A horse a horse

The horror! The horror!

Horror movies have never appealed to me, which is slightly odd because I see and enjoy just about every other type of movie. Maybe I don't have the stomach for horror's gore and suspense. Maybe I don't wish to see anything described as "schlocky." Really, though, I think I've avoided horror because it always seemed so bereft of solid acting, directing, writing, and editing. However, I may be having a change of heart.
 
Contemporary directors are infusing new life into the hoary genre, especially the zombie/undead subgenre. George A. Romero's Land of the Dead, Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects, Jame's Gunn's Slither, Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later, Quentin Tarantino's and Robert Rodriguez's Grindhouse, and Edgar Wright's Shawn of the Dead are examples of neo-horror titles that look gorgeous, make you laugh your head off, scare you senseless, and at the same time provide serious social commentary.

Two recent films, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's 28 Weeks Later and Jonathan King's Black Sheep, illustrate the high and low ends of the new horror spectrum. 28 Weeks Later, the sequel to Boyle's brilliant 28 Days Later, takes place 6 months after a "rage virus" has run its bloody course throughout England. The land lies dormant, countless zombie corpses rot in the streets, and London, looking like the New Jerusalem of 21st century western civilization, gleams in the sunrise of renewed hope. American soldiers shepherd the repopulation effort in an infected-free green zone, their trigger fingers ever ready to spring into action should all hell break loose. Of course, all hell breaks loose. Quick tip: if you're ever deciding whether to bet on a government/military contingency "plan" or an army of bloodthirsty zombies that can all run the 100-yard dash in under 12 seconds, bet on the zombies. Fresnadillo's frenetic scenes capture the angst, fear, and despair of the young century. While zombies chomp and splatter, we, the audience, ponder the fallacy of groupthink, the fleeting nature of civilization, and the clash between duty and  conscience.

Black Sheep, which hails from New Zealand, attempts to nose its way into the current herd of witty horror spoofs, but unfortunately this flick is dead on arrival. The premise is pretty smart -- genetically altered sheep turn into rabid killers in an isolated nation where there are 13 times as many sheep as hummans. There are some wonderfully zany scenes of sheep running amok, but ultimately Wright doesn't push the story or the performances nearly far enough. When flatulence is all you can come up with to save the day, you know you're suffering from a paucity of good ideas.

Best and Worst Movies of 2006

  I didn’t see many of the critically acclaimed, award show circuit films of 2006, so my top 10 list has a distinct middle-brow to upper-middle brow flavor to it. Looking over my picks, it seems that this year, I was particularly enthralled by movies that dealt with manly themes – loyalty (The Departed, The Good Shepherd), love (Borat), deception (Inside Man, The Matador, Miami Vice), the id (The Proposition, Casino Royale), and heroism (The Great Yokai War). Volver looks a little out of place amongst these swaggering works, but a wind-swept, voluptuous heroine will always score big in my book.

Top 10 Best Movies:

1. The Departed: Fun, fun, fun. Granted, you’ll want to ban the Boston accent after you leave the theater, but with this film, Marty (we’re old friends) has breathed new life into the gangster thriller. Will someone please find a decent role for Vera Farmiga? I’ve been terrified for her since she appeared on the cover of the New York Times Magazine, hailed as the new Meryl Streep. We all remember what happened to Gretchen Mol after the Vanity Fair cover…

2. Casino Royale: All hail the blonde Bond. This was a joyride, start to finish. The only thing I’d criticize is the way Bond gets all puppy dog for his main girl, Vesper Lynd. His infatuation is embarrassingly tweeny.

3. The Good Shepherd: Matt Damon is terrific as a bloodless American spymaster in the early days of the Cold War. A great spy film. Wish I could explain why this film didn’t clean up during awards season.

4. The Great Yokai War: A mind-bending and poignant fantasy from Japan’s Takashi Miike. A boy is chosen to lead traditional Japanese spirits against the forces of rampant industrialization. See this.

5. Volver: An overly reductionist view of Almodovar might take issue with his portrayal of victims of childhood sexual abuse – when life gives you lemons…  But you forgive him. This film, like his others, is beautiful to look at, and a celebration of the rich, European-style life that seems like a forgotten dream today.

6. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazahkstan: Lives up to the hype, for the most part. Cohen is at his best when he highlights American prejudices and ignorance. I think he’s weakest doing simple pratfalls.

7. Miami Vice:

   Surprised to see this on my top 10 list? Deal with it. Michael Mann is at the top of his game and paints the lives of high level drug dealers in gritty digital tones. True, the script has some hall-of-fame awful lines and the cast includes Jamie Foxx (the most unworthy “best actor” in history), but don’t tell me that after you’ve seen this movie, you won’t be itching to hop a speedboat to Cuba for a night of salsa dancing and mojitos.
8. The Proposition: Astonishing and brutal western, set in 19^th century Australia. It’s Unforgiven meets Apocalypse Now, with a hummable score by rocker Nick Cave.

9. Inside Man: A tight, well-acted heist thriller. Denzel Washington and Clive Owen are standouts. Jodie Foster is just there.

10. The Matador: Hilarious. Even though the hitman as protagonist thing is starting to get a little old, I felt a freshness about this film that kept me in it from start to finish. Pierce Brosnan should do more comedies.

Top 10 Worst movies:

1. Bloodrayne: The worst movie I have ever seen in my entire life. I don’t know what gangster put a gun to the heads of Sir Ben Kingsley, Michael Madsen, and Michelle Rodriguez, to force them to appear in this mess of a movie, but more power to him.

2. X-Men III: The Last Stand: Bret Ratner kills a better than average comic book adaptation franchise.

3. Ultraviolet: Milla Jovovich fights the powers that be in future world… again.

4. The Devil Wears Prada: Insanely overrated movie. Meryl is only so-so.

5. Click: Another It’s a Wonderful Life retread that starts out harmless enough, but spirals out of control towards the end. Academy Award nomination for makeup – for a fat suit!? Come on now!

6. The Illusionist: Insanely overrated movie. Promises a big surprise and delivers… nada.

7. Nacho Libre: Unispired follow-up to Napoleon Dynamite. Yawn.

8. Superman Returns: Bryan Singer was the best hope to revive this storied franchise, but he failed miserably. Brendan Routh and Kevin Spacey cannot hope to fill the shoes of Christopher Reeve and Gene Hackman, and Kate Bosworth should have been the last actress on the list to play

   Lois Lane

   . The entire production was grim and overcast in a way that made me yearn for the 70’s, bad hair be damned.

9. For Your Consideration: Christopher Guest’s incomparable troupe finally shoots and misses. Unfunny is the kindest adjective I can think of for this film.

10. A Prairie Home Companion: Sad, sad exit for the master, Robert Altman, who must now be forever linked to Lindsay Lohan.

Fatherly Wisdom

My son arrives in four short months, so I've been doing a lot of thinking about the lessons I've learned during my 32 trips around the sun, lessons that might help him embrace the sweetness of life and avoid some hard mistakes. I'm no Buddha in the wisdom department, but I've managed to pick up a thing or two. So kiddo, before I lose these pearls in a haze of crib building and bottle warming, here, for the record, is everything you need to know:

Shoes:  Only buy shoes if you can run for your life in them.

The Elderly:  Avoid old people whose jaws are constantly moving. It's a well known fact that they're chewing on the fingers of little children.

Friends:  Good friends are like kidney stones, very hard to let go.

Procrastination:  Everything you put off until later turns into cancer. Get cracking.

Cats:  No cat ever did an honest day's work. Learn from the cat, my son.

Religion:  Anyone who asks you to sacrifice your dignity, money, or time for a mysterious force that can't be empirically verified deserves a swift kick in the genitals.

Globalization and Redemption:  If you ever find yourself deep in a hole, keep digging. Eventually, the Chinese will bail you out.

Broadway Baby

I'm going to be a father. No matter how many times I say that, there's still a part of me that believes this is just a dream. However unlike my other dreams, which tend to revolve around Adriana Lima, a rustic farmhouse, and a distressed leather saddle, this dream means both joy and responsiblity. Yeats (quoted by fellow bards Haruki Marukami and U2) puts it nicely: "In dreams begins responsibility." I thrill to all aspects of this experience--watching the baby's heart beating on the ultrasound monitor, test-driving strollers, musing about names--and also see things through the anxious eyes of the first-time parent. Yep, I'm a nervous Nellie.

With the added stress, though, comes a nice little ego boost. Lots of fun new verbs, nouns, and constructions. My progeny. Fruit of my loins. Litter. Offspring. Chip off the old block. Kid. Son. Daughter. Me. I did that. And I'm quite proud of myself. While I've been preening, poor K has been dealing with the less glamorous effects of the pregnancy. First trimester is over in a few weeks. Hopefully, things will settle down and she'll take back her blood oath to take revenge on the "damned, dirty idiot who did this to me."

We have christened the baby BOB for now, short for "Baby on board." Ain't we clever? We've chosen to use male pronouns to refer to BOB, but this does not reflect any knowledge of BOB's sex or whether we want a boy or a girl--sometimes pronouns are just pronouns. BOB is a mere 10 weeks old, but has already: traveled to four states, played in the pit of a Broadway show, and attended two Broadway shows. Shortly, he'll visit his fifth state, take his first plane trip, and dance at his first wedding (he has not yet decided whether he'll be doing a backspin).

Urban Ranger

This Sunday I will realize a long-held dream: to walk the entire length of Broadway on Manhattan Island. I got the idea about 15 years ago after reading a terrific article on Broadway in National Geographic. Others have walked Manhattan, going North-to-South or South-to-North on a variety of routes, but I like the idea of using Broadway as an organizing principle. This majestic thoroughfare--running all the way to Albany, it is supposedly the longest street in the world at 150 miles--has been a backyard for me since I was a little kid. My dad used to have a store on Broadway and 42nd (a site currently occupied by the chunky-prissy Conde Nast building) in the 80s and early 90s, and my sibs and I would spend our vacations there, helping make fake IDs for tourists and teens, buying six-packs of tallboys (for Dad) at the deli around the corner, and running errands all over the city. Great memories. Broadway was our lighthouse, our magnetic north, our home base and launching pad. North to Central Park to clamber over the bedrock in the playground. West to the Hudson River and trade shows in the glassy expanse of the Javits Convention Center. South to Macy's and its magical toy department. East to Bryant Park, dirty, drug-infested Bryant Park. At one time or another, I've been on every part of Broadway from where it terminates at Bowling Green to 122nd Street in Morningside Heights. Everything north of 122nd is new territory to me (a couple of trips to Yankee Stadium don't really count). It's a dangerous land, a gentrified land, full of crumbling retaining walls and insanely charismatic politicians. Have no fear, dear readers, my friend Paul, geography stud and fellow cinephile, will join me for this journey. "Give my regards to Broadway..."

My Cup Boyleth Over

Usually, I can't stand short stories, with their writerly dips and feints and gotcha endings. To me, they're the literary one-night stand. Dinner, dancing, coffee, cabfare. The dramatic situations feel forced, self-conscious, and not a little desperate, like a stand-up comic pushing out out a few last clunkers before getting the hook. Always in the back of my mind, I picture the smug, goateed author "workshopping" the latest ditty with his class of beaming sycophants at State U. Ho ho. They'll never see THAT coming! Clearly, I have some issues with the genre. But sweet resolution may be on the way in the form of a certain T.C. Boyle.

T.C. Boyle (formerly T. Coraghessan Boyle -- mail me a dollar and I'll tell you how to pronounce Coraghessan) has my undivided attention. I received After the Plague, a 2001 collection of short stories, as a Christmas gift, and I've been inwardly smiling ever since. Boyle's stories don't unfold, they detonate, bomblets of pleasure and pain and humanity. His imagination roams from sleepy Anchorage, Alaska, to California at the end of civilization, to the claustrophic confines of a a malfunctioning airliner. The characters are deeply, lovingly flawed and more often than not, things do not go well for them. But when they win, their victories are our victories, won in the spaces and scope of our lives: dorm rooms, bars, and backyards. Boyle tends to upshift to drinking, sex, and murder; his is a male gaze, but not overpoweringly so. A central thread running through this collection is need as the primary driver for most individuals. To be human is to know that you need, to know what you need, and to act on your need (and not get caught).

Recently Read
It's nice to be back in the blogosphere. Why so long between posts? That's technically classified, but I'll give the true fans a hint: Sloppy Joe injury. Post a comment, boyos (Clay, you are exempt), and I'll dance like an electrified monkey. Recent reads:

The Areas of My Experise by John Hodgman
The Constant Gardener by John Le Carre
The Waterworks, World's Fair, and The March by E.L. Doctorow
Wicked by Gregory McGuire
No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
The Windup Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami

The Fall of Lloyd

Equinox my eye. Fall, the friskiest season, puts in her first appearance no later than the day after Labor Day. I do so love fall: crystalline air and dusky shadows, supple leather boots and camel hair coats, backpacks and bag lunches. Fall. Autumn. Things autumnal. I feel like conversing in a foreign language. Snuggling. Sipping. Making a fool of myself. This is the season. We will never be more beautiful, witty, kind, or intelligent than at this very moment.

Travel
Three weeks ago, I enjoyed my first cruise vacation. Kathy and I were guests aboard Royal Caribbean's behemoth Voyager of the Seas (once the largest passenger liner afloat) for a weeklong cruise to Bermuda. I won't bore you with details of what we did, saw, or ate, because in these respects we were completely typical cruise consumers -- we did everything there was to do, saw everything there was to see, and ate everything there was to eat. Confined in the belly of a steel beast the size of the Empire State building, out in the middle of the Atlantic, you would too. Things that surprised me: the ship was traveling around 23 knots (27 mph), but it felt like we were doing 80 with the windows down; the ocean was an intense royal blue, not the gray-green I was expecting; and not a single star was visible because of light pollution. Communal dining was agonizing at times. Five funseeking couples should have had loads to discuss, but we were all awkward silences. Still, I'd recommend cruising to anyone, especially during hurricane season, which adds a whiff of danger to the proceedings. Imagine wolfing down two plates at the breakfast buffet, looking out the window, and seeing a pod of whales surfacing off the port side. That's living.

In two weeks, I'm off to Denver for a business trip. From what I've been able to glean about the city so far, I'm expecting lots of beef, beer, and boulders. Seriously, I'm thrilled to make my second trip into the great plains (first trip was to Lincoln, Nebraska, another mecca of beef and beer, but not so many boulders) and take in all that mile-high air. The armchair-curious should check out arrounddenver.com, an amazing virtual tour of the city.

Entertainment
Fall movie season is off to a running start with two lean thrillers by cinemasters David Cronenberg and Wes Craven. Cronenberg's A History of Violence tells the story of Tom Stall (played by Viggo Mortenson), a midwestern everyman with a mysterious east coast past and a penchant for killing killers. Maria Bello (a soon to be A-lister) plays his insanely attractive and randy wife, who struggles to reconcile the Forrest Gump and Terminator sides of her beefy spouse. Cronenberg plays with our preprogrammed responses to horrific violence and the simple moralities that can't quite contain it all. I had to see Wes Craven's Red Eye after reading a review which included the words "Alfred" and "Hitchcock." While not Hitchcockian exactly, Red Eye is a tight, almost claustrophobic political assassination thriller starring Rachel McAdams and Cillian Murphy. Nobody but nobody does creeping-around-the-house thriller like Craven. When the bad guy popped out from behind the door I screamed like a little girl. Eek.

Politics and Religion
I am not a political animal. Most of the time, I'm content to sit by and let the ruling party waste my tax dollars, wage wars, erode freedoms, and generally make a mess of things. But now I've found a political issue I can finally get excited about: whether or not Intelligent Design should be taught in public schools. Intelligent Design, which is without a doubt the stupidest idea to hit education since Professor Harold Hill's Think System, has been hotly debated in Kansas and Pennsylvania all year. The world community, who already think we're big bullies, now have plenty of reasons to think we're big stupid bullies. It's so damned embarrassing. Thank Darwin for people like Bobby Henderson who remind us that even if the freaky prudes win, our side is funnier.

Indie Summer

"So, how was your summer?" My answer to this frequently disingenuous question will be simple this year: "Bloody awesome." My summer's summary will not include tales of debauchery in the Hamptons dunes, blitzed bikinied publicists, or mojitos (ok, there was this one mojito). Nope, I'll spin stories of iced-coffee buzzes, sepulchral screening rooms, long shots, and the sublime genius of Wong Kar-Wai. For this has been the splendid summer of the indie film.

I'm no anti-Hollywood film snob. I've seen all of this year's big blockbusters (Revenge of the Sith, Fantastic Four, Batman Begins, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, War of the Worlds, Wedding Crashers, you name it), laughing, crying, and gasping at all the right (and rigorously tested) moments. I don't go to these movies expecting great art -- that's da showbiz -- but can we please dial down the crass contempt for the audience just a wee bit? Every juvenile joke, phoned-in scene, and pointless character seems a slap in the face to my New York City, college-educated, seen-more-than-five-flicks sensibility. Honestly, I'm feeling a little molested by big Hollywood, with no relief in sight -- as Michael Jackson has shown us, molesters with money can get away with anything.

And then I saw Me and You and Everyone We Know at IFC Film Center. Miranda July's debut feature film about people struggling to connect is everything an indie should be: focused, fresh, and subversive. The characters put themselves out there again and again in search of understanding -- through conversations, phone calls, chat rooms, video tapes, salacious messages taped on windows – and find themselves misinterpreted and misunderstood more often than not. In the end, love descends, slipping past the barriers, an enveloping warm embrace.

2046, by sensualist-director Wong Kar-Wai, also explores the themes of connection, want, and frustrated desire. A sequel to Wong's masterpiece, In the Mood for Love, 2046 continues the story of the previous movie’s main character, a newspaper man haunted by an almost-affair who embarks on a series of intense one-sided flings. Wong is painterly in the way he drenches each frame with color and texture and the way he dabs together action and dialogue (most scenes are improvised on-set). Sitting in the claustrophobic confines of Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, I was struck by two thoughts: first, "Blondes don't go to art house movies," and second, "Wong Kar-Wai is the best filmmaker working today."

Two other films that caught my eye were March of the Penguins by Luc Jacquet and Broken Flowers by Jim Jarmusch. While Broken Flowers would seem to have the advantages of Jarmusch’s indie street cred and the seemingly endless Bill Murray win streak, I have to say I found the National Geographic penguin documentary more interesting and enlightening. I knew what was motivating the penguins; can't say the same about Bill Murray's character, Don Johnston. One thing I will give to Jarmusch: he took one of the world's most interesting looking actresses, Tilda Swinton, whose famous androgynous looks won her the part of the angel Gabriel in the recent crapmine Constantine, and transformed her to a trashy biker chick. Bravo.

State of the Lloyd 8.4.05

Reading: Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

Mmmmmovies: Me and You and Everyone We Know, Nashville, In the Mood for Love, A Very Long Engagement, Storytelling

Pet Peeves: People who spill intimate personal information five minutes after meeting me, Dropped calls, Does this train go to ___ ?, White skirts/dark underwear

Yee haw: Carousing, Indies, Biggest Big Bertha, Wong Kar-Wai, Sport coats, Melinda Katz, Rothko Chapel

My head is spinning: Cy Twombly, Random bag searches, My brother-the neocon

So Over: Lance Armstrong, Prissy punctuators, Yankees

Can't Shake: Obsessive pet love, Waking before my alarm, Orbit habit, Movies based on Nicholas Sparks novels

Mantra: Can I trust it/you/him/her/this?

Epiphany: Having a sense of self is SEXY

Oh, crap

I stepped in a pile of shit today. There's no metaphor at work here, I actually planted my size 11-1/2 in an steaming mountain of fresh dog feces. In front of two co-workers. The horror! The horror! My foot slid way back and there I stood, splayed out on Broadway like some shitheeled Gene Kelley. I was mad.

On the train I meditated on the countless acts of incivility I witness every day in this city, MY city. We're all crammed together here, toiling away for wages that barely keep up with cost of living increases, in search of the perfect Woody Allen New York of our dreams, and we have to put up with slack-jawed dog owners who won't pick up after their dogs!? Unacceptable. Where I live, people toss litter over hedges, hock loogies in the sidewalk, and play music at ear-splitting volumes. I want to yell at them, arrest them, show them the error of their ways, but I don't. I can't. In New York, people mind their own business. (And any time you say something to a stranger you run the risk of getting murdered.)

I wish we had one of those hard-core three-strikes laws like California and Afghanistan. Strike one and the punishment is some form of public humiliation. The stocks, maybe? Strike two and your rent goes up by 25 percent. (New Yorkers are desensitized to just about everything except rent increases. You raise-a my rent, I break-a your face.) Strike three and you are deported to Detroit, never to return.

Well it was nice to vent. Drop an e-mail if you're free to come shoe-shopping with me this weekend.