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For further geo-political instruction one might also profitably take another look at Oliver Stone's JFK. Not for an inside scoop on who did the Dallas deed, but for Stone's apprehension that there really is a small circle of elites--military, political, corporate--that calls the shots. The usual monthly tirade Having vomited at the sight of President Rich-Man's-Son-Who-Never-Did-An-Honest-Day's-Work-In-His-Life-And-Never-Got-Into-A-Jam-Daddy-Couldn't-Bail-Him-Out-Of making a big show of going to the U.N. and telling the delegates to show Saddam some backbone--after decades in which the Prez and his party have done everything in their power to undermine and de-legitimatize every last pathetic effort to institute some kind of international law--and then capping the discourse by telling the assembly, in essence, My Way or The Highway, I advise one and all to recall the lessons of the no- too-distant Wag the Dog, in which an American prez is shown launching a war to boost his sagging poll ratings. Is the American public (that part of it which can afford any kind of health care at all, that is) getting worked up about skyrocketing health care costs? Are they riled at the revelations of towering greed in the executive suites (the present administration's base of support)? Terrified by a future in which dot-com fat 401Ks have turned to dust (and god forbid there should be any meaningful kind of social safety net in the Land of Opportunity)? Is all that and more giving rise to the prospect of control of the House of Representatives slipping away with the November elections? Count on the decennial Baghdad International Film Festival--footage mostly of smart bombs zeroing down chimneys into biological weapons plants or underground hospitals, depending on whose script you option--to snap everybody smartly into line. Thank you, Osama, you fuck, for handing our homegrown assholes the untrumpable political cure all: The Terrorism Card. [Insert obligatory Saddam/Osama is a bad dude and will not be missed by anyone remark here, to quiet the sneaking suspicion this is some pinko commie pacifist talking. I'm no pacifist.] Who would dare be soft on terrorism? And if an ill-considered but hopefully painless (more or less) high-tech war is the answer, let the games begin. But Wag the Dog featured a pretend war. This, on the other hand, looks like the real thing, with real blood, and real, unforeseeable consequences. Scheduled opening date, according to today's (9/20/02) NY Times: February. For further geo-political instruction one might also profitably take another look at Oliver Stone's JFK. Not for an inside scoop on who did the Dallas deed, but for Stone's apprehension that there really is a small circle of elites--military, political, corporate--that calls the shots. And as long as this nation cruise controls along its petrol-addicted way, look for those elites (Dubya chief of staff Card and Secty of War Rumsfeld from GM, Iron Dick Cheney from Big Oil Halliburton) to run the global table. A final thought. We might not be in this fix we're in if Western foreign policy for the last 50 years hadn't devoted itself to eliminating every progressive political alternative in the Middle East, preferring instead to install and arm to the teeth the most repressive leadership it could find. The rotting remnants of the Arab left have been mulch for the swamp in which terrorism breeds. See if your Blockbuster carries Battle of Algiers. Bad, bad girl For her first turn in a lead role in a major motion picture, America's friend Jennifer Aniston proves what a strange duck of a star she is. Hardly a glamour puss (despite the hot market in topless photos she went to court to suppress), Aniston's droopy-chinned collapsing oval of a face is homely enough--and just pretty enough, with the aid/disguise of her trademark neo-bouffant 'do--to make her a comfortable fit in television's longest-running post-nuclear family comedy and a fixture of the supermarket tabloids. Now she turns up in a surprisingly subversive film that manages to be teeth-grittingly satirical, richly empathetic, and smartly funny all at once. There's no sentimentality about the virtues of small-town life in The Good Girl. Justine Last (Aniston) spends her days working the beauty counter at Retail Rodeo, a catch-all bargain basement department store somewhere in Texas. Her evenings at home are couch potato deluxe, in the company of easygoing meatloaf/husband Phil (the ever-reliable John C. Reilly) and his bong-mate co-worker Bubba (loonily leering Tim Blake Nelson). When romance raises its deceitful head at work--in the person of tousled-haired, dark-eyed Holden Werther (post-grunge heartthrob Jake Gyllenhaal)--Justine sinks to the bait. Gyllenhaal's loopy character gives voice to all Justine's despair and self-pity--the claustrophobia of an horizon-less existence. He styles himself a writer, though he specializes in sentiment by rote, from the pseudonymous amalgam of a name (by Salinger, out of Goethe) to his one trick pony short stories (as recounted by Justine: young man too sensitive for this world dies young). Justine's smart enough to realize the charmer's a loser. And she's desperate enough to love him anyway. The squirm count is high: The lovers' frantic embraces take place under storeroom towers of dry goods. A last-chance rendezvous is set for the Chuck E. Cheese parking lot. A neighborhood Christian temple's Bible study class (Justine wants to clean up her act) poses the question: "Man is made in God's image. What does that say about God?" Aniston's performance is adequate, if not all that great. Her rural twang is appropriately annoying, and her befuddlement is convincing. For the most part, however, she drifts with the tide, carried along on the film's finely observed details of strip mall life and unexpected quirks of character. Lesser characters like punk-ish co-worker Cheryl (Zooey Deschanel)--selling the local matrons on Goth-style makeovers--and store guard Corny (screenwriter Mike White)--a born-again geek--steal scenes left and right. The hapless couple's affair comes to no good end, duh, though only after Justine's attempt to do right spells Holden's doom. Not that there isn't some kind of happy coda as well, with Justine and Phil sharing the joys of parenthood (lineage uncertain). That tightly interwoven mix of bitter and sweet, cracked and gentle, gives the film its flavor. And if its picture of everyday American life seems numbingly cold and painfully cramped, there's no lack of charity towards the nation's inhabitants. The cast's finely tuned performances, the pitch-perfect script by writer White, and the nimble direction by Miguel Arteta lend the film all the complexity and subtlety of the world's sad/funny truth. Nobody means any harm, not Justine when she cuckolds her husband, not Holden when he robs the store, not Bubba when he blackmails Justine into bed. Everyone's out to better themselves and make the world a better place. If most things go wrong, it's not for lack of trying. |
