Todd Levin

As my holiday gift to other upstart film critics, looking to shake things up with an oblique, pithy assessment of a film they probably haven’t even seen, I submit the following public-domain reviews of Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World.

• See sick.
• Ship wreck.
• Naut good.
• More anchor, less stanker.
• Interminable naval gazing.
• Crowe’s messed.
• Man over-bored.
• Shallow end.
• Crap-sized.
• Ketch it on cable.
• Shit’s ahoy!
• Too many buoys.
• Sea suck.
• Unfathomable.
• Mizzenmast? More like Snoozin-fast!!
• Peter Weir should keel himself.
• You’ll heave, ho.
• Headstay, mind wander.
• A hollow vessel full of bland seamen.
• Master & Commander teaches us we’ve been wrong all along. The world IS flat.

Radio is one of those rare, special movies. It’s something we haven’t seen in a while, disguised as a great many things we have seen, almost to the point of nausea. American audiences will immediately feel intimate with the film’s smalltown atmosphere, its can-do attitude, and its glorious triumphs of the human spirit, from the most highly evolved members of this species down to the most readily dispensible by government mandate. Why, people may even recognize (and rightly so) that Radio is an amazingly fluid hybrid of three distinct genres in filmmaking formula: The Magical Retard meets The Loosely Based On Real Events (probably a 300-word human interest piece in Parade magazine) meets Messianic White Man Helps Dark Colored Person/People. But here’s what you don’t know about Radio: he eats babies. Lots of them. Sometimes two at a time, working back and forth from hand to hand. And a whole Southern town turns its collective head while it happens. Is that sick or is it just the inevitable sacrifice you must make to slake your thirst at the till of Knowledge?

Of course, it’s mostly tasteful, offscreen baby-eating – an ominous, lengthened silhouette of Radio leaning over a crib or a squeamish pan away from the action as Radio unhinges his jaw around an infant’s soft head, a long string of saliva escaping from his cracked lips in greedy anticipation of a feeding. But forget what you see and what is mere suggestion, and make no mistake about it: this baby-eating business is just as much a part of his story as football, listening to the perfect Motown song on antique radios, and offering unsolicited hugs to high school students. And that’s the kind of thing they don’t put in the posters because, really, how do you photograph magic? (and don’t you dare answer, ‘with a white wizard’s camera, and film sprinkled with faerie dust from the valley of Noom,’ you no-good cheating son of a bitch.)

Radio’s teaching us, all right, and not just about laughing and dancing and tackling and eating babies. Even if we draw your eyelids like shades, he’s still showing us things that burn right through and make us cry out because, isn’t it true, the truth doesn’t feel like the soft belly of a kitten. That shit hurts, like the poison-tipped spiked belly of one of those Pokemons. Yeah, Radio’s teaching us, and you know what? There’s not a thing we can teach that kid ourselves. Not a God Damn Thing.

I attended a pretty excellent concert last night, thanks to CMJ. It was a showcase for ROUGH TRADE records and included four bands, with the vague promise of a fifth. (belle and sebastian were rumored to appear as a “surprise guest” and they truly surprised everyone by not showing up. there might have been a replacement scheduled and, during one band’s set i dreamed that replacement was the pixies and i could brag about it until i was dead but, after quizzing a couple audience members and getting no answers, i came up with no answers. because i’m old, i decided i’d just leave before a fifth took the stage and just take my chances on them either not showing, or sucking really hard.)

The Fiery Furnaces opened the show. It was the first time I’d seen them but I would see them a hundred more times, I think. They were super rock and roll, and I could feel the audience gradually getting a collective erection for the female lead singer. In rock bands, female lead singers, especially tall, snaky ones, are always erotically charged and this woman was doubly so because she played guitar, instead of stupid bass. I used have a huge crush on Freda Boner (later Freda Love) from The Blake Babies, mostly because she was a drummer. I’m not even sure I can remember what she looked like, honestly. It was just refreshing to see her banging away like a crazy, feral child instead of absent-mindedly plunking along on bass, another Robert Palmer back-up musician faking it. The woman from The Fiery Furnaces went nuts and didn’t even break the fantasy by doing that thing many female leads are inclined to do onstage i.e. drape themselves all over their male bandmates and have sex with four black guys in zorro masks onstage. The Fiery Furnaces, you’ve got class!

The British Sea Power were up next, and I bought my ticket based solely on a desire to see them play live. They took the stage in lo-fi costume – white socks pulled up tight, stretched over jerked-up pantlegs, British WWI helmets and scarves and, in one member’s case, a veil of plastic flowers hanging over his face like verdant bangs. The band was wonderfully, playfully pretentious and although sound mix problems set them off to a bad start, they had a really strong finish. By the end of the set, one member was shoeless, another had only one shoe remaining, and I had lost my mittens and thermos cap.

It made me sort of sick that The British Sea Power had to perform beneath Adam Green in the bill, but so be it. Adam Green was the kid who dressed like Peter Pan in his old band, The Moldy Peaches, and back when he was 14 he could be forgiven for being halfway retarded. Sorry, Adam, time’s up. Now he dresses like Julian Casablancas, but still behaves like Tiny Tim. (and not the good, crippled one. the other one, with all the tulips and shit.)

Adam Green is frustrating. His songs are knowingly, winkingly inspid and awfully short. Their brevity is both a blessing and a curse, I suppose. At under 3 minutes each, for sure, and usually under 2 minutes, you know each song will be over soon but you cannot console yourself in this fact, because there might be twenty-five more of them before his set is over. He had some genuinely adoring fans in the audience, too, and they all sang along as he warbled about Jessica Simpson and putting pee pee in his poopie hole. Is it cool to like Adam Green? I want to know, because when I hear him I think, “hey, this would be an awesome song to hear…on the Dr. Demento Radio Hour.” Why is Adam Green any different than, say, those guys who sang about dead puppies? His only distinction is his Lower East Side greasiness, and knowing how to wear the right rinse of denim.

The night’s headliners, The Kills, get compared to the White Stripes, primarily because the band is just a boy and a girl and an electric guitar and a drum machine. (meg is sort of a drum machine, isn’t she?) However, their stage dynamics are weirder, scarier than anything I’ve ever seen coming from The White Stripes. Whereas Jack and Meg seem playful, and celebratory, the skinny junky lady and the older British guy who probably burns his girlfriends with cigarettes and likes to put their heads in the toilet while he’s having sex with them (sorry, but i don’t know their real names) are angry, drugged, and deliberately sexually-charged. When they sing together on a single microphone, their lips almost intersect, like their trying to mouth-feed each other their pre-chewed lyrics. They were excellent to watch, partly because you weren’t sure if the female singer would fall over, and partly because you wondered if they’d fuck right there, onstage. That makes for a fun show. I left the show thinking He was an abusive lover and she was completely dead inside. If they were The Carpenters, that would probably be the wrong way to enjoy the music. However, they’re a loud, bluesy duo, so I’m sure they’re pretty aware of the images they’ve conjured.

More and more now, I’m seeing people with digital cameras at these shows. They hold them lofted above their heads and from a distance and height (i was in the balcony for the first two bands) the illuminated view-finders held high look like flickering lighters. It’s actually sort of nice, even if I know the end result will be that someone is snapping pictures, thinking, “fuck, I can’t wait to blog this!” Kind of like me.

People tell me to stop answering their questions with, “America!” They tell me, “when I ask you a question, I do not think it a satisfactory response for you to appear taken aback, cough out a short gasp, and then cry, ‘America!’ as if you were providing an answer that already was, or at least should have been, abundantly clear to me.”

But, really, isn’t “America” a convenient – and true! – catchall for all manner of inquiries? Isn’t it the reason and excuse for everything we do? When you ask me why I parked my truck on your lawn, and I say, “America!” don’t demand further explanation, and definitely do not expect me to move that Chevy off your precious rock garden. Just take one of the cans of Miller Genuine Draft I’ve proferred from my paper grocery bag, and help me get these pit bull pups out of my truck, because you and me we’re gonna sell them, for pets or food. And why? AMERICA! – that’s why.

Why am I dancing so close with your wife during the national anthem at Fenway Park? America. Why did I ignore the sticker with your name written on it, and eat all the hash right out of the can? Why did I report your Earth Science tutor to the Department of Homeland Security? And why did I get my knuckles tattooed with “CHEVY” and “PRID”? I’ll give you three guesses, and they’d better be “America, America, AMERICA!!”

So stop questioning me, and start saluting. Stop showing your weakness and mistrust and start showing your prid! It’s my conundrum and my solution. When you see me getting thrown into the back of a police cruiser with my shirt off and Deluxe Sandwich-Press burns on my hands and forearms, don’t cluck your tongue at me and tell the police I’d been drinking again. When the officer asks you for a statement, I want you to gaze upon my visage, my features softened from the streaks of saliva I’ve deposited on the inside of the police vehicle’s rear seat window. Then look him square in his eyes and tell him, “You just go ahead and write down ‘America’.”

Kill Bill was just released nationally today and, with the exception of a few cases of early unbridled adulation from film-geek journalists that felt more like literary pre-cum than incisive critique, the reviews have been uniformly unkind. Here is a sample of sound bites from the critics:

“Kill Bill jitters, dances, and performs colorful backflips, not unlike a brightly painted crap on an electrified floor.”

“My favorite moment of Kill Bill did not occur until the very end. It was just as the credits began to roll, when the gentleman in front of me hurled a large cup of Pepsi at the screen and shouted, ‘That movie ate a dick sandwich with a side of balls! Fucking fuck you, Tarantino!’ “

“After stepping out of the theater, I immediately drove to the ASPCA and adopted a puppy – a gorgeous, playful Black Labrador mix. I named him Here’s What I Think of Kill Bill, and then murdered him with a salad fork out in the parking lot.”

“I’ve seen more exhilirating martial arts in an episode of Hong Kong Phooey.”

“…more like Kill Me…please.”

“Tarantino may be the next Tarantino.”

“A black kid stole my seat and when I explained that I was going to alert theater management, he threatened to wait for me after the film and choke me in front of my wife. With good conscience, I can recommend neither this film nor black people.”

“Tarantino’s casting of Travolta in Pulp Fiction was, without question, inspired. His casting of the animated character ‘Ziggy’ as Shogun master, ‘Shovelnose,’ was borderline reprehensible.”

“I fear this movie will reflect poorly on ninja assassins for many years to come.”

I will always admire San Francisco for its uncanny ability to remain seated in the golden years of American alcoholism. Pound for bourbon-soaked pound, the city has the best bars in the country, heralded by the greatest storefront signs.

Last weekend brought be back to San Francisco again. With two trips in a single year, it is becoming what Epcot Center has become to my parents – a second home. My trip was centered around a friend’s wedding, where everyone was more famous than me. I learned how much money Gary Busey makes at each tent revival he attends (and what kind of cut he gets at the door); I found out that Subway’s spokesperson, Jared Fogle, has regained enough weight that he must be filmed in a seated position. (soon they’ll only film him in tight close-ups around his eyes, or from a satellite camera. i blame the southwest sauce, or the heroin.); and I got in touch with an old friend – me. (he owed me money.)

One of the nicest and most unexpected parts of the trip, however, was visiting the grand opening of a friend’s bakery in the newly renovated Ferry Building. The bakery itself was a fever-dream of preciousness, nuanced right down to the pink dress, kittykat Doc Martens, and perfectly manicured bangs of one of its employees. To me, a good bakery is the kind of place that confuses you into believing you can eat parts of the space that aren’t meant for consumption, and when I was chastised for licking the paint off some cabinetry molding I knew this place was going to be a success.

The Ferry Building Marketplace is one of those rare destinations that makes me feel at once blissful and utterly ashamed. In this respect it is not unlike feeling evoked by slowly and firmly pressing my face against a woman’s unclothed ass, or from plunging my hands into a tub of vanilla pudding. The Marketplace is crowded with all sorts of edible, desirable goods from organic creameries, merciful butchers, cherubic herb merchants, and all sorts of other fresh-scrubbed do-gooders thrusting free Lady Apple samples in your face or attempting to outfit your children with (organic? biodegradable?) balloon animal helmets.

Every eye twinkled, and I was treated to loose dialogue like, “Palmiers are my weakness!” and “do you have anything cuter?” More than once I had to react politely to strangers squeezing my upper arm, pulling me toward them, and whispering into my ear, “they made this paradise for us.” I think if there were a special heaven for liberal-minded Caucasians, it would look like the Ferry Building Marketplace, or some variation thereof. It would be a heaven where brioche is a household word, inquiring about parking for your Segway wouldn’t get you punched out, and a question like, “what kind of toast do you have?” is inevitably followed up with responses like, “have you seen our toast menu?” In short, a beautiful place I might like to sample occasionally but could never really remain with my sanity intact – sort of like San Francisco.

I was looking at an item on eBay today, wondering how I could rationalize bidding on it. I think this is a wonderful example of confusing one’s wants with one’s needs. I won’t tell you what it is (one zillion bonus points and a dream date in glorious Cancun, Mexico if you can guess without cheating), but here’s a selection from this item’s description:

This set is nearly complete – It is missing a couple warts, 1 set of eyebrows, head bandage, 1 scar and the fangs. This set comes with 2 original glue sticks and the instructions.

I wish I could bottle the joy that description brings me, because then I’d sell it on eBay and be so rich I could punch anyone in the belly and then pay them not to tell on me.

I’ve packed some clothes. Found a trustworthy friends to care for my lesbian cats. Refilled all my prescription drugs. Arranged to have my long distance telephone service disconnected. On May 15th, tremble will be on a two-month sabbatical. Because on May 15th, I head over to Loews Cineplex at 34th Street and begin camping out for the July 2nd premiere of Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde. Jealous much?

But I think this would make a lovely addition to my under-furnished, water-damaged Brooklyn squat. I will be waiting by my mailbox, shuffling nervously from foot to foot.

Yes, I’m dedicating even more space to a discussion of Rob Zombie’s cinematic opus, House of 1000 Corpses. However, that’s only because my more official review of it is up on Film Threat today. The best thing about the Film Threat site is that they are so fair to their milieu that they have actually allowed space for two partially contrary reviews of a movie this bad. Another reviewer generously afforded it two stars, while I punched its dick hard with a stigmatizing half-star. And it only got that half because of the film’s liberal sprinkling of naked corpses.