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“The Sopranos”: Eighty-Sixed

Jim Emerson

“In the midst of death, we are in life, heh? … Life goes on…”

— Paulie Walnuts, Episode 86

Meantime life outside goes on all around you.

— Bob Dylan, “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)”

Some will win, some will lose

Some were born to sing the blues

Oh, the movie never ends

It goes on and on and on and on

— Journey, “Don’t Stop Believin'”

Have another onion ring. Pop the first DVD of Season One into the player and press “play.” “The Sopranos” is… I’m not going to say “over.” Think of it as complete at last, a perfect whole. It’s finished but it’s not over. Life goes on.

It’s not uncommon for a long-running show to get self-reflexive in its final episode: “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “St. Elsewhere,” “Newhart,” “Seinfeld,” “Six Feet Under,” to give a few famous examples. And no show has ever displayed more awareness of itself as a show than “The Sopranos.” Not even “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show,” the sitcom about being a sitcom. “The Sopranos” has always been a serial mob movie about being a serial mob movie in a culture where everybody’s seen a lot of mob movies (and remakes of mob movies) and even low-level Jersey mobsters imagine themselves acting like the mobsters in the movies. And in its last seconds (which made my heart leap and had me laughing and crying at the same time), “The Sopranos” accomplished what I hoped it would, as I wrote earlier: “… I want [series creator David] Chase to come up with something I didn’t anticipate, but which feels right for “The Sopranos.” He’s done it before. But now I’m afraid in a different way: I really, really want the ending to live up to the show.”

Opening Shots: ‘The Wire’

Jim Emerson

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This summer a friend is introducing me to the HBO series, “The Wire,” beginning with the first season on DVD. Sunday nights, we eat a big ol’ fresh-grilled meal (like steak, ribs, kabobs, pork loin, salmon, scallops wrapped in prosciutto, asparagus or broccoli sauteed in olive oil, garlic and crushed red peppers)… I’m sorry, what was I saying? I kept hearing from friends that “The Wire” was something great, as good as (some say even better than) “The Sopranos” or “Deadwood.” Well, we’re only three episodes in (we also watch a “Freaks and Geeks” — all new to me — after each episode), but I’m hooked.

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“The Wire” is about Baltimore police (homicide and narcotics) and their investigation and surveillance (hence the title) of a city-wide drug operation run by one Avon Barksdale, a shadowy figure said to be based on a real Baltimore dealer. All threads seem to lead back to Barksdale, but the cops don’t even have a photograph of the guy.

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The first image of the first episode of the first season is a close up of blood on the pavement. It lasts only a few seconds, but the camera slowly moves up the trail of blood toward its source, the body of a drug-related homicide victim. The liquid catches the flashing lights of police cars and seems to illuminate with electrical sparks like… wires. Only the middle-ground of the shot is in focus — where it comes from and where it leads are still blurry. We don’t know it yet, but the whole season has been set up for us.

Is it time for best movies of the decade already?

Jim Emerson

Yes it is, I’m afraid. Or almost. Good grief, I know, it’s not even Thanksgiving yet and they’ve already got the festive “Best Of” decorations up in the stores! And I know lots of critics who’ve been told by their editors to start working on their big ’00s lists — so, reluctantly, I’ve begun to ponder mine, as well. I haven’t even taken a first stab at it but I can tell you this: It will probably not resemble the Top 100 list published a few days ago in the Times of London. Oh, sure, I can conceive of putting together some kind of list that includes “Crash” (#98), “Bowling for Columbine” (#77), “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” (#28), “Slumdog Millionaire” (#6) and the like — but such a ranking would not be comprised of movies that I hold in high esteem. (Have any of the decades’ movies plummeted in reputation more dramatically than “Columbine” and “Crash”?)

If you want to page through the Times’ list, you can go ahead and start here. It’s not all so bad. Meanwhile, here are the top 20 — with links to things I’ve written about some of the titles:

How we all became Richard Nixon

Jim Emerson

Here’s Adam Curtis’s six-and-a-half-minute documentary segment on how, over the last 50 (75?) years or so, we have become a culture of increasingly paranoid weirdos. (Satirical, too.) It reminded me of “The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear” (2004), the essential documentary about the politics that led up to 9/11, and how they continued afterwards. And then I realized why: They’re both Adam Curtis films! From the intro to “Power of Nightmares”:

Stages of a Cinephile

Jim Emerson

View image Defining moments — in movies, and in a movie-lover’s life.

A comment by Anonymous at Girish’s on the stages in the life of a cinephile contains more truth than I’d like to admit:

1. Ages 6-13/ marvel at the lights, learn about adult life, eat sugar/Disney, Spielberg, John Hughes

2. Ages 14-19/ age of discovery, excitement and inspiration/ Rear Window, Bicycle Thief, early Godard

3. Ages 20-26/ O.C.D. attempt to see everything by every major director/ Dreyer, Ozu, late Godard

4. Ages 27-33/ burn out period, start seeing films rarely and complain about how bad movies have gotten, sell your old videos/ Straub, Snow, Dziga Vertov Group

5. Ages 34-41/ burn out continues, fall asleep in one two many Sokurov films, stop watching art films and start watching blockbusters again, become a faux-populist and develop inane arguments about movies you’ve never seen

6. Ages 42-45/ watch only Reality TV and Internet porn, get drunk alone, send mass emails linking to Armond White reviews

7. Ages 46- /after therapy and anti-depressants repeat steps 3-6.

In my case, stage 1 began at age 3 (at a drive-in with, yes, Disney’s 1961 “101 Dalmatians”). Stage 3 lasted until about age 37, and stages 4 and 5 were condensed, though I’m not sure I ever became a neo-populist, since I never disliked popular movies just because they were popular. (No comment about stage 6.) My real “crisis of faith” in movies was from about 1998 – 2003.

BTW, the book “Defining Moments in Movies,” edited by Chris Fujiwara, that inspired this comment is delicious and nutritious cinemaniacal brain candy. Once you start tasting, you’ll just want more and more. As Fujiwara explains in his introduction, the 800-page, still-studded nibble-book (organized by decade, 1890 – 2000+) “is designed to highlight film scenes, or events in the history of cinema, that the [62] contributors (who include film critics, film historians, writers in other fields, and academics) regard as profound, essential, illuminating, or significant…” — “a network of visions and preoccupations, an anthology of cinephilic passions, a casual encyclopedia of cinematic events.” In fact, Fujiwara’s intro is a worthy “moment” itself.

Opening Shots: ‘Caché’

Jim Emerson

View image: What are we looking at/for?

View image: Find one difference in this picture.

From Jeremy Mathews, The Salt Shaker Magazine, Salt Lake City, UT:

It may be a recent film, but I don’t think it’s too early to canonize Michael Haneke’s “Caché” opening shot as one of the greats. Haneke’s first image prepares the viewer for his film’s astounding distortion of the cinematic lens.

A static shot of a house at the end of a Parisian street during early morning seems perfectly banal, as Daniel Auteuil’s character walks over to his car. But then, in voice-over, Binoche and Auteuil begin to discuss the workings of the shot — they didn’t see the camera, so how was this footage created? One of them comments that the shot is too clear to be shot through glass (i.e. hidden in someone’s car).

Until the scanlines appear as the characters rewind the tape, there are absolutely no clues from the image’s quality (resolution, interlacing, etc.) to suggest that it isn’t from a professional film. When the next shot, of Auteuil and Binoche in their house looking at the TV, comes up, there is no discernible visual difference between the tape and what we assume isn’t a tape.

Film 101: How to make a political ad

Jim Emerson

The latest in a series. Real politicians and comedians show you how to use simple word/image associations to create creepy political ads as seen on TV and the Internets!

Robert DeNiro on movies at large in the world

Jim Emerson

Robert DeNiro, receiving his honorary Cecil B. DeMille Golden Globe Sunday night and acknowledging all his movies (“Stanley and Iris,” “Jacknife” and “Little Fockers”) — not just the ones that are included in his three-minute clip reel: “It’s up to the audience to decide if it’s entertainment, critics to decide if it’s good and ultimately posterity to decide if it’s art.”

Notable MPAA Press Releases 1: DVD-sniffing dogs

Jim Emerson

Lucky and Flo, the DVD-sniffing labs.

Excerpt from MPAA Press Release (link to .pdf file):

[May 9, 2006] United Kingdom, Los Angeles – – The Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), express delivery company FedEx and HM Revenue & Customs, has joined forces to launch an exciting new initiative to help combat DVD piracy.

As part of a project promoted by the Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. (MPAA), FACT instigated the training of two black Labradors named Lucky and Flo (video here) by one of the world’s leading experts in the field whose other clients include police, fire and rescue service. The dogs were trained over an eight month period to identify DVDs that may be located in boxes, envelopes or other packaging, as well as discs concealed amongst other goods which could be sold illegally in the UK. These DVDs are often smuggled by criminal networks involved in large scale piracy operations from around the world.

The sins of the critics

Jim Emerson

Critic Kathleen Murphy takes a prickly, sarcastic inventory of common complaints against, well, critics at MSN Movies and finds them… not so sharp. I have this uneasy feeling some readers looker-atters won’t see the irony, but — what can I say? — we live in an age when millions either can’t or won’t see the pig for the lipstick.

Among accusations addressed are the sins of seriousness, snobbery, geezerism and insufficient appreciation for the latest trends. (One of my favorite zingers: “Haven’t you ever heard of the fierce urgency of NOW?” As if this week’s movies were automatically better than last week’s because they’re more up-to-date! There’s critical perspective for you.)

Kathleen quotes from my “Do the Contrarian” song (a big hit single for me during Contrarian Week in 2007) to introduce a little rant about that vintage favorite, “The Dark Knight,” and an Oscar-winner that’s soon to become a Dramatic Television Show:

‘The Da Vinci Code’: Faith in fiction?

Jim Emerson

A scene from “The Da Vinci Code” — or, possibly, one of the “Hellraiser” movies, it’s kinda hard to tell.

My favorite headline of the week (so far) comes from Reuters: “Reading ‘Da Vinci Code’ does alter beliefs: survey.” According to a poll of Britons, Dan Brown’s phenomenally popular novel has effectively re-written the bible for many Christians and non-Christians alike — so much so that some Catholics are saying the book and the movie should carry “a health warning”:

LONDON (Reuters) – “The Da Vinci Code” has undermined faith in the Roman Catholic Church and badly damaged its credibility, a survey of British readers of Dan Brown’s bestseller showed on Tuesday.

People are now twice as likely to believe Jesus Christ fathered children after reading the Dan Brown blockbuster and four times as likely to think the conservative Catholic group Opus Dei is a murderous sect.

“An alarming number of people take its spurious claims very seriously indeed,” said Austin Ivereigh, press secretary to Britain’s top Catholic prelate Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor. “Our poll shows that for many, many people the Da Vinci Code is not just entertainment,” Ivereigh added….

ORB interviewed more than 1,000 adults last weekend, finding that 60 percent believed Jesus had children by Mary Magdalene — a possibility raised by the book — compared with just 30 percent of those who had not read the book…

Hold on a minute: They’re saying a whopping percentage of (at least technically literate) Brits now believe the pseudo-biblical “revelations” in “The Da Vinci Code” are true? I suppose it’s no wonder millions of people in the modern world claim they believe in the bible, “Intelligent Design” and astrology — even when they admit they know virtually nothing about them. In so many ways, we still live in the Dark Ages. Just let me say that if you are so credulous that a novel (fiction!) or Hollywood movie can upend your comprehension of one of the most dominant religious traditions in the world, then you are possessed of all the faith (and reason) you deserve.

A “prominent group of English Roman Catholic monks, theologians, nuns and members of Opus Dei” commissioned their poll from Opinion Research Business (ORB) and, according to the Reuters article, has “sought to promote Catholic beliefs at a time when the film’s release has provoked a storm of controversy.” (If they hire a publicist, I do not recommend Tom Cruise’s sister for the job.)

Ron Howard’s ultra-super-secret movie of “The Da Vinci Code” kicks off the Cannes Film Festival Wednesday. And the Catholic establishment is… madder than heck:

More sex, please. We’re American.

Jim Emerson

A synchronistic cartoon from Peet Gelderblom at Lost in Negative Space.

What the hell is wrong with the studio risk-management — er, movie — business these days? I share some of my own modest ideas for improvement in an “Open Letter to Hollywood” at MSN Movies.

Now, some people say everything is just fine, and that we’ve even had a better-than usual crop of summer pictures this year: “Knocked Up,” “Ratatouille,” “Superbad,” “The Bourne Ultimatum”… On the other hand, there’s “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,” “Hostel Part II,” “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry”… These, I submit, are conscious or unconscious cries for help.

None of my prescriptions is a panacea, but among the measures I suggest Mr. and Ms. Hollywood might want to consider are: more nudity (way more nudity); less emphasis on pain and torture as a form of entertainment (bad for concessions sales, for one thing); better recycling of stars who have fallen out of fashion (like John Travolta in “Pulp Fiction”); watch HBO and learn about sex, violence, character, and storytelling; don’t keep making sequels until the original audience hates you for it (even the last installments in “trilogies” tend to range from disappointing to insulting); stop wasting time and depleting resources fighting protracted, losing battles against technologies that have always proven to make you more money in the end: “The future arrived the day before yesterday and you’re still pretending it’s due next week.”

An excerpt:

…[Why] why do adults in Hollywood movies still behave as if they’re on “The Dick Van Dyke Show”? (Nothing against “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” which is one of the great achievements in television history, but you know what I mean: Rob and Laura not only slept in separate twin beds but they always wore pajamas.)

Sex in the movies seemed like it was going somewhere in the ’70s, with “Five Easy Pieces,” “Last Tango in Paris” and “Don’t Look Now.” In 1993, the great Julianne Moore played out a full-frontal scene — an argument at home with her husband — in Robert Altman’s “Short Cuts,” and it wasn’t the nudity that was shocking, it was the physical and emotional reality of the scene. Do you know people who pop out of bed after sex sporting underwear? Who’s in such a blasted hurry to get dressed?

The best special effect in the history of movies is the human face, with the human body coming in a close second. Use it. You think torture porn sells? The audience for porn-porn is exponentially larger. (Have you heard of this thing called the World Wide Internets? It revolutionized a whole lucrative section of the movie industry — mostly the one located beyond Warners, Disney and Universal in the farther reaches of the San Fernando Valley.)

Read the full “letter” here.

Got any advice for “Hollywood” yourself?

America’s Funniest Undead Videos

Jim Emerson

My review of “George A. Romero’s Diary of the Dead” (that’s the title) is at RogerEbert.com. Here’s an excerpt: 

When young filmmakers gather to shoot cinema-verite video documentaries, watch out: Something really bad is going to happen. In “The Blair Witch Project,” it was … well, we don’t really know what it was, but it sure freaked out Heather.

In “Cloverfield,” it was something large with an antipathy toward Manhattan landmarks. And in George A. Romero’s “Diary of the Dead,” as you have probably gathered by now, it is the meat-eating undead. These movies give the shaky-cam a reason to get shaky — but the kids try not to miss a shot.

TIFF: Two or three things I’ve noticed about Toronto

Jim Emerson

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1) I haven’t seen a bad film yet at the 2006 Toronto festival, but I haven’t experienced the ecstatic highs of last year, either, when “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada,” “Brokeback Mountain,” “Cache,” “A History of Violence,” “Capote,” “51 Birch Street” and a few others made it feel like a cinematic renaissance was sweeping town in just a few days.

2) The official festival trailers before every film that I (and many others) complained about last year are vastly improved this time, mainly because the one with the festival logo itself lasts only about five seconds. That’s a merciful relief to those of us who see it so many times.

But by this point in the fest, some are beginning to protest the Motorola sponsorship trailers that show a few seconds from various unbelievably inane “short films” shot on cell phones. At the “Red Road” screening this morning, a woman loudly blurted out: “I hate these things!” People laughed in approval. At another press/industry screening (I forget which one now), somebody in the dark proclaimed: “These are so bad! The critics agreed.

3) An amusing pass-time for regulars waiting for movies to start has been to guess the significance of the festival’s poster image, the outline of a face with two red swatches where the eyes should be. In the animated trailer, the red things are wings that flutter down and alight on the eyeless visage like a crimson butterfly. But to me, the guy looks like Oedipus with buckets of FX blood gushing out of his sockets. Or maybe he’s Mercury, and the victim of some artistic confusion about the where the ankles are located. Some new kind of trendy rose-tinted glasses for sale on Bloor Street, perhaps? Or a Scotsman? Another critic told me she thought it was supposed to represent what your eyeballs feel like after watching four or five movies at a stretch for several days.

If you have any interpretations of your own, please leave a comment!