Bubba Ho-Tep

Elvis lives! JFK lives! With a title like Bubba Ho-Tep (as the title sequences proclaim "Ho-Tep: from that line of Egyptian pharaohs; Bubba: cracker, red neck, trailer park resident"), this isn’t your typical horror movie. If you have mental images of a kind of "Revenge of the Mummy in a Trailer Park", you aren’t far off.

Taking place in an East Texas nursing home, Elvis (B-movie king Bruce Campbell) became sick of being "Elvis" and switched places with the greatest Elvis Presley impersonator, Sebastian Haff. So it was Sebastian that died on a toilet, not the real Elvis. But as Elvis Presley playing Sebastian Haff playing Elvis, he finds that neither his money nor fame can stave off the inevitable: time and death. His fellow resident, JFK (Ossie Davis) also waits for death in his room. Oh yeah, JFK, claims that his assassination was part of a government conspiracy, that’s why he’s now black (Lyndon B. Johnson had him dyed). As further proof of the movie’s sincerity, the two take each other at their word that they are who they say they are and move on.

So when Bubba Ho-Tep, a soul sucker who claims a soul through any orifice, comes a-calling, the two are pressed into action. Old folks souls being small, JFK explains, he needs to suck more of them. Elvis in his walker and JFK in his wheelchair versus a mummy in a cowboy hat looks like, well, what you would imagine it would look like. And yet the horror in this movie isn’t simply the presence of the scarab beetles or Bubba Ho-Tep, it is the inevitability of death. Elvis, pondering how he went from being the king of rock and roll to an old guy in a retirement home, wonders "is there anything to life other than food, shit, and sex?" In part, this movie is a meditation on the true meaning and value of life (Elvis wanted to quit being "Elvis" once Priscilla left him), death (even our cultural icons aren’t immune to the ravages of age) and what happens afterwards (a cursed existence such as Bubba Ho-Tep’s).

The language of horror is the language of spirituality. No other genre, as a given part of its lexicon, deals with the depravity of man, the ontology/reality of evil, the nature of the soul, the reality of the supernatural, the nature of the afterlife, and the embrace of the tragedy of death. To quote from theologian Rich Vincent’s article "Holy Horror" (yes, in the interests of full disclosure, an article dedicated to me):

"The fear of death fuels horror stories. This fear is universal since death is immanent, inevitable, and unstoppable. At heart, every horror story is about our innate fear of death. Whether the fear is manifested through a random slasher, a mystery killer, a terrifying monster, or a perversion of immortality, the fear is the same: a person is endangered by an unspeakably powerful evil that threatens to destroy his or her most precious possession - life itself" The Mummy, Rich goes on to say "is a resurrection to a cursed existence. Like Adam, those who set free the
Mummy unleash the curse, bringing death in its wake. The eternally living-dead one, cloaked in the rags of death itself, exists only to bring misery and perpetuate the curse."

In horror movies, there is no argument about the moral relativity of our society. There is good and there is evil. This is not to say that, by any means, all horror movies are morally acceptable, but they shouldn’t be immediately dismissed. Yes, Bubba Ho-Tep is a cheesy mess of a movie, filled with humor, but not quite camp because it endearingly treats itself and its subject seriously. Much like the Evil Dead movies that first catapulted Bruce Campbell into cult status, this movie will find its place in the B-movie pantheon of greats. Vulgar, yet with characters you come to really like, it’s fun.

Ghost World

Ghost World follows the story of two world weary teens, Enid (Thora Birch) and Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson) during that scary, post-high school graduation time of life as they try to make their way (read: find themselves) in the real world. Though there are teenagers in this movie, do not confuse this fact with Ghost World being a teen movie.

Almost a live action follow up to MTV’s Daria (for that matter, it is a live action version of the comic book Ghost World), these are the too smart by half, best friend, outsider girls who learned to face the (high school) world while having each others back. They exude a "better than you" realness among the odd collection of characters that make up their small town. Displaying a certain post-modern crankiness ("Everyone is too stupid."), they go about figuring out how to get a long in life, in very different ways.

This movie is about realness. Cool becomes defined by one’s realness, so much of the movie is a search of how to express one’s self. Enid and Rebecca make sport of others, following and embarrassing interesting people. That is how she comes to meet Seymour (the ever cool, even when playing an adult nerd/misanthrope, Steve Buscemi), collector of of vintage blues, jazz, and ragtime 78s, making fun of him until she comes to see a lot of herself in him. Rebecca, with ideas of moving out on her own and heading to college, starts growing up, straining the friendship. Enid, an artist at heart though she hasn’t quite realized it, adopts looks and styles in search of her real self. Playing the outsider, her look and attitude are designed to alienate before anyone gets the opportunity to reject her. Enid’s art teacher tries to help her students "find the key to your particular lives".

This movie also cries out with the realization that people are relational beings. Seymour "can’t connect with other people so [he] fills [his] life with stuff." But he does have a morose, black humor that is his defense mechanism. For that matter, most of the characters have difficulty relating to the rest of humanity. Enid, after a particularly frustrating bout, declares that "only stupid people have good relationships." The problem isn’t Enid, of course, it’s that the rest of the world can’t understand her. But it’s that very real sense of comfortable aloneness that Enid responds to in Seymour (though they are too alike to stay together) and we respond to in Enid.

Okay, so everyone in this movie needs a hug.

In this age of homogenized strip malls and coffee franchises, the "Ghost World" that the title refers to is the loss of any sense of character or true originals. Original, somewhat meandering, and smart, this movie is both funny and sad at the same time, almost uncomfortable to watch. But definitely worth watching.

BarberShop

The barber shop serves a special role in the black community. It is a meeting place, a place for political and sports debate, a place to gossip, a place of commerce (I’ve always said that if you stay at a barber shop long enough, everything will come to you), and at mine, a place to indulge a passion for chess. Things get said in a barber shop, among family, that can’t be said anywhere else. A place of an honest exchange of ideas, things we probably "wouldn’t say in front of white folks"; thus explaining why Cedric the Entertainer, playing the elder statesman barber, Eddie, came under a cloud of controversy for some of his lines.

"There are three things black people need to stop lying about: 1) Rodney King should have got his ass beat for driving drunk and being pulled over in a Hyundai; 2) O.J. did it; and 3) Rosa Parks ain’t do nothing but sit her black ass down." Then there was his rant about how Martin Luther King Jr. "was a ho." The barber shop is where the business of the community is conducted and its role is second in importance only to the black church. This is the lesson that Calvin Palmer (Ice Cube) has to re-learn in the movie BarberShop.

This slice-of-black-life movie follows two story lines. The main story line is a fight for Calvin Palmer to save the shop. First he is forced, due to property taxes and the threat of foreclosure, to sell the shop to a "businessman from the streets" (read: loan shark) named Lester Wallace (Keith David). Second, he must save the business from Lester, who wants to turn it into a gentlemen’s club. The secondary story line is a tale of two knuckleheads, J.D. (Anthony Anderson) and Billy (Lahmard Tate) who steal an ATM machine without thinking through how they are going to get
inside it. Most of the laugh out loud moments are provided by Cedric the Entertainer, the rest of the humor falling into the genteel, smile rather than laugh category. The movie has a lot of heart, but doesn’t let its earnestness get in the way of the movie.

One of the dominant themes in this movie is the importance of family and community. The staff of the barber shop is a family. Dinka, the West African; Terri (Eve), the female barber; Jimmy, the college boy; Isaac, the white barber; and Ricky (Michael Ealy), a two time felon in search of redemption. Calvin also comes to realize that communities don’t get better by good people moving out. Though the barber shop is the "cornerstone of the community", it’s the little things--our kind actions (the occasional free hair cut) and words (a simple "stay strong, brother" to his Pakistani neighbor after a robbery)--that allow us fully realize our humanity by investing in people.

The other theme is about finding one’s true calling. Calvin Palmer, mindful of his wife being pregnant with their first child, if full of get rich quick business ventures. The movie opens with him starting an electrical fire with his studio equipment and his wife reminds him of his T-shirt and herbal vitamins ventures. Not too different from J.D. and Billy’s ideas of getting paid today. Calvin ran the barber shop for two years, but felt that it wasn’t his calling. He spends the whole movie fighting his destiny, his father’s wishes, and his life spins out of control. He slowly comes to understand what his father stood for. His father believed that "something as simple as a little haircut could change the way a man felt on the inside." A barbershop was where a black man meant something. Calvin comes to realize that a barber is a noble profession, being in parts "counselor, fashion expert, style coach, pimp, and hustler". And above all, he must serve the community.

So, what the movie ends up telling is the story of a son fulfilling his father’s work. Sacrificing his ideas of himself by accepting his father’s will and in so doing, discovering himself, his true identity, and his mission in life.

CSI

America has an odd fascination with the macabre and loves its procedurals. Actually not just America: appearing in 177 countries, CSI is one of the most watched shows in the world. Let's face it, we have a fascination with the grisly minutiae of forensic science, a fascination even we didn' realize we had until it was presented in such a glossy fashion. We have a morbid fascination with the aesthetics of violence and death. And we love whodunits. So much so that both Law & Order and CSI each have three brands of shows. And each brand is specific, differentiated by their The Who theme songs: "Who are you?" (CSI), "Won't get fooled again" (Miami), "Baba O'Riley" (New York) . The city that each brand takes place in is as much a character as any cast member. The neon glitziness of Las Vegas, the bright hues and sun-kissed skies of Miami, or the stark gray of New York.

And each show rises and falls on the strength of the personalities of its leads. If you buy David Caruso's hands on hips, lowered head, gravelly-voice a la Clint Eastwood brand of acting, you like CSI: Miami. And note, he's opted not to leave a hit show after the first season, learning the painful lessons of quitting NYPD Blue. CSI Miami is especially humorless as Lt. Horatio Caine (David Caruso) takes himself very seriously. The show has been marked by a few cast shake ups this season with the death of Tim Speedle (Rory Cochrane) and the addition of Ryan Wolfe (Jonathan Togo). Hopefully it will develop or at least differentiate its male leads now. The only two interesting characters on the show are the too perky for words gun expert, Calleigh Duquesne (Emily Procter, formerly of The West Wing), and the near-creepy/speaker-to-the-dead medical examiner, Alex Woods (Khandi Alexander, News Radio and The Corner).

CSI New York has the stronger overall cast, though a lot of its characters are still blank slates. Det. Mac Taylor (Gary Sinise) possesses the gravitas that Caruso lacks. With roots in the 9/11 tragedy, his character's wife was in the World Trade Center, he wanders through the show a haunted shell of a man. Two early stand outs are Dr. Sheldon Hawkes (Harper Hill, recently of The Handler) and Det. Stella Bonasera (Melina Kanakaredes a long way from Providence). The show is darker in tone than the other CSI's (darker being relative when all the shows deal in death and crime scenes). Filmed in blue-gray hues, it has a gritty ambience reminiscent of film noir.

However, if you like the dedicated nerds with personality and style, then there's nothing like the magic of the original CSI. This show features the best drawn characters of the brands and does the best job of humanizing this workaholic dysfunctional family. Gil Grissom (William Peterson) is the grumpy, all-knowing father; an entomologist (entomologist!) incapable of forming human attachments since he's all about science. Warrick Brown (Gary Dourdan) is a former gambler and Nick Stokes (George Eads) is like his competitive, hot-headed brother. Catherine Willows (Marg Helgenberger) is the mom of the bunch, the former stripper and struggling single mom. And lastly there's Sara Sidle (Jorja Fox) young hotshot with the budding alcohol problem.

Each character comes with their share of baggage, emotional and familial. Sometimes it has trouble juggling what the viewers like (the procedural stuff) versus what the characters need (to grow and be explored). For example, the show veered dangerously close to over-the-top (a fine line that it often straddles) when it probed Catherine's struggles with her wayward daughter.

"You may not believe in God, sir, but you certainly do His work."
- a murder suspect to Gil Grissom

This "nerd squad" is made up more of lab techs than cops, but they are equally missional. They seek truth. They speak for the dead, the victims. The show works because we enjoy the comfort of the familiar: the police forensic procedural and the mystery provided by the, often novel, deaths. Our love for it is partly fueled by our need for justice, but there are two things about the show that also drive us: death and modernity.

First there is the stark reminder of the reality of death. Death comes in all forms on the show, accidents, flukes of fate, the frailty of age or disease, and murder. By looking at death, we develop an understanding of life, especially how precious and fragile it is. Staring at the cold bodies in the morgue, we are reminded that for some it is too late. Their choices in this life have determined what they are to do in the next. If nothing else, this life is intended to teach us about preparing to meet God in the afterlife. Death is the door from one life, one reality, to the fuller life, the greater reality. We can't keep putting off the work of becoming the people we are meant to be. At the same time, those broken bodies remind us that we are more similar than we care to admit and are in no position to judge others.

Secondly, and this may seem somewhat esoteric, but the show is the fruition of our modern age: it fits our paradigm and our cultural systemic belief system. the shows are a triumph of modern thought. The mantra of the all of the shows is "have faith in the evidence". Vicariously, we need to know: we want to understand death. We need to know how and we need to know why, leaving no room for mystery. Our prophet in this endeavor, Gil Grissom, lacks one critical element. Sometimes he is so analytical, he misses the point of human existence, relationships. We are slaves to the technical jargon of death and in so becoming, we are losing the poetry of life.

"The shortest distance between two points is science."
-Warrick Brown, the original CSI.

The science geeks on the show are routinely awed by creation: the science, the body, even insects. And they have the modern age's typical need to catalog it all and put it in categories or neat frameworks. This is all part and parcel of our modern age, modern faith, and our modern way of doing things.

"The key to being a lucid crime scene investigator was to reserve judgment until the evidence vindicates or eliminates assumption."
- original CSI investigator, Holly Griggs.

This mindset has infected the way that we practice spirituality. The Western mindset with its values of science, democracy, and emphasis on individualism--none of which are bad things in and of them selves--have the cumulative effect of reducing God and faith into easily understood preconceptions. God is a puzzle to be worked out. The Bible, or any religious book, is something that needs to be put into a framework of doctrines. We pigeonhole faith and drive out the mystery.

Concentrate on what cannot lie: the evidence. Go where the evidence takes you. These are typical of Grissom's Zen-like pronouncements. Integral to crime scene investigator's methodology is that you don't want to force your pre-made ideas on the evidence, not forcing it to fit your theory. At the end of the day, you have a nice, tidy package, even if it isn't always the truth you want. Life isn't a matter of faith vs. scientific investigation because faith isn't an anti-intellectual endeavor. The most unsettling cases are the times that their faith (in their evidence and
method) is tested because something happens, some evil, that doesn't fit into their orderly beliefs.

"No more speculation ... facts from here on out."
- a CSI: New York coroner

CSI ultimately is about the quest for truth. The desire to search for truth is fueled by faith. Their faith is in the evidence. Too often we have a systematized faith, a modern way of looking at life. We like order. We like to make sense of the universe. This is fine, but we forget that we often learn more from the search for answers, without necessarily finding them, than we do by having answers given to us. Partly this is because we have made an idol of answers and partly this is because, frankly, being in a place without answers is a scary place to be and live.

We've gone from being faithful to being detectives, trying to prove something (God) by looking for evidence or simply putting our energies into proving that we're right. Our modern faith ends up treating our "holy books" as history texts, encyclopedias, legal codes or philosophical/anthropological articles, missing the whole purpose of those books are about. We become married to terms like inerrancy and infallibility, even if those texts don't use those words to describe themselves. We look for factual accuracy, corroborating evidence, try to maintain a stance of dispassionate objectivity, when the reality is 1) no one is ever truly objective and 2) truth is more than that.

In short, CSI is a graphically visceral show, with its close up of wound tracks, and has its share of macabre thrills, titillating adult themes, and crime recreations. They bring out the pulp "true crime" buffs in all of us.

NYPD Blue

—Review
—Photos
—About this Series

This is the 12th and final season of NYPD Blue. Even if you were unaware of that fact, the entire season has the feeling of closure about it. Being a long time fan of the show, I’m glad to see it get a good-bye season. This is much like the pro athlete who announces his impending retirement so that the year plays out like a farewell tour.

The show, as it has for it duration, focused on the ever grumpy Det. Andy Sipowicz (Dennis Franz), a man finding himself dissatisfied and frustrated with his calling as a detective. The show was in need of a shake up. It had gotten complacent with its easy rhythm and had fallen into a bit of a rut. Everyone got along with each other. The hustle and bustle of the squad room became six detectives and a boss solving cases in self-contained one hour arcs, not exploring the issues of their characters which had made it stand out from other police procedurals. In short, it had become staid. The first few episodes of this season, however, could best be described as "uncomfortable."

There is a cloud of palpable tenseness among the detectives squad. A new boss, Lt. Thomas Bale (Currie Graham) is transferred from Internal Affairs (the "rat squad") who not only is learning his new position on the job but also seems to have the agenda of easing Andy into early retirement. There are problems between partners. Andy and John Clark Jr. (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) continue to butt heads. John Jr. is in a destructive downward spiral of drunkenness and sexual carousing and no one knows how to help (and he isn’t asking for any). Det. Rita Ortiz and her new partner, Det. Laura Murphy (Bonnie Somerville), as Laura uses her sexiness to get by on the job to Rita’s chagrin.

Spiritual reality has always been one of the underpinnings of the show. God is at the root of Andy Sipowicz’s character. When he lost his faith in Him, his life completely unraveled into a drunken spiral into prostitution and self-loathing. In that, the show has come full circle with John Jr.’s channeling the spirit of Andy past. John Jr. is flailing about after the suicide of his father followed shortly by the suicide of his girlfriend, not knowing how to put his back together. [I’m just not quite buying Mark-Paul Gosselaar’s performance. He plays his character just this side of over the top, like he’s wearing a character he’s not quite comfortable with.] He could learn a lot from his partner.

Andy has long engaged in modeling the Book of Job, wherein Job is beset by a series of disasters in his life in turns losing his finances, his family, and his health. For Andy, his Job-ian affair involved wrestlingd with his demons of racism, homophobia, and alcoholism; and also suffering much loss (his son, Andy Jr.; his wife, Sylvia; and his partner, Bobby Simone).

In recent episodes, Andy has returned to the tortured character that was the hallmark of the series. He teetered on the edge of diving back into the bottle after a foe from the past successfully made his life hell on all fronts. Andy stared down his mortality after a recent shooting, tortured by thoughts of who he would be leaving behind. Having no room for "saint and prophet types", he doesn’t know where to turn, how to connect with God. So he is sent some help in the form of his deceased partner, Bobby Simone (Jimmy Smits, pulling double duty on The West Wing).

Somewhat surreal turns in the show aren’t unprecedented. Two major turning points for Andy’s character came via dream episodes: One where he is reunited with his son via Christ and another where he learns the root of his racism. So a conversation with his deceased partner isn’t as surreal a turn as one might expect. And the first arc of the season seems to be pointing to this climax.

Who wouldn’t want a chance to converse with someone from beyond the grave? Especially a partner that you’ve loved and missed greatly who has been in heaven. Andy acts shocked to hear that there is a God; it’s one thing to believe quite another to know. He doesn’t surround himself with a community of believers and he is not a Bible reader. But he does have his reason and his spiritual experience. Bobby reminds him that when he’s needed Him the most, God’s been there. Like now.

The spirit of Bobby Simone comes to impart some life-changing, perspective-shifting wisdom. First he reminds Andy that life isn’t short: "Life is long ... Long in possibilities. Long in those you affect. Long in what lives on after you’re gone." Fears of ones mortality is a good thing as it leads to consideration of who you leave behind and what kind of legacy, but also it inevitably leads to wondering about the life to come after this one.

Secondly, Bobby suggests that maybe Andy should re-think his calling, pursuing instead a new role as a teacher. For example, serving also as a father figure to his current partner, he should "Spot him the mistakes, Andy, and teach him to ride out the losses ... Do you think the big guy [God] let up on you because of your looks? You’re suppose to serve a purpose when you’re down here." The show has always hinged on the demons of Andy Sipowicz. The vein of racism has seemingly been picked clean and left behind him. Ditto with his homophobia. Even his alcoholism was only touched on as a constant demon that he has under control. Leaving only his spiritual journey. A part of that journey has been recognizing his true purpose. As Bobby says, "We come when we are called."

While the show is still very good, with this season in particular highlighting the recent seasons, it hasn’t been great since it’s co-creator, the manic voice of David Milch (now running the show Deadwood), left. He seemed to best voice the tortured psyche of Andy Sipowicz and set the show apart, and above, other cop shows. But the show has aged, not always gracefully, but is still a cut above most of the shows on the air. Like Andy, it can look proudly at its own legacy and role as a teacher in how police shows can be done (Homicide: Life on the Streets, Law & Order, Boomtown, The Shield, Third Watch).

*******
Maurice Broaddus
and David Bruce
wrote for this book!
What Would Sipowicz Do? : Race, Rights and Redemption in NYPD Blue (Smart Pop series)
by Glenn Yeffeth (Editor) "Surly, craggy-faced and often unpleasant, Andy Sipowicz seems an unlikely hero..."

Taking an entertaining, intelligent look at the culturally influential 11-year television run of NYPD Blue, this examination includes a collection of essays on topics ranging from the series' portrayal of race relations in New York City to Sipowicz's famously thorny demeanor. A media critic, two police psychologists, and addiction, interrogation, and sex experts contribute essays that take an accessible, intelligent look at a show that has redefined the police drama genre. From insightful analysis of the show's evolution to lighthearted jabs at its quirks, this is a work that will deepen any fan's Blue experience.

—Review
—Photos
—About this Series