Just to throw this out here, I think the phenomenon of 24-hour media saturation, particularly news media, is having some unforeseen side effects. By unforeseen, I mean, aside from the obvious ones, like the distortion of social reality, the general banalization of cultural production, etc.
No, I'm talking about major breakthroughs, seismic waves shaking up our day-to-day lives. Yes. I believe, seriously now, that the TV news has, on a strangely subliminal level, made it possible for my girlfriend and I to agree on two movies to rent at the video store. There's something really powerful in the air. This is epic, people.
It wasn't till we finished the double feature of Woody Allen's Manhattan and Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 that it dawned on me.
Just a day or two ago, Woody Allen's new film Vicky Cristina Barcelona (still think that's a stupid fuckin' title by the way) premiered here in (logically) Barcelona. And everybody's all, "ooh, Woody Allen, woo, woo, vamos todos a chuparle la polla!"
I'm so fucking sick of seeing Scarlett Johansen and Pe Cruz and Javier Bardem on TV and in the papers, man...anyway, there's no way in hell I'm gonna go see that shit. It has every indication of being a total piece of shit.
But, the other day, we saw Manhattan on the shelf in the 2 for 1 section of the videoclub. Beln hadn't seen it, I had only seen the first half (having fallen asleep halfway through some years ago). Boom, there you have it. Never had it been that easy to agree on a film. Why the sudden interest in Woody Allen? Hm. But hey, honestly, that shit was pretty damn funny. I actually laughed out loud several times and everything.
Whether the new one will have any redeeming value I'm not sure. What I am sure of though is that the city might as well start buckling down and getting a prepared for a whole new wave of wanna-be Scarletts flooding the city in search of their own Latin Lover (in Berlitz pronunciation, that's "LAH-teen LOE-vair") a la Javier Bardem. And I must say, the very thought of that makes me throw up a little in my mouth.
Anyway, after Manhattan, a film whose basic message is about why human beings should trust each other more, then we saw Fahrenheit 9/11, which is basically about why you should never trust anyone ever, especially if their last name is Bush or Cheney.
If our renting Manhattan can be attributed to non-stop "news" items about the bespectacled, adoptive-child-marrying Jew auteur, it should be quite obvious who or what I blame for the choice of the portly, attention-starved, ball-cap-wearing documentarian's tour de force. Obama. McCain. Palin. Repeat. Obama. McCain. Palin.
When a blurb about the number of hits on a Youtube video of Tina Fey's impression of Sarah Palin on SNL becomes nightly-news material in Spain, you know something big is going down.
Now I've decided it's best to rid myself of the secondhand reporting of the (well-meaning but sometimes easily misled) Spanish media and go right to the source, taking my media spin unadulterated, straight-no-chaser from American sources. It's all an "image" thing, a "thing" thing, who "gets it", who "doesn't get it", you know, these things don't translate.
So as the election draws near, I'm finding it increasingly hard to unglue myself from the goddamn computer screen, scouring cyberspace for any glimmer of hope that somehow the Republicans will lose.
If watching Fahrenheit 9/11 served to do anything, other than make me want to cry and barf at the same time (mostly cry, this is the most depressing film I've seen in a long time, and I recently saw and , so that's saying something), it's to give me at least the peace of mind to remember that whatever happens, come next year George Bush will no longer be president, which is a comforting thought. (Sarah Palin will be, as they say, a chicken-bone away from the presidency, , but anyway.)
In the meantime, brothers and sisters, let us pray.
