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selenakRoland Emmerich cracks me up. Compare and contrast two interviews, given to promote The Day After Tomorrow, his new disaster flick, in two different countries, the US and Germany respectively:
From Newsweek:
Q: How much of a political statement is this film?
A: I'm not really a political person. I look to entertain and tell a good story. I'm from Germany, where films carry a message or a moral. But I was never like that - I always rebelled against that in film school.
Q: DId you meet any resistance to this project from Fox?
A: They really liked it! I was surprised, because Fox is owned by Rupert Murdoch, who is not the most left-wing fellow. But when I showed it to him, he thought it was great.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, err, in Germany, same guy, different paper (the Süddeutsche Zeitung, our New York Times):
Q: How are the reactions to your film in the US?
A: Very political. (...) This movie is a risk. I just called my mother from Berlin and said, 'Mum, I hope they let me re-enter the States after that one.'
Q: The government is dissappointed. So far, you seemed to be a German who became an American patriot with a vengeance.
A: That's a total misunderstanding. It always has been, even when I went to film school in Munich. (...) I have always voted for the Greens.
Q: Do you still?
A: Yup. Via letter.
Q: In Independence Day, the American President gets into a jet himself at the end in order to kill Aliens. Come on, it doesn't get more patriotic than that.
A: Independence Day wasn't about patriotism at all. Not even The Patriot was about patriotism. In The Patriot I showed the Americans as the kind of underdogs they used to be once upon a time. In Independence Day, it was all about an Afro-American Jewish guy and a white guy teaming up to fight Aliens, it was about the utopia that guys like that can save the world. That's the true story. These movies have been completely misunderstood.
Q: And now you want to use the apocalypse to end all misunderstandings?
A: Yes.
Q: Was that your motivation - to show people where you stand politically?
A: Yes. (...) This film has a message. It's directed against ignorance controlled by the government.
Q: Do you hate the present American government?
A: I think it's horrible.
Q: But you owe America much.
A: Right. But not to this government.
Q: Are you considering leaving the US?
A: If Bush wins the next elections, it's time to get the hell out of there.
*****
I wonder whether he ever gets confused and gives the wrong kind of interview to the wrong paper?
*****
Now, thanks to the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bimo to end all bimos, I received Not Fade Away, the AtS finale, today. Short version: It's perfect.
I could love it the way I did not love the preceeding episode. Speaking of love, my first thought after the final image was: Boy, clearly Joss has a thing for Thelma and Louise. My second thought was: Bloody brilliant! Because it befits this show so much. We leave our heroes in their wounded and dysfunctional glory facing death - but we do not them die, not those who are still standing. We freeze them in the moment of movement. It's the same strange mixture of doom and elation Ridley Scott's film had. It's also, once again, Yeats, not The Second Coming this time, but An Irish Airman forseeing his death:
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.
So many aspects to love. Gunn seeing Anne/Lily/Chanterelle again, our old aquaintance from Sunnydale, last spotted the last time Angel went noir, in season 2. Spike drinking himself into taking the plunge and reciting William's poetry, out loud. (People, that was so courageous as anything he ever did and funny and touching besides.) Wesley bandaging Illyria. When he talked about the first thing Watchers are taught (which btw is somewhat ironic considering that the Watchers do operate with illusions), it struck me that despite everything that happened, he never quite stopped seeing himself as a Watcher. And in the end, he became one again. Not in the Quentin Travers sense, either, which could be said about his season 4 intermezzo with Faith. He became Illyria's Watcher.
Illyria, in turn, became imo the first woman (though is Illyria a woman?) to break through his madonna/whore complex, because she is other. She's not Fred, and she's not Lilah. She's not Justine, either, punished and manipulated and abused. It occurs to me that the whole Illyria storyline is a dark twist on the Sleeping Beauty archetype; she awakens in a body not hers, which she has brought death to, not life, and the first thing he does is trying to kill her. The first things she says are full of scorn over human emotions. By the end, his primary emotion, grief, has become her own, and yet losing him is what completes her process of becoming alive again in the emotional sense as well as the physical one.
And Connor. It was a tough, tough competition with Wesley/Illyria and the other beauties of this episode, but I still loved the Angel and Connor scenes the most. Vincent Kartheiser rocks - the expression on Connor's face alone when Angel shows up, with so many mixed emotions, was wonderful. Their uneasy conversation with all the undercurrents. And then Connor showing up at W&H to save Angel, and father and son fighting together one last time. LOVED it.
Lindsey was restored to moral ambiguity and three dimensionalness this time around. His death in true Mafia style was a nasty surprise which I hadn't expected. Meaning I had expected Lindsey to die, but not in this way, which stops this episode - as does the confirmed death of Drogyn at the beginning - from implying that Angel, souled version, is only guilty of minor moral lapses in the greater cause. That was murder, pure and simple, and what a Mafia don would do to tidy up ends. (Angel as Michael Corleone. Makes sense.) Lorne as the assassin was a ploy directly from the Godfather and Sopranos world, too.
Oh yeah, and before the A/L crowd got its pit of sugar after last week's tease for the A/S crowd: "Lindsey, I want you." Bwahahaa. You just know that Jeff Bell and Joss wrote the entire conversation between Angel and Lindsey so they could arrive at that sentence.
The two scenes between Harmony and Angel were great, too. That's our Harm, both with the oddly touching High School reflections and the shallow loyalty, though you know, if I was a single undead girl working for Mr. Zero Tolerance who treats me like a piece of office equipment, I probably would have traded him in as well.*g*
(Though note that Angel bothers to send Harmony out of the building, thus saving her unlife (and condemming future victims of hers to death), whereas he lets poor Lorne assassinate Lindsey, who as opposed to Harmony did not betray him. Ts.)
Lastly, that episode is so eminently quotable:
- "Can I deny you three times?"
- "If you say "kill Spike", we might have to kiss"
- "But I would have if you had confidence in me!"
- "I want you, Lindsey"
- "You kill me? But...Angel kills me! Angel kills me!"
- Shall I lie to you now?
Now I can finally read everyone else's reviews. Off I go.
From Newsweek:
Q: How much of a political statement is this film?
A: I'm not really a political person. I look to entertain and tell a good story. I'm from Germany, where films carry a message or a moral. But I was never like that - I always rebelled against that in film school.
Q: DId you meet any resistance to this project from Fox?
A: They really liked it! I was surprised, because Fox is owned by Rupert Murdoch, who is not the most left-wing fellow. But when I showed it to him, he thought it was great.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, err, in Germany, same guy, different paper (the Süddeutsche Zeitung, our New York Times):
Q: How are the reactions to your film in the US?
A: Very political. (...) This movie is a risk. I just called my mother from Berlin and said, 'Mum, I hope they let me re-enter the States after that one.'
Q: The government is dissappointed. So far, you seemed to be a German who became an American patriot with a vengeance.
A: That's a total misunderstanding. It always has been, even when I went to film school in Munich. (...) I have always voted for the Greens.
Q: Do you still?
A: Yup. Via letter.
Q: In Independence Day, the American President gets into a jet himself at the end in order to kill Aliens. Come on, it doesn't get more patriotic than that.
A: Independence Day wasn't about patriotism at all. Not even The Patriot was about patriotism. In The Patriot I showed the Americans as the kind of underdogs they used to be once upon a time. In Independence Day, it was all about an Afro-American Jewish guy and a white guy teaming up to fight Aliens, it was about the utopia that guys like that can save the world. That's the true story. These movies have been completely misunderstood.
Q: And now you want to use the apocalypse to end all misunderstandings?
A: Yes.
Q: Was that your motivation - to show people where you stand politically?
A: Yes. (...) This film has a message. It's directed against ignorance controlled by the government.
Q: Do you hate the present American government?
A: I think it's horrible.
Q: But you owe America much.
A: Right. But not to this government.
Q: Are you considering leaving the US?
A: If Bush wins the next elections, it's time to get the hell out of there.
*****
I wonder whether he ever gets confused and gives the wrong kind of interview to the wrong paper?
*****
Now, thanks to the
bimo to end all bimos, I received Not Fade Away, the AtS finale, today. Short version: It's perfect.I could love it the way I did not love the preceeding episode. Speaking of love, my first thought after the final image was: Boy, clearly Joss has a thing for Thelma and Louise. My second thought was: Bloody brilliant! Because it befits this show so much. We leave our heroes in their wounded and dysfunctional glory facing death - but we do not them die, not those who are still standing. We freeze them in the moment of movement. It's the same strange mixture of doom and elation Ridley Scott's film had. It's also, once again, Yeats, not The Second Coming this time, but An Irish Airman forseeing his death:
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.
So many aspects to love. Gunn seeing Anne/Lily/Chanterelle again, our old aquaintance from Sunnydale, last spotted the last time Angel went noir, in season 2. Spike drinking himself into taking the plunge and reciting William's poetry, out loud. (People, that was so courageous as anything he ever did and funny and touching besides.) Wesley bandaging Illyria. When he talked about the first thing Watchers are taught (which btw is somewhat ironic considering that the Watchers do operate with illusions), it struck me that despite everything that happened, he never quite stopped seeing himself as a Watcher. And in the end, he became one again. Not in the Quentin Travers sense, either, which could be said about his season 4 intermezzo with Faith. He became Illyria's Watcher.
Illyria, in turn, became imo the first woman (though is Illyria a woman?) to break through his madonna/whore complex, because she is other. She's not Fred, and she's not Lilah. She's not Justine, either, punished and manipulated and abused. It occurs to me that the whole Illyria storyline is a dark twist on the Sleeping Beauty archetype; she awakens in a body not hers, which she has brought death to, not life, and the first thing he does is trying to kill her. The first things she says are full of scorn over human emotions. By the end, his primary emotion, grief, has become her own, and yet losing him is what completes her process of becoming alive again in the emotional sense as well as the physical one.
And Connor. It was a tough, tough competition with Wesley/Illyria and the other beauties of this episode, but I still loved the Angel and Connor scenes the most. Vincent Kartheiser rocks - the expression on Connor's face alone when Angel shows up, with so many mixed emotions, was wonderful. Their uneasy conversation with all the undercurrents. And then Connor showing up at W&H to save Angel, and father and son fighting together one last time. LOVED it.
Lindsey was restored to moral ambiguity and three dimensionalness this time around. His death in true Mafia style was a nasty surprise which I hadn't expected. Meaning I had expected Lindsey to die, but not in this way, which stops this episode - as does the confirmed death of Drogyn at the beginning - from implying that Angel, souled version, is only guilty of minor moral lapses in the greater cause. That was murder, pure and simple, and what a Mafia don would do to tidy up ends. (Angel as Michael Corleone. Makes sense.) Lorne as the assassin was a ploy directly from the Godfather and Sopranos world, too.
Oh yeah, and before the A/L crowd got its pit of sugar after last week's tease for the A/S crowd: "Lindsey, I want you." Bwahahaa. You just know that Jeff Bell and Joss wrote the entire conversation between Angel and Lindsey so they could arrive at that sentence.
The two scenes between Harmony and Angel were great, too. That's our Harm, both with the oddly touching High School reflections and the shallow loyalty, though you know, if I was a single undead girl working for Mr. Zero Tolerance who treats me like a piece of office equipment, I probably would have traded him in as well.*g*
(Though note that Angel bothers to send Harmony out of the building, thus saving her unlife (and condemming future victims of hers to death), whereas he lets poor Lorne assassinate Lindsey, who as opposed to Harmony did not betray him. Ts.)
Lastly, that episode is so eminently quotable:
- "Can I deny you three times?"
- "If you say "kill Spike", we might have to kiss"
- "But I would have if you had confidence in me!"
- "I want you, Lindsey"
- "You kill me? But...Angel kills me! Angel kills me!"
- Shall I lie to you now?
Now I can finally read everyone else's reviews. Off I go.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Beautiful post!
Date: 2004-05-22 09:15 am (UTC)Lindsey was restored to moral ambiguity and three dimensionalness this time around.
Masq and I actually together formulated a coherent theory, using this episode and Power Play, that explains Lindsey's actions for the entire season, and without stretching anything too much, if even at all. For now, there is a bit of it in her Power Play review at ATPo, if you haven't checked it out yet, and she says she plans on expanding on it more fully in her Not Fade Away analysis, which should be posted really soon.
And of course...
Date: 2004-05-22 10:00 am (UTC)Exactly how much of a tool is that guy?!?
Re: And of course...
Date: 2004-05-22 11:59 am (UTC)Re: Beautiful post!
Date: 2004-05-22 12:13 pm (UTC)Yes. He taught a being with superpowers to care, and to use them them for others.
I found your Thelma and Louise review very interesting - do you have the DVD with commetaries (one by Ridley Scott, and a separate one with Callie Khourie, Susan Sarandon and Gina Davies)? They talk about the power switch between Thelma and Louise throughout the film, as Louise starts strong and Thelma fragile, and then they see Louise as slowly losing it and Thelma gaining strength, which is a different take from yours.
I also particularly loved how the end of this episode perfectly set-up the ambiguous future time period of Spin the Bottle: cynical, lonely Lorne the only one left standing.
I hadn't noticed the connection until reading other people's reviews, but you're completely right, of course.
Off to ATP next...
no subject
Date: 2004-05-22 09:28 am (UTC)Thanks for the great review!
*bows*
Date: 2004-05-22 12:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-22 09:46 am (UTC)I especially agree with your points on Angel - Angel as Michael Corleone is a perfect analogy, someone who tries to deny what he has inside and finally just uses it when he needs it.
Thank you
Date: 2004-05-22 12:17 pm (UTC)Yes. Perfect for this show and its atmosphere.
I especially agree with your points on Angel - Angel as Michael Corleone is a perfect analogy, someone who tries to deny what he has inside and finally just uses it when he needs it.
Though it has to be pointed out that by doing this, Michael loses nearly all the people he cares out, one by one, either through death or emotional distance...
Re: Thank you
Date: 2004-05-22 07:43 pm (UTC)True, and hopefully Angel doesn't have to lose anyone else; let's hope he can break that cycle.
my dear boys. .
Date: 2004-05-22 10:32 am (UTC)Wes: I love the idea that he finally became a successful Watcher with Illyria. I hadn't quite figured out what their relationship reminded me of, but of course that was it. A Watcher in the end. Break, my heart.
Lindsey: I've recently grown kind of fond of the guy, so his death was a real jolt, and I like the Godfather parallel a lot. Does that suggest that Angel gets out of this and becomes the REAL head honcho (not the figurehead) a la Corleone? And then what?
We're stuck with 'em in midair though, and you know what? I'll take it. That way it never has to end.
Re: my dear boys. .
Date: 2004-05-22 12:27 pm (UTC)Lovely idea. Yes.
I love the idea that he finally became a successful Watcher with Illyria. I hadn't quite figured out what their relationship reminded me of, but of course that was it. A Watcher in the end. Break, my heart.
Same here!
Does that suggest that Angel gets out of this and becomes the REAL head honcho (not the figurehead) a la Corleone?
If there had been a sixth season? No idea. Of course if we were following the Godfather precedent he would, then lose everyone he cares about either through death or emotional distance and end up alone. Since they already did the emotional distance and death this season, and since Angel has Connor, I figure not. But honestly, I have no idea what would happen next. (If Angel survived.)
We're stuck with 'em in midair though, and you know what? I'll take it. That way it never has to end.
Me too. Far more fitting than either the completely nihilistic variety (dust blowing in the wind...) or an unlikely complete victory.
Re: my dear boys. .
Date: 2004-05-22 12:34 pm (UTC)Re: my dear boys. .
Date: 2004-05-22 12:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-22 02:29 pm (UTC)and nods to other moments you mentioned.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-22 05:48 pm (UTC)It kind of reminded me of the Blakes 7 finale, somehow.
[[Avon stands over the dead body of his old
loverfriend Blake, who he's just killed. The bodies of his crew lie scattered about the room. Alone but for a huge-ass gun, he faces down a century of Federation troops. He smiles.]]*pauses*
Okay, two of you get that. [SIGH]
no subject
Date: 2004-05-22 09:54 pm (UTC)Whereas on AtS, we know that people like Anne will continue to fight the good fight in their way. In the larger Jossverse context, we know the Sunnydale expatriates will. And again, Connor.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-24 01:36 pm (UTC)At least with the Angel finale, we knew that -- whatever might happen to them now -- our crew had left behind something of a lasting legacy, of lives changed, hope restored, and butts kicked.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-24 01:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-24 10:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-25 10:32 am (UTC)(Tanith Lee's "Sand" was definitely my favorite episode of that last season, and don't even get me started on the parallels/contrasts between her B7 3rd season "Sarcophagus" and the AtS episode "Shells").
no subject
Date: 2004-05-25 10:40 am (UTC)Andraste made it for me.
I adore the two Tanith Lee episodes, too. You know, Joss named B7 as one of the shows he watched when going to school in the UK, so the parallels/contrasts were probably deliberate.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-25 10:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-23 12:19 am (UTC)But how pathetic that he feels he needs to protest so much to the Sueddeutsche. He sounds like one of the former Warsaw pact atheletes, from Romania or the DDR, coming back from some Olympic competition and protesting that the Communist way ss the best. Except that no-one is forcing him here...
no subject
Date: 2004-05-23 12:33 am (UTC)Though the idea of him giving the "I'm political, honest!" interview to Newsweek or Time and the "I'm an entertainer, me!" interview to the Süddeutsche in a haze of confusion continues to provide amusement...