2010 Film Triad

The three best films of the year were directed by three of the most innovative current directors. They are Christopher Nolan’s Inception, David Fincher’s The Social Network, and Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan.  All three of these directors are at the top of their game, directing the familiar psychological thrillers we’ve become accustomed to (Nolan did Memento & The Dark Knight, Fincher did Se7en & Fight Club, Aronofsky did Pi & Requiem For A Dream).  It’s hard to choose which is the best film of 2010 overall, but I’ve given the edge to Black Swan. 

Inception was the first to come out, and it took the summer by storm.  I believe it was the top-grossing film of the summer, which is highly unusual for a psychological thriller. Of the three this was the longest, the most visually captivating, and the most difficult to follow.  It’s about a spy undergoing corporate espionage inside the dreams of the enemies of those who hired him. The intellectual engagement and intensity is a solid 10, and there’s an incredible fight scene in which the camera revolves around a room that is synchronizing time lapses with altered states of consciousness.  These dream adventures were highly intriguing to me personally because it reminded of the different states of astral projection.  Astral projection was not mentioned in the film, but the methods of attaining dream infiltration were the same.  The ending was good and open to interpretation, but a couple weaknesses in this film were the mediocre acting and the ultra-in-your-face-conceptuality-blowout that isn’t ever balanced with emotional relaxation.  Too much emphasis is placed on the concept of the story and not on the emotional aspect. 

The Social Network came out next, and it was also a blockbuster hit.  This may have been more of a drama than a psychological thriller, but the plot was still interesting enough to keep me guessing.  Like Inception it was very fast paced (the dialogue was intentionally fast to cement the originality of the film) and had an in-your-face intensity, but it was the acting in this film that really made it shine.  The guy who plays Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, will probably win an Academy Award for best actor.  But considering the intellectual engagement of Inception I don’t judge The Social Network to be quite as good.  To me the ending wasn’t very strong, and there’s too much foul behavior and backstabbing to savor my taste the way Inception did, but the way it’s presented is still a riveting interpretation of the one of the most influential people of our time.  Even though I didn’t fancy the film, I have a lot of respect for it and I may watch it again for the witty dialogue and great acting. 

Black Swan is currently out in theaters (just saw it a few days ago), and this one barely edges out Inception, only because the ending comes together more nicely.  The two films are generally similar in that they are both intensely psychotic with plethoras of altered-state experiences.  Yet they are thematically different in that the artistry and emotional engagement of Black Swan complements the intellectual, conceptual ambience of Inception.  I chose Black Swan because it more clearly depicts the archetypal struggles in female psychology than Inception depicts, well, frankly an unrealistic issue, unless corporations eventually do master astral projection, which shouldn't surprise me!  Like The Social Network, Black Swan had some really good acting- I’ve never seen Natalie Portman do a roll so well.  Even though the ending was predictable (the film’s only weakness), it was executed to perfection and I’ll never forget it. 

I haven’t seen Toy Story 3 yet, which I’ve heard was also one of the best films of the year, but I chose to write about these three because of their stylistic proximity.  A hundred years from now 2010 might be remembered for these similar, stellar films by legendary directors that all came out at roughly the same time.  Unfortunately Black Swan has not gotten the marketing that it deserves, so it will probably be a cult classic like Pi.  Aronofsky might be the most underrated director in Hollywood. 

Managua's Rainbow

    Glancing at gleaming white stars he rides high over red waters that morbidly look like blood while the sky is orange and the opaline mountains are iridescent but becoming red as the sunlight is shot through their prism of glass, the mass of which is barren of grass.  The waters turn yellow so smoothly and shallow under red ranges of rubies with monumental treasuries that shine ever brightly betwixt circumvent stairways ascending so highly.  Over them he’s gliding ever so lightly on a dragon that’s red and threading the head of a mountain that’s yellow so Managua so mellow rides the fellow below clouds that are orange and he’s bracing for storms that created a flood so red that it looked like bloodshed.  Now the clouds they are white and changing to colors more trite on the geographical progression of spectral regression.  The dragon it breathes vapors of white with the sun and its rays a translucent delight.  The sun is showering the sky with ashes of yellow that were once red, but diffractions of orange and refractions of gold pushed them forward to the horizon of white now succumbing to green and the median serene.  In front lies a ridge of topaz and gold and over its peak he motions to speak but a mist of yellow startles his fellow now green and so lean, undulating between fjords tourmaline like a spectacular dream.  The crags that follow are still glassy and hollow and give way to the blue once far from view.  Managua breaths an air that’s still green but knows in time it will change to rhyme a color more darker as the rainbow recedes farther to colors more starker.  Diamonds in the sky mirror reflections awry, transfiguring blue mountains gurgitating white fountains and flooding pink terraces on purple-rich surfaces that sprinkle above pearls a’ twinkle on slopes of blue curls.  The sky that was white retreats into night and the clouds are gone, dispersed and so long are the valleys of pink beneath roads that don’t sink because they’re green like the Earth, so proud in its girth.  The continent’s an abstraction of high elevation devoid of convention due to nature’s obsession with diversifying presentation, so stories mention.  With the land becoming dark, the sky that was pink is now purple and as he recedes to the sea there’s a blackness unseen with his eyes that are blue and transforming the view into indigo like the amethyst below that yields to the blackness of peaks which rise above waves that are purple and crashing splashing eroding the panorama of crags that were blue and now purple but will become black as the night extends over the ocean and upends the colors that seemed ethereally random like an unfathomable phantom. 

The Great Cosmic Mother, Monica Sjoo

    Even though it's a sexist work, Sjoo does a brilliant job of uncovering the dusty remnants of pre-Christian Goddess religions, and exposing the male dominated Christian forces that either stole from Pagan tradition or outright disposed of them for heresy. While reading this I often felt that my manhood was shriveling into a tiny little ball, but then I found it justified after realizing that for centuries male-engineered societies have repressed women and are now destroying the sacred womb of planet Earth. 

Musical Dynamics

The best music has a tendency to harmonize an emotional state with the progression of notes that are juxtaposed with lyrics that the listener can relate to on a very personal level.  With or without lyrics, the very best music can even transcend emotional states and put the mind into an escalating trance of cosmic consciousness.  This state of mind can best be described as the mystical realization of enlightenment, that is, the becoming of one with the rhythm of the universe.  This is the kind of music that overwhelms the brain with an auditory “orgasm” that shoots adrenaline down the spine and grows goosebumps on the skin.  These songs might sound unusual or even horrible at first, but once we become accustomed to them, they take hold of our sonic memory and show us pathways we never knew existed.  The more you listen to this music, the better it becomes. 

The art of music is the most expressive of forms because sound waves can reach the most amount of people at a given time.  But music is more than art too; it's an auditory metaphor for the mathematical synchronization of the equations of complex systems, often coalescing into brilliant, beautiful, celestial storms of emotional states, or systematic representations of nature.  This is best represented by the mysterious urge to dance a certain a way when you hear a type of music.  Dancing is music in three dimensions.  It extends one-dimensional melodies and written notes in two dimensions to encompass a complete form, like everything else in physical space.  All dances imitate dynamic systems that become emotionalized, using the body as metaphors to express them.  The universe itself is dancing to songs of cosmic unity, played by an ethereal dimension of waves, and the waves flow through the space dimensions like the sounds of an orchestra through an amphitheater.  It is through music that these quantum waves of dynamic change manifest into the supreme language of the universe, the instrument of God, the eternal song of existence. 

Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace

2016 addition: 

 

On re-reading Infinite Jest, I can say that it is an infinite grower. Six years ago, I didn't think I'd have any nostalgia for the characters or the writing, but somehow it all got stuck in some corner of my mind that wouldn't let go until I gave it the full amount of attention it deserved. This time it was far funnier than I found on the first read. The humor has more of a satirical, dark edge that I suppose made me uneasy in my "purple prose" phase. David Lynch's influence was a lot more transparent as well, as DFW sought to reconcile "the incredibly mundane with the incredibly odd" (quoting him in an interview when asked about Lynch... exact wording is imprecise). I have no doubt that I will return to this book many times, for all its strange stories and reflections on the modern age. The novel's overarching message seems to be that there is something very wrong with the world and our role in it, but we choose not to face that problem by distracting ourselves with drugs and entertainment. 

 

2010 original: 

 

It's better to approach this as a series of interrelated short stories rather than a novel with a linear direction. The dystopian concept was interesting, and there is no shortage of phenomenal writing, but I'm not sure it has the type of progression to make it one of the all-time greats, as many people are claiming. The novel digresses too much to make the core series of events appropriately clear, and many parts could have been edited to make it shorter and more accessible. I can see how this might be one of the best books of the last 30 years because so many people can relate to all the characters suffering from addiction and depression. I didn't find it overwhelmingly funny like so many others, and on this point, I think DFW is largely misunderstood- this is a deeply sad (there are about 10 suicides or attempted suicides in the book) and pessimistic book that illuminates the psychology of addiction. On the phenomenal writing I've compiled a list of favorite or most memorable parts: 

 

Truly amazing passages that leave you in a dumbfounded trance: 

227-240 Joelle’s overdose 

321-342 Eschaton chaos 

380-386 Mario’s film interpretation of the rise of president Gentle 

692-698 Hal's anhedonic depression vs. Kate Gompert's psychotic depression 

787-795 Thanksgiving @ Joelle's parents' house 

 

Other great parts worth reading: 

27-31 Hal’s visit to the “conversation doctor” (his father) 

55-60 Gately accidentally murders a Canadian VIP 

68-78 Kate Gompert explains marijuana to a young doctor 

138-140 The bricklayer’s bizarre accident 

157-168 Jame’s Incandenza’s father narrates life in the 60’s 

367-375 Young girl’s foster father sexually abuses her sister 

395-398 The joke 

601-619 The fight 

701-714 Hal watches Blood Sister: One Tough Nun 

775-782 Maranthe & Kate at the bar 

827-845 Gately’s visitation from the ghost of James Incandenza 

846-851 Gately’s vision of the angel of death as Joelle 

958-960 Mikey’s story 

967-971 Barry Loach homeless 

972-981 Drug binge chaos 

 

fn 269 A friend of Orin’s relates Avril’s creepiness 

fn 324 Pemulis’ eccentric, hilarious dialogue in the locker room