Papa Top’s West Coast Turnaround is at the P&H tonight. The Hollywood All-Stars at Wild Bill’s are always a good bet. Snakehips at Murphy’s Demolition Doll Rods and American Deathray Music are at the Map Room. Nora Burns and several other area musicians, including some members of Lucky Strike, are playing at Kudzu’s. And The Billy Gibson Jazz Band is at Blue Moon.
Dajuan Wagner had 21 points and Earl Barron scored 17 and grabbed 10 rebounds Friday night to lead the University of Memphis Tigers to an 88-58 victory over Tennessee-Martin.
Barron connected on 6-of-9 from the floor, including his only 3-point attempt, and all four of his free throws for the Tigers (10-3). Wagner hit only 5 of his 16 shots and made 10 of 13 free throws.
Tennessee-Martin (7-4) hit only 33 percent from the floor, including 23 percent during the first half. Jair Peralta and Joey Walker led the Skyhawks with 12 points each, the only Tennessee-Martin players in double figures.
Memphis went on a 13-0 run for a 19-6 lead the Tigers never relinquished. The Skyhawks went 6 1/2 minutes without scoring during the Memphis streak.
Memphis led 31-17 at halftime and extended it after the break, leading by 23 when Barron hit a 3-pointer with 14 minutes left.
After another Barron basket made it 56-32, the Skyhawks scored nine consecutive points to whittle the margin to 56-41. Brian Foster (7 points) had two baskets in the stretch.
But two field goals and a free throw by Antonio Burks (14 points) over a 30-second period gave Memphis a 60-41 lead.
The final 30-point margin matched Memphis’ largest lead of the game.
Memphis dominated the boards 58-41 led by Chris Massie’s 14.
MIAMI — Different night, different way to lose for the Miami Heat.
Jason Williams scored 19 points to lead six players in double figures as the Memphis Grizzlies handed the Heat their fifth straight loss, 91-86.
One night after squandering a 19-point lead in a 100-96 loss to Atlanta, Miami fell behind early. Although they were within striking, the Heat never could take control.
Grant Long scored a season-high 16 points against his former team on 7-of-11 shooting for Memphis, which has four of five following a five-game losing streak.
In a losing effort, Alonzo Mourning did manage four blocks to go along with 20 points and 12 boards.
Victor Baldizon
NBAE/Getty Images
“I was really aggressive looking for my shot,” Long said. “They were looking to leave me open. I guess that was the lesser of the two evils. I took some opportunites and fortunately, they went down.”
Williams nearly recorded a triple-double with 12 assists and nine rebounds and made a jumper with 2:32 left that gave the Grizzlies an 86-76 lead.
“Jason played well,” Memphis coach Sidney Lowe said. “He’s patient with his shots. He’s running the show for us right now. Jason has the ability to control the players, tempo and the game.”
Alonzo Mourning scored 20 points for Miami, whose 5-22 record is the second-worst in the NBA. But Mourning was called for traveling on an easy dunk in the fourth quarter on a play that was typical of the Heat’s struggles this season.
Miami also committed 20 turnovers and missed 9-of-15 free throws.
The Heat appeared to show the effects of Thursday’s defeat as they missed their first five shots and committed four turnovers at the start.
Shane Battier was held scoreless in the first half, but Memphis was able to take a 47-42 lead into the locker room. The rookie from Duke finally connected on a pair of open 3-pointers that gave the Grizzlies a 54-42 lead with 10:37 left in the third quarter.
Battier also made a mid-range jumper, helping Memphis open its biggest cushion, 63-48.
Miami coach Pat Riley was not happy with his defense.
“In the fourth quarter, we had just became absoulutely soft defensively,” he said. “We don’t close on shooters. The ball will rotate to someone in the corner and somebody will just watch them shoot the ball and won’t rotate to him. It’s the way it’s going to be, and that’s a bad sign. ”
But the Heat scored eight straight point to slice the deficit to 72-67 with 10 minutes to play. Memphis answered with an 8-2 burst over the next three minutes.
Three consecutive turnovers by the Grizzlies opened the door for Miami, but Mourning missed a dunk and committed an offensive foul around a missed 3-pointer by Eddie House.
The Grizzlies’ turnaround included last week’s 114-104 triumph over the Los Angeles Lakers. Battier attributed the reversal to the play of Williams.
“Earlier in the year, I think he thought he was still playing with the Sacramento Kings,” Battier said. “He had to learn we had some young guys, and patience is the key with this team. He has been much more patient the last six or seven games and we have been a better team because of his strong play.”
Miami has scored under 100 points in 27 times, breaking the team record set during the lockout-shortened 1998-99 season. The NBA record of 29 is shared by the 1997-98 Orlando Magic and the 1999-00 Chicago Bulls.
Insisting that, a recent news report to the contrary notwithstanding, he was aware of a looming state budget crisis and had no intention of denying it, U.S. Rep. Van Hilleary (R-4th) said in Memphis Thursday that TennCare was the major cause of the shortfall, and, without naming incumbent Governor Don Sundquist directly, indicated strongly that the current administration was also to blame.
Addressing a small group of supporters at a meet-and-greet at the Lulu Grill in
East Memphis, GOP gubernatorial candidate Hilleary, who is opposed in the primary by former State Rep. Jim Henry of Kingston, said that state revenues had run ahead of inflation every year except the last one and that a “restructuring” of TennCare, the state-run insurance system for the indigent and uninsured, would do much to fix the problem.
“With TennCare, the state has been offering open-ended supply to go with open-ended demand. We can’t raise enough in taxes to keep up with that,” Hilleary said. He promised, if elected, to institute “two-way dialogue” and go beyond the “my way or the highway attitude” which he said had prevailed in recent years; he promised also to pursue economies like that of scaling TennCare benefits back to the level of surrounding states so that Tennessee ceased to be a “magnet” for patients.
Hilleary said the state had been hurt by the unchanging focus on an income tax during the last three years and added, “There’s been a certain amount of disgruntlement across the state in the last few years.” He said that he and the Democratic gubernatorial frontrunner, former Nashville Mayor Phil Bredesen, had run “neck-and-neck” in polls “even after I’ve absorbged the disgruntlement.”
Goveernor Sundquist’s staff picks may also have come in for indirect criticism in Hilleary’s promise to appoint individuals more experienced than himself in their areas of competence. “It doesn’t work if you try to surround yourself with people less knowledgeable than you are. That’s guaranteed to fail.”
In private conversation before his public remarks, Hilleary said he would “wait and see” how things developed in the GOP primary race before pronouncing on whether the governor was, openly or tacitly, aiding Henry, but added, “I have a pretty strong opinion on that.”
The congressman also used the expression “wait and see” on the issue of Gov. Sundquist’s proposed TennCare reforms, saying that it remained to be seen what kind of Medicaid waiver the federal government would issue and how the courts would rule. But he said the governor’s downsizing plan was “a good first step.”
On other matters, Hilleary promised to follow the model of President George W. Bush in making educational improvements his first priority, warned that Democrats — former Vice President Al Gore, in particular — were increasing their grass-roots activity across the state, and said the state should attempt economic leverage through the industrial and agricultural base it already possesses. “We don’t need to be Silicon Valley,” Hilleary said.
Parting Shots
by JOHN BRANSTON
Political chic. There have been women in Memphis who threw big parties in public spaces, like Pat Kerr Tigrett. And women politicians like Pat VanderSchaaf, Mary Rose McCormick, and Carol Chumney, who had visions of power. And women who came up through the ranks to run departments of state government, like Jane Walters. But nobody made a bigger splash or went straight to the top faster than Kristi Jernigan, Gayle Rose, and Barbara Hyde.
Many Memphians, it seems safe to say, felt fairly helpless and irrelevant after September 11th. What to do to show you care? Guardsmark CEO Ira Lipman hung a huge American flag across the front of his building on Second Street. The question now: When does it come down? And what will it signify when it does?
Throw out the racial stereotypes. The most integrated place in town is a gathering of county mayoral candidates. White Republicans are supporting black Democrat A C Wharton. Black Democrats and bastions of the NAACP are supporting white suburban businessman Harold Byrd. In Memphis this is progress.
What do military tribunals look like? Probably something like the temporary removal of federal judge Jon McCalla. In this episode of Men Behaving Badly, the no-nonsense judge got in trouble for a temper that some lawyers said made it impossible for them to do their jobs. Guarded by U.S. marshals, a panel of judges and witnesses slipped into the federal building to secretly censure him, until McCalla, according to secondhand accounts, copped the equivalent of a nolo contendere plea and dispensed several personal apologies. The inquisitors and witnesses stole away as quietly as they came and that was the end of that. Next case.
The Memphis and Shelby County Bar Association first distinguished itself with a comprehensive rating survey of local judges that nailed several slackers. Then the organization and its members showed that cops aren’t the only ones who can honor a code of silence by uttering not a word of protest about the secrecy of the McCalla ouster.
More than $2 billion has been invested downtown in the last 20 years, but they can’t get some things right. The trolley, for instance. The fare is an impossible 60 cents, not 50 cents, not an even buck. And it hasn’t occurred to anyone to have somebody collect it outside the vehicle on the 62 nights a year when there are crowds going to professional or college basketball at The Pyramid. Like ghost ships, trolleys run empty during the morning rush hour, causing lines of cars to stop along Riverside Drive while the crossing gates come down.
Wrong place, wrong time, wrong cutting implement. Ali Al-Maqtari, from Yemen, was stopped at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, where his wife was going into the army. He had a box-cutter and a story about being a French teacher visiting the U.S. After September 11th, he became the best-known detainee in Memphis, where he was finally freed in immigration court after more than a month in custody.
Non-stories. Logan Young was not indicted, unless you count the Internet and The Commercial Appeal. Roy Adams, aka “TennStud,” was not sued for libel by Young. Albert Means was not all-world or even all-conference and certainly not worth a $200,000 payoff. The Pyramid was not sponsored.
They said it couldn’t be done. The city engineers said Union Avenue couldn’t work without changing lane directions during rush hour. They were wrong. The mother of roads now runs unvexed, more or less, to the Father of Waters.
Shelby County Commissioner Walter Bailey was the public official of the year. Not because he was necessarily right or wrong, but because he was a public naysayer at a time and place when it was unpopular to be one. While almost everyone else was climbing aboard the NBA bandwagon, Bailey civilly demanded answers and asked hard questions. In short, he did his job.
Robert Lipscomb was the bureaucrat of the year. Under his leadership at Memphis Housing Authority, the downtown housing projects have been renovated, rebuilt, or closed. If they were still as threatening as they once were, there would be more misery in Memphis, more crime. And developments like the St. Jude expansion, Uptown, and the arena proposal wouldn’t have happened. If Lipscomb were a corporate CEO he would get a big raise and some stock options.
Two people who will earn their money next year will be those responsible for filling the 375-unit Echelon at the Ballpark apartments next to AutoZone Park and downtown’s new luxury hotel, the Madison.
The former main library at Peabody and McLean will be torn down less than a year after it stopped serving thousands of people, seven days a week, year-round. The Sears building still stands 20 years after it closed. The Mid-South Coliseum is a protected historic landmark. Just as a city can build anything if the right people push the right buttons, so can it tear anything down or keep it from being torn down.
If you didn’t hear Carol Coletta’s Smart City on WKNO Sunday mornings, you missed the most thought-provoking hour on radio in 2001, a weekly program that manages to be of local interest without being local. If you didn’t read Tim Sampson’s We Recommend in the Flyer you missed the funniest thing in the Memphis print media.
Tonight’s South Main Trolley Art Tour includes free troley rides and the chance to check out all of the district’s art galleries, shops, and some other businesses. There’s an opening reception during the tour at D’Edge Art & Unique Treasures, for works by George Hunt and Judy Woods. Greg and Marty Faiers are at Dan McGuiness Pub. And The Chris Scott Band is at Poplar Lounge.
PREVIOUS:
Well, I guess since this is the last time I’ll be writing this in 2001, some sort of year in review/wrap-up kind of thing is in order. the only problem with that is that I can’t remember anything that happened this year. Part of that is senility, part is not wanting to remember anything, and part is that right now I have a fever that is rendering me unable to remember my own phone number without a lot of concentration.
So delirious was I last night that I was thrilled to see a news bite which reported that expensive clothing stores were so hard up for business that they were hanging out “Winona Ryder is Welcome Here” signs,only to finally figure out that I was actually watching Jay Leno. Fortunately, at one point I couldn’t even remember my own age. So as for looking back and remembering an entire year,it ain’t happening. Sure, I remember the events of September 11th and all of the things that ensued, but I will leave that to the thousands of other newspaper columnists who will likely have much more to go on and on about regarding that topic. Although I doubt any of them will point out that we have basically ravaged a country where all of the men wear dresses.
It seems that my favorite person in Hollywood, Robert Downey Jr., got into some trouble but made some kind of comeback and then got in trouble again and then made some sort of comeback. Jennifer Lopez probably did something, but I still don’t know who she is or what she does. Ditto for Penelope Cruz, the Spice Girls (probably the Old Spice Girls), and Harry Potter. My cat stared at me a lot. There was some kind of presidential election that somehow put in office a man with very big ears who didn’t really win the majority of the votes, and now we have an Alfred E. Newman look-alike running the country. Although, giuven the anthrax scare, it may be good that he at least has plenty of experience with white powder.
Tamara Mitchell-Ford, wife of state Senator John Ford, was not hired to handle public relations for MADD or the Jaguar company.) I was in Jackson, Tennessee, not long ago and saw a very decorated gift-shop window with lots of holly and berries and wreaths and other holiday things,including a beautifully appointed Christmas tree, in the center of which was an “Osama bin Laden: Wanted Dead or Alive” poster. And speaking of Christmas, I thought I would leave you this week with a very touching story a friend related to me. It sums up the goodness of the holiday season much better than anything I’ve heard, so here goes:
Late last week,I was rusnhing around trying to get some last-minute shopping done. I was stressed out and not thinkng very fondly of the Christmas season right then. It was dark, cold, and wet in the parking lot as I was loading my car up with gifts that I felt obligated to buy;I noticed that I was missing a receipt that I might need later. So, mumbling under my breath, I retraced my steps to the mall entrance. As I was searching the wet pavement for the lost receipt,I heard a quiet sobbing. The crying was coming from a poorly dressed boy of about 12 years old. He was short and thin. Oddly enough, he was holding a hundred-dollar bill in his hand. Thinking that he had gotten separated from his parents,I asked him what was wrong.
He said that he came from a large family. His father had died when he was 9 years old. His mother was poorly educated nad worked two full-time jobs. She made very ltitle to support her large family. Nevertheless, she had managed to save $200 to buy her children Christmas presents. The young boy ahd been dropped off on the way to her second job. He was to use the money to buy presents for all his siblings and save just enough to take the bus home.
He had not even entered the mall when an older boy grabbed one of the hundred-dollar bills and disaoppeared into the night. “Why didn’t you scream for help?” I asked. The boy said, “I did.” “And nobody came to help you?” I wondered. The boy stared at the sidewalk and sadly shook his head. “How loud did you scream?” I inquired. The soft-spoken boy looked up and meekly whispered, “Help me!” I realized that absolutely no one could have heard that poor boy cry for help. So I grabbed his other hundred and ran to my car. And there you have it. Here’s a look at some of what’s going on around town this week. Tonight [editor’s note, Thursday, December 27], there’s a Christmas party with FreeWorld at the Lounge. And that seems to be about it.
By Bruce Wilkinson
Multnomah, 92 pp., $9.99
xplain to me the inexplicable. A minor inspirational tract of no literary value from a publishing house no one’s heard of about a one-sentence prayer issued by an Old Testament “hero” no one’s heard of gets nicely packaged as a gift book, hits bookstores, and, through word-of-mouth, through gung-ho marketing, through creepy missionary zeal, manages a year-long spot on the bestseller list at a measly 10 bucks a pop and to the very good fortune of God’s reverend, Bruce Wilkinson, who wrote The Prayer of Jabez.
But the bucks don’t stop here because now you can sink your cash into the business of sidelines: a devotional, a journal, a 2002 day-to-day calendar, a Bible cover, a Bible “study,” a “pocket reminder,” a key ring, a paperweight, a magnet, and something called a Scripture Keeper. This in addition to the standard, lucrative spinoffs: The Prayer of Jabez for Teens, The Prayer of Jabez for Kids, The Prayer of Jabez for Young Hearts, The Prayer of Jabez for Little Ones, and the latest stone upturned by this publishing company’s resourceful marketing department, the forthcoming The Prayer of Jabez for Women.
Now explain the astonishing popularity of this simple prayer, in which Jabez first asks for God’s blessing then asks that God “enlarge [his] territory,” that God be with him, that God keep him from evil, all so he doesn’t end up causing “pain” (a neat trick since the name “Jabez” already means “pain”). And guess what. “God granted him what he requested” (1 Chronicles 4:9-10). End of what we know of Jabez. Until, that is, Wilkinson brought him to the attention of a waiting nation. Make that nations, because Jabez has gone global based on the prayer’s capacity to work “miracles.”
Example: Wilkinson, “physically and spiritually spent” after a hard week’s work preaching at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago (76 students counseled, “to be exact”), gets on a plane, finds his middle seat, and prays the Jabez prayer. He’s “completely worn out” doing God’s work, “can’t cope with temptation.” Immediately, the male passenger on his left pulls out “a pornographic magazine.” The man on his right pulls out his own “skin magazine.” Wilkinson silently seeks divine intervention: “Lord, please chase evil far away!” And good Lord, He does! The men out of nowhere let out a curse and promptly put up their magazines. Wilkinson calls this a miracle. You’ll call it rank impossibility: two guys in public on an airplane in the same aisle, each, without embarrassment, dipping into porno. Don’t believe.
Want more evidence of “what God’s grace and Jabez praying can do”? In 1998 Wilkinson began WorldTeach, “birthed from the womb of the Jabez prayer.” Target: Earth. “An exciting fifteen-year vision to establish the largest bible-teaching faculty in the world,” WorldTeach wants a Bible instructor for every 50,000 people on the planet. Your buying into Jabez buys into that mission. It comes with the territory. Hold on to your 10 bucks.
By Bebe Buell, with Victor Bockris
St. Martin’s Press, 372 pp., $24.95
Victor Bockris — professional hanger-on, biographer to downtown ’70s scenesters John Cale, Blondie, Patti Smith, Andy Wharhol, Lou Reed — must have known he had his hands full with Bebe Buell, so it was essentially hands off this ex-Catholic schoolgirl and ex-Elite model, ex-Playboy centerfold and ex-Max’s Kansas City regular, ex-bedmate to skinny-assed rock stars Todd Rundgren, Iggy Pop, David Bowie, Jimmy Page, Rod Stewart, Elvis Costello, Stiv Bators, et cetera, ad nauseum and ex-failed rocker herself, mother to actress Liv Tyler and still pretty as a picture thanks to Zoloft and Ritalin.
But one thing Buell thinks she isn’t is a groupie. One thing Bockris and St. Martin’s must have known she isn’t is a writer. Hence: Rebel Heart, her autobiography, courtesy of Bockris, which reads like Elizabeth Taylor barking inanities into thin air or in the direction of Joanna Shimkus in Boom! : close to 400 pages of incoherent self-absorption masquerading as self-revelation and all of it stomach-churning. Translation: perfectly page-turning, so long as you check your brain at the door and don’t mistake raw confession for the truth of the matter.
Example: Buell writes (or is it shouts?), triumphant at age 45, “I think that I have always been an instrument, I have always been a vehicle … . I am one of those people who generate art, inspire it. … I see myself as a powerful woman-man who can perform and who can channel all her favorite people, dead and alive.”
Well, for “favorite people” (who are alive, so why are they being channeled?), that means Marianne Faithfull, Patti Smith, Debbie Harry, and assorted drag queens. If (it’s true?) Buell did inspire Elvis Costello to write “I Want You,” hey, she did accomplish something. But she needs to be thanking her lucky star, Steven Tyler, who is Liv’s father, and Liv Tyler is going to be the one with the final handful: Bebe Buell when she hits old age and the self-delusion gets really ugly.
Backing further and further away from the weird, wonderful breakouts of 1999 (American Beauty, Three Kings, Being John Malkovich, Election, etc.), Hollywood continued to blow outrageous sums on a litany of unwatchable marketing-plans-masquerading-as-movies in 2001. No point in dissing obvious product from Not Another Teen Movie to Swordfish, but the real disasters this year were “prestige” atrocities like Hannibal and Pearl Harbor and ambitious, overedited duds like Vanilla Sky and Moulin Rouge.
But there was plenty of great stuff on the big screen in 2001 if you were willing to dig deeper than each week’s most heavily marketed opener. With a few late-December releases (most notably Michael Mann’s Ali) still unscreened, here are 20 films that made going to the movies in 2001 a worthwhile experience:
1. Mulholland Drive — As a fan of Twin Peaks and a grudging, conflicted admirer of Blue Velvet, I never expected to love a David Lynch film, but Mulholland Drive was one of the most intriguing, most enjoyable, and most spellbinding films I’ve seen in years. A puzzler at first, upon repeated viewings Lynch’s Mobiüs-strip meditation on the plight of a pretty young thing lost in the patriarchal Hollywood maze is entirely coherent, even carefully constructed. Sure, there are a few stray red herrings, a remnant of the film’s initial role as the pilot of an abandoned TV series, but everything that really matters fits neatly into place. Part Nancy Drew and part Persona, part film noir and all pulp fiction, Lynch, for the first time since Blue Velvet, made all of his fetishes and visual tics matter, resulting in a koan-like parable that will still be studied and worshiped decades hence.
2. Ghost World — If Mulholland Drive finally yoked David Lynch’s private obsessions to something the outside world could care about, no film in 2001 was as intimately connected to the way we live as Ghost World. A bittersweet valentine to two teenage bohemian goddesses (Thora Birch and Scarlett Johansson) estranged from American mall culture, director Terry Zwigoff’s spiritual sequel to his documentary Crumb was a brave and insightful film. Ghost World‘s greatness lay in how it confirmed the essential righteousness of its protagonists’ alienation yet also questioned that alienation in an almost unbearably moving social critique. Along the way it also managed to provide knowing commentary on a variety of essential subjects, among them the transition into adulthood, the toothless platitudes of secondary education, the value of art, and the precariousness of friendship. Not bad for a modest little movie that may have also been simply the funniest thing to hit the big screen all year.
3. In the Mood For Love — One of the world’s greatest filmmakers, Hong Kong master Wong Kar-wai finally made his Memphis debut with a film that marked a jarring departure from the frenetic style of earlier classics such as Chungking Express and Fallen Angels. A period piece set in the Hong Kong of Kar-wai’s youth, In the Mood For Love was a laser-focused chamber film, a tense pas de deux around unrepresentable and ineffable desires.
4. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon — Star Wars comparisons be damned, this action import so delighted in and was so respectful of the magic of human movement that it reminded me of nothing less than Errol Flynn’s The Adventures of Robin Hood (the only “swashbuckler” I’ve ever enjoyed more) and Singin’ In the Rain (another loving genre meditation). But as thrilling as the action scenes were (and with most other modern action films relying on computer-generated images and whiplash editing, they were very thrilling), the narrative pull of the archetypal plot and the inspired performances from actresses Michelle Yeoh and young Zhang Ziyi were every bit as captivating.
5. George Washington — This film screened locally only once and at The Orpheum as part of this year’s IndieMemphis Film Festival (and kudos to the festival for bringing it), and if you were one of the 60 or so people who were there, good for you. A gentle, gorgeously photographed Cinemascope indie, director David Gordon Green’s debut tale of working-class kids in a small, unnamed Southern town was a true American original that deepened tremendously with repeated viewings — not that too many Memphians had the chance.
6. The House of Mirth — Reaching depths of feeling and horror unimagined by Merchant-Ivory, British director Terence Davies’ devastating adaptation of Edith Wharton’s social satire may be the greatest “costume drama” ever filmed. With Gillian Anderson’s performance of a lifetime in the lead role, this was masterfully direct narrative filmmaking and unjustly ignored.
7. Traffic/Ocean’s Eleven (tie) — Steven Soderbergh is a national treasure. These days Hollywood movies are so test-marketed, money-driven, and pop-culture-infected that few filmmakers (Michael Mann also comes to mind) manage to make straightforward entertainments of the same quality the studio system regularly produced a few decades ago. Then you have Soderbergh, who has been churning out smart, entertaining, mainstream genre pics at a record rate. This year, he graced the screen with two radically different yet equally accomplished, examples — the oh-so-serious Traffic and entirely frivolous Ocean’s Eleven. The drug-war critique Traffic didn’t have quite the snap of Soderbergh’s other recent work, but it was still a model for the intelligent epic, with its D.W. Griffith-worthy cross-cutting and panorama of great performances and moments. Ocean’s Eleven, despite the great cast, could have easily been unwatchable in the hands of a typical Hollywood director-for-hire, but Soderbergh’s exquisite editing and subtle direction found the grace notes and small comic moments others would have missed, resulting in the kind of stylish, witty, and exciting popcorn move Hollywood tries to make all the time and almost never does.
8. Memento — Guy Pierce was brilliant in this post-modern Point Blank, the rare recent American film to be based on a narrative gimmick that takes said gimmick and runs with it. Told backward, this tale of a man with short-term memory loss ingeniously provoked the same woozy mood and necessarily hyperactive in the audience as it did in the film’s protagonist.
9. Amélie — As inventive as it was manipulative, as honestly romantic as it was utterly artificial, this French art-house smash was a welcome addition to American screens at least in part because manipulative American entertainments are rarely this entertaining anymore (Pearl Harbor, anyone?). So utterly charming and kinetic that it convinces you to ignore your qualms and give in to its “feel-good” rush.
10. A Time For Drunken Horses — As unremittingly realistic as Amélie was artificial, this documentary-like tale of Kurdish children struggling to survive along the Iraq-Iran border was no great work of cinema, but it conveyed the simple, communicative power of the medium itself like no other film in 2001. And after 9/11 it deepened in poignancy, humanizing a region of the world that Americans are far too ignorant of.
Honorable Mentions (in order of preference): Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Start-up.com, Waking Life, A.I., Amores Perros, The Anniversary Party, The Princess Diaries, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Fast and the Furious, Before Night Falls.
Well, I guess since this is the last time I’ll be writing this in 2001, some sort of year in review/wrap-up kind of thing is in order. the only problem with that is that I can’t remember anything that happened this year. Part of that is senility, part is not wanting to remember anything, and part is that right now I have a fever that is rendering me unable to remember my own phone number without a lot of concentration.
So delirious was I last night that I was thrilled to see a news bite which reported that expensive clothing stores were so hard up for business that they were hanging out “Winona Ryder is Welcome Here” signs,only to finally figure out that I was actually watching Jay Leno. Fortunately, at one point I couldn’t even remember my own age. So as for looking back and remembering an entire year,it ain’t happening. Sure, I remember the events of September 11th and all of the things that ensued, but I will leave that to the thousands of other newspaper columnists who will likely have much more to go on and on about regarding that topic. Although I doubt any of them will point out that we have basically ravaged a country where all of the men wear dresses.
It seems that my favorite person in Hollywood, Robert Downey Jr., got into some trouble but made some kind of comeback and then got in trouble again and then made some sort of comeback. Jennifer Lopez probably did something, but I still don’t know who she is or what she does. Ditto for Penelope Cruz, the Spice Girls (probably the Old Spice Girls), and Harry Potter. My cat stared at me a lot. There was some kind of presidential election that somehow put in office a man with very big ears who didn’t really win the majority of the votes, and now we have an Alfred E. Newman look-alike running the country. Although, giuven the anthrax scare, it may be good that he at least has plenty of experience with white powder.
Tamara Mitchell-Ford, wife of state Senator John Ford, was not hired to handle public relations for MADD or the Jaguar company.) I was in Jackson, Tennessee, not long ago and saw a very decorated gift-shop window with lots of holly and berries and wreaths and other holiday things,including a beautifully appointed Christmas tree, in the center of which was an “Osama bin Laden: Wanted Dead or Alive” poster. And speaking of Christmas, I thought I would leave you this week with a very touching story a friend related to me. It sums up the goodness of the holiday season much better than anything I’ve heard, so here goes:
Late last week,I was rusnhing around trying to get some last-minute shopping done. I was stressed out and not thinkng very fondly of the Christmas season right then. It was dark, cold, and wet in the parking lot as I was loading my car up with gifts that I felt obligated to buy;I noticed that I was missing a receipt that I might need later. So, mumbling under my breath, I retraced my steps to the mall entrance. As I was searching the wet pavement for the lost receipt,I heard a quiet sobbing. The crying was coming from a poorly dressed boy of about 12 years old. He was short and thin. Oddly enough, he was holding a hundred-dollar bill in his hand. Thinking that he had gotten separated from his parents,I asked him what was wrong.
He said that he came from a large family. His father had died when he was 9 years old. His mother was poorly educated nad worked two full-time jobs. She made very ltitle to support her large family. Nevertheless, she had managed to save $200 to buy her children Christmas presents. The young boy ahd been dropped off on the way to her second job. He was to use the money to buy presents for all his siblings and save just enough to take the bus home.
He had not even entered the mall when an older boy grabbed one of the hundred-dollar bills and disaoppeared into the night. “Why didn’t you scream for help?” I asked. The boy said, “I did.” “And nobody came to help you?” I wondered. The boy stared at the sidewalk and sadly shook his head. “How loud did you scream?” I inquired. The soft-spoken boy looked up and meekly whispered, “Help me!” I realized that absolutely no one could have heard that poor boy cry for help. So I grabbed his other hundred and ran to my car. And there you have it. Here’s a look at some of what’s going on around town this week. Tonight, there’s a Christmas party with FreeWorld at the Lounge. And that seems to be about it.