The Big Rewind: A Memoir Brought to You by Pop Culture
By Nathan Rabin
Scribner
It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of The Onion's arts and culture publication, The AV Club (or at least I used to be, until mean-spirited "Hater" posts seemingly took over the majority of daily content there); and in particular I'm a slobbering devotee of their smart and funny head entertainment writer, Nathan Rabin, whose remarkable "My Year of Flops" essay series was the direct inspiration for my own "CCLaP 100" series on literary classics. So I was overjoyed to learn that Rabin had recently written a full-length book away from his AV Club duties -- a memoir, in fact, that purports to tell the story of why he finds pop culture so interesting to begin with, and how his love for cheesy movies and gangsta rap led him to the high-profile career he now has. But whoa, then I actually read it, and realized the fascinating truth about Rabin, that he comes from a background so dysfunctional as to make Augusten Burroughs look like one of the Von Trapp kids; and that when he glibly mentions that "pop culture saved my life," he means that as a literal statement of fact, with it frankly being a minor miracle that he's actually a functioning member of society at all, instead of some junkie living in a dumpster behind a Taco Bell, much less the respected journalist and cultural essayist that he is.
And in fact for the vast majority of its 350 pages, The Big Rewind is one unending, cringe-inducing nightmare, the tale of a spindly little Jewish nerd who's had the deck stacked against him nearly from birth -- the child of two '70s radicals who both eventually burned out but in vastly different ways, by puberty Rabin had already been institutionalized against his will, sent to and rejected by a foster family in the tony North Shore of the Chicago suburbs, and eventually consigned to a sort of halfway house for kids with behavioral problems in the dangerous Rogers Park neighborhood. And yes, as you can expect, Rabin uses these situations to relate a whole series of nightmarish anecdotes, a litany of horrors sure to be appreciated by any fan of Running With Scissors; but unlike Burroughs, Rabin uses these opportunities to deliver a lot of laugh-out-loud humor as well (typical line -- "I cannot stress this enough: do not take powerful hallucinogens before going to a Holocaust memorial"), and unbelievably enough mostly tries to stay light-hearted and optimistic when relaying all these past traumas. (Or, well, that's not the only difference between Burroughs and Rabin; unlike the former, for example, Rabin is actually a decent writer, and also doesn't feel the compulsion to just make up stupid sh-t whenever the narrative gets a little slow.)
Eventually, of course, Rabin ends up at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where in typical fashion he falls in with a houseful of smelly hippies and hot undergraduate girlfriends who practice a lopsided form of polyamory (i.e. she gets to attend swinger conventions and be a "sacred prostitute," while he stays at home and smokes a lot of dope); and I say "of course" because Madison is where The Onion was originally founded, which for many years existed as not much more than a xeroxed zine handed out at record stores, and that didn't become the international cultural touchstone it now is until the rise of the Dot Com era in the 1990s. And I have to guiltily admit, there's something truly joyful about seeing someone with a dream job plainly confess that he considers it a dream job too; and I also have to admit, it's legitimately heartwarming to see Rabin confess near the end of the book that The Onion pretty much saved his life, and was what finally let him turn into the responsible, prolific adult he now is.
Now, let's also admit that the book has its problems, ones that were mostly minor for me but that will bother others a lot more; just for starters, his actual writing style can get awfully immature at a lot of points, and it's obvious as well that he still has some issues to work out regarding his sexual orientation, given the uncomfortable frequency in which he obsesses over people who mistake him for gay, a semi-homophobic aspect of this book that I found a real turn-off. (And dear Lord, if you're the kind of person who chafes at the sight of random quotes from old Simpsons episodes, you need to avoid this book like the freaking plague.) All in all, though, I found The Big Rewind to be a very pleasant surprise, given that Rabin could've so easily just put together a compilation of his best AV Club material instead, and made a ton more money without any of the dirty laundry. It's a gutsy book, a riveting one at points, and it comes recommended to anyone who enjoys a brisk, witty read.
Out of 10: 8.6
Read even more about The Big Rewind: Amazon | GoodReads | LibraryThing | Shelfari | Wikipedia]]>
Today's movie: Julia, 2008 (Amazon | IMDB | Netflix | Wikipedia)
Why I added it to my queue: Because I heard Leonard Maltin of all people extolling its virtues the other week on public radio; and he did such a convincing job that I indeed decided to stick it in my Netflix queue.
The reality: Holy crap! Billed as a sentimental tearjerker about an out-of-control alcoholic, this is most definitely NOT the film one gets when actually renting it, but rather one of the darkest and grimmest noir tales I've ever seen or read in any medium, a remorseless look at a character who is clearly supposed to be a despicable villain (played with her usual intensity by 'Queen Of The Baddies' Tilda Swinton), and examining the combination of sociopathy, naked greed and rampant substance abuse that causes her to do the unspeakably evil things she does. That's really the most brilliant part of this film, in fact, and what makes it so memorable, is that writer/director Erick Zonca has not even the slightest interest in garnering the audience's sympathy for his main character, such a slap in the face to the conventional wisdom of Hollywood films; it is instead a character study of evil, pure unadulterated evil, which turns out to be a surprisingly unsettling thing to base a two-hour experience around.
Like all great noirs, the story is a fairly simple one -- Julia is a trainwreck wino and unappealing sex addict, being forced to attend AA meetings by her now-clean buddy, at which point she meets a mentally disturbed Mexican woman who claims that her industrialist ex-husband has stolen her tween son, and that there'd be a huge reward for her if she helped her steal him back; but unlike everyone else in the recovery group, Julia actually believes the woman and makes plans to help her with her caper, which then gets even more complicated when she decides during a binge session that she could get even more money by re-kidnapping the kid from the mom after he's been reverse-stolen, in that the Mexican woman can't go to the police since she's guilty of kidnapping herself. As you can expect (and as is typical in noirs), the entire thing turns out to be a disaster; but the surprising thing is that everything I've mentioned occurs within the first half-hour, with this wildly digressive script going off in all kinds of other unexpected directions by the time it's over, including a jaunt to Mexico itself and a rapidly growing pile of bodies. Like I said, though, mostly this inventive story exists simply to paint us an unforgettable portrait of evil, this pathologically lying monster who will literally do anything to weasel her way out of responsibility; merely the number of ways she manages to be reprehensible in a two-hour period is enough to boggle the mind, much less that you're riveted to your seat the entire time as well (although make no mistake -- unlike almost every other movie on the subject, there is never a point where you're lulled into having a grudging sympathy for her, instead just becoming more and more disgusted the longer the movie goes on). It's a gusty decision, within a medium and industry that highly frowns on such a thing, and it's easy to see why this film makes such a profound impression on nearly everyone who sees it. It comes highly, highly recommended today. Thank you, Leonard Maltin!
Strangest piece of trivia: This movie was inspired by the John Cassavetes film Gloria.
Worth your time? Oh my, yes]]>
The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran
By Hooman Majd
Doubleday
Like millions of other Americans, I am in the active process these days of increasing my knowledge base regarding the Middle East and Southeast Asia, from its former level of "zero" to a new level of "more than zero." But this of course immediately presents a problem to armchair scholars -- namely, with a subject so vast, where do you even start when you know literally nothing? For example, it's definitely important to understand the complex feudal empires that ruled these areas during what's known in the West as the Middle Ages, although such study doesn't even begin to explain the region in the here and now; but by concentrating solely on contemporary issues, one misses entirely the strong cultural background that led to these attitudes in the first place. Do you filter all your information through the all-important subject of religion in this section of the world? If so, then how do you begin to understand the actions of West-friendly reformers? But then without a solid grounding of religious education, how do you even begin to understand something like the Taliban, and why they seemingly have a surprising amount of support from people who aren't particularly violent or reactionary themselves?
So thank God, then, for books like the recent and fantastic The Ayatollah Begs to Differ by Hooman Majd, because it's actually several things at once -- not just a primer on historical issues regarding the old Persian Empire, but a field guide to the modern Iran it became, an on-the-ground report about daily life inside a working theocracy, even a funny Bill-Bryson-style travelogue about a clueless Westerner smoking opium with random strangers, participating in a self-flagellation festival, and going skiing at a bling-bling-filled Muslim mountain resort. And in fact Majd is in a uniquely great position to be telling a story like this; after all, he was born into an Iranian family of high political influence (both during the last years of the Shah and the first years of the Islamic Republic that came after), but then eventually moved to New York and became a senior executive within the entertainment industry (and a contributing writer to Andy Warhol's Interview magazine, back when it was still good), making him simultaneously an insider and outsider to modern Iranian culture, about as perfect a position to be in to relate to fellow Americans exactly what daily life is like over there these days.
And indeed, over the course of several trips he makes there during the waning years of the Bush administration, Majd presents us with a nation profoundly more complex than most Americans even have a clue concerning, a place where the historical and modern clash in sometimes amusing, sometimes tragic ways -- a society that in theory is an open democracy, with public elections and a strong emphasis on basic human rights, yet ruled at the top by a circle of religious experts whose judgments are not allowed to be questioned, a country that creates elaborate public dress codes but are then ignored by half the population with no repercussions (well, except around elections, when conservative candidates will initiate morality crackdowns to look good in the eyes of voters, almost exactly what you see during American elections as well). And in fact that's probably Majd's most surprising conclusion of all, that current Iran is not actually too terribly different than Bush's America in the early 2000s, a "free" society but full of draconian rules but that most citizens then promptly ignore, leading back to that free society it's supposed to be, but with the whole thing manifested in this overly complicated, seemingly contradictory way.
And Majd tells us this story in a great way too, by gaining access to events and people that he can only pull off by being from a politically connected family -- over the course of this easily readable 250-page manuscript, we get to sit in on interviews with high-ranking government officials, attend booze-and-pot-filled parties full of urban liberal hipsters, witness a series of ultra-conservative religious rituals in the country's rural wastelands (think the Islamic version of a Pentecostal tent revival in the Deep South, full of writhing true believers speaking in tongues), and of course eavesdrop on a whole series of private home-based salons and dinner parties, centered around middle-class family gardens and friendly afternoon opium sessions (the Iranian equivalent of cigars and cocktails among businessmen), which is where the vast majority of the nation's collective decisions are very quietly made. And this of course is the biggest contradiction of all concerning modern Iran, as Majd so deftly shows us through conversation and example, the simultaneous superiority and inferiority complexes that most Iranians suffer from (caused respectively from the clash between their ancient Persian past and more recent colonial days), resulting in a society where among other things one is perfectly free to publicly criticize the government, just as long as you don't do it too loudly or attract too much attention (and wow, talk about the Bush years in a nutshell).
It's a fascinating book full of all kinds of surprising and paradigm-shifting conclusions, and I have to admit that I've had my entire worldview concerning Iran profoundly change just from this book alone. It's the perfect kind of informational title for most Americans, funny and entertaining even as it teaches much-needed basic lessons about Islam and Persia, and it comes today highly recommended to nearly every person on the planet, Iranians themselves included.
Out of 10: 9.8
Read even more about The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: Official site | Amazon | GoodReads | LibraryThing | Shelfari | Wikipedia]]>
Today's movie: The Watcher in the Woods, 1980 (Amazon | IMDB | Netflix | Wikipedia)
Why I added it to my queue: Because back when I was eleven years old and this movie first came out, the commercials for it would scare the beejeezus out of me whenever they'd unexpectedly pop up at night; and believe it or not, in all this time I've never actually seen the movie in question, although I still vividly remember the nightmares its commercials caused. I thought it was high time to change that situation.
The reality: So for those who don't know, the Disney Corporation didn't exactly respond well to the countercultural era, first ignoring for a long time that it was even happening, then in the '70s starting to oh so tepidly add more subversive elements to their usual kiddie fare (see Escape to Witch Mountain, Candleshoe and Freaky Friday, for example), leading to a decision at the end of the Carter administration that was highly controversial at the time, to finally produce their first truly dark PG films in the company's history. The first and third of these films, 1979's The Black Hole and 1982's Tron, are the ones that get the most attention these days; but sandwiched between them was this forgotten gem, starring Lynn-Holly Johnson at her feathered-hair teenage best, as the oldest daughter of an American family of intellectuals, who have decided to rent a rural English cottage for a summer in order for the parents to get some work done without interruptions. But unfortunately for them, said cottage is owned by a batsh-t crazy Bette Davis, cacklingly good here in one of her late roles, who years ago lost her daughter to what seems like a malevolent supernatural creature who lives on the edge of the estate's woods, and who is under the impression that she will get her daughter back if she can find a similar teenaged girl to take her place.
And I gotta say, I'm actually kind of glad that it took me this long to finally see it, because this movie is creeeeeepy; between all the shattered windows and mirrors, the recurring image of a blindfolded girl in the middle of the woods, and the arcane pagan rituals held in abandoned churches that turn out to be part of the complex story of Davis' daughter disappearing, this barely resembles something that Disney would usually have its name associated with, and it's easy to see why just a few short years later, the company would start up a brand-new imprint (Touchstone Pictures) specifically to put out darker titles like these in the future. An anomaly for Disney, one that will scare the pants off you if you're not ready for it, and it comes highly recommended if you've never seen it before.
Strangest piece of trivia: The musician father seen here is played by David McCallum, who some will most know as secret agent Illya Kuryakin in The Man From U.N.C.L.E., and others know as forensic scientist "Duckie" Mallard on N.C.I.S.
Worth your time? Yes
P.S. And here, the nightmare-inducing television commercial in question. Oh, internet, is there anything you can't do?]]>
Today's movie: Deception, 2008 (Amazon | IMDB | Netflix | Wikipedia)
Why I added it to my queue: Because I knew that this low-budget erotic thriller starring Hugh Jackman and Ewan McGregor was fated to be ridiculously stupid, but is based on a premise that I found literally impossible to resist -- namely, successful yuppie is invited into ultra-elite circle of good-looking anonymous urban swingers, which is then used as a backdrop for a noirish murder mystery. Oh, God help me.
The reality: Yep, it was ridiculously stupid! In fact, perhaps it'd be easier just to quote you a rant I found myself shouting at my television screen about halfway through this movie, in order to prove just how terrible it actually is:
"Okay, let me get this straight. Jackman's character went to the trouble of printing fake business cards, buying the same exact phone as McGregor's character, hanging around a law firm he doesn't work at in the middle of the night without getting busted, and even lighting a joint in their controlled-climate boardroom, all so he could gain the trust of McGregor? All as an excuse to have lunch with him a week later, during which Jackman arranges to receive a phone call, on the off-chance that McGregor will take his phone out too and leave it on the table afterwards, so that Jackman can grab the wrong one as he leaves, giving McGregor the opportunity to sneak into this crazy supermodel swinger sex club under false pretenses, which he does without even the slightest ethical hesitation? And all of this reliant on an even more unlikely scenario, that McGregor will break one of the club's cardinal rules and start a romantic relationship with one of the other members? And fall so in love with her in just a week that he's willing to commit several international felonies just to ensure her safety, which he can't actually ensure since she's being held by a psychopath in an unknown location? When all Jackman REALLY had to do to put this plan in motion was strike up a random conversation with McGregor one night at a pub? NOW DAT'S A LUDICROUS PREMISE, I TELLS YA!"
In fact, it's pretty safe to say that it's only the inclusion of such slumming actors here as Jackman, McGregor, Charlotte Rampling and Michelle Williams that makes the movie even watchable in any way whatsoever; although how four stars of such talent were even convinced to be in a movie this bad in the first place is way beyond me. Imminently skippable, especially considering that it contains so little sex as to barely qualify as an erotic thriller to begin with.
Worth your time? Oh, dear Lord, no]]>