Madness of a Lost Society (short)

 

Another view of Black Friday…

 

HOw to look cool in pictures

Models, actors, and the rest of you… what to specifically do in front of the camera:

 

Nuclear Power Will Save Us!

Ten most radioactive places on earth mapped out

 

UP WITH TURKEYS! – Free Birds (2013)

UP WITH TURKEYS! “Free Birds” and Animal Rights

“The only message in it is all the holidays are about pressing pause in your life and getting together with the people that you love and appreciating them.”

—Jimmy Hayward, writer-director of Free Birds

BY JENNIFER EPPS

It may be true that Jimmy Hayward had no political or social agenda when he co-wrote the animated adventure-comedy Free Birds, a time travel romp which sends a pair of turkeys back to 1621 to interfere with the pilgrims’ first Thanksgiving feast and try to “take turkeys off the menu.” Filmmakers frequently disavow any ulterior motive when they make films that could be controversial, but maybe he really thought it was just a good story. Frankly, his intentions are his own business. We vegetarians don’t get much entertainment of our own, and a Thanksgiving fantasy in which a turkey pardoned by the President and a commando from the Turkey Freedom Front go on a mission “not just to save 10 turkeys or 100 turkeys, but all turkeys for all time” is pretty mind-blowing. Of course we’re likely to be reminded almost as soon as we leave the cinema that the slaughter continues, but you can’t change the future if you can’t imagine how different it could be. Free Birds works the way The Yes Men’s fantasy newspaper headlines did in their prank New York Times issues,  or the way John Lennon’s lyrics in “Imagine” do. They affirm that you can, in fact, imagine a Thanksgiving tradition in which the pilgrims ate boxed pizza. It’s easy if you try.

The movie doesn’t advocate a totally plant-based diet, so I’m afraid vegans might not be fully satisfied. And in one shot a pizza even has anchovies! But Rome wasn’t built in a day, and the stacks of pizzas delivered via time machine do seem to be just cheese pizzas with tomato sauce — no meat is in evidence. Moreover, the fact that Woody Harrelson’s voice is in this movie is a significant part of its delights. Not only does his deft vocal performance have beautiful comic timing as a self-important, barrel-chested turkey warrior for the cause, but the presence of this premier vegan in a growing list of celebrity herbivores (which includes not only Bill Clinton but now Al Gore), speaks to the positive spirit of the film. To have Harrelson playing Jake, the most motivated, most activist turkey of them all, is a clever in-joke.

Like Chicken Run, irrepressible Aardman Animations’ take on another species of fowl who would rather live than be eaten, the plight of the characters in Free Birds is grim, but much less in a PETA spy-cam kind of way than in a boisterous, storybook adventure way. The Thanksgiving tradition may loom over the eponymous turkeys, but the specific villain is a scowling, Cockney military officer determined to hunt down the wild turkeys in the woods near the Puritans’ settlement, and most of the movie is about the wild birds’ attempts to stay safe in a vast underground colony while also carrying out guerrilla ambushes.

There’s just enough context to provoke thought – should the viewer so choose. The movie launches off with a powerful contrast between the Norman Rockwell glow that Thanksgiving brings to humans feasting on a succulent golden-brown bird and the horror felt in the breast of a member of that species – realizing for the first time the truth behind his kind’s coexistence with humans. The president’s public pardoning of one turkey also shows some of the hypocritical tension that lurks behind our eating habits: he makes a speech (voiced by Hayward himself) as he proudly rescues the lone turkey, excoriating the “terrible, but delicious” fate this one fortunate fowl has escaped.

Amusingly, when the turkey hero Reggie (Owen Wilson) warns his peers on the farm of the vast plot against them, none of them will believe him. They’re blissfully oblivious of the danger  – and that’s because, Reggie’s voice-over tells us, turkeys are stupid. I like the implicit argument (which let me repeat is completely implicit) that even an unintelligent life form might want and deserve better than becoming our dinner. (A hierarchical Chain of Being is usually part of carnivores’ defenses of meat eating, even though it is a very vulnerable argument.) The complacency of the unsuspecting turkeys works as social satire as well: when the flock finally realizes that the intellectual Reggie, who they’ve been ostracizing, is right about why the farmer’s been fattening them up, they turn against him even more: because “he’s anti-corn.”

However, when Reggie ends up, through convoluted steps (and a time machine that’s an experiment of the U.S. military!), back in 1621, the wild turkeys he meets turn out to be completely different. They’re self-sufficient, alert, and much more pro-active; it’s apparently the domestication and dependency that dumbed the turkeys down. In case we might think this is only true for farm animals, there are also scenes of Reggie enjoying life as a remote-flipping, pizza-munching, couch potato addicted to Telenovelas. And when he’s in that mode, he doesn’t think as clearly as the more active turkeys. Sounds familiar.

The 17^th century wild American turkeys have been forced further and further back off their land by the white Europeans – and since this mimics what happened to the Native Americans, it’s fitting that many of these turkeys paint their faces with war paint like in some indigeneous tribes. The head of the wild flock is also presented very much like an Indian chief, and finds himself a victim of a similar march of progress. In the climax, the turkeys face off against the Europeans on the battlefield: the turkeys have only wooden spears and flaming pumpkins and are vastly outmatched by the settlers’ arsenal. It’s too bad that when a couple of real Native Americans do finally show up, there isn’t more thought given to their characters.

But for those who care about animal rights, it should be very significant that the movie has a scene set in a factory farm. “I didn’t grow up on a nice free-range farm,” Jake tells Reggie, jealous of the pastoral life the more passive turkey has led. Instead, Jake explains in a flashback to a severe, black, industrial, prison-like CAFO, he grew up “in a cold factory.” The spirits of all these turkeys imprisoned in a sunless grey wasteland are clearly broken. Rows upon rows of glum turkeys in shadowy metal cages set their hopes on Jake breaking out and starting a new, freer flock, but he is no match for the humans in lab coats and their oppressive technology. And this original trauma works even better as political commentary because it is woven into the core of Jake’s character development – and into the time travel plot.

Now, factory farms are actually much worse than how they are depicted in the movie – since in real life factory farmed fowl are crowded into these cages and often unable to turn around or stretch – but the fact that an escapist piece of mainstream entertainment intended for family viewing is painting one as dungeon-like is damn amazing, and credit should be given where due.

The main flaw of the picture, like that of so many movies but particularly animated ones, is that the ratio of male characters to female characters is about 90 to 1. These movies seem to think they’re feminist because they have a gutsy heroine – the chief’s daughter, voiced very well by Amy Poehler, has plenty of dialogue and is smart, resourceful, confident, a good leader, and all the rest of the attributes common these days among princessly heroines – but she’s the only female character in an entire turkey civilization who speaks more than a single sentence. In this respect the turkeys echo the humans in the settlement, where only the males are individualized. As per usual, the male characters cover a wide range of types – old, young, plump, wiry, brave, cowardly, brilliant, foolish, and so on – just as people do in real life. But the females are the Other, and since they are seen from the perspective of the male protagonists, they can only be  Love Interests. (This was particularly egregious in Barnyard, a 2006 animated feature about a herd of male cows.) In Free Birds, even when a nursery of turkey chicks becomes part of the narrative, there seem to be no significant female turkeys anywhere in sight besides Poehler. The boy turkeys get to hog not only the allegedly male functions of driving the plot, having adventures, and solving problems, but here they even try on the traditional female functions of parenting the chicks!

Hayward is co-writer, director, and also voice actor for a handful of roles in the picture – in other words, he is pulling a Brad Bird. Unfortunately, he hasn’t delivered a finished product that sparkles as much as it seems to want to do. The references cater more to the adults in the audience than to the kids, and the schtick gets in the way of the story sometimes because it goes on so long and is so tangential. Also, a fair number of the one-liners and gags don’t quite land, partly because the rhythm, as is so often the case in animated features, is relentlessly hyperactive.  Now, if it had been one of the inventive Aardman Animations films it probably would have gotten more and more richly entangled at the climax – as it is, there’s a build and build and then a  very quick and sudden resolution.  But all in all, the story works. The premise is not only an animal liberationist’s dream, it’s also clever and spirited.

Vegetarians and animal rights activists ought to embrace this movie. Society cannot be changed just by sharing polemical documentaries with your circle (as terrific as Forks Over Knives and Harrelson’s own, Go Further, are).  Some of the work of reform has to come about through sheer silliness. Like when the turkeys in Free Birds make imaginary binoculars with their feathered fingers, yet are convinced they really do see better with them. Or like the layers of jokey time travel loops which complicate the climax. Or like when Jake goes into a reverie about The Great Turkey in the sky, and each time, he stops and stares into space. Even though I had to look up what a Turducken was, it’s worth waiting for the end of the credits to hear Jake’s horrified outrage about it.

Female Pleasure Censored Again

Evan Rachel Wood lets loose on the MPAA for double standards and bias…

Evan Rachel Wood Calls Out the MPAA for Sex Scene Double Standards on Deleted ‘Charlie Countryman’ Scene

This bolsters another recent complaint about female pleasure being censored on TV.

 

Classic Thanksgiving: Alice’s Restaurant

Deep Web: Bitcoin and Silk Road

Filmmaker Alex Winter presents a radical and potentially disturbing take on the web beyond the law, the secretive parts of the internet nicknamed the “dark web.”

Winter already did a film favorable to Napster, calling it a “revolution” and giving a one-sided view of file sharing.

 

What strikes me is the total contempt and opposition to the music artists (and other copyright holders) who want to get paid so they can survive.   There is no balance to his presentation, and his fawning description of a web beyond the law, the realm of drugs, organized crime and terrorism, sort of gives pause.  Just what is he advocating?  Some laws are a good thing.

I remember a documentary from 1970 about the Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin touring across Canada.  Just after Woodstock, when the massive crowds tore down the fences and the concert turned free – the bands met up with Canadian crowds who only wanted free concerts.  The kids tried to tear down fences in several shows, and Jerry Garcia discussed it with others about how the band needed to get paid so they could tour at all.   The musicians do need some compensation, and the expectation of free everything is childish and unrealistic, actually detrimental to all concerned.  If artists can’t survive then they will be out of the game.  Some compensation needs to be part of the system, or else it validates the claims of music corporations that downloading is “theft.”  Many people hate corporations with a knee jerk response, and the big ones deserve it.  But the musicians themselves are a part of this equation.

Alex Winter’s new project Deep Web is described here:

Deep Web: The Untold Story of BitCoin and The Silk Road

His pitch for a $10,000 sugar daddy is another moment to give pause.  Seems like someone oblivious that he’s playing with fire.  Or else he’s a bit of a pyromaniac.  Something to consider, anyway.

How can we balance the needs of free communications with the need to uphold the law and fight crime?  The new age is scary, for so many reasons.  The rise of hackers, government and corporate sponsored, as well as individuals and straight out criminals has us all at a disadvantage.  The modern condition is hackers 1, citizens 0.  As systems become more complex and pervasive that score is going to get a lot worse.

Wim Wenders’ 50 Golden Rules of Moviemaking

Wim Wenders’ 50 Golden Rules of Moviemaking

 

Jeremy Scahill Bullies Mother Agnes!

I’ve informed organizers of @STWuk that I will not participate in their conference if Mother Agnes is on the platform.

— jeremy scahill (@jeremyscahill) November 15, 2013

 

Unbelievable.  Jeremy Scahill, who is pushing his US foundation funded “expose” Dirty Wars apparently can’t handle reality in Syria.

Suppressing the Truth on Syria: Mother Agnes Mariam and Britain’s Self Proclaimed “Antiwar Movement”

Mother Agnes risks her life to get the truth out about Al Qaeda connected psychopaths in Syria raining terror and nerve gas down on women and children.  This does not fit with official US foreign policy, as the truth seldom does these days.  Scahill reveals himself as another cog in the imperial machinery.

This validates Doug Valentine’s scathing take on Scahill, and his not so revealing revelations.

Those Movies

I actually watch more movies than I write about here.  Some are so inconsequential (early 70s vampire soft core?), and some are so stupid that they don’t even deserve mention.  Okay, there’s embarrassment for having chosen and sat through them at all.  We’ve all been there.  I’m pretty open-minded and end up there a lot.

One such film that I decided to ignore here was The Internship with Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughan.  If I bothered to review it, then I would have started by complaining how I felt like I was raped by Google Inc.  The product placement has become the movie, a new level of corporate psychological malfeasance.  Additionally, The Internship was stuffed with formula, unfunny generational humor and tired shtick.  Google should have gotten an executive producer credit and probably put up a chunk of money to remind us of the glory of Google, about a hundred times.

It’s a bit disturbing that the trend is toward corporate promotion and away from art, away from storytelling that matters to people (if that ever was a concern in Hollywood). I may have to belt the next knob who utters the Satanic phrase “branded entertainment.”  Bill Hicks discussed a similar situation two decades ago.

Crass marketing calculus has become the product.  The concern is no longer a wonderful story that brings along side benefits.  The only concerns are the side benefits.

Other films I’ve not bothered reviewing include The Master, which I didn’t take to.  Who could, really?  It was a dismal and ugly thing, quite unlike the other film mentioned, but still it didn’t resonate enough to warrant an additional review.  I’d already posted someone’s take on it here, and I didn’t feel it really earned a revisiting.

The Total Recall remake was mind numbingly bad too, but I spared the readers hoping it would just fade away like a bad commercial.  The cheezy 80s Arnold version gains in stature.  Others that passed by the wayside include The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, Identity Thief, Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie and The Other Guys.  None of these will end up in any pantheon of great comedies no matter how dumbed down the future may be.

I’ve watched and rewatched films, searching for gems, but when they don’t stand out I spare the readers. Yesterday morning I finished watching Hello Herman, a little indie film about the death penalty and school spree massacres.  I wasn’t going to post about it as it’s just not done very well.  The budget of course was a factor but also the specific execution.  Not terrible, but not terribly consequential either.

Today I watched the 1999 film Beat, with Courtney Love and Kiefer Sutherland.  This little historical drama tells of how William S. Burroughs murdered his wife.  Not a terrible film, but also not clicking.  Not worthy of its own post, I’m not going to pretend it’s a Cult Classic or Under the Radar.  The Burroughs barrage of insanity, Naked Lunch, however, directed by David Cronenberg is a true mind bender.

So many movies fall short that it’s rather a shame in terms of wasted resources, time, effort.  A couple years back they were submitting 10,000 films per year to the Sundance Festival.  That’s 10k full length movies, not shorts, not scripts.

The current film explosion is resource unfriendly, gobbling up time, money and dreams.  The opportunity costs are significant.  All that effort could have been put to something else.  I’ve been of the opinion that 90% of them are just a waste of human potential and the viewer’s time.  How to get to the good ones without a flood of the ghastly?  Can the top 5% exist without the 95% missed opportunities?  Seems that so many aim low, confident in their exploitative power: selling sex, selling violence, selling revenge, selling torture porn.  Of the ones that actually try harder, why so many botched efforts?  Have we seen it all?  Is there nothing new under the sun?

I think the industry grinds on because it is an industry.  People are in it for the paycheck, and whatever else their “product” foists on the world is not important to most of the people involved. The ideas being spread are largely out of their control, and people need to work.  This capitalist system is responsible for churning out mercenary art, art that exists solely because of the money flows. The participants concoct elaborate defenses as to why their system, the one they are personally invested in, is so valid, but the results, to the dispassionate observer, don’t appear so glorious.

US Trains Murderous Dictators (School of the Americas)

 

 

Metal Bum (short)