What’s In A Name.

 

My friend Jamie Righetti wrote a piece this past week called That Time The Movies Saved My Life. As I do so frequently with her stuff, I’ve re-read that piece several times since she posted it. I like the clarity and the economy of her writing, and of course the message. I can relate to that theme. Movies, and the friends I’ve made through a shared love of movies, have saved my spirits — if not my life — time and time again.

 

But this year, 2016, the hardest year of my life by any measure, has found me watching less movies than I have probably since I was an infant. I haven’t been able to sit through movies without my mind wandering, or shutting down entirely due to sleep from exhaustion. Writing, the other great savior for me normally, is another thing I’ve done less of in 2016 than I’d like to admit. I’ve been wondering why that is — no, that’s not accurate. I haven’t had much time to wonder about it. It’s just the way things have been. I move through the day with limited purpose. If I happen to see a movie or write a few sentences, good. Sometimes it’s all I can do to remember to eat.

 

Life gets in the way.

 

Death gets in the way.

 

Movies haven’t been enough to save me. Writing hasn’t been enough to save me. I can’t do movies because I can’t focus on any narrative for two hours at a time. I can’t write because to me, writing is opening up a vein, and I just haven’t been able to risk that this year because if I start the bleeding, the bleeding might not stop.

 

This hasn’t been the ideal year for me to check out mentally. On top of working a day job and having all the constraints and demands of a personal life, I’ve been editing the website Daily Grindhouse for a couple years now. Recently we’ve taken incredible strides forward and the site has grown exponentially, which is a wonderful development but not so convenient when you’re a husk of a former self. I’m near-constantly copy-editing submissions and answering emails, and even still I’m constantly behind. I call this the Year Of A Hundred Thousand Apologies. Lately I feel like all I do is make apologies. Everything’s late. Everything’s still pending. Everything’s coming soon. I’ll get to that, I promise. No really, you’re important. I’ve been telling so many truths they start to feel like lies.

 

The reality is that I don’t really want to be here. I don’t say that in a way that anybody needs to worry about me. I’ve had a hundred long dark nights of the soul, and I’ve made it through them all. But that lowness, that aloneness, the more dire feelings Jamie speaks to in her essay, I’ve been there. A lot. And recently.

 

Mainly it’s about my cousin. Charlie died just about eight months ago. Some of the people closest to him had a sense it was coming, but I didn’t. Being four years older than him, I always figured I’d be gone first. I literally could not conceive of a world without Charlie. I still can’t. It’s wrong. He’s like my little brother. He’s not like my little brother. He is my little brother. We were supremely close. We talked by phone or texted every single day. We saw each other regularly, even during the darkest times of either of our lives. If you’re any one of the scores of people let down by me personally or professionally in some way during my Year Of A Hundred Thousand Apologies, you know I’m not generally that great at staying in touch with anybody. But Charlie, I was always there for. Because he was always there for me. And now he isn’t. And I have to reckon with that, somehow.

 

Though I make awkward stabs at it here and there, I’ve never been fully comfortable with airing out my feelings, and Charlie in particular is a subject I’ve always kept close to the vest. He didn’t like to be talked about, so I didn’t talk much about him. He was my secret identity. Charlie and I shared the silliest in-jokes, the most humiliating stories, the sources of our deepest pain, our anxieties, our crushes, our resentments, our prejudices, and our greatest causes of fury, and together, we came up with solutions. How do you get through the day with all the pain of being a sensitive human being in this vicious world? Charlie and I, we did it together. We talked it out. And what we couldn’t solve, we put a cap on with the most absurd humor. When all else fails, get silly. He understood that, like few others. I love many people profoundly, but him I needed.

 

Charlie and I talked about movies, we talked about comic books, we talked about toys. As similar as we were temperamentally, we weren’t the same guy; he got more enjoyment out of nostalgia than I did. I’m always looking for the next thing to obsess over, but he found the most comfort in happy memories. Still, I was fine with going there with him. It’s just that now, going there without him is painful. So maybe that’s why I haven’t been able to find as much pleasure in the activities I used to enjoy so much. Because I can’t tell Charlie about ’em. And there’s a part of me that relishes denying myself joy. That’s always been there, but it’s back with a vengeance, because now there’s a part of me that’s very angry at myself for not saving him. I couldn’t have, I don’t think, but try telling that to my subconscious mind.

 

When you lose a person, if you love them enough, they become a part of you. I believe that, but it takes work to get there. Long story short, that answers the question some have posed as to why I changed my social media handle across the board to Jon Zilla. It’s something Charlie would have enjoyed. It’s probably something he called me at some point. He had all kinds of fun nicknames for me. In fact, come to think of it in text messages he used “Jon-Ra” a lot, and it’s a lateral move from Mothra to Godzilla so there you go. In 2016 I needed a bit of a disconnect from “Jon Abrams.” Jon Abrams is a guy who’s been through the wringer; he’s endured a whole lot of pain both physical and emotional, and he’ll continue to do it because he has no other choice, but as an idea, maybe he needed some time off. I’ve had almost no time off in 2016, very literally, so in a weird way I had to give my very identity a little break. As if I hadn’t had enough stress and loss in my life for one year, there’s also been plenty of tension between me and the guy whose face and surname I carry, but I don’t really want to write about that publicly. Point is, for a while there it was a bit of a drag even for me to look in the mirror and to read my own signature.

 

I wouldn’t be writing this if I couldn’t bring it to a happy ending of sorts. You’re reading the words of a guy who has faced down his demons every minute of every day throughout this godforsaken year, and as of press time, I won. There are a lot of good reasons to appreciate the time we’re given on this planet, as difficult as that time can be. There are people who really do need me. There are things I really do believe I was meant to do while I’m here, things I haven’t done yet. I will not shirk my duty. I will not deprive myself any longer. As hard as 2016 has been, I’ve also taken control of my physical health, having lost twenty pounds and having been enjoying dating more than I have all decade. Every time the darkness has come for me in my head, I’ve beaten it back, with the power of my own better thoughts and with the strength I’ve gotten from my support system — some who are still with me, some who are no longer but will always be. Again, my cousin Charlie is a beacon. Whenever I voiced how I felt overweight and sloppy-looking, Charlie would say to me, “You look like a movie star.” When I called myself stupid, he called me “the smartest person I know” (and he knew a whole lot of genuinely brilliant people.) There was no deep dark pit of despair I threw myself into that Charlie could not get me out of, in just a few words. Charlie is still with me; that’s a fact. He said things that saved me. If he’s not here to say them to me anymore, I have to say them to myself now.

 

So I saved my own life, with help. I did it today, and I’ll do it again tomorrow. I am the king of monsters.

 

Love you brother.

 

 

 

 

— JON ZILLA.

 

 

 

Bronx Cheer: The Much-Missed Comedy of Mike DeStefano (11/29/1966 – 3/6/2011)

 

 

These are some words I wrote four years ago about a comedian who many people never got the chance to know, one worth rediscovering.

 

 

 

“You know how it ends? We all die, that’s how it fucking ends, and you can’t bring your iPod. Sorry!” — Mike DeStefano.

 

 

Mike DeStefano was a known name in New York comedy, steadily gaining in widespread fame. I’m ashamed to say that I hadn’t heard of him until the seventh season of Last Comic Standing, where he made the final five contestants, and at first, I didn’t even like him that much. His voice was loud and abrasive and exactly reminiscent of those big-mouths who stand out in Bronx crowds, the kind of pricks who spill peanuts and popcorn on you in the stands at a Yankees game. He definitely had a distinctive look, unconventional among many of today’s comedians, with his spiky gray hair and tattooed arms and a furrowed brow that looks not unlike the Scottish actor Brian Cox. DeStefano’s manner was equally brash and confrontational – when he got voted off the show, he told America what they could do with their vote.

 

 

That’s the moment I became a fan. A little late to the party, sure, but I made up for lost time by enjoying the tons of clips of DeStefano’s comedy on YouTube and elsewhere. His one recorded album is called OK KARMA and it remains a refreshing blast of noxious energy and battered honesty. It’s still one of my favorite comedy albums ever. It helped that he was a Bronx guy – I grew up the next town over, admittedly in somewhat more comfortable circumstances, but believe me, I know a ton of guys like Mike DeStefano, so I know a little something about what he’s talking about. I’ve walked the same beat, though his stories are way better. If I say I know a ton of guys like him, I’ve rarely heard anyone express themselves as clearly, as simply, and as recognizably. He might sound a little angry, but that’s good, isn’t it? There’s a lot about this world that should make you angry. If you can live in contemporary American society without getting angry sometimes, then I hope you like the taste of sand, because you’re an ostrich up to your neck in it.

 

 

DeStefano’s comedy was unapologetically angry, born of real hard living and pain. In the startling episode of WTF where he was interviewed by host Marc Maron, he laid out the wreckage of his past in raw detail. DeStefano used Maron’s show, one of the most thoughtful and probing venues anywhere in America, to talk about his HIV-positive status. It was just one more brave admission in a long line of them. DeStefano’s rap wasn’t intended to get sympathy or accolades for himself – he talked about his substance abuse issues and his HIV diagnosis in order to show that anyone could overcome similar histories and still live a worthy life. He spoke about recovery and comedy with the zeal of a preacher, and it was both inspiring and hilarious. This was a guy who was on the front lines of truth-telling. He spoke to his own truth, emboldened with the confidence speaking truth gives a person, and personally speaking, it was a truth that I can recognize and that I happen to believe. Every word I ever heard him say about religion, race, and sexuality was more accurate and concise than anybody I ever agreed with who wasn’t nearly as funny. Maybe that’s why I was initially, temporarily put off to his comedy: Because I knew it was true. This was a great comic who had important things to say.

 

 

Mike DeStefano died on Sunday March 6^th, at the age of 44.

 

 

 

 

He had been touring a one-man show based on his life and experiences, to strong reviews. Could have been the breakthrough he deserved. I never met this man, and the loss belongs to his family and friends alone, but I still can’t help feeling a great sadness. We really can’t afford to lose people like this one. There aren’t a lot of people in the public eye who are so fearless in speaking such brutal, twisted, and – yes – loving thoughts. Mike DeStefano was a truth-belching bulldog of zen and comedy, and we can only hope that he was able to inspire enough people and change enough minds in his brief career that losing him so soon makes any kind of cosmic sense.

 

 

 

 

 

SCREENING IN NYC: AFTER LIFE (1998)

AFTER LIFE is the second feature film from Japanese writer and director Hirokazu Kore-eda. Before features, he worked in documentaries, and that experience, that interest in real human beings and their thoughts and feelings, shows in this film. AFTER LIFE is set in a kind of business-like purgatory, where people who have recently died are asked to choose their happiest memory from life. Then, the people running the place put together a dramatic re-creation of that memory, and after watching the result, the dead are able to head on into eternity, taking that memory with them. The story focuses equally on the dead and the ones who work to their benefit.

Obviously, what’s most striking about AFTER LIFE, considering its subject matter, is its humility, its small scale, its lack of high drama. There are no angels flying around on feathery wings, no demons or hellfire. Everyone in this movie looks like a person you could meet. Almost every story told is one you could relate to. AFTER LIFE has a rare sweetness, a genuine spirituality. Sure, we’re talking about notions of Heaven here, but you don’t have to buy into one ethos or another to appreciate this film. This is the kind of spirituality that could and maybe should be universal. For the more philosophically minded, there’s plenty for you also. As the trailer asks, “What is the one memory you would take with you?” What a lovely question for a film to consider, and to ask its audience to consider.

AFTER LIFE is almost unique in its lack of conflict; its primary mode is reflective. There aren’t galvanic performances or sweeping visual flourishes here. The modest look of the film suits it well. A lot can be said with a little. Many movies want to shake the ground you stand on, to make your eyes widen and make your mind melt. This one has the feeling of sitting on a park bench by a duck pond in the spring, a loved one by your side, or in your thoughts. There is serenity here.

The Japan Society is screening AFTER LIFE tonight. I recommend attending, if you’re able.

@jonnyabomb

Movies Well Worth Your Time: SMASHED (2012)

In retrospect, it kills me that I didn’t manage to see SMASHED anytime last year.  It absolutely would have clinched for my year-end top ten.  I even know which movie it would have supplanted:  FLIGHT, a movie which covers similar territory.

Like FLIGHT, SMASHED deals with the topic of alcoholism with unusual potency and attention to detail, with an astounding central performance and with harrowing scenes of hitting bottom and going even lower.

Unlike FLIGHT, SMASHED has an unsubtle, lovely soundtrack that doesn’t threaten to undermine everything else good about the movie.

Director James Ponsoldt, between SMASHED and this year’s THE SPECTACULAR NOW, has cornered the market on low-fi and true pictures that deal with addiction in surprising, disarming, and sneakily affecting ways.  He wrote SMASHED with Susan Burke, and assembled a tremendous cast that includes never-fail ringers like Aaron Paul (“Jesse Pinkman” on Breaking Bad), Octavia Spencer (FRUITVALE STATION), Bree Turner, Mary Kay Place, Megan Mullally, and Nick Offerman.

Those last two, by the way, I am now officially willing to follow to the ends of the earth, due to the fact that everything they do together (Parks & Recreation, Axe Cop, THE KINGS OF SUMMER) is so resolutely charming.  Her role, as a sympathetic school principal dealing with a young teacher who lies and comes to work drunk, is probably smaller than his, as a fellow teacher who helps that troubled co-worker find her way into a support network but has his own weird issues going on.   But both are indelible in this film, as is the entire cast.  Everyone in the movie is funny, sad, and disarming.

But SMASHED is Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s victory most of all.  Already beloved by genre fans for her roles in horror and action movies, she proves definitively that she is one of the most under-utilized great actresses of her generation with her role as Kate, a schoolteacher who decides to get sober despite the fact that her husband and main running buddy (Aaron Paul’s Charlie) isn’t ultimately willing to do the same.  Winstead’s performance isn’t showy or grandiose, which is a sacrifice.  You don’t get fancy awards for underplaying.  Instead, she plays it like a real person.  Kate is a person you could know.  She’s a person you quickly come to care about.  She’s a person you worry about.  She’s a person you can hope for.  That’s more noble.  That’s true acting; playing a part with honesty, without underlining everything for the cheap seats.

I feel so fondly towards this small, sweet, special movie, but I’m not sure I could express myself anywhere near as well as the late, great Roger Ebert did in his review.  Please seek it out – it’s one of the most beautiful pieces he ever wrote, and it will convince you, if I haven’t, that SMASHED is a film well worth the attention you give it.

@jonnyabomb

How I Spent The Morning Of September 11th, 2013.

I walked up the steps from the subway and headed down the sidewalk, the Empire State Building in view. That’s where I work, most days of the week, if you don’t know.  This morning I was running early, which is unusual.  I was checking out a pretty girl walking in front of me, which is extremely usual.  Because I was focused on other things, I didn’t notice the commotion at the corner until I walked right into it.

A small crowd had formed.  In New York, this can mean anything.  A troupe of breakdancers. A cluster of political activists.  An accident.  A drum circle. A runaway sewer wombat.  This particular incident was in fact another instance of that most eternal wellspring of rubberneckery:  A fight.

The man was I think Indian, maybe Sri Lankan.  The woman, it turns out, was from Florida.  I’ll tell you the rest of the story and then you can decide if those details matter.   The man was holding firm to a red suitcase, which the woman was trying to tug away from him.  Their equal but opposing grips formed a kind of clothesline, or human limbo bar, which most of the surrounding civilians were dodging as the central struggle swayed back and forth.  The woman kicked at the man’s midsection.  Once, twice.  He grimaced but refused to relinquish his grip.  She was shouting.  People watched.  None stepped forward.

A thing about me:  If I see a woman struggling against a man, my sympathies instinctively go to the woman.  Huge knight-in-shining-armor complex.

So I stepped in.  I didn’t much want to, and there was enough time for me to consider minding my own damn business and moving straight past.  And if it were just a run-of-the-mill New York shouting match, I might have.  But witnessing the physicality is what spurred me to action.  I stood between the two and made a call for calm.  I must have had my Moses mojo working, because both of them promptly stopped screaming, although neither relinquished their hold on the suitcase.

With a quick look around from the inside, the situation quickly revealed itself:  A parked taxi cab was stopped in the middle of the three lanes, its hazard lights on, like a pylon in the flow of Manhattan morning traffic.  The man was a taxi driver.  The woman had been his passenger.  She’d flown in to Jersey and hailed a cab in an attempt to make an important meeting, and she didn’t agree with the route he took.  When the cab stopped at a red light, she took her suitcase and got out.  Some of you know that a taxi from any of the airports outside of the city is a pricey prospect.  This lady was ducking out on a substantial fare.  Not only that, but if you know the first thing about taxi companies, you’d know that the cabbie would have to account to his bosses for the lost time.

My point of view immediately shifted.  You’d probably have to hear the way this woman was talking to this man.  “I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”  “Give me back my suitcase.”  “Do not touch my suitcase.”  “I can’t understand a word he says.”  The tone of voice said everything.  ”I can’t understand a word he says.”  In front of him.  To me. To anyone else within earshot. It was the total dismissal of the person she was arguing so viciously with, that rapid turn of the head away from him to talk to anyone else standing nearby, that struck me.  The guy had an accent, sure, but he wasn’t that hard to understand, and besides, his claim was totally reasonable.  She owed him money.  She didn’t like the price — hell, we all get that part — but that didn’t mean she could just kick him and walk away.

For whatever reason, both agitated parties were looking to me as the arbiter of the situation, like I was some kind of King Solomon or Judge Judy.  All of the other adults on the scene were either staring at the free drama, or yelling their own opinions on the matter as if that’d resolve it.  I can tell you for a fact that all of the yelling was being addressed solely to the cab driver.  If I didn’t see his side of things nobody was going to.  I could understand that it bothered people that he was clamping down on her property, but I could also see why he did it, and that’s why I let him use my phone to call the police.

The saddest, most human detail of the entire experience was the way the cab driver and the blond woman both had their hands on the extended handle of the suitcase until the cops finally showed — which, by the way, was almost half an hour from the time of the call.  You’d think the fact that a stopped cab was blocking a lane on Madison Avenue, one block from the Empire State Building, might have attracted any of the thousands of cops in the area a little sooner.  On this topic, another bystander noted what is of course the subtext of this anecdote, that most potent of calendar dates.  You’d think there’d be more cops, particularly at this moment on this day.

Both man and woman were tethered to that suitcase.  He wanted to go out to the street and move his cab, but he knew that if he did it, the woman would make a break for it without that fare.  So we waited.  And brother, that was a tense wait.  And now, a few hours later, it’s still tense.  The officers on the scene, a man and a woman, took each arguer aside separately along gender lines.  They had the cabbie move his car and took their statements.   They dismissed me from the scene pretty quickly, while that was still going on.

This anecdote is not one with a resolution.  I don’t know what happened after that.  I assume the cops made the lady pay the cab driver and left it at that.  At least I hope so.  She’ll probably get away with having kicked him.  It’s not my job to make her pay for that part.  I’m not Batman.  (Ben Affleck is.)  I did mention the kicking to the cops, but they didn’t seem to care much about the detail.  My concern is that, after I left, it turned into a he-said/she-said two-hander, in which case, the refs in the blue uniforms historically tend to side with the blond person.  But now we’re getting into the arena with all the vaguely troubling things outside my personal ability to do much of anything at all about.

I know, me, right?  Me, me, me.  This story isn’t remotely all about only me.  Maybe it’s more about a couple issues which are way bigger than me.  Or maybe it isn’t that at all.  Maybe it’s just the kind of dumb thing that happens every day, and maybe I should have stuck with my instincts and minded my own damn business, and maybe the entire reason for that is because I tend to go on these extended post-game philosophical thinking jags.

Then again, if you know me well, or even if you pay any attention to my daily Twitter feed, you know that I tend to find myself inside unusual, dramatic, and/or comical situations pretty much on the regular, and maybe there’s a reason for that. Does everything have its reason?  I still don’t know, even at my advancing age.  Maybe my role is meant to be an embedded reporter in the daily conflagration between the odd and the mundane.  I write, that’s what I do.  If I can spin these things that happen to me and nearby to me into something readable from which someone can infer some kind of meaning, then maybe that gives my day a little extra purpose.  At the very least, it would give some meaning to the fact that this is how I spent this particular morning on this particular day.

@jonnyabomb

An American Original: MOTHER, JUGS & SPEED (1976).

You may have noticed that I’ve talked about MOTHER, JUGS & SPEED a lot.  I wrote about it only once, for my friend’s spotlight on Underrated Comedies.  As I wrote then, this isn’t only an underrated comedy in my eyes.  In my opinion, this may just be the most underrated American film of all time.  Am I exaggerating?  Read on, amigos.

MOTHER, JUGS & SPEED was written by Tom Mankiewicz, who worked on SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE, DRAGNET, and three James Bond movies.  It was directed by Peter Yates, best known for classic tough-guy movies such as BULLITT and THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE.  One of the producers on MOTHER, JUGS & SPEED is Joseph Barbera — that’s right — one half of the insanely prolific Hanna-Barbera cartoon team.

All of the above credits may begin to hint at the unique atmosphere of MOTHER, JUGS & SPEED — I could call it “cartoonish realism” if I thought the term might ever take off.  The story concerns an independent ambulance company competing against rival services in addition to the proper channels. They’re barely-legal L.A. outlaws, riding into life or death situations. Most of them do it for the kicks.

The veteran driver is nicknamed “Mother” and that’s the only name he’s known by. He’s a man of simple pleasures: He likes getting massages from pretty ladies, keeping a fully-stocked cooler in the rig, and “buzzing” gaggles of nuns with his siren as they’re crossing the street.

That’s Bill Cosby.

The new guy is Tony Malatesta, a former police detective nicknamed “Speed” due to the bogus drug allegations that recently got him shitcanned from the LAPD.

That’s Harvey Keitel.

And the knockout receptionist with larger ambitions is nicknamed “Jugs” (which she hates, by the way.)

That’s Raquel Welch.

Those are three very different stars, which means that the movie is a collection of very different tones. This movie brims with raucous comedy and sober tragedy, on a scene-to-scene basis.  Somehow it all hangs together cohesively – credit to the sure hand of Peter Yates.  But even with that said, it’s probably still not what you’re expecting.  Cosby’s got a potty-mouth, for one thing!  Your Cosby Show memories will be forever changed once you hear him say “Bambi’s mom had great tits.”  But even as he’s doing that, he’s rocking some real pathos too.  His performance here is way more HICKEY & BOGGS (see that too, please) than GHOST DAD or LEONARD PART SIX.  There’s a real depth to his acting that could be frankly shocking even to longtime fans of his comedy.

Meanwhile, Keitel was best known at the time  for his work with Scorsese – he appeared in TAXI DRIVER the same year – but even though he’s cast as the straight man here, he’s totally down to play. And Raquel Welch, a sexual revolution in human form, is easily their equal and frequently their better. It’s one of her best-ever roles.

Add to that a supporting cast that includes L.Q. Jones, Bruce Davison, Dick Butkus, Larry Hagman in brilliantly gross & bastardy form, and the sorely-underappreciated character-actor great Allen Garfield (THE STUNT MAN) as the low-rent boss of the gang, and you have one of the most fun movies of the 1970s, and arguably one of the most unheralded.  Name another great movie from that year – ROCKY, ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN, NETWORK – and then ask me if I’d rather watch MOTHER, JUGS & SPEED.  Apologies to Stallone, Hoffman, Redford, and Duvall, but I think you already know my answer.

Ride with me on Twitter: @jonnyabomb

And check out this fun photo-article on the film’s shooting locations.

31 FLAVORS OF HORROR!: THE INTERLUDE.

Well, the conceivable happened, and I fell behind on my 31-day horror project.  No drawn-out equivocating here:  A real writer makes deadlines, even the ones he sets for himself, and a real man doesn’t make excuses, but then there’s the whole matter of reality to contend with, and the way that each one of us handles our particular reality with a variety of temperaments.  Life doesn’t stop punching you in the gut just because you took on a writing project in your spare time, and as I should have expected, life punched me in the gut a few days back and I didn’t much feel like writing about anything for a while after that.

But I’m getting back on that old gray horse and mounting up for a ride through the last week of this thing.  Y’all will have your thirty-one, I promise it, and I may not even stop there, but don’t let me go making promises.  The point is, I’m back on it.  Good thing the subject is horror.  It fits the mood.  See, I think what horror aficionados know deep down is that this entire passion for the genre comes out of wrestling with the idea of death.  I spend a lot of time looking for connections between stories, looking for the common themes and the deviations.  Well the one thing you can always reckon on with a good horror tale, whether it be about ghosts or vampires or zombies or werewolves or man-eating animals or monsters of the more human variety, is that they all have something to do with death.  Sometimes death is victorious at the end, and sometimes death is kept at bay.  Either way, whether it’s sooner or later, that one truth is for damn sure:  Ain’t none of us getting out of this thing alive.  Best we can do is reconcile ourselves to that fact, enjoy it as long as we can, and watch a shit-ton of movies if that’s among the things we enjoy most.  It is for me.

Find me talking movies on Twitter (@jonnyabomb) and at Daily Grindhouse, and one thing else…

A recommendation:  If you want daily updates and engaging commentary, please check out my friend Ryan McNeely at his site — he’s been writing about a movie a day straight through since January and it’s really great.

Now, coming in the next few days from me:

           

From The Archives: GRAN TORINO (2008).

Take my words with as big a helping of salt as you choose, since I have got to be the biggest Clint Eastwood fan this side of forty.  I have found something worth remembering and studying within every entry of his directorial output, even in the ones I don’t happen to prefer, and if the man himself actually appears in said entry, so much the better.  I do believe that Gran Torino has something important to say, and – forget what you may have read – it’s not about race.  That issue factors in here, of course, but not as much as most of the  reviews seem to think.  It’s not Clint’s way to hit you over the head with ideas about race.  Instead, in Gran Torino he’s talking about America, and the national character upon which America was built, and how we later generations were given that America and how we’re beginning to forget it.  It’s about the pussification of America, and what to do about it.

The reviews I’ve seen that use the word “racist” in conjunction with Gran Torino are simply stupid.  Clint has never once made a movie endorsing racist views –  on the contrary, in fact – and he isn’t about to start now.  He’s playing a character here; don’t ever confuse the story with the storyteller.  His character, Walt Kowalski, says plenty of racist things, but even he isn’t necessarily racist.  Pussies put so much value on words that they forget that, more than anything, men are defined by their actions.  Look at the actions, not the words.  When Walt sees how his young Hmong neighbor Sue handles herself bravely in an intimidating situation, he immediately warms to her.  When he sees her brother Thao help a lady with her spilt groceries after a couple other little shits laugh her off, Walt starts to see a kid worth knowing, worth toughening, worth ultimately saving.

Race in America has become THAT complicated, and some people are nearly that complicated:  Walt hates everybody equally, his use of racist epithets are primarily a method of distinction, not judgment.  He calls Asians “zipperheads” not necessarily because he hates all Asians – he calls them “zipperheads” simply because that’s what he has always called them.  Walt is so used to disappointment, from his chubby yuppie sons and their little-shit kids, from the pussy-ass gangstas walking his streets, from the young college-boy pussies who think they have all the answers, that at this point he hates everyone he meets on sight.  When people prove his hate to be justified, he growls.  When people prove their worth, he warms to them, even if he stubbornly refuses to drop the lingo.

Gran Torino is a vintage Malpaso production, with all the class and smarts that tag has always guaranteed.  Joel Cox edits with a pleasing rhythm, cinematographer Tom Stern provides an appropriately washed-out (and later, stark) palette, Clint’s son Kyle (with Michael Stevens) provide the neat score, and the script credited to Nick Shenck works just right, with an ending that even longtime Clint fans won’t see coming.  I really hope that Clint isn’t done with acting, and if he isn’t, I hope he directs himself again – he knows how to use Clint Eastwood as an actor.  He understands the history and audience expectations that come with a Clint Eastwood film, and he knows how to subvert, parody, and/or work alongside all of that.  I haven’t seen a Clint character spit this much since The Outlaw Josey Wales, and I would guess that the reference is very much intentional.  Love it.

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Words I Have No Choice But To Live By.

Clint Eastwood, as The Outlaw Josey Wales:

“Now remember, when things look bad and it looks like you’re not gonna make it, then you gotta get mean. I mean plumb, mad-dog mean. ‘Cause if you lose your head and you give up then you neither live nor win. That’s just the way it is.”

@jonnyabomb