Psychotic Puck

Puck has wandered into the outline for my next novel and wants to take it over. I continue to resist his insurrection, but plan on finding a good and proper place for him in it. I figured I’d better catch up on Puck’s most famous literary appearance and re-read (and re-view) A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I’ve always wanted to see this old 1935 adaptation of Shakespeare’s play and I finally watched it last night. What about Mickey Rooney’s portrayal of Puck?

He’s completely deranged and psychotic. It’s amazing.

I was intrigued by this quip from Amazon.com about Rooney’s performance:

The other actors are decidedly varied, and they tend to be overwhelmed by the production design. Not so Mickey Rooney, whose performance as Puck is a feral, antic act of imagination (he was 14 during filming); picture a boy raised by wolves who somehow memorized Shakespeare. His Puck growls and screams and mocks the drama of the other characters, a little postmodern imp before his time. (Critic David Thomson called this Puck "truly inhuman, one of the cinema's most arresting pieces of magic").

“A boy raised by wolves who somehow memorized Shakespeare.” That is amazingly accurate. Rooney’s portrayal of Puck is legendary – he’s off-the-wall, annoying, magnificent, profound, silly, and magnetic. His laugh is one of the three greatest film laughs I have ever heard, along with Tom Hulce as Mozart in Amadeus and Heath Ledger as The Joker. In fact, give Mickey Rooney’s Puck a knife and make him malevolent, and he instantly becomes Ledger’s psychotic villain from The Dark Knight.

I enjoyed this all more than I expected to. Definitely worth hunting down.



Here’s Gore Vidal introducing AMND on TCM. There’s a brief clip of Mickey Rooney in this with just a touch of that insane laugh of his. Pay attention to what Vidal says that Tennessee Williams once told him about Mickey Rooney.



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The Dark Knight Rises Teaser Trailer!

Is anyone else excited? I'm excited! I will probably explode from excitement before the year is out, but, yeah! I'm excited!

Seriously, I haven't looked forward to a movie this much since the days of the original Star Wars trilogy. And I expect Chris Nolan's flick to be much better than any of those! I've loved every movie I've seen by Nolan, particularly The Dark Knight and Inception.

The Dark Knight Rises Teaser Trailer at YouTube

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The Shining

“Wow, Stephen King remade my movie for TV. And it sucks.”

Here’s a look at the real-life inspiration that prodded Stephen King to pen his best novel ever, The Shining, on the 30th anniversary of Stanley Kubrick’s iconic film version of the story.

Built in 1909 by the high-rolling F. O. Stanley, co-inventor (with his twin brother, F. E.) of a steam-powered car known as the Stanley Steamer, the Stanley sits in lucid splendor, in Georgian incongruity, on the eastern rise of the Colorado Rockies. The hotel is welcoming and comfortable; the mountain air is thrilling. King stayed at the Stanley in 1974, the night before it shut down for the winter, and his muse was tickled. Old World fixtures and furnishings; a vibe of vanished gaiety, of cigar-chewing autocrats and good-time gals, parties and their orchestras, all sliding down into darkness, like the Titanic … And then the hauntings, for which the Stanley was already famous: paranormal poppings-in by domestics and scampering children, and also by the scandalous Lord Dunraven, who likes to goose ladies in the closet of Room 401.

In the hands of Stanley Kubrick, The Shining became the finest film adaptation of any of King’s works. I don’t care what King says; Kubrick drilled down to the dark essence of the characters and created something that, when tried by lesser filmmakers, doesn’t always work – an almost personal riff on someone else’s creation – but which in this case worked fantastically. I was a huge fan of the book (I first read it when I was 14) when Kubrick’s film was released in 1980, and I hated the movie. Thirteen years later I rented the video to give Kubrick another chance, and I discovered what a masterpiece it is. (The less said about the King-scripted TV remake, the better.)

How powerful is King’s book? A few years ago I was re-reading The Shining for the umpteenth time during my lunch break. I was on the Plaza in Kansas City at the Penguin Court on a brilliant, sunny spring day. People were enjoying their lunch, shoppers were strolling happily about, and children ran around the bronze penguin sculptures that give the court its name. In the book, little Danny Torrance, all by himself in the Overlook’s playground, crawls into those concrete rings buried in the snow. The snow falls in, blocking the open ends. And Danny realizes…there’s something in the rings with him!

A beautiful, sunny spring day, and my skin crawled right up my body with a shiver. I’d read that scene many times, but god, how well it still worked! If I ever write anything that brings a reader an emotional response half that enduring, I’ll be happy. The Shining is only one of two books that contained a moment which, when I first read it, made me almost literally crawl up the wall behind me with fear (the other was The Silence of the Lambs). I can’t tell you which scene it was; you’ll just have to find out for yourself. But it took place in room 217.

Kubrick’s film is a different animal and is great in different ways. In a book about Kubrick, I once read an excellent analysis that convincingly proposed Kubrick’s The Shining as a literal anti-thesis of his film 2001: A Space Odyssey, with a remarkable discussion of how the use of mirrors and mirror-images in The Shining (think of that lake in the opening shot, or what you see reflected in the mirrors along the hallway outside the ballroom) differentiates between the worlds of Jack Torrance’s sanity and insanity. The story of The Shining has become so well-known that I would love to see, like Shakespeare, many different directors tackle the material and give us their personal take on it. King needn’t fear, for his original novel will always retain its terrifying brilliance.

"A Killer Vacation" (The Atlantic)

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Great Books Do Not Always Make Great Movies

Via Ta-Nehisi Coates, a post by one of his readers on books and adapting them into movies. Some great comments here. For the most part I always enjoy books more than the resulting movies, but there are some exceptions. Oh, yes; The Godfather; such an amazing film made from such a trashy potboiler of a book!

I got into a friendly argument about one of my least favorite clichés recently. It was this: the book is always better than the movie. First, always beware the use of "always"--it obviously only takes one counterexample (oh, there's this little movie called The Godfather) to prove the assertion wrong. Though the cliché is often stated this way, let's be charitable and relax the statement to something like "the book is usually better than the movie."

It's considerably more difficult to prove this wrong because there isn't, to my knowledge, a database of movies that are based on books that we could readily consult and then perhaps use some agreed-upon method--metacritic scores? Rotten Tomatoes scores?--to more-or-less prove the point objectively. But there are a number: The Godfather; most of the good Philip K. Dick adaptations (and there are several: Blade Runner, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly, and perhaps the upcoming Adjustment Bureau will be good); The Talented Mr. Ripley is, I believe, better than the book it's based on...there are more examples, I'm sure.

Anybody want to share their own examples?

"Great Books Are Great at Being Books" (The Atlantic)

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Roger Ebert Does Not Like 3D Movies

Ouch:

3-D is a waste of a perfectly good dimension. Hollywood's current crazy stampede toward it is suicidal. It adds nothing essential to the moviegoing experience. For some, it is an annoying distraction. For others, it creates nausea and headaches. It is driven largely to sell expensive projection equipment and add a $5 to $7.50 surcharge on already expensive movie tickets. Its image is noticeably darker than standard 2-D. It is unsuitable for grown-up films of any seriousness. It limits the freedom of directors to make films as they choose. For moviegoers in the PG-13 and R ranges, it only rarely provides an experience worth paying a premium for.

Roger Ebert does not like the new 3D wave in Hollywood. I have reservations about it too, which are pretty much the same as what Ebert discusses in his essay.

I watched Avatar for the first time last night, in 2D of course. Very impressive visually, and I'm bet it was quite the show in 3D. But can you see them doing a movie of Hamlet in 3D? As Ebert says, "I'm not opposed to 3-D as an option. I'm opposed to it as a way of life." Time will tell.

As for Avatar, I enjoyed the "blue raver kitties," as a certain figure prominent in the furry world once called them. (Although for all the well-deserved critiques of the screenplay for Titanic, I thought it was a much better movie.) Or, as one wag at Hollywood Elsewhere called Avatar, it's a 450-million dollar furry movie! Yay!

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"To nuketh the bastards or not to nuketh the bastards, that is the question."

What next, Shakespeare with furries? Say...

My Shakespeare authorship fans/detractors will enjoy this: Roland Emmerich is directing a film called Anonymous, which apparently is tacking the Shakespeare authorship question by positing that Edward de Vere, our old friend the Earl of Oxford, wrote the Bard's plays. Interesting, although how this fits in with the rest of Emmerich's films escapes me. Unless the pro-Shakespeare and the pro-Oxford camps get a hold of some awesome weapons and proceed to vaporize the earth to prove their various points. Cool!

Around the time 2012 came out, I discovered that Roland Emmerich is gay. I did not know that.

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P.S. I never thought I'd be putting the tags "Roland Emmerich" and "Shakespeare" in the same post...

P.P.S. I watched 2012 last night. It is what it is, which is to say that it's fun, but needs a shirtless Will Smith to really make it work.

"You have to give people hope."

I watched Milk again tonight. I love this film more and more every time I watch it. I remember all of this when it happened; I was a teenager at the time and not quite yet ready to face up to being gay -- but I was getting there. It was not an easy time, and I remember how it felt to be alone with what you knew about yourself. When I finally faced the truth, I was both happy and scared. Unfortunately, the fear dominated my life for too many years. I regret abandoning that joy, which is what every gay kid should feel when he or she figures it out. Times have changed...

The "Hope Speech" was written by Frank Robinson*, who plays himself in the movie. It is probably Harvey Milk's most famous speech. The speech he gave at the Gay Freedom Day event in 1978, written by Robinson, is even more radical. Anyway, here it is. Also, if you haven't seen the 1984 Oscar-winning documentary The Times of Harvey Milk, do so now -- it's available at YouTube.

*I wonder if I would have had fewer problems accepting myself as being gay if I had known about Robinson. He's written several novels, and one I read many times when I was a boy was The Glass Inferno, one of the two books that served as the basis for Irwin Allen's disaster epic, The Towering Inferno (and, I might add, the better of the two novels, which makes up about 75% of the the storyline in the film). In those days, movies with things burning down and blowing up were catnip to kids like me. Like I said, had I known...

Anyway, here it is -- the Hope Speech by Harvey Milk:

My name is Harvey Milk and I'm here to recruit you.

I've been saying this one for years. It's a political joke. I can't help it--I've got to tell it. I've never been able to talk to this many political people before, so if I tell you nothing else you may be able to go home laughing a bit.

This ocean liner was going across the ocean and it sank. And there was one little piece of wood floating and three people swam to it and they realized only one person could hold on to it. So they had a little debate about which was the person. It so happened that the three people were the Pope, the President, and Mayor Daley. The Pope said he was titular head of one of the greatest religions of the world and he was spiritual adviser to many, many millions and he went on and pontificated and they thought it was a good argument. Then the President said he was leader of the largest and most powerful nation of the world. What takes place in this country affects the whole world and they thought that was a good argument. And Mayor Daley said he was mayor of the backbone of the Untied States and what took place in Chicago affected the world, and what took place in the archdiocese of Chicago affected Catholicism. And they thought that was a good argument. So they did it the democratic way and voted. And Daley won, seven to two.

About six months ago, Anita Bryant in her speaking to God said that the drought in California was because of the gay people. On November 9, the day after I got elected, it started to rain. On the day I got sworn in, we walked to City Hall and it was kinda nice, and as soon as I said the word "I do," it started to rain again. It's been raining since then and the people of San Francisco figure the only way to stop it is to do a recall petition. That's the local joke.

So much for that. Why are we here? Why are gay people here? And what's happening? What's happening to me is the antithesis of what you read about in the papers and what you hear about on the radio. You hear about and read about this movement to the right. That we must band together and fight back this movement to the right. And I'm here to go ahead and say that what you hear and read is what they want you to think because it's not happening. The major media in this country has talked about the movement to the right so the legislators think that there is indeed a movement to the right and that the Congress and the legislators and the city councils will start to move to the right the way the major media want them. So they keep on talking about this move to the right.

So let's look at 1977 and see if there was indeed a move to the right. In 1977, gay people had their rights taken away from them in Miami. But you must remember that in the week before Miami and the week after that, the word homosexual or gay appeared in every single newspaper in this nation in articles both pro and con. In every radio station, in every TV station and every household. For the first time in the history of the world, everybody was talking about it, good or bad. Unless you have dialogue, unless you open the walls of dialogue, you can never reach to change people's opinion. In those two weeks, more good and bad, but more about the word homosexual and gay was written than probably in the history of mankind. Once you have dialogue starting, you know you can break down prejudice. In 1977 we saw a dialogue start. In 1977, we saw a gay person elected in San Francisco. In 1977 we saw the state of Mississippi decriminalize marijuana. In 1977, we saw the convention of conventions in Houston. And I want to know where the movement to the right is happening.

What that is is a record of what happened last year. What we must do is make sure that 1978 continues the movement that is really happening that the media don't want you to know about. That is the movement to the left. It's up to CDC to put the pressures on Sacramento--but to break down the walls and the barriers so the movement to the left continues and progress continues in the nation. We have before us coming up several issues we must speak out on. Probably the most important issue outside the Briggs--which we will come to--but we do know what will take place this June. We know there's an issue on the ballot called Jarvis-Gann. We hear the taxpayers talk about it on both sides. But what you don't hear is that it's probably the most racist issue on the ballot in a long time. In the city and county of San Francisco, if it passes and we indeed have to lay off people, who will they be? The last in, and the first in, and who are the last in but the minorities? Jarvis-Gann is a racist issue. We must address that issue. We must not talk away from it. We must not allow them to talk about the money it's going to save, because look at who's going to save the money and who's going to get hurt.

We also have another issue that we've started in some of the north counties and I hope in some of the south counties it continues. In San Francisco elections we're asking--at least we hope to ask-- that the U.S. government put pressure on the closing of the South African consulate. That must happen. There is a major difference between an embassy in Washington which is a diplomatic bureau. and a consulate in major cities. A consulate is there for one reason only -- to promote business, economic gains, tourism, investment. And every time you have business going to South Africa, you're promoting a regime that's offensive.

In the city of San Francisco, if everyone of 51 percent of that city were to go to South Africa, they would be treated as second-class citizens. That is an offense to the people of San Francisco and I hope all my colleagues up there will take every step we can to close down that consulate and hope that people in other parts of the state follow us in that lead. The battles must be started some place and CDC is the greatest place to start the battles. I know we are pressed for time so I'm going to cover just one more little point. That is to understand why it is important that gay people run for office and that gay people get elected. I know there are many people in this room who are running for central committee who are gay. I encourage you. There's a major reason why. If my non-gay friends and supporters in this room understand it, they'll probably understand why I've run so often before I finally made it. Y'see right now, there's a controversy going on in this convention about the gay governor. Is he speaking out enough? Is he strong enough for gay rights? And there is controversy and for us to say it is not would be foolish. Some people are satisfied and some people are not.

You see there is am major difference--and it remains a vital difference--between a friend and a gay person, a friend in office and a gay person in office. Gay people have been slandered nationwide. We've been tarred and we've been brushed with the picture of pornography. In Dade County, we were accused of child molestation. It's not enough anymore just to have friends represent us. No matter how good that friend may be.

The black community made up its mind to that a long time ago. That the myths against blacks can only be dispelled by electing black leaders, so the black community could be judged by the leaders and not by the myths or black criminals. The Spanish community must not be judged by Latin criminals or myths. The Asian community must not be judged by Asian criminals or myths. The Italian community must not be judged by the mafia, myths. And the time has come when the gay community must not be judged by our criminals and myths.

Like every other group, we must be judged by our leaders and by those who are themselves gay, those who are visible. For invisible, we remain in limbo--a myth, a person with no parents, no brothers, no sisters, no friends who are straight, no important positions in employment. A tenth of the nation supposedly composed of stereotypes and would-be seducers of children--and no offense meant to the stereotypes. But today, the black community is not judged by its friends, but by its black legislators and leaders. And we must give people the chance to judge us by our leaders and legislators. A gay person in office can set a tone, con command respect not only from the larger community, but from the young people in our own community who need both examples and hope.

The first gay people we elect must be strong. They must not be content to sit in the back of the bus. They must not be content to accept pablum. They must be above wheeling and dealing. They must be--for the good of all of us--independent, unbought. The anger and the frustrations that some of us feel is because we are misunderstood, and friends can't feel the anger and frustration. They can sense it in us, but they can't feel it. Because a friend has never gone through what is known as coming out. I will never forget what it was like coming out and having nobody to look up toward. I remember the lack of hope--and our friends can't fulfill it.

I can't forget the looks on faces of people who've lost hope. Be they gay, be they seniors, be they blacks looking for an almost-impossilbe job, be they Latins trying to explain their problems and aspirations in a tongue that's foreign to them. I personally will never forget that people are more important than buildings. I use the word "I" because I'm proud. I stand here tonight in front of my gay sisters, brothers and friends because I'm proud of you. I think it's time that we have many legislators who are gay and proud of that fact and do not have to remain in the closet. I think that a gay person, up-front, will not walk away from a responsibility and be afraid of being tossed out of office. After Dade County, I walked among the angry and the frustrated night after night and I looked at their faces. And in San Francisco, three days before Gay Pride Day, a person was killed just because he was gay. And that night, I walked among the sad and the frustrated at City Hall in San Francisco and later that night as they lit candles on Castro Street and stood in silence, reaching out for some symbolic thing that would give them hope. These were strong people, whose faces I knew from the shop, the streets, meetings and people who I never saw before but I knew. They were strong, but even they needed hope.

And the young gay people in the Altoona, Pennsylvanias and the Richmond, Minnesotas who are coming out and hear Anita Bryant on television and her story. The only thing they have to look forward to is hope. And you have to give them hope. Hope for a better world, hope for a better tomorrow, hope for a better place to come to if the pressures at home are too great. Hope that all will be all right. Without hope, not only gays, but the blacks, the seniors, the handicapped, the us'es, the us'es will give up. And if you help elect to the central committee and other offices, more gay people, that gives a green light to all who feel disenfranchised, a green light to move forward. It means hope to a nation that has given up, because if a gay person makes it, the doors are open to everyone.

So if there is a message I have to give, it is that I've found one overriding thing about my personal election, it's the fact that if a gay person can be elected, it's a green light. And you and you and you, you have to give people hope. Thank you very much.

A great documentary, especially if you love Gus Van Sant's Milk.

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Capturing the Magic of Childhood

Somehow I missed this great review of WTWTA by Marshall Fine when it first appeared. It talks about the way the film portrays childhood, but doesn't get quite as, um, morose (too serious? or can one be too serious about play and childhood?) as my earlier interpretation. Both views speak equally to the greatness that is WTWTA. This isn't a movie that is easy to pin down, that's for certain.

...Jonze has made a career out of subverting genres and expectations, whether in “Being John Malkovich” or “Adaptation.” In this case, Jonze and Eggers have written a film that truly captures what it’s like to be a 10-year-old, in all its mood-swinging glory. This film is fueled by imagination, not driven by plot or built around structure. It’s a film about play and the sudden shifts it can take when someone gets upset or hurt or hatches an unexpected idea.

Beautiful, and absolutely correct.

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Tell Them Anything You Want

Okay, someone needs to tell Spike Jonze that I can't take more than one movie in any twelve month period that leaves me all broken up inside, and WTWTA already has that honor for a few more months. Sheesh! I just watched Tell Them Anything You Want, the HBO documentary about Maurice Sendak made by Spike Jonze and Lance Bangs. It's only 39 minutes long, but I was all tied up in knots by the time it was over (and I could have watched another hour of it). I remember the Sendak documentary Mon Cher Papa that was run on PBS' American Masters series in 1987. That film moved me deeply, too. Is there something about Sendak that speaks to whatever it is in me that is creative? Hell, I dunno. But this HBO doc is wonderful. Get this DVD and watch it! Watch the extras too, especially the Q&A with Sendak and Spike.

I love Sendak's dog. I love the shot of Maurice with the box on the table next to him that has an image of a medieval Virgin Mary icon on the side, and a Mr. Incredible doll behind it. I love the life-size Barack Obama stand-up in Sendak's living room. I love his crankiness. I love his drawings. I simply love this man.

And Spike looks pretty darn sharp with a beard, eh?

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About How Much It Hurts To Be a Child

(Photo by Shawn Records.)

What makes Where the Wild Things Are difficult to watch is that it's not just about the happiness of childhood, like most children's movies.

It's about the pain of being a child.

It's about the loneliness and the long nights crying; it's about not knowing who you are in a world where everyone else seems to have figured that out already; it's about not knowing if you can trust the grown-ups in your life, or even if you should, or even if they really know everything about life, like you always believed they did.

In WTWTA, Max begins to see all that goes on inside the people around him (through the wild things he lives with), but I also see a boy finding his own space, defining his own life, because no one else is going to do it for him.

I love Max's mother in this movie. She's willing to let him be who he needs to be (despite his wildness, and maybe I only see that because I didn't have that kind of understanding when I was growing up), and that is a strong first step toward letting the child become who he or she needs to be. I grew up slotted into a role, and no one understood or even saw, when it was obvious, that I was breaking out of that role whether I (or they) liked it or not. I didn't want to be different, but in the end we all must be; both Max and me, and all of us. The wisest parent realizes that their child is another life that must be allowed to grow. Part of the pain of being a child is finding out that every parent's imagination is limited, because few of us can encompass in our minds the amazing universe of another person's life set into our hands to shape and nurture. Parents fail; children fail. Somehow, we all come out okay in the end...most of the time.

WTWTA is about finding out who you really are, and how much it hurts to realize that, ultimately, you're on your own.

This movie really speaks to me. I grew up gay and in hiding, and there's not one thing "gay" in this film; and that is certainly not the only tale being told here. But I don't think I've ever seen another movie that captures so well everything about what I went through while I grew up and dealt with all of what I had to deal with; not on so deep and universal a level as this. If you don't see your own childhood in Max's tale, then maybe you didn't have a childhood yourself. You grew up; that's all. Real children, like Max, live, and hurt, and survive.

I'm not alone. If you're in touch with what you were when you were a child, if you aren't just another face in the crowd, if you really know what it means to be alive while trying to find out why...this is your story.

That's one take on all of this, and maybe it's just my take. Let me know what you think. More to come.

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Something To Do With Death

Once Upon a Time in the West was received coolly by most film critics on its initial release in 1969*, but has since come to be regarded as one of the finest Westerns ever made. It pulls apart the narrative of your usual Western and digs down deep into the meaning of many things, most of which have to do with being a man in a time when such a concept was dying. "Just a man," says Frank about himself, to which Harmonica replies, "An ancient race." Their time is up; the world is changing. Men have their own concerns that fly in the face of progress; "Something to do with death," as Cheyenne says about the character of Harmonica.

*For fun, read a rather negative review from 1969 of OUATITW by some young kid named Roger Ebert.



Sergio Leone was about a half-step shy of being a full-blown Marxist, and you'll get the full effect of this movie if you keep it in mind. There are numerous references and homages to classic Westerns of Hollywood's past throughout the film; catnip for serious movie fans as well as a commentary on the genre itself.



This film is as emotionally devastating as Don Giovanni and Eugene Onegin rolled up into one. I said this film was operatic, and the importance of Ennio Morricone's score to the whole concept of the film cannot be overstated. Unusually for a movie, the score was recorded before filming began, and the film was shot and edited to fit the music. Listen to the main theme and tell me if that isn't the most beautiful film music ever written.



Hank Fonda once said this was his favorite film role, and how could it not be? For once, in a career filled with lots of characters who were nice guys, Fonda got to portray a villain of such unmitigated evil that he could eat Mr. Blond for breakfast, and hold his own against Heath Ledger's Joker.

There are, of course, several flaws in the movie, especially in some post-synch that could have come out of a badly dubbed Japanese monster movie. But overall, the searing emotional weight of OUATITW overwhelms such finely-detailed critique.



See this movie. It is utterly amazing.

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I have visions of Carol smashing little gold statuettes...

"The Motion Picture Academy TOTALLY sucks!"

The True Best Picture of 2006: Brokeback Mountain
The True Best Picture of 2007: Ratatouille
The True Best Picture of 2008: The Dark Knight
The True Best Picture of 2009: Where the Wild Things Are

So when I'm not watching the Oscars tomorrow night, you'll know why. Oy...

Meanwhile, enjoy Chris Orr's Orrscars for 2009! Featuring awards like these:

The Dumbledore Award for Mystic Beardiness: Christopher Plummer as Tolstoy in The Last Station

Runner-up: Christopher Plummer as Dr. Parnassus in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Enjoy! And, tomorrow night, watch a good movie instead of the stupid Oscars.

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No Man's Land

The last of the real men?

Interesting take on Brokeback Mountain and masculinity from The New Republic's Chris Orr. He maintains that Brokeback Mountain, apart from its gay themes, touches deeply on issues concerning a man's place in the modern world. About Jack and Ennis, Orr says:

It's no coincidence that, with the exception of their first, hurried reunification, their time together is spent not in discreet motels or open-minded cities but in the great outdoors. There, Jack and Ennis are free to be not merely gay men, but men--cooking over a fire and sleeping under the stars, unburdened by the neutering demands of domesticity, of children and wives and bills to pay.

I like Orr's list (after the article) of Westerns that re-write the genre, including John Wayne's fascinating turn in The Searchers (don't ever let anyone tell you Wayne didn't have chops; he did), Clint Eastwood's magnificently bleak Unforgiven, and what may be my favorite Western of all, Sergio Leone's operatically intense Once Upon a Time in the West. As a writer (and gay man) who seeks the freedom to practice his craft as a way of life, I can relate to a lot of what Orr says here about men in conflict with the soul-destroying characteristics of quotidian, modern life. Fascinating stuff.


Bronson in OUATITW. Every line in his face tells a story.

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Okay.

On the surface, it's a story about a boy who runs away to a secret land with a bunch of monsters.

In the movie, it's a nine-year-old boy and a bunch of guys in fursuits. And there's some conflict, and there's some insight, and there's some reconciliation; blah, blah, blah.

So why is it that this movie makes me a total wreck every time I see it?

I tear up at all kinds of movies; even Die Hard gets me all verklempt at the end.

The first time I saw Where the Wild Things Are, I was wiping tears from my eyes after I left the theatre, while I was walking to my car. That was a first. And it still does it to me. Even while watching the closing credits of the DVD, I was shaking my head and wondering what the hell was going on...

I know this much -- you can find clues in Spike Jonze's awesome first two movies.

I don't know why Where the Wild Things Are does this to me; makes me a complete wreck. But I'm going to find out. It will take a few more viewings of the film. But I will dig down and figure out why this movie breaks me down, and why it has totally altered the way I see art and hear music and view films and read books. And the way I write.

Best freaking picture of 2009. Eff the Oscars. This is the one.

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P.S. And Max Records is freaking awesome. But you already knew that.

Today's the Big Day!

LET THE WILD RUMPUS START!

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Wild About Where the Wild Things Are

Picture by Shawn Records from the set of Where the Wild Things Are.

How much do I love Where the Wild Things Are?

THIS MUCH!!!

Follow this link to read the full story (with pictures!) of how I came to own possibly THE most awesome bit of WTWTA memorabilia evah!

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Spike Jonze and Where the Wild Things Are

It's almost here! Where the Wild Things Are comes out on home video this week! Spike Jonze's documentary about Maurice Sendak, Tell Them Anything You Want (made along with Lance Bangs) also hits the stores this week. Here's a profile of Spike from the LA Times.

The most vivid scenes in "Wild Things" are also the most physical: the rough-and-tumble brawls and dirt fights. In keeping with his skate-kid roots, Jonze is usually at his best when communicating his sheer love of movement. Think of the lead character's Dance of Despair and Disillusionment from "Being John Malkovich" or the ecstatic choreography in the videos for Bjork's "It's Oh So Quiet" and Fatboy Slim's "Weapon of Choice" and "Praise You."

WTWTA blew my mind on many levels. I'm sure I'll have even more to say about it now that I can watch it over and over.

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Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Absolutely my favorite movie of all time. I watched this again last night and it still moves me to tears at many places. It's an unbelievably strong story of human relationships and character. The first time I saw this I knew nothing about the novels by Patrick O'Brian, so naturally I found the experience of Dr. Maturin's interest in science and the music he plays with Captain Aubrey to be total intellectual catnip. Combined with exciting action sequences and you have, in my opinion, an almost perfect movie.

I have since read all but the last two of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels, which are amazingly well-written and meticulously researched. O'Brian achieved something I strive for in my writing: a type of genre story (the nautical adventure tale) told with remarkable characters and excellent, literary-quality writing.

See this if you haven't -- it's stunning.

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"Goliath," by Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman and friend.

I'm currently re-reading Neil Gaiman's story collection Fragile Things, which contains this terrific story set in the universe of The Matrix. Gaiman was asked by Warner Bros. to write a story set in the world of The Matrix (they sent him a copy of the script), and the result, "Goliath," was posted at the film's website about a week before the movie opened. This is such a fine example of how a great story works, and it is so quintessentially Gaiman. Enjoy!

"Goliath," by Neil Gaiman

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Speaking of ‘Wild Things,’ love lost — and Mozart

One of the things that most intrigues me about writers and writing is influence -- what works on writers to make them create what they do? What fascinates them, encourages them, depresses them? Lots of people want to know from where writers get their ideas. Sometimes that is so hard to explain, but if you can find out what a writer loves, and hates, and fears, and finds joy in, then you will come closer to understanding what makes their imaginations tick.

Anyway, here's a fascinating article about Maurice Sendak and his loves and sorrows, called Speaking of ‘Wild Things,’ love lost — and Mozart. One of Sendak's great joys, as is mine, is the music of Mozart. There is much that is fascinating in this article, but I think I most love the conclusion:

But just a week before the interview, Sendak says, he began to come out of his depression. It started by picking up “Great Expectations” by Charles Dickens, followed by listening to Mozart’s “Don Giovanni.”

“I’m coming back to life — and the movie of ‘Wild Things’ and everything is life-enhancing,” says the author. “One looks for signs and symptoms of what is good and what is bad, what is pulling you down and what is holding it up. It’s Mozart, but I haven’t listened to him carefully for a long time. Now he’s back in my life with a vengeance. ... And there’s Charles Dickens.”

Max, of “Wild Things,” would be around 50 now.

“If I had a preference, he would be an artist,” says Sendak. “He would be an artist and it could be in any profession — in painting, in illustrating, in writing, in music. Oh, God, if he were a great pianist, I would be so happy!”

That tells me more about Maurice Sendak than anything I've ever read about him. I'm anxious to see the HBO documentary about Sendak, Tell Them Anything You Want, made by Spike Jonze and Lance Bangs, which is due out the same day as the DVD of WTWTA, March 2.

Don Giovanni is my favorite opera, BTW.

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