Hey kids! Why waste your time obsessing over a slapfight between the two dominant capitalist parties when there’s a big, wide world of cool things to do and great ideas to explore?

Let’s all put our noggins together and think of 5 Cool Things To Do Instead Of Obsessively Watching MSNBC.

1.  PLANT A GODDAMN GARDEN! I mean, I haven’t done it — don’t got the thumbs for it, you know — but I highly encourage any of you who’ve got a yen for the greener things in life to till the earth like our forebears. And who knows, you might just meet some The Moth-loving, NPR-listening, Sedaris-quoting, Arcade Fire-adoring guy/girl/guygirl-girlguy for some late night liberal groping!

2. READ A GODDAMN BOOK! Now, this one I have done, and am getting right back to after I finish this here post. I’m reading Jack London’s Martin Eden right now. It’s such a wonderful book; seems to me that most every page has a cutting social observation, unique turn of phrase, or brilliant insight into the nature of ambition (and even the nature of language itself). AWESOME, RIGHT?! And guess what: it doesn’t rot your brain like the 24-hour news cycle does! In fact, it might just expand your horizons a bit!

3. LISTEN TO A GODDAMN ALBUM WITH YOUR GODDAMN FRIENDS! Seriously. Turn off the TV, put Highway 61 Revisited or some other epic masterpiece you’ve been neglecting lately on the speakers, and let your minds wander. So much nicer than Keith Olberman’s lame use of the “Scherzo” at the beginning of Countdown.

4. WATCH SOME GODDAMN TV OF WORTH! ONLINE! If you just must have your eyes glued to a set, why not catch-up on some old favorites or new shows you’ve been meaning to watch? Caprica is getting great now; all three series of Armando Iaonnuci’s The Thick Of It are available to stream; and if you’re of the brainier sort, then you can watch all of Richard Heffner’s legendary The Open Mind! For free! Every freaking episode! And no commercials to enslave yr imagination!

5. TAKE A GODDAMN RUN! Go to the gym. Shake your booty. Lift some weights. Do some push-ups. Oggle that insanely hot guy or girl on the elliptical (but not too obviously — yr sweating mug might freak them out a bit).

The idea of intelligent people gathering around an idiot box to see whether they’re going to get screwed over a little or screwed over a lot just depresses the royal bejeezus out of me. So, kids, remember: you’ve got your own eyes to see with, your own mouths to speak with, and your bodies with which to move through space. Get out and do something goddamn interesting!

I’ve decided I’ll start uploading some soundtracks to films, either full-length or one-and-two song selections, for your pleasure, confusion, etc.

First up, Francis Seyrig’s score to Resnais and Robbe-Grillet’s Last Year at Marienbad:

Click here to download from Megaupload.

Bande Originale Du Film, L’Annee Derniere A Marienbad

Philips 432.700 BE 

(Originally posted at machinemusic.org)

If you’ve seen the movie, you might wonder why in the Hell you’d ever want to listen to the soundtrack independent of the images. A fair question: the music from Last Year At Marienbad is a tough slog.

But take my word for it: when you’re depressed, and you feel like you might just want to stand contemplating the perfectly geometrical shadows cast by your neighbor’s conifer for oh, say, 11:54, you’ll be so much more fulfilled if you take Seyrig’s soundtrack of your average Leonard Cohen or Elliott Smith or what-have-you-“Ooh, I’m a saaaaad little pup!” music you usually choose.

Tim Burton’s Imagination, LLC. and the Walter Elias Disney Ol’ Fashion Biscuit Company present Alice in Wonderland: a crass, joyless, and offensive picture.

CRASS.

A Hollywood-standard “orange-and-teal” color palette, art direction imitated (poorly) from the Lord of the Rings playbook, and a pitiful, broad story cobbled together from the Every Screenwriter’s Field Guide to Joseph Campbell make this a basically inelegant and uninspired moviegoing experience.

Time was, we would enter a Burton picture knowing there would be at least one surprise — a camera trick, some ingenious editing, or a courageous design choice — to dazzle us. Even Planet of the Apes, until now Burton’s weakest movie, did a wonderful job of evoking post-apocalyptic dread with its bizarre architecture and desolate, smoke-filled plains. No such luck here; we might as well be watching any old production designer’s take on a “dark Wonderland.”

The big set-pieces — the chessboard battlefield, the Red and White Queens’ palaces, and the Mad Hatter’s, eh, rotted-out Dutch windmill (?!) — are about as impressive as a college senior’s portfolio sketches for their art school application. The pat, Modern Cinema Approved color palette, a variation on the stand teal-and-orange of major Hollywood pictures, further rob the images of any sense of wonder and originality.

And the Dodo doesn’t carry a cane. What the fuck?!

JOYLESS.

You get the feeling watching Alice in Wonderland that the screenwriter held Carroll’s original material in utter contempt. Gone are the logic puzzles, wordgames, and clever inversions that have been a hallmark of even the worst Alice films. Instead, we get long-winded “political” speeches against the Red Queen, some (apparently, uh, “clever”) mumbling from Tweedledum and Tweedledee, and battle-scarred Mad Hatter who is terrified that he’s lost his mind.

I don’t want the Mad Hatter to be a refuge from a deleted sequence in Apocalypse Now. He’s mad — that’s the fucking point! Delightfully mad! Screwball! A cut-up! A real weirdo! He’s not the “Formerly Industrious Haberdasher Who Was Traumatized By a Dragony Blitzkrieg.” There’s a reason for that. It’s not whimsical. It’s not funny. It’s joyless. It robs us of deriving any glee from his antics.

There  small moments of childlike wonder: the frogs in the Red Queen’s court are hilarious, and Anne Hathaway as the White Queen pulls off some fine classic Disney princess posturing amidst her jerryrigged CGI ice palace.

A short retelling of Alice’s first encounter in Wonderland, uh, “Underland” gives us a glimpse of the playful film Burton could have made with a superior script. But even this lovely sequence is marred by Memento-like “You’ve seen all this before, child” speeches from Absalom (that’s the Caterpillar’s name, for some reason).

The exciting thing about Carroll’s book, and what was captured so beautifully in a reductive form in the 1951 Disney picture, was the sense of free play between words and the things they’re meant to describe, logic and nonsense, and individuality versus social responsibility. All of that is gone in the bleak 2010 Alice in Wonderland, which trades all these virtues for the modern vices of self-seriousness, good-versus-evil Americanism, and “hero’s journey” platitudes.

…and I didn’t even tell you about the Mad Hatter’s hip-hop breakdown once power has been restored to the White Queen.

OFFENSIVE.

Here’s the biggie. Get ready.

To me, Carroll’s Alice was a perfect characterization of a child passing into a broader social, aesthetic, and personal knowledge. When she enters Wonderland, Alice is snotty, short-tempered, and arrogant; after the two books, she’s learned that her way is not always, necessarily, the “right” way, and that things (ideas, people, motives, politics — everything) are not so clear-cut as she first thought.

It’s a great lesson for kids, who tend (on the whole) to be conservative little creatures: Carroll says, “Explore! Learn! Play! Engage! Be befuddled, befuddle others! Go down the Rabbit Hole, and be smarter when you get out!” Sadly, our new Alice learns one lesson from her adventure in Underland: “Be a better capitalist!”

It’s setup early on that Alice’s father aims to open up new trade routes to Jakarta with his business partners. We sense their skepticism, and learn later that they failed to invest in his scheme.

After Alice undergoes her Joseph Campbell transformation from affable, dreamy 19-year-old to Jabberwocky-decapitating warrior-princess in Underland, she returns to the “real world” and summarily guts every person she knows. Now, “grown-ups are hypocrites” is a great lesson for children to learn — Christ knows it’s true — but that lesson means less-than-zero if the child in the story doesn’t somehow react against that hypocrisy.

What does 2010 Alice do? She brusquely commands her father’s former business partner into his study, lays out a map of trade routes, and resurrects her father’s Jakarta scheme, extending it further to include China. “Imagine being the first Englishman to do trade with China!” she declares to her father’s partner’s surprise and delight. The film ends with Alice standing at the wheel of a ship, eyes set on the sea, chin held up in pride.

Yes, that’s right, friends: 2010 Alice’s story is, “Young lady enters fantastical realm of the impossible…and comes out a capitalist par-excellence!”

If you’re looking for a cultural bellwether for 21st American imperialism, look no further than the new Alice in Wonderland. By the end of the film, we realize we’ve just seen The Fountainhead with talking animals in it.

Crass, joyless, and offensive. I expected to be underwhelmed by this take on one of my favorite stories; instead, it just made me sad.

Some number of years ago, in a place called Hollywood, a meeting was held by the director James Cameron. He invited to this meeting three of his good friends: the directors Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Francis Ford Coppola.

“Fellow artists,” James Cameron said, “Do you remember the 1970s? We all came up together then, lads; and we believed, truly believed, that cinema had power, that it could do things.”

“Well, sure we did, James,” replied Steven Spielberg. “And I think it’s fair to say we all believe it still holds power today.”

The group all agreed.

“I have a proposal, then,” said James Cameron. “I want us four, right now, to come up with an idea that will perfectly encapsulate our views of the cinema and its power. I’ll take down notes, and then I’ll type the notes up, and then I’ll make a script of the notes, and subsequently a film from the script.”

The three other directors thought this was a capital idea, and then each expressed what they would like to see in said film. George Lucas went first.

“Well, James, y’see,” George Lucas wheezed, “I’ve always been interested in New Age mumbo jumbo, and Joseph Campell’s semi-Jungian hero cycle malarkey. I’d like to see some of that.”

“Ah, yes, yes,” James Cameron said. “Of course you’d want that. Well, I think it’s a great idea: my epoch-defining movie will definitely have its fair share of New Age crap. Steven, what’s your vision of our film-to-end-all-films?”

“James, let me be honest,” Steven Spielberg replied. “I’m a great filmmaker. Everybody knows that.”

They all agreed. They were afraid not to.

“I am renowned for my technical innovations, my innate grasp of shot composition, and my pitch-perfect visual storytelling. I can also pull off scenes of shocking violence with a deft touch. But at the end of the day, when it comes down to it, I’m a big softie; so, no matter how brutal any of my films may get, there’s always an emotional core — a big, sappy, gooey, sentimental, over-wrought emotional core.”

You’d have to be a fool not to agree to that, so all of them did.

“All of this is to say, boys, that I want a big emotional arch in our film-that’s-so-big-it’ll-end-all-films-forever-and-nobody’ll-ever-need-to-make-a-film-again-it’s-so-good,” Steven Spielberg concluded.

The group cheered. (Everybody cheered when Steven spoke!)

Next came Francis Ford Coppola. Drunk on his own wine, Francis leaned forward and offered up his ideas for this great film that would encapsulate Hollywood filmmaking from the 1970s - 2000s.

“I am obsessed by violence, and the vagaries of war. You know this, guys: I’ve tackled it once in Apocalypse Now, and I think we ought to tackle it again here in our big fuck-all of a film.” Francis hiccuped, then went on: “Furthermore, I am a soft-toothed Northern California liberal, and so would like soft-toothed, totally market-safe swipes at imperialism, corporations, and pollution mixed in there somewhere, if it’s at all possible. Ummm…and something about Indians. Yeah, Like, feathers, arrows, Mother Earth, something. Like the commercial with the chief, and he’s crying at the trash? Oh, you know! Indians.”

“Yes!” shouted James Cameron as he furiously scribbled notes. “Yes, yes! My film is at last coming together! You boys are brilliant, geniuses one and all!”

“But what about your vision, James?” Steven Spielberg inquired. “What do you want to see in your film?”

James Cameron stopped to think for a moment, then he spoke:

“Well, I’ve always been into big motherfucker robotic stomp-machines — you’ve seen Terminator, so you know that. Reckon I ought to have some of those in there. And my kids just loved Ferngully when it came out. It made them so happy! I ought to have some of that in there, too. And why not a big action centerpiece where something massive collapses, kind of like how I sank that ship in Titanic?” James stopped and thought a moment, then quickly added: “I like big, tubey stuff swirling hypnotically in space, too — remember The Abyss? — so, I guess I’ll throw some of that on the fire.”

And so James Cameron ended his meeting, and took all of the notes and typed them up, then developed the notes into a script, then spent $300 million on making the script into a movie. And he called the movie Avatar, and everyone said Roger Ebert would love it. And he did.

The End

“You’re welcome, New York!” Eccentric billionaire Robert Rabiee - pictured here in new glasses - presents the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center.

The tree, taller than many five Empire State Buildings somehow stacked on top of one another, is Mr. Rabiee’s annual gift to the people of New York.

“I love to give,” Mr. Rabiee says. “My priest told me once that giving is living. I aspire to that in my every action.”

“It’s also one hell of a write-off,” he adds.

Mr. Rabiee, who made headlines recently when his trademark glasses snapped in two, runs the single largest prostitution ring in the northeastern United States. He is also the founder of the New John Birch Society For The Strengthening of American Morals (NJBFTSAM), a far right-wing group responsible for the publication and dissemination of hate pamphlets of varying degrees of detestability.

R.I.P., old friend.

Has the December weather put a chill in your bones? Stay in tonight to watch “Birth of a Nation” with the family, and wrap yourself up in the warm embrace of racism (er, “heritage”)!

Perfect for the outdoorsie-types, too! Wrap the kiddies up to keep Old Jack Frost from nipping at their toes during your CHRISTMAS - not holiday - cross burnin’!

This swank reminder of a brutal legacy of cruelty and oppression costs only $24.99 - so get yours today!

Just watched The Loved One (Dir. Tony Richardson) again tonight; I’d been talking it up to my folks so much that they demanded we see it. Any movie with Robert Morse, Rod Steiger, James Coburn, Sir John Gielgud, Jonathan Winters (in one of his two roles doing a crack Richard Nixon impression), Liberace, and Uncle Milty can’t help but work. Tony Richardson’s manic editing style, on display in Tom Jones! and perfected with the help of Hal Ashby here, combined with Terry Southern and Christopher Isherwood’s script = sheer brilliance. It’s not Dr. Strangelove good, but so far as these very specific 1960s satires go, it’s definitely rubbing shoulders with that stone masterpiece.

Also watched Last Year at Marienbad (Dir. Alain Resnais) this morning. It neither baffled nor annoyed me; frankly, I had a great time watching it. Yes: a great, great time.

So, a great, goofy mid-60s satire on Hollywood and the funeral industries, and an elegiac, High Modernist film about memory, place, and loss — what in the heavens could these things have in common?

Shots. Shots. Shot.

In the documentary that accompanies the newest The Loved One DVD release, DP/Producer Haskell Wexler says that he and Terry Richardson were trying to bring forth a Hollywood “New Wave” with this picture. (You have to wonder how Evelyn Waugh would’ve felt about all this. I’ve read The Loved One, and The Loved One ain’t that.)

Look at some of these shots from The Loved One set against shots from Last Year at Marienbad and tell me Richardson, Wexler, Ashby, and everyone else involved in this production didn’t achieve their goal:

Famous shot from Last Year at Marienbad, in the hotel gardens.

Aimee and Dennis in the Poets’ Corner from The Loved One

Grand entrance to Whispering Glades offices in The Loved One

View from top of a staircase in Last Year at Marienbad

A retreats from the hotel in Last Year at Marienbad

Aimee retreats from a horned-up limey poet in The Loved One

The stylistic similarities go deeper: even the soundtrack to The Loved One at times imitates Francis Seyrig’s score for Marienbad. (I’m thinking of the quick-change scene between a funeral and a wedding before Sir Francis’s burial at Whispering Glades, and the Gothic organ music that plays constantly in the cemetery.)

I have to believe Richardson saw and admired Last Year at Marienbad; the similarities in shots, camera movement, and detail (loads of long shots on statues, flower pots, and the like) all call back to Resnais’s movie in a major way. Even the plot of the two pictures have similarities: lovers who can’t get it together thrust in a viciously satirical world that is inevitably part of their undoing.

Honestly, I think Last Year at Marienbad could’ve been a hell of a lot funnier if Robert Morse replaced Giorgio Albertazzi as X and Rod Steiger replaced Sacha Pitoëff as M. Or hell, just have Jonathan Winters play X, M, and A — you know he could pull it off. He was fucking Jonathan Winters.

Whatever the case, if you haven’t seen the pictures…see the pictures.

“For if we take an examination of what is generally understood by happiness, as it has respect either to the understanding or the senses we shall find all its properties and adjuncts will herd under this short definition, that it is a perpetual possession of being well deceived.”

~ Jonathan Swift, “A Tale of a Tub”

(30,000. Keep truckin’, smiley kids. Sell dat toothin’ paste!)