jürgen fauth’s muckworld

Like any critic who dared to show themselves less than impressed with Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight juggernaut, I caught a lot of abuse for my dismissive review. Being called a mouth-breathing mountain dweller and a hat-wearing Brooklynite is fine by me, but when my nerd cred was insulted, I knew it was time for a fanboy throwdown: The Dark Knight vs. my favorite film of 2005, George Lucas’s much-maligned pop masterpiece Revenge of the Sith.

Click over to About.com to read why Star Wars beats Batman in every respect — and then I’ll promise to return to your regularly scheduled coverage of art house films, including the lovely In Search for a Midnight Kiss, Johnny To’s Mad Detective, and the much anticipated Fear(s) of the Dark.

Christopher Nolan and Maggie Gyllenhaal just aren’t enough of an indie connection to cover this on Worldfilm, so I’ll just say this here: godawful. Two hours and twenty minutes, a gazillion dollars, a sterling cast, and an eight story IMAX screen weren’t enough for this movie to tickle a single thrill out of me. Instead, endless turgid tripe about vigilante morals, heaps of vicious violence, Gotham City politics that play a little bit like The Wire, only stupid, and muddled action sequences that are — and I say this without hyperbole — duller than the scenes in which Bruce Wayne is having dinner.

What else? Christian Bale doesn’t go anywhere near Rescue Dawn levels of intensity, poor Maggie is wasted, Aaron Eckhart pays for his sins in Thank You for Smoking with a nasty case of Visible Man, Morgan Freeman turns into a FISA-protected wiretapper, and Michael Caine will always be Michael Caine. Heath Ledger’s Joker, a sadistic freak with curious facial ticks, is the most compelling person on screen, but tragedy or not, he can’t beat Jack Nicholson dancing in the pale moonlight to a Prince track.

Tim Burton knew how to have fun with Batman rather than turning it into plodding, puffed-up kitsch mistaking itself for profound psycho noir that the source material won’t support. As Hellboy 2 amply illustrates, there’s nothing wrong with fun — but there’s none to be had here. Previously: Batman Begins.

Prince, Jack, Keaton, Burton:

The Dark Knight. Christopher Nolan, 2008. *

Poster by Guy Burwell

A much delayed post about this highly enjoyable show. Apparently, tickets sold out in 22 minutes, but I was lucky enough to score an extra the week of, having only just caught on to MMJ’s live prowess after their much-praised Bonnaroo set and via the Okonokos live album and DVD.

The songwriting is first rate, and once the band settled into the vaunted venue, they won me over by hitting some spectacularly grand rock’n roll moments. The crowd went wild for Jim James’s balcony-climbing stunts, and I’m sure their first Madison Square Garden show is going to be the place to be this New Year’s Eve — unless the brahphecy is fulfilled in time (but more about that later.)

Photo by Kathryn Yu

Setlist: My Morning Jacket, 6/20/08
Evil Urges, Off The Record, Gideon, I’m Amazed, Highly Suspicious, What a Wonderful Man, Touch Me Part 1, Sec Walkin, Golden, Thank You Too, The Way That He Sings, Two Halves, Phone Went West, Aluminum Park, Steam Engine -> Smokin From Shootin -> Touch Me Part 2 Encore: Bermuda Highway@, Librarian, Wordless Chorus, It Beats 4 U, Dondante, The Bear, Lay Low, Run Thru, Anytime, One Big Holiday

• My Morning Jacket official site
• The Steam Engine: MMJ fan blog
• Evil Urges at Yo! I Killed Your Blog
• Promo video for Evil Urges
• Photos at Pitchfork
• Review at Kitsch Dork
• Review at LiveMusic Blog
• Review at Hidden Track
• Download the show from archive.org

My Morning Jacket: Okonokos. Sam Erickson and Wyatt Smith, 2006. ****

It’s not that I can’t tell a killer whale from a serial rapist — it’s simply that the dumbest puns sometimes amuse most, especially when they offer mild relief for otherwise unbearibly grim tales of doomed love and ill-fated desires. Benten’s fourth DVD release Der Freie Wille (The Free Will) streeted last week (yes, it’s a verb), and my review is up over on About.com.

All half-hearted joking aside, Matthias Glasner’s unflinching look at uncontrollable desires and evil urges is shot, acted, and told with such an uncompromising sense of purpose it’s almost impossible to endure (how’s that for a blurb guaranteed to jack up sales?) The fearless plumbing of the abyss on display here recalls Kinski and Herzog’s Woyzeck.

I’m responsible for the translation of the disc’s commentary track subtitles, a task that required putting each scene on replay loop, and as a result, some of the images and situations seem to have permanently burnt themselves into my subconscious. What did Der Freie Wille do to my free will, and can you blame me for trying to replace tortured Jürgen Vogel, both fists jammed into his parka, with a Disneyfied orca?

Der Freie Wille. Matthias Glasner, 2006. ****

At times, blogging feels exactly like the marathon dancing competition in Sidney Pollack’s 1969 They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? It’s cruel, unnatural, never-ending, and of questionable worth. Some are driven mad by it, somewhere behind the scenes an uncaring MC is counting his money, and the pregnant woman and the aging sailor never stood a lick of a chance to begin with. We may all be better off with a merciful bullet through our skulls.

Neither judge nor jury seemed to even notice that I’d abandoned this particular dancefloor for a while — until one faithful reader finally came forward and asked where all the pithy reviews were at — you know, for the sake of their Netflix queue.  Muckworld’s been idle for the last few weeks while I dedicated myself to a couple of other as of yet unnameable projects, both of which are poised to break out soon and change the world as we know it forever.

In the meantime, a quick overview of the popular history of “Yowza! Yowza! Yowza!” (sometimes spelled “yowsa, yowsa, yowsa”), the MC’s jocular yet irresistible call to keep on dancin’. Probably a corruption of “yes, sir,” bandleader Ben Bernie used it as his catchphrase in the 1920s. It was parodied by Looney Tunes and appropriated by disco sensation Chic and His Excellency Frank Zappa. Here’s YouTube proof that it can make anybody shake a leg:

As for the movie: title, conclusion, and framing device (from Horace McCoy’s novel) are too heavy-handed to convince, but the proto-reality show drama of misery and self-abasement on and off the depression-era dancefloor is absolutely riveting, and the sadistic derby especially had us out of our seats with excitement and horror. If only I’d had the ice bucket and smelling salts when I couldn’t rouse my friend John for the late night sets at last year’s Bonnaroo — and if only I’d thought of the three magic words.

They Shoot Horses Don’t They? Sydney Pollack, 1969. ***
Also: The Interpreter. Sydney Pollack, 2005. ** Granted, the sweeping helicopter shots of the UN building probably look better when you’re not watching them on your iPod — but the drama fits in the palm of your hand either way.

This post is dedicated to my old friend Jens Müller, who made “Yowza! Yowza! Yowza!” his relentlessly overused catchphrase back in 1990. There’s a “great” photo of us by the Grand Canyon in very 1990 poses and haircuts that I’ll dig out as soon as I get back to my desktop. You have been warned.

A few bands I’ve been enjoying lately to drown out the jackhammers going berserk outside my window. More at muxtape.

Marco Benevento

Budos Band

Jackie Greene

MGMT

The Wood Brothers

Tocotronic

The KLF feat. Tammy Wynette

The Avett Brothers

and, for Bo Diddley, The Grateful Dead

Cai Guo-Qiang at the Guggenheim
Elizabeth Cooper at Thrust Projects
St. Anthony of Giovinazzo Feast on Mulberry Street