Bugger Off, Little Man, And May Pestilence Follow Thee All Of Thy Days

[So it's been a few weeks now since I went completely culture-snob, but it's time I got the following off my chest:]

As a society, as a people, as a country at war with those who would seek to destroy our way of life, we have been fighting on the wrong front(s). Iraq and Afghanistan and (soon-ish enough) Iran are one thing, but Little Man is another. In fact, it would be a fair assessment to state that the new Wayans film represents many of the reasons crazy people want to fly planes into our skyscrapers. I don't think I'm engaged in hyperbole here. Really. Let me explain...

A few months back, I wrote about the furor surrounding the first trailer for United 93. This was a moment in American film that polarized our moviegoing public like nothing that had come before. Sure, there have been many and various shocks to the system over the last hundred-odd years of American film. Many of us know all the landmark moments by heart, but when was the last time you were in a theater to witness people screaming, crying, and/or walking out based on a trailer? It's fair to say that Paul Greengrass' film was a major turning point in the way America deals with the defining moment of this young century, and not only because it was the first film (almost five years on) to show us what it meant to have been on one of 9/11's doomed planes. U93 was gripping and terrifying and challenging and confusing and everything that one could hope to experience in a major motion picture. I use the term "experience" here with the full weight of its definition, which is to say that anyone who walked into the theater faced the unique and horrible prospect of willingly reliving in vivid detail the events of that thunderbolt morning. If filmic entertainments are meant to be candysnacks for our idle brains, U93 was a Twinkie with broken glass in the creamy center. But I digress.

United 93 screened in most houses across the country sans trailers, out of respect to the film's gravity and the memories of those lost on 9/11. One of the consequences, however, of trying to sell such a weighty film, is that its trailer must run alongside those hawking more trivial entertainments. And thus the towering scale of my anger: before sitting through a mediocre crime flick, I saw the trailer for U93 followed by one for Little Man.

That just ain't right, and I believe I owe a brief aside to establish context:

My first job was in a movie theater, and I worked my way up from the popcorn hustle to projection. It was a great gig upstairs in the booth, mostly for the fact that nobody ever personally gave the projectionist a hassle. If a flick was flickering out-of-frame, we found out and corrected the problem. Ditto any sound troubles, any houselight problems, et cetera. But the head projectionist, he who worked Thursday nights and reeled together the Friday platters from the shipping cans, was in charge of assembling the trailers that would screen before any given film in the multiplex. The guidelines were and are relatively lax and commonsense: don't put a trailer for Pulp Fiction on The Lion King, don't put rom-com trailers before a horror flick--basically, just don't confuse the demographic coming to see Film/Genre A with trailers for Films/Genres B,C,D, and so forth.

So how does one build awareness for a Genuine Moment In Film History like U93 without necessarily pairing its trailer with some less-worthy material? It's a challenge, to say the very least. I can almost understand the clusterfuck of confusion that led to U93 being followed by Little Man. Almost. But you can always put U93 last-in-line, and make sure that trailers and features bear some of U93's weight. Somebody upstairs (in the booth, not the heavens) must have been asleep at the wheel to let a spot for Little Man follow the most contentious trailer in recent memory. My surprise at the misstep might have led to my writing off what many other filmgoers deemed a totally decent effort (Lucky Number Slevin), as the bad taste in my mouth lasted well past that film's closing credits. Little Man has since haunted my awareness in a way that few such lamentable attempts at filmmaking have ever bothered me before.

Hence this preamble to the following diatribe:

Little Man is the latest effort in CGI minstrelsy from the Wayans brothers, who apparently are burdened by nothing resembling guilt, shame, or any emotion that might weigh on a human conscience. Their most recent effort was White Chicks, which may have set the lowest possible bar for suspension of disbelief in contemporary film. In that movie Shawn and Marlon (Wayanses, both) were somehow placed undercover (or was it witness protection?) as--you guessed it--white chicks, in the least convincing latex makeup jobs ever witnessed on celluloid.

But oh! how the people laughed at the silly black men in whiteface singing along to really-white emopop! And oh how funny it was to see the big black man fall for the black-man-in-anglobitch-drag-biting-toenails-at-the-dinner-table! What times those were, y'know, in like 2004, before the Civil War and Reconstruction and MLK, Jr. and everything that should have made such hideous displays cause for riots in the fucking streets!

So now we have Little Man, in which Marlon W. plays the world's smallest cat-burglar, forced to hide a diamond the size of his head in the handbag of an upper-middle-class black woman. She's got a clueless husband (Shawn W.) who encourages her to accept the "baby" placed on their doorstep by Marlon's accomplice, the ever-more-disappointing Tracy Morgan. The "baby," of course, is Marlon-the-cat-burglar with a shave and a bonnet and a rattle. Apparently the short bus stopped at Shawn's house before Tracy came by with his bundle of joy, because the lucky young couple have no idea that the "baby" is actually a "grown" man, a midget diamond thief who only wants to get back his "booty."

(Please ignore my cheap and loaded fingerquotes.)

So we're supposed to accept that all the many HILARIOUS! situations that ensue tip neither Shawn nor Wifey to the fact that "baby" is "Marlon-the-thief." Okay. Alright. So even when "baby" is shaving with an electric at the bathroom mirror, smoking a stogie (that never stinks up the rest of the house?), offering his googly-eyed milking-face to the nearest set of tits (cue Benny Hill boob-music), and otherwise convincingly playing an infant WITH TATTOOS!!!, we're to assume that the audience are the only ones privileged with glimpses behind the curtain of the great and powerful Oz, as it were?

Does this kind of reprehensible trash annoy anyone else, or am I the only person this film has managed to piss off without so much as a viewing? Can't we all just get on the bandwagon and declare the damned thing a heresy without ever seeing it?

I have, and I don't feel the least bit guilty about condemning this prisoner without a trial. No, because I saw the trailer. Right after United 93. Those two minutes hurt me in my most private, most American parts. And I wish this film the fate of a criminal, a terrorist, a foreigner locked away without warrant at Gitmo. If only...

Okay, I'm angry. Perhaps irrationally so, but I'm still angry. After all, I'm more than willing to believe that men in capes can fly and dodge bullets and otherwise kick ass, but the idea of Wayanses mugging as midget diamond thieves upsets me in ways I'm not sure I can fully describe. I know it's a trivial pursuit, bashing Little Man, and I should be above raising any debate involving what is most likely a ludicrous steaming turd of a movie. Its quality (or lack thereof) should speak for itself, and there is no reason to expect Little Man will be remembered. Only the most important (or popular) films of any given year survive the passage of time, and I have no doubt that this blip on the monkeyshit radar will go down in history by not going down in history in the first place. When the next thing after DVD comes out, you won't be able to find Little Man in the new format at your local rental house. Mere words are meaningless when one attempts to convey the insignificance, in the grand scheme of things, of a film such as this.

And still it manages to raise my hackles. When this execrable piece of filmmaking makes it to a video shelf, it might sit alongside such underrated classics as Little Big Man and Little Man Tate. Ouch. Ugh. You have no idea how much it infuriates me to even grace this film with a post. Can you imagine what it feels like to know that anyone Googling showtimes for LM might wind up with my words bounding forth from the search engine? But I must. (Write about it, that is.) These thoughts have haunted me long enough. Little Man's very existence represents everything I hate about Hollywood and the machines that create our entertainments, and it's no laughing matter. I am writing this as a public service for anyone who might actually want to see the flick, for anyone who might be in a custodial arrangement with a child who thinks midget thieves posing as babies are funny. I hope the message hits whatever passes for home.

The trailer should be everything most reasonable individuals require to know that they should never see this film. Any introduction that warns "From The Creators Of White Chicks" should be more than enough forewarning for the conscious amongst us. But I will still wager an eyetooth (which ones are those?) and my weaker testicle that the opening weekend gross for Little Man will pass $20M domestic, which is probably more than enough to warrant, in Hollywood's dollarsign eyes, a sequel--or if not a direct follow-up, then at least another fabulous new witch's brew of Wayanses and CGI. The die is cast, and it has a little Marlon-face on every side. Do what you can to avoid the next roll.

This Blog Kills Fascists

In another of those weird confluences of time and fate, I've been listening again to the Mermaid Avenue albums around the time of this Independence Day. The estate and children of Woody Guthrie commissioned Billy Bragg, Wilco, Natalie Merchant, and Corey Harris to commit the late Woody's unfinished songs to wax (or vinyl, or plastic, as it were) during several studio sessions in 1997 and 1998. I can't think of a songsmith more fitting to ring in another year of our Strange American Democracy than Mr. Woody Guthrie. Was he a Socialist? Yes. A drunk? Okay. Generally an Odd Bird, and beautiful for the oddness? Absofuckinglutely.

Huntington's had more than a bit to do with the last, and maybe something to do with the former. Who's to say?

Most know Guthrie as the author of "This Land Is Your Land" and nothing else. The fact is that he spent his entire life crafting songs of rebellion, songs of unity, songs of putting democracy's tools in the hands of those folk who make democracy work. He also wrote offbeat odes to Hollywood actresses ("Ingrid Bergman"), gutwrenching love songs ("Remember The Mountain Bed," "When The Roses Bloom Again," and "At My Window Sad And Lonely"), strange quasi-Christian tunes ("Blood of the Lamb" and "Christ For President"), and ditties about the invisible people who have to clean up nasty-ass hotel rooms after people like us defile them ("Hot Rod Hotel"). He was a people's poet, the man who influenced Dylan and Baez and Arlo (natch) and pretty much everyone who's put pen to paper and guitar in the name of a cause since Black Monday, 1929. Think of him as the Bob Marley of our American Situation. It's not a stretch. He painted these words on his guitar, for chrissakes: "THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS." Show me a person who doesn't respect that, I'll show you a person I'd rather punch than reason with. Ironic, no?

There's a great documentary the BBC put out detailing the creation of the Mermaid Avenue tapes called Man In The Sand. Check it out if you're interested. Hell, check it out if you're not interested. We owe it to ourselves as Americans to understand that which has--and those who have--come before us. The film and the albums are a hell of an intro. Besides being the most transcendently beautiful, utterly American albums in recent memory, they are a document of what our parents and theirs went through during the first part of the so-called "American Century," the Twentieth. Not so strangely, there is an echo of our modern future in Woody's Depression-era lyrics...

Take this snippet as an example, from "Stetson Kennedy":

"I ain't the world's best writer, ain't the world's best speller,
But when I believe in something I'm the loudest yeller.
If we fix it so you can't make no money on war, well
We'll all forget what we was killin' folks for."

Or this bit, from a piece Woody wrote for the People's World:

"Look like the ring has been drawed and the marbles are all in. The millionaires has throwed their silk hats and our last set of drawers in the ring."

Tell me that the man had an agenda, tell me his politics were neither red-blooded nor American, and I'll tell you you're not seeing clearly this sunshiney morning. But don't tell me that his words don't ring too fucking true in this current day and age. This was a man who served during the last clean war, WWII. He knew no Halliburtons, no Rumsfelds, no Bushes, no Wolfowitzes, no Nixons or Vietfuckingnams. Maybe we need another Woody, somebody with a love for this country so deep and objective, a love loved in spite of and for our shortcomings and blemishes, a love for the idea of America. In closing, a note on America and that love taken from a larger piece:

"Because I seen the pretty and I seen the ugly and it was because I
knew the pretty part that I wanted to change the ugly part,
Because I hated the dirty part that I knew how to feel the love
for the cleaner part,

I looked in a million of her faces and eyes, and I told myself there
was a look on that face that was good, if I could see it there,
in back of all of the shades and shadows of fear and doubt and
ignorance and tangles of debts and worries,

And I guess it is these things that make our country look all lopsided
to some of us, lopped over onto the good and easy side or over
onto the bad and the hard side..."

That middle bit chokes me up. Excuse me. Ahem. Right, so... Follow this link here for the full lyrics to "This Land Is Your Land." I guarantee it's not the same song you belted out in your fourth-grade pageant. If you feel the love, the fire, the anger, drop a comment and tell me how the same heat is relevant in our current global climate. Peace.

Blood, Fireworks, and Dollar Bills

[A few thoughts on this, our nation's birthday.]

Given the recent outpouring of philanthropy amongst our country's wealthiest citizens, I though it might be time to reflect upon the nature of giving of oneself, be that "self" seated in the soul or in the pocketbook.

Bill Gates recently announced he would be taking a backseat at Microsoft in order to helm his (and his wife's, because I guess half of it's hers) philanthropic organization. Shortly thereafter, Warren Buffett (no relation to Jimmy, and even richer) decided that he would one-up the estimable Mr. and Mrs. Gates by donating approximately $31 BILLION (give or take a buck or two) to their selfsame outfit. Cheers and huzzah to all parties involved, and long may they prosper in their do-gooding. Word.

Coincidentally (because this is how all these thoughts wind up happening), I also just finished You Shall Know Our Velocity!, by Dave Eggers. Mr. Eggers wrote a brilliant novel about two lifelong friends who decide to travel around the world in a week to give away $32K (US). Will, the main character, received the money for being on a lightbulb (read the book) and decided that he must give it away in the most extravagant, eccentric fashion he could contemplate. So he and Hand (his lifelong friend) hit Senegal and Morocco and Latvia and Estonia (though not in that order) and put obscene amounts of currency directly into the hands of the impoverished and deserving.

Will and Hand also decided to strap some cash to a goat with medical tape and a message bearing lightningbolts alongside a line from a Scorpions tune, but that is merely a sidenote. Again, read the book.

The whole "impoverished and deserving" bit is what YSKOV! is about, really. Charity normally takes the form of anonymous people writing not-so-anonymous checks to people who collect said checks (often during obscenely extravagant shindigs) and afterward set about giving the collected monies to deserving parties. Those parties, when the charity is done right, are impoverished and, indeed, deserving. Sometimes people skim, and sometimes charities must pay obscene amounts for the obscenely extravagant shindigs. Alas, such is all in a day's work of giving. But by going directly to the source, by handing out cash in person to the people who need and deserve it, Will and Hand subvert the normal architecture of charitable giving. Will's mom asks him at one point, via telephone, if he doesn't find his mission to be a bit tacky. She means to bring to his attention that handing cash to a person, fingers upon palms, removes the filter of anonymity and distance that most Westerners associate with charity. Surely there must be some guilt that changes hands along with monetary notes, right?

It's an interesting point. After all, when was the last time that you put a quarter in a homeless person's cup, or responded with anything other than eyes-ahead ignorance when a person approached you for cash on the street? Myself, I don't give to anyone in person. But it hurts me when I claim no change at curbside, and it hurts me to reflect upon my stinginess in the comfort of my air-conditioned apartment while I write these words. Will's mom has a point that bears mentioning here: which kind of charity is the right kind of charity, and what are the proper methods and means?

Not all forms of contribution to our fellow humans must take the form of anonymous donation. Were anonymity the key that unlocks our wallets, there would be no Habitat For Humanity, no Save The Children or the like. These charities thrive on the fact that they put a face on need, and that face is multicolored, multiethnic, multineedy. What Will and Hand set out to do is neither tacky nor ill-conceived, though their doubts are what make Eggers' novel great. Reading it made me regret not pitching a bit into the cup of a less-fortunate, not listening to the story of a person who may or may not be in need, withholding the odd smoke from someone with no means to obtain one. Sad, really.

So, in this spirit of giving that the anniversary of the birth of our (outwardly) democratic society puts me, I went out yesterday and donated blood. Sure, it's a somewhat faceless operation, all needles and iodine and t-shirts and weary smiles from your friendly local phlebotomist, but the posters on the walls of the donation sites feature the sort of people I might be helping with my pint of A-Negative. Kids with sickle-cell anemia, people who need a new liver, a new heart, a new pancreas, a new lease on the life I so often take for granted. It's a pleasure to help. It makes me feel good. It doesn't cost a nickel. And it shows how one little prick can help a few people in need.

Take that last comment any way you want.

Every charity, no matter how nameless or faceless it may seem, should eventually help someone with both face and name. That's what helps me sleep at night, at any rate. I hope I'm not simply naïve. Why don't we all get out there during this weeklong celebration of America's independence and help someone else achieve some degree of that precious commodity, independence. It doesn't matter how, when, where, or why you do it--just do it. If it's a dollar or a pint, a billion or a houseraising, give a little back this week in appreciation of everything we hold dear as Americans and human beings. Timeframes are no concern, so if you're reading this next week, next month, next year, get out and give. Every marathon, as they say, takes a step to start. Let today's be the first step of many, and keep the race moving. Peace.