Thoughts of the month and
A Fistful of Soundtracks episode
previews for February 2002.
Jim
Aquino hosts and produces A Fistful
of Soundtracks (Sundays 2-4PM on KZSC
88.1 FM in Santa Cruz), writes for Silicon
Valley Community Newspapers and Metro
Newspapers in San Jose and thinks
that term "jump
the shark" has already, well...
jumped
the shark.
Notes to self
In my computer, I sometimes type random
thoughts, opinions and notes about pop culture into a file I call
"Dream Diary and Observations," a diary/notebook that
reads a bit like a Weblog. Sometimes, it reads like a foulmouthed
version of Larry King's unintentionally hilarious, now-defunct
USA Today column. I also use the diary to take down interesting
dreams that I've had the night before, like Dr. Melfi on The
Sopranos. Some of these thoughts are really private and I'd
be embarrassed to show them, while others are opinions I can share
with others, like the following observations from my diary. Here
now are a few peeks at my "Observations" diary.
Observation #11:
I was watching my widescreen video of The
Untouchables, one of my favorite films as a kid, the other
day and was admiring the film's look — the camerawork
and the compositions. I still enjoyed the film, but then I realized
that the action sequences, the Ennio Morricone score and Sean
Connery are the only things the film has going for it. There is
more life and complexity in Connery's performance than there is
in any other performer or character. Everyone else in the film
is either bland or a cartoon character. The L.A.
Confidential screenplay is what the Untouchables screenplay
should have been. It nags me that The Untouchables could
have been something more. It's all David Mamet's fault. Like the
Washington Post's Hal Hinson said, Mamet's dead-seriousness
and sanctimony are at war with Brian De Palma's sensibilities.
De Palma made a film in the style of Sergio Leone —
where the action is slow and brutal (like in the Odessa Steps
set piece) and everyone's a bastard (which is why Leone's composer,
Morricone, didn't see eye-to-eye with De Palma because he felt
the film glorified the cops too much). But Mamet wrote in the
style of upright cardboard-cutout good guys-versus-cardboard-cutout
bad guys. He expected us to take all those lame, boring scenes
about Eliot Ness' family life seriously. There's a brief scene
where Ness kills for the first time and is sickened by it. That
scene should have been longer in the film; if you're going to
portray Ness as green, then there should be more moments about
Ness' difficulty adjusting to "the Chicago way" —
Jimmy Malone's more brutal method of crimefighting.
Although there's no denying Capone
was vicious in real life, he's a cardboard-cutout bad guy here,
and there's no sense of a person; De Niro is reduced to special
guest Batman villain-of-the-week
here. It's one of De Niro's weakest performances —
although the baseball bat scene is always amusing in a sick and
twisted kind of way. (The only good thing about the weak '90s
Untouchables TV series revival
was William Forsythe, who was a much more interesting Capone than
De Niro's Capone. That's also because Capone was a main character
on that show; he had as much screen time as the Untouchables.)
If I were the screenwriter, I would
have made Ness the alcoholic that he was. That's why I always
use Patton as a measuring
stick for any biopic or movie that depicts a tumultuous period
in American history. Because some wars are not won by heroes.
They're won by assholes. — 4/1/99
Observation #12:
The number one rule in making a biopic or a movie that depicts
a tumultuous period in American history is: Never fawn over your
subjects. Or you'll get blasted by almost everyone, like what
happened when Spike Lee played around with history in Malcolm X and was accused of gushing over
Malcolm too much or depoliticizing him. That's why Patton
and John Boorman's The General are masterpieces. Because
they stand back and let us judge for ourselves if the subject's
a great man or not. When you depict your subject, you can't soften
him, and you got to expose as many flaws as you can, yet still
make the person as magnetic and appealing as possible. —
4/1/99 (ADDENDUM: Malcolm X
didn't get the history right, but at least it conveyed that Malcolm
was not a lovable man — until the United Colors of Benetton-style closing
montage, which is more suited for someone like Dr. King or Mandela
than Malcolm. When I first saw Malcolm
X, I shed a little tear during that sequence, not because of
the shots of kids from all over the African diaspora, but because
of Ossie Davis' eulogy. That whole sequence should have just consisted
of the eulogy, Terence Blanchard's score and a shot or two of
Malcolm. That's powerful enough for me. We didn't need those shots
of the kids. — 5/1/99) (ANOTHER ADDENDUM:
To those who think Patton
glamorizes its subject, if you pay close attention to the film,
you'll realize it's saying Patton was a great man…
of war. But he was not a great man. — 2/7/00)
Observation #13:
I heard the Notorious B.I.G.'s "Mo' Money, Mo' Problems,"
with the off-the-hook Diana Ross "I'm Comin' Out" sample,
on the radio again today. Biggie's last album is the last good
hiphop album Puff Daddy produced. All that greatness died with
Biggie. Now everything else Puffy does for hiphop either pales
in comparison or milks the death of his best friend. I wonder
what Chino XL would say about all this. — 4/1/99
Observation #17:
If I were…
…the director of Scarface, I would have hired Ennio Morricone
to compose the score, not Giorgio Moroder.
…the director of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, I would have hired
Jerry Goldsmith to compose the score, not Brad Fiedel.
…John Woo, I would have Morricone
compose the scores to my films. If there's any composer who's
perfect for the operatic, romantic sensibilities of John Woo's
films, it's Morricone. — 4/11/99
Observation #20:
After watching Terminator 2
at the Nickelodeon Theatre's 30th anniversary movie marathon,
I realize the movie hasn't aged well. I always thought Terminator
2 was a bit overrated — although the action sequences were taut and
well directed, the screenplay was flawed and full of silly dialogue,
like those goddamn catchphrases that I remember almost every high-school
freshman liked repeating ad nauseum. I remember when I was a high-school
freshman, everyone had to introduce themselves at this one class
by telling everyone their favorite movie. It was 1991 and Terminator 2 had just come out, so all the
kids said, "Terminator 2" —
except me. I said, "Terminator
1." And a couple of kids in the class said, "What?"
Fuck them. I always liked the original Terminator more
than the sequel because I didn't believe in softening Schwarzenegger's
Terminator, I hated Edward Furlong's acting and I hated all the
scenes between him and Schwarzenegger. The love story in the first
Terminator was a much better and more genuine attempt at
humanizing the material than the corny "a boy and his cyborg"
relationship in Terminator 2. Thinking the original Terminator
is better than its sequel is not a popular sentiment because most
people think of Terminator 2 as "one of those sequels
that's better than the original," like The Road Warrior,
Superman II, The Empire Strikes Back or The
Godfather Part II. It's nowhere in that league.
James Cameron pays more attention
to the technical side of his films than to anything else, which
is why there's that lame moment towards the end of T2, where he allows Schwarzenegger to ad-lib
and say, "I need a vacation." Even though young John
Connor has been teaching the T-200 the concepts of humor and emotion
throughout the film, the screenplay intends the T-200 to not pick
up these traits because it has the cyborg say to a tearful John
that it could never understand humor or emotion. But Cameron contradicts
that moment — and destroys what could have been one of the
few effective emotional scenes in the film (even though it's a
ripoff of all those moments in Star
Trek when Spock says, "I could never understand emotions")
— by allowing Schwarzenegger to go Borscht Belt
a few seconds before.
But wait a minute — then what
about "Hasta la vista, baby?" Well, the T-200 didn't
make up that phrase; John did, so it's copying what John said.
I don't think a humorless cyborg has the capacity or capability
to make a joke, which is why "I need a vacation" rings
false.
Most of the Nick audience that night
kept laughing during Furlong's scenes and certain bits of atrocious
dialogue, like Linda Hamilton's closing narration, which is Cameron's
pathetic attempt to show this is more than just an action movie
and another example of his inconsistent writing. The line about
how a machine could teach us to be human contradicts the series'
technophobia.
We're a much smarter audience than
we were when we first saw T2.
Most of those guys all probably thought T2 was the coolest
movie back in high school, but now they must be thinking, "What
was I on in those days?" Another reason for this particular
audience's reactions to T2 is because to college students
and serious cineastes, Cameron has become the most-hated filmmaker.
Everybody except college students and cineastes loved Titanic.
And the Nick audience was made up mostly of college students and
cineastes. — 4/22/99
Observation #29:
Casting Samuel L. Jackson as Shaft is like having David Thewlis
play James Bond. The nervy Jackson was wrong for such a classy,
iconic part: the filmmakers fucked up the Shaft character to tailor
Jackson's short-tempered persona and made him too much of a thug,
like Jules from Pulp Fiction.
Yet Jules has more dimension than this one-note new Shaft.
Where was the warmth Richard Roundtree
brought to the character in the original movie? The new Shaft felt like the blaxploitation equivalent
of the "Enemy Within" episode from Star Trek.
It was like Shaft was split into two people, one brutal, the other
sensitive, and the brutal half of Shaft dominated the movie —
you never saw the sensitive half because he was probably spending
the whole movie trying to get a cab. (Speaking of which, one of
the best moments of the original Shaft
was when Shaft couldn't get a cab because he's black. It's a problem
that still exists in New York, and the new version doesn't even
make a reference to this.)
No wonder Wesley Snipes turned down
the script: it disrespected the character by sapping him of his
sexuality and making him as sadistic and abusive as the bigoted
NYPD cops he's supposed to despise, in scenes where he carries
out "the bullyboy imperative of big city cops," as Armond
White put it in the New York
Press. (Melvin Van Peebles has always argued that Roundtree's
Shaft "works for Bwana" — or to
borrow Denzel Washington's words from Glory,
is "nuthin' but the white man's dog. " I bet Van Peebles
is even more disgusted by the Jackson Shaft's behavior in this
new movie. I didn't like it when he smacked around that pusher
who's half his size.) I didn't buy the filmmakers' attempts to
make Jackson's Shaft compassionate to downplay his cruelty, like
when they have him help out a woman beaten by her husband.
Jackson was also too old to play
Shaft. They should have called the movie Shaft
in Diapers. — 9/26/00
Observation #30:
I'm listening to U2's All That
You Can't Leave Behind right now. I would put The Edge in my
Top 5 list of All-Time Greatest Rock Guitarists, along with Jimi
Hendrix, Ernie Isley, Eddie Van Halen and Carlos Santana. —
2/9/01
Observation #31:
Here's what I think about the For
Your Eyes Only soundtrack: spy movies and disco go together
like Tom Snyder and Rona Barrett. — 2/23/01
Observation #32:
I don't care what people say. I actually liked Mystery Men. Fuck these comedians who use
it as a punchline anytime they want to make a stupid joke about
a box-office flop. — 4/14/01
Observation #34:
You know what the greatest ending in the history of movies
has to be? When Amy Irving telekinetically makes John Cassavetes'
body blow up at the end of The Fury. Never has a bastard
deserved such a fitting end. — 10/27/01
Observation #35:
When I watch shows like Boston
Public and Enterprise, I tend to have crushes on the
female characters whose sexiness doesn't get shoved down your
throat by the producers. On Ally McBeal, David E. Kelley
obviously has a hard-on for flat-assed Calista Flockhart and lookalikes
such as the blonde from Sirens who plays Nellie, but the
most attractive woman on the show is the curvier Jane Krakowski
— whom Kelley gave what he intended to be an unlikable
role, Elaine, the slutty thorn in Ally's side. But I like it when
she irritates the show's "heroine," the annoying, immature
Ally. To borrow the words of Austin Powers, Elaine is such a sexy
bitch. On Boston Public, DEK
keeps shoving Jeri Ryan and Jessalyn Gilsig down our throats,
often giving them scenes where they're in states of undress, but
for my money, the most attractive female on the show is the underused
Rashida Jones, who plays the principal's nosy, all-knowing assistant.
(Why does DEK stick the most attractive women in such lame roles?)
On Enterprise, Rick Berman and Brannon Braga keep asking
us, "Isn't the Angelina Jolie-ish Vulcan babe such a hot
piece of ass?" But to me, Ensign Hoshi is hotter.
It's like the thing with Loni Anderson
vs. Jan Smithers on WKRP.
To me, the bespectacled Bailey was always more attractive than Jennifer.
A lot of people would agree. There are even Web
sites about Bailey. For a sketch in
the 2001 Fistful of Soundtracks
Halloween Special, I wrote throwaway dialogue that raised this
debate, and on the microphone, my friend ad-libbed, "What's
up with Loni Anderson's hair? She looks like a Flock of Seagulls
reject." — 1/5/02
Observation #36:
Writing and recording those sketches for the 2001 Fistful Halloween and Christmas Specials was
so damn fun. Too bad those are the only shows where I allow myself
to do sketch comedy because I'm still in that pop-culture parodying
mode. For instance, I keep coming up with ideas for spoofs of
Michael Mann's Ali. Like the David E. Kelley version: "Will
Smith is Ally!" Or the Steven Spielberg version: "A.L.I."
In "A.L.I.," Ali gets pummeled by Joe Frazier because
he keeps thinking about his mommy. His sidekick is "Gigolo
Angelo." — 1/5/02
Observation #37:
Buffy is halfway through the
sixth season, and they haven't even come up with a great Big Bad
yet. What's up with their choice of villains this year? Weren't
they going to Dark
Phoenix-ize Willow? What happened to
that? The Legion of D&D Geeks is amusing, but they're not
Big Bad material. In the villain department, why is the show turning
into Lois & Clark? —
1/9/02
Jim Aquino
February 1, 2002
© 2002 Jim Aquino
Playing on Fistful in February:
Ocean's Eleven
(Warner Sunset/Warner Bros.)
The Big Gundown: John Zorn Plays the Music of Ennio Morricone
(Tzadik)
Triology Plays Ennio Morricone (Reverso/BMG Classics/RCA)
Patton (Film Score Monthly)
The Last Castle (Decca)
In the Mood for Love (Virgin)
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Reprise)
Mulholland Drive (Milan)
The Royal Tenenbaums (Hollywood)
Waking Life (TVT Soundtrax)
Q: The Musical Biography of Quincy Jones (Rhino)
See previous "Intros"
December 2001:
On the 2001 Fistful Christmas Special
November 2001:
On the 2001 Fistful Halloween Special
October 2001:
On Sept. 11, Asian American Comedy Night and the Enterprise
theme song
September 2001:
On the deaths of Pauline Kael, Manuel Ticsay (an uncle) and Aaliyah
August 2001:
On the Fistful episode "Fistful on the Run"
July 2001:
On new Fistful IDs and the Fistful episode "Up,
Up and Away"
June 2001:
On Fistful's fourth anniversary