Hostile

Hostel (2005)
Directed by Eli Roth, Screenplay by Eli Roth

I can't believe I'm going to defend Hostel because for the longest time I resisted seeing this film because of how I feel about the very idea of "torture porn" and because it didn't seem on face value to be much more than another misogynistic gorefest with the added bonus of xenophobia thrown in for some variety.
Curiosity, though, led me to stumble into seeing parts of Hostel, Part II and then later going back and seeing the first part to make sense of what I was seeing.
What I got was a gorefest with some misogyny and a large chunk of xenophobia thrown in. I also got a surprise, because somewhere in there was a well-made and thoughtful film. Granted, if you sit through a film once and then listen through four commentaries a certain Stockholm Syndrome (or Bratislava Syndrome) sets in. But at the very least Hostel is interesting enough to warrant some discussion and more arguments.
Somewhere in Hostel is a thought that equates paying for a person to provide pleasure (i.e. prostitution) with paying to cause pain to a person or, even, to kill a person.
And somewhere on top of that we who watch the fictionalization of these things are implicated in the business of pain entertainment.
The problem with Hostel is that it’s very difficult to critique a thing by showing the very same thing, which I suppose is the conundrum of attempting to introduce a peculiar kind of societal critique while reveling in gore. And this is the tension that animates Hostel--it exploits the desire to see sex and violence and explicit recreations of gore while it carries a criticism of the thing we're watching. Maybe the best explanation is that Eli Roth seems to want to express disgust with the idea that people would pay to torture and kill other people but considers the fictionalization of such things to be pretty cool and relatively harmless.

So here's the setup: three mooks are having adventures in Amsterdam. The two Americans are clearly doing a summer in Europe kind of thing and somewhere along the line they picked up an Icelandic Eurotrash guy to make things even wilder. Paxton (Jay Hernandez) seems to be the asshole of the bunch. Josh (Derek Richardson) is the nice guy who won't stop talking about his ex-girlfriend who cheated on him and dumped his sorry ass. And Oli (Eythor Gudjonsson) is the self-styled "King of the Swing" and instigator of mad activities. Our American ambassadors of freedom and hope (and Icelandic sidekick) are already bored with the hash bars and now they're looking for fun of the female variety. First they hit up the club scene, where Josh wears a fanny pack (containing all their important documents) thus preventing him and Paxton from getting laid. Oli, meanwhile has already texted pictures of himself having sex with a girl in the club's bathroom. This is the point at which I already don't care if Oli lives or dies because while I'm sure that the drunk girl (who knows, maybe she's sober) in the bathroom consented to get rear ended by an older Icelandic man in a cramped toilet I'm pretty sure she didn't expect to have that moment memorialized in a photograph to be shared with every backpacking foreigner in Europe.
The wonder boys then get kicked out of the club because Josh ends up in a fight with a long-haired Legolas lookalike. At this point the boys begin to use the adjective "Israeli" to describe how kickass they are. This is an adjective which I can only imagine is one more Lebanese fiasco from fading out of fashion the way that "French" and "menacing" were decoupled after Waterloo.

At any rate, now they really need to get Josh laid so they head to the famous Red Light District where they do some window shopping and then Oli pays for the three of them to have some fun. Josh and Oli double team a prostitute (in tasteless, but cinematically brilliant silhouette) while Josh wanders from room to room in the brothel. He hears some loud noises and, feeling chivalrous, opens a door into a bondage room where he is told that if he plans on staying he'd better be paying. The important lesson here is that if you're in a brothel and hear someone being whipped, just keep moving. Josh ends up in a room with a hooker with a heart of gold who talks to him fairly gently and then when she's looking the other way he just leaves. At this point I regained some sympathy for Oli who paid good money for a Dutch prostitute that Josh wasted without even offering to pay him back--or even admitting that he didn't do anything. So far, the film is pretty much a standard European student tourist adventure film.
But then our boys are locked out of their hostel because they've made it back past curfew which sparks a street battle with angry Dutch neighbors. Finally, they climb their way back in through the hostel window with the help of a friendly Slav named Alex (Lubomir Bukovy). Now, this is where things start going awry, because they come back to the hostel and there's a couple doing it in the back of the room while everyone else is casually conversing. This is the equivalent of wading in water nonchalantly while sharks bump into your leg. At a certain point in life you really have to make the choice to find somewhere else to be. Me, I'd go into another room. Alex, Josh and Paxton just sit and have a conversation. Oli sits on the bunkbed next to the copulating couple. None of these people is a reasonable human being.
Then Alex suggests that if our crew is looking for some gin-y then Barcelona is played out and where they should go is to Slovakia where he knows a hostel swimming in local women. To prove his point he pulls out his digital camera and shows off a bunch of pictures of himself having sex with some attractive women. This is the point at which I would have to say, "Thank you, mole-face (I forgot to mention that Alex has a distracting mole on his face) for your help in getting back in to the hostel but I have no desire to have sex with anyone who would go near you and your ugly mole." Instead, Alex spins a yarn about how Slovakia is aching for foreign penises since all their men were killed in the war. And this is the point at which whatever respect you might have had left for these men should disappear because none of them says "which war?" Not even the Icelandic dude. This would be the part where one might suggest that a summer spent backpacking across Europe will do nothing for increasing an American's knowledge about the world. (This bit is nicely counterpointed by a moment in Hostel Part II.)
Now, there are turning points in every life. And like I said, this is the part at which a reasonable person would look at Alex's picture, then look at his mole face, then look at Oli and the randy naked couple in the bunkbed and then calmly ask how he let things get this far and then, just as calmly, pick up a brick and bash his own head in.
But not Josh, Paxton and Oli. Nope, they're on the train for Bratislava where they meet a nice Dutch businessman (Jan Vlasak) who eats some meat covered salad with his hand and then proceeds to put his hand on Josh's leg prompting a quite understandable bit of homophobic hysteria. The Dutch guy and Oli show each other pictures of their daughters. This is when we learn that A) murderers have children that they love and B) Oli is way too old to be running around Europe with a bunch of American students. I have to say that this scene is one of the things to admire about this film because the Dutch guy later does some horrible things, and when we see that we have to remember that he has a family and he's not some sort of supernatural slasher lurking in the woods waiting to kill promiscuous teenagers. And that's the thing that makes this film that much more disgusting, because it's about ordinary folks who save up money to go and murder other ordinary folks.

Anyhow, the boys arrive in Slovakia to find the place a mixture of picturesque old architecture and decrepit abandoned industrial wasteland. But then they get to the hostel, which looks more like an abandoned chateau where the smiling idiot desk clerk (Milda Havlas) greets them with too much friendliness and then sends them up to their room which they discover that their roommates are a pair of hot women who invite them to the sauna. This is where you learn the most important life lesson of this film. If something seems too good to be true, then it is too good to be true. (The corollary to this is that the worst horror you can imagine is probably not as bad as the worst thing someone else is actually doing.) And while the whole atmosphere of the sauna seems to ooze friendliness and loose behavior, sane people should always have a puritanical streak in the back of their heads that should say, "yeah, but how much is this going to cost me?" I mean, it's all good and well to believe that people somewhere in the world are more comfortable sharing their sexuality freely, but still...you have to have a peculiarly American combination of naivete and arrogance to assume that you're going to roll into nowheresville and find the world's most attractive women throwing themselves at you.

Now, we're a good way into this movie and nobody has been killed and we haven't even caught a hint of violence. (Except for the bit where Oli shows off the face he's drawn on his buttcheeks--which did violence to my eyes.)
The boys head out to the bar with their super-friendly acquaintances Natalya (Barbara Nedeljakova) and Svetlana (Jana Kaderabkova). Oli hits it off with a girl from the hostel front desk, Vala (Jana Havlickova) and he shows everyone his swing dance moves, thus proving that his self-styled nickname actually was in fact an unimaginative and quite accurate description of his preferred method of dancing. But say what you will for Oli, at least you can believe that Vala would actually dig him in some way. I mean, you're working a crap job at a hostel in Slovakia and some Icelandic dude rolls in and can swing dance and is kind of funny (give or take) and also knows some old timey Russian tunes and has a decent singing voice. And while Paxton is an asshole, I have ceased to be surprised even in real life when a moderately attractive asshole manages to make time with an attractive woman. But the alarm bells should go out when Josh does everything he can to make sure he shouldn't be getting any and still doesn't repel his "date." He won't stop talking about his ex-girlfriend. He leaves the girl to go talk to the Dutch guy from the train and apologize for being such a homophobe and even puts his hand on the Dutch guy's knee. At this point there is no earthly way that any woman would be attracted to Josh. But Natalya and Svetlana are obviously bait--really attractive bait. There's a chilling moment during the subsequent encounter when Natalya and Svetlana just look at each other that tells you everything. Whatever pleasure they may or may not be getting is pointless. They're doing a job. Is it an exercise in misogyny to create a story where women are nothing more than bait? Maybe. But something to keep in mind is that we meet another pair of victims in the lobby of the hostel--two Asian girls. They certainly weren't lured in by the promise of desperate Natashas. I'd like to know how they ended up there. (Hostel Part II goes a long way toward explaining it.) At any rate, it shows a certain depth that it's not simply a matter of women luring men to this hostel. It's foreigners in general who are the problem.

So the dream night ends and when they wake up Oli is nowhere to be found and now the whole tone of the film moves into dark nightmare territory. Keep in mind, that at this point we're nearly halfway done with the film and still haven't seen an act of violence. Josh and Paxton go looking for Oli and end up in a museum of torture implements. Nothing bad actually happens there but they do see someone walking around in Oli's parka. Now they're creeped out. Kana (Jennifer Lim) shows the boys a texted picture of Oli and her friend Yuki (Keiko Seiko) which the guys find strange given Oli's expressed dislike of Asian girls. Paxton and Josh are freaking out and now the only thing missing is "People Are Strange" playing in the background to complete the picture. The first gruesome thing we get is a shot of Oli's detached head on a spike. And now we know what's up. The hunt is on and the quarry is on alert but still unaware of the scale of the threat.

And to make the whole place that much creepier we are treated to a bunch of little street kids demanding gum. Even the kids are menacing.

So it turns out the hostel was just a funnel to get young, relatively attractive people into the torture chambers where people pay good money (to Elite Hunting) to kill someone in elaborate ways at their own leisure. The glimpses we are shown are quite enough to establish the horror show going on there. Still, Roth leaves something to the imagination. Sure, he shows us a guy about to sever Yuki's toes, but instead of showing it he cuts over to Kana clipping her toenails. Despite the well-earned reputation for making explicit gore, Roth knows that sometimes the imagination fills in a horror show quite well enough.

Anyhow, just when you think that Josh is the most likely to survive, he disappears. Paxton is left running around town trying to track down Josh, who we next see in a torture chamber at the mercy of the Dutch guy from the train. The Dutch guy wanted to be surgeon, but he's got shaky hands so he's going to live out his dream by cutting open Josh. It's like Fantasy Island for sick sick people. Needless to say, it's too late for Josh. He's not going to make it out alive. Sorry kids, but sometimes nice guys do finish last.

Paxton, meanwhile, goes to the police who creep him out with their pointed lack of helpfulness. When he goes back to the hostel there are new girls who look like the old ones. When he finally tracks down Natalya and Svetlana they look like strung out heroin junkies--which makes sense given their day jobs. Natalya takes Paxton to the "Art Gallery" which is an abandoned warehouse/torture chamber. From here on out it's all about Paxton trying to escape, and in doing so revealing more and more about the operation of the place.

In a ludicrously violent scene Paxton loses several fingers to a guy with a chainsaw who then slips on some blood and cuts his own leg off and dies. This is how Paxton manages to escape. He hides for a while in a cart full of body parts that is taken to an incinerator by a hunchback. (You can't have an underground murder tourism operation without a helpful hunchback.) In the cart Paxton sees the remnants of Josh.

Takashi Miike, the Japanese director of films that would make you cringe, vomit and cringe again makes a cameo as a satisfied customer on his way home. (He is credited as playing himself, which I presume means that if there really was a place where you could pay to murder people Takashi Miike would pony up the yen to try it out?) And, just to reduce the xenophobic aspect of the situation, we meet another customer, a genuine American asshole with money. Paxton ends up shooting the guy. He also manages to rescue Kana, who unfortunately has had a blowtorch applied to her face and now has an eyeball dangling out which Paxton helpfully cuts off. This is by far the nastiest piece of work in the whole film. Now it's all about making good the escape. Paxton steals a car and heads into the city, where he sees Natalya, Svetlana and Alex the moleface standing in the middle of the street. He guns the car into them killing Svetlana and Alex instantly and when Natalya tries to get up she is finished off by the car that is chasing Paxton. As if this bit of revenge fantasy isn't enough Paxton then manages to find a bag of gum in the car which buys him the support of the street kids who proceed to ambush and stone the chase car, caving in the heads of the thugs with cobblestones and bricks in the process. Paxton and Kana make it all the way to the train station where Kana sees her reflection and jumps in front of a train. She does this, presumably, because she doesn't consider life worth living if she looks like that (and only has one eye, to boot). The question is: does she do this out of shock? Or is it an indication of the value she as a person places on her appearance? It's easy enough for Paxton to be shocked because his missing fingers will presumably not destroy his life.

At any rate, Paxton makes it onto the train and gets out of Slovakia only to see the Dutch guy in a train station further down the line. He follows the guy into the bathroom and proceeds to give him a swirly and cut his throat.

So, for all the legendary torture and blood in this film it was for the most part a long story about exploitation (wrapped in an exploitative package) which turns into an action escape story at the end with a big dose of revenge thrown in. While the gross parts are very gross they are put into some serious context (where all of the violence has lasting consequences) the overall effect was of a good ghastly story. It certainly wasn't the useless gratuitous film I was expecting to see. For those who think that any representation of violence breeds more violence, then maybe the problem is that making a good film where such violence is necessary to the story only opens the floodgates for more violence and constant escalation. The thing is, that while you can see that the filmmakers had fun creating the physical representations of the violence, you also have to admit that it's layered into a pretty thoughtful bit of storytelling. If every film like this was this well done then maybe this subgenre would be better. As it is, Hostel stands out as being a good film in a bad genre. As for those people who would watch such a film and really enjoy the gore and the torture--well, it's like trying to pin the blame for alcoholism down. Sure, without distillers there'd be no alcohol, but there'd still be people looking to get drunk out there. I don't enjoy torture porn, but I'm reassured by my distaste for and disgust at it. On the other hand, I can't deny that this is a good story. The contradiction there is something to think about.

Bonus Features

Commentaries
You have to be a serious cinephile to sit through 4 commentaries on any film, even if you really love it. I have to admire Eli Roth's dedication to his craft and the seriousness with which he takes his films that he bothers to put so much effort into explaining his films in so many commentaries. I know there is a school of thought that says that no film should require so much explaining--you either do it in the film or you don't. But I suppose there's something to be said for footnotes and scholia and commentary and frankly I am impressed with Roth's commentaries so I feel like I should make special mention of them as being integral to the appreciation of this film.

1. Eli Roth with Executive Producers Quentin Tarantino, Boaz Yakin and Scott Spiegel
In this commentary Roth explains how after the success of Cabin Fever he was at a career crossroads where he wasn't sure if he wanted to be known solely for horror films, but ultimately decided that he was okay with that to some extent because he wanted to make films he would like to see and that if that meant the industry would pigeon-hole him as "that guy" then so be it. Thus came Hostel, which Tarantino thought was Roth's opportunity to make his Miike film. I'm not sure why anybody would need to make their own Miike film, but there you have it. This commentary solidified my feelings about Quentin Tarantino (he comes off as more than a bit of an ass, personally, with somewhat distasteful appetites, but he does know a lot about films and he is quite supportive of Roth, which is very generous on his part). Roth comes off as intelligent and earnest. All in all, this is an interesting round-table on the ideas contained in the film and the origin of the project itself. It's not a bad crew to have doing commentary on other people's films, frankly.
2. Eli Roth with Barbara Nedeljakova, Eythor Gudjonsson, Editor George Folsey Jr. and Web Author Harry Knowles
Okay, this is one of those annoying talk-show style commentaries where the guests keep rotating out and Eli Roth is the host. While this gives people a chance to talk about their experiences without so much interruption as you get in a mass group commentary it ends up being disconnected from the film itself and you lose the sense of watching the film with the people doing the commentary. This is especially true with Harry Knowles who has a phone conversation with Eli Roth in this commentary. What is this, a call-in show? Important knowledge gleaned here: sniper (pronounced sneepur) is Icelandic for clitoris. Harry Knowles is brought in as a thank you for being so instrumental in creating the buzz around Cabin Fever. So if you hate Eli Roth movies you can blame Harry Knowles. This does raise the question of just how much power in shaping taste is vested in a few people like Harry Knowles who can control the bully pulpit in favor or against a given thing. At any rate, if you're going to do a talk-show commentary you should at least observe some of the forms by having an opening monologue and musical guests.
3. Eli Roth, Producer Chris Briggs & Documentarian Gabriel Roth
A pretty decent commentary. I like that Eli Roth gets his whole family involved. We learn a lot about the goings on in Central Europe and we get a sense of just how constrictive it is making a film of any size in the US with the production unions--which nearly crippled Cabin Fever. Thus, a lot of Hostel was determined by Roth wanting to make a film outside of the US and away from those pesky unions.
4. Director Commentary w/Eli Roth
This commentary is especially useful for filmmakers. It's essentially a continuation of Roth's Cabin Fever director solo commentary (which was Eli Roth's Guide to Filmmaking 101.) You can think of this one as Eli Roth's Guide to Filmmaking 102. Personally, I'm enjoying taking the Eli Roth Film Tele-course.

Hostel Dissected: Part 1
Pre-Production
There are some great shots of Prague here. (And look, the Gastrocentrum is catered by Aramark.) I don't know which I like more, the shots of Prague or the backstage shots of the effects which help demystify the violence. This is a very detailed and instructive look into the making of the film. Cesky Krumlov is a fantastic town.
Part 2
The production itself. Again, it's really great to see how the effects gags work. And we get to see Eli Roth's parents on the set. Also, there are porn stars.
Part 3
More production fun and the alternate ending and then the post-production fun begins.
Combined with the commentaries, Hostel Dissected is a great primer on the making of a film.

Kill the Car! (Multi-Angle)
By far the coolest of the special features, it allows you to use the "angle" button on your remote to cycle through 3 different camera angles of the scene where the street kids destroy the car. This can provide for hours of endless fun for the whole family.

Previews
1. When a Stranger Calls
When the stranger calls ask him to see this movie and then let me know how it was.
2. Silent Hill
If I drove into an abandoned mining town and found a copy of this movie lying around in an abandoned Woolworths then maybe I'll see it.
3. Underworld: Evolution
You can't get enough Kate Beckinsale. This is literally true.
4. The Cave
Based on the story by Plato, this film was part of the onslaught of evil cave movies from a few years back.
5. The Exorcism of Emily Rose
You'd hardly know that actually this is a courtroom drama. That scene in the classroom where everyone's face turns evil gets me every time.
6. Boogeyman
I sometimes get the suspicion that this film might have some signigicant insight into the idea of unresolved issues from childhood, but I just can't bring myself to pick up a copy of a movie called Boogeyman and watch it.
7. Ring Around the Rosie
Why is it that the mirror gag always works in horror films? I'm almost curious enough to see this one to find out what it's all about, but I have the same issue with making the effort that I have with Boogeyman.
8. The Fog
Maybe that remake of The Fog wasn't as lame as I remembered it, but then again maybe it was.

I Still Know Why We Fight (Last Summer)

Why We Fight (2005)
written and directed by Eugene Jarecki

God help this country when somebody sits at this desk who doesn't know as much about the military as I do. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower

There are many different kinds of documentaries. Most barely scratch the surface of a subject, a rare few strive for some form of comprehensive study, and some just serve as provocative starting points for further study and thus are meant to invite dialogue and (whether they mean to or not) incite argumentation. Why We Fight is of this latter sort. It scratches the surface of the idea of the military-industrial complex and reveals that added to that traditional pairing now is a political-ideological complex that combines with the other complex to affect the destiny of the entire nation. I have to admire anyone who can start talking about this subject without starting to sound like a wingnut and it takes a lot of work for anyone to approach this subject with an open mind. Lefties and pacifists will immediately start quoting Chomsky and the righties and John Birchers will start quoting Ayn Rand and nobody will think about it all with an open mind. Jarecki's achievement is that he creates a film that won't make anyone happy but he clearly wants to get a conversation started that most people don't want to think about too much. People like slogans and it's really easy to revert to these slogans when you start talking about the military.

This is why Jarecki is clever enough to keep reverting to President Eisenhower's famous farewell address. It's hard to tar and feather Ike (the man who won WW II) with being unpatriotic for warning that the combination of a massive arms industry that depends on government spending on a massive military commitment has serious long-term consequences for our republic.
Ever wonder why we didn't close down all those bases around the globe when the Berlin Wall fell and the USSR imploded? Ever wonder why the theory of Pax Americana reaching across the globe was so appealing? Ever wonder where think tanks get their money? (Hint: it's not from selling delicious cookies.) Think tanks are not houses of philosophical wisdom, they're ideological factories, employed to drive the desired point home and to develop those desired points as much as possible. The brilliance of the military-industrial-political-ideological complex is that anytime you begin to question their premises they wrap themselves up in a flag, slap a yellow ribbon on their foreheads and accuse anyone who doubts their wisdom as traitors. Ike saw it coming, but even he wasn't in a position to do anything to unravel the system. After all, there was a communist threat to be countered. The problem, as some folks in this film point out is that once that threat was gone we created a new raison d'etre for the big giant stick and the big giant collection of stick salesman. We got the Pax Americana. How's that working out for everyone? We went from being the protector of people who didn't want to be swallowed up by communism to being the enforcer of...well, now there's the problem. For all the work of the American Enterprise Institute, what are we really enforcing in the Pax Americana? Is it universal justice? Democracy? More often than not, the peace we are enforcing is our own whim and our national will and our desire to remain unthwarted. Again, the ideological framework is unassailable. It doesn't even need more than a veneer of appealing to our desire to make a better world. All it needs is to appeal to our desire to continue being the top dog. Anyone who challenges that immediately becomes an enemy of our hegemony and the past few decades have been all about establishing that hegemony as part and parcel of our national identity. Questioning America's role as a global empire has become treason. And that's a kind of danger that even Eisenhower couldn't see coming.

So what did Ike see coming in 1961? Well, like a good documentary he scratched the surface hoping to make us think and question and maybe have a dialogue or a debate and like many a documentary what he got for his trouble was a few puzzled scratches of the head and dumbfounded (or just plain dumb) silence. Fast forward to this film and I would hope that we can do a little better and discuss this situation from all sides.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense. We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security alone more than the net income of all United States corporations.
Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual --is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. -- President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Farewell Address, 17 January 1961

See, according to President Eisenhower, the arms industry was a necessary thing, but something dangerous enough that we had to be vigilant about the way it might corrupt us. This film is about how that corruption actually has come to fruition. The depressing thing is that there is no partisan solution to this--the first moments of the opening credits makes it quite clear that this overreach of imperial ambition is one of the few things that really reaches across the aisles. It's a clever maneuver on Jarecki's part to point out how thoroughly ingrained the imperial complex is in both parties and that it is thus ingrained in every aspect of our government. There's no way to vote our way out of this problem by switching parties.

Speaking of Jarecki's cleverness, I should also note that his aesthetic principles are great. His attention to visual detail is great and so it's not merely talking heads and newsreel footage.
Also, Jarecki's storytelling is good as well. Although his explorations of the main subject are sometimes scattered and seem intended to leave us asking more questions his choice of a framing narrative gives us a microcosmic view of how these great waves ripple back to the lives of individuals. It's a little story that helps us see where we fit into the big story. The little story here is of Wilton Sekzer, NYPD whose son is killed on September 11, 2001. And so the grieving father says, "Somebody had to pay for this. Somebody had to pay for 9/11."
The trouble is, many people didn't even care who paid for it. "I wanted enemy dead. I wanted to see their bodies stacked up for they'd done, for taking my son." And again, Wilton Sekzer depended on the government to be the arbiters of this administration of vengeance. He wanted to see bodies stacked up and assumed that the government would stack up the right people. Wilton Sekzer even got to put his son's name on a bomb. Trouble is, that bomb was dropped on Baghdad.

Blowback does not mean simply the unintended consequences of foreign operations. It means the unintended consequences of foreign operations that were deliberately kept secret from the American public, so that when the retaliation comes the American public is not able to put in context and put cause and effect together that they come up with questions like 'why do they hate us?'
-- Chalmers Johnson, CIA (1967-1973)

There was a moment when the entire world was behind us. It was a million people demonstrating in the streets of Tehran in favor of the United States. We had the world behind us.
Now, kids are dying, billions are being spent every month, animosity against the United States is stronger now than it ever has been in history, What happened here? Is it just that the experience of September 11th or is there something else going on here? When something like this happens you've got to take stock of it, you gotta understand what went wrong here.
-- Joseph Cirincione, Carnegie Endowment for Peace

So, working back from 9/11 we are given a primer on the American imperial project, the idea of global American domination, combined with preemptive war to maintain American hegemony whether the rest of the world likes it or not.
Why We Fight looks at that story of American Empire and the military industrial complex through the lens of 9/11 and Iraq and asks us to look at the empire and the industry and question its wisdom. Is limitless power worth the price we may end up paying for it?

No matter where you come down on this question, this film is worth seeing and worth debating your friends over the questions contained herein. Because ignoring these questions or keeping silent about them is the way that democracies fade away. You may love the messages in this film or hate them. Personally, I found enough in here to infuriate me about a lot of things. But mostly I'm glad that someone can make a film of this quality that raises some of the right questions even if it is sometimes more impressionistic. In fact, I think that some of its presentation of uninflected images is one of the strengths of the film as Jarecki provides the beginnings of a discussion that we need to have with each other. Why We Fight is a great starting point. Even 5 years later this film is still relevant as a discussion for the kind of projection of national power that we continue to believe is our birthright. We should be watching this film with our friends and neighbors and debating the issues it brings up. We should remember to take sticks and helmets with us to these discussions because things will no doubt get heated.

Here's one thing that the film doesn't consider: the end of widespread (and compulsory) military service has had the unforeseen consequence of making most citizens ignorant of military matters, which is as dangerous as having someone in the oval office who doesn't know as much about the military as Eisenhower. The result of this is a larger populace that can easily be snowed, or even worse simply has no competence about even the simplest of military matters. In a democracy that is downright dangerous. The dependence of the larger body of citizenry on a so-called "warrior class" of self-selected individuals is inefficient in the long run because these volunteers do not form a deep enough well of reserves in case of genuine emergency and the ignorance of the greater body of citizens about military matters means that in such an emergency a highly inefficient crash course would have to be adopted to catch up and make up for the indolence of our society. It's all good and well to have an all-volunteer army, but the long-term result of it has been to divide society between a small group of volunteers and a larger group of freeloaders who, with no firsthand experience in such matters still retain an equal vote in selected the leaders who decide when and where to use the volunteers. And so, politicians who may or may not know diddly about the military, elected by a majority of people who definitely don't know squat about the military make the decisions to send a small percentage of the population to war. This is a formula for the destruction of democracy and the republic as we know it and it's unfortunate that Jarecki's film doesn't quite manage to get to that point.

At any rate, you should watch this film with your friends and enemies and discuss it. It'll be worth your time. So, take off a couple of days of watching American Idol and
have a watercooler discussion (or tirade) about what you see here.

Special Features
1. Extra Scenes
"Ike's Evolution"
I don't think we should spend one cent more on defense than we have to. -- President Dwight D. Eisenhower
Something of a mini-biography of Eisenhower, with interviews featuring his son Brig. Gen. (retired) John S. D. Eisenhower and his granddaughter Susan. Eisenhower hated the atomic bomb and didn't think it should have been dropped on Japan in 1945. He thought it was unnecessary. And when he was president he took money from the defense budget and used it to build the Insterstate Highway system under a national defense act.
"The Missing 'C'"
A scene that looks at the emptiness of Congress and the lack of debate before approving action in Iraq and the complete surrender of Congress to the business of military industry. In the original draft of the speech Eisenhower called it the military-industrial-CONGRESSIONAL complex. Chew on that thought. The hero of this section is Sen. Robert Byrd who did stand up and at least challenge his colleagues regarding the fact that there was no debate, merely a rubber stamp.
"Frank Capra's Original Why We Fight"
The story of the original Frank Capra "Why We Fight" series and a brief look at the idea of wartime propaganda.
"The Dangerous Illusion"
A challenge to the idea that precision munitions reduce civilian casualties. I love how the woman from Raytheon says that she hasn't seen any statistics but assumes logically that more precise munitions will reduce civilian casualties. And how did that decapitation strike on the opening night of the war in Iraq work out?
"What You Can Do"
But of the money we spend on foreign affairs in the United States today 93% of it is controlled by the Pentagon, 7% by the State Department. That's militarism. That's not defense of the country. -- Chalmers Johnson
We elect the corporate shills who represent us in Congress and they spend all their time getting earfuls of talk from other corporate shills who convince them that every last project is a matter of grave interest to the national defense and that it would be unpatriotic to not spend on it and we get a corporate shill government that is by and for the defense industry. And we do nothing and we say nothing because we're all working for those corporations and we like having jobs, right?
But "the military industrial complex is not inevitable." There's nothing to say that we can't re-order the world order. It just takes recognizing the way things are to then be able to think about the way things can be. Of course, we could just buy whatever we're being fed and say that we like things the way they are and see how that works out for us.

2. Extended Character Featurettes
"Wilton Remembers Jason"
Wilton Sekzer's memorial for his son Jason M. Sekzer who died on 9/11 and whose name is now on a street sign near Wilton's home. A street sign is a better memorial than a bomb.
"William and Yo-TV"
An Educational Television youth filmmaking project follows a young man named William Solomon who is preparing to enlist in the army, because it beats working in a chain store with no hope for a raise and maybe the army will give him a chance to do something more than just get by.
"Karen's Story"
Lt. Col. (retired) Karen Kwiatkowski spoke out about the cooked military intelligence that was used by neoconservatives to set up the occupation of Iraq and the establishment of permanent bases in order to achieve their longterm plans.
"Franklin 'Chuck' Spinney"
Spinney was responsible for the seminal report on cost overruns in defense spending.
"Chalmers' Evolution"
Chalmers Johnson was a Cold Warrior who was disappointed that at the end of the Cold War "our government started at once to look for a replacement enemy."
Upon evaluating the evidence presented by his career in the military, the CIA and looking at the direction that neoconservatives have taken in their declarations he has decided that there is an ideological imperative being pushed on us to make the United States the "democratic hegemon" of the world in place of the British Empire. Johnson, thus has become one of the chief critics of American Empire.
When I get new information I change my position. What, sir, do you do with new information? -- John Maynard Keynes

3. Filmmaker TV Appearances on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Charlie Rose
An intelligent discussion with Jon Stewart and another intelligent discussion with Charlie Rose. You can watch these before you watch the film itself if you aren't yet sold on the idea of watching the film itself.
4. Audience Q&A with Filmmaker
What do you hope to achieve?
"When I start out on a project I go out and I seek out people whose views are very different from my own. And I know that the art of the movie, if it's going to be any good at all, is the extent to which those views actually challenge mine, actually change mine."
Doesn't America need defense?
"We spend more on defense than the rest of the world combined." A good use of Eisenhower to counter the view that we need unlimited resources to defend against threats that pale by comparison to Joe Stalin and mutually assured destruction.
How did you meet Wilton?
Eugene Jarecki used to work in the World Trade Center and knew many people who died there. During the recovery the NYPD found his ID card that he had lost there in 1992 and mailed it to him. This moved him to get involved in thinking about how 9/11 has been used in all kinds of ways and in the process he found out about Wilton Sekzer and got in touch with him through Wilton's rabbi.
What do high school kids think?
This is a great Q&A with high school kids talking about the film, but I think the interesting thing is that Jarecki poses the question of what the kids would do if a draft came. Personally, I think a draft would be the best thing to re-democratize the military and maybe start rolling back the power of the specialized military industry by taking away from them the ability to talk nonsense at people who don't know any better. But, scaring high school students with the idea of a draft is a time-honored means of getting them to talk and have an opinion on matters of national importance.

5. Commentary w/Eugene Jarecki and Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson
A lively and informative commentary that is a real intellectual bonus. Colonel Wilkerson was Colin Powell's Chief of Staff. If you've taken the time to watch the film once and you haven't gotten enough to chew on, then this discussion will give you a lot more.
6. Theatrical Trailer
I learned about this film by watching the trailer, which is a gripping and somewhat scary ad.
7. Previews (I do love these Sony Pictures Classics trailers)
Sketches of Frank Gehry
The Devil and Daniel Johnston
Joyeux Noel
The White Countess
The Passenger
The Fog of War
Lightning in a Bottle

Coming up in the Annex we'll have a discussion of Frank Capra's Why We Fight series.

Why Jury Duty is Always Disappointing

12 Angry Men (1957)
Directed by Sidney Lumet, Written by Reginald Rose

If you care about trial by jury then 12 Angry Men is your film. This is the film that ruined jury duty for everybody in America, not because it suddenly turned all jurors into serious deliberative bodies that thought through cases and tried to work out their individual biases, but because it made most of us expect something better than the panel of bozos that actually show up first thing in the morning at the courthouse.
I’ll say this up front: If I showed up for jury duty early one morning and my peers looked like the jury in this film, I might consider it worth my time to go on with the process without wanting to kill myself.
Instead, even when we get jurors who try hard (probably because they, too, saw this movie at some point) they're just disappointing or incredibly dumb.
Granted, the jurors here are supposed to represent a representative slice of America in the '50s and most of them do start out as assholish as you would expect a representative jury in America to be, but even if it's just the expectation that there'll be some nice guy in a white suit who really thinks things over like Henry Fonda, then every real jury is disappointing after seeing this film.
But, the disappointment of reality is probably the best reason to see 12 Angry Men every so often, because its value as a lesson in civic virtue alone is worth your time. See, it's not that I see this film and think that there's ever been a jury that works like this, but rather I think that it's supposed to make us think harder about what we're doing when we serve on a jury. There's a presumption that we all want to be like the lazy and bigoted people on this jury who just want to call yea or nay and get on with their day and that presumption is spot on. And that's exactly why we need 12 Angry Men in the back of our minds to shame us into giving jury duty the respect it deserves with consideration and thoughtfulness. Democracy as a principle depends on this. Because we should all want to be like Henry Fonda's Juror #8, thinking about the evidence giving it our full attention and listening to others while formulating an opinion on the verdict. We all want Juror #8 to exist, because maybe one day we'll be in need of someone like that and a jury that consists entirely of bozos and dipsticks is a scary thought. 12 Angry Men is all about inspiring us to be Juror #8, or at least open to the possibility of listening to that person.
So, 12 Angry Men will forever ruin jury duty but that's exactly why everyone must see it. It's your duty as a citizen to watch this film and then be forever disappointed when jury duty is crappy.

The other reason to see this film is because it's well-written and chock full of great actors playing characters with names like Juror #4, Juror #6 and Juror #7. These actors are so good they don't even need character names, they just use numbers. #1 is Martin Balsam, who would go on to fall backwards down the staircase of the Bates home in Psycho. #2 is John Fiedler, the voice of Piglet. That's right, Piglet is one of the jurors. #3 is Lee J. Cobb, the original Willy Loman. #4 is E.G. Marshall. Do you think you can handle more? #5 is Jack Klugman. You think you can handle another star? #6 is Edward Binns. Don't know who Ed Binns was? Well, that's okay because #7 is Jack Warden. I don't think you can handle any more, but then wearing the #8 jersey is the aforementioned Henry [echo] Fon-da! [Echo.] But wait, you get four more jurors for the price of 8, including Ed Begley (Sr.) as Juror #10. And rounding out the crew is Joseph Sweeney the elderly Juror #9 and the respectable George Voskovec and Robert Webber. It's hard to think of a more all-star cast this side of It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World or The Longest Day.

Sure, there are some dated aspects of the story and characters, but the charm of the film is that it doesn't need to be up to date to make its point. The thirst for justice is never dated. (And if you can say that last line without cracking up, then you, sir/madam are a model citizen.)

Apologia Pro 1941

1941 (1979)
Directed by Steven Spielberg, Screenplay by Robert Zemeckis & Bob Gale

On December 7, 1941, the Naval Air Arm of the Imperial Japanese Fleet, in a surprise attack, struck the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor and hurtled an unsuspecting America into World War II.
American citizens were stunned, shocked and outraged at this treacherous attack. On the West Coast, paranoia gripped the entire population as panic-stricken citizens were convinced that California was the next target of the Imperial Japanese Forces.
Major General Joseph W. Stillwell, Commander of the Army Third Corps, was given the responsibility of defending Southern California. Army and Marine units were mobilized. Anti-aircraft defense batteries were manned and made ready. Civilian Defense operations sprang into action.
For the first time since the Civil War, American citizens prepared to defend their homeland against an enemy whose first assault was expected anywhere, at any time, and in any force…

Call me Cicero. My defendant in this case is Steven Spielberg’s 1941, a film that has been unfairly maligned and viciously slandered by humorless ignorant drones whose malicious lack of reason has infected generations of people into believing that 1941 is a bad film. In fact, it is a brilliant film on several counts, but more than that, it is a dangerous film—dangerous, I say, because it might make people think and apparently in this republic we are afraid of letting people think, especially while they’re laughing.
You might think my defense of 1941 is extreme, but the lies and uninformed myths surrounding it warrant such a defense.

My defense rests on three points: First, this is possibly the best film about wartime paranoia and hysteria ever and second, it is a compendium of classic comedy gags and finally, this film marks a firm date after which apparently the last World War II veterans with a sense of humor passed away.

Let’s briefly deal with the second point as it is the least important, but the most commonplace myth surrounding this film. The film has been called un-funny. Why? The common reason given is that the gags never stop. The uncut version of the film clocks in at 2 hours and 26 minutes. And Spielberg directed the film as if someone said to him that he’d never be allowed to direct another comedy so he’d better get in every gag he’s ever wanted to put in a film. The thing is, all the gags are funny—they’re a damn sight funnier than most comedies have been since, partly because a lot of the sight gags and physical humor are classic bits that would have been familiar to Hal Roach and Mack Sennett. Despising that kind of comedy is like despising Charlie Chaplin or the history of cinema and cinematic comedy. If you don’t like a good old-fashioned gag, then there’s something seriously wrong with you. The only thing better than one gag is seven gags and if you don’t believe that then you probably also don’t believe that a pie in the face can be funny. Also, it’s not like 1941 isn’t laced with plenty of intellectual and character based humor. Again, the film clocks in at over 2 hours and it manages to follow a half-dozen subplots. Does that make your brain ache? The first argument against 1941 was that it was too simplistic. Then the argument was that it was too complex? Well, which is it? And then came the argument that much of the intellectual satire went over the heads of its intended Animal House fan audience. Thirty years of that kind of argument has led us to a wasteland of Pauly Shore, Carrot Top and Will Ferrell’s ass. I can’t wait for someone to start arguing that the humor of Scary Movie 17 went over the head of its audience.
I will return to the question of comedy later, but first I have to go back to the satire.

1941 is simply put the best film ever about wartime paranoia. I would stand this film up against any such film, including such classics as Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Its depiction of a paranoid home front looking for invaders under every pile of leaves would be funny if it wasn’t also so familiar. Since 2001 this film has become even more salient, because the kind of reckless fear exhibited in this film set in the month after Pearl Harbor has once again become part of our daily lives. Only now, it’s like we’re in a permanent state of December 8th 1941 because the nature of the threat lends itself to such paranoia with even greater aplomb. In both cases, the threat is real. There really are people trying to get us. But in both cases the extreme reactions can (and in the case of this film actually DO) mask the real threat which is usually smaller and less apocalyptic than the threat that we imagine. In 1941 the reaction to the threat does more damage to the city of Los Angeles than the actual attack does. Whether it’s a pilot chasing phantoms from Fresno or a Colonel imagining secret facilities in Pomona the wild-eyed imaginations are put up for serious satire. Maybe this film isn’t so funny given the fact that we have only recently tried to live with the spectacle of a Secretary of State showing off pictures of trailer parks on the Tigris and imagining them to be mobile biological laboratories. I guess secret Japanese airfields in Pomona aren’t that ridiculous to people who would easily believe in similar things today. But then, that just makes my original point more clear—the satire in this film is still salient and is even more biting now than it was 30 years ago.

So, why do people insist on repeating the mythology that 1941 is a worthless film? It’s because all the World War II veterans with a sense of humor died in 1979. I know, this is a gross exaggeration, Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller didn’t die until recently and I am certain there are many veterans still with us who have a sense of humor, but the great process of generational sanctification sealed by Tom Brokaw’s declaration of “The Greatest Generation” has made it all but impossible to deal with the war in any term other than holy communion and ancestor worship. It’s not really the fault of the veterans themselves so much as those who have come after them and can’t think of the old days in any realistic way. The thought that patriotic Americans in December 1941 would be more concerned with chasing tail than fighting the Axis and saving the world for democracy is anathema to the saint-worshippers. I think 1941 is a good landmark—because before this film you could do anything with World War II. Catch-22, From Here to Eternity, Slaughterhouse Five (all written by veterans, mind you) all came before the sense of humor died. Kelly’s Heroes portrayed American soldiers who decide to break behind enemy lines for a bank heist because they believe that if they’re going to die in a war they might as well have a chance at making it worth their while. That’s hardly the stuff of Band of Brothers. But then even the original Ocean’s Eleven from 1960 featured a unit from the 82nd Airborne led by Danny Ocean reuniting to knock over a casino. Try getting away with that today. Maybe the real greatest generation were all the World War II veterans with a sense of humor who made films like 1941 possible. And I have to believe there were still enough of them to allow 1941 to be made, it’s just that by the time it was released there weren’t enough of them to support it and they weren’t vocal enough to beat back the sanctimonious harpies who decided to turn this film into a “flop.” (Of course, one reason the film flopped is that the version released in the theatres was about an hour shorter than the full film, so I can see how it would have been somewhat confusing.) Still, between the funny de-boned critics and the sanctimonious prigs this film got a raw deal, both in terms of its entertainment value and in terms of its intellectual quality. And while Spielberg had to go so far as to spend much of career having to kowtow and make amends with the guardians of the holy flame and pretend that this film didn't happen, I choose to remember it as being an important part of remembering the history of a time that is fast being rolled over into holy national myth.

So, maybe now you believe that 1941 is an important film, but what really makes it fun?
The intricacy of the plot and characters, of course.
Let’s take it from the top:
1. The Jaws parody. Susan Backlinie (the skinnydipper from Jaws) is a member of the Polar Bear Club and shows up on the coast of Northern California early on the morning of December 13, 1941 to take a nude dip in the frigid waters of the Pacific. Something ominous approaches (John Williams scored this film as well as Jaws) next thing you know she’s holding on for dear life to the periscope of a Japanese submarine. This is a better parody than any parody film has ever offered (in part because it is self-parody.)
2. The submarine I-19 is the wackiest ship in the Imperial Japanese Navy. It is a decommissioned U-Boat sold to the Japanese (thus they have some problems operating it). It is commanded by Comander Akiro Mitamura (Toshiro Mifune). I’m going to say that again—the submarine captain is TOSHIRO MIFUNE. Mifune has to deal with a German naval observer, Captain Wolfgang von Kleinschmidt (Christopher Lee). I’ll say that again, too—CHRISTOPHER LEE. And although this pair spends the entire film speaking only in Japanese and German respectively they are comic gold. Mitamura is upset that he missed out on Pearl Harbor so he’s looking for something honorable to destroy. His helpful crew suggest that they strike Hollywood. Kleinschmidt objects, saying that Hollywood is inland, but the Japanese won’t listen to him because they’re determined to make their plan work. (Apparently, the Mitamura’s officers are Japanese neo-cons.)
3. Meanwhile at Malcomb’s Café the two most incompetent dishwashers in the world are destroying everything they touch. Wally Stephens (Bobby Di Cicco) is practicing dancing so he can do his movies for the girl of his dreams, Betty Douglas (Dianne Kay). His buddy Dennis DeSoto (Perry Lang) is as much of a menace as he is. Wally is from the wrong side of the tracks, as Mr. Malcomb (the incomparable Dub Taylor) reminds him. Wally is the Tramp and he’s got no chance with Lady.
4. Also at the Café we are introduced to our US Army transportation unit. They are led by Sergeant Frank Tree (Dan Aykroyd) a talkative pseudo-intellectual who memorizes equipment manuals and has a lot to say about the course of the war. His credo is that he can’t stand to see Americans fighting Americans. His crew includes Corporal Chuck ‘Stretch’ Sitarski (Treat Williams) who has an aversion to eggs and an attraction to the ladies, especially Betty Douglas (and who wouldn’t be attracted to her?), Private Foley (John Candy) a Southerner, Hinshaw (Walter Olkewicz) and Reese (Mickey Rourke). They are later joined by Private Ogden Johnson Jones (Frank McRae) making their motorpool unit the first Army unit to be integrated.
5. The USO is hosting a dance where movie producer Meyer Mishkin (Iggie Wolfington) will hand out a contract to the best dancer. The radio announcer for the dance is Joe Flaherty and the USO hostess is Penny Marshall. The only person not in this film is Kevin Bacon and seeing as how half the cast of Animal House is in this film and Kevin Bacon is in Animal House…well, you get the point. Even Patti LuPone makes an appearance. Miss Fitzroy (Penny Marshall) tells the girls that they’ll have to dance with people they wouldn’t have given a second thought to before because these boys are now all in uniform.
6. This message is reinforced at the Douglas home when Betty’s father Ward (Ned Beatty) gives her the most awkward father-daughter dating speech ever. The look on Betty's face when her father basically tells her to put out as much as possible for the sake of the country is priceless.
7. There’s a great scene in a department store where Wally is attempting to shoplift a zoot suit and Dennis notes that the girls are flocking to anybody in a uniform, thus setting up a key element later. The sheer panic in the department store when a false air raid alarm is sounded is worth a thousand essays on war paranoia.
8. Wendie Jo Sperber as Betty’s man-hungry friend Maxine is great.
9. Michael McKean and David Lander (TV’s lovable Lenny and Squiggy) play anti-aircraft gunners Willy and Joe).
10. The Douglas household is rounded out by Joan Douglas (Lorraine Gary) who doesn’t like guns in her house, which makes the fact that her house gets an anti-aircraft gun put right next to it that much funnier.
Also, there are the two young Douglas boys who build Jap traps in the yard and are the prototypes for the Red Dawn Wolverines.
11. The local Civil Defense warden Angelo Scioli (Lionel Stander) has converted his car into an A-Team style armored car and he puts Murray Hamilton and Eddie Deezen on top of the Ferris wheel of his amusement park to keep on the lookout for any invasion.
12. Slim Pickens is Hollis P. Wood, a Christmas tree farmer who is kidnapped by the Japanese so that he can point the way to Hollywood. There’s a scene where he pretends to take a dump that should have won him an Oscar.
13. Meanwhile, Robert Stack is General Stillwell and his aide Captain Loomis Birkhead (Tim Matheson) is trying desperately to get some action with the lovely Donna Stratton (Nancy Allen) but she won’t even go to second base with anyone unless she’s in an airplane. Thus, Loomis Birkhead is looking for a plane.
14. The man with a plane is Captain Wild Bill Kelso of the Army Air Corps (John Belushi). Kelso is a one man force for destruction. He is utterly sure that there are Japanese planes in California. He’s so sure that he shoots Elisha Cook’s radio and says that it lies when it says that it’s all a case of war nerves. Kelso is the ultimate catalytic character and Belushi turns in a hilarious performance.
15. Finally there’s Colonel Maddox (Warren Oates) who also has a plane and believes his base in Barstow is in danger of being overrun by Japanese paratroops from the legendary airstrips in the alfalfa fields of Pomona. Colonel Madman Maddox was apparently running American foreign policy in 2002-2003.
16. Blink and you’ll miss James Caan as a sailor in the big inter-service/zoot suit riot.
17. Be on the lookout for directors James Landis and Samuel Fuller in bit parts. (Fuller is easy to recognize as the Interceptor commander) whereas Landis can be easy to miss given the fact that he’s covered in dust.

In good comic form the many subplots get weaved into and out of each other and culminate with the destruction of a couple of blocks of downtown LA, a bunch of AA fire being shot at two (friendly) planes (both of which are shot down) and the destruction of a Ferris wheel by a submarine which also manages to torpedo a tank. The tank claims that it sank the submarine (because it was last seen submerging) and the Douglas family home is wrecked. The paranoia has been exorcised (and exercised, for that matter). Wally wins the dance contest only to discover his inner patriotism and he puts aside Mishkin’s contract in order to enlist. (Thus, character growth.) I’ll have to admit that it’s almost as exhausting to get through this as it is to make it through Saving Private Ryan, but in a way, it takes watching this film to correct the sanctimoniousness of the newer film. Private Ryan’s rescuer says “Earn this” but maybe the way to earn the life afterward is to remember the past without sepia-tinted lenses. The greatest generation wasn’t made up of saints in uniform and they weren’t always fighting a crusade. There was paranoia and absurdity and downright hilarity. Young people spent as much time wondering how they were going to get laid (and with whom) as they did wondering about how they were going to save the world. To get to the end, we started with a bunch of paranoid people expecting an invasion from every empty field and flinching at every shadow across the sky. It took us a long time to get to the point where we got our confidence back and knew what was a threat and what wasn’t. It took a long war to sort everything out from the fear that broke our peace. Maybe the greatest tribute we can give to the “greatest generation” is to give them back their character and three-dimensionality and have a laugh while we’re at it.
“It’s going to be a long war,” Stillwell declares at the end. Aren’t they all?

Bonus Materials
1. The Making of 1941
This is about 103 minutes about the origins of the film and it’s a bit dated (it’s from the Laser Disc version) and it doesn’t defend the end product enough for my taste, but it’s a good bit of background and has some nice behind the scenes footage. Interviews with Spielberg, Bob Gale, Robert Zemeckis, John Milius, John Williams and others. This film featured the first use of the Louma Crane in a film and the special effects are fantastic so the filmmaking information here is choice.

2. Deleted Scenes
A riotous scene with Joe Flaherty at the USO, followed by some terrific scenes with the Japanese shore team at the Christmas tree farm. There are some fun bits here.

3. Production Photographs
An extensive collection of shots from behind the scenes.

4. 1941 Comic Relief
A series of production shots with comic strip dialogue balloons.

5. The Marketing of 1941
Don’t skip the great art work. The caricatures and posters for this film are classics.

6. The Reviews
A collection of words by idiots who really missed the point and who prove that most professional film reviewers are a worthless waste of oxygen.

7. Production Notes
Scroll through for some trivia if you really care.

8. Cast and Filmmakers
The bios are a bit dated now. This function of special features has long since been outmoded by the advent of the internet and IMDB and Wikipedia and such things.

9. Theatrical Trailers
These are real gems, especially the teaser that was made before they had settled on Belushi’s character name. Here he’s named Wild Wayne Kelso instead of Wild Bill. Belushi is perfect in this faux-propaganda short. “Your country needs you, son. You gonna let her down? You think your best girl’ll look good in a kimono, eatin’ teriyaki off a straw place mat? How’d ya like to eat sauerkraut for the rest of your life?”

Worse Santa

Bad Santa (2003)
Directed by Terry Zwigoff, Screenplay by Glenn Ficarra & John Requa

I’ve been to prison once, I’ve been married—twice. I was once drafted by Lyndon Johnson and had to live in shit-ass Mexico for two and a half years for no reason. I’ve had my eye socket punched in, a kidney taken out and I got a bone-chip in my ankle that’s never gonna heal. I’ve seen some pretty shitty situations in my life, but nothing has ever sucked more ass than this. If I’d known I’d have to put up with a bunch of screaming brats pissing on my lap for thirty days out of the year I would have killed myself a long time ago. Come to think of it, I still might. Where I come from, we didn’t celebrate Christmas, not because we were Jewish, but because my dad was a worthless coward fucking asshole whose idea of a present was a daily punch to the back of the head. He did teach me how to crack a safe, though. My dad never did shit with his life, so he took it out on me. You could say I’m no different and I’d have to say you’re right, but at this point it’s too late to start over. Funny, how things work out. It’s fucking hilarious.

If there’s one thing that America loves, it’s an alcoholic man dressed as Santa Claus. If there’s a second thing that America loves it is strip clubs and thus Bad Santa delivers on both counts. If you think the alcoholic Santa Claus is a recent debasement of a beloved Christmas icon I can only refer you to one of my all time favorite Twilight Zone episodes “Night of the Meek” which features Art Carney as a drunk department store Santa who wishes that the kids in the slum where he lives could have just one moment of joy and then finds that his bag gives people the gift they most want and, of course he turns the corner and finds some reindeer and thus he gets the gift of giving. Bad Santa, in its own way, is at least as touching as that story in the redemption of the alcoholic Santa. Also, it has a scene in a strip club, so it’s a winner on both counts.

Now, there are multiple versions of Bad Santa floating around out there. First there’s the original rated version, then came the extended edition “Badder Santa” and finally there’s the latest version which is Terry Zwigoff’s director’s cut which is actually shorter than the other two cuts but does add more things apparently. In this case, we’re talking about the extended Badder Santa (though I am more than willing to revisit this film in the future to talk about the director’s cut.)

Why am I so willing to come back to this? First of all, the film is just hilarious. It shares some structural similarities with Art School Confidential including excellent use of classical music in the soundtrack and the opening monologue which in this case sets up Willie (Billy Bob Thornton) as possibly one of the most miserable wretches since…well, since Art Carney in Night of the Meek. For every jolly person who thinks they really are Santa who dons the suit, there must be a hundred miserable slobs like Willie.
Willie and his little person friend Marcus (Tony Cox) are seasonal thieves who rob malls and department stores every Christmas by getting work as a Santa and an elf and then busting into safes and loading up on merchandise. This year, Willie decides that he’s through and that he’s moving to Miami to quit this life of crime, but then another year passes and when Marcus calls Willie once again makes his miserable way to the next job, this time in sunny Phoenix.

Then there are the two Laurens. Lauren Tom plays Lois, Marcus’s mate and thus the third member of the heist crew. It’s great to actually see her in a role (though I do still love her in Futurama) and Lois is a deliciously evil part. Lois is pure greed, the useless vain kind of greed that finally gets stuck under Willie’s craw.
Then there’s Lauren Graham as Sue, the bartender with an extreme Santa fetish who hooks up with Willie in Phoenix and thus gets stuck in a different happier craw. This movie could have just been about Lauren Graham as a bartender in Phoenix with a Santa fetish and I would have loved it. As it is, Sue is the first bizarre step in Willie’s redemption as a human being because despite her odd desire to have sex with Santa in a parking lot (or maybe, because of it?) she’s a genuinely nice person.

But, of course, it’s a kid who redeems Willie, and the kid in question is a curly headed fat kid named Thurman Merman (Brett Kelly). Thurman is a dopey kid who looks like he’s being fattened up by the witch in the forest from the Hansel und Gretel story. Thurman’s pathos is heightened by the fact that his mother is in heaven with Jesus and the talking walnut (don't ask) and his father (Ethan Phillips, who I last remember seeing on Benson) is climbing mountains (which is the euphemism for being in jail) and he is left home alone with his near comatose grandmother (Cloris Leachman). Needless to say, Thurman is treated like crap by everyone, including Willie, who exploits Thurman’s need for a friend by moving in and thus, incidentally creating the conditions for his own redemption. When Thurman gets a black eye Willie suspends his own attempted suicide to go berserk on the kids who did it.

I beat the shit out of some kids today, but it was for a purpose. It made me feel good about myself. It was like I did something constructive with my life or something, I dunno, like I accomplished something.

Somehow, there’s something more earnest about this kind of redemption than the treacle covered kind that is usually trotted about. (Maybe because Thurman is so earnestly pathetic “I know there’s no Santa, I just thought that maybe you’d like to give me a present ‘cause we’re friends.”) At any rate, Willie is redeemed (more or less) and in a way he and Sue and Thurman and Grandma form something of a family or at least a circle of friends which stands in sharp contrast to the thievery and material greed exhibited elsewhere in this story. And isn’t that the sort of thing that Christmas is really all about?

And, if you’re more in the mood for comedy than redemption I should note the fine performances by John Ritter as the befuddled mall manager who tries (unsuccessfully) to fire Willie and Marcus when he catches Willie fornicating in a dressing room and Bernie Mac as the double-dealing mall security inspector, Gin, who is treated by Marcus to an exceptionally arcane expletive.

MARCUS: Sketch it up, you fucking moron. Fucking Leonardo da Vinci.
GIN: What’d you call me, thigh-high?
MARCUS: I called you a fucking guinea homo from the 15th-fucking-century, you dickhead!

I’ve been waiting a long time for the name Leonardo da Vinci to be used as an expletive and that moment has arrived not a moment too soon.
And yes, I know that Bernie Mac and John Ritter are now both dead and that’s sad but they’re very much alive in this film (well, except for the part where Bernie Mac gets killed) so you can enjoy them here.
Also, keep on the lookout for Bryan Callen as the Miami bartender who gets in a fight with Willie and Alex Borstein makes an appearance (all we need is Yeardley Smith and all the big animated shows would be represented). And I personally got a kick out of Ajay Naidu as the “Hindustaini Troublemaker” who either thinks Santa is hitting on him or is hitting on Santa or some sort of drunk confusion, but it’s absurdly funny.

At any rate, Bad Santa is for people who think The Ref was too mushy, but still want to have a heartwarming tale of redemption.

Special Features
1. Deleted and Alternate Scenes
1. Santa Trainer Scene
Sarah Silverman as a Santa Trainer delivering Santa’s Ten Commandments:
(1. No Alcoholic Beverages
2. Know Names of Reindeer
3. Do Not Smoke in Costume
4. No Swearing
5. Absolutely No Flirting
6. Coax a Smile from the Child
Sadly we’ll never know what the other four are, but I’m sure not murdering the children or fornicating with big and tall women in their presence are in there.)
2. Willie Leaves Department Store
A few takes of a security guard saying goodnight to everyone leaving a department store and hassling Willie.
Guard: Those pants are awful big, you wouldn’t be trying to steal nothing, would ya?
Willie: The only thing I got in here something to cripple your sister with.
3. Screaming Baby
The screaming baby is a method actor, no doubt.
2. Behind-the-Scenes Special
Zwigoff is fun to watch here and the producers John Cameron and Sarah Aubrey provide some good background. And you get a snippet from that Easter classic, Sling Blade.
3. “Badder Santa” Gag Reel
About a minute and a half of extra frivolity that will keep you from ending your miserable life for about 3 minutes afterward one would hope. You know, the goal of all comedy.
4. Outtakes
It’s hard to distinguish some of these from the gag reel but call it what you will, it’s pretty funny.

Trailers “Sneak Peeks”
1. Dimension Home Video Sampler Trailer
2. The Ladykillers
Good trailer.
3. Scary Movie 3
I guess if it was a choice between going to the unemployment office or being in this movie, I’d have sucked up and been in it along with apparently every other actor on the face of the earth.
4. My Baby’s Daddy
I’ve seen this trailer enough times now that I might as well have just seen the movie instead.

The Real Doctor Wong

The Ref (1994)
Directed by Ted Demme, Screenplay by Richard LaGravanese & Marie Weiss

The Ref represents Ted Demme's greatest work. It's a shame he died when he did, but we'll always have The Ref.

The first time I saw The Ref (way back in 1994) it was March, which was either really late or really early for a Christmas movie, but at the time I didn’t really think of it so much as a Christmas film as a heist comedy. At some point in the next few years, though, The Ref became a holiday tradition for me. It fell into the kind of familiar exercise in nostalgia that marks the most well-worn holiday staples, and it didn’t hurt that it began to remind me of the Christmas season in New England, which I found to be exceptionally idyllic in its scenery. And The Ref has the added benefit of being one of the few Christmas movies featuring a foul mouthed thief covered in piss. (Cat piss, to be specific.)

The great saving grace of The Ref is that it’s no less redemptive than any of the more earnest and serious holiday films and yet it manages to avoid the worst excesses of schmaltz. At its core, The Ref is about reconstructing broken family, but if you’d like to get theological about it, its also about restoring a sense of kindness and genuine faith to a culture that is much more concerned about status and wealth than the core values that are packaged in that palatable sampler we call “The Christmas Spirit.” Take the delightfully evil mother Rose Chasseur (Glynis Johns). She represents everything that has gone wrong with traditional conservative values. All she cares about is money and property and status. She doesn’t care that her son’s wife had an affair out of any sympathy for her son, but because it reflects poorly on her status, and presumably because it might affect his ability to meet the exorbitant interest rates she’s charging him on repaying a loan. When the burglar Gus (Denis Leary) tells the mother that he knows loan sharks more forgiving than her, it’s not just funny, it’s also a pointed social critique—one that seems even more to the point these days. The mother is a monster who holds nothing more dear than herself and the property she has accumulated. She is greed personified, with a smattering of pride thrown in.

And Rose Chasseur is in good company in the town of Old Baybrook, Connecticut which is populated by the biggest collection of assholes this side of Plano. You really have to feel for Lt. Huff (Raymond J. Barry) because if this town was being attacked by a great white shark in the summer he’d probably be tempted to cover the city council in chum and let the shark finish the job. As it stands, Lt. Huff is possibly the only person ever to be grateful for getting fired on Christmas Eve.

Meanwhile, the only real difference between Kevin Spacey’s role as Lloyd Chasseur and Lester Burnham from American Beauty is that fate rescues Lloyd from Lester’s miserable tragedy—and also Caroline (Judy Davis) is a more interesting wife than Annette Bening’s Carolyn Burham. Hmmm, Lloyd and Caroline, Lester and Carolyn? The parallels there are hard to escape so I’ll just let you ruminate on them on your own. Lloyd and Caroline are caught in the wreckage of their dreams and ambitions and now sleepwalking through their seemingly picturesque lives that are actually rotted at the core. (Watch the film dubbed in French for the full effect of that last sentence.)

The result of the burglar’s intervention into the Chasseur family’s discontented life is that it forces them to confront their discontents and by openly communicating them and dragging the worst of it out finding that their unhappiness was not nearly as grave or unresolvable as their inability to speak about it was making it. Which is not to say that a gun to the head is the best method of marriage counseling, but that in this case it certainly did the trick. Hell, it even forced Lloyd’s brother Gary (Adam LeFevre) to man up to his wife and to his mother (which helps reconcile him back to his wife). I should mention that Gary’s wife Connie is played by Christine Baranski, so it’s easy to understand why he should have been so overpowered in that relationship. At any rate, the real triumph of the Chasseur family is their willingness to thwart their community and the law by abetting the escape of a catpiss-drenched jewel thief who has presumably learned a couple of lessons about life, too. Or not. But at any rate, the Chasseur family has been saved in the strangest of ways—and what’s more Christmas-y than that?

I know the temptation is to dismiss this film (or any film) as entertainment, but the thing about film and literature and everything we might even vaguely think about is that it all has an impact on how we view the world. How we react to a film and what we take away from it shapes who we are--not always a lot, but always a little, even if it just reinforces who we are by not getting any reaction from us.

Now, I’m not saying that The Ref will make you a better person and I’m hoping it doesn’t turn anyone into a blackmailer or a catburglar, but it’s a funny movie with some poignant moments that won’t make you gag from too much earnestness. (I know there are people out there who can only deal with earnestness, but sometimes it’s nice to have something different, eh?)

And if all the high-minded talk doesn’t convince you that you should watch The Ref next Christmas, then maybe you’ll do it to support Huguenot awareness.
Or for J.K. Simmons as Siskel, the commandant of the military school where the Chasseur’s delinquent son has been stashed. It’s great to see Simmons anywhere and you just wish there was more of him here.
And the great B.D. Wong as Dr. Wong, the Chasseur’s real marriage counselor at the opening of the film.
And Robert Ridgely as the town bigshot Bob Burley who gets to stand there with a hint of an eye twitch and take the best set of lines in the whole movie.
Lt. Huff: I nailed your wife…Three times, Bob. She said you never went three times, Bob.
And jewel thief should have a lovable old drunk like Murray as a sidekick. And the progressively drunker Santa Claus is a staple.
Heck, even the kids are good performers in this film.

At any rate, The Ref is a film worth coming back to again, whether it’s during the holidays or in the middle of the summer. Just pour yourself some egg nog and prepare to laugh your ass off.

Special Features
I can report that the French Language Track delivers some real good laughs.

Why Can’t I Get Just One Deadly Kiss?

Kiss Me Deadly (1955)
Directed by Robert Aldrich, Screenplay by A.I. Bezzerides

Velda: She’s dead…but I’m not dead. Hey, remember me?

Now, THIS is what we call a film noir. Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer played by Ralph Meeker is one of the ultimate detectives. Mike Hammer is not a good guy, he’s a sleazy private dick who works on small fry divorce cases and makes enough money to have a fine set of wheels (or two) and an assistant named Velda (Maxine Cooper) who is incredible. Velda is the kind of dame that makes you wish you could be a private detective as long as she came with the job.

At any rate, Mike Hammer is a dirty sleaze who makes a good bit of dough selling pictures of people in compromising positions but he’s not a completely unsympathetic worthless waste of humanity because his best friend (other than Velda) is a cop, Pat Murphy (Wesley Addy) and Mike Hammer is loyal to his friends. (As you'll see later.) Also, he’ll stick his neck out for someone whose in trouble, which is how this caper gets underway in the first place when he gives a ride to Christina Bailey, a girl in trouble played by a very young Cloris Leachman. Turns out everyone’s on the trail of some object and everyone who gets in the way of it winds up dead.

The thing that redeems the anti-hero Hammer is his loyalty, both to his friends and to those luckless victims he barely knew but who he thinks are equally worthy of his time and thus his extreme efforts at getting the people responsible for destroying them. Mike Hammer, then, is a man who refuses to let people become expendable. He must give their lives some meaning by at least giving them the benefit of avenging them, and in so doing maybe he gives his own life direction and meaning that he wouldn’t otherwise have when all he’s doing is taking dirty pictures and driving around.

This film isn’t perfect, but it’s a genuine hard-boiled classic. Sure, the heart of the mystery ends up being a ridiculous chase for some radioactive material (not in the original book) but, then, these days that plot about chasing down baddies who are trying to get a box of radioactive material pretty much describes every action film and the entire run of 24. It’s not just a Cold War paranoia plot, it's part of our national psyche.
And the truth is that Kiss Me Deadly doesn’t live or die by that aspect of the story…it’s all about Mike Hammer and his friends, enemies and the people in between.
Meeker’s Hammer is a great performance, and Cooper’s Velda is a pretty strong character, too. The thing that makes the world of a film like this is the cast of supporting characters who give it flavor, and Kiss Me Deadly has a lot of flavor.
Mike’s mechanic Nick (who loves the fast cars “Va-Va-Voom!”) is played by the colorful Nick Dennis with a zest that makes you quickly see why Mike likes him.
And then there are the toughs…Charlie Max (Jack Elam) and Sugar Smallhouse (Jack Lambert).
That’s right, you get Jack Elam thrown into this movie as a bonus. Tell me that isn’t great. (Go ahead, try to tell me that so I can punch you in the face.) And Sugar Smallhouse is just one of the greatest character names this side of a Bond villain. Sugar Smallhouse. Just say it over and over again and tell me it doesn’t make you happy. (Go ahead and tell me, so I can punch you in the face.)
Sugar: Dames are worse than flies!
Speak for yourself, Mr. Smallhouse. (Go ahead, speak for yourself so I can punch you in the face.)
Granted, Kiss Me Deadly does make me wish I could punch more people in the face, but it also makes me wish I could be as cool as the detective who gets kissed by people before he knows their names.
Mike: Don’t be afraid, I won’t bite.
Friday: You don’t taste like anybody I know, but it’s alright, in fact it’s wonderful….Seconds?
Mike: Okay.
Now that’s what I call detective work. Friday (Marian Carr) is half-sister to Carl (Paul Stewart) the main villain. Friday is trouble, the kind of trouble that people go looking for and don’t regret looking for until it’s too late and even then…well, at least you got something for your troubles.
There’s even a girl named Cheesecake (Leigh Snowden) at Carl’s house. Carl knows how to do business, alright, sitting by the pool with his collection of dames and henchmen. (I’d like to punch him in the face, too.)
Also making an appearance in this film is Strother “What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate” Martin.
I could go on about every other actor’s performance here and how interesting they are, but I think the point is made.
This incarnation of Mike Hammer isn't perfect (Mickey Spillane apparently didn't like the film-mostly because of the radiological material plot) but it's good--Mike Hammer isn't a saint, but that's what makes him more real, it's what gives his character depth, and it's what makes him such a desirable source of emulation. I mean, it's impossible to be Superman and really difficult to be a perfect hero, but to be a guy who can take a punch, give two back and then kiss a dame he never met before--well, that's still within the bounds of possibility at least.
So, Kiss Me Deadly should be on your must see list. And if you don’t put it there, I will punch you in the face.

Special Features
1. Theatrical Trailer
Girls fleeing in terror from things beyond description!
(That would be a great title for a 1950s Sci-Fi film.)
He was out to get men who tortured women…
(And the women who loved them…)
This woman’s lips, cold as steel, lethal as a gun…
(and yet soft as a tastycake…)
2. Alternate Ending
This is a badly butchered cropped ending that makes little sense. I’m not sure why anyone thought this ending would be good.