From the New York Daily News:
Pinstripes become perfect fit
One by one they came straggling into the Yankee clubhouse, exhausted from a mostly sleepless night, yet still exhilarated by the events they'd replayed again and again in their heads as if trying to believe it themselves.
A group of Yankees, including Jason Giambi and Aaron Boone, had gone out together in the city to eat and drink and celebrate because they didn't want to let go of the soaring emotion that washed over them after the epic 6-5 win over the Red Sox.
Mostly, they didn't want to let go of each other on a night when they felt more like Yankees than ever.
"It was the kind of feeling where you don't want the night to end," Giambi was saying yesterday, eyes as red as the Sox colors. "You're on such a high, and you're sitting around talking about the game, and then we're watching highlights on TV and you hear Mo (Mariano Rivera), a guy with four rings, saying it's the greatest game he's ever been involved in.
"For some of us, that really put it in perspective."
Giambi laughed off questions about where and how late the Yankees celebrated. These days, it seems nobody wants to be labeled as some new version of the 1986 Mets, hell-raising-est championship ballclub of them all.
But if ever there was a night for some ballplayer-bonding, this was it. And not just because of the magnitude of a victory that sends the Yankees to another World Series.
The Red Sox may be burdened by The Curse, but relatively new Yankees like Giambi and Boone and some of the others had their own ghosts to conquer in trying to live up to the likes of Paul O'Neill, Tino Martinez and Scott Brosius, gritty heroes of championship teams past.
Giambi, in particular, had heard for two years that maybe this group didn't have the same heart, toughness, whatever.
No less an authority on the subject than Derek Jeter made a point of drawing a line of distinction between the O'Neill-Tino Yankees and the Giambi Yankees whenever anyone asked about winning more championships.
But on Thursday night, some of the Yankees without rings delivered in the tradition of those former players:
Giambi, with two home runs. Mike Mussina, with gutty relief to keep the Sox from making it a rout. Hideki Matsui, with a clutch double in the eighth-inning rally. And finally, Boone, with his game-winning home run.
"That's what made those Yankee teams in the past so tough, because they had so many guys come through for them," Giambi said. "Everybody from Paul O'Neill to Luis Sojo.
"That's the kind of team we were (Thursday) night. To me, it felt the most like a ballclub that I've felt all year. We've had kind of a revolving door this year, trying to put the pieces together, but the way we reacted in this series, I think we really came together as a unit."
It was the feeling they didn't want to let go after the game: that a championship ballclub had been born in the face of late-innings desperation.
But it wasn't only the ring-less Yankees who reveled in a watershed moment. Nobody, it seemed, was more emotional after the game than Rivera, the most indispensable Yankee of them all.
And though he wasn't part of the Manhattan celebration, Rivera was no less exhausted yesterday. He'd sat up at home as late as the others partied, talking with his wife and replaying the magic because he too couldn't let go of the remarkable night.
"I tried to go to sleep," he said. "I couldn't."
As the link to all the other championships, along with Jeter, Andy Pettitte and Bernie Williams, Rivera found himself thinking about the greatness of El Duque Hernandez and others who delivered in similar moments.
"They have that special quality that you can't buy, you can't find in the store," said Rivera. "You either have it or you don't.
"I think we have that here. The way we won, that's how we played the years we won the World Series. Everybody did their job."
Across the room, Jeter too was giving his blessing to the group he has questioned. The comeback against the Red Sox convinced him this team has those intangibles that are so hard to define.
"Yeah, this group has it now," he said. "There's nothing we can face in the World Series that we haven't already faced after this series."
From locker to locker, the Yankees looked as if they'd need more than another 24 hours to get ready for the Marlins. They'll need to dig deep or all of this talk about coming of age as a championship club will ring hollow if they wind up losing the World Series.
Still, you get the feeling that nothing they do over the next week will compare to the night they beat the Red Sox. The night they didn't want to end.
Originally published on October 18, 2003
Saturday, October 18, 2003
Joe's still the boss
Saturday, October 18th, 2003
He kept crying and hugging his players on the field, after a win that felt as important as any the Yankees had ever had, even though they'd only made it to the World Series, not won it yet. And as you watched Joe Torre early yesterday morning at Yankee Stadium, it was as if this were the first time for him.
Suddenly it was Camden Yards in October of 1996, and the Yankees had beaten the Orioles in Game5 of the American League Championship Series, and Joe Torre had finally made it to the Series for the first time in a long baseball life. Torre cried that day, too. But if someone had told him that day what the next seven years of his baseball life would be like, all the way to Game6 against the Red Sox, he might have laughed his head off.
Because what kind of crazy Yankee dreamer could have ever dreamed up what would happen to Torre and the Yankees between Camden Yards and here? All Torre's Yankees have given their fans and New York is the most dramatic era in Yankee history. Just that. More dramatic than Ruth's Yankees, DiMaggio's Yankees, Mantle's Yankees.
Somehow, Joe Torre has managed all that.
Now his team has given us Game7 against the Red Sox. Three in the eighth off Pedro Martinez to tie. Aaron Boone's home run in the bottom of the 11th for the pennant.
"This was the sweetest taste of all for me," Torre said when it was over, one more night of both tears and champagne for him at Yankee Stadium.
It should have been the sweetest taste for him, and not just because of everything that happened off the field between him and George Steinbrenner, most of their bickering private, but some of it public for the first time. He survived all that, and his team survived the Red Sox, and now Torre stays as long as he wants. It is up to him, not the owner. If he wants to put up with Steinbrenner for two more years, or three, if the money and the winning are worth that to him, he manages the Yankees until he decides to stop.
Whatever happens in the World Series against the Marlins - who remind you an awful lot of the 2002 Angels - Torre has made it official that even though other Yankee managers have won more World Series than he has, at least so far, there has never been a better one than him. A borderline Hall of Fame player has become an official Hall of Fame manager. The idea that anybody could have done what Torre has done here since 1996 comes from people who don't know anything about him, or his baseball team.
If you don't think managers make a difference in baseball, go check a tape of Game7 between the Yankees and the Red Sox.
When the Yankees needed Torre to be at his best, he produced his finest hour.
Four hours, to be more precise.
Talk about all the rest of it today: Talk about Mike Mussina slamming the door when it was first and third and nobody out in the fourth and the Red Sox already ahead 4-0. Talk about Jason Giambi hitting two home runs from the No.7 spot in the order, for Game7. Talk about all the hitters in the bottom of the eighth, Jeter and Bernie and Matsui and Posada. Talk about three innings from the great Rivera.
Finally, talk about Aaron Boone, who couldn't hit before Game7 and couldn't field very well, either, and then hit what will go down as one of the most famous home runs in the history of the team and the place.
The manager was as big as any of them, starting with the decision he made on the way to the ballpark to drop Giambi in the order, deciding he had to do something to get Giambi hitting the ball hard consistently for the first time since June. It worked so well that by the end of Game7 you thought Jason Giambi might end up hitting three out of the park against the Red Sox, the way another ex-Oakland slugger named Reggie Jackson hit three out in the Series one time.
In the fourth inning, Torre did not let Roger Clemens stay in the game one minute longer than he should have. He did not care that it might be Clemens' last game in the big leagues. He took the ball, gave it to Mussina. Mussina gave the Red Sox nothing, neither did Felix Heredia, who had walked in the go-ahead run in Game6. If David Wells doesn't throw one fat pitch to David Ortiz in the top of the eighth, the Yankee relief pitchers would have shut out the Red Sox over the last seven innings of Game7.
And when it was all on the line in the bottom of the eighth, here is what Torre got with the new middle of the batting order he had posted before what could have been the last game of the season for his team: double from Jeter, RBI single from Bernie, double from Matsui, two-RBI double from Posada.
"Nothing comes close to this," Torre said when it was over, "because of the way it was accomplished and the fact that it was the Red Sox."
On a night when Grady Little let Pedro Martinez manage the Red Sox with a season on the line, Joe Torre managed the Yankees as well as he ever had before. They are never Steinbrenner's Yankees. They are Torre's Yankees. Now, more than ever.
-Mike Lupica / New York Daily News
Saturday, October 18th, 2003
He kept crying and hugging his players on the field, after a win that felt as important as any the Yankees had ever had, even though they'd only made it to the World Series, not won it yet. And as you watched Joe Torre early yesterday morning at Yankee Stadium, it was as if this were the first time for him.
Suddenly it was Camden Yards in October of 1996, and the Yankees had beaten the Orioles in Game5 of the American League Championship Series, and Joe Torre had finally made it to the Series for the first time in a long baseball life. Torre cried that day, too. But if someone had told him that day what the next seven years of his baseball life would be like, all the way to Game6 against the Red Sox, he might have laughed his head off.
Because what kind of crazy Yankee dreamer could have ever dreamed up what would happen to Torre and the Yankees between Camden Yards and here? All Torre's Yankees have given their fans and New York is the most dramatic era in Yankee history. Just that. More dramatic than Ruth's Yankees, DiMaggio's Yankees, Mantle's Yankees.
Somehow, Joe Torre has managed all that.
Now his team has given us Game7 against the Red Sox. Three in the eighth off Pedro Martinez to tie. Aaron Boone's home run in the bottom of the 11th for the pennant.
"This was the sweetest taste of all for me," Torre said when it was over, one more night of both tears and champagne for him at Yankee Stadium.
It should have been the sweetest taste for him, and not just because of everything that happened off the field between him and George Steinbrenner, most of their bickering private, but some of it public for the first time. He survived all that, and his team survived the Red Sox, and now Torre stays as long as he wants. It is up to him, not the owner. If he wants to put up with Steinbrenner for two more years, or three, if the money and the winning are worth that to him, he manages the Yankees until he decides to stop.
Whatever happens in the World Series against the Marlins - who remind you an awful lot of the 2002 Angels - Torre has made it official that even though other Yankee managers have won more World Series than he has, at least so far, there has never been a better one than him. A borderline Hall of Fame player has become an official Hall of Fame manager. The idea that anybody could have done what Torre has done here since 1996 comes from people who don't know anything about him, or his baseball team.
If you don't think managers make a difference in baseball, go check a tape of Game7 between the Yankees and the Red Sox.
When the Yankees needed Torre to be at his best, he produced his finest hour.
Four hours, to be more precise.
Talk about all the rest of it today: Talk about Mike Mussina slamming the door when it was first and third and nobody out in the fourth and the Red Sox already ahead 4-0. Talk about Jason Giambi hitting two home runs from the No.7 spot in the order, for Game7. Talk about all the hitters in the bottom of the eighth, Jeter and Bernie and Matsui and Posada. Talk about three innings from the great Rivera.
Finally, talk about Aaron Boone, who couldn't hit before Game7 and couldn't field very well, either, and then hit what will go down as one of the most famous home runs in the history of the team and the place.
The manager was as big as any of them, starting with the decision he made on the way to the ballpark to drop Giambi in the order, deciding he had to do something to get Giambi hitting the ball hard consistently for the first time since June. It worked so well that by the end of Game7 you thought Jason Giambi might end up hitting three out of the park against the Red Sox, the way another ex-Oakland slugger named Reggie Jackson hit three out in the Series one time.
In the fourth inning, Torre did not let Roger Clemens stay in the game one minute longer than he should have. He did not care that it might be Clemens' last game in the big leagues. He took the ball, gave it to Mussina. Mussina gave the Red Sox nothing, neither did Felix Heredia, who had walked in the go-ahead run in Game6. If David Wells doesn't throw one fat pitch to David Ortiz in the top of the eighth, the Yankee relief pitchers would have shut out the Red Sox over the last seven innings of Game7.
And when it was all on the line in the bottom of the eighth, here is what Torre got with the new middle of the batting order he had posted before what could have been the last game of the season for his team: double from Jeter, RBI single from Bernie, double from Matsui, two-RBI double from Posada.
"Nothing comes close to this," Torre said when it was over, "because of the way it was accomplished and the fact that it was the Red Sox."
On a night when Grady Little let Pedro Martinez manage the Red Sox with a season on the line, Joe Torre managed the Yankees as well as he ever had before. They are never Steinbrenner's Yankees. They are Torre's Yankees. Now, more than ever.
-Mike Lupica / New York Daily News
Thursday, October 16, 2003
Prayer for a Yankee Victory
Oh Great and Powerful Bambino, please accept these humble offerings
of Jack Daniels, hot dogs, women, and cigars, to strengthen you and
keep your Curse mighty. We beseech you in these troubled times and
beg you to always remember that some thought "No, No Nanette" was
more important than your unmatchable skill on the diamond.
Oh Great and Powerful Bambino, please accept these humble offerings
of Jack Daniels, hot dogs, women, and cigars, to strengthen you and
keep your Curse mighty. We beseech you in these troubled times and
beg you to always remember that some thought "No, No Nanette" was
more important than your unmatchable skill on the diamond.
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
From the Raleigh News & Observer:
Monday, October 13, 2003 12:00AM EDT
CONCERT REVIEW
A perfect, upbeat ending
Drummer Bill Berry returns for a show to remember
By DAVID MENCONI, Staff Writer
RALEIGH--A rustle went through the crowd Friday night during Pete Yorn's set. The person least expected to show up for an R.E.M. concert -- or someone who looked just like him -- had been spotted walking down the aisle.
Hey, wasn't that Bill Berry?
Berry, R.E.M.'s original drummer, hadn't played or recorded with the group for six years. "Him playing in public with us -- that's not gonna happen again," guitarist Peter Buck told The News & Observer in a recent interview.
Nevertheless, Berry was in Raleigh, and R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe dedicated two songs to "Mr. William T. Berry, our No. 1 fan." And during the encore, Berry climbed behind the drums and bashed out "Permanent Vacation," an outtake from R.E.M.'s 1983 "Murmur" album. The result was utter pandemonium -- onstage and in the audience.
The reunion capped what had already been a fabulous show, a stop on a greatest-hits tour to generate interest in the Oct. 28 release of "In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003" (Warner Bros. Records). In recent years, R.E.M. has often looked less like a band than a collection of individuals with minimal camaraderie, but with the new drummer, Ministry alumnus Bill Rieflin, ably holding down the beat, the Raleigh audience saw a cohesive group.
The Triangle has always been R.E.M.'s home away from home, and the concert had the relaxed, informal feel of a band playing for friends. Stipe referred to the Alltel Pavilion audience as a "hometown crowd" and got into a discussion with someone in the audience about the relative merits of different grocery store chains. Everyone onstage laughed off a false start on "The One I Love."
R.E.M. has been taking set list suggestions from fans on its Web site, and some of the show's best moments were obscure oldies -- "Disturbance at the Heron House," "Driver 8" and a torchy rendition of "Nightswimming" with bassist Mike Mills on piano. Of 1984's "So. Central Rain," Stipe said, "This is a beautiful song we first debuted on 'The David Letterman Show' about 430 years ago."
The handful of new songs held up, too, especially "Bad Day." A churning overdrive rocker, "Bad Day" is a collection of sound bites in tune with the current sociopolitical climate. Stipe introduced the song by pretending to place a call to the White House, asking for Dick Cheney or Karl Rove.
But it was Berry's cameo that had everybody talking afterward -- and it seemed to make the years fall off everyone. Berry sheepishly climbed onstage during band introductions, and Mills coaxed him to a microphone to sing backup on "Radio Free Europe." And with everyone in the venue urging him on, Berry took off his jacket and played "Permanent Vacation." It was ragged, sure, but also an indescribably wonderful moment.
All the hugging on stage appeared to be completely genuine and unscripted. Stipe, Buck and Mills seemed giddy, and as surprised as anyone in the crowd to have the prodigal drummer, R.E.M.'s missing heartbeat, unexpectedly back in the fold.
After "Permanent Vacation," Rieflin resumed playing drums for the customary show-ending romp, "It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)."
"See you later, alligator!" Stipe hollered, and Buck picked Stipe up, slung him over his hip and carried him offstage as the singer waved to the crowd -- just as Johnny Cash's rendition of "We'll Meet Again" began playing over the public address system.
It was a perfect end to a perfect night.
Monday, October 13, 2003 12:00AM EDT
CONCERT REVIEW
A perfect, upbeat ending
Drummer Bill Berry returns for a show to remember
By DAVID MENCONI, Staff Writer
RALEIGH--A rustle went through the crowd Friday night during Pete Yorn's set. The person least expected to show up for an R.E.M. concert -- or someone who looked just like him -- had been spotted walking down the aisle.
Hey, wasn't that Bill Berry?
Berry, R.E.M.'s original drummer, hadn't played or recorded with the group for six years. "Him playing in public with us -- that's not gonna happen again," guitarist Peter Buck told The News & Observer in a recent interview.
Nevertheless, Berry was in Raleigh, and R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe dedicated two songs to "Mr. William T. Berry, our No. 1 fan." And during the encore, Berry climbed behind the drums and bashed out "Permanent Vacation," an outtake from R.E.M.'s 1983 "Murmur" album. The result was utter pandemonium -- onstage and in the audience.
The reunion capped what had already been a fabulous show, a stop on a greatest-hits tour to generate interest in the Oct. 28 release of "In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003" (Warner Bros. Records). In recent years, R.E.M. has often looked less like a band than a collection of individuals with minimal camaraderie, but with the new drummer, Ministry alumnus Bill Rieflin, ably holding down the beat, the Raleigh audience saw a cohesive group.
The Triangle has always been R.E.M.'s home away from home, and the concert had the relaxed, informal feel of a band playing for friends. Stipe referred to the Alltel Pavilion audience as a "hometown crowd" and got into a discussion with someone in the audience about the relative merits of different grocery store chains. Everyone onstage laughed off a false start on "The One I Love."
R.E.M. has been taking set list suggestions from fans on its Web site, and some of the show's best moments were obscure oldies -- "Disturbance at the Heron House," "Driver 8" and a torchy rendition of "Nightswimming" with bassist Mike Mills on piano. Of 1984's "So. Central Rain," Stipe said, "This is a beautiful song we first debuted on 'The David Letterman Show' about 430 years ago."
The handful of new songs held up, too, especially "Bad Day." A churning overdrive rocker, "Bad Day" is a collection of sound bites in tune with the current sociopolitical climate. Stipe introduced the song by pretending to place a call to the White House, asking for Dick Cheney or Karl Rove.
But it was Berry's cameo that had everybody talking afterward -- and it seemed to make the years fall off everyone. Berry sheepishly climbed onstage during band introductions, and Mills coaxed him to a microphone to sing backup on "Radio Free Europe." And with everyone in the venue urging him on, Berry took off his jacket and played "Permanent Vacation." It was ragged, sure, but also an indescribably wonderful moment.
All the hugging on stage appeared to be completely genuine and unscripted. Stipe, Buck and Mills seemed giddy, and as surprised as anyone in the crowd to have the prodigal drummer, R.E.M.'s missing heartbeat, unexpectedly back in the fold.
After "Permanent Vacation," Rieflin resumed playing drums for the customary show-ending romp, "It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)."
"See you later, alligator!" Stipe hollered, and Buck picked Stipe up, slung him over his hip and carried him offstage as the singer waved to the crowd -- just as Johnny Cash's rendition of "We'll Meet Again" began playing over the public address system.
It was a perfect end to a perfect night.
Monday, October 13, 2003
From Gregg Easterbrook's blog at The New Republic:
TAKE OUT THE GORE AND KILL BILL IS AN EPISODE OF "MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS"
Is Quentin Tarantino the single greatest phony in the history of Hollywood? I realize that's saying a lot--about Hollywood, not him. But it's the sole explanation I can think of to explain his bizarre prominence.
All of Tarantino's work is pure junk. How can you be a renowned director without ever having made a film that's even good, to say nothing of great? No film student in 50 years will spend a single second with a Tarantino movie, except to shake his or her head.
Tarantino does nothing but churn out shabby depictions of slaughter as a form of pleasure--and that, for decades, has been what the least imaginative and least talented of Hollywood churn out. Supposedly it's "revolutionary," or something, that Tarantino films revel in violence to a preposterous degree, but that's like saying it is revolutionary for a presidential candidate to revel in complaints against Washington bureaucrats. Nothing about Hollywood is more hackneyed or trite than preposterous violence--and that's all Tarantino has ever put onto film.
Set aside what it says about contemporary Hollywood culture that the supposed liberal progressives of this city now ceaselessly mass-market presentations of butchering the helpless as a form of entertainment, even, as rewarding self-expression. Why do we suppose that, with Hollywood's violence-glorifying films now shown all around the world to billions of people--remember, mass distribution of Hollywood movies to the developing world and Islamic states is a recent phenomenon--young terrorists around the globe now seem to view killing the innocent as a positive thing, even, a norm? Set that concern aside. Tarantino's films are simply trite as regards adoration of violence. In Hollywood, nothing could be less original.
And his supposed innovative screenplays? Spare me. The out-of-sequence technique Tarantino uses is praised as ingenious, yet every first-year film student is taught this device. To laud Tarantino as innovative because events happen out-of-sequence is like lauding The Bridges of Madison County as innovative because it opens with a discovered letter from someone who has died. All novice novelists know that device. Of course, the novelistic device may be used well or poorly, just as time-shifted cinema may be good or bad. Tarantino's out-of-sequence film moments are, uniformly, trite drivel.
And supposedly Tarantino is some kind of counter-genius for getting box-office stars like Bruce Willis and Uma Thurman to debase themselves in his drivel. But commercial Hollywood types debase themselves for a living; most never do anything else. To persuade someone to do that which he or she was eager to do anyway isn't much in the way of accomplishment.
Tarantino must draw his prominence in Hollywood, and among film-buff culture, from the very fact of his phoniness. First, his career says that you can do nothing but wallow in preposterous violence--Hollywood's cheapest and least original aspect--and still be revered. Second, his career validates the idea that you can accomplish nothing at all in any meaningful sense and yet acquire fame. The idea that you can get celebrity, money, and women through the movies without having any merits whatsoever is at the core of the Hollywood's conception of itself. Tarantino is its ultimate expression of this phoniness. Please don't tell me that makes him ironically postmodern.
Corporate sidelight: Kill Bill is distributed by Miramax, a Disney studio. Disney seeks profit by wallowing in gore--Kill Bill opens with an entire family being graphically slaughtered for the personal amusement of the killers--and by depicting violence and murder as pleasurable sport. Disney's Miramax has been behind a significant share of Hollywood's recent violence-glorifying junk, including Scream, whose thesis was that murdering your friends and teachers is a fun way for high-school kids to get back at anyone who teases them. Scream was the favorite movie of the Columbine killers.
Set aside what it says about Hollywood that today even Disney thinks what the public needs is ever-more-graphic depictions of killing the innocent as cool amusement. Disney's CEO, Michael Eisner, is Jewish; the chief of Miramax, Harvey Weinstein, is Jewish. Yes, there are plenty of Christian and other Hollywood executives who worship money above all else, promoting for profit the adulation of violence. Does that make it right for Jewish executives to worship money above all else, by promoting for profit the adulation of violence? Recent European history alone ought to cause Jewish executives to experience second thoughts about glorifying the killing of the helpless as a fun lifestyle choice. But history is hardly the only concern. Films made in Hollywood are now shown all over the world, to audiences that may not understand the dialogue or even look at the subtitles, but can't possibly miss the message--now Disney's message--that hearing the screams of the innocent is a really fun way to express yourself.
TAKE OUT THE GORE AND KILL BILL IS AN EPISODE OF "MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS"
Is Quentin Tarantino the single greatest phony in the history of Hollywood? I realize that's saying a lot--about Hollywood, not him. But it's the sole explanation I can think of to explain his bizarre prominence.
All of Tarantino's work is pure junk. How can you be a renowned director without ever having made a film that's even good, to say nothing of great? No film student in 50 years will spend a single second with a Tarantino movie, except to shake his or her head.
Tarantino does nothing but churn out shabby depictions of slaughter as a form of pleasure--and that, for decades, has been what the least imaginative and least talented of Hollywood churn out. Supposedly it's "revolutionary," or something, that Tarantino films revel in violence to a preposterous degree, but that's like saying it is revolutionary for a presidential candidate to revel in complaints against Washington bureaucrats. Nothing about Hollywood is more hackneyed or trite than preposterous violence--and that's all Tarantino has ever put onto film.
Set aside what it says about contemporary Hollywood culture that the supposed liberal progressives of this city now ceaselessly mass-market presentations of butchering the helpless as a form of entertainment, even, as rewarding self-expression. Why do we suppose that, with Hollywood's violence-glorifying films now shown all around the world to billions of people--remember, mass distribution of Hollywood movies to the developing world and Islamic states is a recent phenomenon--young terrorists around the globe now seem to view killing the innocent as a positive thing, even, a norm? Set that concern aside. Tarantino's films are simply trite as regards adoration of violence. In Hollywood, nothing could be less original.
And his supposed innovative screenplays? Spare me. The out-of-sequence technique Tarantino uses is praised as ingenious, yet every first-year film student is taught this device. To laud Tarantino as innovative because events happen out-of-sequence is like lauding The Bridges of Madison County as innovative because it opens with a discovered letter from someone who has died. All novice novelists know that device. Of course, the novelistic device may be used well or poorly, just as time-shifted cinema may be good or bad. Tarantino's out-of-sequence film moments are, uniformly, trite drivel.
And supposedly Tarantino is some kind of counter-genius for getting box-office stars like Bruce Willis and Uma Thurman to debase themselves in his drivel. But commercial Hollywood types debase themselves for a living; most never do anything else. To persuade someone to do that which he or she was eager to do anyway isn't much in the way of accomplishment.
Tarantino must draw his prominence in Hollywood, and among film-buff culture, from the very fact of his phoniness. First, his career says that you can do nothing but wallow in preposterous violence--Hollywood's cheapest and least original aspect--and still be revered. Second, his career validates the idea that you can accomplish nothing at all in any meaningful sense and yet acquire fame. The idea that you can get celebrity, money, and women through the movies without having any merits whatsoever is at the core of the Hollywood's conception of itself. Tarantino is its ultimate expression of this phoniness. Please don't tell me that makes him ironically postmodern.
Corporate sidelight: Kill Bill is distributed by Miramax, a Disney studio. Disney seeks profit by wallowing in gore--Kill Bill opens with an entire family being graphically slaughtered for the personal amusement of the killers--and by depicting violence and murder as pleasurable sport. Disney's Miramax has been behind a significant share of Hollywood's recent violence-glorifying junk, including Scream, whose thesis was that murdering your friends and teachers is a fun way for high-school kids to get back at anyone who teases them. Scream was the favorite movie of the Columbine killers.
Set aside what it says about Hollywood that today even Disney thinks what the public needs is ever-more-graphic depictions of killing the innocent as cool amusement. Disney's CEO, Michael Eisner, is Jewish; the chief of Miramax, Harvey Weinstein, is Jewish. Yes, there are plenty of Christian and other Hollywood executives who worship money above all else, promoting for profit the adulation of violence. Does that make it right for Jewish executives to worship money above all else, by promoting for profit the adulation of violence? Recent European history alone ought to cause Jewish executives to experience second thoughts about glorifying the killing of the helpless as a fun lifestyle choice. But history is hardly the only concern. Films made in Hollywood are now shown all over the world, to audiences that may not understand the dialogue or even look at the subtitles, but can't possibly miss the message--now Disney's message--that hearing the screams of the innocent is a really fun way to express yourself.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
