So I finally, finally go out last week to see a couple of movies, so have plenty of topical things to write about, and even get to the internet in time to post this column at about the earliest time it's been posted at for a long time, and what do I see on the internet when I get here? News that seems to make a couple oh-hey-I-guess-Pete-saw-a-movie paragraphs seem downright unimportant: that's right, folks, you heard it here first: Disney is buying Marvel. Nothing like another massive cultural-industrial trust, huh? What's fascinating to me about it is comparing Disney/Marvel to Warner/DC, since the DC/Warner thing was rooted in publishing, and for a long while there DC was seen as being in better shape in general, since it had a powerhouse publisher backing it (until Marvel started to rake it in with their we-can-make-that-movie attitude), but the Disney buy is almost certainly rooted in the movie side of the business (Disney obviously does its fair share of publishing (and TV animation), but most of that is in support of characters designed for (or first for) the movies they star in.
Comic books remain comic books, though. That's for more-or-less sure.
So what movie was it that finally broke my cinemaless streak? Maybe you saw this coming, but it was Taratino's Inglourious Basterds. I wouldn't necessarily claim to celebrate the man's entire catalogue (it's been yearsandyears since I saw Reservoir Dogs, for instance (I'm generally satisfied in that regard by occasionally saying "You're okay. You're gonna be okay." in a Harvey Keital voice and watching the little homage scene in Swingers, where the characters walk to their cars like the Misters (Color) do in RD)), but I do tend to like his movies. One generally knows what one is going to get: a loose exercise in genre, more interested in a superficial grazing blow at the genre in question, mostly focused on a talk-heavy plot and unanticipated turns away from genre-wallowing (back towards more dialogue).
Certainly the case with Inglourious Basterds, since it's much less of a warsploitation movie than it might've been--especially compared with the way it was marketed. Which is a relief, really, since several of the non-genre-y scenes were pretty fantastic. Also, so that way one doesn't have to think any more about the broader implications of the movie being about jewish people getting blood revenge on the Nazis, given the fact that is a permanently open wound in the Western World's past, present, and future which no piece of culture--no film, no book, no documentary, no History Channel special, no imaginary scene of Hitler being riddled with machine-gun bullets--can salve. I'm honestly not even sure what I think, in that regard, and though I do try to think about it, prefer, at least for now to focus on the structural aspects of the movie underneath the setting, costumes, languages, which were quite satisfying. Though I'm glad it was Nazis because Christoph Waltz was incredible as Colonel Handa (in a different setting, his character was essential the evil assistant principal or bad lieutenant), stole his scenes, best acting in the movie, hands down (though no one else gets as much face time, I don't think, and I've never thought that Brad Pitt was much other than mediocre in everything he does ('cept for maybe Snatch, where I can't help but like Mickey)).
One complaint I had with IG, which is similar to the one that I had with Taratino's half of Grindhouse, is that he doesn't seem to be able to keep himself interested with the genre-relative stylistic touches on these movies; that is, "Death Proof" didn't play around with the meta stuff nearly as effectively as Rodriguez's "Planet Terror," especially by the time the big car chase starts. Like QT gets distracted by having his characters say things, and forgets that the thorough-going genre thing, once started, is generally noticed as disappearing when it does, and such a disappearance is jarring. Like the kind of intro that the ex-Wehrmacht guy gets relatively early on in the film but is never matched again, and sound-tracking choices (yes, I know, when in doubt, with any movie (unless it's a Clint Mansell score for an Aronofsky film), assume that I'm going to gripe about the soundtrack). I don't even know that I'm arguing on behalf of the meta-film kind of stylistic touches, so much as wishing instead that they were just left out entirely, rather than half-assed.
And, speaking of heavily armed jews...
at long last, the return of...
The Summer of Booklove Bookclub: Michael Chabon's Gentlemen of the Road
This being (last time I checked, anyway) Chabon's latest book. A slim little adventure novel which fully embraces its genre very satisfactorily (complete with cool drawings by the guy that does Prince Valiant). Chabon says, in the back-matter of GotR that he first conceived of this story as being about "jews with swords," pulling this book right in line with his other two recent ventures, The Yiddish Policemen's Union (Audioshocker's pick for 2008 paperback of the year), and The Final Solution--a Sherlock Holmes story involving a Jewish child who has escaped the holocaust, his parrot, and an aging Holmes (another genre exercise (mighty trendy these days)). Good job, Chabon.
I'm not particularly steeped in Jewish history, so to me, reading this book, it mostly just seemed like an action/adventure novel; I didn't really notice anything until in hindsight after reading Chabon's above-quoted comment in the back matter. Not that that matters either. It doesn't really. What does matter is that Chabon really nailed the genre on this one (way better then he did with Final Solution, and more convincingly than his attempts to cop a Raymond Chandleresque prose style in Detective's Union; a completely excited, quick read. Did any one else read it? You should, really.
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