The Art And Crimes Of Ron English

In this endless stream of images, that we exist in, in a world where kids are growing up where their entire visual landscape is bought and sold and entirely co-opted, you can either have an acquiescent, passive approach to it and sort of enjoy the spectacle or you can try to confront it in some way.
-Carlo McCormick, editor Paper Magazine

In American society where art isn't a part of people's lives, I feel like I'm almost on a mission to bring art back to people. Everywhere I looked, I saw billboards so I started co-opting billboards to put my art on.
-Ron English

Corporations don't deserve free speech, people deserve free speech.
-Ron English

These are some of the quotes that open the film Popaganda: The Crimes and Art of Ron English, along with quotes of passers-by who say things like, "This is truth, ads are lies.", and the kid who observed that the billboard satirizing Joe Camel will make kids laugh the next time they see a real Joe Camel billboard. And there were lots of them in the poor neighborhood that black kid lived in. Camel faced the pesky problem of its customers dying off and it became increasingly desperate to capture the youth market. The made their models younger but it still didn't appeal to kids so they began a campaign using a cartoon character, Joe Camel, which was hugely "successful", for them anyway.

Ron English didn't like this, none of us do, but Ron actually did something. He went after their billboards (and all cigarette boards) using their look, logo, taglines, like "Smooth Character", or “Salem Spirit” but incorporating his own ghostly, garish images that show the death and lies these images really represent. He also twisted their tags into things like "Cancer Kid". He would change the warning label to stuff like, "Courting kids leads to early retirement", or ask “Hook any new kids today?”. Camel did indeed discontinue the billboards, and Joe Camel, after a while.

He also went after Apple which, at the time, was appropriating the images of great, but conveniently dead, artists and thinkers like Einstein, who may or may not have wanted to endorse their products. They were using the motto "Think Different". So did Ron English, who put up similar billboards, only with faces of Charles Manson and Bill Gates.

One of his favorite targets is McDonalds because, like the cigarette companies, target children. He has attacked them many times with numerous images such as the one pictured on this blog below. He paints each public ad individually on canvas to hang in front of a billboard, almost all of which are dead ads, meaning the advertiser on there has received the time on the board he has paid for. Once the time is up, billboard owners typically just leave it up there for free because blank boards indicate to potential advertisers that it's not a location that sells well.

One of his McDonald's billboards was the inspiration for Morgan Spurlock's excellent film, which I reviewed on this blog, Super-Size Me. Morgan noticed the billboards in his neighborhood. Ron has inspired other artists who are featured in the DVD such as the Billboard Liberation Front, who wear bandanas and disguises and paste up messages on public spaces, including billboards, where they worked with English to put up the mileage statistics on SUV ads along with comments on how pleased Saddam would be, such as, “Saddam’s SUV Oil Dependence Day Sale.”.

Speaking of Saddam, Ron learned that he is the living person with the most songs about him, many probably written at gunpoint. Ron, while not at all competitive with his fellow renegade artists, did apparently want to best Saddam here and implored similarly minded musicians to write songs about him and his art. These little ditties run all through the film, and are pretty funny, as are the sayings on Ron’s billboards, in a sad sort of way. Mostly, they just make you think about the corporate messages that are usually up there in a different way. Here are a few:

The media is the massage.

You are what you own.

America: Home of the homeless

Your apathy is our strength. (image of the Capital)

Shop while they drop. (image of bombs)

Ron tackles all the sacred cows and powers that be, including the church and Bush administration. His goal is to take back the media and the message from those who seem to have the only real access to most mediums of communication in our society. People have asked why Ron risks the arrests and doesn't just rent the billboards. The boards, owned by huge conglomerates like Viacom, Clear Channel and Ted Turner, who made his fortune off billboards, won’t sell the ad space to Ron.

Sure, you can paint your little painting and hang it in the gallery, or your studio, for a few eggheads, but people like Michael Moore and Ron English have no real access to media that has any sizable audience. Those entities take too much money from McDonalds and gas guzzling car companies.

There’s a commentary track with Ron English and the film’s editor talking about they had no idea that the director, Pedro Carajal, would ever really make a film out of all this. Apparently, he just followed them around with a camera a lot,. There’s no shortage of footage of these illegal capers, or anything else. Being an indie filmmaker myself, I’m pretty sure why Ron and the editor, not the director, did the commentary track. It’s all in the editing people! It’s the most under-appreciated endeavor there is, and the most necessary.

I’m sure it was a huge job on this project because you could make a four-hour film just showing Ron’s art at a pic a second. Talk about prolific, he works twelve hours a day and is a very popular and strong selling fine artist, hanging in galleries all over the world,. Originally, he just wanted to bring his art to the people and put his incredibly detailed pop art up for free. After a while he realized he could raise awareness of social and political issues and do what any good artist is supposed to do, encourage free and original thought.

The beauty of this art form is that you get something immediate and real. The artist just goes up there and plasters their message, like graffiti art. No editors, no censors, just the comment of someone willing to stand up and be counted. Ron puts his website address on all his boards, he doesn’t live in hiding and in fact refers to himself as a soccer dad.

I have nothing but respect and awe for Ron and all artists willing to be that .01% of the population willing to say that the Emperor has no clothes, that consumption is costing us our planet, and we need to think about how much we really need, what we’re eating, what we’re doing to our bodies and minds and spirits and souls. They are competing with corporations that have the only meaningful “free” speech in this world and whose existence depends on our continued consumption.

We’ve come a long way since Andy Warhol replicated soup cans to show how mundane our lives had become. Ron has replicated Andy and his muse, Marilyn, over and over and over. They are some of his most requested pieces. Even art dealers want what is familiar. Of course, Ron’s Marilyns have Mickey Mouse boobs… but doesn’t everybody? We all live in the house of mouse, for now, but with a little more satirical, low-brow art, we at least have hope.

Get Rich Or Die Trying

He's smart and absolutely driven. If he was born to Fred Trump, he'd be The Donald. Instead he was born to an alluring and adept NY drug dealer who was murdered when 50 was 10, and an unknown father. Instead of living in a penthouse on Central Park South, he lives on an immense estate with the proceeds of his first album, which sold a mind-boggling twelve million copies, and a dozen other lucrative business deals. He's 50 Cent, born Curtis Jackson, he's an artist, a multimillionaire, a drug dealer and an ex-con. He's been shot nine times and lived to tell about it.... in this movie named after his album and his philosophy.

It's the American dream; no matter where you start, with enough hard work and dedication, you can make money, lots and lots of money. If the American Dream was to find happiness and peace of mind maybe we wouldn't be facing the inconvenient truth that we squandered our planet in a few generations. But that's not the American dream. The American dream is wealth and now it's not just the American dream, it's the dream of everyone, all over the world.

It's all about making smart deals and giving your customers what they want. Trump's customers want the best quality New York housing available, 50's wanted crack. Like any other successful entrepreneur, 50 worked long hours and managed his crew well. Dr. Phil says the difference between winners and loser is that winners do things that losers don't want to do. Other dealers didn't want to take coins, or go to the trouble of ironing bills in order to give crisp change, but 50 did.

Now, I would argue that people who spend a lifetime doing things other people don't want to do isn't necessarily a winner, no matter how rich and powerful their sacrifice makes them. But, again, in this country, in this world, with the values we've developed, wealth is considered success and the lack thereof is considered failure... and this is the subject of this post.

Looking at 50 Cent begs the question, what is success? Anyone trying to argue that 50 Cent is not successful would have a hard time of it, yet, the guy is an unapologetic criminal... a Gangsta. Not only is he unapologetic about it, it's vaunted. Unlike Usher, who went with a traditional vanity project, In The Mix, to capitalize on his fan base, 50 went the route of his mentor, Eminem, and did a story loosely based on his life. He made this choice because he knows what sells, it's not just the melodic, hypnotic raps, it's his story, and his reality, his cred.

He's the real deal, a true artist. A true artist, in my book, is one who can expose. Exposing one's pain, particularly in an aesthetic way, is one of the hardest things in the world to do. Very few do it. John Lennon was brilliant at it, how can you listen to his music and not realize the deep pain he felt all his life over the lack of his mother? People have pain, all of us do, but we often don't know how to understand it, process it, heal it. Artists help us do that, or are supposed to. When an artist really exposes their pain, it helps us relate to our own pain and heals us, makes us feel that we are not alone in our human situation.

Who buys 50's albums? Twelve million black kids? Hardly. He sells big all over the world. It's your own suburban white kids, folks. Why do they buy it, relate to stories from the inner city? Because it's real... like their pain. The pain they feel from parents who see them as little success machines, who must rep them well to the neighbors with stellar grades and lots of extracurricular activities. Unlike adults, who get used to the idea of living in an unreal world of getting paid to be a cog in the wheel, kids want a life that feels immediate and meaningful.

They want to live for today, be in the present, feel their emotion and struggle and humanity. 50, with his close relationship to his maker, the one he encountered after being shot, and his unwillingness to alter his image or himself inspires kids to be real, to be genuine. Kids are battened with morality and rules every moment, some of which don't even make sense to them, there is no room for them to go outside the lines. But, 50 gives them permission and safety to do that, or at least experiment with boundaries.

What's interesting to me is how modest 50 is as an artist. Lennon knew his ability to expose and write music was genius. Though lacking parental love, John had full confidence in his identity as the tortured artist. 50 sees himself as a businessman first, something almost unique to hip hop and rap artists. He credits his ability to sell to white America to his scary image, not his art. So does Disney, that's why there's always a scary scene in their movies. In his own words, he thinks kids go into the store looking to pay $17.99 for a fear thrill. They want a dangerous thug image to pretend to, in order to make themselves feel tough and cool.

I think kids know what's real. You just can't fake it to the kids cause they're at school all day talking to each other. Now, with the internet, the buzz goes faster, stronger, and wider than ever. Kids don't just follow trends, they make them, and they are the only ones to make them, that's why advertisers seek them out. They loved Lennon, they loved Cobain, and they love 50 because those guys put their pain and weaknesses and mistakes out there for all to see.

So, is 50 successful? Hell yeah, but not because of the money, or even the drive, but because, like Lennon and Cobain, he was transformed by the love of his child to be a caring human being and expresses himself as a true artist.

The New World

Some of the Native Americans that participated in this film objected to the title. It's not a new world to them. Their culture has been around for some 10,000 years here. They have lived in ecological harmony with this land for a long time and lead a lifestyle of grounded simplicity and joy in the natural world. To native, indigenous societies it is certainly our world, based on raping the planet for riches, that is the newer one. The old one was working just fine for thousands of years, how is this new one working for us? Global warming and its resulting hurricanes, heat waves, landslides of ravaged hills, $3. gas.... not to mention a world of people cut off from their connection to nature and their god-given instincts and intuition.

Before I launch into a review of this exquisite film, I must disclose my deep affection for Terrence Malick and his 1978 film Days of Heaven. I saw Days Of Heaven in the theater, back when I used to go to the movies a lot. I had returned from a three month car trip through this country earlier that year and watching his film filled me with so much longing for the American landscape that I packed up my car, saw the film again three days later and then took off the following day for another long car trip West.

The setting for Days of Heaven was Texas, in my view, not nearly the most beautiful part of this country, but Malick has an absolutely unparalleled genius for bringing out the peace and majesty of nature. There is no one who can put nature onto film like Terrence Malick and I would hate to think of this world, old or new, without him in it. Ansel Adams captures some beautiful forms in little black and white pics that enhanced our appreciation of what's out there, but Malick understands the color, the movement, the scope. I can't even use the word capture for Malick, he presents, he embodies, he translates something that is one of the hardest things in the world to duplicate on film... the absolute awe-inspiring feeling of being entranced and encompassed by nature.

I really regret not seeing The New World on the big screen and will look for it in art theaters, though the DVD is definitely worthwhile because there is a long section on the making of this film. Malick, who was strangely absent from the documentary feature must have spent the last eight years from Thin Red Line looking for financing for this project because it sure doesn't look like they spared much expense. Jamestown, the entire settlement, was completely re-created for the film, Native Americans were brought in to act and consult. Every attempt was made to be completely authentic; using a few journals from the time.

The story is basically a love story, about John Smith (Colin Farrell) and Pocahontas. The latter is played almost silently, but strongly, by fourteen year old Q'orianka Kilcher and she does a good job of conveying a girl completely in touch with herself and the world around her, even after she is removed from her tribe to be, in effect, a hostage of the English. She is well treated and eventually marries, even has a son, and goes to England to be feted by royalty, but never loses her center or her love. For most of the story she loves John Smith, even though he returns to England without her and has her told that he is dead.

She later discovers he is still alive and with that her love for him re-blossoms. She is honest with her husband and, unlike most men, he acts in a very loving and selfless way. He re-unites the pair to see where it goes. She realizes, when she re-connects with Smith, that what she has with Rolf is actually truer and she returns to loving him. He was very wise to let her follow her nature and allow her to love freely. He realized that love can't be forced. Maybe living close to the land, with Pocahontas, taught him that.

Days of Heaven also featured a love triangle and a woman who loves two men interwoven into such an incredible natural landscape that you really don't even need a story or plot. I remember in Days of Heaven about twenty minutes into the film I was saying "Wow... a plot too!" It was like an extra bonus. I would have been more than happy spending two hours just watching how Malick films water or wheat.

It's sad to me that this film, while receiving lots of critical acclaim, went unnoticed by viewers and the Academy. In my mind this film does everything a film is supposed to do. It's stunning, enchanting and engrossing even on just a visual level. It educates our minds about important events that changed the course of history. It speaks to us about love and its difficult choices, its pain and confusion and longing, its deep and unchanging nature that has no pretense to rhyme or reason. It shows clashes of cultures and ideas and their resolution. And this film also does something that very few films can do, it viscerally engages our deepest spirits and brings us a sense of what nature can do to our souls when given half a chance.

I remember on a lot of my young travels watching the tourists who would pull up to the Grand Canyon or some other magnificent natural wonder and say, basically, wow, that's amazing, what's next? They weren't really living and breathing it, they were watching it, like TV. Take the kids, let's visit some museums, some mountains, write a few postcards and there's your vacation. There are tourists, and then there are travelers. Malick is for the travelers, the learners, the experiencers. That's why the film didn't draw crowds, most people are tourists and will miss what Malick is really about, will miss what the world God gave us is all about.

For most, this world is one of offices and cell phones with little spots of beauty and nature thrown in to keep it from being unbearable. How unbearable would life be if we all realized how shallow and detached our lives really are? God gave us so much. And we stupidly decided we could do better. Never satisfied, we grasp always for more and better and newer. Did the British see the world anew when they met the natives? Not really, progress marches on and much of what has been brought is indeed better, making life on this planet more comfortable, predictable and safe... but, at what cost?

To me, the new world is indeed the world seen anew. When we wake up in the morning and see the world a bit differently than we did before, it is an achievement. When we keep our minds and spirits young and fresh and open, full of love and wonder; that is the new world. Watching this film refreshes our world-view if we let it.

Rumor Has It

I like the fact that this film advances and draws on popular culture while remaining thoroughly original. If you read my blog, you'll see how often I bemoan the way the RIAA has appropriated our popular music, a deep part of our culture, and essentially, held it hostage by charging exorbitant rates to use past hit songs in films, mash-ups and other art forms. This film talks about The Graduate, and incorporates lines and plot points without running afoul of our excessive copyright protections much as Nora Ephron used Bewitched, the TV series, in her eponymous film. The convention worked better in this film because it brought in the real world more successfully.

Whereas Ephron's film felt farcical, this romantic comedy was handled better. I hate to compare Nicole Kidman unfavorably to Jennifer Aniston but the latter brings heart to her parts. Costner, portraying the real life Benjamin Braddock, is playing the same role I've seen him play in the last twenty films and Shirley MacLaine has also atrophied, though at least she didn't try to play seductive, she remains stuck in her Steel Magnolias mode. Some Charity Valentine would have been much better here, but maybe Rob Reiner stuck her in Bittertown. Too bad Anne Bancroft's dead. The Graduate, though it made Dustin Hoffman's career, was all Anne.

I mean, really, she plays an alcoholic who seduces the son of her husband's partner, literally luring him into a room and cornering him stark naked, then telling her daughter that he raped her. Charming... yet she makes us love her anyway. It's not easy to make a story like that work. So, anyway, this film also brings in the aspect of uptight suburban, rich Pasadena and the urban legend that surrounds this tale and its writer, Charles Webb.

Since there's no commentary track, I don't know if Charles Webb grew up in Pasadena, or wrote The Graduate based on a real story told to him by a prep school friend. Maybe that's some of the mystery that makes this film fun. I liked the contrast between these mothers and granddaughters who freely intergenerate and the hausfrau gossips that speculate from the sidelines. OK, I made up "intergenerate" but isn't it a great term to describe those who don't confine their dating and sexual pleasure to those who are the same age?

I'm all for it. The three great loves of my life are all 6-8 years older than me. When I was younger, I had almost no interest in men in their twenties and preferred older guys. As long as they're in good shape, I still prefer men who have interesting life experience to draw on. But now I see all sorts of things in younger guys that I really didn't appreciate before such as openness, enthusiasm, access to emotion, integrity and sexuality etc. They're not so beaten down and pussy-whipped, they don't carry all the bitterness and baggage. They're freer and more idealistic and creative.

So I liked this romp through the many configurations of younger/older and fun/serious relationships. I guess the message we're supposed to get is that sexual experimentation and exploration is great but "building a life together" requires more. Hell yeah, it requires the rock guys, not rock like rock and roll, but the rock, the guy who you can have kids with and depend on. OK but just remember, that's how Mrs. Robinson ended up in her sorry state... by marrying the rock. Not the rocker, the rock.

So, let's look forward to Rumor Has It Two when we see Jen twenty years later hitting on her son's friends...

Munich

This is the story of a group of Israeli men who were given the mission of executing those responsible for killing eleven Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics. Although Golda Meir publicly ordered the execution, the mission was essentially covert. The events of the hostage-taking and subsequent killings in Munich are covered through flashbacks that I found distracting, especially since Avner, the guy having them, wasn't even there at the original crime. The story arc would have been better had Spielberg kept a tighter chronology. I also thought a lot of the violence was gratuitous. The film seemed too consciously paced for the typical young male ADHD theater goer.

At times it just seemed to go mindlessly from one bungled bombing to the next. It's hard to believe they couldn't find one skilled bomb-maker in Israel. One of the more interesting aspects of the film is the way it addresses some of the larger moral issues concerning justification for war and killing. Some of the group have a hard time with what they are doing, on a moral level. Capital punishment is not used in Israel, so these executions violated their own laws. These men were not captured, for trial, they were killed, with bombs, to get press and terrorize the terrorists.

Another creative twist was showing how immorality and violence take a toll on the human being. Avner's wife is seven months pregnant when they approach him and he loves her. At the end, while he is making love to her, you see all the worst flashbacks of killing the athletes. Even as he makes love to the woman he loves, a woman he has missed for months as he was away on his mission of death, he thinks only of violence. How many men think of work as they have sex with their wives? His life had become about killing, justified or no, and it was a part of him, irrevocably.

Then there's the "meet the new boss same as the old boss" aspect. You can go on killing the bad guys forever, and even worse guys will take their place. One of the agents had this response to offer, "Should I stop clipping my fingernails because they will grow back?" So, there are a lot of opportunities to ask moral questions about what is happening in the Middle East and elsewhere. How much violence do we need already? Does endless retribution serve any purpose? When does it end? Every side has it's justifications. The Palestinians want a homeland, and are sick of being mistreated. Their tactics are meant to show their desperation. It's a bit astounding to me that a Jewish director would be so even handed in his treatment of this issue. It's an extremely difficult line to walk, especially in such a public way.

If these Israelis have trouble justifying killing those who plot against innocent athletes, how the hell do we justify killing thousands of Iraqis and Americans for oil? What are we doing to promote peace in the Middle East? I commend Spielberg for smelling blood in the water and being a part of the Hollywood and musician uprising against Bush, which I think accurately describes this film. That guy is gonna stink so bad by '08 that wise to wait Hillary will have smooth sailing.

Did this film deserve a nod for best picture? No, there were far better films made last year. Spielberg feels that whenever he uses his obscene power as the world's most famous film director to shed light on a social issue he deserves an Oscar. We have never seen a director, in all film history, with the power to bring viewers into a theater like he has. He is truly the first rock star director, a phenom. I recently started watching Terrence Mallick's The New World and it's been an interesting contrast because, while both are great directors, their approach is so different.

With every shot of Mallick's, you see art, you see the artist, you see a man who wants to put beauty up there for people, you see a man who wants to paint the natural world in an awe inspiring way. You see the restraint, the eye, the artistry. When you watch a Terrence Mallick film, you see the highest form of what a director can achieve as a visual artist. Spielberg is a disseminator, a populist, a panderer. In his films you see the conscious manipulation of emotion, the pacing for heart-racing, the story, the charm. In his mind he's a storyteller surrounded by kids at the campfire.

So, whether you think Munich was one of the five best pics of '05 depends partly on what you want out of film. For me, I don't look to film to be my thrill ride. If I want to get my heart racing, I don't do it sitting in a dark theater. I want film to be beautiful, I want it to bring me in and capture my emotion and soul and take me to some new knowledge and feeling. On the other hand, as I said, it's not easy to take the unwashed masses and try to teach them a little something. He definitely had to chop a few million off his back end to do it, not to mention all the dough he had to spend to promote himself into the race. But Spielberg already has the dough and fame, he wants to be considered a great director, which to me, means artist, even though he's not.

The Greatest Game Ever Played

Golf? You want to tell me golf is the greatest game ever played? Why, because Francis Oumet rose from lowly caddy to businessman on the strength of his game? If that's the criterion I guess I'd have to offer the very obvious fact that far more men, and even women, have moved from poverty to prominence in basketball than golf. Even football, violent as it is, as least offers the chance to move up and earn money. For basketball, it moves fast, can be played almost anywhere, offers ten guys the chance to play at once, demands stamina, strength and grace. All this makes it great for spectators and participants alike. It can easily be played indoors, making it year round and all-weather. It requires strategy, quick thinking and an ability to read people and their bodies.

Tennis also offers a lot of these same qualities, which is why I love to play it. Like golf, it offers the chance to hang out with three friends and get some exercise outdoors. Golf, not to mention baseball, is too slow and non-athletic to even be considered a sport. And BTW, the reason Bonds, Sousa and McGwire are breaking long-held batting records is not because of the steroids. That's just what helps them build up more muscle by letting them inflame less from workouts. What's really making the difference are drugs that aid their reaction times. The reason I know this is because I dated someone who helped develop the drugs. They're not used by many, and are known about by even fewer.

Since golf isn't even arguably the greatest game ever played, except by wealthy men looking for the longest possible time away from their wives, what's the deal on the title? Are they saying this particular round of golf, the last in the eighteenth US Open, was the greatest game ever played? Well it may have been the greatest game of golf ever played, at least for American players, because it completely energized the game over here. It was a huge upset for the Brits, who dominated the game, particularly since the title went to an unknown player. Francis Oumet, and his ten year old caddy, did have enormous celebrity after the game. Tiger Woods, black, a phenom since age 5, has certainly had a big effect on the game.

As to the greatest game ever played in terms of whipping up US emotion, that would have to go to the last game of hockey in the 1980 Olympics where the US, a team of college players took the gold over the Soviet Union. In fact, this "miracle on ice", immortalized in the film Miracle, was voted the greatest sporting event of the 20th century by many in 1999. If you're looking for the greatest game in terms of upsets, that would have to be 1969 the year the amazing Mets won the World Series.

If you're looking for an event that radically changed a sport, I would have to point to "the thwack heard round the world" when Nancy Kerrigan took a whack from Tonya Harding's thugs. As has been said, every skater out there today ought to be bowing in Tanya Harding's direction five times a day because whereas before, Olympic champs could barely make a living, now, just about any skater with a name can earn millions. Billie Jean King turned tennis around for women in terms of what they could earn. Certainly her game with Bobby Riggs garnered almost as much attention as the 1913 US Open, which did attract some 25,000 people to the course.

Now I'm not saying this was a bad movie or anything. It's well worth buying on DVD because it's uplifting, inspiring, historical, socially aware and has lots of commentary tracks and other bonus features. One of them is by Bill Paxton, of Apollo 13 fame, who directed and took an interesting approach highlighting the tactical features of the game as well as making a lot of visually interesting shot choices.

Shopgirl

Steve Martin adapted this screenplay from the novella he wrote in 2000. During the height of the bubble he must have noticed the class differences in LA going full throttle. So he brought to the fore themes he had let lie since LA Story. That ensemble clearly showed us how Martin sees the world, his outsider eye always brings such delightful perspective whenever he presents it, from The Jerk on. I've been a fan of Steve Martin since King Tut, the zany dance meant to spoof the millions of spectators lined up to see the gold of the boy king.

Here he shows the contrast between rich and poor LA. We go back and forth from Ray's aquatic, modern mansion to the austere Silver Lake apartment of Mirabelle (Clare Danes), a young average girl with 40K in student loans and, for some reason, a job selling gloves at Saks (doesn't a college degree get you more than that?). Martin plays a wealthy older man who is attracted to her and they begin to date. The plot is pretty simple, he likes the sex but she starts to get needy and he realizes she doesn't have much else to offer, so breaks up.

She cries but moves on, grows from the experience and by the time all that happens, the younger, more appropriate, I guess, guy (Jason Shwartzman) has a little more maturity and takes her off into the sunset. Ray finds a nice gynecologist his own age and everyone lives happily ever after. I guess we're supposed to see two dynamics at work here, the class differences as well as the age difference, and how they play out.

In anther film that just came out on DVD, which I didn't review but maybe now will if I find a lot to say on this issue, is Prime, where the gorgeous Uma Thurman plays the older woman to a 23-year-old guy. She tells him at the end that she will give him the biggest gift of all by letting him go find someone his own age... she doesn't need his sperm to have a baby that bad, thanks. At least in Prime there's a little twist on on the stereotype, Martin's is pretty true to form. The older guy seems pretty dead emotionally. It's hard to see what he really wants in a relationship. Though he's somewhat enchanted by Mirabelle he doesn't know how to relate to her on an emotional level and since she's clinically depressed, she doesn't have much to offer him in that department to help him understand his emotions and help him grow.

I feel sorry for Ray. He's got lots of money and security but no real passion, no real compassion and doesn't seem to have much going on spiritually. Mirabelle excuses all that because she's poor and young, she probably sees her prospects mostly in terms of marriage. Since she needs help in almost every way, someone who at least offers money, offers a lot. Money can buy a lot, not everything, but a lot. Someone older and wiser would find a lot lacking in Ray. Even if we assume he's pretty good on a mental level, we've still got emotional, physical & spiritual to deal with.

Lots of women, particularly young women do see men in terms of money and security. Guys know this, especially guys with money, and they need to know they are loved for themselves. It's hard to know this when the lady has no dough of her own. Yeah, Ray can see she really cares for him, but would she care so much if he were poor? Maybe not, after all, she blew off the artistic Jeremy until she sees him in a snazzy white suit, and doesn't give him a second look till Ray dumps her and it starts to look like Jeremy might do OK as a provider.

What it gets to for Ray is that all he can get from her is physical, he doesn't see her as a source for anything else. So, at the end, Mirabelle has seen another slice of life, courtesy of Ray, and is a little more worldly and sophisticated but still has a long way to go. I wish her well but don't pity her the way I pity Ray. This guy is well into his fifties, if not 60's and, really, should be a lot further along. I don't get the sense he's ever shown real commitment or known real love. That's what gets me. When I see people waste their lives, that's the stuff that really saddens me.

We are so much more than our intellects, our mental achievements, no matter how much power and money they give us. But, because they give us so much, they can be distracting, alluring, deceptive and addictive. The world, not to mention, Palo Alto is full of guys, and even some women, who are what Antoine St. Exupery calls mushrooms, big heads without much underneath. Their emotional, physical and spiritual sides are like deformed little appendages that never grew, just lying there. But unlike with limbs, most people never see these handicaps, unless you look close up. I have and it's sad.

There are a lot of sad, empty men out there looking for glove salesgirls, and confidantes and intimacy but never really finding it because there's always some deal around the bend. So, Steve's personal comment is on the loneliness and emptiness not only in the lives of young, poor salesgirls but wealthy, powerful men... and everyone in between.

The Family Stone

More like the family stoned. Most of the all-star cast portrays a liberal northeastern family contrasted against Sarah Jessica Parker's overly uptight, conservative, or maybe just asinine. potential in-law to be. Luke Wilson plays the affable mandatory stoner. After his stint in the even weirder Royal Tenenbaums, he may corner the market on quirky family dramedies. In this one he sleeps with the aforementioned prig, or at least passes the duchy, and, well, she does loosen up a bit. Of course you can see the happy ending coming a mile away.

The liberal, but just as rigid, judgmental clan learns not to be prejudiced against the clueless yuppies of the world because, hey, sometimes they show some sensitivity and throw you off completely. And the blind ambition tour realizes there's more to life than career, she realizes she's a mere cog in the corporate machine and marries her new fun dealer. The original date also needs some loosening up via the sister and by the end, everyone's happy. Anyway, there are even more issues than this. What with a cast of seven principals above title, there's a lot of dialogue, a lot of issues... including the meandering nature of the plot, if there is one.

Maybe it's just a warm heartfelt exploration in family dynamics, or at least that's what they probably had to tell Diane Keaton to get her involved. She certainly wasn't thinking clearly when the hair colorist came around, that's for sure. I preferred her in her last major role in 2003, with Jack Nicholson, in Something's Gotta Give, where she was at least vibrant & healthy & had some actual interests, other than matriarchy. As for the rest of the cast, Clare Danes is far better in Shopgirl. Rachel McAdams was better in Red Eye and Parker, you got it, her sex was much better in the city.

This is the place in the review where I normally veer off into my personal views on some social issue and use the film to support and reflect my views. Unceasingly unwilling to let my readers settle for mere plot summations and erudite twaddle on film history or something, I offer full out propaganda and incitement. So, my choices are (1) a discussion of liberal vs. conservative values (no need to wonder where I'll come down on this one), (2) the difficulty of fitting into a different social group, especially someone else's family (3) the complexity of interpersonal relationships, or... (4) the results of my recent personality tests.

So, one thing they said was that while I was unlikely to become the president of a company I would very likely become president of the revolting faction the company. Therefore, I will avoid going off on item #1 above. It also said that because I have really high intuition about people, I often think others see into me, when, in reality, they don't. Since people so rarely see anything hidden (or even unhidden) in me, much less my film reviews let me just trot this out for you (and watch how I, as usual, bring this back to the film at hand). Prejudice is bad.

Whether you're a liberal or an unthinking, unchanging, stick with the status quo cause I'm rich or scared, conservative, we should keep an open mind because, as we see in the syrupy epilogue to this film, you just never know your friends from your enemies and which will make you grow more. To wit, by the next Christmas Mom is but a memory, two babies are added, and the new people making the kids happy have both been brought in by the uptight conservative asshole and even she has found redemption in the form of a stiff joint and flexible guy.

So, as they say in the movies, this only happens in the movies. In real life people stay in their own little worlds where things are safe and predictable and everything labeled different ends up on the scrap heap. But, if you're in a Christmas-y mood in May, check this one out cause it moves well and has lots of commentary tracks and other bonus features.

Brokeback Mountain

There's so much to love about this film. First off, the landscape is captured beautifully. The majesty of nature is one reason we'll never lose the theatrical experience for movies. Seeing this film definitely made me long for the time I spent in Montana & Idaho. For all this film is to so many, for me, it's a film about contrasting attitudes and approaches to life. Jack wants to feel his life, be himself, have courage and boldness toward life, take chances. Ennis was traumatized by his father as a child and lived the rest of his life in fear and denial, never knowing what to do with his emotions and needs.

It's almost amazing to me that the Oscars so often get it right. It's such a political game that films, particularly indies, hire year-round Oscar consultants. We are a busy nation, a busy world, and most of us have only enough attention to pay to a few big winners. There are millions of incredible athletes out there we'll never know about because they don't have a gold medal and thousands of great films we'll never discover. So, producers will do almost anything to break the waves. The Brokeback Mountain screenplay, written by the revered best-selling western author Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana, was known for many years in Hollywood as the best screenplay never made.

Producers were as afraid of homosexuality as Ennis was. McMurtry said when he read Annie Proulx's short story in the New Yorker, his first reaction was that he wished he'd written it. How had he missed such an obvious facet of the west when he'd written about it all his life? I mean, guys up on mountains alone for months.... But, more than that, I think this is a story a lot of authors missed because it's a twist (pun intended) on a classic fable. The progeny of Romeo & Juliet and West Side Story show young lovers willing to face a small-minded, prejudiced family and society... together. It's the kids against the parents, so to speak.

This is the classic fable modernized, we're now ready to see what it looks like when there's only one real protagonist and he has to, essentially, fight not only a culture frightened of its sexuality, or anything different, but his lover, who embodies more buckling than bravery. This makes Jack all the more courageous and ahead of his time, or maybe it just shows his desperation or naivete. Jack has a focus and desire to be himself that guides his life and will not be silenced. Like Gwen Aruja, the transsexual killed several years ago, he insisted on authenticity and paid for it with his life. They are martyrs, they brought awareness and change, and emboldened others. They're heroes.

It's funny cause even though we're all waiting for the big sex scene, when it comes, it's both shocking and natural at the same time. Man, that's a lot of testosterone. No wonder people find lesbians easier to swallow. I must say, this is one film that, watching it on the small screen, I really longed for a bigger one. When it comes to Heath and Jake romping in the Rockies, bigger is better, and much bigger is much better. Let's get some IMAX in here.

But, I digress. Here's why I think this is a great story, I said it up top, it shows the contrast between a brave man and a coward. Yeah, the bold one gets his face bashed in and the scared little mouse faces his small unlived life for many years, but, who do you sympathize with here? Who do you admire? Jack loved. He lived his life, rode horses he loved and wanted to live his life with a man he loved. He loved Ennis. I totally related to him when he said the line that's already become a cliche, "I wish I could quit you". I've been there, loving someone I wish I didn't. But there's satisfaction in knowing that you are living your life in a full, deep and feeling way and that you can be honest about it.

Someone said to me once that in the end, it's all about the love we felt. Jack was able to feel love. Was Ennis? What did love feel like to Ennis? Did he, in fact, love Jack Twist? In many ways, that's the intriguing "twist" to this film. When we look at Jack, it's clear, he has a certain integrity, despite living, basically, a lie with his wife. Ennis is cloudy. We never know quite who he is or how he feels. Something got turned off, way down, way deep, very early and I get the feeling no one will ever really know Ennis, including himself. Who is this guy? What does his life stand for? What does his life mean? He is just existing. He doesn't want awareness. His life is a process of shutting down.

He loves his daughter and, through knowing Jack, he musters up enough love for her to show up at her wedding, or at least promises to. Now we clap and that endless guitar loop comes up bigger than ever. Ennis smiles at his daughter and agrees to go to her wedding. Wow, what growth. I think of characters like Celie in Color Purple, or even many of the characters in Crash. Maybe Annie Proulx should have thought of that before making all those tacky comments about Crash. I think if anything shortcuts the film, it's the story and character development. We see the emotion come out of Ennis as, literally, retching. So, it's a realistic ending for such a sad, empty man, but, I guess we expect more out of our big Hollywood movies these days.

Hustle and Flow

If you liked Walk the Line and Memphis music, this is a great companion. Here we are in modern, if you call cassette tapes modern, Memphis as we watch a fabulous performance by Terrence Howard depicting a hustler on the lowest rungs of the city. He sells whatever he can: his women, his pride, weed. He's a promoter with the chutzpah of Bill Graham, Steve Jobs & Bill Gates, just with none of the other skills they possess. All he's got is raw drive and raw emotion and when he puts it into a rap, a producer friend layers the track and they go about promoting the song. The song didn't do bad. 3-6 Mafia won an Oscar for it, the first Oscar to ever go to rappers.

While watching this film I thought of lots of things I wish I'd included in my review of Walk the Line. It's about the comments of the director that, although Johnny only spent one night in jail, he wrote about prison extensively, recorded a live album at Folsom and many people think he did do hard time. But what Johnny wrote about are the prisons of our own mind. He was himself tortured by the ghost of his brother who was killed under mysterious circumstances as a child and Johnny suffered from the loss all his life. He had been very close to his brother.

But Johnny recognized all types of mental prisons and I definitely saw them at play in this film. I have known people who lived in the same type of mental prison DJ lives in. The small time hustler, always looking for some little one-up but never really understanding what is needed to make fundamental change that would alter their social status or milieu or the deeper aspects of their personality and soul.

But, the prisons small-time hustlers and tortured artists live in are not really that different from the prisons the unfulfilled housewives and workaholics live in. When I'm in book group, I always hear the women commenting on the trapped, unhappy lives of the fictional protagonists. All the while I look at these women and the walls that bind their own minds and hearts, walls they do not see. I talk to powerful businessmen who are filled with self-importance who never seem to see their lack of heart or courage or creativity or openness. I see people in prison everywhere I look. I used to live in one myself, and probably still do, in ways I don't see. Though at least I talk to people who can, and do, point out my blind spots to me.

We look into our real prisons and see a lot of guys like DJ, born into poverty they'll probably never rise above. But, DJ does try to raise himself and he does accomplish something meaningful, creative, expressive and real. I don't see people for the place they inhabit, I look at them for the distance they've travelled. I look to the efforts they have made to love, to extend themselves, to grow, to change. I look for people who are self-aware, who value self-knowledge, who can talk intelligently about their emotions, responses, childhood, family and who show an understanding of how their life experience has shaped them but moreover, who have shaped their life experiences.

I look for masters of their own destiny, who understand that they are the directors of the film of their life, and that their life is supposed to stand for something, something more than making money and using stuff. DJ, low-life that he is, shows growth, shows some love, some creativity, he's real. He's an unseen, unwanted part of our society but has meaning and redemption in his own life, so who are we to judge?

The commentary track adds a lot and I really enjoyed the film itself, particularly watching how they made the tape. 3-6 Mafia is a platinum selling rap group and represent a lot of what is going on in the south today musically. In many places, music and basketball are the only roads out and there is a lot of hip hop production in almost every city but the south has the best crunk as far as I'm concerned. I happen to love Outkast and the Atlanta scene, but each city has good solid layered tracks which are rich with sound. So check out this DVD.

Fun With Dick and Jane

I definitely had at least as much fun with Dick and Jane as I did with Johnny Cash or Ed Murrow, the subjects of the two films I just reviewed, both of which were Oscar darlings. Comedies always get the shaft (pun intended), but this Dick was Jim Carrey. He's fabulous and the movie was both funny and thought-provoking. The commentary/comedy track was less so, but the self-admitted Hollywood pinkos get most of their shots off in the film, which sets the remake in the wake of an Enron-like company implosion.

Despite the overblown sets and physical gags, there's a serious irony at play here and the barbs are no-holds-barred. A list of world-class cons is thanked at the end and includes such luminaries as Ken Lay, Skilling, Fastow, Koslowski, Ebbers and more. We see the wide pendulum swings up and down in the life of the capitalistic middle class at the turn of the century in America. Lovely and funny as it is portrayed here, it's not easy to watch because it is recent, it is real. Should we be shouting "too soon", like those watching the 9-11 films?

Certainly Enron, Worldcom, Tyco and Adelphia directly and indirectly affected as many lives as the bombers. You can't compare economic disaster to loss of life, but both are real and lasting tragedies. The latter isn't as photogenic, but, it was made so here and I commend Dean Parisot for allowing us to look at losing one's career, house, pride and just about everything else in an easily digestible, entertaining way.

We watch compassionately as this happy go lucky couple who has everything deals with true loss and hardship. The farce doesn't give us anything that rings true except the embarrassment, cover-up and desperation. Robbery dressed as Sonny and Cher or working at Wal-Mart are not options for most, though this concept was beautifully covered before in Albert Brooks' classic Lost In America. Most of us face the less telegenic task of phoning and emailing all day, trying to get careers and lives and security back. But, if you're looking for humor in massive heartache, and we all do... this DVD is true to its name - fun, and well worth watching.

Walk The Line

I walked the line between two streams of thought during this film: number one; why do I have to sit here listening to Joaquin Phoenix instead of the Cash voice and two; Ray was better. Having said that, it's hard for me to not like a musical biopic, even though I'm not a particularly big fan of Johnny Cash or country music. Despite the choice of vocals, I liked this film, particularly its focus on the road shows Cash played with Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison and Carl Perkins, all his contemporaries who were then signed with Sun Records in the early 50's.

Once Cash sung for Sam Phillips my interest in watching the Johnny Cash story diminished and my desire to watch the Sam Phillips biopic grew. While Taylor Hackford fleshed out a solid portrayal of Ahmet Ertegun in Ray, this film teased with a scene of Sam Phillips taking Cash from a flat, ordinary gospel singer to the true artist by telling him to look inside and find his true voice. This is when we hear Joaquin launch into such a poor rendition of Walk The Line we wonder why Phillips would have been interested, but then, he got to listen to Cash, no such luck for us.

Why should Cash license for a biopic when they would have clearly preferred the money from the makers of some hemorrhoid ointment, to whom they licensed Ring of Fire for a commercial a few years back? For God's sake, June wrote that about her burning love for Johnny. I mean really, have they no pride? They did give the rights to their music for this film and I can't understand why the performances weren't used. On the whole commentary track, Mangold offered no clue.

But back to Sam Philips, this is the guy who brought us B.B. King, Howlin' Wolf, Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison and Carl Perkins, in addition to Cash. When you think about what music was in Memphis, and throughout the south, in the early 50's... it was slow dirge gospel in a slow paced culture. We are talking upright basses here. These traveling road shows of souped up music and screaming teens jumping around in gymnasiums were quite a stretch. To this day, we've rarely seen a performer like Jerry Lee Lewis, the guy was truly out there and this film does point to an enormous change in the musical landscape that was happening in that time and place.

I think this was the true birthplace of rock and roll. Maybe Alan Freed coined the term and got radio more involved, maybe Dick Clark was the ultimate popularizer, once it got to TV, but Sun and Sam is the real seed change, as he tells these turned on white boys to tune in and then recorded them, set up shows and let them go. One night in '54 Elvis was recording the same old country tunes in basically the same way they'd been sung forever and got bored, so he picked up a guitar and started speeding up That's Alright Mama. This is when Sam heard what he'd been waiting for. He knew it when he heard it. He recorded it on his two Ampex 350s. And the rest is history. Music was forever changed from that point on. Rockabilly soon became rock and roll.

This film did help me understand the relationship between country and rock in a deeper, fuller way. I hadn't realized that Cash was country music's biggest seller, at least till Garth Brooks, and I didn't find it out from this film, which focused exclusively, unfortunately, on his early years. He is also one of only three artists to be included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Again, that fact, and his unique ability to crossover into so many types of music, was not included in the film or commentary.

The film did help me understand the man, the role of his brother, who died as a child (something he shares with Ray Charles, Elvis and Joaquin Phoenix) and the role that Johnny Cash played in musical history, at least early rock music history. There was too much time spent on the first marriage and the kids, who played no real historical role and didn't do much to help us understand the man, much less the music. His relationship with June and the love and admiration he felt for her was portrayed well and Reese was able to convey some of her strength and spunk.

Although this film has flaws it is certainly worth seeing on DVD. The commentary track adds lots of personal insight from Jim Mangold, who directed and co-wrote the script over a four year period as they tried to get a studio to back this film. With a $28M budget, which is extremely low for a musical with two bankable stars, who were attached, it took four years to get this film made. Ray had not yet come out, and even with the success of this film and Ray, which won many awards and was a hit, it is still incredibly tough to get a biopic financed in any major way. The Janis Joplin biopic with Pink was shelved, as well as the Hendrix biopic with Andre 3000. These are two musicals that would have been fascinating, and it is truly sad that they fell apart. How can you go wrong with Pink and Andre for god's sake.

So, go out and buy this DVD, because, as Mangold points out, that's what you have to do if you like films like this and want to see more, which I do. It's either this or more comic book and video game derivatives.

Good Night And Good Luck

This slow moving, black and white ode to when newsmen had balls is definitely more appropriate for the DVD set. Watching Frank Langella's face 30 feet high is something I don't need to see. Yes, he's commanding as the towering Bill Paley, who did indeed allow Ed Murrow to tackle Joe McCarthy head on, but then you would miss George Clooney's commentary track. I did find it interesting to find out that they put that vapid Rosemary Clooney-like singer in because they "needed a girl".

Clooney also points out that what ultimately took McCarthy down were the Republicans, once he started targeting their heros, like Eisenhower. And perhaps that is what he hopes for here. It is happening. Bush is losing the support of his original backers and this is, increasingly, a problem for him.

You can't help liking George Clooney. No one can. While Paul Haggis, Ang Lee, Philip & Reese skulked around, George was the man of the hour at the Oscars this year, and this movie is the main reason why. George kowtows to no one, when Diana dies, and Gawker Stalker abounds, George is willing to stand up and be counted. He was brought up by a button down newsman dad who taught him to stand up for what he believes and not be afraid to speak out. So, I guess it's not surprising he would make a film glorifying someone like this. Murrow definitely had the same quality.

We live in an age of such ass-kissing phonies that folks just find people with guts refreshing, even if they don't particularly care about the issue at hand. Let's face it, paparazzi annoyance is something the general public does not relate to, but George is still willing to speak out, so he's the darling of Hollywood. I like him too because the fakely self-effacing, affable guy is almost always on the right side of the issue. The issue discussed in the movie ripped at our freedoms in a way paparazzi don't, McCarthy was a Senator and had power, people's lives were destroyed and those in the media were indeed buckling to the red-baiting, turning in friends, changing editorial and artistic product.

He takes on the politicos who rise up on the fears they can monger among the unwashed masses. Gee, if I were studying this in some college class, and I'm sure it will be, although I had some shmuck law professor tell a whole class once that McCarthyism had little affect on mainstream America, the first question they would ask is why is this movie being made in 2005? What is going on today that mirrors this situation? Can you say Rumsfeld, Rove, Bush? Why can't we launch a decent investigation anymore? The GOPs got their big extravaganza... can't we get some fucking public embarrassment big enough for closure here?

These little dribs and drabs with Scooter and the Dissident Generals (good band name) is not cutting it at all. We do need some McCarthy/ Lewinskygate type denouement to galvanize all the right-thinking people who have been on autopilot for the past six years. Unfortunately, we're gonna need something prettier and more interesting than Good Night and Good Luck to do that. It's a good DVD, nice features, had good buzz and press, I recommend renting it, but it's just to old looking and irrelevant feeling to get much color up.

The companion feature discusses the way TV news has changed over the years. Just as money and technology have changed music, they have changed news. News used to stand for truth and objectivity. The American public used to have far less options and far more trust in terms of its news. Straight news is, by nature, somewhat repetitive and dry. Murder, mayhem, weather, war... that stuff never stops, there are only so many ways you can make it interesting, especially when you're competing with 80 channels, blackberrries, iPods, videogames and 70 hour workweeks (should we really wonder why every content company is tanking?)

The stalwart pillars of television are now in hospitals or de-perking from cooking segments. We've got the fake Fox news, right-wing news and now the new, fledgeling Al Franken left-wing news, and the fake news spots I reported on last week.... it's crazy. No one knows who or what to believe any more. I think more and more, people are seeking security in numbers and are turning to search engines and blogs to ascertain accuracy. Murrow lived in an age where he was widely viewed and highly trusted. His word meant a lot in turning the tide against McCarthy, just as Cronkite played a pivotal role in turning the Vietnam War around. I think Clooney wishes for a day when we had figures like this to help us as a society, maybe would like to play that role in real life, perhaps he can.

Open Mics In April

The open mics, hosted by the Rodeo Clowns, have been catching on. Last time there was a great crowd with all sorts of excellent music. It was nice to see a number of local musicians. They will be held on the 9th and 23rd of April from 5-8 (though, last time I left after 9 and there was still lots of people/music) at Blue Chalk Cafe, 630 Ramona St. in Palo Alto. Hope to see you there!

Spielberg Gets Real

The king of fantasy has just signed with Mark Burnett and Fox to do a reality TV show called "On The Lot" which will play like a cross between American Idol and The Apprentice. The idea came from the preeminent film director who is apparently quite a fan of Burnett and Survivor.

As I've said for years now, as the traditional barriers of entry into music recording and film production come down, those in charge of traditional channels will show increasing interest in the next wave of independent filmmakers. I know everyone thinks I'm crazy for making films as a rank beginner, but I know what most people don't; opportunities for gaining visibility and distribution are growing, and will continue to grow. In my film, about Silicon Valley, we see how companies like Google and Apple look for promising young directors. Well, apparently Dreamworks, and probably every studio, has the same idea.

The winner of On The Lot will be given a production deal with Dreamworks. After scouring the country for filmmakers, sixteen finalists will be brought to Hollywood and put into teams for making films in a short amount of time, sort of like CinemaSport. Like Apprentice, each group will choose a leader (director) and prepare a film, I guess in a week, on a particular subject, or perhaps in a particular genre. It will be an elimination game, like all the rest, with the losing team having to lose a member.

The films will be judged by a panel of experts and, of course, the American public, who will start the winner off with a fan base as big as the Idol winners get. Think of all the dough Kelly Clarkson, alone, has made for Simon Fuller and Fox. So, I look forward to this show. Not only do I plan to watch it, but, I'll be entering as well.

Derailed

As this film pulled me in, first with sex, then with suspense, I kept thinking, damn, why can't I get my plots this tight. You really have to hand it to writers who can pull you along like this, as thrillers often do. It's the oldest plot in the book; what happens when you find yourself in a bed of lies? Again, this film uses two of the most frequent, the affair, and embezzlement. Our "protagonist", Clive Owen, is doing both, and this prevents him from seeking help when victimized by a very, very bad man, who works in a group of con artists.

He runs into the too good to be true Jennifer Aniston on a train and becomes, yes, derailed. Everything goes off track once lured. How many times have we seen this? Fatal Attraction and Crimes and Misdemeanors both go deep into the extended life of becoming embedded in living a lie. Clive is still the good guy, despite the affair, because he's so devoted to helping his daughter and has been dealt an unfairly harsh hand. We cheer for him when he kills all the bad guys in the big climax. Hope I'm not giving away any surprises here, but don't the bad guys get it in every film, or at least every big budget, standard Hollywood film, which is exactly what this is.

It's the right formula, two hot stars, a great script, action, violence, blood. Blood is very big now, so big in fact, that I haven't been too into reviewing films lately. The History of Violence wasn't bad but what really are you supposed to say about it? Nice prosthetics there, good blood spurt? Oh, I know I should get real philosophical about why we are so drawn to violence, why so many wars (testosterone). I even took a class once on the philosophy of war (yes, this was the same professor who had the class in Carlos Casteneda, let's not go there). But frankly, I'm much more interested in sex, and since that sells just as well, albeit in different markets, may as well focus on that.

Apparently, this all started a few years ago when a few execs followed some guys into the men's room to get the sort of real focus group experience and the word was all about blood, blood, blood and more blood. If you go to the movies, they'll be redder, I guarantee it. They took all the cute daughter homey scenes out of this one to get more gore in. Now, my teenage son just loves this, he wants us to go and get some prosthetics for our next film and I have to admit, putting fake blood in condoms does sound fun, but no, even if it brings in twice the viewers, it's so cheap and manipulative. Now, I didn't mind encouraging my actors to be more sexual, but that wasn't just to make it more marketable, it's because to me, sex between consenting adults is basically a beautiful thing and violence is about pain.

So, I would like to see Hollywood rely less on violence to move story or at least make it less graphic. They won't do that. There are too many people who need that shock to engage in the film. So, if you like violence, check out this DVD and History of Violence, which has cooler behind the scenes features. They're brutal but, both tight, well-acted stories.

The Prizewinner of Defiance Ohio

It's interesting to me that Terry Ryan's account of growing up in poverty with nine siblings mentions her hometown of Defiance. Her mother, the prize-winning protagonist, was anything but defiant. Evelyn Ryan, who fed her ten kids with the winnings of her jingle writing ability, is really glorified in this film, the book, and the two commentary tracks on the DVD. However, her blithe acceptance of her violent, volatile, alcoholic husband is nothing I admire, 1950's Ohio or no.

Yes, I realize things were different then, women had less options. But Evelyn did have options. Hey, how about not having ten kids with a loser guy? Ever think of that one? And once you had those kids and watched your husband drink away their milk money every night, ever consider using your obviously intelligent mind to actually do something about it? Did you ever consider telling him to change or get out?

The more I think about this woman and the accolades she accumulates throughout the telling of this story, the more disturbed I am. The trailer calls her remarkable. Director Jane Anderson lauds her, calling her passive acceptance of just about everything, "mid-west zen". I think Jane needs to do a little reading on Zen. Zen is about mindful awareness. I see Evelyn's attitude as quite the opposite. Cheerful exuberance as your husband goes on violent rampages in front of your ten kids is not mindful, no matter the decade, the Catholic indoctrination, the midwest isolation.

Evelyn's winnings allow her to put a down-payment on a house. But, she lets her clearly irresponsible husband put it solely in his name. Big mistake, he took out a second mortgage without her knowledge and almost lost it. Yes, unbelievably, by some miracle, she won one of the last big prizes given out to clever housewives in a Dr. Pepper contest and saved the day, moments before they had to move out. Would Terry have admired her mom so much had she not won these contests? It was, after all, basically, luck.

Yes, this was a real-life story just made for Hollywood, which treasures its non-probable happy endings. But, without the exciting miracles, this is a story of a woman who is even less sympathetic to me than the average battered woman because Evelyn was smart. She did have options and she spent her whole life with a man who did nothing but drag her down. I'm all for having a positive attitude, but this woman was in denial. She allowed herself and her kids to be impoverished by an out-of-control man without ever really demanding change. I see no prizes there.

The Desperate Optimism of Dan Glickman

The link is to the transcript of the MPAA President's speech at ShoWest. Most of the news stories covering this speech pointed to the lame website that theater owners are supposed to refer their $6./hr ushers to, in order to motivate them to root out viewers with camcorders.

What I think is most amazing about this speech is his announcement that the MPAA is going to do a study on what theater goers want. Actually, that isn't what shocked me. What floored me is that this is the first time this organization has actually done this!

Hello. Film producers have always spent a lot of effort with focus groups. They've so given up on adult viewers that focus groups generally exclude anyone over thirty. Glickman is so out of touch, he points to the sophomoric Wedding Crashers and The 40 Year Old Virgin as being "adult hits". How sad is that?

The former pork promoter, Glickman, whose previous stint was at the Dept. of Agriculture helped me understand why the Academy had to nominate such low-grossing films. The only high grossing films are for kids! And, sorry, the voters just aren't gonna go there. Thanks for having a little pride.

Our Fathers

The title of this DVD, taken from David France's best-seller about the scandal that rocked Boston, is perfect. It is time to shed light on the men of the Catholic Church, particularly those who are ordained as "our fathers". Ordination elevates a priest from the ordinary realm most of us live on. According to their doctrine, priests, while not gods, occupy a semi-godlike status. This was impressed upon all Catholics, including the children, 80% of whom were boys, who were abused by these priests.

Most of the activity that goes on in Catholic churches around the world is done by women. However, the Church, as an organization, is run by men and for men. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The Catholic church has, and continues to, lose credibility in the modern world because the men will not give up any of their power and the women, indoctrinated for years to be barefoot and pregnant, won't step up to the plate and take it.

This film is a fascinating study in what happens when power goes unchecked. With all the women whose lives have been altered irrevocably and horribly by the Catholic Church, this film takes a look at the devastating effects on some of their most fervent, spiritual, special boys. Thousands of boys were raped, sodomized, and brutalized by their priests. According to Tom Doyle, the whistle-blower priest, there are over 100,000 victims in the US alone. Even according to the church itself, there are over 10,000 victims. Father Birmingham, alone, raped over 1,000 boys.

These were often viscous attacks by KNOWN men. These were not unknown men, in fact they were adored, elevated, esteemed members of their communities. Their identities were known to their attackers and often their families. And yet this savagery ran rampant throughout Boston, LA and elsewhere for many decades without ever coming to light. Think about how shocking this is. We are amazed that Hitler and the Third Reich could kill six million Jews under the world's nose in the thirties & forties and yet we have something as extensive as this happening in the 21st century in the US.

The seminal problem is a seminary problem. St. John's Seminary, in Boston, was one of the worst breeding grounds. Up until the late sixties, the seminary students were taken from their homes at young ages and put into environments that were basically like Lord of the Flies with rapists for counselors, think of the worst juvenile jail you can imagine. John Geoghan, one of the more prolific offenders, was ordained in 1962, one of the worst "classes" for abuse. Most of the offenders were former victims, as is usually the case.

This knowledge helped me to put less of the blame on celibacy itself. I don't think celibacy does anything to help one's sexuality or spirituality, quite the opposite. It only hinders someone's ability to provide pastoral care and counsel others and it is part and parcel of putting shame and secrecy around sex which is a fundamental problem with the Catholic Church. I mean, who came up with this idea of celibate priests anyway, Paul? I don't remember Jesus advising celibacy to anyone. He was a pretty lively, friendly, flirtatious guy... remember the lady at the well? Remember how he liked to have the ladies around, drinking wine, listening to his stories?

There are those who think deviant behavior is somehow intrinsic to homosexuality. As France points out, well integrated homosexuals are no more likely to rape and attack as well integrated, healthy heterosexuals. It's neither celibacy or homosexuality, in general, at the heart of the church's malfeasance. This abhorrent state of affairs grew directly out of the culture and structure of the church itself.

As with Nazi Germany, it has a lot to do with the expectations and mores of the culture, which elevates obedience over listening to one's heart and thinking critically. The German culture, like the church's culture, is very much a top-down, authoritarian affair. The first promise made by a priest in his ordination is the promise of obedience... obedience to the Pope... period. It's like the military. Even the priests have no autonomy, much less the millions of lay Catholics around the world.

In 1968, when Vatican II came out, there was great hope among Catholics, particularly in the US, that the church would somehow enter the real world and loosen its stance on contraception and celibacy for priests. When the Encyclical letters came out two years later, millions of Catholics left their churches and, over the next few years, over a third of all priests left the priesthood, most, to marry. So, who remained? Mostly the old and the gay, who had fewer good options.

I hear so many people these days saying things like, "I'm spiritual, but not religious". They make a distinction between their spiritual fulfillment and their community life. For me, church is, at best, a place where you can congregate with people who have similar ideas about God and worship and spirituality. As with many of my friends, my ex and I church shopped when our kids were young because we wanted to offer them a spiritual community. We have all enjoyed the many wonderful, spirit-oriented events at our Congregational Church and the people we know there.

What I find interesting about the Catholic Church is that, although I know many Catholics, probably more than any other denomination, I have never known a single person to join the Catholic Church. While many members of our church, including myself, were not brought up as Congregationalists, and you see this overlap in most churches and temples, it is very uncommon in the Catholic Church. Most of the people I know who are Catholic, grew up Catholic, and, although they have a hard time with the church's stance on homosexuality, contraception, abortion, women in the seminary etc., still go and take their kids because that's how they were brought up, it's their history, legacy, family. They are uniformly quite dissociative when it comes to their religion. It's like the schizophrenia you see when talking to people from dysfunctional families that never came clean.

It must be something that runs deep in them because god help you if you challenge them on it, they can get very defensive, and nothing seems to dissuade them. Certainly not the logic of asking them why they want to devote so much of their time and money on an organization that opposes the dispensation of contraceptives to rape victims in Africa and that covers up thousands of cases of rape by its own priests.

Cardinal Law had received many complaints about his priests, he paid each of the families a few thousand dollars to keep quiet and moved the priests around. The church enjoys a limit on damages. No one, by law, could receive more than $20K, no matter the charge. The way Mitchell Garabidian, who represented 186 Boston victims, got around this, was to sue Cardinal Law personally. Law lied to the various families, reassuring them that the priests, who frequently had the audacity to rape whole families of boys, were being sent to office jobs away from children when he was, in fact, transferring them to one unsuspecting, trusting, parish after the next. Almost all of the abuse could have been avoided if these rampant priests had been stopped at the first child, instead, hundreds of innocent children were offered up to these priests, the semi-gods.

Law did everything he possibly could to keep his secrets. He called down "the wrath of God" onto The Boston Globe. The august paper had turned a blind eye to the shortcomings of the church for a hundred years, as had every powerful man and organization in Boston, including the police who often busted priests out of uniform for sex crimes and then turned them over to the Diocese without even booking them when finding out they were priests. The Globe won a Pulitzer Prize in 2003 for its reporting. Law never apologized, never even listened, never showed any contrition or awareness of the havoc he wreaked on the lives of thousands, he was finally forced to resign, after hanging onto his position as long as he could. Like most of the church hierarchy, he couldn't care less what the press or anyone else, except the Pope, thought. They live in a luxurious, rarified, unreal, world unto themselves, where they are regarded as gods by all around them. I refer you back to my post on Michael Jackson, who lived similarly, and the Pope.

Think about that one next time you drop your money into the collection plate of your Catholic Church. Doyle estimates the total payout the Church will have to cover is a billion dollars. Insurance would not cover the Boston suits because Law allowed the incidents to continue by not removing the offending priests. Do you think your contributions just stay in your local Diocese? Think again. No one knows where the money goes. There is no transparency whatsoever in the Church, no audits, no disclosure. They have a lot of land and buildings, which they are unwilling to sell, even when laying fallow, as St. John's Seminary is now, with only one or two students per class. But, their only real income is donations. Like Enron, they don't really create value or wealth, they just enjoy living off governments that look the other way until devastation reaches the millions and patrons too unquestioning and powerless to do anything about it.

Remember, individual churches have no real autonomy, they all answer to Rome. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. They can be a pretty persuasive bunch. I'll take the modern world, of enlightened attitudes about sex and morality any day. Catholics can come out into the light of day and try to defend or change their church or show themselves for what they are; meek, unquestioning followers unwilling to change your church from the inside by speaking out for what is right. Let's see you defend your new Pope, who bans gays from the priesthood, giving rise, yet again, to shame and secrecy about sexuality which will distort and disrupt the ability of the many gay priests in the church today who will be called on to counsel adults and care for children.

The psychological scars that go along with this type of abuse are deep and long-lasting. Most of these kids were happy, healthy children whose lives were plagued with rage, confusion, guilt, shame, secrecy and lies from the point of their abuse onward. Whole families were destroyed. The men, as adults, had problem marriages and troubled lives; drug and alcohol abuse, inability to work, to function. Many became abusers themselves. Some committed suicide.

The faith of so many people was irreparably damaged. Most people who I know, who don't believe in God, had some negative experience with religion, usually via their parents or church, as a child. When you abuse someone and use the excuse of God to do it, you strip the person of their natural connection to god, you undermine their most basic birthright. It's the most venal of crimes, to strip someone not only of their human dignity but to destroy their innermost integrity. The scope is vast. Not only is the faith of the families immediately affected compromised, but the faith of all Catholics, the faith of everyone of all religions.

One might think, reading this review, that this film is a documentary. It's not. Produced originally for Showtime, it includes real life Catholics Daniel Baldwin and Brian Denehey. Christopher Plummer plays Law way too sympathetically. I think the story is far more compelling as a drama than it ever could have been as a documentary. The two commentary tracks and additional features, which show the real life characters, make this a DVD well worth buying.

Making Sense of the Oscars

Confused? Surprised by this year's Oscar nominees and winners? You should be. It represents a fundamental attitude change on the part of the Hollywood elite. After six years of Bush and increasingly onerous studio control, they finally gave a collective finger to the suits, big time. For starters, Crash, the "spoiler" was a Lions Gate Film. Lions Gate releases films in the $1 - $10M budget range, it is part of a new breed of studio and their product was considered preferable to that of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp's formulaic contender Walk the Line, Jack Welch's GE owned NBC Universal's contender Brokeback Mountain and Sony's offering, Capote.

Usually studio marketing has much more effect on Academy voters, they usually walk lock-step up to the plate to vote for the films most heavily promoted "for your consideration". This year it was supposed to be "Walk the Line" which so poorly imitated that which made Ray great (next time try James Brown, focus less on the seamy side and more on the music and please, please, please don't ever make us listen to Phoenix and Witherspoon instead of Johnny Cash). Then of course, Cinderella Man and North Country used popular formulas (Million Dollar Baby and Erin Brokovitch) as vehicles for big stars. All of these films were made and marketed as Oscar contenders and failed.

George Clooney, Hollywood's premiere insider this year, told us all, when he took the first award of the evening, what's going on. As he told us, and New Yorker Jon Stewart, we like being out of touch in Hollywood. They're not out of touch like DC is out of touch. When you get out of touch in DC, you get Bush/Cheney/McCartheyism. In LA, out of touch is giving an Oscar to Hattie McDaniel in 1939, so there. What they're out of touch with in Hollywood is the type of close-minded attitudes and fears that creep into the hearts and minds of people all over this country, all over the world, who trust Wal-Mart, which spends billions for your love and trust, more than their next door neighbor who has a different ethnicity. The next door neighbor would need to be "crashed" into on an LA freeway before any real compassion and understanding could take place.

So, all five nominees for Best Picture this year cumulatively grossed under $187M (Does that include Crash on DVD? Probably not.), less than the gross for Chicken Little. According to my teenage son, to whom all of Hollywood genuflects, Pixar's offering deserves it. And there you have it people, this year the nominations were not run around the teat at which Hollywood suckles. Sure, we know the only people going into theaters these days are teenage boys, but these highly paid actors can only take so much Steve Jobs/Peter Jackson/George Lucas... we want art with heart and if the American public can't make its voice heard because, yes, the Hollywood suits are completely out of touch, the actors, who make of the bulk of the Academy, will do it for us. Thanks!

Show me another year where Oscars went to rappers (for song) and black actors who made pimp films for $12K (yes, that's what Terrence Howard was paid for Hustle and Flow). Dolly said it best, redemption comes in all forms. And last night, Hollywood redeemed itself, just in time. I mean Jon took a very pointed shot, right off the top, and I think it stunned everyone. He said, hey don't pirate the goods people, these millionaires are hurtin'. Jeez, that showed a hell of a lot more balls than the music industry, who has been ranting and raving at the Grammys. Not that Stewart was cleared on that remark, I'm sure he'll never be asked to host again, but, it just goes to show how even the New Yorkers, who have a similar economy, based in the arts, view Hollywood and its product. What a comeuppance!

Poor Jake Gyllenhall looked pretty embarrassed at being the Michael Green of the film industry. Please people, go see the films in the theaters, the last time and place on earth where people are gonna pay ten dollars to see a film. Look how big they are (Hey, on the big screen HDTVs you can see every pore on the faces) and how much fun it is to see them with a bunch of strangers, look, hundred year old Mickey Rooney thinks so. Did you check out the theme? Cinema Paradiso, old time theater, it looked like a black and white ball, everyone got the memo, even the penguins (Enron movie got robbed!!). You know what that was about, don't you? It was the soft sell. They've learned from what happened to their poor cousins in music. No ranting... yet.

I guess the Academy members saw the neutered Grammys, realized that there but for the grace of Bram Cohen go I, and got religion. They've seen one industry go down and they're scared shitless, they're next. Well, at least they're taking matters into their own hands and using the guilds they have created to keep more centered in their art. I hope it will pay off for them. The music industry had its day in the sun and can't survive but the film industry can reinvent itself, as it has done before, and extend its longevity, possibly forever, if they keep doing their job, as they have this year.

Netflix '06

Netflix grew more than any company in the film industry last year. So, I was intrigued by this article on their current thinking and direction. Personally, I think it's clear their current business model has a limited lifespan. It's only a matter of time before DVDs go the way of vinyl and VHS. But for now, the digital distribution models are not taking hold because there are broadband issues that still need to be resolved and, at this point, most everyone still watches most of their entertainment through cable on TVs because the computer screens are still used primarily for what I'll call "traditional purposes" small screen delivery of applications, web browsing and music... not to mention sex.

In a few years these distinctions will break down and any successful content distributor will need to do so digitally. For now, it's all about Netflix. It's the best alternative out there right now. I left last year, when they started throttling me and went to Blockbuster. Blockbuster is too slow, even without the throttling factor, so, I returned to Netflix. I'm able to watch a full DVD, often with features like commentary tracks and other stuff that makes the mystery behind movie-making so accessible, almost every day for under $20./month.

This fits my lifestyle, and apparently that of many others, since the company's stock tripled last year. Consumers want control. We all want control. We want to watch films on our own timetable. Why should I run my life around theater schedules, traffic, or even VOD rules, which usually force you to watch the whole movie at once, or in one day. With Netflix, I keep the film as long as it takes me to view it, I can stop it, rewind, watch one scene twenty times, skip another entirely. I view the film the way I want to view it, when I want to view it.

You may have noticed I never review the theatrical run of a film, only the DVD, because in addition to the reasons I just mentioned, I want to be able to do a full review of a film, including the deleted scenes and comments of the director, actors, writers, cinematographers and everybody else whose views I've heard expressed on these invaluable tracks.

Seems Reed Hastings and the Netflix guys are typical Valley ideologues who want a revolution. They want a seat at the table, they want to democratize film. They are doing it. Their business model is intimately tied to the trend toward indie films, to public desire for independent art, particularly in music and film. They are responding to to the disconnect Hollywood had with the American public for twenty years preceding Napster. Napster and its progeny brought the public an awareness of the corporate structure shaping the product that was supposed to pass for American art and culture. Our music and film had become pablum, so when artists started responding with something real, and avenues started to develop to distribute it, Madison Avenue and Hollywood were eventually forced to respond.

But meanwhile, Silicon Valley has increasingly realized its own power on this field. I've lived in Silicon Valley a long time and it's a very cyclical place. The last few years of the past two decades saw wild growth, followed by depression and then a deceptive calm before things go crazy again. In another few years (especially if it's Hillary in '08), we're gonna be drunk with power again around here when all these geeks move from the dry, quantitative stuff into content. Welcome to the new Hollywood baby, don't forget where your new king, Steve Jobs, lives. For now, The VCs are still scared shit of content because their poster boy is still Hollywood's whipping post. If Hank Barry and John Hummer are cleared, and they should be, things could change and the vultures could get a taste of the big cash that awaits them.

It's gonna be wild and Netflix will be a big player, if they can fend off a challenge from Amazon, who seems most interested in taking the second big direct attack (Blockbuster being the first). They also need to watch Google, who is clearly going for the young, indie filmmakers. Any big internet company not looking at indie filmmakers today, will be sorry tomorrow, and they are starting to know it.

Being a smart, forward looking company (hey, at least they tried some VOD), Netflix is now going into development and trying to do more with their user data. Just don't make the mistake of producing by numbers and committee or you'll end up where Hollywood is now, films that show no real heart and vision. When the director's vision is undermined too much, the film always suffers. The audience intuitively picks up on the disconnect.

Netflix rents only 30% new releases and the rest is catalog (unlike brick and mortar stores which typically rent 70% new releases), showing that Netflix users are getting enough product to start reaching out. I like to watch the big budget pictures too, and once I have, I have more time to check out smaller films. People will watch the heavily promoted films, they're often very good. Here's the concept that those in control of these huge media conglomerates never seem to get. There is relatively little penetration. The powers that be look at this as a zero sum game, even though it's not, and that's what causes so much of the problem.

While consumers may not spend much more on entertainment than they have in the past, they do have the ability to consume far more and better content. They want to do so, and they will pay for it. There is so much more room in the marketplace for good quality content than is recognized by the big players because they are so intent on keeping the bucks they had before and from the same sources. They refuse to accede to the desire of consumers to spend their entertainment dollars in ways that respect their autonomy.

Take the issue of video windows. Netflix is on the right side of this, demanding these onerous windows, which force people to see a film on the big screen or wait six months to see it at all, to close up. Even though the grosses for home video/DVD are now over three times the size of box office receipts ($10B), all the studios can see is the threat to box office receipts. They are far more attuned to their margins than gross sales. Stop looking at your price points and start looking to overall revenue and alternate revenue streams. Instead of putting all your upfront investment, our equivalent of R&D, into production, use it for development of new business models.

Separate Lies

This DVD is worth getting for the commentary track alone. It's all so British I felt like I was in some Noel Coward play. Julian Fellowes, first time director, Oscar-winning writer of Gosford Park, showed an interesting blend of British haughtiness and sensitive introspection. He also wrote the screenplay, based loosely on a novel, that explores, as one might expect, separate lies, and the separate lives and perspectives from which they spring. The lies start falling like bricks from a crumbling building once Anne, played by Emily Watson, accidently runs over a neighbor.

She holds her secret a bit until her husband, James (Tom Wilkinson) begins to suspect their bachelor neighbor Bill, (Rupert Everett) was at the wheel. During an all too Martha Stewart-like chopping session, she admits to her husband first, that she was with Bill when the man was hit, then that she was driving (Great Gatsby anyone?) and then that, OK, she fucks Bill. Hubby barfs and then his moral dilemmas begin. Seems that James was all for "doing the right thing" and turning Bill in, even before he knew he was fucking his wife. But, now that his wife is the driver, well, how would that look for a rich, important barrister to have a hit-and-run wife?

So, the lies begin. It's an interesting exploration of morality because, although we have affairs and even a killing, there are no real villains. Fellowes himself says when he's asked who the audience is supposed to root for, his answer is "all of them". One would think the adulterous, reckless Anne would come off pretty badly but we understand her affair. James is a straight up, hardworking guy but insensitive, removed. I can't put it any better than Fellowes who describes the situation as one where Anne is diminished, nothing she ever does is quite right. With Bill, she can breathe. We also forgive the accident, as does the victim's wife, because Anne shows true contrition and wants to confess.

Bill, one might think, could also be viewed askew, he doesn't much care about conventions or black and white morality. He shows no remorse for having the affair. However, I find James, who tries to follow all the rules, until he himself ends up in bed with his secretary, to be the least sympathetic because he represents that rigid, arrogant, rich, upper crust mentality that just assumes everyone should show the benefit of breeding. Anyway, the lies all intertwine like filigree, as we watch how the different characters deal with dishonesty.

We see the impact of each lie as the truth is revealed. Don't we all live lives of little lies we don't even see? Sometimes all the little lies add up to a very dishonest life. We compromise to coexist, we end up as people we never set out to be, we say it's OK when it's not, pretend we're happy when we're not. No one lives without lies and we all have to make judgments every day about how to juggle the various facts and fallacies of our lives. Sometimes people don't even know when they are lying to themselves or others. Lies come from fear. When we tell the truth, we often hear it in return, and the fear of that keeps many in the darkness of secrets and lies.

Who is more honest, the person who tries to follow the rules, but who lives a life of uncomfortable compromise, or someone who flaunts conventions but is willing to present himself as he really is? For me, the latter. Who's more honest, the person who has the affair or the one who lives as though he's happily married when he's not? For me, these murky moral issues become clear when you look for the fear. If you look, you'll find the fear. In my opinion, fear is the measure of a man. Don't look for the lies, we all lie. Look for the fear, that will tell you the trustworthiness of the man.