2005-Dead or Alive

If there was one word to sum up the clusterhump that was the year Two Thousand and Five A.D., I suppose it would have to be LOST.

(Entertainment Weekly unwittingly agrees with me since the editors proclaim the cast of ABC’s Lost as their Entertainer of the Year. Ignore the logic and focus on the irony.)

The year started in the minus column with the aftermath of two major disasters-the Mommy of all Tsunamis and the 2004 re-election of President Bush League. There wasn’t even enough time to regain our footing from those events as we immediately slid downhill quicker than Tom Cruise’s approval rating.

In 2005 we lost a Pope, a Supreme Court Chief Justice and an entire American city along with much of the Gulf Coast of the United States of America during the worst storms anyone can ever remember. Add to this the Terri Schiavo debacle, the neverending story known as Iraq, the raping and pillaging by the major oil companies, illegal government wiretapping and wind it up with the preliminary strike in the upcoming Holy Civil War known as the Attack on Christmas…and you’ve got yourself either an ulcer, a substance abuse problem or a reason to take your own life and a few others with you.

(Hyperbole. It’s what’s for dinner.)

To keep our minds off the terrible tragedy that is everyday life, we usually can count on mindless entertainment to pull us through, but even then, it was one disaster after another. We became so beaten down that even mediocre was a cause for celebration. We stood up with our lowered expectations to cry for joy when the final chapter of Star Wars was not as bad as the others.

“Hey everybody, Revenge of the Sith didn’t suck! It didn’t suck! Thank you, George Lucas! Oh, thank you!”

(For the record, my favorite film of the year was Robert Rodriguez’s adaptation of Frank Miller’s Sin City. Flawed as it was, it still showed more flair, guts and balls than anything else I saw last year.)

Several great names were taken this year, many of which had a profound influence on my life, including Johnny Carson, Richard Pryor, Hunter S. Thompson and Arthur Miller.

Because it is my nature to balance my tastes between the sublime and the ridiculous, I also must mention the passing of another great performer, the WWE star Eddie Guerrero, a star cut down in the prime of his life. I have no desire to exalt my fascination with professional wrestling at this time, but I would be remiss if I didn’t pay tribute to someone who was a lot better than any of you will ever know.

Howard Stern left what is now known as “terrestrial radio” for the unknown frontiers of satellite broadcasting. Stern, in his farewell speech, called himself “the last of a dying breed”. While he may not be the last, there certainly will be no star of his magnitude to emerge from the ranks of commercial radio again, a business that has been in free-fall for several years now. I personally won’t miss Howard that much. I’m still in mourning for The Don and Mike Show, pulled from Portland area airwaves last Spring with no hope of revival.)

While I maintain that 2005 bit the Big One almost every day out of 365, I was able to claim a solid personal victory, a memory of which I will always cherish.

My book, In the Dark: A Life and Times in a Movie Theater finally made it into my local library. One down, several thousand to go. This completes the last of the attainable goals I set for myself in the publication of this, my book ever to see print. It also makes up for the fact that my sales have been, shall we say, non-existent (currently ranked #3,345,802 on the Amazon.com sales chart) and that I wasn’t able to garner any publicity whatsoever. The ultimate insult was that I was dissed and dismissed by Portland’s ultra-left-wing radio station KBOO-FM, the radio equivalent of public access. I might as well been scorned by a Buddhist monk. When In the Dark first saw the light of day back in 2003, I knew I was in for an uphill struggle. Publish America, the house that handles my book, is a Publish on Demand (or POD) outfit that is not much of a step above self-publishing in the vast Book World. It also pretty dictates that I market the material myself, something that makes me more of an incompetent boob than I already am. I knew from the first few months that it was going to be a Herculean task to get my material purchased by anyone more than my family and friends since, let’s face it, no one else really knew anything about it. I’m not complaining nor do I believe the people PA misrepresented themselves in any way. Who knows if my book would have ever seen the light of day at all unless I paid for the whole shebang myself? So I had to come to grips with this grim reality and at least bask in what remains of any success I’ve accumulated. First of all, I got published. I have a tangible piece of material that came from my own blood, sweat and tears and can call my own. Second, I am in an honest to goodness bookstore. No, not in theory, but the real deal: Powell’s Books in downtown Portland, one of the world’s great bookstores. How my book got there was that someone, I’m not sure who, resold a review copy to Powell’s as used. Technically, it’s still on their shelf, even if it is just one copy. Finally, a couple of months back while perusing the film section of the Beaverton Library, guess what I spied with my little eye? An edition of In the Dark sitting right next to Crime Films by Carlos Clarens, author of An Illustrated History of the Horror Film, one of the first books I ever checked out of the library. You cannot believe the rush I got seeing MY book-written by ME-with MY name on the cover-resting on a library shelf. I needed this validation more than I ever realized and for the first time in a long time, certainly all year, I was proud of myself. Now for full disclosure, I should tell you that I solicited the library myself. I was just pleasantly surprised they went ahead and decided to carry it. I guess one could say this is the equivalent of saying Star Wars didn’t suck. If so, then so be it. The sales of my book are dismal. It can only be purchased in as bookstore if someone returns a copy. And the Beaverton Library carries it only because I asked them too. So what? What this means to me is that I no longer believe myself to be a literary bastard because now I consider myself legitimate at long last. As far as I’m concerned, it’s all the confirmation I need for now…and that is enough.

There’s my freaking silver lining for the black cloud known as 2005.

I put one in the win column.

End of the Summer Blowout

So ends another summer season here on the planet Earth, lazy, crazy days usually filled by the three Rs-rest, relaxation and recreation. Instead these past few months have chalk full of life lessons for us all, myself included.

And just what have we learned this summer?

The London bombings brought back some nasty reminders that terrorism has become a way of life in the 21st century.

Gas prices prove once and for all that the true terrorists are the major oil companies who had record sales at a time when the rest of us are struggling.


Karl Rove will walk away unscathed when he should be tarred and feathered.

The Democrats are spineless. Oh, we already know that.

Pat Robertson is the American equivalent of a radical cleric.

They are never going to find out what happened to Natalee Holloway.

The mother of a dead soldier can be demonized by the right, turned into a martyr on the left and a dancing monkey for the media.

Best movie of the summer: War of the Worlds.

Biggest tool of the summer: Tom Cruise.

Most welcome return to TV: Anthony Bourdain on The Travel Channel’s No Reservations. Bourdain’s book, Kitchen Confidential, was my final inspiration to complete my book In the Dark.

Six Feet Under went out with a whimper (Bad old age makeup! Bad!), but the episodes leading up to the finale were among the best of the series. Oh, and Lauren Ambrose is the best actress of her generation.

I was only able to watch the first episode of Over There. While excellent, this depiction of the current Iraq war is too damn close for casual TV viewing. The world has changed since WW II.

Best TV commercials: Capital One’s Vikings. Maybe they should unleash their wrath on David Spade.

Revenge of the Sith did not suck ass. Much.

Batman Begins completed a geek hat trick (War and Sith included), living up to its hype. Christopher Nolan managed to recreate on the screen not only what Frank Miller brought to The Batman character, but also the contributions of Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams. The only drawback was the slapdash editing of the fight scenes, rendering them confused and unfocused. It seemed as though the chopped up, speeded up method was covering up discrepancies in the staging of these scenes. If I happened to be the stunt coordinator, I would have been pissed. Nothing like good work gone to waste. Isn’t it also rather telling that here’s an All American character like Batman portrayed, and excellently, by another Brit (okay Welsh…eh, Waler, goddamn it, an actor from Wales!) In fact, almost every Brit or Aussie or what have you is playing an American except Liam Neeson and (thankfully) Michael Caine, who cannot do an American accent to save his life. Who were the token Yanks? Morgan Freeman and Katie Holmes. USA! USA!

Celebrity spottings this summer:
Gus Van Sant at the Portland Whole Foods.
Gary the Retard from The Howard Stern Show on an Alaskan Airlines flight to Oakland.
Minka, the 44 Double K Cup stripper at the Oakland Airport. She looked very…uncomfortable.

The main thing I learned this summer was to finally begin to accept the Passage of Time. On a recent trip to California, I found many of the things I loved in the past that have just gone away- the great Coronet Theater in San Francisco where I saw Star Wars when it first opened as well as many other films. It was always an event and the Coronet’s massive presentation never failed to overwhelm. My beloved Café Riggio, almost directly across the street from the Coronet, also recently shut its doors. My very favorite restaurant, an establishment I had visited with many a lady friend in my time since the early eighties and never failed me on either a culinary or a romantic level, is no more. While it makes me sad and nostalgic for some good ol’ days, the truth is that I haven’t been to either establishment in over ten years. I had put them behind long before the end of the century so it’s really absurd to mourn their demise. Somehow seeing that they both are gone now was a wake up call for me. Yep. A wake up call for mortality. Ain’t that a kick in the ass?

Class dismissed.

Full of Sith

(If you haven't seen Revenge of the Sith yet, be forewarned that this is chock full o' spoilers.If you don't care one way or the other, what are you doing here anyway? Go read Rosie O'Donnell's blog. Maybe there's a sequel to Riding the Bus with My Sister in the works.)

So the Star Wars saga is now complete. Revenge of the Sith, the third and final piece of the big jigsaw puzzle has been set into place, connecting the entire series together.

And the verdict is...

IT DOESN'T SUCK!

Everybody fanboy in the world has been tripping over themselves so that may grovel at the feet of George "Don't call me Toad" Lucas for not screwing this one up too.

"Shank you, Mishter Lucash! Shank you! You've given us all a reashon to live again! We have all been sho disshapointed in the lasht few yearsh. Shtar Trek let ush down....The Matrixsh shequelsh shucked...sho did The Lord of the Ringsh... Oh wait, that didn't shuck. But that was fantashy! Thish ish schinche fichtion! What you have done, George...can I call you George?... Mishter Lucash. Yesshir... What you have done with Shtar Warsh-Chapter Three-Revenge of the Shith is bring it all together and sheamlishly connect it with Shtar Warsh-Chapter Four: A New Hope. That'sh what you given ush...A New Hope. Shank you again for lowering our shtandardsh sho much with the last two moviesh than when you've made a half-way dechent attempt thish time around, it looksh like a freakin' mashterpiece in comparishon! Shank you, Mishter Lucash! Oh, shank you...and may the Forche be with you!"

Look, kiddies, don't be so goddamn grateful to Darth Lucas. Sith had to be good. He owed it to you. He owed it to me. He's owed it anyone who has ever given two figs about Star Wars at all. What he did was make up for lost time and that is the twenty years that passed since Return of the Jedi. It's no secret to anyone that The Phantom Menace was not only atrocious, but a slap right across the pimply face of every fan out there. He himself has admitted that the first two prequels only had about 20% story in each. The rest was all padding...and that padding was out and out pimping of merchandising-toy, games and other piles of future landfill. Over the years one truth has emerged from all of Lucas' raping and pillaging of the young and the young at heart...

George Lucas is NOT a Jedi. He went over to the Dark Side a long time ago in a Bay Area far, far away... Okay. Fine. That's overstating it (No! Really?) He's just such a goddamn disappointment to me.

My anger at Darth Lucas is not directed at the film, which I'll get into later. This all stems from the May 20 interview with Lucas in Entertainment Weekly that preceded the release of the film. I held onto it until after I saw Sith since EW should really be called Spoiler Weekly and I'd rather see the movie first. (I know, I said I have spoilers in this thing too but how much money did you pay to read this? Spoilers in the media equals bad journalism, so there) I guess what infuriates me about Lucas is his total lack of passion for his own creation and how he spits in the face of anyone who cares more he does. He had to "add Hamburger Helper" to fill out the first two movies. This all stems from his "aversion to wordsmithing". Fine. You hate writing so much then why didn't you get some help, Toad? One of the reasons The Empire Strikes Back is generally acknowledged to be the best of the bunch because the screenplay was written by legendary screenwriter Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan, no slouch himself. You remember him? He co-wrote Return of the Jedi with you. What's the matter, couldn't afford him? Maybe someone could have helped with some of the more embarrassing moments in the new film too. (Let me also give credit to both Irvin Kershner and Richard Marquand who directed the second and third installments as well)
I guess what really just rankles my Bantha is that George was one of the great hopes of my generation. He was a rebel that broke ranks with Hollywood years ago and was going to right the wrongs of a system that was spinning into the dark morass. In days past he championed the future of film with his creation of Industrial Light and Magic and THX soun. He even helped fund some interesting side projects, like co-producing Akira Kurosawa's Kagemusha and Paul Schrader's Mishima. Unfortunately, he became part of the very problem himself. Projects were announced and dropped like so much litter so as the story of The Tuskegee Airmen that was eventually made by HBO without Lucas. Movies became less important than the products themselves. He became more of a toymaker than a filmmaker. By setting himself up as king of his own empire, Lucas has found absolute power...and you what they say about that, don't you?

As far as Revenge of the Sith goes, I have to say that I liked it for the most part. It is actually the only one of the prequels I would see again, but that's not to say it's not without its problems.
I will say that is is a good movie...not great. It falls into fourth place behind Jedi, with Empire being number one followed by the first. (NOT CHAPTER 4! I REFUSE TO PLAY THAT GAME!) However, I will say it is the only one in the series that actually engaged me emotionally in a couple of instances, so on that level, it damn near succeeded. I didn't really get into it until about half way through the picture. The first hour reminded me of Clones, technically adept but flat, clumsy and uninvolving. The whole rescue of Palpatine had a been there, done that feeling. More should have been made of the death of Count Dooku, especially how he was killed.
AND ANOTHER THING...
Christopher Lee is one of my boyhood idols and one of the greatest genre actors of all time...Couldn't you give him a more dignified name than Count fucking DOO-KU?
But Lucas gets points for giving Mr. Lee his due in this last movie and not cutting him out like Peter Jackson did in Return of the King. Advantage, Lucas. In your face, Hobbit boy!
Oh, but you lose those points anytime Padame refers to the future Lord Vader as "Annie".

The PG-13 rating seemed to liberate Lucas quite a bit, knowing that if he was going to tell this story right, he'd have to delve deeper into darker territories and eliminate a lot of baggage. Gone thankfully are many of the cutesy elements that have plagued the series since the days of the dreaded Ewoks (though there was still too much R2-D2 for my taste).
More should have been made as well when Anakin kills the kids. That should have been the pivotal moment. He killed children, for Chrissakes. Lucas treated it as though he shot the cat. This horrible act, certain proof that Skywalker had crossed over to the Dark Side, was so glossed over that it seems that Lucas was embarrassed by it all. Maybe he felt it might appear he was taking it out on the younger audience. If Uncle George was so uncomfortable with it, he shouldn't have included it. The final duel on the volcano planet is quite something to behold, concluding with Annakin’s loss of limbs and sizzling on the ground like fajita night at Chili’s. (Except for the fight on the tiny platform in the lava flow which looked like a gag from a Zucker Brothers movie when adversaries in a gunfight shoot at each other from both sides of a small table) This and the final metamorphosis of burn victim into the Dark Lord was worth the price of admission, except for the big "NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!"

A couple of elements I feel lacking:

Maybe, since Anakin killed all those kids, he should have made some reference to his own unborn children and perhaps threatened their existence somehow. Hey, I’m just throwing it out there.

It’s quite telling that all of the breakout characters from the last three films have been the Dark Side (General Grievous and Darth Maul, even the Emperor himself). Everyone of the “good guys” (with the exception of Yoda, better than in the last film, but he is not a new character) are dull as dishwater. No wonder Annakin wanted to cross over. Ewan MacGregor is decent enough as Obi-Wan but I have problems with him. I've wanted to punch his face since Moulin Rouge. Lucas really missed the boat not evening the field with someone along the lines of Han Solo, without being just another “rascal”. Mace Windu could have been that character, kind of a cooler version of a Jedi Master. Who’s cooler than Samuel L. Jackson? This is not to say he should played like Jedi Superfly with a switchblade light saber. He just could have been at the very least a little less stoic and maybe just a little more swashbuckling. Perhaps if he were a little less bland, his eventual death would have meant more than it did.

All this is probably making this space opera more complex than it really should be. Remember the simplicity of the original? Sometimes George went too far and was unable to go far enough to make it wholly satisfactory.

I did like the small touches here and there of things to come, especially the Peter Cushing look-alike toward the end and the too short of a trip to the Wookie planet. Having Chewbacca as a general was a bit gratuitous. I would have bought it more if he was a foot soldier. How did he go from military brass to second banana to a bandit? Did he hit the skids? Maybe Chewie was hitting the pipe. I’m so glad Lucas resisted any urge to have a little smart-ass punk stealing some fruit from a vendor who’d yell “Han Solo! You bring that back!”

Hayden Christensen perhaps he realized "This was it" and had better up his game if he was to make this movie work at all. Those of us that were afraid he would become Darth Whiner can be suitably relieved. Maybe he knew that if he botched it, he'd be victimized the rest of his life by legions of geeks, nerds and fanboys from every corner of the universe. If you can accept the premise that this is the guy who will be Vader, you can see Christensen is at long last credible in the role.

By the end, I found myself actually engaged emotionally a couple of times, something that has never occurred in the other five movies. Through all my cynical veneer toward this whole enterprise, I was into it to the final scene.

As a whole, I can say I walked away satisfied that it's all over now, though I know better after all this time. It ain't over cuz Geoge doesn't know when to leave it the hell alone. He'll release the entire she-bang in 3-D as he's announced but he'll still mess with them. Some day Alec Guinness will be doing backflips and jumping around the room like everybody else. Jabba will probably be on the Atkins diet and we'll see a slimmer version of the Hutin order to promote a healthier lifestyle. Just for fun, Padame could get some breast augmentation. There'll be the TV shows and the novelizations of course and one day, mark my words, there will be another movie. I don't begrudge him controlling his universe however he wants. I just wish he'd quit rewriting history and just move on...and NOT to another Indiana Jones movie. LEAVE THAT ALONE TOO! (That is unless you want to make a geriatric Jones picture since Harrison is aging rapidly even as we speak.)

The thing is, Lucas has regained some goodwill he's lost in the last decade with this what should be the grand finale. He's said that he wants to make a small picture like he did back in college. Maybe he can be a little more like Martin Scorsese, one of his peers and do something about film preservation or help give some filmmakers a boost that really need it in this day and age. We'll just have to see what he does.

To quote another source, George:
With great power comes great responsibility.
Don't fuck it up again.
Oh, and may the Force...well, you know.