This and That
1. BRING ME THE HEAD OF ROBERTO RODRIGUEZ
I saw a little bit of the Roberto Rodriguez picture "Desperado" the other night. Rodriguez was one of the co-perps of the appalling "Dusk to Dawn," and he showed the same faults here: coarseness, wretched excess, and poor use of personnel. "Desperado" has a nice, amusing beginning, and at first it seems like a cynical tall tale out of B. Traven. This would have made a nice short, but then it goes on too long, and to make things worse Rodriguez quickly disposes of the three best and funniest actors in the picture: Cheech Marin, Steve Buscemi, and Quentin Tarantino. This leaves things in the hands of Antonio Banderas, who is neither funny enough nor a good enough actor to command your attention for very long. The violence is excessive, incredible (the good guy NEVER misses and ALWAYS has enough time to change mags), and so prolonged and repetitive that it becomes dull very quickly. (Gorn, like porn, wears out its welcome fast.) I don't expect realistic portrayals of places from action directors, but "Desperado" also gives us a stoned gringo's view of Mexico as an exotic land full of hot-tempered muchachos, busty, lusty senoritas, picturesque decadence, and brooding ominousness. It's the old Malcolm Lowry-Sam Peckinpah Mexico; we've seen it before, and Rodriguez doesn't do it very well. Five minutes of Welles' "Touch of Evil" are worth more than all the video-game noise and silliness in "Desperado."
2. ANALYZE THIS
I had a dream the other night in which I was in prison about to be executed. (Hey, I'll match my unconscious guilt against yours anytime, double or nothing.) I got to have a last meal, which was breakfast, and for some reason this was given to me at the prison cafeteria. All the female short-order cook had to offer was cereal and cold toast, and I complained and argued with her, insisting that I at least deserved a hot meal. She refused and argued back. All that I can understand, but what I can't understand is that the short-order cook in my dream was Ann Coulter. I mean, I haven't even READ anything by her.
3. SAME CHAPTER, SAME VERSE
I have been reading a new book about D-Day and the Normandy campaign by Anthony Beevor. I say a new book, but it isn't really new. Mr. Beevor writes well, and I liked his Stalingrad book a lot. That book had some new and useful things to say, but his Normandy book is essentially a rehash of the same old story that we have been reading ever since Max Hastings produced his "Overlord" 25 years ago. (Mr. Hastings obligingly provided a blurb for Beevor's book.) Once more, we get the same old tedious and trivial wranglings between the Allied commanders. Once more, we get the same uncriticial view of the German Army, which is once again made out to be the greatest thing since sliced bread. Once again, we get the same old ignorant dismissal of the performance of the Allied combat troops and the same exaggerations about the Allied morale problem. The British, as usual, get it in the neck worst of all. In the index we find: "British Army:combat exhaustion...conservatism...desertions...lack of mechanization...reluctance to help other arms..." and so on. The end result of all this is a book without a center or a thesis, and a book that begs the same question that Hastings, d'Este, Ambrose, and Russell Hart have begged before: IF THE GERMANS WERE SO GREAT IN NORMANDY THEN WHY DID THEY LOSE? IF THE ALLIES STANK THEN WHY DID THEY WIN? Beevor, like the others, doesn't even ask why or how the Allies won. He does not look at the ways in which the Allies learned and adapted and improved. Yet they did do these things, and they won. The information to tell this story is there, right in the war diaries and other sources. I know, because I've seen those sources myself. But Beevor and other historians just aren't interested; to tell that story would mean bucking the Teutophilia that has dominated and poisoned military history writing and military theory in the English-speaking world.
4. I TAKE COMFORT IN THAT THOUGHT
In a world full of Roberto Rodriguez, Ann Coulter, and Max Hastings, it is always a relief to return to the widsom of the Master, whose latest work I am so getting:
I am seriously considering an MA program in Lebowski Studies.
I saw a little bit of the Roberto Rodriguez picture "Desperado" the other night. Rodriguez was one of the co-perps of the appalling "Dusk to Dawn," and he showed the same faults here: coarseness, wretched excess, and poor use of personnel. "Desperado" has a nice, amusing beginning, and at first it seems like a cynical tall tale out of B. Traven. This would have made a nice short, but then it goes on too long, and to make things worse Rodriguez quickly disposes of the three best and funniest actors in the picture: Cheech Marin, Steve Buscemi, and Quentin Tarantino. This leaves things in the hands of Antonio Banderas, who is neither funny enough nor a good enough actor to command your attention for very long. The violence is excessive, incredible (the good guy NEVER misses and ALWAYS has enough time to change mags), and so prolonged and repetitive that it becomes dull very quickly. (Gorn, like porn, wears out its welcome fast.) I don't expect realistic portrayals of places from action directors, but "Desperado" also gives us a stoned gringo's view of Mexico as an exotic land full of hot-tempered muchachos, busty, lusty senoritas, picturesque decadence, and brooding ominousness. It's the old Malcolm Lowry-Sam Peckinpah Mexico; we've seen it before, and Rodriguez doesn't do it very well. Five minutes of Welles' "Touch of Evil" are worth more than all the video-game noise and silliness in "Desperado."
2. ANALYZE THIS
I had a dream the other night in which I was in prison about to be executed. (Hey, I'll match my unconscious guilt against yours anytime, double or nothing.) I got to have a last meal, which was breakfast, and for some reason this was given to me at the prison cafeteria. All the female short-order cook had to offer was cereal and cold toast, and I complained and argued with her, insisting that I at least deserved a hot meal. She refused and argued back. All that I can understand, but what I can't understand is that the short-order cook in my dream was Ann Coulter. I mean, I haven't even READ anything by her.
3. SAME CHAPTER, SAME VERSE
I have been reading a new book about D-Day and the Normandy campaign by Anthony Beevor. I say a new book, but it isn't really new. Mr. Beevor writes well, and I liked his Stalingrad book a lot. That book had some new and useful things to say, but his Normandy book is essentially a rehash of the same old story that we have been reading ever since Max Hastings produced his "Overlord" 25 years ago. (Mr. Hastings obligingly provided a blurb for Beevor's book.) Once more, we get the same old tedious and trivial wranglings between the Allied commanders. Once more, we get the same uncriticial view of the German Army, which is once again made out to be the greatest thing since sliced bread. Once again, we get the same old ignorant dismissal of the performance of the Allied combat troops and the same exaggerations about the Allied morale problem. The British, as usual, get it in the neck worst of all. In the index we find: "British Army:combat exhaustion...conservatism...desertions...lack of mechanization...reluctance to help other arms..." and so on. The end result of all this is a book without a center or a thesis, and a book that begs the same question that Hastings, d'Este, Ambrose, and Russell Hart have begged before: IF THE GERMANS WERE SO GREAT IN NORMANDY THEN WHY DID THEY LOSE? IF THE ALLIES STANK THEN WHY DID THEY WIN? Beevor, like the others, doesn't even ask why or how the Allies won. He does not look at the ways in which the Allies learned and adapted and improved. Yet they did do these things, and they won. The information to tell this story is there, right in the war diaries and other sources. I know, because I've seen those sources myself. But Beevor and other historians just aren't interested; to tell that story would mean bucking the Teutophilia that has dominated and poisoned military history writing and military theory in the English-speaking world.
4. I TAKE COMFORT IN THAT THOUGHT
In a world full of Roberto Rodriguez, Ann Coulter, and Max Hastings, it is always a relief to return to the widsom of the Master, whose latest work I am so getting:
I am seriously considering an MA program in Lebowski Studies.