Blogged in flames

Anvil!

Sidenote: We are listening to Metal on Metal now while making soup. I highly recommend "Mothra" with all its role playing hanky panky innuendo. The latter part may be of my own insertion.

Sidenote 2: I was talking with a co-working who is deeply into Viking metal about Anvil. I told him the movie was great and that being a fan of metal he may really enjoy it. He said he listened to half of one song and almost punched a librarian because it was so bad. That said, you should listen to Anvil.

I'm going to write this without trying to sound sappy, but I find it difficult when writing about heavy metal. The five or so years I've been forcefully exposed to the genre by former boyfriends and through this I have gained enough respect and admiration (and doggone it, I think I might actually like some of it) for the musicians that I was really looking forward to watching Anvil: The Story of Anvil before it came out. Along with a healthy obsession with Spinal Tap, I was mentally prepared for an absurdly comedic tale of the rock band that kind of was, but then wasn't, but sort of is in Japan. In other words, I expected a group of struggling musicians trapped in their own fantasy worlds of Heavy Metal Parking Lot to be paraded around for the audience to laugh at, much in the vein of American Movie (review in progress). However, I found these folks, because honestly they are very folksy people, to be genuinely interesting and entertaining. Because, after all, they just want to entertain and play the music that they love and they're going through the hardships of middle age. The relation ship between Lips and Robb is especially touching. They argue of mismanagement and recording "shit takes" but in the end they sob on each others shoulders like junior high BFFs. Enough of the sweetness.












“Thumbs will twist. Can you resist? Thumb hang!”

With the heavy metal tropes of Satanism, moral disrepute, and the authoritative don’t give a shit, the guys of Anvil are angelically well tempered, driven by the passion in their hearts, and genuinely good people. This makes the fall of Anvil empire difficult to agree with and even harder to watch as Lips and the crew put forth all their efforts into the chance of making a comeback with a European tour. It’s almost sickening, really. One may wonder how such kind, devoted fellas could have been standing on the precipice of stardom in the mid 80s but are banished to hoi polloi day jobs as caterers for public schools and construction workers. Anvil becomes their alter ego and escape from reality. When expressing his lackadaisical opinion of his catering job, Lips confesses, “Anvil gives me happiness” and the drummer Robb Reiner comments of his construction job, “…I would rather be on stage. My other jackhammer is a drum set. ” Their families are more or less encouraging, Robb’s wife the most encouraging as the glam hair and tight black tank top leave their residue from 1985. Lips’s wife is surprising mom-like and normal in a bank teller sort of way. She gives no inclination to her husband’s dream of becoming a demi-god of Canadian metal.

On a brief side note, as a lover and student of art, Robb Reiner’s paintings featured briefly in the film are worth checking out. Sort of Edward Hopper meets De Chirico.

“I’d rather be a king below than a servant above, I’d rather free and hate than a prisoner of love; 666”

The fans are a crucial aspect of the film. In the beginning we are introduced to two “original Anvil fans” at a local bar; one man in a Flyers jersey and a salt n’ peppery bearded man who drinks a beer through his nose on stage. They recite lyrics in tandem with the band and liven the otherwise taciturn venue. The fervor of which these two approach Anvil is reserved for large metal festivals and the Japanese. Nearly one flop show after the next during their European tour and after disheartened return home the fan base doesn’t seem to be there, or anywhere. That is until they are invited to return to Japan. SPOILER ALERT. Of course the footage of Anvil playing to a Woodstockian crowd at a Tokyo festival in 1984 that had began the film is now juxtaposed next to their triumphal return to Japan as they are playing to a comparably large crowd some 20 years later at the end of the film while promoting their latest album "This is 13"; a name which pales in comparison to their previous albums "Metal on Metal", "Forged in Fire", "Strength of Steel", "Hot and Heavy", and "Backwaxed" which takes its title from a song about ejaculating on someone's back.

As the camera circles Lips and Robb in the bustling streets of Tokyo Lips narrates the bastion of Anvil's existence:

“It goes far beyond writing a good song It has nothing to do with the song it has to with a matter of attitude, what you’re willing to settle for, who you’re willing to work with, and having a good time with my life, with enjoying my life; That that’s the most expensive thing in life, and the most valuable things in life is your relationships, the people that you know, the places you’ve been, and the experiences that you’ve had.”















School Love

Best Boy

Let's save some agony and cut to the IMDB chase:

Portrait of a family in transition: a mother, a father, and their son, their "best boy." Pearl and Max Wohl live in Queens with Philly, their cheerful, engaging, and mentally-disabled son. For 50 years Pearl and Max have provided a loving home for Philly, but they're aging, Max is ailing, and they must figure out what's to happen to Philly when they can no longer care for him. Are there options besides an institution? Philly's cousin is Ira Wohl, whose camera follows the family as Philly takes steps into the wider world. Written by {jhailey@hotmail.com}

All this time while watching documentaries I felt a dissonance between what was going on behind the camera and what I was watching. I always felt the film crew looking on the people with impersonal voyeuristic intentions, even the do-no-wrongers, the Maysels. With films like American Movie, Speedo, and Grey Gardens there seemed to be a lingering and persistent view of the protagonists as characters of which we should poke fun, or contrast to our lives which were made to seem so much better. The Gros-esque Napoleonic portraiture of the hyped-up documentary was getting absurd, but with Best Boy it is redeemed by a Vermeerian sense of tranquility and finesse of the life portrait. A sense of pity and thankfulness underscores a lot of the films I’ve been watching, but Best Boy was the first that earnestly portrayed its protagonist in a lovingly and tactful way. This is strongly due to the relation of the director to the subject; Ira Wohl is Phillip Wohl’s first cousin. And yet, with the subject so close to the filmmaker’s heart, the complex veracity of the difficulties of raising a mentally handicapped child comes forth and the director has no problem juxtaposing the hidden frustrations of the family along with the unconditional love they feel toward each other.

The intrafamilial relationships were the most interesting parts of Best Boy that explored the intricate workings of a family living day-to-day with a special needs child, even though Phillip cannot technically be referred to as child being in his 50s. His mother, Pearl, who eerily reminds me of my grandmother, exercises skillful and loving care of the family, even though she and Phillip’s father, Max, break their façade of unfettered elation in the presence of Phillip. During a moment when Ira and Pearl were alone while at an orientation at a new school, Pearl frankly states, and I’m paraphrasing a bit, that “if God wants to punish you He’ll give you a retarded child.” And while we know she loves her son, she let’s the viewers feel some of her frustration. A similar situation occurs in a dialogue between Max and Pearl on a day when Phillip has gone for the day leaving the couple alone. Max, curmudgeonly tells Pearl to go clean something now that her “hired help” is gone (Phillip really liked to clean, especially the dishes). The nature of this comment is unclear, but it doesn’t seem that he is joking. The façade he and Pearl keep of being constantly happy, secure parents while Phillip is around dissolves when he is gone. These instances help to bring greater depth and humanity to the documentary and enforce my hopefulness of more films with Best Boys’ eloquence.

I don’t want to talk about this film in terms of making you think about what we take for granted or to take away any moral, but rather to view this film as an example of the human condition (that’s right, I said it) and the way in which it can be respectfully and thoughtfully provoking without the harsh melodrama of self-aware nincompoops (don’t get me wrong, I love self-aware nincompoops, but sometimes I like to keep a classy base).

Aside from being a nice change from the other films I’ve been watching, Best Boy was just down right charming and heartwarming (although heartbreaking at the end). Phillip won me over. The moment he was singing “If I Were a Rich Man” with Zero Mostel and completely oblivious to any concept of celebrity was fantastic. There were rare moments when Phillip wasn’t smiling or oozing contentment. Is this starting to sound like a eulogy? He has a strong outgoing personality that really shines in Best Boy and I highly recommend viewing it. Amen.

Apparently you can watch the whole thing on YouTube.

A brief aside written at 4am.

Dear fellow travelers,

I know you've been patiently following me down the documentarial path and I express some gratitude, yet it's now time to stop by the wayside, walk into the tall grass and meander down into that muddy gully that is Exploitation Cinema. Let us tread lightly through its shallow waters being careful not to mame or mangle any of the decrepit life that lurks and slithes in what is debatably mud. Let's fish gently in the tepid waters for the gornatodes hidden under clods of taboo (am I taking this analogy too far?). We will breath in the air heavy with sex and death which I imagine smells a lot like Gauguin's Monao Tupapau. We will bite into the hard sensationalist candy shell to get to the perverse and gory nougat (suspend your disbelief and imagine nougat inside a candy shell, gross, I know). Please also suspend the disbelief in trying to relate this entry to the rest of the site, I assure you it has nothing to do with documentaries. It does, or would like to, discuss briefly and encourage the viewing of exploitation films.

Last week I watched Cannibal Holocaust. It was terrible. But the fact that it exists within a larger genre fascinated me. It was like stumbling across the first circle of hell and realizing there were 8 more circles below me filled with unspeakably graphic and lurid content. So immediately after viewing I went to the library to order a slew of other films like it. For now, I'm trying to get a sampling of all the sub-genres. So on my queue I have Blacula, Mondo Cane, The Street Fighter, and 2000 Maniacs. Suggestions would be fantastic. I feel like I'm arriving a little 40 years late on the bandwagon, but I can't blame late conception for everything. Also, I suppose the interest has been sparked with my new (sort of) fascination with death and the ways in which different cultures confront the issue which is equally important as the way they view sex. I suppose this entry also functions as a warning in that I will be writing some low-brow and lurid entries on this topic in the future.

sincerely,

your humble fabulist

City mouse and country mouse

This weeks film Brother's Keeper (1992) directed by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky chronicles the murderous misadventure of a small rural town in the sentinel lymph node of New York's armpit. Or more precisely, Munnsville. Before you get excited about a "murderous misadventure" let me elaborate. The film revolves around the murder trial of (A)delbert Ward. In June of 1990 Bill Ward (one of Delbert's 3 brothers) was found dead in his bed by Delbert. Previous to the "mysterious" death, Bill had bseen miserably coughing and wheezing in bed for the past week. His illness plays a large part in Delbert's trial, but not as large a role as Delbert's mental capacity.




Conversations with Delbert and his brothers quickly reveal what the defense is seeking as its main argument for Delbert; that he is mentally incapable, bordering on retardation, and sheltered from the city and its prognostication of values. As Delbert and his brothers are referred to as the Ward boys by community members younger than themselves, the view of the Wards becomes that of innocent children. Lost Boys who never truly grew up with the intellectual and moral sense of their urbanized counterparts. The court battle essentially boils down to whether or not the laws and morality of the urban populace could be applied to the virtually otherworldly realm of the rural social outcast so far removed from the populace that the subjectivity of their own judgement has become their daily law and morality.

There is a sense of dismissal involving the murderous aspect when you get past the teaser trailer. The plot becomes a commentary on rural life as seen through the eyes of urban spectators, in so much as spectacle is used as a vehicle for sympathy and stereotyping as well as questioning the rationale of both parties. The big city lawyers trying Delbert weave a tale of Bill's murder as a psycho-sexual, incest-slaughter provoked by jealousy in a fit of passion. This juxtaposed to the interviews with Delbert and his family make this seem like the crazed fantasies of James Dickey (see Deliverance). The moral ambiguity of the Wards may be prevalent, but the reasoning behind such theories is absurd.

What's not surprising about this film is that deep down I know the Wards exist and not just as the singular family, but as a less unique demographic of ill-educated farm-dwelling social outcasts. The film capitalizes on the sympathy of the audience to visualize an overworked, undereducated man torn from his farm to face the judgment of an outside world incapable of understanding him. While this may be true, the community in which Delbert and his brothers were shunned, the small town of Munnsville, rise up to fight with Delbert in his battle against the ravenous city attorneys. The townsfolk are able to look past, and maybe they don't even see, the stereotyping of the Wards and view them as people first. But even with the community's involvement, sympathy prevails. The support from the community comes more as a response to the attack of an intruder (the government) on one of their own. They feel bad for Delbert. Most of them still don't like him, but for the principle of keeping their own matters to themselves they rally to his side.

Brother's Keeper is uplifting and disheartening as the strength of a community revives a faith in the goodness of mankind while the relationships between the Wards and the outside world offers little solace for the social, political, and cultural values of the future.

7 out of 10





I believe Roscoe is on the far left, Delbert is in the middle and Lyman is to the right.

Thursday October 15th part 1

Building pressures for you to succeed will eventually lead to a meltdown if you let them. Now is the time to remain steadfast as your good deeds will pay off in the end. Your power numbers are 9, 76, 54, 3, 20.

I like to imagine this is what the men of the Maysles' documentary Salesman (1968) would have read. First of all because they all looked half-cocked and ready to implode after each conversation in which the middle class housewife tries squirmingly to say she can't afford the brand new edition of the missals with all of the new additions while bearing in mind they come in either red or white (wowzah!). My favorite refusal was exactly this situation. James "the Rabbit" Baker (they all have mammalian counterparts) was attempting to sell the Good Book to a hispanic woman who only understood basic english. She refused and refused in as many words as she knew, but he was relentless! They don't call him "the rabbit" for nothing. He offered her the all the lastest, hot off the press missals. All she had to do was learn to read english and pay $1 a week for a year! What a fool for not ordering immediately! Eventually, after minutes of beratement and unsuccessful guilting "the rabbit" becomes silent, his mouth twitches ever so slightly, and over the sound of the woman's children in the house you can hear all the blood in his body being rerouted to his left eye where a vein looms above his forehead. You could feel the heat from his hands as they itched to lunge across the table y estrangular a la mujer. 5 out of 5 --best repressed anger scene.



The entire movie is nearly this entertaining. By the end we were all surprised none of them had mailed in their warranty cards, sunned their moccassins, face-planted the meringue, or checked into a single room flat (we need to bring these euphamisms back). The lives the salesmen lead are utterly depressing; first of all for being forced to sell Bibles. Sell. Bibles. The ultimate opus dei of the 20th century. Door to door. Bible-less Heathen to bible-less heathen. However, when their own morality is inspected, the conclusion is rather ambiguous, as it should be. These gentlemen aren't out to save souls, they're out to sell glossy-paged, ten pound bibles to naggy wives who feel their husbands would benefit from the high-def (for 1968) pictures and navigable translation. Secondly, their traveling days are spent in cramped hotels where they can call their own naggy wives and gamble the night away while chain smoking and sharing their failures with the rest of the group. Thirdly, well, you should just watch the movie.

In my mind the Maysles can do no wrong. Gray Gardens entry up soon.


If you ever wondered what the Beatles' Yesterday sounded like over the top of shameless pandering and passive hate, here you go--

(Ignore) Wishing I could kick 18 year old me

Four years after a mysterious and ambivolent relationship towards The Grifters I have finally come to see what lies beneath its facade of Cusack and Houston. I don't remember what circumstances compelled me to purchase it, but I did and it had remained idly unwatched in my enormous disc hefter for the past four years; until Friday night.

Pulp. The kind that gags you with unneccessary nomial references in conversation. Let me give you an example of the dialogue:

Roy (John Cusack): Come on in, Lilly. Hi, Lilly.
Lilly (Angelica Houston): Roy. Long time no see
Roy: Eight years Lilly. I'm just making some coffee. Youwant some? Just instant.
Lilly: It'd be nice, Roy.
Roy:Come on,sit down, Lilly.

Lilly: Got a great view, Roy.
Roy: Glad to see ya, Lilly.














The short version: Lilly wanders around a race track, gets a call to do a job in California. She meets up with Roy an ambiguous lover/son? of hers. He obviously hates her. He is seeing Myra (Annette Benning), also a grifter, who wants him as her partner. Things go wrong, people are burned, shot, and jugulars are impaled with broken glass. The end.

The long version: The characters depth goes as far as their names. They are only names on a page. They aren't real people with feelings and motivations. They are badly rendered pulp cutouts. The opening scene is enough to establish Roy as a petty con man and that he lives, more or less, comfortably in an LA apartment. We meet Myra, a tacky, trophy wife-ish demeanor that is the lust object of our protagonist. She is ditzy and a bit sketchy but overall inconsequential. When Lilly is sent to LA on a job for Bobo she makes her way to Roy's apartment. She introduces herself to the front desk as Roy's mother, a reference that is carried heavily throughout the plot. He is disenchanted by her visit which leads to a trip to the hospital and a confrontation of the two women. Lilly is obviously jealous but must keep up her motherly role and Myra begins to see that there is more going on. Eventually Myra owns up to being a con and tries including Roy in forays. She wants him in on a long con and he's a long con man. Meanwhile, Lilly visits Bobo who puts a cigar out on her hand and threatens to beat her with a towel full of oranges, probably because he knows she's been stealing from him. *Spoiler* In the end, Myra tries to strangle Lilly, but Lilly shoots her in the face and fakes her own death. She then tries to steal Roys money, but he finds her and then she hits him in the head with a breifcase while he's drinking a glass of water and the broken glass rams itself into his jugular. Myra= dead. Roy=dead. Lilly=off with Roy's money. Me= that movie was terrible

7 Up and 7 plus Seven

I started the Up series today. And the entire time I kept thinking of what horrors Fortuna had in store for Neil. The mere mentioning of the series to anyone who has seen it results in a sigh, and a "poor Neil." On the back of the dvd case Neil's story is described as "heartbreaking." So there I am, watching Neil, rocking nervously back and forth thinking cancer, auto accident, murder, disfiguration, institutionalization, and other unpleasantries my brain automatically associates with "heartbreaking" things. Daren't you spoil it for me!

Oh, yes, but there are other children too. Well, I have to say I rather like Bruce the sensitive one, Tony the jockey,Nick,angsty Nick, Paul the "foreign" one, Symon the minority, Peter the dreamy astronuat, and (of course) Neil the "heartbreaker." I suppose the three girls--Jackie the outgoing round one, Lynn the middle one, and Sue the boys' favorite--were all right as well. There may be something wrong with me, but I took a liking to John, the self-assured rich one. It may have been his eyes, but who's to say. Andrew, the one that tries to fit in, and Charles, the inside outsider, were mildly interesting.

I'm curious to know what I was like at 7. Since I wasn't able to be there and all. They all seem so literate and educated and can sing Waltzing Matilda in Latin, dear Rodia! I don't understand. At 7 I was setting things on fire, disecting Barbies, climbing trees, and detesting school. I probably couldn't have sat through an interveiw. Which brings me to my next point; Americans are barbarians. But that will have to wait for another day.

Next on the Agenda: 21 Up and a refutation of Grey Gardens as my future

Gallatin County's Most Wanted

Future skeezer pleasers (note no Danny Kaye involved)

Watch these--

Dear Zachary: A letter to a son about his father

Wild Combination: A portrait of Arthur Russel

Anvil! The Story of Anvil!

In a Dream

The spectacle of Steve Lopez

Last night I attended a talk given by Steve Lopez, the author of The Soloist. Before Steve Lopez became Robert Downey, Jr. he was perusing the streets of LA for a column. How and why he came to be head over heels for Nathan Ayers is pure marketability. During his speech he discussed his only interest in Ayers was that he had previously attended Julliard. Had he not, Steve Lopez told us he would have given up and moved on. Was the accreditation of Julliard the only thing that made his life worth writing about? What makes a person's life interesting enough to be worth a column in the LA Times? Mr. Lopez's semi-sympathetic attitude towards the homeless and mentally disabled was overshadowed by his own career and desire to exploit an individual more talented and interesting than himself. Despite the funny self-abasement Steve Lopez pandered off at the beginning of the lecture where he apologized for not being Robert Downey, Jr. (apology not accepted) he didn't seem terribly interested in the life of Nathan Ayers at all. I think this is where a lot documentaries fail (arguably the Soloist isn't necessarily a documentary). Obviously Lopez had some conscious, some empathy and heartfelt concerns but his overall attitude and demeanor spoke of the struggles of a journalist trying to find a story to gain readership. I don't mean to attack the morals of journalism, but a feeling of arrogance, in this case, won over inspiration.

Plans and schemes.

I've been scoping out different film festivals and these are the few that seem the most interesting: The Big Sky Film Festival (locality is always a plus), The First Glance Film Festival in Philladelphia, and the Chicago International Film Festival. All of these are still tentative, but I hope to make it to one. Eventually.

On a more productive note, I've acquired a video camera for vlogging (I feel ashamed typing that word) but nonetheless I feel like I should contribute to my documenting of documentaries through docuementive means (how meta). I'm still trying to figure out if I have all the cables to the camera, but when I do expect to see my blabbering mug making cameos every once in a while.

Vacuum entrees and reef stews.

Last week kicked off an unexpected obsession with documentaries and the various humanoidal subjects they depict. On the off chance that sounded derogatory I meant only that the people I've been watching are more interesting, genuine, and thought provoking than most persons I've encountered. They have a super-human quality better than any fiction. The documentaries I've been watching tend to be centered around one or two main subjects (people, not concepts neccessarily) with an emphasis on the individual, average, working class citizen. How and why this certain genre is so enthralling (to me anyways) and how it functions in the narration of daily life through different perspectives and motives is the aim of this project.

The following entries will generally be devoted to one film. I encourage commenting, calling bullshit, and other pertinent feedback. I promise not to have more than three glasses of wine before blogging. I hope this act of integrity will be shared with any commentators. Suggestions for films to watch would also be lovely if anyone feels so inclined.