Hubert Selby Jr: It’ll be Better Tomorrow, is a solid film about a writer I’ve never read but would probably like.  He dropped out of school after the 8th grade and became a merchant marine during WWII and therefore a drunk.  We’re told that he only turned to writing after narrowly escaping death and being debilitated by TB.  Selby’s most famous book was Last Exit to Brooklyn which sold a bunch of copies, largely because of two idiotic obscenity trials.  He made a bunch of money and squandered it on drugs before rebuilding his life, continuing to write and becoming a popular teacher at USC.  The part of the film that actually sets out to tell his story does so quite well.

However,  about a third of the film irritated the fuck out of me, not because of unusual sins, but because of typical ones found in the biographical doc.  If you’ve watched any number of “Real Men of Genius” documentaries such as Sketches of Frank Gehry, or Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes; Crazy Sexy Cool you’ve seen the breathless fawning and hyperbole and, depending on the time in which the person lived, the celebrity hob-knobbing and circle-jerks.  Look, Henry Rollins has injected himself into the situation in act of self-promotion number 10,000.  Here’s Anthony Kiedis for no reason.  Selby overcame a drug addiction, so let’s get Robert Downy Jr. to narrate.  That’s how good a writer Selby was.  Huh?

The truth about greatness is that it’s a matter of increment, rather than orders of magnitude.  This is most clear in more objective endeavors like sports.  The most commonly cited example is golf, where one stroke separates Tiger from the field and the field from the club pros.  I like the example of football though–bear with me you unclean foreigners.  Football is a multi-billion dollar industry and meticulously scouted athletes conform to a narrow range of physical attributes.  You can rule out 99.99% of the population from a given position just by watching them run ten feet.   Yet the differences between the greatest of all time and the home town heroes are so subtle that you could build a team almost exclusively of first tier, all-time greats who weren’t even noticed by college scouts and wound up at barely-known programs.  Build an offense around Walter Payton, Jerry Rice, Randy Moss, Jackie Slater, Larry Allen, Gene Upshaw and a properly sedated Terrell Owens and you’re in pretty good shape.  Steve McNair is probably your quarterback and though, he’s “only” a borderline hall of famer, he wasn’t even a Dvision I player and your team would still score 80 points per game.  Yet nobody could tell that any of these guys were good enough to play for Iowa.

Within the arts and academics, where success is more subjective, greatness is just as hard to spot and narrowly achieved.  You probably know that Confederacy of Dunces was only published under improbable circumstances after the author committed suicide as a failure.  There must be hundreds of such books that were never discovered. Marconi and Tesla tied on inventing the radio.  Leibniz and Newton tied on inventing calculus.  A bunch of other people would have also tied with them, except they died at age seven because they crapped in their drinking water.  Only a handful of living filmmakers will be remembered through the centuries, but nobody really has a clue which ones.  Will future generations believe that Sokurov is ten times better than Scorsese?  Will there be hundreds of professors specializing in “The Simpsons” or “The Wire” who look down their nose at film from this era?  Will Hubert Selby Jr. be completely forgotten? It all seems possible.

Again I don’t have a huge problem with the strictly biographical elements of this film and the footage chosen of Selby.  Nor is my argument that the great people who are separated by timing, chance and marginally better ability are any less great or interesting because of it.  In fact, the things that make up those little differences are far more interesting than the scenario of the typical hagiography, wherein the genius is a comic book hero.  If some people just popped out of the womb with IQs of 300 and the ability to throw a 180 MPH fastball, their stories would quickly become boring.  Warranted hagiography is fine, but what are the nuances and idiosyncrasies that allowed the subject to shine?  Selby talks about his style, but only briefly.  There has to be more to say about the man and his work that could be included at the expense of cameos testifying to his freakish genius.

In fact, with rare exceptions, other celebrities should usually be excluded from these films.  Anyone who’s ever listened to a DVD commentary knows the mechanism at work here.  Celebrities, though usually talented and deserving, have still just scraped past other talented and deserving and people to achieve their status.  Insecure and unwilling to face this fact, they establish a tacit contract whereby all parties wildly exaggerate each others ability.   Maybe the producers casting the voice of ALF thought it was a coin toss between the guy who got it and the next guy at the time.  But now, we can see that he was unbelievably fucking brilliant!  I’m not saying that Selby is the same as the ALF guy, but I did want to throw up when an actress from the film of his Requiem For A Dream declared that the chance to give voice to his words was “one of the great gifts of my life.”

The best part of the contract is that even those giving out the blowjobs benefit.  Not only is there the understanding that they too will be blown down the line (the guy who did the voice of ALF will talk about the stunning vision of the producers of ALF),  there is the implication that they have earned the right to understand and opine on the genius by being brilliant themselves.  Why is Richard Price in a film about Selby for like fifteen minutes?  So he can say, “Hubert Selby is a Genius.  I ought to know… I’m Richard Price.”  And Michael Jordan loves Ball Park Franks.  They plump when you cook ‘em!  Obviously Rollins, who is a genius at tricking people into believing he’s not an idiot, is the more gratuitous example.  But it’s specifically because I’m fine with Price that I mention him.  I know Price deserves a spot on the totem pole that is invisible from my own.  But, apart from perhaps a few words on Selby’s influence, that has absolutely nothing to do with Selby the man. Long after it’s explained to we uninitiated why Selby was great and what he did, we still hear from Price and the like.  Give me more from his students at USC.  His mailman.  Hell, maybe the guy himself.  There’s a decent amount of footage with Selby, but seeing as he is the subject of the film, maybe he should be in it more than Darren Aronofsky.

Apart from just being fed up with this hagiography approach in general, I think it irked me so much in this particular film because Selby comes across as unbelievably modest and unconcerned with stratification of status.  He wasn’t a monk, but it seems like if he knew a film was being made about Robert Downy Jr, it would never even occur to him to involve himself.  When he called for a job at USC he wasn’t sure they’d have one for him because he never seemed to realize that, according to one testimony, there should be a wing of the Harvard library named in his honor.   So I doubt he’d believe that his legacy is best conveyed via celebrity endorsements.

The basic facts of what happened are clear enough.  Five boys in their late teens went to a backyard “fort” where two other boys hung out and stored, maybe sold, pot.  One boy waited in the car while the others went to the fort.  A fight broke out and one or more of the boys from the larger group stabbed the two friends, killing one and hospitalizing the other.

The film takes a strong editorial stance that the boys who were charged were treated unfairly, and that the police officer who was father to the murdered boy, manipulated the criminal justice system to that end.  Also, it’s a piece of shit.  The distortions begin almost immediately with the caption “Agoura Hills, California: 50 Miles North of Los Angeles.”  This is true, in the sense that Agoura Hills is ten miles North of Los Angeles, thirty miles North of downtown.  The film further distorts matters with tactics like emphasizing unsubstantiated statements by defendants.  One kid, Brandon Hein, didn’t even know that the actual murderer or murderers had knives with them.  He didn’t even know anybody had been stabbed until well after the fact. How do we know this and why is it repeated several times?  Because he said so.

Most of the facts of the case and the perspectives of prosecutors are presented, though reluctantly.  Initially we get Alan Dershowitz’s characterization–that a fight broke out between teenagers and somebody wound up getting stabbed.  This is the impression we are left to hold.  Now, this is bad enough.  I mean, teenagers fight all of the time without anybody getting stabbed.  The reason that there is usually not a stabbing, is that no one pulls out a knife and sticks it into the person they are fighting.  Let’s take a step back, as the film never does, and consider that the kids who were stabbed were outnumbered four to two by the kids who were attacking them.  You can make whatever “heat of the moment” arguments you like, but it is critical–and never discussed, that 1) The perpetrators initiated the conflict and 2) They did so with a two to one numbers advantage.  Yet, 3) they still wound up stabbing not one, but both of the boys they were attacking.

While these facts are evident in the film, they are never presented in an organized way because that is a pretty tough scenario to finesse.  Rather, the film tries to convince us that the stabbings were borderline self-defense, focusing on a smaller version of events within the larger scenario.  The chief aggressors were brothers, Micah and Jason Holland.  Micah was being punched out within the conflict, so Jason stabbed Mike McLoren, the boy who was beating up his brother.  Then Jimmy Farris attacked Jason , who  stabbed Farris fatally.  The details of the stabbings are withheld until more than an hour into the film, when it is finally revealed that Jason stabbed Mike three times (lacerating his liver, as you can find out from wikipedia), and Jimmy twice, puncturing is heart, though he would claim the stabbings were an accident.  The fact that it was only a two inch blade is mentioned far more often than the five, separate stab wounds to two different boys who never presented lethal force when attempting to defend themselves.  This is because we are meant to believe that a two inch blade is about equivalent to a bee-bee gun.  Maybe not even that.  Hey, these kids were practically throwing water balloons.  Should you go to jail for throwing a water balloon?

If the stabbings were part of a robbery, the killing, of course, becomes first degree murder and all participants are guilty of it via the felony murder rule.  Certainly, a contributing factor to the judgment that this was a robbery, was the fact that the boys committed another robbery, literally on the way to the “fort.”  They stole a woman’s pocket book from her car, though it turned out not to have money. The woman followed and confronted the boys but was scared off, as the boys threatened her and fled again, allegedly hitting her car in the process (the final detail comes from wikipedia, not the film, again).  The film even goes so far as to include implications that the woman is at fault here, initiating a dangerous, “high speed chase” of the boys who robbed her.  Within half an hour, the boys approached the fort to acquire pot–either by stealing it or having acquired a sudden aversion to robbery.  If it was not a robbery, how did the fight break out? The Hollands and their friends had come to give Jimmy and Mike money, but Jimmy and Mike decided they would rather be on the wrong end of a two-on four fight than make some easy cash?  Though the film repeatedly presents an the assertion that this was somehow not a robbery, it never gives an alternate theory.  It also seems unlikely that any of the boys went to the fort not knowing why they were going there, which is the assertion given most often in the film.

I have only a bit to contribute as an “insider” to the case.  I didn’t know any of the people involved well and, at the time of the murder, had no clue who the dead boy, Jimmy Farris was.  I can say, with certainty, that the Holland brothers were no strangers to fighting.  Jason was in my fourth grade class and threw a chair at our teacher.  This was not an isolated incident.  So I’m sure that the film is correct in asserting a rough upbringing for the Holland boys.  In any case, the pattern of violence and fighting was established early on and nobody mistook them for cream puffs later.  The filmmakers talked to one student–a half witted blond chosen at random–and one teacher to paint the Hollands and the others as good boys.  The prosecutor’s allegation that they were a neighborhood menace is never investigated beyond that.  I can’t say if these kids were a general menace or not–other than that they never bothered me.  But I do think it is relevant that they were experienced fighters.  They had to know what they were doing.  The stabbings were not the result of a sheltered child or a nerd flying into a panic in his first taste of physical conflict.

There is no doubt that the prosecution went overboard in the case.  They sought fist degree murder charges for all of the boys including Tony Miliotti who, by all accounts, never threw a punch. The prosecution successfully portrayed the boys as belonging to a gang, though the judge ruled that they could not do so.  They seem to have coaxed testimony from the boy who survived the stabbing and withheld the fact that he was given immunity from drug charges.  In fact, they told the jury that he was risking those charges by testifying, knowing that they had already given him immunity from them.  Despite protests to the contrary, the LAPD father of the victim was a factor in pursuing, and getting, life without parole for three of the boys and 29 years for Micah Holland, who was fifteen at the time of the killing.   Brandon Hein–who was a marginal figure in the actual fighting was among those to get life, certainly an unfair sentence.   Mike Valardo, the boy who waited in the car while the attack took place, wound up serving about five years.

But it seems to me that the law allowing for such things–which it clearly does–is the greatest instance of immorality.  As severe as the crimes are, does a teen guilty of a fatal stabbing in a small time robbery deserve life without parole?  Does the teen standing behind him?  Is it worth paying $50,000 a year to keep them locked up?  The scattered and biased approach of the film doesn’t really do favors to anyone.  If you are familiar with the case, or take a minute to consider the information objectively, it comes off as prejudiced and unreliable.  With so much time wasted quibbling over details and obfuscating facts, there was plenty of room for a compelling, fair-minded film.  Rather than diminishing the magnitude of this particular crime, the film could have included three or four similar cases, asking that we reevaluate harsh sentencing in general and the felony murder law in particular, and reign in overzealous prosecutors.  Instead, it’s just a waste of time. About which I wrote a 1500-word review.

The illusion of the traditional farmer has been very useful from a marketing perspective, as every imaginable food product will have a picture of happy animals and good, honest, hard-working farmers bringing sustenance to the world while handling the family business. Thanks to the great distance between the consumer and how their food is produced, this remains a quaint and accepted illusion. Upton Sinclair noted that he was aiming for America’s heart when he wrote The Jungle, and ended up hitting it in the stomach. His disgusting depiction of hog killing floors as dangerous places where the sausage was more likely to contain nutritionally blank potato flour, rats, and the occasional injured worker than any actual pork became a clarion call that resulted in legislation to ensure safe food and safer working conditions. Large businesses have been fighting such measures ever since, finding ways to increase efficiency and maximize profit, even if laws must be bent beyond the breaking point and traditional farmers must be squeezed out of their land and livelihood in order to do so. As the brilliant and entertaining new documentary Food, Inc. makes clear, the most important weapon that such corporations employ is the ignorance of the consumer. This is not necessarily the fault of the consumer, who enjoys deceptively low prices and must see through a fraudulent cloud of bullshit to figure out just where their food is coming from, who makes it, and what those business practices involve.

The film expertly redefines the new American farmer as “factory farming“, and that the independent traditional farmer is not only increasingly rare, but is being actively chased out of the business. Using genetically modified seeds, massive irrigation schemes, greenhouses (for plants out of season), vast shipping routes, industrial processing techniques, and psychological warfare in the form of marketing, incredible amounts of food can be processed annually in a fairly cheap fashion. Though this is touted as a success, there are many problems with the factory model. The food is cheap, but the giant farms receive subsidies ($25 billion annually), so in effect the food is already paid for. This functions to keep out food imports, but also serve to skew production toward the factory model. Apart from the unnecessary subsidies, the system is wasteful, with each food item traveling an average of 1500 miles before consumption. Food produced out of season requires enormous investment and resources, such as greenhouses and ethylene gas to ripen vegetables. Lastly, the system is a setup for epidemics as the food is handled in standardized fashion with contaminated machines, product being sent hundreds of miles away for more efficient spread. At the grocery checkout, the prices are affordable since those tax-funded subsidies have already been applied, so we are none the wiser. Organic farming does not benefit to the same degree, as these are usually smaller farms which receive the minority of subsides.

Vegetable farming has been unkind to traditional farmers, who have found their land becoming too expensive to lease, and the large companies to which they are contracted will demand constant upgrades that keep small farmers in debt (average debt of $500,000) and unable to negotiate or unionize. If a farmer does not wish to use genetically modified seeds, they may be in for a world of hurt. Monsanto, for example, has patented genetically modified soybeans that resist herbicides; thanks to a conservative Supreme Court ruling, if you attempt to clean the seeds for planting next year, you will be fined into bankruptcy. And if you do not use genetically modified seeds, Monsanto places you on a blacklist banning your ability to use their other products, harassing you with investigators (there is a team of 75 who prowl the fields across the United States), and if genetically modified plants spread to your field, then you just made Monsanto thousands of dollars richer. Not all of this is legal, but if you start or receive a legal suit, then the corporations simply outspend you. When the money is big enough, the law no longer matters.

Animal farming is even more ridiculous. Now that meat is a meal and a condiment, demand has skyrocketed, and companies like Tyson and Perdue occupy 80% of the meat market. They control the supply and set the rules for smaller meat farmers. The animals are genetically modified, live in tightly packed sheds in complete darkness, standing in a community pool of stool, and ingest antibiotics constantly. Chickens produce twice the meat they once did, and are killed twice as fast; with such a demand for breast meat, the chickens have breasts so big that the bones cannot hold them up, and they are unable to walk. The largest killing floor in the world is in Tar Heel, North Carolina, slaughtering 32,000 hogs per day. The amount of shit produced exceeds New York City’s output. Most of the labor is with illegal immigrants, with occasional raids on their company-sponsored sheds to give the appearance of adherence to labor laws. The meat is often contaminated despite the antibiotics, so a filler material has been designed that is made with ammonia that will make ground meat safe to eat despite the presence of E Coli 0157. Yes, they are adding ammonia to meat to make it edible.

Once the factory system showed the enormous profit margin of food production, there has been no looking back. Each problem with the model has inspired increasingly bizarre responses, such as use of antibiotics, ammonia, radiation, genetic modification, and bizarre feeding practices, but never a reevaluation of whether the system itself is a good idea in the larger picture. The system is expensive and wasteful to begin with, but there are additional hidden costs. For example, food is modified to maximize taste of salt, fat, and sugar; consequently diabetes and cardiovascular disease along with the attendant obesity have become epidemic, and the medications needed to treat these diseases are not considered part of the cheap grocery bill. They should be, since efficiency is useless if the costs are outsourced to taxpayers and pharmaceutical companies. Also, the cost of raising meat is cheap partly because the major food for livestock is corn. Cows, pigs, and chickens did not evolve to eat a corn-only diet, and so the animals become quite sick before they are killed. If a corn-fed cow is not slaughtered, they will actually die anyway within a few months of abscesses and other systemic infections. Also of note, corn-fed cows have overwhelming carriage of dysentery-causing organisms like hemorrhagic E Coli. If the cows start eating grass, the dysentery issues disappear.

The game is stacked heavily against not only the family farmer, but the consumer. Awareness of a company’s business practices is difficult, and so people have little understanding of how their food is made, and what the true cost is. They have no awareness of the cost of farm subsidies. The oversight has been gutted, with the FDA experiencing such staff and budget cuts that they have gone from 50,000 annual inspections in 1974 to 9,000 in 2006. The head of the FDA in the past decade has generally been a meatpacking CEO or some other goon who is the very picture of a conflict of interests. The USDA does not have the authority to shut down plants that repeatedly fail inspections, and apart from the occasional public outcry during an epidemic, there is little that can be done to companies that flout the laws.

Fortunately, Food, Inc. does have a glimmer of hope in how to approach the corporations that have achieved a stranglehold on the industry. To demonstrate the utility of knowledgeable buying power, Wal-Mart is presented as being part of the solution. I know, it confused the hell out of me too. Basically, the position of Wal-Mart is that only the money matters, and if the shoppers demonstrate that they want organic food produced in a sustainable fashion, then they will respond accordingly and stock their shelves with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of organic and sustainably grown food. This is in sharp contrast to the food producers who work to intimidate farmers and bribe legislators. Organic companies such as Stonyfield have become highly profitable. Small farmers such as the ones who have appeared in this documentary despite the likelihood that they will be sued and bankrupted for their efforts reveal what a true American hero is. Though venal politicians have been lobbied to emasculate regulatory agencies and appoint judges who side with Big Food on nearly every issue, they remain venal, and vulnerable to efforts to unseat them for their stupidity. Threatening your congressman and senator can be surprisingly helpful if you are persistent in your letters. The alternative is apathy, and that is why Big Food was able to successfully sue Oprah Winfrey for publicly insulting a food company. The work to fundamentally change the way food is made is considerable, but as long as one remembers that all of the power rests with the people who buy the food, everything else falls into place.

So, Food, Inc. is not only winning entertainment, but it will boil your blood from the first to last frame. Throughout, the director is careful to avoid giving the impression that we are completely fucked, and for once I share their hope. The green revolution, though not without its inconsistencies, has fundamentally changed how companies do business. Some companies are obstinate to these changes, but if Wal-Mart becomes a champion of organic foods, then just about anything is possible.

Steve Kudlow, known affectionately as “Lips” to the faithful, has reached the half-century mark of his otherwise unremarkable life, spending most of his time working for a catering company in the suburbs of Toronto. Despite his age, he maintains the defiantly unkempt hairstyle of youth, and during every waking moment, he is a slave to neither despair nor quiet resignation, but rather a near mystical level of vigor and optimism. Clinging to the sounds of a parade that has long since passed by (and never was that big to begin with), Lips has not yet put to bed the belief that his band, Anvil, a project he started at age 14 with lifelong friend (and drummer) Robb Reiner, will once again reach the pinnacle of the heavy metal world. Back in the heyday of the early 1980’s, Anvil toured the globe with the likes of the Scorpions, Whitesnake, and Bon Jovi, only to disappear without a trace for no conceivable reason. Other, less talented bands continued to curry favor with America’s youth, so why did Anvil die an all-too-typical musical death? How, then, did the teeming stadiums of yore become the sad, lonely bars of today? That is, when the bars are even returning phone calls.

Perhaps the world didn’t really need yet another documentary about pathetic dreams, dying hopes, and deluded rock stars who can’t give up the ghost, but in the case of Anvil! The Story of Anvil, the expected laughs and eye-rolls yield to genuine empathy, as we quickly dismiss all forced connections to Spinal Tap and the like (an actual “11” in a recording studio, as well as a trip to the real Stonehenge) and focus instead on the nature of true friendship. What other link, after all, should two people have than the fulfillment of a dream? So many flirtations of youth, bound by the trivia of shared loneliness, die violently upon reaching adulthood, as the light of new responsibilities diminishes the carefree contentment of having nowhere in particular to go. For Lips and Robb, the bonds of affection are maintained with almost effortless abandon, as neither one has ever really grown up. Sure, there are homes, wives, children, and yes, even jobs, but all appear to be mere distractions; roadblocks and irritants to be dispatched at a moment’s notice whenever the allure of the road beckons from afar. We never see a lick of evidence to suggest that these two men are anything but committed husbands and fathers (even if they could be better providers), but the moment they get that call, it’s a glow that not even badminton with the kids can replicate.

The central thrust of Anvil! is the resurrection of the band as they begin what amounts to a world tour, though these guys are traveling decidedly second class. They miss trains, get lost, and by all accounts, the tour “manager” (some odd chick they appeared to find in a chat room or something) is cutting her teeth on Anvil’s time. There’s a decent rock show here and there (Sweden is usually kind to heavy metal), but the standard gathering of fewer than a hundred all but defines this journey abroad. And when the band reaches Prague, the crowd is practically non-existent, an insult compounded by the fact that the club owner refuses to cough up payment. Not a dime, he says, citing their lateness as an explanation, even though he made no effort to keep them from hitting the stage. Lips’ confrontation with the visibly terrified deadbeat is tense and fascinating, until of course we understand that this is more the rule than the exception. As Lips kindly informs us upon reaching the States, the band mates are as broke now as they were before embarking on this trip, making it little more than a vacation from their actual jobs back home.

Still, did they really expect the red carpet treatment? Anvil, while pioneers in their own way (we hear from Lemmy, Slash, and Lars Ulrich testifying to their early influence), never resonated beyond a select few (“Metal on Metal” is damn catchy, but it ain’t “Peace Sells”). In fact, they just might own the distinction of having released the most albums without a single breakthrough. Still, someone was listening. I never cared for their music myself (I bought a single album, Pound for Pound, and quickly sold it to a used music store), and even here, they sound more like a ludicrous marriage of Savatage and Manowar, but as always, that’s not the point. We marvel at the grizzly, sagging visages that pepper the ever-dwindling crowds, but they’re true believers nonetheless; human beings who are moved, never mind the source. If it gets us through the day, should it matter? Men approaching Social Security still retaining their jean jackets, faded leather, and fist-pumping ways can invite ridicule, but when so many move through life with bitter, glassy-eyed indifference, it’s damn near inspiring to witness the power of music. Yes, even bad music.

Much of the real drama concerns the release of Anvil’s “long-awaited” album This is Thirteen. Unlike most recordings, though, the band has to front a UK rep 15,000 pounds to see it through, and not even then will a single sale appear on the horizon. Lips tries his hand at telemarketing to raise the cash, though he lasts but eight painful hours at the sort of place even Ricky Roma would dismiss as too depressing. Additionally, they must press the album themselves, bringing forth a shipment of boxes that, one expects, will be thrown into a crawl space at some point in the near future. Copies are mailed to various record companies, but only EMI Canada shows any real interest, and even then it’s likely a ploy just to get their logo in a film. The A&R man is polite to a fault, but no one in the room expects the conversation to go anywhere. The second the music starts, we all but hear the withering balloon sag in the corner. Lips and Robb might wish it were 1983, but tastes have moved on. It’s arguable whether or not they’ve progressed, but these are businesses in search of profit, not arbiters of artistic worth. At least the band has the internet to reach the previously unreachable fan base. Those boxes had better empty fast, however, given the money floated by Lips’ sister, as well as the tensions that resulted from the stressful recording sessions. Tears, outbursts, and threats emerged, but they never outshined the music.

At last, when Lips plays at a music festival and is more excited to meet his fellow metalheads-in-arms than anything he does on stage, we don’t mock his child-like enthusiasm; instead, we ask if we ourselves have ever expressed so basic an emotional release. Far from the sick fantasies of a lonely autograph hound, this is a man still pushed to the brink by the only thing he’s ever given two shits about. And if they are still playing at their age, why fade away into that good night? In the past, I’ve been the first to criticize the jock who won’t hang up the strap, or the rock god who insists on that one, final tour, but here, more than ever, I’ve come to realize that I’m in no position to judge. Simply put, I’ve never been so good at anything — so dedicated and immersed in a craft — that I’d ever have the opportunity to “move on.” Whatever it is I’d stop doing would hardly cause a disturbance, even in my own small world. Anvil! is that kind of movie: the half-cocked, demented old farts you thought you despised are actually the dudes you wished you could be. What Lips and Robb settle for — the average life — is the best most of us will ever attain, and we don’t even have the luxury of needing a reason to go shirtless at middle age while screeching drunks ask for more.

Appropriately, the whole thing ends up in Japan, where a capacity crowd welcomes the band back from an inappropriate oblivion. You can always count on the unhinged youth of Japan to set your career back on track, though this frenzied group could easily be the last for our metal gods. There’s talk of yet another album, Juggernauts of Justice, but I doubt sis will contribute a crumb until she sees her first nickel from the previous installment. No matter, as Anvil plays on. Just another band, roaming from job to job, without a single guarantee of another day to come. Here’s hoping they die at their post, hair flying about, with that ever-present vibrator sliding down that well-traveled guitar. Though only the cruelest universe would take them both at once. Leave one man standing, comes our plea, if only to allow the funeral to serve as that much-needed gig; that expected springboard to the bigger and the better just around the corner.

Jonathon Sharkey has a dream. It’s a typically American dream, and because it involves long odds, hard roads, and swimming against the proverbial tide, the first few moments of W. Tray White’s documentary could very well inspire even the most hardened political observer. Sharkey, you see, wants to be the Governor of Minnesota. It’s 2006, the war in Iraq is less popular than ever, change is in the air, and maybe, just maybe, in the same state that once sent Jesse Ventura to power, those quirky voters could once again buck tradition and sprinkle a little independence in the garden of predictability. It’s a script that practically cries out for Jimmy Stewart. Unfortunately, at least from the perspective of anyone who believed the man actually had a chance to win, Mr. Sharkey just happens to be a Satanic vampire. Who is sexually involved with his half-sister. And whose entire platform consists of believing he has the Constitutional right to execute anyone he wishes, especially those who have personally wronged him. And, as the title of the film so conveniently informs us, he’s known as “The Impaler.” What could go wrong? Ain’t this America?

Predictably, the film is less a journey through the gauntlet of political warfare than the onscreen unraveling of a genuine psychopath, the sort of man who, from the very first interview (and there were many after his bizarre announcement), appears on the verge of a very messy suicide. It’s not just that he’s fond of discussing his blood-filled diet, or even demonstrating how he rips at his own arm like a starving pit bull and offers it to his hungry female companion as if passing the stuffing at Thanksgiving; it’s his glassy-eyed, incoherent rambling that betrays the tortured madman within. As such, I waited patiently for the revelations to fall like bitter rain. After all, whenever we catch a snippet of a seemingly “private” phone call where the subject roars at his family with Jake LaMotta-like rage, or listen to a monologue about his otherwise unmotivated hatred of everything in, around, and throughout the state of Indiana (he calls it Iraqiana), we know we’re about to see a title card announcing a buried molestation charge. Indeed, Sharkey was raped by his father. As if that wasn’t enough to begin the tailspin, his mother threw him down a flight of stairs, a process that ended with a full body cast and years of pain. So what if Sharkey first told us he simply “fell.” Despite the favorable press, few come to Satan through good times and well-adjusted upbringings.

So while at first we might have been impatient with the smirking commentators (Tucker Carlson among them) who used their camera time to mock the poor man for his religious beliefs rather than actually find out what he stood for, it’s only a brief interlude until the rubber hits the room. From the wife (technically an “ex-”, though he won’t grant a divorce) who says he’s better known as “Rocky Adonis Flash” to the right-field lightning strike that he has a background in wrestling, the hits pile up so quickly that we half expect his kids to come forward with tales of humiliation and despair. Which they do. It seems dear old dad once choked his daughter and held a knife to her throat, which might have been excusable if he didn’t also dress like a woman, complete with a bra stuffed to the gills not with tissue, but honest-to-goodness man-boobs. Jonathon’s also wanted in Indiana on numerous charges including stalking, and it seems fitting that he’s arrested mere minutes after completing one of his typically surreal interviews. And, as if on cue, we learn that he once faked his own death, using his female “character” to send out emails to stunned friends and relatives. I’d like to think the whole ruse was simply to get out of paying taxes or something, but it appears he genuinely loves being a chick.

Down we go, further and further into this tale of garden variety insanity, when we are hit with the fact that the woman we think is a half-sister is nothing of the sort, and this “Kat” chick is actually Jonathon himself, so named because he wanted to resurrect the memory of his long dead sister. And through it all — the restraining orders, neck biting, and humorless rants about using the term “cloak” instead of the more pedestrian “cape” — we are left wondering why this creep fest was even made, as the tone never decides whether or not it is pro-exploitation or simply a commentary on our national obsession with fame. The latter is too obvious to warrant yet another self-righteous narrative, but at no point was a perspective given. Neither was a literal point of view, as half the film occurs in the sort of shadow that might be mistaken for a dark closet. We hear Mr. Sharkey, but where the hell is he? Fine, you can certainly use a cheap camcorder for a film few will see outside of the festival circuit, but whatever happened to the light of day? Add to that the frequent (and annoying) subtitle misspellings that ranged from the pathetic to the embarrassing, and you have an amateur hour that doesn’t even have the decency to be consistently hilarious. Sure, I chuckled a bit when the director interviewed a Sharkey son in front of a yard overrun with toilets, but the titters quickly vanished in favor of the discomfort one usually finds in a rambling essay about nothing in particular.

Maybe all we’re meant to be left with is the notion that naked ambition is quite frequently a mask for volcanic self-loathing, but even that’s too easy. Sure, politics is in fact show business for ugly people, but is the lust for power so inextricably tied to a deep-seated desire for personal revenge? Is it as much about “showing them” as craving a privileged perch by which to enact unimpeded justice? After all, Sharkey seems unconcerned about the possible resistance to his illegal executions, or even his rewards for those who committed crimes in our country’s name while serving in combat. But at the moment we think he’s Stalin in a Meatloaf wig, he’s browsing Home Depot for an impaling post. Even his expected training in the black arts is so inept that he’s utterly baffled by the task at hand. What’s left is less an instrument of torture than the beginnings of that long delayed fence repair. And, as if in need of a dash of credibility, the movie spends a good five minutes with old wrestling friends, now broken and battered mountain men, who love to show off the moves, though they’re not about to vote for a guy who doesn’t love Jesus. Maybe that will come when Jonathon runs for president, which the film announces did in fact occur in 2008. We’re even treated to a campaign commercial of sorts. I’m still waiting for the concession.

Not long ago I developed a fascination with the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), Pride Fighting and all other forms of the human cock fight. Until recently, I’ve held the Gracie family in a certain level of contempt. It is because of the Gracies that I initially became disillusioned with the UFC upon ordering an early pay per view event, back in the nineties. These fuckers were so good at submissions that they reduced every UFC fight to several minutes of almost gay porn, culminating in an arm bar and one dude, who looked like he was the result of genetic experiments involving silverback gorillas, tapping out to a Gracie, who looked like a place kicker. Although I admired the scrawny Gracies for effortlessly besting ogres, watching them in action was a bore. It was years before I checked back in with the UFC and learned that ultra-violence had been restored.

It was at this point that I began downloading Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fights wholesale. What joy I felt watching my favorite, Mirko “Cro Cop” reduce 900 pound, former NFLer Bob “the Beast” Sapp to a quivering pile of chocolate pudding with one devastating kick to the abdomen and nearly decapitating the mammoth, Alexander Emelianko. How I laughed with glee when Vitor Belfort dropped the ridiculously confident, gelatinous mollusk, Scott Ferrozzo. At some point I developed more of an appreciation for the submission style and began searching for Gracie clips. I discovered that the previously maligned by me Gracies had a video, available for download on limewire, called Street Fighting.

This video rocks for the simple reason that it does away with the usual pretenses behind “self defense” instructional. The notions that these techniques are meant for spiritual fulfillment or only as defensive measures are completely dispensed with. The instructor introduces the first technique by saying, “Now let’s suppose that you decide that this guy needs to get hit.” Should you apply these tactics judiciously, at risk of being sucked into the dark side? No, you merely need decide that someone “needs to get hit.” Brilliant!

The techniques themselves are gold. If you do in fact decide that someone needs to get hit, the instructor recommends a looping open palm strike to the ear. I actually practiced the technique as recommended and was astonished at the force you can generate. He said your hand should tingle from the rush of blood, mine hurt. If you actually hit someone on the ear using this technique, he said they would cry. My girlfriend sure did.

The second technique is also gold. The instructor actually suggests how to set up a close-standing adversary for a sucker punch. Assuming your enemy is bumping chests with you, put your hands up to your chest and say something like “what did I do?” This puts you in perfect position to throw an elbow right into some douchebag’s chin. Again, I practiced and feel pretty confident that even my flabby ass could send someone into slumber country with this move.

Several more techniques were discussed in the video, but before they were covered, I had already run off to practice the first two. I suppose you could buy this video. RDRR. Or search limewire for “Gracie” and get some entertaining education for free.

When I walked into the theater I became optimistic. Of the 12 Million people who live in greater Los Angeles, six had come to the only theater showing this film. We were all overweight men who had come alone. I estimated that at least three others had movie review web sites. The fact that this film drew my brethren and only my brethren was an indication that I would enjoy it. If nothing else, I knew I could watch the film in silence.

My optimism was justified, not only by the absence of cell phones, but by Bonhoeffer. This film has two subjects. The first is Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a highly regarded, young theologian of the 30’s and 40’s with one of the coolest names in history. As if that wasn’t enough, Bonhoeffer was a leader among the minority of German Christians who spoke out against Hitler and the Nazis. As Hitler became more powerful and the full extent of his evil unfurled, Bonhoeffer moved from hostile rhetoric to participating in organized resistance that included several assassination attempts. The second subject is the role of religion and religious people in political violence and it receives wide examination through the Bonhoeffer and his piers: should Christians be pacifists? Are they permitted to bump off someone like Hitler? Why do the clergy so often seem endorse the most vile acts of governments? One striking example of this examination is a recounting of the propaganda campaign that the protestant churches rubber stamped to justify German aggression during the first World War. I wish I had been pirating this movie so I could get the lines verbatim, but it was something like this. Germany is not aggressive but is merely striking back at enemies who envy its culture and power and wish to destroy it. Where have I heard that before?

One interesting aspect of these events is that Bonhoeffer’s theology, as presented in the film, offers no reason to be optimistic about religion’s capacity to work for political good. Bonhoeffer believes that Christians should participate in the real world, rather than focusing only their personal relationship with God. He also believes that traditional ethics should be discarded because we should be motivated only by adherence to God’s will. All of this is fine if it leads you to opposing Hitler, but couldn’t it just as easily lead you to support him? In other words, every sect has a different idea of what God’s will is, and in most cases, it would probably be better if they didn’t impose it on the real world.

The troubling nature of his theology (again, as presented in the film) doesn’t detract from Bonhoeffer’s courage. As a member of the resistance, he knew the Nazi’s tactics. Specifically, he knew that there was a very good chance he would be tortured and murdered. Yet, even after an interrogation that he deemed worse than death, Bonhoeffer continued to work against the Nazis until he was hanged.

Bonhoeffer expects the viewer to bring something to the game. It does not attempt to answer any of the questions it poses and the film making is very dry, relying on archival footage, interviews and straightforward narration. Think of a PBS documentary on the building of the St. Luis Arch. Connecting the dots between the various issues flowing through the film is left largely up to the viewer, as is the proper reaction to the events of the film. I think the other fat guys were as happy with it as I was.

Directed by Judy Irving

Matt Cale sounds an alarm…

Fucking hippies. Nixon was right to fear them, though not because their silly idealism and “bed-ins” would have accomplished little more than ensuring that otherwise ugly people got laid. Their so-called revolution, something about “freedom” and an absence of inhibitions, would have destroyed everything worth living for had it taken root, and with the perspective of history, it becomes even more clear that what they had in mind for us was on the level of firebombing the country and starting from scratch. To a man (and mannish woman), they were incompetent, spoiled, no-account, and fiendishly selfish, as most were products of affluent homes where “rules” became too stifling, leading the egomaniacal shits to the streets where they opposed Vietnam not because it was an unjust war, but rather because the possibility existed that they might have to go themselves. Curiously, not a single one of these layabouts gave a shit while the poor were dying, but suddenly, as the deferments became more difficult to obtain, they stormed the campuses with their unique brand of self-righteous fury. So while I’d like to believe that I would have been chasing McGovern around the country or passing out leaflets for Eugene McCarthy, part of me suspects that when it came to the hippies, I would have been in closed-door sessions with Nixon and Haldeman, hatching some plot that would have left a good number of the bastards writhing in their own blood from the wrong-end of a two-by-four.

And so we have the documentary The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, purportedly the story of a group of beautiful birds who have flocked to the San Francisco home of Mark Bittner, an eccentric man to be sure, but one so infuriating that I spent less time caring about the birds and much more time wishing this fucker would get a job. Bittner is clearly not mentally ill (he has a strange obsession, but he’s articulate and seemingly well-adjusted), but he hasn’t held a job for 13 years, and even when he did, it was little more than day labor. And yet, he has managed to con a gentle couple into allowing him to squat, rent-free, in one of America’s most expensive cities. He has furniture, clothing, dozens of bags of birdseed, and enough money to wander the city indulging in the expensive hobby of photography. When he’s not talking to the birds (he has names for all of them and claims he can tell them apart), he writes in his journal and pounds out articles while sitting in front of a computer that has been, in a term he uses quite liberally, “borrowed.” Believe me, I am far from a reactionary and never judge the homeless (I give money freely and hope that they are spending it on drugs and alcohol, as living on the street would make anyone want to avoid sobriety), and I also recognize that with many, they suffer from problems (addictions and mental illness, usually) that all the sanctimonious bootstrap talk in the world won’t fix. Some people, due to their unfortunate lots in life, simply cannot hold down a job. Given that reality, let’s do our best to feed and shelter them and leave the finger-wagging to the assholes who think that all they need is Jesus.

Nevertheless, I fucking loathed Mark Bittner. He passive-aggressively pulls out a bill from his wallet everywhere he goes; knowing full well that the people behind the counter will simply hand over the food for nothing. And sorry, given San Francisco’s majestic beauty, I’d like a cozy apartment overlooking the bay for three years without paying a dime, but that’s just not going to happen. How did he swing it? He’s apparently found the secret of charming (or badgering) everyone is his presence into thinking he’s some throwback to more carefree times, but all I see is some burnout who speaks of Jack Kerouac in hushed tones and pontificates about life and finding one’s calling. One shouldn’t do something one doesn’t like, apparently, and for Mark that means picking up the fucking check just once. But rather than lay all the blame at this idiot’s doorstep, I have more than a few harsh words for the people in his life who haven’t told him that perhaps he should find something more productive to do than handle sunflower seeds all day. The birds he cares for are lovely, but they are in fact wild and not native to the area. Perhaps he should have just left them alone. Sadly, not a single one made a pecking move for his blasted eyes.

By the end, Mark is forced to move because the building he occupies undergoes extensive renovation. After bidding goodbye to his beloved creatures, we sit in anticipation, wondering where he’ll go from here. Suddenly, we see Mark cutting his long hair, something he said he would never do until he found a girlfriend. Has he found love at last? In a stunning turn that had me fuming, it is revealed that he is moving in with the director herself — Judy Irving — which means that he managed to find someone even more pathetic in a city known for pathetically crazy loons. But as Irving has shoved her mug and voice into the film out of pure narcissism, we already know she’s an insufferable creep, so why not take on a world-class mooch as your mate? While she is pounding the pavement making Jonathan Livingston Seagull-style films that fell out of favor when folks moved from groovy acid to less romantic meth, Mark will be feeding even more birds and shoving everything she bought into his nasty, bearded mug. You’re shacking up with a certifiable bum, Judy — is that what you envisioned when you set out on life’s course? And from what I can tell, he has no other interests or even little things to add to a conversation. His existence proves beyond a doubt that having somewhere to go during the day, while a pisser if you have to wake up early and sit in traffic, builds not only character and a sense of responsibility, but makes you more well-rounded and interesting. There’s a reason why lunatics in the asylum are fixated on trivia; they lack all perspective because they’ve never had to get in the arena. Their world is the obliterated desert of their own minds, and for that — even more than a lack of sustenance — they should be pitied. But no pity for dear Mark. Just go away.

My knowledge of the automobile is surpassed only by my deep, Maharishi-like insight into the female orgasm, which, in layman’s terms, means I am supremely incompetent in both areas, though not without some consternation. In essence, if presented with the parts of even a rudimentary engine and asked to put them in some sort of working order, my frazzled embarrassment would parallel the same red-faced humiliation, outrage, and colossal insecurity when faced with the Lewis & Clark-style adventure of bringing sexual pleasure to a member of the fairer sex. For me, a car is little more than a way to avoid walking, as it fits neatly into my sloth-filled lifestyle where the only mantra worth repeating is that, when in doubt, avoid even minimal effort. Sure, I like the satellite radio, the ice cold air conditioning, and the security that comes from knowing great or even mediocre food stuffs are but minutes away, but I’d drive around a pink, rust bucket of a clown car if it meant I could get to my destination without a hassle. As such, I am utterly shameless (or sans vanity) when it comes to my vehicle of choice, a fact made obvious by my recent purchase of a Dodge Durango. To be even more honest, I have little doubt that my picture is posted in dealerships across the Denver area, informing the salivating salesmen that if this man walks on to your lot, he is apt to sign any deal set before him — in blood if necessary — and the more advantageous to the seller, the better. No, please, let me give you more money down.

I revel in my cold slap of chosen misfortune for no other reason that to describe how conflicted I was when viewing this documentary, as I am philosophically behind an electric car, but as my fat, greasy middle finger has already been lifted to the environment, who am I to back a genuinely responsible idea? I consume filth made by oppressed wage slaves, buy products sewn together by pre-pubescent Chinese children with pistols pressed firmly against their temples to ensure better production, and I rail against outrageous social policies while doing absolutely nothing myself to alleviate them. If anything, I am firmly — and inescapably — part of the problem, and I have little doubt that if I were to be shot and left for dead in the alley where I dump my un-recycled trash, the quality of life for all would witness a noticeable improvement. In that way, I’m a little proud, sort of like the mother who feels pain that her son shot up a Wendy’s, but still relishes the opportunity to be on television. Because I know that I will fail to make a mark on this world in any lasting way while alive, it warms a few cockles to be the sort of chump who can contribute something in death.

As a film, Who Killed the Electric Car? is yet another installment of the left-wing sweepstakes to win back at least a few-dozen hearts and minds in our increasingly conservative culture, but without any of the sanctimonious spirit of the genre’s patron saint, Michael Moore. Fine, the film doesn’t entirely avoid a smug sense of superiority, but why must it reach for fairness? You should be driving an electric car, you slob, and if you don’t leave this film feeling like a heel, you obviously have no conscience. Or, failing that, you could shuffle from the theater much as I did; railing against the conspiracy to keep these wondrous machines from us, yet too selfish and greedy to give them a shot. The documentary is breezy, fun, and told much like a court case, as the “guilty” parties are brought before us and exposed for their hypocrisy and short-sightedness. Amazingly, General Motors manages to sail in both seas — heroic and villainous — because it had the audacity to produce the Saturn EV-1, yet given a slight opening, GM killed the project, destroyed all the cars known to exist, and went right back to insisting that SUVs were what everybody needed to feel whole again.

Still, this is far from a one-sided screed against an auto company that went temporarily electric because of a California regulation requiring a small percentage of zero emission vehicles to be operating within its borders. GM deserves to crash and burn, of course, but the film also has its weaponry aimed right at the government, oil companies, and even the sainted consumer. And yet, the “failure” of the EV-1, while somewhat related to a lack of demand, does not take into account that GM deliberately failed to market its product aggressively, which we must assume to be true because the film shows at least four “man on the street” interviews where the participants claim to have never heard of such a car. Though it’s likely that these same people couldn’t name a single Supreme Court Justice and hence, possess a striking ignorance about nearly everything not under their nose, their testimonials had me questioning how passionate GM was about the EV-1. But let’s face it, GM would sell cars that run on the bone marrow of infants if they could make a profit, so it’s absurd to think they wasted hundreds of millions of dollars for the hell of it. Right?

What about this car? Is it practical? Certainly not for long-distance travelers, but given that a single charge will give you enough power to get to work and back each day, it’s something every family should have in their garage. It won’t allow for cross-country trips with your screaming brood, but that’s why you have the behemoth, right? The EV-1 is deathly quiet, lightning fast (that it zips along might surprise someone who believes an electric car operates much like an Amish buggy), and in my mind, reasonably attractive. Sure, it seemed like only celebrities drove the thing (Ed Begley Jr., Peter Horton) but it was a great idea for a region of the country so foul with pollution that freedom of choice must eventually yield to government mandates if people continue to be deliberately idiotic. Hell, I’d be satisfied if L.A. became a fucking police state, given its nastiness right about now. California even set up dozens of power stations for quick plug-ins, but I imagine it would still be nerve-wracking to be close to the end of a charge without a friendly sign popping into view.

So why didn’t GM simply discontinue its “failed” experiment and allow the few surviving cars to remain on the road? Sinister voices suggest that the auto giant didn’t want advertisements for environmental sanity influencing consumers, and I’m inclined to agree. One wonders, then, why they didn’t snuff out the human advocates for the machine, as they continue to demonstrate and hold up signs protesting the demise of our salvation. Of course, as much as I can agree that few people would want an electric car because they continue to assign automobiles near-mythical status in our cock-obsessed culture (the very idea of “cruising for chicks” would be immediately feminized), I do blame big oil for this mess, partly because I want to blame them for everything that goes wrong in our world. If even 10% of American cars did not need gasoline to power their engines, billions of dollars in revenue would be lost every year. And what would happen to the lust to blast away superfluous caribou in the Alaskan tundra? That the California state government went back on everything it initially proposed also proves that either dollars exchanged hands in open bribes, or campaigns for the all-precious re-election began to get a bit cloudy.

But we know all that. Cash comes from corporate America, spineless politicians accept it readily, and legislation is passed that benefits boards of directors and stockholders, yet is obscenely labeled as “in the public interest.” To say much more would be to pound out the obvious. Still, Who Killed the Electric Car? doesn’t come across as quite that simplistic, and it’s entertaining enough to allow for a few cinematic mistakes. And any film that opens with an “auto funeral” at Hollywood Forever cemetery has my immediate attention, and even a few thoughts after it reaches its conclusion. But I still drove away in a Durango, so I’ll spare you the lectures.

What is this guy’s batting average? For more than forty years Bavarian “Madman” Werner Herzog has made excellent film after exceptional film after monumental film after epochal film. And his latest, Grizzly Man, the depraved, ecstatic story of another certified madman–Timothy Treadwell–is possibly his best to date. Simply incredible. We’ll return to Herzog in a bit; let’s acquaint you with Mr. Treadwell. Every summer for thirteen years he went unarmed into the Alaskan backcountry and lived among grizzly bears, filming them for the last five. However, he didn’t live among them like you might think. You know how Jane Goodall got down and dirty with her chimps? This crazy fucker did the same thing with GRIZZLY BEARS! For reals, he would walk up to the beasts and stick his finger in their faces, proclaiming over and over again, “I love you, Mr. Brown. I love you! I love you!” Even more unsettling was the fact that in October of 2003, Tim and his girlfriend Amie Huguenard were discovered dead, maimed and mostly-eaten by a grizzly (click here). Herzog “found” the footage that Treadwell had shot for the last five summers of his life (declaring to producer Erik Nelson in his thick German accent, “I will direct this movie” and then extending his arms out to the man, who grasped them, sealing the deal) and like Werner is wont to do, injected himself and his beliefs into an already mind-blowing story. Luckily for us, Herzog is not only the greatest living director (and I say he rivals the dead), but the man is a philosopher in the best sense of the word. Plus, it is a compelling treat to listen to Herzog speak and he narrates the entire film. Herzog is of course after the why of a given event. Not the how. The resulting film is a masterpiece unlike anything else you will see released this year. Or next.

Early on in the film, Treadwell’s behavior is characterized as being disrespectful. Highlighting this, Herzog travels to an Inuit Museum where “tourists” — one of Herzog’s pet peeves — have cut the paw off a ten-foot tall stuffed grizzly. The curator of the museum, who is a native Inuit, explains that for seven-thousand years, his people have lived in peace with the maneaters by respecting the grizzly’s space. And vise versa. Treadwell, in his essentially reckless behavior has crossed a line; gone over a border that no human should expect to travel beyond and then live to return from. However, he is clearly not living with the bears out of an exploitative sense; he is not a poacher or anything remotely resembling that and this must be noted. Treadwell is genuine and quite movingly heartfelt about his love of the grizzly bears and his obsession to protect them from harm and educate the world at large about their plight. So enthused is he that at one point he films a bear taking a dump and with childlike softness and joy, walks over to the still steaming feces, puts his hand in it and starts proclaiming, “this was inside of her! And it came out of her butt! I can feel it, I can feel it! This poop was inside of her!” Gross, of course, but only a blind person could not see that behind his sickness lay a true love for the creatures. But his obsession is not normal. On the one hand it is comical, for Treadwell has a bowl cut, a voice higher than Mike Tyson’s and is constantly reminding vicious half-ton animals that have evolved to only kill and eat as much as possible that he loves them. On the other, it is tragic. Monumentally tragic, for the world is only moved and made worthwhile by driven, obsessed men; sadly Treadwell’s obsession was fatal. Those of you familiar with Herzog know that he himself has a love/hate relationship with nature. As a Bavarian, he is instinctively drawn to it and uses and exploits the natural world as much as possible for his work. Of course, in a scene used in both Burden of Dreams and My Best Fiend, he states, “Nature is the harmony of mass-murder.” Treadwell did not understand the later part.

As compelling as the main thrust of the plot, was the dueling film-within-a-film that occurred during the course of Grizzly Man. All of the grizzly footage in the movie was shot by Treadwell himself (with the exception of a single scene shot by Huguenard). Herzog’s job was to edit it and narrate, as well as to interview those who knew Treadwell and some others with opinions about Timothy’s controversial activities. Yes friends, a film class by Werner Herzog is yours for just the price of admission! Herzog states assertively that he considers Treadwell a top notch filmmaker, saying that Treadwell was capable of staging shots that, “studio directors and their union production crews could never even conceive of.” Of course, he’s right. One shot in the film that leaps to mind and really is a work of art goes down like this; Treadwell has two cameras and he has decided to put one on a tripod and capture himself running down a hill holding the other camera as if he is in pursuit of a bear. He sets the camera and climbs up the hill until he is off screen. As soon as Tim has cleared out, the plants seem to come alive and begin passionately stirring in the wind. It was gorgeous. This happens for a good fifteen seconds. And then, like an even crazier Crocodile Hunter comes Treadwell tearing down the path. I think we, as audience members, are lucky in the extreme that an editor with Herzog’s gifts and patience got a hold of the footage, for 99 out of 100 times, the vegetation would have been sentenced to the cutting room floor. In another shot that is perhaps even more beautiful, Treadwell is talking about (and to) a bear that is foraging behind him. Suddenly, just when a normal director might yell cut or get up to turn off the camera, a family of foxes (Treadwell hangs out with and names all the foxes, too, of course) runs across the screen. He calls them over and they come and there is Timothy; petting a wild fox while a grizzly bear lopes around behind him. It is a scene of such shocking tenderness that I was left reeling. For even though Treadwell is obviously quite out of his fucking mind, his heart is absolutely and without question in the exact right place. And Herzog perfectly understands this.

So? What kind of a person would devote his life — for no pay — to living with grizzly bears? Not who you would think. Growing up in Long Island, Treadwell was a failed collegiate diver turned failed Hollywood actor turned successful drunk. As he explains to the camera, he made a deal with the grizzlies that if he will protect them from humans, they must save him from the drink. He knew nothing of the reality in which he traveled in so often. Nothing of the bears biology, of the harshness of the environment, the customs and beliefs of the locals — nothing. He simply loved the giant things. Too much. And yes, after watching nearly two hours of “his” bears going about their business and almost hanging out with Treadwell, a seductive anthropomorphism manifested itself to me. Golly gee willikers, those big fluffy bears are awfully cute! And when they stand up, they even look like us! There is a particularly fascinating scene where we watch these two males wrestle each other over the right to mate with a female. Extremely human looking. In the aftermath, Treadwell plops himself down next to the defeated bear and begins conversing with it about women and how difficult they are. Unbelievable! Could this actually be real? Was I in fact watching The Bear Witch Project? Treadwell, we soon learn, was just divorced from reality. He refused to accept nature on nature’s terms. He performed a eulogy for a dead fox cub that was killed and eaten by wolves. During a bad drought, the bears began eating their cubs — something which they have to do to ensure survival — and Treadwell was beside himself when he discovered a cub’s skull. So much so that he tried to build a channel in the river to let salmon through. When that failed, he began praying for rain, demanding, “Come on Jesus-dude! Come on Christ-man. Come on Allah… come on floatie Hindu-guy, LET’S SEE SOME RAIN!” And I’ll be damned if it didn’t start raining.

The film, ultimately, belongs to both Treadwell and Herzog. For while Treadwell clearly had his agenda (for the last two summers he was in Alaska, Amie was with him. Yet he went on and on about how isolated and alone he was), and Herzog, well, he always has his. In one of the most powerful scenes that Treadwell shot — and one that was clearly never meant to be seen by other humans — he descends into a Kinski-esq rave about the park service, spitting NWA-worthy bits like, “Fuck you, motherfucking park service!” all the while flipping off and jerking off at the camera. Herzog mentions that he is used to actors who behave in this way. I must point out that the theater was in hysterics at that line. Another of the best bits of the film happens when Herzog is with Jewel Palovak, Treadwell’s ex-girlfriend and partner in their conservation project Grizzly People. Like Treadwell, reality is not her strong suit. However, she happens to have the audiotape of the attack that killed Timothy and Amie. Apparently, the camera was running with the lens cap in place. Through headphones, Herzog listens to a minute of it. Visible are his fingers convulsing against his face in shocked, dismayed horror. He tells her to turn off the tape, and in his best Bavarian/Fascist voice demands, “Jewel, you must never listen to this!” She (and really the entire audience) breaks down in tears as Herzog further commands that she destroy the tape, for it will always be “the white elephant” in her bedroom. In the production notes for the film, Herzog claims that even though both he and Jewel had quit smoking years earlier, that moment was so powerful that they had to go outside and have a cigarette. I really cannot explain properly how brutal and wrenching this scene is. My words are inadequate. And finally we have a few of Timothy’s friends (including Jewel) go and scatter his ashes over the place he loved so dearly. Big Lebowski references aside, what became immediately apparent was that their grieving and attempt at closure over the departed Treadwell, was as futile, insignificant and ultimately ridiculous as his mourning over a dead fox. Mother nature is a real bitch.

Review Posted: 7.20.05