You Are Not Alone

You Are Not Alone.

Liz is with Dick, MJ, and Monty now.

What is your favorite Liz Taylor movie? Mine is A Place In The Sun. "Tell Mama all...": certainly in the upper echelons of Hollywood romances and an erotic summit. An expose of American greed and class, at its heart it is a movie about the mysteries of attraction and the depths of love. She's so beautiful in it that, though shot in exquisitely textured black-and-white, her violet eyes still pop. There's many more, of course, from Clarence Brown's mighty National Velvet to her definitive representations of gay empathy in Suddenly Last Summer and Reflections in a Golden Eye to her erotic breakthroughs in The Sandpiper and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof to her mythic portrayal of the American daughter in Father of the Bride.

We are not alone.

Love The Way You Megan Fox

Notes On Love The Way You Lie
by John Demetry

The new Eminem/Rihanna music video--Love The Way You Lie--features the year’s casting coup. Director Joseph Kahn reveals the spiritual outrage of domestic violence by casting Megan Fox as the abused partner in a codependent relationship. Through Megan Fox’s exploited humanity and expressive beauty, Kahn exposes Eminem’s misogynist violence and Rihanna’s glamorization of victimization. The casting of Hollywood’s hottest--and most unfairly maligned--starlet enables Kahn to expand the video’s cross-cutting to a social-spiritual vision. Kahn reveals the media-hipster animosity toward Fox as result of male insecurity--as acted out by Em’s doppelganger Dominic Monaghan and as narrated by Em’s queasy rapping style. Kahn stages Em’s rap in a field of wheat/grass. The gendered negative space is worthy of Wyeth, conveying male impotence/despair in the midst of feminine allure/mystery. Female jealousy and inadequacy and ambition targets Fox, as well, as represented by Rihanna’s signification of female insensitivity (Kahn notably places her in a setting that highlights the song’s bizarre/gross reversal of the Burning Bed teledrama and appropriation of David Rothenberg). Powerfully, Kahn visualizes Fox’s psychic energy--spiritual worth and signifying power--as pyrokinesis--holding fire in her hands while in a meditative or prayer pose. That’s the human spark Eminem/Rihanna attempt to pervert into violence, pathology, authority (a Kahn trope that signifies grace and makes his performers' humanity sensually tactile: he haloes them all with lens flare--but only Megan Fox GENERATES light). Because she embodies the desire that domestic violence and media exploitation perverts, Megan Fox’s indestructible significance reduces Eminem/Rihanna’s marketable lies to ash.

Coming Soon . . .

For more information, please visit The Community of Desire website.

The Community of Desire

Selected Works of Criticism (2001-2007)

by John Demetry

CONTENTS

From A.I. to American Ideal Foreward by Ben Kessler

On Love and the Hipster Problem Preface by John Demetry

2001

01: Where Dreams Are Born A.I. - Artificial Intelligence

02: Loving Everyone Intimacy

03: Inside Out Mulholland Drive

04: Happy Trails The Adventures of Felix

05: "M" For "Might-Have-Been" Gosford Park

06: God In The Movie Image Werckmeister Harmonies

07: Thanksgiving Jurassic Park III

2002

08: The State We're In Storytelling

09: Believe E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial

10: Kubrick's Olympian Wit 2001: A Space Odyssey

11: Once Is Not Enough Lola

12: Compassion on the Dance Floor Circuit

13: Snowflakes On The Moon CQ

14: Can You See? Minority Report

15: Visionary Lawrence of Arabia

16: Highbrow/Lowbrow The Professor's Daughter (play)

17: The Significance Of Thandie Newton The Truth About Charlie

18: Tale-Chasing Femme Fatale

19: To See With Love Catch Me If You Can

20: fait accompli All or Nothing

21: Pinball Wizard Tommy

2003

22: Horseplay The Weight of Water

23: Slippin' and Slidin' Justified (album)

24: Wake-Up Call Phone Booth

25: The Myth of Pascal Greggory Confusion of Genders

26: Metaphorical Metamorphosis X2: X-Men United

27: The Slow Curve The Lizzie Maguire Movie

28: Pop's Operation: Freedom "Flicker" (song)

29: Awakening To New Dreams Model Shop

30: A Sublime Gesture Together

31: What Brown University Didn't Teach Todd Haynes Gigli

32: Saving Jean-Luc Godard In Praise of Love

33: Shooting the Elephant Elephant

34: Post-Rodney King Romance Intolerable Cruelty

35: P.J. Hogan's Thimbology Peter Pan

36: The Worst KKK Apologia Ever Cold Mountain

2004

37: Racing Past Hegemony with BEAUTY Torque and Toxic

38: Choose Dogma The Passion of the Christ

39: The Least Gnostic Movie Ever Made Son frere

40: Folk Truth Goes Pop The Ladykillers

41: A New Ritual You are the Quarry

42: The Infinite Significance Of The Kiss The Terminal

43: No Borders Hero

44: Vera Icon Vera Drake

45: The Broken Hearts Club: Movies 2004

2005

46: Just Can't Say Goodbye Last Days and "Just Can't Say Goodbye" (song)

47: To BrotherLove Three Dancing Slaves

48: What Would Vermeer Do? Mysterious Skin

49: Breaking Bread With the Movie Club

50: The Sceptic to The Apostles Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe

2006

51: No Limitation Mo Gik: The Promise

52: Chaos Theory vs. Chaos Tamara and "Lightning Strikes Twice" (song)

53: Let Us Now Praise Hot Men London

54: Loop-The-Loop Final Destination 3

55: War of the Word Sorry (single)

56: The Influence of Stars Running Scared

57: Sand In My Hands You Have Killed Me (single), Ask the Dust, She's the Man, and Eight Below

58: ZAM Zap Fascism Scary Movie 4

59: Look Back In Ardor How Green Was My Valley and Gentleman's Agreement

60: Present Tensions World Trade Center

61: Sticky Fingers The Covenant

62: Br'er Gibson's Boner Apocalypto

2007

63: "We're All In This Together" High School Musical

64: Izzy or Isn't He? Jump In!

65: Rhetoric of Love Amazing Grace

Your Arsenal Annotated Selected Bibliography

For more information, please visit The Community of Desire website.

25 Favourite Movies of All Time

25 Favourite Movies of All Time
(one film per director / listed preferentially)

1. The Magnificent Ambersons (Orson Welles, 1942)
2. Intolerance (D.W. Griffith, 1916)
3. The Shanghai Gesture (Josef von Sternberg, 1941)
4. A.I. - Artificial Intelligence (Steven Spielberg, 2001)
5. Nashville (Robert Altman, 1975)
6. Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962)
7. L'avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1961)
8. No Greater Glory (Frank Borzage, 1934)
9. Last Tango In Paris (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1973)
10. Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939)
11. Jules and Jim (Francois Truffaut, 1962)
12. Made in USA (Jean-Luc Godard, 1966)
13. The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928)
14. A Day In The Country (Jean Renoir, 1936)
15. Sansho the Bailiff (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1954)
16. Lola (Jacques Demy, 1962)

17. The Love Eterne (Han Hsiang Li, 1963)
18. Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927)
19. Napoleon (Abel Gance, 1927)
20. The Long Day Closes (Terence Davies, 1993)
21. The Fury (Brian De Palma, 1978)
22. Excalibur (John Boorman, 1981)
23. The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (Preston Sturges, 1944)
24. How Green Was My Valley (John Ford, 1941)
25. The Godfather Part II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)


Click HERE for illustrated list!

25 Favourite Albums of All Time

The 25 Best/Favourite Albums of All Time
(one album per artist / listed preferentially)

1. Tusk (1979), Fleetwood Mac
2. Siren (1975), Roxy Music
3. Rubber Soul (1965), The Beatles
4. Bad Girls (1979), Donna Summer
5. Remain In Light (1980), Talking Heads
6. Very (1993), Pet Shop Boys
7. Fear of a Black Planet (1990), Public Enemy
8. Cupid & Psyche 85 (1985), Scritti Politti
9. You Are The Quarry (2004), Morrissey
10. Sticky Fingers (1971), The Rolling Stones
11. Bazerk Bazerk Bazerk (1991), Son of Bazerk
12. Never Mind the Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols (1977), Sex Pistols
13. Perhaps (1985), The Associates
14. Strangeways, Here We Come (1987), The Smiths
15. Hounds of Love (1985), Kate Bush
16. Armed Forces (1979), Elvis Costello
17. Raise the Pressure (1996), Electronic
18. O(+> (1992), Prince
19. Blood on the Dance Floor (1997), Michael Jackson
20. You're All I Need (1968), Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell
21. Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978), Bruce Springsteen
22. Playing With a Different Sex (1981), Au Pairs
23. Brotherhood (1986), New Order
24. Take It Off (1981), Chic
25. Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band (1976), Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band


Click HERE for illustrated list!

Movies, Music in 2009 / 2000s . . . According to John Demetry

Tethering Post

by John Demetry

By far the best new movie I saw in '09, Julian Hernandez's Raging Sun, Raging Sky also rightfully owns the number 3 spot on the Best of ‘00s list. However, the film distribution-and-critical hegemony keeps the movie from reaching the audience it deserves. Hernandez seemingly recognizes his circumstance in the film-cult machine: the era's best new filmmaker relegated to the cinema's gay ghetto (currently his RSRS is available only for festival rentals). Yet, his work does not fit any "gay movie" conventions (lazy critics compare him to the early 1990s New Queer Cinema when Antonioni and Ophuls would be more apt). So in a subversive modernist twist--a relatively minor detail in the film's teeming nexus--Hernandez decorates a porn theater box office with promo stills from his own short Bramadero (an erotic meditation on death). Significantly: "bramadero" means "tethering post." Although restricted by film-cult hegemony (effectively: censorship), Hernandez's unabashed gay erotic content ties him to a deeper (resistance) gay/art legacy.

Let's break down the multivalent significance of the self-referential use of Bramadero stills in Raging Sun, Raging Sky:

1. Hernandez's frank treatment of sexuality addresses the Desire (sexual/spiritual) exploited by grindhouse cinema, while also recognizing that it provides a space for the social expression of Desire by members of a marginalized group
2. Hernandez does not see his films as "above" grindhouse movies, but as part of a particular, sub-cultural history of art-cinema distribution and exhibition
3. Hernandez highlights and subverts the ghetto-ized nature of his own films (relegated to specialty audiences, yet actually expansive in their treatment of the human condition)

It begs the question: To what tethering post is NYC's gaggle of gay film critics chained? (Raise your hand if you were at the lone NYC festival screening of Raging Sun, Raging Sky.)

The following lists one person's genuine appraisal of time spent at the movies and exploring the pop landscape. In the spirit of Hernandez's audacious proposition of the movie theater as the site where love is found (and compassion developed)--I give Raging Sun, Raging Sky its place on the decade list. Should the U.S. be blessed by its official release in 2010, it will rule that year and set the standard for the next decade as well.

(originally published by Senses of Cinema)

MOVIES LISTS

Ten Best Movies of 2009 (U.S. Releases Only)

1. This Is It (Kenny Ortega)
2. Everlasting Moments (Jan Troell)
3. Brothers (Jim Sheridan)
4. You, The Living (Roy Andersson)
5. Next Day Air (Benny Boom)
6. Bandslam (Todd Graff)
7. Of Time and the City (Terence Davies)
8. Gentlemen Broncos (Jared Hess)
9. The Blind Side (John Lee Hancock)
10. Revanche (Gotz Spielmann)

Ten Best Movies of 2000s
(one film per director)

1. A.I. - Artificial Intelligence (Steven Spielberg, 2001)
2. Femme Fatale (Brian De Palma, 2002)
3. Raging Sun, Raging Sky (Julian Hernandez, 2009)
4. Together (Chen Kaige, 2003)
5. Hero (Zhang Yimou, 2004)
6. Rachel Getting Married (Jonathan Demme, 2008)
7. The Witnesses (Andre Techine, 2008)
8. Vera Drake (Mike Leigh, 2004)
9. Kung Fu Hustle (Stephen Chow, 2005)
10. 2046 (Wong Kar-Wai, 2005)
(tie)
10. Son frere (Patrice Chereau, 2004)

MUSIC LISTS

Ten Best Albums of 2009
(U.S. releases only)

1. Years of Refusal, Morrissey
2. Never Cry Another Tear, Bad Lieutenant
3. Yes, Pet Shop Boys
4. The Boy Who Knew Too Much, Mika
5. Mr. Lucky, Chris Isaak
6-8. The-Dream/Tricky Stewart Trilogy
(tie) Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel, Mariah Carey
(tie) Love vs. Money, The-Dream
(tie) How To Be A Lady: Vol. 1, Electrik Red
9. The Latest, Cheap Trick
10. Shock Value II, Timbaland


Ten Best Singles of 2009
(U.S. releases only)

1. Did You See Me Coming?, Pet Shop Boys
2. Empire State of Mind, Jay-Z
3. Sink or Swim, Bad Lieutenant
4. Love etc., Pet Shop Boys
5. It Doesn't Often Snow At Christmas (Christmas EP), Pet Shop Boys
6. I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris, Morrissey
7. We Let Her Down, Chris Isaak
8. Beautiful People, Pet Shop Boys
9. Halo, Beyonce
10. The-Dream/Tricky Stewart Trilogy
(tie) Walkin' on the Moon, The-Dream
(tie) So Good, Electrik Red
(tie) I Want To Know What Love Is, Mariah Carey

25 Best Albums of the 00s
(one album per artist; U.S. releases only)

1. You Are the Quarry (2004), Morrissey
2. The Man Who (2000), Travis
3. Twisted Tenderness (2000), Electronic
4. Never Cry Another Tear (2009), Bad Lieutenant*
5. Yes (2009), Pet Shop Boys*
6. Waiting for the Sirens' Call (2005), New Order*
7. White Bread Black Beer (2006), Scritti Politti
8. Say You Will (2003), Fleetwood Mac
9. Frantic (2002), Bryan Ferry
10. Disco Volante (2000), Cinerama
11. 2 Worlds Collide (2004), David Morales
12. Lifeline (2004), Iris DeMent
13. Invincible (2001), Michael Jackson
14. The Best of Both Worlds (2002), R. Kelly & Jay-Z
15. FutureSex/LoveSounds (2006), Justin Timberlake
16. The Blueprint (2001), Jay-Z
17. Life in Cartoon Motion (2007), Mika
18. Gift of Screws (2008), Lindsey Buckingham
19. Timbaland Presents: Shock Value (2007), Timbaland
20. Tales From Turnpike House (2006), Saint Etienne
21. Magic (2007), Bruce Springsteen
22. Aaliyah (2001), Aaliyah
23. An Pierlé & White Velvet (2006), An Pierlé & White Velvet
24. Under Construction (2003), Missy Elliott
25. I Am... Sasha Fierce (2008), Beyoncé

*--4-6: currently that order is interchangeable: How would YOU rank them?!

Armond White Remembers Michael Jackson and Keeps the Motown Discourse Moving!

Resistance Works, WDC presents:


ARMOND WHITE'S PRESENTATION AT NYU'S 'REMEMBERING MICHAEL JACKSON' PANEL, SEPTEMBER 17, 2009
(pictures of the event below)

"What is the problem with Michael Jackson?" asked an Iraqi insurgent in the process of torturing Marky Mark Wahlberg (of all people) in the 1999 film Three Kings.

Answer: It is the Motown Problem: The devaluing of popular art—as when POTUS belittled Jackson as merely "an entertainer." But Jackson was an artist—with all the seriousness that appellation implies.

The Motown Problem is that black artistry (complicated human artistry) is casually disrespected as something glib, or trying-to-be-white artistry. It’s a class and status problem that even exists today.

Let’s briefly look back at how Michael Jackson exemplified Motown artistry in the substance of his earliest Motown hits:

I Want You Back—A kid’s moan expressively imitates an older person’s heartache, but in its closing strains, heartache and joy combined.

ABC—Bubble-gum pop, yet it’s ecstatic.

The Love You Save—Enunciates the discourse of loving, of personal recovery, or intimate and social communion. The mention Isaac Newton, Benjamin Frankliln, Alexander Graham Bell, Christopher Columbus—acknowledges school lessons, facts of kids receiving Western indoctrination/education and applying it to their personal lives. A crucial tenet of Motown’s Civil Rights Era progressive, upwardly mobile agenda.

I’ll Be There—Bring salvation back. Togetherness, it’s all I’m after.

Never Can Say Goodbye—Older regret and longing in kiddie voice ("piercing me right through the core"). It’s powerful. Whether or not the 12-year-old knows what it means, every listener does.

More than any other Motown artist, it was Michael who most successfully translated Motown’s integrationist ethic. The company’s motto: "The Sound of Young America" sounds like what Jay-Z, in the post-WWII, post Brown vs. Board of Education era, would call a "hustle." But it had a purpose—not a hustle, a mission: How to speak to America by enjoining it and becoming it. Claiming it.

Motown was not a gut bucket, deep-south sound—and the ‘60s designation of "Soul Music" was not detached from the genuine, personal expression one hears in Motown. Motown was a sound with the colors of Jacob Lawrence’s Great Migration series in it. That means it had down home rhythm and twang, but Northern pronunciation, vocabulary and diction. It achieves a great American articulation. For the generations who stressed education and advancement, this Motown language and Motown ethic was success itself. Apart from whatever monetary benefits accrued.

In "The Love You Save" Michael demonstrated that he could command the eternal entreaties of pop discourse—terms that are interchangeable whether discussing love or politics. These are terms pop artists must learn to master. And for R&B artists particularly, the Love/Save terms must also describe spiritual aspiration.

This Motown idiom became Michael Jackson’s language—especially as it matured into the complicated expression of his adult pop songs recorded to address a fractious political and cultural era. It’s at the heart of "Black or White" in the assertions of fearlessness and brotherhood that should not have surprised any Motown adept but should have echoed the Civil Rights Era ethics.

Yet, MJ’s most complex enunciations occurred in the stressful hiphop era, when ideas of Blackness had been tortured into rancor and stereotype. I detail this in the Keep Moving chapter on the Black or White music video:

Raised in the Motown ethic of assimilate-and-accommodate, Michael Jackson means it when he preaches brotherhood in "Black or White." Integration and racial unity are indispensable tenets for his philosophy for showbiz success partly because of the practical need for Black artist to work with white musicians, technicians, and buisness people, partly because Jackson, no doubt, believes in it. Jackson ain’t just whislin’ Dixie, to use an old phrase—in fact, he gives racial unity a modern emphasis, adding a new, shocking sincerity, to the politics of crossover.

To misunderstand MJ’s "problem" meant misunderstanding Motown because in so many inarguable ways—statistical, artistic and emotional—he had become its greatest ambassador, its greatest success story. His success spread out from obvious global recognition to a more universal acceptance of black artistry—black feelings and anxieties and aspiration.

In the very personal music that MJ made after leaving Motown the complications of translating African American experience into universal thought and language were ever-present. Now, the Michael Jackson problem is: Who is willing to see it? Who is willing to appreciate it?

--Armond White

NEW ARMOND WHITE BOOK!!!!! -- only $10.00!!!

KEEP MOVING
The Michael Jackson Chronicles
_____________
ARMOND WHITE

ABOUT THE BOOK
“Has there been a more compelling show-biz/arts figure than Michael Jackson?”

In this collection, controversial critic Armond White chronicles the career of Michael Jackson. Written throughout his quarter-century as a critic, these essays focus on the workMichael Jackson produced AFTER the record-breaking commercial success of the Thrilleralbum. He examines the impact of Michael Jackson as a cultural phenomenon, aesthetic/music force and dance icon/show-biz influence. Armond White uncovers the deep meaning in Michael Jackson’s art—especially the songs and music videos created and associated with the Bad, Dangerous, HIStory, and Blood On The Dance Floor albums.

TO ORDER OR FOR MORE INFORMATION

resistanceworkswdc@yahoo.com

20 Best Movies of 2008

20 Best Movies of 2008 -- A movie year too abundant in good and great films (46 you should definately see!) for just a top 10.

1. Rachel Getting Married (Jonathan Demme)
2. The Witnesses (Andre Techine)
3. Happy-Go-Lucky (Mike Leigh)
4. CJ7 (Stephen Chow)
5. My Blueberry Nights (Wong Kar Wai)
6. Romance of Astree and Celadon (Eric Rohmer)
7. Gunnin' For That #1 Spot (Adam Yauch)
8. Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull (Steven Spielberg)
9. Chaos Theory (Marcos Siega)
10. The Wedding Director (Marco Bellocchio)
11. Burn After Reading (The Coen Brothers)
12. Never Back Down (Jeff Wadlow)
13. Transporter 3 (Olivier Megaton)
14. Cadillac Records (Darnell Martin)
15. Twilight (Catherine Hardwicke)
16. Battle For Haditha (Nick Broomfield)
17. My Brother Is An Only Child (Daniele Luchetti)
18. Death Race (Paul W.S. Anderson)
19. Roman De Gare (Claude Lelouch)
20. W. (Oliver Stone)

Runners Up (Alphabetical) (10):

Aleksandra (Aleksandr Sokurov), Be Kind Rewind (Michel Gondry), First Sunday (David E. Talbert), Frontrunners (Caroline Suh), Hamlet 2 (Andrew Fleming), Meet Dave (Brian Robbins), Noah’s Arc: Jumping the Broom (Patrik-Ian Polk), Rocknrolla (Guy Ritchie), Shotgun Stories (Jeff Nichols), The Wackness (Jonathan Levine)

Good! - Reasons To Go To The Movies (Alphabetical) (16):

Before I Forget (Jacques Nolot), Bedtime Stories (Adam Shankman), Bonneville (Christopher N. Rowley), Chris & Don: A Love Story (Tina Mascara / Guido Santi), Dark Matter (Shi-Zheng Chen), Flawless (Michael Radford), The Foot Fist Way (Jody Hill), Forbidden Kingdom (Rob Minkoff), How She Move (Ian Iqbal Rashid), Max Payne (John Moore), My Winnipeg (Guy Maddin), Role Models (David Wain), Swing Vote (Joshua Michael Stern), Tropic Thunder (Ben Stiller), War, Inc. (Joshua Seftel), What Happens In Vegas (Tom Vaughan)

Well-Meaning / Has Redeeming Value (Alphabetical) (12):

10,000 BC (Roland Emmerich), Derek (Isaac Julien), The Family That Preys (Tyler Perry), Forever Strong (Ryan Little), Get Smart (Peter Segal), House Bunny (Fred Wolf), The Life Before Her Eyes (Vadim Perelman), Mamma Mia! (Phyllida Lloyd), Shelter (Jonah Markowitz), U2 3D (Catherine Owens / Mark Pellington), Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins (Malcolm D. Lee), You Don't Mess With The Zohan (Dennis Dugan)

Bad (Alphabetical) (6):

Frontier(s) (Xavier Gens), The Last Mistress (Catherine Breillat), Sex & The City (Michael Patrick King), The Spiderwick Chronicles (Mark Waters), Step Up 2: The Streets (Jon Chu), Stop-Loss (Kimberly Pierce)

Atrocities (Worst to Least Worst) (10)

1. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu)
(tie)
1. Wall-E (Andrew Stanton)
2. The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan)
(tie)
2. Wanted (Timur Bekmambetov)
5. Savage Grace (Tom Kalin)
6. Mister Lonely (Harmony Korine)
7. Paranoid Park (Gus Van Sant)
8. Snow Angels (David Gordon Green)
9. Flight of the Red Balloon (Hsiao-hsien Hou)
10. Another Gay Sequel: Gays Gone Wild (Todd Stephens)

Armond White on Michael Jackson!

Fascinating new blog called "The Wow Jones Report" features this MUST-read interview with Armond White on Michael Jackson:

INTERVIEW: Critic Armond White on Michael Jackson Lincoln Center Tribute

The interview concerns an upcoming event on which Wow Jones also reports here:

"King Of Pop" Michael Jackson To Be Honored at Lincoln Center In New York City

For more information on this event, the highlight of every year:

FRIDAY JAN 18th, 2008 Walter Reade Theater 6:15PM
Video Artists and Hollywood Influence (Michael Jackson)
Series: Dance on Camera Festival 2008
Director: Armond White, Country: USA, Runtime: 90
Co-presented by Scanners: The New York Video Festival.

Ten Best Singles of 2007

Ten Best Singles of 2007

1. "What Goes Around... Comes Around," Justin Timberlake
2. "LoveStoned," Justin Timberlake
3. "Rehab" / "Rehab" Remix (feat. Jay-Z), Amy Winehouse
4. "Girls In Their Summer Clothes," Bruce Springsteen
5. "The Way I Are" (feat. Keri Hilson and D.O.E.), Timbaland
6. "Grace Kelly," Mika
7. "Until The End Of Time" (Duet with Beyonce), Justin Timberlake
8. "Apologize" (feat. One Republic), Timbaland
9. "Because Of You," Ne-Yo
10. "Give It to Me" (feat. Nelly Furtado and Justin Timberlake), Timbaland



Originally published at rateyourmusic.com
01/01/08

Ten Best Albums of 2007

Ten Best Albums of 2007

1. Life in Cartoon Motion, Mika
2. Timbaland Presents: Shock Value, Timbaland
3. Magic, Bruce Springsteen
4. Double Up, R. Kelly
5. Back to Black, Amy Winehouse
6. Growing Pains, Mary J. Blige
7. Dylanesque, Bryan Ferry
8. Chrome Dreams II, Neil Young
9. Because of You, Ne-Yo
10. Just Who I Am: Poets & Pirates, Kenny Chesney


Originally published at rateyourmusic.com
01/01/08

Ten Best Movies of 2007

Ten Best Movies of 2007

1. Hot Fuzz (Edgar Wright)
2. The Darjeeling Limited (Wes Anderson)
3. The Brave One (Neil Jordan)
4. I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (Dennis Dugan)
5. Amazing Grace (Michael Apted)
6. Black Book, (Paul Verhoeven)
7. Lions For Lambs (Robert Redford)
8. Private Fears In Public Places (Alain Resnais)
9. The Bubble (Eytan Fox)
10. Boy Culture (Q. Allan Brocka)

Runners-Up (Preferential): No Country For Old Men (The Coen Brothers), The Italian (Andrei Kravchuk), Rescue Dawn (Werner Herzog), Angel-A (Luc Besson), Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married? (Tyler Perry), The Man Of My Life (Zabou Breitman), War (Philip G. Atwell), The Nanny Diaries (Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini), Norbit (Brian Robbins), Because I Said So (Michael Lehmann)

Hip-Hop Goes To Rehab

Rehab (Remix) (feat. Jay-Z)
Single Review by John Demetry

Jay-Z's production brings this already-wonderful song up a notch. "Rehab" now dazzles. Then, his rap deepens the meaning of the song (which is, of course, about dealing with heartbreak): "It’s just til these tears have dried." Hov extends its central symbol to include celebrity-culture voyeurism (the serendipitous occassion for the song's success):

My heroin flows more lethal than Marilyn's nose
I'm gonna OD till I'm in peace like Anna Nicole, HOV!

Ultimately, he relates it to the need to express (ergo, back to personal heartbreak):

Oh look he's relapsin'
Just look how’s he's rappin'
Every time I try to get out it pulls me back in

It validates and stands as the best exemplar of this fascinating trend of rap interludes spicing up current hits. Hip-hop is dead. But it's found a home in pop. Jay-Z: "Grace Kelly" is calling!



Originally published at RateYourMusic.com

Talking Heads (but not Talking Heads)

Runnin' Down a Dream: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
DVD Review by John Demetry

Peter Bogdanovich serves up maybe the most visually eclectic doc -- mildly Oliver-Stoned -- in the Behind the Music mold; in four hours, it's a breeze. While his subject, Tom Petty, proves himself to be a charismatic figure and wry storyteller whose experiences mow through a swath of rock history, Bogdanovich reserves judgement for Petty's sometimes ruthless ambition. Instead, Bogdanovich highlights Petty's considerable catalogue of hits (it justifies anything, right?) as evidence that he beat the system. But did he? With an only superficially Howard-Hawks-like dictum -- "Don't bore us / Get to the chorus" -- it's easy for Bogdanovich (and the doc's praisers) to mistake Tom Petty as the rock-n-roll exemplar of the auteur theory. Petty's knack for pop jingles shouldn't be confused for the peers with whom he's here lumped -- Talking Heads, Elvis Costello, the Sex Pistols, and even the Clash. At pop's peak, those artists vivified consciousness (and not about banalities like the corruption of record companies and radio); that's the political affect of the auteur. Conclusion: 4 hours spent on Tom Petty is ultimately worth the 30-or-so seconds of Stevie Nicks (she's a genius, but her taste stinks).



Originally published at RateYourMusic.com

Desire's Complexity

I Could Fall In Love With You, Erasure
CD Single Review by John Demetry

"I Could Fall In Love With You" song typifies late Erasure's no-frills (sometimes, I miss the frills) access to the essence of love ("I won't let you / Fall into a space that's empty"). Check out these lyrics, in which Erasure once again tap into one's basic innocence ("Like a child"), an astonishing gay expression of faith ("And you held me tight to keep believing") in the midst of desire's complexity ("Don't upset me"):

I was dreaming
We were sleeping
And you held me tight to keep believing
Don't upset me
I won't let you
Fall into a space that's empty

There are times when I could fall in love with you
There are times when I would scream till I was blue

Don't get me wrong
I can be strong
When I would fall in love with you
Don't let me down
Take me to test
When I could fall in love with you
Like a child
Like a child



Originally published at RateYourMusic.com

"Me" Of Many Voices

Song: "Oh Daddy"
Songwriter: Christine McVie
Album: Rumours (1977) by Fleetwood Mac
Review by John Demetry

Why are you right when I'm so wrong
I'm so weak but you're so strong
Everything you do is just alright
And I can't walk away from you, baby
If I tried

This works so beautifully on so many levels. It should make one skeptical of Robert Christgau's claim: "The cute-voiced woman [Stevie Nicks] writes and sings the tough lyrics and the husky-voiced woman [Christine McVie] the vulnerable ones." Christine is the tough one. (And I mean this as no offense to Stevie, whose extreme sensitivity speaks to my own.) "Oh Daddy" shows this magnificently because she -- anticipating Erasure's take on love struggles -- recognizes her own fault in the "Drama!" The song is an integral part of Rumours -- and I believe it to be Christine's masterpiece.

It's a great blues song, whose autobiographical meaning is timed musically: to the exquisite beating of Fleetwood's drum. Rumours have it that he is the literal "Daddy" of the title, keeping the group together (as signified by the swirling harmonies that dance around Fleetwood's drumming, anticipating the Christine Tusk tracks). Even if he's not, it's the legend told to keep the group intact (in honor of ex-husband John McVie, the bassist who put the "Mac" in Fleetwood Mac). This insistance on putting the group and the Truth above her "fool"ishness is how one perseveres. Christine seeks out signs that validate this faith. She finds them (Daddy's smile). Her blues vocalizations reveal the heartache from which this consiousness was constructed. McVie's honey voice turns the word "know" into a sweet moan, spiking the listener's own consciousness (i.e., "know"ledge):

Oh daddy
You soothe me with your smile
You're letting me know-ow-ow
You're the best thing in my life

The tune plays out like a big tease (think "Go Your Own Way" without the chorus), so the closest thing to an orgasmic delivery is the big harmonizing on "me" at the end with the repeating of the line: "It's got to be me." I find that so moving and strangely fulfilling: "me" with many voices. It bears the burden of responsibility while recognizing shared heartbreak. It's an off-kilter song (what with Mick's "fancy" playing on the offbeat. . . "Oh Daddy," indeed). As such, it's an interesting example of Christine's synthesis of pop and blues structure, making the song available to Lindsey Buckingham's avant-garde soundscapes and the Mac's autobiographical mythologizing.



Originally posted at Heroes Are Hard To Find.

Back To Class

High School Musical 2
Television Review by John Demetry

In the made-for-tv High School Musical, Zac Efron (as Troy Bolton) embodied the gallantry projected onto every secret jock crush. A demographic swooned.

A year behind, this month's Rolling Stone cover crowns Zac Efron: "The New American Heart Throb." He's reduced to a product, the centerpiece of Disney's major franchise. The Rolling Stonecover unveils Zac's new, hilarious look: coiffed and colored hair, (fake) golden tan, chiseled bod, and flirtation with androgyny. The white-on-white image reminds of Britney Spears in the Toxic video. He's a comical vision of conspicuous consumption.

Satirizing and -- reveling in -- luxe, High School Musical 2 achieves dazzlement. So, the new Zac Efron embodies Troy's dilemma in High School Musical 2. Just ask Troy's Latina girlfriend and singing partner, Gabriella Montez (Vanessa Anne Hudgens). She breaks up with him by saying, "It doesn't just seem like new stuff. It seems like a new Troy." She returns his "T" charm necklace, a symbol of his "promise" to her. Does the new Zac Efron, like Troy, also break his "promise" to his fans?

In High School Musical 2, Troy, along with his school buddies, works at a summer job at a country club. There, Troy strains his friendships. He succumbs to the lures -- Italian shoes, etc. -- of rich-girl diva Sharpay (Ashley Tisdale). Sharpay lists Troy (the "versatile" star of the school at the end of the first musical) among the commodities she covets in the song, "Fabulous." Because her father owns the country club, Troy promises to partner with her for the course's summer talent show.

When Troy finds out that the ambitious Sharpay pulled strings to keep the other employees out of the show, he makes a difficult choice between his friends and his "future." As if marking the difference, Troy's father gives advice to his troubled son by showing him a picture of Troy in the Wildcats basketball uniform (from the first HSM): "Looks a lot like you. I'm absolutely sure he's going to figure out the right thing to do."

In his solo song "Bet On It," Zac sings: "It's no good at all to see yourself / And not recognize your face." Usually director Kenny Ortega dresses Zac in blue so his eyes to pop. However, for "Bet On It" -- Troy's Hamlet moment -- Ortega dressses Zac in sleek black (corresponding with his newly-darkened locks) to highlight his dancing. Ortega choreographs Zac's/Troy's moral purpose as graphically, physically striking -- and sexy. Now, that's entertainment!

The baseball-dance battle between biracial jock Chad (Corbin Bleu) and (gay) musical-theater geek Ryan (Lucas Grabeel) establishes the grounds for this alluring sense of brotherhood. "I'll show you how I swing!" Chad teases Ryan. Their simpatico steps in that number, "I Don't Dance," invite Ryan into the social fold and encourage Chad to benefit the group in the talent show. As Troy apologizes to his friends: "Brothers fight but they're still brothers."

That's also the lesson Sharpay must learn. When her entourage asks her to name the theme of the summer's talent show, Sharpay answers: "Redemption." She doesn't understand the meaning of the word.

In High School Musical 2, Zac Efron brings sexy back to "redemption."

The Battle of the Bushes

Love and Anger
Music Video Review by John Demetry

Armond White’s annual presentation of the best in recent music video art lived up to its paradoxical-poetic title: "Music to My Eyes." He closed the evening – the year’s peak for art-discovery – with a video from the past to exemplify the themes and achievements of music videos present (and Movies 2005, in general). That work of art: the 1990 music video – Love and Anger – directed by (and featuring the song by) Kate Bush.

Only the divisive bugaboo constructed – through the exploitation of contemporary Anger and stifled need to Love – around another Bush (George W.) stands in the way of feeling and applying the achievement of this video and song. Kate Bush and her images sing directly to the pain prevalent in the contemporary culture. She fulfills the duty of the poet.

To quote Paul Murray, OP, in his essay "The Fourth Friend: Poetry in a Time of Affliction" in the latest issue of Logos:

"By naming, through poems and stories, the black stone of affliction – the stone that had no name, perhaps, but that weighed heavily on our hearts – the weight of the stone is somehow lifted. We are touched by God’s grace, and healing begins."

Murray suggests the social-spiritual genesis of the great pop hope that Bush miraculously realizes with Love and Anger. (I think it might be the greatest music video I’ve ever seen.)

Love and Anger addresses the audience with the healing – transmogrifying, redemptive, and revolutionary – force of pop experience. The video ends with Bush on stage with her rollicking band. She throws glitter into the camera. It constitutes a baptism – danceclubs! disco! punk! glam! rock concerts! youth rebellion! sexual experimentation! gender-bending! – inducting the audience into a new social potential, a pop community. It turns out to be the definitive post-postmodern gesture. (Music to my eyes, indeed.)

Post-postmodern: Following the liberation of the "sign" in the postmodern era came the profoundly expressed need to redefine community and spirituality, to revitalize the "sign" through a radical conception of faith. The media curtails this evolution (occurring at the vital base of the culture) from entering into the mainstream (and academia).

Fearlessly, Bush offers the blessing of glitter and dance: vernacular means of celebration (and photogenic, no less). Love and Anger begins with Bush isolated. A spotlight defines the limits of her space – a circle of light etched on the stage. This staging illuminates the means of her physical expression, her face and body – dressed in a black leotard. In the pose of prayer – contemplation and humility – a shower of glitter falls on Bush as she sings/intones/moves:

"It lay buried here / It lay deep inside me / It's so deep I don't think that I can speak about it"

That glitter signifies so much – and it falls upon pop (music, film, music video) artists 2005 like Peter Pan’s fairy dust (pace the national/pop-cultural quest Bush outlined in her song "In Search of Peter Pan"). The glitter crystalizes the central theme and challenge of movie-going 2005 (self-definition through capacity for empathy, for aesthetic engagement):

1. It gives form to the dazzling light of an individual, of a soul.

2. That spiritual core – the essence of personality, of humanity – is witnessed in relation to the social and the cosmic.

3. The spiritual reveals itself in relief to essential innocence and the experience of grace.

4. The presence of grace is understood through shared expression – a delight in beauty upon which community is formed and through which healing is performed.

Without the profound humility Bush displays here, one cannot get outside oneself to see oneself. As she sings variations on the following chorus, Bush expands the space (and the tropes) to include troupes performing Western and Eastern forms of dance:

"Two strings speak in sympathy / What would we do without you? / Take away the love and the anger / And a little piece of hope holding us together"

During the early renditions of this refrain, Bush displays the Sovereign Scepter and Orb – the historical-religious symbols of her beloved "Lionheart," England. In a powerfully generous (and liberating) gesture, Bush extends across the frame these totems of royalty (a sentiment later enlarged in the offering, from the stage, to the spectator at the end of the video). Bush relinquishes these symbols – from faith to faith – to the dancers: "A little piece of hope holding us together." This moment in Love and Anger proves as awesome as the compassionate gesture (society’s neglected - an artist - confronts the floating head from John Boorman’s Zardoz) in Justin Pandolfino’s music video: Dreams. (I’ll say it again: "The Land and the King are one" – Excalibur.)

Consequently, Bush opens those wide eyes of experience and hope (mirrored across time to Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning – agape – in Steven Spielberg’s 2005 War of the Worlds). She revs up to an energetic dance – what White compares to Pentecostal ecstasy. Further expanding the multi-cultural sources of her pop expression, an inspired Bush takes to the stage with her band. Bush executes another extension of space (a philosophical leap), from individual to communal celebration. Bush takes advantage of music video’s pop base (the song!) to make this meta shift in the mis-en-scene. The literal process of music-making becomes, itself, another metaphor. Doing so, she concretizes the process behind the sonic element of the call-and-response ("Two strings speak in harmony"). The dancers dramatized the support of an East-West beloved community during the chorus.

Glitter is everywhere.

Check out the significance of these dance steps:

1. Individual pain is defined by the spotlight and Bush’s movement – and then recognized by that distinctive voice (note the song’s move from "I" to the universal, yet intimate, "you").

2. The symbols that reveal and ameliorate that pain are identified within the individual’s heritage (the scepter and orb): embraced and shared (metaphorical gestures).

3. The universal expression of dance reveals the process of healing, the revelation of beauty, as a cross-cultural one, communal and artistic (political and religious).

4. Bush’s wild festivity on-stage with her bandmates leads spectator savvy to a pop revelation – baptizing the audience in glittered possibility.

Through the sensitivity engendered by personal torment, Bush celebrates the presence of grace in pop:

"Don't ever think that you can't change the past and the future / You might not, not think so now, / But just you wait and see – someone will come to help you"

In the context of the video, that "someone"represents the artist – specifically the pop artist – drawing upon resonant rituals of perseverance and unifying symbols. Thus, "someone" represents the cultures of the world that offer the surprise of continuity in experiences, striving through creativity. Such discovery inspires the artistic (curious, openhearted) mind. "Someone" can also refer to a "friend" who provides compassion and sympathy – "a deeper understanding." God – the great "someone" – inspires "artist" and "friend" alike: that is the truth revealed by the phenomenon (undeniable!) of shared understanding. Bush defines the post-postmodern by inspiring audiences to take the imaginative trek through the end of contemporary sophistication to pop faith.

The other day, I saw a t-shirt worn by a New Yorker. It featured a picture of President George W. Bush. The caption read: "The reason I will never vote again." It signifies phony "liberty": the appropriation of the symbolic figurehead of the nation (the President) to justify a cynical dismissal of ritual participation. It amounts to one’s willing exploitation. The relinquishment of citizenship, a betrayal of the democratic dream, represented by that t-shirt establishes "power" as the basis of value. What is citizenship but the enactment of one’s spiritual potential? George W. Bush, Fox News, The New York Times, and The Village Voice benefit equally from the culture’s abandonment of faith.

Every person experiences the truth of grace in the existential quandaries of life, in the desire for intimate relations. Only Kate Bush’s pop baptism of glitter, however, can inspire the audience to extrapolate the truth of that experience into a relationship with art, politics, and Love. Reflecting the light of Bush’s glitter, Movies 2005 attempt to restore our lost faith. Through these artworks, one repeats Bush’s philosophical – post-coital! – affirmation at the end of Love and Anger: "Yeah!"

Experience that special joy with the film reviewed in a piece coming soon: Gael Morel’s beyond magnificent Le clan (a.k.a. Three Dancing Slaves).



Originally published by Cinedrama.de
Letter From New York: Fourth Issue

The Infinite Significance Of The Kiss

The Terminal
Film Review by John Demetry

A kiss that means nothing is like a terrorist attack. It undermines faith. With his latest film, the most healing post-9/11 gesture any filmmaker has offered, Steven Spielberg vivifies the value of human communication and connection. Spielberg's The Terminal returns meaning - infinite significance - to that essential movie moment: The Kiss.

There are five kisses in The Terminal. The first one is delivered by Tom Hanks, playing Viktor Navorsky. Viktor finds himself stranded in New York's JFK airport international terminal after a revolution in his country (the imaginary Krakozhia) marks his status "Unacceptable."

Viktor, frantically trying to get information from news reports on the airport monitors regarding the tumult in his fictitious (read: metaphorical, universal) homeland, reinforces the experience of all "unacceptable" (read: marginalized) people.

Viktor can neither return home, nor enter the United States. He arrived in the United States with a mysterious duty to fulfill in New York City. It has something to do with a can of Planters Peanuts. What's in it? "Jazz," Viktor enigmatically responds.

Like a jazz artist, Viktor survives his nine months in the terminal through improvisation, imaginative use of the materials in his environment, and by challenging those around him - those who toil at the airport - to reinvent their lives. Every kiss is made of "jazz" in The Terminal (like composer John Williams' emotive, culturally eclectic riffs on the airport muzak).

The first kiss: Viktor kisses the can of Planters his first night in the terminal, followed by his forming the sign of the cross over his chest. An intense light punctuates these gestures: is it a sign of grace, authorities on the prowl, or an airplane passing by the window?

"Nobody reads the sign in America," says Gupta (Kumar Pallana), a part of the airport janitorial staff, who gets his kicks watching patrons slip on the recently mopped floors.

That line defines Spielberg's semiotic slapstick (like Hanks running into the women's bathroom - shriek! - or a surveillance camera personified with expressive emotion). A bounty of signs (literally and figuratively), Janusz Kaminski's ingeniously lit soundstage provides the space for his camera to ceaselessly scan for - and to discover - illuminating truth, a revelation in each shot. The Terminal is simply one of the most astonishingly imaginative visual achievements of American cinema in the sound era.

Viktor attempts to read the meaning behind the two kisses Catherine Zeta-Jones, as flight attendant Amelia Warren, shares with her (married) lover Max (Michael Nouri). Viktor discovers her pain. He falls in love with her.

Staying in the terminal for nine months, Viktor answers Amelia's query - "What are you waiting for?" - with this reply: "For you." His response links up with the conjecture of paranoid Gupta, who suspects that Viktor is a spy: "This guy is here for a reason. And I think that reason is us."

So it is!

The final two kisses in The Terminal punctuate the ritual gift exchange between Zeta-Jones' delicately wrought Amelia and Hanks' sensitively portrayed Viktor (genius actor: note how and when Hanks, whose character only slowly learns to speak English, places his hand over his mouth as a form of universal communication). The kiss knows no borders of language.

Inspired by Amelia's obsession with Napoleon and Josephine (another couple whose love affair came to symbolize a new vision of nation), Viktor gives her a gift (which I won't unveil) that reflects light. Baptized in that fountain of light, they kiss.

Hail, hail Spielberg and Kaminski: This is a how a kiss should be filmed. It is radiant, glittering, ethereal (yet earthbound). This kiss, this gesture, reflects the characters' act of faith, while also resonating with the significance their love affair holds for the "Friends" - a word that Viktor learns from an advertisement for the television show - Viktor makes during his stay in the terminal. It validates a shared sensitivity between two disempowered people and within a community of survivors. Thus, Spielberg queers the hetero codes of cinema.

"History is Truth!" Viktor supports Amelia's mental record of historical trivia (a recognizable, yet unique quirk for dealing with individual stress - to sustain spiritual connection). Three employees of the airport witness this display of love. In addition, an act of compassion (history) becomes legend (truth): proof spread through the photocopy of Hanks' hand and Gupta's relaying of the story.

The development of new signs and codes to unite against oppression is not isolated (Viktor's existential declaration - "I'll wait!" - spoken to Stanley Tucci's richly embattled Homeland Security officer through a surveillance monitor, much to the pleasure of Tucci's beleaguered staff). The antithesis to the New Age Gnosticism sweeping the Da Vinci Code culture, The Terminal dramatizes and revitalizes how communities form and individuals persevere.

It ain't easy. The fifth and final kiss in the film, witnessed by one lover from a distance, signifies a sacrifice. I won't reveal how, but perhaps this film's critical and popular dismissal -- the cultural disaster of my lifetime -- is due to the fact that it gets explicitly racial: "Jazz!" Understanding the sacrifice by one of the characters hinges on that recognition. It requires an awareness of the culture and the Love that get you through. A debt must be paid. "Destiny!" Zeta-Jones declares, her exploited life finally made worthwhile.

Notably: this is the most dazzling, most needed, multi-culti cast since Alex Cox's Straight to Hell (which challenged the Reagan Rules the same way Spielberg undermines Bush, Jr.-era divisiveness). Re-title The Terminal: "Straight to Heaven".

Mexican food-cart driver Enrique Cruz (Diego Luna, making amends for the reactionary "Y tu mama tambien") spies African-American Delores Torres (Zoe Saldana) smiling - and I mean: SMILING - in response to Viktor's determination and democratic faith ("50/50!") to pass through the gates. The revelation of that smile marks the moment when Enrique falls in love with Delores, a love nurtured and blessed by Viktor (a spiritual ambassador).

By the end, Viktor is ready to return home and mend his broken country/heart. That is also Spielberg's challenge to the audience leaving The Terminal. Even a kiss that means something can begin the healing.




Originally published by GayToday.com
July 12, 2004