Something old, something new

I spend a lot of time re-watching movies. Probably more than I should, considering how many titles I need to catch up on. But this practice occasionally leads to great experiences, like catching something in a movie that I hadn't noticed in any of the previous umpteenth viewings. One of these moments happened today, after again putting on Once Upon a Time in the West.

As a visual storyteller, Sergio Leone is one of the best in film history, and in watching his movies you start to notice how every detail of his frame is done deliberately to paint a broader picture of his characters and storylines. Nothing happens by accident in Leone's frames, and I found another example of this skill today. Jill's arrival at the train station in Flagstone has no actual dialog (just background chatter), but in this scene we see a woman who starts to learn that her fairy tale wedding is starting to unravel. We also see that Jill has traveled very far to arrive in Flagstone, where her life will start anew.

It's this last detail that I missed upon all previous viewings. Later in the movie Jill explains she's from New Orleans, where she met Brett McBain, but there's actually a visual clue at the train station about her journey's origin. After wandering in confusion waiting for her promised escort to pick her up at the station, Jill looks for answers, and her gaze finds a clock.

After reading the time on the clock, Jill glances down at her own timepiece.

And this only brings her more frustration.

It seems hard to miss now, but up until this viewing I had never noticed that Leone was showing us how Jill was still on New Orleans time. Before telling us she traveled from New Orleans, it's apparent she traveled a great distance, because her timepiece is over two hours off. It would have been easy to establish her origin with a throwaway line of dialog, but with this visual we see Jill's confusion and frustration through her eyes. "Where am I? And what the hell am I doing here? How will I ever get back to New Orleans?"

Another visual marvel from this sequence is Leone placing Jill next to the train's unloaded cargo. In this shot she appears to be just another piece of merchandise or luggage, an object she no doubt feels like at this very moment.

His name is Bill. He solves problems.

In the haunted home stretch of his October Kill Fest, Jonathan "My next scary name may be your own" Lapper took time to celebrate The Twilight Zone. Jonathan's post and the accompanying leagues of comments put me in a TZ mood, as I am known to fall into occasionally. Jonathan's mention of Little Girl Lost as one of his favorite episodes got me thinking about it, specifically one of its supporting characters that I've always been fascinated with. He's the unsung character in a memorable episode. He might have deserved his own series. His name is Bill.

Little Girl Lost (watch the full episode here) is the episode that probably inspired Poltergeist, featuring a young girl who inexplicably disappears, though her family can still hear her. After a few frantic moments, the parents decide to do what they should have done at the start: call Bill. It's the middle of the night, but Bill is at the ready, and is soon at the door. Assessing the situation, Bill learns that little Tina went under her bed, and was later followed by the family dog, but both are now nowhere to be found. Bill takes the initiative to move the child's bed, and is smart enough to "mark where the legs were" (good call Bill, the last thing Tina needs after she's found is to see that her bed was moved and then replaced slightly out of position).

Bill comes to the conclusion that Tina and the dog had vanished via an invisible portal, and after some awkward movements he locates said portal in a nearby wall. Bill's hand goes right through the wall, so it's not your average wall. Bill quickly deduces that we're dealing with the 4th Dimension ("just a step up from the third"), a dimension that occasionally meets up with our own. In the episode's best moment, Bill gives a scholarly explanation of the 4th Dimension's properties while drawing a perimeter of the portal on the wall. It's a wonderful moment, and Bill does it with unflinching confidence.

A plan comes together where Tina's father will poke his head into the portal and try to locate his daughter, whom he eventually find. Though Chris the father is seen walking around in this odd, echo-y 4th Dimension, Bill reveals after all is back to normal that Chris was actually never all the way through the portal -- Bill was holding on to him the whole time. The portal closes up just as Chris and Tina cross back over, and to all a good night.

Everything's back to normal, yet one question remains: how is Bill not the coolest man alive? So knowledgeable is Bill, so unflappable, he doesn't even blink when faced with the prospect of a close friend's daughter vanishing into an unknown dimension. Oh, wait -- it's not an unknown dimension because Bill knows all about it! Just imagine how many calls Bill takes a day from his friends about their stupid problems: there's a meteor with glowing goo in my backyard, I think I just created a mini-black hole, there's an eye growing on my hand, my son says he's gay, blah blah blah. Bill's there, just give him a call.

Another thing I love about this episode, you have to love the ending Rod Serling tacks on:

The other half where? The fourth dimension? The fifth? Perhaps. They never found the answer. Despite a battery of research physicists equipped with every device known to man, electronic and otherwise, no result was ever achieved, except perhaps a little more respect for and uncertainty about the mechanisms of the Twilight Zone.

Waking up the echoes

Note: Heavy spoilers herein.

I watch Point Blank a lot. It's probably in the top 3 for my most-played DVDs. Most of this is due to how intoxicating the opening 20 minutes of the movie are, with director John Boorman taking the viewer on a manic spree of exposition both confusing and exhilarating. In these 20 minutes there are haunting moments that will never be equaled through the remainder of Point Blank: Walker's "awakening" in his cell, his march through LAX, the frozen shots and eerie jazz notes of the opening credits, Walker's initial meeting with Yost (Keenan Wynn), and most of all -- the time Walker (Lee Marvin) spends in the house of his ex-wife Lynne (Sharon Acker). It's these opening scenes that embed Point Blank in film history, where it removes itself from all other tough guy movies and becomes something else. And it's after these scenes when the movie becomes fairly straightforward, with chronological narration and few questions about what's going on. It's not until the final scene on Alcatraz (the final minute, really) that Point Blank comes back to where it began.

Point Blank is a movie about supernatural rebirth through vengeance. Through what means it is thankfully never explained, but it also cannot be argued that Walker is not human. His new self lies somewhere between ghost and an urban zombie born out of concrete and steel, nearly incapable of emotion but always ready to put his inhuman durability to work. We see Walker's "awakening" before the violent act that landed him in the cell, his body twitches as if a current had just shot through it. Slowly, he recalls why he is lying in a cold jail cell: Walker was shot three times at point blank range by his double-crossing friend Reese, who walked off with Walker's share of the loot as well as his wife.

The amount of time that passes between the shooting and Walker's resurrection is never explained, though it seems to be at least a few months since Reese has had time to rise up the Organization's ladder. After miraculously swimming from Alcatraz back to San Francisco, Walker returns to the island on a tour boat, cleaned up and dressed in a suit. On the boat Walker meets his spiritual partner, Yost, who acts as if he expected Walker to be there, and informs the recently-resurrected of a plan to get his money back and take down the Organization as well. Walker listens to Yost as if he's being fed a command, and when he hears that Reese is living with Lynne, he silently launches himself toward Los Angeles, fueled by supernatural revenge.


What follows is the best scene in Point Blank, starting with Walker's iconic march through LAX -- the sound of his hammering feet will follow us all the way to Lynne's door -- and ending with the house being drained of all life. When Walker bursts through Lynne's door and tosses her aside, he heads for the bedroom and empties his revolver into the master bed before he even realizes there's no Reese in it. This shot is later replayed in slow motion in Walker's head, and it's easy to read it as a sexual manifestation of his revenge, his bullets burning holes in the very spot where Walker spent countless nights with his wife.

If Walker is powered by paranormal revenge, then it was expended on the aforementioned bed. After the shots are fired, Walker sulks onto Lynne's couch, not bothering to look at his ex-wife as she recounts a memory of happier times -- herself nearly a lifeless ghost. Walker seems to fade in and out of consciousness, recalling the previous days events, and then finding a dead Lynne on the bed with an empty jar of pills nearby. It's unclear exactly what happens after Lynne's death, but I see it as Walker recharging his energy for a spree of daring moves that will eventually take him back to Alcatraz. He fades in and out again, watches Lynne's spilled bottles of perfume flow down the drain (an allusion to her soul draining away, Boorman explains in the commentary track), and wakes up to an empty house with someone knocking on the door. How long was he in there? What happened to Lynne's belongings? The man at the door proves that Lynne indeed lived there, so you can't say the scene with her was a dream. Did her belongings represent her soul -- and does it now power Walker?

The newly-harnessed energy helps Walker rip through the Organization, and takes him back to Alcatraz where his money awaits. But the money never finds its way into Walker's hands, rather he slowly fades back into his eternal steel confines. It's a perfect ending, enhanced by the fact that Boorman never attempts to explain what was behind Walker's resurrection, or exactly what transpired in Lynne's apartment. There's also the question of Yost, was he responsible for Walker waking up again in the cell, and does that mean Yost is of the same existence as the new Walker? Damn, I gotta watch this again.

The Blog Sleep

There are thousands of stories in Print City, this is one of them...

The Front Row district of Print City is notoriously rough, but lately the obituaries have been longer than a director's cut of a Bertolucci film. While the average lifespan is criminally low -- most people don't survive to see their third anniversary -- recently a few heavyweights have gone belly-up before their time. Looking for reading material at the Corner Store (makes for good conversation in the coat-check line), I found some of my favorite racks were gathering dust. Jeb behind the counter is tight with his information, so I paid double for my usual pickled egg. His scoop was that the guy next door left for big-light dreams, one of the few friendly faces Downtown was recently locked out, and another veteran put up the "closed" sign abruptly. Jeb's news didn't surprise me -- if you let things catch you off guard in Front Row, you won't last long -- but the nugget he gave me while I bit into my pickled egg (Jeb's never been one for timing) elevated my right eyebrow, like that elevator at the department store that always stops on the second floor (ladies casual), no matter how many times you hit the button for the fourth (intimates).

"...and Larry's gone."

"He'll be back."

"Not this time..."

I knew any further prodding of Jeb would necessitate a second pickled egg purchase, and I could tell it wasn't one of his better batches. So I walked it alone under the flickering neon light, and even though my new superior at the home office probably had an urgent matter to see me about (probably something about a diaper), instincts told me to stop at my Front Row haunt to take a deeper look into these recent departures. Larry's abrupt disappearance was troubling, as he was a daily read for me -- but the bigger question was who's next? Four's a trend where I come from, and I don't mean a trend like the flavored cigarettes I smelled at the bar last night. With my nose for justice, I felt it was my obligation to find the root of this problem and stop it before another publication was rubbed out.

Just as this thought entered my head, a comment was slipped under my door. I raced to open my door, but the person's shadow had just escaped into the street. The comment was from "Anonymous," and it read "this isn't your game, give up before it's you who gets deleted." Now I knew I was waist-deep in this mess -- and I'm not talking about my garbage disposal disaster from last month. It was time to scare up my sources, namely someone who keeps his ear close to the ground. Moviezzz is just such a source, and he's low to the ground because he shines shoes -- but for an extra large tip he'll give me more than what makes front page news. I hand him the anonymous comment as he cracked open a new can of Kiwi.

"Looks like trouble, but whoever wrote it may have accidentally left you a clue."

"How do you figure?"

"Don't you know someone who's fond of games?"

Moviezzz was right, as usual, and I flipped him an extra dime. Yes, games, as in trivia, as in ol' Johnny Lapper and his famous trivia games. If it wasn't for a generous helping of the shakes, I might have triumphed in Lapper's latest game, but he was wiley enough to fool me. Not this time. It would make sense that someone with such a devious need for attention would resort to knocking off other publishers, but knowing him he won't go down easy. Unlucky for me, Johnny's place was dark -- but I did find an invitation to a dance sticking out of his mailbox.

Classy Marilyn was staging a dance the week away affair, and her place was hopping. It was easy to find Johnny on the dance floor, he might as well have had a custom banner above his head.

"You like games, Johnny boy?"

"Ross, you lost -- that doesn't mean you have to like it. And it also doesn't mean you have to mess up my steps."

"I ain't talkin' mere trivia games, seems you like to dabble in more bloody affairs. Know anything about Larry?"

"Yeah, he disappeared, it happens in this city."

"Strange that you were the first one to report on his absence, how is it that you got the scoop?"

"I don't reveal my sources," Johnny said, poking at his neat J&B. "And I don't let mugs like you waste precious minutes of my evening. Larry was an odd duck -- he never archived, he once went a whole month just talking about the same actor, who does that? Nobody."

"Correction -- now nobody does it, why were you so eager to see him go?"

"I don't have anything to hide, I was here dancing before Larry's last update -- ask anyone here," Johnny said, glancing to a gathering crowd of displeased onlookers. "I'll tell you this: Larry didn't finish his last update, but supposedly the title was 'There Will Be Blood,' and sure enough the garbage men were scrubbing it off the sidewalk the next day. Maybe he knew trouble was coming..."

A juicy answer, but it only meant more questions, good thing I didn't plan on sleeping (until I got tired, anyway). On my way out I saw Marilyn holding a tray of gin gimlets. I grabbed one for the road, and she gave me a glance that said "did you get my dance invitation in the mail?" and I responded with a nod that told her "I got it, but I couldn't find my dance shoes."

Leaving the dance hall, I could feel a break in the case rolling at me like that ball that someone just threw at me from a passing hardtop. Ouch! Who threw that? Picking up the ball ready to throw it back, I noticed it was no ordinary ball. It was a baseball autographed by ... Lee Van Cleef? This peculiar combination could have only come from one place: Dennis Cazzalio's baseball-themed drive-in on the West end of town.

He calls it Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule. A strange name, but probably better than my suggestion: Paradise by the Dashboard Light. On the subway ride over, it occurred to me that Johnny wasn't the only one with early news of Larry's departure -- Dennis had also penned a going-away note that read strangely like a eulogy. An effective ploy to draw the blame away from himself, much like how I brought an oversized wreath to the funeral for my brother's hamster. The lot at Dennis' was packed as usual, and tonight he was showing some perverse mishmash of movie and television clips that seemed to require a college kid's attention span to keep up with.

"Not your style, stranger?" Dennis quizzed.

"No, I'm in the mood for something more serious, I've been having trouble focusing ever since someone hit me with a changeup on the Avenue," I said while paging through some newspaper clippings near the snack bar. "How does it feel to sit behind that snack bar?"

"Almost like holding a gun ... only much more powerful."

"Your friends have a high mortality rate, Dennis."

"I've never killed anything -- and especially never a writer. It would be like killing a priest -- a Catholic priest. What do you want? Who are you?"

"Matt Zoller Seitz," I said, trying to catch him off guard.

"Matt's gone."

"Glenn Kenny."

"What's your name? Glenn's gone too!"

"You should know Dennis, better than anyone," I said, in an attempt to bluff the man into a confession. "They were writing until they met you."

"Don't talk about what you don't know," Dennis said as he put his hands on the snack bar and leaned toward me. "I knew Matt, I knew Glenn, and I definitely knew Larry. They're gone now, and someday you and I will be gone as well."

"Larry once told me I could never be like him," I said, facing the facts that I may never solve this case. "Now I understand why."

"So, you found out you're not a shamus after all," Dennis asked.

"Just a writer."

"An ancient race. And other publishers from Downtown will be along, and they'll kill off Front Row."

"The future don't matter to us," I lamented. "Nothing matters now -- not the comments, not the visitors, not the women. I came here to see you. 'Cause I know that now, you'll tell me who's going to be next."

"Not till the point of dying," Dennis said as he slinked into the projection booth to put on the final reel of The Movie Orgy.

I don't think I'll ever know if Dennis was serious with that line. Maybe I don't want to know. Whatever his intentions were, I didn't want to kill the man for the information I needed. At this point it didn't matter, because all I was thinking about was getting home to my new boss. My phone was buzzing with the kind of grunts that only come from a 5-month-old child about to wake up, so I had precious remaining minutes to finish whatever investigation I was still pursuing.

Ahead of me on the street I saw Chris Stangl painting on a fresh canvas. Chris has the rare ability to reproduce his dreams with colors, and perhaps they had something to say about my pursuit.

"Roll the bones, Chris. What do they say tonight? I'm desperate for answers."

"The door to your answer is right in front of you," Chris said without removing his eyes from his art. "Sometimes a name is everything."

I was out of money so I dropped the Lee Van Cleef ball in Chris' collection plate. The advice sounded genuine, so I raced through my mental rolodex of names: Piper (is he tooting a tune leading all the writers out of town?), Ted Pigeon (is the culprit waiting for me by the fountain like so many birds?), Arbogast (is this the reason he hides his identity?) -- all of them seemed suspicious but none deserved a shake down at this time of night. This case was getting cold, but I couldn't help the feeling that I needed to take a final l -- wait, that's it! Final ... Final Girl! The motives were all clear: Stacie Ponder's obsession with the last remaining horror movie heroines had clouded her judgment, and now she must become the literal Final Girl of Front Row. Approaching her digs on Descent Drive, I just hoped I wasn't too late.


Seeing the pile of unopened comments at her door, I knew my fears were real -- it was Wednesday so Stacie was at her new place Downtown for the day. Just my luck, looks like one man is powerless in this city to stop a greater evil. But as I turned down the street heading for my place, an illuminated cat in a doorway caught my eye -- were those shoes sitting next to it? Great, am I going to be the next one to bite the dust?


"What kind of a spy do you think you are, satchel-foot? What are you tailing me for? Cat got your tongue?"

My outbursts are greeted by silence from the doorway, and only succeed in waking up one of Stacie's neighbors.

"Come out, come out, whoever you are. Step out in the light. Let's have a look at ya. (The cat licks its paw.) Who's your boss?"

Just as I was about to turn and run for it, Stacie's irate neighbor turned on her bedroom light, flashing a beam of light into the dark doorway. The light revealed a face unfamiliar to me, but the look on it told me everything I needed to know.

"Larry."

He flashed a coy smile, but before I could cross the street and find out his story, a taxi raced in front of me. And like that, he was gone. Leaping over to where the missing publisher once stood, I saw a single white card was now in his place. There was writing on it ... and it told me exactly what I had been looking for all night. Larry's safe, but there's a lot of publishers who aren't, and one in particular who may be gone by morning. That fight would have to wait for someone else, as the crying I could hear down the street could only be coming from one crib.

There are thousands of stories in Print City, this was one of them ....

No more Gene Hackman movies?

Has it really been four years since Gene Hackman has been in a movie? Yup, and that number is only going to get larger now that he has unceremoniously announced his retirement. It's by far the longest gap in his acting resume, with the closest being a couple of two year spaces between credits in the 80s and 70s, though he was unquestionably involved in multiple projects during those years. It's sad seeing Hackman say he "hasn't worked in four years," because at the same time we have Al Pacino in 88 Minutes and Robert DeNiro in shit (substitute recent DeNiro movie of your choice). Hackman rarely dominated a movie the way those actors did, but he carried quite a few. Can you name all the great Hackman roles and movies without going to his IMDB page and finding four or five you missed?


He's had an amazing career that began when he broke into television work at age 30. No silver spoon or family pedigree here, Hackman was apparently raised in a broken home and subsequently joined the Marines at 16 after lying about his age. This comes as no shock, as Hackman has barely aged in his acting career and probably looked about 28 when he walked into that recruiting station. After watching the new Bonnie and Clyde DVD a couple times, I forgot how old the "young" Hackman looked, because he's had pretty much the same look for the past 40 years. Maybe not a famous look, but one that allowed him to ably fill roles ranging from good-hearted (Hoosiers, Young Frankenstein, The Poseidon Adventure) to absolute evil (Superman: The Movie, Prime Cut, Unforgiven). Plus he has that voice. My God, that voice. Is it evenpossible to do a Gene Hackman impression?

While it's not exactly his last movie, I'm going to consider his titular role in The Royal Tenenbaums to be his farewell performance. It might just be my favorite Hackman performance, and it's easily his funniest. As Royal Tenenbaum, Hackman plays the reprehensible and lovable patriarch who can tear a family apart and bring it back together. Hackman didn't have too many opportunities to show off his comedic talent, but he does it here with almost every line:

"Anybody interested in grabbing a couple of burgers and hittin' the cemetery?"

"I'm very sorry for your loss. Your mother was a terribly attractive woman."

"I've always been considered an asshole for about as long as I can remember. That's just my style. But I'd really feel blue if I didn't think you were going to forgive me."

Wes Anderson obviously knew how to utilize Hackman for a role that pretty much carries his best movie. That was seven years ago, and only three years after its release, the roles apparently dried up. I respect Hackman's decision to avoid a career playing old judges, grandfathers and generals, but I also have hope that a meaningful project will come his way one of these years.

'Jupiter and the Infinite Beyond'

After recently watching some of the documentaries contained in the new DVD of 2001: A Space Odyssey, it amused me that so much time was spent discussing the film as a prediction of the future by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke. Many of the directors and film experts interviewed felt the need to defend the inaccuracy of this prediction, how we're just as far from an interplanetary civilization as we were 40 years ago (to the day), and that 1960s optimism fueled the two men to think such feats could be accomplished by 2001. I say the year is irrelevant. It could have been titled 4001 -- because Kubrick's main message is that traveling to Jupiter is no more noteworthy than crossing the street.

If the race to the moon fueled Kubrick's desire to make 2001, then it was out of his amusement of society's optimism more than the director jumping on the bandwagon of Jupiter By 2001. I think Kubrick could see that however far space travel advanced, man would still never understand the universe or its creation. 2001 is about the unknown and the unknowable. The viewer doesn't understand the fantastical sights in the final act any more than Dave, and what he sees could represent the impossible nature of the universe -- an expanse of life too great for human minds to understand.

What lies beyond Jupiter is Kubrick's mockery of society's overconfidence -- he's the ultimate killjoy at the biggest party on Earth. "Oh, you made it to the noon? Whoopty shit. Bout damn time." Kubrick was looking far past the moon, and he saw what man will never have. Even today we're still not sure of just how little we know about where we live. Earlier this year, scientists at Michigan State University found that the seemingly-vacant areas of space between galaxies is often home to unseen stars, and possibly more galaxies. This discovery brings our current estimate of total galaxies to around 50 or 60 billion and possibly many more, with each galaxy containing about 100 billion stars each. So if the entire universe was Earth, our total understanding of it would be limited to a wastebasket in a one-bedroom apartment in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. If that.

The vision of the future in 2001 will remain the most accurate ever predicted. Even if we send a manned crew to the outer planets, it'll still be a small ripple in a tiny pond. Just as Dave finds out at the end, the universe does not exist for man to decipher, and this fact will only be reinforced the further we probe to find the limits of space. While the idea of HAL 9000 and cosmic commuting may have excited audiences about what the future would hold, Kubrick probably saw it as a dark reminder about our inconsequential rank in the cosmos, and perhaps how we are all dwarfed by a higher power.

Four Favorite Fathers on Film

I really had no idea. Sure, I had read almost an entire book on fatherhood. Even went to a class or four on this thing called a baby. But from day one (maybe minute one), it occurred to me that I was woefully ill-prepared. Beyond a name I wasn't really sure what I had to give him, since my wife was the one with all the food. I felt guilty at first for not educating myself more, but I've since learned that parenting (unlike bomb defusing) is only done with on-the-job training. What did I expect? I think my expectations were shaped by the visions of fatherhood I had seen in movies, with each one of these fellas helping to mold those expectations, while teaching me a parenting skill or two along the way:

Jor-El (Marlon Brando), Superman: The Movie



I put this one first because it was the movie I thought of after hearing the news of a child in our future. Not really the movie, just these two great lines from Jor-El. It's maybe the best thing you can say about someone. Jor-El appears to be pledging his soul to young Kal-El, but the way he says it (and the use of that mysterious crystal) tells us he is absolutely certain Kal-El will never be alone. The opening scenes on Krypton are my favorite of the movie, and are essential to Richard Donner's Superman rising above lesser action fare to an elite level of comic adaptations. Brando's performance has been criticized (especially for what he was paid for the minimal screentime), but where some may see a character bereft of emotion I see confidence. The man's planet is about to explode, but he's relatively at peace because he will be able to see his son prosper on another world.
Key parenting attributes: Supernatural supervision, Phantom Zone research.

Chingachgook (Russell Means), The Last of the Mohicans

It's one thing to know your pops has your back, it's another to know he wields the most terrifying axe/club in the Western world. Chingachgook and his son Uncas (Eric Schweig) are the last of their tribe, and along with Hawkeye (Daniel Day-Lewis) they are also the last of a peaceful kind of frontiersman that is being driven to extinction by the outbreak of war and colonization. Chingachgook is a man of few words, preferring to do most of his speaking with his weapon, which is frequently seen smashing limbs and flying through the air. The old man takes center stage in the film's amazing climax, avenging Uncas' death with devastating efficiency before delivering the film's memorable epilogue (from the director's cut):

The frontier place is for people like my white son and his woman and their children. And one day there will be no more frontier. And men like you will go too, like the Mohicans. And new people will come, work, struggle. Some will make their life. But once, we were here.

Key parenting attributes: Carry the largest stick in the forest, save words for later.

Antonio (Lamberto Maggiorani), Bicycle Thieves


I get choked up every time I watch Bicycle Thieves, not at the depressing ending -- but during Antonio and his son Bruno's brief moments of bonding in the midst of their desperate search for the father's stolen bicycle (which equals a job in post-War Italy). The young Bruno doesn't live the life of a small boy, he is forced to be grow up and contribute to the family however possible while not making a fuss. Like his father, Bruno wears the solemn look of a person who does not expect life to be pleasurable, because he has only known struggle. But for a short time one afternoon, Antonio and Bruno become father and son. Perhaps realizing that his bicycle will never be found, and that this small boy walking with him is more important than it, Antonio takes his son out to a restaurant (probably for the first time in his life). Both characters let their guard down at the restaurant and for a few moments forget about the troubles that await them outside its doors. This is always the most heartbreaking part of the movie for me, because Antonio realizes he has deprived his son of a childhood and that he is destined for a life of struggles like his father.
Key parenting attributes: Wine warms the heart, don't let your babies grow up to be bums.

Ben Harper (Peter Graves), The Night of the Hunter

Before he was asking kids about gladiator movies, Peter Graves played every boy's dream vision of the coolest father ever: the tragic would-be Robin Hood dad who entrusts you with his loot before he's hauled away to the gallows. Okay, it's pretty depressing -- but at some point Aiden and I are going to sit down and decide where he'll hide the booty (if and when it comes to that) if I ever am forced to present him with said booty. If I ever have minutes to spare before being hauled away for good, I don't want to waste any time formulating a hidden booty plan like Ben here.
Key parenting attributes: Thievery is your last option, even if the Great Depression is over.

Burmese Promises: Rambo's back

By Mark A. Curci

Was the it the Philosophers' film of the Decade?
Of course not.
No more than Cash was a poet laureate.
BUT. Was it a good movie? Absolutely.
To examine...The first, damn near inherent, argument...Does America (and, by that. most Americans mean "the World" NEED another Rambo film?
Weren't all those points made? Well, I suspect Stallone's perspective would indicate, "Clearly not."
We start with First Blood, a truly introspective film most people haven't seen, based on the VERY advanced novel by the Canadian writer David Morell.
The thesis? Humans enter into wars with the Abraham convention that sacrifice has a divine dignity to it- which it might...BUT; without respect and understanding of the true implications OF that sacrifice; and WHO and HOW those sacrifices unfold-without THAT understanding... how dare we?
I think ALL the films, at surely varying degrees of complexity, present the thesis that we’ve always been to quick to send out our sacrifices like we’d order in a pizza during a blizzard or hurricane. With calm, detached, simple removal.
The sequels... testosterone infused zen answers to questions we have yet to fully articulate; about how the soldier breaks; fails society, and how an already innately broken society has always failed to answer the riddle of the soldiers we broke.
Well...so DOES the world need another Rambo?
I guess that depends on whether or not you feel that that question has been answered yet.
In MY opinion, given the movements of the world, and us within it...No. We still ask the same questions with the same bullets.
On the other hand, director/co-writer Stallone takes a keenly hard-lined approach at those who would answer those questions with home-grown, absentee-faith-based naiveté. His answer to that is equally grisly.
My appreciation for the film is that it ultimately offers no immediate answer. It merely paints a portrait of war that, one critic, bafflingly in a pejorative sentiment, said that the film, "depicts violence so graphically that it transcends cartoonishness."
Well, duh. That's the point.Violence transcends cartoonishness.
And, even in the parts where one roots for the "good" guy... the shots are devastating. They are laborious. They are disgusting... and, further, they make ourselves disgusted with ourselves for having ever rooted for the John Wayne simplifications-cowboys-and-indians answers we were handed before.
Seeing a person come apart isn't supposed to be simple, and it certainly isn't supposed to be pretty. It's a disgusting, revolting act, meant to be just that. And, here, it is.
In this film… it is NOT. The theme of the original is how long of a road home life is, in the context of the horrors we face.Attach your own philosophy to what "home" is; but in this film... I feel Stallone presents a very sober, if not subjective, answer.
Something of a..."Enough is FUCKING-ENOUGH!!!"...Maybe home IS worth the trip.
And, in his way, a big "Fuck-you" to Hollywood to boot. Ironically, Hollywood hasn't gotten it yet, and is actually marketing it. But I think I get it.
Anyway, again, all subjective. But I give it a thumbs up.
Again, by NO means the best film of whatever *insert arbitrary time frame* BUT...a work of artistic and competent merit, for sure....my friend who accompanied me, a world-traveled anthropology major, she thanked me, saying she felt the film had merit, that she appreciated it AND... that, of course, she'd never have seen it if I hadn't asked her to accompany me.
There you go. Like all Zen...sometimes the best way to think is by not over-thinking. In that, Stallone has always been our masculine-monk-master... forever under-appreciated in the plainest of sight.…the point is made through what I observed while smoking on my deck after the film.
Six cars, on an obviously iced up road zoomed past. Each times, within seconds, a long and loud screech wailed down the road. Americans just don’t get what’s obvious. They must be slapped, then lulled. We don’t wish nor require sense. We need to be tricked, into Stewart, or Stallone- wisdom masqued as Pop, to get the Point.
The point is the ridiculousness of us, our excess our vanity and our willingness to go the distance.
St. Aquinas painted proof of God’s existence in the world as evidenced through five naturalized proofs. We, on the other hand, have bleached everything natural from our periphery and wonder why we never see God in the white noise punctuating our commercial channel surfing. We’re fools. But, the fools we are- ignorant to so much of the Art in this world… we’d do worse than a three-billion-dollar, one-eyed King like Stallone finally coming full-circle....But enough of that... read the book ya'selves!

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Mark A. Curci is a writer and poet based in Ashland, Ore. He once rode a Greyhound bus from Oregon to New Orleans and back.

Paradox of the Ghostbusters

I was witness to a rare event this weekend: a child of the 80s seeing Ghostbusters for the first time. Actually, it's not really his fault -- he was raised in a pentecostal household, so it's my job as his friend to introduce him to some of the movies he missed out on. It's possible that I've seen Ghostbusters more than any other movie. Growing up, I watched it every time it came on HBO, and many more subsequent times after learning where the "record" button was on our VCR. I obviously know the movie backwards and forwards, but there's a few elements that have intrigued me during my last couple viewings.

It's easy to see why Ghostbusters was one of the decade's biggest hits, as it successfully combined the genres of comedy, sci-fi, horror and adventure. None of these genres really overshadows the other, as a well-crafted paranormal story is always building in the background as the jokes on the screen keep coming from the right and the left. The Gozer/Zuul plot is the stuff of childhood nightmares, and by the end you want to know more about these Sumerian gods and just what the hell they had in store for New York City -- nevermind the goddamned marshmallow parade. Ghostbusters leaves a lot on the table, and that's a good thing because the plot carries so many possible pathways and terror that it's never stretched thin. But what got me thinking during this last viewing were two lines that could have pushed the movie in another direction, especially if it was straight sci-fi/horror and not comedy.

Let's say this Twinkie represents the normal amount of psychokinetic energy in the New York area. Based on this morning's reading, it would be a Twinkie thirty-five feet long, weighing approximately six hundred pounds.

Egon is projecting huge paranormal activity on the horizon. While he has lots of scary data, Egon doesn't arrive at the conclusion his numbers should point to. From the outside, it appears that the number of ghosts in New York increases with the amount that the Ghosbusters catch, that no matter how many they contain there will always be that many more throughout the city. Emphasizing this point is that in the early stages of the film the ghosts are few to none, and it stays that way after they open business. Also, when all the spirits are freed by shutting down the containment grid, the city is obviously terrorized like never before. Whether it's the act of containing these spirits in a central location, or merely the psychological hysteria in the public that comes with knowing ghosts actually exist -- the Ghostbusters are the true public enemy by contributing to the city's ghost population.

Wait for the sign! Then our prisoners will be released!

Lewis, while possessed as Vinz Klothar, forecasts the chaos that will result when the containment field is shut down. So the question is, without the Ghostbusters, would the terror dogs and Gozer have been awakened/summoned? Are the Ghostbusters an unwilling participant in a paranormal apocalypse by harboring their collection of spirits? Or, was their enterprise merely one of the final steps of a plot set in motion thousands of years ago in Sumeria -- with Ivo Shankor and his interdimensional gateway of a skyscraper being yet another Earthly pawn?

Questions like these have to be asked because they are not touched on at all in the movie. Since its intentions are fairly light, the battle with Gozer ends with a parade. With a more serious tone, Ghostbusters may have ended with the team reflecting on their role in Gozer's summoning, and perhaps deciding to hang their proton packs up for good in the interest of mankind. As it is, the Ghostbusters never feel any weight of responsibility after the events in Dana's apartment building or speak of any closure with Egon's Twinkie data. The sequel brings down this way of thinking, as the paranormal activity in the city obviously continues after Gozer is turned back. It's a tribute to the movie that even with a comedic tone, Ghostbusters manages to weave such an involving and complex ghost story.

'Halloween' lessons learned

I really couldn't turn down the opportunity to see a double feature of Halloween 4 and Halloween 5 on the big screen. Showings like this don't come around very often in Boise -- the only other such offering this month was a 25th anniversary screening of Heavy Metal at the so-beautiful-they-really-should-show-better-movies-than-Heavy Metal Egyptian Theatre. And while I wasn't expecting to see two good movies, I did come away with some good lessons about the original Halloween, and the new one.

I really had no knowledge of the Halloween sequels past II. I've seen almost all the Friday the 13th sequels and a few Nightmare on Elm Streets, but didn't really know what I was in for with these two Halloweens. Actually, that's not true. A friend of mine in grade school, who saw every new horror movie that came out, told me once that Part 5 was his favorite movie of all time

The double feature was part of a national event put on by Monsters HD, I think it was broadcast by satellite or something, and the movies were prefaced by a new documentary on the two sequels. Since it consisted of 20 minutes of interviews of cast and crew trying to make the movies out to be masterpieces, there were a few highlights. Notably, Danielle Harris talking about how she and Donald Pleasence had fun "taking pictures" of each other on the set (when Harris was about 11) and how Part 4 director Dwight Little was qualified to make a Halloween movie because he celebrated Halloween in the Midwest. My experience with the other two 1980s slasher franchise sequels convinced me that I was in for a few solid entertaining hours in Haddonfield ... but as Crissy Hines once sang: "My city was gone."

4 and 5 are simply horrible movies. To say they were made "by the numbers" would be an insult to first grade arithmetic. On my way out of the theater, I kept siting examples to my viewing companion that the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street sequels, while hardly "good," at least found ways to spice things up with each successive movie -- giving you a reason to not walk out on it. While Jason continually carved up campers as the years dragged on, we at least got to meet Corey Feldman's character, the psychic girl, and even experienced him in 3-D. Freddie Krueger had a built-in sequel mechanism, with more bad puns and nightmare imagery added to each movie -- however tiresome that became. With the Halloween sequels, all we're given is the mask, a crazy Donald Pleasence and a Haddonfield sign placed in a Salt Lake City neighborhood.

And it's one thing for a slasher movie to be bad, but does it have to be boring? When both movies arrive open their third acts, the action grinds to a screeching halt: In 4 we have all the characters sitting in a dark house waiting for suspense that never arrives, and in 5 there's literally a 10 minute scene of characters chasing stray kittens through a barn before being killed (the people, not the kittens). Worse yet, there's absolutely zero scares in either of them, not that they don't try. It seems like both directors felt Michael Myers was the reason Halloween was scary, giving us many shots of him: Michael standing in the mist, Michael on a roof, Michael floating down a creek, Michael driving a car, Michael ordering an iced Chai latte (sadly, only this last one is a lie). Of course, Michael by himself is not scary, and certainly not when he's wearing a cheap imitation of John Carpenter's mask -- it makes him look like an action figure being used for a miniature shoot. Carpenter went the Jaws route with Michael -- just giving us glimpses of him, usually in between shadows. A glimpse of Michael's face in perfect lighting can be scary, seeing Michael poorly hiding behind branches in broad daylight on a busy street is not.

After being disappointed with 4, I felt for sure 5 would be an improvement -- especially after David McReynolds' hearty 5th grade endorsement of it. Just as The Wild Bunch closed the Western era in 1969, Halloween 5 must have really slammed the door on slasher movies 20 years later. The movie is so ridiculously flawed and uninteresting that the only redeeming quality of it is that it was shot and distributed in a span of only 5 months -- beginning production in May 1989 and getting to screens that October. In that sense, it's a little understandable why it feels only half completed: why the opening 5 minutes are recycled from the previous movie, why we see Michael taken in by a hobo and his parrot who let the masked monster apparently sleep for a year until the next Halloween, why Ellie Cornell's 4 character is reduced to a few scenes of excitedly taking off her clothes and grinning at the large sweater she's going to wear like it's a birthday cake, why we're made to watch teens leave a rockin' Halloween party so they can chase kittens in a barn, and why there is an infuriatingly anonymous character who apparently plays a huge role in the film's plot.

That last part still rankles me. Who is this Man in Black who wears steel-tipped boots and a cowboy hat? What are his motives? Does he have anything to do with Michael's unexplained tattoo we see at the beginning? We'll never know for sure, especially not after the Man in Black guns down the police station and allows Michael to escape from jail (yes, Michael is dramatically arrested in 5 -- justice is finally served). Couldn't this character have been used to provide us something interesting in the movie?

And that brings me to Rob Zombie's Halloween, which I've been holding off writing a review for. I honestly really enjoyed the movie, even more so after seeing these awful sequels. Remake or sequel, it's a high quality addition to a franchise that was repeatedly dug up and buried through the 80s and even 90s. There are actual interesting elements of the movie, and its momentum peaks where it should -- in the final act. I don't mind that Zombie tried to explain Michael's past, especially because it draws no conclusions. No matter who raised Michael, there was something behind those black eyes that would eventually become pure evil, and Dr. Loomis couldn't find the answer after decades of research. I think it works perfectly as a remake, riffing on a few of Carpenter's scenes, while adding original ones, without being too obvious. Best of all, Zombie was smart enough to know how to shoot that mask.

Welcome to Haddonfield

You know a horror movie is great when you can't pinpoint just what it is about it that scares you. It's one thing to have the villain jump out of the shadows and startle you, but it's quite another to fill the viewer with a constant sense of dread and uneasiness. Halloween does this better than almost any other horror movie, and it's due in no small part to the fact that John Carpenter was behind the camera.

Working on a tiny budget, Carpenter's horror movie would have no special effects, frightful sets or gruesome villains. For his most terrifying element, Carpenter turned to a place we've all seen: Anytown, U.S.A. Instead of having characters trapped in the dark surroundings of an unfamiliar hell, Carpenter focused on everyone's fear of their privacy being invaded. In the fictional Haddonfield, Ill., where Michael Myers "comes home," we are given a seemingly ordinary town with no shortage of peace and quiet -- and that's what makes it so scary.

Outside of a brief scene at a school and in the downtown area, our experience in Haddonfield takes place exclusively in a safe-as-can-be American neighborhood with unobstructed sidewalks, groomed gardens and not a stoplight in sight. But it's what the neighborhood lacks that creates a sense of unease and isolation.

Outside of the corps characters and a few random trick-or-treaters (who are never a focus of the lens), there are no other people on the sidewalks. If you take out the main characters, we see no other cars on the street, except for one far in the background. All of the houses are large with landscaped yards, but none of them seem to be occupied. It's Halloween, but the neighborhood is largely asleep, with no decorations outside of jack-o-lanterns. Best of all, the whole place is completely silent -- you don't hear so much as the wind howling.

With this design of the world in Halloween, Carpenter gives us a surrounding that is familiar, but also isolated. There is never any point in the movie when our characters feel like anyone else can help them, with no one else in sight, much less a passing police car. Carpenter also plays with our expectations of a horror movie, by giving us some of the biggest scares in broad daylight. You can argue that the scariest part of the whole movie is Laurie's walk home, wondering what could be lurking behind that hedge? And if we're this scared now, what could he have in store for us when the sun goes down?

Halloween as a holiday presented Carpenter with a myriad of scary possibilities, especially through the eyes of the children Laurie babysits. For children, what other time of the year are you most vulnerable to monsters? Although Halloween never directly focuses on the terror visiting Tommy and Lindsey, we can only assume what's going through their minds during a night when they took in television viewings of The Thing From Another World! and Forbidden Planet. Both movies, science fiction in genre but with a healthy dose of horror, contain an alien juggernaut pitted against scientific minds. Before their awful night is over, the children will witness a creature of seemingly infinite strength and durability crash into their house and clash with adults who are just as frightened.

Halloween helped set the stage for a decade of slasher movies, but none were able to duplicate the everyday fright of Carpenter's classic.

'It's not the age honey, it's the mileage'

As someone who was obsessed with all things Indiana Jones growing up (including the seldom-seen arcade game that featured one button: "whip"), I was fascinated a few years ago to read about the shot-by-shot remake of Raiders of the Lost Ark that a few adolescent friends put together in Mississippi. The Vanity Fair article (PDF file) that introduced most of us to the project dove into the elements that make this story almost too good to be true: a homemade film that took 8 years to make, made by friends who put everything they had into the film's making, and a finished project that even impressed Steven Spielberg.

Raiders: The Adaptation is also a movie that few will see, because due to licensing restrictions it will likely never be on DVD, and it's even tricky to get it into private screenings. Thanks to the Idaho International Film Festival, I was finally able to see the adaptation and learn even more about its tremendous back story. Talking to one of the festival's organizers before the movie, she said not to expect it to be like an actual movie, especially the sound recorded on a BetaMax camcorder. The film has not been touched since its final edit in 1988 (rightfully so) and is pretty raw. While it's true that it's not like an actual movie, Raiders: The Adaptation is also one of the most unique movie-watching experiences I've ever had.

The sound is so garbled that probably 80 percent of the dialog is indecipherable, so if you have never seen Raiders of the Lost Ark beforehand, you'll get a little frustrated trying to follow things. But that's where a lot of the fun comes in -- because John Williams' score is used throughout, the film takes on a hybrid-silent quality. Luckily they were dealing with a fairly simple story that relies little on dialog to drive it (we're not talking Glengarry Glen Ross here). But the raw sound does little to hamper the kids' enthusiastic acting, notably the energy of Angela Rodriguez as Marion. Eric Zala, Chris Strompolous and Jayson Lamb fill in most of the male roles (and almost every crew position), but Rodriguez is probably the strongest performer and really brings the adaptation to another level.


The main reason the adaptation took 8 years to produce was a commitment to high-quality stunts, sets and special effects, and the end result is sometimes startling (considering the circumstances). In a Q&A session afterward, Strompolous explained that most indoor scenes were shot in one of their basements -- including the pyrotechnic-laced barroom shootout. Once the movie gets going, you find yourself wondering just how they will accomplish the various memorable scenes, and they only skip past them in a few instances (such as the large scale 'Flying Wing' sequence). In all other cases, they turn to their youthful creativity -- the Ark setpiece looks nearly identical to the original's, they were able to film in a decommissioned submarine in Mobile, Ala. (after three years of haggling), a small dog is substituted for the monkey in Marrakesh, Indy gets away from the dart-shooting natives via motorboat and not airplane, and the famous map travel interludes are accomplished with stop-motion animation. Probably the most impressive scene is the famous truck chase, which is presented more or less in full, with the Nazis riding in a Volkswagen SuperBeetle instead of a Mercedes, and Indy commandeering an old Ford truck. I kept waiting for Indy's risky stunts underneath the truck to be cut, but there it was -- with a 15-year-old kid hanging on for dear life.

One of the biggest surprises was how fun it was to see the credits, where the makers went out of their way to credit each and every contributor -- meaning their own names were listed no less than 15 times. The final credit reads: "This is the end," -- The Doors.

Raiders: The Adaptation has no peers, and no genre. There are innumerable examples of this kind of tribute on YouTube, but today's kids have so much more at their disposal than simply a BetaMax camera. Strompolous talked of coordinating each friend's birthday and Christmas wish list to relate to what their production needed, and any allowance they got went straight to the movie. There were even a couple times where the boys went a couple months without talking to each other, and at one point it looked like the project was put to bed for good ... until Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade came out. The third entry in the trilogy provided all the motivation they needed. By then, all three friends were 18 and dealing with a project that had consumed their entire childhood. After working endless hours at a local television studio to finish the final edit ... it was done.

The story goes that each friend went his separate way for college, and Zala ended up at NYU where a certain student named Eli Roth watched the adaptation one night, and began spreading the word. Soon, Spielberg had seen it and the Vanity Fair article was in the works. In 2004, it was announced that a documentary of the adaptation's production was underway (still TBA). All three eventually quit high-paying jobs in the entertainment industry to focus again on their childhood film, touring around film festivals with it. Strompolous spoke of a screening last year in an Eastern Idaho town I had never heard of, so they clearly get around to every corner of the country with this thing. He also told me that while working in the DVD industry, he pitched the film to Paramount as an extra in the Indiana Jones Trilogy. They smiled and said no.

At the Boise screening, the theater was packed with families, and even kids who obviously hadn't seen the original before seemed captivated. In a way, it's the ultimate kids movie. The message here is this: if Raiders: The Adaptation comes to your town, don't miss it -- it might be your only chance.

Note: Visit TheRaider.net for an extensive history of the adaptation.

Wes Anderson: It's in the Details (Part II)

As I said in Part I, what I love most about Wes Anderson's movies is his attentiveness to the details. Often they don't have anything to do with the plot, or you only catch them the second time through, but they're what make Anderson's movies his. In The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, these details are less explicit than they were in The Royal Tenenbaums (such as a richly detailed quick flashback of Ethelline's former suitors or the infamous paintings in Eli's house). The details here are less bombastic and usually low-key, fitting in with the overall mood and story of the film.

1. Steve Zissou's office, like that of Raleigh St. Claire in The Royal Tenenbaums, features an outrageous rotary telephone.
2. Anne-Marie is topless when she's introduced, silently inferring that she's foreign, but she has an American accent in her later scenes.
3. All the crew members of the Belafonte have multiple titles, except Pele, who is merely the "safety expert."
4. Zissou's interns are from the University of North Alaska.
5. The packed theater in the beginning is made up of French and English speakers, as half the audience starts laughing at Zissou's reply before the translator starts talking.
6. The over-attentive assistant at the theater brings Zissou and the host an ornate crystal pitcher of water without prompt.
7. Zissou and Alistair Hennessey (Jeff Goldblum) are both wearing a number of apparently nautical decorations on their suits at the gala, but Hennessey has more, including some sort of medal in place of a tie.
8. Zissou's entire crew, and also Hennessey, wear a small green pin on their lapel.
9. At the after party on the Belafonte, Zissou gives Eleanor some her game of solitaire just before the power goes out.
10. The bar tender at the after party is one of Zissou's interns, wearing a shirt with "INTERN" boldly printed on it.
11. The Air Kentucky uniform that Ned Plimpton (Owen Wilson) wears includes a string tie in the style of Col. Sanders.
12. The kitchen in the Belafonte includes many racks of wine.
13. Among the books in The Steve Zissou Companion Series: Tragedy of the Red Octopus, Arctic Night Lights and Trawlers, Junks and Dinghies (Zissou later reads the latter, trying to identify the pirates' ship).
    
14. The painting of Hennessey at the Explorers' Club features him sitting on a couch on the deck of a boat, like he does later in the movie.
15. After Zissou berates the Explorers' Club waiter for trying to give wine to Ned -- who "doesn't know anything about wine" -- he throws it down like a shot.
16. One of the artifacts at the Explorers' Club is an old space suit from a foreign country.
17. After landing on his island with Plimpton, Zissou takes a bottle of liquor and a shot glass out of his suit jacket.
18. Continuing the theme of pay phones from earlier Anderson movies, the Belafonte contains a strange, foreign edition with many slots for coins. Unlike the pay phones in The Royal Tenenbaums, it is not rotary.
19. Plimpton's official correspondence stationary describes him as "Kingsley (Ned) Zissou."
20. Co-writer Noah Baumbach plays Oseary Drakoulias' assistant in a brief scene in his office.
21. Zissou uses the term "teamsmanship."
22. The studio inside the Belafonte contains a pristine electric guitar, similar to a Fender Jaguar model.
23. Among the stunts listed on the bulletin board are: Skydiving into the Volcano (crossed out by Eleanor), bottle shooting, Zodiac speed jump over rocks and cliff jumping.
24. Klaus makes himself a cappuccino during the raid on Hennessey's compound.
25. Hennessey has a framed picture of Lord Mandrake on his boat, just as Zissou does.
26. A rum cannonball (which Zissou remembers fondly from the Hotel Citroen) contains rum, gin, orange juice, strawberry soda, lemon-lime soda and pineapple juice.
    

Wes Anderson: It's in the Details (Part I)

Wes Anderson's career technically started with the marvelous Bottle Rocket, but the career he is currently living out began with Rushmore. It was with Rushmore that Anderson introduced a comedic style that not only featured traditional jokes, but a variety of "static" jokes disguised as background objects, names and seemingly trivial details. The montage of Max Fischer's heavy involvement in scholastic clubs was a perfect introduction to this style, as it took up little screen time but obviously contained a wealth of comedy that would be revealed further on repeat viewings. This style of Anderson's would be applied in his two subsequent films, The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Even though his upcoming The Darjeeling Ltd. looks to be less zany than those last two (obligatory: "why does it have to be zany?"), I'm infinitely thrilled to see it if only for seeing what details he serves up this time.

To me, this kind of comedy reminds me of the best moments of The Simpsons, where static jokes are treated like royalty by writers. But Anderson has quietly made this technique his own, and for me it doesn't get any better than in The Royal Tenenbaums. Here, I have listed (in all the not-so-obvious details, names and background objects I have noticed after many viewings. I intend to do this for the other two Anderson movies I mentioned as well.

1. Pagoda serves Royal Tenenbaum a martini on a silver tray, after he informed his children of their parents' divorce.
2. The cover of Etheline Tenenbaum's A Family of Geniuses seems to be a photograph taken at the book's very release junket, possibly indicating that we are seeing a later edition of the book.
3. The Tenenbaum family flag, an elongated pink triangle with a simple "T" crest at its base, flies on a spire at the family's Archer Avenue house as well as their summer home on Eagle's Island. This same shade of pink is frequently worn by Royal and Pagoda during the movie.
4. In a flashback to Royal addressing Margot as his adopted daughter, they are at a party and flanked by high-ranking military members apparently from Russia, Western Europe and the Middle East, as well as an old man in an outrageous houndstooth suit.
5. At young Eli Cash's house, in the background there is a key holder bearing Sharpie inscriptions of "Eli's Keys" and "Aunt's Keys" with respective arrows. Young Eli is later seen wearing a key on a necklace.
   
6. Royal wears the same outfit in all the childhood scenes: a tan coat with sunglasses and a lit cigarette.
7. As he is getting dressed for a press event for his new book, Old Custer, Eli is assisted by three men -- one of which holds up a platter of finger sandwiches. Eli takes one bite.
8. When we are introduced to Henry Sherman, he is apparently inside an apartment building he owns. Behind him are plaques with reminders of when garbage is picked up and other items. Below the text is "H. Sherman. Landlord."
9. After Royal is informed that he must leave The Lindburgh Palace Hotel, we see his masseuse packing his bags while he looks out the window and smokes.
10. The name of the reggae band Margot got involved with is Desmond Winston Manchester XI (the name of the album is illegible on my TV, anyone?)
11. The names of Margot's plays we see on posters in her room include and Nakedness Tonight and Erotic Transference.
12. Raleigh St. Claire's office is filled with various outdated technology, including a bizarre multiline rotary phone and random vacuum tube switchboards.
13. The three former suitors of Etheline are: Neville Smythe (a British Arctic explorer), Yasuo Oshima (an Asian architect) and Franklin Benedict (a John Huston-like director with an eye patch, cigarette and a set filled with an Indiana Jones lookalike, a pair of amphibious people, a space man and an obscured production chair, of which we can see the word "Galaxion").
14. While meeting with Pagoda, Royal calls Henry a "two-bit chartered accountant."
15. The Tenenbaum's neighborhood varies radically with each side of the house: one side is in an upscale area next door to the Thai embassy, another is in a downtrodden area and a third side is on a wooded street with a bus stop.
16. Margot's closet still contains her leopard costume used in the play performed on her birthday.
17. Eli is seen smoking a peace pipe.
18. Eli's apartment features the spectacular "Aggressively Mediocre/Mentally Challenged/Fantasy Island (circle one)" paintings by Miguel Calderon.
19. Richie is seen reading Three Plays by Margot Tenenbaum. The book can't be any longer than 150 pages, and though the names of the plays listed on the cover are illegible, none of them look to be the previously mentioned titles.
20. Henry Sherman's desk has an urn on it, presumably containing the remains of his wife who died of stomach cancer.
21. In addition to the previously mentioned former suitors, Henry and Etheline recall Gen. Doug Cartwright in conversation.
22. Rotary payphones are frequently featured in shots, often in strange locations such as near the water of a public swimming pool and on the roof of a rec center.
23. A gravestone observed by Royal and Richie reads "drowned in the Caspian Sea."
24. During the broadcast of Richie's infamous tennis meltdown, the play-by-play man is voiced by Wes Anderson. His color analyst is named Tex Hayworth.
25. Eli's apartment has a large table saw and a mounted bull's head with a lasso around the horns.
26. Richie is often seen drinking a Bloody Mary.
27. The magazine sent from Eli to Etheline has a note that reads "Dear Mrs. Tenenbaum, just in case you missed it. --Eli."
28. Eli's cover story is titled "Where the Wild Things Are" and has a deck that reads "New work reopens genre. Adam Scher talks with the James Joyce of the West."
29. Eli's previous novel was titled Wildcat.
30. Royal tells a cabbie to take him to the "375th St. Y" and their destination bears that literal title.
31. The novel The Royal Tenenbaums that the movie supposedly follows is very poorly written. When chapter headings introduce scenes, they begin with lines like "Royal is wearing his wool hat" or "they pull up in front of a building that looks like a huge castle."
32. When Chas is chasing Eli through the house during the wedding, Pagoda stops Eli with some sort of food and says "hey man, try this it's very tasty." Eli eats it.
33. Margot's play we see near the end, Levinsons in the Trees, appears to be based on the miniature set we see her playing with in the beginning.