The Adjustment Bureau (2011, USA)

Guess I should write this up now after the "The Family Stone" experience. I recently watched about the last hour of it on HBO and found the concept interesting, even if the ending was predictably typical Hollywood. And as I caught the first half hour today and watched most of it to the end, I've seen the whole film.

And as a 2011 movie, I'm in danger of being up-to-date on something! Or not.

When I watched the last hour of the movie – which was the intriguing part; if I had watched from the beginning, I would have changed channels – I admitted that I do have to give Hollywood credit for stretching the imagination. Of pushing our minds into thinking about the possibilities, rather than just accept physical life and reality as it presents itself. 

After seeing the whole film and putting all the pieces together, I'm not quite so impressed, but there are things worth mentioning. 

Basically, heaven, or the heavenly realm, is portrayed as a corporate bureaucracy. God is referred to as "the chairman". Angels, members of the adjustment bureau, are heaven's acting agents on earth and they dress in suits and have wage scales and just do their jobs. Heaven itself is a corporate office building. 

On one hand, I want to say this portrayal of heaven is not very imaginative, but on the other hand I want to recognize that maybe the filmmaker is saying something about our current times. 

Heaven isn't, in fact, a corporate bureaucracy, but as corporations basically dominate everything on our planet today, it's saying this is the model we can all (sadly) relate to today. If this film was made in China a thousand years ago or during the Roman Empire, the setting would be of a different paradigm. Heavens are changing paradigms, as is any concept of "God".

Anyway, there is a God and the chairman has a plan for humankind and it's written out in magical books that all of the "angels" of the adjustment bureau have which tracks out timelines of possible events and futures. 

The adjustment bureau "angels" (and their thuggish corporate goons) influence events in the earthly realm to occur according to the plan. If an event goes off plan, they intervene to put things back on track. They're part Twilight Zone, part Men in Black, part their own thing. They don't curtail freewill, per se, but just give humans encouragement to make the right decisions. 

It all goes wrong with the two main subjects in this film, who meet and fall in love. But their love is against the plan, so the adjustment bureau sets out to correct the situation. But it's not so easy to keep soulmates apart. Because in the current version of the plan, they have separate destinies. But in previous versions of the plan, things were different, and some things aren't so easily simply erased.

There's an interesting metaphysical realm to this film whereby the adjustment bureau can transport themselves in the earthly physical realm using doorways, which to them are substrates to other disjunct places in the physical realm to help them execute their duties.

It's a play on reality and ideas of fate and destiny. Is destiny a prison that we are locked into by some universal "god", or are we really making our own decisions of where we go and how we end up?

It's not that deep, it's sophomorical, and I'd barely pass this film with a nominal fresh 6 out of 10 tomatoes. I recommend it to people who are numbed to accepting Hollywood films as entertainment. A date and then go have dessert afterwards with a discussion that doesn't touch on the movie.

The Family Stone (2005, USA)

Bleah. I create these "rotten tomato" posts not to review movies per se like I really have something to say about them, but to remind myself of what I've watched. I think the reason I didn't write up this movie before when I saw it on cable was because I turned it on halfway through.

Too bad this time, because I turned it on at the beginning, and having some vague memory of the title, having turned it on halfway through before, and having found it intriguing, I decided to watch it.

I remember the title from when the film was released. I noted the pedigree of the title and that it was riffing on Sly & the Family Stone (as well as the too-clever double-entendre of balls), and as a Hollywood film, I promptly disregarded it.

When I turned it on part way through, I remember thinking that the movie couldn't decide whether it wanted to be a melodrama or a comedy, and I'm pretty sure I didn't watch it to the very end before, because I don't remember it being a schmaltzy, tear-jerking Hollywood stinker with a ridiculous feel-good happy ending. Or I simply, and more likely, blocked it out.

But I did recognize the attraction of when I turned on to it before. There was emotion involved regarding someone dying (woohoo, good times), and it was a family holiday film, which always begs comparison to one of my all-time favorite films, a family holiday film, "Home for the Holidays".

What I had forgotten from before was my general dislike of anything Sarah Jessica Parker or Wilson brothers, Luke in this case, although I recognize the talent of Luke and Owen Wilson. They're good, I just have to be dragged to see anything they're in.

As for Sarah Jessica Parker, I just don't see the appeal. But in this movie, I do. And it has a name. Rachel McAdams, whose appearance makes Sarah Jessica Parker tolerable. Sarah Jessica Parker walks into a bar. The bartender asks, "Why the long face?". She does get credit for Matthew Broderick, though.

All in all, it was not worth watching. Great acting, Hollywood quality, but a stinker of a film with an ending that makes me wonder, "did I just watch this?". Seriously, he ended up marrying her, and she ended up with him?!! Gimme a break. Rotten 4 out of 10 tomatoes.

Lest I suggest that it was eye candy Rachel McAdams (I do think she's a good actress, not just eye candy, it's just that she needs a few more films under her belt to make that unquestionable) that prevents giving this movie a lesser rating, I should also say ... Claire Danes.


Claire Danes who was also in:

Home for the Holidays (1995, USA) 

Like I said, one of my all-time favorite movies, directed by the impressive Jodie Foster, starring one of my favorite actresses, Holly Hunter, and including Claire Danes, who amazes me no matter how small a role she takes.

The reason this is one of my favorite films of all-time is because of the progression, the pacing and the emotional pitch. The ending is also arguably feel-good, but for a completely different reason than "The Family Stone".

The feel-good tone of that film was reached by someone dying and a future that has ridiculously unlikely and forced circumstances, which apparently makes the American mainstream ooh and ah and feel really good about themselves for some reason, but makes me wretch and puke.

This film is emotionally more cathartic. It kicks cliches like how "family is all we've got" in the family stones, and states a more realistic "who are these people? where did I even come from?". Family memories, childhood memories, no matter how crappy things have become, that's where we came from, and that's what makes them treasures.

There's often nothing we can do about what we've become or the family relationships we have. But family memories are fact and they are the basis of who we are, no matter how different or divergent our lifestyles or beings become, and they will haunt. Unless you just learn to chill the fuck out.

My parents are driving me fucking crazy, but maybe that's what I need and I should start answering their phone calls more than once a week and taking the rubbish they're dishing out. After all, my parents can be said to be a major force in driving me towards my own goal in life.

After I graduated from college and tried to find something in Japan, if they had just let me be, I might have ended up getting married and starting a family and finding a job and completing my language studies.

After they thwarted that and engineered my return to the U.S., they should have just supported me to go out into the world and find a job. I might have found it to be so unbearable that I might have ended up begging them to support me through law school and becoming a public defender in San Francisco.

When I told them I was considering being a monk, if I had gotten support – highly hypothetical, since I didn't need their support, and the kind of support necessary to be beneficial would require at least a mote of spiritual understanding – maybe I'd be a monk now. 

Really?

Under any parental circumstance, can I picture myself married with kids in Japan? Can I imagine myself as an attorney? I tried the simple working for a living thing and even that didn't pan out. Being a monk is the only thing that actually still makes sense, but I stepped off that path on my own for a reason.

Is there any scenario that I could have encountered that would have snuffed out the spark towards suicide that is the hallmark of my life?

No, and any accusative tone I might take towards my parents' disastrous meddling in my life is only seeing things from their point of view. For what they wanted my life to be, they were constantly shooting me in the foot. 

Thanks to my parents relentlessly trying to steer me towards an impossible lifestyle as a doctor, lawyer or in business, my life is the way it is. And there were likely no options they could have supported as hypothetical "good parents" that would have made my path any different.

Suicide was never going to go away. I was never going to be "satisfied" just living a life. So the way my parents are is perfect, almost like they were part of a grand plan to help me towards some perceived, possible spiritual breakthrough. I look down on them, I pity them and wish them the best. I'm separate from them.

But if they were parents who supported me and who I loved and was a part of, this would be even more difficult than it has been, maybe even impossible. I'd probably suffer from depression.

If my thesis is correct, which is a matter of faith – I'm not trying to convince anyone about it, nor do I myself believe there are any universal truths that we can understand involved – then the act of suicide may be the "bigger" worth I would want out of my life. Seeing behind the reality of the "roads of birth and death and earthly desires", as the Lotus Sutra puts it.

And maybe that's why they're my parents. I was pondering before the sense or the karma in having such spiritually bankrupt parents. It would finally make sense if I realized they have been crucial, if not essential, to my goal.

Bonus points for being totally bizarre and self-fulfilling.

When I heard in January that one of Japan's undeniably best rock bands was breaking up at the end of February, it didn't really faze me. It didn't faze me because it doesn't matter what Tokyo Jihen's frontwoman Shiina Ringo does. As long as she's making music, it will be brilliant.

She's that good of an artist/songwriter. In my opinion, she is Japan's second best rock songwriter behind Keisuke Kuwata, the leader and songwriter behind Southern All-Stars, who have been around longer than Shiina Ringo has been alive.

But the only reason why Shiina Ringo is second best is because Keisuke Kuwata has been around so long and doing it so well for so long. Southern All-Stars are essentially an institution in the Japanese rock world.

In the long run, I think Shiina Ringo will be considered equal or greater to Keisuke Kuwata, and it won't be as ambiguous such as whether The Rolling Stones or the The Beatles are the ultimate Western rock band.

It did furrow my brow, though, as to why they were breaking up. Who's breaking up the band?

To review, Shiina Ringo was already an enormously successful and highly heralded musician/songwriter when she "retired" from her solo career to "join" Tokyo Jihen in 2004, her hand-picked backing band who supported her on her last solo tour.

Tokyo Jihen got off to a rocky start after the original guitarist and keyboardist quit after the first album and tour. And I understood the dissension. Some of Japan's finest musician's were recruited, and they were asked to be the backing band/second fiddle for Shiina Ringo. That wasn't what she wanted, but it wasn't easy to remove her from her stature nor the fact that Shiina Ringo was the main draw for Tokyo Jihen.

The replacement guitarist and keyboardist were Ukigumo and Ichiyo Izawa, both also brilliant and set ups for a perfect band. I think Ukigumo had to be personally cajoled by Shiina Ringo (for a second time) into agreeing to join the band with assurances that there would be no barriers to his creative freedom, i.e., he wasn't a part of a Shiina Ringo vehicle.

Even though Tokyo Jihen's first album was mostly written and controlled by her, which may be why the original guitarist and keyboardist left, she wanted Tokyo Jihen to be a band with equal contributions by all members.

Tokyo Jihen, mk. II, also got off to a rocky start, but the addition of Ukigumo and Ichiyo Izawa, I think, soon proved their worth.

Both were competent, contributing songwriters and secondary/backing vocalists (the original guitarist and keyboardist provided no vocals at all). Their presence in the works of Tokyo Jihen increased by the album, while Shiina Ringo allowed her control to be diminished, at times just handling lyric and melody writing. There are even songs where she doesn't have any writing credits as well.

I was astounded by their 2010 album, Sports, and subsequent DVD of the supporting concert. 2011 saw their release of the Discovery CD, which was no less impressive. I thought they hit their stride and could go on for another 10 years of success just doing what they were doing.

They were a team, they were brilliant, Ukigumo and Ichiyo Izawa seemed happy with their role in the band, and everything they did included surprises and something new and different. So why the sudden break-up announcement in January 2012? Was it something disagreeable about working with a luminary like Shiina Ringo again?

What other set of musicians would any of them prefer to be working with!? Who can compare to them? They're like top-level jazz musicians playing cutting-edge rock music with no limitations.

I think Shiina Ringo gave Ukigumo and Ichiyo Izawa enough room and freedom that they had no reason to complain, and bassist Seiji Kameda and drummer Toshiki Hata, as capable as they are in their own careers, likely had no problem being taken to the heights Tokyo Jihen took them.

I wonder if the break-up of Tokyo Jihen was instigated by Shiina Ringo herself. An artistic career decision. She could've sailed on with Tokyo Jihen for 10 more years. But way back when, when she could've sailed on with her solo career for 10 more years no problem, she instead announced her retirement as a solo artist and joined Tokyo Jihen, which back then was unproven.

Anyway, there are good aspects to Tokyo Jihen's break-up. I will be able to stop buying their albums and DVDs as soon as I see them. Yesterday I found they released a DVD of their Discovery tour last year, and I bought it without question and it's incredible and I can't believe they've broken up.

I don't know the facts, but from my speculative knowledge and inability to find otherwise online, I think Shiina Ringo herself broke up the band because they had gotten comfortable with their ability to succeed indefinitely, and that's not her definition of success.

I think she'll continue to work with Seiji Kameda who was with her from the beginning as bassist, producer and mentor, and I hope she'll retain Toshiki Hata who's an unparalleled drummer that she obtained from her brother's band. I hope Tokyo Jihen is open to reunion shows in the future, but I feel confident that whatever Shiina Ringo pursues next, I will buy in a heartbeat at least until she starts covering old enka songs.

I have over 18,000 files in my iTunes collection. We used to refer to them as "songs". Although as diversified as my collection is, "songs" may not accurately describe some items.

I'm old enough to remember buying albums. Records. They're called LPs or vinyl now to distinguish the medium. They were precious and you played the hell out of them and knew every song in order, if not all the lyrics if they were included on the record sleeve.

Ever since I got an iPod and iTunes, I perpetually listen to my entire collection on shuffle play. Any one song that comes up is a 1 in over 18 friggin' thousand chance. I know, I'm not impressed by that either for some reason. It's been great not having to choose what I want to listen to. It's my collection, so why wouldn't I like whatever comes up?

Truth. But somewhere in the past six years I've acquired a LOT of music that just got dumped into my collection, and with a 1 in 18,000 chance of coming up, it's gonna take quite a while to get familiar with a lot of this collection. In the process, I'm weeding out and deleting files that just don't do it for me.

The variety of music in my collection is certifiably schizophrenic. I'm a music hoarder. It seems to me that if you're truly a music lover, it's not just subjective, selfish pleasure in what aurally pleases you. It's seeking out what's out there because music is life. And music I become a fan of, I become a fan of for life. It's not a trend. 

If music is made, there must have been some inspiration behind it. So as a music lover, I want to find what that inspiration, the humanity behind it, is. Of course, there are aesthetic limits. It's also important to recognize what one likes and doesn't like. And with 18,000+ tracks in my collection, it's hard to argue that I'm a discriminating listener.

In my memory, my music loving began in my late infancy with 45rpm singles on plastic, toy phonographs. There's one song I don't remember, but it might've been Disney, that I couldn't get enough of and played over and over again. I think it was at my uncle's house – my mother's younger brother who was the only other sibling to immigrate to the U.S.

And an Osmonds song a bit later. I'm almost 100% sure it was this song. I remember the MGM lion's head logo going around and around on our own blue and white plastic, toy phonograph.

Finding this video clip is a bit of a revelation, as I have no video memory of the song. But there are elements in the song I do clearly remember. And it's a pretty funky performance that's obviously inspired by the Jackson 5 and is not too far from the K-pop I'm inexplicably obsessed with recently.

Although back then they were clearly lip-synching as they didn't have headset mics that allow K-pop singers to get away with it more easily. It's still a lot better than a lot of Western pop coming out recently.

As for rock, my earliest concrete memories are the first albums I bought: Queen's "News of the World" and then Billy Joel's "52nd Street". After that I don't remember.

I'm most particular about the music that I enjoy the most, as I suppose anyone is, and that's Western rock, or rock in general. Perhaps my bar is set lower for other genres where my tastes are not as discerning. And there are many obscure genres that I take what I can get exposed to.

I have a respectable collection of the main Western genres, including jazz, fusion and classical. I have a keen taste for Broadway with which I think a lot of people have difficulty.

My taste for world music was acquired during college when I even toyed with becoming an ethnomusicology major until I realized I didn't have the formal musical foundation or ear-training for it. So I have quite a lot of traditional and folk musics in my collection.

My stint in the Oberlin steel drum band gave me an aesthetic taste for Trinidadian steel orchestras that I can geek on about endlessly, but I think is among the more challenging genres in my collection. It's not unlike classical music in that you can have a greater appreciation for it if someone points out what to listen for.

And aside from traditional world music, there's plenty of pop music from around the world that I've acquired. It's not a big deal to me that I don't understand the lyrics. In fact, I think my appreciation for K-pop is partly predicated on the fact that I don't understand the lyrics.

The music I listen to has become my main identity, my final identity perhaps. It also isolates me because the likelihood of being able to share this identity with anyone else is practically nil. People have commented on my listening habits and the disparate aural experience of my collection on shuffle play.

Ultimately music is what identifies me, and what isolates me. Go fig.