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June 15, 2010

May Movies

In the Loop:  I thought this political satire about a bumbling British minister and other government officials with varying interests fighting to control the conversation in the run-up to a US/UK declaration of war was a hoot and a half. (Also, breaking: Anna Chlumsky neither died nor got fat!) Highly recommended.

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Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown:  This Spanish comedy, Pedro Almodovar’s big one, is a speedy crime caper/farce with surrealist undertones. Brightly colored, nutballs, fun all the way through. Recommended.

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The Private Lives of Pippa Lee:  The lengthy chronicle of Pippa Lee, former wild child, current long-suffering wife in a May-December marriage, future cougar. The movie is primarily a Robin Wright Penn vehicle, and the acting is good, but there’s too much cartoon and cliche stuffed into this woman’s life for it to come off as honest. It’s not terrible or anything, but there’s no need to go out of your way to see it. Not recommended.

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Sherlock Holmes: Probably not a winner for die-hard Holmes fans, but a really entertaining movie for the rest of us, in which Robert Downey, Jr. alternately solves crimes, boxes, drinks, bickers adorably with Jude Law, jumps through obstacle courses involving (among other things) scaffolding, barrels and boats, and frequently removes his shirt. As the friend who hosted a screening of this put it, this movie is a lot better than it ought to be. Recommended.

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Bright Star:  This period piece about the doomed love affair between John Keats and Fanny Brawne has been, I think, unfairly overlooked. The performances are lovely, and it’s worth watching for Paul Schneider alone, who’s terrifically smarmy as Keats’s best friend, Charles Brown. It’s a sentimental and overwrought tragic adolescent romance, true, but it ought to be: it’s about Keats. Recommended.

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The Invention of Lying:  I suspect that Ricky Gervais’s original idea for this comedy had a lot more to do with inventing religion (the bit of this left over is clever and pointed) and a lot less to do with wooing Jennifer Garner’s character, but the movie in its finished form is a dumb, formulaic rom com organized around a joke that’s stretched too thin. Not recommended.

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Robin Hood:  How on Earth did the makers of this film manage to turn ‘robbing from the rich and giving to the poor’ into a carrying case for conservative Randian propaganda? Of course, plenty of movies whack you over the head with liberal ideology, and the message would have been forgivable had the film been entertaining at all. Russell Crowe isn’t wasted on such fare, but Cate Blanchett made a serious misstep here. Not recommended.

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An Education:  I expected to be infuriated by this movie, but it’s a well-written piece about a precocious high school senior in London in the 60s who becomes involved with a skeezy older man. The heroin is charming, but the most interesting people in this movie are the various adults with varying motives tugging her in different directions. Particularly outstanding are Alfred Molina as the limited father, and Olivia Williams as the concerned English teacher. Recommended.

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Broken Embraces:  Almodovar again, this time with a much heavier film about an aging, blind filmmaker who is made to relive the doomed love affair that altered the course of his life. I had made an assumption at the beginning of the movie that spoiled what was meant to be a late-revealed twist, but it wasn’t just that that made the movie feel long, slow and largely uninteresting to me. The movie is for film fans, with references aplenty, homages, and clever stylistic choices, and yadda yah, but I’m not smart enough to appreciate all that – to me, the characters were cliches and the story was slow, and I couldn’t get myself to care much about it. Not recommended.

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Maitresse:  First, a bit of explanation: the way in which I select movies and books alike is to keep a very lengthy, running list of titles that came recommended from any number of sources, and to close my eyes and point at random whenever I’m ready for a new one. I like variety and to be surprised, and I don’t usually look into whatever the movie or book is ahead of time. So it comes to pass, occasionally, that I find myself unexpectedly watching a guy get his scrotum nailed to a 2×4, as my roommates try to have their dinner. I do enjoy the French art house flicks, but Maitresse would make Bertolucci blush like a school girl. In addition to the scrote thing, and numerous other kinky sex acts, many featuring the bare-assed Gerard Depardieu and an assortment of anonymous French masochists, I also got to see a live horse actually slaughtered on camera (much more disturbing than the BDSM stuff).

Behind all the kink, Maitresse is a surprisingly simple, even rather sweet love story, and the metaphor of Ariane’s apartment – the peaceful, comforting upstairs apartment occupied by nurturing house-husband Depardieu, contrasting with the hidden, seedy downstairs in which Ariane makes her living by inhabiting a character that thinly veils her own deep fears – is well done. But in the end, the lengthy, indulgent scenes of sexual violence take center-screen here and overwhelm anything of substance the movie might have to offer. Not recommended.

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May 6, 2010

April Movies

Heavenly Creatures:  Kate Winslet’s first film, directed by Peter Jackson, based on a creepy and perplexing New Zealand murder case in the ’50s.  The movie outed one of the convicted women, who had since been authoring popular murder mysteries under a pseudonym.  The film will make you want to call your mother.  Recommended.

Ran:  I keep trying my damndest to like Kurosawa films, but they bore the shit out of me.  I didn’t finish this samurai adaptation of King Lear, even though I know it’s a masterpiece and all.  Not recommended.

Boys Don’t Cry:  Completely devastating, brutal to watch, and perfectly written and acted.  Highly recommended.

Dead Man:  All that really needs to be said is surreal Western directed by Jim Jarmusch and starring Johnny Depp.  If that doesn’t make you want to see it, I don’t understand you.  Highly recommended.

L’eclisse:  I interpreted this Antonioni film as a Cold War allegory, but I can’t find any criticism to back this theory up.  Beautifully shot, but teeth-grindingly slow and brutally long.  Recommended?

Blue Angel:  Would be a powerful statement about the humiliation and dehumanizing indignity of exploitation, except that I couldn’t get past the fact that this indignity is supposed only to apply to men.  Regardless, recommended.

Me and You and Everyone We Know:  I really want to dislike Miranda July just because, I don’t know, she’s successful and people like her?  This movie was as earnest, naive and by turns as endearing and infuriating as anyone who knows anything about July and her aesthetic would expect.  The kids in it are all really cute and winning, and I liked all the subplots.  Perhaps I’m just too cynical and bitter for this sort of thing, so I will abstain from recommending or not.

Through a Glass Darkly:  I dearly love Bergman films; the first one I ever saw was Saraband, which is certainly not one of his best, but it really struck a chord with me.  His films are so emotionally honest, and they are written and shot like generous, slowly unfolding novels.  Bergman’s characters are the beginning and end of his movies:  he turns his films over entirely to the characters, and perhaps because of this, there is no false note in any of them, no artist’s ego poking out in jarring places, no manipulation, no statements or grudges.  This bleak story of a young woman’s ultimately futile battle with schizophrenia is no exception.  Highly recommended.

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May 3, 2010

March Movies

Sweeney Todd: It’s only surprising it took Tim Burton this long to make a version of the demon barber of Fleet Street. Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter are both great, but no ST will ever live up to the Broadway show I saw a few years ago, with Patti LuPone and Michael Cerveris, in which the cast played the scores while also singing and acting. Recommended.

Atonement: I’m a fan of the novel, and the movie is a pretty dead-on interpretation. Predictably bleak, gorgeously shot. Recommended.

The Hurt Locker: Worthy of the Oscar? Yes. Live up to the hype? Yes. Dovetails nicely with a book I’m currently reading, An Intimate History of Violence, about which more later. Highly recommended.

Up: A chubby, adenoidal Asian boyscout is the unlikely child hero of this film, which is a refreshing change from the young spry Caucasian boys and girls that normally bounce around in Pixar films. Also, the movie is cute. Talking dogs, cantankerous old people, etc. Highly recommended.

The Fall: Shot on 26 locations in 18 different countries, this movie is worth watching for the cinematography alone. Tarsem Singh, the director, had difficulty getting this film made, so he shot parts of it in various locations, while he was on set for other, financed films. The narrative, however, is solid, and the Catinca Untaru and Lee Pace are terrific. Highly recommended.

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January 20, 2010

I’ve Been Watching: The Ballad of Jack and Rose

Jack (Daniel Day-Lewis) lives on an island with his daughter, Rose (Camilla Belle). Jack is the last holdout of a 60s commune, and of course, developers are steadily encroaching. But meanwhile, Jack and Rose live an idyllic eco-friendly existence, and are as tight as two entirely isolated people can be. However, Rose is becoming a young woman, and Jack is slowly dying of a heart condition. Enter Kathleen (Catherine Keener), Jack’s girlfriend, who moves in with her two sons, fat, gay, friendly Rodney (Ryan McDonald) and taciturn, grimy Lothario, Thaddius (Paul Dano). Rose resents Kathleen’s presence, and more, her relationship with Jack, and she rebels, determined to chase Kathleen and her brood off the island and regain her father’s sole attention and (quasi-incestuous) love.

Written and directed by Rebecca Miller, the movie is well-acted and beautifully shot, but the plot turns feel forced and the drama often overwrought. Kathleen and her sons are all caricatures, put in solely because they are needed for catalysts. Their thinness is all the more apparent when contrasted with the fascinating characters of Jack and Rose. The biggest problem with The Ballad of Jack and Rose, however, is its out-of-nowhere turning point and abrupt retreat from a realistic and interesting conclusion. Miller seems to shy away from the conflict she’s constructed, and the ending of the film more or less negates everything that came before it.

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January 14, 2010

I’ve Been Watching: Synecdoche, NY

This extremely, extremely long movie from Charlie Kaufman bored me to tears. Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is a theater director who breaks up with his wife, Adele (Catherine Keener), and then uses his MacArthur Award to continually stage a meta-world in a giant warehouse in New York City. He has an off-and-on affair with an affectionate but directionless ticket taker, Hazel (Samantha Morton), and an on-and-off marriage with his young ingenue, Claire (Michelle Williams). Each new person in his life gets a doppelganger cast in the performance (the most interesting thing about this is that Emily Watson is cast as Samantha Morton, and while I never would have said the two women look alike, they could be twins. It is uncanny. I actually thought Morton was playing her own double until the cast list scrolled). Anyway, all of this is very tedious and repetitive. When the film starts, it is very grounded in reality, but there are some odd, surrealistic details that seem like they may or may not be resolved later. As the film continues, the surreal is amped up and the reality dialed down, and all of those odd touches turn out to be symbol and metaphor – there is no through-plot in the traditional sense, nor is it really a character study; rather, it’s a sort of meta-exploration of living a life while simultaneously recording, analyzing, and replicating that life.

Personally, I thought the movie seemed like an unfocused, boring, lengthy stretch of navel-gazing, but my mother (who watched it with me) got a lot more out of it, and I now see that Roger Ebert understood it in pretty much the exact same way she did (best film of the decade?!), so I now realize I didn’t get it. Having had it explained to me, though, I still don’t really know why it needed to be a movie. The material was not particularly visual; it seemed like more of a novel. And in fact, it reminded me a lot of Tom McCarthy’s Remainder, which I hated, but which a lot of people really thought was unique and important, so this type of material may just be beyond me.

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January 8, 2010

I’ve Been Watching: Fantastic Mr. Fox

Oh, Wes Anderson, I just can’t quit you. No matter how many good reasons you give me to go.

I loved Fantastic Mr. Fox as a kid, although I can’t remember much of it now – other than the geese, chickens, cider and apples. So, I’m not sure how faithful Anderson’s film adaptation is, but I think Roald Dahl would be happy with it. It’s not surprising that Anderson’s typical mood and style translate well into stop motion animation, and his usual company (headed by guest big names Clooney and Streep) does a great job channeling their understated emotional nuances through a variety of cartoon burrowing animals.

The main thrust of the plot involves Mr. Fox, Fox family patriarch and former chicken thief, attempting to pull one last heist on the three local farming tycoons, without getting his family killed in the process. But the heart of the plot involves Mr. Fox’s short, scruffy, maladjusted teenage son, Ash, whose desperate desire to be admired by his dashing father is compounded by the summertime visit of his athletic, attractive, even-tempered cousin, Kristofferson. The shifting relationship between the Fox cousins is the sort of slow-simmering, internal conflict that Anderson excels at dramatizing; and as his characters are foxes this time, and thus must demonstrate their species’ behavioral tendencies, he has a whole fresh cache of details to play with. The jerky stop motion, along with the mostly orange-and-yellow color scheme, twangy score, and periodic tableaux of burrowing, dancing animals give the movie a vintage feel that is classic Anderson.

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January 7, 2010

I’ve Been Watching: Avatar

Let me spare you the $14 and nearly three hours of your life you might otherwise waste on this piece of shit movie, and recap it here for your convenience:

Lights up on Average G.I. Joe, in a sleeping drawer from the Fifth Element set, installed in the giant room from The Matrix.

Joe: Damn, I shore have gotten myself in one hell of a mess. Let me explain to ya how it happened. I ain’t no fancy, brainy scientist like my big brother was. I’m just your average military man, but I’ve got a healthy heaping of horse sense, and I’ve got heart. You might even call me…a Real American. (Except that I’m disabled. That’s the groundbreaking, original thing about me as a hero.)

Joe arrives at base camp. Cut to Ripley, arguing with overly muscled, severely bleached, shouty military guy with face scars, so you know he’s a For Serious Dude.

FSD: Now, look Ripley, as I’m always telling you, I’m a military guy. My perspective is very simple – these native peoples want us dead. There’s no negotiating with them; the only way to win is to wipe them off the face of this new planet. Now, you, you’re a scientist. Your motivation is to study and understand their culture. But we both work for that coked-up guy in the suit and glasses over there with the putting strip in his office (srsly), and he’s a businessman. His motivation is to mine the very valuable unobtanium (srsly) that is underneath the native people’s Home Tree (srsly), and he doesn’t much care how he gets it, but he doesn’t want any bad press. Now, you’re conflicted, because you depend on his money to fund your research, and you and I have a lot of conflict because we disagree over how reasonable the native population is.

Ripley: A three hour long movie, and they couldn’t find time to unfold the exposition in any more graceful way than that stilted, ridiculous monologue?

FSD: I know, right? Can you believe they actually paid someone to write this shit, yet Elizabeth Urello can’t get published to save her life?

Businessman: Actually, this screenplay was written by the guy who wrote the text for the original Legend of Kyrandia.

FSD: Wow, that’s quite the reference.

Ripley: God, I look good for my age.

Joe (via his avatar) heads into the jungle.

Joe: Wow. This jungle is really cool-looking.

Ripley: Is it?

Joe: Well, now that I’ve been here a minute, it’s a little garish.

Ripley: And flat, don’t you think? Like our avatars?

Joe: Yeah. It all looks very Vegas.

Ripley: I always think it looks like it was designed by a 14-year-old gamer who just got a blacklight.

Joe: Oh, totally! And likes to go to underage clubs where all the girls wear body glitter.

Ripley: HA!

Joe becomes separated from the group, and meets the chief’s daughter.

Pocahontas: You think you own whatever land you land on. But I know every rock and tree and flower has a life, has a purpose, has a name.

Joe: My favorite thing about you noble savages is how your women wear no tops.

Pocahontas: Plus, we’re really spiritual and quiet and in touch with nature.

Joe: I want to sleep with you. As soon as I’ve earned the right by proving myself to your people.

Pocahontas: Let me introduce you to our ways. Our nature spirit forces tell me that you’re a God sent here to deliver us.

Joe: Well, I am a strapping white guy.

Pocahontas: Good thing, or we’d never be able to defend ourselves against your superior military.

Joe: This is all so tired, even I can barely stay interested.

Pocahontas: Right? And yet, have you read the reviews?

Joe: I know! The reviewers are all on crack.

Joe quickly learns all of the native people’s skills and surpasses them in every way. They worship him as a savior. He saves the native peoples (albeit with many casualties), bangs the chief’s daughter.

Joe: And now, I will live among you always.

Pocahontas: Although you’ve overseen the destruction of my home, and the slaughter of my family and friends, I will now lick your feet in gratitude.

Joe: Damn straight, my little blue trophy.

Pocahontas: Speaking of, wasn’t this whole storyline terribly racist?

Joe: Well, it would have been, except for the computer animation.  That makes it fresh.

Pocahontas: I see. I have to admit, even though I resisted slightly at the outset, I always knew things would turn out like this.

Joe: Well, there’s absolutely nothing in this movie that a moron in a coma couldn’t see coming a mile away.

Pocahontas: Center Stage looks positively groundbreaking by comparison.

Joe: Oh, I forgot about that! You really deserve a good project.

Pocahontas: Srsly.

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January 6, 2010

I’ve Been Watching: The Savages

In Tara Jenkins’ film, Laura Linney plays the woman I always feared I would become if I continued to be an aspiring actor/playwright past the point of it being cute. Because of this, I personally found this comedy to be more of a horror film, but regardless, I enjoyed it.

Wendy Savage is a 30-something aspiring playwright who lives in Manhattan, pretends to work in a cube all day, and occassionally has bad sex with an unattractive married man. Her brother, Jon (Philip Seymour Hoffman), is a lit professor in a small New England town, continually working on an unreadable book on Bertold Brecht. When their father, Lenny’s (Philip Bosco) long-term girlfriend dies and her children throw him out of her house, Wendy and Jon must place Lenny (who has dementia) in a facility. Lenny was abusive, and the Savage children have been estranged from him for decades, but family responsibility trumps all, and they dutifully situate him in a nursing home near Jon’s school, and visit him frequently, trying to make him as comfortable as possible in his new surroundings.

The world in The Savages feels depressingly, hilariously recognizable. Its people are floundering and bored, and their triumphs are small. Wendy continually attempts to make lemonade out of life’s lemons. She decorates her father’s institutional-looking nursing home room with Urban Outfitters throw pillows and lampshades, which details are then ignored by everyone but her; she manages to win a writers’ grant…from FEMA; she doesn’t much like her boyfriend, but she loves his dog. But by the end of the film, her obstinate attempts at reinterpreting her life as something worth living have begun to work out for her, and The Savages ends on as uplifting a note as possible, while sustaining its credibility.

The movie is touching without sentiment, familiar but original, and very funny without being forced. Jenkins underscores her well-drawn characters and simple plot with subtle visual metaphors, and her screenplay is economical – there are no superfluous scenes or bits here, nothing added just for the fun of it. The Savages is so well-written, in fact, that it would have made a fine novella, but happily, it is an even better film.

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December 3, 2009

I’ve Been Watching: The Good Shepherd

Disclaimer: I was a couple beers in when I watched this movie, and didn’t pay very close attention. Still, I’m pretty sure it made no sense.

Edward Wilson aka “Mother” (Matt Damon) is one of the original CIA agents. We first see Edward playing Buttercup in HMS Pinafore in drag with the Yale Whiffenpoofs. He’s a poetry major and Skull & Bones member, who, for whatever reason is recruited as a spy (this reminds me of the opening scenes of Team America: ‘What we need is a really, really great Actor!’). Then, there’s a party and Edward (despite being in love with this deaf woman) has a quick, perfunctory poke with a friend’s sister, Clover (inexplicably played by Angelina Jolie), resulting in her pregnancy and a really resentful marriage. Then, Edward is off to England and Germany and wherever to do spy-y things. He is really suited for spying because, despite the dramatics we briefly viewed in the initial scenes of the movie, he is a stone-faced automaton throughout, who reveals nothing and possibly feels nothing. WWII ends, the Cold War begins, CIA is formed, Edward interacts with a myriad of characters who all seemed indistinguishable to me (Alec Baldwin, William Hurt, a Russian dude who looks just like Alec Baldwin, a couple more Russian dudes, and I think Robert DeNiro is in there somewhere, too), and Angelina Jolie despairs that she can’t ever get Edward’s attention (why the hell would a rich, well-connected, gorgeous woman have to trick somebody she barely knows into marrying her? This is yet another aspect of this movie that makes no sense).

And then somehow Edward’s son who he loves more than anything ends up in Congo, bedding down with a spy for the other team. This is entirely unexplained, but basically, it is what thwarted the Bay of Pigs invasion.

Russian dude to Edward: ‘Now you will have to choose which you love more: your son, or your country.’ Yes, this was actually a line of actual dialogue in the actual movie. For the preview, I suppose, and for those viewers who are stupider than posts. And that’s not at all the only example of such ham-fisted writing. And then, on top of that, Edward doesn’t actually have to choose between his son and his country at all!

Jeez, this was a stupid movie, I’m pretty sure.

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December 1, 2009

I’ve Been Watching: Once

Dublin busker (Glen Hansard) meets Czech immigrant (Marketa Irglova), and together, they record an album. Hansard’s character is broke, heartbroken and living with his dad, and Irglova’s character is broke, estranged from her husband, and raising a young daughter. Initially, one might expect the arc of this movie to follow the typical growth of a romance between two people, but instead, the arc is a love story about the artistic process. From initial uncertainty, through growing excitement, to total immersion, to the resulting opened possibilities and new, refreshed outlook on life: the story will be familiar to anyone who has been carried away by an idea and created something, however inconsequential. The film illustrates how the creative process can rejuvinate and rebuild a life, but this is not an idealistic or larger-than-life movie. Rather, Once feels real and honest, as do the original songs, written and performed by Hansard and Irglova.

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October 28, 2009

I’ve Been Watching: Where the Wild Things Are

Max (newcomer Max Records, who looks for all the world like Ellen Page) is pissed off. His sister has outgrown him, and, while his mother pays attention to him, is affectionate and always takes his side in things, still, she’s dating a guy, and she has money troubles. So Max runs off into the streets in a temper fit and crawls around in a storm drain, during which cooling-off period he visits the wonderful island of the Wild Things, which every American child will surely recognize from Maurice Sendak’s picture book.

Life on the island is…really, really emo. The Wild Things have got, like, mad conflict, but it’s conflict of the vaguest sort. The type of conflict an author might inject into a story if that author knows plot is traditionally driven by interesting characters with interpersonal “issues,” but isn’t entirely sure what those issues might be about, or what form they might take (hi again, Dave Eggers!). So, we have the main couple of Wild Things – Carol (James Gandolfini) feels abandoned, because KW (Lauren Ambrose) has made new friends and keeps moving away, because she’s really unhappy with Carol, for some reason. And these new friends just really get Carol’s goat…again, for some reason. Meanwhile, the rest of the Wild Things either cower in sulky despair or cynically comment on the inevitability of all this once again turning out poorly (“all this” being the rumpus, a dirt clod fight, building a giant fort). The Wild Things are clearly aspects of Max’s world, but it’s impossible to keep tabs on who represents what. Carol starts out as father figure, then becomes Max, sort of, and KW at first seems to represent Max’s sister, but then becomes very much a mother figure. The other Wild Things seem a little extraneous – there is the tart-tongued skeptic (Catherine O’Hara) and her boyfriend, and the timid one, and one that doesn’t speak until the end, probably because nothing could be thought up for him. You can read whatever you like into any of them. Max seems to like them, most of the time. They kind of like him, except when they don’t, and they sort of like each other, then they don’t. They are by turns threatening and harmless. They have eaten all of the ‘kings’ that came before Max, but for some reason, they are ultimately affectionate toward him.

Apparently, the Wild Things suffer from loneliness and sadness…although, again, why that is isn’t at all clear. All of this nothingness is discussed at length in the vaguest of terms, punctuated by even lengthier weighty, significant pauses, wherein Max and the Wild Things stare deeply into each other’s eyes for seriously about twenty-five-freaking minutes, pondering some point that hasn’t just been made. Then the soundtrack swoops up – Karen O vocalizing in a distractingly jarring way – and everybody runs around and screams for ten minutes or so, until it’s time to have a Very Important Talk again.

Granted, all of this happens against lovely backdrops of landscapes in moody, autumnal colors, but don’t get too attached to the scenery, folks: this world is on its way out. Carol gives Max a tour of the island, and as he points out each dessert and forest, he explains how things used to be lusher, bigger, more reliable. Max repeats a bit of doomsaying earlier imparted by his science teacher, that the sun is dying, which Carol thinks can’t possibly be true. Throughout the whole movie, there’s an overarching tone of ‘well, we’re all just about done here, right?’ As if, whether in real life or in fantasies, whether on Earth or on Max’s island, in familial relationships or community building (or, for that matter, script writing and adaptation), nobody is really even trying anymore. Which is part of what makes this movie seem particularly current – it is a movie that, in my opinion, could only have been made in the late 00′s.

WTWTA has been a long time in coming, partly because Sendak’s book is so thin on plot, dialogue, character and premise. It could be fleshed out in any direction, so long as the basic heart and beloved details are preserved. And so, Eggers and Jonze could have taken this any which way, and they don’t seem to have conclusively picked a definite direction. But the few themes they did settle on – the sun is dying, we can’t talk to each other, we need a ‘king’ to take away the sadness – are telling. The prevailing mood in Max’s world is the prevailing mood in contemporary American letters. This version of WTWTA isn’t interesting as a movie, but it is very interesting as flypaper for the themes in vogue at the present time, and if a screenwriter were to make a version of Sendak’s tale every ten years or so, it would be a cool barometer for seeing where we are and what we’re concerned with.

Apparently right now, it’s environmentalism and personal estrangement. And boredom.

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September 2, 2009

I’ve Been Watching: The Dark Knight

I’m unable to appreciate comic-book genre movies or books. I have tried, again and again, but (other than my weird obsession with TMNT) I wasn’t into superheroes or comics as a kid, and so I have no nostalgia for them and don’t understand the appeal. The dialogue is overblown, the plot nonsensical, the characters predictable and repetitive. What’s the draw?

I never saw Batman Begins, so it’s possible I missed some stuff essential for understanding The Dark Knight (for one thing, Gotham is pretty widely agreed to be New York City, yes? Why is this movie set in Chicago?), although it all seems pretty cut-and-dried. Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) is a millionaire playboy who secretly fights crime with the aid of many (admittedly very cool – particularly the motorcycle) complicated gadgets. When he’s Batman, he speaks in a really stupid sounding low, growly voice that makes you want to punch him in the throat. Heath Ledger plays the Joker in his Oscar-winning farewell role. He is great – although, it’s a really odd casting choice (particularly, they should never have put the Joker in a nurse’s outfit, as Ledger’s tanned, healthy young limbs entirely broke the visual). The Joker wants to fuck shit up for no real reason, other than that chaos is entertaining. Meanwhile, Aaron Eckhart is Harvey Dent, the fresh-faced young white hope (I think they actually refer to him as precisely that) DA, who is good, then turns bad, and Maggie Gyllenhaal (who is usually awesome, but sucks in this movie) is Rachel Dawes, Dent’s girlfriend and Wayne’s great love.

This movie, basically, was not nearly as good as it thought it was. It felt as if the entire movie was in italics, which I realize might be a stylistic choice, and that’s just one of the examples of how comic-book genre things don’t resonate with me. There was a certain image (that I won’t mention, because it’s kind of a spoiler) that was meant to be disturbing, and so was slowly revealed and then filmed continuously, but it just looked cheesy to me. All the various tics and motifs, from the Joker’s tongue flick to Dent’s coin toss, were repeated over and over to the point of chafing – this movie would be tops for a drinking game. Worst of all was the long, ponderous ending sequence, in which a voiceover (or some character; I don’t remember) goes on and on and on, elaborating on the thin, obvious symbolism and cliched platitudes that make up the “substance” of the movie, and introducing the inevitable sequel – I half expected it to sell me a souvenir T-shirt while it was at it.

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September 2, 2009

I’ve Been Watching: 3:10 to Yuma

If unrealized sexual tension is sexier than explicit sex scenes, 3:10 to Yuma is gayer than Brokeback Mountain. I fully expected Russell Crowe and Christian Bale to begin making out with abandon at several points in this movie (not that I wouldn’t have been fully in favor of such a plot development). Plenty of people get shot to shit in this movie, and it’s pretty much constant gun-slinging Western testosterone-drenched action, but frankly, the ending is as sappy, unrealistic and vomit-inducing as any RomCom. I don’t understand the scoffing at chick flicks, really – surround them with a scrim of gunfire and eruptions of fake blood, and they’d suddenly make perfectly respectable Westerns.

Which is not to say that 3:10 to Yuma isn’t an enjoyable film. It’s tension-filled and fast moving, and there’s Christian Bale there, as a struggling rancher whose cheekbones could cut jerky. Bale plays struggling rancher, Dan Evans, who’s in debt to the town’s rich guy, who is himself plagued by famous outlaw Ben Wade (Crowe), who holds up the rich guy’s stagecoaches full of money before they arrive safely. When Wade is captured, easily and unbelievably by staying around town a smidge too long to bag a bartender, Dan volunteers to help escort the dangerous prisoner to the nearest town, where the prison train to guess where will be coming through at guess when. The journey is long, and fraught, and Wade’s posse is supposedly hot on the trail to liberate their leader, although really they don’t catch up with Dan’s group until the end. The leader of this posse is Charlie Prince, played by Ben Foster, who previously played Claire’s bisexual spineless boyfriend, Russell, in Six Feet Under. He was disgusting as Russell, in a sniveling weasel way, and as Prince, he is equally disgusting in an irredeemable, soulless bad-ass way (by the way, if there is indeed honor among thieves, his character was cruelly wronged by Wade – Prince was super loyal and was only doing as he thought he should). I now admire Foster as an accomplished and interesting actor, and hope to see him in more films.

So, the movie has its plusses, but man, I have to say, the ending is just stupider than all get out. I don’t want to put a spoiler in here, but when I laugh out loud at the dramatic climax of a film, I feel it’s failed in its overall artistic mission.

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September 2, 2009

I’ve Been Watching: Happy-Go-Lucky

Bubbly Poppy Cross can’t be slowed down, shut up or upset. She’s a font of positivity, an energy cannon flattening everyone around her with relentless, exhausting musketballs of pure, thoughtless, giggly joy. She’s obnoxious as hell. For the first twenty minutes of the movie, or so. And then, suddenly, she’s charismatic, thoughtful, strong and intuitive.

This is apparently how director Mike Leigh wanted audiences to experience Poppy – he has said that he wanted to create a character that was incredibly irritating at first pass, but then managed to win audiences back over, to become sympathetic. A tough challenge, and a risky one, particularly as those predisposed to dislike Happy-Go-Lucky (as I, for some reason, was) are likely to be sold on a first impression, but given the critical acclaim this movie has garnered pretty much across the boards, Leigh seems to have pulled it off. At any rate, he did with me – I loved this movie.

Poppy (the perfect Sally Hawkins) is a kindergarten teacher, who lives with her best friend and long-term roommate, and divides her time pretty equally between work and play. She has an older sister with a persecution complex, and a younger sister who’s rather whiny. At the beginning of the movie, Poppy’s bike is stolen, so she decides to get her driver’s license. To this end, she employs a private driving instructor, Scott (the perfect Eddie Marsan), a racist, sexist, paranoid, didactic, insane ball of fury, and this odd couple spends a great deal of the movie in the tiny interior of a car, pushing each other’s buttons. Scott’s constant fury and long pseudo-philosophical rants on proper behavior and life outlook are both fascinating and incredibly grating, just as Poppy’s constant puns, bits and asides, giggles, snorts and squeals are both charming and incredibly tiresome.

The movie doesn’t have a great deal of plot, although a lot happens in it. Poppy takes her driving lessons, dabbles in flamenco dancing, worries about an abused student, and begins dating the dorky but sweet social worker she calls in to deal with same. While Poppy’s forced cheerfulness initially seems a self-involved way of needling others into paying attention to her, it turns out to be a resilient way of dealing with difficult or worrisome people – she is able to work closely with people most of us would avoid, and can approach them without fear, because her irrepressible spirit enables her to maintain her equilibrium in the face of verbal abuse. Even Poppy has her limits, however, and eventually we see where they are.

Positivity has taken a beating recently – there was Eric Wilson’s Against Happiness, which I didn’t think much of, and now Barbara Ehrenreich has a new book out, Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, which is probably pretty good. And while I agree that many times, urging a good attitude toward a shit situation is a way of manipulating people who might otherwise cause some trouble into tapdancing in their fetters, on the other hand, irrepressible cheeriness can be a source of great personal power. People with Poppy’s personality make good teachers, social workers, rehabilitation workers, counselors and mothers, and the ability to withstand a constant barrage of at best depressing and at worst heartbreaking people and behaviors is an essential skill for those who perform such important social functions. Undoubtedly, however, every last one of these people eventually must define their own line of just how much of someone’s shit they can be expected to take before giving up on them.

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September 2, 2009

I’ve Been Watching: Two Lovers

This is the movie Joaquin Phoenix finished up directly preceding his crack-up and/or performance art stunt that had everyone so deeply worried. Personally, I was leaning towards stunt, but now I feel like we haven’t heard anything from Joaquin in awhile, which makes me think he might have had to go away for a bit, which points toward crack-up. I don’t know, though; I still think he was trying to keep a straight face on Letterman.

Anywho, Two Lovers concerns Leonard, a suicidal, mopey loser who lives with his parents in Brighton Beach and who inexplicably draws the attentions of attractive and employed Sandra (Vinessa Shaw). This situation is complicated, however, by Leonard’s involvement with his stunning, pathetic, drama queen of a neighbor, Michelle (Gwyneth Paltrow), who initially seems mysterious, but who turns out to be involved in an entirely banal affair with her married boss. Does Leonard have a chance with blond, zany Michelle, or will he have to settle for the stable and available brunette, Sandra (who will undoubtedly realize after she’s had two kids with him that he’s a total loser, and an energy drain, and if she’d only hung in for another year, she surely could have met someone better)?

Who the hell cares? I hate this kind of shit. Did reviewers see the same movie I saw, or does James Gray hold the sort of social capital that can’t be crossed? Because seriously, this movie was made a thousand times already, and the woodcut wasn’t worth the prints.

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August 27, 2009

I’ve Been Watching: Up the Yangtze

In 1993, the Chinese government began construction on the world’s largest hydroelectric dam, the Three Gorges Dam across the Yangtze river. The dam would provide badly needed hydroelectric power, but it pretty much sucked for the two million people living and working along the river banks, who would need to find new sources of livelihood, and to be relocated by the Chinese government (which, you know, good luck). The decision was also unpopular for aesthetic reasons – the Three Gorges river is one of China’s big tourist draws, and riverboat cruises to take in the dramatic scenery have long been in demand.

Up the Yangtze is a documentary that primarily focuses on the eldest daughter, Yu Shui, of one family currently subsistence farming in soon-to-be-flooded land. The riverboat industry is doing a brisk trade in farewell tours of the Three Gorges, and the Yus instruct their teenage daughter (who would prefer to go on to high school) to get a job on one of the boats. “Cindy” works her way up through the rankings of the riverboat staff, progressing from dishwasher to dining cabin server, while her parents and little sister literally haul their few belongings up the banks of the rising river on their backs.

By focusing on the specific instance of the dam project and riverboat cruises, the documentary manages to illuminate a more sweeping picture of China today, without much editorializing. The scenery is beautiful, and the camera work conveys a sense of ominous, rising threat in the seemingly benign sweeping shots of the Yangtze: the film opens and closes with low shots in the high, prison-like locks of Three Gorges Dam; the abandoned ghost towns on the riverbanks loom through the mist; and there is a lovely time-lapse sequence showing the Yus ‘ home being gradually reclaimed by the rising river. Inside the riverboat, the interactions between the young Chinese staff, the older Chinese management, and the American and European tourists are hilarious and telling. In my favorite scene, a manager instructed a dining room full of new employees in the finer points of speaking tactfully to tourists. He tells them not to be overly humble when speaking to Americans, not to compare Canada to America, and never to bring up divisive political issues like the troubles in Northern Ireland or the Quebec separatist movement. He also tells them never to call anyone fat or old: “you should say ‘plump.’”

The subjects of the documentary are extremely aware of the camera, which is intermittently charming and distracting. Some random townsfolk interviewed by the crew clearly ham up the high drama – their complaints are legitimate, but I think their hysterics are overwrought. The tourists (mostly senior citizens) are framed to look foolish and self-involved, as they attempt to be tactful, cooperative and non-committal for the camera – wearing silly hats like good sports, and carefully saying that China is “so interesting.” And Cindy, as an already always embarrassed adolescent, is so horrified to be on camera (particularly while doing menial kitchen labor, or being visited by her hick parents) that she frequently actually weeps from self-consciousness.

For the most part, however, the film is an interesting and informative look at a large-scale project in rural China and the unfortunate individuals displaced by sweeping change, as well as an insightful picture of the shifting social classes and growing economic ambition in contemporary China. The dam is scheduled to be completed in 2011.

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August 27, 2009

I’ve Been Watching: The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford

Ok, I just can’t stand Casey Affleck. I don’t like the way he looks, I don’t like the way he talks, he just bugs me. I never much liked his older brother, either. So, you know, take that prejudice into account. And I will give him this: he seems to know he’s unlikeable, as he nearly always plays unlikeable characters, so at least he’s self-aware. The polar opposite of Casey Affleck is Brad Pitt; while it’s completely unnecessary to enthuse about his obvious attractiveness, it’s continually shocking to me. I mean, he’s just freakishly attractive, isn’t he? And seems to get more so every year he ages. It’s bizarre.*

So, given their respective consistencies, these two were very well cast. Brad Pitt is Jesse James, famous outlaw, charismatic and capable. Casey Affleck is Robert Ford, stubby and unimpressive, personally ambitious, socially retarded. You can see where this is going: it’s right there in the title. The movie is fine: it’s entertaining, but not amazing in any way. It could have ended about thirty minutes sooner than it did, but what movie couldn’t? The movie may have been trying to say something about infamy, or perhaps the interesting thing is that the villain is the man who killed the outlaw, rather than the criminal himself. Or whatever. The members of the James gang are every one far more interesting than either James or Ford. There’s lots of intrigue, and everyone’s wary and suspicious of each other, and above all of James, who’s ding-dong out of his mind.

It is chilling to watch a group of people who are ostensibly “friends,” but who are all terrified of each other, and particularly of their unpredictable and all-powerful leader. I wondered to myself, as I watched this movie, why anyone would put themselves in such a precarious social situation, and then I remembered seventh grade. At least James’s gang were in it for the money.

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*Incidentally, speaking of casting, I think it’s an absolute insult to cast an actor of Mary-Louise Parker’s stature in a near-silent bit part. Perhaps she really wanted to be involved with the project for some reason, but I felt offended on her behalf. Use an unknown for that shit, bitches.

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August 3, 2009

I’ve Been Watching: Away We Go

I can’t decide if I like Dave Eggers, or not. I love McSweeney’s Internet Tendency (well, sometimes), and I mostly love The Believer, but I do not generally like the stories published in the McSweeney’s Quarterly, nor am I interested in the books printed under the McSweeney’s imprint. At the same time, I appreciate the whole McSweeney’s publishing philosophy, and the ground they have broken for small presses and internet publishing. As to Eggers’ work itself, I have not read A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, but have heard enough about it to have a predisposition to dislike it. I feel most people whose tastes I share and whose opinions I admire do not care for Eggers’ books.

As to Vindela Vida, I read Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name, and I both liked it and didn’t. I thought it was original and well-written, and I loved the frigid, remote Lapland setting – both because it was descriptive of an area I’d never read anything about, and because it worked perfectly for the book’s subject matter. On the other hand, I disliked the protagonist. I couldn’t at all get a sense of who she was, and I felt she wasn’t honest or open. It’s weird to read a book written in the first person, wherein the protagonist’s attitude is ‘Sigh, I really don’t want to talk about this, but since you ask.’ Particularly, because I usually don’t feel this is an authorial choice; rather, it’s a persona a lot of cool young people my age have adopted, which I find extremely alienating in person, and which is now reflected in many of the characters dreamt up by the same people who currently freeze you if you try to talk to them at Brooklyn parties. I find people intimidating enough; I don’t need to be snubbed by my books. I started reading in the first place because I found characters far more relatable than people, but with the McSweeney’s crew, I often feel the books themselves are judging me.

Which brings me to Away We Go (directed by Sam Mendes, and co-written by Eggers and Vida). Burt (John Krasinski) and Verona (Maya Rudolph) are pregnant. Currently, they live in a shack of a house in Colorado, where they moved to be close to Burt’s parents. When they announce their pregnancy, however, Burt’s parents reveal that they are moving to Belgium. Thus, Burt and Verona are confronted with the whitest problem ever made into a two-hour movie: where in America would be best for two young people whose jobs are of a nature to enable them to make a living pretty much anywhere, and who have no limiting ties or hindrances, to settle down and raise a family? And so, the young couple hits the road, to visit old friends and audition cities.

The acting is far and away the best part of this movie. Rudolph and Krasinski are adorable, and every last supporting character does a fantastic job of portraying characters that are cartoonish but recognizable (particularly Allison Janney, as a braying, heavy drinking, inappropriate Mom, and Maggie Gyllenhaal as a drippingly condescending, New Age Earth mother). Everybody is a real sport about committing to dialogue that is frequently clunky or cliched. And – glory, glory, fabulousness! – the women all get to play interesting and hilarious character roles (albeit, as part of a never-ending parade of despicable or pathetically failed mothers).

The writing, on the other hand, ranges from ignorable to grating. There are twee details a-plenty (Verona and her sister climb into a model bathtub in a furniture showroom to cuddle each other and cry about their dead mom) and tortuously written monologues that go on and on, sounding like nothing anyone would ever say (an absolutely astoundingly stupid lecture involving pancake-syrup-as-metaphor-for-ties-that-bind, and Verona’s story of her family’s fruit tree, which made me feel like I was back in a ‘How to score that callback!’ monologue workshop).

But the biggest problem in Away We Go is that it has no problem at all…and doesn’t realize it. The movie would have been fine as a straight up smart comedy, but Eggers and Vida have twisted what is essentially a nothing dilemma (which city do we pick to have our baby in?) into an agonizing journey. But where’s the agony? Particularly because, in the end (SPOILER ALERT), the couple realizes they can simply live in Verona’s (deceased) parents’ gorgeous old mansion on lakefront property, which they already own!

We should all have such problems.

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August 3, 2009

I’ve Been Watching: Inventing the Abbotts

Doug Holt (Joaquin Phoenix) lives with his widowed mother, Helen (Kathy Baker), and older brother, Jacey (Billy Crudup) in the shadow of the wealthy and glamorous Abbotts. The two families have a history, but neither of the Holt boys are entirely clear on the details. They only know that they are not as wealthy or shiny as the Abbotts, but that does not apparently preclude their constant involvement with the three Abbott daughters – Alice (Joanna Going), the eldest good girl, who gets married early, and is prim and feminine; Eleanor (Jennifer Connelly) the middle bad girl, openly sexual and rebellious; and Pam (Liv Tyler), the youngest, sweet, awkwardly sincere, and tomboyish. Although both brothers get scholarships to U Penn, Jacey still has a giant chip on his shoulder, and he directs all his class resentment at the Abbotts. The Abbott patriarch married into the family money and so is particularly suspicious of upwardly aspirant young men. All of this complicates and impedes the real love story here – that of Doug and Pam.

Inventing the Abbotts is a movie in which an extremely lovely cast models extremely lovely costumes and does an extremely lovely job at portraying multiple love stories. I could have lived without the Wonder Years/Stand By Me voiceover, but I suppose it fits in with the 1950s period.

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August 3, 2009

I’ve Been Watching: The Wackness

Jonathan Levine’s comedy is set in Manhattan in 1994, and that particular setting is at least three-fourth’s of the movie’s premise. The story set against this detailed backdrop involves Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck), who is one summer away from heading off to college. Meanwhile, he deals drugs and romances his psychiatrist’s popular stepdaughter, Stephanie (Olivia Thirlby). There’s a class issue and she’s way out of his league, but eventually she gives him a tumble anyway. He loses his virginity to her and so believes he is madly in love, and awkwardly phone-stalks her. Meanwhile, his shrink, Dr. Squires (Ben Kingsley, in a twitchy, heavy-handed, nearly unwatchable comic turn), is being divorced by Stephanie’s mother and so he makes Luke his mid-life crisis best buddy.

All of this adds up to a fairly uninteresting and unoriginal movie, with a few touching scenes (including a beautifully acted, if pointless, part by Jane Adams, who needs to be given a good project, already). Nothing it has to offer, however, is even remotely worth viewing Mary Kate Olsen making out with Ben Kingsley – I really could have lived my whole life without seeing that.

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