The Movie That [Should Have] Started a Revolution

Okay, the title is a bit of an overreaction. Either that or it needs clarification: I'm not talking about an actual gunpowder-and-guts revolution like that little tiff we had with King George, nor the strong surge of noncooperation that freed India from the British. I'm talking about a cultural revolution-- a swift, sudden, and mass re-wiring of the way we view our fellow human beings.

The reason I watch movies so often is not because I mistake them for real life, nor because I prefer the simulated human interactions therein to those with real people. Neither of those items hold true for me. I watch movies for a number of complex reasons, the pertinent one of the day being that it always amazes me the way some films can either galvanize and polarize the public... or simply be allowed to be relegated to the status of "cute, moderately successful and perfectly harmless message movie." For instance, Spartacus ignited a war over censorship that raged on into the early 90s; David Lean's Doctor Zhivago, on the other hand, became little more than a 200-minute sleeping pill with a repetitive score and some requisite themes about individuality and the strength of the human heart.

The movie I'm about to discuss, unfortunately, has become a disciple of the Zhivago tradition. The difference: it's actually worth three and a half hours (although it lasts less than half of that time) and should have become something big. But, being an independent comedy, let's face it, it never had a chance.

Today's movie, class, is called Were the World Mine. Simply put (if you can put it simply), it tells of the bizarre events that transpire when a far-out English teacher decides to put on a production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream... at the all-boys high school where she works. She casts a reluctant but shockingly talented guy named Timothy in the role of Puck. Timothy-- being gay-- has been abused by his schoolmates for years, and the play invites more and more trauma into his life, particularly from the school rugby team (yes, rugby) and its alarmingly macho coach, who is not pleased with the thought of the rugby players playing the likes of fairies and girls. Meanwhile, Timothy gets fed up with all the attitude, and finds, between the lines of the play's text, the recipe for Cupid's Love Juice, which, when sprayed on someone's eyes, causes them to fall in love with the first person they see.

Timothy sprays it on everyone, starting with the entire rugby team, who are soon pairing off like jackrabbits; the rugby coach, who develops a burning passion for the principal; the principal's creepy, cosmetic-hawking wife, who becomes unnaturally enamored of Timothy's bewildered mother, etc. One girl's would-be boyfriend ends up pining for Puck while not one, but two, cheerleaders are trying to catch her eye. Most of the students' parents, however, seem to have missed the memo, demanding that the English teacher be fired and the play be canceled. The teacher seeks out Timothy, who's gotten what he wanted but caused a dangerous mix-up, and must set things straight (no pun intended) at the play, which will, in fact, go on.

The point is that Were the World Mine raises not just one, but a handful of issues that are very important. The most important is the fear and ostracism that gay teenagers face, from both the adults they should trust and the peers with whom they should be friends. This is a situation that must be remedied immediately. In some cases, it can contribute to teen suicide; but it's still reprehensible in less dire circumstances. It's amazing how people are willing to start throwing stones at perceived sinners, even though Jesus expressly forbade it. And adolescence is torturous enough without teens having an extra helping of pain and insult heaped on them. Contrary to popular belief, homosexuality is no more a choice than humanity. Well, genetic humanity, at any rate.

Less critically, the movie calls foul on high schools that emphasize athletics and demand preferential treatment over the arts. I'm not saying either deserves more than the other. A reasonable society should accomodate both. The arts are a part of our culture's past as well as its future; athletics, on the flipside, promotes health and (in the ideal conditions) healthy competition. I don't believe a country with such a high obesity rate can afford to abandon physical education, but if that's all our schools take pride in, we'll have a very fit, but very illiterate, nation.

Sadly, no one watched the movie. Well, okay, a lot of people did-- it was a festival flick, and a very popular one, at that. But given that there are no (fiery) explosions and it's not a remake of a slasher flick, it never got the wide exposure our society so richly needed it to get. So watch it! Spread the word! Share it with everyone you know! No matter what your political leaning, this is a crucial movie. If more modern films were like this, we'd get an added bonus: we might occasionally have something worthwhile to see at the theater! (No offense to Toy Story 3 or Fantastic Mr. Fox.)

He Who Is Tired Of Sarcasm Is Tired Of Life

Such a man would have sat in front of a blank computer screen for about five minutes without thinking of anything sad about the world to comment on. He would be so dull and run-down that he would insert all kinds of extraneous and redundant words into his blog post and capitalize every single letter in his title line.

It isn't that the week has been uneventful. I mean, for crying out loud, I wrote about music last week, didn't I? Old music. Music that you've probably never heard from movies you've probably never seen because I have extremely personalized tastes... but I digress. That isn't the topic for this week. But when I logged on to my home site and saw the so-called "news" and its top headline-- Lady Gaga's showstopping outfit for the VMAs-- I was suddenly hit with a soul-crushing wave of sheer... inertia. The world has gone beyond what I want to imagine it as, so I know longer try to imagine (or rather fathom) it.

I mean, you would think that nine years after the barbarity and tragedy of 9/11, people finally would have realized that Americans need to accept one another and stand together as one country. But instead of the wonderful, heart-swelling sense of national oneness I felt even at the age of ten after the events of that day, I would say that, in terms of interpersonal relations and cultural consciousness, we're at an even worse place. In a nation where we were once so afraid of Communists that we ostracized anyone who fit our stereotype of what a Communist should be (primarily those of Russian descent), only the names and stereotypes have changed. Now we shun all Muslims because of a minority among their numbers who are more vocal and who menace us. Gay marriage is still illegal in most states, and gay parents are viewed as incompetent. After 9/11, our priorities should have been thus. 1: the heartbreaking exercise of cleanup. That was dealt with with resolve, stamina, and heroism. 2: the swift, furious, and precise pursuit of those responsible. We all know how that one worked out. But at least we gave it a shot (however far from the bullseye). Not like 3: securing the same freedoms of marriage, parenthood, and recognition for everyone. Making sure that a widow/widower/orphan of such a day wouldn't be denied key information because of something so trivial as "legal relationship" if-- and may every force of divinity and nature forgive me for the inevitable thought we've all had-- something like that should ever happen again.

But nine years later, I still see the same hateful rhetoric being spewed out to keep these rights from others. It is important to note that I realize that not every opponent of gay marriage is hateful. But what can I say? Everyone is equal. And I used to think what made this country so great was its sense of (forgive the sexist word) brotherhood. But I no longer see that.

The reality is simply this. The legality of marriage is a civil concept, not a religious one. Why else would (heterosexual) civil ceremonies be as valid under U.S. law as spiritual ones? The federal or state governments both lack the authority to use such a broad criteria as gender to deny the civil benefits of marriage. Each individual religion can deal with the issue as it will, at least in my opinion, because just as the government can't deny the right to marry, neither can it deny the right to worship as an individual or religious body sees fit, however personally we may disagree with their teachings. That's that "First Amendment" thing we've been hearing about... which, incidentally, makes it possible for me to ramble on in my second overly long post in a week.

Sexual, religious, and familial morals are not to be enforced or judged by the state. One person's civil rights-- be they the right to marry or the right to micromanage the institution by establishing gender rules for it-- are not up for a vote.

And what do I say to a person who would tell a child that their home life is abnormal and their parents are living in sin? I would say this: what kind of horrible person says something like that to a child? Or about a child?

Another grand truth: there is no normal home life. We were all raised under different circumstances. The so-called "traditional family" also didn't exist until one group or another tried to corral everyone under the same, highly exclusive moral umbrella. But the thing people invoke when they say "traditional family"-- the idea of a number of kids raised by a married mother and father-- will continue until the world has ended.

Two people have only the power to cheapen their own marriage, not the whole institution. But if the cheapening of marriage was possible... it's already happened. Look to rock stars, pop stars, movie stars, professional athletes, and certain other mouthy hypocrites when you assign blame.

As two people can cheapen a marriage, so too can they cause it to appreciate. Remember that, too. I've seen my share of unhappily married couples, but I've also seen plenty that work very hard and love each other very much. That's a good thing, no matter whether your towels say "His & Hers" or "Hers & Hers."

To reiterate-- leave civil marriage open to all. You can't tell me a Britney Spears husband-du-jour is less damaging to the institution than a lifelong menu of husband and husband/wife and wife baguette. (I don't know why gay marriage is a baguette; a croissant, if you will, or perhaps an eclair; maybe less fancy, like a cinnamon raisin bagel. Hold on a minute, I'm kind of hungry.)

This has been an experiment in unfocused writing (in case you couldn't tell, har-har-har). I started going with one thing, and I just wanted to see where I'd wind up. The results tell me I'll be hawking equal rights until I die.

No classic arts news to report this time around, although I will say for the thousandth time: Exorcist II: The Heretic is not that bad.

Why This Nineteen-Year-Old Thinks They Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To

So I was listening to the "Epic Film Scores of Miklos Rozsa" the other day. It is by far one of the best albums ever conceived, fourteen epic film score tracks (four from Ben-Hur [1959], three from El Cid [1961], three from Quo Vadis [1951], and four from King of Kings [1961]) plus, as a bonus, Rozsa's twelve-minute concerto from Spellbound. The music inspired me to see the only one of those four epics I'd never seen before, King of Kings. And a thought hit me like a ton of bricks and a ton of feathers while I was trying to figure out whether or not the actress who played Mary actually said her own lines.

King of Kings... is not a great movie. It's probably not even a good movie. Films about the life of Christ are as numerous as those loaves on the Mount (after the multiplication, of course), and tend to fall into a predictable pattern: Jesus is a long-haired white guy who performs miracles, is persecuted, then betrayed, then crucified, and ultimately resurrected. Of course that's the way the story has to be told, and it is a very good story at that (although the movie, The Greatest Story Ever Told, was a giant crock; at least this one is better). But after all, how many times can you watch the Nativity, then the miracles, then the Last Supper, then the Garden of Gethsemane, then the trial, then Golgotha, then (in many versions) the third day? I've counted, thus far, eight, including one rock opera and one interpretive version set in early-1970s New York. But while King of Kings goes beyond the scope of most Christ stories-- it begins with General Pompey, who was hunted down and killed thirty years before Christ was born-- and includes more of the "teen years" of Christ's life than we ever learned in Sunday school (yes, I went to Sunday school for several years), it's still the same story. Jesus is born in a stable; spirited to Egypt to save his life from Herod's order and so forth. And the key role is played by Jeffrey Hunter-- yes, Captain Christopher Pike from the original Star Trek-- and even though this movie was five years before that show, and even though he's decked out in Jesus' long-haired white boy costume, you really can't avoid thinking, "Great boar of Samoa! It's Captain Pike!"

But, at long last, we come to my epiphany, received after a few hours of looping the movie's mystical, solemn theme music.

It's nothing religious, though I know some people are apt to have religious experiences while watching or reading Biblical stories. It's purely the envy (yes, a sin, I know) of a nineteen-year-old guy who has survived the cinematic indignity of going to a theatre and seeing that the most popular films are the likes of Get Him To the Greek, Legally Blonde, and Transformers.

The point: where is the music in these dreadful nightmares of cultural degradation?

All film music these days has pretty much been reduced to either generic, percussive "stock music" (in movies like Pirates of the Caribbean, Gladiator, and Transformers) or playlists of popular songs by shallow, popular artists. Occasionally, you do have a film that has its own unique sound (such as Alexander and Avatar) but, walking away from them, there's nothing you remember. And your feeling or appreciation of the movie has not been helped by the music, which means the music no longer serves its purpose.

So here's my question, or really more of a collage of same: Is it laziness? Whether moviegoers are too lazy to get invested in something that doesn't explode or so-called "composers" are too lazy to write anything that does, is that the reason for this latest alarming downward trend? Or are today's composers intimidated by the quality of the work of artists like Rozsa, Alex North, Dimitri Tiomkin, Alfred Newman, Jerry Goldsmith, and even the more contemporary John Williams (what is he up to now, by the way?), with the result that the field has reached a point of utter, existential stagnation?

I'm guessing the former. And another note: this puts fans of my favorite musical genre at a significant disadvantage. Most music lovers get to discover new music. But there's nothing coming out these days that people like me would be interested in!

This is a long post, and I promise it's almost over. I just have to go back for a second to my mention of the film El Cid. Have you seen it? Charlton Heston plays Rodrigo Diaz of Vivar (also known as the Cid), a heroic historical Spaniard who fought to unite the people of Spain-- Christians and Muslims, Moors-- against the invading Moors from Africa. All in all, it's a great movie. There is, however, one glaring flaw in it. The leader of the African Moors, Ben Yusuf (Herbert Lom, Clouseau's self-flagellating boss from the Pink Panther films), is a purely evil character. He has no depth, no nuance, and no motivation (beyond, apparently, being a Muslim) for wanting to destroy the Christians of Spain. Most of the film's other Muslims have a similar attitude, with the exception of the "good Muslims," those who join forces with the Cid for the greater good of Spain, who do seem to be fairly well-rounded characters. But from all the stories in the news lately, I can't help thinking that most people in this country are getting their ideas of Muslims from Lom's portrayal of Ben Yusuf. The entire religion is being painted with a mind-bogglingly wide brush as evil Satanic terrorists. By the same logic, one could call Christians a bunch of torturous, goose-stepping, book-burning, stubborn scum, judging solely from the events of small groups of them in times of history like the Holocaust and the Spanish Inquisition.

But no religion is so simple that it can be defined by the actions of its extremist fringe, and no human being is so simple that they can be defined by the actions of others of similar-- though perhaps still widely diverging-- religious beliefs.

Sigh... where have all the Rozsas gone?