Alone at last to figure how you got this way. (PART II)

I just realized something. This blog is ugly, I mean really ugly. I look at Nate's blog and it looks like it was all done up by Rembrandt Q. Einstein. Anybody have any suggestions on what I can do to tidy up this place, I've tried nothing and I'm all out of ideas.

Ya follow what I'm sayin'?

Before I forget, I just want to say that I'm glad certain athletic competitions ended a certain way.
That's all I'm going to say about that.

Where to begin? There's a of stuff I wanted to talk about like how great the new Kevin Devine album is. It's great like Frosted Flakes (and I'm listening to it right now). But I think I'll start with the old reliable, flick-a-shows. I got some good ones.

I know I always say I got good ones but this time I mean it. I saw three really really good movies this past week, all in a row actually. It was something I was no expecting, but it just kind of happened. It's a great feeling to see movies that just totally take you by surprise. Movies you expect not to affect you, wind up sticking with you several days afterwards.

I saw The Queen on Sunday night. Before I tell you about it, just know that as good as the hype is, the movie is even better. Beacuse it's real. Seriously, unlike Public Enemy you should believe the hype, it's that good. Hellen Mirren nails her performance, it's kind of scary the kind of command this woman has over the acting craft. She does so much glances, half suggestions, and pauses between words. It's a deeply felt performance that is just one of the strong elements of this film. What's so fascinating about this film is watching a relic of the monarchy fight against the light of modernity. It's tragic the way Queen Elizabeth desperately clings to the last vestiges of her livelihood as the entire world engages with her in a duel over the death of Princess Di. The most remarkable thing about the film is how much you sympathize with the Queen and her plight without Mirren or the filmmakers heaping heavy excesses of heroism upon you. She is a woman clinging to her principles, frought with consequences. She and the film never take the easy way out. The rest of the cast is very strong too, especially Michael Sheen playing the newly elected PM Tony Blair. Sheen is so good because he carries on this cloak of moral outrage at how the Queen is being treated by his staff and the people, yet you can always ever so slightly see a kind of shifty plotting of a young man trying to figure out his new place of power. It's one of the best movies I've seen this year.

The next day, I followed that up with Shortbus, and before you ask, I will answer. Yes it's the sex movie. But that's such a cheap and superficial explanation to the kind of power this movie has. Okay it has explicit sex in it (you see everything, and all kinds of variations of it) but there is so much joy, passion, and humor in this movie that it de-eroticizes all the hardcore stuff. The sex becomes so goofy and more an extension of the anxieties of these disconnected New Yorkers that each one seems like a circus act of mercy. I loved this movie, and before you start making any weird assumptions about me, I'm going to say it again, I loved this movie. Sure it's not perfect, the acting is extremely amateurish and the movie has a lot of rough edges. But the formalities are never the most important thing for me. A lot of the times, a movie lives or dies by how it's personality shines through all of the dollies, cut, and re-takes. This movie has personality to burn and John Cameron Mitchell has a spirit and an optimism that is infectious. And he took a precarious subject and made something unique that is totally his thing but he also wants to invite us in on the fun. There's fun to be had, trust me. At least know this, it's a movie about explicit sex that I recommend to everybody I know. It's about lonely people finding solace in each other and how random connections occur when you least expect them. We all need a movie like that once in a while. Mitchell is an optimist as the revolutionary, he will find the shimmering amongst the dank and so should we.

After that, (one more I swear), I caught up on Deliver Us From Evil, Amy Berg's searing and heartbreaking documentary about the life long sexual abuses committed by Oliver O'Grady on far too many children than one would like to think possible. Berg captures the psychological torture on these children (well into their adult years) in a way that allows us to understand yet we get choked up because we know we will never understand it. She also emphasizes the raging hypocrisy committed by the Catholic Church in a way that humanizes it rather than turn it into a cheap slogan campaign. The Cardinals, bishops, and priests claim a moral authority on everything except the all-mighty themselves. I guess it's that moral authority that allows them so sacrifice innocent children to protect their way of life. When the Church heirarchy learned O'Grady's offenses they did nothing more than send him a few miles away to another parish in California, to unleash him on a new set of unsuspecting children. It's a hypocrisy we see in almost every facet of political, social, and religious life. The most corrupt are always those who claim to be immune to it. This an organization to which, a great many people seek comfort, salvation, and hope. To take that kind of faith and spit it back in the face of children and their families is a unique kind of stain on one's soul. Berg let's you see how the psychological strains tear through each member of each family. It's a an epic topic broached through a personal, human scopt. One of the most powerful documentaries I've ever seen.

There you have it, three movies I think you all should go out and see right now. They each have a distinct style, soul, and spirit. They will get you in some way, maybe not a good way, but they will definitely not leave you glazed over. So see them and react. It's all the movies ask you to do.

"A man in a hotel room, tangled to his teeth by the telephone
He's waiting on a woman, wondering what she's doing,
And pacing so his pulse won't slow.
He drums his legs and pulls his hair; he carves her dimples in the air.
The raging world has spooked him scared, and he don't want her lost out there.
So now it's later than it needs to be
And though his aching eyes want sleep
Against all rationality
Against everything he believes
He prays for her protection,
Heaven bound & glory be.
I pray for your protection,
Heaven bound & glory be."