Pop Culture Blog: "The Vault" Script Review

To tell you how fast things move in the Interweb, two days ago Production Weekly twittered (or tweeted or whatever) about a new Brian K Vaughn spec script being shopped around called "The Vault."

The next day, we ran a story on The Playlist about the script.

Being a Brian K Vaughn superfan, I sent an email out to all my L.A. contacts begging, pleading, and offering oral sex to anyone who could get me a copy of the script. Somebody did. Hopefully they won't make me follow through on the oral sex thing.

Anyway, I read it yesterday and wrote up the first script review of it, anywhere, in the world, for The Playlist, which you can now read here.

It took me a long time and now I am very tired.

Pop Culture Blog Post: Why "Sherlock Holmes" is the Ultimate Guy Ritchie Movie

The old joke among snobby film geeks is that flashy, bratty British film director Guy Ritchie has been making the same movie, over and over again.

Well, one, this isn't really true, especially when you factor in the oddball, borderline incomprehensible Kabala-influenced meta-thriller "Revolver" (which I still maintain has some of the best stand-alone Guy Ritchie sequences in his entire career) and his god awful remake of "Swept Away" (the less said about THAT folly the better, although I'll admit that musical number is a bit of a guilty pleasure – shhhhh).

But if we're taking this joke as having more truth than irrelevance, which it probably does, then "Sherlock Holmes," his steam punk-y riff on the Arthur Conan Doyle super sleuth (out on DVD and glorious Blu-ray this Tuesday), is his ultimate movie. It's the distillation of many of the themes that made his other movies so popular and compelling, in a new, more maturely laid out way. It stands to say that it's also his best, most accomplished work too.

And a wicked amount of fun, too.

In previous Guy Ritchie romps, most notably the three that make up his key body of work ("Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels," "Snatch," and "RockNRolla"), the central characters, a swirling nest of colorful underworld goons with names like Turkish and One Two, are scrambling after some object – always a very old, very English object. In "Lock, Stock…" it was a pair of antique firearms, in "Snatch" a fist-sized diamond, and in "RockNRolla" a hypnotically powerful painting.

A lot of Ritchie's subtext (yes, there is some) deals with nationalism. The characters' (and indeed the movies') very British-ness is always of chief concern to the director. This is reflected in the objects that turn the screws too. While the diamond and painting are never exclusively described as British, they are at the very least rich with British symbolism, and inherently connected to the British Royal Crown (jewels, naturally, and old paintings that hang in aristocratic halls).
In "Sherlock Holmes," a darkly witty contraption that was glossed over by most critics because of its Hollywood movie sheen, he's able to set an entire movie inside one of these heirlooms that his modern day thugs are always squabbling over. There's a reason that he lingers so longingly at the construction of Tower Bridge (and why the climactic battle is set there) – it's an epic symbol of England. And freed of hundreds of years of distance, Ritchie has a field day.

Ritchie loves thieves, clearly, which is probably one of the reasons that Adler, played here by a cracking Rachel McAdams, was elevated from a minor character in Doyle's novels to a central figure here. Her purity at heart goes a long way with another key thematic strand of Ritchie's work, which is: we're all thieves, mate. We steal. We steal money, jobs, hearts; we lie, cheat, deceive. The only difference between someone like Adler, with her peacock tuft of period dress, and the criminals Holmes chases down on a regular basis is that the street thieves are more true to themselves in ways that many of us are not or cannot.

Also, Ritchie is one of the great urban directors. And his Victorian London is one of the best ever visualized (for an extremely recent comparison, just give this one a side-by-side to the recent "Wolf Man" remake). Ritchie loves the city. And the sweaty, ugly London in "Sherlock Holmes" directly informs the sweaty, ugly London of, say, "Snatch." The same issues plague London today as then, among them xenophobia, corrupt bureaucracy, class divisions, and secret societies.

It's just that all of this stuff happens underneath and in between a crackerjack mystery involving the occult, Roberty Downey Jr. and Jude Law flirting with each other and villainous character actor Mark Strong wearing the greatest fucking leather jacket in the history of cinema.

As far as Guy Ritchie movies go? "Sherlock Holmes" is the ultimate.

Commuter Column: A Reader Darkly

A couple of weeks ago I was getting on a train late at night. I walked back to a car that pleased me (far enough away from the bathroom in the car that preceded it, light on drunk yuppies, nobody eating a smelly sandwich or those weird, cylindrical bags of popcorn everyone seems to love so goddamn much). But there was one huge problem: the car was dark.

Like, James Ellroy dark.

There was a conductor, with a slug-like moustache draped lazily on his lip, making his way from the back of this car. I stopped him.

"Excuse me, is there any way you can turn on the lights?" I asked.

He looked at me like I had sprouted a second head. "The lights ARE on," he said. The 'What, are you a fucking idiot?' part was implied.

I looked back through the car, and it's true, there were lights on. Every other light was in fact electrified, casting a dim greasy yellow glow on the worn-down seats and scattered litter (including more than a few of those weird, cylindrical popcorn bags). This was an option. After all, the car had the aforementioned "pluses."

If I wanted to fall asleep, this would be an ideal car. I could drift off to dreamland with ease and comfort with lighting this low. Add a couple of candles and clear out the air of human suffering and it could have approximated the mood of an intimate French bistro.

But there was that colossal "minus:" if I stayed in that car I couldn't read anything.

So I dashed out of that gloomy car, never to return. I don't know how full the car got, although the train itself was fairly packed. I imagine that a lot of people ended up choosing that car precisely for the gloom. It's amazing to me how many people are content to just nod off and how few people actually do anything productive on the train.

This is more noticeable in the morning, when people are (slightly) more alert and focused. I usually sit in a two-seater in the morning, and my commuting buddy is always an intense focus for me. What are they doing? What are they wearing? Do I think they have an interesting job waiting for them in New York City? But I end up dwelling on the same thing: why aren't they reading anything?

As far as unscientific literacy surveys go, the people on the subway, from all walks of life and social strata, read a whole lot more than the upper crust, mostly white, socioeconomically enabled Metro North commuter. Most everybody just plays Brickbreaker on their Blackberry (or are furiously sending emails to and fro or checking stocks or whatever it is bigwigs do on their Blackberry). Or they watch a movie on their iPhone. Because, really, why wouldn't a movie originally projected 30 feet tall, look wonderful on a postage-stamp-sized screen?

But reading doesn't seem like much of a concern for most of them. I'm amazed at how few people, when given this uninterrupted, hour-plus to read, don't exploit the time for reading purposes. I'm always reading something. But for most, well, I think they'd just be happy sitting in the dark.

Blog Post: 5 Things in Pop Culture Worth Getting Excited About in March

The month has just started and is looking quite rich, at least from a pop culture standpoint. Here are five things worth getting all gooey about in the coming month.


1.) Infinite Space for Nintendo DS (Platinum Games, $30, March 16th)

Platinum Studios has been responsible for two of the most indelible, original, and plain fun games of the past few months – Mad World, a witty, original, hyper-violent, black-and-white kill-athon for Nintendo Wii and Bayonetta, which has set the bar incredibly high for action games this year (it came out in parallel versions for the PS3 and Xbox 360); and it's got two more games to go this year. The first is Infinite Space, a sci-fi-ish RPG for the cuddly Nintendo DS that was released in Japan last year to outrageous acclaim and Cabbage Patch Kids-circa-1985 sales. I don't know much about the game, besides its emphasis on customizable space ships, but it's got the Platinum Games logo on the box, and that's all I really care about.

2.) Sparta, USA by David Lapham and Johnny Timmons (Wildstorm Comics, $2.99, monthly starting March 3rd)

Those of us that loved David Lapham's Young Liars, a book he wrote and drew for Vertigo (and was unceremoniously shit-canned last year), should be especially stoked for this. I've deliberately avoided reading about it and since the first issue is out this week, I should pick it up on my weekly binge in the next couple of days, but the generally gist is that it's set in a world where football is EVERYTHING. And not just Friday Night Lights everything, like, life-and-death everything. Lapham, who also did an admirable stint on a 30 Days of Night spin-off last year and is currently halfway through illustrating a two-part "Fables" arc, is a true comic book original and I hope that Sparta, USA survives a little longer than his crazed, sex-and-violence epic which, even if you couldn't make heads or tails of it, remained arresting until the bitter end.

3.) Days of Heaven on Blu-ray (Criterion, $39.99, March 23rd)

There are a lot of really awesome titles hitting high definition this month (Toy Story and Toy Story 2, Red Cliff, Chan Wook-park's Vengeance trilogy, Where the Wild Things Are), but this takes the cake in terms of the one disc I'd sell my gold fillings for. (Editor's note: I don't have gold fillings. But it'd certainly give me an undeniably "dangerous" edge.) Terrence Malick's sprawling, lyrical love story is one of my favorite movies ever (resting alongside Jaws and Don't Look Now), one of immense power and pleasure, both of which will be amplified and clarified with this (courtesy of the good folks at Criterion). Just thinking of this movie makes me all swoon-y.

4.) Goldfrapp, Head First (Mute, $14,99, March 23rd)

Goldfrapp is one of the best pop bands on planet earth. Period. Exclamation point. End of paragraph. End scene. Game over. With each album they reinvent themselves while staying true to their breathless, sensual roots. With this album they seem to be going in a decidedly frothy pop direction (peep this video for first single "Rocket") and I'm practically peeing in anticipatory glee. It may not be the best album released this month because, well, that Gorillaz album is a tough motherfucker to top (it really is a masterpiece, front to back), but it'll still make for a great, roll-down-the-windows-and-breathe-in-the-spring-air party starter.

5.) Solar by Ian McEwan (Nan A. Talese, $26.95, March 30th)

I'm not a huge Ian McEwan but he's an undeniable talent that can weave poetry about out the most nothing of nothingness (Saturday was pretty enveloping even if nothing happened at all), so I'm more than a little curious about this, which the New Yorker recently excerpted, which seems to be about the climate change debate but also has a twinge of sci-fi-ish-ness to it, too. Putting one of McEwan's dreary, fucked-up sad sacks into a global catastrophe is kind of brilliant and whatever it is, it should at least be a better popular novel than a little something called State of Fear by the late, occasionally great Michael Crichton. RIP.

Blog Post: The Obligatory Oscar Post or What Does Game Changing Have to Do With It?

Ten is the magical number with this year's Oscars. This year, for the first time in many moons (yes, I'm too lazy to Google it, please shut up), there are ten Best Picture Academy Award nominees. This was basically a big stupid ploy to get viewers, since most big stupid Americans (particularly those states that throb red during general elections) don't see shimmery art house movies or foreign films where people have feelings. Instead, they see "The Blind Side," the white guilt football movie that the whole family can love.

Oh, and by the way, "The Blind Side" is now a BEST PICTURE NOMINEE.

Anyway…

The entire web is all abuzz with their Oscar Predictions, with two big New York-area publications (Time Out New York and The New Yorker) delivering their "Movie Issues." Of course, these conversations inevitably just break down into a prolonged debate about the merits or deficits of "Avatar," a big-ass movie that made big-ass money that will probably change filmmaking as we know it for at least a few decades to come. (It's also quite good – sharp, emotionally engaging, and an absurd amount of whiz-bang 3-D flying-dragon-thingee fun.)

A great example of this is the MSN Movies tête-à-tête located here. It's sharp, incisive, and well worth the read (in fact, Glen Kenny, since getting shit-canned from Premiere, has proven himself an ace movie blogger and freelancer), with both sides of the debate illuminated brilliantly.

Still, if you don't love it I think there's something wrong with your brain. Specifically the part that taps into your love of unbridled imagination and flying-dragon-thingees.

And while I generally think that the 10-picture field is a good idea (not only does it make people watch but it also makes the Best Picture a huge wildcard – see this year), there were some glaring omissions. Where, for example, was "Bright Star," Jane Campion's stunning, touching, funny romance about poet John Keats? And as much as I thought "Blind Side" was a nice little movie, "Star Trek" was a nice big movie, and while not the technological game changer it was a rousing, well-told story whose rigid formalism made it a bold, crowd-pleasing spectacle.

There are other letdowns scattered throughout the nominations – Robin Wright ignored for her exemplary performance in "The Private Lives of Pippa Lee;" the Foreign Language Award skipping Bong Joon-ho's wonderful crime deconstruction "Mother;" and Arcade Fire members Win Butler, Regine Chassagne and Owen Pallett's moody score for "The Box" being passed over in the Original Score department. (I haven't gotten laid since October. If you're looking for a reason, that last sentence is a pretty good place to start.)

Other than that, I'm really rooting for "Inglourious Basterds" to take home the Best Picture Oscar, if only because Tarantino is such a bad boy and the critical community loves scolding him for his personal taste while admiring his technical proficiency, but I wouldn't be disappointed if "Avatar" or "The Hurt Locker" took it home, either. What the fuck is "An Education" doing in that category? Anyone? Anyone? No, didn't think so.

Aside: I hated "Precious."

I also love that Jeff Bridges is finally going to take home an Oscar, especially since his current grizzled, "I don't-give-a-fuck" phase is so enchanting (I loved "Crazy Heart" too). Just think about him shouting about Tony Stark being able to build his Iron Man suit in a cave. Ah, good times.

Besides that, all my "predictions" are going to come back "wrong."

But at least "Up" (the first animated film to be nominated for Best Picture since the luminescent "Beauty and the Beast" back in '91, don't-cha-know?) will take home the Best Animated Feature award in a fiercely competitive year. You know why? The four minutes of peerless cinema posted here. See you on Sunday. I'll bring the queso.

Second News Article, Edited Version

In an email dated February 12th, 2010, The New School announced a partnership with New Jersey Transit that would offer full-time students (undergraduate and graduate) a 25% discount on monthly NJ Transit passes for rail, bus, or light rail service when they enroll online through the Quik-Tik Program. While this is undoubtedly a huge relief to those commuting from New Jersey, it still leaves students from Connecticut or elsewhere in New York wondering where, exactly, their discount lies.

The issue of commuting to the New School is a nebulous one that very few people acknowledge or talk about openly. The school is located in Manhattan, which means that students can not only commute from surrounding boroughs but also from adjacent states – Connecticut, New Jersey and elsewhere in New York state, specifically.

Carl Frisk, a product design major at Parsons, commutes from Fairfield, Connecticut every day for school. The monthly pass sets him back $308. This is considerably more than the $89 monthly subway cost. When asked if the school should provide a discount he says, "Yes I do. If they would even acknowledge that there are commuters coming in from out of state, that would be great, but to offer a discount would be even better."

Frisk points to unrealistic expectations placed on commuting students, when professors regularly ask for their students to visit local museums or take part in Manhattan-based activities, unaware (or uncaring) if said activities require an expensive and time-consuming event. If you don't have a monthly and are commuting back and forth from Fairfield during "peak" hours it costs $28.50 and takes about an hour and fifteen minutes each way.

Michael Pettinger, an English professor at Eugene Lang, said he had more problems with students making their way to class from within the city, rather than commuting students. "I know of one student who takes the PATH train in the morning (and says he thinks it's more reliable than the subway), so I haven't had to cut him any slack. On the other hand, I've had students tell me some real horror stories about getting to school on NYC transit. The L Train, I'm told, is particularly notorious..."

It's true that often times commuting students are more on time and miss fewer classes than those who live in the same neighborhood, because the commitment (both time and energy-wise) is greater.

Still, the question remains why the school would offer up discounts to New Jersey Transit commuters and not Metro North commuters.

"This is an offer by New Jersey Transit. I have not heard of any discount program offered by Metro North," said Susan Heske, The New School's Senior Director of Communications and Special Projects for Student Services. When asked why the school itself doesn't offer the discount, instead of waiting for the cash-strapped Metro North to step up to the plate, she replied, "In some respect, unless a student lives within walking or biking distance to campus, then one could come to the conclusion that the majority of students are commuting by NJ Transit, Path, Metro North, subway, or driving."

Heske also said they didn't have specific numbers on out-of-state commuters or numbers regarding those who have utilized the New Jersey Transit offer. Users of Metro North are still waiting for a similar deal for their commute although they may be waiting for this particular train for a while.