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Movie Review: THE MESSENGER

When I sat with Woody Harrelson and a group of other movie people in a comfy travel bus a couple of years ago talking about movies, he wasn’t that impressive. He was a little guy who really didn’t take up a lot of the room. When some of us took the conversation off in the direction of esoteric films, he pulled out of interviewee mode and you could see his real affection for the art. I avoid celebrities like the swine flu because my ego is big enough without trying to try to share the room with another one. What I liked about Harrelson was that filling the room didn’t seem important to him. He was about the work.

 

I realize this may sound like name-dropping, and I guess, technically, it is. But when I saw him fill up the screen with the character of Captain Tony Stone in THE MESSENGER, I realized his performance was a transformation. I think they call that acting. He acted the hard-ass role in recent films, but he took it over the top and did it with a smirk on his face. In contrast, THE MESSENGER is a serious film addressing serious issues. Director Oren Moverman is not subtle in making Woody present with the intensity of a Marlon Brando or Robert Duvall. Matter of fact, there are more than a couple references to APOCALYPSE NOW. Yet Harrelson embodies these familiar iconic martial edifices and pushes out from there. 

 

Captain Tony Stone (Harrelson) has been assigned Staff Sergeant Will Montgomery (Ben Foster) as a partner in performing the duty of notifying the next of kin that their loved ones have been killed in action. Will is just back from Iraq, with emotional wounds more debilitating than the broken bones and compromised vision he received in battle. He is a man who left a life at home that did not want him back when he returned. This is not new ground, but THE MESSENGER avoids being derivative, thanks to Ben Foster’s ability to reach past the cliché “coming home” drama and pull us into the character’s damaged soul. He has suffered and bled, and the military machine that put him in harm’s way now treats him like a damaged weapon. For the remaining three months of his service he will be knocking on doors delivering the worst news people will likely ever hear. It was either the most thoughtless assignment for him or the very best. That, however, was not a consideration when he was assigned.

 

The job brings its challenges. Each contact is different. No two people react exactly the same. In a devastatingly apt cameo, Steve Buscemi plays a father on the receiving end of a visit. His grief-driven rage turns toward the messengers, and that shakes Will to his very core. But he does not run. He takes it. These scenes are so well rendered that we feel we can’t turn away—more out of respect than shock.

 

As the characters develop, we see how the two messengers compare and contrast. When they have to deliver the news to Olivia, an unremarkable army wife played perfectly by the usually ravishing Samantha Morton, Will is moved by her stayed and controlled reaction. She even shakes their hands and tells them she knows how hard this must be for them. Will is drawn into her life one cautious inch at a time. There is a connection that is more than the emotional Velcro that can make grieving people stick to each other. It is the most genuine connection he has made with the world since he has returned.

 

In modern movies we have had our cinematic experience whittled down to two-second chunks. In THE MESSENGER, several long scenes are done in one shot. For many it feels uncomfortably voyeuristic to watch something unfold in real time without looking away. We are so used to turning away. Rapid cuts between scenes raises adrenalin, not awareness. A continuous thread makes it more like real life. We are in the room watching two men communicate deeply without using direct words. We are the TV watching them. But it doesn’t become uncomfortable. It becomes a bit of a gift to travel with them, to feel the truth as they do. When Will and Olivia find themselves in a place where they have to choose what happens next, the viewer is sitting in the same kitchen watching two people try to do the right thing, because these characters are the type of people who want to do the right thing. And we love them for it. Because we all know what it feels like to love someone that way.

 

Harrelson’s character, Tony Stone, lets his addictions be his moral compass. He is an asshole and knows it. He revels in it. It’s better than feeling his pain. He’s warned Will not to touch the next of kin. His emotional detachment from them and their grief only serves to feed his addiction. He is enraged when Will engages with the bereaved—attending to their needs rather than the rulebook. Stone’s anger at Will really lets Harrelson fill the room.

 

THE MESSENGER is a complex movie rendered masterfully, making it accessible to even the least militarily inclined. Anyone can see that this film is about healing. There are many people coming back to our community who have served in the desert and have seen things that make them different people. This movie is a messenger from the future to tell us, and them, we can mend from this war.

 

This all may sound like THE MESSENGER is a heavy movie. Well, it is. Good cinema is often not easy. Then again, this is the time of year for nauseating music and the mercenary manipulation to spend. It is a great time for a movie of substance. THE MESSENGER is the perfect antidote for holiday cynicism. THE MESSENGER starts Wednesday, November 25^th—roughly 30 shopping days before Christmas.

2000 miles. 5 days.

Yosemite was a place that I'd never visited, and it was far enough away to liberate the white noise of the daily grind from my consciousness. I pointed the front wheel of the motorcycle south and rolled out of the Willamette Valley into the mountains--and out of those mountains into another valley in another state, hundreds of miles away.

The miles in California are never dull on a 900-pound motorcycle with 300 pounds of rider and luggage ski-jumping into the air from the depth and rise of one pothole after another. The traffic system--à la Marquis de Sade--blends nicely with the aggressiveness of Californian drivers. My newly acquired GPS unit was a welcome beacon shining up from the dash; the road signage was so poorly placed and obscure, it might as well have been in Braille.

A note about GPS units: They work wonderfully until they do not. Nothing spells "annoying" like being in the middle of the Sacramento highway spaghetti at night. In the midst of this, the GPS reported that the desired exit was .5 miles away, and then, of course, the screen was taken over by an error message. Rebooting something on the dashboard in rush hour traffic while dodging road craters incites immense appreciation of Corvallis traffic and roads. Note to self: when using the GPS unit to plot a course, do not shut it off mid-trip thinking you can take it from there. These units are programmed to plot counter-intuitively. Any user foolish enough to try flying solo may end up flying lost. 

Despite all this, I made my way into Sacramento.

When I travel into Sacramento, I feel like I'm wearing clown shoes while stomping through the minefield of family relations. My sister-in-law Mimi has spent the last few years dispensing with any form of co-dependence, which means I can use her house as a hub without having her tell me who else I should be visiting nearby. This trip was about The Miles, not about visiting. 

From Mimi's place it is 173 miles to Yosemite National Park. There are those who can describe the Yosemite spirit and soul far better than I. All I can do is write about how it made me feel.

I felt El Capitan before I saw it. This monolith of granite juts out of the ground with no clue telling you it should be there. Imagine paddling a raft in the fog and then having the iron hull of a freighter appear just before you hit it. I looked over my shoulder to see a curtain of rock that wasn't there a minute ago, and then damn near ran off the road when I craned my neck to see how high it went. When the bike was parked and I could really look at this thing, I uttered an inarticulate exclamation. The view was so unsettlingly astounding, it was all I had at the moment.

The Tioga Pass runs 60 miles from the center of Yosemite National Park east to Mono Lake, at around 10,000 feet altitude. The entrance to the Tioga Pass opens just before the sign promising no gas for the next 50 miles. Oddly, this was right next to a gas station unabashedly selling gas for $4.00 a gallon. After that taste of capitalism, I launched into the adventure. I began the trip over the Pass late in the afternoon. Soon enough, I discovered that the fires that had raged through Yosemite this year inundated this road in smoke. This road is so twisty it makes a seismograph needle during an 8.2 magnitude quake look like a flat line. When the sun went down, the forest revealed pockets of glowing oranges and reds between the pickets of trees. It looked like the descent into hell. It was tough enough looking for wildlife crossing in the dark without the smoke; navigating my way through this made me repent every sin. 

As twilight faded and the turns got tighter, I realized there are only three things that really frighten me: my wife, payroll taxes, and this damn road at night. But, there was something that made it impossible to go back. It's like a runner wanting to finish a race, or a matador, or a boxer; this thing was not going to be over until I came out the other end--even if I was pushing the bike, with a bear in hot pursuit. It was as if each turn took me closer to my demons. I couldn't see them, but like El Capitan, they lurked. As the tricks that kept panic at bay fell away behind me like the bike's exhaust note, I fought hallucinations of leaping deer and unextinguished flames. The panic couldn't win.

And it did not. Welcome to Mono Lake.

Describing Mono Lake, once again, should be left to those with a better mastery of words than I got. This is the oldest lake in North America, and coming out of it is the youngest mountain in the world. Again, the mountains surrounding all this make our Oregon topography look pretty weak. This was all at an ear-popping 7,000 feet above sea level. (A mother of twins once told me that nursing helps keep the baby's ears from popping at altitude. Since I was on the motorcycle, I stuck with chewing gum.) 

Friends camping out by the lake had invited me to come hang out. With all this topography, it was little wonder my cell phone didn't work too well. I clung to this belief until I realized my room was literally 50 feet from the cell tower. (T-Mobile strikes again!) Between text messages and smoke signals I figured out where their campsite was.

Then the altitude sickness set in. Now, I'm pretty lucky that I get it only about one out of ten times that I'm up over 7,000 feet. I know what it is, and the worst part usually lasts only an hour. I spent the rest of the day hydrating and keeping it low key, and then I was done with it. After the festivities were over, I loaded the bike and wrote the directions to my friends' campsite on my hand. Listen, those who do not do motorcycle touring may not understand how terrifying it is taking a heavy road bike down a gravel/sand road. Now add to that a touch of nausea accented by a questionable sense of balance. Boy howdy. After a couple miles of prayer, I found their spot. And yes, it was as advertised; those Cheltons know how to camp. They have done their time sleeping under tarps in the snow and have earned the right to use a camper. Thus they had the facilities to feed me well, give me coffee as good as any at sea level, and offer me a place to sleep for a couple of days. I explained that this trip was about The Miles and the road was calling. A different trip would be about camping. And so I took off.

It was time to go back over the road that had tried to drag me down the night before.

This time the Tioga Pass reached out and grabbed me by the chest. Every turnout and vista point was another peek into the soul of beauty. Being delighted by day by that which had terrified me at night made it all the more precious. 

At one particularly well-populated vista point, I mingled with others to gaze at the back of Half Dome. As I was returning to my laden bike, I heard someone call out my name. Incredible. When can I ever get away? A couple of Darkside regulars were touring the park as well. I was a little embarrassed about getting right up next to them; I hadn't been standing too close to my razor and was still sweating out some of the altitude sickness. After the pictures were taken and goodbyes were bid, I realized how really appropriate this meeting was. One of my favorite Avalon artifacts is a photo that a group of cinema fans took after climbing to the top of Half Dome. The word "Avalon" is spelled out in rocks, at the feet of the sprawled and grinning group. One of these days, I'll have to hang that photo at the Darkside.

I made my way down into the park. As the day wore on, I started looking for the road to Glacier Point, perhaps a little more frantically than I should have been. It struck me that this was not the spirit with which I'd started this trip, so I pulled the bike over in the first parking area. This was not altogether unpleasant. I walked into a meadow, balled up my jacket behind my head, and stretched out. And there I spent the next two hours, watching the sun set across the craggy contour of Half Dome. The shadows did an eerie slow-motion shimmer across the rock face, changing shapes and textures by the minute. There was nothing else or any place else I wanted to be at that moment. This is what I had come for.

When I embraced photography as a kid, I fell in love with the work of Ansel Adams--who didn't? I had a view camera and studied the Zone System. I moaned when Tri-x was replaced with T-Max, and knew anything less than medium format was an insult to the art. So when I took a picture of Half Dome with my digital Flip Camera, I felt like I was spray painting across the Mona Lisa. Sorry, Ansel: I too have replaced quality with convenience. 

As I was heading for the road back to Mimi's house, it struck me that I would be heading west into the glaring sunset. Self-preservation was the excuse I needed to not rush back into Sacramento. As I puttered along, I noticed people along the side of the road looking up. I parked and joined the fray. On the side of El Capitan hung two mountain climbers. They were so far up there it took a minute to see them. The scale of such small humans against such a big piece of rock was uncomfortable and sent me down the road of clichés: are we really that insignificant? I waited until the last shaft of sunlight skittered away from the mountain climbers, leaving these brave souls of questionable sanity in the dark to hang for the night, sleeping in the wind. It was a good note upon which to leave the park.

The next morning, leaving Sacramento, the forecast for I-5 was hot. Damned hot. Figuring the coast would be cooler, I headed west. That didn't go quite the way I'd hoped. Off highway 16 toward 101 the temp hit about 105 degrees. I went through two liters of water in an hour; 105-degree heat moving over you at 70 mph is desiccating. At these times I think of the mantra, "Be in the moment." But, what about when the moment sucks? My mind fled to the surf, about 100 miles away. 

When I finally dropped over the ocean side of the mountains, the temp dropped like a stone to forty-five degrees with fog. Any touring biker worth the salt of his/her sweat will tell you that no matter how hot it is where you are, bring all the cold weather gear you can pack. In the fog my GPS unit was my best friend, since my sense of direction is so bad, even in broad daylight I can't find my ass with both hands. In the fog my sense of direction was dangerous, but the GPS got me to my room in Eureka, where I peeled off soaked layers of cold weather clothing. 

I have a strange and unnatural pull toward The Trees of Mystery where Paul Bunyan stands about 50 feet tall, next to his blue ox, Babe. I felt an obligatory visit was due to that shrine of Americana before I took the Redwood Highway 199 north out of California. 

In the redwoods, the ancientness of the trees put life's little worries in perspective. If you have never traveled The Avenue of the Giants, put it on your list of Things to Do Before You Die.

After the ride the day before, the 100 degree weather on I-5 out of Medford was downright chilly. I lumbered on. Fifty miles before the Corvallis exit I stopped at a rest stop to get rid of all that water that wasn't being turned into sweat. When I came out, someone was praying over my bike. Literally, with his hand touching the handlebar. Not something you see every day. Not only do most people know to never touch someone's motorcycle, it would seem that unsanctioned praying over someone's bike must violate some rule of biker etiquette. When I approached he looked up and said it seemed to him like I had a bike that was well traveled. (The bug guts gave it away.) He then asked if it was okay if he blessed my bike. I told him I'd take all the positive energy I can get--however, I could have used it about 1,950 miles ago. He smiled and said it works retroactively, a concept that kept my mind busy for the last fifty miles before rumbling into my neighborhood.

In "Travels with Charley," John Steinbeck had this to say about the truck in which he and his dog Charley toured the United States: "I believe that American-made automobiles are made to wear out so that they must be replaced. This is not so with the trucks. A trucker requires many more thousands of miles of good service than a passenger-car owner. He is not dazzled with trimming or fins or doodads and he is not required by his status to buy a new model every year or so to maintain social face. Everything about my truck was made to last. Its frame was heavy, the metal rigid, the engine big and sturdy. Of course I treated it well in matters of oil changes and greasing and did not drive it to its limit or force it to do acrobatics required of sports cars."

I think of myself as riding a motorcycle with the same parameters. It is the most standard of models, built strong and bulky with aesthetics born of function, not décor. It has run dependably, long after most people would have traded her in on a newer model. I have not always treated her well. On this trip alone, I almost burned up all the brake pads on the hills, and in an effort to save what was left of them, stretched the primary chain using the engine compression when the brakes started grinding. Still, she has never let me down.

Lainie expects me to take these journeys without her. She prefers shorter rides. I go with her blessing and return to her relief and affection. My usual riding partner, Monty, couldn't come with me this year; our schedules didn't mesh. With a silent nod, he and I would have agreed how special it is to tour Yosemite on a motorcycle. If my cell had worked there (again, a special shout out to T-Mobile), I would have called him from the meadow to brag about where I was--the same way he called me from the top of the Continental Divide on his ride this summer, when I was stuck at the theater.

With the season changing and bringing with it slick roads and seam-seeping rain, it is the summer miles that comfort my winter-bound traveling heart. In these looming dark months, stories of the road shared take my mind into the kinder weather. Alone or otherwise, people who ride know it is about The Miles, since every single one is like a warm ember in the night of winter.

Two minute video of the trip. Click here.

Forces of Habit

After I got out of the truck, I realized I had left my window open. The few tools on the floor were not likely to get stolen, but they were still mine, and I didn't want to take any chances. So I jumped back into the truck, put the key in the ignition, turned it to accessory, and with the other hand I cranked the window up. After turning the ignition off and pulling out the keys, I got out of the truck. I managed to get about 50 feet before I stopped in my tracks for a serious what-the-hell-was-that moment.
 
One doesn't need to turn on the ignition to roll up manual windows.
 
In this era of electric car windows the ignition needs to be turned on before hitting the go button. The nice thing about manual windows is that they crank up and down by hand-you know, without electricity. It was only the force of habit that had me turning on the ignition before using the hand crank to put up the window. "Force of habit" is what we call doing something that made sense at one time and is now quite stupid.
 
It's all about the memory, you know. In high school I did a little drama. Some of it was even on the stage and not in the classroom. Back in the day, I could place my hand on the unopened script and learn my lines by osmosis. Play after play, no matter what other "things" might be going on in my head I could retain lines.
 
Ah, youth. That was then. Now I'm in that time span known as "Not Youth."
 
As I get older I seem to get invited to various events where the depth and breadth of the mistakes I've made might be useful to others. Mostly I'm in it for the free food or unlimited cans of Diet Coke. Coffee will do, too. When a group Lainie is involved with put on a creative conference, I was invited to participate. This conference was scheduled during a day I had planned to spend on the motorbike. Every motorcycle that went by took a piece of my heart with it. Instead of riding the wind, I was burping it, ala Diet Coke. Anyway, at such events I usually spend about the first half hour wondering what the hell I have to offer. I'm old. The place was crawling with "young professionals" who have never driven a car with tailfins or used a phone tethered with a coiled wire. I tried to blend. As it was a local event, it didn't take long for my incognito to turn into out-cognito. "Ah, you're the movie guy."
 
People assume that because I run movies, I know how they are made. Or in an even more fantastic leap, they assume I can act.
 
And, being a little hard of memory, I forgot to qualify any help I offered to filmmakers with the caveat, "I can help with anything but acting." I generally do not do windows (glass or Microsoft) or appearances on camera. So, when I met this smart, well-spoken fellow preparing to film a fun, well-written short, I offered any pitiful advice or ghetto equipment I might have sitting about. But he decided I needed to help with the acting. With no recollection how I got conned into this, I found myself poking around the bottom floor of the Valley Library looking for the little room where I would do a screen test. I told them I was only doing this to prove I was not the one for the part.
 
Production started last Saturday.
 
I showed up on location: a quaint little church in Monroe. Someone draped clothes on me like I was a piece of exercise equipment. I was told what to put on and how to wear it. A nice woman told me to shut my eyes, and then she put some kind of powder on my face. When I opened my eyes, someone was putting a flower on my lapel. Someone else told me where to stand. A young woman stood next to me and announced she was my daughter. It took half a beat for me to stop trying to remember whom I was dating 23 years ago and remember that I was in a movie. Yeah, I was her dad-in the story. For this I was grateful, even though she was a lovely young woman.
 
I then remembered I forgot to memorize my lines. The script osmosis ability fled my arsenal of tricks right about the time I found my first gray chest hair. Fortunately, this day I had nothing to do but loom and look on disapprovingly. No lines. Looming: yeah, I can do that.
 
I may have mentioned that these filmmaking folks are a bunch of very nice, professional people. They have professional lighting done by some guy who seems to know his ass from an arc light. The talent has talent. The camera people are not afraid of the director so they admit when the boom or other camera comes into the frame. For the life of me, I cannot remember the names of most of them. When I was doing drama in high school, my drama teacher was half the age I am now. Today I can remember his name. But the name of the gal who made me try on six sports jackets? Not a clue.
 
Whether movies or writing, it is all about the stories. I arrogantly pound out characters in little rows and assume you are reading the words. Really, I'm writing something I don't want to be forgotten. In BLADE RUNNER, Rutger Hauer's character is on the rooftop looking down at the dangling Harrison Ford. The rain is falling and Hauer says, "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die."
 
Maybe these words are here so that a few people will push past the un-clever innuendo and piles of unnecessary adjectives to see a record of now because now will be gone and I want there to be a trace. There is a story on the other side of the self-aggrandizing writing that has to with part of a big building in a small town and how people came together to fall in love, one frame at a time; become enraged, one reel at a time; laugh out loud, one scene after another. This is the reel story. The short movie I'm classing up with my presence is a story from the mind of the writer/director. It is his story. He may not know it now, but he is telling this story for the future. Even more so, the real story of the film is the ability of a group of people to volunteer their time and effort for the chance to be part of the telling of this story. I stood for 45 minutes to get 15 seconds of film. What we see on that two-dimensional screen is a molecular part of a multi-dimensional process that delivers that image to the screen. The story of the people who made the movie is as indelibly printed on that film as the image itself. These are the things to be remembered.
 
The object of writing is to make a two-dimensional row of characters into a mental three-dimensional image. On a good day I realize I'm the luckiest guy in the world: I wield the machinery that melds writing and film into stories rendered onto a screen before the audience. I get to stand in front of a camera, behind a projector. From these points of view, I get to watch something come into being that will likely outlive all the people who made it. And, above all of that, I get to write about it. Hot damn.
 
So, it is all about remembering the stories. Though they are all destined to fade away like tears in the rain, perhaps moving on to whatever comes next will be a little easier if we know we left behind stories (and, perhaps, DNA) more durable than the bodies we are vacating. As the lights go out, it might be comforting to believe that someone might eventually read some words or watch some film we couldn't take with us. We live and die in the hope that in that rain of tears, there was one droplet that didn't wash away unnoticed.

Yep, it's hot.

When the snow hits, people can be seen cutting through the slush, wildly over the speed limit, plowing ahead like they are riding on magical Velcro strips glued to the road. They drive in blissful and reckless ignorance of the fact that they are, in actuality, driving on hard rubber tires that are bound to the laws of entropy. It would be comical if the only casualties of such hubris were said idiots and their steel projectiles. But no, pedestrians assume the crosswalks grant them protection from two tons of automotive steel coming at them across the ice. As soon as the little white dude in the "Walk" sign is truckin', people push off from the curb with nary a glance for cross traffic. Ouch.

So now comes the heat. It was 108 degrees Wednesday, continuing the "hot as the gates of Hell" trend of the last week or so. I thank the gods of air conditioning that I managed to resurrect the antique system in my car before the Willamette Valley became an oven. However, as I drive to work in relative comfort, I see people pedaling by on bicycles with the same aplomb as someone on a cool seashore enjoying a fruit drink with a paper umbrella in it. Unless these cyclists are from an equatorial country, I have to wonder what they're thinking. I have been riding a motorcycle for decades, and yet nothing makes me feel as vulnerable as being on a bicycle on city streets. And, maybe it's just me, but doesn't roasting in such heat during physical exertion tend to slow down ones' mental facilities? Bicycling with altered faculties seems like a really bad idea. And considering that folks in this part of the country see little reason to keep the ol' AC tuned and ready, there are a lot of people driving around in cars hotter than hot-pants, people who would rather be anywhere but in a hot-pants hot car dealing with a sun-addled bicyclist careening down the street being chased by sunstroke. Say goodbye to courtesy. I get the "being green" thing: riding a bike to save wear and tear on The Mother. Heck, we at the Darkside went over to compostable cups (speaking of doing the least you can do). However, I can't help but think that the gas used for the ambulance ride would defeat the bicyclist's intent.

I have a dear friend who loves to eat at Shari's and insists I meet him there when I pass through town on my way to pick up film. (As if an ambulance ride and dining at Shari's has any relation--no, none at all.) Think of it as Denny's with more artificial foliage, and booths that are more comfortable and offer some privacy. Yes, I'm aware that just about everything they serve comes right out of the back of a Sysco truck, but I took a chance on the Pesto Mushroom Grilled Chicken Sandwich and was impressed. My buddy has been going there so long he has an avuncular familiarity with the wait staff. There is little employee turnover at this restaurant, so the help knows what he'll order before he does. By association, I am just as transparent. Usually my iced tea gets to the table before I park the car.

On this particular trip it was hot--damn hot. My friend's mom, who has known me longer than my own parents, spotted us in our booth as she lined up with the rest of her luncheon party. She came over to give me a hug.

There are about ten people in the world for whom I will strenuously watch my damn language. She is two of them. So, with that being said, she knocked over a glass of ice water, right into my lap.

Sweet Sparkling Jesus, that was cold.

It is quite a chore to ease the mortification of someone who has just applied 16 ounces of ice water to your manly bits (or whatever bits you are sporting). I smiled and made light. She apologized. I laughed, and promised I would never write a column about it.

The wait staff was on the scene with assorted absorbent goodies. With the seat of the booth dry, soon I had nothing more than soaked jeans between God and Country. I remained nonchalant as my buddy's mom made for the door with apologies trailing behind her like an embarrassed cloud. As soon as she was out of earshot I speculated I might never pee again. Suddenly the 90+ degree heat outdoors seemed enticing.

Not one to cut a good visit short, I spent a moist couple of hours finishing my sandwich and fries, my buddy's fries, and way too much of that kind of coffee that turbo-charges peristalsis. When the time came to leave, I hoped to make a stealthy exit while no one was at the register to view my wet pants. Since the coast was not clearing, my buddy suggested we go anyway. Never one to waste potential comedy, I said, "Hang on. I gotta get rid of this coffee."

In a few seconds I announced I was done and stood up, exposing my wet pants to the wait staff at the register. With more than a couple of them pretending to avoid looking at my crotch, I said, "Sorry. Diuretics." Then I turned to my buddy and suggested loudly that he leave a big tip to cover the cleanup.

Fortunately, I had a pair of pants in my car, slated for drop-off at Vina Moses. My friend had driven his conversion van to meet with me, so I had a comfy place to change. Soon I was back on the road, with the top half of my body somewhat warmer than the bottom half.

There are less extreme cooling measures than dropping paralyzingly frigid liquids onto your lap. Or the laps of others. I made my way to Robnett's and scored one of those mister kits, like the ones they use at da Vinci days. (I can't remember the brand; it may have been Mr. Mister.) I set it up on the deck and spent an hour with my daughter, Emily, waxing philosophic under the halo of water droplets, blessedly oblivious to the hundred-plus degree heat lurking just beyond. Not an entirely unpleasant way to pass a toasty afternoon.

Of course, the best way to fight the heat is to support your local art house cinema. The Darkside Cinema has the advantage of being situated between the first and third floors of the Book Bin building. It's pretty much a thermostatic cave, making outside fluctuations in temperatures less noticeable. Our air conditioner went south for half a day and no one noticed. Inside the Darkside we're cool, friendly, well stocked with popcorn, and cool.

Not to mention that the ice water is free and refillable. Summer or winter.

July 4th, 2009

July 4th, 2009

With the changing of the face occupying the White House comes the promise of change. However, for some there is cynicism about the change being good. Those who tend toward cranky say the decay of our civilization is in full swing, and soon our political system will be as past tense as the Roman Empire: time to grab the flag and get the hell outta Dodge.

To this I say, ""Need help packing?"

Many people notice the whisper of a Canadian accent that belies my northern lineage. During the years we Americans had to live under a Bush, people would ask why I didn't move to Canada, being that I had access. The easy answer to that is two-part. First, I like it here. Secondly, I don't like Canada.

I love all my relatives who live in Canada. I love the lay of the land in Canada. I love the diversity of the big cities and the safety amid the cosmopolitan mix-less common here. In my tortured opinion, to enjoy these Canadian pluses one must endure the huge Canadian negative-namely the seething hatred of the U.S. that is churning just below the Canadian surface.

A few years ago I was going to start the biggest anti-"Tourism Canada Campaign" my humor and venom could muster. The inspiration for this came when I was hit by a car while walking in a crosswalk in downtown Victoria, B.C. The driver was drunk and when I got up I guess I was a little scary, being that he took off in a hurry. My traveling companion insisted on calling the RCMP (cops), which I insisted was a bad, bad idea: I would live. Not inclined to listen to me, my companion made the call. As soon as the cops found out we were Yanks, their attitude turned nasty, telling us there was nothing they could do since we wouldn't likely be coming back from the States to go to court. They were not polite about it. They wouldn't even take the license plate number of a possible drunk driver. Alas, I knew this is exactly how this would play out. I've lived there. I've endured this prejudice.

Someone of a pro-Canadian bent might ask how this "Perceived Anti-Americanism" is so different than the American prejudice rampant in France. First, the distaste the French hold for us is far from subtle. Second, have you ever been to France? It's worth the crap from the locals.

But this is not the main reason I would not move to Canada. The real reason is that The United States of America is my country. The bad guys in government and business cannot have it. They are not going to push me over a border so they can have their way. I'd rather stay and fight for what I believe this country to be and can be, rather than vanish into the north, thinking I can blend in by wearing hockey jerseys and ear-flapped hats. Maybe the fight here would earn me the "Don Quixote Idiot of the Year" award, but I would rather piss off our national landlords by staying here and working to improve things, than running to another country whose residents look down their noses at me.

I lived in Canada in the 1970s, when many U.S. citizens avoiding the draft were crossing the border looking for asylum. Most of these people were not cowards. Most were thoughtful people. There is a kind of person who would simply die if forced to live in a jail or a jungle. Neither of the government options offered when their draft number came up-prison or military service-would have been survivable for these people.

This is immensely different than Alec Baldwin in 2000 publicly threatening to pack up his bags and head for Canada if Bush were elected. There shortly followed a whole wave of people, both famous and not, making the same proclamation. If you're leaving the country in protest, no one who counts politically is going to notice. Matter of fact, the very people who are trying to take over the country will hold up the border-crossing gate for you. I'd rather think that just by being here, the very presence of those who disagree with the prevailing powers are making a stand.

This town is full of people who were on the front lines of the resistance to the Viet Nam war. They can tell you what it was like to watch the escalation of hostilities, one body at a time. It was the anti-war movement that created the Case Church Amendment.

The Case-Church Amendment was legislation approved in 1973 that prohibited direct U.S. military activity in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia without Congressional authorization. This ended direct U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam War, although the U.S. remained a belligerent of the war providing military support to South Vietnam until the Fall of Saigon in 1975. (Wikipedia)

The people who made this happen were not in Canada. They were here in the States, on the campuses and in the streets, fighting against creeping imperialism. They were, in effect, fighting to save their country. These people are patriots. These people were in it to make their country better. Okay, that, and for the chicks.

The peace movement in the 60s and 70s against the Viet Nam war armed future generations with the tools to fight against wars today. It fertilized the grassroots movements that moved the powers that be into the powers that were in this last election. We just saw a fundamental change in the usual White House occupants. This was best stated in a popular e-card: "We've now learned that a decimated economy, a clusterf***ed war, and the worst-run Republican campaign in history is all it takes for America to elect a black guy."

There are warriors, those who go over the oceans to fight in a war against forces that have been deemed a threat to the United States. The lesson some people have learned from Viet Nam is that there is a difference between the war and the warriors. Spitting on returning soldiers and calling them "baby-killers" proved to be an idiotic welcome for the returning disenfranchised. Those sadder-but-wiser soldiers could have been helping to bring others home-before there was a need to bring them home in body bags. Today we see people like Stephen Colbert, working with the USO to show support for the men and women sweating out their tours in the Middle East. Colbert's distaste for the war machine explodes from his show on Comedy Central four nights a week. With bludgeoning sarcasm, he lashes out at the most flagrant constitutional eviscerations perpetrated by our elected officials-violations that perpetuate the war. Stephen Colbert backed this up by going to Iraq for the troops (and the ratings). And maybe in a small way, he helped with that important distinction between the war and the warriors. In a rare break of character, the real Stephen Colbert ended his USO tour acknowledging the very real distance between the perceived service of soldiers and the "holy shit" way they really live over there.

To me, this is a sign that people on both sides of the picket line and the aisle are working together to end something-regardless of how it started and for what. This is my United States.

The tobacco industry was brought to its knees because of the work done by those who chose to stick around and fight. Now I can eat dinner in a restaurant without breathing in exhaled crap from the smoker at the next table. This was a fight against the most entrenched and virulent form of political influence and lobby. We won. Our country won.

This is the country I will not leave. Gandhi pointed out that everything we do is insignificant, but it is very important that we do it. Sometimes the key is to just hang around and be one more point of light in the wash of hope that change will come. In many ways the mighty have already fallen. The machinery is turning. We can still poke at the remaining Goliaths with the sharp stick of free speech, and the right to assemble, and the right to intone the god(s) of our choice. This is real hope.

This is work that cannot be done as effectively from afar. You can see our Fourth of July fireworks from Canada. They can be viewed as a glorification of war, or as the celebration of freedom. Pick one. Or both. Or, you can see fireworks as a call to action to make this country stronger. There have been many dark clouds over this country and chances are good there will be more. However, today there is no smoking in bars. Tomorrow all children will have access to health care.

We have unprecedented access to information that we can use to effect change. Yeah, you have to surf through oceans of porn, spam, and search results topped by those who can pay the most. But with less effort than moving to Canada, you can quickly find out who is gathering to talk about, to do something about, to show movies about the clouds that darken American skies. This doesn't remove the responsibility of thinking for yourself, or the responsibility of considering the skies over other countries. But, the Internet is a tool that can make things different this time around.

For this, I am excited and grateful. I think I'll stick around and see what happens next, eh?

Reentry

The Avalon reigned over the Corvallis independent and foreign movie scene for ten years, until it blazed out in a flame of glory to the songs and dancing of THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW on the last night of her valid liquor license. Costumes and toast and noise filled the hollow of the auditorium--an auditorium that had been seeing less and less attendance due to the proliferating number of movie theater seats in a town already over-screened. But this night was the last night of the Avalon Cinema. The whys and woes were not part of the picture. It was the culmination of a grand experiment that rode a wave--a wave that was sure to crest limply, into the sands of time.

When midnight dawned on that final show, beer sales stopped. The screen became dark and people walked out into the street, stunned momentarily silent by the cool and quiet of the contrast, by the simplicity of buildings and skies compared with the chaos of revelry behind them. They walked away, leaving a trail of neon feathers and echoing laughter behind them skimming along the sidewalks trying to catch up. But when the gay partiers rounded the corner, peace stayed behind, drawn into the night sky. I stood there watching this, feeling the permanence of this change; knowing I had to shake it off since there were interviews to give and cleanup to be done and hearty pep talks to be spread among the remaining faithful inside.

The Darkside had recently stirred to life a few blocks away, inhaling the soul of the now dead Avalon.

With the cameras and hangers-on shooed into the street, I shut off the Avalon Cinema sign one last time. The buzz of neon had been a background noise in the Avalon for a decade. The room became stark in its absence.  

That was two years ago--June 2007. Now, in June 2009, I am finally able to walk back into the Avalon building. First time in two years. Oh, I'd been by there at night, peering into the window like an errant ghost afraid of its haunt. Cloaked in anonymity, I would say hello to the familiar shapes and shadows that remained of the old theater. Maudlin, yes. So what?

The nocturnal visits dulled the pins and needles of the inevitable daylight visit. The first step was to stop in at Sibling Revelry, the clothing store that came into being the same time the Avalon did. We sowed our businesses together, planting our hopes in the once fertile economic soil of enterprise. Our lives had become entwined by all the hours we spent in the same building at the same time. The Sibs, as they were known, managed to maintain a solid core of workers. Since the Avalon also saw little worker turnover we created a snug little community. We saw each other through deaths, life, divorces, and illness. We shared secrets, fears, love, and politics over counters and in the hallways. We knew each other's kids and kept up on how they were doing, while maintaining the respect necessary to get along for ten years under the same bow trusses. Dramas came and went with circumspection--as they do in every genetically or geographically bound collection of people.

The first time in two years I parked on that street in the daytime, I knew I had been missing the Sibs more than I cared to admit. The decorated pole was still outside their front door--standing there like a flowered welcoming sentry. Years of life had streamed by, but the sibs were as warm and welcoming now as they'd been throughout all the years before the Avalon became a husk.

The other part of the building that wasn't Sibling Revelry had seen two incarnations since the Avalon closed. It was this distance and change that made me feel like both an invader and a resident when I walked into what was once the Avalon lobby--my lobby. New walls turned this part of the building into something I didn't recognize. I pulled out and dusted off old memories as I looked up and saw the colour of the ceiling above and the slope of the floor below.

Two years before I wasn't sure I would survive losing the Avalon. I have in fact lived through all the losses I was so sure would take me down.

This is but one story played out in the storefronts of this town. Windows that once displayed the goods of one business now are draped with promises of a newer enterprise. One of the disadvantages of youth, besides thinking those bug-eyed sunglasses are beguiling, is having traveled fewer miles down troubled waters...without a paddle.

For many of us, this is not the worst we've seen it. The good thing about having spent some miles bailing out the boat is the knowledge that even if it sinks, the sun will come up, coffee will still taste good, and Rayban Wayfarers are still the best damn sunglasses ever made. Most of us will not think twice about once again casting ourselves into the rapids of commerce.

I think my river metaphor has been dried out into an arid creek bed.

It was one of those Oregon afternoons that's a payoff for staving off depression through the winter--except maybe this day was a little toasty. We had spent the hottest part of the day making short work of the cool mountain roads. Now we were back onto the valley floor, standing at the end of a dusty driveway. It was where its owner kept his shady oak tree, under which we now lingered. Listing on their side-stands were our motorcycles, singing out crackling and popping noises as the exhaust pipes and shields flexed their way back to ambient temperature. We three men of unsophisticated dress stood about, each with one hand in a pocket and the other holding a beer. The conversation was not likely to end up in an award-winning screenplay about quantum physics. But it was okay. It was a day off and our families were somewhere other than in earshot, and our pagers were turned off.

A sound rose from behind the rise. Like cheetahs zeroing in on an errant gazelle, we stopped our intellectual wanderings and turned toward the sound. It was a combustion engine set upon two wheels; of that we were all sure.
 
"It's an old Triumph one lunger."

"Nope. It's a side-valve Harley 45."

"I'm leaning toward a Shovelhead with loose tappets."

The sound got louder.

The first thing we were sure we'd see over the hillcrest would be a motorcycle helmet. Instead it was an exhaust pipe. Rising like antique grey sun, an old Ford tractor came into view.

We watched it go by, like we were the opening credits of King of the Hill. When it passed, after a puzzled pause one of us said, "I could use another beer." The other two nodded solemnly as we all walked from under the shady oak toward the house.

This story hasn't got a damn thing to do with the first part of this piece. However this whole essay seemed too short. In my defense, every year when the temp breaks 90 degrees I remember this particular summer afternoon.

No one said it was a good defense.

LOCAL COLOR

LOCAL COLOR is a loving look back at the pivotal summer in the life of writer-director George Gallo, a fine arts painter in real life.

Stop me if you've heard this before...Troubled teen pesters reclusive master to teach him the classical art form because school ain't doing it for him. Teen shows master his work. Master grunts at the work. Teen persists. And so on.

Sound like FINDING FORRESTER, with Sean Connery?

In LOCAL COLOR we have Armin Mueller-Stahl. For those of you not familiar with this actor, he usually plays the old German/Russian with an edge who takes over the screen when he walks into the frame. He graces LOCAL COLOR with that same presence. The guy is pushing somewhere around 80 years old and has worked his whole life, so it is very likely you've seen him in something--and noticed him.

Meanwhile.

In 1974, in the suburb of Port Chester, New York, the teenage aspiring artist John Talia, Jr. (Trevor Morgan) finds out that his favorite Russian painter Nicoli Seroff (Armin Mueller-Stahl) lives nearby. Driven by the adolescent notion that a renowned painting master would have anything to do with him, John pops over to Seroff's place to makes friends, and finds a bitter, alcoholic former painter.

When Nicoli travels to the Pennsylvania countryside for the summer, he invites John to go with him. John thinks he's going to learn how to paint. Nicoli needs a handyman. John's homophobic dad (Ray Liotta) smirks, "So, 'teaching someone to paint' is what they're calling it these days." I hope you're sitting down: John defies his dad and goes anyway.

Once in the countryside, we see the art of painting come alive as we are shown the hues and tones of the surroundings, and a glimpse into the methods that make a great work. Other sides of Nicoli's personality come to bear--primarily his sense of humor. It provides a nice contrast to the drunken rages. In an unexpected appearance, Ron Perlman (HELLBOY) is the pretentious art dealer adding to the dramatic landscape. He's not playing HELLBOY, and he is perfect in this part.

Carla (Samantha Mathis), the expected hottie neighbor, creates a focus for the kid's summer crush. Thankfully, this is handled masterfully and with sensitivity. The Carla character could have been a throwaway but Mathis added welcome depth, preventing the most significant female role in the movie from being nothing more than a place to hang a plot point. She synchronizes the recent loss of her son with Nicoli's loss of his wife to form a two-person community of grieving. Nicoli's drunken rages flow from the depths of his grief, which does nothing to relieve the tension in the master/student dynamic. However, this information gives us a deeper look and perhaps some understanding into how all these people fit together.

The most distracting thing in LOCAL COLOR is the language. Okay, we know the old Russian is pissed off--fine. But his adjectives and adverbs shouldn't be limited to one word.

LOCAL COLOR is not a perfect movie. But it has an old story most people don't mind hearing, accented with a love of its topic: painting. It is this love that threads the characters and story together into a very enjoyable summer in the Pennsylvania countryside. Those who know painting will find depth and poignancy in the way the subject is treated. Those outside of that world will be brought into it with awe and appreciation. And although we can see the story's end from a mile off, our affection for these characters allows us to grant Mr. Gallo some forgiveness.

Vertebrae and Sprocket Holes

I was trying to find the remote before my wife could see what was on the TV. Alas, it was hidden in the folds of the comforter and she walked in the bedroom to find me watching something I swore I would never be interested in. And I had no way to shut it off. The TV was ablaze with prone bodies in positions that boggled the mind. It was like a train wreck of circumstances and I was tied to the tracks.

Yes, she caught me watching a program about yoga.

As old as the practice of yoga is, it is still strikes me as "New-Agey." New-agey is a term many of us who are less evolved paste to things of a spiritual bent, things that we do not understand. For me, that would include yoga. But here I was, sitting in the bed, rummaging around in the covers, hoping my wife didn't catch me watching it.

The films you see at the Darkside are usually 35mm film. This consists of a mile or two of film, broken down into 18-minute reels that are delivered in metal cans. The film cans usually weigh in at about 75 pounds. Since I'm scaring the hell out of 50 years old, 30 years of tossing these cans around has caught me watching TV shows with middle-aged people looking healthy and pain free. How nice for them. It is a tough call--I do not embrace ANYTHING that goes on about centering my Chacos. To put the sandal on the other foot, the folks on TV seem to be moving pretty well and seem unabashedly healthy.

While my wife stood in the doorway looking at me with her hands on her hips, I realized I was busted and would need to eventually admit that I am yoga-curious. Yes, this was the first step, but we're looking at a long road before I spring for the hemp mat and the namaste tattoo. I've been dealing with the pain for decades. It will be a while before I can admit that I really do want to feel better without a daily dosing of ibuprophen and denial.

The film is shipped in spectacularly unloved metal cans that have been in use for what seems like forever. They are hexagonal tins, each the size of a small car tire. These cans are held shut by a latching mechanism that eludes description. Suffice it to say that they are an über bitch to get to latch or to get open--though they seem quite able to open themselves while they are being lifted into the trunk of a car. At which point four reels of film spill from the cans and take off running away from the car, spooling out film behind them like a celluloid wake. If you grab the tail of the film and yank it back, it hastens the speed of the fleeing reel like pulling a string off a child's toy top. At this point you try to launch ahead of the film and stop its advance by providing some sort of barrier. The problem with this is, the reels diverge at some arcane algebraic rate. This means if you stop one, the others will be left to their own momentum until they come to rest on the sidewalk or in the undercarriage of some passing semi.

The other prickly pear of this fruit basket of movie media is that film is really pretty delicate. Through the benefit of technology, the filmstrip upon which the image is printed is quite strong, but the surface with the image scratches easily.

Back when my film projectors were manufactured, film was a little on the fragile side. It could snap cleanly in the projector. And there was the small matter of film being very flammable, but if it broke it stopped pulling undamaged film through the projector. Now, the film is so strong you could uproot a tree by tying a couple layers of modern movie film between the stump and the trailer hitch of your diesel 4x4. Well, not quite that strong, but you get the idea. As strong as the film is, the thin surface layer that holds the image is still very, very prone to scratching. We have all watched a film through the bars of emulsion scratches. When you see a movie (in another theater) with an hour or two of a green nasty stroke down the center of the image on the screen, you can bet it's because the film didn't break. Which means the rest of the movie got dragged through the same problem that is scratching the film--a problem that would have broken old-school film. Since it costs over $1000 to make a new print, admitting to the studio that you trashed a print is not high on the list of things to cop to. If you see a badly scratched film on the screen, there are usually only a few reasons: The projectionist is so into social networking or his iPod he hasn't noticed that hideous sound coming from the projector. Or, he knows the print is trashed and is too chicken/apathetic to ask for a new one. Or, which is often the case if you ever do see a bad print in our theater, the theater that had the print just before we got it was too chicken/apathetic to let us know the print was trashed.

There used to be accountability for the condition of the print as it went to the next theater. Because it came to and went from the film depot. Back in the day, every Friday we dropped off and/or got our film from Portland. We gathered there from across the land, and we'd drink coffee and talk while we waited for our prints to come in from another theater. It wasn't uncommon for prints to move from the hands of one exhibitor to the next. So if the print had the reels out of order or reel three looked like it had fallen out of the film can and got caught up in the undercarriage of a Peterbuilt, we knew who did it.

The guys who ran the depot had the power to make your life miserable. If you gave them a screwed up a print and they unknowingly handed it off to another theater, you could count on a word or two next time you popped into the depot. If you really pissed them off, it was within their power to put your print in the back of the warehouse and tell you to come back in a couple of hours and see if it arrived. Though they would never do this, they had the power to do so. Usually the film was turned over to the offender when he/she had only minutes to get it to the theater before the first show.

Like any good thing, the centralization of local film distribution came to an end. Now most film comes anonymously to our door in the hands of some dude/dudette in a brown outfit. However, there are still studios that use the Portland film depot. About a third of the time I drive to the Big City and collect my prints from a big warehouse. The guy who runs my depot is an unassuming "kid" (less than 30 years-old) who puts out that quiet air of someone doing a job that is well below his ability, but who likes it that way. Maybe he does yoga. The depot is now housed in an anonymous industrial complex rather than a bustling block off of Sandy Blvd. Now the closest place to get coffee is a ubiquitous Charbucks. It's comfortably familiar that my Friday coffee fix is still overcooked black water.

Throughout all of this runs the thread that hundreds of pounds of film must be hustled from one theater to the next. It has been this way for quite some time. And for that time, people like me have been lifting and carrying these cans of film from trunk to loading dock. I drive for two hours, often in hot gridlock on 205, get to the depot, leap from the car, then lean into the trunk of my car and lift--not with my legs--the 75 pound film cans. You do not see a lot of people stretching out in the parking lot before lifting out the prints. Perhaps if you did, you'd hear less groaning when we put the prints down on the concrete depot floor. There is a certain AARP-esque social networking around comparing the reasons we groan. To be pain-free might inhibit a goodly portion of my Friday-go-to-town visiting.

Before I head back to the Heart of the Valley from Portland, I have to lift the new films into the trunk, then remain sedentary for the next hundred miles. That is, unless I stop at the restaurant supply place and get a few hundred pounds of inventory. That sound you are hearing is my back shrieking.

Someday all our movies will come to us on hard drives and servers that weigh less than my coffee machine. The guy at the depot will have to do less lifting and we will probably do less driving. No longer will it be cussing out tardy print returns over coffee. We might still be in the coffee shop, but we will be socializing and bitching through IM, FaceBook, and Twitter--whatever the hell Twitter is.

I guess there is no iPhone app that allows me to virtually stretch out my back before hefting the latest cinematic gem into my trunk. Even if there was, I guess  owning an iPhone, which I do not, would be a plus. It's really pathetic: I torture my back, wax grumpily about exercises that would help, and down the little brown pills like Gregory House M.D. downs Vicodin. I realize treating my back in this fashion makes about as much sense as treating nausea with pickle juice, but until the canonization goes through, I get to cling to some of my badder ideas.

The excuses why I have yet to move beyond my bad ideas are looking a little like last decade's laptops--quaint and of dubious value in the real world. I need to stop thinking of healthier alternatives as if they require wearing rose-coloured sunglasses and frolicking with unicorns. After all, not a lot I've done in the last 30 years has worked. Deep breath...now streeeetch for the remote...before your wife sees you watching yoga...change channel...now exhale and relax....

I wonder if they make a Harley Davidson yoga mat.

12

This is not your father's 12 ANGRY MEN.

The Russian drama, 12, uses the American play/movie as a jumping off point, but what happens after the leap is nothing like the 1957 original movie, 12 ANGRY MEN. Although the Russian version of 12 comes from a culture rich in drama and history, the story weaves in threads from current social, political, and economic conditions.

Once upon a time twelve men were locked into an old Russian school gymnasium to determine the fate of a Chechen teenager accused of killing his Russian stepfather. This is not a story about the deliberations of a dozen people who would rather be doing anything than jury duty. This is twelve stories--stories of each of the men who would rather be doing anything than jury duty. As the jurors first take their seats around the large table to deliberate, there is a homogeny of civility between and among the jurors. Individual personalities are kept hidden and they politely take their first poll of the jury. It seems the deliberations will be finished quickly, because there can be no doubt of the teen's guilt.

And then there is the one dissenting "not guilty" vote. And the veneer of civility starts peeling up at the corners.

The names are different, but the political and racial problems of Russia are not so different from our own. Each of the jurors carries into the room their lives, lives that mirror those of our own; it would be hard to find one of these twelve stories that could not be our own. These stories are told so well that each character--first referred to by his juror number, then by his profession--could be the focus of his own movie. The acting has such depth and life that you could spin these stories off, playing them out in living colour on the big screen. But here, the jurors' stories are told in narrative. The characters are rendered so perfectly and passionately that the way a cigarette is lit and the way it hangs from a hand tells you more than what the person is saying. The halt and hiss of a word plays out a scene that might be a complete act in an American film. The catch in the throat or the brushing of an eyebrow combined with the dramatic hard light from above makes words obsolete. This is a well-rendered work that starts from a familiar plot and folds back upon itself so many times that the end of the film comes too soon--even at 150 minutes after the opening credits.

Pictures, not words, narrate the sequence of events leading up to the accused boy sitting in the courtroom. He is the only person who doesn't speak during this legal process. 12 is rated PG-13. It earns this rating not from the language of the jurors, but from the on-screen depiction of the events surrounding the defendant's life. The life that presupposes his guilt.

The quiet man who offers the first not-guilty vote poses it with the request, "I want to talk, at least." They hold the fate of a young man. There should be some discussion pushed around the table before this kid is sent to a small cell for the rest of his life. The discussions evolve into something more personal--about how their lives didn't turn out the way they had planned--more than the guilt or innocence of the boy. And this complicates what seemed like an open and shut case that would be quickly voted upon so they can all get back to their lives.  

Inevitably the civility between the jurors fades. As they grow more familiar, the power struggle begins. We see a wide range of personalities, each employing his tactics to coerce the rest of the room to see things his way. When the anti-Semite, racist cab driver crosses into physical bullying, we see the strengths and weaknesses of the very different jurors. They come from the full spectrum of the Russian culture and they bring with them their own set of coping skills. It is the crossover between the assumed place of each juror that flexes the dramatic muscle of 12.

This movie had very little attendance during the first week at the Darkside. Maybe people think sitting through a two-and-a-half-hour Russian drama is not squealing good fun. The fact is, the movie is the perfect length. It takes as long as it needs to tell the story. When this happens, the viewer is engaged by the story, not the clock. (The movie is going to play another week. Who knows what happens after that; make sure you see it before the studio yanks it due to poor ticket sales.)

The sound of the Russian language is still in my head. The intensity of a non-romance tongue lashes out from the story and ensnares those not familiar with the sounds. In the darkened auditorium, when I looked down to scribble a note for this review I didn't need to see the subtitles to know what was happening on the screen. A huge part of this story is told in the sounds of the serious voices, but also in the other sounds: the steaming pipe, the badly played school piano, the bird stuck in the room, the violent light switches, the machine guns, the reverberating silences. Do not miss the chance to hear this story on the big screen.  

Neighbors

It is perhaps the ugliest one-ton van I have ever seen. And it is mine—for the time being. Most of the people that responded to my ad were “bio-heads”: those who saw the van’s diesel engine as a step toward sustainable biological energy. They want to convert it to run on the goo that collects behind restaurants. The newbies who want to get on the vegetable train (turnip truck?) tend not to know the difference between a piston and the radio tuner. But, there have been many of these people who have wrought from the barest of mechanical knowledge a reliable mode of transport that’s under the influence of plant oil.

Generalizations are easy. It is also easy to classify into some sort of social stratification the people who come to see the van. Implying that one sort is above the other.

A pair of guys in camo vests and hats emerged from their car like they were taking off tight sweaters. These guys defiantly beat anorexia, if they had ever had it in the first place. Somehow, they didn’t strike me as sustainability-oriented, so I doubted that their main interest in my van was to get into vegetable oil fuel. Now, I have lived among people who look like this, and I speak their language. This day I was dressed in grubbies and had dirty hands from resurrecting the truck, so I looked like their kind of people. To put the glove on the other foot, they were expecting what they disparaging referred to as “Someone from Corvallis.” They were men who worked with their hands, who liked to hunt, drink beer, chew tobacco, and think Palin was a good idea. Good for them. I liked them.

They wanted the engine for their tow truck—which would run on good old-fashioned dirty diesel, thank you very much. We shared stories about mechanical mayhem. When one of them took off in the van for a long test drive, I got to talkin’ with the other. He was going on about how his neighbor called the police because his trailer was parked a foot onto the sidewalk and how he had the pleasure of calling the cops when that same neighbor parked his RV in the street for more than a few days. I was, once again, very grateful to have the neighbors we have.

My wife describes our house as the one bringing down the property values in the neighborhood. That is the luck/bane of living in a “nice” neighborhood. When money is reliably passing from one wallet to the next, we fit in quite nicely with those around us. And then there is now.

Our house has seen better days. At 30 years old, there is a lot to do. When I see the neighbors’ procession of trades peoples’ vans doing everything from refinishing hard wood floors to cleaning out the heater ducts, I send up silent gratitude that these are skills I have. I can fix almost anything, though I lack the time. Our “Curb Appeal” suffers when I have to work on our cars in the driveway, rather than paying someone else to do it—in their garage. Or when we have to put off painting the house—again.

Fortunately, we are surrounded by good people whose friendship and tolerance would make it hard to sell the house and move somewhere else in Corvallis—not that our neighborhood has the only cool people in town. But, “our” people are like my old Carhartt jacket—they are comfortable and I miss them when they’ve been in the closet too long. Perhaps I could do a little better with that metaphor. However, I like living among people as familiar to me as the frayed cuffs of my rugged, mostly brown cotton duck coat.

So, for me to have my choice of neighbors and neighborhoods, it is our neighbors who have to put up with me. To keep from going even deeper into debt, I have to fix my own stuff, inside and outside.

Awesome segue. 

I'm good with cars. Really good. And I like it. Not in the way one likes kittens. More like the way people like boxing, and crossword puzzles. When an engine is ailing, one must determine why. Often it’s a guess, like a crossword. You write in the word with pencil, because if you guess wrong, you have to start over. This is a lot easier if you need only one guess. It is the same for automotive repair. You take your best shot then go in swinging. The object is to avoid doing anything that cannot be undone. You use a screwdriver or a breaker bar like a pencil with a stubby eraser—tread lightly: removing the mistake might tear the paper. 

When Sean’s number came up on my caller ID last week, I almost didn’t answer. It was the type of office day that was made for Valium and cheap beer. I was answering only the calls that would get me closer to the end of my day. Sean had nothing to offer me to that end, but he doesn’t usually call without a good reason. So I answered.

It is a homely Honda Civic, which implies there is any other kind. It would not start, he said into my ear. It was parked in a big shopping complex, so the chances of it being detected as a no-goer were slim—thus avoiding a hefty tow fee. Sean laid out the timeline of symptoms leading up to how his car came to its resting place in front of a Subway sandwich franchise. If this were a crossword, I would know what letters went into what boxes. I could’a done it in ink—I knew the answer. I grabbed my old Carhartt jacket and headed out the door.

With a grating lack of humility, I confirmed my guess and gave Sean a “Push Starting 101” lesson. With a little bucking and heaving, the old Honda came to life.
But he still had that look on his face—fear that a pyrotechnic and permanent car failure seemed imminent. This fear germinated nicely since his Honda was already running on fewer cylinders than the spark plug count.

Even though I knew I’d be pushing the neighbors’ goodly nature, I had Sean’s car in my driveway anyway. I feel these minor non-native car repairs should be kept to a minimum. Toward that end, I always meet my biker buddies outside of the neighborhood. No matter how delightful a Harley V-Twin sucking air through a big S&S and spitting it out through a couple of Vance and Hines might sound to me, the extent of my neighbors’ internal combustion celebration revolves around leaf blowers and lawnmowers. Who am I to upset that balance? So under the cover of daylight on a day when everyone in the neighborhood was home, I fixed Sean’s car. It was gone ASAP.

When his Honda stuttered up the hill from my house, I looked around sheepishly, but there were no stern gazes coming from the surrounding yards. Well, just like my cat, I figured if I got away with that…

The manual read: “Remove engine mounts from brackets and install new ones.” Seems simple. Eight hours later I was lying in the rain, coveralls soaked through, a nasty cut on my hand, and that last bolt refusing to go into the hole it came out of. But I knew I had the job against the ropes, and I was not going to back down, even if I had to smack the ref. To say my language was colourful at this point would be generous. I happened to cast a glance out from under my car and saw my neighbor’s feet. Nothing classes up a joint like fowling the air with obscenities while working on a pickup in the rain. I extracted myself from the job and apologized. She was gracious.

For a year now, this very neighbor had been trying to get me to look at a car that had been sitting lifeless in her garage for a half a decade. Now, it is not uncommon for my neighbors to pop in with an automotive question or two. But this neighbor, whose property overlooks ours, has had to overlook my busy driveway more than the others. I wasn’t going to reward such tolerance by declining her when she needed automotive help.

Riding the wave of guilt stemming from my gutter language, I walked over to her garage. I took a deep breath because I knew I was about to fall in love.

She was red with chrome in all the right places. A little worn from the years but still quite the looker. I caressed her in a way that would raise my wife’s eyebrows.

She is a 1952 MGTD. Slung low, and though the grill seemed to be bearing teeth, it felt like she was pouting. It had been years since anyone had taken her out. I was hooked and I could see my neighbor knew it. She handed me the thumb-drive with the manual on it. 

Working on this car would be like doing a crossword in an English much different than the English used in the manuals for my Chevy truck or Harley. What the hell is a spanner? When it comes to working on cars, I am a boxer. My toolbox is full of devices that force nuts and bolts to my will or they hit the canvas in a broken knockout. This MGTD needed a ballet dancer stroking a light touch, using tools made of silk and taffeta. Still, I stepped into the garage and lifted the “bonnet.” I moved slowly, as if I were leading a lady onto the dance floor. It was at this point that the hood pivot ripped posthaste from the cowling—leaving a bolt hanging, crowned with rusted metal. The sound alone made the angels cry and left me feeling a little faint. The owner was not surprised—she knew this car needed help. I thanked the God I’d been cursing just a few minutes before.

Those not impressed by the beauty of polished valve covers and the graceful coil of a fuel line will not understand how such things can lead to my near psychotic resolve to make this car live again. I had my first British love affair with English motorcycles. Marquees like Triumph, Norton, and BSA still make me smile. They also remind me of an old bumper sticker hanging on a wall in a Brit car shop: All the parts falling off this car are of the Highest English Craftsmanship. This is a humorous reminder that the English seem to think form triumphs over function. That’s American for This Might Suck.

This might be an opportunity to atone a little for all the years my neighbors silently endured my clattering diesel’s daily assent out of our cul-de-sac—fouling the air with sound and smoke from burning vegetables and dinosaur fuels. I'm sure it wouldn’t hurt them at all to see this red sprite of an MGTD flittering up the street—with a little help from me.

I'm getting better at doing my research first. My coveralls were dripping in the garage and hydrogen peroxide boiled in the cut on my hand. With my other hand it took all of ten seconds on the Internet to discover the info that would have saved me six hours of lying in the mud and grit under the truck. (I said I was getting better at doing research first, not that I had it dialed.) It made me mindful that if I made this kind of mistake with the MG, it might cost more than lost time. It could mean breaking a piece that may require years on eBay to find another. I explored the possibility I should trade in my coveralls for a tutu…or just be very careful.

The guys who came to kick the tires of my diesel van wouldn’t need too much convincing to believe that anyone who would drive a 1952 MGTD would wear a tutu. They would think the car was cute, only to wonder how much tongue weight it could handle if a trailer hitch were welded to the back bumper.

A couple of my neighbors cleave to the notion that any time is a good time to fire up the weed eater—even at 9 a.m. on a Saturday morning. I generously deem that this is not a passive aggressive way to thank me for sprinkling the ‘hood with cars so rich with personality. Truth be told, it may be their way of suggesting that occasionally warming up my yard equipment might be a good idea. And it doesn’t seem to help when I say that I eschew yard care as a matter of thinking globally by not mowing locally.

I miss a lot of the rural pursuits I enjoyed before becoming a member of the Corvallis community. I gave them up to become someone I would have made fun of, back when I owned camo clothing. But, it would be harder to give up the life I have now. And no matter how tall my grass is, I prefer popping a hood open in my driveway. It’s where I fit in the social stratification of our neighborhood.