"Dancer in the Dark (2000)"

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In April 2017 I engaged in an interesting film viewing experiment.
Myself and Nikkolas Nelson another MovieJawn reviewer,
watched DANCER IN THE DARK together via smart phone.

The following is a brief thesis of the film that I submitted.

Plus some pictures for added pizzazz.

The final article is very different by necessity & can be found in the Moviejawn zine
(Vol. 3, #5) which may be available here in the Moviejawn shop.

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DANCER IN THE DARK (2000) (thesis)

for: MovieJawn

by: Hunter Bush

“I love the movies. I just love the musicals.”

“But isn’t it annoying when they do the last song?”

“Why?”

“Because you just know when it goes really big… and the camera goes like out of the roof… and you just know it’s going to end. I hate that. I would leave just after the next to last song… and the film would just go on forever.”

DANCER IN THE DARK is a beautiful and bleak film, which I knew that going in. Selma (Björk)’s life is filled with day to day troubles; she’s a single mother of a mildly disobedient son and she works a relatively joyless factory job to pay rent to the police officer and his wife (David Morse & Cara Seymour) who are her landlords. Oh and, some time this year, she’ll be blind. It’s no wonder she retreats into elaborate technicolor musical numbers in her head to cope. They can make a day spent working in a factory fly by quickly or even, in Selma’s mind, resurrect the dead and offer their killer some forgiveness.

The quote at the top is Selma explaining to Bill (Morse) the way she chooses to watch movies. She knows that the movie will end and that’s just how things are, but she chooses to ignore that objective reality in favor of a less painful subjective one. This is writer / director Lars von Trier boiling Selma down to her bare bones: rather than face this minor unhappiness, she reshapes her reality into one that she prefers. One where the musicals are all still going; songs still being sung and choreographies performed, where the curtain never comes down. 

When I was given this film by a friend, he said I should “…only watch it if you want to ruin your day.” and while that’s not wrong, it isn’t wholly right either. For all the miseries in DITD, it’s also filled with magic, beauty and hope. I expected to never feel the need to watch this again, but I can say that I absolutely will… I may just leave before the last song.

"The Grifters (1990)"

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The following is my original, unedited article written in March, 2017.

Plus some pictures for added pizzazz.

The final, finished & edited version can be found here at Moviejawn.

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Review: THE GRIFTERS (1990)

for: MovieJawn

by: Hunter Bush

The Grifters is a fantastic movie, a subdued movie and a movie about liars, adapted from the book by Jim Thompson, a crime / noir writer posthumously called “the Dimestore Dostoevsky”. I don’t remember when I first saw it but I’ve always held it in high regard, while simultaneously finding it incredibly hard to explain exactly why. The performances are great; subtle and seething and alluring but despite being a movie where the three leads are con artists there’s no ‘Big Heist’, no ‘Big Scam’. It’s a movie about the relationships between these three people, the lies they tell and where that leads them.

We’re introduced to all three mains in the opening sequence via a triple split-screen which works as the movie’s own grift by showing us just enough that we think we know what’s going on. Lilly (Anjelica Huston) is running an odds-lowering scam at a horse track, Roy (John Cusack) is short-conning bartenders and patrons out of a couple bucks here and there and Myra (Annette Bening) is trying to pass off fake jewelry to Stephen Tobolowsky before resorting to just sleeping with him. By showing us these three simultaneously (at just after the four minute mark, they all stop outside of the doors they are about to enter and look around in synchronization) director Stephen Frears is allowing us to think that they’re all in cahoots with one another, like a leaner Ocean’s 11. This, like so much in this movie, is a lie and as with most lies, especially in film where there is a limit to the run time, the truth starts to eek out little by little.

We come to find that Lilly works for a well-connected bookie named Bobo Justus (Pat Hinge) and that she’s skimming a little off the top of her “earnings” for herself. She is also Roy’s estranged mother. Roy is dating (?) Myra though neither knows the other is a grifter. In grifting, there are two types of scams The Long Con and The Short Con. The names refer to the amount of time they take to correctly pull off which is, ideally, a direct corollary to how lucrative the payout at the end is for the con-man (or -woman). Roy is on the Short Con, as is Myra (right now) and Lilly is running the  Long Con for Bobo (the grifter equivalent of a day job). They are all successful to varying degrees. Roy and Lilly each have a secret cash stockpile and Myra seemingly could pay her rent but when she gives her landlord the choice between “the lady of the loot”, he never picks the loot.

Let’s talk about the lies. This movie is lousy with ‘em. Obviously the assorted grifters are lying as a profession. That’s lying to other people, and that’s a given. On top of that, they’re lying to each other. When Bobo sends Lilly to a racetrack nearish to Roy’s hotel, she decides to drop in though they haven’t seen each other in eight years. Lilly can tell Roy is on the grift though he keeps denying it, claiming to be a salesman. He does the same later after Myra catches him scamming sailors (perennial John Cusack best bud Jeremy Piven among them) with a magnetic dice gag and she proposes that they team up.

This is where we get Myra’s backstory and find out she used to be partnered with a fearless conman named Cole Langley (J.T. Walsh) running serious, big money Long Cons until Cole had a breakdown and had to be institutionalized, since when Myra has been Short Conning, looking for a partner. Roy turns her down because he thinks she’ll end up scamming him; when all you do is lie you can’t really trust anyone, especially not another liar. Thing is, I don’t even think Myra believes Roy is the right partner. She’s lying to herself. Roy is too, telling Lilly, late in the film, that he can “quit (grifting) any time he wants”. We all know that’s not true as soon as he says it but if you’ve never seen this movie before you may not know exactly how true it is.

I will not be spoiling this movie for anyone who hasn’t seen it, because I really think it should be experienced with no foreknowledge. I mentioned above that there’s no Big Heist moment, there are also no car chases, no shootouts. The film isn’t entirely devoid of violence but of the film’s handful of violent instances most happen offscreen or even just out of the frame, leaving us witnessing only the most important ones. In that way it’s very much like a stage play and the performances draw as much from that type of acting, using body language as much as dialogue or facial expression to convey meaning (especially Cusack who keeps Roy’s emotions locked down in a way that makes him feel like a ticking bomb).

This movie has no twist ending, yet it rewards repeat viewings with a deeper understanding of who the characters are and why they do what they do, which is a rare thing.

Article: Remakes, Adaptations & Long-Gap Sequels; part 1 (March - June, 2017)

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The following is my original, unedited article written in February, 2017.

Plus some pictures for added pizzazz.

The final, finished & edited version can be found here at Moviejawn.

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Remakes, Adaptations & Long-Gap Sequels

Part 1: March - June, 2017

By Hunter Bush

For Moviejawn

Which do audiences enjoy more, a fresh idea or something familiar? Someone with a head for box office figures could probably make a decent case either way. Regardless, it seems like every time I go see a major release movie, the majority of trailers are for remakes, adaptations or, more and more frequently, ‘Long Gap’ sequels. This past week I saw The Lego Batman movie which had seven trailers preceding it. Two were regular sequels (Cars 3 & Despicable Me 3), two were adaptations (Power Rangers & Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets), two were inspired by some outside phenomena (The Lego Ninjago Movie / toys & The Emoji Movie / emojis), leaving only one as an apparently original idea. That film? Boss Baby. 

There’s nothing wrong with any of this (in theory). David Cronenberg’s The Fly (1986) is both a remake and one of my favorite movies; Psycho, Fight Club, Goodfellas and Babe are all adaptations and widely regarded as classics in their respective genres; and no one minds when there’s an almost 30 year gap between films in a series if the result is Fury Road. Obviously it’s a case-by-case, movie-by-movie basis. So that’s how I’ll handle it. I’m going to peruse the lists of movies coming up this year (up to the end of June anyway) and when possible, through trailers, BTS featurettes and the like, try to figure out how closely they’re sticking to their source material.

And not for nothing, but The Lego Batman Movie was great fun in case you were wondering.

Fair warning: There may be some speculative spoilers, or spoilers for the source materials though I swear I’ve tried to avoid that as much as possible. Also I will be using the words ‘presumably’ and ‘apparently’ and ‘seems’ and their like quite a bit, so if you’re looking for a drinking game to accompany this article; there you go (you may also have a problem). Cheers!

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MARCH

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Logan (Mar 3) - Based on assorted Marvel comics characters and at least partially inspired by the “Old Man Logan” storyline written by Mark Millar, Brian Bendis & Jeff Lemire. This movie seems to be playing fast and loose with its inspirations, which I guess is kind of a thing that bothers some folks, but not me (I am of the “if you like the original thing, you can read / watch / whatever it any time” camp). From all I can tell the only similarities between the film and the OML storyline is that Logan (Hugh Jackman) is older and has somewhat given up on being Wolverine. The film doesn’t appear to take place in a dystopia like the comics (though we may or may not be living in one now, so really, how would I know?), Logan doesn’t live with his wife and kids, living instead with fellow mutants Caliban (Stephen Merchant) and an ailing Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and while the comic’s plot is an escort mission involving Hawkeye and some drugs, the movie’s plot seems to be all about protecting a young girl named Laura (Dafne Keen) who has a whole claws-and-violence thing going on similar to Logan himself. (For the nerds: Yeah I know who Laura is, but that would be telling).

The Shack (Mar 3) Based on the novel by William P. Young. This seems to be following the plot of the book pretty closely: 4 years before the main story, Mack (Sam Worthington) took his family camping and while distracted by saving his son from drowning, loses his youngest daughter. Her bloodied clothes are found in a shack in the woods, but to paraphrase Leadbelly “the body never was found”. He receives a letter from God (Octavia Spencer; excellent casting) inviting him back to the shack, which despite it being the snowy heart of winter, is magically a warm beautiful slice of summer. Mack has philosophical discussions with several “people” representing the Holy Trinity, God’s Infinite Wisdom and the like and eventually comes to terms with his daughter’s death. The main deviation I can tell is the movie trailer implies that Mack is living alone and only interacting with a neighbor (Tim McGraw) while in the book, he still lives with his wife and four surviving children. Possibly there will be sort of redemptive catharsis / rebuilding the family subplot? One of ya’ll will have to let me know because I am all but guaranteed to skip this one.

Before I Fall (Mar 3) - Based on the novel by Lauren Oliver, BIF looks like Groundhog Day by way of Donnie Darko but if Bill Murray was a Mean Girl (which, let’s face it, he kinda was). The film adaptation seems to follow the basic plot of the novel in which main character Sam (Zoey Deutch) is killed in a car accident leaving a Cupid’s Day party with her MG posse. The novel is apparently structured around Sam going through the 5 stages of grief during the story, finally arriving at Acceptance and (*SPOILERS*) willing to allow herself to finally die so long as she can help save the life of Juliet (Elena Kampouris) the frequent target of the girls’ bullying. The five stages of grief structure thing is actually pretty clever, and I’m interested to see if the film follows that concept through at all.

T2 Trainspotting (Mar 3) - Long gap sequel to 1996’s Trainspotting which was in turn based on the 1993 Irvine Welsh novel. T2 is apparently also inspired by the follow-up novel Porno from 2002. There appear to be some slight changes to the plot of Porno: Begbie (Robert Carlyle) escapes from prison, rather than being released; they’re opening a “leisure club” above the pub rather than shooting a porno there, etc. T2 looks very self-referential to Trainspotting (the international trailer had more than a handful of visual references that I caught on the first viewing) which in the hands of other filmmakers with other source material could conceivably be irritating, but this is Danny Boyle (and the entire applicable cast is returning as well). I’ll be honest, I didn’t know what to expect when I first heard about this project but after doing this research, I am absolutely interested. And not just to see which one is the Terminator (oh wait, wrong T2).

Kong: Skull Island (Mar 10) Based on primarily the film King Kong (1933), but seeing as this is a Legendary Pictures production and part of their shared universe with 2014’s Godzilla, I imagine we’ll see some crossover there. We all know the original Kong story by now, right? Filmmaker goes to Skull island to capture the never-before seen land on film, finds giant ape, brings ape to New York where he inevitably dies. In the upcoming film, Project Monarch (seen in Godzilla) go to explore Skull Island and find Kong at war with bipedal lizard monsters called ‘skull-crawlers’ by John C.Reilly’s character. I wonder if we’ll even make it to NY because all of the footage in these trailers is island-based and there appears to be no Carl Denham character or filmmaker surrogate suggested in the film. (*SPOILERS*) Legendary has announced a film called Godzilla vs. Kong for 2020, so maybe they’ll hold the climbing-the-Empire-State-building business until then? 

Beauty and the Beast (Mar 17) Based on the 1991 Disney animated film. I feel like the word ‘based’ doesn’t even cover it. This is like almost exactly the same movie, as far as I can tell, a fact which fills me with a very specific kind of Uncanny Valley uneasiness. Like, remember The Simpsons Halloween episode where Homer became 3-D? This makes me feel like that. I’m… very conflicted about it. On the one hand I… kinda wanna see it but on the other, why does this need to exist? 

Power Rangers (Mar 24) Based on the Saban franchise begun in the US in 1993 as the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers (though it used footage from the Japanese Super Sentai series Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger from 1992). This seems to be walking a very fine line between completely ridiculous and actually… kinda great. It seems to be taking itself just seriously enough that it gives a crap about making some of the sillier aspects of Power Rangers work in a “real world” setting, while not ending up as “grim and gritty Power Rangers”, a phrase that just by typing it makes me feel ill. It looks like pretty standard origin story stuff for the most part with five semi-troubled teens stumbling into becoming superheroes who get to talk to Bryan Cranston’s big floating mosaic head, hang out with a robot voiced by Bill Hader and fight space-witchy Elizabeth Banks! Seriously though the casting in this is very fun and the tone seems just self-aware enough to be a blast. A good example of both is that RJ Cyler (who is African American) plays Billy / The Blue Ranger rather than Zack / The Black Ranger (played by Ludi Lin, who is Chinese) which the movie is smart enough to lampshade.

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (Mar 24) Based on Arthurian legends dating back to the 12th century (and technically before, but that is, like, a whole ‘nother article entirely). This seems to hit all the bullet points for a King Arthur origin story: You got your Arthur (Charlie Hunnam), you got your sword in a stone, you got knights, you got magic and you got monsters. Despite The Lady of The Lake making an appearance and dialogue about Arthur being ‘the born king’ and all that, I couldn’t put my finger on what stories exactly this plot is tackling. Visually though, the uh… War Elephants (?) made me think of old Conan stories. Full disclosure: the first time I saw this trailer I laughed aloud at the “Raised in the Streets” title card.

Wilson (Mar 24) Based on the 2010 Daniel Clowes (Ghost World) graphic novel of the same name, Wilson was originally published as a complete graphic novel, but is structured as one-page comic strips, sort of like a misanthropic Sunday Funnies section. The film seems to be following the GN plot pretty closely with a lonely Wilson seeking out his ex-wife of nearly two decades after finding out they’d had a daughter together that she’d put up for adoption after their divorce. 

The Finest Hours (Mar 24) Based on the book by Michael J. Tougias and Casey Sherman (though the full title is The Finest Hours: The True Story of the Coast Guard’s Most Daring Rescue) (is that a spoiler?). From what I can tell, this follows closely the events that inspired the book: Boatswain’s Mate First Class (BM’s are described as “the most versatile members of a Coast Guard’s operational team”) Bernie Webber (Chris Pine) took a three-man volunteer crew out to rescue the crew of the oil tanker Pendleton which was taking on water because it had split in half! The only dramatizations seem to be giving Webber’s fiancee Miriam (Holliday Grainger) more to do as scenes in the trailer show her bursting into Chatham Station to demand that Bernie and crew be called back because of dangerous weather conditions.

Ghost in the Shell (Mar 31) Based on the famous manga / anime / TV series from Masamune Shirow. Major Kusanagi (Scarlett Johnson) heads the counter-cyberterrorist task force Section 9 in a futuristic (the manga was originally set in what would now be the very near future) world of cybernetic enhancements and artificial bodies and consciousnesses. Looks amazing, visually, with a lot of nods to famous imagery from the manga / anime, my favorite being Batou (Pilou Asbaek)’s eyes. I do have one problem I need to address (and no it’s not the whitewash casting; that’s a whole ‘nother ‘nother article). I am sick to death, already, of the movie trailer trope of using a slower tempo cover of a pop song to make things “creeeeepy” or “eeeeeerie”. It’s been happening for while, but I’ve noticed it becoming a go-to move since the trailer for San Andreas in 2015. Just please, no more.

The Zookeeper’s Wife (Mar 31) Based on the book by Diane Ackerman, in turn inspired by the unpublished diary of Antonina Żabiński. This tells the true story of the Żabińskis, Antonina (Jessica Chastain) and her husband Jan (Johan Heldenburgh), their zoo in Warsaw and how they sheltered upwards of 300 Jews there during WWII once it had been semi-destroyed during the invasion of Poland in September 1939.

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APRIL

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Going in Style (Apr 7) Remake of a 1979 film starring George Burns, Art Carney & Lee Strasberg, but with Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine & Alan Arkin playing three senior citizens who attempt to rob a bank in New York. Obviously I can’t tell for certain from the trailer but a lot more of the film seems to focus on the “can they pull it off?”, Ocean’s Eleven-y vibe than the original in which (*SPOILERS*) they totally just do it, then go to Vegas, then jail (oh and some of them die). It also looks like their motivations are a bit different. In the ’79 film they were just sort of bored (though they did give Strasberg’s nephew a nice chunk of change to ease his financial troubles) while in the ’17 film the money troubles and “fuck Wall Street” groundwork is laid on pretty thick.

The Lost City Of Z (Apr 21) Based on the 2009 book by David Grann (which expanded on a 2005 article of his) covers the explorer Col. Percival “Percy” Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam) and his team’s quest to find the titular lost city (pronounced “Zed”). This appears to be a standard questing upriver story while the book (*SPOILERS*) is really more about how Percy and his son were lost and never returned, speculation at how they may have died and how Z may have been right under their noses the entire time.

The Circle (Apr 28) Based on the 2013 Dave Eggars book. Mae (Emma Watson) gets a job at The Circle, a futuristic, altruistic technology company run in part by Eamon Bailey (Tom Hanks) as a Steve Jobs type, holding TED talks and whatnot. Hanks’ narration in both trailers suggests that The Circle (or maybe mankind, when guided by The Circle) can do anything: “we can cure any disease and we can end hunger”. Things quickly turn toward a dystopian police state with The Circle unveiling tiny real-time cameras all over the globe that watch everyone all the time. The movie seems like it will be following that general “What have I wrought?” direction, with Mae working alongside a mysterious Circle member (John Boyega) to expose The Circle’s true intentions.

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MAY

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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (May 5) Based on the Marvel Comics characters, but not as far as I can tell based on any one specific storyline. The plot seems to center around Star Lord (Chris Pratt) investigating his missing father. Oh, and shooting a lot of things in space. It does feature the character Mantis (Pom Klementieff; what a wonderful name) who has ties to the Infinity Gems, the standard MacGuffins for the Marvel shared universe thus far, not that we didn’t already know it was all heading there or anything… 

My Cousin Rachel (May 5) based on the 1951 novel by Daphne du Maurier. Philip (Sam Claflin) receives letters from his older cousin Ambrose detailing how he has met, fallen in love with, then married another cousin of theirs, Rachel (Rachel Weisz). Further letters explain that Ambrose is of ill health and he eventually dies without ever having altered his will to benefit Rachel, thus leaving Philip as the inheritor of the estate. Then, wouldn’t you know it, Rachel comes to town and she and Philip get along like gangbusters until the gossip mill starts turning: Was Rachel responsible for Ambrose’s death? Is she manipulating Philip to get control of the estate that should rightfully be hers? Seems pretty faithful an adaptation. But SERIOUSLY, I hate this slowed down pop songs thing (Wicked Game this time).

Alien: Covenant (May 19) Based on the franchise begun in 1979, the sixth set in that universe but the first to carry the Alien name since 1997. I tried, guys, I really tried to find something to cover plot wise, but all I can find implies that a spaceship crew think they’ve found a paradise planet but instead: Xenomorphs (or ‘Neomorphs’ if Michael Fassbender is to be believed). This is a direct sequel to 2012’s Prometheus, but chronologically still a prequel to the original ’79 Alien.

Baywatch (May 19) Based on the pop culture phenomenon TV series that ran from 1989-1999. They seem to be following the 21 Jump Street formula of action comedy bromances, this time with Dwayne Johnson & Zac Effron, so expect to see a lot of well-meaning idiots (and I mean that in the best possible way). As far as it being a faithful adaptation, it has a running in slow motion gag, those little red plastic floaty things that look like a toy rocket and… it takes place on a beach, so I think they’re nailing all the culturally significant bits here.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul (May 19) Based on the 2014 book by Jeff Kinney, part of the series that began in 2007 and has produced a book a year (2 in 2009!) since. I couldn’t find an actual trailer for this but did find some BTS footage that showed everything from the book description I could find: road trip (check), county fair (check), pet pig (oh, double check).

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JUNE

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Wonder Woman (June 2) Based on the DC comics character. It seems like it’s sticking to Wonder Woman (Gal Godot)’s classic introduction having her rescue downed WWI pilot Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) and bring him to her home, the all-female island of Themyscira. The Amazonian residents of the island are unaware of the war until it lands at their proverbial doorstep (literally beach), prompting Wonder Woman to leave the island and join the outside world under the assumed name Diana Prince. There’s an interesting thing happening here in that by setting WW’s first movie during one of the World Wars and what with her carrying a shield and being a superhuman in a human world, DC are kind of making Wonder Woman into their Captain America. Which is cool.

The Mummy (June 9) Based on the Universal Pictures franchise begun in 1932 which starred Boris Karloff as The Mummy. This film jumpstarts Universal’s shared universe of classic monsters by having Tom Cruise star as Nick Morton, presumably some kind of military archeologist (?) who survives (or does he?) a plane crash while transporting the sarcophagus of the titular Mummy (Sofia Boutella) from Egypt to England. And can I get a Hell Yeah for a lady mummy? The venn diagram of Scary and Sexy is one of my favorite venn diagrams and I hope Ms. Boutella’s Mummy rests comfortably in the overlap. Also I got to type the word ‘sarcophagus’ which is one of my favorite words (fun fact)!

Kingsman: The Golden Circle (June 16) Sequel to the 2014 film Kingsman: The Secret Service directed by Matthew Vaughn (itself based on the 2012 comic book series by Mark Millar & Dave Gibbons). This time, low-level hood turned espionage agent extraordinaire “Eggsy” (Taron Egerton) and his handler and mentor Merlin (Mark Strong) and the rest of The Kingsmen must team up with their American counterparts The Statesmen (feat. Halle Barry, Channing Tatum, Pedro Pascal & lead by Jeff Bridges!) to battle a new villain played by Julianne Moore.

Transformers: The Last Knight (June 23) Fifth in the Michael Bay-lead film series begun in 2007, in turn based on the juggernaut toy line / animated series combo that dominated our minds and our toy aisles from the early 80’s into the 90’s (and beyond once you include Beast Wars and whatnot). Mark Wahlberg & Stanley Tucci will return from the previous film and Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson & John Turturro will return, having been absent since the first three. The plot seems to involve an unknown planet attempting to absorb / destroy Earth. This could either be Cybertron the Transformers’ homeworld or possibly Unicron, a planet-sized Transformer that destroys planets (and was voiced by Orson Welles in the 1986 animated film of which I can probably quote every line). There also seems to be some in-fighting as we see Optimus Prime returning from space and battling the long-time DJ Jazzy Jeff to his Fresh Prince, Bumblebee, who has been acting as leader of the Autobots in his absence.

The Beguiled (June 23) Based on film of the same name from 1971, which was based on the 1966 novel by Thomas P. Cullinan. John McBurney (Colin Farrell) is a wounded soldier in the Civil War taken in and nursed back to health by the women of the elaborately named Miss Martha Farnsworth Seminary for Young Ladies. But the formerly sexless household becomes a viper’s nest of jealousy and tension when the various ladies (Elle Fanning, Kirsten Dunst & Nicole Kidman chief among them) all begin to lust after John (played by Clint Eastwood in the 71 film co-starring Geraldine Page, Elizabeth Hartman & Jo Ann Harris among others). The trailer ends with Farrell yelling about the women being “vengeful bitches” in a way that (to me) recalls the great Nicolas Cage in The Wicker Man (itself a remake) “You bitches! This won’t bring back your goddamn honey!”

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And that’s all she wrote, ‘she’ being me in this case. There were a lot of films that I’d have been interested to cover but for one reason or another couldn’t. I’m planning on doing this again with the back end of the year, and while I’m excited about that prospect, I’m also relieved to be finished. I’ve typed “based on the novel” so many times that, due to my childhood, I cannot get The Beatles’ “Paperback Writer” out of my head and I absolutely must go exorcise that particular musical demon before it ruins the song for me forever. A good day to you!

The Devil's Horn : On Destiny and Dentistry

Prologue :

Get To Know Your Author with this handy-dandy List of Facts!

1 : I love lists.
2 : I have bad teeth. It's genetic. Thanks, Mom and Dad!
3 : I am a big fan of Stephen King and in particular his Dark Tower book series.
4 : Apophenia is the word for when human beings find hidden meaning in otherwise random stimuli.
5 : I think of myself as a "human headache" because of my propensity for Cognitive Dissonance.

End Prologue.

<>


That was... fun, right?

OK, so maybe some of those things need a bit of elaboration. First, lists are great and very useful, so we're gonna skip right over that. The teeth. I have genetically softer tooth enamel which makes me more likely to have cavities and to need dentistry. Despite brushing / flossing / etc-ing, I lost my first adult tooth about five years ago.

My dentist was a very cool, friendly, older Asian man. He knew this was my first time having anything like a tooth pulled, so he was really great about keeping me informed about what was going on; I went with the shots rather than the gas, so I was conscious. Near the end he told me he was almost done but was having some trouble getting the tooth all the way out of the socket and he didn't know why but it was nothing to worry about.

After a minute more, he finally gets it, rinses it off and shows me that the root has an unusual bend in it that goes a different way than anticipated, and was the cause of the struggle. He tells me this by leaning over me, slowly pulling his face mask down and saying "We call it The Devil's Horn..." to which my inner monologue response was "What. Is. Happening?" Eventually I left, all doped up and tasting blood and carrying my "Devil's Horn" tooth in a little sealed medical baggie.

The Devil's Horn

Jump to a few months back, I chipped another tooth and didn't think much of it. Of course it got exponentially worse over time and on Tuesday of last week, I went in and had that bad boy taken out too. Same sort of thing happened except this time the tooth was on my lower jaw, and those can be tougher to remove I was told. The tooth was pretty hollowed out and broke during extraction, meaning the dentist was left to remove the roots one by one. The last root started giving him trouble and after he got it out, he told me it was hooked like a letter J. "I guess all your teeth are fighters" he said.

"Well there's your problem"

So I rode the train home with what felt like a whole tube sock stuffed in my mouth, trying not to drool blood on myself and spent the next few days on a mashed cauliflower / rice pudding / apple sauce diet. The highlight of my 2016 it was not.

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One of the details I picked up in the dentist's office was the tooth in question was tooth number nineteen. In the Dark Tower series, the number 19 is of particular significance and when it shows up, it's usually a sign that something of special importance is happening, so you'd better be careful and pay attention. So hearing that really piqued my attention.

I was in the exam room, having an x-ray taken when I noticed the room number: 2125.

2 + 12 + 5 = 19

And it continued like that: My file number was 0195951, tooth extraction surgery bay was 1D14. I'll let you all do the maths yourselves. It's not hard because there are no rules. This is an example of Apophenia. Like I said above, it's the word for when people find significance in what is otherwise absolute random nonsense. It's how you may think you hear your name being called in a crowded store or think you see a cat out of the corner of your eye. There's a related condition called Pareidolia which is when you see things that are not actually a face but look to you like a face; like Jesus on a piece of toast or the Face On Mars.

"I think it looks like Michael Myers." - quote attributed to Bryan Bierman

But the example most germane to my story is something known as "the 23 enigma" which posits that most significant events and occurrences can be linked to the number 23. Despite this term being coined by famous big thinker Robert Anton Wilson and attributed by him to beat generation giant William S. Burroughs, we're probably all most familiar with it from the Jim Carrey starring psychological thriller also-ran The Number 23 (2007).

"All righty then!" - quote attributed to William S. Burroughs

Briefly, the movie is about Ace Ventura finding a mysterious book about his own life and somehow the number 23 is involved I guess? Whatever the reasoning, he becomes obsessed with it and then there's a twist ending, like maybe he was dead the whole time? (*1) I do not remember and honestly, who could give a shit?

(*1) : I swear I did actually see the movie... pretty sure.

In the Dark Tower books, once the importance of nineteen is brought to your attention, you (and the characters in the story) can't help but see it everywhere but it is especially on my mind because there's a Dark Tower movie coming (!!!) and I could almost not be more excited. Is it going to be exactly what I've always wanted out of a Dark Tower adaptation? No, there is literally no way that is possible, but it doesn't mean I won't enjoy it.

Can you tell they're well-loved?

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POTENTIAL SPOILERS FOR THE DARK TOWER...


As briefly as possible, The Dark Tower series follows Roland, the last gunslinger in a world not quite our own, on his quest to reach the titular Dark Tower: the center of everything. The axis on which all of existence turns. And along the way there's gunplay, magic, monsters, love, death, offensive language, psychotic A.I., interdimensional travel, astral projection, Hey Jude, twinners, thinnies, Todash chimes, literally the most important flower in existence and an oddly endearing Bumbler named Oy.

I KNOW IT SOUNDS LIKE A MESS, and it is, but HOLY LORD IS IT SATISFYING. What it says about not just a person's capacity for love and change, but also what it says about the nature of stories is completely inspiring. And also very fun.


...SPOILERS END


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To help promote the movie, an app was released tied to a fictional corporation within the book series, SOMBRA. The SOMBRA app is free (*2) and gives you access to an NCP (North Central Positronics) Scanner that... doesn't do a whole hell of a lot. Unless, that is, you point it at the Dark Tower cover of Entertainment Weekly or certain tweets sent out by the film's stars, Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey or even Stephen King himself.

(*2) : If the app weren't free, I wouldn't have it. So far this blog has made me... zero dollars. But if I ever figure out how to monetize my ramblings, I'll buy so many pay-apps it'll make your head spin!

This is actually pretty cool.

Earlier this month, if you had a code from certain exclusive versions of the Dark Tower related children's book Charlie the Choo-Choo, you could access an "employees only" area of the app and take a test to see if you have The Shine. I took it and I totally do.

SO many people I wanna redrum this year...

Do I think there's any significance to my tooth being number 19? Not really. But also: yes. I am fully aware that I only really caught the 19 reference because I'm so swept up in Dark Tower stuff in expectation of the movie (*3) but at the same time, maybe it is the universe telling me to pay attention right now. And that, folks, is Cognitive Dissonance for you.

(*3) : The Dark Tower film was originally scheduled to be released on February 17, 2017 but was recently pushed back to July 28th. UPDATE: Subsequently pushed back to August 4.

According to F. Scott Fitzgerald, Cognitive Dissonance was "the test of a first rate intelligence". I know, I know, #humblebrag (*4) but I seem to do this... frequently. My "Human Headache" epithet is based on the idea that you can give yourself a headache by holding two opposing viewpoints at the same time.

(*4) R.I.P. Harris Wittels.

The most prevalent example is my ability to believe that superstitions are just silly & fun, yet to simultaneously follow several superstitions in my personal life. I pick up heads-up pennies, I never consciously step on cracks in the sidewalk, I hold my breath when driving through tunnels, etc. I'm not sure when these things started but regardless, they continue. And, as discussed, I simultaneously do and do not believe in the concept of "Signs From the Universe".

You could say I'm a Walking Contradiction, but no one would get that Green Day reference

"What's the point of this, Hunter?" you may be asking. That's a very good question; (*5) you're a very astute reader and I hope you'll continue to read my writings. The point is whatever you believe in, maybe now is a good time for you to pay particularly close attention. 2016 has not been a friendly year for most of us but maybe if we're all paying a little closer attention moving forward, 2017 can be better.

(*5) : I have a question for you. How do you know my name?

So as we all wait out the clock on this... garbage-fire of a year, I'll leave you with some unsolicited advice. Take it or leave it. Your call.

This in now the 2nd thing I think of when I hear the phrase "garbage-fire"

Pay attention.

Be as good a person as you can manage.

And maybe read more. Might I suggest The Dark Tower series?

"Long days and pleasant nights." - old mid-world saying

Happy holidays and best wishes through the New Year!

UPDATE: Here's the first official trailer for The Dark Tower movie (finally):

FYI : A Visual Representation of the Author

This is what I feel I look like when I really get going talking about pop culture.

Netflixgiving 2016

"Netflixgiving" is a pseudo-tradition I've established for myself in the last 4 or so years, since whenever I finally got a Netflix account. I spend Thanksgiving day at my mom's occasionally being allowed to help cook, but no, mostly just eating food and watching Netflix. What follows is my end-of-the-day breakdown of my entire Netflixgiving experience.

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This year, my Netflixgiving started... early. Mom's house is right near a high school football field who have a yearly Big Game on turkey day which I never remember because who could give a shit. This year the festivities started at 10 a.m. with someone playing that "Tonto! Jump on it!" song through the PA system at the field. This is, for me, a somewhat surreal thing to wake up to. Your life may be wildly different from mine, maybe you wake up to "the Tonto song" (*1) every day of your life. More power to ya.

(*1) It was bugging me that I couldn't remember it, so I checked: it's "Apache (Jump On It)" by Sugar Hill Gang.

More power to ya.

This was followed by what I first thought was "Twisted Nerve" by Bernard Herrmann, a.k.a. "The Whistling Song from Kill Bill" (this one I knew by name somehow) but turned out to be a hip-hop track that sampled it.

I decided to drown all that out with the entirety of "Sing the Sorrow" by AFI while eating ginger snaps and drinking a hot mug of tea.

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I officially started Netflixgiving with probably my favorite episode of 30 Rock, the 3rd season episode "Gavin Volure" (2008). Steve Martin guest stars as the agoraphobic title millionaire (billionaire?) who falls for Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) after she is a guest at a party he'd thrown. The B Story is Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan) being so afraid that his kids will "Menendez" him that he buys a Japanese sex doll of himself as a decoy. The C Story is Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) investing Kenneth Parcell (Jack McBrayer)'s money poorly. All three storylines coalesce in the final scene the way a well written episode of TV should.

You'd never know Glen ate all his peanut butter.

All of 30 Rock is super-quotable, but this episode has the added bonus of Steve Martin's delivery ("I miscounted the men, Liz!"). Also, as a wrestling fan, I appreciate that in the final scene Martin makes climbing a ladder look much more difficult and dramatic than anyone who's ever been on a ladder knows it is.

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I checked regular non-Netflix TV to see that The Last Witch Hunter (2015) was coming on. On Netflixgiving I always try to watch things I haven't seen before rather than just re-watching the same old stuff over and over. So why not?

Vin Diesel plays Kaulder, the several hundred years old Last Witch Hunter of the title. He hunts evil witches for a (semi?) religious organization called the Axe & Cross, who assign him a "Dolan" which is a title passed down from one handler to another (think Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Alfred from Batman). His most recent Dolan, (Michael Caine, who actually played Alfred!) is retiring because he's in his eighties (the 800+ years old Kaulder still calls him "kid" which I found charming) and being replaced by a new Dolan played by Elijah Wood. The Michael Caine Dolan shows up dead the very next day and Diesel and new-Dolan Wood investigate. Blah blah blah, murder; blah blah blah, magic. You get it.

This is not a still from the movie. This is a still from Vin Diesel's life.

Honestly, it wasn't as bad as I was anticipating. It's really heavy on exposition, to an absurd degree in some cases, especially early on, but the result of that is some pretty interesting world-building. I though more than once "I would read / play this" (*2) There are some pretty great visuals and I found myself honestly wanting to know more about the world when the movie was over.

(*2) The character is based on an old Dungeons & Dragons character Vin Diesel played, so that makes sense.

But the best part? The best part was that in his Tragic Backstory, Vin Diesel has the same haircut / facial hair combo as WWE performer Braun Strowman. I have dubbed this look "The GQ Caveman".

Twinsies! Right down to that lone braid.

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Next I watched H. (2014) on Netflix which... was kind of a bummer? The story revolves around two women named Helen living in Troy NY around the time that a meteor (but maybe not) explodes in the sky. This comes in the midst of some strange occurrences (like screws falling up and keys inexplicably falling from secure hooks) and presumably causes even stranger ones (like people going into "waking comas"). The two Helens, their significant others and their "children" are all affected by these evens in different ways.

This is definitely a sci fi film, and definitely a drama and it definitely left me feeling... a little sad. Besides that, the performances were really wonderful; very real feeling. But man, it's open to interpretation and discussion. I would recommend it for fans of the writing of Don DeLillo (White Noise).

I have no pithy caption for this.

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I had a plate of bread, cheese, tomatoes, peppers, olives and cauliflower and put on High Rise (2015). Man! I really enjoyed this movie despite some uncomfortable subject matter. Tom Hiddleston plays Dr. Robert Laing, who has just moved into a luxury apartment block. My most succinct breakdown of the movie would be the phrase "lavish class warfare ensues". Boy howdy!

It's based on a dark, satirical novel by J.G. Ballard (one of his better-known works) and directed by Ben Wheatley who also made Kill List, which I enjoyed greatly as well. Wheatley is a very stylish director and it shows through in every scene here. The world he establishes reminded me a little of something like a lower-key Judge Dredd; somewhere in the "uncanny valley" that is almost but not quite recognizable as our own. Also it's the 70s. Despite not really taking place in a recognizable world you get drawn in really quickly.

I will absolutely be watching this again.

Remember the Seven Nation Army video? It's like that, but if Jack White ate a dog.

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Dinner time! Turkey, mashed potatoes & gravy, peas & corn and brussel sprouts. Mom, finally finished cooking, picks the next movie; the Peter O'Toole / Audrey Hepburn art heist rom-com How to Steal a Million (1966). The basic plot is that Hepburn's father (Hugh Griffith) is an art forger (strictly for the lols, too) and when he ends up in a position to be found out, Hepburn enlists the super charming O'Toole to steal the incriminating piece from a museum right under the noses of the French security guards.

Relationship goals.

This was the perfect movie to watch over dinner; light, fun, cute, clever and not exactly mile-a-minute plot-wise (though there are a few twisty, double-crossy bits). Here's three fun facts:

1 - This movie features an appearance by the late, great Eli Wallach, to whom I am tangentially related.
2 - One of the actors playing a security guard is named only "Moustache". You will know which one he is.
3 - Hugh Griffith was (according to IMDB) fired from the movie for "persistent bad behavior, including walking around naked through the (hotel they were in) holding a 'Do Not Disturb' sign over his privates, which he'd altered to read 'Do Disturb'. "

"DO Disturb"

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Over a piece of pie and a cup of coffee, we moved on to Brian DePalma's The Fury (1978). I had never heard of this one, despite it being a DePalma movie about psychic teens (and made two years after his amazing Carrie). DePalma is once again directing an adaptation of a novel, by John Farris this time as opposed to Stephen King. The movie was just okay, but I feel like maybe the things that didn't add up might work better in book-form.

So Peter (Kirk Douglas) has a teenage son named Robin (Andrew Stevens) who has psychic abilities. Ben Childress (John Cassavetes) heads an agency that "trains" these special teens to use their abilities (if by "train" you mean "turn into weapons for the government"). Childress betrays Peter and half-kidnaps Robin, who thinks his Dad is dead after what appears to be a terrorist attack, but isn't. With me so far?

Peter gets put on the trail of also-psychically-powered teen Gillian (Amy Irving) who helps him track Robin, but only after a LOT OF OTHER SHIT HAS HAPPENED. Meanwhile Robin has become an insufferable brat with an obscene amount of power that he just throws tantrums with.

Honestly, I love that logo font.

This is a tough call. I don't know if I would out-and-out recommend anyone watch this. I guess it would depend on what they were watching for. On the plus side: DePalma, psychic teens, some good action, some fun comedy bits kinda, solid character development for the female characters (*3), a score by John Williams and effects by Rick Baker! The negatives: it's a little unfocused and rambling, some of the motivations don't make sense and it's 2 hours long but feels longer.

(*3) We have trouble developing female characters now, let alone in '78, so this could have easily ended up being left by the wayside in favor of more Kirk Douglas action.

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I ended the night by myself watching Final Girl (2015). Abigail Breslin is a young sociopath trained by Wes Bentley to be a professional killer. He sics her on a group of 4 young men who have made a habit of taking young women out into the woods and hunting them for sport.

The Trump kids' album drops any day now.

I didn't love this. It's stylish looking, and as a concept there are good things here but it mostly falls flat. It's shot through with huge logic problems, both within the world of the movie as well as in the movie itself. Logic problem within the movie: Bentley has been training her for 12 years and has never explained his aversion to firearms to her before? Logic problem with the movie itself: Why would we (the audience) give a shit what any of the boys' biggest fears are?

I could, but will not, go on and on and on about this. Honestly it seems like it was originally a music video concept that somebody expanded to feature-length. I'd skip it.

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It's 4 a.m. and I have to work like 14 hours tomorrow. Goodnight everyone, and happy Netflixgiving!