My Thoughts On: The Alcoholic, by Jonathan Ames

A couple weeks ago I checked out Jonathan Ames’ graphic novel from last year, The Alcoholic. Ames is the creator of HBO’s Bored To Death, my favourite new show of the 2009/2010 season. I was always curious about the book, what with it landing on so many best-books-of-2008 lists, and its connections to the HBO series only amped up my curiosity even more.

Just like in the show, Ames named the lead character "Jonathan Ames," after himself (which is so odd and cool at the same time. Why does he keep doing this?). But the book feels much more autobiographical than the TV series. A quote inside the book by Neil Gaimen puts it best when describing it as “painfully-honest-even-if-we-don’t-know-where-all-the-fictional-joins-are memoir-cum-fiction.” Similar to the real Ames, he’s a balding Brooklyn writer. However the Alcoholic-Ames is a writer of pulpy detective novels, while the real-life Ames writes comedy novels; the Alcoholic-Ames' parents died while he was a teenager, while the real-life Ames' parents are still very much alive; and on and on. Regardless of what’s real and what’s not, everything in the book feels real, with the kind of painful and awkward experiences that could only come from someone who has lived some version of them (Example: The teenage, heterosexual Ames’ awkward homosexual experiences with his best friend).

So what are my thoughts on the book? Well, I’m not as enamoured with it as I am with Bored To Death, I guess because BTD is aided by glossy filmmaking and the charisma and talent of the three lead actors. The story is made up of a series of vignettes in the life of an apparent alcoholic: his experiences with friends and family and his career from his teenage years to his mid-life years a little after 9/11 as a balding, Brooklynite writer. The series seems kind of formless, with, basically, one thing happening after another until it just kind of ends. The introduction of 9/11 into the story comes out of nowhere–which I guess shouldn’t be a criticism because the real life incident actually came out of nowhere–but I wish it had more of a thematic or literary connection to the events than it did in the story. But I have to say, the book was never boring, and the characters’ experiences and feelings felt just genuine and interesting and personal enough to be keep me engaged from beginning to end. It’s a pretty fluid read; never a dull moment.

It’s also just plain interesting if you're a fan of Bored To Death. The Alcoholic-Ames character, for example, writes the kind of pulpy books that inspire the Bored-To-Death Ames to take up his double life. Or there's the presence of a comic artist in Bored-To-Death Ames’ life, clearly inspired by real-life Ames' association with The Alcoholic artist Dean Haspiel (I’ll give Haspiel the benefit of the doubt that the Zach Galifinakis character is in no way based on him). Haspiel is the real artist of the odd, hilarious artwork that Galifinakis draws every week on the show. And at least one scene in the show reminded me of a scene in the comic: when Bored-To-Death Ames outruns the Russian mobsters in the series’ 5th episode, he lies down underneath the Brighton Beach docks and begins frantically burying himself in the sand. In the comic, Ames narrates part of the story while on-the-run and buried from-neck-to-toe in the sand under the docks.

Overall: a good book, a good, interesting supplementary read for fans of Bored To Death... but nothing especially great.

Bored To Death: Favourite New Show

Last Sunday's episode of HBO's Bored To Death--the series' 6th episode--solidified it for me: it's my favorite new show in a long time. The series is about a bored, loser-ish writer, Jonathan Ames (not-so-coincidentally named after the creator of the series, novelist Jonathan Ames), who, after breaking up with his girlfriend, decides to advertise his services as a unlicensed private detective on Craig's List. "I've been reading so many of these detective novels that I know what to do," he reasons. The series mixes his misadventures as a low-rent PI with his life as a Brooklynite writer.

I didn't think the series started off very strong, with a weak first couple of episodes, but the strengths of the three lead actors--Jason Swartzmann as Ames, Zach Galifinakis as Ames' comic book artist friend, and Ted Danson as Ames' rich, eccentric, magazine-owner boss--kept me on board. The third episode, "The Case of the Missing Screenplay," was the first hint for me of something greater, with Ames having to retrieve a screenplay from the office of the father of an under-aged girl he almost slept with. Especially great was the scene at the end of the episode with the father, a psychiatrist, hilariously deconstructing the psychology of Ames' character in a rapid-fire fashion. "Next issue," he'd bluntly intone after completely solving the last one.

But it was the last two episodes, “The Case Of The Lonely White Dove” and “The Case Of The Beautiful Blackmailer,” that completely sold me on the show. Ames’ puppy-dog-like pride over having given the blackmailer two orgasms, Galifanakis’ lackadaisical role as Ames' sidekick, the pot-fueled conversations between Galifinakis and Danson while Ames' life is in danger ("I'm on marijuana minutes")... this show is hilarious and fun. But on top of that, it's also occasionally enlightening and moving, as in the closing scene with the Russian lothario in the 5th episode: "Goodbye my new friend. I don't know if I'll ever see you again. But I hope your heart is broken many times because it means you will have loved many times."

The 6th episode also ended with a new story development, Danson becoming aware of Ames' double-life and wanting Ames and Galifinakis' character to do a comic about it in his magazine.

It’s sad to think that there are only 4 more episodes left in the season! Thankfully Jonathan Ames--the real Ames, the creator--just made a cool announcement on Twitter:

RT @jonathanames okay, going off twitter for a while. have to work on the new season of #boredtodeath.

Where The Wild Things Are: My Thoughts

I finally saw Where The Wild Things Are last night, and... well... I liked it okay. A little background: I'm the only one I know who wasn't exposed to the book as a kid (really, it feels like everyone I talk to had a childhood-love affair with the 10-sentence, 37-page book), so I have no prior attachment to the characters and I don't feel like the making a movie about it is somehow a bastardization of my childhood. Also, I'll admit, I dig the hipster coolness of the Spike Jonze brand (be it his ads, his music videos, his movies... or his short films about Kanye West's general douche-baggery manifesting itself as a suicidal rat-creature). So I went into this movie baggage-free and optimistic. And, like I say, I liked it. Somewhat.

It's definitely a smart script, with a sharp, nuanced, and (thankfully) subtle examination of being young, imaginative, and energetic. Max is a believable kid. He isn't cute and precocious, like most movie-kids; he's naive, destructive, impulsive, illogical, and yup, sometimes completely insensitive and mean. And I like how the monsters all represent some aspect of being a kid or a parent. Also, the look of the film is great, the soundtrack is cool, and I can't explain it, but I absolutely love James Gandolfini's voice-work as lead monster Carol.

So what did I find wrong with the film? Well, it just kind of petered out for me near the end. After the first hour and 10 minutes (just about after the completely awesome dirt-clod fight sequence) it began to get boring, with the tension dissipating almost completely. I think the film maybe could have used a stronger climax. Maybe something like all the monsters finally really turning on Max or something stronger than what we actually got, which was Carol turning on Max, Max escaping, and several conversation scenes helping Max finally realize he wants to go home. In the end... the kids and the critics who called it boring? I don't entirely disagree.

Either way, it's beautiful and smart, and it's the second film this year that makes me want to check out David Egger's books.

A Look at Four of Provocateur Lars Von Trier's Past Films

After watching Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist I immediately wanted to check out the director’s other works. The film was incredibly controversial at the Cannes Film Festival, where it was heavily criticized for its violence and apparent misogamy. I almost dismissed the film outright because of these criticisms, but I’m glad I didn’t. The film was surreal and provocative and beautiful. It really won me over... even if I didn’t quite understand much of any of it.

I watch a lot of indie films, but before this I had no interest in Von Trier. Maybe because the dogme movement he founded always sounded pretentious to me, or because of an old Ebert & Roeper At The Movies review I watched that dismissed Von Trier's Dogville for being boring and anti-American. But now I wanted to see more of this cinematic bad boy's work. I watched four of his most infamous and/or popular films: Breaking The Waves, Dancer In The Dark, Dogville, and Manderlay.

And I liked and loved them, if only because they did to me something I look for in all the pop cultural artefacts I consume: they provoked me and made me feel something, be it shock or simple empathy. All of these films got a reaction out of me even more fulfilling than what I got out of Antichrist. In fact, I was actually surprised at how different they were from Antichrist, which was surreal and dream-like. These films, on the other hand, are all tightly written and very precise in their execution and intent. All of them are slow and unfold organically and naturally. Here are my thoughts in more detail:

Dogville & Manderlay
Dogville was my favourite of the bunch, and mostly because of the audacious ending, which involved a shocking character twist that I felt the film completely earned. A few months ago Quentin Tarantino listed it as one of his favourite movies of the last 17 years, declaring his belief that it's one of the greatest film scripts ever written and that, had it been a stage production, it would have won a Pulitzer. I don't know if that's true or not, but I do agree the script is amazing. It's an incredibly literate story that, I believe, acts as an allegory for the immigrant experience in America.

Nicole Kidman plays Grace, a stranger-on-the-run in the 1930's who seeks refuge in a small dead-end town. She strikes a deal with the townspeople to hide her from the gangsters and the authorities who keep rolling into the town looking for her. However, circumstances slowly bring out the cruelty of the townspeople, a natural cruelty that, it can be argued, we’re all capable of possessing.

The ending is what makes this movie. Kidman spends the entire movie being quietly understanding and passive, and one illuminating conversation with her father, the amazing James Caan, brings out a whole new person. It's shocking, and a little unnerving in that we maybe don't entirely disagree with her immoral actions.

Dogville is the first part of a proposed trilogy, von Trier’s “U.S. Land of Opportunities” trilogy, of which Manderlay is the second part. They share the same lead character, the same story structure and narrator, and the same minimalist, stage-like sets.

Manderlay begins directly after Dogville, with Grace now played by Bryce Dallas Howard. And while it didn’t have the same visceral impact on me that Dogville had, it was still a very unsettling and affecting commentary on another particular aspect of American history: the slavery of African-Americans and the post-slavery world they subsequently lived in. The film begins with Grace traipsing upon the town of Manderlay, a city that still enslaves African-Americans 70 years after the abolition of slavery. When Mam, the leader of the enslaved community, dies of old age, a self-righteous Grace attempts to help guide and transition the confused and aimless community of Africans into their new lives as free citizens.

From there the movies makes a lot of uncomfortable and provocative statements about African-Americans, white people, and slavery. Are these statements all true? I don’t know, but they definitely fascinated me! And the shock of an ending with the innocent, well-meaning Grace again showing a dark side was pretty telling...

Breaking The Waves & Dancer In The Dark
These two films are two parts of another of Von Trier's trilogies, his "Golden Hearts" series, which are about "naive heroines who maintain their 'golden hearts' despite the tragedies they experience." And, yeah, these sweet, innocent, and unassuming heroins--Emily Watson in Breaking The Waves and Bjork in Dancer In The Dark--definitely suffer in these films. Their performances are also absolutely amazing (I was particularly surprised by Bjork -- I had no idea she had it this kind of performance in her!).

In Breaking The Waves Watson plays Bess, a child-like and slightly unhinged member of a Calvinist Church community, who marries Jan, an oil rig worker and an outsider. Bess has "conversations" with God and is so needy and in love with Jan that she can barely function when he's away for long periods of time on the oil-rig. After he's severely injured and paralyzed, he urges her to have sex with other men. For the next hour and half we watch this simple, child-like woman try to deal with this complicated situation (too complicated for her to comprehend in any reasonable way). The film is incredibly affecting and uncomfortable (I'm thinking especially of the scene of Bess dressed as a prostitute and walking her bike while being pelted with rocks by children) and it ends on an incredibly tragic note with only an odd touch--a hint of hope--in its final scene.

One thing I definitely appreciated about this film was that it doesn't just take the obvious route of Bess being completely insane. Yes, she's unhinged, but there's an ambiguity (or, well, you could argue there's nothing ambiguous about that last odd shot) that implies that maybe Bess isn't insane after, that she is talking to God, that her having sex with other men is healing her husband, etc. The ambiguity elevates this dark, dark film into something more spiritual and hopeful.

Dancer In The Dark is similarly affecting, with Bjork playing Selma, who loves music and dancing, and who is slowly going blind. She's trying to save up for an operation to save her son's eye-sight. A tragic set of circumstances lead to her involvement in the death of policeman David Morse (a death scene that is completely shocking and that, again, I believe the film earned). As a result, her life falls apart. Interspersed throughout the film are musical sequences that play out in Selma's imagination, which is her way of dealing with the tragic circumstances thrust upon her. As with Breaking The Waves, this film ends tragically but with one slight glimmer of hope.

I liked this one the least of all the films, mostly because I think it peaked after the violent incident. It really had no more surprises or twists -- just an hour of Bjork on the run, going to prison, and finally getting executed. Consequently, it didn't have the same impact on me as the other films did.

Where To Go From Here
I think I may next check out von Trier's Kingdom mini-series. My respect for the man's work has only grown since Antichrist. What can I say, I'm a sucker for a good provocateur.

Back Into Comics: Vertigo's AIR vol. 1 and UNKNOWN SOLDIER vol. 1

I hadn't purchased any comics in over a year and a half when I walked into Vancouver's preeminent comic shop Golden Age Collectibles last Friday. It wasn't financially feasible to buy comics anymore for my year in Victoria, but with those days done, I decided to finally jump back in and pick a couple random books up. I went in with two things in mind: 1) I didn't want anything superhero-related, and 2) Vertigo was a brand I trusted.

DC comics' Vertigo Comics imprint has the distinction of being "the HBO of comics" because they produce mature, challenging, finite series for the smart set. One of these days I'll write about Vertigo's 2006/2007 new wave of titles, where they were launching a new, great series every month. Sadly, very few of those series were successful, and, as of 2009, I can count only two that are still around (DMZ and Scalped). Even sadder? In the wake of those unsuccessful launches Vertigo seems to be putting out more and more fantasy- and genre-related books, as opposed to the crime and political and more-HBO-styled stuff they were flirting with (I mean, when I look at the line now I wonder where the American Virgin and The Exterminator-like books are.) The fantasy genre is fine if that's what you're into, but it's not what I read Vertigo for and they don't fuel as many recommend-it-to-a-person-who-doesn't-read-comics type books.

So I picked up two titles that launched a little after I stopped reading comics: Air: Letters From Lost Countries (vol. 1) and Unknown Soldier: Haunted House (vol. 1).

Air: Letters From Lost Countries (vol. 1)
Air had my interest for the first couple of issues. The art was passable, though very inconsistent, and the premise piqued my curiosity, with a setting and a world that was different from anything I'd read before. Blythe, a flight attendant with acrophobia is, in the first issue, approached by two different parties: Tall, dark, and handsome Zayne, whose accent and appearance change every time she sees him, and who appears very much like a terrorist, and the Etesian Front, a group dedicated to "taking the skies back from terror," and who appear very much like the good guys. And, wouldn't you know, our initial assumptions are wrong as Zayne turns out to be the good guy (and, eventually, Blythe's lover) and the Etesian Front turn out to be the bad guys who, in the first story, attempt to steal the plane Blythe is working on.

I liked the first issue well enough, but the more the series began to leave planet Earth and deal with cities in the sky and snake-bird creatures, the less interested I grew. Yup, the book turned out to one of Vertigo's fantasy titles. And it completely derailed for me by the book's final, fifth chapter, with Blythe becoming more of an absurd action-star character and with Aztec-powered flying machines, cities in the sky with mercenary gypsies, and the revelation that Blythe and all her flight attendant co-workers are "hyperpracts" (Kind of psychic pilots of the future? I think? I don't know, I really stopped caring). The grounded, post-9/11 acrophobic-flight-attendant world that initially drew me in seemed all but abandoned for fantastic adventures in alternate worlds and sky-cities.

My verdict: it's just not for me. It's the kind of book Vertigo seems to be producing more and more of these days.

Unknown Soldier: Haunted House (vol. 1)
Now this is what I look for in a Vertigo book. I hadn't heard much about this series but the cover blurbs made it sound pretty promising ("A comic that genuinely matters," "Immensely brave, intelligent, and ruthless," "Nothing else like it on the stands," "...the most special new comic series I've ever encountered," etc. Just to differentiate, the blurbs on the Air book were similarly complimentary but comparatively passive: "...interesting," "I've enjoyed it," etc.). The book has even been profiled in the New York Times.

It's about Dr. Lwanga Moses, an Ivy League-educated doctor who returns to his homeland of war-torn Northern Uganda in 2002. He and his wife Sera, also a doctor, begin the story helping out in a camp in the Northwest area. But, as the book jacket says, "within the heart of this healer mysteriously erupts an unstoppable killing machine." A violent encounter brings out a mysterious soldier-like voice that guides and goads him into violent encounters.

This series is brutal and provocative. The ending of the first issue, just as an example, made me sit up in shock, first with a brutal act of self-defense on Moses' part and then with what he does to himself afterwards. But other than just being violent, it's an engrossing exploration of the Uganda of that period of time, with child soldiers and plot points like nuns making deals with the rebels. One hard question the series poses concerns the ethics of answering violence with violence. As the sixth part of this collection ends with Moses about to embark on a mission to kill the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army, we're incredibly uncomfortable and not quite sure how righteous he and his mission are.

And on top of the the great writing, the European-style art is beautiful (reminding me of 80's-era Frank Miller) and the briefly-seen supporting characters are all interesting (including Margaret Wells, an Angelina Jolie-like celebrity crusader, and Jack Lee Howl, a grizzled, rogue CIA agent). I look forward to finding out more about all of these characters and seeing how this story develops.

And yup, I would recommend this book to someone who doesn't read comics.

Where to go from here?
I think I want to catch back up with DMZ and Scalped, get the last few volumes that have come out. And Greek Street looks interesting. And maybe soon I'll start venturing outside of Vertigo...

Big Apple: An underrated, underseen gem of a TV show from David Milch

In celebration of David Milch's announcement on Craig Ferguson that he's working on a new show, I'm going to look back at an old underrated gem he created and wrote all the way back in 2001 called Big Apple. Milch is the creator of brilliant HBO shows Deadwood and John From Cincinnati. He's the Shakespeare of TV, a mad genius and a completely original voice. You'll know you're watching a David Milch show just from the way the characters talk, in a dialogue style his fans have nicknamed "Milch-speak", which is "an idiosyncratic dialogue style" which is like "listening to a very profane Victorian Yoda from Brooklyn."

Big Apple was on CBS back in the Spring of 2001, between Milch's seven years running NYPD Blue and his renaissance period on HBO. As it only lasted 5 weeks on the air (though 8 episodes were filmed) and no DVD set is in sight, there's zero talk of the show online. Hence this blog entry will comprise approximately 99% of it's coverage on the Internet. Sure a Google search will bring up a few 2001-written reviews of its premier episodes and dead links for downloading the series' run, but there's nothing up 'til now examining the series as a whole. And, as I consider it a work of brilliance from a master of the form, I'm proud to at least give it some kind of coverage.

Big Apple was, like all Milch shows, a genre show with an existential bent. It was a police procedural drama that focused on a single homicide investigation, the murder of stripper-hooker Vicki Tomkins in a upscale New York apartment -- an inciting incident connecting three overlapping storylines. The series' focus was a slow unraveling of the investigation with each episodes taking place over roughly a single day. It was complex and required the audience to pay close attention to the details of the characters and the investigation (which, no doubt, is the reason it didn't find an audience). The three storylines included:

Storyline 1 -- The Police: Homicide cops Michael Mooney (Ed O'Neill) and Vincent Trout (Jeffrey Pierce) catch the case, and, despite all the other characters' conflicting actions and agengas, spend the series just simply wanting to solve it. Due to Tomkins' connections to a Russian-mob-owned strip club, they catch the attention of the characters from storyline 2.

Storyline 2 -- The FBI: The FBI's East-European Crime Task Force doesn't want Mooney and Trout to interfere with a case they're building against the Russian mob, so they deputize Mooney and Trout into the FBI for the duration of the case, despite Mooney having no tolerance for or trust in the Feds. Director William Preecher heads the New York division of the FBI and has long been building a case against Lawrence Stark, a Donald Trump-like billionaire who may have a connection to the Tomkins murder. Jimmy Flynn (Titus Welliver) is an FBI Special Agent whose storyline as a handler for his boyhood hero, a street-hood-turned-FBI-informant, is where storyline #3 starts. Also at the FBI is Sarah Day (Kim Dickens), a tech specialist who has been transferred to the New York FBI office as, much to her discomfort, an outsider who can look at the office with fresh eyes and spot any agent who have been "compromised."

Storyline 3 -- The Bad Guys: Terry Maddock is Flynn's informant, idolized by Flynn at childhood and now "organ grinder" to Flynn's "dancing monkey." Maddock is a Machiavellian street criminal who abuses his informant status to forward his own plans and goals. In the opening episode he's cleaning up after the Tomkins murder (why and for whom, at that point, we don't know). In his crew: Chris Scott (Donnie Wahlberg), a street hood who was dating Tomkins and resents and distrusts Maddock for whatever involvement he had in her murder. Maddock also has dealings with the Russian Mob who also figure into the show's storylines.

According to Milch, the series was about "how information does or does not become understanding." The name is both a reference to the city as well as the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Milch notes that "each of the characters has, in some way, been corrupted by information and is attempting to deal with the consequences." This is most apparent in the relationship between Mooney and the FBI (Mooney is kept in the dark about a lot of what the FBI knows, much to his very vocal anger and frustration) and the relationship between Flynn and Maddock. Informant Maddock is always feeding handler Flynn wrong information that Flynn believes unquestioningly and that often results in bloodshed. A great illustration of their complex relationship are the scenes of Maddock in his bar soliloquizing about his machinations while Flynn watches him on a secret surveillance camera. Maddock is manipulating Flynn, and has most of the control in the relationship, but also has no idea he's being watched so thoroughly by Flynn.

Michael Madsen as the manipulative Maddock is a stand-out in the cast. Madsen is watchable in almost anything, even the bad, direct-to-video movies he currently headlines. It's no secret that Madsen is a fan of Marlon Brando, and it's most evident in Big Apple in his swagger and his use of props. Madsen, like Ian McShane in Deadwood, was born to speak Milch-written dialogue.

Other stand-outs are series star Ed O'Neill (proving he really should be given more dramatic roles) and David Strathairn (who would later win acclaim and an Oscar nomination for his performance in Good Night and Good Luck). O'Neill is great as a workaholic cop who probably knows the least of what's going on than any other character in the show, but knows it and has the best bullshit detector out of any of them. His storyline over the 8 episodes, other than simply wanting to solve the Tomkins murder, concerns his dying-from-Lou-Gehrigs-disease sister and his sudden realization that he doesn't know "how to live." In the latter episodes he attempts to seek out a relationship with a US Attorney (played by Carey Lowell) because of his sister's deathbed wish that he try to live a more full life. Strathairn, on the other hand, is working through his own personal demons: an obsession with white-collar criminal Lawrence Stark in the wake of a family tragedy, something that has slowly begun to damage his career.

The series also has a great opening credits sequence:



My one misgiving with the series is that its run was cut too short. Episode 8 was a rush-job. The series was canceled early into its production and the last episode solves all of the lingering storylines in a rushed, jam-packed 38 minutes. Plot points that would have had breathing space to develop over another 5 episodes are resolved sometimes even in a simple exchange or two. I almost would have preferred they end the series with a standard, another-few-pieces-of-the-puzzle episode than pollute it's great run with a quick-n'-dirty wrap-up (although then I wouldn't get to know who the murderer was, what Maddock's motivations were, or what Preecher's whole deal was -- so, I dunno.)

Anyway. That's just the tip of the iceberg. The beauty of the series is the dialogue and the complex world it creates. For those of you looking for a good, quality mini-series or for those Milch fans who want something new to watch while waiting for his next project, I highly recommend checking it out. With no DVD set, however, you only have two options: watching a few episodes on YouTube or purchasing bootleg DVDs from the same place I was able to acquire them from.