Day Two Hundred and Forty-four - Beauty Is Embarrassing: The Wayne White Story, "Welp, if ever I was going to get a kick in the creative pants, this is it."

I've had this particular documentary sitting in my Instant Queue for a while. A friend of mine, who also just happened to be a co-host of our movie podcast The Void Zone (until he packed up and moved to the Big City), was so gaga over the piece that I had to add it.

Funny thing was... I never wanted to actually watch it.

It's not that I didn't trust my friend Gomez's recommendation, it just... well... it didn't feel right watching it without him. I wanted to save it so we could review it together for the show. It's an odd feeling when your watching habits become influenced by the absence of others.

Anyways, I finally decided to get over my weird mental hangup about NOT watching Beauty Is Embarrassing and, at one in the morning today, wide wake and buzzed on too much caffeine, I hovered my cursor over the doc in my Queue and put it on.

Best decision of the weekend.

True, in comparison, it isn't really a grand thing when I think about it, as most of my decisions over the three day holiday have been dubious, including: loading cardboard boxes into an open bed truck just before a monsoon hits, failing to find my install discs for Wings of Liberty and being forced to download all 14 gigabytes of data over DSL (it's still going two days later), and continually putting off doing laundry (currently on my last pair of clean shorts).

In that contrast, it's easy to see why Beauty Is Embarrassing is the highlight of my weekend... but, in light of the dull mediocrity of my weekend, it's difficult to express just how much of a highlight it is. Because, really, this is one of the best documentaries I've seen all year... and is right up there with Jiro Dreams of Sushi in my opinion.

Wow, I've rambled on quite a bit, haven't I?

Beauty Is Embarrassing tells the story of pop artist and puppeteer Wayne White, who is probably one of the greatest influences on modern geek art that comes to mind... and I didn't even know his name or who he was before watching the doc.... a fact which I find personally embarrassing (just not in the "Beauty" way).

The doc introduces you to Wayne through the lens of his current zeitgeist, being a touring artist who has become famous for his eccentric mash-ups of thrift store landscapes and vulgar, often comedic catchphrases. We see a bit of his process, hear his foul mouth, and listen to critics who are no small measure concerned with the possibility that his work is just a fad.

From there, we're treated to the long view of his life, which I do like... but, as cute and nostalgic as Super-8 reels of a young artist can be, what sticks out the most to me is when he hits New York and life begins to pick up. He meets his wife, whom we've already been introduced to in the modern era (but it's still a sweet story) and joins the production team for Pee-Wee's Playhouse.

Seriously... Pee Wee's Playhouse... the 80's avaunt garde acid trip for kids.

AMAZING!

Then there's the move to California... and the tremendously famous and award-winning work he did for Smashing Pumpkin's "Tonight, Tonight"... then Liquid Television, Beakman's World and so on.

Now, it's not as if he doesn't have setbacks before, during, and after these really rather astounding professional accomplishments. He suffers from the same critical self-loathing that so many creatives (including myself and my friends) do, but the man has achieved so much over such a wide variety of genres that it's hard not to be flabbergasted.

Eventually, the doc comes full circle and we're once again back in the modern era with Wayne, his family, friends, and colleagues, and looking at his current medium of art, the thrift store mash-ups. All I can think of is that I wish I had his life... and I need to make a similar one for my own. The only key difference that I can see is that he's always pushing, whereas I have mostly been a coward in my own life and with my own work.

Beauty Is Embarrassing is grand, insightful, and inspiring. Watching this documentary makes me want to push back again and try to make something of my creative impulses. The only question is, how long can I sustain that urge.

I hope it's forever.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~

Day Ninety-four - Samurai Jack: Season 1, Episodes 1, 2, and 3, "My god... the ARTISTRY!"

When Samurai Jack came out on Cartoon Network over a decade ago, I was instantly a fan. Already enamored with anime in general and the live action samurai dramas, seeing the styles fused with a dystopian cyberpunk future and American animation sensibilities under the direction of CN's golden boy, Genndy Tartakovsky, I was hooked from moment one.

Now, after ten years, to revisit it, I find myself even more in love... and oh so glad that Netflix has picked it up (though, as with other series in the new licensing deal, it's only the first season).

The first three episodes of the series are effectively its pilot in three parts.

The first tells the origin story of how a nameless young samurai is forced to flee his homeland, which is represented through its art and architecture feudal Japan. It's hard to pin down which period, exactly, as it seems to exist in this sort of nebulous time that includes art, spirituality, and mythology that cover many eras.

As the young boy flees, he progressively travels from continent to continent, training with many different warriors, scholars, and tradesmen from almost a dozen different cultures... from horse-riding in the Arabian deserts to calligraphy in sight of the pyramids to archery and axe-throwing in what look to be an England and Russia of antiquity.

Each region and culture is artistically distinct and seem lovingly crafted to challenge the viewer first by presenting folk stereotypes and replacing them with innocence and goodwill as well as strength and determination. It's like watching the folk tales of our forefathers come to life and combine to imbue the young hero-to-be with the attributes of all the world in order to combat the supernatural terror that is the series' villain, the demon Aku.

Over the course of those first twenty minutes we are given what has to be the SINGLE GREATEST TRAINING MONTAGE in the history of motion picture storytelling. In terms of art, pacing, relevance, culture, and emotional range and sensativity, I have never before and probably never will again see its like.

If it weren't for the fact that it ends on a cliffhanger that leads to a complete shift in genre, I would say the first episode is a masterpiece. In many ways, it is... but it must be taken as merely a part of its whole, which continue in episodes two and three.

At the end of the first episode, with the now adult samurai confronting, and almost defeating, Aku, a last second bit of treachery rips the man out of time where he is flung to the distant future. The series then becomes a sci-fi dystopian epic genre deconstruction where the Wandering Samurai trope is relocated to the flexible story boundaries of a future Earth.

Here he can fight aliens, cyborgs, and robots (sometimes, all three!) and befriend talking dogs while making enemies with three-eyed go-go dancers. With anything and everything past and present to draw from thanks to its far out setting, Samurai Jack (as his far-future admirers dub him) becomes the insert through which the viewers explore both period samurai drama and every historical and speculative trope under the sun.

I have no doubt, had the series not been cancelled after four seasons, that Samurai Jack could've plumbed the myths, art, and tropes of every real and imagined culture our poets and scholars have created.

What's more impressive is just how well done both the art and direction are. What could've been a cheesy as hell Hanna-Barbera adventure production from the sixties and seventies, like Space Ghost or The Heculoids, was instead a collaborative effort of tremendously talented artists, writers, and directors who let the art tell the story instead of using it simply as a medium to prop up cliched jokes.

That's not to say that there aren't familiar gags and one-liners to draw in the occasional bit of silly, but the majority of the series is art and myth.

When it comes to the voice work, I particularly love Mako Iwamatsu's rendition of Aku. Drawing from his grasp of the ancient mystic-type character that he was certainly familiar with via his role in the Conan series, Mako imbues Aku with such gravity, menace, and cackling glee that, even as I'm rooting for Jack, Aku remains my favorite villain of all time.

On the whole, the only criticism that I have for the series is that it doesn't remain true to it's wandering samurai premise... relying on the comedic value of its side characters and extras to lighten the mood too much. I think this could have been done without the Dexter/Powerpuff-styled goofiness.

Still, in spite of this mild weakness, Samurai Jack is one of the greatest animated series I've ever seen and certainly surpasses both its cartoon and live-action competitors. I only wish a proper send-off episode could've been created to either give Jack his deserved vengeance or send him off into the sunset to travel without our witness.

If you have any love for art, style, martial arts, and science fiction... you will love Samurai Jack (or, should, anyway). I definitely recommend it to any and everyone. It's a masterpiece of stylistic and genre fusion.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~

Day Six - Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, or "I'm wasting my freedom and, subsequently, my life."

Every few weeks or so, I get the bug to watch a documentary.

A while back Gomez (whom you can find as @weyrddude on twitter), had us watch Indie Game: The Movie for our podcast. A few weeks before that, it was Jiro Dreams of Sushi at my request. Somewhere in there, I cannot remember when chronologically, Brit (whom you can find as @britward on twitter, as well) had us watch This Film Is Not Yet Rated.

Well made documentaries are those that both inform and inspire.

Never Sorry does just that.

With footage taken from interviews over several years since his rise to prominence and activism after his involvement and public spurning of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, continuing on to his work documenting the Sichuan earthquake, and his various installations and shows, Never Sorry shows many personal, artistic, and political snapshots of both the man and the geopolitical world he creates in.

I find it interesting that most of his modern work is delegated to folks under his direction, a point the film makes early on, and that his input is mostly telling folks what he wants done. It seems like it separates him from the visceral part of the act of creation, but... what do I know? I'm a writer, not an artist.

Still, it's tough not to feel like I'm a waste of space in the world when there are men out there like him who are doing very brave things in very dangerous ways. This fact is hammered home about a quarter of the way through the film when a raid is conducted late at night during his stay at a hotel and a policeman reportedly struck him. Later, on a trip to Germany for an installation, he requires brain surgery because of it. The entire thing (though not the inciting blow itself) is recorded digitally as Ai Weiwei is very much a documentarian of both his life and his work, as the two are very much intertwined.

Of course, there is human drama as well. Early in the film we meet his adoring wife. Then, in the second act, we're introduced to his infant son who was born from a mistress. The film acknowledges it, even sort of showcases it, but still there is an aire of delicacy. I never saw his wife again and we only briefly get a glimpse at the strain it put on his marriage via an interview for his Sunflower Seeds installation at the Tate Modern.

I think the scariest part of the documentary for me, and rightly so, was when the looming shadow of the PRC actually does move against him in 2011 and he goes missing, held for 81 days for a supposed financial investigation.

Like you need to be "disappeared" with no comment from the government for dodging taxes.

Having only previously heard of Ai Weiwei in passing, my notion of him being more background noise from occasional news reports than anything, tensing up at this point in the documentary told me more about myself than him.

This was especially true when he was finally released. While press was present, he refused to be interviewed under the conditions of his parole. Of course, it didn't take him too long to begin to get back on the wire, but still. It was disturbing. I find myself wishing I was a better man instead of one who blogs about what he watches on Netflix. I also have the urge to do something about it... but I know that, come morning, I'll be that streaming video blogger again.

I wonder... in which parallel universe am I a freedom fighter?

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~