October 27, 2006 (1): "Death" of a "President"

Speaking of fiction, The Raw Story ran the German Press Agency item about the limited-release opening of Death of a President in the United States. The byline was Los Angeles, but the film has also opened here in San Francisco. The Chronicle ran their review under an interesting headline: "Bush is murdered in tasteless, creepy 'Death.'" Well, as a long-standing John Waters fan, who was one of the first kids on my block to see a midnight screening of Pink Flamingos, I figure that I have earned myself the right to make my own call on tastelessness! On the other hand the Germans seem to agree with the creepy part, describing the assassination itself as "a chilling approximation." Meanwhile, as of this writing, The Raw Story has harvested 31 comments; and, without wading through all of them, there seems to be a strong faction that want to see this film in order to indulge in their favorite fantasy. I would probably find that even more creepy, were it not for the fact that I was living in Marina del Rey when Platoon came out; and there were movie theaters you wanted to avoid, because the veterans had chosen them to be the places where they would gather to relive their personal horrors while engaging in "dialog" with the images of the actors on the screen. So I guess the only lesson from all this is that, whenever we think we have a working definition of "creepy," something creepier comes along to raise the bar.

So, do I want to see this film? Notwithstanding any definitions of taste, I am always interested in anything that is called provocative, just to see to what extent I am provoked. Will I go to a theater to see the film? Well, this is opera season, not to mention the Symphony, and new new play just opened at Berkeley Rep. Usually I wait for these things to show up on cable. Perhaps I should worry that Comcast will block it, but I would be inclined to believe that they will just wait for a reasonable period of time to lapse after the election.

Meanwhile, just to remind us that irony never died, the front page of the Chronicle Datebook section allocates most of its space to a review of The Bridge. This documentary is real, not "faux," to use the word from the German Press Agency. For those of you unaware of this film, it is a documentary that shows (real) people taking a suicidal plunge off the Golden Gate Bridge and even interviews a survivor of one of these attempts. The Chronicle reviewer was full of praise for this one, but I am going to think a lot harder about whether I really want to see it than I shall over Death of a President. That kind of reality may just be too much with me.