My Favorite 2004 Moments: Documentary, LA Plays Itself

Since today is the day that they announced the 77th annual Oscar nominees, it seems as good as any day for me to discuss my favorite documentary of 2004. Since it was seen in about a dozen places across the country, and may or may not be legal for the director to sell (more on that in a minute), I'll keep it short and also discuss the Oscars.

This year look like every other Oscar with the normal Oscar bait movies sweeping every category. This is odd, as dragging out the same old guys from the 70s is getting tired. Look at the guys who are sweeping the nominations. I'll defend Clint Eastwood to the bitter end, but Scorsese and Nichols haven't made any real cinematic gems since 1976 (excluding HBO TV for Nichols, and count Goodfellas if you must). These are the same guys who had their decade 35 years ago, but it's time for something new to step on the stage.

With last year's welcome reception of indie-spirited "Lost in Translation" and under-the-radar critical hits "City of God" and "House of Sand and Fog" to the normal mix of contenders, I thought perhaps this may be the year that things change up. But after seeing Huckabee's and Zissou and realizing, no matter what I thought of them, that they were in no way ready for prime-time, I was wondering what the Academy would due to stay relevant for our culture.

Which is to say, that i'm very happy they didn't nominate The Passion of the Christ for everything, which is something I was very worried about. They nominated it for makeup (how much like a horror movie!), and instead nominated a bunch of guys who were really good at some point - just not right now. Granted The Passion may have made for a more interesting evening, but I'm comfortable with it's awfulness not getting held up to higher scrutiny.

I am surprised at the obvious pandering of giving Jamie Foxx a nomination for both Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor. Especially since he was the main Actor, not Supporting, in Collateral. Collateral was at it's best when showing the extended range of Los Angeles, the way the city goes on and on in all directions, and does it with a digital camera (giving hope for all of us running around with 3-ccds trying to make something decent) that improves on poor-quality tape instead of trying to mimic it, and in that sense, it's fair to consider Los Angeles the main actor in that movie.

Which brings me to the documentary in question, LA Plays Itself. This is a documentary by Calarts film professor Thom Andersen, combing over the depiction of the city of Los Angeles exclusively through movie clips set in the city he has taken from the past 100 years. It is three hours of clips of movies with narration over it, trying to makes sense of it all in various directions. It is dense, complicated, and difficult to follow at points. It is wonderful.

Some of the threads that Anderson tries to draw throughout the movie are depictions of police, from old Dragnet movies/tv episodes, and how they change around the time of Rodney King (the conclusion of "they become bizarre" is evident from the number of "Psycho Killer LAPD Cop" movies that are made, best shown by the T-1000 in Terminator 2).

He goes to the throat of the condescension of Woody Allen; he shows how foreign directors approach the city. He watches as the views of the idyllic place to go and live in the mid-century turn into the dystopic and dysfunctional land it has become in popular culture, and traces it to teenage culture and recessions. He contrasts liberal middle-class movies (think Alan Alda teaching his son to drive) with seldom-seen minorities and immigrant directors with the desperation and harsh humanity of Cassavetes.

Most importantly, Anderson loves his city in the way that acknowledges the bad but appreciates the good, and it shows in this movie. Coming from Chicago, a city that has a give-and-take relationship for it's identity from popular culture, I can appreciate this. Chicago is many things if you know about it solely from the media: fat and ignorant (*da bears!*), a collection of desperate or happy-go-lucky suburbs (American Beauty's 847 area-code, everything John Hughes has done), a great place for suburban kids to hang out (Ferris Bueller), the strangest mix of urbanity and the western-frontier with class anxieties (Blues Brothers).

I want to say that this is the best documentary I've seen this decade. It may be true for a longer period of time, but there is something very new century about it. The internet has a lot of the kinks out of it, and we can now start to piece things together from varying sources to find something new - and the movie does have a feel of a very intense google search about it, piecing together elements faster than you can handle them.

The film does get very geeky at points, which is either a plus or a minus depending on your mindset. I'm not going to bother to convince you on those merits. I love statements like this realization of Blade Runner - "Perhaps [the reasons people still really are into Blade Runner] is that it makes us nostalgic for a dystopia that won't exist...instead of living in giant overrun cities with public transportation, we live in disconnected suburbs with no identity...instead of technology being dangerous and sexy, it is just efficient and takes away our jobs." which clarifies something about that movie that you were probably sort of thinking.

Now there's going to be a problem that's obvious; this movie seems custom made for film geeks, people who can measure their lives in movies and genres and influences and cinema trends. But it's also made for anyone who has a strong connection to any city. I'm very glad I got to see it in downtown Chicago. The movie had me leaving the theater extremely conscious of my experience of place, something that had never happened to me before with seeing a movie. I had to walk around for a while just go get my bearings straight. That feeling of having everything you felt going into the theater getting knocked on it's ass is probably the best thing you can hope for from a movie.

As this movie is entirely of clips of other movies, it may have a problem getting released on dvd (though i'm sure it'll show up somehow). I'll get you word when, and if, it does show up for netflix or online. Until then, here are two reviews of the movie that are worth reading. And thanks for making it this far :)

Collateral Damage: Los Angeles Continues Playing Itself

Interview: The Reality of Film

DENNIS MILLER: A CASE STUDY IN OPPORTUNISTIC COCKSUCKERY

Congratulations, former comedian Dennis Miller. Your exploits in 2004 have earned you the coveted Ginandtacos.com Prick of the Year award. I never thought the man was a genius, but I found his wit to be a welcome and refreshing change from the bulk of his fellow comedians. His post-SNL career was not exactly illustrious, and he remained a fringe player in the comedy world - respected more than he was enjoyed.

In 2001, Miller jumped at a chance to re-enter the spotlight as a Monday Night Football commentator. Many cried "Sellout!" but I personally found his comments to be a vast improvement over the monosyllabic grunting and Telestrator-scrawling of ex-jocks. However, seeing as how the average American male ain't so good about following compound sentences (let alone historical references) he was a colossal failue, quickly canned and sent back to cable talk show obscurity.

At this point, he could have gracefully exited the spotlight. Surely he had sufficient financial security, and he was certainly well-respected. He could have been the guy that young comedians cite as an influence. He could have been the subject of grand celebrity roasts and tributes befitting retired stars. But apparently ol' Dennis just didn't have enough money.

"I'm available to do live shows, corporate events, and bukkake."

Instead he underwent a very public political conversion to neoconservatism and positioned his cable show as the right-wing answer to The Daily Show (minus the talent and actual humor). He paraded Republican politicians through his show until even they became so visibly uncomfortable with his fawning verbal hand-jobbing that they stopped showing up. What he failed to realize is that the right-wing nutjob on TV role is already loaded with personalities more caustic and pleasing to the ears of conservative America. A socially liberal ex-progressive from Hollywood is far, far down in the pecking order for your average talk radio fan.

What he thought was a wise, opportunistic attempt to keep raking in the dough and publicity turned him into the Constantine of entertainment - the left loathes him and the right won't take him. Rather than becoming America's new political darling, he's alone on an island, ignored except for the occasional moments in which the public laments how far he's fallen.

Sensing that his jaw could open a little wider to accept another inch or two of Satan's cock, he also decided it would be a good idea to do some Net-Zero commercials. He doesn't even need the money, and he's on TV hawking AOL's competition for a few bucks. His twin conversions to product pitchman and right-wing puppet have shown with shocking clarity how one can concoct a career as a social commentator without even the slightest shred of principles or morals.

Finally, it is worth noting that becoming a neocon at 50 is not a conversion, it's a reversion. Becoming a simplistic reactionary is hardly indicative of intellectual and spiritual growth. One does not "see the light" of blaming everything on the foreigners and darkies or of solving problems with physical force. Those are steps backward; a lazy return to the lowest common denominator by a person whose principles were nonexistant or feeble in the first place. Violence, jingoism, racism, fear-mongering, and lobotomized simplicity of worldview are the mental attributes of children and morons, and it can hardly be considered progress for a grown man to revert to seeing the world as the barely-literate do.

So fuck you, Dennis Miller. I hope you choke on every dirty check you get on your knees and suck for on a daily basis. You have conclusively shown that you'd fuck your mother in the ass for $1 or five more minutes in the spotlight. You deserve the ass-clown status to which you have condemned yourself. Ginandtacos.com wishes you the best in your new career as a has-been hooker for sale to the highest bidder, and we hope you die of something that makes it burn when you pee.

TAKE THAT, UTILITARIAN PRUDENCE!

Let's talk about the iPod Mini.

I have about as much use for a portable mp3 player as an asshole on my forehead. Personally, I find the entire market a little ridiculous. The iPod, while functional in theory, is in practice little more than a fashion accessory and status symbol - proving that not only do you (read: your parents) have $299, but that you have another $299 to spend in 12 months when its non-replaceable battery dies. It's not that I think mp3 players don't work or serve a purpose. I just think they're really good at doing a bunch of things I don't care about, and people buy iPods even if they don't even listen to much music simply because everyone else is.

But please, spare me the arguments about the merits of the iPod. I am willing to accept that, just as I spend a lot of money on things that other people would find stupid, others see usefulness in things I consider useless. So be it. To each their own. Additional platitudes here. If you feel that your iPod provides you with utility equal to its cost, then I would be wrong to dispute that.

The Mini (right) is smaller but retains enough capacity for sorority girls to store all three of their CDs

I have to draw some sort of line with this iPod Mini, though. I really do. It is doing more to please people I dislike than any product in recent memory. Because, really, you have to imagine Steve Jobs, the Apple Marketing Squad, and Lil' Jon (or any other dregs of the music industry) sitting around high-fiving through the cigar smoke every time they sell one of these. "Can you fuckin' believe this, guys? It has one-fifth as much capacity as the regular iPod, but it almost costs the same! HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!!" Short of robbing you at gunpoint, there's not really much more they could do to so effortlessly take your money. Come on. Three-card Monte dealers have to work harder than this to get people's cash.

Yes, a regular iPod (20gb, 5.6 ounces) is $299, and the Mini (4GB, 3.6 ounces) is $249. Not to mention that Dell's products (rated by PC World as the second-best competitor to the Apples) are $199 and $249 for 5gb and 20gb, respectively.

Basically, Apple's marketing lizards are fucking with you. They just want to see what they can get away with at this point, and you're convincing them that the sky's the limit. They took their profit margins on the regular iPod and quadrupled them by selling you a lesser product for almost as much money. Congratulations! With successful encouragement from holiday shoppers, Apple's next product will be a thin sheet of cardboard with "iPod Super Awesome" written on it, yours for only $149. I only wish that the Mini came with a different color of headphones so that the white wires of traditional iPod owners ("I have lots of money and I am quite urbane") could be differentiated from those who have lots of money but don't enjoy, you know, thinking about stuff before spending it.