Why Hollywood Entertainment Sucks

Posted on August 1, 2014 by admin

1-3-14 Yahoo! headlines

Snaps From Jennifer Aniston’s Sun-Soaked, Star-Packed Mexican Vacation
By Elizabeth Durand Streisand January 2, 2014 11:56 AM omg!

Hillary Clinton Debuts New Haircut, Bangs: See the Picture

Alyssa Milano Responds to Jay Mohr After Comedian Takes Jab At Her Weight

The best US films made today are independent documentaries.
Hollywood is organically incapable of making any kind of meaningful film anymore, due to its myopic class perspective which can only guess as to the needs and aspirations of working people everywhere.
Hollywood mostly offers animated pablum; action flicks that glorify the military, police & violence along with uncompelling dramas & unfunny comedies– all reflecting a misanthropic glorification of the wealthy & powerful.

The Video Game Phenomenon

Posted on May 24, 2014 by admin

All the best games are easy to learn and difficult to master. –Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari, Inc.

You may have noticed, kids play video games and they don’t quit when they reach adulthood.
Today, gaming is the largest entertainment industry for children.
According to this 2008 survey, 97% of children between the ages of 12 and 17 play video games.
Gender distribution of gamers is roughly 60% male and 40% female, with the average age around 30 and getting older.

Mine was the first generation that grew up with video games.
For better or worse they are a permanent fixture in popular culture, thus they should be understood in their correct historical & material context.

This piece is written from a retro-gamer perspective.

Japan spearheaded the PC and video game revolution that eventually became popular culture, ever since it took the lead in the global electronics industry in the 1960’s.

Early video game templates were SpaceWar! (1962 MIT) & Computer Space (1971 Nolan Bushnell & Ted Dabney).

Atari is a Japanese verb meaning “to hit the mark.”
Atari, Inc, was established by Bushnell & Dabney in California in 1972.
Atari was a pioneer in arcade games (1972 Pong) and home video game consoles (1977 Atari VCS); defining & dominating the industry until the North American video game crash of 1983.

US video game manufacturing was led by Atari, after founder Nolan Bushnell sold it to Warner Communications in 1976 for $28 million.
Bushnell designed the Atari VCS (Video Computer System– later re-named the Atari 2600), and it started retailing at Sears in fall of 1977 for $199.
By 1979, it was the best-selling Christmas gift in the US.

The Atari 2600 was the first true home gaming console of the arcade era.
By today’s standards this machine is archaic.
Memory for computers was very expensive at the time, and the Atari 2600 ran on a mere 128 bytes RAM, 4 KB ROM, with a CPU @ 1.19 MHz.
Graphics were blocky and game-play was limited to 2-D, but the games themselves although much inferior to their arcade versions, were still intense & addicting to many.

The success of the Atari 2600 forever established the home video game market.

The success of Space Invaders (1978 Taito) & Asteroids (1979 Atari) sparked the golden age of arcade video games.
Prior to this era, pinball machines were dominant.
The limitation of pinball was that it tested a very limited skill-set, as every game depended solely on flipper control.

Video games established in the Golden Era of Arcade Games broke through this, with a variety of different types of games; from Shooters to Maze, Puzzle & Platform styles.
Pac-Man (1980 Namco) & Centipede (1981 Atari) crossed-over to females, making video games a permanent phenomenon.

Nintendo entered the market with Donkey Kong (1981), a deceptively simple design that is still one of the most difficult (and simultaneously amazing) games ever created.

Defender (1981 Williams Electronics) was a scrolling Shooter with multiple controls, needing to be used with split-second precision.
Only the best gamers could dominate this mind-blowing masterpiece.

Professional computer programmers soon became professional game designers, employed by emerging Japanese multinational giants including:

Taito (1978 Space Invaders, 1981 Qix)
Namco (1979 Galaxian, 1980 Pac-Man, 1981 Galaga, 1982 Dig Dug, Pole Position)
Nintendo (1981 Donkey Kong, 1983 Mario Bros., 1984 Punch-Out!!)
Konami (1981 Frogger, 1983 Track & Field)
Sega (1982 Pengo, Star Trek, Zaxxon)

In this period, designers were cut out of the royalties for the hit games they created.
Before disenfranchised Atari programmers created Activision in 1979, third-party game developers did not exist.
Atari (owned by Warner Communications) ruled the market, and was the only publisher of games for the Atari 2600.

Activision created a new model, by rewarding, crediting and promoting game developers; along with the games themselves.
Activision included a page to the developer in their instruction manuals, and encouraged players to send in screen-shots of high scores, etc.
This grassroots, fan-based approach helped the newly-formed company attract experienced talent.
In 1982, Activision released Pitfall!, a best-selling game for the Atari 2600.
Today, Activision is one of the largest third-party video game publishers in the world.

Warner responded by releasing the Atari 5200, for the 1982 Christmas season.
The Atari 5200 is both the best and the most-maligned home console from the arcade era (defined as pre-NES).
Released with great fanfare, just before the industry collapsed, the Atari 5200 was rushed to market by Warner with serious design flaws; namely it’s controllers were poor quality & unreliable, plus the system wasn’t compatible with old 2600 cartridges until an expensive adaptor (which didn’t fit all 5200 models) was later made available for purchase.
In spite of these limitations (which were never addressed due to market crash) the Atari 5200 was still the most advanced non-PC gaming console of its time.
All the best titles of the arcade era from Berzerk to Zaxxon (except Donkey Kong which was licensed by Nintendo to ColecoVision) were available on the 5200.
The 5200’s signature game was its port of Star Raiders (1979 Atari; designer-Doug Neubauer), but nearly every title was clearly superior to the 2600 in graphics & game-play.

Industry revenues in 1982 had peaked at $3.2 billion, then fell in 1983 over 95% to around $100 million; wiping out Atari and dozens of other US video-game manufacturers.
The cause was: over-saturation of the market with hundreds of lousy games (on over a dozen different platforms), which resulted in high prices & loss of consumer confidence.
The fastest-growing company in the history of American business, Atari Inc would go on to lose $536 million in 1983, and was sold off by Warner Communications the following year.

The North American video game crash of 1983, was an abrupt mass-extinction in the industry that lasted until the Nintendo Entertainment System arrived in 1985.
It wasn’t until Microsoft’s Xbox in the 2000’s, that a U.S. manufacturer became competitive in the home gaming console market again.

The widespread success of the NES, was made possible by Nintendo introducing a now-standard business model of licensing third-party developers.
This authorized (recognized & paid) game designers to produce and distribute titles for Nintendo’s platform.
Compensating game designers more fairly led to higher-quality titles, and helped restore consumer confidence.

Nintendo would revolutionize the industry again in 1989, introducing the Gameboy, the first high-quality portable gaming console.
The Gameboy bundled-in Tetris, a simple yet addicting puzzle game, which became a cultural phenomenon.

By the early 1990’s the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive (1991 killer app–Sonic the Hedgehog) & Super Nintendo upped their consoles to 16-bit microprocessors, which allowed graphics and game-play to approach and even exceed arcade machines.
This was the death knell for mall arcades, as new best-selling titles were now released directly for home consoles or PC.

Video games of this era became more graphic in their representations of sex, death & violence. In 1993 Sega started rating its video games for content, in a similar way to which films were rated.

Best-selling games of this era included:
Grand Theft Auto (1997 DMA Design), notable for its violent content.
Final Fantasy (1987 Nintendo) & Diablo (1996 Blizzard Entertainment) were massively popular role-playing games.
Doom (1993) & Quake (1996, both from id Software) were 1st-person shooters for home computers, which upped the ante on anti-social violence, while pioneering play over the Internet.
One of the best-designed games for PC & Mac in this era was SimCity (1989 Maxis), a city-building simulation video game.

Sony entered the 32-bit console market with its PlayStation in 1994.
The PS2, released in 2000, became the best selling console in history, with over 155 million units sold in its 13-year manufacturing run.

Microsoft’s Xbox (2001) entered the market with it’s killer app, Halo: Combat Evolved; an ultra-violent first-person shooter that fit in perfectly with the cultural militarism of the period.
The Xbox was reportedly sold to consumers at a loss to achieve market penetration, in order to realize its overall objective of being a leader in online gaming which was still in its infancy at the time.

The Nintendo Wii (2006, pack-in game: Wii Sports) capitalized on the intuitive nature of motion control, and once again Nintendo revolutionized video gaming.

By the early 2000’s, mobile phone gaming had been hugely popular in Japan for years.
The popular US conversion to Smart phones and the iPhone (2007 Apple) brought the mobile gaming phenomenon to North America.

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It is always imperative to understand that video games are a form of television, which is boredom-killing entertainment.
Video games are isolationist & voyeuristic by their very nature, making them unproductive while highly addictive.
Video games, along with all other forms of mass media, reflect society’s values which is why they are now largely misanthropic.

Controlling these media means real power & influence, for those who own it.

Imagine this scenario:
Ten people in a room competing for attention– the least assertive person gets pushed into the background.
Next, the marginalized person obtains a remote control to DirecTV or a game console– and suddenly this non-entity transforms into the most powerful person in the room.
His/her choices in volume & programming become impossible for anyone to ignore.
This effect is the same on a global scale, which is the reason why it needs to taken out of the hands of private corporations, and brought under the ownership & democratic control of working people, meaning everybody.

Today, all mass media is far too violent, sexist, misanthropic, etc. to have much educational value for children or anyone else.
Homo sapiens must do better if we are to prepare our children to solve the many problems we have created for ourselves and our planet.

In short, the history of the video game industry is the story of globalization, advances in technology, and idea sharing.
Innovation runs into the barrier of private ownership, which slows down development in the name of profits & reactionary ideology.
This leads to vapid content using sophisticated technology, which dovetails into apathy & militarism.

Tsar to Lenin (1937/2012): A Film Discussion

Posted on March 13, 2014 by admin

It has generally been conceded by film historians, that All Quiet on the Western Front released in 1930, is the first great talkie and the greatest film of its era. Lewis Milestone directed the cinematic adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s instant-classic World War novel, and it deserves to be seen by film-goers and critics alike as a compelling movie and an early peak in American cinematic art. It’s long-standing reputation as the greatest early-American talkie film now needs to be put in serious question with the re-release of Herman Axelbank’s Tsar to Lenin.

Most critics prefer not to compare documentaries to conventional movies, but in this case it is necessary, due to the similarity of the material covered, as well as the epoch of the films themselves. Tsar to Lenin was completed in January 1931; which makes it a contemporary of the Milestone classic. Talking films were in their infancy at that time, and most of the output from Hollywood was so poor in quality, that by today’s standards they are unwatchable. Many of them have been lost forever.

Tsar to Lenin wasn’t released until 1937, and then only for a handful of showings in New York City, before it was blacklisted by the Communist Party on orders from Stalin. Most people never knew the film existed.

The SEP and Mehring books, have righted that injustice with their DVD release of Tsar to Lenin, and it is quite simply a triumph for art and humanity. It far supersedes any film of it’s time, in content and emotional impact.

The clips, as the film’s introduction reads, were gathered from more than 100 cameras, over the course of 13 years, from a broad range of perspectives including: the Tsar’s royal photographers, Soviet photographers, the military staff photographers of Germany, Great Britain, Japan and the United States, and other adventurers. The film’s footage is completely authentic, and is presented in chronological sequence to provide as complete a picture as possible of the Russian Revolution and its Civil War aftermath.

This is truly the most complete and authentic film document of its kind.

Herman Axelbank’s footage is the star of the film, but Max Eastman’s narration is the film’s twin co-star. Today more than ever, these events need explanation. Eastman provides it beautifully and without it, we would have a collection of film clips that would make little sense to most people. Eastman’s descriptions reduce each scene to its understandable essence, while occasionally allowing ironic wit to come through, thus adding subtle tones to the narrative. It is instructive to quote him at length to gain a better sense of the film’s impact.

The film begins with portraits of Russia under Tsarist autocracy–great leisure for the Tsar and the landowners, while the masses toil in ignorance and extreme poverty. One scene of Tsarist leisure has him and his entourage aimlessly throwing many balls around on the lawn. Eastman comments dryly, “A Russian [Tsarist] conception of the World Series.” After some more frolicking, the Tsar challenges his minions to a game of tag, and Eastman points out that they don’t dare play seriously, “[That’s] one kind of fun that a Tsar can’t have.”

The footage of the Tsar at the military front in 1914, shows him to be highly agitated and unable to focus on anything; completely unsure of himself and almost child-like in his silly, self-conscious manner. Every moment of his public life is one grand charade.

The following is Max Eastman’s brief narration of the first two years of the World War for Russia:

“Russian armies were soon defeated by the superior organization and equipment of the Germans. By the end of 1916, their retreat had become a national disaster. The soldiers were being herded into battle; hungry, ill-clad, without ammunition, even without guns. Corruption, treachery, neglect, and profiteering had ruined the Tsar’s military organization. Two-and-a-half million dead. Five million wounded. They were lying, like piles of rubbish outside the hospitals; too crowded to contain them; wounded and dying with no clothes on their backs. Two-and-a-half million dead, with no time to bury them.”

Then, a few seconds later: “The bodies of the Russian peasants, who had tilled the soil for the Tsar and the landlords, were dumped out like manure in the frozen field”, while a camera precisely records such an event.

Eastman’s descriptions of the February & October Revolutions are delightful in their concision.

“The funeral for the martyrs of the February Revolution was not a funeral, but a gigantic, triumphal march of the people.”

Then later, “Everybody who has an ideal; inscribes it on a banner, hires a brass band, and demands that it be realized by the new [provisional] government being born in the Tauride Palace.”

And finally after the October Revolution, “There was no government. Joy was the sovereign over all of Russia!”

Perhaps the film’s most unforgettable set of images is during the Civil War, when Admiral Kolchak’s troops execute Red prisoners-of-war in the field. A Red soldier laughs as he awaits the firing squad. They are shot in groups of three, and we see it five different times before his turn comes. “The Red soldier is still laughing!”, Eastman narrates in defiance, just seconds before bullets rip through the Red soldier’s flesh; sending him into pit of fresh corpses.

Those were not Hollywood stuntmen, pretending to die, as they were in Lewis Milestone’s film.

Eastman’s portraits of the principle figures, and the dozens of minor ones, is just as exact. Axelbank’s footage reveals much of Alexander Kerensky, who is first shown surrounded by bourgeois supporters in Petrograd. They are thrusting him forward, while he is trying to shrink back. He is obviously a feeble and terrified man, who doesn’t rise to the top through brains and force of will, but instead is thrust forward by others who prefer to remain behind the scenes. Later after the October Revolution, we see Kerensky in Paris with heavy bags under his eyes. He looks decrepit and defeated, as Eastman has a few final words of irony for him.

Historian, Paul Miliukov (above) was the puppet master for the Russian bourgeoisie in the Provisional Government. Film footage of him shows him precisely as Trotsky describes him in his History of the Russian Revolution; crediting him as the bourgeois leader who most deeply understood there could be no compromise between the demands of the people and the interests of the capitalists. He pops up over and over, and is at the center of every counter-revolutionary conspiracy discussed in the film.

Kerensky’s program of trying to reconcile the people’s demands of “Bread, Peace & Liberty” with “War & Fatherland”, quickly led to disillusionment among the workers & soldiers (peasants) who instead “flocked to a new, more powerful leader–Lenin!”

The footage of V.I. Lenin is powerful & fascinating. He, like Trotsky, spoke to huge crowds without aid of a microphone. Lenin was not a tall man, and Eastman comments on this in a scene from 1920, where he is having a discussion with Parley P. Christensen, the Farmer-Labor candidate for U.S. president. Lenin keeps his hands in his pockets and leans back to look up at his adversary, while never taking his eyes off of him. Eastman notes of Christensen, “He towers over Lenin…physically.”

The film’s final scene is about a minute of Lenin speaking, which we can not hear. Eastman is eloquently narrating the life’s purpose of this brilliant revolutionary leader, who entirely dedicated himself to the cause of freeing humanity from the chains of inequality. Lenin’s eyes shine as he is speaking with the whole of his being and intellect.

Trotsky appears in the film too, and is no less important. His slogans and Lenin’s were the same: “Kerensky is a tool of the landlords and capitalists!”, “Stop the War!” “Confiscate the Land!” “Russia Belongs to the Workers & Peasants!” “All Power to the Soviets!”; and he delivered them with the same intensity. Lenin and Trotsky were the planners of the Bolshevik Revolution which ousted the capitalists (Provisional Government), and established the first workers government in human history. It was also the beginning of the end of the World War, and the ushering in of a bitter Civil War; in which 14 hostile foreign armies surrounded the newborn Soviet government, in an attempt by imperialism to strangle the workers revolution.

A major factor in the Red Army’s success in defending the revolution was Trotsky’s brilliance in military organization. A Russian army that had been shattered by Germany in the Great War, had to be rebuilt in the furnace of a life-or-death struggle for survival. “Show me one man who could organize a model army within a year. We have such a man!” Those were Lenin’s words on Trotsky.

The last, best chance for imperialism to quickly kill the revolution is depicted in the scenes showing General Yudienich, backed by materiel from Great Britain, leading the flower of the Tsar’s army, with one officer for every eight men, on a march from Estonia to St. Petersburg. “It was stifled by the Red Army, which was revived by Trotsky.” Those were the observations of Paul Miliukov and a White Army officer.

Also mentioned is Trotsky’s brilliant pamphleting while the White Army is in full flight. His leaflets offered payment in rubles for desertion and the turning in of weapons; and also urged the soldiers of Yudienich to shoot non-complying White-Army officers on the spot. “Death to capitalists and their hirelings!”

In the footage of Trotsky leaving the conference of Brest-Litovsk without signing the peace, something never done before; he tips his hat to the camera, as only a man completely confident of his place in history can do.

Eastman then describes Lenin during a later discussion, as a man who willed the signing of the Peace of Brest-Litovsk, against a Central Committee majority to fight, “by force of personality and cold reason”, proving there was no fundamental disagreement on the matter with Trotsky, only tactical ones which often reflected their individual styles.

As mentioned above, there are dozens of other lesser characters shown in the footage that provide insight into reality, and give Eastman plenty of opportunities to apply his dry sense of humour. Max Eastman’s narration in Tsar to Lenin is sublime in its masterful understanding of classical Marxism.

Axelbank has footage and Eastman commentary, of Kaminev “expounding as of yet without extreme conviction, Lenin’s demands for a Second Revolution.” Kaminev, whom Eastman describes as a “mild Bolshevik”, is also shown with Cheidze, Tseritelli, and other opportunists of the Provisional Government. This footage seems to foretell of the triumvirate he would later join with Zimonev and Stalin to oust Trotsky after Lenin’s death.

The Friends of the Soviet Union provide a moment of pure comic embarrassment, with all the propaganda value of a bomb blowing up in your face. A British suffragette proudly inspects the all-women battalion, a few of the remaining ‘reliable’ soldiers are left with the task of defending Kerensky from the millions of Red supporters before the October Revolution. The suffragette then poses for a handshake with a male loyalist soldier, who obviously doesn’t want to shake hands.

And once again there is Admiral Kolchak, the leader of the White Army in Asian Russia, and self proclaimed “Supreme Ruler of Russia”. During the Civil War, Vladivostok was an international war camp, spearheaded by Japan and the U.S., for the landing of troops & materiel for the counter-revolutionary war effort. Eastman describes: “Anti-Bolshevik forces of the entire world pinned their hopes to the Supreme Ruler [Kolchak]; the cossacks acknowledged his supremacy; the native chiefs brought him bread, salt, and live geese in token of their friendship…and he didn’t quite know what to do with them.” Herman Axelbank’s footage is verifiable proof of Eastman’s words.

“On November 14-15, 1920, 135,000 troops on 126 ships leave the Crimea. The world is defeated and all of Russia is now a Soviet Republic!” Shortly after this description by Eastman, at precisely 59:21 into a movie that runs just over 63 minutes, Joseph Stalin first appears. Evidently there is no earlier footage of Stalin’s activities as a Bolshevik, which of course leads one to rationally conclude that nothing Stalin ever said or did, was thought to be worthy of filming by anyone connected with the Russian Revolution.

There needs to be a sense of great sadness when looking out into the faces of the masses that Lenin is speaking to in the film’s conclusion. Those millions to whom he patiently explained socialism, and would come to believe him; would 15 years later be exterminated for that very reason during the Moscow Trials and blood purges of the Old Bolsheviks. Those who managed to survive were then fed to imperialism during a Second World War.

It is a great reminder to all revolutionists of the terrible cost of not completing such an important task. It is everyone’s duty as a human being to completely understand this film for the purpose of finishing a task Lenin & Trotsky set out for mankind over a century ago.

Animals: We’re All Connected Together Somehow

Posted on February 10, 2014 by admin

You don’t touch nature; you just look at it –Jacques & Jean-Michel Cousteau

Indigenous to Africa, the Puff Adder is a particularly deadly viper, among the most dangerous venomous snakes in the world.

This raises the question: should anyone who can afford it, be allowed to buy a Puff Adder?

The Elephant in the Living Room (2011) examines this idea & many more, documenting the subculture of owning exotic & dangerous animals as pets. The film’s premise is the ubiquity of this phenomenon, in that it is much more common than the layperson would presume. One point that is made clear is that this is a completely unregulated industry; exotic pet ownership is allowed in 30 states, 9 of which require no license or permit whatsoever. More documentation is required to own a domestic cat or dog; than a lion, tiger or bear in these states. Filmmaker Michael Webber takes the viewer deep inside this sick and sometimes fascinating world, infiltrating buy & sell shows, auctions, and trade magazines that traffic dangerous animals as commodities.

On the front-line, dealing with the metastasized consequences of this black-market industry is Tim Harrison; an Ohio police officer/firefighter/paramedic with extensive training in handling, removing and re-capturing wild species. He works at Outreach for Animals’ national headquarters in Dayton, OH.

You don’t need to go to India to see a tiger;
you don’t need to go to Canada to see a cougar;
you don’t need to go to Africa to see a gaboon viper.
You go to anytown, USA; those animals are here.

–Tim Harrison

A narrative develops between Harrison and Terry Brumfield, who is clinically disabled, depressed and on medication, and happens to own two African lions in Piketon, OH. Tim is called in after the male escapes, and threatens motorists inside their vehicles, causing havoc on a nearby highway. Terry admits in a local television news interview that his lion jumped out of the pen, and that he didn’t pursue it, but instead gave it up for dead. It is not discussed whether he notified the authorities as a public service. Often this doesn’t happen, presumably to duck liability.

The local sheriff provides comic relief of this absurd incident by noting, “Anytime you get 9-11 calls that lions are chasing cars up & down Highway 23, it kinda concerns you.”

The lion is returned to Terry, and the male & female are now kept in a horse trailer to prevent another breakout, as the owner doesn’t have an adequately-safe permanent facility for his lions. After months of confinement, the lions become listless, and Terry calls Tim Harrison for expert help. Harrison arrives and relieves the owner’s concerns by noticing there are four new cubs. This is a great surprise to Terry, and the two rejoice the birth. Terry feels validated by this and ponders placing this fresh bounty to good owners. Reality turns out differently, as two of the cubs along with the adult male, die before the pride’s survivors are relocated by Harrison and his ‘A-Team’ to a confined nature preserve out west.

Tim Harrison, the film’s hero, is thoughtful and measured in his words & actions. One gets a sense that he is fighting an unwinnable battle against ignorance & the pathos/hubris of people who insist on the right to “own” wild animals. A brief clip of a Nevada husband & wife who are the leaders of Responsible Exotic Animal Ownership (Rexano), reveals deep psychological defects in their reasoning and ethics. Other defenders of this practice come off as mentally ill, mostly in their disturbing ability to ignore any consideration of the animal’s perspective. It is a common trait for these people to humanize their “pets”, as if that were possible with a hyena or reptile!

Harrison is cast a resourceful individual, who is being given very few tools for dealing with this epidemic. He has little-to-no legal clout for removing dangerous animals from unfit/untrained owners, who insist on keeping them. Basically, the owner has to voluntarily give up his “pet.” This usually only happens when the animal becomes unmanageable for the owner, leaving Outreach for Animals and similar-type organizations overrun with mature dangerous animals their “owners” don’t want anymore. Many of these species are not indigenous to the US, or the region in which they are captured. Most are euthanized if the owner doesn’t claim the animal. When discussing the issues involved in convincing Terry to give up his lions, Harrison frankly states, “The lions aren’t going anywhere, because he hasn’t broken any laws.” This is because there are no consumer and public safety laws in Ohio (or federally), regarding purchasing & maintaining exotic pets.

Tim Harrison

Tim Harrison characterizes his relationship with Brumfield as a sympathetic one. It’s the one he prefers, which is trying to help someone in need as well as benefiting the captive animals. For those who are willing to listen and accept his expertise; he helps them. To those who resist Harrison’s advise (and measure of the law), he lists them as problems that need to be taken out, for the safety of the public and the animals. The film lives at edge where individual rights end, and public interest in its safety begins.

The film notes there are an estimated 15,000 exotic cats in households in the US; and an estimated 7.3 million reptiles.

There is a section in the film where we are shown a dead tiger, found in a field outside of Dallas, TX. An autopsy proved the tiger to be perfectly healthy, its cause of death was five shots to the face with a .45 handgun at close range. The film points out that there are more tigers living in homes in Texas, than there are in the wild of India where they are native.

———————————————————–
Classified from the Animal Finders’ Guide (August 2008):

9-year old cougar. Free to approved owner. Very Sweet
———————————————————–

The film then whisks to the Everglades where the Burmese python, one of the five largest snakes in the world, has now taken over large areas of the swamp due to owners releasing them into the wild. The national park rangers now consider it a hopeless task to eradicate the invasive pythons, which are thriving in an ecological niche they have carved out for themselves. A study regarding the impact of Burmese pythons in the Everglades, published in late 2011, asserts that populations of mid-size mammals such as raccoons, opossums and rabbits, all native to South Florida, have declined as the number of Burmese pythons has increased.

Roger Paholka, the Medical Director of Ohio’s busiest Emergency Care facility states, “We see more fatal injuries from animals indigenous to Africa, here in the US, than we do in Africa. That’s because people in Africa correctly know to be afraid of these wild animals. Here in the US, we are conditioned to think they can be household pets.”

Paholka has been back & forth to Africa, directing medical facilities and providing outreach missionary services for 25 years. His position is clear: it is too dangerous to neighbours & communities to allow exotic pet ownership. Ethically, his feelings of anger, sadness, and disgust over the consequences of this culture are too correct to ignore.

Harrison cites an overnight 20+ times increase in the number of call-outs to retrieve tigers, lions, snakes, alligators, and other dangerous-to-man predator species, starting in the 1990’s. He points to the nascent reality-TV boom of that era as a correlative. An underground exotic pet industry followed on the coattails of the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet, and their hit shows such as The Crocodile Hunter.

The star of Crocodile Hunter was celebrity animal trainer Steve Irwin; who specialized in educating the public with his sensationalistic style, that can be accurately described as showboating while enticing and/or molesting dangerous wild animals. Without questioning the ethics, it had undeniable entertainment value and therefore became a huge cultural and ratings hit.

The end came for Irwin on September 4, 2006 when he was killed at the age of 44 while snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef. He was filming a documentary Ocean’s Deadliest (2007), in shallow water when he approached a stingray. The fish suddenly turned and pierced him in the chest with its tail spine, in what appeared to have been the stingray’s defensive response to being boxed in. Irwin was rushed to shore, but medical staff pronounced him dead at the scene.

Michael Webber has directed a masterpiece in documentary film-making with The Elephant in the Living Room. In it, he penetrated this relatively-unseen world, and let the characters & images create the story. The people in this film are human, not caricatures, with all their complexities. The animals are glorious to behold, and are always filmed with respect. All this is weaved together with a compelling story and important message, making Webber’s documentary a triumph of independent thinking.

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Holy Rollers (2011) & Card Counting Christians

Posted on January 21, 2014 by admin

Jesus is ideal and wonderful, but you Christians, you are not like him. –Mahatma Gandhi

Preface: I have not written a negative film review, up until now, because I don’t enjoy reading about bad films. If they are bad, then generally I don’t want to watch them, and they are usually best ignored. Holy Rollers: The True Story of Card Counting Christians (2011) falls into that rare category of bad films that should be examined, because it has great potential to be misunderstood, and also because it is important to understand its weaknesses which run much deeper than its narrative.

This film’s tag-line reads: “Follow the rise of the largest and most well-funded blackjack team in America — made up entirely of card-counting, churchgoing Christians. The players don’t see blackjack as a sin; they take from casinos and give to their families and churches.”

One would have to admit that this idea is undeniably intriguing in its contradictions, and this film has many, which run to the heart of modern culture and its degradation; including its worship of money, its lack of honesty in intention, and its absence of useful productivity.

In short, the film is a documentary about young men & women who count cards to win at blackjack, while sharing a common bond of being Christians. This creates conflict with friends and family who view gambling as sinful behaviour, but most of this is justified by their incredible winnings which ameliorate these doubts. Whatever their stated intentions, the final message is: in the real world, money trumps faith.

As a film, Holy Rollers has deep flaws; mostly in lack of vision & character development. The viewer ends up learning very little about the characters in the film, including why they are doing this? Explanations often ramble in the direction of, “I try to explain to people why I do this…but after an hour they keep asking questions… so I do try not to explain myself anymore because it’s frustrating.” That succinctly describes how a thinking audience would feel when trying to make sense of all this, because filmmaker Bryan Storkel doesn’t attempt to dig beneath the surface, likely for fear of what he might find.

Bryan Storkel explains the inspiration for his film in an video interview, “I kept in touch with a boyhood friend from Seattle…one time at lunch he showed up with $80,000 in his pockets and I thought this is crazy…I kept thinking about it and said ‘I have to do a film about this.'” It’s not hard to recognize this love of money (and the ends justifying the means) in which the filmmaker accepts every rationalization this “church team” makes as good coin– simply because it makes good coin.

One example of this, which is completely neglected by the filmmaker, is their non-profit status. Most team members are church pastors, which allows them to avoid paying any taxes on their winnings. In casinos, W2-Gs are not required for winnings from table games such as blackjack, craps, pai gow, baccarat, and roulette; regardless of the amount. This does not mean exemption from paying taxes or reporting the winnings. Any and all gambling winnings, by law, must be reported to the IRS.

From a purely blackjack/business perspective, operating as a professional gambler through a church is simply another aspect of smart money management. The ethics of this position are never discussed, and this obvious point is never raised by Storkel. Team members simply vent their outrage on the evils of casinos (in which they can never spend enough time), portraying themselves as modern-day Robin Hoods.

This justification has a tint of nobility until the viewer asks, “Where is this money going?” These “pastors” seem to spend very little time with their congregation, and even less in giving their winnings back to their communities. The fraudulent character of religion as an ethical cloak and tax haven comes through all-too-clearly, despite the filmmaker’s intention to ignore it. These self-professed Christians enjoy their success; drinking Guinness & smoking fashionable cigarettes at lavish get-togethers in swanky restaurants, staying in luxury hotel rooms at major casinos, all-the-while rationalizing their moral distaste for these palaces of excess & vice. Not once in this film is there any mention of these ministers of faith setting up a Gambling Addiction clinic, or any other such community service.

The team’s winnings start to become less & less over time, and finally one team member runs a statistical analysis which shows this to be a low probability of just being a run of bad luck. No one wants to admit that someone could be stealing, because they are all Christians, except for one member. One fundamentalist, who earlier in the film revealed his prejudice towards Non-Christians, now accuses the outlier of stealing. How does he know? 1.) Two other team members (whom he refuses to identify) told him; and 2.) God told him.
This is good enough for the leaders, and the accused member is asked to leave the group. Call this the ironic part of “the true story of card-counting Christians.”

The only character in the film with any conflict of ethics is Brad Currah, who midway through wonders about the value of card counting, in that it doesn’t produce anything useful to society. Of course this is correct, as all forms of gambling have no benefit to society, and that is why they are widely considered vices. This point is completely lost on everyone else including the filmmaker, as this moral conflict causes Brad to decide to leave the team. This is the only example of character development in the film’s entire 90 minutes.

Today, team leaders Ben Crawford & Colin Jones have parleyed their gaming & film success into a website, not to spread the Gospel, but to help train card counters [1]. While paying lip service to the evils of gambling, their online store is full of products designed to make you the best blackjack player possible; ranging from their modestly priced “pro training kit” ($30); to “boot camps” ($1500); to private lessons in Vegas with Ben or Colin ($4000).

In summary, this documentary film suffers from a laziness in approach that is endemic in modern mass media. Even when it picks interesting subjects to study, it fails to ask serious questions that will draw out necessary truthful conclusions, however uncomfortable they may be. Instead, this movie is an attempt to glorify something that is in fact, truly ugly.

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Girl Model (2011): A Film Interpretation

Posted on May 27, 2013 by admin

Anna Rex – [FREE DOWNLOAD]

RS: guitar loop, vocals
Tomp: drums
Jessica Daumen: violin

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This deeply disturbing film has been described as unflinching. That isn’t entirely true. If filmmakers David Redmon & Ashley Sabin hadn’t used a light touch, leaving it to the viewers to read between the lines; and if they hadn’t repeatedly intervened on a young girl’s behalf, this film would be too horrible to watch. This documentary brings its audience to the edge, where innocence ends and prostitution/pornography begins. This is the world of human trafficking, under the pseudo-legal guise of the modeling & fashion industry. Girl Model is an unforgettable look at the catastrophic consequences of modern global capitalism; boldly documenting a misanthropic world-wide industry, that is hopelessly beyond any nationalist reform measures.

“Top models are not only beautiful & charming, but also rich!” –Anonymous model-casting emcee

The star and inspiration behind this searing expose’ is Ashley Arbaugh, one of the film’s tragic heroines. Arbaugh approached filmmakers David Redmon & Ashley Sabin with the idea in 2008, and supplied personal archive footage dating back to her modeling career ‘birth’ in Japan, 1998. Girl Model took extraordinary vision and courage on everyone’s part to make. In it, Ashley Arbaugh brings the filmmakers up-close-and-personal to several of the girl-modeling industry’s leading figures. The camera points at them, in live settings, and we get to hear the private thoughts of industry veterans and young aspiring models. Hard questions and hard truths are often evaded, deflected, rationalized, and justified; all in the pursuit of money. It is cruel & ugly portrait.

Arbaugh’s personal accounts, both now and in her past, are riveting in their intensity and distorted beauty. Her personal style is subtle elegance and she is fascinating & beautiful, whether it is back in 1998, or in the present. She is afflicted with multiple psychological disorders. Not coincidentally, she is also an industry-respected expert on beauty.

In the film, Ashley Arbaugh is introduced as a ‘model scout’. She does this to avoid her modeling ‘death’, the point in every model’s career where they are no longer desirable for fashion advertising, due to their age. As a scout, she now gets to pick the models, giving her a measure of control, which is as much a relief as it is enjoyable to her.

Ashley remembers hating her model ‘birth’ fifteen years earlier, often asking herself such questions as:

“Why am I doing this?”
“When can I go home?”
“What am I really going to do with my life?”

She describes being depressed, some days not even getting out of bed.

In the film, she has been contracted by the girl-modeling industry’s biggest entrepreneur Tigran, to deliver beautiful, innocent-looking 13-year old girls to Japan. As her train rolls through the Siberian night, Ashley admits she has no job description, and that basically she can use any means necessary, with all expenses paid. She does this with the lying promise of a modeling career that pays thousands of U.S. dollars, where success always happens, and nobody ever goes into debt.

Tigran introduces himself as a modern-day biblical Noah, which just happens to be the name of his modeling agency. Tigran claims to envy Arbaugh as she boards the Trans-Siberian Railway to begin her assignment. These young girls are sought out in the poorest & most isolated parts of the world, and will have no chance against Ashley’s experience & smile, along with the industry machinery behind her. Tigran is too successful & too old for the train rides now, but he has fond memories of the back-and-forth motion, the young girls, and the toilet room.

Nadya, from a poor village in Siberia is one girl Ashley picks out. Her apparent new-found success has given her struggling family great hope. Her father has plans to expand their meagre house, on the earnings Nadya will make as a model in Japan. Nadya’s mother is unable to express any of her real worries & fears to her daughter, at any point in the film. Thus, Nadya is lured to Japan unable to speak or understand the language, or even know where she is geographically on a map. This metaphor of losing oneself, is strikingly drawn out later by the filmmakers.

In fact there are no modeling jobs available for “fresh faces” such as Nadya, because she has “no experience.” These young girls, specifically sought out for their innocence of look, are set up for rejection at casting after casting, with reasons such as, “I’m looking for a more cool & stylish type.”
Of course everyone knows that no 13-year old could possibly be “cool & stylish” by mainstream fashion standards. The whole premise of the castings become absurd.

At Tigran’s casting, the girls hold up cards for the video camera that have their age, measurements, and a line for some that reads, “No style”. He appears to be insidiously laughing at these naive waifs. These photos & videos are widely distributed to those who are interested in thirteen-year old girls.

Ashley Arbaugh discusses the industry-wide obsession with youth, conceding its beautiful qualities, but finishing with this exasperation: “You can’t be young enough!”
She describes looking deep into a young girl’s eyes; to see her innocence, age, and experience. Ashley’s presence as a woman gives her valuable credibility with the girls, most of whom have heard whispers of corruption in modeling. Her job is reassure and to lie to them. It is the only way she can be successful in her business. It is understood if she doesn’t deliver the girls, she will be replaced with someone who does.

The young girls in the film are flown alone to Tokyo, and intentionally not provided with basic & affordable modern necessities, such as a phone to call home. The idea of these agencies is to cut the young girls off from their support, meaning their family & friends; so they fall into a state of desperation & hopelessness, which makes them vulnerable to accept prostitution as a career. They are constantly being victimized, driven to tears and emotional breakdowns. Nadya & her roommate Madlen (also age 13), receive only the barest minimum living assistance from their contracted modeling agency. They are charged living and transportation expenses, as they are shuffled from casting to casting, almost always leaving without a job. Nefariously, the agency has “day-to-day” contract clauses that allow them to terminate for: weight gain of 1cm in the chest, waist, and/or hips; sun exposure; swimming; changing hairstyle; etc…

Madlen is introduced, with Nadya observing her on a cell phone speaking to her mother. She is describing how she wasn’t picked up at the airport; not knowing where to go or whom to call. Nadya eavesdrops with great interest and uneasiness, as she is reminded of what happened to her earlier in the film, when she arrived in Tokyo. It wasn’t an innocent mistake on the agency’s part; nobody who signs a girl-modeling contract, ever gets picked up at the airport!

Ashley phones Tigran; she’s booked 6-7 girls, out of 30. She gets a commission on each girl.
Here are a few of her thoughts as the train rolls into the night:

“The business of modeling is not something I’m passionate about.”
“It’s based on nothing.”
“I never like to think of myself as an ex-model.”
“I’m having a hard time remembering my first flight to Japan. I remember walking into my agency and meeting Masako, my booker.” [she then winces and looks away]

The “booker” who receives the models in this film, is introduced as Messiah. He immediately appears uncomfortable & agitated on camera. Ashley gets a commission from him, too.
Arbaugh succinctly describes him: “Messiah is 40, and the girls are 13. Messiah owns Switch [Modelling Agency]… He loves models.”
[her face winces to tighten her smile, as she looks away, to mask a painful truth she can’t express]
This truth is: It is the profound mental sickness of wealthy & powerful males around the world that create this black market, to which she is catering.

There is a cutaway, to mass photocopying of Nadya & Madlen pictures w/ info. The girls have no idea who sees these pictures. Madlen vents her frustration in the car, “[We have] many, many questions, but they don’t answer…Disgusting.”

Rachel, a 23-year old model with 5 years experience, explains the realities of modeling very clearly:

“A lot of the time you don’t know where your pictures go. They are sold by the agency to a magazine, and the models are kept in the dark, so the agencies don’t have to pay them. You have to really be on top of everything, and at 13-years old she won’t be. She’ll be like. ‘OMG, I’m going to Japan! I have all these jobs booked! I’ll make all that money each week!’; but they don’t know, they are not getting those jobs”, adding sadly, “They’ll just take advantage of her.”

Ashley in Japan, 1998, at age 18:

“This whole place is hurting me too much. Even if I do 10 jobs in the next two weeks, there won’t be any money for me by the time I cover my expenses!”

These home-video scenes where she films herself, are among the film’s most powerful and haunting sequences. The viewer is to reasonably presume she is drug-addicted at this point, therefore it becomes necessary to understand why? Perhaps it is because she is an 18-year old girl being overworked, underpaid, and generally exploited; in a business with dehumanized working conditions such as forced prostitution & anorexic weight standards, as the industry norm.

The viewer can see, hear & feel the mental illness & insanity creeping in on her.

“I don’t even like looking at the magazines, I mean I do, but it’s all the same stuff, all the time.”
“Anyone who does it [modeling], must be an idiot”

The sequence then skips ahead to a disturbing discussion she’s having with a female friend:

Friend: “Girl, what happened to you in Tokyo? What’s this ‘twister taking you away?'”
Ashley: [disturbing Joker-like smile into the camera]
Friend: “Is it really worth it?”
Ashley: [turns her head sideways to the camera, widens her eyes and raises her eyebrows in affirmation]

—————–

Ashley’s favorite spot in her present Connecticut home is in her bathroom, where she has a hidden compartment of chopped-up photographs. There are also pictures she took of other people, under tables; feet & hand gestures, without their knowledge. This becomes a parallel to the girl-models, who don’t know where their photos end up.

[Ashley holding horizontally cut-up model photos, trying to match the legs with the bodies again]
“Hey, does that work?.. That works!.. Doesn’t it?.. Oh no, it doesn’t work… Wait…it almost works!…This is the same bathing suit… that fits that… it just doesn’t… if I had it on a tripod…”
What we witness on film, is a breakdown of healthy proportion-recognition and pattern juxtaposition; a common symptom of Anorexia Nervosa.

Madlen: [crying into the phone to her mother] “I wish I had stayed home!”
Nadya: [crying into the phone to her mother] “I just want to endure this, and get back home!”

Madlen starts eating again, and is soon sent home due to weight gain. She owes Switch Modelling Agency, thousands of dollars for her expenses.
Nadya convinces herself it’s not so bad, and carries on. The film ends informing the viewer that she was sent to China & Taiwan, and is still in debt.

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Ashley Tokyo 1999:
“I’m so obsessed over money…A lot of times when I’m modeling, I get so scared…A lot of things that I have done, that are so bad, and I try to play it off like I’m so good…Maybe I’m really not good at all.”

Ashley in the present:
“I really do care about them, but I don’t feel inspired to tell these girls some big truth, about how this amazing business is going to fulfill them, and change their lives forever..”
“[It’s a] very tough business.” [more wincing]

She describes how girl-models are led into prostitution:
“They’re selling their bodies to the camera, so therefore they can rationalize selling themselves to men if they can’t get modeling work.”
“Some models present themselves sexually in their photos. They get placed with modeling agencies, but they get placed in other places too.”
“It’s just normal to be a prostitute…for them…maybe it’s easier than being a model.”
“In a lot of countries, prostitution isn’t a bad thing.”
“I don’t really acknowledge it exists.”

The filmmakers attempt to interview Messiah from the back seat, while he is driving through Tokyo:

Interviewer: If Tigran [Noah] and you [Switch] and Ashley are making money, why aren’t the girls getting paid?
Messiah: We can’t make money from new models. They need more pictures and experience…
Interviewer: So why do you bring them in?
Messiah: Hmmm…the client…they need new pictures. They don’t have enough pictures, right?

Just replace ‘client’ with ‘johns’, and ‘pictures’ with ‘young prostitutes’; and it makes sense.

That is the last we hear from Messiah in the film.

Nadya’s ‘DVD Casting for Clients’ is briefly shown near the end. She is dressed in adult clothes and make-up, in a way that can best be described as sick. Veteran model Rachel’s earlier words seem to linger, “If you use a 13-14 year-old girl, you did not want the shape of a woman, really.”

When Nadya finally finds her picture in a magazine, she’s wearing a large hat over her half her face. Only her mouth is visible.
She softly bemoans, “I can’t see what’s happening.”

Everyone who is making money in this film is a psychological manipulator personality. They all also suffer from powerful addictions, with severe personality disorders.
The rub comes when you ask yourself, “Is this true in other, or possibly all, big industries?”
A serious answer is revolutionary.

Ashley in the present: “I’d be happy to be 4 months pregnant, but this thing is growing inside of me, for no reason.”

“This thing” is a 15-cm fibroid tumor, an ovarian cyst; an ectopic pregnancy she will have surgically removed from her abdomen. We get to see photos, specimen bags, and the incision scar.

Ashley describes it post-operatively as, “a cyst full of hair…the doctor said he had never seen one with so much hair. So disgusting, OMG!; my egg splitting on its own.”

She then affirms, “I want a baby. I have these organs, it’s what I was born to do.”

Instead Ashley’s life only allows her the baby dolls she purchased years ago at a dollar store, which she keeps under her bed.
She has a boy & a girl.
She tells us she had three, but she dissected one.

This film is where beauty & tragedy collide.

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Sonic Youth Retrospective, Part 2

Posted on May 8, 2013 by admin

In 1992, Dave Markey released the documentary film, 1991: The Year Punk Broke. It is a video chronicle of the Sonic Youth/Nirvana two-week European tour in August/September of that year. It is one of, if not the most authentic video documents in rock music history. In late 1991, the grunge movement broke through into mainstream radio when Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” rocketed to the top of the charts, and their album Nevermind went multi-platinum. Everyone in the industry scrambled to sign the next underground sensation, and bands like Soundgarden, Jane’s Addiction and Pearl Jam soon became huge superstar acts. The Year Punk Broke is live footage of the grunge wave that crashed through.

As a film, it exhibits many weaknesses. There is much inane banter throughout, mostly due to the fact that everyone is stoned the whole time. This makes it impossible for any of them to have any kind of real discussion with anyone who is straight. People try too hard to be funny, and end up coming across as childish. Nirvana is the extreme case. In one scene, Kurt Cobain greets Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon backstage after an enthusiastic Sonic Youth performance. He starts with a star-struck fan shtick, which comes off lame. Kim Gordon replies by pretending to stick her finger down her throat. Cobain then violently opens up and sprays the contents of a champagne bottle to clear the room, then hurls it at the nearest wall. His mental instability is a recurring theme.

There is a notable lack of hygiene in the film. Kim Gordon, ever in sunglasses, smiles for the camera to show her teeth, caked with food and plaque. Her gums are red and swollen, and she doesn’t seem to care as she looks around. Drummer Steve Shelley’s teeth appear to be in even worse condition. The film’s low point, has to be when Thurston Moore is filmed flushing his excrement. He exits the bathroom without washing up.

And yet, all those faults and limitations with many others such as the film’s technical aspects can mostly be overlooked, because the music presented in this film is simply amazing. This documentary captures the energy of the grunge revolution with remarkable accuracy and clarity. Besides the Sonic Youth/Nirvana headliners, the film features highlight live performances from Dinosaur Jr. (“Freak Scene”, where large audiences in Europe clearly know the song), Gumball (“Pre”), and Babes in Toyland (“Dustcake Boy”). The film clearly shows how much Nirvana relied on Sonic Youth’s touring experience and leadership. Sonic Youth are constantly helping the younger, less-experience bands, find their way. One example is during an MTV interview, Thurston Moore instead of promoting Sonic Youth, introduces Mark Arm from Mudhoney, a Seattle grunge outfit invited to play a few dates on their tour. Then he directs the camera to “the biggest star in the room” who turns out to be an unknown-at-the-time Courtney Love! Love ends up being interviewed by MTV, and afterwards she is blur-filmed with a priceless look into Markey’s camera as she pouts, “I want to thank (MTV host) Dave Kendall for making me a star today…Giving me my big break.” Three years later Courtney Love’s band Hole, would in fact break through to the mainstream.

The film’s first song is “Schizophrenia”, one of Sonic Youth’s most beautiful songs, from Sister (1987). On the record Kim Gordon sings the second half, but here live, it is Thurston Moore alone. Their Sister LP was deeply influenced by the novels of Phillip K. Dick, whose vision of the future was bleak, desolate, and burnt out. Sonic Youth still managed to find beauty in it, even if only in the eyes of another. The songwriting reaches a new level of pop accessibility, and is distinctly rock-oriented by today’s standards. In 1987, the mainstream rock standard was U2 (The Joshua Tree) and REM (Document).

The next scene is one of many featuring Thurston Moore spilling his thoughts into a Mr. Microphone. He is leaning out of an upper-story window and broadcasting his message to a woman and her child, stopped on a bicycle in the street below. “You are human!….. You are human!” he shouts, “Go forth and thrash.” The next scene is a close-up of the head and neck of a guitar being played left-handed, warming up into a grunge riff. It is, of course as the camera widens, Kurt Cobain leading Nirvana into beautifully restrained version of “Negative Creep”, a key track from their debut album, Bleach.

The next time Nirvana is shown on stage, it starts with Cobain repeatedly banging his head into an amplifier, at the beginning of “School”, also from Bleach; and the song ends with him jumping into David Grohl’s drum kit, while he is still playing. Pieces are scattered in all directions, as the crowd enthusiastically cheers. Nirvana will play in front of the largest crowds in the film.

Sonic Youth’s “Teenage Riot” is next, and the live performance is montage-clipped, similar to their official MTV video for the song. “Teenage Riot” is an ode to J. Mascis, the leader of Dinosaur, Jr., and the first song from Daydream Nation (1988). As briefly alluded to in Part 1 of this review, this double LP stands among the greatest rock records ever. Its CD running time is 70:49, and not a second is wasted; from it’s swirling intros, to the No Wave guitar-crunch ending of “Eliminator, Jr.” The cover/back art are sublime paintings of a burning candle and a flickering candle, by Gerhard Richter, titled Kerse 1983 & Kerse 1982. Its symbolism of a band that always fought and sacrificed to keep their artistic flame alive, cannot be lost on anyone who thinks. Lee Ranaldo flourishes here, with his best songs “Hey Joni”, “Eric’s Trip”, and “Rain King.” Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon are at their peak also, and Steve Shelley’s drumming is hyperactive and airtight. In total, Daydream Nation is a complete artistic statement released in September of 1988, as George H.W. Bush, the then two-time US vice-president, was about to be elected US president; continuing a trend of social conservatism, economic setbacks for the working class, and military aggression. The message of Daydream Nation is hopeful and defiant, symbolized in the quietly burning candle. From a revolutionary perspective, it is the most essential rock album of the 1980’s.

Later in the film the Riot Girl movement makes its appearance on stage with Minneapolis’ Babes in Toyland performing “Dustcake Boy” from their debut album Spanking Machine. Lee Ranaldo would later produce their follow-up, Fontanelle in 1993; and once again, Sonic Youth would be be at, or very near the center of yet another new genre. Before Sonic Youth, there were very few recognizable women in rock music. Janis Joplin (overdosed on heroin in 1970), Patti Smith, Joan Jett, and Chrissie Hynde were among the handful of women who were rock, as opposed to pop artists. Kim Gordon always had a strong enough presence in the band to be an influence for women’s liberation and girl power. Most Riot Girl bands took Sonic Youth as their starting point. Top riot girl artists, Bikini Kill re-did one of their best songs, “Tell Me So”, live and turned it into “Thurston Hearts the Who”. The early 1990’s was an explosion of talented women artists, crossing over into the mainstream. Sinead O’Connor, PJ Harvey, and Liz Phair just to name a few, were all influenced by the underground music of the 1980’s, led by Sonic Youth.

In the film, as Babes in Toyland are earning EVERYONE’S respect; a cutaway finds Kim Gordon disguised in a hat, watching in the front. As a rock band with few pretensions, Sonic Youth always supported the bands who played with them. More than any other band, Sonic Youth understood what an artist wants most is an attentive audience. It is the performer saying, then asking, “This is my best, right now. What do you think?” Sonic Youth always paid attention, until it was time to look away.

The author of this article can anecdotally verify this, if the reader will allow a self-quote to illustrate:

“In January 1991, it was a long bus ride across town, on a cold January night to see Sonic Youth on their Goo tour, at the UW-Milwaukee ballroom. They were being supported by Redd Kross and a forgotten Minneapolis hardcore/punk outfit called the Cows, who went on stage shortly after I arrived. The lead singer was dressed bizarrely, leering and taunting the crowd. He spent most of his time on the left side of the stage, which I thought was odd. I stood about 15 feet back, off to the far right, when all of a sudden I noticed Thurston Moore (who is 6’6″) walking through the oblivious crowd with a video camera in his hand. He slipped past me without acknowledgement, and kept going until he disappeared through an exit. I had turned to face him the whole time, and shook my head wondering if anyone else had seen this? I started gazing around the ballroom, until I finally met a pair of eyes from across the room, a bit further back. It was Kim Gordon, looking at me. I was stunned for a few seconds, and panned back and forth between her and the Cows, who were still playing. She was in the crowd, watching the opening band. After a few more seconds, I felt I’d been taught something really important, through action alone. After a approving nod, which she only half-received as her attention was already drifting back towards the stage, I turned away from her. She disappeared a few minutes later, after being recognized and approached by others. How many bands can you name, ever gave their fans experiences like that?”

Nirvana’s “Endless, Nameless” is shown in a short clip, which will allow a brief discussion on the battle that was fought between artists and the music industry over compact disc formatting and presentation. By the early 1990’s, vinyl LP’s and cassette tapes had virtually disappeared from record stores. The industry preferred the CD format, which eliminated expensive vinyl packaging, and sold at a higher price, around $12-13 at the time. LP’s and cassettes were in the $6-8 range. Along the way, there had been skirmishes between artists and the industry concerning creative control over CD track indexing. In 1988, Prince had released Lovesexy with no index markings to indicate track separation, meaning the only way to skip ahead or back was to manually fast-forward or rewind through the songs. While some fans complained about this inconvenience, it was an industry decision to wrest final control from the artists over CD track indexing, and in later editions of Lovesexy, the tracks are individually sequenced.

As an incentive to buy the pricier compact discs, bonus tracks were often added to entice fans. Originally (after the first 50,000 copies which had no bonus track), at the end the Nevermind CD, as “Something in the Way” faded into oblivion, unknowing fans thought the album over, but instead the CD paused for ten minutes. There was no way to fast-forward. If you wanted to hear the song, you had to wait. After ten minutes of silence, like a volcano that oozes lava before it bursts, Nirvana erupted into six minutes of molten grunge violence. “Endless, Nameless” is largely incomprehensible, as Kurt Cobain screams his vocal cords raw, amid a sea of ultra-loud rock noise. In many ways it perfectly captures the essential and flawed nature of Nirvana. Today the CD is programmed with ten minutes of dead space so the listener can manually fast-forward through.

Sonic Youth achieves their “Endless, Nameless” glory in this film, in a song that is not listed in the credits, and is only identified at its very end by Thurston Moore holding a newly purchased Germs bootleg CD in front of his face. The band is barely identified by visual cues as the song begins, and shortly into it, all figures become indistinguishable. Soon after, the lights flicker faster and brighter, until the viewer has to look away and shut their eyes, due to the extreme intensity. The best head position becomes facing down, eyes shut; perfect listening position. Now listen to their music.

The final two songs from the film deserve a brief mention. Nirvana’s “Polly”, from Nevermind is one of Kurt Cobain’s most affecting songs. This author has read many interpretations for this song, but none of them satisfy more than my initial one. Polly is about a real/imaginary friend, who happens to be a parrot. He notices and describes various things about this parrot. The reason he spends so much time with his imaginary friend, is because he can no longer relate to actual people.

Sonic Youth’s “Expressway to Yr. Skull”, the final track from EVOL (1986), and one of their greatest anthems, closes the film. Thurston Moore sings:

We’re gonna kill the California girls
We’re gonna fire the exploding load
Into the milkmaid maidenhead
We’re gonna find the meaning of feeling good
And we’re gonna stay there just as long as we think we should
Mystery Train
Three-way Plane
Expressway to Yr. Skull

The album title, EVOL is love spelled backwards. EVOL is also where drummer Steve Shelley enters, and Sonic Youth completes their sound. On the vinyl LP, “Expressway to Yr. Skull” (alternately titled, “Sean, Madonna, and Me”) skips into a lock groove at the end, repeating itself until the listener picks up the needle. It is Sonic Youth’s version of infinite love.

In 1990, Sonic Youth signed a major-label deal with Geffen Records, then released Goo (1990), Dirty (1992), and Experimental, Jet Set, Trash, and No Star (1994); all of which are now acknowledged post-punk classics. In 1994 they also released their authorized band biography, Confusion is Next: The Sonic Youth Story; an authentic insider account of their history, written by Alec Foege. After that it was Washing Machine (1995), and the beginning of what can be best described as Sonic Burnout. Their vitality and creative spirit had finally been exhausted, and anything after that must be considered as part of their dinosaur period, which continues through today. A band that once proclaimed: Kill Yr. Idols, would have wanted it that way.

Thurston Moore once said, “We’re the New Beatles, only no one knows it.” Unfortunately, he’s still right. The Beatles were an artistic and commercial success for a long period (1962-1970). Their’s was a era where the industry expected bands to crank out 2-3 record albums a year, not being too concerned with overall album quality. What mattered was having a few hits that could plugged for radio. When the Beatles got off a plane in New York, they brought more hits on one record than anyone before had ever imagined, thus re-defining their era. They did it again with Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), by re-defining once again, what an album was; from its artwork, to its presentation, to its message. Sonic Youth in its 14-year run from 1981-1994, managed to re-define rock music from an underground perspective in many similar ways. They were shut out because they were artists who refuse to compromise with the industry from the start, and that is really the only important objective difference between Sonic Youth and the Beatles.

In the end, we should judge artists for their triumphs, much more than their failures. It was their daring spirit and willingness to sacrifice personal gain for their art, that still draws people to Sonic Youth. This band, and the thousands of others from the 1980’s, that most people never got to hear, are the musical embodiment of revolution. The grunge movement that Sonic Youth helped carry through to the mainstream, was soon dissipated and demoralized because its energy was not harnessed by a revolutionary political force. As a result, today’s independent musical artists face many of the same challenges Sonic Youth met in the 1980’s. Now, college radio is completely monopolized by the major labels, through subsidiaries. Today, it is the Internet that is likely to be the new media form, that will allow a breakthrough of independent music. The artists who succeed in this will combine Sonic Youth’s hard-earned lessons, with their own revolutionary spirit.

PS: On October 14, 2011, Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore announced that they separated after 27 years of marriage.

Sonic Youth is no more.

Thank you forever to: Thurston, Kim, Lee, Steve, Bob & Richard for their timeless music. RS

Ric Size

Songwriter, Musician, Artist

Category Archives: Film & Mass Media