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The Value of a ‘Buck’
Buck Brannaman, the subject of Buck, is one of the most famous proponents of what might be called the “new school” of horse training, an approach that concentrates on understanding the horse's fears, calming those fears, earning the animal's trust, and then becoming its thoughtful master. Buck seems to be able to take all but the most damaged animals, and fairly quickly to gentle them and get them doing what he wants them to do. I was half prepared for a lot of new-agey, PETA-style sentimentality and romanticism in the the film's treatment of horses. I'm happy to report that there's none of that here.
‘Paranormal Activity 3′ Surpasses Expectations, ‘English’ Shunned
U.S. moviegoers avoided theaters over the weekend, except those showing new release Paranormal Activity 3. But fans of Rowan Atkinson and his Johnny English master-spy character needn't worry about the film's poor performance at the box office--odds are he will live to see tomorrow.
Cusack-Poe Movie: Maddest Thing Ever?
The upcoming theatrical film The Raven, evidently based verrrrrrrrry loosely on the stories and poems of the brilliant nineteenth century American writer Edgar Allan Poe, and starring John Cusack as Poe, looks as if it could be very good fun or just poopawful. Certainly it looks like quite possibly the maddest thing ever, which is saying a lot these days. Based on the trailer, however, I find myself strangely interested in seeing the great American writer battle evil on the mean streets of antebellum Baltimore even though I don’t like Cusack and never have. (That’s not a criticism of him or his movies, just a personal reaction.) See the trailer, and decide for yourself—if you dare:
‘Real Steel’ Tops U.S. Movie Box Office
Rocky meets Transformers meets big U.S. audiences craving upbeat escapism. Story and numbers here.
Steve Jobs, American Dreamer
By Ben Domenech The career of Steve Jobs exemplifies the American dream. It is jarring that death strikes Jobs at a point so young – at 56, he barely had half the professional years of Edison, Ford, and Carnegie, who all died in their eighties. It means the world will miss out on the latter days of career, whether he would’ve stretched out for more incredible goals, or turned to more philanthropic pursuits. In his time, he touched so many areas of cultural life, not just through consumer products, his effect on communication and education, but also the creation of some of the best films of the past decade. So much work in such a compressed period of time. In the beginning, he seemed so young. And at the end, he seemed old beyond his years. Jobs was and will remain a cult-like figure, the confrontational counterculturalist, the turtlenecked Buddhist who lived in empty mansions. His products bore his imprint in incredible ways—the original iPods had volume and gain problems almost entirely due to Jobs’ personal hearing loss – and his ruthless expectation for perfection in design is evident – that things should not just look beautiful, but work beautifully.
Film Trailer: “The Whisperer In Darkness”
Courtesy of Furious D, here’s a little film trailer for a low-budget production of H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Whisperer In Darkness.” Honestly, isn’t that a great trailer? Aren’t you interested in seeing this movie? I know I am, and–here’s the thing–I hate H. P. Lovecraft’s body of work. All that nihilism, and the whole the-universe-is-more-horrifying-than-you-can-imagine Cthulhu Mythos, is to me not only depressing and demoralizing, but full-out blasphemous. But this trailer is irresistable. The people who made it (and, we assume, the film) are having so much fun, first in telling a story they enjoy, and then in re-creating the whole atmosphere of a 1930s horror film, that all their love shines through (which is ironic when you’re dealing with Lovecraft material). Bravo.
Hollywood’s Greatest Year?
Not to sound like an old codger, but movies aren’t as good as they used to be. Oh sure, they’re more technically dazzling than ever, and there is still a fair amount of quality among the dross. But film today is less interesting, surprising, or engaging than at any other time I can remember. This observation raises an interesting question, though: when was American cinema at its peak? More precisely, if one had to pick a single year as the best ever for Hollywood, what would it be? For many cinephiles, the answer to this question is 1939, and a strong argument can be made in its favor. Film highlights from that year include timeless works like Gone With the Wind (still the biggest ticket-seller of all time) and The Wizard of Oz, both of which remain frequently viewed today. The year also featured classics in genres like the Western (Stagecoach, directed by John Ford) and the sophisticated romantic comedy (Ninotchka), as well as the film perhaps most emblematic of Frank Capra, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. While 1939 is impressive by any standard, for my money Hollywood’s greatest year was 1974. The “New Hollywood” was well-established by then and
Straw Dogs 2011 a Liberal Screed
Why would you remake Straw Dogs? The question enticed me to the local multiplex last weekend. After all, the television advertising campaign for Rod Lurie’s (The Contender) latest film didn’t reveal much about the style and plot, but my fascination with Sam Peckinpah’s original version prompted me to see how such a morally complicated movie could be improved upon nearly 40 years later. Quick answer: It can’t. At least not by Lurie, a script that unabashedly lifts 90 percent from the original, and a cast either too ill-equipped or poorly directed to bring much more than “stand there, say that” chops. James Woods reprises his one-dimensional Southern racist redneck prone to violence role from Ghosts of Mississippi, James Marsden and Kate Bosworth look as if they’ve stepped out of a Vanity Fair photo shoot, the great Walton Goggins (TV’s Justified and The Shield) is totally wasted, and Alexander Skarsgard ping pongs between country-fried wholesomeness and really handsome rapist. The Monkee’s “Going Down” is used for Tarantino effect to show how “cool” the Jaguar XJ-driving protagonists – who know all the lyrics, natch – are, but zydeco and Southern rock (Lynard Skynard? Check. Molly Hatchet? Check.) are the indigenous musical flavors
Vampire Culture
How does one explain the efflorescence of the vampire in popular culture? David Solway has an idea: One can’t help but notice the growing prevalence of the vampire archetype in contemporary fiction and film, corresponding to the popular fascination with the Titanic story. The vampire and the Titanic constitute cultural paradigms, aspects of the subliminal awareness of deep social currents, suppressed forces, and nocturnal apprehensions expressed as aesthetic configurations. It used to be “sympathy for the devil.” Now it’s sympathy for cognizable evil: The premonition that something is awfully wrong haunts the imagination, although much of the time we cannot isolate precisely what it is that lurks in the shadows of our doubts and misgivings. Terrorism and a revived Islam, for example, clearly stalk the collective psyche. According to ancient lore, the vampire must first be invited into the premises he subsequently terrorizes, and this is certainly the case with the Islamic demographic. At the same time, all too many of us refuse to consciously acknowledge the threat and strive instead to prettify the image of Islam as a “religion of peace” — just as the modern vampire tends to be nipped and tucked into a cosmetic semblance of nobility
Did Thomas Jefferson Really Have Children by a Slave?
Everybody “knows” he did, right? In a book due out Thursday, eminent scholars say it’s unlikely that Thomas Jefferson fathered Sally Hemings’ children, disputing a decade’s worth of conventional wisdom that the author of the Declaration of Independence sired offspring with one of his slaves. The debate has ensnared historians for years, and many thought the issue was settled when DNA testing in the late 1990s confirmed that a Jefferson male fathered Hemings’ youngest son, Eston. But, with one lone dissenter, the panel of 13 scholars doubted the claim and said the evidence points instead to Jefferson’s brother Randolph as the father. The scholars also disputed accounts that said Hemings’ children received special treatment from Jefferson, which some saw as evidence of a special bond between the third president and Hemings. There seems to be reason to doubt Jefferson’s patrimony: Claims that the relationship between Hemings and Jefferson started in Paris are unlikely because she was living with his daughters at their boarding school across the city at the time. The “Jefferson family” DNA used in the 1998 test came from descendants of his uncle, which the scholars said means any one of two dozen Jefferson men living in Virginia
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