Spout Mavens Disc #14, Part 5 of 13: Shorts! Volume 3 - Seventeen (2003)

Director: Hisko Hulsing
Netherlands, 12:00, color animated
Cinema 4 Rating: 7

At what level do we begin to recognize our own failure? If we start out with imperial ambitions, is everything else short of controlling the world considered to be a failure? Since most of us will never, or should never, wish for such power, I guess we all have to just be thankful for whatever success we might achieve, and accept our fate from there.

I worked at my previous job for 22 years. I won't go into the details of the five Ws and an H of the situation -- I have discussed these matters elsewhere in bits and pieces on the Cinema 4 Pylon, and if you are actually interested, for whatever reason, I suggest you delve into it there. My need to bring up the length of my stay at that particular hovel of a business was merely to impart the message that 22 years at any one place, home or business, is far too long a span. I started young, full of piss and vinegar, but not quite enough to make me burn the place down and move onward. I despised about 90 percent of the people, employees or customers, with whom I came into contact, and there were certain sections of the business where the workers were little more than savage animals in my eyes. I always felt that anytime soon, something would happen where I would be rid of them and their brutish ways. Either I would leave them behind as I sped towards better times, or they would die the deaths that they so richly deserved for their callowness and their uncaring attitudes towards everything except for the most base forms of human endeavor.

And then, almost imperceptibly, with the faucet slowly dripping away my youth, I found myself stuck. I could not leave the job due to my own fears, my own uncertainty for the future, and I accepted a fate where even a horrid career is better than a world without a clear destination ahead. And even after the worst moments -- those times where I swore I had had enough and would rather kill them all and face the most severe prison sentence ever than work one more day in that pit of damnation -- I found myself punching the clock again. And again. And after so many years, I found myself not warming to those whom I previously despised, but becoming instead enough like them where I could no longer hold myself to a loftier ideal. Soon, I stopped resisting their idiocies and fell into line alongside them. I had become the others.

It has been said for eons that our world is largely run, in nearly every aspect, by fear. Fear can keep us running when we both shouldn't, and fear can also keep from running when we should. Its not so much about overcoming our fears, as it is about coming to an understanding with them, figuring out when they are truly justified or when they are pure shite. My own fear of the future overrode my fear of being trapped in a lifeless hell, and for a long time, I was a horrible person for it. While I won't rule out that there were outside agents that allowed me to come to grips with my fears, in the end, I was the one who had to walk away and start over. I stopped the stagnation at 22 years, and set up elsewhere. No longer do I feel like one of those others that I found so despicable.

In Hisko Hulsing's superbly creepy animated short, Seventeen -- one of 16 films on the Shorts! Volume 3 DVD collection -- we meet a young man named Harry, almost the age I was when I began my 22-year run, in a similar situation. His afternoons are marked by his labors on a roofing job, far above the streets of a village surrounded by patchwork fields. He is surrounded at his job by workers almost exactly of the Cro-Magnon set, and they booze and prank each other to the point that little work seems to actually get done. He strains to shut out the ruffians, and distracts his attention by peering at a woman in the building adjacent to the worksite, who strips slowly and coyly catches Harry's eye as he sits numbly on the edge of the building, several stories above the ground. In fact, the woman is a prostitute, and soon her madam will catch onto Harry's spying and shut the curtains on his afternoon of naive peeping. Harry doesn't see her as a whore, but merely as a target for his youthfully urgent affection, and as he spies, he is dreamy eyed and wistful, completely forgetting his co-workers.

They have not forgotten him, however, and they catch him unaware, lost in his love at first sight daydreams. One of the ruffians grabs Harry's ponytail and pretends to shove him off the roof. Soon, they are attacking some nearby laundry on a drying line, dressing the young lad up in women's clothing, and even after fitting the dress over his head, we see from Harry's point of view that he imagines one of the men, in a hirsute, sweat-laden and frightening closeup, is looking at the innocent, comparatively waiflike and pony-tailed Harry in a lustful, drooling manner. It is but a small harbinger of the horrors to come for Harry, who will now spend the remainder of the film locked in a battle with his delusions -- drunken and real -- interpreting the actions of the citizenry of the village as increasingly aggressive and conspiratorial towards himself.

Obsessed by the beautiful prostitute, Harry attempts to buy a drink for her at a local carnival, but he lingers too long in doubt, and her time is taken by some of his co-workers. Later, he will awaken in a deeply drunken state and wander into a scene where two of those men are having sex with her, and he will not recognize the fact, as she checks her watch in uncaring boredom, that she is literally on the clock. He will only hear her false moaning as screams of agony, and will imagine she is being doubly raped. He will launch himself at the attackers, but he will embarrassingly end up only in sending her sprawling backwards into a mud puddle with his crotch landing on her face, and her potential johns, a winding string of whom are seen waiting around the side of the building and onward, will not take this lightly at all. Interrupted from their pleasures, the men will, in Harry's eyes, and thus ours, transform very nearly into zombies or at least creatures of some arcane night, and shamble after the boy until he is driven from town.

From here, Harry will meet many others who will come at him first as the gentle and friendly, and through our hero's nightmare eye, will reveal themselves as nothing more than hostiles. Women who would grant him sensual release will turn into harpies, those harpies would take on the face of a co-worker, those co-workers will join the rest of the citizenry in ritual sacrifice for a secret blood cult, and good Samaritans will always wish for something craven in return. The images fly fast, and every tiny thing skews threatening to the lad. A carnival which promises joy during the day becomes a bestial thing by night -- this is no profound statement the film is granting us, as we all naturally understand the dark side of such places. But it works remarkably well here, with zigzagging angles and monstrous shadows closing on Harry as he seeks an escape from his ceaseless, mostly self-imposed travails. The film, reflecting his rampant fears, will get the better of him.

The background paintings used to achieve these affects are rough but always lush in their hue and invention. The depth achieved in some of the pieces truly astounds, and despite how savage the film may seem content-wise, it is always stunningly gorgeous and composed. I must profess that even I, one who doesn't flinch at very much initially in any film, was taken aback somewhat by the carnality of the film. Not that I couldn't handle it, but after the comparative mellowness of the previous films on the disc, I wasn't expecting such brutality and menace, let alone the nudity and sex quotient. At times, the content is so grimy that one almost wishes to wash it away with a freakishly innocent episode of The Wiggles.

But it is all for purpose -- this is no gratuitous exercise in filth, but rather a very well-turned examination into stagnation and personal inertia. Harry himself will go back to his roofing job, day after day, slowly sucking into the world he despises and interprets as hostile. He will grow sloppier and unshaven, and his dreams will fade ever deeper into the back of his head as he surrenders only to the daily pleasures, which will fatten his body and weaken his resolve. He will likely even join the line of grunting Neanderthals lined up around the building waiting for a quickie release from a bored sex worker. He will become what he hates, and he will be unrecognizable from those whom he despises.

Hopefully after 22 years of this, he will truly wake up...

Spout Mavens Disc #14, Part 4 of 13: Shorts! Volume 3 - My Name is Yu Ming [Yu Ming Is Ainm Dom] (2003)

Director: Daniel O'Hara
Irish, 0:13, color
Cinema 4 Rating: 5

I have no facility for foreign languages. Some would say that even English gets the better of me most of the time. Even in a situation where it would behoove me to learn Spanish -- such as at work, where we often publish stories, sometimes my own, in what seems to be the predominant tongue of this region -- I find myself unable to negotiate my way through the Spanish language, except for a handful of words I absorbed through umpteen years vegging out in front of Sesame Street (peligro; abierto; cerrado...) I know that it would be wise to learn it, and it would greatly enhance my situation at work were I to get it down at least part of the way. Most of all, even achieving some small form of fluency would make it easier to converse with people on the street, and especially in my own neighborhood. But until I get a little pro-active and take a real course or at least hook up with that Rosetta Stone thing, I am a man displaced.

My chief fear in learning another language is in never getting the pronunciation of words correct enough to be even partially intelligible. A secondary fear is in getting the accent right, but not so much to avoid being mocked back by the targets of my international discourse, but more so that I don't appear that I am mocking them. You might think that I exaggerate these fears -- and it also might seem strange since I usually seem to revel in nothing but the mocking of others -- but I really have had nightmares about this recently. Even at work, after being introduced late last year to our new employee Jorge (but hearing him introduced as "George" to we gringos), I asked him which one he would rather I called him, Jorge or George. He said, "George. The way you say my real name is wack." Thus, in my ongoing tradition of dealing with things in my way, and not being comfortable calling him "George," his nickname of Proty was engineered (for reasons I have gone into elsewhere). I would rather invent new names than screw up the real ones.

And so, momentarily, I am keeping away from Spanish. My fears of being misunderstood or, far worse, insulting the ears of those with whom I wish to converse is running far too high at the moment. But my fears involving my transplanted acceptance are peanuts compared to those experienced by the lead character of the short film My Name is Yu Ming, the fourth entry on the Shorts! Volume 3 DVD collection. I moved from one state to another, where the official language remains the same no matter what is perceived politically to be the majority of residents speak here. Yu Ming leaves his native land of China to start his staid, boring existence over in an entirely new and foreign country, Ireland. A spin of a globe, the placement of a finger, a peek at the map, and Yu Ming is suddenly studying Gaelic (which he determines to do due to the atlas stating that Gaelic is the official language, where, in fact, according to the UNESCO site and charter, it shares that duty with English, with Gaelic as the first official language properly, and English as the second).

Yu Ming leaves the drudgery of his supermarket stocker's job and packs up for Ireland, momentarily suffused with renewed spirits from the knowledge that he has supposedly commandeered the helm of its native language, and is ready to pull into port and begin his life anew. (Actually, he takes a plane.) The signs of the airport and on the streets are all equally laden with slogans in both English and Gaelic, and so he is able to find his way easily wherever he wishes. But once he gets to his initial destination -- a small hostel, seeking shelter -- he is in for a rough time. No Gaelic spoken at all, just a very rough approximation of the Queen's English by a Billy Idol-type running the front counter, and the impression to all who surround Yu Ming is that he is not speaking Gaelic at all, but is actually speaking the language of that which his facial features corner him as representing. The Irish only hear the native language of their land pouring from Yu Ming's mouth as that of his own homeland. We find out later, through the timely interruption of a wizened pub-frequenter, that Yu Ming has, indeed, mastered Gaelic to such a degree that he is now amongst its most accurate deliverers.

It is an amusing prospect, and there are a handful of light laughs to be found in My Name is Yu Ming. Much of this is due to Daniel Wu's naturalistic portrayal of the lead character, who has a wide-eyed appeal that works well for Yu Ming's naive delving into a new land. Thanks to the juxtaposition of clashing cultures and tongues, and even the prospect of one language being mistaken for the other though being separated by many thousands of miles and continental and racial origin, the germ of the idea here is one which would be fun to explore deeper. But, in line with what does work here, My Name is Yu Ming is all surface, especially when taken through repeated viewings.

After my initial amusement at the predicament of this stranger in a strange land made even stranger by the fact that he arrives as one of its most fluent Gaelic speakers , there grows the realization that one is actually watching a 13 minute version of a Guinness commercial. Cut each of the scenes down to their primary elements and necessary exchanges, and down to five to ten seconds each at that -- something akin to editing this short into a trailer for it instead -- and a Guinness commercial is what you would have. Or, if shown during the just finished Beijing Olympics, it could have served as a Visa ad. Tack on the overly assured and slightly smarmy ending -- ignoring the fact that the scene takes place in a pub -- and you could easily mistake this for a Latter Day Saints happy-happy-life spot.

One could take this film to task for perhaps understating just how prevalent the use of the Irish tongue remains. One is led to believe here that only those who live in the farther reaches of the island continue to speak it at all. One is also led to believe that no one can understand a single word he is saying. I understand the conceit is that they believe he is speaking Chinese, but even later, when the elderly Paddy character is introduced, he lays down what are supposed to be the facts concerning the use of Gaelic -- that no one really speaks it anymore, that the signs using it are doing so out of tradition, etc. And even the bartenders, who are clearly familiar with the old man and should know full well that he speaks the old language of their land, think he is speaking Chinese just because he talks at length easily with Yu Ming. I also find it ridiculously hard to believe that at a youth hostel in a major Irish city, which revolves around serving tourists from a great many different places, backpackers of all types and curious travelers, that there wouldn't be someone on staff that spoke a smattering of Gaelic, if only to greet tourists in a polite and educational fashion.

Furthermore, I don't care what sort of superbly obsessed nebbish Yu Ming is, I just can't believe he can master the Irish language in only six months, and especially to such an extent that he is more fluent at it than the Irish themselves. If the film is, say, an Ace Ventura-type film, and Jim Carrey spits out a language mastery for Tlingit that he got down in a fortnight, you tend to believe it given the crazed proportions of the comedy already at hand. It's unbelievable, but so is everything surrounding it, and you therefore accept it. But this film is not the broadest of comedies, and its structure is far more natural and understated. In their efforts to bring their film to a cute, surface-satisfactory conclusion, the filmmakers undermine their structure and the whole thing crashes down with the slightest second glance.

Still, if anything, the film made me start thinking about my own second language attempts again. I am certain that if I just applied myself, and given the fact that I am already surrounded by co-workers and neighbors who gnash through it every day, that I can get Spanish down in three, four months. It will come out sounding like Chinese to their ears, but I will believe that I am speaking their language. And since it will sound like Chinese, they will look at my white-boy face and lightly reddish-blond hair, and they will think I am actually speaking Gaelic. And then, in my desperation to be understood, I will move to Ireland, where no one will understand me.

Except Yu Ming...

Spout Mavens Disc #14, Part 3 of 13: Shorts! Volume 3 - Passing Hearts [En del av mitt hjärta] (2004)

Director: Johan Brisinger
Swedish, 0:15, color
Cinema 4 Rating: 8

There is a dam bursting about ten minutes into the short film Passing Hearts that justifies everything. It justifies a tenuously made decision. It justifies the lives of a quartet of people. It justifies the bold adventure that the main character sets out upon which serves to give this short its deliberate, steady pulse. And it also justifies each and every second that the viewer spends up to that dam-bursting moment, studying each detail of the main character's actions, every line spoken around and about him, and every understated emotion on his face and the connected thoughts that can barely be discerned behind his eyes. It justifies our search for meaning in a story in which we are placed delicately in the surroundings of one seeking his own justification.

This dam burst is not literally a dam bursting, its torrential waters filling the screen and nearly drowning the populace. But the emotional effect is nearly the same. This torrent comes instead with a shuddering gasp and hands rattling on dishes. This torrent will unlock the film for us, opening it up to our full realization, and our warm acceptance of the characters within the film. There will be no more questions, no more tilting of our heads. We will be moved, and we will understand.

Passing Hearts, the third short film on the Shorts! Volume 3 DVD collection, is a quiet and compact mystery. Not a mystery in the usual genre sense, but more a crystalline puzzle, and by crystalline, I mean that we are able to see easily into the film -- we sense where it might be going relatively early -- but still it hides its true beauty in some slyly hidden facets, all but invisible to the incautious viewer. It is a short that begs total patience and willing immersion for it to be the most effective to anyone taking on its puzzle. This patience and immersion will bring to the dedicated watcher the knowledge that they have seen a nearly perfect example of the dramatic film short.

In the end, of course, like so many mysteries, Passing Hearts will seem so simple. And it is anything but. Because this is not a mystery of hidden passageways and the murderous assistance of blunt objects. This is a mystery that inhabits the same world in which we dwell, not an invented dimension populated by a superheroic sleuth and mystified suspects. Passing Hearts is a mystery of emotions, of a boy unsure of his purpose within the circumstances that have placed him at this point in his life. Of a boy who will never find rest until he does what must be done. Of a boy who needs the release that only the eventual bursting of a tear-laden dam will bring to him.

Would that we all could find our way to this moment when we most need it.

Spout Mavens Disc #14, Part 2 of 13: Shorts! Volume 3 - Gowanus, Brooklyn (2003)

Director: Ryan Fleck
19 value-soaked minutes, color
Cinema 4 Rating: 7

Half Nelson? What is that? A documentary about only one of Ricky Nelson’s offspring in a particularly ridiculous hair band from the ‘80s showing up for a gig?

Ah, I know what Half Nelson is… I just haven’t seen it yet. Even Oscar-nominated for Ryan Gosling’s performance and all that, I haven’t seen it. Even with a crack-smokin’ teacher and all that, I haven’t seen it. Honestly, it just didn’t sound like subject matter in which I would be particularly interested.

Then, without ever knowing the connection, I watched Gowanus, Brooklyn, the second of sixteen short films on the Shorts! Volume 3 DVD collection. Apparently, the film basically served as a demo reel for director Ryan Fleck to get a fleshed-out feature version with these characters made, the film we now know as Half Nelson. But I did not know this fact as I watched Gowanus, Brooklyn. I do not like to read the backs of DVDs before I view them; I would much rather be surprised, either happily or otherwise, by the result. All I knew was the title of the film, the name of the director (which I did not recognize, but will from now on) and that Gowanus ran a paunchy 19 minutes compared to most of the films on Shorts! Volume 3.

The result is that Half Nelson is now in the top spot of my Netflix queue. I cannot put off seeing it any longer. It isn’t that Gowanus is anything revolutionary as a film, but it is extremely intriguing. Gripping the viewer while understating the methods which caused such magic to be achieved, the film also slips away almost unnoticed. You reach a certain, small but necessary involvement with the two chief characters – a 12-year old practically latchkey girl and a genius schoolteacher caught up in a crippling crack addiction -- and then they are gone. Nineteen minutes has been reached without any awareness of the clock, like one was settling in for a feature... the short ignoring the normal laws of the short. Nothing is wrapped up; questions are raised but never answered. Some would see this as unfulfilling. I see it more in the way that a good short story can expand the reader’s imagination with a handful of perfectly detailed sentences, and does a service to the reader by allowing them to interpret the ending on their own, even letting them invent their own mythos for the characters, rather than forcefeeding them a trite, neatly packaged conclusion. Gowanus, Brooklyn operates as a blessedly unfinished and uniquely delicate miniature. We have a meet and greet with the main characters, we understand their pain and the salvation they possibly hold for each other, and then we are left to muse on what might happen to them. I don’t need to be told there is a happy ending. Likewise, if I wish to see the struggle that lies ahead for them, then so be it. Left on its own, I find Gowanus a most interesting place. I don't really need a feature to flesh it out for me.

And yet, I clearly did not get enough of Shareeka Epps’ performance as 12-year old Drey. Her part is mostly composed of discerning glares and stares, the machinery in her mind surmising each situation as it confronts her. But even with a minimum of dialogue, or perhaps due to this, she is mesmerizing. Matt Kerr, whose part would become the more famous and possibly more charismatic Mr. Gosling’s in the very near future, is perhaps not as winning, but Kerr brings a nice, deer-in-the-headlights uncertainty to his involvement with the young Epps, who catches him attempting to get high in the girls’ locker room after he coaches one of their games and they have departed for the evening. With a secret now held over him that could potentially end his teaching career, but sensing his pain and confusion, Drey intuitively allows him a secret of her own (no matter if it is a small, trivial thing compared to his life-threatening one), which allows them to share common ground. And a tentative friendship is born, albeit on extremely wobbly legs. And then the film ends -- questions posed, answers in limbo.

So, now the next Netflix film I shall receive this weekend will be Half Nelson. I am intrigued to see how Epps carries on her role in a longer production, and I want to see how Gosling expands and, from accounts as varied as nearly every film critic and festival board around the world, improves upon Kerr’s turn in the Mr. Dunne role. Apparently, Kerr himself even shows up in the feature version as another character, and this, too, has me interested. Mostly, I want to see where director Ryan Fleck intends to take the two characters, and how they will play out with the other characters established in Gowanus – the troublesome brother, the too-busy paramedic mother, the other girls in Drey’s class -- and how they will react to Drey's unlikely bond with a teacher.

It’s a form of interest I did not expect to get from just sliding into watching a mere short film on this DVD – how could I expect it, unless I read about it? For a person who loves chance discovery, this is like candy, no matter if I end up liking Half Nelson or not. As I said before, I would much rather be surprised. This surprise -- chancing upon this demo of a feature -- indeed, did turn out happily, if only for me. Most would feel such a bare bones work would leave them unfulfilled, but, were you to ask me, I would say that most can’t operate without being openly lead to solid resolution anyway. My world doesn’t work that way. There is little in the way of true resolution here, this flighty, generally ambiguous and unforgiving world. There are only more questions upon questions, all of which tend to result in answers that remain stubbornly recalcitrant. It doesn't bother me, though -- I don't need answers. I just need to understand how films like Gowanus, Brooklyn affect me. And in my short version of the world, isn’t my opinion the one that counts?

Hold on… please don’t answer that. Wait for the feature version instead…

Spout Mavens Disc #14, Part 1 of 13: Shorts! Volume 3 - Hyper (2002)

Director: Michael Canzoniero & Marco Ricci
5 minutes, something-something seconds, b/w & color
Cinema 4 Rating: 5

Even speaking as somehow who can multi-task and also walks about in a far quicker fashion than about ninety percent of humanity, I don’t want to hear about some other loser’s ideas or tips on speedier personal locomotion and time-saving. I figure everyone goes the pace that is best suited to them. No one wants to hear me whine about how slow the rest of you are; I don’t want someone telling me I need to slow down… doctor, girlfriend, boss… My personal velocity is my business, and to paraphrase Robyn Hitchcock, I am merely moving at the speed of things.

And who wants to hear from a messenger on a motorized scooter anyway? In Hyper, the first of sixteen short films on the appropriately named short film collection Shorts! (which has a “Volume 3” appended to its title, but I have never seen or heard of the first two, or any succeeding, volumes thereof), we meet just such a messenger -- by name, one Ace Bivone. And then, detail by detail, with time signatures applied to each of those details featuring pluses or minuses which serve to properly illuminate us on the smarmy messenger’s (losing cause against the agents of time, we get the picture. Ridiculously blind to the ultimate fault of his system, we hear of Ace’s philosophy regarding the speed of things about him, his anger at the tourists and bumbling pedestrians that impede his progress, and how his constant battle with villainous time keeps him juggling multiple items of business, including the quaffing of enormous quantities of liquid speed, i.e. coffee.

As one who routinely denigrates and tramples upon the usage of coffee in any situation or society, I cannot identify with such a viewpoint. For caffeine, yes. But not for coffee. My doctor is named Pepper, and even there, I have limited my use of the substance far below that which I used to intake. (Tea is the backup, and actually now, the more constant member of my speed binge stash.)

But I don’t have to identify with Ace to take in his advice. If only he had some decent tips. He’s so sure of himself, but his every move, especially his griping about how dating keeps him behind (personally, I am surprised he allots even fifteen minutes, as the film states, to “quality time” with his now ex-beloved), leaves him (though he would never admit it) lonely and in the service of two French porn models on the pages of a magazine.

That the filmmakers intend to show that Ace is, in Hyper’s would-be frenzied finish, pretty much a self-obsessed loser is undoubted. I swiftly realized that even attempting to identify with this chump of chumps was never in the offing. Especially with the dopey motorized scooter (which he believes is quicker and better than biking about on his deliveries) and the coffee obsession. So, as a self-confessed swiftness demon, what was there here for me, since Ace bespoke nada in the way of actual usable advice towards maintaining one’s propulsion through a crowded street, unimpeded by the uncaring and klutzy masses?

Not really all that much, because while the filmmakers have a clever idea here (and let me state that I am not totally unimpressed with some of its contents), the resulting product actually plays against itself. The film (at only five minutes and forty-some seconds) is too long by half, and the narration not quite frenetic enough to make me believe he is as obsessed with time as he says. The film is simply not fast enough to sell its premise, and somehow manages to drag even with its limited running length. This is borne out by the first of two commentaries by the directors on the disc, which is done with their voices sped up so they could almost pass for Alvin and the Chipmunks. It might seem funny to them but, man, taking this approach slows their work down even more, making what really should have been a whirling dervish of a film seem as much like one of the mind-numbed pedestrians that Ace Bivone rails against.

And I simply had far too much to do that night to wait around for Hyper to end again. So I combined my third commentary-laden showing with a quick trip to the facilities and then a stop by the refrigerator for another soda. (I even fed the dogs following that…) Multi-tasking, in the end, and as always, proved to be my savior in getting through it. The trick is in combining something you need to do for yourself (i.e. relieve one’s bladder and/or quench one’s thirst) with that which others expect you to do (i.e. formulate an opinion on something for which you have already lost interest). Obscure the blandly evil task with those tasks which are more apt to bring one pleasure. In the end, all of the tasks, the boring and the sublime, were completed. In the end, the proper balance was attained.

Look at me. Even mired in my own self-absorption, I’m so frickin’ Zen.

Something Ace Bivone can only dream he was…

Netfluxxed Beyond All Recognition "Not Really A Quiz Anymore" Quiz #2

I knew that I could only try it once. The whole point of my initial Netfluxxed Quiz on weird Netflix recommendations was that there was no way in hell anyone could predict that a movie like Flamenco could come out of a Buster Keaton silent comedy, a rough Ridley Scott sword duelling epic and a British TV series featuring Fry and Laurie as a posh ninny and his brilliant butler in the 1920's. (To see all the hubbub, click here and here.)

So, there is no point in continuing such a quiz. But I do wish to continue putting up these silly things, mainly because it gives me a quick post for those extra busy days (or those days when I am feeling "not so fresh"), but also because it is so damn silly. And for this round, it will also serve to celebrate the fact that, near the end of my fourth summer here in Southern California, I recently spent my first Sunday (albeit a mere couple of hours) on one of the many beaches here. Unlike most of Alaska, this beach had sand. And bikinis. And lots and lots of canines -- it was the Huntington Beach Dog Beach, right there in Surf City itself. And only some of the bikinis were on dogs.

And the place had a handful of surfers, which is why I am choosing the following two recommendations. First, the titles which inspired Netflix to recommend the first film, and all of them are probably somewhere in my 50 favorite films of all-time, if not an even more exclusive list with a number much smaller than 50:

Annie Hall - Woody Allen's Oscar-winning classic comedy with a spider as big as a Buick.
Blue Velvet - David Lynch's amazing whodunit, my romantic litmus test, and which also serves as the film with my all-time favorite movie walkout scenario.
A Clockwork Orange - The Kubrick film I always retreat to when I wish to smash an eggy-wegg (but not my pal Eggy).

Granted, according to the description of the documentary Surfwise: The Amazing True Story of the Paskowitz Family, about an aging surfing guru with nine kids who lives in a camper by the beach and dispenses odd life lessons, there is likely comedy in it which is both intentional and unintentional. And I haven't seen it, obviously, so I cannot fully judge if it really does fit in with these films. But it still seems like a big leap to connect three Oscar-nominated and/or winning narrative films to a doc about a hippie weirdo.

Now, for the other surfing recommendation. I will let Netflix do the talking for the documentary Blue Horizon:

This innovative surf video follows two-time surfing world champion Andy Irons and "soul-surfer" Dave "Rasta" Rastovich, comparing and contrasting their personal and professional styles. Director Jack McCoy spent a year shooting footage at exotic locations around the world to capture the excitement and passion of two very different athletes. In the process, he reveals how far the sport has come -- and how much further it could go.

And the film (not even a real film, actually, but a television special) which inspired this sports documentary recommendation?

The Best of Victor Borge.

I will also let Netflix do the talking for comparison:

Combining physical comedy and classical music to brilliant effect, Victor Borge was a pioneer in his field, and this performance features many of his greatest routines, including "Introducing Mozart," "My Favorite Barber" and "The Timid Page Turner." Borge also welcomes a pair of special guests -- soprano Marylyn Mulvey and pianist Sahan Arzruni -- who join him on stage for some hilarious moments.

Wow. Apparently it's a short swim from the beach to the stage at the Philharmonic.

Netflix, you're a wonder...

Spout Mavens Disc #13: Wondrous Oblivion (2003)

Director: Paul Morrison
Pathé/Momentum, 1:46, color
Cinema 4 Rating: 5

Last week, I wrote a piece about a film involving a young Brazilian lad with whom I was able to identify due to a shared love we both had for sport. In each case, it was a different, particular sport: mine, baseball; his, soccer. The connecting factor between us was that we both created worlds in which the trivia and paraphernalia surrounding each sport, rather than the sport itself, were the primary basis and focus of our individual obsessions. And each obsession was a way in which we could protect ourselves, sometimes to our detriment, from the familial strife surrounding us, though the boy from Brazil's problems perhaps a bit more political heft to them.

In Wondrous Oblivion, we meet another such lad, perhaps the third member of our party, though I am fairly certain that our true number, this group of game-obsessed, youthful dreamers, is in the tens of millions. Given the proliferation of fantasy sports leagues nowadays, perhaps this group has largely either moved fully beyond childhood for such matters, or childhood has now been stretched to Winsor McCay proportions. Regardless, David is a child of those displaced by the war, his parents being Jewish European immigrants. He and his family live in a home in a somewhat shabby area of London, though his father's successful grocery keeps the family getting on pretty well -- well enough to look for a bigger home in a better area -- and David in a boy's school, though he is generally not well accepted by the rest of his class.

Mostly, this is due to David being rather quiet and shy, and if they gave awards for portraying wide-eyed innocents for much of a film's running length as something near to a git, then the filmmakers would be rolling in the post-show bling. More than anybody else on earth possibly could, David loves cricket. The problem is that David sucks at it. Really, really sucks at it. Can't field, can't hit... the kid can barely throw the ball five feet, and never in a straight line. The one thing that kid has going for him is earnestness, though through my eyes, this just makes him seem a tad simple, and it seems to be that way for his schoolmates as well.

Enter the Samuels, the new next door neighbors from Jamaica. Mr. Dennis Samuels immediately erects an elaborate cricket net in their backyard, so they can practice bowling (what we would call pitching in baseball) and then hit the ball safely without smashing out every window in the neighborhood. Dennis has an adorable daughter named Judy with whom David will become enamored, mostly because she, too, is obsessed by cricket. Except her obsession stems from the fact that she is actually good at playing it, not just at mooning over the sport all misty-eyed.

This seems like the perfect scenario in which a withdrawn, cricket-mad lad can finally find the guidance he needs in the sport which he loves so much, sometimes to his detriment. Only, most of the neighborhood is unhappy with a black family moving in, and David's family is already under pressure due to their own racial background. When David becomes too close to the Samuels' family, David's parents will bear the brunt of the pressure from local racists and tsk-tsking neighbors, while David remains mostly encased in the comfort of his world where everything is cricket. Or what one of his teachers will describe as David's "wondrous oblivion."

This film, like the Samuels family for David, seemed like the perfect opportunity for myself as well. Unlike much of speed and power-obsessed America, where even baseball has become a "boring" sport, I actually enjoy a pastime even slower and more pastoral in nature. Even more so, I like being given chances to see the British love of cricket through more than just a random scene here or there. My pal Eggy leaped upon this knowledge and sent me a copy of the Bollywood film Lagaan a couple of years ago, and she was so right and wonderful to do such a thing. Right in my wheelhouse. I even watch the half-hour Cricket World wrap-up on one of the Asian cable networks every Sunday or so, and check the listings for that once-in-a-while test match that pops up on Fox Soccer Channel without any regularity whatsoever. So, to be handed a film that obsesses as much as its young protagonist over the sport seems too good to be true. Add to this the early '60s London atmosphere, the slow build of an integrated society, and a soundtrack filled with songs from the first wave of ska (a personal favorite genre of music), and it would seem that Wondrous Oblivion couldn't miss with me.

And yet, after 105 minutes of merely average drama, I was left wanting so much more. Not that I wanted anything terrible to happen to any of the main characters (except maybe David, who I wanted to punch in the temples every once in a while), but the mounting threat of the violence comes off almost cartoonish, like it wandered in from Absolute Beginners (where at least it seemed far more dangerous, even while being enveloped by lip-synced musical numbers). Everything in this film is all threat -- the possible romance between David's cute, marriage-stunned mother and Mr. Samuels (played by Delroy Lindo, an actor I have never really enjoyed much, in what may be his most perfect role) is all bluff, and ultimately plays false -- and even the cricket scenes are this way. Where I am pleased with the detail to the minutiae of the game, once David learns to play and even become one of the best in his school at the game, the film tails off and doesn't allow us to truly revel in his success. They try to compensate at the end with a scene involving some top-flight stars of the game, but there aren't any fireworks to it. It becomes as workaday as the rest of the film.

Even this "wondrous oblivion" David lives in really doesn't come off. The fantasy elements are too underplayed -- almost thankfully, since they are dreadfully done as it is -- for them too work in the piece at large. David's player cards, which he collects throughout the film, come to life in his eyes as he plays his tabletop games, and the effect strikes a note of discord with the rest of the film. It just doesn't match. And so, too, goes the phrase "wondrous oblivion." At the beginning of the film, his teacher says the phrase in reference to David, and somehow the kid picks it up as a personal catchphrase. He uses it whenever something strikes his fancy, but honestly, even though we are told he is a good student, David seems just a tad too daft to pick up on anything, especially a softly whispered minor insult. As a screenwriting device, and as a title, "wondrous oblivion" comes off as too forced.

As a film, though, it is anything but forced. It's a walk in the park where you meet a couple of scary muggers, but they are on their day off. It's wistful nostalgia without any sort of grounding on which one can plant their feet for a rest. I don't want to actually dissuade people from seeing it, as it is, on first glance, a well-made film. Their are decent performances from Emily Woof as the mother, and the aforementioned excellent Lindo. The ska music is fine, the party scene is teasing, and the cricket is grand. But don't read "well-made" as "well-crafted," though.

Wondrous Oblivion is too caught up in its own fantasy that it is already doing everything right to really care to do it right. And that, on any field, is an "all out."

The Way Things Work for Me (Parenthetically, Eddie Izzard @ the Kodak Theatre, August 6, 2008, 8pm)

You would have thought it was enough that I was stepping inside the Kodak Theatre, the home of the Academy Awards, for the first time. Because of my immersion in film history and my near worship of many of the people celebrated in the over-sized photographs that adorn the walls of each floor (and my lack of worship of certain ones amongst their number, such as Ms. Roberts, who beguiles me not at all), you would be forgiven if you assumed that here, at last, I was at peace with the world.

Oh, yeah. Jen and I were also there to take in a live performance by Mr. Eddie Izzard. So I had that going for me.

And yet, this wasn't enough for me. No, even though I was somewhat out-of-body as I left the portico and slipped through the front doors, the journey (encumbered somewhat by a missed turn into the parking lot that left us driving about for half an hour just to return to the same point, taking in Hollywood High School, a pair of mounted police officers, a nearly passable drag queen, a film shoot and a P.R. setup along the way) still did not feel complete.

And then, I heard this over the sound system of the Kodak Theatre:

"I'm an alligator,
I'm a mama-papa comin' for you
I'm a space invader,
I'll be a rock 'n' rollin' bitch for you..."

David Bowie closed the inter-dimensional gateway behind me as I freaked out in a Moonage Daydream. Oh, yeah.

I'm in the Kodak Theatre, surrounded by Oscar memorabilia, deeply aware that my every step was merely tracing over pathways already trod by many of Hollywood's elite, and I'm about to take in what is sure to be a hilarious effort by Eddie Izzard. And what sums it all up for me is a Bowie song? And a second-tier Bowie song to boot? Certainly the song is known pretty well, especially by those who go beyond greatest hit packages, who seek the song out as the third track on the incredible Ziggy Stardust album. But, as one who spent a good deal of years listening to the whole of the ChangesOneBowie and ChangesTwoBowie albums being played on "classic rock" radio over and over and over, I have only heard Moonage Daydream spun over the airwaves twice. And, in public, never. Unfortunate, indeed, since it is one of my favorite Bowie tunes.

And here, at the Kodak Theatre, I am singing along quietly to Moonage Daydream, waiting for Jen to depart the Ladies' lounge pre-show. I am eying the activity at the second floor bar, as I lean against the railing of the massive staircase leading upward, debating to myself whether I should partake of alcohol for the show. I am more than a little wound up from worrying about making it in time, but I decide to skip the booze because I tend to enjoy (read: remember) shows better when I don't drink, and also because it is already 8 o'clock, and the line is already stretching around the far side of the staircase. (Why there is only one bartender at each floor's bar I do not know. During the show, yes, you only need one. But pre-show? Damn it! Get those lushes to their seats!)

Besides, I have Moonage Daydream. Even with the frenzied guitar finish, it calms me. Takes the edge off just slightly, and centers my mind. I forget my torment over thinking we would be late for the show with the accidental detour of our initial course to the theatre. Soon, Moonage will give way to a PJ Harvey song -- an artist that never gets played on normal radio -- and I then wondered whether they might be playing Eddie's personal playlist off his iPod. The often androgynous nature of both songs and performers seems to lend themselves quite well to Izzard's self-proclaimed "male tomboy-executive transvestite" motif, and it wouldn't surprise me to learn he requests this in a rider to help his audiences ease into the show. But, I don't know this at all nor could I ever verify it -- it's just the way it was.

Soon, Jen and I are climbing the stairs to our perch in the upper mezzanine. OK, so it's not as great as sitting on the floor for the show. We are definitely sitting with the po' folks, amongst whom we count ourselves without regret (except the regrets that come with having little or no money). And we are definitely not in the back row, so that's a bonus. We are centered, and we are able to get the eagle's view of the entire room. I tell Jen how small the stage looks, never knowing that the Kodak stage is actually one of the biggest in the country. Jen mentions it must be the way they film it. (Assuredly, the first thing Eddie mentions when he hits that very stage is how small it seems compared to the sense of it on television, and that they must use some sort of "fish-eyed view cameras" to film it.)

The Bowie-Harvey tunes gave way to music of a more classical nature within the theatre proper, but I was still grooving to that initial Bowie mood-setter upon entering the front doors. And I reflected upon how so often in my life, my actions or moods are not governed so much by the actual activity or show to which I am going, but by the more subliminal influence of the noises or atmosphere around me. I suppose that "subliminal" doesn't really come into effect if one is completely aware of the music. And I am that one person that notices. At a restaurant, I hear everything going on around me, and am often more caught up in these little aural sidebars than I am in actual dinner conversation. Bad songs played in a decent restaurant can turn it into a place to which I no longer wish to return; alternately, I will often forgive mediocre food if the playlist is awesome. Likewise, conversation at adjoining tables always sucks me in, and if someone is an asshole or an unforgivable git, it can turn the whole dinner on me.

And then that whole dinner can turn right around again if something like Moonage Daydream were to be played over the sound system. It's the way things work for me. The experience itself doesn't just come into play for me; it's everything that surrounds the experience. Details, details, details -- not just, "let's go see the show -- show -- wasn't that great?" I'm more, "Did you notice those shabby people next to me who traded off opera glasses every 13 seconds or so? And hardly ever laughed or cracked a smile? Were they at the right show, and why couldn't they spring for a second pair of goddamn glasses?"

Eddie, by the way, was just fine -- not his best material, but some crackling new bits, and I imagine that the eventual DVD will feature a show where he has really refined most of it. (Did you know, by the way, that the original title of Darwin's The Origin of Species was "Monkey Monkey Monkey Monkey Monkey -- YOU!") Much of the show revolves around religion, and while many of his arguments against it really aren't ever strong enough to convert anyone away from their particular faith -- which I don't think he has any intent at doing anyway -- they are all consistently hilarious. The truly amazing part was that he was on stage for nearly two hours, never taking a break or a drink of anything in that entire time. Also, a bit of a surprise, he was not really in drag, either -- blue jeans, boots and tux jacket with crimson inlay. The L.A. crowd, including the people next to me, were either not very responsive or, as Jen put it, too responsive when they were, whooping and hollering every once in a while, and then dropping the laughter almost to whisper status. For my part, Izzard implies constant amusement, and I laughed throughout. As did Jen. We received more than our money's worth, and now we have seen Eddie live. It won't be the last time, either, but it was a solid first effort.

And my night was already made before the show anyway. My world was in balance through the playing of a single David Bowie song, as I entered the home of the Oscars. And all the way home, I had Moonage Daydream rushing through my head...

Netfluxxed Beyond All Recognition, Answer #1: Flamenco (1995)

I'm not saying I wouldn't want to watch an entire film filled with flamenco dancing. In fact, it could be quite entertaining, especially were it to be filmed with the flair appropriate to such a beautiful and dynamic dance form. From all signs -- largely positive reviews, high ratings from random viewers on IMDB, Netflix, Amazon and other movie boards -- Flamenco, a 1995 film by Carlos Saura, could really be something to behold.

I just don't know how it was suggested to me on Netflix.

Let me qualify this: I pretty much know how it was suggested to me. I know that they compare what you like on Netflix to what others like on Netflix, and then figure if those others like a movie you had not seen, then you would like it if you saw it. I know its a computer program using algorithms that I neither care nor want to bother caring about for too long.

But I want to pretend I just don't know how it was suggested to me on Netflix. I wish to feign astonishment for the sake of a hearty laugh, a shake of the head and a heavy sigh of disbelief. It's my world, after all.

I won't belabor this much beyond this point. I just find this all highly amusing. Given the titles I did rate highly (not even all movies I might add, nor even all in color, nor even all with sound, nor even all comedies, none of them concentrating at all on music or dance, etc., etc....), I find the connection to this film extremely tenuous by any standard. And now I am on the lookout for even crazier selections. I can't even begin to imagine.

But now, I guess I am going to have to rent Flamenco. Damn it...

Spout Mavens Disc #12: The Year My Parents Went on Vacation [O Ano em Que Meus Pais Saíram de Férias] (2006)

Director: Cao Hamburger
Brazilian, 1:45, color
Cinema 4 Rating: 7

I never went out and actively looked for a job in soccer. It never even occurred to me that one would ever want a job in soccer. And yet, I have one. I stumbled upon it absolutely by accident, and it has meant the world to me. I have learned so much through this stumble -- not necessarily about soccer -- and I hope that others perceive that I am the better for it, because that is certainly how I feel about it.

Before I took this job, though, I never imagined just how fully vested the rest of the world outside the U.S. was in this simple sport, what has been termed "the beautiful game" by people far more knowledgeable about these things than I am. Me, I always assumed that the game which had trademarked beauty was my beloved baseball -- you know, the one with the spitting, crotch-grabbing, often yokel players and the brushback pitches and mound-charging brawls. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and that eye just beheld some chin music...

Hell, as a kid, I never even saw anyone play soccer until I was in high school. I didn't play it until then. Little League baseball, Pop Warner football and Pee Wee hockey were it as far as I can remember. You did them all or you did one, in my experience. I did one -- the obvious one -- and I did it badly... epically badly. But I was obsessed by the center of my failure. I ignored my failure and still embraced "my" beautiful game. Unable to play the game physically in a proper manner, I took it to the table. I invented my own baseball dice game, and even though eventually, I would move to Strat-O-Matic baseball and other professional versions into my adulthood, I never loved any of them as much as my own stupid tabletop invention. I memorized thousands of baseball cards, and then used those same cards to hold each player's position on the table, and I spoke in what I imagined were the voices of the players as they swung at each pitch of the dice ("boxcars" meant "home run," by the way), and acted out the play according to those rolls of the dice. I kept scorecards too (I still have some of them in my files), and I was very careful to choose a proper lineup based on each player's stats on the backs of their cards, even if the chance of the dice completely drove away any purpose to my doing this. I was kid, and I was in love with my sport -- what did I know?

In The Year My Parents Went On Vacation, young Mauro is in love with his sport, soccer, too. And he, too, has taken it to the table. Playing with a pair of tiny goals and poker-style chips, along with a pair of matchboxes decorated to portray the individual goalies, Mauro spends his idle hours quietly holding his own World Cup, with his beloved home country Brazil and its amazing star Pelé bringing all challengers to their knees. Unlike me, though, Mauro can play his beautiful game -- perhaps he is even as good as most of the kids in his neighborhood -- but on the tabletop, he is truly obsessive, and the master of his world. However, in this quiet, emotionally rewarding Brazilian film, we never get the chance to see just how good Mauro is against those neighborhood kids in street ball, because no sooner do we meet the lad, than he is whisked away from his home to São Paulo, the home of his grandfather, a beloved barber in a small, tightly knitted Jewish community.

The year is 1970, and Mauro's parents are involved with a communist organization that is under intense pressure from the military dictatorship which controlled Brazil over parts of three decades. They leave Mauro at the stoop of his grandfather's apartment building and drive off, telling their son to tell everyone that asks that they "went away on vacation." They promise their young son, who in his innocence has no real way of comprehending how his world is possibly falling apart around him, that they shall return in time for the World Cup. We know upon hearing this that it is likely nothing more than a little white lie, but Mauro not only believes it, but practically builds his own religion around the statement. His every action from this point on, no matter how it affects those around him, will center around his belief in his parents' timely return.

What no one could have figured into the equation is that Mauro's grandfather will perish from heart failure the very afternoon of Mauro's arrival. Mauro is discovered waiting sadly for his grandfather to appear by a kindly neighbor. The neighbor, Shlomo, a Polish Jew, despite his initial protestations to his synagogue, is convinced to to take care of the boy until the return of his parents. But Mauro is not a quiet little innocent. He is sullen and pouty and given to temper tantrums due to his obsessiveness. He is also remarkably independent, even living by himself in his grandfather's place for a while, surviving through the intervention of a cute, smart neighbor girl named Hannah, healthy meals with the chatty women of the apartment building, and some surprising friends he meets on his exile from his parents. (One touch I really enjoyed was the way in which there weren't any subtitles anytime that Shlomo would say something in either Polish or Hebrew that Mauro himself wouldn't understand. We are kept as much in the dark as he is over what is being said.)

And always around all of this activity, there is the reality of the political struggle in the streets and the growing anticipation surrounding what every citizen, no matter where they stand politically, assumes will be a sure victory for Brazil in the World Cup. Every character's immediate side thought, outside of their own lives and survival, is for the game. Who will play where, who will team up best on the pitch, and what teams will match up best against Brazil. Like myself searching for an elusive Pete Rose card in 1977 while my parents drove us crazy with their battle for custody in a messy divorce, Mauro loses himself in packs of soccer cards, which he stores in a beloved notebook, all the while searching himself for that one special card. It was through my own parallels with Mauro's mindset at a roughly similar age that I was able to identify with this movie.

And yet, despite the general overall excellence of the piece, I found myself drifting. I am now at the age where I am caring less and less about identifying with a single sports franchise, and care not at all for any form of nationalism. As Mauro becomes more frustrated through the film waiting impatiently for his never-returning parents, like a pair of coupling Godots, so did I begin to lose some small interest. I don't even like to celebrate sports victories with people who are cheering for the same side as I am. So, as the whole of São Paulo buries themselves deeper and deeper into a nationalistic fervor over their beloved team -- which is supported throughout via vintage footage of the great Pelé and his compatriots scoring one unbelievable goal after another -- I began tuning out somewhat. Eventually, you are just watching other people watching television, and while there are a couple of interesting or clever exchanges that occur between characters during these sections, I grew as impatient as Mauro, joining him in his wish that his parents would just show up and get this thing over with already. It really didn't affect my opinion of the film in the end, but it does need to be pointed out that it can be a little tedious awaiting resolution.

And then I realized that so much of what happens in this film, and what happened in my own childhood at that age, arrived out of tedium and confusion. Likely, I became immersed in my tabletop baseball game for many of the same reasons that Mauro does with his game. His parents, deep in their political leanings and obviously important enough cogs within their own machinery that they have to flee the country, though loving parents, probably unintentionally drove Mauro deep into his fantasy soccer world through being too busy with their real one. Likewise, my game was grown out of frustration with the goings on in my home life, and it was just easier to tune everything out with a self-created and managed baseball game of my own. That both of us had to grow up and take what lessons we could from our experiences was all that we could do. Both too young to deal with the real world in these terms; both unable to avoid it either.

Often the reason why people band together to cheer for a single team or hero can be a form of group catharsis. It doesn't have to be so much a warlike brutishness -- though many times it can be -- but rather a shared relief. Those that people The Year My Parents Went on Vacation -- Mauro and his neighbors in the Jewish neighborhood, all come together through sport, and it is easy to see how one game can capture much of the globe, especially one as mired in poverty and war as ours. My troubles have never even come close to equally those in both this film and in the real world that largely worships soccer. But we have all found that sweet relief that sport can often bring to the psyche.

It is fortunate for all of us, despite the differences in our individual preferred sports, that they can all share the same "beautiful" aspect: as a small form of blessed, temporary escape from a world too cruel and uncaring sometimes to handle.

Netfluxxed Beyond All Recognition Quiz #1

Those with Netflix will know instantly to what I am referring here. Ever log on to Netflix and check out your Recommendations page? I normally don't. I try to use a more intuitive and organic approach to discovering films, and enjoy making it more of a "found item" journey than one in which one corporation tries to force-feed me the goods of another corporation. But every once in a while, I like to check the Recommendations page out, mainly because its a quick and simple way to add more ratings to Netflix (which I am, now that I think of it, unsure of why I even do that since, ultimately, the only real reason to do that is to get things recommended to you -- which I don't like...)

Most of the time Netflix makes some sort of sense with their recommendations. Take, for instance, the fact they are recommending Madea's Family Reunion to me because I highly rated both Malcolm X and The Color Purple. Recommending Futurama Season 3 to me because I loved The Simpson Movie, Futurama Season 1 and The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror is a no-brainer. I get that, even though they should probably figure that if I am that far into the Groening oeuvre, then I am probably hip to Season 3 of Futurama already.

But then, Netflix produces some amazing whoppers. I am reminded of the Patton Oswalt bit about his first experience with TiVo, where he watches The Man from Laramie, a classic Anthony Mann western, and the next morning, TiVo has completely filled up with "horsie shows," a phrase Oswalt speaks in TiVo's voice, which most of us would recognize to be that of a stereotypical mentally disabled person. TiVo throws a fit trying to defend its decision, and Oswalt moans "Thank god, you don't have retard strength, TiVo..."

Hopefully, Netflix doesn't either, because I am launching a new series here, in which I will give any of my readers out there the title of the films that Netflix uses as the basis of its recommendation, and then a couple of days from now, I will let you know the actual title of the movie it actually thought would be a decent match to the previous set of films. I will even give you some capsule hints to each "enjoyed" film so that you can see just how far-ranging Netflix has gone to suggest something to me. If you can actually match my answer, I will try to come up with some sort of prize. I will be completely honest, but I can almost guarantee you, there is not a single chance in all of the Chinese hells (the Chinese have a lot of hells, you know) that you will guess it. If you do, then your name is probably Netflix...

NETFLUXXED QUIZ #1
Because you enjoyed:
1. Seven Chances (1925, directed by Buster Keaton, silent, black and white comedy, Buster runs down a mountain chased by a zillion women who want to marry him to get to his fortune)

2. The Duellists (1977, Ridley Scott's directorial debut, based on a Joseph Conrad story, Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel are soldier rivals who duel with swords throughout the Napoleonic age)

3. Jeeves and Wooster: Season Three (1992, classic British TV comedy, P.G. Wodehouse, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie doing what they do best... make Jen and I laugh uproariously)

Based on these choices, can you guess what Netflix recommended? The answer on Friday...

Lettin' It Sink In: Teeth (2007)

Director: Mitchell Lichtenstein
Cinema 4 Rating: 7

Having spent a couple of posts recently squirming in anguish over the lost or squandered opportunities of others (the Undead or Alive posts -- here and here -- and the bit on Severance), it hit me suddenly that perhaps I haven't explained precisely why I get so anguished over such things. In the Severance piece I hinted at the feeling that overtakes me within a viewing of a particularly interesting film where I know I will be visiting that flick again sometime in the future, perhaps even dozens of times. But, for me, there is a level above and beyond even that one...

I am, like so many others, what is described as a movie nut. Honestly, I am probably more of a movie fetishist, but let’s not get into semantics. A fetishist is a nut in most people’s eyes, and most likely some form of addict, so let’s leave it at that. The first step is admitting you have, well, not a problem… I prefer to call it deep focus. (It just so happens that is a movie term, too… see how neat and tidy this all is? At least, in my mind...)

There is a feeling that for me is better than any high offered by any form of illicit narcotic or pharmaceutical. It is a feeling that only pops up for me, at most, a handful of times a year, but usually even less so. If I am lucky, once or twice annually. To someone so focused on movies, this is almost a mental orgasm, and often better than a real one, which in truth, is pretty damn fleeting and often less emotionally connected. But this feeling can stick with you for life, and every time you return for an encounter with the source of its power, you can actually build on that initial moment of discovery. The movies which contain the rough elements of this feeling can be a varied lot. Certifiably classic films can bring about this "cine-gasm" in me, and they only get better and better over time and unending viewings, where most, more generic films would only bring about an overdose of familiarity and quick boredom.

But equally as often I gain this feeling from films most people, except those happily indoctrinated, would consider "low" films. It's there in Raimi's Evil Dead series and it's there in Romero's first two zombie flicks (but none of the rest). Most of Cronenberg's and Lynch's early work does this for me, so inventive and daring were they, even while fulfilling the drive of the respective philosophies of those two distinctive filmmakers. This in no way means that something like Scanners is on the same level film-wise as a Citizen Kane -- just to mention two films that perfectly embody the thrill of which I am speaking -- but I revisit them each almost equally as often. It's not about outright quality sometimes, but pure coolness. And it is a deeply personal sense too, unique to each individual that chooses to recognize the sensation. The feeling is so personal, that to me to watch any of the first seven Marx Brothers films is to experience waves of pleasure within my brain that a lifetime of continual service from the most practiced and beautiful of Thai hookers couldn't bring about physically in me (not that I am not fully willing to give this theory a thorough, scientifically grounded testing...)

Strangely enough, and much to my complete surprise, midway through Teeth, an invigorating feminist horror film that tosses about severed penises like so much confetti, I realized this most elusive feeling. Where once I would have expected to wince in shocked agreement with my assumed brotherhood that is the male population that perhaps, for once, now that the tables have turned on us, that this low-budget gore film has gone too, too far, instead I found nirvana. And, more than ever, I knew definitely that there was no such thing as a brotherhood to which I belonged. I split from the fraternity of "guys" long ago. Bunch of mama-missin', homophobic, beer-swillin', peer-pressurized rapists. Sure, I can be a base perv as much as any male, but most of the time, when I choose to act that way, the portrayal is meant to be ironic. (It's like when my bro Shane yells "Foo'ball!" to mock jock-heads.) And my own perversity is mainly limited to my own battered psyche, where anything goes and nothing is judged. Part of this self-imposed limitation can definitely be attributed to the siphoning off of certain energies via my ability to focus them out through enjoyment in other arenas. Such as when a movie strikes that perfect note for me...

Midway through Teeth, Dawn O'Keefe -- whose character fulfills both the classic heroine role and that of the supposed "monster" in a traditionally developed horror movie -- goes to see a gynecologist named Dr. Godfrey. The reason? The discovery that she, indeed, has something inside her vagina that has left her once would-be boyfriend-turned-rapist minus his penis and perhaps dead. The shy teenager, once the most erstwhile of bible-beating "promise keeper"-type abstinence touters, couldn't resist her normal urges to the point where sex may have, literally, killed. Confused, she heads to the doctor, who happens to be a male, though the question remains open (at least, to me it does) whether his position still gives him such power over his female subjects that he is actually taking advantage of Dawn, albeit in a seemingly clinical fashion. Regardless of unspoken intent, and with a world-weary air about him, the doctor's examination of Dawn finds his hand searching about inside her. And then, to his complete surprise, he does find something. Or, really, it was lying in wait for him, like the stealthiest of predators.

It grabs onto him, and he screams and struggles to pull his hand out of Dawn. Her legs kick as he pulls harder and harder, but he cannot escape. They struggle far past the point that a normal director would allow such a scene to linger, and as the doctor's fight for release surges on -- 20, 30 seconds? It just seemed like it went on forever -- the scene actually shoots beyond being a mere shock sequence to one that is jaw-droppingly hilarious, if not more than a little sick (in the manner that Lenny Bruce used to be described as a "sick" comic). You may have heard the theatrical term "hold for laughter" (also applicable to applause), where a performer pauses slightly in their shtick to allow the audience to show their appreciation. This is almost what it seems director Mitchell Lichtenstein is doing for this scene. Holding for laughter, which I emitted like I was the one playing The Joker in the latest Batman flick.

Dawn kicks and kicks, the doctor yanks harder -- and finally, his hand is released! Minus four fingers, though... but instead of flailing about the office and screaming for help or the police, Dr. Godfrey assumes the role of a mad scientist who has discovered something amazing. He yells "It's true! Vagina dentata! Vagina dentata! Vagina dentata!" as if he and his cohorts in the gynecological trade whispered the very notion of shark-like teeth within the female anatomy secretly amongst themselves like an ancient, laughed-away conspiracy theory. The stumps of his fingers spewing blood, the doctor maintains his composure just enough to realize he has stumbled upon the gynecological equivalent of the alchemical formula. Soon, Dawn's monstrous hidden self expels the doctor's fingers, and she flees the office. And so ends a simply amazing scene.

What didn't end for me then was the very feeling of which I spoke previously. With just this scene, while I had been slightly impatient earlier in the film waiting for it to rev up fully, I knew that Teeth was going to be a keeper, no matter what happened afterward. As it turns out, unlike many horror films which peter out (I was trying to avoid such sordid puns as much as possible here, given the subject matter, so, sorry...) once the monster is identified and explained, this one gets more powerful at the same time that Dawn does, and more interesting as she discovers how to use what she once thought of as an affliction as both a weapon of revenge and as an instrument of mental and physical growth. Trapped in a world of men who only see her as a prize to be used sexually and then discarded with a laugh and a sneer, Dawn is slowly becoming what men fear most in the darkest corners of their minds. It's Girl Power writ large and snarling.

I'm not going to go so far as to stupidly suggest that Jess Weixler, the actress that brings Dawn to life so vividly and so variedly through each stage of her development in the film, deserved an Oscar nomination. (She won a Special Jury Prize for her acting at Sundance last year.) Such statements betray a basic lack of understanding of how the Oscars work. But if there was a harder role through which someone was led in 2007, I would be hard-pressed to believe it compared against Weixler's truly complex performance in Teeth. Cringingly annoying at first in her goody-two-shoes phase, she is soon blushing and innocent in the throes of first love (however deceived), then she is frightened following the rise of her power, then confused by the implications of such power, and then she has to climb several rungs up the ladder towards Dawn's growing self-confidence and liberation. Show me somebody else who had to convey so much in one 90-minute plus movie in recent history. And then show me that somebody who does it as spot-on as Weixler does here.

Despite the gore -- heavy on the blood-gushing from the lower portions of the male anatomy, and featuring a hilarious if not disgusting bit (again, no pun intended) involving a Rottweiler -- it's actually rather non-exploitative in the usual horror film sense (unless you are one of those that consider all nudity to be exploitative. If you do, I feel sorry for you...) There is so much that Lichtenstein could have shown considering the subject matter, and if you think he held back in order to get the "R" rating, I will say that the biggest shock for me concerning the film is the rating. I have seen far less graphic or harsh portrayals of sexual frankness garner an X or NC-17. It wasn't until I finished the film -- thinking the DVD was unrated -- that I noticed the "R." So, now I am wondering if the director didn't hold back, and just got lucky. Or slept with Jack Valenti before he croaked, and had lurid pictures blackmailing the former head of the MPAA. Whatever the circumstances, I was shocked at the rating, but it also explained why there wasn't an actual shot of her teeth-laden vagina. No close-ups of teeth gnashing though male appendages or fingers. Just the sublimity that decent acting and directorial wit can bring to a horror movie when properly applied. He doesn't have to show it -- we believe it happened.

The movie, like most horror movies tend to do, could be setting the stage for an eventual sequel, but I hope not. The film closes like a good short story or Twilight Zone episode -- with a clever shot that hints at things to come for Dawn, as well as for the "monster" that normal society, especially men, would consider her to have become. Like the stuff Lichtenstein could have put on screen, they don't have to show it. Teeth works as it is. And the feeling that I found miraculously in Teeth would also go away with a sequel. Any follow-ups would betray a false set. You can eat with dentures, but food wouldn't be the same.