The Evening Class "Cinema is the evening class for discriminating adults."--Ousmane Sembene

Sunday, 19 February 2006

Night Watch (Nochnoi Dozor)

I was drooling to take a bite out of the first installment of Russian director Timur Bekmambetov's Night Watch (Nochnoi Dozor) Trilogy when it premiered in Paris this last September; but, I didn't think it would be respectful to Sergei Lukyanenko's writing to collapse Russian into French into English. Leave Babel alone, I told myself, and be patient, wait, wait, all good things come to those who wait. Though in the case of Night Watch, all good things come as well as the bad.

Here is the official website with synopsis, trailer and—for those of you who just don't have the time—the entire movie in two and a half minutes, which (I might add) is unusually enjoyable after you've seen the film:

http://www2.foxsearchlight.com/nwnd/

Subtitles—once tethered to translation—have been emancipated!!! Timur Bekmambetov has raised the bar and now asks subtitles to evoke as much as they translate. In Night Watch, subtitles vanish into blood-red smoke, duck in and out from behind walls, and even grow visibly larger when someone shouts. As fresh as all this is in Night Watch, it seductively invites imitation and Bekmambetov will be fortunate, indeed, to be as innovative by the final installment of this trilogy as he has been with its first. I anticipate a rash of rip-offs that will drain all life out of the original veins.

Thoroughly entertaining with a minimum of gore, the concepts in Night Watch provoke fear. Creepy concepts about gloom and doom. And, sure, there are some inexcusable gaps in script continuity (how can the lights come back on when the light company has been blown up?), but all in all, Night Watch is a fascinating take on vampiric lore with subtle, political commentary on the right of good to license evil. Most folks have already marked their calendars and will be lining up to catch the 06/06/06 remake of The Omen; but, Night Watch is the tale with a fresher twist.

San Francisco Performances: Koyaanisqatsi / Life Out of Balance

It seems petulant to complain of the embarrassment of cinematic riches on any given weekend in San Francisco; but, how can one not complain when you are given choices between a Carlos Reygadas residency at Yerba Buena's Center for the Arts and the San Francisco Performances exclusive West Coast engagement of The Qatsi Trilogy performed by Philip Glass and the Philip Glass Ensemble (conducted by Michael Riesman)? Hmmmmmm? Borrowing somewhat from Solomon, I swallowed Reygadas whole and split Qatsi three ways. I figured a third was better than nothing so I showed up for the opening night screening of Koyaanisqatsi / Life Out of Balance at Davies Symphony Hall. Despite a rush on will call that stalled the performance for a half an hour, the evening was an exciting blend of cinema and music.

It's hard to consider I first saw Koyaanisqatsi in 1983 when it screened (I believe, if I dare remember back that far!) at the Castro Theater some 27 years ago!! Lord. Time flies when you're havin' fun, eh?

Decades later, Koyaanisqatsi still holds up and the music is just as thrilling and energetic. The images prove to be something of a time capsule. The timelapse photography capturing the mutability of clouds and the corpuscular flow of traffic still sweeps me up and I was particularly struck by the speeded-up sequence of entering San Francisco via the now-demolished freeway. That freeway entrance had a curve to it that remains in my body to this day. It felt neat to be reminded that film and memory are brethren afterall.

The Agony of Ecstasy—Two Nights With Carlos Reygadas: Battle In Heaven (Batalla en el cielo, 2005)

This entry is not for the spoiler-wary!

Most of the recent press on Reygadas has concerned Battle in Heaven. I offer my favorites: Jonathan Marlow's insightful Sundance interview with Reygadas for Dave Hudson's Greencine Daily. This interview was instrumental in my enjoying and learning from the Reygadas residency at Yerba Buena. Kudos, Jonathan!!

Michael Atkinson for the Village Voice: "Battle in Heaven, as ambitious as its title, is a living mystery, already notorious for hardcore-osity but so serious about its formal intelligence and so deep-dish in its evocations of inexpressible desolation, personal and social, that it occupies your skull like a siege of Huns."

Karin Badt, Cannes 2005, Bright Lights Film Journal: "The important thing is these two human beings. Just watch them and be patient. Cinema is a means of expression, not communication. I don't want to say anything. When you kiss someone, are you trying to communicate anything?"

Bryant Frazer, Deep Focus: "The film's explicitness is crucial to its meaning. By dwelling on both types of bodies—the trim and conventionally beautiful versus the flabby and utterly ordinary—Reygadas emphasizes both physical closeness and economic distance. He seems less interested in bodies in the erotic sense than in the way that they can be indicators of class—in the sense that body shapes are influenced by economics, because the folks without the money to dine well end up feasting on junk instead, which sticks to their figures."

Antonio Pasolini, europeanfilms.net: "Of course, there is love in this film as well as manipulation. There's also injustice regarding the bad distribution of tools. Injustices from the system, not just from nature itself."

Nick Roddick / FIPRESCI 2005: "[I]t's easier to connect the fact that you have breakfast in the morning and then you go to work afterwards than to connect that you dream one night about fire in the sky and that you go to work the next day."

Aquarello at Strictly Film School: "Reygadas' bracing portrait of Mexico's profoundly fractured and polarized--and perhaps irredeemable--society, human connection occurs not through the opacity of the soul but through the characters' disembodied rituals that serve as communion for unarticulated desire."

Here's a good video clip interview with Reygadas at Cannes:

* * *

Delighted with Japón, I was hyped for Battle In Heaven. All in all, Battle was not as satisfying for me as Japón, though it has certainly hovered around me like some unresolved thought. What truly bothered me about Battle was the idea that this young woman Ana (Anapola Mushkadiz) could confess her shadow to Marcos (Marcos Hernández), her chauffeur since childhood, and even make him complicit through secrecy and sexual favors, but when he confesses his shadow to her, a line gets crossed. An equality is denied. Ana encourages Marcos to turn himself in knowing full well that he will be put away, possibly even executed. She wants to dispense with the distasteful. This betrayal adds weight to an already almost unbearable burden and, Marcos, terrified in the face of truth, pees his pants and murders her. If ever someone has been swept up by the horrors of circumstance into ignoble death it is Marcos in Battle in Heaven.

The sound design in this movie accomplishes what the narrative shifting did in Japón. In one particularly stunning sequence Marcos is at a gas station where loud music is being played. A procession of chanting penitents winds by and the sound shifts from the loud music to the chanting, builds, then recedes back to the loud music. A moment where you hear as well as see two realities.

In another notorious scene where Marcos and Ana are having sex, the camera moves out of the room and circles the courtyard before coming back in. When asked about which directors had influenced him, Reygadas did not mention Hitchcock so this is undoubtedly my complete projection; but, this scene reminded me of the one in Frenzy where just as the necktie murderer is about to rape and kill another victim, the camera pulls away from the scene of the crime, backs down the hallway and stairwell through the front landing, down the front steps, and across the street. In Frenzy, however, if the camera had returned, the crime would have been evident. Not so in Battle, where the camera does return, and the crime is obscured. Notwithstanding, the punishment remains severe.

02/20/06 UPDATE: What goes around, comes around. After convincing me that non-actors should embody their roles and not represent them, Carlos Reygadas reminded himself as well as those present that this is not as easily done as it sounds. In Battle In Heaven Magdalena Flores—Ascen in his first film Japón—makes a cameo appearance. Reygadas was excited at first about including Magdalena in his second film, but, realized afterwards that it was a mistake as the taint of recognized celebrity had already taken. I had to agree and told him that, as pleased as I was to see her again, it distracted from the film. Amazing how quickly this happens!!

02/26/06 UPDATE: At the L.A. Weekly Scott Foundas interprets the opening blowjob of Battle In Heaven to be a dream sequence. I didn't see it that way at all and wonder if Reygadas intended it as such? Unfortunately Reygadas's residency at Yerba Buena has come and gone and he's not around to ask. I always regret the unvoiced unanswered questions! Foundas ventures: "If Japón was Reygadas' objet d'art, then Battle is his objet de scandale, his elephant-dung Jesus . . . ."

01/27/07 UPDATE: A shout out to Rob Davis who recently interviewed (or should I say recently posted his interview with) Carlos Reygadas for Errata. Not only does this fascinating interview delve into the director's filmmaking subjectivity of sound and image, his use of non-actors, and some of his favorite filmmakers, but provides an up-to-date compendium of recent online commentary on Reygadas sophomore feature Battle in Heaven (Batalla en el Cielo, 2005).

The Agony of Ecstasy--Two Nights With Carlos Reygadas: Japon

Thursday and Saturday evenings I had the welcome opportunity to attend a program entitled "The Agony of Ecstasy: Two Nights With Carlos Reygadas" wherein his two films—Japón and Battle in Heaven—were screened at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. The program, co-sponsored by San Francisco's Mexican Museum and the Galería de la Raza, featured Reygadas in person to discuss his work. "Some people kill themselves and some people live in ecstasy," Reygadas asserts, "and the world is exactly the same."

My comments are not for the spoiler-wary, so please beware!

First, Carlos Reygadas reminds me there is life after law. He says he gave up a successful legal career to do something "more physical." I find that completely inspiring having just left behind the world of litigation and the judiciary myself.

His first film Japón concerns a man obsessed with suicidal ideation who travels from Mexico City to the rim of the Sierra Tarahumara canyon to end his life. The Man (Alejandro Ferretis), who remains nameless, commences his existential pursuit by catching a ride into the canyon with a truck full of hunters (Reygadas appears in a Hitchcockian cameo). The hunters drop him off in a small village where he seeks out temporary lodging in the barn of a viejita named Ascen (short for Ascención, not Assunción), "performed" to saintly perfection by Magdalena Flores.

Reygadas frames images of sublime horror. A decapitated bird's head gasps one or two last breaths as it forgets all flight. Pig blood is spilled on sun-baked dirt. A stallion mounts a mare much to the amusement of the local children. A black beetle flees a sudden rainfall. Funereal white flowers bloom beside dark railroad tracks. The viscerality is hypnotic. The heat that hazes the canyon and bleaches all color is hypnotic.

It's extremely difficult not to project symbolism into Japón and to allow it to exist on its own terms, but, I will venture out on a limb to say, that in my mind, The Man's instincts were twice identified with a horse. First, as a disembowled animal on a canyon's ledge; secondly, as a rutting stud. Were these emotional cues to The Man's state of mind? First he is a man who wants to end his life but seems unable to muster the courage, ineffectual at the abyss, and then he is a man who is somehow restored to life by the animality of the countryside. Reygadas is not here to say. He has created a universe and we watch it, no more, no less, sometimes enlightened, frequently amused, often unsure. Sometimes it is enough not to know what is going on and simply to watch his scenes in sequence, like the xylophone parade of children, the smallest first, up to the oldest smoking their cigarettes as an approximation of adulthood.

The narrative eye of Reygadas' camera shifts as in the best of Latino literature; similar to the narrative calisthenics of Julio Cortazar. (Coincidentally, I was reading Cortazar's short story "Axolotl" on my way to the Center for the Arts for the Reygadas screening; it alerted me to the shifts.) In Japón, Reygadas persuades you to look out the eye of the camera as if you are in the body of The Man meeting the village mayor and exchanging IDs. Then it shifts and you are walking uphill as the mayor announces the arrival of Ascen so that you think you are looking through the eyes of Ascen approaching the mayor. But then the camera pans to watch Ascen come up the trail. There was something so confusingly beautiful in this narrative shifting or what Reverse Shot's Nick Pinkerton describes as "the drifting symbiotic camera . . . looking for a host body." You are pulled into the cinematic moment and implicated as witness, much like Caravaggio does with his paintings.

Which leads me to another impression. Just as Caravaggio implicates the viewer into his paintings, and Reygadas does the same with his roving camera in search of a host, Reygadas also shows how inanimate objects draw our attentions into them, pulling us into their "orbit" as described by poet Mark Doty. Particularly pictures on a wall. He accomplishes this in both films. In short, images pull us into their orbit. With that in mind, I loved that one of the cues to The Man's character is that he was a painter and that Ascen, when given a chance to choose her favorite from a book of paintings, settles on Mondrian. At any rate, I'm assuming it's a Mondrian she points to. I meant to confirm this with Reygadas but forgot to.

He said he returned with Japón to the canyon village where it was filmed and it was projected onto a large outdoor screen. The locals didn't much care for the story but were greatly amused by any scene where there was cruelty to animals—the slaughtering of the pig, for example—because this is what was close to them, what they knew. What was, Reygadas explained, natural for them; something everyday.

Invariably the first question anyone asks Reygadas of his first feature is, "Why the title—Japón?" One possible explanation might be, Reygadas himself suggests, that this canyon village—a couple hundred kilometers from Mexico City—might just as well be on the other side of the earth.

One fellow criticized Reygadas for making too much of an Andrei Tarkovsky movie instead of his own. Reygadas objected. Without question he paid homage to Tarkovsky, particularly in one of the final scenes where Ascen rides atop a tractor through the valley. The camera films over her shoulder as she takes in the scenery in a sequence of disjointed clips. Pure, intentional Tarkovsky. And Tarkovsky's influence could certainly be seen where The Man is shown walking through the fields at dawn, the camera pans across piled logs, and then suddenly it is midday. Reygadas didn't intend that scene to be a Tarkovsky moment but it ended up as one. Otherwise, the film is his. Any other semblances to Tarkovsky are being projected into the film.

The scene Reygadas mentions—the shift from dawn to midday as the camera pans over a pile of logs—registered on my skin. I could feel the environment. I could feel the temperature shift from cool dawn to midday heat. Temporally, yes, that temperature shift was like one of the timeleaps of Solyaris, admittedly the only Tarkovsky movie I've seen.

One woman asked how, as a director, Reygadas persuaded Magdalena Flores to have sex on screen with a stranger? Reygadas objected. By the time it came to filming this scene the actors had been working on the movie for a couple of months. The ensemble had become a family; they were no longer strangers. Magdalena, who has maybe only seen 10 movies in her life, believed in Reygadas' filmic intent. When an actor believes in what a director is trying to do, he or she is more willing to do something that they wouldn't do in and of themselves.

Reygadas seems to be on a one-man crusade to break the cinematic hold beauty has on sex scenes. The bodies in his sex scenes startle, shock or revolt precisely because they are not the expected gym bodies usually attached to such scenes. "So accustomed are we to seeing only one body type in movies," Kristi Mitsuda writes for Reverse Shot, "that any other represented provides a startling amount of texture." Reygadas reminds us sex—such a common event between people—happens to all people regardless of their body types. It's just that we are not accustomed cinematically to seeing sex between truly ordinary bodies. I noticed this especially with Japón where The Man eventually beds Ascen, a woman who looks like my grandmother!! I was dreading the event! And yet, as it happened, as it becomes clear how Ascen gives herself to The Man to help him return to life, something I would have not expected out of such an experience, I couldn't help considering how many reasons there are for individuals to have sex with each other, the least of which is to satisfy our prurience as American audiences. Reygadas lambasts this particular hypocrisy. In Mexico audiences didn't make a big deal out of The Man's sex with Ascen in Japón, nor did they get all bent out of shape because of the sex depicted in Battle In Heaven between the chauffeur and his employer's daughter and the chauffeur and his obese wife. For Reygadas, the scandalized critical response to the blowjobs in Battle in Heaven feels ingenuine. That particular critique seems to be an Anglo-Saxon liability. How can such criticisms be taken seriously when Americans, one might remember, have the highest production of porno in the world?

One person repeated an accusation that Reygadas is anti-Mexican. Reygadas scoffed the notion. How could he be anti-Mexican? He loves Mexico. He loves it and he hates it, just like most people really do with anything they care about. If they didn't, it would be sloughed off indifferently.

Reygadas criticizes how music "decorates" film. He wants music in his films to be part of the film's cinematic language. For example, in the final scene he could have presented the accident literally as it happened so that the audience would have a head-on grasp of the event. But instead, he allowed the circling music to become the feeling of the film and the circling camera work to evidence the accident. In that final scene the camera uses the music to circle the devastation much like hawks rise on thermal columns. I asked him how he accomplished this shot and he explained that a revolving camera was set up on a cart on the railroad tracks. He did not film this shot himself but directed the cameraman to where the camera should go next, so that it would see this first, then that, a body here, a wristwatch there, another body, sometimes slower, sometimes faster. Suddenly sweeping down the rails until it hovers over the dead Ascen. The circling camerawork rode the shoulders of the music and evoked what it must be like for a soul to leave a body.

This final scene recalled me to the writings of Eduardo Galeaño who, in an essay on automobiles, suggested that the term "accident" is inappropriate and that "consequence" would be more accurate. My roommate, Gustavo Hernandez, agitated that notion when he suggested that the devastation of the final scene was not an accident at all, that Ascen had shot the men, having put on The Man's jacket, wherein his gun rested. This haunted me. Had The Man inspired Ascen to take vengeance? Had he provided her the means to kill these men who had robbed her and then, afterwards, herself? I couldn't believe that would be the case, especially in light of Ascen's earlier comment that she was not a greedy person, and that even though her arms were arthritic, she would not cut them off. But how to ask this of Reygadas without coming off the fool?

Hazarding the fool, I phrased my question: was The Man's gun in the jacket Ascen wore on the tractor ride through the valley? Yes, Reygadas smiled, as if he were pleased that I was puzzling the mystery. I leapt: "Was it really an accident then? Did she shoot them and then herself?" No, Reygadas assured me, it was an accident on the tracks. Maybe I was not clear enough, he grimaced, but she took the gun to keep The Man from hurting himself. This made me love and respect Ascen all the more. And underscored how resigned she was to her fate. Even when her nephew dismantled her home with his sledgehammer, she was never as frightened as The Man.

I praised Reygadas for the borracho's canto—the most direct example of Lorca's duende that I have ever seen in a film—where the drunken singer's voice cracks, and something ancient and timeless breaks through. Reygadas admits if he had his way, however, the song would have been shorter. The man sang longer than Reygadas thought he should but Reygadas decided to leave it as is in the film. This kind of serendipitous inclusion into the film aligns with notions Reygadas has about art and artifice. He allows the proscenium to be broken in the scene with the workers when they arrive to remove the stones from Ascen's barn. A comment is made by one of the workers that the makers of the film give them nothing; a sentence that Reygadas' audio engineer advised him could be easily removed. But Reygadas liked it, liked its reality, how it was more true than the reality he was creating, and allowed it to remain in the film. Reygadas suffers no artificial dichotomies. Truth and Reality are not necessarily the same thing, which borrows some credence from the adage that some things are more beautiful than true, though in his case some things are more true than real. Fellow film aficionado Michael Hawley complained that this was exactly what made him break with Japón. He was with the film up until the breaking of the illusion. But Reygadas doesn't want an illusion. He doesn't want actors performing roles. He doesn't want representation. He wants people appropriate for the story. Casting is everything, as he himself admits. Without proper casting, all is lost.

One woman noted how the passion between The Man and Ascen is downplayed and that the true passion is invested in the environment, the landscape. Reygadas confirmed this intention. He prefers downplayed performances because he believes they linger longer in the mind than the "hot" performances in such films as Clint Eastwood's Mystic River or Million Dollar Baby, which—while compelling during performance—evaporate as soon as one leaves the theater.

http://www.indiewire.com/movies/2006/02/head_trip_carlo.html

Thursday, 16 February 2006

Cowboy del Amor

Caught an advance screening of Cowboy del Amor at the Shattuck Theater in Berkeley. Here's the film's official website:

http://cowboydelamor.com/

As the website announces: "Cowboy Del Amor is a documentary comedy about a cowboy-turned-matchmaker who can't manage his own love life. It follows self-proclaimed 'Cowboy Cupid' Ivan Thompson, as he finds Mexican brides for disillusioned American men searching for the perfect wife."

The website includes a treasure trove of reviews so I won't belabor them here, but, suffice it to say that I, too, was greatly amused by Michèle Ohayon's pleasant portrayal of Thompson, whose charm resides squarely in his colloquial manner. I love colloquial speech; I believe it reflects the heart of America. Cowboy del Amor has to be commended for walking a fine line. In its unflinching look at American men with Mexican women it is bound to estrange if not downright offend American women and Mexican men. Past the obvious polarized politicizations, however, Cowboy del Amor is essentially a look at the loneliness within us all and our longing for partnership. It is fueled by a buoyant musical score and more situational humor than you can shake a stick at. However politically incorrect it might be, it nonetheless provides a great evening's entertainment.

The Devil and Daniel Johnston

Attended last night's Landmark Theatres calendar preview at the Shattuck in Berkeley. Trailers for the new calendar were shown for the first time. Among them was The Devil and Daniel Johnston and producer Henry S. Rosenthal provided the intro. The cool official website for the doc is at:

http://www.sonyclassics.com/devilanddaniel/

Rosenthal relayed that he produced the documentary simply because he really wanted to see it. And since no one else was making this movie, he paid for it out of pocket. It's been a rewarding experience for him to see it do so well and that it has helped many folks become aware of Daniel Johnston's artistry. I told him I got to see the film at last year's Indiefest and thanked him for exposing me to Daniel, who I had never heard of before. It was a pleasure to see Daniel's exhibition this last September in Paris and I was delighted that my friend Michael Hawley actually acquired one of Daniel's drawings for his collection. Since then, I've included Daniel in my cd collection.

Rosenthal was interested in knowing if the trailer intrigued people to see the documentary. It was the first time he himself had seen the trailer. Unfortunately, most folks said no. And I could understand why. The trailer is extremely grainy and nowhere approximates the visual clarity of the film. Rosenthal apologized for that and explained that these days trailers often are shot on video and then transferred to film and the fact that much of the documentary includes ravaged footage does not bode well for the trailer. But that Sony Pictures has taken up the gauntlet to promote the film is good news and he hopes folks will forgive the trailer and catch the film.

Some folks (naturally) were upset that he would film a documentary about a mentally ill subject, and one woman adamantly asserted she would not see the film precisely because of that, but Rosenthal calmly responded that there is no question Daniel is troubled. Part of his sickness is his obsession with his own notoriety, yes, but the most important thing for Rosenthal was that folks could see how incredibly gifted Daniel is as a musician and illustrator. He is a great fan of Daniel's artistry and his mental illness is a sad sidebar as well as a source of creativity.

Reaction to the documentary has been good so far and has helped engender interest in Daniel's drawings. Daniel has been selected to show his visual art at the 2006 Whitney Biennial in New York City!! Such belated recognition is timely since Daniel has also taken a turn for the worse health-wise. Apparently shortly after Thanksgiving he went into a coma for three weeks and is only now recovering.

When The Devil and Daniel Johnston first unspooled at Sundance, David Poland reported to Movie City News, boldly stating: "If there is a masterpiece at Sundance this year, it's Jeff Feuerzeig's The Devil and Daniel Johnston."

"Not only is this a great doc," Poland praised, "but it is fully capable of becoming one of the great college cult films of all time. Daniel Johnston is, after all, a kid from a small town who never gave up on his dreams and overcame not only his parents' disapproval, but the revolt of his own body and mind. Not only do you come to really respect his work in this film, you find a form of love for this damaged soul."

Though truth is Johnston didn't win me over as much as he did others. His illness was megalomaniacal and what he put his parents through, especially his father, vertiginously resembles karmic retribution. My heart leapt to my throat whenever his father spoke, because you could feel his concern, his fear, his pain. I guess to be honest I have a little trouble with outsider art. First there was the Darger doc (In the Realm of the Unreal) and now this one, adulating artists who were either reclusive and now deceased, or artists (like Daniel) who purposely go off their meds just to add an "edge" to their music; even when doing so meant he would be burdensome to his folks. Johnston has either achieved a pact with the devil, as he admits, or is graced by God, because despite himself, he seems to always be in the right place at the right time recognizing the right opportunity. There's a seductive charm to that but it concerns me that it's romanticized. In gist his lust for fame cut through his impairments and one has to somehow respect him for what he has accomplished, maybe not so much for being as great a musician as so many seem to think he is (I think he writes great music but I prefer others recording it), but, for being able to create his own legend in his own time. That's something I have to applaud him for. He lives his broken dreams.

My personal issues with Johnston aside, however, there is no question but that this is one of the most compelling documentaries ever. Largely due, I think, because of the opportunity Jeff Feuerzeig had to use Johnston's audio diaries so that filmviewers could cut through all of Johnston's mugging to hear who he was inside. Feuerzeig said that when the documentary premiered at Sundance, Daniel and his parents attended and were invited up to the stage afterwards for a Q&A. When asked what he thought about the documentary, Daniel complained that the film was heavy on the comic side, showing Daniel doing all his "funny" things. Oh there's Daniel crashing a plane. Oh there's Daniel going into a mental asylum. Ha ha.

Ha ha indeed. When his father was asked what advice he might give to a parent of an artistic but mentally challenged child, he responded, "You're on your own."

http://www.moviecitynews.com/festivals/sundance_2005/dp_050125.html

Here's Daniel Johnston's "Worried Shoes" website where you can sample his artwork:

http://www.worriedshoes.com/