The Automatik

I read Nathanael West’s The Day of the Locust a few years ago after finding J.G. Ballard’s description of it intriguing. In A User’s Guide to the Millennium, Ballard called the novel a “nightmare vision” of Hollywood, and after reading it myself, I found his analysis to be an accurate one.
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Everyone knows about Beverly Hills Cop, Top Gun, and Ghostbusters. But what of all the other great movies released during that decade? Here are eight movies that I consider mandatory viewing. (Besides, I never liked Top Gun anyway.)
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Although the main characters in Ken Loach’s The Wind That Shakes The Barley may be fictional, the story of the bloody conflict between British soldiers and the Irish Republican Army in the 1920s is not. Those who’ve seen Neil Jordan’s Michael Collins will find the theme of Loach’s film familiar: brothers pitted against each other as they find themselves on different sides of the Irish struggle for independence.
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Having waited six months to see this film, I confess that I was a trifle concerned that it would not live up to the hype. However, Breakfast on Pluto has not only met and exceeded all of my expectations, it has transfixed me, rendering me helpless in a state of semi-hypnosis, counting the hours until I can once more be held in its thrall.
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I hated the first hour of this movie so much I had to fight the urge to leave the theatre at least five times.

I’m glad I didn’t.
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Dir. Christopher Nolan
“Would you like to see my mask?”

We humans rely on the fact that our superheroes are just that: greater than mortal men. But Batman is a special kind of icon: not an alien who came to earth in a meteor shower, nor a man bitten by a radioactive arachnid. Relying heavily on Batman graphic novels and completely discarding the embarrassing Batman franchise of the 1990s, in Batman Begins, director Christopher Nolan and screenwriter David Goyer have gifted us with a spectacular vision of Batman as not only a hero, but as a flawed human being who inhabits a world where the good guys don’t always wear white and sometimes the criminals are clad in shades of grey.

Indeed, Batman’s flaws, stemming from his human identity as Bruce Wayne, are the impetus for his strides into legend, although the evil that he battles isn’t always clear-cut. His mentor Ducard shares Wayne’s disgust with the rotten state of Gotham City, a place where thugs cut deals with an overtaxed justice system to squirm out of their well-deserved punishments. “Criminals thrive on the indulgence of society’s understanding,” sneers Ducard. And one would think that Wayne, who witnessed not only his own parents’ murders but also the early release of their killer, would agree.

Yet although Wayne becomes Ducard’s greatest student, he betrays him because he cannot betray his own morality to become a criminal’s executioner. Much like Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars Episode III, in Batman Begins, the pupil eclipses the master; only in this case, it’s not to join a Dark Side but to escape a League of Shadows.

But Gotham City is not without its own shadows, and they’re all cast by the larger-than-life figure of mob boss Carmine Falcone who like Ducard, understands the power of fear. Ducard, in a disturbingly Charles Manson-esque bit of wisdom, encourages Wayne to become his fear. He incurs the power of Wayne’s wrath by blaming his parents’ death on Thomas Wayne himself, a move which we believe is to mold him into a better fighter. Falcone also has harsh truths for Wayne. “You’ve never tasted desperate,” he lectures him. “This is a world you’ll never understand. You always fear what you don’t understand.” And like an abused child who grows up to beat his own children, Wayne becomes a criminal, only to be “saved” from a wretched prison by Ducard’s intervention.

Remembering his father’s words that “especially the scary ones know fear,” Wayne becomes a shadow of his own making by donning a costume and a persona to scare the hell out of the bad guys. Although previous incarnations of Batman have been goofy or outright ridiculous, in Nolan’s version, there is no garish spandex underwear and no cartoon bubbles shouting “POW!” Batman is as scary as hell, and in a dump like Gotham City, that’s saying a lot. Wayne relies on his Ninja training and Ducard’s ideas on theatricality and deception as potent agents to terrify, adopting a guttural snarl to mask his real voice.

It’s not just Wayne who dons a mask to become a frightening figure. Psychiatrist to the thugs, Dr. Jonathan Crane, has enough smarmy exchanges with Assistant District Attorney (and Wayne’s love interest), Rachel Dawes, to make us despise him and view him as perhaps the purest incarnation of evil. Ducard wanted to kill criminals; Crane turns them into lunatics. Although both Ducard and Crane appear to respect the mind’s power over the body, in Crane’s case, it’s more like slavish, rabid devotion, as he perfects the hallucinogen that Ducard used to train his students into a weapon of terror, a weapon that relies on visual deception much as Batman’s does.

It’s this secret terrorism that informs the entire movie, and one that is skilfully executed, most successfully when we realize that Falcone isn’t the biggest bad guy on the block. Like The Usual Suspects’ mysterious and powerful Keyser Söze, Ducard is not as he appears. In Batman Begins, however, this is not just a clever device; it’s a profound and painful lesson for Bruce Wayne. Ducard’s placement of blame on Wayne’s father wasn’t merely to anger him into action; the young Wayne was his pawn all along.

In this way Batman Begins is a very believable film, in that it addresses the quite real effects of growing up in the shadows of one’s father. This is not to say that the film doesn’t rely on some fabulous special effects. However, this Dark Knight is not a CGI fantasy like Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man. There’s an organic quality to Nolan’s creation. We see the genesis of Batman, not only psychologically and emotionally, but also practically. As the prince of Gotham and the heir to the Wayne fortune and family name, Bruce has access to some amazing toys, but they all make perfect sense in the context of his access to a billion-dollar entity.

Wayne rolls up his sleeves and creates not only the Batman legend, but also Batman’s actual costume, working with Wayne Enterprises employee (and friend of his father) Lucius Fox, who is the Q to Wayne’s James Bond. Shurikens become throwing bats instead of stars. A soldier’s protective suit becomes the Batman uniform. A paramilitary tank becomes the Batmobile. Electrically charged memory cloth becomes Batman’s cape.

These are not the only parts of the film that utilize the believability factor. Michael Caine plays Wayne butler and Batman confidant Alfred less as a servant and more as a substitute father. There’s also an enormous feeling of comfort in seeing Gary Oldman as Sergeant Gordon, and we are reminded of why he’s such an esteemed actor. The vastly talented Tom Wilkinson inhabits Carmine Falcone with a combination of humanity and depravity. Liam Neeson portrays the duplicitous Ducard with creepy panache and Cillian Murphy’s cold stare and deceptively cherubic features make for one horrific Scarecrow.

But this movie is about Batman and Christian Bale’s Batman exceeds all other cinematic interpretations. The role appears to be the culmination of his career, as he portrays the wounded innocent (Velvet Goldmine’s Arthur Stuart), the deceptive capitalist (American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman), and the righteous warrior (Equilibrium’s John Preston). One can’t help but be amazed at the scene in which he smugly escorts European models into his sports car only to be rendered boyishly awestruck by the unexpected appearance of Rachel.

Sadly, Katie Holmes’s portrayal of Rachel Dawes is the weakest part of an otherwise flawless film (the scene with a comatose Dawes and an almost bumbling Alfred also seems woefully out of place). Although the idea of a Batman love interest as much more than a screaming bimbo has been a long time in coming, it’s difficult to be convinced by pixie-voiced Holmes in this role. Thankfully, however, gratuitous love scenes are non-existent and she does fulfill an important role in turning a confused and vengeful Bruce Wayne into a hero. “It’s not who you are underneath,” she cautions, “but what you do, that defines you.” When he reveals to her that he is Batman, Bruce thinks she’ll be proud of how he’s taken her words to heart. To her, however, the childhood friend she loved has vanished, only to be replaced by yet another mask; Wayne doesn’t just lead a double life as Batman, he also has to pretend to be a billionaire playboy to throw off suspicion. The strain on him because of this is palpable. After all, we all wear masks; the trick is not to lose yourself inside them.

If Wayne can’t tear off his own mask, he can at least destroy those of others. By exposing Ra’s Al Ghul’s plot and thwarting it, he hopes to take the first steps to transforming Gotham from a slum into a shining city. He still refuses to become the executioner, and his compassion is what Ra’s Al Ghul would deride as a fatal flaw, but it is in fact what makes Batman so powerful. “Don’t be afraid, Bruce,” chokes Al Ghul, echoing Thomas Wayne’s words of comfort to young Bruce in the bat cave. But it’s not fear of his own death that propels Bruce Wayne. By letting Ra’s Al Ghul die, Wayne is allowing Batman to be completely born. “I’m not going to kill you,” he whispers to Al Ghul as the metro train careens off its rails, “but I don’t have to save you.”

The following scene, in which the screen is filled with the stupendous image of Batman flying through the air, is a powerful example of the skillful direction of Nolan, who has crafted a grimy world of sepia tones not unlike the futuristic squalor of Blade Runner (another movie about secret identities). This Gotham City looks like any big city that’s been ravaged by crime, but is more fantastic than and horrible than all of them combined. The gritty reality of Gotham is heightened by the music of Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard, who have developed a marvellous score that makes tremendous use of two sustained notes. Fortunately, there are no cheesy hits-in-the-making by modern bands to tear down the ideal that this Batman is real.

The combination of script, score, directing, and acting make this Batman more credible than his predecessors. It is this credibility that makes Batman not just a literal symbol of good against evil, but a metaphor for humanity in a cruel and twisted world. Although it is man’s inhumanity to man that contributed to the wretchedness of Gotham, it is the fact that Batman is human that may resurrect it in the end.

Sin City is an extraordinary film. It’s undeniably exciting, and so thoroughly engrossing, that while watching it, the film’s world becomes the real world. After leaving the theater, I felt discombobulated by reality, and could scarcely focus on remembering where I’d parked.

This is not a film for children. For this, I am grateful. Quite frankly, I grow weary of sharing my long-standing interests in things with the tweens of the world who often don’t even get it. Of course, they probably think I’m too old to appreciate The O.C., but that’s for another essay.
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Whenever I watch the show COPS (which is actually rather frequently), I’m amazed by the amount of time law enforcement spends on prostitution stings. These are executed in one of two formats: A) a female cop poses as a hooker in order to nab would-be johns or B) a male cop chats up a hooker in order to charge her with solicitation. My concern with this is not that I believe prostitution should be ignored or even legalized; what I object to is the way the police officers cheer as they tally up the day’s total, as if they’re somehow saving the world by throwing men and women in jail for participating in prostitution.
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From IMDB.com:

Ordinarily when a powerfully talented performer produces a minor, disposable product like this, the advice is, “For die-hard fans only.” In this case, however, die-hard fans are the ones who will least like this documentary, as it is quite insulting to them (Cross fans are depicted as a bunch of crass, idiotic stoners.) As for David, he’s shown in a not very flattering light, dressed up in tacky clothes that are twenty-five years too young for him and indulging in adolescent behavior (setting off illegal fireworks, bragging about vandalizing his old highschool, gossiping about girls he’s slept with.) Put it this way: I would rather watch “Run Ronnie Run” again than sit through this thing a second time. You have been warned.

I'm confused about this review because I don't understand why the Let America Laugh DVD is referred to as “minor,” “disposable,” or “product.” I would also like to think that die-hard fans of comedian David Cross are not a bunch of crass, idiotic stoners since I am a die-hard fan of his and I am neither idiotic nor a stoner (although you could make an argument for “crass” at times). However, as the DVD unfortunately proves, many of his fans do fit that description. One may argue that the DVD’s editing and presentation as a documentary skews the portrayal of these folks, but I know from personal experience that such embarrassing conduct is the rule, not the exception.

If anyone is offended by the way that David Cross ridicules his fan base, then the real criticism of this DVD should be that he’s biting the hand that feeds him, not that he himself is the fool. However, if anyone should feel foolish it should be those fans who, in the end, have paid to be mocked. In this case you really do get what you pay for.

Dir. Danny Boyle

Danny Boyle’s career seemed unstoppable until Ewan McGregor backed out of The Beach and Leo DiCaprio starred instead. Although ambitious, the film lacked the sincerity of Boyle’s previous work when it allowed DiCaprio’s movie star persona to overshadow everything else. But forget about that misstep: with 28 Days Later, Boyle has now achieved the same level of marvelous eclecticism as Peter Jackson by adding good old-fashioned horror to his already diverse oeuvre, all without sacrificing character or depth. Of course, there’s also an incredible soundtrack, a Boyle specialty, which enhances the mood rather than creates it.

A master of the postmodern, Boyle brilliantly mines the “zombie film” genre, but without being campy. (In fact, the word “zombie” is never used; “the infected” is the term of choice.) 28 Days Later borrows the brutal realism of George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and the explicit gore of the Resident Evil videogame series.

There are also nods to 80s teen flick Night of the Comet (which is itself a cheeky homage to Night of the Living Dead), as well as Dawn of the Dead’s goofy “Bub” character.Yet there’s a paucity of comic relief in this film. Boyle achieves a welcome contrast to the terror by creating deeply personal interactions in scenes of such lyrical beauty that I found myself moved to tears.

This film is not a star vehicle. There are no clichéd characterizations—just normal folks in an abnormal situation. But that is what makes them more than mere unwilling victims of those flesh-eating bastards. They’re going to survive because they’ve got something to them beyond mere skill with weapons and the ability to outrun their grotesque pursuers, and I don’t just mean the “the infected.”

Boyle’s familiar theme of man’s persistent need to be grossly inhuman is frighteningly apparent here and is actually the cause of the whole disaster. It’s also something that crops up in unexpected places, with truly harrowing and haunting results. This is not going to be the movie you think it is.

And it will scare the shit out of you for that very reason. It’s been over an hour and I cannot shake it off. I’ll be sleeping with the lights on for a long, long while. That is, if I can get to sleep.