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I love the beginning of this trailer. I hear the movie is good as well…

Kind of a little excited by seeing this pic.

It’s amazing that up until this point Happy Accidents has escaped me. It’s been out since 2000 and stars Vincent D’Onofrio and Marisa Tomei. On the surface this is a sort of quirky, cute indie romantic comedy produced by IFC when there really was a sort of thing called “independent film” in the U.S. To some extent this would be enough for me. On a deeper level, however, Happy Accidents follows a line of logic concerning the nature of time-travel and the question of emotion and memory that started in 1962 with a little french film called La Jetee.

That film, perhaps my favorite short film, is probably the best known from French director Chris Marker and is shot entirely as a series of photo stills. It is a sort of pre-pc powerpoint presentation with no moving action. It relies on a narrator to drive the story. Despite this form it manages to tell a complex and moving story of a man who is sent back from a dystopic future to the present day. He and the woman develop a relationship which is doomed by his future overlords who do not him to disturb the time-line. (spoiler) This eventually causes his death — witnessed by himself as a child.

If this sounds familiar to you it could be perhaps because La Jetee is the basis for the 1995 Terry Gilliam film 12 Monkeys and (more…)

Tired of using your Netflix envelopes for their intended purpose? Try Origami.

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There is a scene (and mind you; spoilers are coming) in the new Batman movie that perfectly captures the zeitgeist of modern America. Two ferries are filled with passengers escaping from Gotham city. One ferry is filled with prisoners from the city jail and the other with ordinary citizens. Both are told that there is a bomb on board and are given a trigger. The trigger is for the opposite boat. If one boat is blown the other will be saved if neither chooses to blow the other up then both bombs will be triggered. They have half an hour to decide.

While the boat with prisoners is relatively placid the other starts a vigorous debate about whether they have the right to take another’s life to save their own. The passengers take to voting to decide whether to destroy the other boat. What a fantastic scene in an election year! When faced with mutually assured destruction democracy will solve our problems! All we have to do is vote against what we despise.

There are so many great elements to this movie that make it at once complex and at times overwhelming but at the base level enjoyable. Mostly what this film accomplishes is in making icons out of people. The Joker and Batman (through spectacular performances) achieve a status that moves beyond human to archetype status. In that way the film succeeds in being one of the best comic to movie adaptations. The Joker is a sadistic, insane mastermind who is only after chaos and Batman is a vindictive, calculating detective.
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The Incredible Hulk [IMDB link] delivers on a lot of personal scores for me. The main point which can not be denied is the homage to the 70s T.V. show. I posted a few weeks ago about the Hulk marathon that the SciFi channel was running and it was fun to reminisce. I remember that I had watched the show when I was a kid but re-watching it now, it’s hard to see how I related to it then. It’s dark and sometimes somber attitude is kind of a downer as far as superhero stories go. It is clear now, however, how it has informed some of my perceptions on the world and life.

What that show gets right is the melancholy of living with an affliction. Bruce Banner (in the TV show David) is a smart and in most ways down-to-earth man. It’s only when he is pushed to the brink that the Hulk comes in to smash. Because of Banner’s inability to control his rage he purposefully rejects stability and becomes a lone drifter. In another world he would be a respected scientist but in this world he is hunted and spurned.

In retrospect there may be something to the mind of a youngster which looks at uncontrollable rage and society’s need to repress it and finds communion with Bruce’s situation. What I personal enjoy about the character, however, is the lone drifter style. The fact that this inability to control rage and rejection by society forces Banner to never fully reach stability. He wanders town to town relying on the help and hospitality of others. I don’t practice what I preach but I feel most at home when I’m away from home. Travel and those who seek it — especially in its extreme form as a nomad have always attracted me.

The drifter senario may be ultimately indicative of the 70s, when people were more free -wheeling and likely to trust. I remember hearing stories growing up of people hitch-hiking from one place to the other. It’s not that it doesn’t happen now. But it’s more that it’s not prevalent or more aptly the heart just isn’t there. Society is much too jaded now for any one to think its a good idea or even possible to make it from place to place without a plan, without a focus and with little to no money. Yet this is precisely the premise of the Hulk. Banner hitch-hikes from town to town with no money expected to barter or get hired in odd-jobs. Mostly he relies on the hospitality of others and where the movie and T.V. show become appealing is in their passing glances at normal, mom and pop businesses who extend a hand sometimes job to Banner before the Hulk comes and forces him to move on.

There’s a Horatio Alger in there somewhere, taking odd jobs, having adventures and moving on. Placelessness to me is a relatable concept. The fact that it all pins on a secret just makes the stakes higher and the concept sadder. Given a choice Banner would probably give up his powers and seek a normal life. His affliction, however, is endemic. It makes the placelessness all the more despondent.

There is nowhere for me that this feeling of being constantly uprooted, feisty and rejected is better projected than in the theme from that show - something I posted about when I mentioned the SciFi Channel Marathon. This is again an area where the movie borrowed and rightfully so. While the character wanders from place to place we hear that same sad theme. It’s an ode to the lost and the broken-hearted and in the Hulk pantheon a hint of the lurking underbelly - the rage within.

I think this is my favorite video this week.

As build up for the release of the new movie tomorrow the SciFi network has been running a marathon of that cheezy Incredible Hulk TV series from the 70s.

Unlike other Superhero icons that I remember liking as a kid Hulk has this air of sadness that fits my mood right now. Bixby who played David Banner in the TV show had one of the saddest lives filled with deaths, divorce and cancer (Bill Bixby - Wikipedia)

and the Theme song to the TV show, while often comically parodied is sad and melancholy. Have a listen:

Found on http://www.elite.net/~gurpal/tv/

[link]
“Netherlandic artist Martin Hendriks is going through Hitchcock’s The Birds and taking out all those horrifying birds, one by one.”
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