Christian Carion has become one of my favorite directors. His Joyeux Noel was a favorite of mine in 2005 and now L'affaire Farewell (2009) proves Carion to be full of abundant promise.
There's a moment early in the film when I knew I had already fallen in love with it. A teenage boy is ignoring his father and listening to Queen. Under Pressure.
And of course this cold war espionage tale is about a couple of men under enormous pressure.
"It's the terror of knowing
What this world is about"
The sound design, the score, and especially the use of Queen songs on the soundtrack mark Farewell as a notch above the rest. [I just looked it up. Clint Mansell who did the score for this film also was responsible for the amazing Moon score from last year. He's someone to watch/listen for!]
This film is the intelligent adult thriller that The Ghost Writer and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo are striving to be. The biggest difference between Farewell and these other two films is that Farewell never feels safe or familiar even while being a fairly straightforward narrative that stands solidly in a tradition. There is one scene in particular in which Carion intercuts footage of Freddie Mercury on stage with the Russian boy listening to Queen on his Walkman; that sequence is absolutely daring and refreshing and could be borderline laughable and stupid if handled wrongly. Instead, it is just right.
All of Farewell has a quiet and gentle humor that makes it human and humane. It feels alive in the best sense while the other two films mentioned above feel suffocatingly anti-life in their intentions.
Besides Queen's music as a touchstone, the film visually quotes The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence twice, having Ronald Reagan be a little obsessed with the film. I haven't seen Liberty Valence, so can't quite comment intelligently here, but I think that the obvious connection between Farewell and Valence is the idea of truths buried under official needs, a theme explored briefly here.
Finally, I think there's something going on in the film with the Cold War as metaphor for strained marriages or vice versa. The lies and mounting distrust are sure to end in either nuclear war (separation/divorce) or in peace talks leading to disarmament (reconciliation).
Really highly recommended.
Can you tell by all of the YouTube clips that I'm having fun with unlimited Internet access while on vacation?
Friday, August 6, 2010
Crazy for trying - a lame short post.
The Crazies is frustratingly not good enough. I need to check out Romero's original.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Elmer Kelton
What kind of world do we live in when Elmer Kelton dies and it takes a guy on the East Coast nearly a year to find out about it? You'd think the news was delivered via pony express.
That's life without the Internet, I guess. I know it's unrealistic in a time in which the Western is out of favor, but I would have liked to have heard a news story about it at the time. Michael Jackson got a few months. Kelton can't even rate a day?
In the course of the morning/mourning, I've discovered that The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada wasn't the first film Tommy Lee Jones directed. His first film was a Kelton adaptation for TV, The Good Old Boys. There's no DVD available and I can't find any torrents, which is a bummer. In better news, I discovered that Tommy Lee Jones's next directorial project will be an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Sunset Limited, a great McCarthy book that I loaned to Justin Mann and never got back.
Completely unrelated, I'm watching The Crazies tonight.
That's life without the Internet, I guess. I know it's unrealistic in a time in which the Western is out of favor, but I would have liked to have heard a news story about it at the time. Michael Jackson got a few months. Kelton can't even rate a day?
In the course of the morning/mourning, I've discovered that The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada wasn't the first film Tommy Lee Jones directed. His first film was a Kelton adaptation for TV, The Good Old Boys. There's no DVD available and I can't find any torrents, which is a bummer. In better news, I discovered that Tommy Lee Jones's next directorial project will be an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Sunset Limited, a great McCarthy book that I loaned to Justin Mann and never got back.
Completely unrelated, I'm watching The Crazies tonight.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Lazy LI Days
- I'm obviously a couple of years late on this, but I really enjoy this Violent Femmes (always my favorite band) cover of Gnarls Barkley's Crazy: http://www.myspace.com/violentandcrazy
- I mentioned Twilight Struggle recently. Interestingly, the game is being used as part of the promotional advertising for an upcoming feature, Farewell, which (because of this GMT connection and because it's from the director of Joyeux Noel), I'm hoping to see this Friday night at Sag Harbor Cinema. http://gmtgames.com/news.aspx?showarticle=174
- I saw Despicable Me last night. I really wanted to love it. I didn't. It's by-the-books from beginning to end. All the jokes feel safe. Everything feels safe. It's a fine kid's movie, but there's nothing in it to rival the glories of Toy Story 3. It may seem unfair to compare the two, but one will survive as a worthy classic and the other will be mostly forgotten in 20 years.
Maybe more later.
- I mentioned Twilight Struggle recently. Interestingly, the game is being used as part of the promotional advertising for an upcoming feature, Farewell, which (because of this GMT connection and because it's from the director of Joyeux Noel), I'm hoping to see this Friday night at Sag Harbor Cinema. http://gmtgames.com/news.aspx?showarticle=174
- I saw Despicable Me last night. I really wanted to love it. I didn't. It's by-the-books from beginning to end. All the jokes feel safe. Everything feels safe. It's a fine kid's movie, but there's nothing in it to rival the glories of Toy Story 3. It may seem unfair to compare the two, but one will survive as a worthy classic and the other will be mostly forgotten in 20 years.
Maybe more later.
Conversations 2010 #19
Conversations 2010 #19
In 2006, I was new to working at the Pond. On my lunch breaks, I'd go sit out at the tables in the lobby and turn on TCM on the giant TV. I'd get to watch 25 minutes of whatever was on.
One day, I caught the beginning of a silent film, The Red Mill. After watching for 30 minutes, I left the table long enough to go back into my room and let my co-worker know that I was taking an 80 minute lunch break this day. I had an instant crush on Marion Davies and was willing to risk losing my job to finish watching this film.
At the time, The Red Mill was completely unavailable and I still haven't seen it again since. I just learned tonight that it's now available via the WB Archive, but I'm being good about not buying DVDs and can't give in to this temptation.
Earlier this year, I finally caught up with Show People, which confirmed for me that Davies was one of the best (definitely among the funniest) actresses of the 20th century.
All of the above as context to link to a great post about Davies at Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule, evaluating Show People in the light of Citizen Kane and its unflattering (to put it mildly) portrait of a Davies type character (Davies was real-life mistress to Hearst, the character that Kane is so clearly based on).
Brandon,
Have fun on tour and let me know when you're back in town for good. It's a real crime that we still haven't been out to the cinema together.
Jason,
I haven't seen Shaun of the Dead. :(
I've saved Baghead from the rubbish box and will send it to you if you send me an email with your snail mail address.
In 2006, I was new to working at the Pond. On my lunch breaks, I'd go sit out at the tables in the lobby and turn on TCM on the giant TV. I'd get to watch 25 minutes of whatever was on.
One day, I caught the beginning of a silent film, The Red Mill. After watching for 30 minutes, I left the table long enough to go back into my room and let my co-worker know that I was taking an 80 minute lunch break this day. I had an instant crush on Marion Davies and was willing to risk losing my job to finish watching this film.
At the time, The Red Mill was completely unavailable and I still haven't seen it again since. I just learned tonight that it's now available via the WB Archive, but I'm being good about not buying DVDs and can't give in to this temptation.
Earlier this year, I finally caught up with Show People, which confirmed for me that Davies was one of the best (definitely among the funniest) actresses of the 20th century.
All of the above as context to link to a great post about Davies at Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule, evaluating Show People in the light of Citizen Kane and its unflattering (to put it mildly) portrait of a Davies type character (Davies was real-life mistress to Hearst, the character that Kane is so clearly based on).
Brandon,
Have fun on tour and let me know when you're back in town for good. It's a real crime that we still haven't been out to the cinema together.
Jason,
I haven't seen Shaun of the Dead. :(
I've saved Baghead from the rubbish box and will send it to you if you send me an email with your snail mail address.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Overdue post - the end of July.
I watched The Wolf Man (the 2010 one) with low expectations and was still disappointed. You know why? I can't imagine this Larry Talbot meeting Frankenstein's Monster or Bud and Lou. It's not Del Toro's fault. The script is too serious and the father stuff is stupid. The gore is ridiculous. Almost the worst movie of the year; The Wolf Man, like so many others, is saved from that spot by Jonah Hex.
I've been building up Jonah Hex so much that you guys are going to love it when you inevitably see it.
I've been watching films from 1941. The original Wolf Man movie is one of the most important films of that year, introducing a truly great character. I've seen Lon Chaney, Jr. in The Wolf Man, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, and Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein. I prefer both of those other two to the original, but the original deserves a ton of respect.
Last week, I watched my first two Preston Sturges films and one Walsh film; all three from 1941.
The Lady Eve has a great cast and a few great moments, but I was uninterested in the central romantic dynamics/cons/games between Fonda and Stanwyk. Maybe Barbara Stanwyck is too naughty for me.
Sullivan's Travels impressed me much more. The chemistry between McCrea and Lake is contagious. Whenever they're both on screen, there's no way to not be interested. McCrea holds his own all alone during the prison scenes. The church/movie scene is perfect.
I loved all of Walsh's Manpower except for the end. [Spoiler]Gimpy dying seemed inevitable and definitely seemed like a cheat.[/Spoiler] This is more the script's fault than Walsh's fault, but it's too bad because the rest of the script is so smart.
I've been on vacation since last Friday afternoon and it's great. More soon.
I've been building up Jonah Hex so much that you guys are going to love it when you inevitably see it.
I've been watching films from 1941. The original Wolf Man movie is one of the most important films of that year, introducing a truly great character. I've seen Lon Chaney, Jr. in The Wolf Man, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, and Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein. I prefer both of those other two to the original, but the original deserves a ton of respect.
Last week, I watched my first two Preston Sturges films and one Walsh film; all three from 1941.
The Lady Eve has a great cast and a few great moments, but I was uninterested in the central romantic dynamics/cons/games between Fonda and Stanwyk. Maybe Barbara Stanwyck is too naughty for me.
Sullivan's Travels impressed me much more. The chemistry between McCrea and Lake is contagious. Whenever they're both on screen, there's no way to not be interested. McCrea holds his own all alone during the prison scenes. The church/movie scene is perfect.
I loved all of Walsh's Manpower except for the end. [Spoiler]Gimpy dying seemed inevitable and definitely seemed like a cheat.[/Spoiler] This is more the script's fault than Walsh's fault, but it's too bad because the rest of the script is so smart.
I've been on vacation since last Friday afternoon and it's great. More soon.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Brandon's Project
I've made a quick and easy google site consolidating all of Brandon's 1940-1959 top ten lists published so far. It's nothing fancy, but it's a nice reference all in one place. I borrowed a huge tub of movies from him and have to get to work on watching them. If it accomplishes nothing else, this google site will at least help me prioritize my viewing without always having to search through Brandon's blog archives.
http://sites.google.com/site/bmtoptenlists/
I haven't commented on any of your lists in a while, but I have to ask: What happened to Mr. and Mrs. Smith in 1941? Sturges and Walsh weren't the only directors making multiple great films that year. I haven't seen Hitchcock's Suspicion yet, but Mr. and Mrs. Smith is one of his best, an underrated comedy that doesn't seem to get enough love, which is why it was striking to me to see you not even mention it in your 1941 post. What's the deal?
http://sites.google.com/site/bmtoptenlists/
I haven't commented on any of your lists in a while, but I have to ask: What happened to Mr. and Mrs. Smith in 1941? Sturges and Walsh weren't the only directors making multiple great films that year. I haven't seen Hitchcock's Suspicion yet, but Mr. and Mrs. Smith is one of his best, an underrated comedy that doesn't seem to get enough love, which is why it was striking to me to see you not even mention it in your 1941 post. What's the deal?
Sunday, July 25, 2010
I'm a creep
I'm done with Inception. A much more interesting film is the Hughes Brothers' The Book of Eli. As usual, I recommend going in with as little knowledge of the film as possible. In a better world, us three would have seen Book of Eli its opening weekend and a great storm of posts would have ensued. Without going into any details, I'll just say that Book of Eli is not "perfect" or a "masterpiece," but it is extremely interesting (to me, at least) and a lot of fun. See it.
I also caught up with Green Zone and found it satisfying enough. We may be too close to the events depicted to be able to enjoy being entertained by them.
The A-Team movie succeeds where Green Zone fails. Almost non-stop goofy fun (though the last half hour drags a bit), the film also manages to comment on everything from the privatization of war to the limits of civil authority in determining "truth" and enforcing justice.
And the flying tank scene is ridiculously awesome.
I must have just lost whatever last shred of highbrow credibility I may have ever had.
And I watched Baghead. I almost turned it off a couple of times in the beginning and middle, trying to convince myself that the best way to get through my DVDs is to just not watch a movie past the first 20 minutes if I'm not interested by then.
I didn't turn it off. I kept watching. The forgiveness at the end is a delight. Even if I'll never watch Baghead again, I'm glad I didn't give up on it.
I'm doing okay with weeding my DVDs (I've got a box with a few dozen titles ready to go to the store that will pay me a buck or two a piece for them). I still have hope that I'll have Netflix back by the end of the year (thanks for rubbing it in my face with your Wii post, Brandon!) and I'm pretty sure that I have my DVD buying addiction under control now. With a couple of notable exceptions already written about here, I've refrained from all DVD buying in the past couple of months, passing by $5 bins and shelves with only the most cursory painful glances. I was in Hollywood Video twice in its last two weeks open and resisted major temptations each time (though why did I think it was okay to go in these stores? I'm an idiot.)
Netflix, we shall be reunited soon! Wait for me, darling!
P.s.
I just watched the Social Network trailer. I'll go see the movie because it's Fincher and Eisenberg and because others are excited, but the trailer didn't do anything for me. Sorry.
I also caught up with Green Zone and found it satisfying enough. We may be too close to the events depicted to be able to enjoy being entertained by them.
The A-Team movie succeeds where Green Zone fails. Almost non-stop goofy fun (though the last half hour drags a bit), the film also manages to comment on everything from the privatization of war to the limits of civil authority in determining "truth" and enforcing justice.
And the flying tank scene is ridiculously awesome.
I must have just lost whatever last shred of highbrow credibility I may have ever had.
And I watched Baghead. I almost turned it off a couple of times in the beginning and middle, trying to convince myself that the best way to get through my DVDs is to just not watch a movie past the first 20 minutes if I'm not interested by then.
I didn't turn it off. I kept watching. The forgiveness at the end is a delight. Even if I'll never watch Baghead again, I'm glad I didn't give up on it.
I'm doing okay with weeding my DVDs (I've got a box with a few dozen titles ready to go to the store that will pay me a buck or two a piece for them). I still have hope that I'll have Netflix back by the end of the year (thanks for rubbing it in my face with your Wii post, Brandon!) and I'm pretty sure that I have my DVD buying addiction under control now. With a couple of notable exceptions already written about here, I've refrained from all DVD buying in the past couple of months, passing by $5 bins and shelves with only the most cursory painful glances. I was in Hollywood Video twice in its last two weeks open and resisted major temptations each time (though why did I think it was okay to go in these stores? I'm an idiot.)
Netflix, we shall be reunited soon! Wait for me, darling!
P.s.
I just watched the Social Network trailer. I'll go see the movie because it's Fincher and Eisenberg and because others are excited, but the trailer didn't do anything for me. Sorry.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Straight Story
Jason, I concede to you that Brandon seems to have joined you and gone over to the dark side. Earlier in the day yesterday, things didn't seem so grim.
I'm mostly done with Inception, but I want to respond to your Samson reference.
"My point is that sometimes a film needs to be amoral so as not to distract the audience. It's a story, right or wrong, and I don't always want to be preached at. Samson wasn't exactly a good guy, but we love reading about him. The consequences of his actions caught up with him, but we are never told specifically by the narrator that his actions are sinful (I don't think- it's been a while)."
If a film is amoral or immoral, then to hell with it. It may be stunningly crafted like Synechdoche, New York or a mess like Inception or a worthless waste of time like Halloween II or an all-out assault like Bruno. Any way it is, I'm not interested in coming back to it. The films either don't resonate with me at all or actively turn me off. Okay, I might revisit Synechdoche.
Inception wants to be a heist movie. Well, the best heist movies of the past, from Asphalt Jungle to Rififi, all acknowledge the essential shadiness of the job being done. Sometimes the characters have our sympathies, sometimes they don't. But, in the past we always knew that what they were doing was wrong. I haven't seen Ocean's 11 or any other recent heist films that I can think of, but if Inception is representative of these films, then I'm not interested.
But I'm getting distracted. Back to Samson.
You wrote, "Samson wasn't exactly a good guy..." What? It really has been too long since you've read Judges. Samson is EXACTLY a good guy. He's set apart from the womb as special! And his life is spent in service of the LORD and as a judge in Israel for 20 years. He's most definitely one of the good guys.
14:4 it was of the LORD
14:6 And the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him
14:19 And the Spirit of the LORD came upon him
15:14 and the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him
15:19 But God clave an hollow place
But, yes, next in the story comes his indiscretion with a harlot and his chasing after Delilah. The narrator does not specifically tell us that Samson sins here, but we also lose the refrain of "the Spirit of the LORD came upon him." You're right about that, that Samson's sin is never exicitly mentioned, but it is implicitly obvious. We know (and the original audience steeped in the Law certainly knew) from the context of the rest of Scripture that Samson was to uphold God's Law. We don't need the narrator to tell us specifically that Samson has transgressed the law.
The difference in Inception is that we have no moral frame of reference in the film. Nolan presents us with these figures engaged in an evil act (I'm bringing this judment to the film; It's not there as such in the film) as our heroes as they achieve evil. Judges presents us with a hero engaged with righteousness who obviously falls from the path, then is redeemed.
I get your point. I don't want to be "preached at" during a story either. But, there is a clear difference between the Samson story and Inception. One draws us nearer to Christ (just to be clear here, Jason, that's the Samson story!). The other one (Inception) subtly advocates for the awesomeness of being a mind thief.
I don't think I'm being "moralistic" or a prude here. I've already named two heist movies I enjoy and there are plenty of crime pictures that I adore. It all has to do with perspective.
There is a sense in which I understand your "amoral" comment that is evidenced in Hitchcock's work. Rope features a couple of reprehensible young men, but there are multiple times in the story where we, the audience, are tense because the crime may be discovered. In the moment, we irrationally wish against justice and hope for the crime to succeed. Hitchcock gives us a taste of the criminal and perverse, then ultimately makes us question why we sympathize with it. Nolan just takes us along for the ride. Just the thrills, ma'am.
I don't know if I'm being clear here, but I'm trying to hammer out posts quickly here to satiate you ravenous dreamhounds.
I'm mostly done with Inception, but I want to respond to your Samson reference.
"My point is that sometimes a film needs to be amoral so as not to distract the audience. It's a story, right or wrong, and I don't always want to be preached at. Samson wasn't exactly a good guy, but we love reading about him. The consequences of his actions caught up with him, but we are never told specifically by the narrator that his actions are sinful (I don't think- it's been a while)."
If a film is amoral or immoral, then to hell with it. It may be stunningly crafted like Synechdoche, New York or a mess like Inception or a worthless waste of time like Halloween II or an all-out assault like Bruno. Any way it is, I'm not interested in coming back to it. The films either don't resonate with me at all or actively turn me off. Okay, I might revisit Synechdoche.
Inception wants to be a heist movie. Well, the best heist movies of the past, from Asphalt Jungle to Rififi, all acknowledge the essential shadiness of the job being done. Sometimes the characters have our sympathies, sometimes they don't. But, in the past we always knew that what they were doing was wrong. I haven't seen Ocean's 11 or any other recent heist films that I can think of, but if Inception is representative of these films, then I'm not interested.
But I'm getting distracted. Back to Samson.
You wrote, "Samson wasn't exactly a good guy..." What? It really has been too long since you've read Judges. Samson is EXACTLY a good guy. He's set apart from the womb as special! And his life is spent in service of the LORD and as a judge in Israel for 20 years. He's most definitely one of the good guys.
14:4 it was of the LORD
14:6 And the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him
14:19 And the Spirit of the LORD came upon him
15:14 and the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him
15:19 But God clave an hollow place
But, yes, next in the story comes his indiscretion with a harlot and his chasing after Delilah. The narrator does not specifically tell us that Samson sins here, but we also lose the refrain of "the Spirit of the LORD came upon him." You're right about that, that Samson's sin is never exicitly mentioned, but it is implicitly obvious. We know (and the original audience steeped in the Law certainly knew) from the context of the rest of Scripture that Samson was to uphold God's Law. We don't need the narrator to tell us specifically that Samson has transgressed the law.
The difference in Inception is that we have no moral frame of reference in the film. Nolan presents us with these figures engaged in an evil act (I'm bringing this judment to the film; It's not there as such in the film) as our heroes as they achieve evil. Judges presents us with a hero engaged with righteousness who obviously falls from the path, then is redeemed.
I get your point. I don't want to be "preached at" during a story either. But, there is a clear difference between the Samson story and Inception. One draws us nearer to Christ (just to be clear here, Jason, that's the Samson story!). The other one (Inception) subtly advocates for the awesomeness of being a mind thief.
I don't think I'm being "moralistic" or a prude here. I've already named two heist movies I enjoy and there are plenty of crime pictures that I adore. It all has to do with perspective.
There is a sense in which I understand your "amoral" comment that is evidenced in Hitchcock's work. Rope features a couple of reprehensible young men, but there are multiple times in the story where we, the audience, are tense because the crime may be discovered. In the moment, we irrationally wish against justice and hope for the crime to succeed. Hitchcock gives us a taste of the criminal and perverse, then ultimately makes us question why we sympathize with it. Nolan just takes us along for the ride. Just the thrills, ma'am.
I don't know if I'm being clear here, but I'm trying to hammer out posts quickly here to satiate you ravenous dreamhounds.
Be patient
"Come on, John, where are you?"
I'll have more posted sometime in the next couple of days.
Keep in mind that, for the past year, I have had no Internet access at home and 98% of my posts here, including all of these Inception posts, are written on and posted from my iPod touch. If that's not dedication to movie club, I'm not sure what is.
Be patient!
I'll have more posted sometime in the next couple of days.
Keep in mind that, for the past year, I have had no Internet access at home and 98% of my posts here, including all of these Inception posts, are written on and posted from my iPod touch. If that's not dedication to movie club, I'm not sure what is.
Be patient!
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Conversations 2010 #18
Conversations 2010 #18
You guys are both way ahead of me now, but here's my response to some of what you posted earlier today.
"I don’t think that you have considered what is possibly the worst facet of rape which is the emotional aftermath. Murphy’s character didn’t even know what happened to him."
Yikes! On the contrary, I have considered it. It's Nolan's avoidance of consequences that is part of the problem. Cobb slips Murphy a roofie (literally), then "rapes" him. When Murphy wakes up, he feels like a new man. WTF!? I don't think that I'm grasping at straws with this analogy; the uninvited invasion of someone's mind (not to mention changing the fundamental way they think about the world) surely constitutes what I'm calling psychic rape. For Nolan, what that drunk girl at the party doesn't know about what happened when she passed out doesn't hurt her. It makes her stronger.
I won't push this any further. The main point was that Cobb and co. are engaged in an unexamined evil act, much worse than your typical "one last job" bank heist.
That's really all I wanted to clarify in relation to your post. Reading all of your posts about Inception, I think that it's safe to say that this isn't going to be the debate of the year between us, as fun as this all has been. All things considered, it looks a lot like we're in agreement on most things. I've focused on the negatives, but I do respect Nolan and see plenty of positive in the film (otherwise I wouldn't still be writing about it). [In other words, I'll probably be there with the rest of the fanboys when Batman 3 opens.] You've leaned slightly the other way and highlighted the positive elements, but it's obvious that you're aware of the negative.
Jason,
The only thing that could have saved Inception would have been the sudden inexplicable appearance of Jar-Jar Binks.
Anyhow, here's a response to your list:
"1) The shifting gravity fight in the hotel. It was so skillfully done- graceful and fluid. I felt like I was on an amusement park ride."
1) What? I felt like was on a movie theater seat. And I was confused. In reality, everyone is on a plane. In dream level 1, everyone is being tossed around in a van until they reach a free-fall state, then crash. In dream level 2, the bumpy van of level 1 is causing everyone to be tossed around until zero gravity state is reached. So, level 1 environment that affects the dreamer (Murphy) affects level 2. In dream level 3, we find our team invading a snow fortress. This level is stable in spite of the dreamer (Murphy) in level 2 being jolted around, turned upside down, and ultimately losing gravity. In level 3, the status of the dreamer in level 2 is apparantly irrelevant. In level 3, our dreamer dies and goes to limbo. Limbo makes less sense than any other level. Is limbo a level, a fourth dream within these dreams? The film seems to suggest that limbo is a place independent of the dreamer's dreams. Or does each person have their own private limbo? How does Cobb enter Murphy's limbo? If he didn't make it out, what would happen to him upon awakening? Would he be trapped in Murphy? How could they share a dreamspace apart from using the contraption doohickey that enables the "sharing?". Oh well. To be honest, I don't care about these questions. My rambling point is that the 3rd dream level being unaffected by level 2 while level 1 affects level 2 seems arbitrary.
"2) The sets in general, but specifically the post-apocalyptic limbo setting."
2) I hated the sets in general, especially the "post-apocalyptic" limbo. Limbo is stupid.
"3) The notion of dreams-within-dreams and how one could use them in an extraction-type scenario. I could probably get a couple points from this one, but I felt that Nolan set up and executed logically and clearly how something like that could work. Which brings me to..."
3) I actually mostly agree that "Nolan set up and executed logically and clearly how something like that could work." I just don't find the execution, logical as it may be developed, all that thrilling.
"4) The exposition. I knew precisely when certain scenes were written to explain what was going on, and I appreciated them. When a premise is simple, I don't need a film to explain to me what's going on, and it's irritating when it does. But the idea of exploring dreamspace in the way the film does was new to me, so I liked hearing the characters explain what they did. And even though I knew it was exposition, I felt that it was inserted naturally into the course of events. I went to see Inception because I wanted to see a movie that explored the subject of dreams and their relation to reality in an exciting way, and not an action movie that used it as a hook to get me to see an SFX fluff piece. I was not disappointed."
4) We just disagree here. I'm happy to be clueless and hate this sort of heavy-handed exposition. There are a few moments that felt natural, but most of the time the characters were talking to each other so that the audience could be filled in. When the exposition is this obviously forced, it draws me out of a story, not further in.
"5) The special effects. You can have a movie about the strangeness of dreams without them, but grandiose effects in a dreamworld setting can really engage me in a way that telling me something is a dream and throwing a midget in there to prove it doesn't. I especially liked the scene where Page's character folds the street on top of itself and then they walk around it like an Escher drawing. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is another good example of effective SFX to create a visually compelling dreamworld."
5) I won't argue with this. Some of the special effects are astonishing. My defense of Alice may make my next statement seem like a lie, but I have to confess that I've never been a fan of cgi and think that it still has a long way to go. Models and costumes and cardboard are still the wave of the future. I offer up Moon as a recent example that fits all three of your criteria. Have you seen it?
"6) The fluid nature of reality throughout the entire film. Nolan throws a dream-within-a-dream scenario in there right from the start that makes you question throughout the entire film whether or not anything that's happening is real. And he doesn't answer that question in any kind of definitive way ever."
6) I question whether or not this movie's fans are for real. I can't answer that in any kind of definitive way ever.
"7) The discussion potential the film. I felt that Inception contained a number of events around which substantial conversations could be formed. I love and could discuss over again many times the nature of reality and what that means, so the fact that this was a central theme of the movie makes it all the more attractive to me."
7) Yes. These posts of mine prove this point of yours.
"8) The cast. Granted, not a lot of time was spent on character development, but the actors did an excellent job within those constraints. Yes, Page was a little flat, but only a little. And I don't blame her for it. Joseph G-L is always fun to watch, and Tom Hardy's solid performance was a nice surprise."
8) G-L and Hardy look like they're having fun. I'm not so sure about the rest.
"9) The director. I like Nolan's style, and have enjoyed so far everything of his I've seen. It was nice to see that post-Batman (straightforward premise, great SFX, inconsistent character development), he could still tell a compelling story."
9) I saw Memento when it first came out and hated it immediately. I felt like Nolan was reveling in his own cleverness like a pig wallowing in its own shit, shouting "look at me!". As much as I hate to admit it, I think that Armond White is dead right in comparing Inception to Memento. I do remember liking Insomnia, but I've disliked everything else Nolan has done, including both Batman films. I still need to see The Prestige.
"10) The ending. When the camera panned towards the spinning top, I knew that Nolan was about to wedge himself between two cliches for the sake of a dramatic ending. That final minute was going to affect in a huge way my perception of the film: a crappy ending will undo for me two hours' worth of enjoyment, and my anxiety at that moment had almost more to do with whether or not the ending Nolan chose was going wreck the whole thing than the question of whether or not what was happening was real. I don't think he could have executed it more deftly. Everything from the timing of the pan, to how long the camera rested on the spinning top, to the slight wobble just before cutting to the credits was just perfect. The response of the audience was wonderful (gasping, chuckling) and, as I found out in a discussion with Adrienne, it wasn't as straightforward as I thought (I thought that it was obvious that it was meant to be "real" and Adrienne was sure that it wasn't)."
10) The ending needlessly calls into question everything that has just been resolved. It's clever, but I honestly wasn't on the edge of my seat or impressed at all. I was a bit annoyed, not because I need things settled, but because the spinning top felt like a gimmick tacked on to a conventional happy ending. Nolan wants to have his cake and eat it, too. That said, I can't argue with you about Nolan's technique and the way he stages this last moment.
That's all for now. Maybe that's all I've got on Inception. We'll see.
Jonah Hex Forever!
Love,
John
You guys are both way ahead of me now, but here's my response to some of what you posted earlier today.
"I don’t think that you have considered what is possibly the worst facet of rape which is the emotional aftermath. Murphy’s character didn’t even know what happened to him."
Yikes! On the contrary, I have considered it. It's Nolan's avoidance of consequences that is part of the problem. Cobb slips Murphy a roofie (literally), then "rapes" him. When Murphy wakes up, he feels like a new man. WTF!? I don't think that I'm grasping at straws with this analogy; the uninvited invasion of someone's mind (not to mention changing the fundamental way they think about the world) surely constitutes what I'm calling psychic rape. For Nolan, what that drunk girl at the party doesn't know about what happened when she passed out doesn't hurt her. It makes her stronger.
I won't push this any further. The main point was that Cobb and co. are engaged in an unexamined evil act, much worse than your typical "one last job" bank heist.
That's really all I wanted to clarify in relation to your post. Reading all of your posts about Inception, I think that it's safe to say that this isn't going to be the debate of the year between us, as fun as this all has been. All things considered, it looks a lot like we're in agreement on most things. I've focused on the negatives, but I do respect Nolan and see plenty of positive in the film (otherwise I wouldn't still be writing about it). [In other words, I'll probably be there with the rest of the fanboys when Batman 3 opens.] You've leaned slightly the other way and highlighted the positive elements, but it's obvious that you're aware of the negative.
Jason,
The only thing that could have saved Inception would have been the sudden inexplicable appearance of Jar-Jar Binks.
Anyhow, here's a response to your list:
"1) The shifting gravity fight in the hotel. It was so skillfully done- graceful and fluid. I felt like I was on an amusement park ride."
1) What? I felt like was on a movie theater seat. And I was confused. In reality, everyone is on a plane. In dream level 1, everyone is being tossed around in a van until they reach a free-fall state, then crash. In dream level 2, the bumpy van of level 1 is causing everyone to be tossed around until zero gravity state is reached. So, level 1 environment that affects the dreamer (Murphy) affects level 2. In dream level 3, we find our team invading a snow fortress. This level is stable in spite of the dreamer (Murphy) in level 2 being jolted around, turned upside down, and ultimately losing gravity. In level 3, the status of the dreamer in level 2 is apparantly irrelevant. In level 3, our dreamer dies and goes to limbo. Limbo makes less sense than any other level. Is limbo a level, a fourth dream within these dreams? The film seems to suggest that limbo is a place independent of the dreamer's dreams. Or does each person have their own private limbo? How does Cobb enter Murphy's limbo? If he didn't make it out, what would happen to him upon awakening? Would he be trapped in Murphy? How could they share a dreamspace apart from using the contraption doohickey that enables the "sharing?". Oh well. To be honest, I don't care about these questions. My rambling point is that the 3rd dream level being unaffected by level 2 while level 1 affects level 2 seems arbitrary.
"2) The sets in general, but specifically the post-apocalyptic limbo setting."
2) I hated the sets in general, especially the "post-apocalyptic" limbo. Limbo is stupid.
"3) The notion of dreams-within-dreams and how one could use them in an extraction-type scenario. I could probably get a couple points from this one, but I felt that Nolan set up and executed logically and clearly how something like that could work. Which brings me to..."
3) I actually mostly agree that "Nolan set up and executed logically and clearly how something like that could work." I just don't find the execution, logical as it may be developed, all that thrilling.
"4) The exposition. I knew precisely when certain scenes were written to explain what was going on, and I appreciated them. When a premise is simple, I don't need a film to explain to me what's going on, and it's irritating when it does. But the idea of exploring dreamspace in the way the film does was new to me, so I liked hearing the characters explain what they did. And even though I knew it was exposition, I felt that it was inserted naturally into the course of events. I went to see Inception because I wanted to see a movie that explored the subject of dreams and their relation to reality in an exciting way, and not an action movie that used it as a hook to get me to see an SFX fluff piece. I was not disappointed."
4) We just disagree here. I'm happy to be clueless and hate this sort of heavy-handed exposition. There are a few moments that felt natural, but most of the time the characters were talking to each other so that the audience could be filled in. When the exposition is this obviously forced, it draws me out of a story, not further in.
"5) The special effects. You can have a movie about the strangeness of dreams without them, but grandiose effects in a dreamworld setting can really engage me in a way that telling me something is a dream and throwing a midget in there to prove it doesn't. I especially liked the scene where Page's character folds the street on top of itself and then they walk around it like an Escher drawing. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is another good example of effective SFX to create a visually compelling dreamworld."
5) I won't argue with this. Some of the special effects are astonishing. My defense of Alice may make my next statement seem like a lie, but I have to confess that I've never been a fan of cgi and think that it still has a long way to go. Models and costumes and cardboard are still the wave of the future. I offer up Moon as a recent example that fits all three of your criteria. Have you seen it?
"6) The fluid nature of reality throughout the entire film. Nolan throws a dream-within-a-dream scenario in there right from the start that makes you question throughout the entire film whether or not anything that's happening is real. And he doesn't answer that question in any kind of definitive way ever."
6) I question whether or not this movie's fans are for real. I can't answer that in any kind of definitive way ever.
"7) The discussion potential the film. I felt that Inception contained a number of events around which substantial conversations could be formed. I love and could discuss over again many times the nature of reality and what that means, so the fact that this was a central theme of the movie makes it all the more attractive to me."
7) Yes. These posts of mine prove this point of yours.
"8) The cast. Granted, not a lot of time was spent on character development, but the actors did an excellent job within those constraints. Yes, Page was a little flat, but only a little. And I don't blame her for it. Joseph G-L is always fun to watch, and Tom Hardy's solid performance was a nice surprise."
8) G-L and Hardy look like they're having fun. I'm not so sure about the rest.
"9) The director. I like Nolan's style, and have enjoyed so far everything of his I've seen. It was nice to see that post-Batman (straightforward premise, great SFX, inconsistent character development), he could still tell a compelling story."
9) I saw Memento when it first came out and hated it immediately. I felt like Nolan was reveling in his own cleverness like a pig wallowing in its own shit, shouting "look at me!". As much as I hate to admit it, I think that Armond White is dead right in comparing Inception to Memento. I do remember liking Insomnia, but I've disliked everything else Nolan has done, including both Batman films. I still need to see The Prestige.
"10) The ending. When the camera panned towards the spinning top, I knew that Nolan was about to wedge himself between two cliches for the sake of a dramatic ending. That final minute was going to affect in a huge way my perception of the film: a crappy ending will undo for me two hours' worth of enjoyment, and my anxiety at that moment had almost more to do with whether or not the ending Nolan chose was going wreck the whole thing than the question of whether or not what was happening was real. I don't think he could have executed it more deftly. Everything from the timing of the pan, to how long the camera rested on the spinning top, to the slight wobble just before cutting to the credits was just perfect. The response of the audience was wonderful (gasping, chuckling) and, as I found out in a discussion with Adrienne, it wasn't as straightforward as I thought (I thought that it was obvious that it was meant to be "real" and Adrienne was sure that it wasn't)."
10) The ending needlessly calls into question everything that has just been resolved. It's clever, but I honestly wasn't on the edge of my seat or impressed at all. I was a bit annoyed, not because I need things settled, but because the spinning top felt like a gimmick tacked on to a conventional happy ending. Nolan wants to have his cake and eat it, too. That said, I can't argue with you about Nolan's technique and the way he stages this last moment.
That's all for now. Maybe that's all I've got on Inception. We'll see.
Jonah Hex Forever!
Love,
John
What's in a name?
To support my blathering below, I'm throwing out the following:
The name Dom means "Lord."
Thr name Mal means "Bad."
The name Dom means "Lord."
Thr name Mal means "Bad."
Mindfuck
I almost don't want to write any more about Inception. I feel like if I do keep talking/writing about it, then Nolan wins whether I like the movie or not.
But, of course, Nolan HAS ALREADY WON and his film is going to be talked about regardless of whether or not I participate.
My previous post was half tongue-in-cheek, written more to amuse myself and hopefully you, too (I loved your response), than as a totally serious dissection of Inception or as a serious defense of Jonah Hex or Kick-Ass as better films than Inception. That said, I actually found it extremely helpful to compare Inception to other films in order to highlight what specifically failed for me in the film.
My "soulless staircases" comment referred to the visual embodiment of the emotional disconnect and lack of human understanding that your post seemed to also acknowledge as a central failing of the film. Robin Hood, for all of its failings, does have both a stronger visual style, tied to its themes, and a whole lot more heart. I'm not a big fan of Scott, but I do think that he is a generally more competent craftsman than Nolan and less likely to get hung up on what is merely clever at the expense of the soul of the story.
There is one primary idea that I want to explore before giving up on Inception. No critic that I've read seems to have commented on the fact that the action of extraction is essentially psychic rape. Inception is pyschic rape which impregnates. This is made all the worse because the rapist works while the victim is sleeping and works hard to keep the victim unaware of this mind penetration.
This is the real moral failing of Inception. Never once is the morality of extraction/inception questioned (and I'm not even talking about clunky exposition, I'm talking about the story structure and where our sympathies are directed.)
The possibility of success is doubted. Its illegality is made clear. But the act of invading someone else's mind without consent is never examined as an evil. (leaving aside Mal jumping out the window for the moment.). Our action team is made out to be a group of heroes. We want them to succeed. As you point out, Brandon, Nolan wants us to worry about their safety once Cobb's deception comes to light. Interestingly, I don't think that scene does call into question Cobb's evil inclinations, his willingness to rape Cillian Murphy. All of the other characters are there, too, and are willing to do the job for cash and the exhiliration of dreaming. They're upset that there are more risks, exposing their own selfishness, not necessarily condeming Cobb's.
I don't think Nolan ever steps back to ask what Inception means for Murphy's character. In fact, if anything, I think Murphy is portrayed as the rapist's girl of girls; the girl who says no who really means yes. Like that mythic girl, Murphy likes this manhandling and it's good for him.
Back to Mal and her window jump. Throughout the film, this woman is a controlling killjoy who pops up to disrupt our hero. This woman is so messed up that her husband HAD TO use inception on her. And then the bitch had the nerve to follow through on the idea that she's given, not once, but twice. By the time we see her "real" death, we're happy to see her go. By the time we see her (Dom's subconscious version of her) second death, we're relieved that she's out of the way.
I've got to stop writing so much while at work and get things done. More later.
But, of course, Nolan HAS ALREADY WON and his film is going to be talked about regardless of whether or not I participate.
My previous post was half tongue-in-cheek, written more to amuse myself and hopefully you, too (I loved your response), than as a totally serious dissection of Inception or as a serious defense of Jonah Hex or Kick-Ass as better films than Inception. That said, I actually found it extremely helpful to compare Inception to other films in order to highlight what specifically failed for me in the film.
My "soulless staircases" comment referred to the visual embodiment of the emotional disconnect and lack of human understanding that your post seemed to also acknowledge as a central failing of the film. Robin Hood, for all of its failings, does have both a stronger visual style, tied to its themes, and a whole lot more heart. I'm not a big fan of Scott, but I do think that he is a generally more competent craftsman than Nolan and less likely to get hung up on what is merely clever at the expense of the soul of the story.
There is one primary idea that I want to explore before giving up on Inception. No critic that I've read seems to have commented on the fact that the action of extraction is essentially psychic rape. Inception is pyschic rape which impregnates. This is made all the worse because the rapist works while the victim is sleeping and works hard to keep the victim unaware of this mind penetration.
This is the real moral failing of Inception. Never once is the morality of extraction/inception questioned (and I'm not even talking about clunky exposition, I'm talking about the story structure and where our sympathies are directed.)
The possibility of success is doubted. Its illegality is made clear. But the act of invading someone else's mind without consent is never examined as an evil. (leaving aside Mal jumping out the window for the moment.). Our action team is made out to be a group of heroes. We want them to succeed. As you point out, Brandon, Nolan wants us to worry about their safety once Cobb's deception comes to light. Interestingly, I don't think that scene does call into question Cobb's evil inclinations, his willingness to rape Cillian Murphy. All of the other characters are there, too, and are willing to do the job for cash and the exhiliration of dreaming. They're upset that there are more risks, exposing their own selfishness, not necessarily condeming Cobb's.
I don't think Nolan ever steps back to ask what Inception means for Murphy's character. In fact, if anything, I think Murphy is portrayed as the rapist's girl of girls; the girl who says no who really means yes. Like that mythic girl, Murphy likes this manhandling and it's good for him.
Back to Mal and her window jump. Throughout the film, this woman is a controlling killjoy who pops up to disrupt our hero. This woman is so messed up that her husband HAD TO use inception on her. And then the bitch had the nerve to follow through on the idea that she's given, not once, but twice. By the time we see her "real" death, we're happy to see her go. By the time we see her (Dom's subconscious version of her) second death, we're relieved that she's out of the way.
I've got to stop writing so much while at work and get things done. More later.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Shared Blogging
Brandon, I'm eagerly anticipating your post. No cheating. You can't read this until you've made your own Inception post.
On the occasion of being in nearly complete agreement with Armond White about Inception, I offer up this list in honor of his dastardly contrariness.
I've seen 11 films in 2010. 10 of them are better than Inception.
Top Ten Films of 2010 That Are Better Than Inception:
1) The Book of Eli
The inclusion of this film here is completely unfair. I watched the first 2/3rds last night and don't know how it all ends; I could be really disappointed. But, in honor of White, I won't let my not having seen the whole film stop me from discussing it here as better than Inception. Book of Eli caught me up in its violent post-apocalyptic atmosphere. The shot of Eli washing with a KFC moist towelette is seriously brilliant. There's nothing even remotely close to that level of human understanding in the miserable inhuman puzzle box that is Inception.
2) Toy Story 3
Toy Story 3 succeeds as a prison escape action picture while remaining a heartfelt children's comedy. Inception also works on dual levels, successfully embedding an intricate heist setup within an almost dizzying Zelaznian science fantasy premise. I respect Nolan's ambition. I'm just not impressed with the end product. There isn't a single moment in Inception that is half as audaciously awesome as TS3's Mr. TortillaHead or a quarter as tense or emotional as TS3's incinerator scene.
3) Shutter Island
Shutter Island is a Titan standing next to Inception. Inception talks big and walks big, but it's all bluff and bluster. Shutter Island is the real deal. Both star Leonardo DiCaprio. Shutter Island may be his best performance. Inception doesn't give him anything to work with besides mouthfuls of exposition. Shutter Island has some of the most beautiful, daring, and disturbing dream images that I've seen in a movie. Inception felt less like a dream and more like I was stuck listening to someone else tell me at length about their dreams over breakfast. Shutter Island explores living in a shifting psychological reality in a much more emotionally satisfying way. Inception barely scratches the surface. Related to all of this, Shutter Island effectively explores grief and living in the wake of loss. Inception cheapens every relationship in it. None of the characters feel any more real than the tidy dreamscape that they find themselves in.
4) Alice in Wonderland
Alice in Wonderland is a much more pleasant dream than Inception. It's that simple. Alice is good and reflects on how her behavior affects not only herself, but others. Cobb is selfish and almost evil and this is never questioned. I choose Alice.
5) How to Train Your Dragon
Again, good-hearted simple stories are more enjoyable than bad pop pyschology. How to Train Your Dragon's reluctant hero is floating around in mine and Jung's collective unconscious while Inception's despicable Cobb and his neutered ugly dreams have no place alongside the truly wondrous, so clearly evidenced in How to Train Your Dragon. Nolan's vision is an obvious sham in comparison.
6) Robin Hood
I admit that I may be a sucker for medieval garb and that that may be the only reason I liked this film at all. Inception? No medieval clothing. No interesting clothing at all. And Robin Hood's set design and action set-pieces are all better than Inception's soulless shifting staircases.
7) The Ghost Writer
The Ghost Writer has a great sense of physical location and atmosphere that is completely lacking in Inception. Also, explain to me, Mr. Nolan, how Polanski can make a ferry ride feel more tense and menacing than any single second of your big budget dream action sequences. I hated the falling van (multiple dream time) sequence especially- really, not an ounce of suspense- I just wanted the damned thing to hit the water already.
8) Iron Man 2
Iron Man 2 has a great cast having great fun with weak material. Inception has a great cast sleepwalking through weak material.
9) Kick-Ass
Kick-Ass is juvenile and ridiculous, surrendering to the very comic book tropes that it tries to comment on. That said, there's no denying that there are plenty of isolated fun moments. Inception, a few instances of lame humor aside, is way too serious in pursuing its ideas. Unfortunately, the heist is centrally uninteresting and all of the really interesting dreamstuff that could have been explored is entirely ignored.
10) Jonah Hex
Megan Fox is awful to look at in Jonah Hex. Even so, Fox still manages to be 100% more compelling than the completely bored and boring Ellen Page in Inception. Enough said.
In summary,
I hated Inception.
On the occasion of being in nearly complete agreement with Armond White about Inception, I offer up this list in honor of his dastardly contrariness.
I've seen 11 films in 2010. 10 of them are better than Inception.
Top Ten Films of 2010 That Are Better Than Inception:
1) The Book of Eli
The inclusion of this film here is completely unfair. I watched the first 2/3rds last night and don't know how it all ends; I could be really disappointed. But, in honor of White, I won't let my not having seen the whole film stop me from discussing it here as better than Inception. Book of Eli caught me up in its violent post-apocalyptic atmosphere. The shot of Eli washing with a KFC moist towelette is seriously brilliant. There's nothing even remotely close to that level of human understanding in the miserable inhuman puzzle box that is Inception.
2) Toy Story 3
Toy Story 3 succeeds as a prison escape action picture while remaining a heartfelt children's comedy. Inception also works on dual levels, successfully embedding an intricate heist setup within an almost dizzying Zelaznian science fantasy premise. I respect Nolan's ambition. I'm just not impressed with the end product. There isn't a single moment in Inception that is half as audaciously awesome as TS3's Mr. TortillaHead or a quarter as tense or emotional as TS3's incinerator scene.
3) Shutter Island
Shutter Island is a Titan standing next to Inception. Inception talks big and walks big, but it's all bluff and bluster. Shutter Island is the real deal. Both star Leonardo DiCaprio. Shutter Island may be his best performance. Inception doesn't give him anything to work with besides mouthfuls of exposition. Shutter Island has some of the most beautiful, daring, and disturbing dream images that I've seen in a movie. Inception felt less like a dream and more like I was stuck listening to someone else tell me at length about their dreams over breakfast. Shutter Island explores living in a shifting psychological reality in a much more emotionally satisfying way. Inception barely scratches the surface. Related to all of this, Shutter Island effectively explores grief and living in the wake of loss. Inception cheapens every relationship in it. None of the characters feel any more real than the tidy dreamscape that they find themselves in.
4) Alice in Wonderland
Alice in Wonderland is a much more pleasant dream than Inception. It's that simple. Alice is good and reflects on how her behavior affects not only herself, but others. Cobb is selfish and almost evil and this is never questioned. I choose Alice.
5) How to Train Your Dragon
Again, good-hearted simple stories are more enjoyable than bad pop pyschology. How to Train Your Dragon's reluctant hero is floating around in mine and Jung's collective unconscious while Inception's despicable Cobb and his neutered ugly dreams have no place alongside the truly wondrous, so clearly evidenced in How to Train Your Dragon. Nolan's vision is an obvious sham in comparison.
6) Robin Hood
I admit that I may be a sucker for medieval garb and that that may be the only reason I liked this film at all. Inception? No medieval clothing. No interesting clothing at all. And Robin Hood's set design and action set-pieces are all better than Inception's soulless shifting staircases.
7) The Ghost Writer
The Ghost Writer has a great sense of physical location and atmosphere that is completely lacking in Inception. Also, explain to me, Mr. Nolan, how Polanski can make a ferry ride feel more tense and menacing than any single second of your big budget dream action sequences. I hated the falling van (multiple dream time) sequence especially- really, not an ounce of suspense- I just wanted the damned thing to hit the water already.
8) Iron Man 2
Iron Man 2 has a great cast having great fun with weak material. Inception has a great cast sleepwalking through weak material.
9) Kick-Ass
Kick-Ass is juvenile and ridiculous, surrendering to the very comic book tropes that it tries to comment on. That said, there's no denying that there are plenty of isolated fun moments. Inception, a few instances of lame humor aside, is way too serious in pursuing its ideas. Unfortunately, the heist is centrally uninteresting and all of the really interesting dreamstuff that could have been explored is entirely ignored.
10) Jonah Hex
Megan Fox is awful to look at in Jonah Hex. Even so, Fox still manages to be 100% more compelling than the completely bored and boring Ellen Page in Inception. Enough said.
In summary,
I hated Inception.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Conversations 2010 #17
Conversations 2010 #17
Brandon, you forgot to write about one moment in Punisher: War Zone. You know the one. It occurs right after your beloved bazooka blast. Frank throws a hoppin' meth-head off the roof. As the hopper falls, he is impaled on a spikey fence. Frank jumps off the roof, connecting foot to hopper face on the way down. Snap. The purest illustration of how perfectly punished I felt watching Punisher: War Zone.
I did go alone to a 10:30pm showing after a long day/evening at work. Not the best circumstances. With some distance, I can see how the ridiculous violence could be enjoyable instead of just punishing. But I still might need that quart of rum to make it through a second viewing.
Briefly, what I've seen lately...
Caught in a Cabaret and In the Park are two lame Chaplin shorts. The girls and I gave up on Chaplin and gave Bob Hope a try. The Paleface. A big success. We'll be watching Son of Paleface soon.
The Killer is Loose is the best of the early Boeticher I've seen so far and an interesting early example of the sort of cop vs. killer suspense films that seem commonplace today.
My Favorite Wife is fun and that's enough. Randolph Scott is great in it.
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo reminded me of The Ghost Writer in that both are smart films with solid story structures, confidently and competently crafted. Both were thoroughly engaging and decent diversions, but I don't really want to ever see either one of them again. Meh. So what? Disposable art. There is some content that I wouldn't mind discussing, but it's pointless if you haven't seen it.
I wrote something about John Cassavetes last October, but never finished it. I was reviewing what little I wrote in anticipation of seeing A Woman Under the Influence on Wednesday night. Wednesday morning, I watched Charles Kiselyak's documentary A Constant Forge: The Life and Art of John Cassavetes. I appreciated some of the talking heads, but mostly find these docs a waste of time. The Ford one was no good. The Boetticher one is no good. This Cassavetes one is no good. I think it has more to do with the specific structure of these sorts of documentaries that doesn't allow for anything other than surface analysis of their subjects.
Anyhow, we didn't make it to see A Woman Under the Influence. We'll get a babysitter some other night. Probably go see some crappy superhero movie. Oh well.
Instead, I played some games with Joel J. I don't write about games here, but it should be noted that I probably care about gaming more than I care about moviegoing. For my money, Twilight Struggle and Magic: The Gathering (two of the games we played the other night) provide a far superior aesthetic and narrative experience than any of the films that have come out so far in 2010. I'd put the best of games up against the best of films any year. Not in competition. That's silly. Apples and oranges and all that. But, in terms of art and experience, I don't see one as superior to the other. 2005 gave us The New World, Grizzly Man, and Broken Flowers. 2005 also gave us Twilight Struggle, Byzantium, and Descent: Journeys in the Dark. So, I was more than happy to play games.
Enough.
I saw Inception this morning. I went in mostly blind. I'd seen the trailer months ago, but have read no reviews and knew nothing about the film besides the director, the cast, and that the story involved dreams. That's it. Did I like it? Stay tuned. Same blog time, same blog channel. Meaning I might post it tonight or it might be a couple of weeks. Take that rotating saw to the gonads and eat it!
Brandon, you forgot to write about one moment in Punisher: War Zone. You know the one. It occurs right after your beloved bazooka blast. Frank throws a hoppin' meth-head off the roof. As the hopper falls, he is impaled on a spikey fence. Frank jumps off the roof, connecting foot to hopper face on the way down. Snap. The purest illustration of how perfectly punished I felt watching Punisher: War Zone.
I did go alone to a 10:30pm showing after a long day/evening at work. Not the best circumstances. With some distance, I can see how the ridiculous violence could be enjoyable instead of just punishing. But I still might need that quart of rum to make it through a second viewing.
Briefly, what I've seen lately...
Caught in a Cabaret and In the Park are two lame Chaplin shorts. The girls and I gave up on Chaplin and gave Bob Hope a try. The Paleface. A big success. We'll be watching Son of Paleface soon.
The Killer is Loose is the best of the early Boeticher I've seen so far and an interesting early example of the sort of cop vs. killer suspense films that seem commonplace today.
My Favorite Wife is fun and that's enough. Randolph Scott is great in it.
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo reminded me of The Ghost Writer in that both are smart films with solid story structures, confidently and competently crafted. Both were thoroughly engaging and decent diversions, but I don't really want to ever see either one of them again. Meh. So what? Disposable art. There is some content that I wouldn't mind discussing, but it's pointless if you haven't seen it.
I wrote something about John Cassavetes last October, but never finished it. I was reviewing what little I wrote in anticipation of seeing A Woman Under the Influence on Wednesday night. Wednesday morning, I watched Charles Kiselyak's documentary A Constant Forge: The Life and Art of John Cassavetes. I appreciated some of the talking heads, but mostly find these docs a waste of time. The Ford one was no good. The Boetticher one is no good. This Cassavetes one is no good. I think it has more to do with the specific structure of these sorts of documentaries that doesn't allow for anything other than surface analysis of their subjects.
Anyhow, we didn't make it to see A Woman Under the Influence. We'll get a babysitter some other night. Probably go see some crappy superhero movie. Oh well.
Instead, I played some games with Joel J. I don't write about games here, but it should be noted that I probably care about gaming more than I care about moviegoing. For my money, Twilight Struggle and Magic: The Gathering (two of the games we played the other night) provide a far superior aesthetic and narrative experience than any of the films that have come out so far in 2010. I'd put the best of games up against the best of films any year. Not in competition. That's silly. Apples and oranges and all that. But, in terms of art and experience, I don't see one as superior to the other. 2005 gave us The New World, Grizzly Man, and Broken Flowers. 2005 also gave us Twilight Struggle, Byzantium, and Descent: Journeys in the Dark. So, I was more than happy to play games.
Enough.
I saw Inception this morning. I went in mostly blind. I'd seen the trailer months ago, but have read no reviews and knew nothing about the film besides the director, the cast, and that the story involved dreams. That's it. Did I like it? Stay tuned. Same blog time, same blog channel. Meaning I might post it tonight or it might be a couple of weeks. Take that rotating saw to the gonads and eat it!
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Conversations 2010 #15
Conversations 2010 #15
Brandon, the problem with you watching Punisher War Zone is that it might be really fun to watch if you go in knowing it is bad and if you have invited enough friends over and have had enough time to fortify youself with a quart of rum. I hope you liked it. It still sucks.
Jason, I agree with you about adaptations. If you haven't read the book already, see the movie first.
Peace out.
Brandon, the problem with you watching Punisher War Zone is that it might be really fun to watch if you go in knowing it is bad and if you have invited enough friends over and have had enough time to fortify youself with a quart of rum. I hope you liked it. It still sucks.
Jason, I agree with you about adaptations. If you haven't read the book already, see the movie first.
Peace out.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Conversations 2010 #14
Conversations 2010 #14
That's the cover to Amazing Spider-Man #101, the first appearance of Morbius and, more importantly for current purposes, the earliest Amazing issue I owned featuring Curt Connors aka The Lizard. In the late 80s I religiously bought every back issue of Spider-man that I could find either at the flea market or at Time Tunnel Comics, long since out of business; the first shop that I had a membership at.
I was a natural comics nerd before I was nerdy about anything else. I've mostly given up on keeping up with comics, but I still love them. My comics interest has gravitated toward older newspaper strips and I love reading Krazy Kat and Thimble Theatre with the girls. Newspaper strips are mostly terrible today. Pickles is the only newspaper strip left that I think is consistently brilliant. There are also a few good online strips that I know about and probably quite a few that I don't.
Jason, it's good to see you back. Facebook sucks.
The pathetic irony of me giving you a public lashing for your absence, then taking an extended absence of my own was not planned. Sorry about that.
I've enjoyed your recent posts and want to see them coming. Notice the addition to the sidebar on the right?
I did read Amazing Spider-Man #632. I bought it because of your printed letter. I was pleasantly surprised to find a decent story and... Chris Bachalo art! I was a huge Shade the Changing Man fan in the early-mid 90's and always loved Bachalo's artwork. I don't think Shade was ever collected in tpb format, so I don't know how easy it'd be to find, but it's worth checking out. Do you like Peter Milligan? I have no idea what he's doing now, but for a while he had a good run on some X-titles including a fairly recent zany series with Mike Allred. I gave all of my Shade issues to Spike a while back. I'm pretty sure they were in the box that was stolen, otherwise I'd see if he'd let you borrow them. [edit: I just checked; there are tpb editions available. Check it out.]
Anyhow, I can't justify the $4 an issue cost to keep buying Spider-Man issues (I do like that they eliminated the other titles and are releasing Amazing more often), but I enjoyed this issue and have been keeping up with the series by reading new issues at the comics rack at Wegmans. Thanks.
This (2nd part of a) Conrad strip reminded me of the Shed storyline...
Have you read any of Peter Conrad's stuff online? Stymied was good and Lou's Garage was great. I've always really liked his work and what he's doing now is still interesting. I first came across a comic of his in Backwards City Review.
Brandon, did I let you borrow Un chien Andelou? I can't find my copy and can't remember who I loaned it out to. Or maybe I just lost it.
I just read Armond White's review of Jonah Hex. Wow! I wish I had seen the same movie as him. Unfortunately, Jonah Hex sucks in spite of White's championing it. His reading of the film is more than generous. It's crazy. The guy is crazy. I don't know what else to say.
I'm sorry to hear about your disappointment with Killer (though it still sounds like you liked it). It was specifically Emerson's defense of the film that got me really excited about it. I'm still excited to see it. The only other Winterbottom film I've seen is The Claim, which was an interesting and visually gorgeous Western based on a Thomas Hardy novel. I remember liking it, but can't remember much about it.
I haven't posted anything lately because I haven't really watched anything.
I got the rest of Breaking Bad Season 3 from my friend Ben and have watched episodes 9 and 10. I'll probably write something when I'm done with the season.
The only film I've seen in July so far is Big Fan. I was a bit annoyed by some of the homo-erotic implications, but I enjoyed the fandom aspect. I don't care at all about professional sports, but I can sympathize with the essential nerdiness of extreme fandom. The film isn't all that interesting visually and some of the editing really annoyed me (for example, the shots of the QB poster, tying into the homo-erotic thing above). Patton Oswalt is great. To be honest, so is everyone else in it. I have some problems with the script and with the direction, but Big Fan is definitely worth checking out. I'd be willing to discuss it more if one of you guys sees it and want to talk about it.
That's the cover to Amazing Spider-Man #101, the first appearance of Morbius and, more importantly for current purposes, the earliest Amazing issue I owned featuring Curt Connors aka The Lizard. In the late 80s I religiously bought every back issue of Spider-man that I could find either at the flea market or at Time Tunnel Comics, long since out of business; the first shop that I had a membership at.
I was a natural comics nerd before I was nerdy about anything else. I've mostly given up on keeping up with comics, but I still love them. My comics interest has gravitated toward older newspaper strips and I love reading Krazy Kat and Thimble Theatre with the girls. Newspaper strips are mostly terrible today. Pickles is the only newspaper strip left that I think is consistently brilliant. There are also a few good online strips that I know about and probably quite a few that I don't.
Jason, it's good to see you back. Facebook sucks.
The pathetic irony of me giving you a public lashing for your absence, then taking an extended absence of my own was not planned. Sorry about that.
I've enjoyed your recent posts and want to see them coming. Notice the addition to the sidebar on the right?
I did read Amazing Spider-Man #632. I bought it because of your printed letter. I was pleasantly surprised to find a decent story and... Chris Bachalo art! I was a huge Shade the Changing Man fan in the early-mid 90's and always loved Bachalo's artwork. I don't think Shade was ever collected in tpb format, so I don't know how easy it'd be to find, but it's worth checking out. Do you like Peter Milligan? I have no idea what he's doing now, but for a while he had a good run on some X-titles including a fairly recent zany series with Mike Allred. I gave all of my Shade issues to Spike a while back. I'm pretty sure they were in the box that was stolen, otherwise I'd see if he'd let you borrow them. [edit: I just checked; there are tpb editions available. Check it out.]
Anyhow, I can't justify the $4 an issue cost to keep buying Spider-Man issues (I do like that they eliminated the other titles and are releasing Amazing more often), but I enjoyed this issue and have been keeping up with the series by reading new issues at the comics rack at Wegmans. Thanks.
This (2nd part of a) Conrad strip reminded me of the Shed storyline...
Have you read any of Peter Conrad's stuff online? Stymied was good and Lou's Garage was great. I've always really liked his work and what he's doing now is still interesting. I first came across a comic of his in Backwards City Review.
Brandon, did I let you borrow Un chien Andelou? I can't find my copy and can't remember who I loaned it out to. Or maybe I just lost it.
I just read Armond White's review of Jonah Hex. Wow! I wish I had seen the same movie as him. Unfortunately, Jonah Hex sucks in spite of White's championing it. His reading of the film is more than generous. It's crazy. The guy is crazy. I don't know what else to say.
I'm sorry to hear about your disappointment with Killer (though it still sounds like you liked it). It was specifically Emerson's defense of the film that got me really excited about it. I'm still excited to see it. The only other Winterbottom film I've seen is The Claim, which was an interesting and visually gorgeous Western based on a Thomas Hardy novel. I remember liking it, but can't remember much about it.
I haven't posted anything lately because I haven't really watched anything.
I got the rest of Breaking Bad Season 3 from my friend Ben and have watched episodes 9 and 10. I'll probably write something when I'm done with the season.
The only film I've seen in July so far is Big Fan. I was a bit annoyed by some of the homo-erotic implications, but I enjoyed the fandom aspect. I don't care at all about professional sports, but I can sympathize with the essential nerdiness of extreme fandom. The film isn't all that interesting visually and some of the editing really annoyed me (for example, the shots of the QB poster, tying into the homo-erotic thing above). Patton Oswalt is great. To be honest, so is everyone else in it. I have some problems with the script and with the direction, but Big Fan is definitely worth checking out. I'd be willing to discuss it more if one of you guys sees it and want to talk about it.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
"Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head."
This post is more of a mess than usual. It's a hodgepodge of stuff I've written over the past few weeks of June. I've watched a lot (even with a whole week of watching nothing but 25 minutes of a film I walked out of), but have had trouble concentrating and/or caring about much at all, least of all writing here. Maybe it's Summer. Maybe it's mourning. I've just been floating through.
But film club must go on.
Dialogue from Rohmer's La Collectioneuse:
Adrien: To do nothing, yet think while doing it, is exhausting. Working's much easier. You follow a well-trod path. Ther's a kind of laziness to work. Work is an escape, a clear conscience bought on the cheap.
Sam: Of course, that makes you the least lazy person I know.
Adrien: I haven't taken a vacation in 10 years.
Sam: Sure. You're on a permanent vacation.
Adrien: No. Well, yes and no. Not exactly.
Sam: It amuses me how you're always trying to justify yourself.
Adrien: On the contrary. I don't have a guilty conscience.
Sam: You're a liar. You feel guilty because you have no money.
Adrien: Listen, Sam, I'm sure you've heard of the Tarahumara Indians. When they enter a town, they beg from house to house. They stop at a door, then stand in profile with an air of haughty contempt. Whether given alms or not, they leave after a set period of time... without a thank you. When I beg, I always turn in profile. Besides, we're always someone else's slave. I find less dishonor in living at a friend's house than in being on the government payroll. Most people's work today is useless. Three quarters of all activity is parasitic. I'm not the parasite. It's the beauracrats and politicians.
Sam: If I were 6'6" with an eagle's profile, I'd feel nearer to the gods too. You're nostalgic for the good old days, while I'm happy to live in this modern world.
Adrien: I'm as modern as you are. But what matters today isn't work but laziness. Everyone says work is just a means to an end. We speak of a leisure society. But when it comes, we don't know what leisure is. Some people work 40 years for their life of leisure, but when the time comes, they're lost, and they die. In all sincerity, I think I serve mankind better by taking it easy than by working. It's true. It takes courage not to work.
Sam: More courage than going to the moon?
Adrien: Of course you can go to the moon too. But that's both fascinating and contemptible.
Sam: I think if I listen to any more of your little monologue, I'll fall asleep right in this chair. You're like a small child, happy as can be with his mediocre life. Go to the moon, Adrien. Jupiter too. Hurry... and when you get there, send me a postcard, if you have the money to buy one.
Adrien: [in English]Listen here, you old villain[/in English]. I've always been sorry I wasn't rich. But if I were, my dandyism, as you call it, would be too easy... lacking any heroism whatsoever. And I can't imagine a dandy not being heroic.
---------------------------------
That dialogue isn't quite as rich when ripped from its context and apart from the wonderful actors who deliver the lines (and of course it's the subtitle translation from the French), but it stands on its own for the purposes of shedding light on Jim Jarmusch's first feature film, Permanent Vacation.
Allie, the dandy hero of Vacation has no home, no job, and no real friendships. He has been living with a girl, but leaves her for no other reason than that it's time to move on. Maybe he's starting to feel too grounded. He talks to plenty of people here and there, but he is alone. And likes it that way.
Still, he knows that "most people's work today is useless."
------//
I'm giving up on what I started above. I'm behind in writing and don't want this blog to ever cause me stress. So no more on Permanent Vacation except to say that it's worth watching at least to see how Jarmusch started.
-------
I've also seen:
I Shot Jesse James is everything Brandon said it is.
The Baron of Arizona shows off Fuller and Vincent Price at maybe their most playful. Serious fun.
Cutter's Way has a couple of good moments and a decent ending.
Piranha looks like it was a lot of fun for the child actors. Ironically, horror may be the most fun genre for child actors. At least when it's piranhas and not pedophiles who are the monsters. Piranha is silly and fun and ultimately stupid. Dante knows how to craft a whole better than the sum of all pirahna parts.
------///--//-//
Here's my (not so) deep thought for the day:
Every year in film sucks, more or less, by this time of year.
We're still getting the leftovers from last year in January, February, and March with nothing worthwhile new coming out. April, May, and June all contribute to a wasteland of crappy domestic releases. July, August, and September typically give us a small handful of arthouse releases and maybe one or two decent wide release studio pics. Only in October, November, and December do we usually get the waves of Oscar contenders from the American studios and, more importantly, we get to see releases of a small trickle of foreign pictures that played elsewhere in the world earlier in the year. Most important, those of us far from major metropolitan cinemas get to start seeing on DVD all of those limited releases, both domestic and foreign, that never made it to our local cinemas. Even with Cornell being close and Art Mission and Cinemapolis, there are films that don't make it here or, if we're lucky, might run for a week. Blink and you miss them.
So, 2010 may still be great. I just can't see it yet.
Yes, all of this because... Jonah Hex is terrible. The worst 2010 film I've seen so far. She-Wolf of London had no werewolf. Jonah Hex is a Western without the West. There's nothing recognizably Western here past the surface. Instead, Jonah Hex plays out like any bad '80s Seagall action picture. Our action hero must stop a terrorist from blowing up Washington D.C. There are more explosions and maybe as many stupid deaths as the equally atrocious Punisher War Zone from last year or the year before (I can't remember). The story is a mess and a great cast is wasted. And, yes, somehow Megan Fox is made to look absolutely unappealing as the half-naked prostitute. Seriously, Hayward and co., you screwed up every last thing.
It was so bad that I had to immediately check to see if any critics had defended it. Surprisingly, Darghis wrote the most positive review, but the best that she could come up with was that Jonah Hex is better than The A-Team.
I also caught a matinee showing of Robin Hood. This movie is also a minor mess, but it follows the historical epic model faithfully and there's enough here to enjoy. The historicity is slight and plenty of contemporary ideas and humor fill out the frame. The father-son stuff mostly works. The "rights" talk gets preachy, but is fine. Von Sydow as an aging knight is a delight. Blanchett is great up until the finale in which the script demands the ridiculous. I liked it all enough to be there for whatever sequel may come.
I started my Cornell Summer job. Breaking Upwards is awful. I walked out after 25 minutes. I rarely walk out of movies, but this one deserved it. I don't care to write about it. I'd rather eat glass than spend any more time with these people. I'd rather watch Jonah Hex a dozen more times.
Bend of the River is the sort of Western I love.
Night and Day is great. I've since heard that it's really great in 3D. We went 2D, partly because of price and partly because of my general resistance to 3D.
Toy Story 3 is beautiful, a perfect payoff to a perfect trilogy. Yes, I teared up during the incinerator scene. Yes, that scene alone makes Toy Story 3 the best film of the year.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is never as good as it should be.
The Scarecrow might be my favorite Keaton short. I love watching silent comedy shorts with my girls.
Keaton's The Paleface is also really funny.
The Big Heat is brutally good.
I missed Metropolis because I ended up working an overnight shift to help a co-worker.
One Mysterious Night is enjoyable fluff.
Escape in the Fog is stupid enjoyable fluff. The fog is effective.
It Came From Kuchar is incomplete on its own. I wish it had been screened with a couple of Kuchar shorts beforehand or afterward. Oh well.
--------
During college, if anyone asked me what my favorite movie was, I had a quick answer: Rubin & Ed. I discovered the film at Star Video through the guidance of the owner Jerry. I was about 13. I tried to buy the store's copy, but he wasn't selling. A couple of years later, I was riding my bike in Center Moriches with my friend Tim. He wanted to stop at this junk/pawn shop and look through a barrel of tools. In that barrel of used tools was one VHS tape. Rubin & Ed. I think I paid $5 for it.
But enough about past purchases. What sales have I recently succumbed to?
$62
Yard sale find - 3 for $10, all new in shrink. DVD straight from Trent Harris - $25. Vestal Hollywood Video sale - 6 for $21 and 1 for $6
$10
I Walked With a Zombie & The Body Snatcher
Isle of the Dead & Bedlam
Road to Zanzibar
$25
Rubin & Ed
$21
Julien donkey-boy (Korine)
Chunking Express (Wong)
Fahrenheit 451 (Truffaut)
Cache (Haneke)
Terror's Advocate (Schroeder)
Zach Galifianakis: Live at the Purple Onion
$6
A Serious Man (Coen)
In related news, I've started a box of DVDs to get rid of, but right now its contents are much smaller than the rows of unwatched DVDs on the shelf. I need to stop buying DVDs. It's probably my biggest stupidest consumer-collector mentality problem at the moment. Stop. Just stop.
But film club must go on.
Dialogue from Rohmer's La Collectioneuse:
Adrien: To do nothing, yet think while doing it, is exhausting. Working's much easier. You follow a well-trod path. Ther's a kind of laziness to work. Work is an escape, a clear conscience bought on the cheap.
Sam: Of course, that makes you the least lazy person I know.
Adrien: I haven't taken a vacation in 10 years.
Sam: Sure. You're on a permanent vacation.
Adrien: No. Well, yes and no. Not exactly.
Sam: It amuses me how you're always trying to justify yourself.
Adrien: On the contrary. I don't have a guilty conscience.
Sam: You're a liar. You feel guilty because you have no money.
Adrien: Listen, Sam, I'm sure you've heard of the Tarahumara Indians. When they enter a town, they beg from house to house. They stop at a door, then stand in profile with an air of haughty contempt. Whether given alms or not, they leave after a set period of time... without a thank you. When I beg, I always turn in profile. Besides, we're always someone else's slave. I find less dishonor in living at a friend's house than in being on the government payroll. Most people's work today is useless. Three quarters of all activity is parasitic. I'm not the parasite. It's the beauracrats and politicians.
Sam: If I were 6'6" with an eagle's profile, I'd feel nearer to the gods too. You're nostalgic for the good old days, while I'm happy to live in this modern world.
Adrien: I'm as modern as you are. But what matters today isn't work but laziness. Everyone says work is just a means to an end. We speak of a leisure society. But when it comes, we don't know what leisure is. Some people work 40 years for their life of leisure, but when the time comes, they're lost, and they die. In all sincerity, I think I serve mankind better by taking it easy than by working. It's true. It takes courage not to work.
Sam: More courage than going to the moon?
Adrien: Of course you can go to the moon too. But that's both fascinating and contemptible.
Sam: I think if I listen to any more of your little monologue, I'll fall asleep right in this chair. You're like a small child, happy as can be with his mediocre life. Go to the moon, Adrien. Jupiter too. Hurry... and when you get there, send me a postcard, if you have the money to buy one.
Adrien: [in English]Listen here, you old villain[/in English]. I've always been sorry I wasn't rich. But if I were, my dandyism, as you call it, would be too easy... lacking any heroism whatsoever. And I can't imagine a dandy not being heroic.
---------------------------------
That dialogue isn't quite as rich when ripped from its context and apart from the wonderful actors who deliver the lines (and of course it's the subtitle translation from the French), but it stands on its own for the purposes of shedding light on Jim Jarmusch's first feature film, Permanent Vacation.
Allie, the dandy hero of Vacation has no home, no job, and no real friendships. He has been living with a girl, but leaves her for no other reason than that it's time to move on. Maybe he's starting to feel too grounded. He talks to plenty of people here and there, but he is alone. And likes it that way.
Still, he knows that "most people's work today is useless."
------//
I'm giving up on what I started above. I'm behind in writing and don't want this blog to ever cause me stress. So no more on Permanent Vacation except to say that it's worth watching at least to see how Jarmusch started.
-------
I've also seen:
I Shot Jesse James is everything Brandon said it is.
The Baron of Arizona shows off Fuller and Vincent Price at maybe their most playful. Serious fun.
Cutter's Way has a couple of good moments and a decent ending.
Piranha looks like it was a lot of fun for the child actors. Ironically, horror may be the most fun genre for child actors. At least when it's piranhas and not pedophiles who are the monsters. Piranha is silly and fun and ultimately stupid. Dante knows how to craft a whole better than the sum of all pirahna parts.
------///--//-//
Here's my (not so) deep thought for the day:
Every year in film sucks, more or less, by this time of year.
We're still getting the leftovers from last year in January, February, and March with nothing worthwhile new coming out. April, May, and June all contribute to a wasteland of crappy domestic releases. July, August, and September typically give us a small handful of arthouse releases and maybe one or two decent wide release studio pics. Only in October, November, and December do we usually get the waves of Oscar contenders from the American studios and, more importantly, we get to see releases of a small trickle of foreign pictures that played elsewhere in the world earlier in the year. Most important, those of us far from major metropolitan cinemas get to start seeing on DVD all of those limited releases, both domestic and foreign, that never made it to our local cinemas. Even with Cornell being close and Art Mission and Cinemapolis, there are films that don't make it here or, if we're lucky, might run for a week. Blink and you miss them.
So, 2010 may still be great. I just can't see it yet.
Yes, all of this because... Jonah Hex is terrible. The worst 2010 film I've seen so far. She-Wolf of London had no werewolf. Jonah Hex is a Western without the West. There's nothing recognizably Western here past the surface. Instead, Jonah Hex plays out like any bad '80s Seagall action picture. Our action hero must stop a terrorist from blowing up Washington D.C. There are more explosions and maybe as many stupid deaths as the equally atrocious Punisher War Zone from last year or the year before (I can't remember). The story is a mess and a great cast is wasted. And, yes, somehow Megan Fox is made to look absolutely unappealing as the half-naked prostitute. Seriously, Hayward and co., you screwed up every last thing.
It was so bad that I had to immediately check to see if any critics had defended it. Surprisingly, Darghis wrote the most positive review, but the best that she could come up with was that Jonah Hex is better than The A-Team.
I also caught a matinee showing of Robin Hood. This movie is also a minor mess, but it follows the historical epic model faithfully and there's enough here to enjoy. The historicity is slight and plenty of contemporary ideas and humor fill out the frame. The father-son stuff mostly works. The "rights" talk gets preachy, but is fine. Von Sydow as an aging knight is a delight. Blanchett is great up until the finale in which the script demands the ridiculous. I liked it all enough to be there for whatever sequel may come.
I started my Cornell Summer job. Breaking Upwards is awful. I walked out after 25 minutes. I rarely walk out of movies, but this one deserved it. I don't care to write about it. I'd rather eat glass than spend any more time with these people. I'd rather watch Jonah Hex a dozen more times.
Bend of the River is the sort of Western I love.
Night and Day is great. I've since heard that it's really great in 3D. We went 2D, partly because of price and partly because of my general resistance to 3D.
Toy Story 3 is beautiful, a perfect payoff to a perfect trilogy. Yes, I teared up during the incinerator scene. Yes, that scene alone makes Toy Story 3 the best film of the year.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is never as good as it should be.
The Scarecrow might be my favorite Keaton short. I love watching silent comedy shorts with my girls.
Keaton's The Paleface is also really funny.
The Big Heat is brutally good.
I missed Metropolis because I ended up working an overnight shift to help a co-worker.
One Mysterious Night is enjoyable fluff.
Escape in the Fog is stupid enjoyable fluff. The fog is effective.
It Came From Kuchar is incomplete on its own. I wish it had been screened with a couple of Kuchar shorts beforehand or afterward. Oh well.
--------
During college, if anyone asked me what my favorite movie was, I had a quick answer: Rubin & Ed. I discovered the film at Star Video through the guidance of the owner Jerry. I was about 13. I tried to buy the store's copy, but he wasn't selling. A couple of years later, I was riding my bike in Center Moriches with my friend Tim. He wanted to stop at this junk/pawn shop and look through a barrel of tools. In that barrel of used tools was one VHS tape. Rubin & Ed. I think I paid $5 for it.
But enough about past purchases. What sales have I recently succumbed to?
$62
Yard sale find - 3 for $10, all new in shrink. DVD straight from Trent Harris - $25. Vestal Hollywood Video sale - 6 for $21 and 1 for $6
$10
I Walked With a Zombie & The Body Snatcher
Isle of the Dead & Bedlam
Road to Zanzibar
$25
Rubin & Ed
$21
Julien donkey-boy (Korine)
Chunking Express (Wong)
Fahrenheit 451 (Truffaut)
Cache (Haneke)
Terror's Advocate (Schroeder)
Zach Galifianakis: Live at the Purple Onion
$6
A Serious Man (Coen)
In related news, I've started a box of DVDs to get rid of, but right now its contents are much smaller than the rows of unwatched DVDs on the shelf. I need to stop buying DVDs. It's probably my biggest stupidest consumer-collector mentality problem at the moment. Stop. Just stop.
Monday, June 21, 2010
There Ain't No Sanity Clause
This is a poor man's obituary, but I gotta get it out.
Timothy Rhatigan was my best friend for about a year.
I had a lame joke that I always liked to tell that I wrote for Tim.
Tim woke up in the morning and saw a rat. Then, he looked in the mirror and saw a Rhatigan. (rat again. get it?)
I don't remember how or specifically when we met and I'm also not sure why we drifted apart. We just did.
Within a month of meeting each other, we had accidentally burned a house down together.
We got high a lot.
We listened to a lot of Circle Jerks and Buzzcocks and The Damned and The Ramones and we both loved Robyn Hitchcock. Tim taught me the words to Kristofferson's Sunday Morning Coming Down.
One of my favorite memories is playing frisbee by moonlight with Tim's mother's Rod Stewart LPs.
We'd often ride our bikes 5-10+ miles to get to the stores we knew would sell tobacco to minors or to meet a neighborhood freelance pharmacist or to buy tools or just to ride.
Or to see girls. We talked a lot about girls. We stole his dad's nasty pornography. We were generally confused about our sexuality. Jet Boy, Jet Girl was one of our favorite songs. I Just Want Some Skank was our anthem. We'd practice leaning cooly against a wall and casually picking up a girl with our favorite pickup line, "hey baby, wanna fuck?" We never got the girls. We alternately hated and envied the guys who did.
We got high a lot.
We were both terrible skateboarders, but that didn't stop us.
We loved black cherry soda with fresh lime. We drank cheap vodka.
Tim's mother once rented a car and took us on a trip to Great Adventure. On the way there, we thought it'd be awesome to have anarchy symbols scarred into our flesh. Eager to prove my punk abandon, I bared my upper left arm and Tim gouged my flesh with a pocket knife. Buckets of blood and me yowling like a baby, I couldn't finish, but I have a beautiful large scar to prove my half-assedness. And I like to think that my blood is still there on that rental car seat.
So many more stupid stories.
After we'd mostly parted ways, Tim gained infamy for stealing the baby jesus from the Shrine and converting it into a bong. I wasn't around when he stole it and never really approved of the sacrilige, but I still admired him for the brazenness of it.
I always loved him. I know that he knew that at one point, but we drifted apart. I miss him.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Ordinary Time
Audience of One presents the audacious cinematic journey of a specific assembly of kooky Pentecostals making a movie of movies for the king of kings.
And it all goes wrong.
And it all goes right.
Such is the work of the Spirit.
By the end, when the pastor starts talking about colonizing other planets, we know for sure that his reach is out there further than his grasp. But, dear folly, the man's reach is something splendid. And, I dare say, worthy of emulation.
My response was much more complicated than this and obviously the delusion involved is crazy and Pentecostals are crazy and floating adrift apart from any historical perspective and/or often any semblence of Orthodoxy is hazardous to one's health. But, still, these kooks are my kooks.
Like Alice, we might all be better off thinking of six impossible things before breakfast.
I rented Burton's Alice, but I slept while Abigail watched it. I did watch about the first half hour and my liking the film more than anyone else still stands.
The Battle of Midway was an impossible thing. John Ford's documentary of the action is pure propaganda. But time reveals each cloud of black smoke in the sky as a real life extinguished. And the audience cheers.
These men were our real enemies and sought to kill our people. In such a time and place, it seems appropriate to cheer our victories.
But not too much. The vilification of all "Japs" and the abstraction of their deaths can only end in atomic abomination. A larger black smoke for the audiences back home to cheer about.
Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln may be "pure cinema." It's definitely pure tall tale. And a mighty good one. And at least as true a reflection of American history as any string of facts could be.
Becoming John Ford is an artsy-fartsy waste of time. I should have skipped it and popped in another Ford disc. Some talking heads and some clips and so-so voiceover.
I initially described Blast of Silence and its perfect fatalism as "the end of noir" and I stand by that assessment.
My dating of the end aside, the first instances of post-noir (or neo-noir) that I'm aware of were brought to us a year earlier in 1960. Films standing in the tradition but also apart from it and self-conciously riffing on genre tropes and themes.
Those two films are Breathless and Shoot the Piano Player. The former is an original Truffaut script, based on a newspaper story if I'm not mistaken, and ultimately brought to playful life by Godard. The latter is a Truffaut adaptation of a Goodis novel, directed by Truffaut himself, who seriously delivers on all of the promise exhibited in 400 Blows while subverting expectations in carefully tossing out the screwball pitch of Shoot the Piano Player.
Piano Player is a healthy mash-up of genre conventions, resulting organically in a sort of screwball noir, modeling the pastiche and homage that would later be brought to an even fuller realization and near perfection in the Coens's The Big Lebowski nearly four decades later.
It's no surprise that, like Lebowski after it, most audiences couldn't initially handle Shoot the Piano Player. It was largely dismissed both critically and popularly. Both films demand audience submission to very specific zaniness which both exists on its own and exists in rich dialogue with much that has come before. If the viewer won't submit, the viewer will also miss out on the rewards that these films harbor.
It might be silly (it is silly), but my favorite moments in Piano Player are the Bartender tryptich and the mother keeling over, a couple of playful nods toward Gance and silent cinema.
The ending is predictable and a bit hokey. It still manages to be emotionally poignant and visually stunning.
Noir may be dead. The Western lives on.
By now, my defense of Appaloosa may seem tired. A minor masterpiece and the best thing Ed Harris has yet done either behind or in front of the camera.
I'm really excited about Jonah Hex. I'm even more excited that I'm going with Duke. I hope it's much better than the trailer, but if it's at least as stupid as the trailer, then I think I'll have a good time. Please. I hope so. 2010 sucks. The curse breaks with Jonah Hex! I want to believe!
And it all goes wrong.
And it all goes right.
Such is the work of the Spirit.
By the end, when the pastor starts talking about colonizing other planets, we know for sure that his reach is out there further than his grasp. But, dear folly, the man's reach is something splendid. And, I dare say, worthy of emulation.
My response was much more complicated than this and obviously the delusion involved is crazy and Pentecostals are crazy and floating adrift apart from any historical perspective and/or often any semblence of Orthodoxy is hazardous to one's health. But, still, these kooks are my kooks.
Like Alice, we might all be better off thinking of six impossible things before breakfast.
I rented Burton's Alice, but I slept while Abigail watched it. I did watch about the first half hour and my liking the film more than anyone else still stands.
The Battle of Midway was an impossible thing. John Ford's documentary of the action is pure propaganda. But time reveals each cloud of black smoke in the sky as a real life extinguished. And the audience cheers.
These men were our real enemies and sought to kill our people. In such a time and place, it seems appropriate to cheer our victories.
But not too much. The vilification of all "Japs" and the abstraction of their deaths can only end in atomic abomination. A larger black smoke for the audiences back home to cheer about.
Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln may be "pure cinema." It's definitely pure tall tale. And a mighty good one. And at least as true a reflection of American history as any string of facts could be.
Becoming John Ford is an artsy-fartsy waste of time. I should have skipped it and popped in another Ford disc. Some talking heads and some clips and so-so voiceover.
I initially described Blast of Silence and its perfect fatalism as "the end of noir" and I stand by that assessment.
My dating of the end aside, the first instances of post-noir (or neo-noir) that I'm aware of were brought to us a year earlier in 1960. Films standing in the tradition but also apart from it and self-conciously riffing on genre tropes and themes.
Those two films are Breathless and Shoot the Piano Player. The former is an original Truffaut script, based on a newspaper story if I'm not mistaken, and ultimately brought to playful life by Godard. The latter is a Truffaut adaptation of a Goodis novel, directed by Truffaut himself, who seriously delivers on all of the promise exhibited in 400 Blows while subverting expectations in carefully tossing out the screwball pitch of Shoot the Piano Player.
Piano Player is a healthy mash-up of genre conventions, resulting organically in a sort of screwball noir, modeling the pastiche and homage that would later be brought to an even fuller realization and near perfection in the Coens's The Big Lebowski nearly four decades later.
It's no surprise that, like Lebowski after it, most audiences couldn't initially handle Shoot the Piano Player. It was largely dismissed both critically and popularly. Both films demand audience submission to very specific zaniness which both exists on its own and exists in rich dialogue with much that has come before. If the viewer won't submit, the viewer will also miss out on the rewards that these films harbor.
It might be silly (it is silly), but my favorite moments in Piano Player are the Bartender tryptich and the mother keeling over, a couple of playful nods toward Gance and silent cinema.
The ending is predictable and a bit hokey. It still manages to be emotionally poignant and visually stunning.
Noir may be dead. The Western lives on.
By now, my defense of Appaloosa may seem tired. A minor masterpiece and the best thing Ed Harris has yet done either behind or in front of the camera.
I'm really excited about Jonah Hex. I'm even more excited that I'm going with Duke. I hope it's much better than the trailer, but if it's at least as stupid as the trailer, then I think I'll have a good time. Please. I hope so. 2010 sucks. The curse breaks with Jonah Hex! I want to believe!
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Conversations 2010 #13
Conversations 2010 #13
TRAWLERMAN: We have a sinner with us here, who wishes for salvation. Jason, are you a sinner?
82jp: Yes.
TRAWLERMAN: Brandon and John can't hear you, Jason. Say it to them. Go ahead and speak to them, it's alright.
82jp: Yes.
TRAWLERMAN: Down on your knees and up to them. Look up to STORMANDSTRESS and CHASINGPICTURES and say it.
82jp: What do you want me to say?
TRAWLERMAN: Jason, you have come here and you have brought good and wealth, but you have also brought your bad habits as a backslider. You've lusted after Facebook, and you have abandoned your blog. Your blog that you raised, you have abandoned all because it was sick and you have sinned. So say it now- I am a sinner.
82jp: I am a sinner.
TRAWLERMAN: Say it louder- I am a sinner!
82jp: I am a sinner.
TRAWLERMAN: Louder, Jason. I am a sinner!
82jp: I am a sinner.
TRAWLERMAN: I am sorry Brandon and John!
82jp: I am sorry Brandon and John.
TRAWLERMAN: I want the blog!
82jp: I want the blog.
TRAWLERMAN: You have abandoned your blog!
82jp: I have abandoned my blog.
TRAWLERMAN: I will never backslide!
82jp: I will never backslide.
TRAWLERMAN: I was lost, but now I am found!
82jp: I was lost but now I'm found.
TRAWLERMAN: I have abandoned my blog!
[82jp glares at him]
TRAWLERMAN: Say it... say it!
[82jp mumbles]
TRAWLERMAN: Say it louder... say it louder!
82jp: I've abandoned my blog! I've abandoned my blog! I've abandoned my blog!
TRAWLERMAN: We have a sinner with us here, who wishes for salvation. Jason, are you a sinner?
82jp: Yes.
TRAWLERMAN: Brandon and John can't hear you, Jason. Say it to them. Go ahead and speak to them, it's alright.
82jp: Yes.
TRAWLERMAN: Down on your knees and up to them. Look up to STORMANDSTRESS and CHASINGPICTURES and say it.
82jp: What do you want me to say?
TRAWLERMAN: Jason, you have come here and you have brought good and wealth, but you have also brought your bad habits as a backslider. You've lusted after Facebook, and you have abandoned your blog. Your blog that you raised, you have abandoned all because it was sick and you have sinned. So say it now- I am a sinner.
82jp: I am a sinner.
TRAWLERMAN: Say it louder- I am a sinner!
82jp: I am a sinner.
TRAWLERMAN: Louder, Jason. I am a sinner!
82jp: I am a sinner.
TRAWLERMAN: I am sorry Brandon and John!
82jp: I am sorry Brandon and John.
TRAWLERMAN: I want the blog!
82jp: I want the blog.
TRAWLERMAN: You have abandoned your blog!
82jp: I have abandoned my blog.
TRAWLERMAN: I will never backslide!
82jp: I will never backslide.
TRAWLERMAN: I was lost, but now I am found!
82jp: I was lost but now I'm found.
TRAWLERMAN: I have abandoned my blog!
[82jp glares at him]
TRAWLERMAN: Say it... say it!
[82jp mumbles]
TRAWLERMAN: Say it louder... say it louder!
82jp: I've abandoned my blog! I've abandoned my blog! I've abandoned my blog!
Friday, June 4, 2010
Conversations 2010 #12
Conversations 2010 #12
Pete, The Human Experience doesn't appeal to me (I just watched the trailer), but only because it looks way too self-important. Or at least it has been titled and marketed that way. WE'LL GIVE YOU THE ENTIRE HUMAN EXPERIENCE IN 2 HOURS OR LESS! Two documenatary film-making brothers discover the meaning of life and share it with us all. Bah. I am intrigued that it got favorable reviews from both Indiewire and First Things. I'll check it out if it comes around.
Matt, you would know what I think of The Box if you actually read my posts here instead of skimming them for mentions of Fiddler on the Roof and Oklahoma! I wrote about it last month. Smiley face.
Jason, say it. I've abandoned my blog.
Spike, where's that Meg Ryan piece I wanted on my desk yesterday morning?
Brandon, I did like HtTYD more than I probably made it sound like. It's well-crafted, nice to look at (even in 2D), and a lot of fun.
Now, stuff I've watched.
Pulse is terrifyingly boring. No tension and no scares. Did I miss something? Yes, I missed the second hour because I couldn't tolerate it any longer.
I really respect Mister Lonely, but I don't love it the way I love Julien Donkey-Boy. I want to write more about it, but don't want to spoil anything.
Passport to Pimlico is funny. There aren't too many hold your belly and roll around on the floor moments, but there is a steady comic pace that keeps the smile on your face. On my face at least.
Blast of Silence is in the pantheon. Essential.
La Collectionneuse is another Moral Tale, the only one that I had seen before.
I'm going to watch Jarmusch's first feature, Permanent Vacation, soon because I'm curious to see if he lifted the title to that film from one of my favorite moments in Collectioneuse.
The 400 Blows is great.
One of my biggest regrets in relation to the Ithaca Hollywood video sale was passing over a few Truffaut films (even though I did pick up Piano Player) and at least half a dozen Chabrol films.
Chabrol and Rohmer wrote one of the earliest serious assessments of Hitchcock. Truffaut followed this up in the next decade with his Hitchcock interviews. All of these men also respected Rossellini. To simplify things too much and to ignore the very "Frenchness" of the New Wave, the films of the New Wave can clearly be seen as the various children spawned by the improbably perfect mating of Hitchcock and Rossellini.
----------------------
I also watched some Popeye shorts and silent shorts with the girls, but nothing exceptional.
Lost is done.
I like and mostly agree with Jim Emerson's short asessment of the show's lapse "sideways" - http://blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/2010/05/just_a_few_lost_leftovers.html
Emerson: "But, still, the finale kind of redeemed a lot of the interminable padding of the last several years -- mainly by ignoring them and by re-framing The Island as a peak experience that bonded a group of people, even if the Thing Itself had no intrinsic meaning. You know, like being together in the army, or a college dorm, or a TV series for a few years..."
Kind of. The positive "re-framing" does occur, but it doesn't really excuse all of the sub-par stuff that comes before or even the lameness of the ending itself. The Jimmy Kimmel kiss/punch/kiss montage worked just as well as a summation of the series as anything in the finale.
I'm in the middle of listening to the recent /filmcast discussion of the finale. It's a good conversation.
http://www.slashfilm.com/2010/05/28/the-filmcast-bonus-ep-lost-series-finale-and-wrap-up-guests-katey-rich-and-myles-mcnutt/
Pete, The Human Experience doesn't appeal to me (I just watched the trailer), but only because it looks way too self-important. Or at least it has been titled and marketed that way. WE'LL GIVE YOU THE ENTIRE HUMAN EXPERIENCE IN 2 HOURS OR LESS! Two documenatary film-making brothers discover the meaning of life and share it with us all. Bah. I am intrigued that it got favorable reviews from both Indiewire and First Things. I'll check it out if it comes around.
Matt, you would know what I think of The Box if you actually read my posts here instead of skimming them for mentions of Fiddler on the Roof and Oklahoma! I wrote about it last month. Smiley face.
Jason, say it. I've abandoned my blog.
Spike, where's that Meg Ryan piece I wanted on my desk yesterday morning?
Brandon, I did like HtTYD more than I probably made it sound like. It's well-crafted, nice to look at (even in 2D), and a lot of fun.
Now, stuff I've watched.
Pulse is terrifyingly boring. No tension and no scares. Did I miss something? Yes, I missed the second hour because I couldn't tolerate it any longer.
I really respect Mister Lonely, but I don't love it the way I love Julien Donkey-Boy. I want to write more about it, but don't want to spoil anything.
Passport to Pimlico is funny. There aren't too many hold your belly and roll around on the floor moments, but there is a steady comic pace that keeps the smile on your face. On my face at least.
Blast of Silence is in the pantheon. Essential.
La Collectionneuse is another Moral Tale, the only one that I had seen before.
I'm going to watch Jarmusch's first feature, Permanent Vacation, soon because I'm curious to see if he lifted the title to that film from one of my favorite moments in Collectioneuse.
The 400 Blows is great.
One of my biggest regrets in relation to the Ithaca Hollywood video sale was passing over a few Truffaut films (even though I did pick up Piano Player) and at least half a dozen Chabrol films.
Chabrol and Rohmer wrote one of the earliest serious assessments of Hitchcock. Truffaut followed this up in the next decade with his Hitchcock interviews. All of these men also respected Rossellini. To simplify things too much and to ignore the very "Frenchness" of the New Wave, the films of the New Wave can clearly be seen as the various children spawned by the improbably perfect mating of Hitchcock and Rossellini.
----------------------
I also watched some Popeye shorts and silent shorts with the girls, but nothing exceptional.
Lost is done.
I like and mostly agree with Jim Emerson's short asessment of the show's lapse "sideways" - http://blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/2010/05/just_a_few_lost_leftovers.html
Emerson: "But, still, the finale kind of redeemed a lot of the interminable padding of the last several years -- mainly by ignoring them and by re-framing The Island as a peak experience that bonded a group of people, even if the Thing Itself had no intrinsic meaning. You know, like being together in the army, or a college dorm, or a TV series for a few years..."
Kind of. The positive "re-framing" does occur, but it doesn't really excuse all of the sub-par stuff that comes before or even the lameness of the ending itself. The Jimmy Kimmel kiss/punch/kiss montage worked just as well as a summation of the series as anything in the finale.
I'm in the middle of listening to the recent /filmcast discussion of the finale. It's a good conversation.
http://www.slashfilm.com/2010/05/28/the-filmcast-bonus-ep-lost-series-finale-and-wrap-up-guests-katey-rich-and-myles-mcnutt/
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Another POV: Bruised Heads and Bruised Heels
I'm at the McDonald's in Whitney Point surfing the Internet instead of mowing my lawn.
In the process of surfing, I found Nathan Wilson's review of HtTYD:
http://www.credenda.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=185:how-to-train-your-dragon-and-the-animated-film-wars&catid=101&Itemid=122
I appreciated this perspective that I missed:
"...dragons were bad. They raided the village stealing sheep. They burned it down constantly. They killed people. Lots of people. And here’s one of a few things that stunned me. Why did they do these evil things? Well, because they served The Dragon. The big one. The huge, ancient, evil one. And the story progresses not with one small boy (Hiccup) successfully communicating to his father (Stoick) that dragons were misunderstood, but with that boy crushing The Dragon’s head and . . . losing his foot in the process."
I appreciate what Wilson brings to the story here and I'm almost convinced, but I'm not entirely sure that the slaying of the large dragon is developed enough to be consistent with or contrast enough with what has come before.
In the process of surfing, I found Nathan Wilson's review of HtTYD:
http://www.credenda.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=185:how-to-train-your-dragon-and-the-animated-film-wars&catid=101&Itemid=122
I appreciated this perspective that I missed:
"...dragons were bad. They raided the village stealing sheep. They burned it down constantly. They killed people. Lots of people. And here’s one of a few things that stunned me. Why did they do these evil things? Well, because they served The Dragon. The big one. The huge, ancient, evil one. And the story progresses not with one small boy (Hiccup) successfully communicating to his father (Stoick) that dragons were misunderstood, but with that boy crushing The Dragon’s head and . . . losing his foot in the process."
I appreciate what Wilson brings to the story here and I'm almost convinced, but I'm not entirely sure that the slaying of the large dragon is developed enough to be consistent with or contrast enough with what has come before.
Some Quickly Muddled Thoughts on Not Slaying Dragons
How to Train Your Dragon is a fun mess of a message movie.
Surprisingly enough, HtTYD is about the dominion mandate.
And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth."
Dominion does not mean killing things (though it doesn't exclude it). Dominion means ruling with authority. And in the immediate context of being made in the Image of God, it means ruling with authority in love.
In such a way that even the deadliest of dragons is under the authority of King Man.
The problem I have with HtTYD, as a fun-spoiling adult, is that the dragons become too cute and cuddly. They are subdued much too easily. By the end of the film, we're asked to forget that sometimes a dragon is just a dragon and wants to kill things at the same time that we get the satisfaction of killing a giant dragon.
I think I'd be okay with young children watching this as long as it was played as a double feature with Grizzly Man.
(That's a joke.)
In "real life," it is possible to tame dragons/serpents/grizzlies, but the enormous difficulty of this task shouldn't be glossed over.
(I'm probably being inconsistent here because I still love Nausicaa and her bug charming ways. But there's a different tone in Nausicaa and it is stressed that she is extraordinary in her talents and gentle understanding even as she leads her people to a greater understanding. I think that it's HtTYD that is inconsistent and not me, but maybe I'm wrong.)
There's a scene toward the end in which Hiccup is supposed to kill a dragon in the arena and instead puts down his weapons and approaches the dragon with outstretched hand. I wanted so badly for the dragon to eat Hiccup and for the credits to roll. But, that's a different movie.
Minor gripes aside, the reason this film works at all is because it works hard to reinforce creative dominion through love.
You can easily get a dog to lie down by shooting it in the head. Bravo! You've subdued that beast! This is the sort of biological/ecological dominion practice that the West at its worst has been guilty of. But no king lasts long on the throne by killing all of his subjects.
The "green" movement is to be praised in recognizing that we have responsibility for a living kingdom. Green folks err whenever they insist that we abdicate responsibility and get out of Nature's way. Not ruling at all is not a proper alternative to poor rule. The obvious (but difficult) task before us is ruling well.
Back to the dog example, we properly exercise authority by working to have Fido lie down in obedience to a verbal command. Not by beating him to a pulp or by leaving him to do as he pleases when he pleases.
I've got a rooster (the closest thing to a dragon in Nanticoke) that I respect. I like him. Sometimes I have to kick the sorry bastard for his own good. He needs to learn that it is not ever okay to attack human children. He's walking a fine line between head of the henhouse and headless on the butcher's block. I like him. I'll like him in a different way roasted.
I don't know why I brought up the rooster. Maybe because it's important to kick him and possibly having to kill him. Even more so, it's important to not kick him the large majority of the time and let him be about his proper business as a rooster. A rooster is a rooster. Let it be so.
A dragon is a dragon.
The strange part of HtTYD is that it works so hard to establish that dragons are just misunderstood puppies, then ends with a climactic fight against a larger dragon. Hiccup does not try tickling this dragon into submission. He never engages it in love or respect. Based on everything that has come before, why not?
Why are we asked to hate this dragon after we've learned to love all the other dragons? Simply because it's bigger? This dragon somehow has evil instincts that the other dragons lack? Why do the other dragons hang around this large dragon? Why is there only one large dragon? Is it an essential part of their ecosystem? How do they later function outside of their nest as pets in a village?
HtTYD falls apart.
(This is another place in which Nausicaa is more consistent and far superior in its insistence on embracing the ugliest and worst of bug creatures and also having a developed logic behind its natural world.)
I know I'm being a killjoy, but HtTYD's fun is marred for me by its mixed messages and failure to seriously engage with its own themes. I had fun with HtTYD, but for the long run I'll stick with Nausicaa and Grizzly Man.
Surprisingly enough, HtTYD is about the dominion mandate.
And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth."
Dominion does not mean killing things (though it doesn't exclude it). Dominion means ruling with authority. And in the immediate context of being made in the Image of God, it means ruling with authority in love.
In such a way that even the deadliest of dragons is under the authority of King Man.
The problem I have with HtTYD, as a fun-spoiling adult, is that the dragons become too cute and cuddly. They are subdued much too easily. By the end of the film, we're asked to forget that sometimes a dragon is just a dragon and wants to kill things at the same time that we get the satisfaction of killing a giant dragon.
I think I'd be okay with young children watching this as long as it was played as a double feature with Grizzly Man.
(That's a joke.)
In "real life," it is possible to tame dragons/serpents/grizzlies, but the enormous difficulty of this task shouldn't be glossed over.
(I'm probably being inconsistent here because I still love Nausicaa and her bug charming ways. But there's a different tone in Nausicaa and it is stressed that she is extraordinary in her talents and gentle understanding even as she leads her people to a greater understanding. I think that it's HtTYD that is inconsistent and not me, but maybe I'm wrong.)
There's a scene toward the end in which Hiccup is supposed to kill a dragon in the arena and instead puts down his weapons and approaches the dragon with outstretched hand. I wanted so badly for the dragon to eat Hiccup and for the credits to roll. But, that's a different movie.
Minor gripes aside, the reason this film works at all is because it works hard to reinforce creative dominion through love.
You can easily get a dog to lie down by shooting it in the head. Bravo! You've subdued that beast! This is the sort of biological/ecological dominion practice that the West at its worst has been guilty of. But no king lasts long on the throne by killing all of his subjects.
The "green" movement is to be praised in recognizing that we have responsibility for a living kingdom. Green folks err whenever they insist that we abdicate responsibility and get out of Nature's way. Not ruling at all is not a proper alternative to poor rule. The obvious (but difficult) task before us is ruling well.
Back to the dog example, we properly exercise authority by working to have Fido lie down in obedience to a verbal command. Not by beating him to a pulp or by leaving him to do as he pleases when he pleases.
I've got a rooster (the closest thing to a dragon in Nanticoke) that I respect. I like him. Sometimes I have to kick the sorry bastard for his own good. He needs to learn that it is not ever okay to attack human children. He's walking a fine line between head of the henhouse and headless on the butcher's block. I like him. I'll like him in a different way roasted.
I don't know why I brought up the rooster. Maybe because it's important to kick him and possibly having to kill him. Even more so, it's important to not kick him the large majority of the time and let him be about his proper business as a rooster. A rooster is a rooster. Let it be so.
A dragon is a dragon.
The strange part of HtTYD is that it works so hard to establish that dragons are just misunderstood puppies, then ends with a climactic fight against a larger dragon. Hiccup does not try tickling this dragon into submission. He never engages it in love or respect. Based on everything that has come before, why not?
Why are we asked to hate this dragon after we've learned to love all the other dragons? Simply because it's bigger? This dragon somehow has evil instincts that the other dragons lack? Why do the other dragons hang around this large dragon? Why is there only one large dragon? Is it an essential part of their ecosystem? How do they later function outside of their nest as pets in a village?
HtTYD falls apart.
(This is another place in which Nausicaa is more consistent and far superior in its insistence on embracing the ugliest and worst of bug creatures and also having a developed logic behind its natural world.)
I know I'm being a killjoy, but HtTYD's fun is marred for me by its mixed messages and failure to seriously engage with its own themes. I had fun with HtTYD, but for the long run I'll stick with Nausicaa and Grizzly Man.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Born without arms
In light of our discussion, I had to re-watch Julien Donkey-Boy.
The hose scene:
[If I was laughing "uncontrollably" (and I don't doubt that I may have been), it was probably largely due to my not having seen the film in a long while and then being nervous about showing to you and Carey a film that I have a personal investment in which I know is usually not well received by anyone.]
[As far as laughing at "inappropriate" things, Abby will tell you that I did laugh hard during Breaking Bad Season 2 when an ATM machine falls on a man's head. I still chuckle thinking about it. That was the episode before or after the one with the severed head strapped to an exploding turtle. I'm writing this in my living room and Abby just commented that I've had a big grin on my face while writing whatever I'm writing. See?]
Back to Julien Donkey-Boy.
It's actually the father and the brother Chris in the hose scene, not Julien (I did misremember this).
The humor comes from the father (who is HERZOG!) saying things like, "Be a man," and "don't be a moody brooder" as he douses his son in cold hose water. Really, it doesn't change much if it had been Julien.
The father is not "just" an abuser and his family victims. He is a father who loves his children, but doesn't always express this "appropriately."
There is horror (extremely uncomfortable at times) here AND love. The father is misguidedly trying to help improve his son(s). The father also very much has his own mental/moral/spiritual problems.
[The hardest scene to watch (which also has its own humor) and also the worst reflection on the father comes later when he does completely verbally abuse Julien.]
I hazard a guess that your "problem" with the hose and wrestling scenes and others is that you are still only seeing through one perspective. Korine has the audacity to love and side with the father as much as with the more obviously sympathetic Julien or any of his siblings.
What's really important is that immediately after this scene (the hose scene) of strained family dynamics and a brief cut to Chris alone and painfully asserting his manhood, we get a scene of the sister singing the Agnus Dei, pleading as it were on behalf of her family.
-Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.-
This is the heart of the film.
Later, the wrestling scene is among the best in the film. When Julien, the Jammin' Jammer, yes, in bra and undies, is being pinned by his brother and being yelled at by his father to be serious, he declares repeatedly "I love you, Chris." This is heart-rending soul-stopping schlock, yes it is. This is living wisdom, wrapped in flailing flesh and failing words. Yes it is.
More than this..
When the sister hits the ice and the baby dies, there is an amazing scene after this when Julien steals the dead baby. For a moment, he is absolutely clear in his communication. Sober as death. The remaining few minutes are devastatingly lovely. Call it melodrama if you must. I won't deny it.
You can't stop me from crying.
--
I do concede to you the inexplicable opening involving what appears to be the spontaneous murder of a young boy over a turtle. I don't know what to make of it. I think I may have brought up to you in the past my idea that not every image in the film is to be trusted (masturbating nun, hm?) and that the editing/construction of the film attempts to reflect Julien's schizophrenia at times, not necessarily a "factual" narrative. I tend to forget that opening sequence of the film when I think about it. I don't know. I don't even have a clue.
Julien Donkey-Boy is also a magnificent technical achievement. The editing (including the sound editing) is probably the most important element, but I think the cinematography is also great. The DP was Anthony Dod Mantle who has since then established himself as one of the more exciting and excellent DPs now working.
Because of all of the above and all that I've previously stated and for so many other reasons that I can't properly understand or articulate, I love Julien Donkey-Boy. A desert island pick and an obvious inclusion on my top 50 that I have yet to compile.
I'm really eager for you to see Mister Lonely. I want to hear what you think of it. Your last paragraph about Korine does have me excited.
It's refreshing to hear your criticisms and reluctant praise. I think that many of your objections are valid even if I can't share those objections. I hope I'm doing a decent job of showing why I love Julien Donkey-Boy and conveying the reasons why I think Korine should be valued as one of our greatest current filmmakers. Your post makes me want to revisit Gummo, which I haven't seen since college- at least a decade ago!
Unrelated to everything above, I did catch The Ghost Writer the last day it played at Cinema Saver. All I can say is that I enjoyed every minute of it and don't care if I never see it again. A perfect summer movie (even if it was released a couple of months ago!).
So far, 2010 has been an odd year.
1) Alice in Wonderland
2) Shutter Island
3) The Ghost Writer
4) Iron Man 2
5) Kick-Ass
I'm still hoping for much better.
The hose scene:
[If I was laughing "uncontrollably" (and I don't doubt that I may have been), it was probably largely due to my not having seen the film in a long while and then being nervous about showing to you and Carey a film that I have a personal investment in which I know is usually not well received by anyone.]
[As far as laughing at "inappropriate" things, Abby will tell you that I did laugh hard during Breaking Bad Season 2 when an ATM machine falls on a man's head. I still chuckle thinking about it. That was the episode before or after the one with the severed head strapped to an exploding turtle. I'm writing this in my living room and Abby just commented that I've had a big grin on my face while writing whatever I'm writing. See?]
Back to Julien Donkey-Boy.
It's actually the father and the brother Chris in the hose scene, not Julien (I did misremember this).
The humor comes from the father (who is HERZOG!) saying things like, "Be a man," and "don't be a moody brooder" as he douses his son in cold hose water. Really, it doesn't change much if it had been Julien.
The father is not "just" an abuser and his family victims. He is a father who loves his children, but doesn't always express this "appropriately."
There is horror (extremely uncomfortable at times) here AND love. The father is misguidedly trying to help improve his son(s). The father also very much has his own mental/moral/spiritual problems.
[The hardest scene to watch (which also has its own humor) and also the worst reflection on the father comes later when he does completely verbally abuse Julien.]
I hazard a guess that your "problem" with the hose and wrestling scenes and others is that you are still only seeing through one perspective. Korine has the audacity to love and side with the father as much as with the more obviously sympathetic Julien or any of his siblings.
What's really important is that immediately after this scene (the hose scene) of strained family dynamics and a brief cut to Chris alone and painfully asserting his manhood, we get a scene of the sister singing the Agnus Dei, pleading as it were on behalf of her family.
-Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.-
This is the heart of the film.
Later, the wrestling scene is among the best in the film. When Julien, the Jammin' Jammer, yes, in bra and undies, is being pinned by his brother and being yelled at by his father to be serious, he declares repeatedly "I love you, Chris." This is heart-rending soul-stopping schlock, yes it is. This is living wisdom, wrapped in flailing flesh and failing words. Yes it is.
More than this..
When the sister hits the ice and the baby dies, there is an amazing scene after this when Julien steals the dead baby. For a moment, he is absolutely clear in his communication. Sober as death. The remaining few minutes are devastatingly lovely. Call it melodrama if you must. I won't deny it.
You can't stop me from crying.
--
I do concede to you the inexplicable opening involving what appears to be the spontaneous murder of a young boy over a turtle. I don't know what to make of it. I think I may have brought up to you in the past my idea that not every image in the film is to be trusted (masturbating nun, hm?) and that the editing/construction of the film attempts to reflect Julien's schizophrenia at times, not necessarily a "factual" narrative. I tend to forget that opening sequence of the film when I think about it. I don't know. I don't even have a clue.
Julien Donkey-Boy is also a magnificent technical achievement. The editing (including the sound editing) is probably the most important element, but I think the cinematography is also great. The DP was Anthony Dod Mantle who has since then established himself as one of the more exciting and excellent DPs now working.
Because of all of the above and all that I've previously stated and for so many other reasons that I can't properly understand or articulate, I love Julien Donkey-Boy. A desert island pick and an obvious inclusion on my top 50 that I have yet to compile.
I'm really eager for you to see Mister Lonely. I want to hear what you think of it. Your last paragraph about Korine does have me excited.
It's refreshing to hear your criticisms and reluctant praise. I think that many of your objections are valid even if I can't share those objections. I hope I'm doing a decent job of showing why I love Julien Donkey-Boy and conveying the reasons why I think Korine should be valued as one of our greatest current filmmakers. Your post makes me want to revisit Gummo, which I haven't seen since college- at least a decade ago!
Unrelated to everything above, I did catch The Ghost Writer the last day it played at Cinema Saver. All I can say is that I enjoyed every minute of it and don't care if I never see it again. A perfect summer movie (even if it was released a couple of months ago!).
So far, 2010 has been an odd year.
1) Alice in Wonderland
2) Shutter Island
3) The Ghost Writer
4) Iron Man 2
5) Kick-Ass
I'm still hoping for much better.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Conversations 2010 #11
Conversations 2010 #11
The old sky cake dodge.
With an (even more than usual) abundance of asides that break the flow of "conversation."
Brandon wrote:
{I haven’t seen THE SEVENTH CONTINENT so I can’t comment on “systematic dismantling“ or “metaphorical self murder” but if Haneke believes that the argument of modernism’s logical conclusion is suicide or senseless brutal murder (Funny Games) then I feel bad for the guy.}
For the record, those phrases in quotes are my own, not Haneke's and the argument is one that I see there, regardless of Haneke's intentions. If you need to feel bad for someone, feel bad for me. The Seventh Continent is also "guilty" of being filled with cracks for the viewer to project meaning into. I don't know how many folks would come to the same conclusions about it that I do.
[Really, I shouldn't have brought up Haneke. I don't really want to defend him and I agree that his attitude in interviews is often smug, condescending, and generally atrocious. Whenever I re-watch Funny Games, though, I'll write the defense you've been waiting for. Then, we can really go at it.]
Brandon wrote:
{I’m not a fan of nihilism in general, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that I am unable to enjoy, that’s not the word, appreciate art that harbors it. When I’m referring to “it” I mean those (artists, their works, or both) who believe that life is meaningless and therefore morality should not exist and we should either “eat drink and be merry“ or sulk around all day.}
I think you have that backwards. It's not so much that "life is meaningless and therefore morality should not exist." It's more, "there is no morality apart from humanity's arbitrary whims, therefore life is meaningless or only has what meaning we assign to it," but your wording works fine enough.
If life and morality are not fixed (by fixed, I mean unchanging) (and, to be clear, I am unashamedly theocratic in insisting that moral law is both fixed and external of man), if it is not fixed, then man is indeed the measure of all things, or there is no measure.
It's all well and good to have the opinion that man should always act in the best interest of other men (and animals, if you insist!), but, apart from an external law/measure, that opinion is no more true or valid than the opinion of the guy down the street feeding men and women to his crocodile.
[One of the funniest elements of Eaten Alive is that Judd insists that his pet is a fancy imported crocodile and not an alligator. I'm sorry that I gave the impression that I had a miserable time watching it. It wasn't all miserable and there were a few praiseworthy elements. It's already provoked more writing from me than any of the Rohmer shorts I adored. Take from that what you will. Back to content, you are right. There is a lot of screaming. The last 20 minutes or so is pretty much exclusively yelling/screaming. Also, I almost mentioned the Tarantino homage to Eaten Alive, but giving a little nod by rhyming 'Buck' and 'fuck' in your own movie isn't much more clever than it was in the source material and it didn't seem relevant to my post so I omitted it. It's amazing to me that Tarantino is so steeped in 70's trash. It's definitely part of what makes him unique as a director/critic.]
-
Some will theoretically defend someone's right to live as they please apart from any moral law, but this defense usually falls to pieces when this person is chained to a wall and slowly being tortured. Then, all of a sudden, right and wrong are as real as a hot poker to the groin.
I love Hitchcock's Rope because it exposes the pretences and inconsistencies of intellectually rigid moral relativists. Also, as we've noted, Hitch had a better sense of humour than almost anyone.
To beat a dead horse (to use what I'm sure is one of your favorite metaphors), I need to quote you again:
{When I’m referring to “it” I mean those (artists, their works, or both) who believe that life is meaningless and therefore morality should not exist and we should either “eat drink and be merry“ or sulk around all day.}
You seemed to take strong issue with my saying that "Haneke follows the argument of modernism to its logical conclusion, suicide" and my implying that it also leads to brutal murder, yet you then define nihilists as those who either "eat, drink, and be merry" or sulk around all day. These two things are exactly what I'm getting at. "Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die" (wrongly understood) doesn't have to, but can and does sometimes lead to "pillage, rape, and feed my crocodile for tomorrow we die.". Sulking all day doesn't always lead to suicide, but it's always a real option for the serious sulkers.
I don't know if you deny these things are true or if you're getting tripped up on my use of the word modernism, an epistemic system that has been demonstrated to lead historically straight to nihilism and our current "postmodern" situation.
In no way was I arguing that every modernist and/or nihilist should kill themselves or each other. I was using broad language and maybe being a bit hyperbolic to make a point while contrasting two horror films.
All of this matters and is relevant exactly because of one of the reasons you state for appreciating the horror genre.
{A lot of the horror genre is a wake up call, much like hip hop and punk music, it brings unpleasant realities/attitudes to the foreground for us the consumer to evaluate.}
If it is horror's "job," so to speak, to shake us up and make us more aware of the unpleasant realities of our current mental landscape... And I agree with you, I think, that it is... If this is true, then horror ought to horrify us. My argument was that Eaten Alive provides a few thrills, then ultimately reinforces a safe familiarity and love for the way things are. The Seventh Continent, on the other hand, actually leaves one unsettled and unwilling, at least for a moment, to maintain any kind of deadening status quo.
If it helps for me to stop mentioning Haneke, I'll throw out Cronenberg's Videodrome as a masterful horror film that shakes foundations of knowing/seeing/acting and does this questioning in a very visual, frightening and even almost primal way. Videodrome is just as exploitative in its own way as Eaten Alive is, but it does not let anyone off the hook in its explorations. Somehow it rides a thin line and uses a theme of exploitation as a critical running commentary on its own very real exploitative content.
-------------------------
Well, I wrote all of that on Monday night. Today, Wednesday, I saw your Gummo post and I think that, as usual, we mostly agree. We just sometimes strongly disagree about particulars.
I hate Halloween II and think you give it way too much slack.
You fly off into a blind rage each time you see the name Haneke. :)
/
As far as Korine goes, I think the problem many people have with his films is that the horrific (for example, a father washing his grown schizophrenic/mentally retarded son with a high powered garden hose while spewing degrading insults at him) is so uncomfortable and ridiculously inhumane that our (in)human response is to laugh at it or walk away from it. Instead of denying this, Korine embraces the seeming contradiction and allows it to stand as is. He creates what is just as close to realism as anything Rossellini ever achieved.
You wrote: {it’s deliberately hyperbolic and yet it strives to relay some sort of backwater realism.}
Yes. Absolutely. And "real life" is often filled with gonzo nuthouse maniacs who aren't killers and don't live in asylums. They have families.
And obviously in JDB the father is doing something insensitive here at best, abusive at worst, but we need to remember that the father is not a monster. We may want him to be, but he is not. He is a flawed and troubled man with his own mental challenges, raising his children as best he can on his own. I hope you don't think I'm crazy if I say that I can relate to even the worst of this character's actions.
A Lifetime Movie Network (or typical Hollywood) treatment of schizophrenia and low-income low-intelligence urban family life would make us cry and rage against the injustice of it all. We need to save these people! In so many ways, it would reaffirm our prejudices and confirm our smug superiority.
You and I both know well that even when the media types want to make a movie about the oppressed and disadvantaged, those "suffering" from mental retardation or mental illness, it is always the CR8s that make the news and get the praise and get the movie adaptations and TV series. No one on the outside sees much of CR5 or even CR1. We get Corky, not shit in the hair or "shut your fucking face, you fucking ass mouth, is it time to go home yet" which is always both extremely funny and extremely sad.
Those who think that last part is only funny (like the punk kids glorying in the depravity of Gummo that you mentioned) are usually wicked and cruel. Those who only think it's sad/awful usually think that it's sad/awful for the wrong reasons and won't ever understand the immense satisfaction of smearing shit on the wall as a token defiance of all who would seek to enslave the weak rather than serve and protect the weak. We need to both laugh and cry simultaneously because neither one will suffice on its own.
Korine, at his best, seems able to hold that tension.
Korine does insist that "the least of these" have a place at the table.
I honestly believe that Korine loves his actors and characters. If he's laughing at them, it's in the same way that you or I would laugh at P.G., because the Giants won 17-17, because we love him and value him, not because we're so much smarter or better than he is.
Anyhow, it's been a long time since I've seen Gummo. I'm sure it does have traces of juvenile schlock and isn't quite as pure as I make Korine sound. Maybe it is fair to think of him as mean-spirited at times. But, how often do we love purely?
Korine has matured with each successive picture. Julien Donkey-Boy is still one of my favorite movies of all time (I saw it three times in a short time span while it played in London and I've watched it multiple times on DVD since). Mister Lonely is really beautiful and probably Korine's best film yet. I am excited about seeing Trash Humpers eventually, but also think it looks a bit silly, which may be the point, I guess.
-------------
Now it's Friday, and Jason, I just read your post. Thanks for responding. You hadn't posted in a while. I thought we might have lost you.
Reality disconnect.
I do understand what you're saying here, and certainly I'm excited about Iron Man 2 and Jonah Hex and Robin Hood which will give me my thrills and make me happy for a couple of hours without having to think too hard.
I think my problem with certain horror may be that, in the horror genre as a whole, I'm looking for something that scares me, not something that I can have fun with. For the most part, I don't like the over-the-top tongue-in-cheek horror that fans of the genre seem to adore. I don't see much to like. Degradation of women? Heinous acts of violence and cruelty? Really? I'm supposed to smirk alongside the director? These movies alsojust aren't all that scary. They're annoying.
I understand "wake-up call" horror. I don't understand amusement park ride horror.
It's often the attitude of these films that I object to.
I know that my continuing to defend Funny Games opens me up to all sorts of charges of hypocrisy at worst and/or inconsistency at best. But, I do think that Funny Games has a fundamentally different attitude than other straight slasher genre films. Like Videodrome, Funny Games walks a tightrope in using genre elements to relentlessly question the audience's motivations and responses. There's also a sense in which Funny Games works precisely as a slasher flick, the same way that Videodrome is precisely an exploitation picture. Paradoxically, this simultaneously strengthens and undermines the arguments of both films. Both are flawed and fascinating.
Enough Haneke already. Enough Cronenberg, too.
Now, here's the thing. I love genre fiction. I dabble in LitFic. I read the occasional Western, Crime, and even Horror novel. I stay away from Romance, but I acknowledge that there probably are some great Romance novels. Robert Morgan's The Truest Pleasure is a really great novel, a favorite of mine, and is essentially Romance, though it gets shelved with the LitFic.
My chosen genre, though, is Science Fiction. Off the top of my head: Hard SF, Space Opera, Science Fantasy, Time Travel, Future History, First Contact, Utopia, Dystopia, Alternate History, Slipstream, Terraforming, Cyberpunk, Steampunk, Fabulism, Interplanetary Espionage, Robotics, Singularity, Whatever, etc. I'll read it all. From Asimov and Blish to Weinbaum and Zelazny.
I guess I'm just bringing this up because I don't want you guys to think that I'm just taking a dump on the horror genre or even the slasher sub-genre. I'm just not steeped in it. I don't love it, either blindly or with eyes wide open. I'm looking at it from the outside and I still don't understand it. I see such tremendous promise and I see it too often squandered.
That's enough.
Breathless. Yeah, it seems overrated now. I too was a bit disappointed by it. But, then again, few films have been hyped the way that that film has or share in its lofty reputation. It is very hard to see that film today the same way someone in 1960 would have seen it. I agree that it doesn't quite hold up, but it's historical importance is impossible to deny.
The good news is that Godard went on to make a LOT more films through the 60s, each one seemingly better than the last. My favorite is Les Caribiniers, but I confess that it is least like the other films he was making at the time, though it definitely shares many commonalities as well. As far as films more representational of Godard's style at the time, I'd suggest Pierrot le Fou or, as Brandon suggested, A Woman is a Woman. Godard also made a decent SF/Noir hybrid, Alphaville, at least a decade before Blade Runner, but if you don't like Godard, you won't like Alphaville.
Somewhere, Godard said or wrote that all he was ever trying to do was make a Howard Hawks film. Along the way, he discovered that he couldn't make anything other than a Godard film. I think his films are to be appreciated at the very least as singularly brilliant expressions/demonstrations of the idea of director as auteur.
Also, Godard just isn't for everyone. If you don't like him, you don't like him. There are plenty of happy cinephiles who can get along just fine without him.
To end all of this...
Lost is fun again.
Breaking Bad's 3rd season continues the series' high level of excellence.
The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus satisfied this Gilliam fan. It's a fun revisiting of Gilliam themes and, as such, is a worthy celebration of Stories and Storytellers and Silly Imaginings.
---
And now it's late Sunday and confession time. Another Hollywood Video is going out of business. This is the one right in downtown Ithaca across from the Barnes & Noble and right next to the new skate park. My first mistake was stopping at all. Once there, I told my self that I was only going to scan the foreign titles, the Westerns, and the Classics. Fortunately or unfortunately (I'm still not sure), the Classics section was pretty great. 3 for $12.
$60
The Charley Chase Collection (McCarey)
Go West (Keaton)
Behind Locked Doors (Boetticher)
The Kennel Murder Case/Nancy Drew Reporter (Curtiz/Clemens)
The Titfield Thunderbolt (Crichton)
A Run for Your Money (Frend)
Whiskey Galore! (Mackendrick)
Passport to Pimlico (Cornelius)
The Baron of Arizona (Fuller)
I Shot Jesse James (Fuller)
T Men (Mann)
The Paleface (McLeod)
Summer (Rohmer)
Mysterious Object at Noon (Apichatpong)
Dear Wendy (Vinterberg)
Dang.
----
Alright, it's Monday the 10th and I'm finally going to post all this. I got paid to see Iron Man 2 tonight. I wanted to walk out. I actually had HUGE expectations. I was sorely disappointed.
Oh well. Robin Hood is next on the summer list.
Eventually, Shyamalan will make things better.
Yup, that's a joke.
Oh, I've begun to dread the wave of Summer films that I was so excited about just a few weeks ago!
The old sky cake dodge.
With an (even more than usual) abundance of asides that break the flow of "conversation."
Brandon wrote:
{I haven’t seen THE SEVENTH CONTINENT so I can’t comment on “systematic dismantling“ or “metaphorical self murder” but if Haneke believes that the argument of modernism’s logical conclusion is suicide or senseless brutal murder (Funny Games) then I feel bad for the guy.}
For the record, those phrases in quotes are my own, not Haneke's and the argument is one that I see there, regardless of Haneke's intentions. If you need to feel bad for someone, feel bad for me. The Seventh Continent is also "guilty" of being filled with cracks for the viewer to project meaning into. I don't know how many folks would come to the same conclusions about it that I do.
[Really, I shouldn't have brought up Haneke. I don't really want to defend him and I agree that his attitude in interviews is often smug, condescending, and generally atrocious. Whenever I re-watch Funny Games, though, I'll write the defense you've been waiting for. Then, we can really go at it.]
Brandon wrote:
{I’m not a fan of nihilism in general, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that I am unable to enjoy, that’s not the word, appreciate art that harbors it. When I’m referring to “it” I mean those (artists, their works, or both) who believe that life is meaningless and therefore morality should not exist and we should either “eat drink and be merry“ or sulk around all day.}
I think you have that backwards. It's not so much that "life is meaningless and therefore morality should not exist." It's more, "there is no morality apart from humanity's arbitrary whims, therefore life is meaningless or only has what meaning we assign to it," but your wording works fine enough.
If life and morality are not fixed (by fixed, I mean unchanging) (and, to be clear, I am unashamedly theocratic in insisting that moral law is both fixed and external of man), if it is not fixed, then man is indeed the measure of all things, or there is no measure.
It's all well and good to have the opinion that man should always act in the best interest of other men (and animals, if you insist!), but, apart from an external law/measure, that opinion is no more true or valid than the opinion of the guy down the street feeding men and women to his crocodile.
[One of the funniest elements of Eaten Alive is that Judd insists that his pet is a fancy imported crocodile and not an alligator. I'm sorry that I gave the impression that I had a miserable time watching it. It wasn't all miserable and there were a few praiseworthy elements. It's already provoked more writing from me than any of the Rohmer shorts I adored. Take from that what you will. Back to content, you are right. There is a lot of screaming. The last 20 minutes or so is pretty much exclusively yelling/screaming. Also, I almost mentioned the Tarantino homage to Eaten Alive, but giving a little nod by rhyming 'Buck' and 'fuck' in your own movie isn't much more clever than it was in the source material and it didn't seem relevant to my post so I omitted it. It's amazing to me that Tarantino is so steeped in 70's trash. It's definitely part of what makes him unique as a director/critic.]
-
Some will theoretically defend someone's right to live as they please apart from any moral law, but this defense usually falls to pieces when this person is chained to a wall and slowly being tortured. Then, all of a sudden, right and wrong are as real as a hot poker to the groin.
I love Hitchcock's Rope because it exposes the pretences and inconsistencies of intellectually rigid moral relativists. Also, as we've noted, Hitch had a better sense of humour than almost anyone.
To beat a dead horse (to use what I'm sure is one of your favorite metaphors), I need to quote you again:
{When I’m referring to “it” I mean those (artists, their works, or both) who believe that life is meaningless and therefore morality should not exist and we should either “eat drink and be merry“ or sulk around all day.}
You seemed to take strong issue with my saying that "Haneke follows the argument of modernism to its logical conclusion, suicide" and my implying that it also leads to brutal murder, yet you then define nihilists as those who either "eat, drink, and be merry" or sulk around all day. These two things are exactly what I'm getting at. "Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die" (wrongly understood) doesn't have to, but can and does sometimes lead to "pillage, rape, and feed my crocodile for tomorrow we die.". Sulking all day doesn't always lead to suicide, but it's always a real option for the serious sulkers.
I don't know if you deny these things are true or if you're getting tripped up on my use of the word modernism, an epistemic system that has been demonstrated to lead historically straight to nihilism and our current "postmodern" situation.
In no way was I arguing that every modernist and/or nihilist should kill themselves or each other. I was using broad language and maybe being a bit hyperbolic to make a point while contrasting two horror films.
All of this matters and is relevant exactly because of one of the reasons you state for appreciating the horror genre.
{A lot of the horror genre is a wake up call, much like hip hop and punk music, it brings unpleasant realities/attitudes to the foreground for us the consumer to evaluate.}
If it is horror's "job," so to speak, to shake us up and make us more aware of the unpleasant realities of our current mental landscape... And I agree with you, I think, that it is... If this is true, then horror ought to horrify us. My argument was that Eaten Alive provides a few thrills, then ultimately reinforces a safe familiarity and love for the way things are. The Seventh Continent, on the other hand, actually leaves one unsettled and unwilling, at least for a moment, to maintain any kind of deadening status quo.
If it helps for me to stop mentioning Haneke, I'll throw out Cronenberg's Videodrome as a masterful horror film that shakes foundations of knowing/seeing/acting and does this questioning in a very visual, frightening and even almost primal way. Videodrome is just as exploitative in its own way as Eaten Alive is, but it does not let anyone off the hook in its explorations. Somehow it rides a thin line and uses a theme of exploitation as a critical running commentary on its own very real exploitative content.
-------------------------
Well, I wrote all of that on Monday night. Today, Wednesday, I saw your Gummo post and I think that, as usual, we mostly agree. We just sometimes strongly disagree about particulars.
I hate Halloween II and think you give it way too much slack.
You fly off into a blind rage each time you see the name Haneke. :)
/
As far as Korine goes, I think the problem many people have with his films is that the horrific (for example, a father washing his grown schizophrenic/mentally retarded son with a high powered garden hose while spewing degrading insults at him) is so uncomfortable and ridiculously inhumane that our (in)human response is to laugh at it or walk away from it. Instead of denying this, Korine embraces the seeming contradiction and allows it to stand as is. He creates what is just as close to realism as anything Rossellini ever achieved.
You wrote: {it’s deliberately hyperbolic and yet it strives to relay some sort of backwater realism.}
Yes. Absolutely. And "real life" is often filled with gonzo nuthouse maniacs who aren't killers and don't live in asylums. They have families.
And obviously in JDB the father is doing something insensitive here at best, abusive at worst, but we need to remember that the father is not a monster. We may want him to be, but he is not. He is a flawed and troubled man with his own mental challenges, raising his children as best he can on his own. I hope you don't think I'm crazy if I say that I can relate to even the worst of this character's actions.
A Lifetime Movie Network (or typical Hollywood) treatment of schizophrenia and low-income low-intelligence urban family life would make us cry and rage against the injustice of it all. We need to save these people! In so many ways, it would reaffirm our prejudices and confirm our smug superiority.
You and I both know well that even when the media types want to make a movie about the oppressed and disadvantaged, those "suffering" from mental retardation or mental illness, it is always the CR8s that make the news and get the praise and get the movie adaptations and TV series. No one on the outside sees much of CR5 or even CR1. We get Corky, not shit in the hair or "shut your fucking face, you fucking ass mouth, is it time to go home yet" which is always both extremely funny and extremely sad.
Those who think that last part is only funny (like the punk kids glorying in the depravity of Gummo that you mentioned) are usually wicked and cruel. Those who only think it's sad/awful usually think that it's sad/awful for the wrong reasons and won't ever understand the immense satisfaction of smearing shit on the wall as a token defiance of all who would seek to enslave the weak rather than serve and protect the weak. We need to both laugh and cry simultaneously because neither one will suffice on its own.
Korine, at his best, seems able to hold that tension.
Korine does insist that "the least of these" have a place at the table.
I honestly believe that Korine loves his actors and characters. If he's laughing at them, it's in the same way that you or I would laugh at P.G., because the Giants won 17-17, because we love him and value him, not because we're so much smarter or better than he is.
Anyhow, it's been a long time since I've seen Gummo. I'm sure it does have traces of juvenile schlock and isn't quite as pure as I make Korine sound. Maybe it is fair to think of him as mean-spirited at times. But, how often do we love purely?
Korine has matured with each successive picture. Julien Donkey-Boy is still one of my favorite movies of all time (I saw it three times in a short time span while it played in London and I've watched it multiple times on DVD since). Mister Lonely is really beautiful and probably Korine's best film yet. I am excited about seeing Trash Humpers eventually, but also think it looks a bit silly, which may be the point, I guess.
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Now it's Friday, and Jason, I just read your post. Thanks for responding. You hadn't posted in a while. I thought we might have lost you.
Reality disconnect.
I do understand what you're saying here, and certainly I'm excited about Iron Man 2 and Jonah Hex and Robin Hood which will give me my thrills and make me happy for a couple of hours without having to think too hard.
I think my problem with certain horror may be that, in the horror genre as a whole, I'm looking for something that scares me, not something that I can have fun with. For the most part, I don't like the over-the-top tongue-in-cheek horror that fans of the genre seem to adore. I don't see much to like. Degradation of women? Heinous acts of violence and cruelty? Really? I'm supposed to smirk alongside the director? These movies alsojust aren't all that scary. They're annoying.
I understand "wake-up call" horror. I don't understand amusement park ride horror.
It's often the attitude of these films that I object to.
I know that my continuing to defend Funny Games opens me up to all sorts of charges of hypocrisy at worst and/or inconsistency at best. But, I do think that Funny Games has a fundamentally different attitude than other straight slasher genre films. Like Videodrome, Funny Games walks a tightrope in using genre elements to relentlessly question the audience's motivations and responses. There's also a sense in which Funny Games works precisely as a slasher flick, the same way that Videodrome is precisely an exploitation picture. Paradoxically, this simultaneously strengthens and undermines the arguments of both films. Both are flawed and fascinating.
Enough Haneke already. Enough Cronenberg, too.
Now, here's the thing. I love genre fiction. I dabble in LitFic. I read the occasional Western, Crime, and even Horror novel. I stay away from Romance, but I acknowledge that there probably are some great Romance novels. Robert Morgan's The Truest Pleasure is a really great novel, a favorite of mine, and is essentially Romance, though it gets shelved with the LitFic.
My chosen genre, though, is Science Fiction. Off the top of my head: Hard SF, Space Opera, Science Fantasy, Time Travel, Future History, First Contact, Utopia, Dystopia, Alternate History, Slipstream, Terraforming, Cyberpunk, Steampunk, Fabulism, Interplanetary Espionage, Robotics, Singularity, Whatever, etc. I'll read it all. From Asimov and Blish to Weinbaum and Zelazny.
I guess I'm just bringing this up because I don't want you guys to think that I'm just taking a dump on the horror genre or even the slasher sub-genre. I'm just not steeped in it. I don't love it, either blindly or with eyes wide open. I'm looking at it from the outside and I still don't understand it. I see such tremendous promise and I see it too often squandered.
That's enough.
Breathless. Yeah, it seems overrated now. I too was a bit disappointed by it. But, then again, few films have been hyped the way that that film has or share in its lofty reputation. It is very hard to see that film today the same way someone in 1960 would have seen it. I agree that it doesn't quite hold up, but it's historical importance is impossible to deny.
The good news is that Godard went on to make a LOT more films through the 60s, each one seemingly better than the last. My favorite is Les Caribiniers, but I confess that it is least like the other films he was making at the time, though it definitely shares many commonalities as well. As far as films more representational of Godard's style at the time, I'd suggest Pierrot le Fou or, as Brandon suggested, A Woman is a Woman. Godard also made a decent SF/Noir hybrid, Alphaville, at least a decade before Blade Runner, but if you don't like Godard, you won't like Alphaville.
Somewhere, Godard said or wrote that all he was ever trying to do was make a Howard Hawks film. Along the way, he discovered that he couldn't make anything other than a Godard film. I think his films are to be appreciated at the very least as singularly brilliant expressions/demonstrations of the idea of director as auteur.
Also, Godard just isn't for everyone. If you don't like him, you don't like him. There are plenty of happy cinephiles who can get along just fine without him.
To end all of this...
Lost is fun again.
Breaking Bad's 3rd season continues the series' high level of excellence.
The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus satisfied this Gilliam fan. It's a fun revisiting of Gilliam themes and, as such, is a worthy celebration of Stories and Storytellers and Silly Imaginings.
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And now it's late Sunday and confession time. Another Hollywood Video is going out of business. This is the one right in downtown Ithaca across from the Barnes & Noble and right next to the new skate park. My first mistake was stopping at all. Once there, I told my self that I was only going to scan the foreign titles, the Westerns, and the Classics. Fortunately or unfortunately (I'm still not sure), the Classics section was pretty great. 3 for $12.
$60
The Charley Chase Collection (McCarey)
Go West (Keaton)
Behind Locked Doors (Boetticher)
The Kennel Murder Case/Nancy Drew Reporter (Curtiz/Clemens)
The Titfield Thunderbolt (Crichton)
A Run for Your Money (Frend)
Whiskey Galore! (Mackendrick)
Passport to Pimlico (Cornelius)
The Baron of Arizona (Fuller)
I Shot Jesse James (Fuller)
T Men (Mann)
The Paleface (McLeod)
Summer (Rohmer)
Mysterious Object at Noon (Apichatpong)
Dear Wendy (Vinterberg)
Dang.
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Alright, it's Monday the 10th and I'm finally going to post all this. I got paid to see Iron Man 2 tonight. I wanted to walk out. I actually had HUGE expectations. I was sorely disappointed.
Oh well. Robin Hood is next on the summer list.
Eventually, Shyamalan will make things better.
Yup, that's a joke.
Oh, I've begun to dread the wave of Summer films that I was so excited about just a few weeks ago!
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