Sadism and Misogyny as Entertainment: The Killer Inside Me

I've long considered director Michael Winterbottom to be kind of an English version of Stephen Soderberg. He dabbles in all genres -- western (The Claim), mockumentary (24 Hour Party People), comedy (The Trip), science fiction (Code 46), documentary (Road to Guantanamo), and period meta-movie (Tristram Shandy) -- sometimes with more success than others. One might say he is an uneven director, but I like to think his unevenness comes as a result of his experimental nature and his unwillingness to do the obvious.

So when I heard he was doing Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside Me, I thought it was a perfect choice. I've long been a fan of Thompson's twisted, noiry novels and Winterbottom is smart and weird enough to pull it off.

But what can be said about such a relentlessly savage and misogynistic film? That spirit comes from the book, sure, but Winterbottom doesn't shy away from the unpleasantness. I wouldn't say that he celebrates the violence either (the intent is to horrify), but what can we think when all the vile men in the film get shot cleanly or hanged off-camera, but the women (played by Jessica Alba and Kate Hudson) get brutally punched out, in the face and in the stomach, over and over, until they are puffy and unconscious and wetting themselves?

Is this entertainment? What is the right response to this?

It's not like I hated this film. I liked being there, inside of this familiar west Texas landscape. It felt good to be back into a tight Jim Thompson plot, with its small cast of double-crossing characters, all with disturbing secrets in their pasts. I enjoy these kinds of small, contained stories that the Coen Brothers have been borrowing from for years. The odd casting (Casey Affleck, Kate Hudson, even the Mentalist himself shows up) actually worked, and the performances were interesting. There was tension. There was anticipation.

But I can't say I enjoyed it. Who could enjoy this?

And yet the film is sticking with me.

Dr. Write mentioned that one of the reasons the film doesn't work is because the notion of an unreliable narrator doesn't work in a movie. In the book part of the pleasure is navigating the space between Sheriff Lou Ford's version of events and the reality of the killing spree he goes on. In this filmed version of The Killer Inside Me (there are others, one with Ford played by Stacy Keach!), it's difficult to feel this internal side of Ford. He's just a sociopath, and we watch him go about his business.

I'd say that's about right.

But I do insist this film is good, in some way. And not because the horrors of it are sticking with me, Faces of Death style.

I think it's because this movie made me uneasy, and it held onto this uneasiness and teased it out for two hours. After all, it's quite rare that I have any kind of emotional response to a film. Is this not something to celebrate? Isn't this a huge accomplishment?

Why do I feel like I'm trying to convince myself of something?

Post Number 300

This is the 300th post on the Front Porch. Just thought I'd mention it. Thanks for tuning in, everybody, all of these years. I wish I had prepared a speech but I am underwhelmed by the occasion. Has blogging made me a better writer, or a better person? Or is it merely an indulgent waste of time? It is hard to say. I am glad that I have done it, however, and I am glad I have had a chance to follow the blogs of others, as I find I do not like the atmosphere of Facebook and that there is something nice about a little blog community, when it is responsive and feisty!

It seems fitting somehow that this milestone would occur just after a weekend in Salt Lake, where this blogging effort basically started. Front Porch productivity over the last seven years has diminished exponentially (almost perfectly so). The first year saw over 100 posts, 2006 and 2007 combined to equal that same amount, and the final 100 posts took nearly four years to accomplish.

At this rate it'll take eight years to do the next 100. Post number 500 will happen near the end of 2035, when I am close to retirement age.

This is pure quantity, of course. We are not even touching on the issue of quality.

Perhaps Middlebrow will renew his blogging efforts in the interest of competition? A blog race, maybe? Is there value in this?

It is still hard to say...!

The Value of Bottle Service

Is it that Bottle Service did not exist back when we were coming up or that we didn't go to clubs important enough to offer it? I understand the idea of the VIP room, sure, but what of this notion that all seats in a club are VIP and therefore if you want to sit down you have to shell out more than $1000 for bottle service?

For those who don't know (I didn't), bottle service is the sale of liquor by the bottle, usually in a nightclub setting, often marked up 10x to 20x, with a minimum purchase of bottles per hour. Bottle service seems to be about real estate, and having an important place to sit and drink with your posse while all the proles in tight graphic T's have to stand around awkwardly. Usually some kind of hostess brings out carafes of mixers (soda water, orange juice, cranberry juice, 7-up, etc) and makes the first round.

Then everybody gets trashed. At $400 a bottle.

K and I attended a wedding afterparty at a club in Santa Monica recently, where the bride and groom got bottle service for three VIP tables and probably dropped close to $1500 for 25 people to drink.

This seems pretty outrageous, and another sign that the younger generation is not like us and that the world is going down the rathole.

But when you look at it, bottle service may represent some kind of twisted value. That bill came out to about $60/person, which is not really an excessive night out, if you consider cover charges, and having a proper table, and the cost of buying individual drinks at $10 to $15 a pop -- no, it doesn't seem like such an atrocious deal, if you are one who likes to go out and drink...

I can't get behind it, but there is a perverted economy of scale to it.

Even if folks are critical of it because it trends toward value-based overdrinking (gotta finish that bottle that I just paid $350 for, before tip).

Oh, and hey, in case you were wondering, there is a Wikipedia entry for bottle service, and it says this: "the modern form of bottle service was pioneered in 1995 by Michael Ault at Spy Bar and in 1996, Chaos ($175 for a bottle of Stolichnaya vodka), with the express goal of creating a "barrier to entry", rather than of increasing liquor sales.

It also says this: "The cost of bottle service and the central position provided to purchasers of bottle service has lead some critics to complain that bottle service is turning night clubs into elitist dens."

Yes, that sounds about right.

Goondocks

Last week at this time K and I were driving up the Oregon coast en route to a family reunion in eastern Washington. We had breakfast in Astoria, before heading east to Portland for the night. While in Astoria, I got the idea of trying to hunt down the Goonies house.

Now, mind you, I couldn't care less about famous movie locations -- perhaps because they are so dime a dozen here in Los Angeles. And yet, there we were urgently cursing our slow-to-react GPS as we tried to pinpoint the Goonies house. As if something depended on it.

I didn't even like Goonies that much when it came out. K and I saw a revival of it back in February and it still isn't that good.

But I needed to see the house for some bizarre reason. Probably because it returned me to a time when such things did matter. When I wallpapered my bedroom with yellowing newspaper ads of movies from 1984 and 1985. I remember where the Goonies ad was in that room, exactly.

Then there is the matter of me wearing socks and sandals, together. Another sign that I'm not fourteen anymore, not even close.

Hungry Monster

After many months of delay, K was finally able to shoot the first three episodes of her new web series, Hungry Monster.

If one had to describe this program in Hollywood hybridized terms, one could say it's a strange cross between Thu Tran's Food Party and Isabella Rossellini's Green Porno.

But that doesn't really do a good job of explaining it either.

K wants to explore the history and preparation of various Taiwanese night market foods. The first episodes focus on stinky tofu, batsang (Taiwanese sticky rice tamale), and boba.

I don't know why most children's programming becomes so psychadelic and subversive, but I am happy to report that Hungry Monster seems to be following in that tradition!

Now comes the long editorial slog. Hopefully it'll be available in November or December, and then we can make a real second season!