I Finally Watched This (1)

The Spirit

I resisted this for a long time. But the magic of Netflix brought it to my door. I have a Love/Hate relationship with Frank Miller these days. I respect his earlier work a great deal, and I like about 50% of what he done since about 1995. But that other 50% infuriates me to my core. It's more disappointment than anything else. Like a parent who know his child can do better, but the kid just won't out of some misplaced sense of privilege. It's the same sort of disapproval I have for trust fund kids and lottery winners.

While I enjoyed certain aspects of Sin City and 300, there were more aspects that I didn't like. The good, we now realize was the the doing of the Directors. 300 managed to make a decent movie out of a so-so book, and Sin City was awesome just for the novelty how it was made and the dream cast it managed to secure. This film manages to only take what's wrong with the first two (mainly extreme misogyny and horrible performances) and leaves out all the good. Oh, and it manages to trample one of the best written and iconic comic characters of all time in the process.

Eisner's Spirit was essentially a very long love letter to New York. Eisner loved all of the breadth of culture and temperament and diversity of so many people crammed in such a small space. His character reflected that. The Spirit has it's problems, don't get me wrong. The chief among them the racism that would poke through from time to time. But it was always fun. Miller's version takes this expansive city and localizes it so much by over-use of small sets and tight shots, and very strict lighting that it actually feels very cramped. Miller took this wonderful, campy fun character and sprayed Sin City all over it, then presented it to us like a cat with a dead bird. While the cat thinks it did something awesome, in reality it's kinda gross.

People keep defending it by saying that it is visually stunning. And while I agree, and indeed Millers visual style is what I like most about him and his work. But this movie looks so much like Sin City that it could have been a sequel. But it isn't. But it's really close. But I don't like it for some reason. It's like that time in 1984 when I was expecting Transformers for my birthday and got Go-Bots instead.

The acting is phoned in. Pure and simple. Sarah Paulson seems to be the only one even trying. I have a feeling that the actors spend some time researching and preparing for their roles, wanting to bring depth to them, only for Miller to tell them, "Yer a dame, that's as deep as you go," and then the actor thinking: Fine. Be that way. And not putting any effort into it out of spite. The sad thing is that these are decent actors for the most part. The plot is basically nonexistent, and the characters seem to have no motivation for anything they do.

I think Miller would be wise to take a step back. I don't think he should give up on movies, because I think he has a lot of potential. But he may be able to really shine as a cinematographer. Robocop 2 and 3 showed us what happens when he writes a screenplay from scratch, and The Spirit has shown us what happens to actors when he directs.

He needs to just stick to visuals.

1) We will be in Denver for the Thanksgiving holiday. Unfortunately we are driving. This will be the first really long road trip for the boys. We decided to break it up, and we found a hotel about half what that has an indoor pool with a water slide. That should help.

2) Why is it that a train can block 4 consecutive intersections for hours on end, but I can't park in a fire zone for 5 minutes?

3) My good buddy Joey V has re-launched his web radio show. Friday nights he spins Goth and Industrial for an hour. Check it out:

4) For an hour yesterday, Jackson and I were the owners and operators of an imaginary restaurant. The main dish we were serving to his mom and brother(and the dogs), was something called Chompwurst. I don't really know what's in it because he did all the "cooking", but it sounds delicious.

-JP