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Also this issue: Wide Open Spaces Web Pierce Interview: David Cronenberg Backwards Thinking |
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March 13-19, 2003
screen picks
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Tue., 8 p.m., UPN) Declaring war on a noncorporeal enemy is a tricky thing, as both Sunnydale's resident vamp-killer and the Bush administration can attest. What would it even mean to win a "war on terror" -- that there'd be no more terror? The identification of a nonspecific target was meant to give the government free rein, but instead it's left us on the verge of entering the most ill-defined conflict since the Vietnam War. (Except in that case, the French were glad to have our help. Freedom fries, anyone?)
Meanwhile, in Southern California's most demonized suburb, Buffy and her compatriots are waging a war against evil -- or to be more precise, "the thing evil comes from." Heading toward the end of what, it was announced last week, will be the show's seventh and final season, Buffy and her ever-increasing army are arrayed in battle against the First, which was introduced as a kind of conglomeration of all her previous foes, but has emerged as something more like the spring from which they all flow. So far, the First can't be hit, can't even be located and has done a lot more threatening than actual attacking, leaving Sunnydale under the perpetual, stomach-churning threat of annihilation with no idea when the hour might come. Sound familiar?
While there's no doubt this particular season is suffused with post-Sept. 11 dread, it's in many ways just the refinement of the themes the show's taken on since its inception. The show's vision of evil has never been black and white; Buffy's enemies have included her one true love, her closest friend and a malicious god trapped in the body of an innocent human (who had to be killed all the same). Though the chief villain of season three, the one most recently released to DVD, was the town's genial, germophobic mayor -- who turns out to be a quasi-immortal demon with a yen to eat the whole town alive -- Buffy's real nemesis is Faith (Eliza Dushku), the "bad slayer" whose bloodlust is much more than professional. (The theme of corruption by power returns regularly: Buffy's dodged that bullet several times herself, and watched best friend Willow consumed by her own witchcraft.) From Faith's point of view, there's no harm in enjoying the kill; they both "get off on it," she tells Buffy, only Faith isn't afraid to admit it. Even when Buffy finally does vanquish her dark side, it's not permanent; she plants a knife in Faith's gut and shoves her off a building, but she'll be back, even switching bodies with Buffy in a later episode. In conventional fantasies -- like The Two Towers, whose supposed resonance was pored over in many a half-assed think piece -- good and evil are static, external forces, pulling people in two directions at once. On Buffy, even some of the bad guys aren't so bad, and the good guys aren't all good. (Semi-reformed vampire Spike remains an ally despite the fact that he killed two of Buffy's predecessors and tried to rape her at the end of last season; vampire slaying makes strange bedfellows.) In fact, the show's conception of good and evil is so sophisticated, you can't help but wishing Bush and co. would take a couple of pages from Joss Whedon's book. Are they free Tuesdays at 8?
Fox and His Friends (Wed.-Thu, March 19-20, 7 p.m., $8.50, Prince Music Theater, 1412 Chestnut St., 215-569-9700, www.princemusictheater.org) After two hard weeks of watching Fassbinder, you deserve a break, so take a few deep breaths and rest up for Wednesday, when the Prince gets in on the act. Fox and His Friends (1975), whose German title translates as something like "fistfight of freedom," surpasses even Ali/Fear Eats the Soul for sheer emotional impact, and touches on many of the same themes, though here the forbidden relationship is a homosexual and not an interracial one. Fassbinder arguably came closest to autobiography in Fox's title role, as an uneducated carnival worker who wins the lottery and subsequently finds his way into a wealthy gay subculture, where he's essentially used until his money runs out, then abandoned. Without his trademark facial hair, Fassbinder is startlingly vulnerable on screen, his pale, soft and frequently exposed body making him seem like he's all underbelly. (Fassbinder never let himself be so exposed in life, but Fox is like a nightmare vision of himself, the specter that drove him in the opposite direction.) Fassbinder's wry ambivalence toward melodrama is still apparent; critical plot information is delivered in a locker-room scene where Fassbinder makes sure to frame a naked penis in every shot, almost daring you to let your attention wander. But however cruel the relationship between Fox and his well-bred (but cash-poor) lover becomes, Fox never betrays the arbitrariness of Fassbinder's more distracted films. Fox isn't Fassbinder's most far-out film, but it's one of his most successfully up-the-middle; in 1975, making a "mainstream" feature about gay culture was probably the most provocative thing he could do.
Walter Bernstein (Mon., March 17, 6:30 p.m.; Tue., March 18, 10 a.m., Kelly Writers House, 3805 Locust Walk, 215-573-9748, www.English.upenn.edu/~wh) Blacklisted screenwriter, author of such films as Fail-Safe, The Molly Maguires, The Magnificent Seven, The Front and Miss Evers' Boys, makes his appearance at Kelly Writers House (rescheduled due to last month's blizzard). RSVP required to whfellow@english.upenn.edu.
The Evil Dead/Equinox (Fri., March 14, 9 p.m., $8, Broadway Theatre, 43 S. Broadway, Pitman, N.J., 856-589-7519, www.exhumedfilms.com) Word is attendance is down since the wildly popular horror film exhibitors were abruptly forced to relocate some months back. If you haven't made the trip to Exhumed's new home, now might be the time, what with a remastered 35mm print of Sam Raimi's ooey-gooey classic on display, paired with the MST3K-targeted 1970 "drive-in classic." (Check out fans sparring with the unconvinced at IMDb.com).
Full Frontal ($29.99 DVD) Remember that Simpsons where Homer overhears Kevin Costner's commentary on the Waterworld DVD? "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." No such mea culpas on the disc for Steven Soderbergh's flopola, though the film's bombing with critics and audiences alike is briefly acknowledged, and Soderbergh allows at one point, "If you take yourself seriously, you're probably not going to like this movie." (Color me self-serious, I guess.) Perhaps the disc's most frightening aspect is that Soderbergh, in commentary and interviews, reveals that he knew exactly what he was doing, which makes the film not so much a mistake as a miscalculation. As an admirer, you'd feel better if his craft was in question, and not his judgment. Still, it's worth plowing through the extras for the in-character "interviews" with the film's cast, particularly Catherine Keener, who cuts deeper in 10 minutes of improvised back-talk than she's allowed to in the whole of the finished movie.
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