Star-struck a Second Time: Denys Arcand's STARDOM

I just watched the film Stardom for the second time last night and man, what an honest work of art. Director Denys Arcand shows us that he is a true master of visual storytelling. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it.

In brief, Stardom tells the rags-to-riches story of a young girl who skyrockets to the top tier of the modeling industry with the aid of prominent individuals (mostly men with whom she intimately involves herself) throughout her climb. For me, the most interesting aspect of the film has to be the way the story is told through various camera lenses, from TV sitcoms and talk shows, which range from a Canadian Jerry Springer to a more traditional Late Late Show host, to the black and white voyeuristic docudrama of Bruce Taylor (wonderfully portrayed by Robert LePage, who also directed an excellent film called Far Side of the Moon back in 2003.) The diversity of color footage, which illustrates Tina Menzhal's (Jessica Paré) life as a model as glamorous, idyllic and lush with color sharply contrasts with the darker, almost hidden truth that her life is only filled in by dominant blacks, shades of gray and the slightest hope of white. That is absolutely brilliant filmmaking.

And if you enjoy Stardom, be sure to check out Arcand's other films of note, namely The Decline of the American Empire (1986) and its sequel The Barbarian Invasions (2003). Oldies but goodies, guaranteed!

What Being a Writer Really Means

It's the same every semester. I teach college writing across NJ, and every semester without fail, a student will come up to me after I've just finished a discussion on rhetorical principles like narration or description and ask something like "How can I get a book published?" or the even more nebulous "How do I become a Writer."

So I give the student the Spark Notes version of my spiel, about how the Writer's life is a lonely, oftentimes empty one; how a Writer must be dedicated and faithful to the written words he or she presses down on the page, clicks onto the computer screen; how in times of even the thickest "Writer's Block" the Writer will hammer the heaviest of leaden words into the wall until it cracks enough so this Writer-Warrior can crash through it with the power of a freight train hauling "boxcars, boxcars, boxcars" of new and fresh messages that must reach the destination of a published book, newspaper headline, or movie theater's marquis.

For any student who hasn't thrown on his or her coat by now and left tracks leading to the classroom door, I belt out a harangue about how arduous a task it is to find a publisher who'll look at his or her foot any differently than the 12 other pairs of feet keeping the door ajar with late night manuscripts; how a Writer's shoes can't be fitted like Bobo's or Bill Gates', but must glow like an alien from the 11th dimension, its foot colored by shoes that show off all the individuality in each of its seventeen toes, plus the rhyme and reason behind each and every toenail; how there's the possibility of self-publication through myriad websites like CreateSpace, and how that's all fine and good, but how that option also comes with it own set of perils. "Nice book, John," critics and colleagues will snicker and sip their cocktails, "but it's not a real book!"

Being a Writer is hard. Writers know this. People who want to be Writers don't. The problem is that the students who want to be writers are the same students whose pages I slash up with scratches of blue ink because despite the quality of the content, they are a toxic ocean of textspeak, a wasteland of grammatical errors and sentence fragments where modifiers dangle around like half-chopped heads in a Rob Zombie picture. Don't even get me started on the amount of comma traffic. And apostrophes? They seem to being going the way of dodo.

These are the ones who want to publish a book. Who want to be Writers. But in all sincerity, they probably won't. Why? It's pretty simple: They don't enjoy writing enough to learn the craft of writing. Most of these students may dabble in poetry or have written a short story once; some even maintain blogs which many times have as many grammatical problems as they do subscribers. A Writer is a different species altogether. Whether it's a single poem or a ten page essay on global warming from a Neo-Marxist standpoint, a Writer must immerse him- or herself in the work; he or she must enjoy jotting down those first words that will be replaced later by two even more accurate words that say the same thing more effectively or poetically, and perhaps in fewer words. This is the Writer's life.

Case in point: My creative writing courses teem with some similar students, those who want to be Writers. But then there are those in class who actually are Writers. Here's the difference: The Writers realize that to be Writers, they have to constantly practice. They have to write. They accept the fact that they have to make writing a habit and nurture it. They see truth in my analogy "Writing is to the Writer as junk is to William S. Burroughs" (who, coincidentally, was also addicted to writing.) Writing is a drug, so that when Writers don't do it, they can't function properly, go through withdrawals, even start doubting themselves. Without pen pressed to page, the Writer falls to pieces bit by bit. None of these students ever ask me "How do I publish a book" or "How do I become a Writer?" They're already on the path. They walk into the classroom and I teach them about craft, and they use that honed skill to mold their content more effectively and make it sing. They already carry journals where ever they go, unafraid to fire off a few rounds of verbal ammunition into it or explode a few thought-bombs here and there; they know it's target practice. They know the more they get, the better their aim will become so that when they're face to face with a publisher, their manuscript will shine. They are the ones who will be published, guaranteed.

And when the publishers ask the Writer to rewrite or polish up the draft he or she had submitted, or suggests they add this or take out that, the Writer will smirk, go home, and continue where they left off, already halfway through the rewrite. The Writer never stops writing.

So if you want to publish a book or be a Writer, my advice to you is simple and straightforward: Just Write.

Dark Fantasies Brought to Light

ONE HOUR FANTASY GIRL journeys into a different corner of the dark basement world of prostitution, the sexless realm of fantasy fulfillment. It is stunningly shot with a beautiful mélange of color that externalize the inner conflicts Brandi/Becky battles with throughout the film. It’s a raw and oftentimes sweetly disturbing picture; at one moment we witness Brandi fulfilling the overtly Freudian desires of Roger; at other times we fall at ease when she spends time with Bobby, her seeming savior. The twist in the film is unpredictable, and was probably what I enjoyed most about the film.

Although ONE HOUR FANTASY GIRL was superbly shot by cinematographer Rush Hamden, the film fell somewhat flat for me where the overlapping storylines are concerned. Some elements just didn't add up, specifically the very loose subplot which takes place in a diner. I get what those scenes are trying to accomplish, but I don't see how it fits seamlessly with the context of the story’s main plot. The ending, I thought, could have come much sooner than it did, and I feel that more could have been done to expound on Becky’s desire to work a job in real estate so that the ending wouldn’t have appeared so arbitrary.

I saw many similarities between ONE HOUR FANTASY GIRL and THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE (and while I appreciate the premise in the former much more than in Soderbergh’s film, I did feel more empathy for Sasha Grey’s Chelsea than I did for Kelly-Ann Tursi’s Brandi), but writer/director Edgar Michael Bravo offers up an intriguing alternate take on the “dark damsel in distress” motif and gives the audience a worthwhile ride.

Broken PROMISE! Director Chen Kaige in the CG World

I've recently become a huge fan of Chen Kaige, one of China's "Fifth Generation" filmmakers and his unique style of filmmaking. When I first saw FAREWELL MY CONCUBINE, I was enamored by the many layers that wrapped around this near three-hour masterpiece; its intertwining story lines (mainly how the opera of the same name acts as a metaphor for the Communist takeover of China that happens later on in the film, and its the characterization. TEMPTRESS MOON produced similar effects, howsoever more subdued because of the heavy moral undertones through the film and it's "revenge isn't always as sweet as we'd like it to be" message by the end. Even one of Kaige's lesser-known works, LIFE ON A STRING, was another fine example of a touching tale that mixes the fantastic (the film's based around the idea that when a blind musician breaks his thousandth string, his sight will be restored) with the real (acceptance one's own flaws and those of his or her society). Well, I just watched THE PROMISE, and my initial thought was "What the f*** is this crap?!" I was dragged out of a world of beautifully shot landscapes and deep character development that takes its time to CGI bulls running after (and eventually trying to keep up with) a slave in the midst of a battle between two rival armies. I was plunged head first into a story that sped through events, relationships, and fight scenes that I thought could've been longer. Needless to say, I was very disappointed by those extra heavy CGI undertones (not so much that they're overused, but they're poorly designed, which took me further away from the story line than the actual story line itself.)

The film does have a handful of interesting concepts, mostly visual ones. The idea of slavery permeates through the film in various cinematic formations (the female lead, for example, is kept in a giant yellow birdcage by the rival king) and the concept of Snow Wolf, a character who wears the cloak of death and wields a scythe-shaped sword, but who is afraid of death (afraid of himself?). This concept I would've liked more elaboration on, since it was the most original take on death I've seen in a long while. The overall story had a Dickensian feel to it, causing me to time travel back to when I was 16 and sitting on the toilet reading A TALE OF TWO CITIES as part of my summer reading for my English AP course (and the fact that I thought about that and was Tweeting at the same time definitely means that the story just did not do anything good for me.) Despite THE PROMISE's broken vows (mainly my misconception that all of Chen Kaige's work would be works of utter genius!), I'm looking forward to watching some other Kaige films, but I think my opinion of him is that, unlike Zhang Yimou, who has adapted his storytelling wizardry to the CG world beautifully, Kaige doesn't quite cut it.

Trig's Top Ten of the Decade

Some of this list is based on Film Comment's "150 Best Films of the Decade" list (http://www.filmlinc.com/b/?p=1490), but a few are of my own liking. Here it goes!

1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004; Michel Gondry)

2. Donnie Darko (2001; dir. Richard Kelly)

3. No Country for Old Men (2007; Joel and Ethan Coen)

4. Old Boy (2003; Chan-wook Park)

5. I Heart Huckabees (2004; David O. Russell)

6. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007; Julian Schnabel)

7. The Saddest Music in the World (2003; Guy Maddin)

8. In the Mood for Love (2000; Wong Kar Wai)

9. Stardom (2000; Denys Arcand)

10. World's Greatest Dad (2009; Bobcat Goldthwait)

There are way too many honorable mentions to put down, but I'll just add in the following ten off the top of my head:

Cowards Bend the Knee (2003; Guy Maddin)

Punch-Drunk Love (2002; Paul Thomas Anderson)

Far Side of the Moon (2003; Robert Lapage)

Thirst (2009; Chan-wook Park)

2046 (2004; Wong Kar Wai)

Red Cliff (2008/2009; John Woo)

Lost in Translation (2003; Sofia Coppola)

Coffee and Cigarettes (2003; Jim Jarmusch)

The Royal Tenenbaums (2001; Wes Anderson)

Requiem for a Dream (2000; Darren Aronofsky)

Review of Pearl Jam's BACKSPACER

Backspacer: Pearl Jam’s Giant Leap Ahead for Humankind

“A DISTANT TIME,… A DISTANT SPACE,… THAT’S WHERE WE’RE LIVING,…

A DISTANT TIME,… A DISTANT PLACE,… SO WHAT YOU GIVING?,…”

What exactly has Pearl Jam given to its devoted fans and listeners around the world this time around? Well, for starters, they’ve given another quintessential example of what an expertly crafted studio album sounds like, one that’s both meaningful and melodic. But Backspacer, Pearl Jam’s 10^th studio album, is not “just another rock band record,” but an indefinite marker on the band’s evolutionary timeline, one that’s certain to spark the creation of many more albums like it in the future. There’s no backspace bar on the laptop of life, after all.

But with an album like this one, there’s no need to backspace. This is a nonpareil mix of traditional Ten Pearl Jam with post-No Code Pearl Jam. Tightly packed into this latest recording are the crunchy, doomed-youth anthems that originally put Eddie Vedder and the boys on the musical map back in the early ‘90s. Such tracks include the high-voltage starter “Gonna See my Friend,” the teeth-grinding “Got Some,” and the band’s hit single “The Fixer.” This tornadic trio rocketships Backspacer into a rage of powerful riffs and sky-whining solos by the master Mike McCready. Then it’s time to take a breath, if only for the moment. “Just Breathe,” one of the disc’s more melodic musings, strays us away from the grunge school vibe and delivers up a somber ballad as thoughtful and lyrical as it is brilliantly composed and arranged for guitar. From this point on, the album maintains this pleasantly sophisticated mood in later tracks like “Unthought Known,” “Speed of Sound,” and “The End,” in which this final song’s abrupt and anti-climactical finale impels the listener to listen once again and reexamine the song and oneself; for the lyrics are so universally understood and artfully penned that everyone is susceptible to its message of hope, awareness, and love despite great odds, a theme that’s present throughout the entire disc.

All in all, Backspacer is a wonderful disc, but it is also a different animal altogether from the more hard-hitting Pearl Jam records that preceded it. It represents a more mature Pearl Jam, a band at times seemingly conscious of its own existence, as if each member of the band, through their instrument counterparts, are deeply examining the innermost core of who they are, and, at the very heart of Backspacer, what it really means to be human in our own ever changing world. Even the album’s artwork, a haunting mélange of Tarotesque cartoon images drawn by Tom Tomorrow, seems to reiterate this ideology, subtly hearkening back to our childhoods marked with the uncertainties of the future.

I think Backspacer is an important addition to the Pearl Jam canon mainly because there is a clear schism being formed. Some songs included on the disc are definitively Pearl Jam, reminding me of albums like Binaural, Yield, and even No Code; but most, if not all, of the slower, more ruminative songs are distinctively Eddie Vedder as solo artist. Many times while listening, I recalled to mind certain songs from the Into the Wild soundtrack, on which the band’s frontman showed himself to be an artist of the first magnitude, and in this album, specifically with “Just Breathe” and “The End,” Vedder affirms his standing in the pantheon of the world’s most prominent songwriters.

Aside from just one track that probably won’t make it onto my iPod (namely “Johnny Guitar,” a track which feels more like a B-side of a similar quality to “Leatherman” on the “Given to Fly” single from 1998’s Yield album), Backspacer is top quality Pearl Jam power. Head to Target for the CD, or hit up iTunes for a digital copy, and prepare to be transformed.