Issue #329: Player Haters' Ball
My dissertation is finally revised and submitted — although some final approvals, and the defense, remain. But more or less all of the research, writing, and revision is done. It has been a long process with a bit of a sprint here at the end. Being close to done, and soon truly being able to shelve it until the defense, I will soon have more time to do other things.
I got the chance to see Monkey Man (2024) this weekend, finally, but it did leave a little to be desired. I wasn’t expecting such a straightforward superhero story. Patel’s film is very much made in the image of Batman Begins (2005) or any Marvel origin story. The action is pretty good, though. There are a lot of wild close ups and camera moves. Sharone Meir is a very accomplished cinematographer, but he is not known for action movies. The form of these scenes seems to be, then, largely the vision of Patel. Though you lose the sense of wide ranging choreography by staging things like Monkey Man, it mostly works in for human combat. Where it doesn’t work is the car chase. There’s one in the movie, and it is really bad because it sticks too closely to the visual language of the other fights. I admire the consistency, but the chase scene was not enjoyable to watch.
Maybe I’ll finally get around to watching Dune: Part Two (2024) and Civil War (2024). There’s a lot on my list.
Oh yeah, the Celtics just won. Here we go. Living in bliss until June 6th.
Kaoru Hanayama is So Cool
I’ve been rewatching Baki (2018). I have read and written about the manga in the past… way in the past.
But I never finished the tournament arc where Baki fights Muhammad Ali’s son, either in print or on screen. Now there’s Baki Hanma (2021), the the 31 volume Baki (2000) manga is available on Kindle Unlimited, and the dream match Baki Hanma vs. Kengan Ashura (2024) film is coming to Netflix at the beginning of June. It felt like a good time to refresh my memory. And damn is this show good. There’s something a little gruesome about the character’s proportions and musculature, but that’s just part of the charm.
My favorite character in the series has always been Hanayama, a yakuza brawler. His entrance in episode five of Baki, “Want Some More?”, is unreal cool. He’s got a great shounen anime line, “don’t throw away the advantage of being at a disadvantage.” And he purposefully maims his back tattoo.
Why not?
I don’t think Hanayama gets much, or any, screen time in the new Baki Hanma anime which is a shame. But he will be in Baki Hanma vs. Kengan Ashura, so I am excited.
Junji Ito: Guilt and Separation
If you are looking for a great way to spend a few days, the Viz Manga app has added a number of Junji Ito volumes to their library. They include:
Tomie (1987)
Tombs (2023)
Souichi (2023)
Including the contents of Souichi’s Diary of Delights (1997) and Souichi’s Diary of Curses (1997)
Smashed (2019)
Shiver (2015)
Sensor (2021)
Fragments of Horror (2013)
Deserter (2021)
One fascinating thing about these volumes is they are pretty inconsistent with their Japanese publication — collections include different assortments of stories than were originally published in Japan from a wide range of periods. But, in Tombs, I read the title story “Tombs” (1997), also sometimes referred to as “Street of Gravestones” or “Gravetown,” and “Clubhouse,” (1997), Ito’s commentary on political polarization.
“Tombs” has an evocative premise, with a duo visiting a friend in a small town where there are tombstones everywhere.
As it turns out, the tombstone’s are a transformation of the actual dead bodies. Ito has some inspired art of the transforming body.
I may have spoiled a part of the end — but not the beginning. “Tombs” seems like Ito’s take on “The Tell-Tale Heart” (1843), dealing with themes of guilt and trauma. It’s a great riff on a timeless idea.
“Clubhouse,” like I said, is pretty obviously about extreme conflict between ambiguous and potentially indistinct political groups.
Ito doesn’t seem to be an admirer of human nature in these pieces. But, as always, he transforms some of society’s worst traits into thrilling visual narratives.
On Hating
It’s been a big month for hating. I have to thank Kendrick Lamar, someone who would normally be an object of my ire, for giving us our moment. I’ve always felt self-conscious about being a hater. I can’t deny that I’m a bit of one, but I try to stay positive. In the newsletter, I focus on stuff I really like, but sometimes something I dislike finds its way into the crosshairs. There are friends of mine who are relentlessly appreciative of culture without losing their discerning edge — though this is a pretty rare ability. There are songs like “Positive Outlook” and “From The Start” that say to me, “hey, man, who cares if there are so many terrible movies and so much terrible music that people seem to love, it doesn’t matter!” It’s a nice idea. But over the weekend, I found myself a little more aligned with the updated preface to Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy (1872):
Is pessimism necessarily a sign of decline, decay, degeneration, weary and weak instincts … Is there a pessimism of strength? An intellectual predilection for the hard, gruesome, evil, problematic aspect of existence, prompted by well-being, by overflowing health, by the fullness of existence?
It may be worth taking a moment for me to bridge the gap between the registers of youth crew hardcore and continental philosophy. In this preface, written sixteen years after the publication of The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche reflects back on the dispositions that fuel the artistic contexts he examines in the book. He contrasts the provisional “pessimism of strength” to what he calls “Greek cheerfulness,” referencing both Epicureanism and what Nietzsche believes to be the optimistic certainty of Socratism. Ever the critic of science, the implicit problem Nietzsche identifies with the Socratic approach is one of certainty. The position of Nietzsche’s Socrates is that there is no limit to the horizon of scientific knowledge. Nietzsche is uncompromising in his opposition to this, embracing unknowability as a necessary quality of existence:
And science itself, our science—indeed, what is the significance of all science, viewed as a symptom of live? For what—worse yet, whence—all science? How now? Is the resole to be so scientific about everything perhaps a kind of fear of, an escape from, pessimism? A subtle last resort against—truth? And, morally speaking, a sort of cowardice and falseness? Amorally speaking, a ruse?
Nietzsche’s formulations of pessimism and “cheerfulness” or optimism apply well to cultural criticism. They can be, viciously, simplified to the positions of “most things are bad” set against “most things are good.” The more important dimension is what does it mean to have one sort of view or the other. From Nietzsche’s perspective, in his cultural context, pessimism is seen as a “sign of decline, decay, degradation.” He would posit, however, the opposite, and suggest pessimism is motivated by “the fullness of existence.”
Unsurprisingly, I agree with Nietzsche in this case. An undifferentiated, indiscriminate embrace of all works of art diminishes what is great and cheapens the enterprise of creation. Also, some things just suck. And, of course, before I am accused of poor character using various curse words, it should be understood that any claims I make are necessarily from my point of view. “I think some things just suck” certainly reads differently, but of course what I write is what I think. I also think there is absolutely nothing objective about evaluating art, so I don’t bother equivocating. My opinion may be well supported (or not), clearly expressed (or not), but it is no better or worse than any other. It comes from my specific subject position, with all of its bizarre hangups, preferences, and experiences. It is up to the person who reads or hears it to assign value to it.
Just as we should, from time to time, assign value to art based on the specificity of our experience. If that sometimes means being a hater, so be it.
Weekly Reading List
I got recommended this video on youtube and I’m glad I clicked it. Ben Palmer is funny. This set is a journey.
Conner O’Malley did the world a favor uploading this work of cinema, Stand Up Solution (2024), to youtube. It did get me wondering, though: what would a comedy set by O’Malley out of character actually be like? A this point, I’m assuming we’ll never know.
Until next time.