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September 26, 2007
HUNGRY HEART
Call me Andytown.
The week was mostly uneventful, so I won’t go with the journal format. No real hiccups in the Matrix. I’m developing a routine that basically has me sacrificing any kind of social life for my work. For this season of my life, anyway, it’s kind of perfect.
On Tuesday, one of my fellow T.A.s hinted (playfully) that I am arrogant. This is a new concept for me, but it is the second time in the last two weeks that someone has suggested that some endeavor of mine reeks of arrogance. This is odd, because for most of my life the common criticism about me is that I beat myself up too much. I do not think, in this case, that the perceived arrogance is a synonym for “confidence” – which means that I must come off at times as a know-it-all. Maybe it’s just that I like to talk too much about what I’m doing. Who knows . . .
On Thursday, I had my college students recite this line from Seinfeld. I was trying to make a point about tone. It was mildly successful – one class underdid it, the other overdid it. One thing is for certain: I’m running out of ideas. Have I mentioned the class clown yet? In my 7:10 class, there’s this one guy who has established himself as the class clown. He has probably never been the class clown before, so this is clearly a very exciting experience for him. In the past, such efforts were probably discouraged by both classmates and teachers, but I am so desperate to get any kind of discussion going that I usually allow it. Part of his class clown persona involves making me out to be a stuffy, bitter intellectual – a cousin of Dean Wormer in ANIMAL HOUSE, perhaps. So even when I’m saying things like “the point is that you should react however you want to react, not just how you feel I want you to react,” he still finds ways to make me look like a fascist.
I also had a great conversation with one of my students about Metroid.
One of my students lives across the street from former MSU Coach Jackie Sherrill. She got me an autographed coaster: “To Mr. Black.” Awesome. How come when I count my blessings, I don’t count this job and this experience and these students? I should.
Had an interesting talk with Harvey (see: comments) about the nature of this blog. He's still cynical, but I'm going to stick with my solipsistic desire to tell the world every damn move I make. If you don't like it, you'll stop reading, I guess. Maybe I will too.
I finally got around to watching Quentin Tarantino’s DEATH PROOF. For some reason, the powers-that-be (Mirimax, I think) decided (for money, probably) to release the features on different dates. DEATH PROOF came out first. I missed the whole of GRINDHOUSE in the theaters mainly because I don’t have the patience three and a half hour movies, particularly those that are very, very violent. But I was glad to get to see Tarantino’s half alone.
I love Tarantino. Like everyone else who turned 16-18 in 1995, PULP FICTION enlarged my cinematic vocabulary, introduced me to different genres, and forever changed my perception of the limits of film. It was also really, really cool – from Travolta’s big dance with Uma Thurman to smaller moments like when the Bartender tells a feuding Travolta and Bruce Willis, “My name is Paul and this is between ya’ll.” I like everything Tarantino has done, including the joint Rodriguez effort, FROM DUSK TILL DAWN*.
Which is why I was so surprised to find that DEATH PROOF really sucked. I don’t think this is a subjective response; it is just a bad movie. The first thirty minutes or so are pretty good – the scratchy footage and intentional continuity errors are effective in establishing a mood. Kurt Russell is pretty cool and the other characters do seem to exist in the paradigm that QT is drawing from. The soundtrack is, as always, awesome. It’s a dark, shallow world where the characters need a soundtrack to make them matter, and a pervasive grunginess to justify their existences.
But then the movie hops to a setting that, stylistically and thematically, is hardly Grindhouse. The girls are liberated, as opposed to stock, and the bad guy is the equivalent of all those doofuses that wore the Scream mask and were always running into closet doors when chasing Neve Campbell.
The characters invoke VANISHING POINT a lot. That film is a particularly effective piece of highway existentialism – in those films, the road is a fitting metaphor for a never-ending emptiness that makes its own meanings for the desperate characters who travel along it. This film is about hot ass-kicking girls who talk as though every line is scripted. There is an extreme stunt at one point in the film that takes way too long.
My question for both QT and RR: Why set this in modern times, with cell-phones, ALLURE magazine, and a lot of kooky references? Why not set it in the 70s, and go whole hog?
Also, a few thoughts on torture-porn, which GRINDHOUSE contributers Tarantino, Roth, and Zombie are celebrating: I will not watch it. The existence of the genre makes me glad I never followed through on ambitions to become a paid movie reviewer, because I would more than likely have to see the HOSTELs and HILLS HAVE EYESes and SAWs of the cinematic world. I think I’m allergic to this genre, and if that means I will never open myself to what’s coming in film, then so be it.
I finished Ian McEwen’s ON CHESHIL BEACH. It is a very beautiful but very sad little book. No one should be able to write as eloquently and economically as McEwen. It reminded me why I love being paid to teach literature.
(I’m jumping into THIS week – as I’m posting this on Wednesday)
On Monday (9/24), I made the worst grade I’ve ever made in a grad class. It was just a quiz, but I failed – seriously, I got an F. Basically, I made the classic mistake of starting with a flawed thesis and using the text as a proof-text rather than a corrective. It was, to say the least, humbling and, I admit, depressing. It gives me a kick in the butt, when what I need is affirmation. I am going to trust that I can do this, but I am going to have work harder, when I am already working hard.
The incident reminded me of an episode of THE SIMPSONS, and in this case, I’m the Comic Book Guy. The rotund, acerbic nerd goes to a store to complain about a product he’s bought (actually, won – it’s a Star Trek Belt or something, and he’s too fat to wear it) and the Surly Guy who runs the store ridicules him. The CB Guy says something to the effect of, “Oh well, back to my store, where I dispense the insults, as opposed to receive them.”
This is how I feel when I go to Westminster the next day.
A few things I’m going to do in the upcoming month:
- Research a Masters paper on ON CHESHIL BEACH
- Run a 5K
- Re-study for the GRE so I can get a better score
- Speak at the Milton conference
- Westminster Parent/Teacher Conferences.
- Grade a lot of First Year Comp Papers
- Take a midterm in the class where I failed the quiz
So remember the old Abomb.
MOVIES I’M LOOKING FORWARD TO THAT I HAVEN’T MENTIONED:
THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD
It’s getting awesome advance reviews – comparisons to MCCABE AND MRS. MILLER and PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID. I think both are masterpieces.
I’M NOT THERE
Todd Haynes directed the crazy underrated VELVET GOLDMINE, and now he’s directing an avant-garde flick about Bob Dylan. I’m There. This is my favorite trailer of the year. Despite some middling reviews, I'm still very intrigued.
Just started the book today and read 55 pages during my off-periods. The Coen Brothers are back after their dual duds of THE LADYKILLERS and INTOLERABLE CRUELTY? Praise to the gods!
THERE WILL BE BLOOD
Paul Thomas Anderson’s first movie since PUNCH DRUNK LOVE, which I love like I love certain flavors of Ice Cream and expensive beer that I don’t have to pay for. PTA and Daniel Day-Lewis? Look for me on opening night.
Also, very excited about the new Springsteen album. Let me know if someone can score me an advance copy.
* - Forgot what I wanted to say about DUSK TILL DAWN, but this is some inside baseball Tarantino stuff.... It's weird that they say that movie (dir. by Rodriguez, written by Tarantino) is like two different movies - "one half is Tarantino-esque, the second more Rodriguez." The first half is definitely more Tarantino's wheelhouse: talkative crims in a lot of interesting settings. At the time, RR had only directed two movies - EL MARIACHI and its more high profile remake DESPERADO. So . . . how a movie (or half a movie) about vampire truckers, a lapsed priest, and cons on the lam is Rodriguez-esque . . . is beyond me.
| By Andytown | 09:45 PM
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Comments
I
Posted by: sarah beth at September 27, 2007 10:58 AM
oops, I heart Andytown and it's creator.
Posted by: sarah beth at September 27, 2007 10:59 AM
Andy,
I'm still reading, so I can't be that cynical. Also, in the "There will be blood" trailer, a famous hymn titled "There is power in the blood" plays over the last few seconds. My question to you Andytown, is, what other film set in the early 20th century has that song at its centerpiece?
Posted by: Harvey at September 27, 2007 12:21 PM
Onion AV club wins you +20 coolpoints, Mussolini.
Posted by: c. bollinger at September 27, 2007 02:49 PM
favorite seinfeld episode ever. i have a friend who has been addressing me with that line for five years. it never gets old.
Posted by: bethan at October 2, 2007 10:11 AM