Too smooth to get either excited or offended by, and I’d probably be more apt to praise the performances of Winger, MacLaine and Nicholson if I weren’t aware that the film’s essential shapelessness is nothing if not flattering to actors (to the tune of “well, if anyone’s doing the heavy lifting here, it’s the cast!”). It’s just over two hours, but Brooks’ overriding dramedy-blackout-sketch approach to filmmaking ends up making it play like the world’s longest trailer (or maybe I’m just saying that because Michael Gore’s shamelessly intrusive score was featured in the trailers for just about every ’80s drama ever). I’m sure that there were great moments somewhere in there, but since they were typically swallowed up even before they had a chance to play out, all I can remember now is the last one (Mommy gamely exclaiming that having that conversation with her sons “wasn’t too bad”).

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Does it tell me exactly what I want to hear, and indeed what I already knew? Yes. The vanguard American horror films of the 1970s are my personal Bob Dylan. Both Dylan and Romero/Hooper/Craven were uncompromising voices of socio-critical outrage, in a way all the more powerful because they utilized genres (folk, horror films) that could be taken as totems of complacency (“the groundfolks music of yesteryear reminding us that hardship is behind us”; “vampires and zombies don’t really exist”… okay, I stretch a little bit on the folk-being-complacent part, but then again I don’t dig folk too much either). In this sense, director Adam Simon is fashioning a fantastic patchwork of film theories and ideas that have been around for some time now. It’s never less than engrossing, and all of the interviewees (including the non-director but still highly influential make-up effects artist Tom Savini) paint a vivid picture of what nourished their nasty impulses. But where American Nightmare really takes off is in the final few minutes, where the elegiac sense of closure and a strange sense of nostalgia for the tumultuous ‘60s and ‘70s (indeed, it’s almost like a miniature Grin Without a Cat substituting Che Guevara with Leatherface) make one question where horror films, much less society, can turn to next. Granted, many of the directors concerned have still been making interesting films that comment on what’s happening today — take Cronenberg’s Crash and, I’m told, Carpenter’s Ghosts of Mars — but what’s missing is the sense that, for instance, automobile necrophilia and space exploration burrow as deeply into our identity as a nation of fury as mechanized plant “efficiency” and NRA vigilantism did thirtysome years ago. It’s probably damning that just about the only recent horror film from this group of visionaries that did any significant business is the one by Wes Craven that basically turns the retrospectively reactionary stance of Carpenter’s Halloween into a punchline. The death of feminism and the return to clearly marked divisions between good and evil (which I stress are much more clearly expressed in Halloween’s copycats than in Carpenter’s film, which is far too streamlined to be able to stick on too many ideological conclusions) become, in Scream, the set up to one colossal joke. It’s exactly what Carpenter alludes to when he jokes about all of them being too concerned now with “making money” to create more grit and discontent. When Simon juxtaposes the locations of mass revolutionary gatherings in the full bloom of the Summer of Love with modern-day shots of those same gathering spots in the middle of winter and notably devoid of humans, it’s as though all that brutal honesty and all that spent insanity still couldn’t stop the steamroller of blithe denial. I’ve left out one other film between Halloween and Scream that needs to be mentioned (well, maybe two, since I consider the underrated Day of the Dead’s portrait of humanity sliding into complete and utter nihilism remarkable). Ironically, one decade after Carpenter supposedly brought the horror revolution to a close he delivered what I guess can be considered a latecoming last gasp: 1988’s They Live, which, considering its take on the simultaneously destroying and assuaging effects of the unholy ambiguity between social structure and media omnipresence, will probably only continue to gain resonance (unless Snake Plissken unplugs the world like he did at the end of Escape from L.A.).

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2003 was a year that i devoted most of my mediattention to films that weren’t made in 2003, which gave everything that was neither film nor from 2003 the short end of the stick, which should explain why i included probably more than just a few late-breaking entries from 2002. once again, i’d like to say thank you to the pazz & jop poll for doing my work for me. (don’t be surprised, though, if i sneak in songs i forgot without fanfare in the next few weeks.)the year in standout tracks if not necessarily singles… (in rough preferential order)

• nina simone, “see-line woman (maw remix)” — masters at work make it look so easy. they might be the only high-profile remixers out there whose contribution to tracks like this is not in its beats (which come from nina’s own immaculately-self-arranged original). instead, they fill out the eerily spare thump-n-clap with gorgeous piano ostinatos and moaning upright bass, turning a low-rent hooker ditty into a high class call girl sob-story. she bring coffee, she bring tea, she’s a native new yorker, she should know the score by now.
• basement jaxx, “good luck,” “right here’s the spot,” “cish cash,” “lucky star,” et al — plus a few others, probably. if i limited myself to ten slots, these hogs’d have nine. which is fitting, since each song on kish kash has more hooks, tricks, effects, and energy than nine standard electroclash songs combined.
• lacquer, “behind” — a bit of french house-pop perfection, nothing more, nothing less. what “best singles” lists were made for.
• go home productions, “i dream of pussy” — what khia’s original song was to go home productions, lord “bosie” was to oscar wilde: the inspirational jumping off point for a devastatingly superior talent. they also would’ve had… um, “inspiration” together to music like thisssss (shake your body, don’t stop, don’t misssss).
• busta rhymes f. pharrell, “light ya ass on fire” — the neptunes shed everything that’s held them back for all this time (i.e. music) and simply front with the most wicked, merciless, monolithic hip-hop pulsation of the year. how ridiculously deep is their groove? only halfway through do you realize that’s busta rhymes wandering amidst the carnage. to put it impolitely, this single is the sound of donkey kong whipping his dick out onto the dance floor.
• paradise (alan braxe & romuald), “in love with you” // the eternals, “walk for me” — french house in rocking pip’s world another year, part 4. both spill over in waves of tension-filled ‘80s prom/sci-fi ecstacy (respectively) until it seems like the genre can’t possibly do anything further to top itself. ok, daft punk. the (disco) ball’s in your court.
• erykah badu, “i want you” — “found a good book and got on in it, tried a little yoga for a minute, but it won’t let go” badu’s deconstruction of the evasive nature of oprah’s “rekindling your spirit” assuagement sure as hell lasts a lot longer than oprah’s afterglow.
• arvo pärt, “spiegel im spiegel” — best music video of the year!
• thomas bangalter, “rectum” — second best music video of the year!
• missy elliot, “pass that dutch” — they’ve been working towards it (and it was worth it) for years now, but with “pass that dutch” missy and timbaland have truly emerged as our generation’s answer to donna & giorgio. maybe that’s what she means when she says she’s been a superstar since she was born. her svelte body just had to catch up to where pop had already forgotten it loved being.
• beyoncé f. jay-z, “crazy in love” — ok, so you can really not like (fill in the blank with your choice of “cry me a river,” “gossip folks,” “in da club,” or “hey ya!”) and still not get branded a fun-hater by me. you can even harbor a secret desire to kickbox beyoncé’s booty mercilessly and i’d probably pay to watch. but if a blazing horn riff, high-steppingly percolating funk rhythms, a buoyant hot-air balloon bass kick, and a world-class cameo from jay-z (who doesn’t sing low, he swings low) leave you resolutely unmoved, consider yourself tagged and shelved.
• wayne wonder, “no letting go” — all the ubiquitous and infections diwali riddim needed was a little g-funk-lite synth noodling and some sweet self-harmonizing.
• big boi, “ghettomusick” // andré 3000, “spread” — this is me saying “ok, we all know about the other two songs, here’s a double-shot from the album proper that effectively says ‘screw all those people who say “their album sure is spotty and uneven!”!’!”
• dizzee rascal, “i luv u” — “fix up, look sharp” probably suffers the least lost in translation. “brand new day” and the murdered hong kong glockenspiel hook burrow deepest under my fingernails. but advance phenom “i love u” truly is the production/ethos/narrative coup here. watch everyone go for the first one stateside. oh well.
• justin timberlake, “señorita” — sloughed into my not-so-cleverly-concealed “guilty pleasure” slot, which is not to say it’s not a tight little postre. it is, what with that now deliciously cliché neptunes’ non-songwriter brand of friction between the big, dumb dog bassline and the flicked-off “check this out, i’m stevie wonder!” undercooked fender rhodes riff (the less said about the bridge, the less we’ll have to bring up rod temperton). the “guilty” part comes when justin sings on behalf of the guys and the girls. oh justin, feels good, don’t it? therefore guilty pleasure, squeaking past mya’s “my love is like… wo!” and kelis’ “milkshake” on the account that justin only sounds like he has a vagina.
• !!!, “me and giuliani down by the schoolyard (a true story)” — prog-funk-prog. it’s not easy being post-prog.
• rufus wainwright, “oh what a world” — rufus goes directly from drugged-up wannabe gay slut to refined post-queer, post-irony curmudgeon without passing pomo.
• earth, wind & fire, “can’t hide love (maw remix)” — the alpha is the omega, and you can’t deny.

(postnote: as i earlier indicated, i did pay some attention to music that wasn’t necessarily from the year ’03, and marvin gaye’s i want you, the chi-lites’ “my first mistake,” and the entire works of parliament-funkadelic, nina simone and prince (my rejuvenated private joy) all played significant parts in my listening this year. a couple of the above tracks, specifically “i love u” and “see-line woman,” were pretty blatently ’02, but even that wasn’t enough to get me to include electric six’s “danger! high voltage” or x-press 2’s “lazy” or altered beast’s “release.” just discovered them too late, it seems. oh well. also, toby keith’s “beer for my horses” is sort of the precise opposite of the above singles, and its success hints at a long and difficult election season and a post-election i don’t even care to consider at the moment.)

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