steven Spielberg is more or less the greatest working director of all time.

Okay, okay, I know. It's not the obvious film buff choice. He lacks the unknowable, distant prestige of Fellini or Altman, or even the bizarre legacy of devotees like Kubrick. He's perhaps a little too populist to be a director's director. He's, for fear of overuse, an audience's director, a visionary who, horror of horrors, considers audience attachment to the images we see onscreen. And I think that's why his critics feel that Spielberg's success comes at the cost of style without substance; quite frankly, if you manage to dislike some of his more successful outings (Catch Me if You Can, are your ears burning?), then congrats. You're the first cyborg in world history! His films are tailor-made to appeal to the tiny child that still lives inside of you; he bypasses our adult selves and goes for the gut, showing us the things we loved when we didn't know any better. Dinosaurs! Aliens! Good guys with white hats and villains with black ones! Tidy endings for all!

But his commercial success isn't what impresses me most: it's his exhaustive versatility. He's worked in nearly every genre, had relatively few failed experiments, and manages to scare up healthy box office numbers even in these dark times. He's like the very best sessional musician: so annoyingly competent that you want to begrudge him such success but can't, because he's so earnest.

I think it bears repeating: Spielberg still love making movies. Still. His films vibrate with a genuine awe of the medium, and a desire to push it to new heights. Uncanny valley aside, you can't say that The Adventures of Tintin is giving us a carbon copy of previous experiments in CGI. He's exploring new territory with the verve of someone who hasn't realized that there are limits to the human experience. These are what Spielberg's films embody for me: a lack of awareness that there should, or needs to be, a separation of reality and fantasy. It's child-like, almost, and precious in these modern times.

To that end, I offer you two video essays that explore this legacy, one by longtime favorite critic Matt Zoller Seitz, and the other by new friend Kevin B. Lee. Lee's interrogation on the possibility of a 'Spielberg face' was a welcome little gift, featuring a particularly good reading of A.I's place in the canon.

Magic and Light: The Films of Steven Spielberg (CHAPTER ONE)

The Spielberg Face

Happy new year! I love starting fresh years with awesome cultural criticisms, don't you?

ps. Also, just for fun, here are the Indiana Jones segments. If you're pressed for time, just watch these. I never left behind my inner 12-year old. Neither should you.

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Classic Films and the Myth of the Good Old Days.

2011-11-20T22:21:00.001-03:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

Casablanca--a classic by any other name.

A dear friend of mine recently took to Facebook to ask for nominations: what recent films, she asked, do you think will stand the test of time? In other words, what are we watching now will be watch later? What contemporary movies will age into ripe old classic status?

Fantastic question. The answers she got, however, is what prompted this post.

Classic--was ever a word more fraught with meaning for those in the know? In literature, it speaks to tradition, giving the books labeled as such an air importance and, more precisely, relevance; in music, preferring classic rock will, depending on the audience, telegraph either a refusal to keep up with the times or a finger on an ironic, backdoor pulse.

But when we're talking films, classic means so much more. In the more traditional definition, calling something a classic is almost a shorthand for 'old'. Which means a film can be a classic in part by simply surviving---Casablanca, Vertigo or Citizen Kane are 'classics' not just because they are splendid examples of storytelling, but also because despite their age, they thrive with life even 50, 60, 70 years later. They're timeless, they're outside the medium, they're modern even in their age.

In order: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World; The King's Speech; The Social Network; Up: are any of these modern classics?

But, and this is what I noticed as people began to chime in on my friend's thread---classic has become another word for 'favourite.' This becomes especially true when the entry is decidedly niche--one astute friend on the above thread suggested Scott Pilgrim vs. the World as a classic, and, as a terrifically entertaining piece of cinema immortalizing the Nintendo-tinged youth of a generation, it's already achieved classic status in some circles. But...there's a but.

But it feels premature to even presume this more traditional label of 'classic' to anything post-millennial, and a little naughty even when using it around a beloved John Hughes film. It's all a game, in the end, a way of trying to predict our own inadvertent cultural time capsule. And sometimes, we as a society will never know what is a classic, well, until it is. A film should earn its stripes by surviving even when the societal minutia has dissolved any immediate ties to relevancy.

That's it, isn't it? The real power of a film is to trap its culture in vivid motion; it acts as a little cannon shot into the future, stuffed with politics, beliefs and life as we knew it. So maybe a real classic film doesn't just entertain its audience. It, in many ways, ought to represent them.

And all of this led me, as usual, to the idea of the good old days. This grand myth that before this wretched modern world came along, folks really knew how to make a car, a song, a novel...a film. Anyone who doesn't like the fare at the box office can look to an earleir period, where theaters had real films on their roster: Gone With the Wind! Taxi Driver! The Third Man!

It's a ripple I've noticed throughout a lot of cinema and media studies that looks back a little too often--hell, as a scholar of postwar American film, I can't say I'm immune--with dewy, wistful sighs, as if the old days didn't produce any schlock.

To these people, I offer this as a comfort: the 1960s is a decade seemingly embarrassed with cinematic riches: releases included Easy Rider, Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate, In the Heat of the Night, Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid---all in all, a banner decade.

But the list doesn't stop there: the 1960s also saw the release of not one but two Gidget sequels, Valley of the Dolls, western/musical Paint Your Wagon (your rare chance to see Clint Eastwood sing!) and the truly troubled production Doctor Dolittle (which, tellingly, nabbed its 1967 Oscar nod largely due to studio sweet talk). This isn't counting all the Godzilla movies or inflated studio cash-grabs trying to replicate past successes.

What am I trying to say? Maybe it's just that we've always been making schlock; the democratization of Hollywood means this happens in greater numbers, but studios have always catered to that lowest-hanging denominator.

The difference is the schlock doesn't usually survive. All we're left with are--you guessed it--the real classics.

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Girl, look at that body. No, seriously.

2011-10-05T15:59:00.002-02:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

You know you've been in academics too long when you watch the following trying to parse whether or not a pop song by a almost-fake band is a progressive commentary on the complications of reversing of the male gaze. Man, what happened to me? I used to be cool.* I mean, they're joking around, but...they're also kind of serious, aren't they?

Of course, these guys are still in control of the gaze, even as become (arguable) objects of lust. As Richard Dyer noted in his (baller) 1982 essay "Don't Look Now: The Male Pin Up", the guys in this video are all active and athletic even as they display their bodies--dancing, strutting, even lifting weights and apparently wielding a baseball. No coy or helpless objectification here. Um, okay. I'm reaching. But I don't know, it feels like there's something here! At least I'm not trying to convince you that LMFAO's earlier works are a commentary on the perils of tying ourselves to modern conveniences. OH WAIT JUST DID BRAINWOOOORM.

On another note entirely, why am I obsessed with knowing more about the dancing robot? He's a fascinating creature of mystery. Who is this robot, and from whence did he emerge? He's half-human, half robot, so was he a dancer that became a cyborg or a normal human whose desire to party rock is entirely digitized? I also learned today he was played at least once by playwright Daniel Kanengieter. There are so many layers to this enigma, I fear my thirst for knowledge will be forever unquenched.

That's right, the dancing robot is moonlighting as a playwright. To sum up: will the robot be my wife?

*This is untrue.

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Quasi Review, X-Men: First Class

2011-06-18T16:33:00.002-02:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

"Adaptation is repetition, but repetition without replication." -Linda Hutcheon

Faaaassbender! Let him entertain you.

So I basically just saw the new X-Men movie, X-Men: First Class. In a nutshell, I didn't leave angry, which is real progress! I wavered on the decision to see it, because I was so angry about the state of comic book movies in general and X-Men in particular.

But comic book movies have long suffered from the very thing that draws people into the theater: the coolness factor. I blame CGI, mostly: much of what happens onscreen in modern comic movies have only been possible in the wake of recent computer imaging technology. So you fill the screen with marvelous displays of impossible superpowers, a dazzling lightshow of nifty graphics that overshadows most everything else. At the cost of what, though? X3 managed to ruin the Phoenix Saga, which is really like the pizza of the Marvel universe--it's such a terrific story that it boggles the mind how you could screw it up. You put cheese on bread and melt it! You give too much power to a character that will later go crazy and require her own sacrifice! It's like basic math, people.

But all this takes away from the fundamentals of the superhero mythos that draws young kids into the comics: the battle of being your best self versus the easiest, the struggle of difference, the burden of exception. There's a resonant cultural importance in comic books (Doubt me? read this), and most of the superhero films that get made completely bypass this altogether. People start reading for the nifty powers; they stay for the humanity of it all.

So First Class. You see, there's a lot about the film that's just...awkward; aside from the scenes between Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy, much of the story felt like a second draft revision, and the final product was still an edit or two away.

The film lands as a grossly uneven creature-- the transitions between great thematic importance and haywire levity are jarring, to say the least, and play out like wandering between the annoying, high pitched fracas of the kids' table in the kitchen while the grown up are talking sensibly and importantly in the dining room. Tonally, that makes for a confusing two hours.

Where First Class succeeds is surprising, because it has nothing to do with the title premise. The 'first class' of the title, the kid mutants that will make up Professor X's first students at his Institute for Gifted Youngsters, are a largely lackluster bunch. It's these scenes that lost me--which is too bad, because if the franchise continues, perhaps some thought should have gone into choosing a class that was, I don't know, interesting outside of their allotted ten minutes of CGI wizardry. I mean, they're cute, but they're not the real first class, you know? Where, I ask, is the rich playboy disowned by his father for his deviation? The orphaned Alaskan boy who turns his pain into stoicism? The requisite Smurfette?

Suckas, this is the only First Class my heart will acknowledge.

No, where First Class succeeds is as an entry into the much larger and longstanding discussion that rattles through the bones of all comic book movies--the question of adaptation versus accuracy. X-Men: First Class largely succeeds as an apology to the franchise, after the wet-blanket flavouring of X3 and the responding thud of Wolverine: Origins. First Class stands as an anomaly, of sorts, given the devotion of most comic book fans and their derision towards adaptation: I think most who saw it remember the odd feeling of watching Watchmen on the screen a few years ago, and realizing that in trying to replicate Moore's vision exactly (and attempt to appease its fans) all the audacity and thrilling verve of that same vision came out in the wash. There's such a thing as being too faithful.

Let me tell you, as a former X fangirl, there's very little of this film that resembles its comic origins. But is that what matters? First Class is a tidy distillery of the comic book's message about tolerance and its opposite, fear, and I quite frankly never get tired of that. What I love about the opposing world views of the X universe is that if anyone with a critical mind can see the merit to both approaches: while Charles Xavier would reinforce the much less radical view of integrating his charges into the society that hated them, Lehnsherr took the more reactionary (but understandable) defense mechanism of an eye for an eye. It's Malcolm X versus Martin Luther King Jr., though I guarantee I'm not the first to draw such parallels. And in First Class, both viewpoints are given equal screentime, much to the film's benefit: one look at Michael Fassbender's Magneto (mmm, yes please!) and you entirely understand how he evolves into a human-hating hot mess. And Charles, well, he even start talking with that calm, wizened patronizing tone that the real Professor X uses, so there's that too!

It's for that reason this needs to be said: First Class is at its heart, one of the finest bromances put to film. Let me just say this: the film features an extended montage wherein Xavier and Lehnsherr go on little road trips to find other mutants to recruit into their little club. It's cute, an all too brief bright spot of pure win in a tonally-confused two hours. "More tea, vicar?" OMG that was awesome.

theirloveissopure.

And no joke, if the entire movie had been two hours of mini-Professor X and baby Magneto going on little mini-adventures and drinking champagne and wearing mod suits, smirking at each other (AND MAYBE MORE???) while hep music played in the background, that would have been the most rad. I would watch that movie at least eight times. In theaters. And also on Blu-Ray. Theirloveissopure!

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The Rock

2011-06-12T02:24:00.003-02:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

In planning my upcoming pilgrimage to San Francisco, I've been pulled in the direction of visiting Alcatraz. Why? I honestly have no idea. The very idea of being trapped inside a prison during a riot is on my list of all-time heebie-jeebie inducers, along with berserk Victorian ideas of medicine and disasters that happen on New Year's Eve (especially if no one cleans up the party favours).*. Seriously. I hate prison riots, or even the implications of one. You know that scene in Natural Born Killers, when Robert Downey Jr. the journalist gets taken as the hostage when the prison goes nuts? Well, I don't. It could have cut to twenty minutes of puppies getting manicures, but it doesn't matter. It hinted at the inescapable, locked-in terror of being involved in any way with the madness of a prison riot.

So why I suddenly got the urge to sail across a boat to an island I could not easily escape, Scorsese-style, and confront the source of my fear was beyond me. Sure, because there's really a dearth of thing to entertain your hipster tendencies in the greater San Francisco area I mean, COME ON!

Then I realized. This is practically a textbook formula for my brain.

You take my fond, confused memories of that one scene in Dog Day Afternoon...

+

...my inexplicable love of aftermaths...

-

... residual anger at the ending of Shutter Island...

divided by

...the fact I still haven't seen The Rock...

=

my subconscious is trying to fire me. Thanks a lot, Id. This is what I get for letting you have macrons, delicious delicious macrons? Serves me right for trusting a Freudian impulse.

...again.

*But to be fair, trying to pick the one element of Bioshock that chewed on my fear-making center is impossible. Take one part Ayn Rand, one part crazy people trapped underground, with a generous helping of Manifest Destiny, and you pretty much have the one thing I had to watch between my fingers as other people played. Well-played, sum of all my fears. Well-played.

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Busby Berkeley Dreams

2011-05-09T14:07:00.002-02:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

Look, I know. But I can’t help but name it—I got a thing forthe chorus girl.

It keeps popping up in my fiction, a stutter of a motif. It’s my own regrettable nostalgia, mostly wrapped up in what itconveyed rather than what it really was—the yesteryears of the enigmatic dancing girl, guileless in her powerover men and brightly smiling under the stage lights. But it was never true, really. It's a hyperreal performance of womanhood, never the real thing.

Have you seen these creatures? They’re unreal. Smiles glued to their lips, pushing their uniform bodies through space. They're girlish little women, or else womanly girls. Do they have an inner life, their own agency? You'd never guess.

Their kind echo throughout history—the swaying hips of theburlesque, the eternal girlchild of Victorian soap ads, the dazzling performanceof femaleness of the Hollywood chorus girl. Eternally young and appropriately blank.

But dancing girls exist only as a collective noun: whoever talks about one dancing girl? They only exist together; when dispersed,the effect evaporates. And so they travel in packs, trapped in the forgivinglimitations of the evening show. Rather than stand alone, the dancing girls arethe seams in the self-contained logic of their musical numbers.

From LIFE magazine, 1958.

Dispel your misplaced notion that these women a) really wantto be up there on stage and b) are just delighted to be dancing for you—yes, you!—as they kick, twirl, gesture andhoof in perfect uniformity, trained within an inch of their life to follow thenext. Dancing until they die--or turn 35, whatever happens first.

Busby Berkeley’s girls, meanwhile, didn’t even need thatmuch: “I never cared whether a girl knew her right foot from her left,” he oncesaid, “so long as she was beautiful.”

Footlight Parade, 1933

Berkeley, a man made famous by his unmistakable configurationsof the female form in abstract space, was alarmingly unsentimental when facedwith the legions of pretty girls that built his legacy. He’s not the first,either: look to the 1884 Electric Girl Company, a business model that suppliedyoung girls whose bodies were outfitted in electric lights and ornaments. Theywere used for parties or as waitresses for the crop of modernity-obsessed restaurants,the perfect melding of technology and the human (female) body.

Then followed the usual suspects: the Rockettes, in the1920s; Earl Carroll’s vaudeville revue “Vanities”; circus peep shows; burlesqueshows that slowly showed more and more skin.

There is something beyond surreal in these chorus lines—the facesof these pretty young women, rather than approach uniformity, disturb me in theways they are dissimilar; in other words, I am perturbed by the idea that I’msupposed to blend them all together and marvel at their sameness, as if someone in the costuming departmentexpected the matching wigs and thematic outfits would erase anything unique orspecial about everything contained therein.

Earl Carroll was the creator of vaudeville’s “Vanities”, a precursorto the Berkeley chorus girl by more than a few years, had his own philosophy onthe Platonic nature of these chorus lines:

“The following points of beauty are given carefulconsideration: color and texture of hair, brilliancy and size of eyes, regularityof teeth, general coloring, texture of skin, formation of hands and feet,posture and personality...”

But not even these high standards could always be met, as Carrollwent on to note:

“There are times (and this was particularly true during thewar) when it was necessary to engage girls who do not have all the necessaryqualifications. We replace them when it is possible.”

There exists, if you’re curious, a record of themeasurements of the “ideal chorine.” Gals, break out your measuring tapes—or, youknow, roll your eyes. So the ideal chorus girl has:

-a six-inch wrist

-a twelve inch neck

-a nineteen and a half thigh

-a nine inch ankle.

Not to mention the highest standard of personal grooming. Rather than be repulsed at the blatant sexism on displayhere, I'm kind of charmed. I mean, they must have had their reasons, right? You can't blame anyone for having standards, even if those standards codify the female form into the gender expectations of an ice cube tray.

Oh, wait. Never mind. I just remembered Berkeley’s stated goalwhen casting new chorus girls: his hope was that all the girls would be ofuniform size, talent and comeliness—“just like pearls.”

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All That Jazz about my boy Roy

2011-03-27T00:19:00.000-02:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

Oh, Roy Scheider. Never were you more resplendent than in this film. It shames me that there are people of my generation who think you're nothing more than Sheriff Brody in Jaws. But good news! It's time for....

Intellectual Crush of the Week!

And tag Roy Scheider: you're it.

Th above still illustrates everything you need to know. In All That Jazz (1979), Scheider stars as Joe Gideon, a thinly-veiled allusion to director/choreographer Bob Fosse. He's a self-absorbed, drug-addicted alcoholic womanizer, and he still comes off as an okay guy. Please notice: the man is wearing a sequined Brando t-shirt, and yet remains the sexiest thing of all the things.

Let me repeat that: he wore a sequined t-shirt. You never doubt the Sexy.

I've aways suspected Roy Scheider never got the credit he was due, mostly because when his obits ran, all news outlets to tag him with was the "star of Jaws." It's their loss, because Scheider was so much more. In my mind, he's usually the highlight of very good films, and the redeeming factor in many bad films. He singlehandedly made me watch Marathon Man---I refused for a long time, you see; I have a thing about dentists.

He fights! He punches! He wears suits and puts Dustin Hoffman in sexy danger! Amazing. He's still the thing I remember most of that film, and he was on screen for all of what, 20 minutes?

Though the latter half of his career was tepid at best, watching him in All That Jazz is a revelation: as Gideon tunnels further and further into addiction, Scheider plays his sad resignation straight, with a wry self-absorption. His downward spiral becomes so much more moving to me than if it had been typically sentimental or realistic, because Gideon is the Dream Factory.

It's funny, but watching Scheider in All That Jazz again I was reminded of a modern take on the perpetual screw up: Hank Moody in Californication. Moody drinks, sleeps around and constantly lets down the figures of love and stability in his life, like Gideon. But where Moody murders audience sympathy for his half-hearted failure to live up to any expectations set for him, Scheider's performance makes it clear that Gideon's worst enemy is his own resignation to that same failure. Scheider said of Fosse, who Gideon is basically based on:

Fosse, I think, came to a high point in his life, with an Oscar, a Tony and an Emmy, and asked himself, "Do they think I'm really that good? They don't know I'm really a sham, a hoax, a phony, a lousy human being, not much of a friend to anybody and a flop ... they don't know I'm covered with flop sweat". That's an expression Bob uses a lot -- flop sweat.

Basically, Gideon gives up on himself before anyone else even thinks to, because he's the only one who knows the whole truth, that's he's a phony and no-good. Whether or not that's true, you feel it in Scheider's performance, that he's in on his own big secret. It's a terrific performance, one of his best. And definitely his sparklyist.

Let's face it, Scheider was a true blue original. In his youth, he'd been a boxer (ooh!), a frat boy (oh.) and a member of the Air Force (...oh?). He was lean, with a strange, angular face that was never quite handsome. But he had a rough, salty edge to him, an old soul even in his youngest days on the screen. I love watching his performances because they sparkle with a hard wisdom. This man has seen a great deal and survived more still. And he's always thinking it through.

Also, he makes all the illicit things he does in films (smoking, killing people, appearing in Jaws sequels) seem actually like a terrific thing to do. See, I'm pretty shallow, is what I'm saying.

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Werner Herzog Reads Madeline

2011-03-22T22:28:00.003-02:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

What follows below is my Platonic ideal of children's literature. I remember the moment when I explained to my mother why Peter Pan was all about sex; I refrained from showing her my copy of Lost Girls, lest she get the wrong idea. But really, all stories about childhood are a prelude to adult desires and fears.

For this reason, I wish I had Werner Herzog to read me my bedtime stories when I was little. His version of children's classic articulate the feelings I had as a child, but had not yet wrapped my mouth around the words. That would come much later, after much wine.

Sometimes, people ask me about my childhood. I was, for all intents and purposes, a very strange child. I was fussy, and didn't like the outdoors or getting wet. Other children were vast nations to be negotiated carefully. I knew how powerful it was to be a child when I was one, and in this knowledge, failed to be a child at all.

So is it so wrong that I feel Werner Herzog provides a better truth to feed my children? Ah, well. We likely will never know. Because this shall be all they get. I happen to subscribe to the Jeremy Irons school of childrearing.

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Lizstomania

2011-03-18T17:12:00.001-02:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

Who wants to party with this guy?

Answer: who in their right mind doesn't?

Franz Lizst: hailed by his contemporaries as one of the most technically advanced pianist of his time. And that time? The 1-9er century, all. Supposedly, he was frenemies with Chopin and basically, tried everything: wrote symphonies, toured Europe, wrote books and took NAMES.

The man is wearing a functionless ribbon as adornment AND STILL LOOKS PIMP. That is true blue, people. True blue.

But most importantly, Lizst invented Justin Bieber. How, you may ask? A little social phenomena called Lizstomania:

Lisztomaniawas characterized by a hysterical reaction to Liszt and his concerts. Liszt'splaying was reported to raise the mood of the audience to a level of mysticalecstasy. Admirers of Liszt would swarm over him, fighting over hishandkerchiefs and gloves. Fans would wear his portrait on brooches and cameos.Women would try to get locks of his hair, and whenever he broke a piano string,admirers would try to obtain it in order to make a bracelet. Some femaleadmirers would even carry glass phials into which they poured his coffee dregs. (Wikipedia)

Tight! So we have Franz Lizst to blame for the 13 year olds who swear fidelity to an over-hyped manic pixie dream boy.

I imagine Franz Lizst as the 19th century Arthur: rich, drunk and juuuuuuuust smart enough to be dangerous. Oh, and the Dudley Moore version, not the uncomfortable looking production involving Russel Brand. I want to go on adventures around Vienna with this man. Besties = already forever.

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Culture Snaps - March 12th, 2011

2011-03-12T22:00:00.002-03:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

WATCHING

Barney's Version (2010)

I love Canada. Wait--let me revise that statement. I love Canada, but I especially love Mordecai Richler's Canada. Such interesting, heartbreaking things happen there! Also, that Canada includes Dustin Hoffman so, huzzah! I'm so happy to finally see this; it was sold out for the entirety of TIFF.

READING

This Cake is For the Party, Sarah Selecky

I cannot put this collection down. Nothing in these stories reinvent the wheel, plot-wise, but Selecky's voice is incredible, in the kind of way that these character-driven tales have to be buoyed by. This book was nominated by the Giller, and after reading it, it's almost unbelievable to me that anything else could win if Selecky had to lose.

LISTENING

Blind Willie Johnson, "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground."

Like, on repeat. Also. this cover by the outstanding Kronos Quartet.

The story of Blind Willie Johnson is one of tragic circumstances, so downtrodden it seems implausible--he was blinded as a child by his father's vengeful second wife (lye to the eyes), he married twice unsuccessfully, and when his house burned down, he resigned himself to living in its rubble. Then he died. But you know what? This song is floating in the cavity of Voyager probe, shot out of the solar system in the hope that this capsule could act as an introduction to our world to other, unknown lifeforms. He lives, but in a different form than the rest of us.

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Edward Gorey and Moments of De-Normalization

2011-03-08T22:57:00.003-03:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

I think we all have a moment, if we're cut from a certain cloth, when we realize as adults that we didn't turn out like the other kids. Full disclosure: I have had several, if not dozens of these moments.

This is the story of the most recent.

*

This Christmas, I was given a sewing machine by Bug, a terribly thoughtful gift to feed the fires of my love for fashion. I just picked it up this weekend and, in my typical learning curve, immediately dove into a project way too advanced for my skill level. Without hubris, I ponder earnestly, would I ever learn anything?

The first of these projects was a doll for my cousin, who I adore. It's fairly straightforward, and so fun to design. But did I chose a princess? No.

Did I choose a classic character from children's literature? Oh, no no no.

I choose to make my 3 year old cousin a doll, made with my loving intentions, depicting one of the 26 children who meet their untimely demise in Edward Gorey's The Gashlycrumb Tinies. I picked Una!

It's my favorite Gorey book, and I read the tale of dancing with the afterlife in (told in rhyming dactylic couplets) when I was, oh, say seven? I think I found it at Granny Bates, on a high shelf. Gorey drew his famous illustrations with a stern Victorian whimsy which, yeah, seems like an oxymoron until you see his work. He plays with ideas of moral instruction, strange comforts of the macabre and dark and sinister ideas of the familiar domicile.

Gorey played this mild terror straight and for the same resons I read and love Roald Dahl, spared no unfortunate circumstance for his young (or possibly not so young) readers. He said, "Sunny, funny nonsense for children — oh, how boring, boring, boring. As Schubert said, there is no happy music. And that's true, there really isn't. And there's probably no happy nonsense, either." For that, Edward Gorey is one of my secret obsessions. He's dark and weaves a similar tapestry of childhood, which I've always looked back on as a Gothic, vaguely sinister time, full of half-understood languages and inherited secrets.

Anyway. The doll is almost finished. I hope she likes my Gothic little friend! I even made a little tag so that when my cousin gets older and grows a sense of humor, we can bond over the delights of the macabre. Una the doll has no hair right now, but she does have the blankest, most dour expression. Place your orders now---I might sew up all 26.

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X-Men First Class trailer

2011-03-06T04:01:00.002-03:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

Wait a...hold on now. So the X-men solved the Cuban Missile Crisis? I mean, my instinct says to go for the easy jab and gesture to the mountain of history books currently propped up against my desk that disagree with that idea...but no. Not today.

Because you know what? It is way too awesome for me to get mean. It is pointedly absurd and I love it. Kind of like how the inclusion of super-beings in Alan Moore's Watchman made the whole book sort of like a massive, decade-spanning version of Where's Waldo for historical events. Watchmen took it to epic levels, creating a vivid, alternate tapestry of skewed national memory. In comparison, this just seems cute. Precious, even. Like a seven-year old acting out Citizen Kane in their living room.

...what? That's perfectly normal, right? Lots of kids...did...ahem.

So despite the fact the history student in me should be fuming, instead a vision of Magneto floating Soviet submarines over the South Atlantic makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. Some absurdities just reaffirm your faith in the world, you know?

Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be over here, pretending Spiderman showed up in Andy Warhol's Empire and spoiled the original take.

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Tom Hanks rules you.

2011-03-01T16:55:00.002-03:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

Classic Hanks.

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Someday, we're gonna live in Paris.

2011-02-24T17:36:00.000-03:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

Commercials are supposed to make you want whatever contained inside them, right? Well, if these commercials for the EF International Language Centers are supposed to make me want to eat macarons on my balcony and arrive somewhere on a train in the rain, then job well done!

EF - Live The Language - Paris from Albin Holmqvist on Vimeo.

I kid. These are stylish, quasi-short films that neatly illustrate the fun of immersing yourself in a different culture, rather than trying to cull that language stuff from a book. It's like a play, people. You gotta live it, not read it! Not to mention the typography, which does a stellar job of teasing out the mood of each city/national language. There are four in all, for London, Beijing, Barcelona and of course, Paris.

Ima adopt a cat just so I can sing him that song. In other news, God, I love macarons. They're the tastiest of treats.

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Thom Yorke, Single Laddie.

2011-02-19T03:42:00.001-03:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

Breaking news: Thom Yorke is my private dancer. Those who deny it only reinforce its truth.

Happy New Radiohead Day, everybody!

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Words to live by

2011-02-17T21:58:00.003-03:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

In my experience, words of wisdom that filter down from famous writers tends to do one of two very specific things: either vibrate in the reader's mind with an uncanny connection, speaking to exactly that person and no one else. Or else these same words, landing in the wrong ear, can sound pompous, obscure and coined in the Ivory Tower. This tidbit from Philip Roth is in its own category: BALLIN' WITH NO END IN SIGHT.

INTERVIEWER

Do you have a Roth reader in mind when you write?

ROTH

No. I occasionally have an anti-Roth reader in mind. I think, How he is going to hate this! That can be all the encouragement I need.

-from The Paris Review Interviews, Vol. IV. Find it here.

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My Recent History, Portrayed as Music

2011-02-16T01:42:00.003-03:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

What's happening in my corner of the world? Besides the obvious, I mean. Allow me the following indulgence. I WILL SHOW YOU IN SONG!

New Projects and Preoccupations
As portrayed by Belle & Sebastian's "Wrapped Up in Books"

What with school and words and the company I keep, this song is basically the anthem of the last six months of my life. Without the guy on the keyboard. And with considerably more berets.

This is the portion of the self-indulgent post when I look longingly at my bookshelf, now offensively stuffed with titles; at this point, my apartment is basically the opposite of Ellis Island in the 1890s. There's no room for you, little immigrant books. And yet, instead of turning them away, I just push them against the wall and, with a sticky note, assign them a title that better suits my whims. Huh. Actually, that sounds a lot like Ellis Island.

I, as usual, digress. In other news, Belle & Sebastian is the love that never ends in my heart. I first saw them in Glasgow. When I missed them here last month, my heart turned the color of sorrow that no detergent can remove. Every Belle & Sebastian song takes place either in:

a) a bookstore
b) a bridge
c) the past

Because these places have a generic importance to me, I think they should in fact add me to their band. I can play the tambourine, and have sort of learned the ukelele. In addition, I have an excellent knack for earnestness when I'm permitted to channel it ironically. And remember before, when I mentioned berets? I really wasn't kidding. I have two. I'm so committed to this aesthetic it hurts.

So in a nutshell, I'm working on a bunch of new project,s but I'm a miser of information and keep it hush-hush. Sometimes my mind thinks it's Soviet Russia and everyone else is the American people and what's at stake is the Iron Curtain. Hint: the metaphor only works if you accept it at face value. Moving on.

A Musing on My Use of Public Transportation
As portrayed by Pulp's "Common People"

So I usually hum this to myself when I'm on the bus. Yeah. I've been driving since I was still jailbait, so my newfound dependence on public transportation is like an eye-opening montage. It keeps feeling like a lingering anthropological experiment--I see and learn so much about like, humanity and stuff. Did you know people think that trimming their fingernails on the bus is not only a time-saver, but also super pleasant to those around them? I did not until recently.

I keep wondering if it's really offensive that this song keeps inserting into my iPod's shuffle. Then I decide that who cares, Pulp is awesome. First World Problem, 0. My sense of worth, FIVE TRILLION. Entitlement level unlocked!

In all seriousness, travel of any kind always soothes me, and moreso in the last six months when I've become so dependent on it. There's a comfort in physically moving your person from Place Here to Place Else. No matter where you go, there you are. Plus, when you're not driving, yo, you can read. Is this situation made of win? I think I just answered my own question. (ps. THE ANSWER IS WIN)

My Super-Sneaky Shoutout
As portrayed by The National's "England"

Wouldn't you like to know.

FUN ADDITIONAL FACT! If I woke up trapped in the video of Pulp's This is Hardcore on an endless loop for the rest of my natural existence, like you know in Groundhog Day, when Bill Murray keeps waking up in the same day, and eventually learns the secrets of the townspeople and robs banks and--well, anyway, if I was stuck in this video, that would be great. That would be the existential crisis to beat.

The first time my brother saw this video, he was silent for a long time; then he said, in a quiet somber voice, "Now I finally understand. This is the language you speak, the shapes you see. This is the battery from which your brain saps its momentum. Now, finally, I can warn the others."

I'm paraphrasing, of course, but you get the idea.

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Good News, Etc.

2011-02-15T00:33:00.002-03:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

Things have been wretchedly slow around here---mostly because I have a tendency to keep myself so busy that it's a good thing my head is permanently attached. Und so weiter. But I've got some great posts lined up for the rest of February, so stay tuned.

However, I've come out of hiding to report that I'm terribly humbled to be on the longlist this year for the CBC Literary Awards, in the category of Creative Nonfiction. I'm in great company too--2011 Winston Collins nominee and friend Carla Hartenberger is also up.

Canada's so talented, you know. I say it all the time. And God bless the CBC---next to fellow Atlantic Canadian Kate Beaton, they`re my BFF national treasure.

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Good or Great Artistry Aside, Bruce Lee's Still Pimp

2011-02-05T19:07:00.001-03:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

There's recycling genre tropes, and then...then there's Quentin Tarantino.

Everything Is A Remix: KILL BILL from robgwilson.com on Vimeo.

My favorite part is when he starts ripping off himself, near the end. Hey, I'm not hatin' on the guy. If we're going to believe Picasso, this is how the great stuff gets made.

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Are You the Favorite Person of Anybody?

2011-01-24T02:24:00.004-03:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

The short film is, to use a technical term, a sticky wicket.

In an impressive reverse of logic, the short film has acquired a dismissal order by the public at large---much like the short story, rhyming couplet or haiku, your average moviegoer regards the form as 'half-hearted' or incomplete---a mere training ground for 'real' filmmakers until they get their act together and manage to make a feature.

It probably doesn't help that the field is crowded at the moment---the democracy of the internet and computer software has widened the film so that strangely, the freedom leads to a lot of navel-focused, indie-soundtrack films that may or may not accurately reflect the filmmaker's childhood.

But the short form has it upsides: sometimes the most powerful thing you can do for an idea is keep it sparse. Make your point and then make like the wind.

Enter Are You the Favorite Person of Anybody?

This is my platonic idea of a short film: I discovered when it came attached to the then-newly invented McSweeney's venture Wholphin, and I've never forgotten it. It was written by oddball darling Miranda July and features John C. Reilly, and asks only one question: are you anybody's favorite person?

It's simplicity itself. It makes its point. Then it makes like the wind.

From the YouTube description:

This is a simple, poignant short film, shot on a budget of $150: a man with a survey stops passersby and asks them, "Are you anybody's favorite person?" What a heartbreaking question, for somebody who DOESN'T come first in somebody else's heart! Miranda July, who wrote the short story this is based on, had just finished shooting ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW and made this film in the week between shooting and editing the first rough assembly. Miguel Arteta, who directed, was still in love with her at the time, and in an interview with WHOLPHIN said, "The shoot was painless but sure enough, by the time I started editing, we were broken up. This little short is like a rear-view mirror that survived a fabulous, painful crash."

So ask yourself (or not): are you anybody's favorite person? Do you have to be? And do you have one yourself? I have my own answers, obviously.

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Hal Ashby FTW.

2011-01-16T19:55:00.001-03:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

I wish this story was true. In fact, as far as I'm concerned, it is now.

Hal Ashby FTW.

When I say I could watch AFI tributes all day long, I'm not remotely joking. What a delicious notion, that all the great screen legends that watched endlessly like each other just as much. I get the feeling that the Dustin Hoffman, the Diane Keaton, the Warren Beatty who survives into the film history tomes won't hold a candle to these visions of friendship and candor.

Oh, movies. You're making me blush.

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Aw. That's Daft Punk!

2011-01-10T23:16:00.002-03:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

About a year ago, my heart began to swell with civic pride. Maple syrup Don Cherry what's it all aboot, eh, said I. And I'll be honest, this swell basically coincided with the 2010 Olympics, like many in my native land. O Canada, people! We have healthcare, yo. A chicken in ev'ry pot and a double double besides, yeahyeah. During this swell, many strange things happened: I bought history books! I gave money to the CBC! And I crowned my own personal Queen of the Canadias.

So in conclusion, everyone should respect Canada. I proudly present our queen. Our girl, she likes to party all the time, party ALL the time. I brought some royal footage, too! My motto is always be prepared, not unlike the Boy Scouts.

Of America.

Oh, whatever. We have them too.

Presenting....

Some people may disagree with my placement of our (un)official sovereign, since we already kinda have an official one, but to them, I simply say this party is gonna get raw like sushi, so haters to the left. Um, and Ms. Atwood? With all due respect, please continue being adorable 24/7.

I wish Robertson Davies gave ME hockey advice. I feel like it might make me care somehow about the sport. One of these days, I'm pretty sure they're going to revoke my passport because I just found out what a hat trick was.*

*it was used as a sex joke. Yeah. So. Being Canadian is so fun.

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Remixing the Year in Film

2010-12-15T23:53:00.000-03:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

Every year around this time, I wait for one of these. The 270 films of 2010, remixed into awesomesauce.

There's another one due to come out as well (creativity loves diversity) from a user named Kees on YouTube, who makes one every year. He (or she) never fails to blow me away) Here's the promo for this year:

Oh, in case you missed it, here's 2009:

And 2008:

My favourite part of any awards show is the overlong film montages, especially the ones that try to encompass all of film history. Sometimes they make me cry. It's all so beautiful and surreal. I could really watch compilations like this all day, but I have work to do. I just really enjoy people sometimes, you know?

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All my friends.

2010-12-08T21:55:00.000-03:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

I don't ever want to be stagnant when it comes to awesomesauce, so every few months I like to reconsider my definition of 'perfection."

Well, today's the day. And luckily, I stumbled onto Franz Ferdinand's cover of LCD Soundsystem song "All My Friends."

Whew. I did not want to go the Sam Shepard well again, let me tell you. Not that I object, but you know. A girl doesn't want to seem repetitive.

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Culture Snaps - December 3rd

2010-12-03T21:12:00.000-03:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

WATCHING...

Fringe, Season 1

Yeah , I know. I didn't see this one coming either. And you know what? It's not bad. It's not good, either, but if there's one thing J.J. Abrams knows how to do, it's not tell you things you want to know. And in a television show, this leads the viewer to stick with it, not out of interest, not even out of pleasure. It's just human nature, man. WHAT IS IN THE GODDAMN BOX, JABRAMS? JUST TELL US ALREADY, IT'S BEEN LIKE TEN YEARS.

Ahem.

Anyway. At its heart, Fringe is basically The X-Files lite, built on the presumption that a series of connected, supernatural events are unfurling in the modern world because of the rate technology is expanding. No, seriously, it's not bad, sort of the intellectual substitute for real whisky or actual coffee. Sure, it scratches an itch, but it will probably leave a rash. The first season is pretty compelling, in a totality-focused conspiracy sort of way. Mostly, though, it just makes me want to want The Parallax View again.

READING...

Angela Carter, Burning Your Boats

What? I like fairy tales! Especially sexy, subversive ones. Also, in my defense, I have never claimed to be too cool for school. At least not to your face.

LISTENING...

I'm currently on a train halfway between Toronto and Montreal. What the hell else am I going to do? I had at least three or four episodes saved up, not to mention that I own all the compilations, so it's logical! LOGICAL, says I.

Sigh. I swear to God, sometimes I'm too white to function.

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The Curious Case of Jeff Goldblum

2010-11-19T23:25:00.001-03:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

I wonder if Jeff Goldblum ever gets tired of being the best part of everything he's ever involved in, especially conversations.

By the earrings of Vishnu, if I shuck off this mortal coil without ever having a dialogue with this magnificent oddball, my life's work will be poorer for it.

Nothing we'd say to each other would be linear, but by God, it would be glorious.

Annie Hall, 1977

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Norman Bates...Dreamboat (question mark)

2010-11-16T19:33:00.000-03:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

What's new with me, you ask? Oh, only EVERYTHING BAD EVER. A few friends and I went to take in Psycho recently at the newly launched TIFF Lightbox. I have seen Psycho at least six times, but never on a large screen, and I went anticipating nothing other than a renewed appreciation for my least liked Hitchcock film.

And, uh. Okay. Big wrong.

Anthony Perkins, 1960

Andrew Garfield, 2010.

It began, dear readers, when I realized Anthony Perkins reminds me a whole lot of Andrew Garfield. This is was kind of novel, because I think Andrew Garfield is just the cutest thing. But then the similarities continued beyond the superficial resemblance: they've both got this really endearing, baby ostrich quality about them, and a nervous vibe fueled by a fretful sort of social skittishness. Observe:

Exhibit A: Andrew Garfield

Exhibit B: Anthony Perkins

If you watch Psycho again with that in mind and it will bother you. It's uncanny! But it won't bother me. Because tragically, I now find Anthony Perkins attractive. Classic transference, but there you go. Freud had my number and then some, what up.

Have you ever really watched the scene where he'd trying to dodge the private investigator? He is just one big helping of Adorable! With his little book and sweater all rolled up, chewing on gum and being all crazy. Like, what's he gonna do next? Aww, Norman, you know better than that. You little cutie.

Oh God.

I don't mean to exaggerate, but this turn is probably the worst event in Canadian history since Louis Riel, sexy leader of the North-West Rebellion, was hanged for high treason. Like, seriously. You guys, I don't even want to talk about it, which is why I wrote a blog post. First World problems are awesome that way.

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Adventures in Grad School #2

2010-11-15T00:15:00.000-03:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

1: "Didn't you hear? The revolution is totally televised now."
2: "The one day I forget to set my DVR."

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Gone With the Awesome

2010-11-14T12:41:00.000-03:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

On the day the word "outstanding" was redefined, I simply stood in awe and watched.

Like...okay.

This is awesome. Today is a day I love people, espeically people who make fan vids of old 1930s epics with crappy pop songs.

Intellectually, I know there are several things wrong with this video. One, Avril Lavinge. Two, Scarlet's inability to build a bridge and get over that foppish whelp Ashley Wilkes already. Three, not nearly enough Rhett. Four, Scarlet's such a fierce bitch, why does she even LIKE Ashley? Five, Rhett. Six, like seriously O'Hara, he's a hardcore ginger! And not the good kind.

But intellectually don't get you squat diddly in the proud hall of the Pop Culture Unfortunates. For the record, Melanie Hamilton is like so whatever. What a do-gooder wet blanket. Stop wearing your hair like a helmet, Melanie. And stop marrying your cousin.

My enjoyment of this wondrous video very much like my love of Gone for the Wind itself. Basically, my head says, "ooooh problematic romanticism of race and class!" and my heart* is all "wheeeeeeeeee curtain dresses and really big hats!" If it's on, I will stop everything and watch it, despite that I would put the gross estimate of my viewings thus far at ABOUT FORTY TIMES. For kicks, I quote obscure lines from this movie TO MYSELF constantly, despite the fact no one on earth (except maybe Spike Lee) will understand. What? I don't have a TV, okay?

Look, I'm not saying two wrongs make a right. I'm just saying you're going to have to forcibly remove the part of my brain that loves everything about this crazy racist movie.

The only thing I enjoy more than the above video is perhaps the suggestion that my beloved Tallulah Bankhead was considered for the role of Scarlett O'Hara:

Then again, it seems every actress working in Hollywood at the time was considered during "The Search for Scarlett"--a very clever marketing gimmick for the studio to build excitement about a movie that wouldn't be made for years (and was plagued by trouble when it was). In truth, there were only three or four actresses that were ever seriously considered, but, the mythology surrounding the search is more than tempting--a cross-nation search with the old-fashioned grandeur of the 42nd Street Moment. How funny then, that the part went to a British actress. Still, Bankhead would have been INCREDIBLE as Scarlett. Absolutely wrong for the part, but INCREDIBLE. Woulda, coulda, shoulda.

Oh no. I just found the Lady Gaga remixes. There's no turning back now.

*or the angry fist where my heart should be. Wevs!

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Jon Hamm's Tootsie Moment; My Eternal Affection

2010-11-13T02:00:00.000-03:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

As if he doubted the promise of my eternal affection, Jon Hamm decided he needed to channel his inner Dorothy Michaels this week on Children's Hospital, an Adult Swim comedy series. TOOTSIE! He had to write a love letter to Tootsie, of all things. What a cold-hearted bastard. He's clearly intent on ruining me for all other men.

Thank you, Jon. I know that was for me personally, and I am really touched.

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Watch Community, or else your team's Al Gore 'cause your views are wrong.

2010-11-08T16:05:00.000-03:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

If you're not watching NBC's Community, in the words of GOB Bluth, you're making a huge mistake.

First of all, I'm nursing a dual crush on Joel McHale (as Jeff Winger) and Donald Glover (as Troy Barnes). It's tearing me apart, you guys. On the one hand, Donald Glover is adorable and describes himself as the whitest black guy around (self-awareness=teh adorablest). On the other hand, Joel McHale goes on 2-week starvation diets to look like he was carved out of wax. YOU GUYS! Choosing is hard.

So in a nutshell, it's funny, it's bizarre and it's smarter than it should be. Really, I can't sum up what makes Community so great in my own words, so I turn to DJ Steve Porter.

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Beer and Sad Music

2010-11-07T00:47:00.001-03:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

Guy Maddin is my kind of national treasure: an absolute weirdo who has enough talent and vision to fill the Yukon Territories. Wait, was that metaphor not Canadian enough? Should I have mentioned poutine? Two tier health care? Rock Voisine?

Anyway.

I offer you this, the trailer for his 2003 film The Saddest Music in the World. It is a splendid film. Isabella Rossellini has glass legs filled with beer; I'm pretty sure that fact alone shoots it to the tops of everyone's Must See list. In fact, YOU (yes, you!) should watch it. It's for your own good.

But it's mostly for my own good: the phrase "If you're sad, and you like beer, then I'm your lady" has been in my roster for a good three years now, and I'm tired of people looking at me like I'm cuckoo. It's a great line, okay? It should be up there with "You talkin' to me?" and "You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!"

I was going to mention the number one classic line, "YOU WERE A TOMATO!!! A TOMATO DOESN'T HAVE LOGIC! A TOMATO CAN'T MOVE!" But quite frankly, it's not fair to the other lines.

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Adventures in Grad School, #1

2010-11-01T17:58:00.000-02:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

"You know what? YES, the subaltern can speak. And quite frankly, they are starting to piss me off. Now turn on Colbert."

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Guess who's got THE RIGHT STUFF.

2010-10-30T04:56:00.000-02:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

You guys! It's time for Intellectual Crush of the Week!

It's...Sam Shepard! OMD!

Playwright and sexy ne'er do well.

If you're wondering why...well okay, we have our first problem. Because I provided a picture, and I'd think it would be self-explanatory. But if it wasn't, go back to the picture. I'll wait.

Okay. So now you see. You know you're doing something right when Wikipedia describes your role in a Terrence Malick film as "handsome land baron." I feel like if anyone called him handsome to his face he'd scowl offstage (because obviously, we're on a stage) and fuel his unhappiness into his clenched fists. And I love that.

"I built this house with my towering intellect.
And also tools."

If you still need clarification, FINE. I think what I admire most about Shepard is his tenacious resistance to being slotted comfortably into any role. Call him a playwright, and he'll become an actor. Call him an actor, and he'd buy a horse ranch or something. Then, just to really confuse you, he'll wait until you've admitted he can't be pegged to play banjo on a Patti Smith cover of "Smells Like Teen Spirit." THIS GUY! Wild horses...couldn't force us into a consensus. He also teaches and sits on committees and basically does everything, including knocking up Jessica Lange.

She was in Tootsie, you guys. Tootsie.

But for the really real reason he's my ICofW, I'll direct you to this podcast of the Moth. Listen to Sam recount a hilarious story from the set of The Right Stuff! Marvel at his humble mastery of anecdotal charm! Laugh at the appropriate junctures!

I'd add more, but I'll be honest: he had me at the words the, right and stuff. That movie is marvelous, if only for inspiring a recent episode of Community and giving Ed Harris some more money:

By the way, if you don't already follow The Moth podcast, why not? What's wrong with you? You don't have the Juno disease, do you, wherein you think you're too cool for school? Because I've got news for you, Walter Cronkite. You aren't.

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The Gothic in Film: Social Structure

2010-10-24T22:18:00.008-02:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

Goya-a-go-go.

PART ONE | PART TWO

Do you feel uncomfortable? Unsettled? The Gothic is pleased. It milks the grotesque; it is horrific and terrifying pleasing. The Gothic turns the familiar into the threatening, and delights in making what we think of as safe, virtuous constructs of society into dark reflections. It's here to tear down the social structure.

Beware False Prophets

Carrie;
this film still freaks me out.

Oh, and you better believe that religion gets a healthy treatment. The Gothic, after all, delights in breaking down the stalwart pillars of community authority into demented caricatures of human desire, echoing what most of us probably suspect anyway: the lawmakers are corrupt, our parents are out to get us and most tellingly, priests and religious leaders are usually the most morally bankrupt. There are a staggering number of Gothic representaions of religious faith and its corruptive nature, from the frightening Bible-thumping mother in Carrie (1975) to the cult Satanists in Rosemary's Baby.

But if you never want to sleep again, look no further than The Night of the Hunter. Robert Mitchum plays a self-appointed preacher, the creepiest zealot this side of the Tea Party--he performs his wicked mission with a righteous conviction, and looms over every frame with the omnipotence of the heavenly powers he claims to channel.

The pillar of evil: Robert Mitchum in The Night of the Hunter.

The preacher is an unsettling force of demented will, believing he has Holy Orders to manipulate, murder and rob poor widows so that he has enough cash to continue spreading his good word. That he hates women is obvious--his distaste and clenched fists during a girlie striptease telegraphs as much, let alone his caveman-like treatment of the marital bed --but he also seems to have a deeper rage at the hypocritical nature of community. Part of his aim, it seems, is to destroy these families who are built on lax, easygoing religious discipline and permissive child-rearing. It's worth nothing that he's helped in large part by the expectations of the community that surround Shelley Winters' widow--pushing her to remarry, because children have to be raised by two parents. after all, even if one of them is a raging pot of crazy-sauce.

Everything is black and white in The Night of the Hunter, and vividly so: Mitchum is most often back-lit or else in shadows, and the effect is of a dark pillar of immovable conviction in a field of innocuous flora Observe, if you will, the divine visual callbacks to German expressionism of the early 1920s, which produced such Gothic standards as M (1931) and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920). Charles Laughton, tragically, never directed another film after this one, but he certainly had a flair for the Gothic.

The Kids Aren't Alright

The Omen.

Oh, and children? The Gothic does the most deliciously dark things to children, perhaps because by corrupting such undisputed makes for an unsettlingly creepy subtext about the futility of society itself. There was a wave of demonic child movies in rotation in the late 1960s and early 1970s, many of which I've already mentioned.

What is that all about? The only thing I can guess is that in the last 100 years or so, the idea of childhood in the Western world has become something more like a right. Everyone deserves a happy childhood, the parents cluck, when it's troubling to think that even 150 years ago there weren't even child labour laws. Children were more like tiny adults.

The demonic child in film may just be some kind of subconscious play on these assumptions of sacred childhood. Because really. Nothing is creepier than evil, unblinking children, whether they're creatures of the night or spawn of Satan. It goes against nature for children to be sinister, and makes the innocence of childhood seem like an urban legend we tell ourselves to feel safe.

It works both ways: Claudia in Interview with the Vampire starts out as a fairly straightforward corruption of childhood: she is a little girl driven by blood lust, and the cues of these undead desires are almost coded as the coquettish desires of a budding sexuality; she persuades her de facto fathers with girlish pouting and borderline seduction. Little Claudia always gets her way.

But Claudia is incapable of growing up and realizing the fruits of that sexuality, so to speak, and here is where the Gothic takes it one level deeper: the longer Claudia's existance as a vampire condition, the more her mind ages. Her body remains child-like while her desires are of fully grown woman. That subtext of trapping a grown woman's mind and desires into a doll-like eternal child isn't explored fully, but it remains pretty much the only reason to watch Interview With the Vampire. Claudia's plight is so. Very. Troubling.

And don't think I forgot the Grady Twins in the Hallway from Kubrick's 1980 The Shining. Children don't get any creepier. WHY CAN'T I LOOK AWAY?

Happy Hallow's Eve, dear readers. And help yourself to the Gothic.

Still up for a dose of perversity? Ampersandology's YouTube playlist: A Gothic Preoccupation.

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The Gothic in Film: Ladyfolk

2010-10-24T22:14:00.003-02:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

La Belle Dame Sans Merci, London Charivari 1920

In traditional Gothic fiction, women are tossed the worst duties of the genre, and most often, they are relegated to one of two roles, the Angel or the Monster (see Gilbert & Gubar's groundbreaking, if somewhat dated, feminist critique of this trope, The Madwoman in the Attic). In the films that skew towards the Gothic, the ladyfolk tend to become bigger emblems than their vintage counterparts. But it's still a mouthful of questions towards sexuality, power dynamics and family structure. Again. Some more.

So...yay?

Faster Pussycat, Kill Kill!

The 90s had more than just Coppola's demented post-jungle fragments. Off the top of my head, I still can't forget the death sequence of Selina Kyle in Batman Returns (see that scene here) and her subsequent rebirth as Catwoman. Here is the next-gen madwoman in the attic, a common Gothic standby, twisted into a hybrid of the modern feminist movement. See her glee as she destroys the girlish fragments of her old life--a stuffed toy, a doll house, soft pink kitten sweaters. Even the presence of these objects in the first place is absurdly Gothic--what grown woman owns more than one stuffed unicorn?

Catwoman is a dark reaction to the patriarchy that literally killed her identity, but also to the sisterhood that let her down. Empowerment? Equality? Where's all the spoils of the promised revolution? Selina Kyle was still fetching her boss's coffee, timid and subservient. Catwoman, however, doesn't really buy into the boys' club, even sewing her own skintight black leather death shroud--a cheeky, definitely Gothic corruption of the "women's work" of needlework and darning.

Damn it, the Pfeiffer is so fabulous in this role.

Mommy Dearest

At its finest, Gothic film can point to the insecurities that lay underneath a society. Take the rash of films that appeared in the mid-70s featuring a store of demonic children and ambivalent mother figures, in part a reaction to the ripple effects of Second Wave feminism and women's struggle to find meaning outside of the traditional realm of the homestead. Motherhood ain't all it's cracked up to be, the Gothic reminds us, and paints an unrelenting picture of how perverse the woman's role in the family can be.

The Gothic loves to tackle the task of motherhood in particular. Look no farther than 1973's The Exorcist, where the Gothic takes a (quite literally) demented stance on the dissolution of the nuclear family. Chris (Ellen Burstyn) is a single mother to Reagan (Linda Blair)--she's newly divorced, and the old husband has absconded to Europe and can't manage to call his daughter on her birthday. Then a demon possessed her child. It's not hard to read this as society's condemnation of her lifestyle--in addition to be a fairly secure and independent single mother, she is also an ACTRESS who throws BOHEMIAN parties, heaven forfend.

The rest of the familiar Gothic tropes are in full force as well--cursed artifacts, howling winds and mysterious ruins, and a Byronic hero in its heroic priest (conflicted, brooding and dreamy) for good measure.

The so-called authorities--doctors, therapists and police officers--impose themselves into her parenting, at first suggesting Reagan's increasingly strange behavior may be result of depression0--get this--caused by her husband's absence. In other words, way to keep you family together, lady. Your crazy kid is nobody's fault but your own.

Chris may seem completely impotent to help her child, but in the end, it's her powerful maternal instincts that saves Reagan, first by refusing to institutionalize her little girl, then to seek help from the reluctant church.

Sublime Secrets of the Pathological Sisterhood

The sisterly bond in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

Then, the Gothic can turn the family home into a prison--maybe the best example of this is the two aging sisters in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? One of the sisters (Baby Jane, a terrifying Bette Davis) was a child star on the vaudeville circuit, who grew up into a nobody desperate to break back into the business. Her sister Blanche (Joan Crawford) has lost out on her far more promising career in film, thanks to a car accident that leaves her in a wheelchair and completely dependent on Baby Jane.

The film details the terrorizing of Blanche by Baby Jane, and what results is a demented tale of the feminine fear of aging, the corruptive potential of the sororal bond, and how their decrepit ancestral home becomes an almost demonic weapon in their rivalry as they remained inevitably tied to its fate and trapped within its walls--even the household pets become tools in domestic warfare. Each can't escape their sister--their dark Other--and their fates remain entwined to the bitter end. Rah rah sisterhood, and all that.

Next up:

The Gothic in Film: Social Structure.

Ampersandology's YouTube playlist: A Gothic Preoccupation.

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The Gothic in Film and Moving Pictures

2010-10-24T22:12:00.002-02:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

Autumn plays strange tricks on my mind. For one thing, my inner thoughts tend to have a lot of the following imagery:

So to soothe this latent fixation of mine, I listen to a lot of vintage Nine Inch Nails. Because quite frankly, Trent Reznor? Call me. You're never going to write a thinly-veiled ode to heroin about me if we don't get our act together and give it a go.

I can't even help it. One of these days, I'm going to wake up split into three, surrounded by dust-sewn, velvet curtains on an English moor. The Second Me will suggest we visit the Iciclist Bicyclist (who rides in place on a frozen puddle) and perhaps lay by the Wounded Lake. There'll be a giant foot and I'll find a kitten and name it Absinthe Darkly.

Best day ever!

In other news, as previously implied, my mind is sinking to Gothic depths. Mama Gothic, of an 1800s flavour, not this black nails and childish death worship habit. Mama Gothic is sick and twisted, yo, infinitely more perverted than anything Marilyn Manson dreams up. It's all about peeling back the layers of society and exposing it as broken.

HBO's True Blood: The modern Gothic?

Modern Gothic actually follows pretty closely to its original literary counterpart, exploiting a somewhat less Puritanical society to cash in on shock value. But the old guard Gothic wanted to coax you into believing everything is perfectly normal. In other words, our modern Gothic has become a little too self-aware of the genre, telegraphing certain tropes and counting on you, the viewer, to understand the subtext from the first frame. Would Dexter be so satisfying if we weren't cheering for the villain? Would True Blood be so addictive if it wasn't so happy to debase itself to shock us?

Yes, the Gothic wants you to lose sleep, you see, but it knows the true horror comes from waking up from a truly content slumber into a living nightmare.

As for these Gothic depths, I blame the chill in the air, the fact that Bloor Street vendors are selling pumpkins bigger than my entire being, but mostly I blame Rosemary's Baby (1968) and the company she keeps.

This happens almost every autumn, I have to admit. Ever since I was little, I loved depictions of Halloween more than the event itself: the dark undercurrents of sending children into the night to collect treasures. I'm fairly certain I wrote one of my first short story collections at the tender age of 12, all about the various adventures that a pair of sisters find themselves in on Halloweens throughout their lives (it sucked, but it makes my point).

Then one fall in my undergrad, I happened to take a class in Gothic Fiction (Dr. Lo shoutout!) and since then, the season puts me in permanent Gothic Mode. I see it everywhere and wear my fur-collared coat so I can feel like a manor Lord.

True story! I have strange preoccupations.

THE FACTS

First, the basics.

Gothic fiction (sometimes referred to as Gothic horror) is a genre of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance.

Prominent features of Gothic fiction include terror (both psychological and physical), mystery, the supernatural, ghosts, haunted houses and Gothic architecture, castles, darkness, death, decay, doubles, madness, secrets, and hereditary curses.

Dark castles and eternal nights: standard Gothic.

In other words, this ain't your kid sister's Gothic. In fact, try taking modern Gothic seriously when you cut your teeth on the depravity of The Castle of Otranto or The Monk.

Gothic literature probably enjoyed its heyday somewhere between the late 1700s and 1800s--they weren't much of a high art form, but sold like hotcakes. After that, it filtered down into more "legitimate" forms of art--Charles Dickens was known to pillage the genre's atmospheric tendencies and otherworldly tropes from time to time.

Eventually, to the delight of darkly-minded cinephiles everywhere, it wasn't long before film took up the banner, embracing and modernizing the tropes of the genre.

Gothic is sinister, gruesome and darkly melancholy. It's also fixated on the grotesque, depicting decay and rot and ruin in literal, rather than superficial, terms. No Hot Topic cotton tees or striped socks here: this Gothic wants to destroy the family (through taboos like rape or incest) and community (through the warping and mistrust of authority figures). It's so juicy and politically ignorant that you cannot help but eat it up.

Right on cue every year, I power up the projector and turn to the Gothic in film. There's a certain period, from about 1960 to 1980, where films managed to seduce the Gothic into the modern world--think Chinatown (1969), The Exorcist (1973) or The Shining (1980). I could go on for days. Maybe there's something about that old grainy filmstock that helps to set the mood.

Hell, even Francis Ford Coppola had a go in the 90s with Bram Stoker's Dracula--some would argue less than successfully, but SOME OF US LIKED THE WOLF SCENE, OKAY?

There's so much here, I could do a ten-part series. Instead, I'll settle for three. Onward, my wicked ripe plums, to the PerversityMobile!

Next in the Series:

The Gothic in Film: Ladyfolk.

The Gothic in Film: Social Structures.

Ampersandology's YouTube playlist: A Gothic Preoccupation.

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Faust has an app for that.

2010-10-21T22:39:00.003-02:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

Apple gets all the cools kids to play in their yard, and it's starting to bum me out.

J. Schwartz AND the New Yorker together in one delightfully irreverent app ad? This is a Faustian trap if I've ever seen one. Not even the seductive suggestions of how J. Schwartz spends his free time will convince me Apple and its products are much more than the wounded suture of a society cleaving to its identity through the obsessive purchase of new shiny things! But you can save it Patty Hearst, I'm not buying any Stockholm Syndrome today.

You may have my number, Apple, but you do NOT have my home address.

(J. Schwartz, did you get my email? Are we going to the farmer's market next week or what?)

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Besties!

2010-10-19T21:09:00.001-02:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

Wow, Andrew Garfield. After I saw you in The Social Network, I thought we might be able to hang out, maybe get some cookeis and watch American sitcoms together. You know--the things that friends do together. And then I saw this video.

Good news! You've been promoted to bestie. AND MAYBE MORE. (stay tuned for program details)

Full disclosure: he is also the new Peter Parker. This does not hurt his case. NEPOTISTIC!

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Pacey Witter: What's For Dinner

2010-10-17T00:28:00.002-02:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

I stumbled across this picture of Joshua Jackson,* a still from his current paycheck Fringe, and I had but one thought.

Two syllable damn, Pacey Witter: you are looking good.

And. I think Jackson might be winning the break-up. The Dawson's Creek breakup, that is.

I mean, sure, Michelle Williams clearly has the indie darling cred, but other than that Jackson has no competition for Best Post Show Showing. Katie Holmes married Xenu and if it wasn't for James Van Der Beek's hilarious one-episode stint on How I Met Your Mother, I'm fairly certain it would have taken me ten minutes instead of two to remember all the working parts in his name.

So to update, this picture made me lean towards declaring Jackson a first runner up. Then I saw Pacey-Con, and I had to revise the standings.

Pacey-Con with Joshua Jackson from Joshua Jackson

Pacey wins. Hands down.

Let it be known: I would completely attend Pacey-Con. What? Are you too cool to admit you watched (NAY, LOVED) Dawson's Creek? Oh whatever, haters. Dawson's Creek was instrumental in my formative years; how else would I have formed a near-monastic tendency to construct the most difficult syntax possible? The first season was great, man. So many syllables, so little time.

And I was always on Pacey's side, for the record. He loved Joey for who she really was! Also he was sensitive! He remembers everything, ladies. But most importantly, he was just enough of a jerk/nice guy mix so every female viewer could theorize how they would change his wild ways. Personally, I would have given him a PUPPY!

Man-changin'--ain't that all we really want, gals? FEMINISM FOR THE WIN!

Now please excuse me while I resist the urge to look up old Dawson's Creek plotlines on Wikipedia. Oh, look at that, I lost. Shucks!

*He's Canadian, don't you know.

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Mad Nature Boy

2010-10-13T04:15:00.000-02:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

"Nature Boy" + Mad Men + kitsch value x bongos = MADE OF WIN.

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Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?

2010-10-01T22:15:00.000-02:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

NOOOOO!

Rahm, don't cry! Please don't cry! IF YOU CRY IMA CRY!

Video via Talking Points Memo.

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Downfall of the House of Rahm

2010-09-28T11:11:00.000-02:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

The Daily Beast reports Obama’s chief of staff may leave any day now.

Say it ain't so, Rahm! How can I pretend the Obama White House is on The West Wing if you, the integral Josh Lyman-lite, leave the narrative?!?

Josh Lyman would never desert his troops in the thick of the battle! What about what Leo said, Mr. Lyman?

Won't someone think of the children? And by children, I mean my personal amusement.

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Marian the Librarian

2010-09-25T12:58:00.002-02:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

This song is so boss. I used to listen to it on repeat in fifth grade, which should give you an idea of the strange delights of my childhood: back then, BRAVO! would run three old movies back to back every weekend, sometimes with a theme. Some weeks it was Westerns, some weeks it was musicals, and some weeks they would do films all starring a certain actor; the fun was in figuring out the connection, because sometimes it was more obscure, like a producer or similar sets of controversy. These weekends became my gateway drug to TCM, and I trusted this anonymous programmer to tell me what to sample as I made my way through classic cinema. So naturally, every week I woke up early to check the tv listings in the paper for what was playing.

One of those films was The Music Man (1962), which while not topping the glory of the previous year's West Side Story, DOES boast this most excellent sequence.

The Music Man (1962)

I'll be honest; if I ever met a librarian named Marian, I would probably woo her. Like, the chances are very good-- I'm no mathematician, but the odds are like 345%. The temptation of all the delicious rhymes and possibilities of bookstack sonatas would be too great, transcending technicalities like "gender."

Highlight: when Robert Preston rhymes "librarian" with "carrion." Genius, folks. We're in the presence of genius.

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Culture Snaps - Sept. 21st

2010-09-22T00:56:00.000-02:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

WATCHING...

Suzanne Farrell: Elusive Muse (1996)

A splendid documentary detailing the not-quite love affair between famed New York Ballet ballerina Suzanne Farrell and her choreographer, "Mr. B"(George Balanchine), and her life and career as one of the most famous dancers in the world. The narrative combines archival footage with candid interviews, and quite frankly, is the bomb. Although I can't help but wonder if the producers of Mad Men were making a statement when they named one of Don's girlfriends after her...

READING...

The Emperor's Children, by Claire Messud (2006)

Three privileged New Yorkers hit thirty and find themselves nowhere in particular, and this intelligent, rapt novel details their adventures of self-discovery (which, most often, resembles something closer to self-delusion). Messud's writing is sharp and satirical towards her characters, all the product of a self-aware, overindulged generation, but keeps their struggles (or lack thereof) deeply sympathetic. If you have friends who are artists, OR WORSE, have secretly BEEN ONE all this time, you will recognize at least one character on these pages. Beware the perils of vaulted expectations and artistic entitlement, I always say. To myself. As a warning. But also as a crutch.

LISTENING...

Dream On, Scala And Kolacny Brothers (2004)

You might recognize this haunting track from the trailer for The Social Network, or, as it's aptly nicknamed in my circle, "the Facebook movie". But I know it as only one of the many wonders produced by Scala & Kolacny Brothers, a Belgian girls' choir which covers mostly modern songs in classic choral arrangements (featuring U2! The Divinyls! Motherflippin' THE CURE!). This particular offering, a version of Radiohead's "Creep", single-handedly transforms the Aaron Sorkin-penned film about the development of a webpage most often used for updating friends on the status of your ham sandwich into a tragic, Orwellian opera for twenty-somethings:

Not to miss: their version of Nirvana's "">Smells Like Teen Spirit" and Depeche Mode's (!) "">Dream On." DEPECHE MODE, you guys. That's all I needed out of life. I can finally retire and live out my days on a family farm in rural Ohio.

Or.

Not do that. Yep. One of those two options, for sure.

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Look who just became king!

2010-09-19T14:34:00.000-02:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

You need proof that Roger Sterling is cooler than you?

He was doing the ironic glasses thing before the hipsters even knew Buddy Holly's name. Or that they were supposed to rip him off. Or that you could be be ironic AND not dressed like a hobo AT THE SAME TIME.

Haha, I kid. Hipsters aren't hobos; hobos probably had a job once. Godspeed, Silver Fox.

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TIFF 2010: Easy A

2010-09-18T09:59:00.002-02:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

The year John Hughes died, it seemed like the end of an era, in many ways: something along the lines of the day the American teen comedy died. Since then, many have tried, and failed or succeeded to varying degree, to sit at the same lunch table as Sixteen Candles or The Breakfast Club in the cafeteria of John Hughes Memorial High.

For every teen comedy that manages to graze that uncanny insight into Hughes' absurd vision of high school--mashed at high velocity between the indulgence of childhood and quasi-adult concerns -- there's a dozen or so that seems intent on whitewashing every teenage experience with the same middle-class, woefully misunderstood brush. In other words, for every Superbad, there's an American Pie franchise; for every Heathers, there's a Jawbreaker. Films which mimick, pay tribute but never quite touch the aching perfection of life before you can legally vote.

Enter Easy A: a funny, touching, awkward comedy that doesn't attempt to replace Hughes in the pantheon of teen comedy, but rather, become the bridge to the new century. It's about the currency of high school, i.e. one's reputation, and the loss thereof. Olive (Emma Stone) sure has a reputation--though, it's by her own design. After a false rumor about an imaginary fling grows its own legs, Olive finds her previous obscurity blossoming into notoriety. Olive feeds the chatter about her suddenly non-wallflower status by fake-rocking the world of poor schlubs in need, and while her reasons for fanning the fire are never made explicit, but they don't really have to be; in the first stages, her interest in the whole ordeal is infused with the kind of detachment you'd expect from a girl that never put a whole lot of stock in this whole 'high shool' thing to begin with.

Olive, bless her skinny jeans, is one of those high school girls on the wrong side of Smart Cookie, cursed to see through the absuridty of high school and think she can play off its foibles for her own amusement. In a glorious nod to the film's forefather, she muses that she wishes her teenage life COULD be a John Hughes movie in the 1980s; the adorable yet sexy Emma Stone cashes in on the promising wit and candor she showed in Zombieland by creating an sterling heroine -- two parts Molly Ringwald with none of the mopey-ness and the self-aware geekery of Farmer Ted for good measure.

And then---the script. By God, that script. The words that exit the actors' mouth are--you can just tell--delivered with absolute relish. Diablo Cody can eat her heart out--Olive and co. present more the character than Juno could ever hope to be, made interesting not by peppery quips but by genuine wit; the leads (and all the other, terrific supporting characters) are buoyed by a script so packed with bon mots you almost want to scribble them down, right in the theater.

Sure, no high school kid talks like Olive or her friends slash mentor slash possible boyf, but props to director Will Gluck for creating a world where we not only don't care, but don't even notice. Working from a script by Bert V. Royal, Gluck populates his high school universe with kids are just a little more clever than your own memories, not to mention better looking (but always in that down to earth, Ringwald style). Hot damn, if high school had been this satisfying, I doubt any of us would have left.

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TIFF 2010: The Town

2010-09-18T09:51:00.004-02:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

North American Premiere

Recently, as the press for Ben Affleck's new directorial feature The Town ramped into high gear, his longtime friend and sometime cohort Matt Damon was quoted as saying that Affleck seems posed to mimic the career of another Hollywood great:

In a lot of ways, I always think of Clint [Eastwood], because Clint was doing orangutan movies, and people weren’t taking him as seriously. And look at the second half of his career. He’s an icon. And I really feel like that’s the kind of career Ben’s going to have.

Only time will really tell, but I think Damon may be on to something here; as an actor, Ben Affleck is nothing spectacular. Serviceable, yes: he's done the bland romantic comedies and requistie action flicks, enjoying solid to moderate succeess. But as a performer, he's become somewhat more notorious for his associations offscreen: the aforementioned friendship with Damon, his high-profile flings with Gwenyth Paltrow, Jennifer Lopez and now-wife Jennifer Garner.

His leading man status always seemed, to me at least, a little like something the public needed to be constantly reminded of, rather than naturally assumed. And I think it's significant that the bona fide success in his career has been for a role he assumed behind the camera: his shared Oscar with Matt Damon in 1999 for the script Good Will Hunting. So it seems to make his gradual shift from screen vision to visionary a natural, if inherited, title.

Overall, The Town is a solid effort, and that's really both the best and the worst that can be said about it: it's not as electrifying, brittle or surprising as his 2007 directorial debut Gone Baby Gone, but it's another strong entry into the career that Affleck's building for himself as the guy behind the camera. It's filled with the same sophomore mistakes that most artists who knock it out of the park on the first go usually suffers: a sloppy third act resolution, too much reliance on the theatrics of gunplay and 'splosions, and a drop of stunt casting (see: Lively, Blake, who is about as convincing as a hard-shelled junkie as a teenage girl wobbling around in her mother's borrowed shoes and heavy makeup while home alone).

But it gets so much more right. For the most part, the casting is enviable and proves why its pays to have good Hollywood pedigree. Jeremy Renner earns his accolades just by showing up these days, because what he brings to the table is so sublime: his Jim is a sociopath, a bad dog that needs to be put down but gets off on glimpses of a fragile humanity. Rebecca Hall continues to win at life, playing the onetime hostage of a bank robbery and walking the delicate line between 'smart and capable' and 'fragile innocent'. Affleck, too, probably turns in one of his better performances in years. And Jon Hamm is there too! And Pete Postlethwaite! AND Chris Cooper!

Perhaps the most interesting idea in the film comes before the action even starts, with a placard that suggests one neighborhood in Boston -- Charlestown-- has produced the most bank robbers than any other American neighborhood in history, to the point it became something of a familial legacy--in other words, fathers handing over their mantel to sons and brothers becoming cohorts in the "family" business. That's a ripe concept, and it's something that Affleck (wisely) doesn't linger on; a lesser filmmaker would have relied on the neighborhood's reflexive mythology to infuse his characters with pathos and tragedy. But Affleck's not making a social problem film, and instead allows his story --and the corners he paints his characters into well before they notice their prison-- to cash in the promise of that ghostly inheritance.

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TIFF 2010 Capsule: Never Let Me Go

2010-09-18T01:49:00.000-02:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

World Premiere; cast in attendance.

Never Let Me Go, based on the novel of the same name by Kazuo Ishiguro, is just as dour, bleak and depressing as the book. And I mean that in a good way!

*spoilers follow, if you`ve never read the book, heard an interview or seen a trailer for this film at all*

Never Let Me Go takes place in an alternate 20th century. In this Bizarro World, Kathy, Ruth and Tommy are just a few of the many children who live at Hailsham, a boarding school that evidently has more to its makeup than meets the eye. The children are told repeatedly how special they are, and live lives under careful scrutiny for their diet, behavior and activities. Gradually, it's revealed that they are part of a mysterious, unexplained medical process that allows humans to expand their lives comfortably, but only at the cost of human donors. The three children are these donors, raised with the expectation and assumption that someday, they too will undergo the procedures that will give life to other people while taking their own away.

Now I'm a big believer that when facing adaptations, you need to judge a film independently from its source material, to a certain degree. They're different mediums, and as such, aim for entirely different goals, executed through different modes of communication. The screenplay was the work of Alex Garland, better known to Jill and those like her as the man behind The Beach and 28 Days Later, but the effort in transferring the source material to the screen plays is evident.

The problem with this adaptation, of course, is that the surface of the source material isn't much to stand on, as far as third acts go. Never Let Me Go isn't a plot driven story--it's tragedy comes not from sudden, life-shattering events but rather, the gradual and inevitable end of these three characters that hangs over every page. Ishiguro's deft blend of narrative and characterization that makes it compelling, not the plot. If that leaves the film as a character piece, then all the better, but what ends up onscreen from the novel is only the tip of Hemingway's iceberg.

Still, taken as a work unto itself, then, Never Let Me Go is a restrained work of mysterious qualities, and I could see how someone who had never known the book or its story could be satisfied; most of the central characters seem to shift and mutate like shadows on a wall--identifiable yet somehow otherworldly and operating under their own laws.

It's still a beautiful film, don't get me wrong. Only the second outing of Mark Romanek, he plays with a muted color palette that holds no suggestion of youth or vibrancy, suggesting the neutered potential of these short lives to dazzling effect. The actors, especially Carey Mulligan as Kathy and Andrew Garfield as Tommy, tease out careful, deliberate portrayals that do a great deal with the little they're given to build on.

But what was perhaps most interesting was the Q&A session after the film, which, along with the cast and the director and production team, was attended by Kazuo Ishiguro himself. He, said, in response to the very simple question of why the donors never tried to escape (please note here, I'm parapharsing from memory):

I didn't want to tell the story of humans persevering against incredible oppression. That story didn't interest me, because it's been told so many times, the slaves breaking out against their masters. What interested me was the slaves that didn't break out of their servitude, that accepted their miserable lot in life. I was interested in what could have happened in the minds of those people that just gave in to greater social forces, and what effect that has on your humanity.

Chilling. I only wish that nuance could have translated onscreen.

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"Howl" Trailer

2010-09-14T18:18:00.004-02:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

"There is no Beat Generation. Just a bunch of guys trying to get published."

The odd tale of James Franco's redemption continues; from his turn as a New York art darling, to his regrettable but well-meaning attempt at fiction, I've given up trying to figure out what Franco's up to. And you know what? It helps. It really helps. I can just sit back now and enjoy the ride.

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Shia LeBeouf and the Moment We've All Been Waiting For

2010-09-14T18:17:00.000-02:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

It's been a long time coming, but September 21st is almost here. I would already have my ticket, but I'm pretty sure I'm the only person alive who is excited enough to plan ahead of time.

My begrudging respect for Olivier Stone may prove only 20-something years in the making.

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134 Reasons to be Your Friend

2010-09-12T17:12:00.001-02:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

Stuff White People Like #134: The TED Conference.

You see white people like the idea of getting smarter quickly, but they don’t like the idea of people thinking that they are lazy. It is a bit of a paradox, but it does explain why white people only like Cliff Notes if they are part of some sort of hilarious college story about last-minute studying for an exam. And why they consider it highly unacceptable to use cliff notes or Wikipedia to get a rough understanding of a book you don’t want to read.

Unfortunately being able to create something that makes you feel smarter without having to do a lot of work has been very difficult. So only a few ideas have ever gained traction with white people, the most notable of which being documentary films and public radio. However, in the past decade a new item has been added to this very short list-TED Talks.

DAMN IT. NOT AGAIN.

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Alea iacta est: The Films of Christopher Nolan

2010-09-06T22:45:00.001-02:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

Thanks, Inception Cat. You've given me a terrific segueway, in my usual roundabout fashion, to a topic I like to call Christopher Nolan: Genius in the Making or GENIE IN THE BOTTLE? (see what I did there? It's a play on words! hahaha....oh, me.)

Slant Magazine has an outstanding essay by Tom Elrod on the films of Christopher Nolan, exploring the connection, if any, between his artistic merit and populist appeal. It's an idea that's certainly tested in his box offices grosses, at least post-Batman Begins. Read it: it's thoughtful and well-reasoned piece, if not without its flaws.

Full disclosure: I have written for Slant before, but hey man. As ThreeMafia reminded us in their Oscar-winning song (?), it's hard out there for a pimp, so don't indulge in hating.

Time will tell, but Inception has left me curious as to what kind if filmmaker Nolan is going to be. By now, I think it's fair to say that his name on a marquee has attained a mystical quality of 'headiness', for lack of a better term: a hushed reverence and a mimed mind-blown gesture from audiences departing the theatres.

The basic premise of Elrod's article, as I see it, is that Nolan's film-making relies less on an artistic vision than a purely technical one: Nolan is a master of form and plot rather than theme, conceit or character. As he states:

No matter what anyone may say, [Nolan] is no Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick's films, despite their objectivity and reputation for coldness, were studies of characters. Nolan's films, by contrast, are studies of plot. Indeed, you could say he's an artist of plot.

I enjoyed the article very much, though I couldn't help but think Elrod's argument hinged on the secretive knowledge of some platonic ideal of filmmaking. One point strikes me though, as particularly true: Nolan loves his plot. His films unravel with the postured certainly of being a film; in this way, I think, Nolan finds his real power.

Part of what has always impressed me about Nolan's films is that very sense of deliberateness. I've seen Inception twice now, and on the second viewing, something strange happened. Once the viewing experience of his film is stripped of novelty, and you are far enough removed from the twists and jerks of the narrative, you can really appreciate how meticulously plotted his films are. I say this for better or for worse; while you can also see how the threads of the end was sewn into the beginning, the plot holes of this structure-worship become gnats buzzing in the ears of your viewing pleasure.

Without talking much of plot, this is true of Inception; this also was true of The Prestige; and the years have since revealed this is true of Memento. The form of film seems to be the playground on which Nolan can cast his die and scatter his players; part of the enjoyment of these stories is watching the pieces click into orchestrated place. It's not quite the schlocky expectation that now haunts the M. Night Shyamalan School of Directing, and yet, it's not entirely divorced from it either.

When you go to see a Chistopher Nolan film, you're signing over something for its duration; whether that be a suspension of reality or just any sense of narrative certainty remains to be seen. A film directed by Christopher Nolan is just that: it's ordered by his very particular vision, not unlike a wizened general plotting soldiers on a map, far removed from the battlefield.

Alea iacta est. So buckle up, already. It's going to be a bumpy oeuvre.

I think the larger point that Elrod misses is why Nolan rouses such passion in his viewing public, an ardour that now pours through the internet's veins fed by both critics and audiences. What is his appeal?

And I think it's simple, really. Smart people can like his films without apologizing. That's it. Even if they stupefy by flash and confusion alone, at least they attempt to address its audience like educated, thinking beings. Nolan, for all his faults, makes films that are adult in their themes, not just in their content. Let me state that again: his films are made inappropriate for children not just through sex or violence, but by the very fact that children would find the heady clay at the feet of its characters utterly unappealing.

Nolan may very well be carving the face of intelligent mainstream filmmaking in the 21st century. Sure, there are smarter filmmakers out there, exploring the nuances of their vision into boredom, but they aren't making any money. Nolan is, and in a cinematic landscape that has survived three Twilight films, is that really such a crime?

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Campy Teen Soaps and Other Mysteries

2010-09-04T23:46:00.000-02:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

Did you celebrate 90210 Day yesterday? That's right: September 2nd, 2010 = 9/02/10 Day. There's no day when the human race wouldn't be better served flouting a long-dead campy teenage hot mess. What a glorious age we live in!

My own memories of Beverly Hills 90210 begin and end with one item of clothing: a relative had purchased a nightdress for me with Luke Perry's face on it, under the mistaken impression that being both a girl and often awake meant that I like looooooooved OMG Beverly Hills 90210. Sadly, this was untrue; being 10 meant that I was usually in bed . For one thing, I had no idea who Luke Perry was, and I thought he was funny looking; I do not yet disagree with my younger self. Anyway, I figured that as long as I had the nightdress (emblazoned, as it was, with all the neons of the rainbow) I might as well watch the show. I was unimpressed, but now look back on that

To celebrate the just-passed 90210 Day, let's revisit this delicious old nugget from Aught '08, re-imagining the credits of the Citizen Kane of Our Time in the vein of precious early 1990s teen-y soap operas.

However, if all this confuses you, you clearly weren't watching television by 1992, and you will kindly leave this blog. Leave it now. If you missed the Berlin Wall, we just can't be friends.

But on another note, Chuck Bass, ladies and gentlemen.

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Culture Snaps, August 31st

2010-09-01T17:57:00.000-02:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

WATCHING...

The West Wing, Season 3

You don't seal up the old car in the garage just because she's got a little mileage. She cleans up nice, and purrs all the way home. Love like this, you can't buy it in a store.

READING...

Kazan on Directing by Elia Kazan

The legendary (some might substitute 'notorious' here) Broadway and Hollywood director Elia Kazan's collected notes comprise this slim volume, on topics that vary from casting actors for their unseen wounds to Brando's ferocious arm muscles. From the LA Times:

Before starting to direct a new play or movie, Elia Kazan would purchase a little school notebook and, as rehearsals and early performances proceeded, fill it with his thoughts. Taken together, these notebooks constitute a unique (and as far as I know unparalleled) record of an uncommonly passionate and acute directorial mind at work and, in edited form, they are the fascinating and unsparing core of "Kazan on Directing."

LISTENING...

The Honeycombs, "Have I the Right?"

Men in suits spinning in unison? IN 1964?

I thought about suing these guys for reading my diary 20 years before it was written in an attempt to collectively woo and demolish my heart for all other men, but then I remembered how clutch this song is, and I told the lawyer to chill already. Simply put: this song is why we all do what we do, whether or not we know it yet. Plus: clapping in groovy unison!

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Durham County

2010-08-21T14:52:00.000-02:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

I drove through Durham County yesterday afternoon. It was brighter than I expected. I thought of Hugh Dillon and power lines.

The show Durham County premiered in 2007, and its overall production values has none of the telltale signs that plague Canadian productions: in fact, despite some nagging familiarity, it didn't occur to me that it was set in Ontario until someone mentioned Toronto. The aforementioned passage through its namesake reminded how great the show was: a creepy and unendingly sinister tale of a rogue serial killer amidst the stiflingly ideal backdrop of a Canadian suburb. Into this mix comes Detective Mike Sweeney and his family, collectively recovering from the death of his partner and his wife's breast cancer diagnosis. The characters are infused with morbid fixations: Mike's oldest daughter reconstructs crimes scenes out of clay for fun, and his youngest, Maddy, never seems to take off the toy mask that erases her reassuring girlness into a bizarre, blank facade:

The bastardization of the once-comforting blankness of the Central Canada landscape is what earns the show's ranking as one of the better seasons of a crime drama to debut in the last few years, if not the last two decades (Twin Peaks, eat your heart out). The power lines, of course, were one of the show's best visual motifs, a bleak, commonplace reminder of the intrusions of modern life. They run through the vistas of perfect backyards; they hum in teh background buzz of important scenes; one of the characters, a mother, wonders if they're close enough to harm their growing children.

Perhaps what makes Durham County so refreshing is its wholesale subscription to the shift in cable television led by shows like Dexter and Mad Men: it doesn't answer every question upfront, and it doesn't mince on the disturbing content or flawed characters of its universe. In other words, in a medium famously created to sell soap, it's finally getting around to being an art form. In fact, the series make me downright excited for Canadian cinema. I haven't mentioned it before, but I always think of Canadian cinema in general suffering from arriving too late to the party, forced to play catch-up with a rancid bottle of raspberry vodka while the rest of the nations have been working on their buzz for hours. In other words, we came to the industry late, when the idea of film as a narrative device was fully formed, and had been exposed to too many weighty examples to emerge with our own voice fully formed.

So in conclusion, Durham County is a fun place to visit. If the show's any indicator, however, you may not want to live there.

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Things You Learn from Old Movies

2010-08-17T01:45:00.000-02:30

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

I managed to catch the 1935 version of A Midsummer Night's Dream today on TCM, and besides the pleasure of seeing Olivia deHavilland picking scenery out of her teeth and a post-gangster James Cagney trying his hand at Bottom, there was this disturbing nugget.

Mickey Rooney starring as a preteen Puck.

Yup. That Mickey Rooney.

And apparently, he was reprising his role from the Broadway production. It's surreal, to say the least, to hear a kid who's not shaving yet proclaim his amusement at what a tangled web we weave, when we practice to deceive. So bizarre.

Wow, I forgot he married Ava Gardner. Go figure.

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