Picture it: Christmas; homestead, high school daughter, middle school son and elementary school son, the three and three only, apples of my eyes and lights of my heart. Gifts passed on, usually forgotten for the most part but many remain as Ultimate Bonding Moments. Bonding moments: the ever lasting effect of parent and child on both parties simultaneously; everybody grows in this moment.
My eldest was a bit of a Pumpkinhead. I guess that is what the Terminal Overload Fanatic Baseline would call themselves, like Deadheads to The Dead. Not a total over the cliff dive into Jonestown Kool-Aid level, but at least someone that picked up on something ephemeral, some vibrations that resonated deeper than others. I had that moment with the same band, the track Disarm from Siamese Dream. So, I was aware of them, but not as much as she was, but she was reared to understand that Goodness Abound Over Here, the passing of the sacred whisper amongst The Chosen Few, the Insiders With Backstage News, and mentioned them on occasions, with attention to some form of Allard Shorthand English that meant, high marks, interesting and you may find something you like.
ASH is the language we speak. All families have their own shorthand, brief comments that speak volumes about a shared experience allowing for a quantum leap in conversational logic and performance.
There was a rumble from the Pumpkinhead Underground of the soon to be leased follow up album Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness. I was aware of this. ASH speak daughter, "dad somethings coming." ASH speak father, "understood."
At the time, I was working for a small company involved in the design, production, manufacture and distribution for a series of products, of the primary components to make the stuff meant we worked in a warehouse full of nothing but chemicals. Wee tiny bottles for a literal pinch of this or fifty-five gallon drums for a metric fuckton of that. I did the shipping and receiving department, which being the sole employee guaranteed me with little to do and all day to do it during any slow down. So, being paid to be bored is not my style so I obsessively and compulsively made certain that it was spotless (easy than you'd think, mostly a sweep a week was enough) and as close to a huge Skinner Box Maze as possible. When three industrial strength shiny shelving arrived I was told to assemble it to be used exclusively for certain products. I got the dimensions and plotted out a place accessible, safe and simple that also fit into the Maze already in progress.
One never finishes building a maze, I found. Logistically it can be a nightmare unless you are of the mindset that then next factor must be in the original plans based on choices made. Something I learned in about a week: I was actually forced to sit down and re-read The Dramatic Imagination by Robert Edmond Jones.
About that book: it is the only book one needs to understand interior design.
Traffic patterns were the key. All I needed to redesign the maze was total of staff at maximum, and basic job title on occasion to fine tune something. Many of the staff used the company shipping for their own personal bulk mail; management knew about it, and for the most part made it understood it could be used for personal reasons by the staff with approval, which I never heard denied. Regardless: a shipment that needed to be in Chicago by 3:00 PM that day, and no one could make that same day delivery date, so off I went in the boss' Bronco, yippee ki yay, off to the south side of Chicago I went.
Radio. Heading into Chi, reading the signs, found a Rock 'n' Roll station, tuned in and added a soundtrack to a long drive DJ'd by a faceless voice somewhere out in the ether. Different era, different times: the DJ announced that while the Pumpkins next album was being prepared little or nothing was being discussed (including the title). There was, though, a single from that album, which I heard that moment and at least five more times before the end of the day.
Review: Bullet With Butterfly Wings by The Smashing Pumpkins.
I-80/90 east bound, into the sun I drove, the hour difference in time making a suicidal Gumball Rally race scene into a more comfortable into and out of the City Second To None. DJ announced, new single. ASH: daughter comment. Yeah, okay: does this thing go to 11? Check bass and treble levels during DJ babble, all okay, traffic low, crank this mutha up and do it like we did it back in the Motor City: Kick out the jams, muthafuggahs!!!
And nearly drove off the road.
Billy Corgan, vocalist, performer and bass player; pretty much front man. "The world is a vampire." Just naked, out there. Then, before the heart and mind can connect, entire the thunder of a thousand souls stomping in rhythm because Kiss My Big White Irish Ass, there is no reason, there is no issue or event; just naked. Imagine if someone were to use the useless Great Boondoggle Of South Bend for a performance of the best marching bands in the area to choreograph this piece, a military dance moment that will bring Glee and be Pitch Perfect.
Then Billy, after "The world is a vampire" then "set to drain. Secret destroyers hold you up to the flames." The band and Billy are entering the center stage of my brain here. The production is freaking genius. Here, the term "freaking" is meant in the 60's vein, as in freaking out, or Freak Out! which was an LP by Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention. Over here this band is saying got a message for you. Might want to pay attention. ASH daughter, here I am, paying attention.
"And what do I get, for my pain? Betrayed desires *Billy sneaking in a sneer, then back to the Mister Serious artist voice* and a piece of the game. " The band, not in the background, but behind, standing (from the sounds of it) as if they were tired of that guy out there and wanted a good hearty Here I Rock moment of their own... except this is not any moment of contention within the band (like Fleetwood Mac during Rumours), this was a collection of musicians that wanted to play their instruments as if failing to due so would cause (or maybe prevent) Armageddon. Then Billy doing the nasal thing he does to annoy my generation (seriously, Dude? Have a couple of your own!) but not annoying; no, no, this sounded like... could it be, could it be happening as I am listening??
Yep. Kiss My Big White Irish, by Jesus and Glory Halleluiah, it is the Second Coming Of Iggy And The Stooges. Chi is not Detroit, but never did we question the music from there. They knew us and we knew them and during the decade of the sixties, no other region inspired more people to pick up an instrument and just blast it out. I was all over in Detroit tri-county megalopolis, and we all knew that yeah, we created Punk, shipped it out as rock 'n' roll singles and then waited for the explosion. John Sinclair, where are you? I got questions, dammit!
Then: "Even though I know - I suppose I'll show
All my cool and cold - like old Job."
Holy Crap, he brought out the Old Testament! Seriously? I heard that Bible reference and sat the hell up all "YES SIR! NO MA'AM!" Throughout, the band is Right There, approaching full boil, maximum r 'n' b, is that ... is that The WHO? No, ah... but yes. Yes! YES! YES!!!!"
The Who instead of The Stooges with Iggy instead of Pete or Roger. Then they howled. At once, unison harmonic imbalance The Watusi The Twist and sonuvabitch, someone from my daughter's generation (if only via the media as collective soundtrack) the entire band decided to grab my balls and hammer crush while demanding that I listen and if I dare, join in.
"Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage
Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage
Then someone will say what is lost can never be saved
Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage."
Holy Mary Mother Of Jesus, tap the Elixir Keg and get out the Fatted Ambrosia, it is social orgasm time, the happy ecstatic release of collective instantaneous joy and rage and hate and pain and God Damn You Listen To Me I Am Pissed And I'm Mad As Hell And I'm Not Gonna Take It Anymore and fists in the arm and jumping.
Overall response for the TLDR pinheads: Wuz gud.
Flash forward. CD comes out, I buy it for my daughter. We go to Battle Creek for the Christensen (and other, unimportant social unworthies) Christmas Orgy. This n that n tother thing, nothing film worthy for entertainment and torture. Wife gave me a wee CD player, two speakers and cigarette lighter plug. Cool, I like it, retro and current at the same time. Perfect to the vehicle, 1978 Dodge Aspen four door, maroon in color, standard 6 cylinder, dependable mostly as a reference for timelines. Barb got a present from her uncle Ralph, Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness, her second copy of the day. She glanced at me, we locked eyes, I made a bright smile and a nod. Non-verbal ASH; daughter smiled like she meant it and did, and thanked them because the album was on her wishlist for that year. She expressed what I perceived as an honest reenactment of her initial response. We both had to leave early, hopped into the Aspen and drove home. While I was plugging in the CD player for the first time, virgin use, she was getting out the CD. Asked: What do I do with the other copy? Answered: Keep it or this one, I'll take the other and I will buy you something else as well.
We played the discs.
When we got home, the second disc had finished. We were rather stunned at first, this was a massive, sprawling monster mess, gutbucket but slick production, no piece of the human condition unexamined in one form or another, a massive massive Grand Opus that vaulted past Masterpiece (conveying here the original sense, look, I am one of you... Yep, the kid fits!") into Moment Defining Entire Work Of An Album That Would Survive A Plane Crash! If the band had collectively died in a group masturbatory action that required the potential and eventual of death by asphyxiation, their place was secure. Here is one for the vaults, the Must Have, Must Share album that really needs more attention.
Oh. And the CD player just died. Stopped, shorted out, the magic grasshoppers chasing each other on a tiny wheel or however the hell these things work (a lot of the laser technology physics confused the hell of me!) but the damned thing just ceased to function. Blah. I said, as I recall, something like, Great, what do I tell your mom? It played a pair of discs one time and then failed.
Then my daughter said, "Rather poetic, though. Right?"
This is where we met Lester Bangs. Played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, Almost Famous, some of the old legends returned to me. I read Circus because it was a studio rag promoting whoever was The Next Big Thing or the latest from The Reigning Kings. Bangs wrote for Creem: America's Only Rock 'n' Roll Magazine.
Boy Howdy. Okay? Boy Freaking HOWDY!
Bangs wrote with the mad passion of the lover possessed by a succubus, sweating and heaving in throes of ecstatic memory implant and forcing himself onward, ever onward, faster, harder, louder: "Detroit Michigan is the place to be!" Uncle Ted said that.
Bangs breathed fire, he ejaculated and he redefined the extant of how far someone can push their own boundaries, full on Man On A Soapbox Howling Into A Hurricane Holy Man, praise Jesus, glory, glory hallelujah.
*******
Follow your bliss, if you seek balance. Move with gentle goodness, bring in all possible sources, never stopping for there is no end in this road if done properly.
If you are tired, weary and brokenhearted, though, broke down and heavy laden, well, that bliss is going to look different. That bliss has a requirement, to go, to seek and do, active in all ways, bringing forward the moment when all hearts beat as one, and the room is full of wild and happy souls, jumping and rejoicing in unison and harmony. And when you find this, this rock 'n' roll fantasy, and it removes the pain and brings its own gain then you must bring it to the table. Let everyone in on it, 'cuz when it is good it moves mountains!
March, if you feel the need. Gather and weep, laugh and heal. Whatever. Burst forth into song, find a way to make someone smile or laugh. Push aside the bounds enforced upon us all in the Global Skinner Box Corporation. Let it out, bring it out, and let the chips fall where they may.
Saturday, June 22, 2013
Saturday, April 27, 2013
This, then, is the future
Greetings and hallucinations,
Please allow me to introduce myself: I am a man as any other, of no special talent or gift. I have but words, and words, especially in English, are often appropriated for desires not in the original intent.
Cosmic, for example; groovy, for another.
Be that as it may, please enter herein, and reply to the results of your own experiences.
The Movie Microfest
In a world wildly chasing its own hyperkinetic backside, information overload and an internet tsunami, the notion of tuning out and cocooning has its own long-term positive results.
The movies: no less than two, no more than three. There must be a reason for the films shown and their starting times.
The audience must always be taken into account. The more the merrier, so if Aunt Quimsbreath should arrive ever so fashionably unannounced or invited along with Father Bumgardner and the angelic Downs soul all at the same time, maybe not a good time for a horror fest.
At the very least, hold the chainsaws and Sheri Moon.
Make of that comment what you will, and I mean it in the sense of great respect and low intention of dealing with crazy angry people.
Anyway.... The time honored tradition of the Film Festival is near its end, I'm afraid. The only ones now are people trying to get them made, and the cost of attendance for optimum pleasure ruling out the majority of the populace of the United States. Once, though, there was The Film Festival. Several works would be pulled together for a public showing. Often, big blockbusters with a proven financial track record would be re-released, a habit made into a monetary addiction as if cash was heroin and meth combined could be instantly granted with just pulling out previous movies and tossing them out as perfected by W. Elias D.
Gone With The Wind and The Ten Commandments were very popular when they were first released, and at a certain time, they would be re-released. Best and fastest investments were on sure thing by the sure thing artist, with a company that did its own marketing and had its own distribution line.
Recently, the Cinemark chain is moving in this direction. I have had the unique pleasure of seeing Chinatown and Lawrence Of Arabia on grand, wide screen, digitally cleaned and sound checked.
The real gripe I have is that there is desperate need for a large gathering of humans to be in the dark and entranced by the illusion of motion on screen before them.
This leads to something very similar to the mixtape community. Various folks from a wide/wildly interesting collections of backgrounds will go to a place and say, in essence or in simple exact words: Here is a list of songs I like in the order I like and I can explain it or not pending your personal level of tolerance for the Fanboy Tirade, similar to a Fillibuster and easier to stop.
Baseball bats work fine, I'm told. All I know is that something smacked me upside the head and morning came suddenly with a blinding headache.
Film festivals were ways for colleges and their students to make a little extra money and have some fun as well. Important Films Of Great Societal Import were shown (usually by the university film, theater or TV students) alongside works that were made to go BOO and move on.
The Microfest should be local. You, two other people, but only people that, at first, you know well. No less than two movies to be seen, no more than three. Must be cool, great, amazing, hip, hep, hot, chill, evil mean wicked bad and nasty. The good ones: The Good Shit. The OH HELL YEAH films.
Tonight, I sat up a Microfest. I will be in attendance, obviously, but none other. Maybe later...
Regardless, here are the first three films I will be showing at my wee fest:
The Conversation, the film Francis Ford Coppola made between the first two Godfather films. It stars Gene Hackman, John Cazale, Harrison Ford and Cindy Williams. Sheer brilliance, showing that FFC did indeed know his stuff. Literally, a masterpiece that inspired a second masterpiece bookending a third, totally different masterpiece. Tone, performances, story: this is not the Corleone Saga, it is stand alone and brilliant. (If the next film is a NO for you, then I would here suggest as an alternate film Enemy Of The State, which has an almost perfect storyline that suggests that it is an actual sequel to The Conversation, but isn't. Will Smith is really rather good, and Hackman shows up as Not The Same Character At All, Oh No Really.)
THX1138 by some guy named George Lucas. Fella showed a lot of promise, whatever became of him? And yes, for the record, I mean it. As a director, IMHO, Lucas directed two, and two only at this time, films that are even remotely worth a damn. THX1138, obviously, is one of those. This particular film, however, came in a gaudy dual disc packaging scheme, thinking that any Fan Of Old Lucas (or FOOLs) would have some kind of spasm, rush out in a mad panic suggesting personal best getting on Darwin's list. Which did not happen with me. Nope. When I walked into a shop that was selling off donated goods, finding it in near mint condition? Okay, then, I am as bad as any Star Wars Franchise Sorry Sell Outs, maybe worse because I am a snob besides.
Watching the original two picks, as indicated, allows for a coffee klatsch, wine tasting, whatever I just know I am sleeping on the floor here tonight kind of bull session. It is the use of sound, by the way, more than anything else, that makes me want to see them back-to-back. Also, early films by directors who apparently have lost their way and need to call their muses back. Miss you guys! (Oh, the only other watchable Lucas film? American Graffiti. What else?) Watching the alternate film, the theme is so perfectly interlaced between the films that it does look for all the world as a sequel, but with Will Smith as the lead, and Gene Hackman playing Harry Not Caul.
Falling Down. After THX1138. This combination allows for a totally different interpretation of THX and makes one of the rare Grand Slam films of Joel Schumacher. (8mm is my favorite.) Dehumanization, alienation and the worlds polar shift to 33 1/3ยบ off kilter, these two are warped, strange visions from a land far far away and in a reality most people have never considered.
Please allow me to introduce myself: I am a man as any other, of no special talent or gift. I have but words, and words, especially in English, are often appropriated for desires not in the original intent.
Cosmic, for example; groovy, for another.
Be that as it may, please enter herein, and reply to the results of your own experiences.
The Movie Microfest
In a world wildly chasing its own hyperkinetic backside, information overload and an internet tsunami, the notion of tuning out and cocooning has its own long-term positive results.
The movies: no less than two, no more than three. There must be a reason for the films shown and their starting times.
The audience must always be taken into account. The more the merrier, so if Aunt Quimsbreath should arrive ever so fashionably unannounced or invited along with Father Bumgardner and the angelic Downs soul all at the same time, maybe not a good time for a horror fest.
At the very least, hold the chainsaws and Sheri Moon.
Make of that comment what you will, and I mean it in the sense of great respect and low intention of dealing with crazy angry people.
Anyway.... The time honored tradition of the Film Festival is near its end, I'm afraid. The only ones now are people trying to get them made, and the cost of attendance for optimum pleasure ruling out the majority of the populace of the United States. Once, though, there was The Film Festival. Several works would be pulled together for a public showing. Often, big blockbusters with a proven financial track record would be re-released, a habit made into a monetary addiction as if cash was heroin and meth combined could be instantly granted with just pulling out previous movies and tossing them out as perfected by W. Elias D.
Gone With The Wind and The Ten Commandments were very popular when they were first released, and at a certain time, they would be re-released. Best and fastest investments were on sure thing by the sure thing artist, with a company that did its own marketing and had its own distribution line.
Recently, the Cinemark chain is moving in this direction. I have had the unique pleasure of seeing Chinatown and Lawrence Of Arabia on grand, wide screen, digitally cleaned and sound checked.
The real gripe I have is that there is desperate need for a large gathering of humans to be in the dark and entranced by the illusion of motion on screen before them.
This leads to something very similar to the mixtape community. Various folks from a wide/wildly interesting collections of backgrounds will go to a place and say, in essence or in simple exact words: Here is a list of songs I like in the order I like and I can explain it or not pending your personal level of tolerance for the Fanboy Tirade, similar to a Fillibuster and easier to stop.
Baseball bats work fine, I'm told. All I know is that something smacked me upside the head and morning came suddenly with a blinding headache.
Film festivals were ways for colleges and their students to make a little extra money and have some fun as well. Important Films Of Great Societal Import were shown (usually by the university film, theater or TV students) alongside works that were made to go BOO and move on.
The Microfest should be local. You, two other people, but only people that, at first, you know well. No less than two movies to be seen, no more than three. Must be cool, great, amazing, hip, hep, hot, chill, evil mean wicked bad and nasty. The good ones: The Good Shit. The OH HELL YEAH films.
Tonight, I sat up a Microfest. I will be in attendance, obviously, but none other. Maybe later...
Regardless, here are the first three films I will be showing at my wee fest:
The Conversation, the film Francis Ford Coppola made between the first two Godfather films. It stars Gene Hackman, John Cazale, Harrison Ford and Cindy Williams. Sheer brilliance, showing that FFC did indeed know his stuff. Literally, a masterpiece that inspired a second masterpiece bookending a third, totally different masterpiece. Tone, performances, story: this is not the Corleone Saga, it is stand alone and brilliant. (If the next film is a NO for you, then I would here suggest as an alternate film Enemy Of The State, which has an almost perfect storyline that suggests that it is an actual sequel to The Conversation, but isn't. Will Smith is really rather good, and Hackman shows up as Not The Same Character At All, Oh No Really.)
THX1138 by some guy named George Lucas. Fella showed a lot of promise, whatever became of him? And yes, for the record, I mean it. As a director, IMHO, Lucas directed two, and two only at this time, films that are even remotely worth a damn. THX1138, obviously, is one of those. This particular film, however, came in a gaudy dual disc packaging scheme, thinking that any Fan Of Old Lucas (or FOOLs) would have some kind of spasm, rush out in a mad panic suggesting personal best getting on Darwin's list. Which did not happen with me. Nope. When I walked into a shop that was selling off donated goods, finding it in near mint condition? Okay, then, I am as bad as any Star Wars Franchise Sorry Sell Outs, maybe worse because I am a snob besides.
Watching the original two picks, as indicated, allows for a coffee klatsch, wine tasting, whatever I just know I am sleeping on the floor here tonight kind of bull session. It is the use of sound, by the way, more than anything else, that makes me want to see them back-to-back. Also, early films by directors who apparently have lost their way and need to call their muses back. Miss you guys! (Oh, the only other watchable Lucas film? American Graffiti. What else?) Watching the alternate film, the theme is so perfectly interlaced between the films that it does look for all the world as a sequel, but with Will Smith as the lead, and Gene Hackman playing Harry Not Caul.
Falling Down. After THX1138. This combination allows for a totally different interpretation of THX and makes one of the rare Grand Slam films of Joel Schumacher. (8mm is my favorite.) Dehumanization, alienation and the worlds polar shift to 33 1/3ยบ off kilter, these two are warped, strange visions from a land far far away and in a reality most people have never considered.
Sunday, April 14, 2013
The Cabin In The Woods, Stanley Kubrick and the greatest horror film ever made
To begin: a critic writes reviews. To review, one must begin by being a purist; the word itself is based on "view" meaning "to look," and is modified by the prefix "re-" which indicates a repetition, in this case the word means "to look again." The critic is the one that looks again, and the greatest are looking again, more closely, rather than the vast majority of merely clever satirists telling the tale on the screen in print form. Often this sin is combined with operating a language under false pretenses, suggesting that the charming, sardonic and oh so clever writer could have made a better film.
The critic tells about how the work functions, delving into the nuts and bolts, the craftsman being separated from the master, and masters into artists.
On the strangest of occasion, popular taste somehow collides with art and the critics, aware that there is more than just another product onscreen, often are so disconnected with their higher calling that they forget to approach the work in the manner that it both deserves and, but more, important needs. To herald a work of art that just happens to be wildly entertaining and is digging its own place in the collective subconscious is a rare privilege. It is the reason that the critic is so vital, so important to the artist community that the casual indifference to the art of film as an art form that is still vital, still growing.
This brings us to The Cabin In The Woods.
This remarkable film has made a huge impact, but only in the specific genre community that exists to support the best the genre has to offer. It is the fan base that keeps this genre alive. The allegedly "critical community" has time and again failed to understand the great value of the societal underpinning for the need of Story and the place of Story in the greater community as a whole.
Deconstructing Cabin will be done later. What is of vital importance, the most important thing of all, is that it is not only a technical masterpiece but a powerful work of dramatic art that is so rich in text, subtext and context that it really should be called that which it is: The Best Film Of That Year. Bar none. Everything else needed to be compared to it, what it did, how it did it and why its importance is infinitely beyond the mere return on an investment.
The Cabin In The Woods is often mistaken for being a comedy. Truth will out, of course that mistake is easy to understand, but mostly because The Best Script Of That Year. Period. The dialog snaps, machine-gunning the plot forward so fast that any holes are considered mere collateral damage. The plot is structured so tightly it threatens to burst at every scene change yet manages to cling to a roller coaster swerve and proceed forward. The pacing is brilliant.
The Best Editing Of That Year is so evident in that, for the most part, it is subtle, almost invisible. When the story dictates a shift in motion and pace, the editing does not hammer at the eye, but acts as an immediate assist to the overall story.
The Best Sound Editing Of That Year is one to which most genre fans will not catch. Because the film takes place in several different places, but only really focuses on two separate scenes, shown in The Best Set Design Of That Year (or is that best visual design?). A granite bunker that holds a sense of Dr. Strangelove on one hand and 2001: A Space Odyssey on the other... and this is where Stanley Kubrick pops up for the first time.
At its core, at its most basic, The Cabin In The Woods is not only a grand good time for genre fans, but a deeper underpinning exists of a future technology that is for the most part current, only one notable exception. There is a sense of the supernatural, of course, and the film's title indicates a knowledge of other Urban vs. Rural mindset as well as a direct and open nod to The Evil Dead. This heavy plot lifting from Evil Dead is not a mere copy, but shows a deeper, Jungian understanding of what the genre is and does. This, and the previously mentioned Kubrick references, is a stronger, deeper occult (hidden) subtext.
The Cabin In The Woods, it is saying, is not the greatest horror film ever made. It is a loving tribute to the genre and its masters and mistresses, touching base if only for a brief moment on as manner of the great films by the greatest filmmakers ever.
It does not shy away from cultures other than its county of origin. In fact, it touches on as many different cultures and their greatest moments in the genre as possible.
This does take us back to Kubrick, because any film that pretended to focus on the great works by the greatest craftsman could not possibly exist in any way, shape or form without at least a nod to Kubrick.
It just isn't done, old boy. Never. Sorry.
So, seeing several nods to the two films mentioned before, that was interesting. After all, it is a horror film, in the genre and being a nod to the greatest ever, why pick a non-horror Kubrick? The Shining is the greatest horror film ever....
Right?
Maybe: I think not. But maybe.
In The Cabin, there is the brief scene of the technology that does not exist. Strangely, this has shown up in many other genres, the Wonka Glass Elevator and the Slatafartabarst underground tunnel. Here, though, we see the Magic Elevator, and each stop is like a station of the Unholy Cross. Even the cause of the story, where it veers off from its obvious choices, shows a mangled character holding a ball puzzle. (Nice shout out to Clive Barker and co.) From this brief moment, the hidden is revealed. (Mystery = that which is revealed. Let us now declare the Mystery (the revealed truth) of our Faith.) Mystery solved... and then a series of wild and inescapable events transpires... ending in a blood bath in the Kubrick clean halls....
Which is loaded with elevator doors... seeing the aftermath is like being in Kubrick's Overlook hotel, after the elevator doors flooded the halls with blood.
Okay. Major nod to Stanley. Cudos, again and again...
At 1:16:19, the last gory Kubrick elevator door opens. The bloodied (and congealing bloodied) doors part, and there is darkness. Slowly, from the darkness comes a trio of figures, one male and two female. They are well dressed, and all have a kind of Kabuki mask.
So... are we seeing The Shining being offered as the greatest horror ever made? Or is it more to the notion that a Satanic Ritual is afoot, which is what the basis of the story is, after all? Young Playthings is not really a horror film, and that was the first visual reference that came to mind, but as they slowly move from dark to light, into and out of focus, slowly... after the explosion of gore and violence, it is languid, sensual...
It is here, then that the point must be made: the reason we as a movie going populace often miss out on a Kubrick film, or one attempting to truly follow that master's path, is that we no longer know how to go back, to look again, to see past hype and generational enforcement of context.
Eyes Wide Shut is the greatest horror film ever made. If it had not been for the brilliant work of The Cabin In The Woods I would have missed that interpretation entirely and forever.
One last serious praise for The Best Film Of That Year The Cabin In The Woods. It appears to be comedic on the surface. The dialog, as mentioned, crackles with a vibrancy that belongs more in a screwball comedy, and the sharp retorts are indeed witty. Wit and humor are compensation means, and the more pronounced the paranoia and/or mental instability of the Joker, the more ill at ease the Joker actually is.
Seeing the Joker, the Stoner, The Midnight Toker facing down the living dead and hacking it to pieces while under the influence of Thompson Legend Levels Of Drugs would have defeated the purpose of the film. Watching the reaction of The Final Girl, her shock and repulsion, only to have the Joker, wide eyed and staring, quip, "Yeah I had to kill him with a trowel..." suggests that the funny isn't; the deeper distress and horror are still there. The difference is if one sees it with an audience, merely imagines one or is totally shut off from all others distractions and become immersed into The Best Screenplay Of That Year. Then the comedy is more harsh, a little too sharp to be just a throw away gag.
Stay tuned for the eventual review of Eyes Wide Shut.
The critic tells about how the work functions, delving into the nuts and bolts, the craftsman being separated from the master, and masters into artists.
On the strangest of occasion, popular taste somehow collides with art and the critics, aware that there is more than just another product onscreen, often are so disconnected with their higher calling that they forget to approach the work in the manner that it both deserves and, but more, important needs. To herald a work of art that just happens to be wildly entertaining and is digging its own place in the collective subconscious is a rare privilege. It is the reason that the critic is so vital, so important to the artist community that the casual indifference to the art of film as an art form that is still vital, still growing.
This brings us to The Cabin In The Woods.
This remarkable film has made a huge impact, but only in the specific genre community that exists to support the best the genre has to offer. It is the fan base that keeps this genre alive. The allegedly "critical community" has time and again failed to understand the great value of the societal underpinning for the need of Story and the place of Story in the greater community as a whole.
Deconstructing Cabin will be done later. What is of vital importance, the most important thing of all, is that it is not only a technical masterpiece but a powerful work of dramatic art that is so rich in text, subtext and context that it really should be called that which it is: The Best Film Of That Year. Bar none. Everything else needed to be compared to it, what it did, how it did it and why its importance is infinitely beyond the mere return on an investment.
The Cabin In The Woods is often mistaken for being a comedy. Truth will out, of course that mistake is easy to understand, but mostly because The Best Script Of That Year. Period. The dialog snaps, machine-gunning the plot forward so fast that any holes are considered mere collateral damage. The plot is structured so tightly it threatens to burst at every scene change yet manages to cling to a roller coaster swerve and proceed forward. The pacing is brilliant.
The Best Editing Of That Year is so evident in that, for the most part, it is subtle, almost invisible. When the story dictates a shift in motion and pace, the editing does not hammer at the eye, but acts as an immediate assist to the overall story.
The Best Sound Editing Of That Year is one to which most genre fans will not catch. Because the film takes place in several different places, but only really focuses on two separate scenes, shown in The Best Set Design Of That Year (or is that best visual design?). A granite bunker that holds a sense of Dr. Strangelove on one hand and 2001: A Space Odyssey on the other... and this is where Stanley Kubrick pops up for the first time.
At its core, at its most basic, The Cabin In The Woods is not only a grand good time for genre fans, but a deeper underpinning exists of a future technology that is for the most part current, only one notable exception. There is a sense of the supernatural, of course, and the film's title indicates a knowledge of other Urban vs. Rural mindset as well as a direct and open nod to The Evil Dead. This heavy plot lifting from Evil Dead is not a mere copy, but shows a deeper, Jungian understanding of what the genre is and does. This, and the previously mentioned Kubrick references, is a stronger, deeper occult (hidden) subtext.
The Cabin In The Woods, it is saying, is not the greatest horror film ever made. It is a loving tribute to the genre and its masters and mistresses, touching base if only for a brief moment on as manner of the great films by the greatest filmmakers ever.
It does not shy away from cultures other than its county of origin. In fact, it touches on as many different cultures and their greatest moments in the genre as possible.
This does take us back to Kubrick, because any film that pretended to focus on the great works by the greatest craftsman could not possibly exist in any way, shape or form without at least a nod to Kubrick.
It just isn't done, old boy. Never. Sorry.
So, seeing several nods to the two films mentioned before, that was interesting. After all, it is a horror film, in the genre and being a nod to the greatest ever, why pick a non-horror Kubrick? The Shining is the greatest horror film ever....
Right?
Maybe: I think not. But maybe.
In The Cabin, there is the brief scene of the technology that does not exist. Strangely, this has shown up in many other genres, the Wonka Glass Elevator and the Slatafartabarst underground tunnel. Here, though, we see the Magic Elevator, and each stop is like a station of the Unholy Cross. Even the cause of the story, where it veers off from its obvious choices, shows a mangled character holding a ball puzzle. (Nice shout out to Clive Barker and co.) From this brief moment, the hidden is revealed. (Mystery = that which is revealed. Let us now declare the Mystery (the revealed truth) of our Faith.) Mystery solved... and then a series of wild and inescapable events transpires... ending in a blood bath in the Kubrick clean halls....
Which is loaded with elevator doors... seeing the aftermath is like being in Kubrick's Overlook hotel, after the elevator doors flooded the halls with blood.
Okay. Major nod to Stanley. Cudos, again and again...
At 1:16:19, the last gory Kubrick elevator door opens. The bloodied (and congealing bloodied) doors part, and there is darkness. Slowly, from the darkness comes a trio of figures, one male and two female. They are well dressed, and all have a kind of Kabuki mask.
So... are we seeing The Shining being offered as the greatest horror ever made? Or is it more to the notion that a Satanic Ritual is afoot, which is what the basis of the story is, after all? Young Playthings is not really a horror film, and that was the first visual reference that came to mind, but as they slowly move from dark to light, into and out of focus, slowly... after the explosion of gore and violence, it is languid, sensual...
It is here, then that the point must be made: the reason we as a movie going populace often miss out on a Kubrick film, or one attempting to truly follow that master's path, is that we no longer know how to go back, to look again, to see past hype and generational enforcement of context.
Eyes Wide Shut is the greatest horror film ever made. If it had not been for the brilliant work of The Cabin In The Woods I would have missed that interpretation entirely and forever.
One last serious praise for The Best Film Of That Year The Cabin In The Woods. It appears to be comedic on the surface. The dialog, as mentioned, crackles with a vibrancy that belongs more in a screwball comedy, and the sharp retorts are indeed witty. Wit and humor are compensation means, and the more pronounced the paranoia and/or mental instability of the Joker, the more ill at ease the Joker actually is.
Seeing the Joker, the Stoner, The Midnight Toker facing down the living dead and hacking it to pieces while under the influence of Thompson Legend Levels Of Drugs would have defeated the purpose of the film. Watching the reaction of The Final Girl, her shock and repulsion, only to have the Joker, wide eyed and staring, quip, "Yeah I had to kill him with a trowel..." suggests that the funny isn't; the deeper distress and horror are still there. The difference is if one sees it with an audience, merely imagines one or is totally shut off from all others distractions and become immersed into The Best Screenplay Of That Year. Then the comedy is more harsh, a little too sharp to be just a throw away gag.
Stay tuned for the eventual review of Eyes Wide Shut.
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Roger And Gene, together again
My love/hate relationship with the critic Roger Ebert is now at an end. He is finally free of the pain, free of the suffering. For that freedom, and nothing more, I am glad his life is over. None should have to deal with that for a moment, let alone struggle against it for as long as he did.
Be that as it may, my love of film has always been paramount. ( * oh... pun ... sorry *) Watching Gene and Roger commit acts of television and attempts at criticism was always entertaining, but Gene was My Boy, the One That Understood. Roger was the blustery one, the one that caused my eyes to roll so often that the mention of his name made the vision blur, a trained response, B. F. Skinner proven right. Again.
My first encounter with Roger was the printing of his criticism of Night Of The Living Dead, reprinted in Reader's Digest. Then, as now, that piece is totally misunderstood: Roger, disliking horror, leaned toward a slam, but not so much as the notion that parents would drop off the kids at a film that is, without debate, too adult for pre-teens, possibly too adult for most adults.
His review looked beyond the screen into the audience. He noted the absence of adults, the plethora of children and the grue and gore supplied 24 frames per second. I have often wondered if it was more the children being brutalized than the film itself that so turned him against my genre of preference. He really could not write anything positive about horror from that point on.
So be it: selah.
I did not encounter his writing again for several decades, but did see him on TV with Gene. There, on the PBS version (aka The Only One I Really Liked), the two did a special program on Films You Missed But Should Seek Out. During the course of that particular show the two went on at some length about a little film called Miracle Mile. As relentless a thriller as possible, the performances are sheer joy, the writing is taut, the imagery brilliant.
Already a fan of the show, it then became an institution at Chez Allard. Never to be missed.
When first I began to purchase DVD's, making the slow turn from tape to digital medium, one of the first three DVD's to make their way into my home was the brilliant Dark City. I had read nothing of the film, there seemed to be a media blackout, but the images in the trailer were stunning, and the director, Alex Proyas, had made The Crow, which I rather enjoyed.
On that disc, in the extras, was the original Ebert review. It was in the reading of that review that I developed a massive respect for the man and his talents, not merely because ( * ahem * ) I agreed with every word, which I did, but more, much more, was the constant echoing inside me... "Wish I had written that."
When he was good, he was the best we had. He now is gone, and our contradictory views of much that makes film an art is now no longer important.
Roger Ebert, R.I.P.
Be that as it may, my love of film has always been paramount. ( * oh... pun ... sorry *) Watching Gene and Roger commit acts of television and attempts at criticism was always entertaining, but Gene was My Boy, the One That Understood. Roger was the blustery one, the one that caused my eyes to roll so often that the mention of his name made the vision blur, a trained response, B. F. Skinner proven right. Again.
My first encounter with Roger was the printing of his criticism of Night Of The Living Dead, reprinted in Reader's Digest. Then, as now, that piece is totally misunderstood: Roger, disliking horror, leaned toward a slam, but not so much as the notion that parents would drop off the kids at a film that is, without debate, too adult for pre-teens, possibly too adult for most adults.
His review looked beyond the screen into the audience. He noted the absence of adults, the plethora of children and the grue and gore supplied 24 frames per second. I have often wondered if it was more the children being brutalized than the film itself that so turned him against my genre of preference. He really could not write anything positive about horror from that point on.
So be it: selah.
I did not encounter his writing again for several decades, but did see him on TV with Gene. There, on the PBS version (aka The Only One I Really Liked), the two did a special program on Films You Missed But Should Seek Out. During the course of that particular show the two went on at some length about a little film called Miracle Mile. As relentless a thriller as possible, the performances are sheer joy, the writing is taut, the imagery brilliant.
Already a fan of the show, it then became an institution at Chez Allard. Never to be missed.
When first I began to purchase DVD's, making the slow turn from tape to digital medium, one of the first three DVD's to make their way into my home was the brilliant Dark City. I had read nothing of the film, there seemed to be a media blackout, but the images in the trailer were stunning, and the director, Alex Proyas, had made The Crow, which I rather enjoyed.
On that disc, in the extras, was the original Ebert review. It was in the reading of that review that I developed a massive respect for the man and his talents, not merely because ( * ahem * ) I agreed with every word, which I did, but more, much more, was the constant echoing inside me... "Wish I had written that."
When he was good, he was the best we had. He now is gone, and our contradictory views of much that makes film an art is now no longer important.
Roger Ebert, R.I.P.
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Note in a bottle
Bouncing thoughts
|
8:13 AM (0 minutes ago)
 | | ||
| ||||
So...
Of late, the man Kubrick has been nudging at my inner place.
Part the first: Birth Of Consciousness
Part the second: Chaos, Order, Control
Part the third: Loss
Part the Fourth: Awareness At Birth
I suspect that a properly made film of The Celestine Prophecy,
a grand hoot of an adventure novel buried eyeball deep in all manner of
esoteric philosophic and religious studies, would be better if it
followed this indicated pattern. Mostly due to the fact that the book,
in terms of its storyline, structure and meaning are in that four part
pattern, and for lack of a better description, mirrors the themes as I
identified them this fine, fine morning.
R.S.V.P. Anything... thoughts? Songs? Stories?
For
the love of Christ, somebody talk to me! I need the intellectual and
spiritual stimulation each of you provide in your own unique manner.
Thank you.
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Lincoln (2012) - film review
Public release date 11/17/12, seen by my first available matinee 11/18/12. In attendance, eldest son, recently in the United States Marine Corps. Directed by Stephen Spielberg.
First about Mr. Spielberg. Here, the plane can go down, his spirit to slip to this mortal coil, and upon his tombstone inscribe, Here lies Stephen Spielberg, good and faithful servant to the Muse Of Cinema, master of the art and craft from the beginning, and father of 21st Century Cinema style and substance with his greatest work Lincoln. This film enters the new phase of American filmmaking, possibly the first true work of film, a master craftsman rising above his earlier work to create a masterpiece.
Starring Daniel Day Lewis as the title role, and Ms. Sally Fields as the tormented soul Mary Todd Lincoln.
Yes, Ms. Fields, we still really, really like you please remember that the night your name follows, once again the phrase: "And the Oscar goes to.... " Flawless, brilliant, Fields has the courage of her miles, showing the heart and soul of a woman in a man's world, a heartbroken mother and possibly quite mad. The First Lady as Lady McBeth, treachery and treason unneeded and unheeded, the torment of her soul is on every frame.
The President is shown as a leader of men and a stalwart captain while the ship of state hurtles about in a bloodied tempest, and it is his scenes as husband and father that are the most captivating. Human is as human does, and human is the Icon. For a film so centered around a single character, he is not shown as often as one might expect (even his murder is done off-screen) but his presence is imprinted on every frame. He is the President, father, husband, man and shrewd politician and he is a man of his times that imprinted his time and the times afterwards. Again: "And the Oscar goes to..."
The screenplay is staggering in its enormity. In the chambers of the House Of Representatives there reside men of power and authority, and they will rise, and they will be heard. Verbal blow after blow is issued, a political Fight Club, but one that must needs be spoken. Notions, ideas, ramifications are bandied out, verbal cudgels, sonic assaults.... but in the most rarefied of all languages, American English. The dialog is exactly what would have been written had a certain Elizabethan Bard been alive and commissioned to write it as one of his histories. And a history it is, fellow citizens, we cannot escape history.
Lincoln said that: Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history.
The film allows us that most magnificent of treasures, a story written in lightning and told in light. While there are many, many reminders of other masters, Spielberg reaches to the earliest days of cinema. The film does not necessarily need sound. Everything is there. The sound pulls the language, soaring oratory and barely hidden rage, into a symphony, a rhythm that grows, swells, slips aside and washes away, a flawless conduction of the strange music of America, a series of sharp shocks that build and build.
Tears were shed, yes, they were. Many, from what I could intimate from the sounds around me. The desire, several times, to lurch to one's feet cheering and applauding, made a rare appearance... several times. Sometimes, it was simply a gesture, a moment of some sublime intimacy of the human condition while the madness of war rages, others after an oratory or a defense. Great moments upon great moments do not make a good film, but a great film is loaded with them.
Spielberg may just with to retire. His overall handling of the subject, the story, the orchestration of light and shadow, thunder and cats paw silences...
And the Lifetime Achievement goes to...
Congratulations to all on a finely honed and superb performance.
First about Mr. Spielberg. Here, the plane can go down, his spirit to slip to this mortal coil, and upon his tombstone inscribe, Here lies Stephen Spielberg, good and faithful servant to the Muse Of Cinema, master of the art and craft from the beginning, and father of 21st Century Cinema style and substance with his greatest work Lincoln. This film enters the new phase of American filmmaking, possibly the first true work of film, a master craftsman rising above his earlier work to create a masterpiece.
Starring Daniel Day Lewis as the title role, and Ms. Sally Fields as the tormented soul Mary Todd Lincoln.
Yes, Ms. Fields, we still really, really like you please remember that the night your name follows, once again the phrase: "And the Oscar goes to.... " Flawless, brilliant, Fields has the courage of her miles, showing the heart and soul of a woman in a man's world, a heartbroken mother and possibly quite mad. The First Lady as Lady McBeth, treachery and treason unneeded and unheeded, the torment of her soul is on every frame.
The President is shown as a leader of men and a stalwart captain while the ship of state hurtles about in a bloodied tempest, and it is his scenes as husband and father that are the most captivating. Human is as human does, and human is the Icon. For a film so centered around a single character, he is not shown as often as one might expect (even his murder is done off-screen) but his presence is imprinted on every frame. He is the President, father, husband, man and shrewd politician and he is a man of his times that imprinted his time and the times afterwards. Again: "And the Oscar goes to..."
The screenplay is staggering in its enormity. In the chambers of the House Of Representatives there reside men of power and authority, and they will rise, and they will be heard. Verbal blow after blow is issued, a political Fight Club, but one that must needs be spoken. Notions, ideas, ramifications are bandied out, verbal cudgels, sonic assaults.... but in the most rarefied of all languages, American English. The dialog is exactly what would have been written had a certain Elizabethan Bard been alive and commissioned to write it as one of his histories. And a history it is, fellow citizens, we cannot escape history.
Lincoln said that: Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history.
The film allows us that most magnificent of treasures, a story written in lightning and told in light. While there are many, many reminders of other masters, Spielberg reaches to the earliest days of cinema. The film does not necessarily need sound. Everything is there. The sound pulls the language, soaring oratory and barely hidden rage, into a symphony, a rhythm that grows, swells, slips aside and washes away, a flawless conduction of the strange music of America, a series of sharp shocks that build and build.
Tears were shed, yes, they were. Many, from what I could intimate from the sounds around me. The desire, several times, to lurch to one's feet cheering and applauding, made a rare appearance... several times. Sometimes, it was simply a gesture, a moment of some sublime intimacy of the human condition while the madness of war rages, others after an oratory or a defense. Great moments upon great moments do not make a good film, but a great film is loaded with them.
Spielberg may just with to retire. His overall handling of the subject, the story, the orchestration of light and shadow, thunder and cats paw silences...
And the Lifetime Achievement goes to...
Congratulations to all on a finely honed and superb performance.
Friday, November 11, 2011
Film Review - We Were Soldiers (2002)
Written and directed by Randall Wallace, starring Mel Gibson, featuring Greg Kinnear, Sam Elliot, Madeline Stowe and Barry Pepper.
Based on the book We Were Soldiers Once ... And Young by Lieutenant General (Ret.) Hal Moore and reporter Joseph L. Galloway, both of whom were at the battle.
Mel Gibson has become a punchline due to his out of control ravings while drunk. So be it, selah. That outrageous activity bears no reflection on this, possibly his single greatest effort as an actor. In fact, this film is a "plane gone down" effort: had the entire cast and crew died after its release, every man and woman involved should have its title engraved on their headstones.
As per the DVD extra Getting It Right: behind the scenes of the making of We Were Soldiers, the director stated that while reading the original source work, the line "... Hollywood has never gotten it right..." was the impetus for the creation of the film. Moore and Galloway were present during the filming and Wallace referred to them again and again to be certain of the highest degree of accuracy. The result: a gut wrenching work that induces uncontrollable sobbing, bursts of roaring laughter and flat out heart stopping moments of the purest form of drama.
The war in Vietnam has never been shown so perfectly in all of its horrific, nightmarish glory, if glory can be used to describe any arena in which two competing groups of human beings gather for no other purpose than the wholesale slaughter of one another. This is not only the best depiction of that "rancid picnic" (as Stephen King called it) but possibly the single best film about war ever made.
The training is there. The real people are shown. The combat is there, not as a flag waving idiot my country right or wrong but in its visceral ugliness. The families and the shock waves of Hell (literally) brought to their door is there. Tactics and logistics are there.
There are some films that do a little of some, to great effect. The human cost is a matter of record in so many other films that one more would seem to be pointless, but here the cost is shown on the men in the field as well as the impact on wives and families left behind. Often, though, a film that turns its eye to this and this alone tends to forget the rest. Those that look at tactics and logistics forget the family at home.
It is all here. All of it, in its horror, its honor and its agony.
The soundtrack is flawless, a few moments of pop culture infused prior to the men being shipped out, but mostly a brilliant score. The fine art of the film score is all but ignored, but this film is a great return to classic form, as well as pushing the envelope as to what is played, and when. Often, there is nothing, just the sounds of hellfire combat and broken hearts. When the music is used, it is to underscore a moment, not to overwhelm or coerce the audience into a mindset. The music meets the sadness.
Each performance is carved in bittersweet moments, and the simple life pleasures are given as they are lived, no treacle or maudlin sniffle-sniffle-oh-how-sad, just... it is what it is. That direct approach is common of every moment in the film overall.
A film with no humor, regardless of how bleak the moment, is unworthy of consideration, and during a massive firefight the commanding officer demands to know why the mortars have stopped. One of the enlisted men explains that the tubes are so hot the men cannot use them again for fear of the shells exploding in the tube from the heat. Brief pause: commander walks over to one, and as we look between his legs, we see a stream of urine from him, cooling the tube, then, after a brief pause: "Well?!?" The men then stand in a circle around each mortar tube and follow their leaders example.
A superior effort for all involved and a grand way to remember them as have served, regardless of politics, for the reminder of Armistice Day.
Based on the book We Were Soldiers Once ... And Young by Lieutenant General (Ret.) Hal Moore and reporter Joseph L. Galloway, both of whom were at the battle.
Mel Gibson has become a punchline due to his out of control ravings while drunk. So be it, selah. That outrageous activity bears no reflection on this, possibly his single greatest effort as an actor. In fact, this film is a "plane gone down" effort: had the entire cast and crew died after its release, every man and woman involved should have its title engraved on their headstones.
As per the DVD extra Getting It Right: behind the scenes of the making of We Were Soldiers, the director stated that while reading the original source work, the line "... Hollywood has never gotten it right..." was the impetus for the creation of the film. Moore and Galloway were present during the filming and Wallace referred to them again and again to be certain of the highest degree of accuracy. The result: a gut wrenching work that induces uncontrollable sobbing, bursts of roaring laughter and flat out heart stopping moments of the purest form of drama.
The war in Vietnam has never been shown so perfectly in all of its horrific, nightmarish glory, if glory can be used to describe any arena in which two competing groups of human beings gather for no other purpose than the wholesale slaughter of one another. This is not only the best depiction of that "rancid picnic" (as Stephen King called it) but possibly the single best film about war ever made.
The training is there. The real people are shown. The combat is there, not as a flag waving idiot my country right or wrong but in its visceral ugliness. The families and the shock waves of Hell (literally) brought to their door is there. Tactics and logistics are there.
There are some films that do a little of some, to great effect. The human cost is a matter of record in so many other films that one more would seem to be pointless, but here the cost is shown on the men in the field as well as the impact on wives and families left behind. Often, though, a film that turns its eye to this and this alone tends to forget the rest. Those that look at tactics and logistics forget the family at home.
It is all here. All of it, in its horror, its honor and its agony.
The soundtrack is flawless, a few moments of pop culture infused prior to the men being shipped out, but mostly a brilliant score. The fine art of the film score is all but ignored, but this film is a great return to classic form, as well as pushing the envelope as to what is played, and when. Often, there is nothing, just the sounds of hellfire combat and broken hearts. When the music is used, it is to underscore a moment, not to overwhelm or coerce the audience into a mindset. The music meets the sadness.
Each performance is carved in bittersweet moments, and the simple life pleasures are given as they are lived, no treacle or maudlin sniffle-sniffle-oh-how-sad, just... it is what it is. That direct approach is common of every moment in the film overall.
A film with no humor, regardless of how bleak the moment, is unworthy of consideration, and during a massive firefight the commanding officer demands to know why the mortars have stopped. One of the enlisted men explains that the tubes are so hot the men cannot use them again for fear of the shells exploding in the tube from the heat. Brief pause: commander walks over to one, and as we look between his legs, we see a stream of urine from him, cooling the tube, then, after a brief pause: "Well?!?" The men then stand in a circle around each mortar tube and follow their leaders example.
A superior effort for all involved and a grand way to remember them as have served, regardless of politics, for the reminder of Armistice Day.
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