Film diary.

(Slightly outside of the monthly challenge...) 

- Wreck-It Ralph. (2012. Dir. Rich Moore). Do your job with dedication every day. Be paid for it by ending every journey dumped from a building, and then sleep in a dumpster. Life is tough for a video-game villain. And for Wreck-it Ralph, it’s getting to be more than daily sessions with a villain support group can solve. Heck, if heroes get all the glory and adoration, why not just cross over into another game and make himself the hero? 

Of course, changing your very nature may not be quite as easy as it sounds…

A beloved latter-day Disney production that takes more than few cues from by then completely absorbed company Pixar —what with the concept of a different world just behind our own, problems that can’t quite be solved just by goodwill, and a lack of musical moments. But these influences paid off and the result is an entertaining animated movie that is also slightly unusual for Disney. 

Consider, for instance, the curiosity that of the VG words we’re shown, it’s the most seemingly sweet and simple (Sugar Rush; Fix-It Felix) that produce the most unlikable characters, while modern violent worlds (Hero’s Duty) wind up producing the more noble, determined characters. Consider, also, the message that ultimately you can’t quite change what you are —Ralph can only be useful if he does wreck things, most of the time. Felix can only fix things even if it harms him. Vanellope is uncomfortable when thrown into the role of a princess. Even Calhoun can never escape traumatic memories just because she knows they are merely a programmed story. 

You can’t quite change what you are, but you can use those skills to improve your situation. Vanellope chooses to remain a glitch, and this gives her an advantage over her adversaries. Ralph can find the adoration he wanted without changing his in-game role (and he can even help characters in an even worse situation than his). And Calhoun can find solace outside of her own game, going so far as to marry Felix, a character from an altogether different world. 

Generally, an enjoyable, well-made movie for all (or most?) audiences. 

Reading diary.

- Fritz the cat (The complete Crumb comics, vol. 3). Robert Crumb. A compilation of Crumb’s assorted comics and ephemera from 1964 - 1966, including the early adventures of his infamous “Fritz the cat”, rounded out with such curiosities as assorted designs for a greetings card company, sketches about Harlem and Bulgaria, attempts at other comic strips (The silly pidgeons; Roberta) and more. 

Crumb is, in a word, controversial. Also unique and also often irritating (which on second thought are both ways to define “controversial”), and certainly seldom something that leaves one indifferent. This collection of his complete works in chronological order allows us to see the evolution of his style and themes. As one can expect from any collection that includes bit of juvenilia and nearly private work, most of it is interesting, but not entirely up to professional standards. However, they offer a rather insightful context for the main pieces of interest, that being these —“furry comic strips”! 

“The silly pidgeons” (geddit?) would seem a little too precious were it not for the revelation that all are  entirely autobiographical. Capturing the lowest years of his first marriage (which soon ended in divorce), eroded by poverty and a general sense of malady, Crumb manages a rather sincere portrait of the era (if somewhat sanitized. These strips entirely omit the couples’ dabbling in heavy drugs, which would be left to the “Fritz” stories). 

And then there is Fritz, infamous figure of underground comic culture (only surpassed in the Crumb pantheon by the likes of his latter “Mr. Natural”) and subject of a couple animated movies —that Crumb disliked so much they led him to kill Fritz in latter years! 

So who is Fritz the cat? He’s —everything. In these first stories he can be a post-beatnik college student, a smarmy secret service agent, a street magician, a sleazy door-to-door salesman. He’s a lech, a picaresque hero (anti-hero, even), and he’s —funny. Thoroughly unsympathetic, yet funny. 

As the introduction from Marty Pahls informs us (and is repeated several times throughout the volume): “Robert (Crumb) dressed his less-than-Great society in animal skins, and into them he sent a cat named Fritz (…) a gilt talker, master of any situation (…). But Robert’s own satirical claws were out for Fritz. The cat was a poseur: As struggling student, sensitive artiste, self-assured cocksman, stemwinder salesman, even CIA operative supreme. His posturing was taken seriously by others because, first of all, Fritz took it seriously himself”. 

Fritz the cat is, in that way, the spirit of the quintessential American fantasy, and simultaneously its parody. The over-the-top adventures he gets into remain as entertaining and eyebrow-raising as they were back in the last century. 

Film challenge.

Film challenge, May: Comedies. 

- Juno (2007; Dir. Jason Reitman). Acerbic sixteen-year-old Juno finds herself pregnant after a one-night stand with a friend. Initially considering an abortion (and after being scared away from that plan by a self-righteous classmate), she decides on giving her baby up for adoption instead. She even finds an ideal couple for that, the upscale Lorings. But as Juno will come to learn during nine wild months, life is often anything but ideal, and compromises must always be made just to get what’s really important. 

A beloved teen comedy (some would say ‘dramedy’) that holds up remarkably well a decade later. The breezy, matter-of-fact treatment of the subject of teen pregnancy is still astoundingly rare in US cinema (naturally, as many people have taken the movie to be a pro-life as a pro-choice argument. As presented in the film, I would say it’s less interested in a moral position as it’s in staying true to the characters themselves). The characters are generally well-developed and feel drawn from life, with all their flaws and virtues. 

One criticism, though: In this movie we meet a rather judgmental ultrasound technician (who gets chewed out by Juno’s stepmother) and an air-headed anti-abortion classmate of Juno. These two unpleasant characters are pretty much the only non-white women we see. The latter even speaks in stereotypically broken English. And not a single reviewer seems to have noticed this! 

What some reviewers have noticed, on the other hand, is the typical fans with misplaced sympathies —for example, those that over-identify with childlike adult Mark and condemn level-headed Vanessa for pointing out his flaws. But that says more about the audience than about the movie, truly. 

Now the soundtrack and the use of rotoscoping animation have been praised, quite fairly. The cast itself is —generally good (to be honest, I found it uneven, in particular Michael Cera’s typically bland performance). All in all, a pretty good cult favorite teen movie; though I must insist that it may benefit from a more critical take beyond the obvious hot-button issues (pregnancy and manchildren) and more focused on its larger social issues. 

Reading diary.

- Amphigorey. Edward Gorey. A compilation of Gorey’s first fifteen books (1953 - 1965), all masterfully skirting the line between “comic book” and “illustrated book”, and all macabre in very different ways. The title of this collection, the author reminds us, refers to “amphigory”, meaning “nonsense verse or composition”. 

A classic both of the illustrated and the dark (in every sense of the word), with tales ranging from stories seemingly intended for children (“The bug book”, where the idyllic life of a brightly-colored bug family is menaced by a black intruder —and is saved by the bugs murdering their neighbor and making it look like a suicide! Or “The Wuggly Ump”, which would be a preschooler monster tale if not for the fact that this monster gleefully does devour the protagonist children) to Victorian and Gothic-tinged nightmares (“The Willowdale Handcar”, “The Insect God”, “The Listing Attic”, “The Hapless Child”). And there are oddities, too, such as the naughty adults-only tale “The curious sofa”. Or the first and last of this collection: “The unstrung harp”, which is a quiet, somber meditation on the process of creation and the thin line between reality and imagination; and “The remembered visit”, a melancholy tale of old age and broken promises. 

Each book included is a tiny marvel. Consider for instance the wordless, mysterious “The West Wing”, a tour through 30 rooms of a perhaps haunted house that culminates on the letter “U” and a picture of a lighted candle floating in darkness. Or “The Gashlycrumb Tinies”, an alphabet illustrated by 26 children who meet their end in various ways, ranging from the horrific (“K is for Kate, who was struck with an axe”) to the mundane (“E is for Ernest, who choked on a peach”) to the surreal (“N is for Neville, who died of ennui”). Or the meticulous examination of what goes into creating, writing and publishing a novel —only to then deal with irate fans and detractors —and then leading into a journey into the unknown (all in “The unstrung harp; or, Mr. Earbrass writes a novel”). 

In short: an essential title, particularly for fans of the unique and the weird. 

Film challenge, April.

This month, there wasn’t really a “film challenge”, because I only watched one movie intended as part of the challenge, “The wizard of Oz”. Yikes. Real life will sometimes get in the way like that…

I did, however, wind up reading two books that tackle one particular subject from very, very different perspectives. The books were “Twee: The gentle revolution in music, books, television, fashion and film”, by Marc Spitz and “Bad Feminist: Essays”, by Roxane Gay. And the particular subject was mainstream pop culture of the twenty-first century. 

Take, for instance, Spitz and Gay’s analysis of the HBO series “Girls”. Where Spitz sees something whimsical if a tad irresponsible with it’s dogged persistence on ignoring any perspective that isn’t that of privileged white people, Gay sees a sincere but willfully ignorant life perspective transplanted to a highly-financed TV show. Both writers are quite aware of the show’s virtues and flaws, and the controversies it has been subject to. But one can afford to be more detached than the other, who every day lives with the resulting exclusion. 

Both authors want to believe in a kinder present that will surely lead to a gentler tomorrow. Spitz tries to frame his misgivings as the result of being from an older generation. But Gay is part of the younger generation, and knows that there is a huge difference between knowing that the world is dangerous, knowing it as a purely intellectual notion, and LIVING those dangers in the flesh, every day. Both are intellectuals that also gleefully embrace pop culture artifacts, and both strive for achieving a balance between personal tastes and objective study. Both authors are quite aware that no human person can ever be completely objective, particularly when the subject of study is itself subjective by nature. 

These two books, then, offer not “two sides of the coin”, as it would be easy to believe, but rather remind us that reality is not an easy thing to grasp or comprehend. The world is complex because we all live in it, and we all carry our own views on it, be they good or bad or whatever they are. 

And then they actually do line up nicely with the movie. Just like the movie, if properly studied, shows us that the line between “reality” and “fantasy” is much blurrier than we like to think (*was* Oz just Dorothy’s fever dream? Even in the movie, several details can bring this conclusion to question, such as the “real” equivalent of the Witch being strangely absent by the ending and the menace she represented completely forgotten), these books propose that the limits between the objective and the subjective are much less clear than we usually think. 

Reading diary.

- Bad Feminist. Roxane Gay. A collection of essays covering a wide range of topics, divided in five sections: “Me”, “Gender & Sexuality”, “Race & Entertainment”, “Politics, Gender & Race” and “Back to me”. At the beginning and ending of the book, Gay clarifies the title —she’s a self-confessed “Bad Feminist” in order to accept and embrace herself, with all her natural virtues and flaws, sincerely recognizing that sometimes her actions won’t quite live up to her theoretical standards. But as she tells us “I would rather be a bad feminist than no feminist at all”. 

Gay often mixes autobiographical anecdotes (which range from humorous to heartbreaking) with academically rigorous analysis. Her studies of several pop culture artifacts accomplish the very difficult act of balancing a fan’s perspective with a critical eye. So, too, her unflinching examination of complex social topics. 

The essays about herself start with a casual tone that successfully guides the reader through such issues as the tribulations of academia, both in and outside the classroom. The one chronicle of her experience with competitive Scrabble can perhaps be a bit overwhelming for people not particularly interested in the subject (to be fair, it’s very much the effect that any sports or competition article would have on somebody who was not a fan of said sport or activity); that is her only indulgent essay —and even that one pointedly examines the micro-aggressions that  Gay was subject to for the simple reason of being a Black woman competing in a tournament. 

I found her essays on pop culture especially fascinating. Gay deftly analyzes all sort of items, be they literary (from “Gone girl” to “This is how you lose her” to “The Hunger Games” —to even lowbrow bestsellers like “Fifty shades of Grey”, “Twilight” and the Sweet Valley High book series), filmic (“Fruitvale Station”, “Django Unchained”, “The help” and the filmography of Tyler Perry) or televised (from “Girls” to “Orange is the new black” to “Girlfriends” to a string of procedurals and competitive Reality Shows). She is merciless, both as a critic and with her own biases, examining the good, the bad, the problematic and the enjoyable with equal precision. 

Just as precise are her analyses of profound social problems in her country (sometimes worldwide, truly) —issues of racial bias, of rape culture, of a constant “love the sinner, blame the victim” pervasive ideology in media and in the average person. Gay offers no simple solutions, often turning her criticism not just towards public figures and celerities, but towards us, the very readers. 

Sometimes she will offer points of view that she will admit are not just biased but perhaps outright wrong —her ambivalence towards the notion of a “trigger”, and that it stems from personal trauma (she is a gang-rape survivor) is nothing less than though-provoking. And with the rare sincerity on an essayist as she concedes that her own conclusion is not universal, and will not apply to every one (she concludes that trigger warnings are useless, but admits that this does not necessarily apply to other people with traumatic experiences in their past, and that other people are free to apply such warnings as they see fit). 

And there is still far more —complex human sexuality, notions of what is feminine and what is not, the many types of existing feminism, views on politics, intimation of her own creative process as a fiction writer…

Overall, a strong essay collection that is quite relevant in present times. Will it be as powerful years or decades later, once some of the pop references will have become passé? I would say yes, because the focus is on the many sociological and ideological currents beneath fiction and news items. A smart, carefully constructed analysis of her world —or rather, of the world itself.