The Face Knife

The Face Knife Endorses the Use of Spoilers
The X-Men, who by the way are a revolving band of Superheroes who also teach at prep school, have this practice facility that goes by the poetic name The Danger Room. The Danger Room allows them to hone their skills, powers and witty one-liners while experiencing a likely scenario (such as a giant robot attack), under parameters that almost infinitely fiddle-able (the giant robot attack may occur in the dark, with smoke and fire all around, or the giant robot may have been dispatched by an overzealous government, or the giant robot might be a manifestation of their DEEPEST FEARS) with the help of cutting edge CGI. While some of our mutant heroes just take the Danger Room exercise as a chance to blow off steam by indulging in some consequence-free environment, others take the simulation far too seriously. And I guess, to spell it out, some of us fall somewhere in between.

Although I like to think of myself as a fundamentally silly individual, I take movies seriously, sometimes even those that have no business being taken seriously. ¹ Some movies and genres sit up and beg to be taken seriously, and Science Fiction in particular has a history of using speculation or amplification as a lens to examine How We Live Now (as the NYT would put it), and the X-Men series of films has been more explicit in this regard than most. So when X-Men: The Last Stand makes allusions (some more graceful than others) to the ex-gay movement, The War on Terror and employs an actor that makes me think, god, what the hell is Vernon Jordan doing in this film, it makes me bracket my “holy shit is that poor green screen work” and “I soooo would join Magneto’s (Sir Ian MacKellen) ‘Brotherhood’” reactions and think about the film in a social context, and maybe I’m a huge dork but I think it’s just as fun to react to movies this way as it is to cheer when a blue-furred Kelsey Grammer whacks some guy in the face. On second thought, maybe there ARE dorkier dorks than I.

As I understand it, and this is based on an early teenage immersion in the Paperverse, the X-Men were Marvel Comic’s most popular property for two reasons: a realistic portrayal of the mindset of the outcast and an unprecedented level of interpersonal psycho-sexual melodrama (that often veered into what now looks like to be really kinky territory). The films have tried to replicate that formula and have had much more success with the former than the latter, which has been hampered by in some cases poor characterization and in some cases poor casting.

The filmmakers early on boldly jettison major character and fan-favorite (fan of the comics, that is) Cyclops, who it becomes apparent met his demise during an offscreen session of reunion boning. Cyclops was the heir apparent to run the team after Professor Xavier (Patick Stewart) died/retired/was trapped in another dimension, but as he had progressed from tight-ass whiner to, um, even more tight-assed and whiny during the period between the last sequel and this, his presence as leader would have dragged the Team as well as the film down into maudlin bullshit. So, even before his atomization, the Professor turns over the reins to Storm, played by bona fide major star Halle Berry, who must have been cast when the filmmakers were all like, “Hey, she’s black, and a woman, she’s perfect.” Berry is completely charisma-free (except for her hair) so it only makes sense when she more or less lets Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) the loner-rebel dude, make all the major decisions when it comes to how and where they should fight, etc.

While the X-Men makes the female characters powerful in terms of the ability to kick ass, their personal lives are still more or less characterized by reactions to the male characters in the film.

Part of the film’s plot centers on a ‘cure’ for the mutant condition, and two of the female characters are directly affected by it in profoundly sexist terms. Rogue (Anna Paquin), the touch of whose skin is like being slipped a Roofie, sees the cure as a chance to be able to lock down her wandering dweeb of a boyfriend by becoming able to, you know, “kiss.” After being admonished by Wolverine (who says he is not her father) to not do it because of “some boy” she goes ahead and does it. When she returns sans powers and but ready for action her boyfriend says “this is not what I wanted,” but the fact that what provoked Rogue to leave the school was seeing her BF ice-dancing with another girl puts all of this in perspective.

Mystique, played by Rebecca Romijn in full-body makeup that makes one expect her to hurl herself against one of Yves Klein’s canvases, is forcibly denuded of her powers by the government, and promptly turns traitor because she is a “woman scorned.”

Jean Grey, the only class-5 mutant on the planet (mutants are ranked like Twisters) is more or less the love-interest of not the virile Wolverine (in fact, her sexuality proves to be WAY too much for him) but the point of a love triangle between a dude who is paralyzed from the waist down and a crypto-gay. Telekinesis, which is one of Jean’s powers, has a cinematic tradition of appearing in female characters at the onset of sexual maturity, and in this case, her supreme power is explicitly linked with “joy and lust and destruction ” (or something like that). The male characters result to all sorts of gambits to restrain her but her power proves to be too much, that is until Wolverine manages to penetrate her with not one but 3 foot-long appendages in a patriarchal recuperation of the scenario at the end of Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 2.² Go Team!

Only Ellen Page’s Kitty Pryde manages not to land herself in a sexist predicament, and that’s probably because she’s supposed to be like 14 and she’d cut your balls off if you tried.

It shouldn’t really come as a surprise then, that the X-Men become more or less counter-revolutionaries and defenders of the status quo, more or less reflexively so. Magneto, who in addition to being a bundle of charisma is right about nearly everything including the reflexive perfidy of the government, is stopped when the X-Men use the ‘unfair’ weapons and tactics of the enemy against him.

In spite of all this revolution recuperatin’ and woman subjugatin’, I enjoyed this movie, though I’m glad I’m writing about it the day after I saw it because I’m sure the details will soon fade from mind, like the first two, which I can barely recall. The film gets high marks from me because of the relatively short run-time and decent pacing - and it’s really rare that you see an action movie combine those two qualities these days. The CGI was acceptable except for a few moments of really shitty green screen (Angel flying?), and I guess that’s all I can ask for from CGI, is to be acceptable. But that’s a subject for another day.

¹ My favorite justification is that films are “things to think with” and although I sometimes try to get into criticism about form or style, none of those things are as important as what the movie makes me think about (and I hope it goes without saying that some of these thoughts are far more tongue in cheek than others). Call it philosophical criticism, biographical criticism or just good old self-obsession, that’s largely what you’re going to get here. Oh, and spoilers. Tons of spoilers.

² Not the only call-back to Buffy. As Matthew pointed out to me, in a weird mobius strip of pop-culture red-heads, Famke Jannssen is inflicted with the “Dark Willow” make-up from Buffy 6, which was directly inspired by the Dark Phoenix X-Men comic books

Night Watch plays like an entire season of Angel condensed into less than two hours and minus all the great characters of Joss Whedon’s series, or maybe a grim retelling of Ghostbusters. Even still, it’s pretty entertaining, although a bit lacking in hot vampire on vampire action for my taste. It’s a bit far-fetched to compare it to Bulgakov, as Hoberman does in the the Voice, or to Stalker, as I’ve seen somewhere (there’s one scene reminiscent of the deserted buildings of the Zone, but then the Vampire with the terrifying alias “The Hairdresser” and his girlfriend pop up).

Probably the most interesting thing about the film is the way it pre-empts the inevitable cross-over with the video game world by offering a scene in which the head baddie (whose power is apparently to remove his spine and use it as a sword. FATALITY.) hones his reflexes for the final conflict by gaming it out on a PS2. Maybe the whole film was story-boarded as a Machinima, which might explain the odd use of props (flashlights?). Hopefully, the remaining episodes in the series will take a bit more advantage of the Moscow location, particularly the “Stalin Gothic” skyscrapers that would look great being destroyed by the Sta-Puffed marshmallow man.

Maybe it’s just because as of late my business card happens to read both “Whitey” and “The Man” , but I’m finding it harder and harder to get properly exercised about the supposedly criminal lifestyle choices of the international Bourgeoisie. The effort of filmmakers like Lars Von Trier and Michael Haneke to expose the plush, tasteful underbelly of mainstream Liberals may actually be a decent and essential goal in the service of international liberation, and sometimes they come close to convincing me (like, I really hated that Paul Bettany character in Dogville) but I’m far too out of shape to become a street-fighting man without spending a fortune on pilates lessons, which requires a decent paying job, you know?

Georges (Daniel Auteuil) and Anne (Juliette Binoche) are a prosperous middle class couple who begin receiving anonymous, affectless (though as beautifully composed as a Mondrian painting, though that may be the result of the eminently tasteful architecture of their flat) surveillance videotapes of their house, seemingly taken at all hours from the alley directly facing it. Sometimes, the tapes are accompanied by a sanguineous crayon drawing. Naturally, this state of affairs leads to escalating paranoia and the facade of the life they’ve built for themselves begins to crumble as events from the past surface and frayed nerves are rubbed.

While it’s tempting to add Caché (Hidden) to my long list of films from 2005 that concern the ultimately futile attempt of a solipsist to come to a communion with the “Other”, what’s really been hidden about the film is the total lack of critical comparison to another formally daring expos? on the French Bourgeoisie, Godard’s Week-end. The big difference, aside from the fact that one of these films is far better than the other, is the static set-up of the “surveillance” shots of Caché as compared to Godard’s berzerk and breathtaking use of tracking shots. I would almost say that Caché has to be an ‘answer’ film to Week-end, if one that totally dispenses with the savage humor of the 60s film.

The difference between the “despicable” protagonists of the films is that the couple on the run in Godard’s film has nothing in the way of self-reflection or self-consciousness, whereas the “hunted” couple of Caché has nothing but that. Both films are the wish fulfillment fantasies of their protagonists. Caché is the ultimate Liberal guilt-trip fantasy film. It is the dark fantasy of the politically “responsible” (though not actually engage? ) that they will somehow, sometime, be taken to account for their failings, even if their deepest, darkest, evilest acts occurred when they were perhaps six years old, or more to the point, what they would consider their evilest acts.

Indeed, the narcissism -the infantilism- of Georges’s persecution fantasy is made clear in the drawings that accompany the videotapes. The most pathetic scene occurs when Georges watches the videotape that apparently was filmed right after his initial confrontation with Majid - the extended tape of the old Algerian crying. Naturally, Georges feels awful. Poor Frenchman! He made the sub-altern weep! Look how evil and powerful he must be, even in his most unconsidered moments!

Georges’s construction of the Other becomes even more absurd in the fantasy of Majid slicing his own throat as some sort of penance. (and I maintain it was probably a fantasy, given the lack of police response, etc. ) Only a true narcissist would think that his actions could cause another to take his own life in such a way.

The attribution of the tapes is a total act of projection - Georges tries to generalize from his own experience and from pieces of media he consumes (it’s not for nothing that his job is on TV, or that his home is virtually filled with media) the inner lives of the Other, what their motivations and drives might be, and succeeds only in exposing the loathing he feels for himself and his lifestyle, and a metaphysical need to somehow be held responsible for his situation.

Ultimately, there is no one attempting to hold Georges responsible for anything - just as there is no one who will hold us responsible for our failings. Georges wishes there were someone who would either punish him or reassure him for leading an okay life, like the power he has over his child, Pierrot. When Pierrot starts to rebel, Georges is faced with an uncomfortable mirror that does not reflect, a reminder of his own place as a radically free and radically alone agent in a world without a hidden order.

Adaptations are tricky buggers. Even when not inspiring vocal, maniacal fatwas from comic book guys¹, the writer and/or director responsible for the adaptation is seen as a sticky-fingered tamperer: why mess with a good or an as-good-as-good thing? And what kind of fool would dare try to re-make an adaptation? A: Yet another filmmaker with daddy issues.

Tim Burton’s movies pretty much sit up and beg for psychoanalytic criticism², and it’s no big trick to suggest that the earlier adaptation of Roald Dahl’s classic, the more appositely titled Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is the clearest cinematic antedecent of Burton’s exceptional m?lange of grotesquery and sentimentality. What better way to act out the anxiety of influence than the rebuild your dad, Dr. Frankenstein style³, from the parts and pieces of your own life?

The genius animating Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is the brain Burton has stolen from his past - the brain of Johnny Depp. That’s not to say that Burton isn’t responsible for the amazing things about this movie, it’s just that Depp’s “choices” -to use a word from the “craft”- are the nougat that binds together the tough nuts of sentimentality and brutality that lace Dahl’s story.

The fact that those choices more or less amount to an impression of an accused child molester is more or less on point. I realize that Depp and Burton wouldn’t want association with Michael Jackson to taint their work⁴. But bracket, if you can, the intimations of kiddie fiddling on the part of Jackson and concentrate instead on his own story, his narrative of childhood lost and regained, and there you have the story of Willy Wonka’s factory, oh, and the story of present-day America as well.

It’s a story of willful disregard of hard truth and adult reality in favor of a hyper-real simulation of what you think the world should be like - in the case of childhood, an orgy of candy and doing like you feel. And screw anyone who would tell you different. Immediate gratification of your desires - which must be right because they’re YOUR DESIRES - is the only way to live. If the world fails to conform to your desires, well, either force it to or withdraw into your own fantasy land. The gummy boat on the river of chocolate had better well run on time!

The secret core of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is that Willy Wonka has spoiled himself rotten, just as the parents of the ‘bad’ children have. He has far more in common with a Veruca Salt or Mike Teevee than he does with Charlie Bucket. No wonder he can’t stand those other children - it’s like looking in a mirror. Wonka is your average creepy moral hypocrite. He’s Bill Bennet on a sugar jag and Motherfucker doesn’t even floss.

Going back as far as Edward Scissorhands Burton has used repetition and similarity as a visual stand in for normality. The romantic misfits of Burton’s imagination pop out against the cookie-cutter background. It’s a neat aesthetic strategy, and in Charlie makes great use of it, from Charlie’s dad’s job in th the toothpaste factories to the Gursky-esque arrangements of Wonkabars to the most striking use of CGI this summer, the multitude of Oompa Loompas, all played by the same actor.

However, what does that strategy really mean? It means that everything outside the self is an interchangable unit; one Oompa Loompa is the same as the next Oompa Loompa, children don’t need names, and all factory workers are more or less thieving scum (did I mention that Wonka is ANTI-LABOR? I mean, the Oompa Loompa work for Cocoa beans - how can the domestic workforce compete with that?).

The high level of formalism, the reliance on CGI and the dubious moral philosophy mark Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as the fraternal twin of Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City, even though there’s a disappointing poverty of amputations in this children’s film. That shouldn’t surprise me. But then again, most of the films I’ve seen this summer have been children’s films in one way or another and they’ve had plenty of amputations.

If the moral of The War of the Worlds is that we (AMERICANS!!!!) would do anything to protect our children and the moral of Sin City is that there are some things that decent people (children and women) aren’t meant to see (but are nonetheless necessary for maintaining social order) the moral of Charlie is to become as a child and your wildest wishes will come true⁵ - provided that you love your daddy and mummy above all else.

The reverence Charlie Bucket shows to his cinematic parents (and grandparents) is the same reverence Robert Rodriguez showed to his source material, and is the same reverence that Steven Spielberg showed to his source material (even if he really didn’t understand it⁶). Luckily for Tim Burton, his warped personality doesn’t permit that kind of reverence, and even though the new movie is pretty faithful to it’s source (more or less), the imp of the perverse differentiates it enough so that it becomes a darker, funnier beast.

The darker aspects stem from the fascistic nature of the inner child unleashed - as well as the funnier parts. When Wonka and the bad kids are acting as (non-sexual) id unleashed, the funniest lines pop out of them. Charlie, alone, is completely unfunny and unsympathetic. Who gives a fuck about Charlie? Who would possibly want to be Charlie? Yet, he’s the moral paragon of the film, the center around which the whole chocolatey froth churns. Are we really supposed to want our kids to be like Charlie? Little fascists in trainings? Charlie and the Brownshirt Factory?

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the film. It’s a great piece of cinema, and it really creates a wholly believable, self-contained world. Just don’t ask me to live there. What, no fucking snozzberries?

¹ For a current example, see this week’s New York Times Magazine for an article about the Sci-Fi channel’s Battlestar Galatica
² The scene with the Oompa Loompa therapist…
³ Maybe Bride of Frankenstein style is more appropriate, the camp tone of that movie finding great (though less homosocial) expression in Burton’s works.
⁴ But then again, why give the puppets at the beginning vitiligo?
⁵Pretty close to Me and You and Everyone We Know
⁶ the ending of the original War of the Worlds was ironic because it showed how insignifcant even higher beings are and how significant lower beings are. By making his movie into a heroic epic journey, Speilberg totally ignores the chilling, anti-human message of War of The Worlds and turns it into another heart-warmer. AND, AND! He resurrects that fucking teen soldier-wannabe son!!!! How offensive was THAT?

The reigning Face Knife standard for judging summer special effects blockbusters is the number and quality of on-screen amputations, and by any reasonable measure, Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith fails to live up to its potential to surpass the reigning champion, Sin City. Indeed, what sort of weaponry can be more hazardous to limb and other limb than the lightsabre, which as we’ve seen, is capable of cutting human bone like butter? Sadly, these campy swords were mostly used to disassemble robots - excuse me, droids, which is nowhere near as satisfying. Please consult The Face Knife Summer Movie Comparison Chart for a complete tally of amputations, along with other critical information to assist you in your moviegoing experience.

At this point, you know what you’re getting into when you go to see a Star Wars film, and any reasonable individual has lowered expectations with regard to plot, characterization and particularly dialogue. Still, it’s nearly impossible for anyone with any remote sense of storytelling to not gripe about the construction of the film. Lucas actually has a fairly compelling central theme, and with a little wit the film could even have functioned as commentary as political satire. Sure, some ersatz Kracauer will undoubtedly read Sith as a digital mirror to the Bush regime, much as Fritz Lang’s Mabuse were more or less spuriously read retroactively as a foretelling of the Nazis (the genesis in the adventure serial form being a nice point of comparison between the two series).

Still, one has to give credit to Lucas for using the last movie of his series to highlight the ultimate nature of the Dark Side/Jedi allegory, finally bringing out the essential dichotomy of the social and moral universe of Star Wars (and our own): the eternal struggle between Asshole and Douche (and Hammett). Beside Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, Star Wars can be seen as a key text in the development of Asshole and Douche (and Hammett) theory. Indeed, it is possible to model this dynamic superstructure as Asshole and Douche (and Vader), as counterintuitive as this may seem.

While I’m sure at this point any serious student of human behavior is aware of the major characteristics of Asshole and Douche (and Hammett) theory, a quick refresher might be in order. In simplest terms, Asshole and Douche (and Hammett) posits that within every human relationship between two people, one person occupies the Asshole position and the other, the Douche. The main theoretical model for this theory is the band Metallica, where the long-lasting and fruitful cooperation between Asshole James Hetfield and Douche Lars Ulrich is a great example of the monetary and spiritual haul that can result from maximizing one’s position as Asshole and/or Douche, in conflict with an Asshole or Douche who is also maximizing his or her potential. The struggle between Asshole and Douche and the resulting synthesis is the crucible of every collaboration creative act.

Broadening the scope to include more individuals within a group dynamic, the Hammett (or Vader) position soon appears. The Hammett is a latent Asshole or Douche whose tendencies towards one pole are sublimated under the stronger Asshole and Douche tendencies of two of the other group participants. The Hammett, in the classical sense, takes the path of least resistance - without effort, without conflict, an Asshole or Douche tending individual will slip down to the Hammett position - there’s a gravitational pull to Hammett that affects even the strong willed. Usually, a Hammett will think he is satisfied, but rarely gets his own way and therefore suffers. Some Hammetts can unconsciously use their position as a bargaining chip in the greater Asshole/Douche conflict to maximize their power, but once they realize that they are doing this, become either an Asshole or a Douche.

George Lucas, or perhaps his rumored script doctor Tom Stoppard, who is undoubtedly well-versed in Asshole and Douche (and Hammett), has given Asshole and Douche (and Hammett) a new archetype, a new way of modelling the third position that is a new synthesis between the ways of Asshole and Douche. In effect, the “prophecies” that Mace Windu speaks of are actually true - Anakin Skywalker brings balance to the force by being the synthesis of Asshole and Douche.

Clearly, the Jedi are a collection of Douche tending people. Any organization that has a council is clearly Douchetacular, and the whininess underlying the character of, for example, Obi Wan Kenobi, clearly indicates Douche tendencies. Each of the main Jedi Douches tries to out-Douche the other, not through direct competition but through influence on Anakin, the designated Hammett. Yoda’s lordly Douching batters Anakin into submissiveness, until he realizes that in order to maximize his potential within the Douche hierarchy of the Jedi, he must embrace his inner Asshole, perfectly modeled by his soon to be mentor, Palpatine. When Anakin and Palpatine first interact, the arch-Asshole’s injunction to “Do it!” - cut off Count Dooku’s head - and Anakin’s quick acquiesence shows the boy’s thrall under the power of the greater Asshole. Soon enough, Anakin is laying waste to Douche and Douche alike, the Jedi Douche factory being unprepared for the assertiveness of Asshole. Even his lover, uber-Douche Padme, is overpowered simply by a trace of Asshole, resulting in a supreme feat of Douchery when she dies of heartbreak after childbirth, abandoning her children in the ultimate selfish move.

Anakin, or Vader, in his role as a proactive Hammett, is still trapped in that role because he’s in the thrall of the Emporer. It was not his body but his Douche nature that was preserved by that shiny plastic helmet. He is a walking nightmare of self-involved Asshole/Douche conflict until his son, Turbodouche of the galaxy, removes his helmet and frees the Douche spirit.

The message of George Lucas’s trilogy is thus that being a Douche is somehow objectively better than being an Asshole (really, can you think of a bigger fictional Douche than Luke Skywalker), which is absolutely untrue. The Emperor, in this case has it right - Asshole and Douche are two sides of the same thing, and the key to balance is to know which role is yours to play in a given relationship, and become a better Asshole or a better Douche within the relationship. Star Wars is nothing more than a tool of Lucas’s foul and false Douchism, the Jedis being the Douchist majority and thus writing the rules of history.

(A better telling of nearly the same story is perhaps the Conor arc on Angel (Conor is practically the same character as Anakin but given more life), with Angel remaining a Douche (of course) and Holtz is the Asshole position to Conor’s tortured Hammett. )

There’s nothing more disreputable than fundamentalism, even when the infallible holy text to which the devotee pays obeisance is the Word of a half-crazy* anarcho-libertarian with a severe design sense and a warped sense of humor. The literal, humorless** fidelity of Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City (2005) to Frank Miller’s comic books somehow manages to warp to the parodic sentimentality and brutality of the source to such an extent that they’re no longer parodic - they’re bathetic. I don’t think it’s a stretch to suggest that the take-away of Sin City (the film) is that, as two of the protagonists say, there’s some things decent people*** weren’t meant to see, but they’re necessary in the pursuit of justice. That’s a fascist message, even if we, the audience, are implicated in the category of not-decent people since we’re watching the carnage on screen and presumably getting a kick out of it.

It may be too much to expect a responsible politico-moral stance from the Rodriguez/Tarantino axis. The early films of Tarantino were dismissed as being reprehensibly violent but at least they coupled that violence with a knowing, ironic distance****. Kill Bill and Sin City are all about KICKS, but the former is not as irresponsible as the latter because the former’s mission of vigilante justice is altogether personal, while the vigilantes of Sin City are a reaction to the amoral WORLD of Noir (and presumably, early 21st century America). It’s a political statement even if it’s unwitting, even if the point of the film was to be about the art.

Which, I have to say, is pretty good. It could have been better, as Rodriguez is not a great director, but the effects were marvelous. I have no problem with the movie itself; my problem is with the project, and it’s hard to take a moral stand against something without coming off as Bill Bennett. But although my lifestyle and tastes would most likely be considered as degenerate by much of the U.S., I feel like I have to object to the mainstreaming of the ethos that lead, not altogether hyperbolically, to Abu Ghraib and the idea that being Right is license to do anything in the pursuit of justice. Sure, the protagonists of Sin City are psychologically sick but they’re be more or less normal in the context of contemporary political discourse, and the further normalization of the anti-rule-of-law position without explicit (or even much implicit) condemnation is an unwise project.
— – ———-
In addition to the faithful reproductions of comic book panels, there’s another interesting kind of reproductive dialogue going on here, with Sin City being shot on digital, produced digitally, distributed digitally and (when I saw it, though obviously not widespread yet) digitally projected. Someone want to go Benjamin on this?

* though not as comic creators seem to go
** the movie itself, however, can be funny
*** in the film, all women
****though this creeping Tarantinoism was the bane of 90s cinema just as creeping Fincherism is turning out to be the bane of the 00s.