Jordan Hoffman Dot Com

Lenny Bruce said it stood for Circumcised Citizens of New York. The demographics have changed over the years but it remains a beautiful campus, a small & surprising oasis in Upper Manhattan. If you’ve never been up that way, you should check it out.

Alumni include:
Colin Powell, Ed Koch, Daniel Bell, Irving Kristol, Abraham Foxman, Bernard Baruch, Felix Frankfurter, Paddy Chayefsky, Yip Harburg, Ben Shahn, Luis Guzman, Ira Gershwin, Edward G. Robinson, Eli Wallach, Alfred Stieglitz, Zero Mostel, Judd Hirsch, Lewis Mumford, Jonas Salk, Mario Puzo, A.M. Rosenthal, Oscar Hijuelos, Cornel Wilde, Upton Sinclair, Henry Roth, Bernard Malamud and, most importantly, MY OLD MAN.

Ann took most of these pictures.

I am just immature enough to post this.

As you may or may not know, whenever I do walking tours I use a light saber. This is so people following me (I’ve had groups as large as 60) can see me as we trudge down 5th Ave in the middle of mid-day shopping. I use it not so much out of a love of Star Wars, but because it is retractable & light and can fit in my bag — but when I extend it no one can miss it.

However, whenever I have teen boys they all go apeshit for it. 9 out of 10 of the boys love Star Wars and that’s when the Star Wars banter flies. We say things like “Mace Windu is awesome” and “Darth Maul is the bomb” and such. One more than one occasion conversation turns to other like-minded movies (Lord of the Rings and the like) and, eventually, they ask if I’ve seen “300.” I keep having to say I haven’t and, time and again, the 14 yr old boys are absolutely stunned. Most say it is the best movie they’ve ever seen. Seriously.

Anyway, I was with this group from Vancouver — they were really cool, but when they heard I hadn’t seen “300″ they were really disappointed. I said I was waiting for DVD and it was as if I was stabbing them each in the heart (in slo-mo and in brown color saturation, I suppose.) They actually made me promise I would go and see it in the theater.

So that’s why Kerry and I went to see this three month old movie yesterday. It’s only playing on one screen here in Manhattan, limping like a wounded warrior off to its life on ancillary media.

So is the movie good? No, of course not, it is beyond idiotic. Is it entertaining? Well, Kerry and I were laughing and talking back to the screen and making “ooooh” noises as people got chopped up, so, yeah, I guess it is entertaining.

It is also GAAAAAAAAAAY! There’s this rampant homophobia that many critics have written about. The “Persians” are all fey and sibilant, but really this film exposes the war of the Butch vs. The Femmes. Our heroes — our Spartans — they look like the rowdiest group of Chelsea leatherboys you’ll ever see. If their speedo-sized briefs were any tighter they’d be massacring threir own sperm count as quickly as they killed Xerxes’ armies! The slo-mo shots of these 300 6-packs (1800-pack, Kerry was quick to point out) marching in unison to tough techno-metal, drenched in the rain — it is an army of rough trade coming to stomp the hell out of anyone who questions their manliness. The voice over states “We were marching to glory! We were marching to destiny!” I added, “We were marching to Abercrombie and Fitch!”

Best, though, was the audible gasp Kerry and I both made when the 2nd-in-command actually weeps and tells King Leonidas (tangent: how do you take a warrior seriously when he is named for a Belgian Chocolatier?) that he never told his son he loved him. This is a culture where they beat their 7 yr olds and shove their 9 yr olds off to the snow to fight wolves with their own hands. I shouted “Omygod!” and Kerry just slapped his forehead. Hilarious.

If you want to, you can read all sorts of current events parallels in “300.” What’s interesting is that there is material for both the left and right wings. I won’t go into it too much, but if you follow the film and “buy it” (ie think the Spartans good guys) you are rooting for Fascism. It’s “Starship Troopers” without the irony. I’ll give “300″ the benefit of the doubt and say that it isn’t meant to be taken as any rallying cry for today. But who the hell knows?

I’ve purposely waited a full 24 hours after seeing “Once” before writing about it. I’ve been known to go off all half-cocked about a movie and then, as time passes, the passions will fade. But I think I’m gonna stay safe with this one: “Once” is the best movie of 2007. And, after I see it again or buy the DVD, I feel that “Once” may even creep into that secret corner of my life I call my favorite movies of all time.

The elite group I hold in this pantheon of perfection are there because, after you’ve seen them, it is as if you can’t imagine a world without them. “Once” in its story and in its form is unique and new, but as I watched it and as I reflect I’m thinking “of course.” It’s as if I’ve already known this movie my entire life.

“Once” has also legitimized a medium. For ten years we’ve been hearing how digital video has forever changed cinema. This has, no doubt, been proven already. But until “Once” I’ve never seen a non-documentary film that has benefitted from the DV aesthetic. Now that documentary film grammar is so intertwined with DV it will automatically make anything shot on it look more documentary-style. But “Once” isn’t meant to be mock-verite — it’s aesthetic is to present realism in a raw cinematic way — and “Once” achieves this with a spring in its step reminiscent of “Jules et Jim” and other benchmarks of French New Wave. The video is grainy in the tiny apartments because the lights are low and this is the way this looks now in low light, ya know? To shoot it any other way wouldn’t be true to the situation. This may be chicken-and-egg aesthetics, but it makes the scenes look perfect. And, in their way, beautiful.

“Once” is also a masterpiece because it is un-reproducible. Anyone can have the idea for the story of “Once,” and, frankly, it wouldn’t be too tough to produce a rough facsimile. (I’ve heard the budget was around $125,000) But to get it done you need access to the volcano of talent that is Glen Hansard. Hansard (who, like a putz, I’ve blown off seeing in concert at small clubs like Southpaw) is a one-in-a-million. He’s loveable without being silly, passionate without being maudlin, introspective without being depressing or pretentious. This is evident in his acting (restrained, yes) as well as his singing (quite the opposite of restrained.)

I’ve read nothing but glowing reviews for “Once,” but many critics refer to the film as “small.” I feel this is incorrect. If it seems that “the stakes aren’t high” that just means you are watching this under the conditions of what’s expected at “the movies.” What is so revelatory — so “big” — is that “Once” presents real life. . .that most difficult of genres. To be able to do so one must trust the material so much that audiences will empathize with the characters, not just watch them and ask “could you imagine if this were real?” There are no villains in “Once,” yet the scenes are still rich with drama. Isn’t that kinda what your life is like?

Oh! But it’s a musical! Did I mention that? I nearly forgot! Yeah, they break into song. They follow all the genre conventions. Seriously. What a time!

Click here to hear the song that’ll change everything.

This episode is kinda interesting. Not precisely the response the producers were going for when they were making the show, I’m sure, but they’re lucky they get this much. A super diplomat to the stars (Space Ralph Bunche, I guess) is being escorted to broker an agreement between the Ugly and Uglier Tribes of yet another planet made of rocks. Turns out Mr. Peace is actually deaf — he reads lips (how do they do that?) and then transmits his thoughts to his “chorus.” His chorus is a stern man (for stern thoughts) a delicate woman (for delicate thoughts) and a robust & lusty man (for robust & lusty thoughts.) Mr. Peace himself is a creepy dude with beady eyes and a horrible beard, but his sex-interpreter is skilled enough to get Counselor Troi to go out to dinner with him. So instead of studying up on the 15 century history of this seemingly-intractable conflict, he spends his entire trip trying to get into Troi’s unitard. He might have succeeded, too, if it weren’t for (shocker!) some violence among the warring barbarians. O! Had he only checked the Wikipedia entry on these guys! Now he has no chorus to aid him — and he must use the strength from within, or something, which involves everyone taking Berlitz classes. A laughable end, but the scenes with the interpreters are cool and Marina Sirtis doesn’t look half bad lit by candlelight. What’s Betazoid for “Reowr!”?

Just about as good as a coming-of-age story can get. With the heart of “400 Blows” and the humor of “Fireman’s Ball,” “Do You Remember, Dolly Bell?” has little of the antic and exaggerate pace you’ll find in Kusturica’s later masterpieces “Underground” or “Black Cat, White Cat.” This is a simpler story: the painful quirks of an extended family, the camaraderie of dopey friends, the joy and pain of first love. Some of the tropes start out familiar (the saintly prostitute, the local tough, the sick paterfamilias) but storylines never quite end up where you expect them. Marxism, hypnotism, Italian pop songs, pet rabbits, picnics in the rain, stolen cigarettes, a youth counselor who looks like Brian Lehrer. There’s nothing about this movie that isn’t fantastic. That’s a weird way to put it. Let’s try again. It’s fantastic.

I wanted to like this movie. Honest, I did. But about midway through I had to admit defeat. I remember a writing teacher once telling me that one could write about any subject at all “a waterfall or a leaf, so long as it wants something.” Distant characters can only take you so far. Also — for a story as preposterous as this, it wasn’t shot in a “weird” enough way. A secret government bunker that hires out for a Mexican immigrant cleaning woman? Too stupid to take literally, but no attempt made to present this as some sort of symbol (I interpreted it that way anyhow. I had to to keep going.) Atom Egoyan made a film called Speaking Parts which is kinda similar but a million times better. Rent that one instead.

On the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks (spoken on Sept. 13, 2001):
“I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say ‘you helped this happen.’”

On sexual preference:
“AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals.”

On the tolerant-to-Gays Metropolitan Community Churches:
“[They are] brute beasts…[and] a vile and Satanic system [that will] one day be utterly annihilated and there will be a celebration in heaven.”

On Feminism:
“These women just need a man in the house. That’s all they need. Most of the feminists need a man to tell them what time of day it is and to lead them home.”

On the working class:
“Labor unions should study and read the Bible instead of asking for more money. When people get right with God, they are better workers.”

On “The Antichrist”:
“Of course, he’ll be Jewish.”

On South African Apartheid:
“…part of God’s great design.”

On Brown vs. Board of Ed.:
“If Chief Justice Warren and his associates had known God’s word and had desired to do the Lord’s will, I am quite confident that the 1954 decision would never have been made…. The facilities should be separate. When God has drawn a line of distinction, we should not attempt to cross that line.”

Frequent (and mature) description of Dr. Marting Luther King and his civil rights movement:
“The Civil Wrongs Movement”

And everyone’s favorite, on the Tele-Tubbies:
“Now, further evidence that the creators of the series intend for Tinky Winky to be a gay role model have surfaced. He is purple — the gay-pride color; and his antenna is shaped like a triangle — the gay-pride symbol.”

Can you believe this guy set up his “University” in a place called Lynchburg?!? Chutzpah points, for sure.

All the above quotes were found on the Internet, so that means they are 100% true.

Yow, what a dumbass episode. One of the amusing things about TNG is the guest star — they often look like such L.A. clowns. Anyway, Swashy McBuckle is cruising around the galaxy — not theiving and impregnating, but actually aiding young lovers. Meanwhile, Data is on the Holodeck with Joe Piscopo (!) trying to find the funny.

I implore you all to watch the American Experience documentary on Alexander Hamilton. It will be on tonight (Monday) at 9 pm on Channel 13 here in New York.

Why? you ask. Well, for one, don’t you want to know more about Hamilton? The other reason is that my friend Jimmy Napoli will be one of the talking heads in the film and, more importantly, *I* am the one who got him the gig!

It is an amusing story. A good long while ago (winter 2005?) I attended a reading of Marcy Dermansky’s fantastic book Twins in the East Village. After the event there was a small group that went off to have some grub at a nearby Italian restaurant. I found myself sitting next to a woman (whose name I’ve forgotten) who, in addition to holding readings of new fiction, is also an independent filmmaker. She mentioned some of the projects she was working on and some of her collaborators. One of these collaborators was someone I’d heard of and I asked about her — I was told that she was very busy working on an Alexander Hamilton gig for PBS. And I dropped my fork.

I told her, quite frankly, that even if the film was finished she had to get into contact with me. Because I knew the greatest guy to talk to about Hamilton. My friend Napoli.

If you met him on the street you wouldn’t instantly think Federalist. For one, he looks like the long lost 5th member of the Ramones. And has the accent to boot. But get the guy going and, surprisingly, he is obsessed with Hamilton. (Woe be to you should you say anything positive about Jefferson or Burr.) He isn’t (as of yet) a published author, so I knew he wouldn’t be on their radar — but his enthusiasm and entertaining way of speaking would be a natural for TV — especially if you are trying to keep students awake, right?

Getting ahold of Napoli at the time was tough. He lived (and perhaps still does) in an SRO in Hell’s Kitchen with no telephone. But through a network of left messages (”if you see Napoli, tell him I was looking for him”) and me as an email intermediary, he got the gig. Hopefully they used a lot of him in there. If not that, then hopefully they talk a bit about Hamilton and his love of prostitutes.

God Bless America!

I don’t want to embarrass myself too much, but for the past few days I can’t stop listening to this mostly forgotten mid-70s concept album by Jethro Tull. There was such a glut of great music at this time in history that some albums just fell through the cracks. There’s no real reason why tracks from “Stand Up,” “Benefit” or even the all mighty “Aqualung” are still earning fortunes on car commercials and all of these cuts (except, maybe, the title track) remain unknown to all but die hards. This is top shelf Tull for those who like that sort of thing. If you feel like following the amusing little story within the song cycle it can only add to the enjoyment. (Even at their most musically complex, Jethro Tull never lost their senses of humour.)

I’d like to think that by now I’ve heard about all the major cultural empires that have been of some importance to world history. Not so. Prior to yesterday I knew nothing about the Sasanian Empire, which, if I’ve got this right, fits right in between the Persians (which you see in movies like “300″) and the rise of Islam (which you see in movies like “United 93.”)

Maybe I missed that day in Mr. Whelan’s class, or maybe we learned it under a different name? You know, like how Bombay is Mumbai now? That sorta thing?

The Asia society has a pretty spectacular show of these Zoroaster-worshipping guys and their various seals & drinking vessels (always with the seals and drinking vessels!) It’ll be up for just six more days.

Click here for an interesting article about Zoroastrians living in America that I remember reading last year when I was waiting for a bus.

My mixed feelings for the Decalogue are shunted aside for this scrumptious (did I just use the word “scrumptious?”) little film. A stalker and peeping tom has the tables turned on him when his subject engages with him. A terrific story. My only complaint is how bland this is shot (that’s a universal complaint with this series.) Oh, if only someone like David Cronenberg were making this script. Still, well done and filled with surprises.

I was kinda dreading these episodes. The quickest way to mock a TNG fan is to say, “Oh, Data dressed as Sherlock Holmes turns you on?” Truth is, this isn’t quite as awful as I remember. Yeah, you’d like to think that people battling around in outer space will have more important things to do that wank about in the Holodeck — and, for the love of Surak, will someone implement a safeguard to keep Holodeck figures from causing physical harm, taking over the ship, achieving higher consciousness, etc, etc. . .But if you hold your nose, you can have an okay time.

Goober, sleeping.

Goober, kinda half awake. Maybe he thirsts for seltzer.

Goober H. Cat, awake and fully ready to annoy and pester you. He’s a real jerk.

A few weeks back Ann & I played Scrabble. I won, but it was close for a while.

I wasn’t the only idiot wearing a video game T-Shirt that day. This kid was from Delaware and he was visiting NYC with his mom.

Told in fractured time (and with differing color filters) we realize we are seeing the story of a sociopathic man brutally killing a random stranger (who is kind’ve a jerk, but doesn’t deserve torture and death) and the idealistic young lawyer who tries to save him from the gallows. Doesn’t work. I’ve seen a lot of movies with execution scenes, but this is one of the most brutal. What’s up with Poland? They have to do everything in that ugly industrial green room? Anyway, it is a classic moral question. Is capital punishment wrong? In the abstract, yes, of course it is. So, should we fight to protect the unredeemed murdering douche bags who are about to get what’s coming to them? Well, surely there must be something else more important worth rallying over.

Incidentally, the murder scene is straight out of Body/Antibody.