I'm pro-choice. One reason (of many) is that abortion is a class issue. It will always be available to wealthy women, and I believe that until we can create a world--via whatever -ism is less likely to have the few controlling the many (capitalism's winning so far)--where people can be afforded certain rights and basic luxuries without needless struggle, then it should be available to poor women as well. Once more, I'm willing to help pay for it with taxes, donations and voting.
That said, I would despise a movie that preached a pro-choice agenda as much as I would hate a movie that preached a pro-life agenda. But here's a movie that, really, does neither. It doesn't firebrand. I feel that Mike Leigh, while obviously leaning one way, is really more interesting in historical accuracy.
Above any other director I've experienced, Leigh captures a sense of time and place accurately. Topsy Turvey dealt in a period that is overrun with victorian lovers, mourners, and beautiful poseurs conveniently ignoring the squalor, poverty and filth that went along with 19th century England. I mean, a pastural horse ride wearing ridiculously elaborate undergarments and gamely jibbing at handsome suitors is one thing, but having to deal with tuberculosis or your teeth rotting is quite another, and very few director's are willing to break the romance with portion of what the reality of Victorian England would have been like. Unless, of course, a convenient tragedy befalls the maiden.
Leigh has no qualms about that, showing people in, as much as possible, their natural setting. Here is a family in post-war London, still rebuilding and rocked by the devastation of a few years earlier. Where young men speak about where they were and what they did, and where even the older father was expected to pitch in. Where Vera herself keeps extremely busy beyond her work as a maid in wealthy homes by what could only be described as Christian charity. She checks in on families destroyed by war and sickness, invalids and her own difficult mother. She invites young men with nobody in for dinner (although, in this case, with a sweet and sweetly played ulterior motive). She is truly a good person who is caring and concerned for other people in the world. Though they live in horribly depressing post-war housing, she keeps her family running with a modicum of humor. She also, as she puts it later into the movie, helps young girls out. Those girls she treats with a concerned air, but doesn't see herself as their counselor, rather as a visitor with a job to do as kindly and briskly as possible.
The truly inspiring thing about this movie is how few horrible people are in it. There are a few who take advantage, or who are stupidly selfish, but the majority of all of the characters show amazing concern and caring for everybody else. Even when disagreeing, nobody was scolded or put down, or morally judged. It was as if England, still limping from the war, was a hurt dog and to kick it would be inhumane. Let's all pitch in, so went the attitude, and help each other to pull through this horrible time. Let's look forward to better times to come.
Imagine that with the polarizing forces of abortion dogma today. I'm certainly not going to waste my time arguing with somebody pro life. Frankly, a few times I've argued with some pro choice people who take the party line to ridiculous extremes, and they were just as bad. Convictions, as Robert Anton Wilson said, cause convicts. Imagine, though, a place where we could start by agreeing that we're all fallible humans, and (like Hilary recently started saying) we all would like to have a goal of reducing abortions. I just believe that the best way to achieve that is through better sex-education for girls and boys and better access to health services for all women. Research has backed up my opinion, which is one reason I hold it, but people cling to ignorance pretty tight, and argue against it pretty loudly and effectively.
In the movie, the character of the sister-in-law is remarkably like the character of the sister-in-law in Secrets and Lies, fascinated with redecorating and new appliances. Both are trying to bring their husbands and their families up the social ladder from where they started. These women, I'm sure, see this as a way to give a better life to their family, but they tend to be blind, purposefully or not, to the pain and feelings of the extended family they want to leave behind. Also interesting is that Leigh made both of the husbands of the social climbers owners of their own small businesses. Maybe Leigh agrees with me that so far capitalism is winning the race as the most humane -ism when applied in reality.
Finally, it's worth noting that at least two troops of movie makers exist that are doing similar things. They write a framework for the movie and rough plot, and then fill it with actors who improve their lines, creating the movie. In America it's the Christopher Guest players, with Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show and a Mighty Wind. In England, it's Mike Leigh's players. Such different results--comedy and tragedy--from such a similar process. Both groups making great movies that will be with us for years.
Without giving much away, it was said that the actors in this movie were not told everything about the other characters, so when surprising information is shared, the reactions are as close to genuine as possible. It's in this way that the characters seem so real to us, and the moments of celebration and the moments of fear and mourning are equally powerful in bringing us into the rooms projected on the screen and making us believe that this movie we're watching is happening to us as we're watching it.
When thinking about the existence of god (or God), if one is so inclined to question these things, the following formula always comes up. If god does not exist, then life is random, and if life is random then life is meaningless. If life is meaningless...well, that just leads to snide, self-satisfied young adults in funny glasses and black clothing listening to Einstürzende Neubauten.
Huckabees addresses that issue--or more importantly, appears to address that issue. In reality, this movie is about as deep as a wading pool, but it's the perfect context for Russell to parody a huge swath of western culture.
The two points of the argument that Huckabees posits are:
1) Nihilism, or -- there is nothing at the base of it all. The parody is of its pop-culture simplification--the spectacled set replaced by the bespeckled Frenchy author--is an excuse for debauchery. Nothing matters, so let's have sex and wallow in our misery. It's the same logic that any addict knows well. Nothing matters, so let's get stoned/drunk/smoke. We may all die tomorrow, so there is no need to guard against the future.
2) Process Philosophy--or, everything is connected. And the parody of it's pop-culture, new-agey bite-sized expressions, as evidenced in the neo-60's detectives (played by ground-breaking late 60's actors) using a solitary EST personality destruction method to reinvent the star of the movie (ironically, to do exactly what he was doing before, but just be happier doing it).
It's great that this movie plays with these issues, which are philosophy 101, but don't take this for a deep movie just because it shoots the breeze with concepts that are mind-blowing to stoned thinkers who haven't taken/didn't pass their first logic class. The critics who liked the Matrix movies because they thought they were deep either liked this movie because of the philosophy, or hated it because of its lack of fu. On the other hand, fans of comedies might get tripped up by the talk of things that are hard to grok, and therefore not see the slapstick-sight-gag forest for the trees.
The reason this movie is great is not the philosophy, but the parody of the philosophers. To my mind, the characters play like facets of a modern person's personality. Watching Schwartzman sit in the tree while his meditation was hijacked by his hatred and confusion was more realistic of a modern worried mind than a pure comic abstraction. I mean, have you ever sat and tried to clear your mind of the latest stress item in your life?
The real genius of the movie is that it points to the many disparate images and ideas we hold, trying to sort them while we're being bombarded with more each minute. It is both red-state past-days pining (via Laura Ingalls Wilder), and blue state absurdist abstraction that leads to a model finding her true self by wearing a bonnet. How's that for a loaded representation of: 1) an idealized vision of a “pioneer woman”, bucking against modernity while struggling to eek out an honest living on a farm, and 2) a representation of women's oppression at the hands of white men in an era where women couldn't vote and were forced to wear stupidly modest clothing because of draconian religious mores--while being 3) completely absurd.
It's really no wonder that this movie flailed a bit--it's is a shell game of sorts. My suggestion, to those that didn't like it but maybe are inclined to try it again, is not to think too much. Let the movie wash over you and take it like a Charlie Kaufman film that might be playing absurdities just for the sake of absurdities. If you like it on that level alone, purely silly--I mean, the sight-gag of a modern art piece rubbing off on Hoffman's jacket? That's brilliant--then maybe it's worth exploring the idea that each character represents a part of a modern debate over values--not philosophy. I'll bet there is some meat on the bones, if somebody--perhaps somebody feeling a bit debauched because life is meaningless--spent some time looking closely at the traits and symbols of each character, we could probably unravel it all.
Now it makes sense why that asshole David O. Russel took five years to make this. Let's hope the next one is swifter.
Oh, and by the way, did anybody else notice that Dustin Hoffman's watch seemed to have no numbers and no hands?
Kent and I often talk about films that could potentially be made on a smaller budget, and theoretically on the surface this could be one of them. It could be, because there are only four primary roles (and, in a departure from the play, two small walk-ons), and five locations: Inside the house, outside the house, inside the bar, outside the bar, and inside the car. The main costs of this project would be exposed film and actor's salaries.
Then you read that Nichols took five months to film this. It's hard enough living in their house for one 2-hour night, but can you imagine living in it for five months? Did they do operatic voice exercises to keep their throats from being ripped bare by the high-pressure sound waves of the insults?
So, no. Deceptively expensive, this film. It lives and dies by acting, and Taylor is truly astonishing. Renée Zellweger might get industry nods for gaining 30 pounds to play Bridget Jones, but Taylor's 30 pound gain for this role is much more metamorphic. Certainly very little sign of Gloria Wandrous and Cleopatra in our vile, drunken Martha. But she's not all vile, we learn--Taylor plays her heart on her sleeve, albeit partially obscured by liquor. She never loses her venom and wit, delivering lines with easily readable body language. She weaves and wobbles her body through the psychodrama, but she moves from angry to vulnerable to sweet and back again with no indication that she's reaching for a feeling at any time. She fully inhabits the role.
Which lead to a conversation around our house about great actresses who are crazy. Taylor, for somebody who is young enough to have only seen her modern persona, seems like a has-been. But, when you see these great performances--the ones that defined her career, you understand why people still love her. She's magnificent. There are other actresses that are older, Liza Minelli comes to mind, who are the same--really gifted actresses (although I'd take a Taylor over a Minelli in a talent blow-by-blow) who are kinda nuts in their real life. The question became: are there any modern actresses like this? For actors we have Billy Bob, and even Robert Downey Jr., but do we have any modern actresses that inhabit both of those traits? Is it a sign of the times, or being raised in show business?
Sure, there are plenty of crazy actresses, and plenty of great actresses, but I think we need a list of those that touch both camps. Feel free to leave suggestions in the comments.
The next time somebody is over and asks to powder her nose, I'm surely going to retort: "Martha, will you show her where we keep the, uh, euphemism?"
Recently, we went to see a live performance of Noises Off! at the Seattle Rep. It was a jolly good time, so we ordered up the disk to compare the filmed version to the live show. On paper (well, if you ignore the reviews) it sounds good: Bogdonovich directing, Caine, Burnett, Ritter and Reeve (the two dead R's) acting. Why, even Marilu Henner has a starring role, post Elaine.
So, we pop the disk in and the set is nearly identical to the stage version. I mean, really--which makes me think that the script is very specific about such things, seeing as the play is all about timing and blocking. The screenplay is also, all things considered, remarkably like the script. Okay, they added these ludicrous Broadway bookends, but otherwise it is a faithful rendition down to the marrow.
Which means it's a perfect example of how you can really fuck up a funny play and make an unfunny movie. First thing to remember is that you should choose your material carefully. This is a horrible movie idea--the play needs to be run on a full view of the stage. Doors open left, right and center with people moving in carefully orchestrated measures that work on two levels: one, the level of the actors on stage playing actors on stage playing actors in a play that requires orchestrated measures, and secondly that the actors on stage playing actors that are involved in a physical comedy within their own worlds as they are attempting to play actors on stage in a play that requires orchestrated measures. The audience needs to see it unravel full frame.
In addition, the reason the play is so successful is that it implicates the audience. Not only are we the audience, but we become the audience for the play within a play. We have two roles as well, which is not bad considering that we just get to sit there while the play unfolds and flaps around in front of us. Too bad that Bogdonovich didn't get this at all--even when the cast is falling to pieces in front of a live audience, there are absolutely no reaction shots from the crowd. They might as well be playing to an empty house, and then who the hell cares if the highwire act falls to the ground?
Which brings us to point three, which is that the cast was kind of horrible. Caine plays his earnest Englishman, but Ritter's sense of his character was awful, especially evidenced in his rushed lines. Everybody phones it in, and in a movie where they should be chewing the scenery, they all lay there like the dead fish on the plate. There's no damn life in it.
In the movie, Nicolette Sheridan plays a horribly boring Brooke Ashton/Vicki. In the Seattle Rep version, that character was played amazingly well by a local actress named Bhama Roget. Not only did she spend most of her time in her underwear, but her comic timing, physicality and presence all but lit up the stage for the other actors. A large part of my disappointment in the movie might simply be that I kept wishing that Sheridan would be magically replaced with Roget, so that I could see the part played one more time by her.
I don't think it was as funny as everybody else seems to. Maybe its because I watched it with my parents, instead of surrounded by people like myself who were in high-school in the '80s. I mean, I like the idea of laughing at characters who are too dumb to know they are funny, but I don't know that Napoleon's absurdities are really that funny without a plot at all--heck, and I scored Jackass: The Movie higher than this.
When I was in middle school and high school, we had a guy like this in our class. I forget his name, honestly, so let's call him John. He was rail thin, tall and had straight blonde hair. He would stand up for himself with the bullies who harassed him, but his defenses were utterly ineffectual -- the bullies would taunt him just to get a rise out of him, and then laugh at his reaction. For those of us who tend to feel empathy for the underdog, John would run hot and cold, either assuming we were going to be mean to him, so he would be preemptively defensive, or he would be genuinely nice, but kids fearing that he would turn on them would keep their distance, and those who felt low on the totem pole would be especially wary of him because it could mean harassment by proximity.
I was reminded of him when the study came out a few years ago that showed that people who don't understand much don't understand that they don't understand much. John fell into that category, as does our hero Napoleon.
In our school, as in any, there were two girls who were, um, "developed" beyond their years. One was a brunette, the other a blonde with big, bouncy curly hair. For a talent show, they did a dance, the stage bathed in red light, in skimpy t-shirts and short shorts, gyrating inappropriately to the astonishment of the administration. Later, in high school, the brunette became a cheerleader and gained more respectability, and the blonde dropped out and had a kid before her 18th birthday. But in Middle School they they were both stoner girls. Tough outsiders who gained whatever cred they had by their adolescent slutty persona.
I remember a scene, vaguely, where the two of them were sitting with John on the curb. He was between them, and they were toying with him. I don't think they wanted anything from him but to embarrass him for their amusement, but John didn't care. He was getting attention from these two girls whose attention was a valuable commodity. I don't remember a thing that they said, but I do remember their tone, and I remember his nervous, excited laughter as they pushed his buttons and had him dance on a string. It was the closest he'd come to an affectionate relationship with a girl for some years to come, I would imagine. He didn't know that, though, or care. He was just happy for the attention any way he could get it.
So, maybe Napoleon reminds me of him. Maybe it was the lack of plot, or the fish-in-a-barrell humor. I'd respect a tear-down of harder targets, personally. Or humor brought from situation instead of lack of character.
Maybe I'd feel better about it if Jared Hess appeared to remotely like his character. As it is, I feel ambivalent about Napoleon. At times I like him, at times I hate him, but I never feel good about either of those. I guess comedy can exist in that precipice, but that's exactly how I felt about John which was never very funny, whether he was getting pushed up against the locker by asshole guys, or dancing like toy poodle for the stoner sluts. Any way I felt about him felt like the wrong way to feel about him.
Then again, I always wanted to tie a string on one of my matchbox cars and dangle it from a moving car when I was a kid, but I never was brave enough.
I'm a lifelong fan of the Pink Panther movies, as well as a lifelong fan of Peter Sellers, my favorite actor from when I was a kid. Brilliant slapstick in this, including the perfect parallel bars gag.
Watched at Dave and Molly's after a treacherous drive through icy Bellingham. Great cameo by Omar Shariff. What more can you say? Blake Edwards delivers it just about every time.
NOTE: I'm adding the year now to the title of my movies.
Look! It's French New Wave! You can tell by the naked ladies and the gritty subject.
Widely thought to be one of the greatest heist films of all time, it should be considered to be one of the greatest character studies of a heist-er. After all, the heist doesn't come in until half-way through, so this is more an exploration of place, of Paris, than of the Casino job they set themselves to.
More interesting to me was the remake with Nick Nolte where Bob is a junkie instead of just being down-on-his luck. Still, I can appreciate this for its time and place, but as a heist film in-of-itself it fails to deliver.
Bob did have very nice platinum hair, though. Very shiny.
We watched two French movies tonight. One famous, one infamous.
Irréversible has been written about so much I'm not sure that I can add to the dialogue. I will say that for those who argue that the theater is the only appropriate way to see a movie, I'm actually glad we didn't see it in the theater. Yes, the experience was less intense on a small screen, but frankly it was plenty intense for me. While the bowel-shattering 28Hz frequency was minimized by the size of my speakers, and lack of sub-woofer, the audio and graphical content were plenty disturbing enough.
But Irréversible is one of those films that people love to argue about as a litmus test of moral standards, the typical responses being: 1) I am moral, and this was gratuitous and therefore repulsed me, see how moral I am by rejecting it's shock value? 2) I am moral, and this film shocked me because of the un-glamorized sex and violence, see how moral I am by empathizing with such an awful situation? 3) I am immoral, and the film excited me. See how tough I am?
Christine brought up G.G. Allin, who was an infamous underground punk rock singer. Most punk rock fans (this one included) were middle-class rebellious teenagers, who really were disaffected and had no place to vent their rightful or self-indulgent anger. Punk Rock made rebellion its clarion call, and a subset of rebellion is bad behavior. Rejecting society's dress code, punks would be anti-fashion as a walking billboard mockery of the normal people. Rejecting the fallacies and theater of rock n' roll, punks would play music that was tougher, meaner, faster, harder and louder than those posers on the arena stages. They didn't need to be famous, they didn't need approval.
Problem being that like gansta rap, most punks really were visiting the zoo of caged rebellion. They were having a bit of fun and expressing themselves, rather than being real outlaws. That's a problem when you have to lay out your bona fides at the pissing gallery. In walked a few people who really were outlaws. Who really were criminals and could prove it by their jail records and track marks. It's one thing to tell your parents to fuck off, that you'd rather live in the gutter, it's another thing to really live in the gutter. Allin lived in the gutter.
Nobody could top him. He would break glass on stage and roll around in it, hitting himself with bottles. He would sodomize himself with his microphone. He would defecate on stage and throw it into the audience, or eat it. Audience members would fellate him. For years I heard about this character, how outrageous he was. Dude! You have to go see this guy, they'd say. He's fucking outrageous. I never did. I couldn't bring myself to listen to his albums (which were heavily secondary, sophomoric songs about murder, rape and butt-licking), which squarely puts myself in category one above. The people that were in category three, I felt, were buying the fiction of punk rock, not realizing that it was about as real as the Jack Daniels bottles that Van Halen used to have on stage (filled with tea). It was usually the people that told me how outrageous Allin was that told me how amazing heroin is. That's a contest where the end game is something I'd rather avoid.
So, Irréversible. I think that most viewers of this film end up in category one or two above. I'm in category two for this film. I would guess the majority end up in two. They are repulsed by the violence. But to what end? What did we learn from this film? Fire extinguishers extinguish more than fires? Pimps raping beautiful women are bad? Rape is horrible? Certainly the film is a masterpiece of visceral filmmaking. The first half is so nauseating, so overwhelming and bone-chillingly tense and frightening that it could only come about through design and craft. Some art is nauseating and worth it, even if you don't understand fully the message. I see Irréversible as more of a poem than a statement, albeit a dark, disturbing and not very hopeful poem.
One final thing: Vincent Cassel was very good, but that didn't surprise me. Monica Bellucci floored me, though. Having my first exposure to her be (as many people) the Matrix films, where she was fine but so formalized that you couldn't really feel her, here she was raw and unadorned. She was completely naturalistic and heartbreaking, and in the ending scenes after stepping out of her shower, so rawly emotive that it was implicitly clear what she was feeling though there was no dialogue and minimal action. Of course, it's an awful thing to proclaim "Oh look, the pretty girl can act too!", but after years of training at the hands of Hollywood sleight-of-hand artists who cleverly edit the American and English beauties so that it looks like they can act, its refreshing to see that arguably the most beautiful woman in the world has the chops to be a first rate, deeply affecting actress. I hope that she becomes famous beyond measure, and picks good roles. I would watch her act in anything now. Next stop: The Passion of the Christ.
A movie whose rave reviews have all mentioned how the plot is really not that important next to the stunning visuals. Not that I disagree, but when people in your theater start laughing at the most dramatic moments, you have to admit that it just ain't playing. So -- beautiful bamboo, neat dancing, but not as overwhelming as others have found it.
Matter of fact, my mind was wandering during the film, and what I was thinking was about how Chinese directors have successfully mined Chinese history and mythology for completely fictionalized fairy-tales such as these. Why hasn't a Native American filmmaker done the same? I'm talking pre-european stories here. The history of storytelling, and incredibly rich visual arts and culture are already there. I dig the small modern Indian storytelling movement, such as what Sherman Alexie has been doing, but I'm talking about a big, sprawling special fx retelling of one of the great legends. I would love to see that.
1. Movies seen (including movies watched more than once): 150
2. Top ten eleven new release movies I saw this year (based on numerical score):
3. Top Ten Movies I saw this year, made any year (based on numerical score):
4. FAQ #1:
Q: Did you really stop reading books this year after you reported Down and Dirty Pictures in April?
A: No! I just stopped writing about them, and have many half finished books on my list to write about. Maybe I'll do it at Hellbox.org from now on. Maybe not, though...
5. FAQ #2:
Q: What the heck is up with your indefensible numerical rating system, why have one at all?
A: It's true I've deflected criticism about my ratings habits by claiming that they're completely arbitrary and meaningless. That's not quite true. They have meaning to me, but they aren't an empirical score of what I witnessed. I'm not trying to be a rational critic here. So, when other more-rational critics call me on my numbers (how can you like THIS movie more than THAT movie based on your numbers?), I have no good answer. What I've discovered is that I'm a very emotional movie watcher, so my scores are partly measures of my suspension of disbelief, and partly my mood for the day. That means that any score is more a score of my relationship with that movie on that day instead of a rational approach to craft or merit in other fields. Of course, those issues play into my score, but I'm not a critic recommending movies to people, but a journaler remembering the movies that I have seen -- this list becoming my electronic memory to aid my poor synapse driven system. Thus, there are many holes in my system, and I don't recommend seriously comparing movies on my list based on their scores alone, but if somebody would like to challenge me on my scores in the future I promise not to play it off on my arbitrary system, but instead attempt to explain why I liked/didn't like the movie in question.
6. FAQ #3:
Q: Quips? I mean, really!
A: Well, I never claimed that I was good at quipping, only that I needed the practice. Still, I'm getting a little sick of them myself. Some were fine, but all-in-all it's a limited form, unless you're more brilliant than I, more sharp than I, and a fair amount quicker than I (like that turtle, over there -- that one that's winning the race because I'm kicking it under this tree writing this entry). Anyway -- I stuck with the quips for an entire year, which I'm pretty proud of, but enough is enough. So, for 2005 I'm now going to write a paragraph about every movie I see instead of quipping. I'll keep the scores and everything else the same, but maybe there will be a little more bloody meat on the bones this year. If not, I may resort to haiku, so watch out.
7. FAQ #4:
Q: Do you wish us well?
A: Why, yes I do! To the few of you who read this thing with regularity, Happy New Year -- I hope this year is a tremendous one for you. Feel free to drop comments in anytime -- and I always take movie recommendations to add to our 450+ long Netflix queue.