Since he recently released an interview after a long time, I wrote a piece about Dave Chappelle and his successful TV show, that he famously ended at the turn of the 3rd season. The whole story reminds me a lof of one of Spike Lee’s least acclaimed joints, Bamboozled. Read the article and see.

The new issue of Off Beat Cinema is out and it looks pretty good. Among the many interesting articles you can find one of mine, namely a review of Attack the Block. It’s the first episode of a film/architecture column I’m gonna share with John Bezold, so stay tuned for the next chapters. Go read the magazine here and, if you live in Amsterdam, find it in your favorite movie theater.

May is almost here and – before the paper edition gets distributed in all the most underground-friendly movie venues in Amsterdam – the monthly issue of Off Beat precedes it. For the next month I have contributed with a rather inspired review of The Myth of the American Sleepover, first movie by David Robert Mitchell. You can go read it on the magazine’s Issuu account, pages 9 to 11.

Off Beat is an Amsterdam-based magazine about alternative and underground cinema. In the lates issue you can find my review of Champion, a documentary about the trials and tribulations of Danny Trejo, the bad-ass Mexican from Machete.
Go enjoy it here.

Memento's Christopher Nolan is at it again. In Inception, instead of playing with time only, his exploration of the human mind is also spectacularly spatial. The movie, an action-packed Borges-meets-the-Matrix blockbuster, manages to be both emotionally intense and philosophically deep, gathering film critics and audiences in almost unanimous praise. It traps you in its maze only to release you two and a half hours later, breathless, due to an amazing screenplay – almost ten years in the making – and visionary images, alternating plot-effective slow-motion a' la Matrix with metaphysic landscapes echoing Antonioni and De Chirico.

The movie features Leonardo Di Caprio in the role of Cobb, a professional thief specialized in extracting ideas from people's subconscious at its most vulnerable state: dreaming. Cobb and his team are tackling his final mission, a semi-suicidal trip where at stake are not only corporate interests, but also the protagonist's peace of mind.

I'm not going into detail about the complex time ellipsis and the frantic reality/dream/dream-within-a-dream pace of the plot, since I don't want to spoil the film too much. Especially in this context, Inception's relationship with architecture is more insightful.
Much like in The Matrix or the less famous Dark City – where extraterrestrial parasites shape people's lives and their very own city with their collective intelligence – in Nolan's movie the mind plays the role of an architect in building spatial environments. The director introduces the extra spin of lucid dreaming, where a person (architect) builds an imaginary environment and another person, in whose subconscious such an outline is planted, populates it with the texture/projection of their dream-reality.

The characters in Inception are thus able to shape space in many ways: by accessing known areas instantly from remote ones (which reminds me of Guy Debord's famous Naked City), by erecting buildings or architectural elements out of thin air, and even by altering the very dimensions of space; in the most fascinating sequence of the movie the young "architect" interpreted by Ellen Page literally bends Paris over itself, creating a seemingly specular environment where people are walking on both the "floor" and the "ceiling", each appearing as legitimate street levels.
The notion of the architect, as a creator of geometrical and physical constraints around a space that has ultimately to be filled by other people's experience, sharply points out the "virtuality" of architecture itself, today more and more explicit in the rendering aesthetics from which we routinely judge projects on the Internet every day.

In terms of urban aesthetics, the resemblance of Cobb's dream-space, which he has built for himself and his wife as an alternate reality, to actual urban spaces today is also worth noticing. The modernist blocks emerging directly from the water and populating the protagonist's dream horizon somehow look like the new housing blocks on the Eastern Docklands in Amsterdam: massive metaphysical solids standing out from the unmodeled, liquid surface of the water.
Furthermore, the architectural actuality in Inception is shown along the time axis: some of the imaginary locations where the movie is set (like Cobb's old houses) are rooted in particular slices in time, a property of Michel Foucault's heterotopias. According to David Grahame-Shane, who writes about it in his book Recombinant Urbanism, heterotopias have come to be the most relevant urban element in the contemporary multi-centered, "scrambled egg" city. Needless to say, the type of heterotopias Grahame-Shane focuses the most on are those of illusion.

In its use of architecture as a dream-like practice shaping actual experience, Inception captures a few key aspects of the field and represents them with a visually successful rendering. Not only does the movie deploy urban aesthetics as a fascinating leitmotif throughout the story, but it also sheds some light on them. Go see it.

After last week's post about Demolition Man (1993) and the city of Los Angeles, today I'm writing about another action flick dealing with urban imagery, also come out the same year: Last Action Hero. Both movies are cop-tales, reterritorializing a way of dealing with crime and justice from one world to another. In Stallone's sci-fi exploit the change happens in time, while in the more sophisticated – and also more tongue-in-cheek – film starring future governor Arnold Schwarzenegger the jump is twofold: from reality to fiction and, quite significantly, from New York to Los Angeles. Before we go further about the retorritorialization I mentioned before, a short introduction to the movie's plot is necessary.

A little New York kid, Danny, is used to go to this old cinema to watch his favorite movie character, an Eastwood-inspired off-the-book cop named Jack Slater and played by Arnold Schwarzenegger (the actual name is mentioned in the movie, that is, Schwarzenegger is playing himself playing Slater), over and over again. At some point, the cinema owner gives him a magic ticket which can supposedly make him travel to another world and which he was never ballsy enough to use. The kid uses it and enters the movie to his and Slater's surprise. As the movie goes on, Danny's expertise on action stereotypes and slaterisms gets him closer and closer to his hero, and both try and stop the film's supervillain, who is an 100% evil stone-cold mass murderer with colored contact lenses. At some point the villain gets his hands on the kid's ticket and enters the real world, where he realizes that, on the other side of the screen, crime does pay. Slater and Danny follow him and eventually defeat him, but the hero is seriously wounded and, for him not to die, his biggest fan has to send him back to the movie where he belongs, and where bullets are little more than sand to him. Things are then back to normal, except the kid has now some kick-ass memories about his special hero-friend.

In Last Action Hero the real/unreal dialectic is eventually preserved, just like in all the stories of the same type: from Alice in Wonderland to Where the Wild Things Are (2009), passing by Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988) – where at the end cartoons can finally have their own place to stay – the territory of fiction and fictional characters needs to be somehow separated from our own, in order for them to keep their imaginary appeal. In this case, though, the gap is not only a dimensional jump through a mirror, but a coast to coast flight from New York City, where the kid lives and the "real world" happens, to Los Angeles, where the Jack Slater movies are set. Such geographic polarization of real and unreal – or fictional – is not casual at all.

As pointed out in this great article by Emilio Spadola, which I already linked in last week's post, the lack of urban landmarks on LA's territory makes the Hollywood sign the only visual symbol of the city, identifying it with movies and their magic appeal. A hint to this notion of the city as a celluloid map is also given in the movie, when the young protagonist first tries to help Slater in his search for the bad guys. Danny has seen the movies over and over, and knows every frame of them. When they are driving around in the cop's red convertible, the kid is then able to spot a familiar villa, where the villain actually resides. It is not through coordinates or spatial directions that he moves in the fictional LA, but by recognizing patterns in his visual field.

On the other hand, New York does have landmarks, and the filming in the Big Apple took place almost exclusively in the Times Square area. Despite being highly symbolic itself, Manhattan is a particularily fertile ground for a reality check, as pointed out by philosopher Slavoj Žižek in his article on 9/11 and its related movie depictions. "September 11 is the symbol of the end of [...] utopia, a return to real history." As a landmark, the iconic status of the World Trade Center was also the reason of its election as the most sensible target for the terrorist attacks. In Last Action Hero, New York seems to be the filmic synthesis of the highest grade of the Real. Reality in NYC is shown as ruthless, and evil can happen without people noticing or caring. Although there are no historical symbolisms and despite being shot years before the 9/11 tragedy, the movie clearly identifies the territory of non-fiction with the City par excellence, the dense and heterogeneous urban reality of Manhattan.

The aforementioned geographical polarization of fiction and reality across the US territory is not limited to Last Action Hero, though, and is a recurring element in American movies. As for Los Angeles, the work of director David Lynch is a good example of the city as an imaginary plateau on which a delusional reality is projected. Films like the masterpiece Mulholland Drive (2001) and the later Inland Empire (2006), with their very localized titles and ambiguous plots, are probably the best examples. As for New York, Woody Allen's very recent Whatever Works (2009) shows us a series of characters all finding their own real selves in Lower Manhattan, a place where even the most cynical Larry David can be given a life lesson. Although very different from Last Action Hero, once again the urban density and human confrontation provided by the City prove crucial in establishing a contact with the real world.

Of course these are few and partial examples, and we shoulnd't forget the urban mythology underlying the aforementioned filmic stereotypes might be a driver in grossing record-making, but it is just the most evident face of Los Angeles' celluloid alter-ego. The City of Angels has been taking conscience of its real side as troubled areas like South Central have gained iconic status through films like Boyz 'N' Da Hood (1991) and South Central (1992), without mentioning documentaries like Crips and Bloods: Made in America (2008). The popularization of this imagery is also reflecting on the real, actual city, as guided tours of gang territories become an alternative to taking snapshots of the Beverly Hills villas. And apart from its balkanized ghettos, LA is also deterritorializing away from the Hollywood sign and onto its status of a border territory, as depicted by movies like the immigration-themed Crossing Over (2009). Schwarzenegger definitely wasn't the last action hero, and the Hollywood myth is far from dying, but it seems Los Angeles can aspire to filmic reality after all.

Due to a mostly comedy-oriented film education as a kid, I had missed Marco Brambilla's action-classic Demolition Man (1993) back when I had the chance to catch it in its box-office semi-freshness (17 years ago it took a while before a movie passed from the movie theater to the TV screen). I have recently made up for this lack, and while the roughly-cut screenplay, the flat characters, and the unlikely fighting choreographies might have amused me much more when I was 10 years old, I have to be thankful I could enjoy a first impact with the movie after reading Mike Davis' City of Quartz and watching a couple of documentaries about the riots that shook Los Angeles in the 90s. In the analysis that follows, this article here has also been a big inspiration in terms of the movie's relationship with Hollywood and LA's urban and social landscape.

In a nutshell, Demolition Man is the story of a super-tough cop (Sylvester Stallone) fighting his old-time criminal counterpart (a reckless and unquestionably evil Wesley Snipes) in the future, after both have undertaken a punitive cryogenic hybernation that Stallone obviously didn't deserve. The story is set in 2032: Los Angeles' urbanization has now expanded to include San Diego and Santa Barbara, and is therefore called San Angeles. The infamous violence that characterized the City of Angels has been banned, and even cursewords are punished with fines (a continuity detail hilarously carried on for the whole movie, unlike the protagonist's sub-quest for his missing daughter, apparently cut off). This Brave New World-inspired LA has turned into a peaceful hi-tech heaven, where malice, sexuality, and phyisical contact are frowned upon. The policentric nature that makes Los Angeles such a controversial ground in terms of urbanism has also disappeared, since the city was rebuilt after a terrible earthquake. The patchwork urban fabric has now been replaced by some sort of gentrified suburbia, where Taco Bell is a chain of high end restaurants. The rich wear kimonos (a hint to the Californian New Age trend or to the growing Japanese interest in the city, also described by Mike Davis?) and the underclass is now living underground, eating rat-burgers.

I find this spatial verticalization of class difference particularly significant and contrasting with the paradoxical ghetto/gated community polarization of the actual LA. In Demolition Man, this dialectic is brought back by the return of Simon Phoenix, the super-villain played by Snipes. Pheonix is so crazy he looks like a black Joker, but unlike Gotham City's most dangerous criminal he has a geographical origin: he is said to be based in South Central, the battle ground where he and Stallone first come to blows at the beginning of the movie. No need to point out the movie was made just one year after the riots breaking out in that area, following the acquitting of the four officials responsible for the Rodney King bashing. In comparison to the dystopic and apocalyptic present both antagonists come from – a 1996 which, when the movie was made, was already the future – the new San Angeles reality lacks direct confrontation with poverty and racial diversity, both relegated in the sewers. The infamous police brutality that made Los Angeles the perfect setting for any cop movie has also disappeared, making guns unnecessary and the new policemen inept when it comes to fighting. But, like the only African-American in the SAPD says, it takes an old-fashioned cop to catch an old-fashioned criminal.

Interestingly enough, although Phoenix is the unquestioned villain in the movie, the person responsible for his return is the apparently peaceful and enlightened Dr. Raymond Cocteau, the city's savior and basically the one who has single-handedly created the San Angeles lifestyle utopia. Cocteau needs the criminal to kill the leader of the underground rebels, a bunch of motorized and weirdly-dressed graffiti-writers coming from the sewers. Obviously the rebels eventually benefit of Stallone's help and Truth is somehow re-established.

We could compare the newfound conflict between Stallone's character and the ridiculously stereotyped villain he's trying to stop like a Clockwork Orange-style awakening, in which the Hollywood spirit making Los Angeles almost synonymous with violence (at least in certain contexts) is brought back to life. More than a celebration of urban diversity, Demolition Man looks more like a reclamation of the city as a battleground, where masculine and physical values overcome a spineless and boring future and shake the precarious balance obtained by the ruling powers with a dose of reality. The film's reality is of course not a multi-ethnical and socially complex fabric, but an epic polarization of Good and Evil. Although not shown, the Hollywood sign we see burning at the very beginning of the movie is restored at least in spirit at the end: through the demolition of the peaceful utopia of San Angeles, the city as a violent simulacrum can be restored.

As you might have read somewhere (like here, here or here), Uruguayan filmmaker Fede Alvarez has just signed a deal with Sam Raimi's Ghost House Pictures for a future feature sci-fi movie. Raimi was impressed by a short clip Alvarez created and posted on YouTube (see video above), immediately becoming a hit on the video-sharing platform. AtaqueDePànico shows some giant robots attacking the city of Montevideo and destroying all its landmarks, eventually exploding and reducing everything to rubble in a surprisingly good FX spree.

Little else happens in the short movie, which has nonetheless been compared to Neill Blomkamp's Alive in Joberg, the one that eventually led to District 9. Which one is better and YouTube's exact role in hi-jacking the attention of the Hollywood industry's talent scouts are debates I'll leave for other occasions. What I'm really curious about is: where will Alvarez's feature film be set?
As we've seen before, Peter Jackson's support to District 9 has been rather invisible and not patronizing, allowing Blomkamp's movie to become an unprecedented example of sci-fi imagery going global and enriching itself with unexpected locations and social actuality. Seeing Johannesburg taking the place of New York as the theater of human-alien confrontation was one of the reasons why I think the movie is significant: it was also an opportunity to legitimate the ascension of local geographies to the status of global imagery.

Palacio Salvo tower, Montevideo's most famous landmark

But we know Peter Jackson is the New Zealand-born father of wacky pop-culture-bludgeoning underground gems such as Meet the Feebles, and I personally think (wish?) some of that has survived despite his later mainstream exploits (read: King Kong). Rephrasing that: he's not the Industry.
On the other side we have Sam Raimi and his Hollywood-based company. Although the Evil Dead-father has himself been toying and experimenting with genres, famously ranging from horror to comedy in the span of one trilogy, the production background is different than Jackson's and definitely Alvarez's flick will be likely to have a different kind of peer-pressure to begin with.

Will the next alien invasion be an opportunity to extend the sci-fi map and have a fresh look at Uruguayans having to deal (for once) with aliens, or will the rare low-budget prologue to the movie remain a signal for the entertainment industry and commercial strategies 2.0, with Alvarez's robots bombing (yet one more time) the Statue of Liberty?

I just posted an article on ymag.it (former yskira.com) about District 9. You should go read it.