Review of the working copy: Public Enemies

Got invited to screen a big-budget film scheduled to be released next Spring. It was something I'd never done, so after IMDB'ing keywords on the invitation (1930's gangster film) and coming up with: Public Enemies, directed by Michael Mann, and starring more than a dozen well known actors and actresses (Johnny Depp is Dillinger, Christian Bale is Melvin Purvis), we hastily rsvp'd our acceptance of the invitation.

We arrive 1/2 hour before the time we were told to be there and stood in line for 90 minutes.

It took 30 more minutes to pack the 500+ of us into non-stadium theater seats that were uncomfortable in 1984.

Five more to explain the few things that were yet to be fixed in this working copy (the sound is not finished, some special effects are missing, the sky and colors are not 'punched up' yet, blah blah).

Two hours and fourty minutes later, I'm handed a sheet of paper with questions on it:

• What was the first thing you thought when the movie was over?
  Fuck, it's hot. I'm glad it's finally over, now all I have to do is get this stupid paper filled out.
• Did you know before watching this film that Dillinger was shot outside a theater in Chicago?
  Ahh, yeah, This is—like—the fifth movie to re-tread this same ground. But I'm sure there are some sixteen year old fans of Pirates of the Caribbean and The Dark Knight that will learn it next spring.
• At the beginning of the film did you know that Billy Crudup was J. Edgar Hoover?
  (This makes me think the director knew long before he began filming that Billy wasn't right for the role) I didn't know who he was until someone called him by name; why didn't you get Toby Jones?
• Rate the following list of actors and the roles they were playing; five is best, one is worst.
  Most got a three. Johnny was sadly, bad, and got a two (I think Robert Downey Jr. would have killed the role). Giovanni Rabisi (only in the film for ten minutes) got the only four.
• Would you recommend this film to your friends?
  Even if you chop an hour off of this huge turd, I doubt it.
• What did you think of the ending?
  Besides, "Yay it's finally here?' It was waaay muddled.
• What were the best things about the film?
  The settings and costumes were accurate and well staged, the shoot-outs and chase scenes were realistic, it hits all the "historically accurate" points that have already been hit before.
  
• What were the worst things?
  I saw two earring holes in Dillinger's left earlobe (make-up and continuity both get an F); Stephen Dorff, Leelee Sobieski, Emilie de Ravin, and Lili Taylor, were each in it for about two whole minutes (some didn't even have lines!)—what an amazing waste of talent. The script was awful-terrible: when placing words in people's mouths why not have them say interesting things?
  

Overall I know that Mr Mann is capable of some good films, like: The Insider, Heat, Manhunter, and Collateral. I also know he's directed some quasi-shite: Miami Vice, Ali and the Keep.

This may be enjoyed by younger viewers who have not seen Warren Oats' Dillinger (1973), or John Tirney's Dillinger (1945), because they adhere to the creed: "if it was made more than ten years ago it's not worth seeing," and they'll be satisfied with mediocre dialog and so-so acting.

There is little to no profanity (weirdly missing), not much blood (just a little), and no nudity in the film (the only sex scene is 15 seconds of Depp and Marion Cotillard, Dillinger's girlfriend, in bed clothed). This must have been intentional in order to get a PG13 rating; the target audience is high schoolers.

I will see it again in 2010, on DVD, because I'm interested to see how much polish that turd gets.

Michael Mann, Public Enemies, Film, Johnny Depp, Christian Bale

...dogs begin to smell her...

At times, my mind combines a memory with something happening in the present and I get a mini-eureka moment.

A few nights ago, out with my paramour singing karaoke (yep, guilty pleasure #43) someone with too much of the king of Belgian beers in him, begins a male pop-standard krooner (a song any low-voice can belt out at zero-dark-thirty after driving is no longer an option). He sang as I read the screen over his head:

When the dogs do find her
Got time, time, to wait for tomorrow
To find it - to find it - to find it
When the dogs do find her
Got time, time, to wait for tomorrow
To find it... to find it... to find it

Where ya going for tomorrow?
Where ya going with that mask I found?
And I feel, and I feel
When the dogs begin to smell her
Will she smell alone?

And I recall assisting on a death investigation decades ago, in Georgia, where a husband murdered his wife, drug her body out into a copse of trees behind their housing complex, camouflaged it with a small quantity of leaves and twigs, and then continued his daily routines. He called in-laws (this is pre-cellphones) asked to speak with her, informed them she'd left after an argument and would turn up there soon, '...tell her I apologized and she should come home...'.

Kids found the body after a few days. He confessed. Part of the end of his statement is paraphrased here:

I couldn't leave her in the house anymore...the smell was gettin too bad...the dog was always sniffin at the door to the room. ...figure I'd be able to buy me some time if I put her outside.

What were your plans in regard to the time you were buying by putting her outside? (An effective interrogation technique when a pause gets too long: frame a question using previously stated words.)

I wasn't. ...didn't think bout nothin. I need some time to find a plan.

Did you find a plan?

No, you guys showed up before I had a chance to.

[Name] it's been more than a week since then, (another technique: always avoid saying 'since the murder' or 'killing' or even 'death') you went to work, talked with people, all kinds of things; in all that time you didn't come up with any idea of what you were going to do?

Well. I knew I needed to do somethin soon. But I thought I'd have more time.

I learn from wiki, today, that Scott Wieland of Stone Temple Pilots allegedly wrote the lyrics to Plush after reading a San Diego newspaper article about a woman's body in the woods. The song was recorded in 1992. The crime I reference above occurred in 1990.

Is this just another example of nothing new under the sun, or, every idea that can be thought has already been thought? Or, in this case, acted out and said?

The artist's job is to be a witness to his time in history. — Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008)

Plush, interrogation technique, Murder, Stone Temple Pilots, investigation

NIGHTMARE

This was a first for me. Although I've had a few memorable nightmares as a child and a couple scary dreams as an adult; never something like this:

I wake up (I'm on my back) and look to my right. There is a short boy, maybe seven years old, standing next to the bed; less than three feet away from me. In the darkness, I can clearly see his outline, darker than the white section of wall which separates the darker closet door and the darkest open bathroom doorway. Someone has entered my house, my room, my sleeping personal space without me hearing them...I scream a no-word holler. He freezes (he may have been walking toward the bathroom). I roar again. Trying for maximum volume, maybe I'll scare him away. He winces a little. I shout, "who are you!?" (I'm beginning to sit up). He moves away maybe an inch or two. Louder, again, "who are you!!?" and lunge with both hands for his throat.

I wake up. My pointing fingers have just hit the wall. My eyes feel like they were already open and I sit back on the bed as the thought: 'I just bellowed awfully loud, everyone must be awake,' is buried by the knowledge my voice feels un-strained, in fact, it feels un-used at all. My heart is racing. Not a creature is stirring, not even the cat. My focus centers on the bathroom, where the familiar dim glow of a nightlight incongruously bumps my now-obvious dream memory of 'the darkest doorway'.

That little ghost almost scared the piss out of me—I'll bet my going for his throat gave him a bit of a pause, though.

Portland OR — Reasons (#5)

Get-around-ability

A dozen rational reasons to enjoy living in Portland, Oregon: Number five.

Many cities have some of these effective, "green", and positive transportation qualities, and some have many of them, but only Portland has all:

• Fully integrated metropolitan-suburban bus system.
• Major light-rail system connecting many eastern, western, and northern suburbs (growing to the south).
• Trolley-cars covering the downtown area.
• Extensive bicycle paths, lanes, and secure parking areas (some covered). A very "bicycle/alternative transportation (alt-trans) friendly" environment.
  
• Bicycle racks on the front of most buses and inside all train cars.
• Laws permitting/promoting alt-trans on most public streets and sidewalks (skateboards, roller-blades, Segways, scooters, etc.).
• A convenient international airport connected to every transportation system.
• A huge fair-less downtown zone where all public transportation is free.
• No sedan chairs and footmen, which is a shame, but there are always bicycle carts downtown (at all hours).
  

Ideas of...relaxed symmetry have been something—for years—that I've been concerned with because I think that symmetry is a neutral shape as opposed to a form of design. — Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008)

Altruistic Evil

Altruism is defined as a selfless act of kindness. While saying altruistic kindness is rhetorically redundant (like free gift or rhetorical redundancy), the term altruistic evil is an oxymoron, used in an overt attempt to draw attention to the paradox (e.g. cold fire).

The first step is to determine when an act can be labeled as altruistic. When doing so, there is but one hurdle: identifying the elusive absence of self-benefit.

When searching for a perfect example, invariably, Mother Theresa’s name arises. I posit that although her actions were without material gain, she was motivated by a self-imposed duty to her deity and–like any religious zealot’s–her sights were always on receiving an “ultimate reward,” (which the faithful believe is received after death). Altruism was, consequently, not present.

Ten years ago, when Ted Turner made a magnanimous gift of one billion dollars, the term altruism was used. This wasn't altruism. Besides obvious tax benefits, anyone who blares their own horn (at the time, CNN–his own international media company–touted his largess incessantly) clearly intended to profit socially, politically, and historically.

The best example of altruism is a hypothetical one: A non-suicidal atheist, with no life insurance, dives on a grenade to save the lives of the men in his foxhole. Although the atheist’s death is not a requirement, his belief that the grenade is going to detonate is.

Selfishness, commonly used to define the opposite of altruism, is a bland and ineffective term. The best label for committing selfless acts of unkindness is: Altruistic Evil. At first glance, one may think most acts of unkindness are selfless acts. That's untrue. I suspect almost every act of evil is committed with self-gratification as the primary raison d'être.

Suicide bombers, kamikaze pilots (the 11 Sep 01 pilots have joined their ranks), Nazi concentration-camp soldiers, the reverend Jim Jones, Hitler, Pol Pot, The Son of Sam, Jeffery Dahmer, the dude who tossed the aforementioned hand-grenade; whomever one envisions as the embodiment of the antithesis of the insurance-less atheist in the foxhole–their motivations can almost always be labeled: duty, loyalty, greed, self-aggrandizement, or martyrdom.

I qualify this with the addendum that many evil people (possibly, many of those listed above) were irrational or insane and although it may be argued that killing because ‘your neighbor’s German Shepard told you to’ qualifies as selfless–I contend that any action taken to please one’s inner voices qualifies as the ultimate in selfishness...even if one is too much of a snapperhead to recognize the voices are internal.

The best examples of evil altruism are hypothetical: An apolitical atheist adds a lethal poison to the machinery near the beginning of a food supply; without knowing the destination of the food, with no specifically identified targets, and with no chance of being caught. Then, the poisoner never tells anyone. Or... A wallet is found on the ground (no matter if it's empty or contains someone's life savings) and the person who found it, drops it in a dumpster without opening it.

It could be argued that the ‘thrill factor’ is sufficient personal benefit to disqualify these as selfless acts of unkindness. (Possibly a similar thrill of accomplishment which motivates computer-virus designers and their older hacker-cousins.) But, couldn't the grenade-diver's training or conditioning have influenced his decision to "take the biggest-possible-one for the team" be loyalty? And if the three seconds–between diving and boom–was filled with self-pride, then, was it altruistic? Also, is death a viable measuring stick?

To measure altruistic evil you also have to determine intent. Just like loyalty, duty, honor, and martyrdom disqualify ones actions from being altruistic; carelessness, negligence, apathy, and accidental acts lack sufficient malice to qualify as evil.

I realize there is, really, no conclusion to be made here. In fact, as I typed these paragraphs, I came to the conclusion that I have no real point to make. Except this: a word exists that defines an act that, arguably, can not exist. And its opposite, also, seems impossible.
evil, Mother Theresa, altruism, Ted Turner, altruistic