THEE ONE AND ONLY...TOWN

****SPOILERS****


by Idaho Chubbs in collaboration with Samuel Burbury


Holy fuck Ben Affleck is an auteur now? Well he does like Boston that's for sure. I haven't see "Gone Baby Gone" but I have viewed his latest work opening weekend with a sold out crowd, who applauded when the movie ended with Affleck's character (Douggy Mackray) all bearded in the Bayou working as a shrimper possibly(?) with Chris Cooper's father figure character from Cuaron's adaptation of Dicken's "Great Expectations", not his character's actual father Chris Cooper, who was stuck in Walpole for 5 lifetimes. What was also hilarious was the Ken Burns Civil war music that serenaded our thoughtful thieving hero's "poetic" musings/regrets to the love of his life that he went out with for probably two weeks, but she was from the uppety North Shore which represented higher class, so investing your whole life and hard earned freshly robbed Fenway cash in this vaguely attractive do-gooder bank manager was totally logical. 

I haven't seen a ton of movies this year, and usually the better ones start showing up starting now. The Town is not one of them. The hype and critical acclaim for this film is mind-boggling. Like most people the trailer excited me; you're thinking HEAT, gun-fights, Jeremy Renner is the shit, but in Boston, awesome, especially because I live right outside and I know Charlestown fairly well. But the more times I saw the trailer, the more I started laughing, mainly because of Lively's cleavage's Boston/drug-induced accent. Thankfully she was barely in the movie, but surprisingly she wasn't that bad unlike say Julia Roberts who's "Irish" accent single handedly took down a star studded "Michael Collins". I simply could not take anything in that movie seriously because of her. Fortunately I was able to take The Town seriously or at least tried really hard to. One of the main problems with this story is that it built itself around this construct that focusses on a small Boston town that grows bank-robbers like rural Pennsylvania used to grow Hall of Fame 1980's quarterbacks. Random right? (My intimacy with THE TOWN includes $35 gourmet pizzas from FIGS, cobble stoned creamery treats, walks around the monument, and admiring architectured condos (I might ponder about owning in another lifetime where I am a day trader or hedge-fund schemer), I'm intrigued, let's really explore that facet, or let's explore a non-believable love story about a "princely" thief who enjoys the show BONES, has a great collection of retro Boston sports team jackets, really misses his mother, and has a thing for dating hostages. I understand this is adapted from a book and the more I watch film adaptations, the more I realize how hard they are to do successfully. I know they are not supposed to be the book, more like a companion, but I just want them to be a good movie period. Having not read it I cannot compare; I can only comment on the film; and what I've deduced is that the love story was pushed to the forefront to sell it to a general audience, which does make sense, but if you're going to do that, write better or get some actors who pop or at least have chemistry and don't campaign so hard with a tagline ("Welcome to the bank robbery capital of America.") that would have you believe this is about Charlestown and bank-robbing. Because it truly isn't, it's just fringe stuff. Yes, we meet Doug's father and Pistol Pete Posthewaite's ganster florist who screwed Mackray senior over by hooking his wife on drugs, and yes we have a scene where The Former "Man In Black" (playing a local police detective) refers to the suspects and their connections as something resembling a "venn diagram", almost consciously reminding us that they are living up to the tagline content-wise. But it seems forced. You never get the sense that there are any other bank robbers in this town besides Douggy, Jem, and the other two dudes. Yet this is the world's capital of bank robbing.

From beginning to end, this movie moves too fast. We get short glimpses of who and what the characters are but it never seems satisfying. Recently a colleague of mine got into a friendly conversation with me about narrative complexity verses simple. He compared THE TOWN to later works by Clint Eastwood (I assume he was thinking "Million Dollar Baby" and maybe "Mystic River" --which was a great movie until it's preposterous conclusion that made no sense whatsoever, but I won't go into that). The problem right away in that comparison, and I'm singling out "Million Dollar Baby", is that Hilary Swank and Clint Eastwood can carry an entire movie on their shoulders. Their performances ripped into our psyche and held our emotions hostage and then let them spill out in a sweet freedom of pulverizing sadness and confusion as to why life can be so terribly cruel. Ben Affleck and Rebecca Hall, cannot do this, at least not yet. Their performances were not bad but I got nothing from their characters either. Granted the script was way better for Eastwood's movie, way more polished, intimate and believable. This script gives no room for characters to be fleshed out, no time to believe that Affleck's Mackray could fall so head over heels with this, let's face it, bland bank manager ("but that's real and honest..please) in such a short amount of time. There is complexity through simplicity and vice versa. There is simple and honest and there is I've seen this story a million times and it was not believable to me. Obviously Hall's character represents a higher form of life that Doug yearns to attain, but has he not met an attractive yuppified young woman that he'll leave his whole life for in all his time in Charlestown yet? His lanterned-cleft chin and capacity for Rocky IV pull-ups has never turned any heads? The problem is not that this movie doesn't balance itself well with the topics and subplots involved, it's that none of them are given enough time to excite, fascinate, or make me care about anyone in this story to a level where I can walk out of the theater blown away. Right when the love story's taking off--bank robbing arc. Right when this whole local bank robbing trade is examined by the FBI or the script--torn back to the love story or back to another millionth sky-lined shot of Boston that peppered the entire movie literally, between each and every scene. Also, what about Hamm's character?--whose name I can't even recall, had no substance behind him. I mean who is this guy who wants to not, or wait, does want to "fuck around with 'The No Fucking Around Crew'"? He goes to work in cool, casual plaid J. Crew button downs, pulls out his 2010 Don Draper charm on Lively's hot mess of a towny floozy by waxing poetically about twenty dollar bills over a Bud Light, and wants to end wounded policemen's lives just so he can see Douggy get a life sentence. He is passionate, but why? We don't know because the movie doesn't care. So we, eventually don't. The narrative is equally balanced in it's lack of impact; and that is a shame because there is some good acting here (Renner), and there is wonderfully creepy claustrophobic and "duality of man" nuts and bolts action (Fenway shootout, North End car chase, the bank-robbing costumes/scenes) that ultimately ends up being a waste because of cliched dialogue (Hamm's interrogation scene--laughable) and character development that never causes the viewer to go to a place of relation with any of these people. 

Now for the "feel sorry for me, I grew up without a mother or father and crime is all I know and for some reason I have a hot headed best friend who doesn't give a FUCK about human life or anything else in this god-forsaken world other than stopping me from moving on in life and actually being happy, who we know will eventually die at the end, and we are fine with that, ya' know because they are an obstacle for me; who you should be rooting for by the way" story-line. Renner is as great as he can be in this role strictly because he becomes this person; and is so believable as Jem Coughlin (remembered his name). But his character is also someone we've seen a million times before, and that is wearisome. We all knew he'd bite the dust; and when he eventually did I only felt a split second murmur of sympathy because the best actor in the film was gone, not not necessarily the character he was playing. As far as Douggy goes in this growing up scenario, he hasn't killed anyone maliciously and has tried to be a good citizen (when not robbing banks); even almost made the pros as a hockey player. When he does finally commit murder near the end, it is just. I've always liked Ben Affleck. He is a solid actor, but he is not good enough to pull this flawed anti-hero off. The worst part is that I don't hate Doug or love him, I feel pretty much nothing for him, and if that's the case, the rest of the movie doesn't even matter.  If we are going to keep exploring this kind of protagonist on TV and film, it has to be fresh and it has to have depth where it can cause us to think in the abstract and question what is truly right and wrong in a way would have never imagined we would. Mackray's life does possess Shakespearian tragedy, but I don't feel sorry for him, and what's even more vexing is that the tone of the movie makes me think I should. With a character like this, you acknowledge the GIGANTIC flaws they posses but you also need to feel for them too for the portrayal to be successfully dynamic. But I didn't, especially when someone like Douggy had multiple chances to understand that he could leave Charlestown, but was too self-destructive and knowingly went into a line of business that could get any number of human beings killed. But the reasons for that are basically the tagline, mom died, dad bad, best friend is a thug, that's it. In the end we are left with an adequate, full on, self-conscious Boston bank heist movie that seems more concerned about juggling subplots (a little of this, a little of that), showing us Boston and its satellite towns, than really delving into a true love story that legitimately rises from the ashes of a heavily misguided child and adulthood that is based on this illegal craft that has been past down to generation after generation as a way to support a family or lifestyle that actually is not worth the risk in the end, not even close, yet it's still happening. Why is that still happening? Where is that movie? 


I'll applaud after that one. 

Jeremiah Has Risen Indeed. Hallelujah!: Idaho Ponders Existence, and hits Fashion Week to Save College Football Yet Again.

by Idaho Chubbs

"Coincidence obeys no laws and if it does we don't know what they are. Coincidence, if you'll permit me the simile, is like the manifestation of God at every moment on our planet. A senseless God making senseless gestures at his senseless creatures. In the hurricane, in that osseous implosion, we find communion. The communion of coincidence and effect and the communion of effect with us."

- One handed artist dude who went one step further than Van Gogh...ON PURPOSE. I like him.

This has been a rough week, not gonna lie. Lots of philosophizing, and reflective contemplation. Sadness bellowing through my ears and out into a Nectar cesspool full of uncertain fate. Why this? Why that? Questions, questions, questions. Some answers are there but it's never enough. It will never be enough. Distract, distract, distract, relidge, relidge, relidge. Let's forget our insignificance, or let's bask in it, or let some big entity be the big cheese and we'll be his lackey or let us be the center of the entire fucking universe! My universe, MINE. You sloors are just living in it, and I am the sloor to your Chubbs as well. Soo....??? Death, life, unrequited ambition, lack of it, wanting, but not working, OH THE DEPRESSION. "Voltaire Understudy Thomas" told me this week that ARMY practices consist of him trying not get shot by fiery artillery ants pulsing through a starry night sky as he crawls 200 push-up yards with his trusty hand-rifle-kill-toy. Apparently his fingers have six-packs now. Ah, what we do to remind ourselves of what it is to live on this watery land globe full of tangible shit that keeps us alive and distracted but in the end means nothing, except to those who still live here and share in that confusion. This can't be it, this IS IT, I'm important, I'm the opposite of important. What does it matter? Oh it fucking matters! Hmmm, let's do some whimsical communing, distract, or maybe coincidentally "LIVE" "LIFE"...

Three Days had passed since The NCAA and Pontius Pilate had executed Masoli. During this entire time, T2000 "worked" at opening his tomb. "T" is a terminator robot, but he is vastly out of shape from suckling on summer ale nectar tanning lotion for the past five months. He didn't even want to aid me in bringing the famed artist QB back from Hades until I enticed him with a Fashion Week god-alfull...ly creative Virginia Tech form-fitting jersey. I, on-the-other-hand, had descended into Hades right after Jeremiah had cried, "NCAA why have you forsaken me", meeting him at the edge of The River Styxx, explaining that he had an impossible fourth chance procured by yours truly. This did not compute. He was most forlorn, hopeless, whining about how traditional Ole' Miss's uniforms were, and how it was the only school that had football and a grad program for his true passion of parks and recreational use of Nectar grass; so he had no choice but to attend. They also didn't have one billion different Bowser-alien-Pygar uniform combinations like his undergrad alma mater Oregon, or his much beloved Prefontaine throwbacks. I took this in, silent as a ghost, unselfishly laboring not to relate this back to me and how I might have experienced something similar in my life in someway, verbally (which I'm prone to do. See I'm working on it). My success in this personal mental evolution promptly prompted me to then devolve, and smack Masoli across the face with Betty Draper swiftness ("I'll cut off all your fingers and then I'll put you in a dark closet with Mad Glen playing the part of your dead grandfather. Oh, you'd like that wouldn't you, you "Mad Barber" of Fleet Street, Sterling, Cooper, Draper, Price!?").  "Get ahold of yourself Masols. I have taken care of everything."

Right before the crucfixion, special unis for ten prolific college football programs debut at Fashion Week. After a vigorous, arousing and often penalty laden game of nocturnal flag football, with Klum, Seal, all of the Ford models, the Olsen twins, Ledger's Joker ghost,  some rag & bone B list actresses, Victor Ward, Lagerfeld, Tim Gunn and Anna Wintour and The Sartorialist splitting time as Automatic QB on the Versaille-like Bryant Park lawn, I adjourned with Mr. "This Concerns Me" and "Dr. Strangelove Karl" back to The Plaza Hotel, where we strategized the format for our Fantasy College Football Draft. To their dismay, Jeremiah was nowhere to be found. They had not heard the terrible news due to their busy schedules and Michael Irvin's constant nagging about MCing the college football uni runway show and how "THE U" and Jacory were going to "out-money" OSU and Terrelle Pryor simply because they had more green in their sports playing attire. Legitimate excuses aside I assured them that Masoli would come back to the surface once again if they could find a way to create another magical special treat uniform for Ole' Miss. The new contemporary piece of artful sports fabric would be the entire key to everything. Not only would Houston Nutt have no choice but to don it once or twice this season, but the NCAA would gain more exposure, more money (which is their life blood), and so would whoever designed them. After I had said this I noticed Lagerfeld dosing off a bit, convulsing from his 11th glass of scotch in 2 hours, his right glove loosening slightly, exposing the intricately woven metal that made up the innards of his constantly leather clad wrist and hands. "KARL!" I bellowed. "Come on!" "What?" He said, looking confused. "I heard you're plan and I know just the right company for the job. They're stuff is cheaply made, but it always looks super cool, like, Kevlar cool."

"Are you saying that G-Star is going to make Netherlandian Dark Knight Couture for SEC football?" delighted Masoli. "Indeed", I purred. "Nike was too expensive and their designs were lacking, although they did take some risks which worked for the Alabama jerseys, but not so much for Miami, no matter how much Michael Irvin gushed over their resemblance to USA paper currency. With creativity, you have to know the world you're working in. You have to have a little recklessness, you have to take risks to find something new, or something that might not be new, but a fusion of old oddities/ideas bopping around in your brain that you never consciously put together but just now did through your subconscious, through physical movement, as a product, to see, to touch, to know--even the constant moving of just your hands to sew, or write or draw, triggers these wonders...but you also have to know what is traditionally sound and what works, what should stay and not be changed. This is the constant balance that is incredibly difficult to achieve while navigating the formation of something truly special and hopefully timeless." I paused, "So you can understand why I could never endorse those abomination Oregon uniforms now, maybe, just a bit...don't you? JM nodded with a joyfully forgiving tear, gave me a manly arm-clasp, informed the ferryman Charon he would not be making the death voyage, flipped him a couple fifty cent pieces anyway, and said, "Let's do this." As soon we left to meet up with "T" at the tomb, Masoli inquired to when the new unis would be ready. I replied, "Not till after the first game. But you're playing some scrub team from Division 1AAA or something, so it won't matter."

Let's Assassinate The NCAA...FREE MASOLI!!!

by Idaho Chubbs

The sly fury of AKON blares in my ears as I realize that the NCAA has been the bane of my existence for too long, their inconsistent rules, their moral high ground, punishing athletes for stuff that has nothing to with their accomplishments on the field. Reggie Bush could have owned ten mansions while in college, I could not care less. If Miami Hurricane players want to wear camou for the rest of time and do sweet gun-slinging touchdown dances and then exit the stadium right after, please let them. Or even a subtle example of an official (demon) putting the "HURT" (hehehe) on Jake Locker's euphoric ball toss to the heavens after scoring an emotional TD makes my blood boil. Let's pay the players, or not, whatever, let's get fucking corrupt. Everyone do it, and at least we'll all be on the same level; much like Major League Baseball for the last 20 years (put everyone in the Hall of Fame. Barry Bonds still had to make contact with ball, which is really hard). Then the stupid Sloor Bowl system that screams insanity in the face of every kind of sports logic we as a world have come to know. But it's tradition, much like everyone getting a trophy after little league season, every college team gets their own "Little Championship .com Outback Circuit City Apple Iphone Citrus Nacho Tortilla Fiesta Guacamole Bowl".

But none of this compares to the shunning of my favorite player since Jesus Christ, by this evil empire. Jeremiah Masoli has made some mistakes in his day. Hey how many of us could resist yanking a Steve Jobs mobile computer top if it was staring us down, telling us to free it from some meat-head frat dude's room because he was just wasting it's imovie/photoshop capabilities, only using it for endless porn consumption? He should be rewarded! And he got caught with some nectar grass last spring, but let anyone who has not sipped from the sweet aromas of this weed ever in their lives cast the first stone. There is nothing wrong with enjoying oneself in such a manner; it is the system that is truly at fault, yet Jesus Christ Masoli suffers the THE MAN's wrath once again. Like many athletes before him he searched for institutions where he could further his thirst for academia (he's majoring in getting EXTRA work on the show "Parks and Recreation") and sport. I'm not sure if anyone in this realm saw him play USC last year, but I thought I was watching an early 20th Century Expressionist artist use a hundred yards of hybrid turf as his canvas, performing an honest to ME masterpiece. Much like Monet, who executed his "water lilie" visions later in life, Masoli is far from being done. He has so much more mind-altering art left to give (I want to see him shred college football defenses in his 70's too). "The Nutt" and the REBELS wanted to be the Theo to his Vincent in the worst way. Well maybe better than Theo (Van Gogh sold 1-2 paintings when he was alive and it took him 3 days to die after shooting himself....). With seasonally early Nectars in hand we were all ready to imbibe and witness the wonder of his new group show in the gallery of Ole' Miss that would drip with foliage-making inspiration. I can still remember the joker smile in my brain at the thought! But not so fucking fast, here came the NCAA yester-eve to censor yet again something/someone truly special and unique. If you can make me cry Barry Sander tears after a ten yard gain, you should be able to smoke as much weed and steal as many laptops as you want. I mean Salvador Dali use to push servants and fellow students down long flights of stairs for sheer delight. Do we care? Not at all. His Last Supper painting made me want to actually be at The Last Supper as Jesus or Jesus's brain dream of Judas betraying him (Don't believe what you hear, JC planned everything).

The NCAA has left me no choice. I will travel back in time with King and put an end to them and bowl games before they ever exist. Don't get into semantics with me bowl enthusiasts, you won't be cognizant of the fact that they ever existed after my work is done. This will just add to my previous mission of building up the University of Hawaii football program to replace the glory Notre Dame/USC/Ivy League/Army/Navy powerhouses of nostalgic yore with the aid of Teddy Roosevelt and King in the early 20th century. What's more of a bonus is that Masoli will never have to deal with any hierarchy of narrow minded coaches named Herr Kelly (you suspend a star RB for an entire season for one measly "tap" on the cheek). It's called PASSION!!! The creative Samoan will play for me and the 27 time outright National Champion Rainbow Brodys. By the time I'm done with the little league trophy loving entity you will have never even heard half of the powerhouses of this age and I'll still be older than "JoePa", and I will have won four more titles with Masoli as my QB artist, the best one of this young age.