Wall Animation

Minutes are more precious than ever these days, I know, but you should spend ten of yours on this at some point this week:



[Go full-screen on this guy]

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Italy Takes a Brave Step

Sono spiacente, bambinas, but if you are a woman in Italy younger than 18, you are no longer allowed to get breast implants.

If anybody needed concrete evidence that Berlusconi's power has waned, this is it, folks.

The details, according to The Telegraph:

[Italian Undersecretary Francesca Martini] said: "This legislation is primarily aimed at the growing number of girls under 18 who have breast enhancement surgery purely for fashion reasons and have no idea of the risks involved.

"Far too many adolescent girls are unaware of the fact that there are risks with this type of surgery and it should not be used purely for fashion and looks. At the moment we have a Wild West, cowboy style system of plastic surgery for young women and this must stop."

So, wait. They are not aware of the risks involved and they do it for fashion? I had trouble understanding you since you repeated everything twice; maybe that's why you're still an undersecretary, Frankie?

Anyway, the Undersecretary for Redundancy made it very clear that this "Wild West, cowboy-style" system has gotten out of hand and is out of control. So...exactly what kind of numbers are we talking about here?

According to statistics from the Italian Society of Plastic Surgeons there are around 85,000 breast enhancement operations a year in Italy, of which 70 per cent are for aesthetic reasons and 30 per cent follow cancer treatment.

Okay...but how many teenagers, since that's the point here? Well, it turns out the Telegraph did not feel like that was an important detail, but according to Huffington Post, "approximately 10,000 teenage girls worldwide had the surgery performed in 2008."

Too many? Certainly.

"Cowboy?" No.

Unless 99% of them occurred in Italy, which I find difficult to believe considering the current level of Stateside shenanigans...

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Giorgio, you didn't!

This just in:

In July 2007, Giorgio Armani told Time Magazine that viewing PETA materials “convinced me not to use fur." However, according to PETA, Armani’s Fall 2008 collection included fur coats for babies, floral printed furs, fur-hemmed skirts and fur-trimmed jackets. The animal rights group has contacted celebrities such as Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, and Glenn Close asking that they not wear Armani-designed clothes.

(courtesy wikipedia.org)

Floral-printed furs? Fur coats for babies? What sort of rich-get-richer-and-ever-more-obscene sort of world are we living in? Oh, yeah--this one:


When you can't count on vain, billionaire fashion designers ($5 billion, to be exact) to keep their word, on whom can you count?

Well, PETA, I guess...I mean, they did make two phone calls to help their cause...

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Oh, no you didn't...

In his admonishing response to Manola Darghis' scathing review of the upcoming release Gentlemen Broncos, Richard Brody (of New Yorker magazine) went too far in his appraisal of director Jared Hess, no matter how good or bad that particular movie may be.

In light of the gratuitous bodily function jokes apparently present in Broncos, Brody claims the director that Jared Hess is most similar to--in all of film history--is none other than philosophical Italian provocateur Pier Paolo Pasolini.

Huh? Yeah. Peep this:

But then, she also thinks that Benjamin (Michael Angarano), the teen-ager at the film’s center—a science-fiction fantasist whose work is pilfered by a blocked, aging novelist and by a pair of local filmmakers—is a “rotten writer.” In fact, he’s the author of a new gospel, and Hess’s wondrously ingenuous filming of Benjamin’s visions are both as sublime and as crudely carnal as scripture itself. The grotesque bodily functions, human, animal, and alien, that the movie depicts unflinchingly—as well as the “unpleasant, unattractive characters” Dargis says the film is filled with—are the point. It’s easy to present the beautiful people and the scrubbed world as divine creations; Hess’s vision sacralizes what other filmmakers don’t. The director he’s closest to in this regard is Pier Paolo Pasolini (and Pasolini, too, had an extraordinary sense of the naïve, the repellent, and the ridiculous).

Now, I don't know how many of you are familiar with Pasolini's work, but it is nothing like Napolean Dynamite, Nacho Libre, or Gentlemen Broncos. Nothing. Unless you find semi-amusing fart jokes and frightening, ritualistic depravity to prove a philosophical point one and the same.

Comparing Jared Hess to Pier Paolo Pasolini simply because they both made movies about outcasts living on the fringes of society is like comparing Scorsese to Taxi director James Burrows because they both made projects involving taxi drivers. There is nothing funny about Pasolini's depravity; there is nothing insightful about Hess' fart jokes.


Here is a quick recap of Jared Hess' life and works:

He is a 30 year-old heterosexual Mormon who studied film at Brigham Young University, is married to his college sweetheart, Jerusha Hess, has one child, lives in Salt Lake City, and has co-written and directed three feature-length oddball-comedies with his wife, one of which (Napolean Dynamite) became a cult hit.


Now, here is a quick recap of Pier Paolo Pasolini's life:

He studied literature and philosophy in college, was drafted into WWII, escaped from a Nazi prison to join his mother as a teacher of children in remote villages, was persecuted by the state due to his homosexuality and candor, became an accomplished poet, journalist, novelist, playwright, photographer, filmmaker, linguist, and political activist, troublesomely preached that a shift to communism was the only way to save Italy, had most of his films censored at one time or another due to their stark exploration of the depressing lives people led in the suburbs of Rome and their focus on sexual themes, and was brutally murdered by being repeatedly run over by his own car on a beach near Rome, not long before the premiere of what Time Out recently dubbed "The Most Controversial Film of All Time," Salo, his magnificent and horrifying adaptation of the the Marquis de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom, in which he calls out fascism for being not unlike sadomasochism.

Okay, so...a sheltered and ignorant Mormon (a Mormon, for Christ's sake!) out for cheap laughs by exploring the fictional lives of losers living on the fringes of society in Middle America is supposed to be comparable to a notoriously revolutionary, oft-censored, communist homosexual Italian poet/filmmaker who unflinchingly documented the darker side of humanity in his starkly realistic explorations of the depths of the mind and its potential for depravity? An artist whom intellectuals still revere 34 years after his death?

Ich don't think so, Richard Brody...

The confused Richard Brody

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Movie Reviews In Briefs

The following are movies I saw for the first time during the last couple months, in the cutting-edge theater aboard my $60 million private jet, in my underwear, while doing my annual ten-month-long mansion-crawl:

[ratings are out of four stars]

Valentino: The Last Emperor = 3.5 stars
Interesting fellow, colorful interviews, informative glance into a somewhat strange world, but a little one-note and without much of an arc.
Two simple ideas for improvement:
- maybe checking in with/interviewing his fleet of servants would have added some more flavor?
- interviewing Karl Lagerfeld and some other designers (Tom Ford? Ralph Lauren? Michael Kors?) for their take on the man paraded before us as a genius, but with little actual description of why he is so revered.

Observe & Report = 1 star
I love dark comedies, but they have to be funny. Aside from a few brief moments, this wasn't funny. AND the plot was weak and disjointed. Bummer. I hate to say it--but it is actually possible that this was the worst mall cop movie of this year's crop. I also hate that I now have to watch Paul Fart: Mall Cop to find out for sure...

Gomorrah = 2.5 stars
Disappointing. I really wanted to like it, since it's Italian and about a fascinating subject matter, but it just wasn't good enough. I didn't care about anybody in the movie--they were pretty much universal assholes or brainless schlubs. The ending was pretty great, really demonstrated the pointlessness of it all, but would have packed more of a punch if everything before it had made me care more. Ultimately, the movie was a great statement of the futility of organized crime, but not a very entertaining experience.

Elegy = 2 stars
Ben Kingsley's apartment was cool, Penelope Cruz was delectable, and I can relate to the blunt truth of the socio-sexual philosophy, but that's about all I really liked about this movie. The rest was...okay. Dennis Hopper was atrocious, with most of the blame shouldered by the writer--I get it! He's Ben Kingsley's confidante, maybe even his conscience, but that doesn't mean he is an interesting character. I was bored whenever he was onscreen and that is a perfect example of talent wasted. As in most older lover/younger lover scenarios, I found Kingsley/Cruz's relationship completely unbelievable (Fassbinder's Ali: Fear Eats the Soul is a glaring exception) and, therefore, it is hard to invest anything in it--which ruins the entire purpose of the story.

W. = 2 stars
I enjoyed Karl Rove's smarminess and Dick Cheney's assholeness, but that's about it. I feel like--even though I'm sure his camp hates it--it was too soft on GeorgieBoy. He made the decisions and he needs to be held accountable for them; this movie was too sympathetic by simply shifting the blame to his devious subordinates. Oh--and the husband/wife subplot made me want to vomit.

Idiocracy = 3 stars
At times funny, at times painfully true (already), but ultimately brought down by poor acting, a cardboard plot, and many missed opportunities for bigger and better laughs (example: the opening Darwinian sequence).

Wall Street = 2 stars
What a disappointment! I've heard such good things over the years, but this did not measure up. Charlie Sheen is boring. Michael Douglas is good, but is character is pretty one-note and not all that interesting or deep--he certainly did not deserve an Oscar for the performance. The story plays out fairly predictably and the Martin Sheen blue-collar, down-home hokiness ultimately swallows this entire movie in the end. Bottom line: I know Oliver Stone is smarter than this movie. I understand why they are remaking this turd (timely=money!) but fail to see the need.
Addendum: If you are interested in seeing a fascinating take on stock trading, you should rent Antonioni's L'Eclisse instead.


Unrelated--how strange and...awesome?...is it that Netflix actually has the following category:

Visually-striking Dark Movies based on real life

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Hallmark v. India

"Eventually, more than 10 members of the Sena were arrested, only to be released on bail in a week. Since then, they have promised to campaign against Valentine’s Day, which they criticized as a foreign conspiracy to dilute Indian culture, and they said they did not disapprove of men drinking at bars."


My favorite quote from this article about some truly fascinating and unnecessarily-violent, sexist racists.

Valentine's Day? That is their bone of contention? Did they run out of better reasons to hate The West? It's like a father hating his daughter's prolicidic boyfriend because he has long hair.

My favorite part of the definition of 'proletary,' the root of 'prolicide':

Origin:
1570–80; < class="ital-inline">prōlētārius belonging to the lowest class of Roman citizens, i.e., those who contributed to the state only through their offspring, equiv. to prōlēt- (akin to prōlēs offspring; pro- pro- ¹ + -olēs (see adult )) + -ārius -ary

I can hear it now, clear as day, above the vibrant din of the Palazzo Farnese:

"Oh, hello there, peasant--just so you know, you are only valuable to me and mine because you replenish our supply of low-paid quasi-slaves. Here's a boot up your ass for no reason and be sure to have your freshly-washed, most-slender daughter sent up to my bedroom at midnight for a little procreation of my own."

Ouch.

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Reason #146 That I Love Italy

Love Berlusconi or hate him, you gotta love a country with a President that would say this:

“If I sleep for three hours, I still have enough energy to make love for another three,” the newspaper La Repubblica quoted him as telling the younger crowd. “I hope that when you hit 70, you’re in as good shape as I am.”

(source: NYTimes)
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The Degradation of Language, the Decline of an Empire

With the appalling lack of interpersonal communication between people younger than age 22 or so, the explosion of text-based cellular and internet communication--each complete with its own dialect--along with the growing prevalence of Spanish and other 'invasive' languages, and the long-gestating plague of literature-aversion, it should come as no surprise to you that English is firmly on the downslope of prominence; we are now slowly sliding down the backside of a bell-curve, much like the once almighty Dollar. Not that language is tied to the dollar, but, in this instance, the debilitating cracks in each institution can be traced back to the same source: Greed.

America during its heyday was little more than a giant, relentless steam engine, fueled by the combustion of millions of impoverished dreamseekers. Cheap labor, plentiful resources, no rules except the ones we make and the ones we break. Heroes abounded. Possibilities were limitless. A ripe chance for utopia, but man cannot protect himself from himself. It is his fatal weakness.


We Americans started out with plenty of space to flex the old muscles, plenty of opportunity to start things over, and plenty of grand ideas. We exploded onto the world stage as the most feared and loved nation on Earth. As Machiavelli predicted, we have had it well for quite some time now as a result.

But it is easy to become gluttonous.

That sentence is acceptable now, in published material, whereas I was marked down for opening a sentence with 'but' in school. Colloquialisms are now in the dictionary. Symbols are acceptable substitutes for letters. Abbreviations are the norm. Few read books. People meet their spouses via computers.

Why? Because we are too busy. Too busy to call somebody, so we'll just text them, or check their Facebook status to see whether they had any stated plans that evening. Too busy to write complete words when we do.

Why are we so busy? Because Americans now are working longer hours than their fathers, for less money and less benefits. The '50s dream of a computer-aided 10-hour work week have been vaporized by the computer-aided 70-hour work week. There's more money in that, it turns out.

When is there ever enough, when there's always more? More money to be made, more beauties to ravish, more enemies to destroy, more newcomers swiping at that luscious pie on the windowsill, or at least wanting to, waiting to. A smart giant chooses his battles carefully, however, and does not try to destroy everything and everybody else--he fools them into thinking they are in a great position, in control.

Today France is wealthy, powerful, and one of the most prideful countries in the world, despite the fact that their heyday is long-since buried. This is so only because we allowed it. We learned from our study of the Romans that it is far too difficult to unify and govern far-flung territories; it is much better to let them take care of themselves, provided they remain an ally, let us trade with them, and rubber stamp all of our decisions with regard to global policy.

Besides, if we destroyed France, where would we vacation? DisneyFrance comes complete with an Eiffel Tower, a French Quarter, crepes, baguettes, all the stockinged legs you could shake a stick at, and a nation of voluntary servants at every luxurious resort, restaurant, bar, and brothel. We had to bring our own Starbucks, though. And Burger King. And KFC. And Coca-Cola. And Wrigley's Gum. And MTV. And movies. And music. Nothing like a taste of home.

The Romans used swords and spears; we Americans wielded our culture as a weapon, and the world wept at our feet. Oh, sure, we had military might as well, but not so much that we could have coated the globe and, even if we had, it's difficult, costly, and time-consuming to take over your enemies/allies with guns--a sneak attack is far more subtle and strategic.

The world was ours because we allowed the other nations to operate under the impression they were autonomous, when in fact we pulled the strings. They appeased us, we gave them money. They gave us money, we gave them our goods. We acted, our enemies reacted as planned. The populace elected a ruler we didn't like, we funded guerrilla armies to place a more 'likable' candidate in office. That candidate got a little power hungry, we made him disappear.

This method of world domination was extremely successful in building the United States as the most powerful empire in history. Yet here we are today with few allies, more enemies, a trade deficit, declining real wages, pervasive ignorance, an artistic vacuum, a marketplace ruled by teenagers, a fractured language, a fragile and obese population, a dwindling army occupied on two fronts...our poisonous culture has proved too effective a weapon; it has even destroyed its creator.

The Roman Empire crumbled because it got too big for its britches, and to think America is any different is dishonest--we have over-stayed our welcome in the Imperial Lavatory, as had the Greeks before them, the Ottomans, Spanish, British, and French after them.

Although our method was unique, the result is the same--our reach has become too vast, our enemies too numerous, our greed too compromising, our citizens too wealthy, obese, clueless, and soft. We are the prized hog at the county fair, and every passerby drools in anticipation of our demise.

The question remains--did we stink it up a bit too much in here for the others?

Most intelligent Americans get their news from comedians. So do kids, if they get it at all. Children play video games instead of sports. Junk food is their food. They speak however they like, like. They don't shun the establishment--they ignore it completely, except when they listen to and watch the made-for-the-masses politico-corporate brainwashing drivel that fills our radio stations and our cinemas. They have no time or desire to work to find better material and so they unwittingly buy into the scatterbrained propaganda of the ruling class.

Parents let their kids read whatever they want to read and do whatever they want to do. Parents yell and scream a lot, but eventually surrender. Parents watch Two and a Half Men instead of the news. Parents eat and drink and smoke and drug their problems away. Parents have to pay their slaves these days, and pay their servants even more. Parents buy a lavishly-advertised image and receive a flimsy product produced by slave-wage drones half a world away. Parents abhor the behavior of their offspring. Parents are aware that things are changing and fight it, which only makes it worse.

Arnold Schwarzennegger is the governor of California. We market video games to grown men and music and books to teenage girls. There are more lawyers than farmers. We spend more than we earn. The most successful movies are based on comic books, teen fiction, and defunct television shows. To compare our Presidents to Emperors, especially these days, is hardly a stretch. The Romans used democracy as an ingenious smokescreen, while increasing the power of the oligarchy; so do we.


Like Latin and French, English has had a spell as lingua franca. What's next? Mandarin? Cantonese? Hindi? How long will it be before English is no longer the official language of our own country, replaced by the dialect of peasants, as Latin fell victim to Italian? Or will we speak Spanish? Hindi? Will English one day become a quaint ancestral language, maintained only in the homes of the poisonously-conservative bourgeoisie?

Like a rocket with an empty booster, our acceleration has ceased; we are now powerless as to our fate. We will exit gracefully, I hope, as Italy and France before us. We will concentrate our efforts on more important things than warfare and mass-production. We will learn to make the perfect cappuccino, bake the perfect loaf of bread, cook the perfect meal, tailor the perfect clothes, cultivate the perfect wine, develop an interest in philosophy, and talk ourselves to death in a cafe off the square, as our currency plummets and other countries fight each other.

It's the political equivalent of a retirement home.

Well, who is waiting in the wings, willing to duke it out for the top spot? Who will we Americans have the pleasure to serve in our boutiques, cafes, galleries, and brothels? Will China have a go of it? India? The E.U?

They still have time, mind you--plenty of time. Our demise will not be sudden. There are still people in the world who are able to speak Latin, and French clearly isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Just as the Roman Empire survived the sack of Rome by moving the capital to Istanbul, where it carried on for 900 more years, our fall will be cushioned by centuries of mediocrity and flattery. Our son, as it were, has granted us the privilege of dying in solitude, while preparing to take the reins.

But what sort of playground will this new power acquire? How long will their tenure last before mankind is plunged into darkness and barbarism once more? A fitting final act for the comedy that would make anyone smile.

The Earth is ill. Pollution of the air, land, and sea. Overextraction of resources. Eradication of flora and fauna. Destruction of the ozone. Unpredictable, severe weather. Catastrophic overpopulation.

We will milk this beast to death, by Jove! And why not--that's what it's there for! There's plenty more where that came from, and if there's not, then you should have gotten there first! It was delicious!


The Earth will recover, as it always has, but that will be long after man brings about its own demise. So who cares that when my nephew is my age he will watch a rapper or valley girl deliver the news, in their underwear, in ten-second bursts on his phone? Who cares that he might never read a book from start to finish? Who cares that he might have sex exclusively virtually? Who cares that he might have sex with a thousand women? Who cares that at some point he might have a microchip implanted in his body? Who cares that in his lifetime we will run out of oil? Who cares that he might see nations go to war over drinking water?

Nobody cares, because we have all given up, given in to the idea that we just want to lay around an eat and drink and fornicate while somebody else does all the work for a change. We let ourselves be ruled by power-hungry lunatics, who unwittingly cultivate our ruin. We have accepted our demise, even if we are not all yet aware of it. We work toward our demise each day, because it's easier than constantly striving for better. We eat another donut instead of the dangling carrot, because it tastes better. We nap, rather than fight.

Don't get me wrong--I am not some crazed Conservative aiming to right the ship and fight to keep America on top. Nor am I a wacky Liberal who is naive enough to think the crazy train can be turned around. On the contrary, I simply enjoy watching fate take its course, watching this comedy unfold. After all, I have a pretty good seat, and as long as the wine keeps flowing, I'll die with my eyes open and a smile on my face, wishing I could stay until the end.

The American Male, 1500 Years in the Future

Although the actual date of the fall of the Roman Empire is still passionately debated among a dwindling number of Roman History scholars, it is acceptable to say it was around the year 500AD. In March, I believe. On a Saturday. 1500 years ago. What can we learn from this, you say? Well, luckily I am in lecturing mode. Stay with me here...

For 1000 years or so, the Romans ruled the known world--Europe, Eastern Asia, and Northern Africa. They were ruthless imperialists, cunning businessmen, and persuasive orators. The world was their oyster. Until it wasn't. Until they were beaten down, ignored, and irrelevant. After that fateful Saturday in March, for centuries, the men of Rome stewed in their limestone villas, cobbling exquisite shoes, vintning fine wines, designing the finest dresses, suits, ties, capri pants, etc. They built the finest automobiles in the world. Ditto for bicycles, scooters, motorcycles, hats, espressos, sandwiches, pizzas, pastas, apertifs... The only thing they worked harder at than luxury goods was LOVE. They turned love into an art form (Italian Opera is no accident). If everybody's going to ignore them anyway, they figured (they told me), they might as well spend all their time looking good, driving fast, and falling in love. And who can blame them for that bit of logic?

The rest of Europe passed them by without so much as a wave. Germany rose to prominence, Spain, Holland, England, France--hell, even Portugal was on top for a bit. Italians didn't mind, though--they had been there, done that, and now they were content to be ignored and live in the lap of their own hand-made luxury, falling in love a hundred times a day, groping any young woman that passed. Over a 1000 year period, they went from being the best soldiers on Earth to a peaceful band of dilettantes, hanging out in cafes, smoking cigarettes, discussing various love affairs, tickling each other with ostrich feathers while sipping cappuccinos (only before 11am, of course). All this idleness led to a deep appreciation for both the natural world and the man-made world around them which, in turn, led to an exceptionally rich army of painters, sculpters, metalworkers, photographers, and filmmakers.

So, what does this have to do with America? A lot. We have ruled the world for two hundred years now--not in the old-fashioned imperialist sense, but in the newer, more potent cultural-imperialist sense, as well as in the corporate-imperialist sense. The density of our 200 years is fairly comparable to their 1000. Our corporations, our way of life, have taken root in countries all across the globe, almost overnight. Who cares what flag they fly? They eat McDonald's, make copies at Kinko's, and care who Brad Pitt is dating. But we have taken things too far, become too greedy, placed our armies where they don't belong, allowed arrogance to replace common sense. And so our downfall has begun; we are now, believe it or not, in the post-Imperial phase. England and the European Community have risen back to prominence and taken the reigns from us. London is the global center of finance--not New York. Manhattan is being taken over by wealthy Europeans taking advantage of the weak dollar to buy second, third, or fourth homes, which keeps prices high and squeezes out hard-working Americans. Real wages are at the 1950 level. China is the new center of manufacturing. We are a nation of communication consultants, hedge-fund managers, gossip columnists, and burger-flippers. We are not the wealthiest nation on Earth, the strongest nation on Earth, the most populous nation on Earth, the hardest-working nation on Earth; we are a nation in decline, a nation of fading importance; a nation lacking in love.

So, gentlemen of the United States, let's get cracking. Let's spend less time at work and more time with our ladies. Let's only appreciate the finer things in life. If you can only afford one pair of shoes, make them Ferragamo--they'll never go out of style and they'll last forever. Make your suit Armani, your ties Gucci. Pick up a Vespa next time your car dies--not only will it help you pull all the ladies, but think of the fuel economy! Over time, directly proportionate to our idleness and irrelevance, we American men will find ways to improve on these items and our own domestic craftsmen will flourish and dominate. Our creative types will become such wilfull dandies that your local cinema will once more become the domain of artists, not businessmen. There WILL be an American Renaissance. History repeats itself, no?

But, Goodtime Charlie, you say, I found a flaw in your comparison--what about all the immigrants? America, unlike Italy, is a nation of immigrants. Doesn't that throw off the whole comparison? No, my child, my adorable little child, it does not. Let us not forget that Italy was a nation of notorious slave-gatherers and, as naturally follows, slave-fuckers. There was a fair amount of diversity up in that peninsula. And, similarly, after 1500 years of mixing and matching Hispanics with Asians with Africans with Whites, perhaps Americans will all be lustrously olive-skinned. How do you think the people of the Mediterranean got that way?