Somewhere in an alternate Gyllenverse, part I

(previously posted to the JW forums, 4/5/07)

Disclaimer: I am not a screenwriter, so please cut me an appropriate length of slack.

[SCENE: Night, interior. A hotel room, clean, but not too ostentatious. Our protagonist, an impossibly gorgeous young actor, is on his cell phone.]

J: So what did they say?

Anonymous fictitious agent (hereafter "AFA"): [on other end of phone line] Promise me you won't freak out.

J: [beat] Fuck. So that's it? Tell me what they said. [begins pacing]

AFA: I'll tell you if you promise you'll stay calm. Sit down.

J: [sighs exhasperatedly] Okay, whatever. [still pacing around room] I'm sitting.

AFA: Well...[hesitantly] They loved your reading...

J: ...But?

AFA: But...you've gotta understand, Jake, this character is a really sensitive issue...for the studio as well as the director...

J: [growing more agitated] If you don't spit it out, I'm going to start breaking shit...

AFA: [hurriedly] Okay, okay, calm down. Uh, listen... [laughs insincerely] They said you're just too good looking for the part.

J: [stops pacing, stunned to silence]

AFA: Jake? Did I lose you?

J: [sits on bed, defeatedly putting head in free hand]

AFA: Jake?? [to self] ...fucking cell phones...

J: I'm here. Are you kidding me? That's why I'm out?

AFA: I'm sorry, Jake. Fiedler said no one wants to do a movie about a mentally challenged serial rapist with a lead who makes the audience wet.

J: [shaking his head] Can't he give audiences more credit than that? That's fucking ridiculous! No one's going to be attracted to this guy!

AFA: No, his problem is that they're going to be attracted to you. Thinks the ones who don't go home feeling ashamed of themselves will be writing letters and calling because someone made a movie about a sick rapist and depicted him as "lovable" and "desirable," or something like that. You know, the same old bullshit.

J: I can't believe this is happening again.

AFA: [beat] Hey, I know you really wanted to do this--

J: [interrupting] What about makeup? [gets up, wanders over to mirror, begins making faces] Prosthetics? They could give me a harelip or something.

AFA: Not good enough. Besides, if they wanted you with a harelip, they'd get Joaquin Phoenix. He's cheaper than you.

[J pulls phone away from ear and looks at it in disbelief]

J: [back to phone] Are you serious? Doesn't anyone care about the acting?

AFA: [sighs] I'm sorry.

J: [drops back on bed, begins chewing thumb] Okay, well...Thanks, man.

[J ends the call, flops backward onto bed for a second, then gets up again, goes back to mirror]

J: [looking incredulously at his reflection] Joaquin Phoenix??

This is a little piece of satire that's been floating about in my head for a while. It occurred to me one day that Jake's appearance might be a problem in some cases. Like Chloë Sevigny said, film makers might think they have to do something to suggest he's more average looking just to make him believable as certain characters. Now, of course, we don't feel that way, because he's so good at becoming the character that we forget we're watching Jake. But what if some dumbass Hollywood suit didn't get that? This scene is what might happen.

Broadway Jake

If Michael Riedel of the New York Post has any idea what he's talking about, Jake Gyllenhaal is confirmed to star in "Farragut North" on Broadway. This is a good news, bad news article, the only bad news being that the play is set to open "in the midst of the presidential election next fall." We were originally expecting to see it some time this fall, which then became "winter of 2008."

The good news, apart from Jake's being cast, is that much-respected director Mike Nichols has "quietly wrested ["Farragut North"] away from Second Stage, the off-Broadway company that was to have presented it later this year." Wait, it gets better.

Written by Beau Willimon (who worked on Dean's 2004 campaign), "Farragut North" is a hot property right now, with George Clooney and Matt Damon having snapped up the film rights.

Please, fates, gods, whatever entities are out there, perhaps benign, perhaps scary and Lovecraftian, please let all of this be true.

Update: Now we've got Playbill in on the act, and instead of serving as a reassuring confirmation, they've titled their article as a question: "Will Nichols Direct Country Girl and Farragut North for Broadway?" Why must you torture me in this fashion? If you read the text without regard for that silly question mark, it sounds all in the bag. I need to know now if I must begin saving money for a New York trip in 2008, or I can continue spending frivolously on multiple DVD releases of Jake's movies.

Photos: IHJ, All Stars Online.

There is no 'spoon

Inevitably, when a Gyllenhaalic uses Yahoo's news search to look for potential material for her nascent blog, the results page bouncily recommends that she also try the following search: Jake Gyllenhaal Reese Witherspoon (except today--it seems the Jessica Simpson fans have been doing more searches lately). This is the number one reason why I prefer to use Google's news search. But I digress.

Lately, the "news" has been pretty thin. Nowhere did they mention the most spectacular Gyllenhappening of the past week, for example. Thankfully sources like Wet Dark and Wild and Jake Watch are on the job. And thanks, Jake, for giving me this lovely reminder that I do not have to work at our annual 5K this year, since budget cuts mean there will be no 5K.

No, the only "news" I got the other day was the post by an entertainment blogger who thinks Jake is among seven stars in danger of falling off the "A-List." Someone please let this gentleman know that Jake hasn't quite made the so-called "A-List" yet, and he's got plenty of very satisfied fans who would love nothing more than to see him keep choosing roles based on what they say to him, and what he can do with them, rather than their potential for box office. There are enough of those fools already. Jake makes movies I actually enjoy (well, there was Highway...). If he took the advice of people like this guy, he'd be doing a series of soulless blockbusters until eventually he became just another greedy actor.

Next, this.


Yes, I included it in my last post. But I'm not done enjoying it yet. And apparently I'm not the only one whose eye was caught by this, amongst the dozens of other new pictures posted alongside it over at IHJ. It was taken at the New York City premiere of Jarhead. I cannot overstate how grateful I am to Ally and Stephanie at IHJ for keeping the Jake pics coming. Without them and their secret, powerful media connections, desperate addicts like myself would not be treated to pictures from events two years in the past just at the moment when a Jake-drought is threatening to desiccate my joie de vivre and permit reality to spoil my days.

Finally, for now, I want to take a moment to say hello to my reader in Seoul, Korea. You have no idea what your faithful viewing of my blog means to me. My friends are here because they know me from other places. They felt compelled, in other words. (Now they're going to bash me for saying that.) You, on the other hand, are a complete stranger, and yet you appear to be reading my posts just about every day. It occurred to me that you might just be some kind of hiccup in a poorly-configured network, but I'm trying to be less cynical these days, so I am embracing you as a human viewer. Thank you for providing an audience.

Photos: IHJ.

Happy birthday, Swoff!

No, not that one.

This one.


Anthony Swofford, former Marine scout/sniper and author of the bestselling Jarhead, was born on August 12, 1970 in Fairfield, California.

Like many of Jake's fans, I had not read Anthony Swofford's intensely personal Gulf War chronicle before Sam Mendes brought it to the screen. In general, I have always had a distaste for the type of guy (or girl) who wants to join the military, and in particular the Marines; Swofford knows I'm not alone, and acknowledges that he basically hid from his peers his unpopular aspiration in order to avoid ridicule. He was right. Being of the same generation, I am like those kids he went to school with who would not have understood. But perceptions can change.

After being completely fascinated and horrified by the movie, I knew I would eventually read Jarhead. It took me a while to get around to it; even after I purchased it the book sat on my bedroom floor for a month while I finished reading other recommendations. Once I finally opened it, I couldn't put it down.

In fact, after reading the last sentence, I flipped back to the beginning and immediately started again, reluctant to leave the perversely beautiful brutality of Swofford's prose and his ordeal. I have never done that before with any book. It would be glib to say that I now understand his position, but my view of low-level military personnel and those who wish to be a part of that system will never be the same. And while my understanding of the man both then and now is based upon what bits he has chosen to feed me from the dark pantry of his psyche, I won't deny feeling a profound empathy and connection with Swofford, from page one.

His style, a lyrical but concise delivery that makes all the more disarming his unrelenting honesty, has made me an instant fan. I don't know if that's because it reminds me of my writing--and I seem to be all about finding ways to love myself through others, since I can't do it directly--but reading Swofford feels like reading my own journal. Of course I have not lived anything remotely as compelling or formative as his experience, but as I follow him, I imagine myself sharing his reactions, his interpretations, nearly every opinion and emotion expressed, as if he were a version of myself in some other life.

When I first encountered Swoff, via Jake, I thought he was an immature, self-centered asshole. It turns out that 37-year-old Swofford agrees with me about 20-year-old Swoff, proof that Jake's performance was frighteningly accurate. Many viewings later, I love and feel sympathy for Jake's Swoff, as I now do the man himself. (That doesn't mean I won't exploit this opportunity to show you BareAssed!Jake. Life is too short.)

I'm also bemused by a few parallels between Jake and Anthony Swofford.

We all heard about how Jake chipped his tooth during shooting of the scene where Swoff takes his vengeance on Brian Geraghty's Fergus, and subsequently let himself get a bit too abusive in further takes, resulting in the two not speaking for days on the set. What I have never seen or heard anyone else mention is that Swofford also chipped his tooth on a gun, while threatening not his platoon mate but himself. This strange confluence of events can't have escaped someone like Jake, who has professed a belief in "the energy between people." Then there's one of Swofford's STA buddies who was named Atticus, either by his parents or Swofford for the sake of anonymity. Granted, I don't get out much, but that's the only Atticus I've ever encountered, outside of Harper Lee's novel and Jake's beloved German Shepherd (the latter named after the character in the former).

Anthony Swofford loves to cook, specifically citing Mario Batali as a favorite source of recipes. And I can't discount the mesmerizing quality of Swofford's blue eyes; while not on the level of Jake's beauty (and no one is), Swoff does indeed appeal to me. The last time Tony Swofford was with me in the shower, he wasn't entirely Jake's Swoff.

Being impressed as I was with Jarhead, I wanted to try Swofford's fiction novel, Exit A, so Friday while I ran all over town on errands, I stopped in to the local Border's. Their online self-service station did not reveal stock status, only a probable location of "Literature: Fiction." It took me five minutes to establish that "Literature: Fiction" was bereft of Swofford, because their concept of alphabetization at this Border's apparently involves some algorithm for wrapping around multiple freestanding shelves that puts T before S. On my way out I decided to browse the 50% Off bins that I had passed as I entered, and right there in the center of the box in front of me was a copy of Exit A--deeply discounted. So deeply that I don't feel right saying how little I paid for it. Swofford probably doesn't care what I paid for his book, but if it were my book, I don't think I'd exactly be thrilled to learn that it could be had brand new for less than most items at their in-store café.

I haven't begun reading it yet. I am afraid. I'm afraid because while Anthony Swofford is a hundred times more well-read than I, has a superior vocabulary, and has demonstrated admirably that he can write, the hardest part of writing isn't the prose for someone like me; it's the story. I've read articles and correspondence by Swofford, and his mastery of language is evident. But I've not read any of his fiction before. What if the magic of Swofford's prose fails to carry a mediocre tale that does not have the built-in gravity of truth? Clearly, I'm projecting my own inadequacies upon a writer whom I do not know. That's what I do best. I know that even if Exit A sucks, it does not diminish the savage beauty of Jarhead. Still, I will feel deflated, as if the facile words and faltering story really were my own.

Fortunately for us, Swofford is not me: he has had the courage to pursue his writing, has successfully been published. He claims he is driven by a constant fear of failure, something that for me has had the opposite effect. Maybe if my failure meant a humiliating death, it would be more of a motivator. Or maybe it's success that I really fear.

Happy birthday, Swoff. Have a few drinks on me.

Further reading: Chat transcripts Washington Post USA Today Interviews Sydney Morning Herald Das Magazin Combustible Celluloid About.com Mother Jones GreenCine The Stranger FilmFocus.Co.UK BookPage The Portland Mercury

Audio NPR Video Jarhead L.A. Premiere LX.TV with SuChin Pak Tribeca Film Festival By Anthony Swofford "Coming Home: Seven Families Lay Their Fallen Soldiers to Rest. A Photo Essay" (Mother Jones) Publisher Simon & Schuster

Photos: NY Times News Service, Dan Winters, IHJ.

Interlude: American lies

When I wrote about Rendition being labeled as liberal propaganda, I didn't realize the mud was already flying over at the IMDb message board for the movie. Since Jake has gone back under the radar after his teasing appearance almost two weeks ago with the Avon lady, I am left to entertain myself by other means. Unfortunately, the discussion was not what I'd expected. The thread can be summed up as follows:

Liberal!
Conservative!
Leftist!
Your mother!

For those who decide to visit it anyway, don't say I didn't warn you. Ten points to anyone who can correctly identify my comment. No, I have no idea why I expected any better from an entertainment message board. I won't be returning.

Extraordinary rendition, the subject of the movie, is beyond the petty bickering of people who want to use it as a bullet point in the argument for their side.

Every American should read this article from 2005 and this ACLU description of the process. Know what your government, my government, is up to. Does torture work, is it necessary? Why has our president lied to the world, denying that U.S.-sanctioned torture takes place? This is not some Machiavellian drama; real, living human beings are involved.



Photo: IHJ.