The Gauntlet Has Been Thrown Down

On the first day of school, one of my students shared with the class that one of his favorite movies was Patton, starring George C. Scott. I mentioned that I hadn't seen it but that I wanted do, and the student answered incredulously, "You haven't seen Patton? You are NOT a man!" Maybe it was "YOU are not a man!" Or maybe "You are not a MAN!" Regardless, the implication was clear. So I threw a stapler at him. No, actually, I made some remark that included the phrase in the title of this post, and consoled myself with the knowledge that of the 20 or so movie posters displayed in my room, I would guess about seven of them include a character brandishing a gun or samurai sword. That'll show them. Wait, will they think I'm overcompensating? Dammit!

Actually, though, the movie that I hadn't seen that was causing me to question my manhood -- indeed, my qualities as a sentient being on this earth -- was Borat. Somehow, I hadn't seen it, though I'd heard enough references to "hand relief" on my Great Baseball Road Trip this summer to make me feel as though I had. Anyway, my wife and I finally caught up with it on DVD this weekend, and though we didn't laugh as hard as we would have had we saw it in a theater when it was still fresh, it was still pretty damn funny. Because I'm a dork, I was also thinking about how the makers of the film, even though they had their hands full creating a documentary/mockumentary hybrid, still made sure the film adhered to what David Bordwell calls "The Classical Hollywood Cinema" (a pattern that includes an active protagonist who undergoes change after overcoming obstacles, and closure at the end of the film). This was a concept we went over in class Friday, and I kind of rushed through it. I think tomorrow I'll talk about how Borat, despite how ridiculous much of it seems, still conforms to it. For example, the whole pursuit of Pamela Anderson to marry/make a sexy time with her gives our protagonist a goal. His obstacles include his only friend deserting him and taking his money, and finding out that Pamela is not, in fact, a maiden. Toward the end of the movie Borat even says he has changed, in part because of his "awakening" at a Pentecostal camp meeting (I thought of The Blues Brothers) here. Lastly, all loose ends are tied up, as Borat lives happily ever after with the prostitute he met in America. Anyway, as revolutionary as the movie was in terms of the outrageousness and nature of its humor, I wonder if part of its popularity is due to it giving the audience a story it was already familiar with -- the underdog coming out on top.

Summer School, Part II

I only used that as a title for this post since I would look like more of a jackass than I already do if I didn't tack on at least one more Roman numeral to this "series" before summer officially ends (tomorrow, when I go back to school). Although it sounds counterintuitive to say I will update this thing more often during the school year, it's pretty hard to do worse than once every two and a half months.

I'm starting a classroom blog with my five film class sections, and I recently read a book (OK, part of a book) that said if you want your students to actually enjoy posting in their blogs for class assignments, then the teacher better enjoy it, too. So I'm enjoying this, dammit.

I think I set my bar too high when I started out. I was hoping this would turn into something like one of the film blogs listed to my right, but I realize that's unrealistic. The truth is, I don't know what I want this space to look like yet -- observations about teaching? Flm? Pop culture? Rustic French hounds? All of the above? -- so I'll just keep doodling periodically until I figure it out. I always thought I liked writing, but the facts are that I've pretty much always written on deadline, whether it was for the newspapers I worked for or for the term papers I wrote. The only other significant piece of writing I've produced that hasn't been motivated by fear of loss of employment or academic standing was one short story, and that was something like five or six years ago. Will someone who reads this threaten to fire me from the blogosphere if I don't post within a week?

Summer School, Part I

I've been lucky enough to teach a semester-long high school film class for the last four years, and next year I'll be lucky enough to start teaching a second semester. That means a big part of my "job" this summer is to watch scads of movies -- not a bad gig.

The new class will focus on six directors, and we'll be watching three films from each director, looking for a unity of theme and style within each director's body of work. Essentially, that mean's we'll be applying the auteur theory throughout the semester. However, I also plan to talk about the limits of the auteur theory -- I don't want to leave students with the notion that all of a director's films are the same, and that there's always a coherent and logical progression throughout a career. I'm envisioning the class as a series of snapshots -- here's this director early in his career, here he is later -- what's the same? What's changed? Like snapshots, these films might or might not be representative of the dominant theme or style a director has employed throughout his career. I'm sure there are pictures of Lindsay Lohan somewhere in which she doesn't look coked up, for example.

Speaking of Lindsay, she starred in Robert Altman's last film, A Prairie Home Companion, one of many of Altman's films that employs a large, ensemble cast. This is the first thing many people think of when they think of Altman, but earlier in his career Altman spent most of his time deconstructing genres in films with smaller casts, like McCabe & Mrs. Miller, The Long Goodbye, and Thieves Like Us.

Anyway.

So I've been thinking about which Hitchcock films to use with my class. Two of them are gimmes (for me, anyway) -- Rear Window and Vertigo. They're acknowledged masterpieces, plus I taught them in the existing class for four years, so I'll be on some solid ground when I'm starting out. Both employ the same lead actor (Jimmy Stewart) as a physically and/or psychologically wounded protagonist who can no longer work at his action-filled job, and ends up filling his time by spying on people. A lot of subjective point-of-view shots and long, voyeuristic sequences without dialogue ensue. Eventually, the female protagonist puts herself in danger in order to please the man -- results vary. None of Hitchcock's other films are as similar to these two as these two are to each other, but that's OK (Notorious and Psycho probably come closest). It frees me up to pick a snapshot from earlier in his career, his often-overlooked British period. I'm thinking of going with The 39 Steps, a 1935 gem that is the best early example of his "wrong man" films, movies in which a man is picked seemingly at random and accused of a crime he didn't commit, and a double-chase ensues -- the police and/or bad guys after the wrong man, and the wrong man after the truth to clear his name. It's very different than Rear Window and Vertigo, but the more I think (and read) about it, the more I think that's OK. There's still enough there to connect the dots from 1935 to '54 and '58 (critical looks at male/female relationships, the woman risking herself for the man, telling stories with images, ineffectuality or oppressiveness of police, etc.), and I think the students will benefit from seeing a different-looking snapshot. It's as important to look at the differences between a director's films as it is the similarities.

The Bastard-in-Chief

The guy pictured in the center used to be the editor-in-chief of The Minnesota Daily, one of the best college newspapers in the country; he composes the frequently hilarious Red Hot Shop prose for target.com; he's the commissioner of our fantasy football league, and yet, despite this pedigree and these time constraints, he still finds time to Photoshop his head on to the body of an even bigger jackass for the purpose of a fantasy football league "news" story.

It should come as no surprise, then, that he is also the tournament director for an annual golf get-together known as The Bastards (sounds kinda like The Masters, get it?). The event, in its seventh year, entails a bunch of the Bastard-in-Chief's friends descending upon a local golf course for two-man, best-ball scramble. Heckling, drunkenness, and witty T-shirts ensue (this year's slogan was taken from Anchorman: "We've been coming to the same party for seven years. And in no way is that depressing"). This year marked just my fourth appearance in The Bastards, and for the third time my playing partner was the proprietor of this blog. Somehow, we actually won this event a few years ago -- it remains infamous because Rand wore black soccer shoes, while the rest of the competitors dressed, well, less Ragstock-y. Our chief prize for the victory was a pair of red smoking jackets. If you know anything about The Masters, that's funny. Unlike The Masters, however, we had to give the jackets back when we didn't win the following year.

Anyway, this year we got our asses handed to us because, as it turns out, neither Rand nor I can hit an iron. Whenever one of us would start to go down the drain by hitting another execrable approach shot, the other would be swirling right behind him by hitting something even worse. In the end, one of the highlights of the day would turn out to be listening to a loud, profane tirade against NBC golf commentator Jimmy Roberts while we were watching the U.S. Open in the clubhouse after our round. One of our opponents took great offense to Roberts' penchant for melodramatic human interest stories, calling him a "syrupy motherfucker." He continued to torture this metaphor with references to waffles, pancakes and, for some reason, pizza. Watching the final round of the U.S. Open on Sunday, I had to agree with this assessment of Roberts, who I will now call Jemimah Roberts. Toward the end of the round, Roberts did a kind of on-air essay, pontificating on the career of leader Angel Cabrera. Apparently, his nickname is "The Duck," leading to Roberts using the cliche -- not once, but twice -- "water off a duck's back" to describe how the portly, chain-smoking Argentine was shrugging off the pressure of leading the final round of a major.

Cabrera, of course, went on to hold off Tiger Woods and Jim Furyk to win the U.S. Open. It was hilarious to see him smoking as he walked (waddled) down every fairway to try to calm himself down, while behind him, Tiger, whose biceps kick the hell out of his red Nike shirts, couldn't make up ground. In addition to the money, fame, and trophy Cabrera received, he also deserves a red smoking jacket.