The Wilhelm Scream

Defending Your Life, Setting Yourself Free

The premise of "Defending Your Life" seems less outlandish in the era of Youtube and Facebook. These days it's easy to pass judgment on someone you barely know. Simply friend them on facebook, sift through their profile for embarrassing pictures and comments, do your standard google search and voila! Instant judgment!

The film presages this in a way.  Albert Brooks plays an advertiser executive, who's run over by a bus and finds himself in a sort of benign purgatory - Judgment City - where he gets to wear a toga, gorge on whatever food he wants without gaining weight and even see who he was in his past lives at an Epcot Center exhibit hall.

The catch is that during the day his life is on trial.  If he can prove he lived his life to its fullest and never succumbed to fear in making his major life decisions, he can move onward. Losing the case means he's a work-in-progress and must return to Earth to live another life.

The humor of the movie prosecutor conjures pivotal moments from his life

Helpful Health Hint of the Day

Warning! Crucifixion can be hazardous to your health! Who knew? Apparently, Filipinos certainly didn't as they prepared for the Easter celebration this weekend.

Health officials in the Philippines have issued a warning to people taking part in Easter crucifixion rituals.
The health department has strongly advised penitents to check the condition of the whips they plan to use to lash their backs, the Manila Times newspaper reports.In the hot and dusty atmosphere, officials warn, using unhygienic whips to make deep cuts in the body could lead to tetanus and other infections.

Truly, in my experience, the only Easter tragedy worse than accidentally using a Tetanus laden whip for self-flagellation has to be your mom forgetting the Cadbury creme eggs for your Easter basket.

That's right, Mom! It's been 21 years, and you're still not forgiven!

Have Religion Is Not A Carte Blanche for Douchebaggery

    It was hard not to be enraged by this NPR story about ultra-orthodox Jews attacking neighbors in the Jerusalem suburbs for not dressed moderately enough and keeping Kosher.
    The Harediim, as they're known in Jerusalem, follow a very strict code, including conservative rules governing the dress of both women and men. Until recently, most of them had lived in their insular Jerusalem neighborhood known as Mea Shariim, where they were known to be testy towards tourists but mostly kept to themselves. Yet recently, because of escalating costs of living, they've had to move to the more integrated suburbs, where there are Jews of many stripes, and the dudes with the curly sideburns have been bugging out, even resorting to throwing rocks at women whom they deem as dressing too provocatively.
    Many of the Harediim in the story were quick to blame inappropriately dressed women for distracting them from their concentrated reverence of God, the Torah, etc.
    Apparently, they're too busy basking in their moral superiority to ever question what God might think of them pelting innocent women with rocks, but, hey, it's not like your daily greeting in Hebrew translates literally to peace or anything. Oh wait. . .
    This is a strange phenomenon I see not only with ultra-orthodox Jews but several people of various faiths who are extremely religious. It seems they become so entranced with their own spiritual piety they forget not to treat their peers and neighbors like total shit.
    Don't get my wrong, I think there's a lot of great stuff to be found in organized religion. Jesus, admittedly, was one cool cat who hung out with and befriended lepers, prostitutes and other untouchables. He was the biblical equivalent of a high school football captain spending his lunch periods and Friday nights chilling with all the geeks in the physics club. (Though I don't think even Jesus would hang with those Model U.N. dorks.)
    I just don't get why so many people have to turn religion around to get satisfaction from it. Instead of it being about caring for one another and doing right, it becomes about subjugation. It becomes about bending others to your will. And that, I think, is wrong and a crime against liberty and personal freedom. It's certainly not what Jesus would do.    
    It's also why I, regrettably, think the world would be better off without organized religion. It's unfortunate the Harediim do such an excellent job of convincing me I'm right.

 

  That said, TheWilhelmScream believes in nothing if not balance, and it would be hard to disparage the Harediim without mentioning the lovely film, Ushpizin, which lays bare the beauty and fellowship behind their faith for all to see.
    The film follows Moshe and Mali Bellange, a childless and penurious couple of Hasidic Jews, living in the Breslove community in Jerusalem. At the center of the movie is Moshe and Mali's struggle to properly celebrate the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. Though they receive an unexpected gift that helps them buy a particularly beautiful citron, which is required for the observance of the holiday, their lives are thrown into turmoil with the arrival of two escaped cons. One of the cons knows Moshe from his previous life, and he feels obligated to extend his hospitality to the two men who don't understand (or really respect) their ways.
    What ensues is a lovely and humorous meditation on how staying faithful to your ideals often requires hardship and sacrifice. It shouldn't be missed. In fact, I think the rabbis should make it required viewing for those rock-hurling Harediim.

Yippie-ty Do Daa! What a Wonderful Riot Today!

   

Chicago 10, a re-telling of the 1968 Democratic Convention riots and the subsequent trial, is - quite simply - the best documentary I've seen this year.

    A brimming and provocative amalgam of archival footage, audio recordings, actors reading court transcripts and animation, it follows in the footsteps of The Kid Stays in the Picture and Jessica Yu's recent documentaries (In the Realms of the Unreal and Protagonist) in pushing the boundaries of the medium.         
    Here's a documentary with a palette as rich as any feature film and an acidic sense of story telling that keeps us on edge; the director doesn't allow the action to trundle along, unfolding sequentially. He thrusts us straight into the middle of the trial, which serves as a conduit to revisit the riots, peppering along the way animated stand-up performances and radio call-ins by the various members of the Chicago 10.      The animated incarnations of of Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin and their cohorts tower over us as though we're a young child wandering through the courtroom.
    Their faces looked rotoscoped, but their limbs move with an artificial heaviness, as if they're models out of an airplane safety video. In a way this makes sense, as what unfolds during the trial (and it's taken straight from the transcripts) seems totally detached from reality; our justice system never looked more shameful and myopic.
    Suffice to say, the curmudgeonly judge, whose jowls hang from his face like a bulldog's, is so one-sided in his vituperation of the Chicago 8, that Abbie and his other Yippies anticipate and musically recite with the judge's every "objection overruled."
    Abbie and the other Yippies, as they call themselves, have resigned themselves to their likely conviction for inciting a riot, and their main goal during the trial is to destroy the court's authority however they can.
    Yet the hilarity of their hijinks and their ability to point out the court's absurdity takes a darker turn, when Bobby Seale, a Black Panther unfairly charged in the case, demands to exercise his right to defend himself. What ensues is a scene we've become all too familiar - a government overstepping its bounds, literally shackling its citizens, in the name of security and justice.
    As outrageous as the trial was, it's mostly a conduit for the film to explore the riots themselves, for which there is an amazingly comprehensive library of archival footage. And it's fantastic footage at that - we see bloodied faces, we're surrounded by tear gas, we even see the face of police officers with a glazed look in their eyes, perhaps shocked themselves at what they have done.
    Yet perhaps what's most brilliant about the film is that it doesn't succumb to the cliche of wrapping this package in 60s nostalgia - too often movies like this are little more than nostalgic junk food for baby boomers to reminisce about the days before they stopped caring about anything but their retirement funds.
    Instead, the soundtrack is highlighted by Rage Against the Machine and Eminem; it's clear this is a film about today as much as it is about the convention.
    Today, just as it was then, our country is engaged in an unpopular war, one that was started under seriously dubious justifications - yet why isn't there the same level of anger and outrage as there was in Chicago in 68?
    Why aren't we organizing our own marches through the cities? Why aren't we fucking mad as hell?
    I think it's in part due to the fact the country was united behind the Iraqi War when it began. And, frankly, if our friends were being drafted and killed instead of high school drop-outs from Kansas, we'd probably be a lot more outraged.
    After seeing Chicago 10, it made me want to get unruly. It made we want to show the government and the powers that I'm not afraid. Of course, I actually haven't done anything since then.
    At the end of the day, I think that's it. We're too comfortable. We're too afraid of risking that comfort to really take a stand. We bitch and complain, but when push comes to shove most of us wouldn't have been willing to use our vacation days to travel to Chicago and protest back in '68.
    You can say many things about the Yippies in Chicago 10 - that they were provocateurs, that they indulged in self-aggrandizement, that their beliefs amounted to little more than anarchy.
    But at least they weren't afraid.

I'd Shoot A Rocket into Israel For You

    I am a bad blogger as it has been more than a week since my last post. Are there punishments doled out for this sort of negligence? Perhaps a public flogging by professed woman-hater Charlotte Allen. She and Leonard Sax really should meet for lunch and challenge each other to see who can make the most myopic generalizations about an entire gender in under 30 minutes.
    If that happens, I think I'll stay at home and pound my head against the wall for a couple hours - I'll save myself a few bucks on lunch while my brain would experience the same sort of stimulation of actually listening to their conversation.
    The actual culprit, however, in my blogging recalcitrance has been Comcast, which installed our new Internet connection a couple weeks ago but provided a used modem that happened to be broken. What the hell, man?! Why can't they spring for a new modem? Are they really that expensive? And wouldn't they at least test a modem to make sure it works before installing it?
    I would also be willing to bet my roommate's beer belly that Comcast probably loses more money in lost man hours replacing broken modems they just installed than they would if they sprang for new ones. Comcast better watch out or I'll start a new I Hate Comcast group on Facebook, and then they'll be REALLY screwed!

    Anyway, I've mentioned previously on the blog that I spent a couple weeks this winter in the Middle East, including a few days bumming around Israel. Since then, I've been following the hullabaloo that's been brewing in Gaza, and it looks like Israel is eventually going to have to invade to stop Hamas from firing rockets into Israeli cities like Ashkelon.
    Clearly, the Israelis are in a tough position. They certainly can't stand for Palestinians to be terrorizing their people by randomly firing missiles across the border, yet any military action is inevitably going to be criticized ad nauseum by their critics as more imperialist bullying.
    Yet the way Israeli PM Ehmet Olmert has gone about this has really irked me, especially the way he's inflicted suffering on thousands of Gaza civilians in trying to stop the attacks. By doing this, they've only made the support for Hamas in Gaza stronger. Olmert needs to stop acting as though all Palestinians are conspiring against the country, even if many openly admit they hate Israel, and start treating them with dignity. How would things have been different if Olmert pulled out all the stops to ensure civilians were as unaffected as possible by their campaign to stop the rocket launches?
    Pessimists might argue nothing would be different, but isn't it at least worth trying instead of willy-nilly shutting off power supplies and nearly starving people?

    And, well, there's something else that I think Olmert needs to consider.

    TheWilhelmScream, in general, doesn't like war, thinks guns are very uncool (unless they're ion cannons on the Millennium Falcon) and abhors violence, but there was one thing walking around Israel that I could not deny:

    ISRAELI SOLDIER GIRLS DRIVE ME CRAZY!
    They're all so fit and tan, and there's just something about how the loose-hanging AK-47s move with the sway of their hips when they walk. Seriously, AK-47s are like high heels - they make every woman wearing them seem just a little sexier.

    It's quite obvious to me that if I were a Palestinian in Gaza, I'd be tempted to shoot rockets into Ashkelon just so I could get to check out all the hot Israeli soldier vixens who'd be arresting and frisking me during the consequential invasion!
    Note to Olmert: When it's time to invade, make sure you only send ugly soldier dudes.

PS: I saw Chicago 10 (awesome!) and No Country For Old Men (Meeeeh) over the weekend. I'll be blogging about those later in the week.

Empty Book Shelves

    It's official: George W. Bush's presidential library will be housed at Southern Methodist University, the alma mater of his wife who is also a trustee.
    The deal is a little shady because it sounds like the Bush Foundation overseeing the library will ensure it properly reflects the president's views and ideology.
    What's great is that several SMU professors, including some involved with Christian studies, have been throwing some classic hissy fits, claiming this arrangement will impede serious, objective scholarship.
    How about this ditty from Suzanne Johnson, associate professor of Christian education:

“The whole purpose of a library is for unfettered, unbiased, critically reflective academic inquiry into the administration of a given presidency. It’s not to cheer-lead for a particular president. It’s not to be groupies. We all know very well that this institute — which has no lines of accountability to the faculty — is about getting some scholars lined up to put window dressing on the presidency of George Bush.”

   But what really befuddles my mind is this: What sort of books would be contained in a library named after a president who admits he doesn't read?

My best guess:
One copy of "A Purpose Driven Life"
One copy of every book in the "Left Behind" series
One copy of "Pre-Emptive War for Dummies"
37 copies of "Clifford the Big Red Dog"

As for the DVD collection, there'll probably be a copy of "Woman Thou Art Loosed" to look both pious and sophisticated and then 148 copies of "Animal House."

What do you guys think will be housed in the George W. Bush presidential library?

Adrift in Translation

Almost two months ago, I was fortunate enough visit the Middle East, where I climbed around the rose-hued ruins of Petra, dove in the Red Sea off the Sinai Peninsula and got lost in the labyrinth that is the Old Town of Jerusalem.
    Before leaving I had seen a documentary and read some articles on how our society villifies the Arab people. It's something that's deep-rooted and hard to notice until you're there in their country, speaking to them face-to-face.
    Admittedly, I was only there for two weeks, but it was still long enough for my eyes to be opened. People were extraordinarily kind to me, and on more than one occasion complete strangers would see me dining alone at a local cafe and buy my dinner, refusing to take any money.
    Local cab drivers ribbed me playfully about the West's preoccupation with romantic love and how the tradition of arranged marriages works so much better.
    "You meet a girl, you go to bed with her, and then what? Then she leaves!? What good is that?" said Mousa, an inveterately wise cabby from Aqaba.
    Yet I won't lie. There were aspects of the culture I found strange and others that even turned my stomach. It was impossible to avoid feeling a creepy sensation when I saw women in full-body burqas, and I fell ill at ease whenever I'd hear the eerie call to prayer blaring from the local mosque's PA system.
    (Hence, I find it pretty outrageous that some mosques England want the right to broadcast the call to prayer in communities where Islam is a minority religion. Sorry, dudes, freedom of religion doesn't necessarily mean freedom from noise ordinances.)
    My point is that even though I was meeting people who were breaking down stereotypes, it wasn't difficult for me to remember what makes Middle Eastern cultures so distant and bizarre to many Americans, including myself. And what makes them so unfamiliar is what makes them so easy to dehumanize.
     Yet, however different our views are on religion, morality and sexuality may be, Arabs are just people like us who want the same things we do: safe streets for their children to play, good-paying jobs to provide for their families, a home to call their own and a government where their voice can be heard.
    Persepolis is a French film based on the eponymous and autobiographical graphic novel about a young Iranian, Marjane Satrapi. It focuses on the cultural dislocation she feels during her adolescence as she flees her homeland for Europe and then returns only to feel like an outsider.
    Marjane grows up in Tehran beating up boys, wearing sneakers and listening to MIchael Jackson. This is an important film because, though Persian, she is immediately recognizable to American audiences.
     She wields a bold and ironic sense of humor and is quick to ridicule what she knows is myopic. She is bellicose and rebellious, especially when confronted by fools, but this belies an incredible vulnerability.   
    Stranded in Europe on her own, caught between her need to adapt to her new home and her desire to retain what had made her Iranian, she founders. Her landlord, for instance, eyes her dark hair and olive complexion suspiciously, surmising she is likely to pilfer various household amenities. At a party, Marjane betrays her culture, claiming she is French so as not to scare away an attractive male flirt.
    The film is darkly funny, beautifully animated and absolutely redolent of what binds humanity together.
    In a way, I felt a kinship with Marjane because I too have a blurry vision of where I came from, having bounced itinerantly from place to place these past six years. At times I wonder if I'm just a conquistador circumnavigating the globe: the farther I wander away, the closer I come to returning. Others I think I'm a permanent drifter, and home is a concept that no longer applies.
    Of course, for Marjane, the difference is she had no choice.  Her nomadic path was set in motion by political forces and the fear of persecution. In the end, she might have survived at a time when others like he perished. But as Persepolis gracefully reminds us, her survival was not without a sacrifice.
   

Dude, Where's My Grocery Store!?

    It's taking some time for me to gather my opinions about the excellent French film Persepolis, and maybe because there's been some excellent news stories distracting me with thoughts about the growing gap between the rich and the poor in this country.

   

The Washington Post printed an eye-opening, but I suspect under-read story, on the startling dearth of grocery stores in New York City, especially in low-income neighborhoods. While it's long been known that grocery store chains tend to eschew poorer, urban neighborhoods (this never made sense to me; poor people need food too), apparently skyrocketing real estate values are almost forcing stores to sell to developers because the low-profit margins on groceries can't keep up with the hikes in rent.

    Because there's no grocery stores nearby, people tend to buy non-perishable foods when they do go shopping, so that means a limited supply of fresh fruit, vegetables and meat.

    Not surprisingly, some are calling the lack of grocery stores an impending health crisis, as NYC neighborhoods with fewer stores tend to have higher rates of obesity and diabetes.

    There might not be an exact causation at work here, but still it's a problem. Even when I lived in a small Florida beach town, I noticed this issue. The Atlantic coast and the downtown area, where most of the middle and upper-class residents lived (including Sly Stallone!), were awash in Publix stores (and their amazing cakes and cookies!). The town was deeply segregated, and further inland was Gifford, the black neighborhood, where there was one glorified 7-11 masquerading as a grocery store. Many residents in that part of town did have to subsist on convenience store shopping, which not only meant unhealthier meals but also higher prices! Talk about the cycle of poverty. . .

    Not too long ago, some states wanted to ban the use of food stamps to purchase junk. But as this article suggests, maybe it'd be more prudent to ense all food stamp recipients actually have access to healthy food before denigrating their shopping choices.

    As for a film that addresses some of these issues how about the documentary "The End of Suburbia?" It features a small number of experts who purport that depletion of the world's oil reserves will happen soon rather than later, causing all sorts of changes in how Americans live (i.e. we won't be able to depend on cars to get us everywhere).

    Mentioned in the film is the growing movement of New Urbanism, which seeks to return our society to its urban design roots, with walkable city centers. Street cars, which were bought up and destroyed long ago by the auto companies, would be resurrected for the morning and evening commutes.

    And while I don't know whole lot about this growing movement, I'm guessing they'd probably be sure to include some incentive for grocery stores to set up shop.

    And for the record, I think if someone wants to use their food stamps for Fritos, it's bloody well they're right to do so. Mind your own business, you condescending douchebags! 

   

Obama-tomy update

Just today I found this interview on Salon.com with Samantha Power, author of possibly the most amazing piece of journalism I've ever read - A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide. It basically chronicles every instance of genocide in the 20th century, while digging deep into how U.S. foreign policy reacted to the atrocities. In short, it was lackluster at best, downright inhuman at worst.

What's especially fascinating is the beginning of the book which describes the invention of the word and concept of "genocide" by the Polish attorney Rafael Lemkin. I don't think a lot of us, including myself before I read this book, even understand what genocide really means. Often this lack of understanding is used to obfuscate cases of clear genocide to justify international inaction.

Anyway, the point of the Salon article is that Power was signed on by Obama a few years ago to be his head foreign policy adviser. AWESOME! And he called her after reading the book over Christmas. SUPER AWESOME!

This is almost as good as Obama's predilection for Dunkin Donuts in terms of justifying my vote for him. I can't think of a person who'd be better suited for changing the mindset of American foreign policy than Power.

Hurray for Obamatomies!

Trains, Planes and Codpieces

So TheWilhelmScream is back from London, my first visit to the United Kingdom, and I'm definitely impressed with the Brits' little island. Though why the English somehow decided "jacket potatoes" was a better name for baked potatoes is beyond me. 

One highlight was certainly my visit to the Tower of London where in addition to seeing the crown jewels and learning of medieval torture techniques (tour guide: Torture isn't used for punishment. It's used to enrich the conversation.),  one can tour the armory in the White Tower where swords, muskets, bayonets and armor worn by several kings of England are all on display.

Unfortunately, King Henry the VIII's codpiece made TheWilhelmScream feel more than a little inadequate about himself, though admittedly that is not very difficult to do. But honestly, that weenie protector is about the size of a pair of Chipotle burritos! With extra guacamole! Was the King getting stiffies on the battlefield? I tend to doubt it; I think the codpiece's only purpose was self-aggrandizement to which I say, "Henry! You were already the King of frackin' England! Did you really need everyone to think you had gigantism of the woody to improve your reputation?"

Royal jewels aside, I also checked out The Lion King on stage at a Covent Garden theater. It was truly a visual spectacle with performers portraying various jungle creatures with elaborate and ornate costumes, puppets and Rube Goldberg-esque contraptions. The creatures reminded me of rainbow-hued and three-dimensional prehistoric cave paintings, brought to life by the graceful dancers and actors.

The stage version of The Lion King was originally directed by the visionary Julie Taymor, who is also the director of Frida and Titus (often called Shakespeare's worst play; though I like to think of it more as his Pulp Fiction). She most recently helmed Across the Universe, a Hair-like musical about social protest in the 60s and 70s suffused with more than 30 Beatles songs.

Make no mistake, folks, Taymor is a visual genius. Every film of hers is chock full of creativity and images I've never seen anywhere else. I compare her favorably to Tim Burton, both being incomparable stylists whose visual ingenuity can sometimes interfere with their storytelling. Across the Universe, for instance, meanders a bit and doesn't really provide much in the way of suspense. Yet there is still incandescence here - especially the provocative dream-like sequence set to "Strawberry Fields." Bloody strawberries replace the bombs in stock footage of Vietnam War air raids, and explode across the black-and-white landscape in oozing profusions of crimson.

I don't think Tim Burton ever really found the right balance between style and story, but Taymor definitely has come closer -- especially with Frida. It's truly only a matter of time before Taymor finds the palette for her real film masterpiece, and I await eagerly for that day.

Lastly, the flights to and from London provided me a chance to catch up with some movies I missed in the theaters. Here are some quick thoughts.

• Into the Wild - Sean Penn proves to be a capable director, but I still can't get over how both he and author Jon Krakauer position Chris McCandless as some kind of folk hero. The guy was a narcissistic and possibly suicidal douchebag, a view best summed up by this Alaskan park ranger's article.
• Knocked Up - Definitely funnier than I expected after it was panned by several friends, but I really couldn't buy that Katherine Heigl's character would consider Seth Rogan a serious marriage partner. It's pretty rare to find a relationship that works when two people have such drastically different life goals (Rogan wants to smoke pot; Heigl wants to be the next Ryan Seacrest).
• Resurrecting the Champ - Wow. This movie reminds you just how often Samuel L. Jackson totally mails it in (cough. . .Jumper!. . . hack. . .SWAT!) because he does really fine work here. His portrayal as a homeless man who claims to be a former champion fighter deserves a better script. Josh Hartnett is pretty but lame as the reporter who eagerly believes the former boxer's tale in hopes of landing a big scoop.