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Obviously, this has upset quite a few folks around there.
This whole "crucified Santa" thing has been around for at least a dozen years now. Supposedly, the manager of a department store in Tokyo put Santa on a cross for a store display around 1994, because he was told to do something for Christmas and he didn't know what the holiday was about or what people usually did for it. And then last year some dude in Canada did the "Santa nailed to a cross" shtick too.
I hate to say this, but I kinda see where these guys are coming from. I didn't start my Christmas shopping until this past week. In years past, I used to enjoy going out and watching all of the people doing their shopping. These days, it makes me sad to see how the pursuit of materialism has supplanted whatever good has been inherently part of Christmas. Hell, I'm just happy to be here, alive and marginally sane, and able to celebrate Christmas at all, after what has been an extremely hard and trying year. I don't need "things" to be happy for this holiday season. Just give me my wife to hug and my loved ones to cherish, and I'll be happy. I am happy, in that respect.
Am I alone in my belief, that Christmas sincerely has become a religious festival: one in celebration of consumption?
Let me suggest something else along those lines: that a lot of Christians have made Christmas into something it's not supposed to be, also. For the past few months I've read about a lot of Christians who are upset that it can't be called "Christmas" in schools, by stores like Wal-Mart and other places anymore. That instead "Merry Christmas" is being replaced by "Happy Holidays" too much.
As if that's supposed to even matter to us at all.
You see, once again some people are using Christ as something for power, instead of yielding to Him out of humility. In this case they're using Christ's birth as something to lord over others.
I don't give a flying rat's butt about whether or not it's called "Christmas" or not. It wouldn't even bother me if we didn't celebrate Christmas at all. The important thing is, God came to us at all. Shouldn't that be enough to thoroughly overwhelm us?
So the past 72 hours here have been... interesting. I'll be able to talk about it more in the next couple of days. Just wanna say for the record though, that I've been a busy dude toward the end of this past week. And I'm about to head out to create some more mischief.
But before I do, I wanna do a bit of a write-up about what happened yesterday, 'cuz it was full of some cool stuff that you've probably still got time to check out if you like.
Yesterday morning, my sister Anita arrived around 9:30. Lisa got in Anita's RAV4 and I followed in my new Camry and we headed out to Raleigh, to see The Polar Express in 3-D on the IMAX screen there (or as I call it, "The Big-Ass Screen").
This was something that Lisa had been wanting to see especially, so I got tickets for her (and then for Anita when it turned out she wanted to see it too). Me? I first saw it when it was released three years ago and since that time The Polar Express has become more... disturbing... in my mind. Everything is great and fun for most of the movie (and that this was Michael Jeter's last movie before he died makes it particularly poignant). But all the same: when they finally get to the North Pole, the movie becomes "Perry Como's Triumph of the Will": the Santa worship, the Stasi-ish way how it turns out Santa watches all the world's children, the Nazi-like field rally with the elves... Lisa and Anita keep telling me that I'm "over-analyzing things" but I can't help it: if you ever have seen Triumph of the Will then you'll probably see these things too. And really, isn't The Polar Expresssupposed to be a propaganda movie for Santa Claus?
Strangely enough, I had a blast watching The Polar Express in IMAX 3-D. The flaws in the movie as a story are still there (and I wrote about those in my initial review) but those are easily overshadowed by how much of a technical achievement The Polar Express is. And in 3-D, on a five-story movie screen... the most fun thing for me wasn't the movie itself, but how all those children who were there to watch it were blown away by the overwhelming spectacle of this movie.
So I gotta report: it was a great experience. And if you want to see it too, it's playing on a lot of IMAX screens right now but we saw it at the Wachovia IMAX Theatre at the Marbles Kid Museum (formerly named Exploris) in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina. Right now it looks like it's playing on through at least January 10th, 2008.
After we got back to our cars, Anita went on and then Lisa and I drove a few blocks to the North Carolina Museum of History to check out something that I've been wanting to see since it started in October...
For more than 400 years, one of the greatest enigmas of American history has been that of the Roanoke Colony, more commonly known as "the Lost Colony". 116 English colonists had simply vanished when Governor John White returned to Roanoke Island with fresh supplies in 1590. The only thing left behind amid the ruins of their fort was a cryptic word "Croatoan" carved in a tree.
What happened to them? Were they killed off or did they move elsewhere or did they (as some believe) inter-marry with neighboring tribes of Native Americans... which raises the possibility that descendants of the Lost Colony are living among us today?
"Mysteries of the Lost Colony" is an exhibit of the British Museum currently on display at the North Carolina Museum of History. There's lots of good stuff about the Lost Colony itself, but the real centerpiece of the show is the large number of original watercolors by John White (whose daughter Eleanor would be the one to give birth to Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the New World). A talented artist by trade before he was appointed to be governor of the colony, White did many depictions of the natives and wildlife of present-day coastal North Carolina. A lot of them have been reproduced in history books over the years, and it was quite a thrill to be able to see the originals, made by White himself. Toward the end of the tour, there's an interactive video with one of the actresses of CBS's CSI shows that lets you vote on what you think was the fate of the colony. When we left, "Killed" had a slim lead over "Absorbed", which is what I've come to believe is what happened to them. Maybe in the next few years the Lost Colony DNA Project will be able to come up with some indication about whether the colonists did indeed become the ancestors of the modern-day Lumbee and other Native American tribes in the state. If you want to see "Mysteries of the Lost Colony", it's on display until January 13th, 2008.
After we left the museum, Lisa guided me to The Cheesecake Factory at Crabtree Valley Mall. I'd never heard of the place before and don't really care for cheesecake... but lo and behold it's also a fancy restaurant with a humongous menu to choose from. We ordered the buffalo wings for an appetizer and then the pepperoni pizza for the main dish. The wings were wonderfully spicy and the pizza looked and tasted like real Italian-style pizza. The place also had great atmosphere and decor. If you're ever in the area of Crabtree Valley Mall and if you like good food and great cheesecake (which Lisa says they do but like I said, I've never had a taste for the stuff), give The Cheesecake Factory a try.
And that was our day yesterday, other than a bit o' Christmas shopping that I was able to get in. Good movie, good history, good food: not too bad eh? :-)
Here they are finally: photos from the trip to Texas that I made earlier this month. Took awhile to get around to posting these 'cuz there were so many (over 380) across a six-day period, and I've been extremely busy since getting back. Obviously this isn't all of the pics, but they'll give you a gist of what went down there (except for during Butt-Numb-A-Thon 9 itself because cameras weren't allowed in there). And because there are so many (and also 'cuz it's a bit late) I'm going to break these down into two parts. The second installment of pics, I'm gonna try to have up later on Saturday night. Anyhoo, here's the first batch of photos from my odyssey to Texas!
I flew out of Raleigh-Durham on the morning of December 5th, en route to Orlando and then the plane would go on to Houston. On the south-bound flight I got to see Charleston, South Carolina from the air...
And after leaving Orlando, it wasn't long before I got my first-ever look at the Gulf of Mexico...
Here's something I didn't expect to see: New Orleans. The pilot didn't announce it, but I immediately recognized the causeway across Lake Pontchartrain. Even from the air, I couldn't help but think that New Orleans looked... a bit messy. Is that still damage from Katrina? I'd never seen New Orleans before, so I don't know. But compared to other cities that I've seen from the air, New Orleans seemed dingy...
Here's an un-resized (read as: very very big) image of New Orleans, if you want to see some more detail...
And here's a pic I took of what I call "Voodoo Country"...
Around the time that New Orleans came into view, I saw something else that I'd never seen before in my life: offshore oil rigs. And there were a lot more than I ever thought were out there. Not only that but they were also fairly close to shore and spaced relatively close by to each other: I saw one cluster of them that I'm pretty sure I could swim from one to the other, they were in such a small area. Here's one of the better pics that I was able to get...
As we were approaching Houston, I spotted this fighter jet off the starboard side of the plane. It was flying at a speed and trajectory that put it almost synchronous with our airliner, so I was able to snap this cool pic...
Here's the Johnson Space Center as we were approaching the airport...
And here's downtown Houston, along with the Astrodome...
As we were landing in Houston, the dude sitting behind me told me "Welcome to Texas!" His name was Terry, and I thought that was worth mentioning here too 'cuz that was the first time ever that someone welcomed me to Texas...
I got to Houston, waited at the airport for an hour and a half and then took off for Austin (I flew Southwest Airlines by the way, an outfit that really impressed me with a lot of things, including their innovative way of how they board the planes). When I got to Austin and retrieved my luggage, I went to rent a vehicle. The nice girl at the desk recognized me from my appearance on The Soup on E! several weeks ago. The car rental folks said they didn't have too much at the moment. "Give me the most Texas-ish thing you got," I told them. "The Jeep," one girl said: "You want the big white Jeep." Here's what I wound up tearing across the Texas landscape in for my trip: a 2008 Jeep...
I took off and got to Deborah's house about a half-hour later. It wasn't long afterward that Deborah's dad got home from work, and we went to a real honest-to-goodness Tex-Mex restaurant for dinner (a place that had the spiciest salsa that I've ever had in a restaurant). Then we went back home and I turned in for the night.
And that's a great stopping-point for this edition of "Pictures from Texas". Will have the next bunch up real soon :-)
Lost returns next month. On January 31st to be precise.
By then it will have been eight months since that sense-shattering season finale: the one that still ranks as the most devious and clever tricks that I've ever seen on an American television series.
Unfortunately due to the writers' strike it looks like we're only going to get eight episodes of Lost this season. I've heard that if the strike ends soon, that there might still be time to finish the rest of the stories for this 16-episode season (albeit with an unintended break in-between, since the final three seasons of Lost were supposed to run uninterrupted).
Let's hope that the strike ends soon (and without saying anything else about it, I do think that what the writers are asking for isn't unreasonable at all). In the meantime, check out this awesome new trailer for Season 4 of Lost! That's a high-quality version. There's also this YouTube-hosted edition:
Lots of good stuff in this trailer: helicopters over the island, a bit of Jeremy Davies's new character, a new DHARMA station logo, maybe a fleeting shot of Jacob, and some other goodies for sharp-eyed fans.
EDIT 2:34 p.m. EST: I just realized that the DHARMA logo is one we've seen before: it's for the Hydra. My bad. Blame it on... what I was doing throughout the night last night and into this morning, which I'll be able to talk about more soon :-)
Last week NBC started a new show called Clash of the Choirs. Lisa's been watching it a lot since she's a music teacher and directs an elementary choir herself. During last night's show she called out for me to hurry and check this out: Nick Lachey's Cincinnati-based choir doing an a cappella rendition of "Flight of the Bumblebee". It's amazing! Here it is on YouTube (at least until NBC probably yanks it for "copyright infringement", which would be a sin to not share this kind of performance with the world)...
About a year and a half ago, I had a first-hand encounter with the Westboro Baptist Church - aka the "God Hates Fags" church - when a bunch of them came to WGSR (where I was working at the time) so that Shirley Phelps Roper could do a live interview. In my initial report I wrote about how the Westboro Baptist members were singing really blasphemous "parodies" of well-known songs.
Well, Phillip Arthur found something: a music video by the Westboro Baptist Church. It is, quite easily, the most evil music video that I have ever seen in my life.
If you are bothered or offended easily, you may not want to watch this. The entire thing is very disgusting, but it's the last several seconds of it that are especially nauseating. Whoever it is that put that little kid up to this, should be hauled-up on charges.
Here it is: Westboro Baptist Church singing "God Hates The World"...
It's the one starring George C. Scott as Ebenezer Scrooge. Many regard this as the finest version of A Christmas Carol ever filmed. I watched this the very first time it ran, waaaay back in December of 1984.
Okay, question: everyone, and I mean everyone, knows the story of A Christmas Carol. But how many people have actually read Charles Dickens's original novel? How many of you reading this can say that you've gone through the whole thing?
I did, toward the end of my first semester at Elon. While in the library one night looking for something else I came across it, and was surprised at how tiny it is as a novel: not very thick at all. I checked it out and spent the rest of the night reading it. Amazingly, there are things in the original book that to the best of my knowledge have yet to be depicted in any film adaptation.
Did you know that Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol pretty much out of desperation, because he had to publish something to pay off some bills? A Christmas Carol is probably the most classic example of the proverbial "potboiler" that's ever been written.
And for a final anecdote about A Christmas Carol, it might interest y'all to know that when I was 12 years old and in seventh grade, I played the role of Marley's Ghost in our middle school production of A Christmas Carol. Our first performance was one night for the parents and school board, and the following day it was two performances for the lower grades and then the rest of the middle school. The night and elementary performances went off great! But then for the middle school show I walked out in that ghastly makeup and teased-up hair (that the girls loved playing with for some reason) and all those chains... and everybody in the audience started laughing! And then, I started laughing along with them!! I was giggling so hard that I barely got through my lines at all! Who ever heard of Marley's Ghost laughing instead of moaning?? But it happened. Years later and I still chuckle at that :-)
Anyhoo, if you haven't seen it already, you might want to check the listings over the next few days and see if the 1984 version of A Christmas Carol with George C. Scott is playing on AMC again. They're also running 1985's Santa Claus: The Movie quite a lot this week!
But that's not all: the deal also includes a sequel that will "bridge" the events of The Hobbit with The Lord of the Rings that took place sixty years later. If you've ever read some of Tolkien's other works, you know that there was a lot more going on in that period that the books just hinted at.
Ain't It Cool News has more, including an official press release and some mention about how Howard Shore may already be working on the music for the new movies.
The Hobbit will hit theaters in 2010.
(Okay Lisa, you can stop worrying now: they are making this finally :-)
Last Tuesday, after I came back from Texas, I went to Greensboro to pick up my new computer at the store that I'd ordered it from. By the way if you're in North Carolina and want quality computer products and outstanding service, I would definitely recommend Intrex. This is the second system that I've bought from them and I've never been anything less than overwhelmed at their confidence and dedication. They've got stores from Winston-Salem all the way to Greenville, with two in Greensboro and several in the Raleigh-Durham area.
Anyhoo, I got this new 'puter as an investment in my new video production enterprise. That's what I've spent a lot of this past week doing: installing software, tweaking hardware and otherwise fine-tuning it to be the instrument that I need to have.
So forgive me if I'm a babe in the woods when it comes to Windows Vista, which I have never used before until now.
Actually I take that back. The first time I ever saw Vista up-close was over Thanksgiving, when my brother-in-law had it running on his laptop. Jonathan is a seminary student. He came close to crying and cursing like a sailor at how frustrating Vista is. Not that I could blame him either: I tried helping him with a technical problem on it that later turned out to be defective hardware. But that one fleeting bit of contact with Vista made me cringe, knowing that I'd probably be working with it on a regular basis soon.
So here I've been the past several days, trying to get my tried-and-true software working, without really paying much attention to just how radically different Vista is from every version of Windows that I've used up 'til now. I did great things with Windows 3.1. Windows 95, let me soar with the eagles. Windows 98 and 2000 and ME... meh. Windows XP was probably the most productivity that I ever got out of an operating system, not to mention the most stable. And so far, Windows Vista is very stable indeed...
But I just found out tonight that I've wasted dozens of hours of productive time, because of all the nonsense that Microsoft threw into this thing. There's one video production program in particular that I've got, that runs great on Windows XP. It should be working fine in Vista too. Except it kept locking up and giving me a "not responding" message. So tonight, after a few hours of investigating, I found out what was going on...
It's this "Aero" thing. That's the name that Microsoft gave to Vista's user interface. The thing that gives Vista that pretty "translucent" look.
Aero is a horrible resource hog!
In the fall semester of 1996, "Weird" Ed and I worked at a computer store on Elon's campus. This place has since become legendary whenever we recount our exploits: so much craziness happened in that place. "Chris come here," Ed told me one afternoon, "take a look at this." It was some student's brand-new (at the time) system running Windows 95. Every icon on the desktop was animated. And not "animated GIFs" either: we're talking actively rendered by Windows. "That's a waste of system resources," Ed said. He clicked on the Netscape Navigator icon and the little pilot wheel spun around wildly before finally opening the browser. Everything on the computer was like that. There's no telling how much faster it would have run were it not for worthless crap like that mucking up the works.
That's what Aero is like, only a hundred-score worse.
Yeah, I'll admit that Aero, when it's running, looks gorgeous. But I didn't buy this thing to oggle a beautiful desktop. I bought it to get things done. And Aero is a severe hindrance to productivity on a system built for resource-intensive use.
A short while ago I turned off Aero, and went for the classic Windows interface. And now, this machine runs like a beast! I've "blasted it through the walls" with all of my software, and everything is not only running fine but it's running about 100% better.
If you need to, here's how to turn Aero off on your Vista system...
- Click the Start button.
- Right-click on "Computer".
- Left-click on "Properties".
- Left-click "Advance system settings".
- Under "Performance" left-click on "Settings".
- Select "Adjust for best performance".
- Left-click "Apply".
- You can now "Okay" out and Vista will be running without Aero enabled from now on.
You can always follow these instructions to go back and turn Aero on again, but after seeing how much faster Vista operates without it, you'll be hard-pressed to come up with a legitimate reason why you would want that.
Otherwise, I'm probably still behind the learning curve, but I'm starting to warm up a bit to Windows Vista. If it just wouldn't bug me so much about whether or not I want to run the programs that I want to run, as this commercial for the Mac hilariously illustrates...
Muslim Brides Undergoing Painful Vaginal Surgery to 'Re-virginize' for Wedding Nights
Monday, December 17, 2007
On her wedding night, Aisha Salim will hand her blooded sheets to her in-laws as proof of her virginity, according to a story in The Daily Telegraph of Australia.
But there’s one problem. Being a modern English university graduate, she is far from the traditional untouched Muslim bride.
Like most woman her age, Salim has smoked, drank, had sex and even lived with one of her past boyfriends.
However, if the devout Muslim family of her soon-to-be husband – or even her own family – knew this, she could be murdered.
Aisha has opted to have her virginity surgically restored in a delicate but painful surgery called hymenoplasties -- where the hymen is re-created from the already torn tissue, or a new membrane is inserted.
"If my husband cannot prove to his family that I am a virgin, I would be hounded, ostracised and sent home in disgrace,” Salim told England’s Daily Mail.
“My father, who is a devout Muslim, would regard it as the ultimate shame. The entire family could be cast out from the friends and society they hold dear, and I honestly believe that one of my fanatically religious cousins or uncles might kill me in revenge, to purge them of my sins. Incredible as it may seem, honour killings are still accepted within our religion.
"Ever since my family arranged this marriage for me, I've been terrified that, on my wedding night, my secret would come out. It has only been since my surgery last week that I've actually been able to sleep properly. Now, I can look forward to my marriage."
There's more of the story at the link above, including how this "surgically-reconstructed virginity" is gaining in popularity among Muslim women.
So much that could be said about this...
Fer starters, there is something very, very wrong with the expectation that a new bride "hand her blooded sheets to her in-laws as proof of her virginity" on her wedding night. Just plain ewwwww, man.
But what if the woman in question is indeed a virgin but already has a torn hymen? There are several cases of women who have no more hymen because they were lost during activities like gymnastics and horseback riding. Some women have even been found to have been born with little or no hymen at all, meaning that there isn't much to reconstruct from.
But most of all, I have to wonder how much sincere love there is for this woman from her family: from her own as well as the one she's marrying into. Love is supposed to be many things, and forgiving is among the most important. Even forgiving things like "loss of virtue".
That a religion would deem it acceptable to kill a person like Aisha (I'm pretty sure that's not her real name) cries volumes about what this supposed "faith" holds sacred. The whole point of most religion at all - and I'm not gonna try to use this to get into a "my faith is better than your faith" thing, 'cuz that's not the point of it - is to reconcile one's soul with something that's higher than man, because we have to realize that whatever perfection there is, we do fall short of it. Way short. And there's nothing on Earth that we can do on our own to make ourselves justified to that perfection.
A "faith" that does not acknowledge this and appreciates the need for grace, is not a real faith at all.
It is also sad that Aisha does not seem able to break away from this religion. She only adheres to it because she's expected to. She believes she has no choice.
But there is always a choice and each of us can make it, if we want to.
Ron Paul's presidential campaign raked in more than $6 million across 24 hours yesterday. It was part of a "money bomb" coordinated by supporters outside of the official Ron Paul campaign (meaning this wasn't something run by campaign executives... which makes it all the more impressive). The event was meant to tie-in with the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, and handily beats the record set for fundraiser that took place on November 5th (the "V for Vendetta" one).
Matt Smith sends along the sad news that Dan Fogelberg, the singer/songwriter who had hits like "Same Old Lang Syne" and "Leader of the Band" among others, has passed away at age 56.
There's a fascinating article from the Associated Press about how the celebration of Christmas is actually a fairly recent thing. And how some Christians today do not mark the occasion at all...
As Christmas draws near, Pastor John Foster won't be decorating a tree, shopping for last-minute gifts or working on a holiday sermon for his flock. After all, it's been 50 years since Christmas was anything more than a day of the week to him.
He's one of very few American Christians who follow what used to be the norm in many Protestant denominations—rejecting the celebration of Christmas on religious grounds.
"People don't think of it this way, but it's really a secular holiday," said Foster, a Princeton-based pastor in the United Church of God. He last celebrated Christmas when he was 8.
His church's objection to Christmas is rare among U.S. Christians. Gallup polls from 1994 to 2005 consistently show that more than 90 percent of adults say they celebrate Christmas, including 84 percent of non-Christians.
That's a huge change from an earlier era, when many Protestants ignored or actively opposed the holiday. But as it gradually became popular as a family celebration, churches followed their members in making peace with Christmas.
The change didn't happen overnight. Through much of the 19th century, schools and businesses remained open, Congress met in session and some churches closed their doors, lest errant worshippers try to furtively commemorate the day.
"The whole culture didn't stop for Christmas," said Bruce Forbes, a religious studies professor at Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa."Government went on as usual, business went on as usual, school went on as usual."
There's plenty more at the above link.
It's enough to compel one to wonder: what does Christmas mean anymore? And do these people have it right: that it's something that shouldn't be made profane by celebrating it as we have come to do?
Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool News and me on the night before Butt-Numb-A-Thon 9
So here it is: my review of Butt-Numb-A-Thon 9, the annual 24-hour long film festival hosted by Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool News, which was held at the Alamo Drafthouse at the Ritz in Austin, Texas this past weekend on December 8th through 9th. It might be worth noting that according to the yearbook that we all received, I was the attendee who was from the most obscure town anywhere: a miniscule spot-on-the-mind somewhere in North Carolina, as opposed to being from Austin or Los Angeles or Atlanta.
This was also my first Butt-Numb-A-Thon.
First film festival ever for that matter.
Heck, this was my first time in Texas, period.
I left my friend Deborah's house around 10 a.m. and was in Austin about 30 minutes later. I parked at the Hilton a few blocks away and headed to the Ritz. Quite a colorful crowd milling around outside, including a number of folks that I'd met at Harry's get-together at the chili honky-tonk the night before (hey Michael, I didn't see ya inside but I hope ya got in dude!). There was a short line for people who got invites, and when I got to the table I gave them my name and was presented with a numbered wristband and an envelope. Inside were three tickets: one for the t-shirt and poster, one for the goody bag and one that the girl told me was for "the big giveaway" sometime during the show. The wristband's number was your assigned seat.
I picked up my t-shirt and tube with posters, then got the goody bag. That included nifty loot like the Battlestar Galactica: Razor DVD, some independent film DVDs and the Butt-Numb-A-Thon 9 Yearbook, with names and pictures of everyone who was invited to attend. Also got a set of Star Wars mini-busts from Gentle Giant: all six of the bounty hunters from The Empire Strikes Back, plus Darth Vader. Very nice!
Before I ascended up to the theater an Alamo staff member asked me to open my backpack, to see if there was any contraband like recording devices etc. Nope, nothing there: I came in completely bereft of gadgetry, per instructions.
Okay, "Butt-Numb-A-Thon" was aptly named, 'cuz while most people got those nice plushy seats to sit back in and enjoy the show, a few folks including myself got hard folding chairs! But I didn't mind: a little discomfort helps to keep you awake and alert. Get too comfortable and your neurobiology lulls you into a state of contentment that's hard to shake out of. And I'd flown all the way to Texas for this and didn't want to waste a moment (or money).
Things kicked off right at 11:30 a.m. with an intro by Harry, wearing a Santa hat. A video camera piped Harry's head onto the screen. He gave a big shout-out to people who came from Atlanta and Minnesota. And then Harry announced that EVERYONE was getting a free Toshiba HD-DVD player! I looked at the guy next to me and asked "Is he serious? He's kidding right?" Nope, Harry was serious all right. That "mystery ticket" was what we'd use to redeem for our players at the end of the show. Harry wasn't foolin' around when he told people coming in by plane to have plenty of space in their check-in luggage. On my way to the airport the next day I had to have the player and my posters shipped home 'cuz I didn't expect such generous loot. I'm looking forward to messing around with it once it arrives. Up 'til now I haven't committed to buying into anything from the HD-DVD/Blu-ray format war until the dust settles. And regular DVD still looks pretty darned good on our setup (37-inch LCD HDTV with a great upscaling player) so it might still be awhile before I start investing heavily in titles for it, but in the meantime at least I'll get to watch Transformers in high def. In addition to 300 and The Bourne Identity, which came free with the player.
And so Butt-Numb-A-Thon was up and running, warming things up with Hobo With A Shotgun...
I'd never seen this before but I loved it! That was followed by the trailers for Popcorn (which I vaguely remember from my high school days), Pinocchio's Birthday Party (has that early-70s "coming down off the drugs" look), Happy Birthday To Me, The Party Animal, and Stunt Rock, which one of the guys next to me said is something of a Butt-Numb-A-Thon tradition...
As that one was winding down, Drafthouse owner Tim League came out decked out like the wizard in the Stunt Rock trailer and banged his staff on the stage, sending confetti flying everywhere.
Then there was a product demo of the HD-DVD player that we were getting. We saw a bit of Miami Vice, including a neat feature that shows you what kind of planes are good for drug running and what routes you want to follow to get your "Guatemalan Gold" from Central America to Florida. We were also shown some of the German version of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, which really opened my eyes as to how beautiful high-def video can look on a big screen. The last time I saw Terminator 2 this good was the summer of '91.
And then things got cranked-up full-bore and the real movies started...
- THE GREAT McGINTY (1940)
This is why I immediately came to love the whole Butt-Numb-A-Thon experience: because it was 24 hours of discovering, for the most part, movies that I had either never heard of or otherwise might have ever not had the pleasure of enjoying.
Preston Sturges sold this screenplay for $10 and wound up winning the Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay (he also directed it). The prologue at the beginning of the movie informs us that "This is the story of two men who met in a banana republic." Ever since watching The Great McGinty I've wondered if that's a double entendre and that the "banana republic" in question isn't the south-of-the-border location where McGinty is presently living in but America... 'cuz strip away the Depression-era setting and The Great McGinty is a pretty damning indictment against modern-day American politics. Brian Donlevy plays Dan McGinty: a down-and-out bum in a major city of an unnamed state who goes from homeless tramp to political enforcer, and then all the way to mayor and governor. But to be a viable candidate, McGinty's handlers have to spin him as being a family man. So he gets into a "marriage of convenience" with his secretary (who comes complete with kids from a previous relationship) and this sets up the "one crazy minute" that causes him to lose it all by the end of the movie.
I was reminded quite a bit about The Last Hurrah: another great film about politics and the corruption that comes with it. The best line of The Great McGinty is by the political boss played by Akim Tamiroff, who at one point tells McGinty that "In this town I'm all the parties!" Which is probably far more true these days than Preston Sturges ever imagined when he made this movie. A solid opening for a (largely) great slate of films.
After The Great McGinty we saw more trailers: The 'Burbs, Bachelor Party (both with Tom Hanks) and then for no apparent reason (or was there?) the trailer for Amin: The Rise and Fall, which is a movie about Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. The highlight of that trailer was Amin's cutting a piece of meat out of one of his victims and devouring it...
Pretty sick stuff and at the time it didn't make much sense, but I realize now that Harry was trying to inure us to the pain of what was to come later in the program...
- CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR (2007)
Three things I learned from this film...
1. Never accept wine bottles from CIA agents.
2. Baptist girls are HOT! (but those of us who married Baptist girls know this already.)
3. Foreign policy should not be made by those with no grasp of history and too much grasp of Armageddon.
Mike Nichols's movie (with screenplay by Aaron Sorkin) about Charlie Wilson, a member of the U.S. House from Texas who convinced his fellow members of Congress to supply arms and funding to the Mujahideen in the years following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Tom Hanks plays Wilson. Julia Roberts is Texas socialite and activist Joanne Herring. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is in a plum role as rogue CIA agent Gust Avrakotos. Ned Beatty and Amy Adams also figure into the main cast.
I kept thinking that Charlie Wilson in this movie was much like Oskar Schindler in Schindler's List in that they are both very materialistic and corrupt men, who come to care for others and go to great lengths to protect and save them. In Wilson's case, this means getting weaponry to the Afghan freedom fighter so they can take down Russian helicopters and tanks. Unfortunately, at least as depicted in Charlie Wilson's War, Wilson's motives in and of themselves might be a pure thing. But the means to fulfilling those motives are quickly tainted by people like Joanne Herring and other "Christian activists" who see American involvement in the Mid-East as fulfilling the will of God. Complicating matters is the fact that although Wilson wants to help the Afghans, it can't look too obvious that American munitions are entering the country... because that might honk-off the Soviets more than anyone really wants to.
I have no idea if the real-life Joanne Herring was ever like how she's depicted by Julia Roberts in this movie. If Joanne Herring really was like this, I hope and pray that she's wised-up by now. I'm a Christian, and this kind of playing games with the lives of people in the name of God disgusts me to no end. It's faith turned to blind ideology for sake of worldly power. "God" is no longer something that compels these people to change themselves but instead becomes a tool – or a weapon – that these people are using to change the world... and it always destroys more than it ever creates anything good.
And I say this as sincere a follower of Christ as I can possibly strive to be: that too many Christians in this world - and especially America - don't do a damned thing with the brains that God gave them. But I'll talk more about that later: Farewell Uncle Tom was still 15 hours away.
In the end, the American aid to the Afghans turns the tide against the Soviets and the Russians are forced to retreat. The "good Christians" like Herring and so-called "right wing" politicians are satisfied that America has won, no doubt because God was on their side. And then they basically tell the Afghans to pick up their own mess. Charlie Wilson's War doesn't elucidate on what happens after that, and it doesn't really need to either: the United States may have won the proxy war in Afghanistan against the Soviets in the short term. But the American government's failure to follow-up on its involvement would sow the seeds for discontent that in a few years time would make way for the Taliban to come to power in Afghanistan, and give rise to prominence for a former supporter of the Mujahideen by the name of Osama bin Laden.
I think that Charlie Wilson's War is a more effective film than the recent spate of movies about the Iraq situation. And I think that people will tune into it for two reasons. One is that Iraq is a war that's still going on right now and folks go to movies to escape having to think about news like that for a few hours, not to pay money to be confronted by it. And second, unlike those movies, Charlie Wilson's War doesn't hit you square in the face with what the filmmakers want you to go away from this movie believing about their agenda. They let you "suss things out" for yourself and let you draw your own conclusions.
All things considered, Charlie Wilson's War was a strong entry for the first new movie on the program, with great performances by Hanks, Roberts and especially Hoffman. There are also some pretty effective sequences in which we see the Afghans using their new toys against the Soviet military.
After Charlie Wilson's War it was 3:50 p.m and Harry announced that next on the agenda was Pickup on South Street. We got a ten-minute break and then more trailers: A Bomb For A Dictator, a 60s/70s-era spot from the Will Rogers Institute promoting immunization, and Mr. No Legs.
- PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET (1953)
A noir-ish tale of honor among thieves, with a heaping dash of McCarthy-era anti-Communist paranoia thrown into the mix. That it stars the indomitable Richard Widmark (hey Harry how about The Long Ships for next year's program?) in a rather uncharacteristic role for him makes it all the more fun. Widmark plays three-time loser pickpocket Skip McCoy, who steals from the way wrong purse on a subway. Mainly: McCoy quick-handed heists a microfilm from the purse of Candy (Jean Peters) who’s been hired to be a courier by a ring of Commie spies, which includes here ex-boyfriend Joey (Richard Kiley). Soon everyone is coming after McCoy: the Commies, the police (especially a captain played by Murvyn Vye who wants nothing more than to get McCoy with a fourth conviction, sending him away for life), and Candy herself.
I liked everything about this film. Just a darned perfect movie rife with great dialogue, editing and action (maybe a bit harsh in a movie for its time... especially regarding violence toward women). But it's the characters that made this movie shine so much for me, especially Moe (beautifully played by Thelma Ritter), a stoolie for the police whose biggest dream is a nice cemetery plot instead of an ignominious burial at Potter's Field. Indeed, it's Moe who gives, in my mind anyway, the best speech of the entire film, and it sadly sums up a lot of what our world has turned into: "I have to go on making a living so I can die."
By this point I was beginning to discern a pattern. It seemed that Harry intentionally programmed movies that reflect on the corruption of human nature, and how in our own way each of us attempts to deal with it. In The Great McGinty we saw how the lust for power lures a man to greatness before destroying his life in the end. In Charlie Wilson's War it is a powerful man who is corrupt (and seems to revel in it at times) who tries to rise above it... but in the end it becomes an open question as to whether he was right at all to have tried to follow through on his good intentions. Ironically in Pickup on South Street we have Skip McCoy, a man who by all accounts should be driven by fatigue and despair to stay committed to corruption, yet he's the one who manages to escape (with a pretty girl in tow, to boot).
After Pickup on South Street it was time for a break. When we came back, we saw the new trailer for The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian...
...and then Ain't It Cool News's Drew McWeeny - AKA "Moriarty" - did an on-stage interview with Mark Johnson, one of the movie's producers. This was followed-up by a five-minute segment of footage that for the most part hadn't been seen by the public before. A lot of the effects were unfinished, but it was pretty cool to check out Reepicheep in action, as well as Warwick Davis as a dwarf. We also heard that Eddie Izzard would be voicing Reepicheep.
You may have heard by now that apparently Rambo was programmed but that Sylvester Stallone didn't send it along because a lot of the effects weren't finished. I can understand that, along with apparently why Cloverfield didn't make the event (even though it's safe to say that those were the two movies that were most anticipated for this Butt-Numb-A-Thon). But to help assuage our grief Stallone sent two clips from Rambo (along with a nice note telling us that if we didn't like it, that Rambo would come while we were sleeping and slit our throats). The first is as Rambo is taking the people up the river and Julie Benz's character is trying to wheedle some background story out of him. Rambo mentions being a Vietnam vet and how he might still have a father somewhere. The next clip takes place at night and has Rambo's boat assaulted by river pirates. Pretty violent, even for a Rambo movie. I've a good feeling about this though: just as Rocky Balboa brought the Rocky character back to his roots, I think that Rambo might swing that series away from the Eighties cartoonish caricature that John Rambo has become and back to the grim underpinnings of First Blood.
More trailers: The Secret of Magic Island (they're animals... that act like people!!)...
...Big Trouble in Little China...
...and Thunder Cops, which I remember mostly for a lot of gunplay, a lot of mysticism and a lot of tiny flying killer toy helicopters...
It was 6:05 p.m. at this point and time for...
- MONGOL (2007)
The breakout hit of the show. This Russian-produced film by Sergei Bodrov chronicles the early years and career of Temujin (spelled "Temudgin" in the subtitles and played as an adult by Tadanobu Asano), a youth from the steppes of Mongolia who history would come to know and fear as Ghengis Khan.
Thematically, Mongol reminded me quite a lot of Conan the Barbarian: the whole thing about "that which does not kill you can only make you stronger", as we see Temujin betrayed by allies and repeatedly imprisoned (and escaping just as often). I thought that Mongol was fairly accurate to the existing accounts of Temujin, with a few details loosely interpreted and a number of things omitted entirely, like how Temujin killed his half-brother at the age of 13. According to longtime legend, Temujin was also born while clutching a blood clot in his fist: a Mongolian omen that meant the child would be a great leader. We don't see that in this movie. Maybe we will in a flashback later on because Mongol is the first of a planned trilogy about the great Khan's life. Plenty of battle and blood-spilling here (and most will probably wonder how much influence 300 had on this production) but it never overwhelms the character-driven storytelling of Mongol. Who would have thought that the warrior king who eventually subdued half the world and brought panic to Russia was also a loving husband and family man?
I will gladly see Mongol again in a theater when it comes out domestically in June 2008. Mongol is a two-hour movie, but is such a sweeping epic that it feels much longer and I didn't check my watch until the credits rolled, so enthralled was I by the film.
It was during Mongol that I had my first real meal at an Alamo Drafthouse: the Porky's Pepperoni Pizza. And now I know why this place is so popular, because the food is terrific! It’s cooked to order too. And for about 8 bucks it was a pretty good amount of pizza. I also spent $11 for a bottomless soft drink that sustained me throughout Butt-Numb-A-Thon: not a bad deal at all. If I'm ever back in Austin, especially with family or friends, I will definitely give Tim League and his crew some patronage again.
There was another break and at around 8:20 p.m Drew McWeeny came out on stage with Jim Morris and Lindsey Collins from Pixar Animation to talk about the studio's upcoming film WALL-E. I must sadly admit that I haven't seen a Pixar movie during an initial theatrical run nearly often enough. I will be there on opening day for WALL-E. This may be the best CGI work that Pixar has ever done: just gosh-darned beautiful eye candy that looks extremely real. But more than that, based on the four clips that we were shown, I think that WALL-E is going to be classic silent storytelling (for the most part) of a kind that we haven't seen since the days of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. Pixar's Morris also told us that at any given time, the studio is working on about four projects and that they now have a schedule for one new movie a year through 2012.
The Pixar presentation wrapped-up at 8:45 p.m. and Harry came back on the big screen, wearing a red jacket with the cryptic "BnL" logo that we saw in the WALL-E clips. That thing about how the movies had been about human corruption? Harry confirmed that in his lead-up to the next film: The Abominable Dr. Phibes.
But first... more trailers! There was one for The Exterminator (I actually rented that one a long time ago), a commercial for pizza, and then a trailer for something called Sorceress, which looked like schlock from the fantasy-laden days of the early Eighties that gave us real classics like Beastmaster, Krull and Yor: Hunter From the Future (okay I may be going too far with that last one...). I mostly remember the Sorceress trailer because of the giant floating head of the woman with Death Star laserbreath.
- THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES (1971)
"He looks like a demonic Captain Kangaroo."
-– Me, to a guy sitting next to me, during The Abominable Dr. Phibes at Butt-Numb-A-Thon 9, Alamo Drafthouse at the Ritz in Austin, Texas on December 8th, 2007
The first Vincent Price film that Butt-Numb-A-Thon has ever shown! I think I may have heard of this one no more than three times over the years. I'm telling y'all here and now, Butt-Numb-A-Thon seriously has left me wondering what other great movies have I missed during my life. In that regard, as a celebration of all films and opening up new appreciation for those that don't get nearly enough respect and admiration, I think that Butt-Numb-A-Thon succeeded wildly (it sure did for me).
The Abominable Dr. Phibes is six scoops of crazy with sprinkles on top. Price is Anton Phibes: a brilliant musician and theologian who is thought to have died in a car wreck while rushing to get to his ill wife... who was herself in surgery. Alas, poor Victoria Phibes dies on the operating table! So a now disfigured Dr. Phibes goes into seclusion and spends the next several years plotting revenge on the doctors and nurses who he blames for killing his wife. But he doesn't just murder them: he devises horrible methods of death that are inspired by the Ten Plagues of Egypt from the Book of Exodus (my favorite was probably the frog mask). Loud in sound and color, The Abominable Dr. Phibes is a camp horror delight!
10:30 p.m now, time for a break. Harry announced that the next movie would be a perfect follow-up to the previous one: Tim Burton's new film Sweeney Todd, starring Johnny Depp. Which I knew absolutely nothing about other than seeing the title a few times in the past months. But hey, it's a Tim Burton movie and it's got Johnny Depp in it so I figured it had to be good. I didn't ask questions: just settled in to enjoy whatever the heck it is that we were about to see.
After the break we got to see what at first seemed like another trailer for Big Trouble in Little China. But this one had a computer-rendered Harry Knowles as Jack Burton driving a big-rig. And then more trailers: Voyage of the Rock Aliens, Get Crazy, and Freckles.
And then, right around 11 that night...
- SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET (2007)
Burton directs! Depp sings! Rickman repulses! Borat bleeds! Carter cooks! Fleet Street eats!
I loved this movie so much, that I regret that my wife Lisa wasn't with me to share it with (I'll be taking her to see it on opening weekend). This tied with Mongol as my favorite "new" movie of Butt-Numb-A-Thon. Sweeney Todd continued the "vengeful serial killer in London" vibe initiated by The Abominable Dr. Phibes. This might be the best Tim Burton movie that I've seen since Ed Wood. It's also by far the bloodiest work he's ever done.
There's more that I'd like to say about Sweeney Todd, but as I saw it pretty cold and ended up so delighted by it, I'd like to give others that same opportunity to be surprised by it too. The only thing that I'll add about it – and I only say this to try to thoroughly chronicle Butt-Numb-A-Thon 9 – is that during Sweeney Todd the Drafthouse staff went around serving free meat pies to everyone. I can't remember seeing anyone actually eating the things though. Can't say I’d blame 'em (and I was still full from pizza so I didn't eat any either) but it must be said: you gotta respect the twisted sense of humor of the Drafthouse guys!
I'll not only be going to see this again, but I'll be buying the soundtrack.
It was 1 a.m. when Sweeney Todd ended. We were on the downhill stretch of Butt-Numb-A-Thon 9 and it was time for another break. Harry announced that the next movie would be Lonely Are The Brave. Some more trailers: Blind Fury, Rambo III, and Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (Estelle Ghetty with a handgun? In a movie with Sly Stallone? It really happened, children...).
- LONELY ARE THE BRAVE (1962)
Kirk Douglas has said that this is his favorite movie. And this one, more than any other movie at Butt-Numb-A-Thon, has stuck with me over the past few days and refused to let go.
Douglas plays Jack Burns: a cowboy who refuses to join along with the rest of modern society. He has no Social Security card or driver's license, and he lives as an itinerant ranch hand. A scene early in the movie sets the tone for everything that follows: Burns on his horse, trying to cross a busy highway. Jack Burns refuses to live in a time other than that when a man could cross a landscape unencumbered by barbed-wire fence and power cables. Unfortunately time and modern society don't look too kindly on his free-willed spirit. When Burns hears that a friend has been jailed for helping illegal immigrants, he gets himself arrested so that he can bust his buddy out. But his friend would rather wait in jail rather than put his family at more risk, so Burns springs out alone.
This movie was much like First Blood, so far as the "outsider from society on the run from the law" angle goes. Walter Matthau is the sheriff who must bring in Burns, despite coming to respect Burns's stubbornness. Also look for George Kennedy playing a hard-ass deputy eager to give Burns a bad time. And Carroll O'Connor plays a truck driver in a seemingly unrelated side-story that ultimately collides with Jack Burns's plight.
This is a movie that made me laugh, and brought me to the point of tears. The closing shot of Lonely Are The Brave is, for me anyway, an extremely haunting image that sums up the movie better than any words possibly could. If every other movie at Butt-Numb-A-Thon was sub-par and this was the only standout, then seeing Lonely Are The Brave for the first time alone made this trip one worth taking.
A break. It was 3:20 a.m. More trailers: Man Beast, W, 3 In The Cellar, The Evictors.
And then...
- THE POUGHKEEPSIE TAPES (2007)
I didn't like it. I didn't understand it. I didn't enjoy it at all.
But I would be willing to give it another chance.
So The Poughkeepsie Tapes is drawing a lot of flack right now. I'm not going to attempt to defend it. But I'm not going to jump on the bandwagon and openly bash it either.
I can't figure out what exactly the filmmakers were trying to do with this movie. Is it a horror? Is it a comedy? Not once did I feel particularly scared or humored by this film. But in the past few days since Butt-Numb-A-Thon I can't help but wonder if I (and perhaps others) are blaming John and Drew Dowdle for something that was sincerely beyond their control.
Did The Poughkeepsie Tapes suck most of the good mojo out of the Butt-Numb-A-Thon audience? It sure did. And it never fully recovered either. But was it a plainly bad movie... or just bad timing?
It's like this, folks: I wonder if, had this been programmed for earlier in the show, when people could watch it a lot less bleary-eyed and minus the elevated serotonin that comes with eating so much food, if The Poughkeepsie Tapes might have had a somewhat more positive reaction.
That far into the stretch, especially at that time of night, and most people can't focus their mental faculties on any movie... much less one that might demand such focus. I barely remember the "dismemberment expert" and whatever it was still awake in the inner fog of conscience telling me that MapQuest as a website didn't exist in 1991 or 1993 or whenever. This is stuff that with a fully aware and cogent mind, I could probably laugh at. So would probably a lot of other people. But not at that hour. Not after a continuous stream of movies that while not particularly "shallow", didn't require consistently steady brain functions to fully appreciate the filmmakers' efforts, either.
It's kinda like Police Squad!, the original half-hour comedy: ABC pulled the plug on it because to "get" the show, the viewer has to actually pay attention and invest his or her thought process toward understanding the humor, instead of having it served up pre-digested. And I think that's what a lot of people by that point during Butt-Numb-A-Thon (and I count myself among that number) were expecting, even needing that far along in the game.
I want to give the Dowdle Brothers the benefit of the doubt, and believe that with The Poughkeepsie Tapes they were attempting that same kind of high-brow entertainment. If that's what the Dowdle Brothers were sincerely aiming for with The Poughkeepsie Tapes then they should be commended, not condemned. It means that they think highly enough of their audience than to insult our intelligence or "lower the bar".
I'm not saying that The Poughkeepsie Tapes is outstanding. It could be. And it could also deserve the terrible reputation that it gained at Butt-Numb-A-Thon. But I want to be able to see this again, in a more aware state of mind that can grasp the nuances, before rendering a final judgment on this movie.
At 4:40 a.m. Tim League came out and said that John and Drew Dowdle weren't able to make it for a Q&A as it had been hoped.
Then it was Harry's turn again on the big screen with some Fanboys news: the movie's not finished yet 'cuz they’re doing some more shooting, but there were some clips that they were able to show. Although I've followed Fanboys's development since 1998, this was the first real bit of footage that I've seen so far. Looks... promising. I didn't care too much for the sexual references though, not for a movie about something like fans's love for the Star Wars movies. But as these are supposed to be outtakes and not for the final release, I've no problem with that. Will have to just wait and see how the end product looks.
At 4:55 a.m Tim League said that we would be watching Teen Wolf. A few seconds of it ran and then the film stopped and melted in the projector. This was something of an in-joke for past attendees of Butt-Numb-A-Thon. Even as a "new guy" to the event, I thought it was pretty funny.
Then came what was my least favorite movie of the event...
- TEEN LUST (1979)
Directed by James Hong, who's been in a jillion movies over the years including Big Trouble in Little China and who also played the part of Chew, the eye designer from Blade Runner. Ahhh Hong, if only you could have seen what we saw with our eyes.
This is a movie about how NOT to make a movie. Bad acting, bad costuming, bad music (was that the theme from the original The People's Court that I heard in there?!?), bad best boying, bad catering... you get the picture. And absolutely NO plot at all! It was like they were making things up as they went along. Pretty mindless stuff. I won't say it was the most painful movie that I had seen in my life, because the pain was yet to come...
But all the same, for whatever reason there was for putting it on the program, I won't disparage Teen Lust's place at Butt-Numb-A-Thon 9. Every legitimate movie (ain't talking pornos here) is, somewhere or another, a work of love. Each film represents valuable time and energy spent making it, that the people involved earnestly believed that they were doing the right thing to go to the effort to make it work. Sometimes it does and other times... it doesn't. Teen Lust is a movie that doesn't work at all. But to its credit I'll also say that TEEN LUST is a product of its time. Nothing more and nothing less. For that alone it deserves some respect as a curious relic of late-1970s filmmaking.
We were now at 6:30 a.m. After the break, Harry came back on and commented on how at Butt-Numb-A-Thon 2, that the animated version of The Hobbit was shown as a warm-up to the following year's release of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. And with J.J. Abrams's Star Trek movie coming out next December, Harry thought that it would be appropriate (especially since word on the street is that this ties in quite a lot with the new movie) to show the classic...
- STAR TREK episode: "The City on the Edge of Forever" (1967)
Digitally remastered, with new CGI special effects and in high-definition. Looked BEAUTIFUL!! And this was the perfect way to come out of the previous four hours and into the morning. I'm still surprised at how many people had said that they had never seen this episode at all before, because forty years later this is perhaps still the greatest and most defining single episode of a Star Trek show ever made.
At 7:30 a.m., it was time for breakfast. The Drafthouse staff was going around taking orders and delivering food.
What happened next was without a doubt one of the most evil things that I have ever witnessed in my life (and I've seen evil, believe you me)...
Tim League came out on stage and said that he had programmed a special short film, that he had seen at some festival and he thought that this would be perfect for Butt-Numb-A-Thon. He then brought out Gary Huggins, who made a movie called First Date, and we were told that he followed that up with Feels So Good. Huggins said that Feels So Good was something he wanted to do after 9/11, that would be upbeat and positive and make people smile.
So picture it: people are just starting to eat breakfast. And they've been told to expect a "happy" movie.
So here comes...
- FEELS SO GOOD (2007?)
Fifteen minutes of graphic footage of a urethroplasty! Accompanied by Chuck Mangione's "Feels So Good". Horrified screams of aghast disbelief filled the Drafthouse. One poor girl went running out look like she was going to blow chunks all over. A well-known person in attendance had his face buried in his hands in disgust. It was evil and sick and demented... and I was having a giggle-fit of laughter the whole time! Pretty soon though we were clapping our hands to the music. I never thought I'd live to see the day when surgery on some poor schlub's anus would bring together so many in good fellowship.
Then at 8 a.m. came the strangest, ugliest, most racist, most pornographic, most offensive, most unbelievable film that I have ever seen. And the movie from Butt-Numb-A-Thon that has left me feeling the most conflicted...
- FAREWELL UNCLE TOM (1971)
An Italian movie that was filmed in parts of the southeastern United States as well as Haiti during the regime of "Papa Doc" Duvalier, the premise of Farewell Uncle Tom (originally titled Addio Zio Tom and sometimes called Goodbye Uncle Tom) is that a film crew from Rome has traveled back in time to the antebellum South so as to document American slavery. It was made by Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi, with music by Ritz Ortalini.
The cinematography itself is beautiful. The editing, outstanding. So is the audio quality. Ortalini's music haunts and resonates. On a strictly technical level, everything about this movie is a profound work of art.
But there is something very, very wrong if you are not bothered on some level by the content of Farewell Uncle Tom.
It's kinda like a Rorschach test: you see in this movie what it is that you want to see. And it's not necessarily the same thing from moment to moment.
Farewell Uncle Tom is the most over-the-top cinematic assault on the senses that I've ever been hit with. No matter who you are, you will be offended by this movie, and probably dozens of times over by the point the black dude's mind is screaming "BECAUSE YOU ARE WHITE!!" at the end of the movie.
I won't deny it: I was absolutely bothered by this movie. I thought it went too far in confronting the audience with the dark potential of human nature: not because of the sheer boldness of the filmmakers but because they overdid it. There are only so many times that you can witness rape in a single movie before it fails to move you anymore, and whatever else happens on top of that becomes a dreary bore. Watching the reporter be seduced by a 13-year old virgin made me quietly pray for there to finally be an end to this movie.
So yeah, Farewell Uncle Tom has shock porno. And I don't care for porno the least bit. But if that's all that this movie was about, I wouldn't be spending so much time writing about it. Indeed folks, I have come not to bury Farewell Uncle Tom, but to praise it (seriously).
There's also the question of the historical accuracy of Farewell Uncle Tom: something that the filmmakers swear at the beginning of the movie that they are adhering very strictly to. I'm a guy with a bachelors degree in the field, going for my masters in American history. And from my own perspective, there was a lot of stuff in Farewell Uncle Tom that was... well, wrong. At least in how Jacopetti and Prosperi chose to portray this aspect of American history.
There's no denying that there were some very bad things that happened regarding slavery. But Farewell Uncle Tom would have you believe that this kind of treatment was universal. Folks, it wasn't. That's not to say that abuse didn’t happen, and when it did it tended to be more gruesome than anything you might have seen depicted in this movie. Laws on the books in every slave state fully empowered owners to maintain control by any means necessary, including indemnity from physically abusing their slaves.
Legally, slaves were property. That doesn't mean that slavery was right, only that at the time it was something that did happen and was enforceable by law. And although abuse has been amply documented in both written accounts and photographs, it was far from ubiquitous, for the simple fact of the matter that it makes no sense whatsoever for someone to abuse personal property. Any slave, no matter the age, was an important investment that represented quite a lot of money. And it's not usually in human nature to buy property only to abuse that property for sake of abuse.
Indeed, modern research indicates that as a general rule, slave owners did whatever they could to take care of their slaves and see to their needs, including that of family stability. I'm old enough to remember when Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder was fired by CBS for saying basically the same thing that Farewell Uncle Tom depicted about masters using their slaves as breeding stock. There is plenty of evidence indicating that this wasn't an unheard-of practice. But for the most part slaves had family relations as normal as their white owners. They were encouraged to marry and raise their own children, even. And although in many slave weddings the vows to be recited went "until death or circumstance do you part", the classic image of the cruel master forever separating a black mother from her children by taking them to the market was far from a common occurrence. Toward the end of the institution of slavery, slave families were mostly being sold and traded as entire units, rather than being split apart.
By the way, here's something for you to consider: Nobel-winning economist Robert Fogel believes that slaves in the pre-Civil War South, on average, were able to keep about 90 percent of the income that they made. Think about that: 90 percent. Now how big a percentage of your own income are you allowed to keep after taxes to the government in 2007? But we'll get back to that thought in a bit...
Farewell Uncle Tom does have moments where it's obvious that some research went into this film though. The story of the slaves who escaped as a white man and his slave? That really happened. Their names were William and Ellen Craft. Ellen was born of a black woman and her white master, and had unusually light skin. For the holidays of 1848 William and Ellen both secured passes for travel to visit family elsewhere (how many people today know that most slaves had fairly broad permission to travel about, so long as they came back within a specified time period?). Ellen actually dressed up like a white man and set off with William posing as "his" slave. Eight days after they left Georgia, on Christmas Day, they arrived in Philadelphia as free husband and wife.
But you want to know what pissed me off most about Farewell Uncle Tom? There's a scene not too far into it of a church service. Well-dressed white parishioners are seated at the front and black slaves in dingy clothes are standing at the back. They are listening to Reverend Thornton Stringfellow, who was a real minister and infamous proponent of slavery, preaching about how slavery is a divine institution and that to doubt it is to question the will of God Himself...
The white people are listening in rapt attention, nodding their heads and agreeing. And the black slaves... are agreeing with him also. I saw the black man with his hands together in supplication and that particularly outraged me.
No one is daring to defy this cassocked twit in the pulpit. No one is standing up to say "Stop this is WRONG dammit!" Instead everyone in the place – white and black alike – simply accept what this loon is saying and accept it as gospel truth, because he tells them that he comes in the name of God.
Why did that scene bother me so much? Last year I ran for school board. It was a non-partisan race and there were a lot of candidates (sixteen hopefuls going for five seats). With that big a field, a single vote could make all the difference. And I would have definitely appreciated getting every vote that I could. A number of people that I personally know didn't vote for me though. They couldn't vote for me at all. Because they voted a straight-party ticket and when you do that you can't vote in the non-partisan races. They've bought too much into the con that God has ordained one political party over another. They're good people. But in my heart I doubt that they'll ever shake loose from the inculcated belief that God actually gives a damn about worldly politics.
They're slaves. Just like too many other people in this country are today. Slaves to blind ideology and party. Slaves to sex and entertainment. Slaves to government handouts. Slaves to whatever else our own masters in the media and elitist political circles and "spiritual leaders" decree for us.
They tell us to separate into "conservative" and "liberal" camps. We do it, without asking them why. They have us hate one another, and so turned onto fighting each other that we're too occupied to notice them stealing from us and raping our posterity of a future.
They lord themselves over us, and we don't bother to demand of them "Who in the hell gave you the authority?"
Why is it that some can wrap themselves up in a flag, or put on a badge, or hold up a Bible, or claim some "scientific study", and the rest of us are not just willing to do as we're told but we gladly accept it? Are we so shallow that we have to let others define us rather than define ourselves?
How are too many Americans in this day and age really that much different from the slaves depicted in Farewell Uncle Tom? At least enough of them were only willing to be bound physically. They didn't bend their minds toward another's will. Can a lot of us in our own era boast the same?
When we don't act like the individuals that God made us to be, we become slaves. If you don't think for yourself, there’s always someone out there willing to think for you.
We no longer have Reverend Thornton Stringfellow of the state of Virginia, but we still have Pat Robertson of Virginia Beach and James Dobson of Colorado Springs and Hillary of New York and Bush in the White House and countless "gurus" on syndicated television, all claiming to be anointed and favored by the Almighty. They want us to believe that we "need" them. That we can't live without them. That they are good masters and that we are like children. To their peril, they forget that God is no respecter of persons.
And then there finally comes defiance. Someone else comes along claiming to be sent by God. That's all it takes. Rationality fades. God becomes a weapon of collective will. Regard for individual life becomes like a vapor. People die.
I didn't like the coda to Farewell Uncle Tom at all, because it makes no sense. Or perhaps it did. The last several minutes of the film are of a modern (early-1970s anyway) black man in a priest’s outfit sitting on a beach and reading William Styron's The Confessions of Nat Turner. He sees the white people frolicking around him and he starts fantasizing about killing them just as Nat Turner did in his 1831 revolt.
I've never liked what Nat Turner did: killing a lot of mostly innocent people, including children, with axes and knives. Some of his followers did pick up babies to bash their brains out on the walls. Nat Turner deserves no more sympathy than anyone else who also claims to be following "the will of God".
Maybe in some weird way, that was part of the filmmakers' master plan though. To cap the whole thing off with a demonstration of what this kind of mindset invariably leads to. There is absolute good and absolute evil. But in our lives on this earth we yet see through a mirror darkly and it still looks like a myriad shades of gray. It's the height of folly to believe that we might already possess the wisdom to see the world, no pun intended, as a matter of black and white.
I'm probably going to draw some flack for saying this, but I think that Farewell Uncle Tom is a brilliant expose on modern America, far more than it is a "documentary" about slavery a century and a half ago.
Farewell Uncle Tom is ultimately how human cruelty is excused and even celebrated in the name of God and society and science. And how all too often the abused will acquiesce and bow their knees to their supposed masters.
If Harry wanted to examine human nature and its proclivity toward evil with this Butt-Numb-A-Thon, he couldn't have wrapped it up any more powerfully than he did with Farewell Uncle Tom. I think that although it's not explicitly stated, that this movie also has quite a lot to say about how to choose to turn aside from that nature... if we want to.
I honestly feel different after this experience. Not just about Farewell Uncle Tom but about it and everything that preceded it during the program. Jim Valvano, the much-beloved basketball coach at North Carolina State who succumbed to bone cancer in 1993, said shortly before his death that every day we should laugh, be made to think, and be moved to tears. "Think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry - that's a full day. That's a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you're going to have something special."
If you went to Butt-Numb-A-Thon this past weekend with an open mind, without really demanding to see something that may or may not have been coming anyway, you were made to laugh and think and cry a lot. Not too bad a way to spend 24 hours, if ya ask me. I certainly feel like I came out of this a perhaps wiser person.
By this time, 23 hours into Butt-Numb-A-Thon 9, we were all pretty much thoroughly drained. Especially from the previous several hours of programming. We were in dire need of something different. So for the final movie of the event, following the trailers for Halloween III (which I think is a good movie but it should stand on its own without having "Halloween" as part of the title), Nightmares, and Trick Or Treat, we saw the first public screening of...
- TRICK 'R TREAT (2008)
Loved it!! Kind of a throwback to Creepshow and Cat's Eye and other horror anthology films of the Eighties, with a bit of Pulp Fiction-style “cut-up” storytelling. Michael Dougherty wrote and directed this collection of four stories set on the night of Halloween. Brian Cox, Dylan Baker and Anna Paquin were some of the faces that I recognized (but I caught a few others too). This should be quite a success when it comes out around Halloween next year. And I hope it's a big enough hit to warrant further entries.
After Trick 'R Treat finished, Drew McWeeny did a quick question/answer session with Michael Dougherty.
Then there was a raffle for prizes and everyone sang "Happy Birthday" to Harry, and that was it for Butt-Numb-A-Thon 9. We left the Drafthouse and parked outside was a big yellow Hertz fan packed with the HD-DVD players. I gave the guy my ticket and left with my new player, trying to figure out how to get it back home to North Carolina.
Final verdict on Butt-Numb-A-Thon 9: AWESOME event and well worth the wait it took to get in after all these years! I'm hoping that I'll be able to come again next year and bring some friends to share the good times with (Lord willing there'll be a whole contingent of us from the Tarheel State :-).
EDIT 1:39 p.m. EST: I also submitted another version of this review to Ain't It Cool News and Harry Knowles posted it earlier this morning. Here's the link!
A guy near Seattle has crucified Santa Claus and put him on display in his front yard. The whole thing is meant to protest the over-commercializing of Christmas.
