Spotlight (2015)

A new film, Spotlight, directed by Thomas McCarthy, starring Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams, reminds us that politics and news coverage deserve to be taken seriously. How we consume politics and news media feels like entertainment. Like many people, I begin my morning with a cup of coffee and a side of ESPN and the NYTimes for breakfast. However it is important not to forget that politics and journalism are meant to serve a greater purpose than as a temporary distraction from a Sunday hangover.

My laptop computer feels like a constant source of distraction. I’m a click away from an hour of zoning out. My consumption of the news feels like just another piece of that pie. Similarly, watching one of the many presidential debates after work on youtube seamlessly replaces a Netflix or HBO show. Perhaps it's technology that has changed our perception of politics and news as a form of entertainment. But the way politics and news is presented only reinforces that trend.

Donald Trump is the epitome of politics as entertainment.

This is why the Republican debates get great ratings and the Democratic debates are quickly forgotten. One is vaguely serious, the other, well, is less so. Even I have to admit the double feature, undercard/main event Republican debates are an entertaining spectacle. But we must remember that these are real people on the stage. And unfortunately one of them is actually going to hold the most import executive position in the free world. Their decisions as president will matter, affecting the lives of millions of actual living, breathing people. Which is why it can be frustrating that televised debates are treated as theater, and candidates are consistently let off the hook during their time on stage. (See Ted Cruz’s take on the Department of Commerce in the last debate with no follow up by the moderators.) Every candidate's comments in the debates are thoroughly scrutinized post-mortem, but the next time you see them on stage, everything they’ve said in the past will be forgotten. Each new debate is judged more as a performance of body language and eloquence than the last. (See Jeb Bush.) These debates should be treated more seriously, and the fact that the likes of Donald Trump, Ben Carson, and Carly Fiorina are even on the stage should be felt by everyone as an embarrassment.

Although the NYTimes is the fuel that jump starts my brain in the morning, it is usually preceded by an uncontrollable peak at ESPN. Sports journalism for the most part is entertainment. But when teenage kids are dying on the field, and former NFL players are taking their own lives due to repeated head trauma, sports journalism ceases to be entertainment and becomes something more important. You may read the analysis of last Sunday’s games, but boy would you never let your son step on the field.   

It can sometimes be more comforting to think of politics or more broadly, the news, as entertainment, but like the film Spotlight, both often touch people on a much deeper level. The film Spotlight, and the pulitzer prize winning series by the Boston Globe which inspired the movie, remind us not to blindly trust those hiding behind the institution of religion. You wouldn’t let your child be taken for ice cream by a stranger, why trust members of the local clergy? The steep decline in participation among Boston’s Catholic community after the Spotlight reports, prove their purpose to be more than entertainment.

A friend of mine griped about Spotlight, that Mark Ruffolo and Michael Keaten play the characters as taking themselves too seriously. It is certainly true that the film has not a moment of levity. But why shouldn’t they play journalists as a serious occupation? If uncovering the systematic abuse of children isn’t to be taken seriously, then I don’t know what is. The bigger question may be, is the movie about the people or the story? Is it about the style, the music, the performances, or is it about the importance of what the news team revealed to the public?

The only personality trait the characters have in the film is integrity. They’re not fun, they’re not humorous. They’re nerdy and have weird ticks. They enjoy sifting through records, with only a ruler as their bookmark, drinking Harpoons, smoking and talking about their next lead, leaving any semblance of a well rounded life behind. We should all thank god for them. Unfortunately in today's media landscape, I’m not sure they’d have a job to sustain their obsessive dedication. Modern journalism seems to be more about creating a personal brand then letting the work speak for itself. Yet when the story becomes serious, the journalist becomes anonymous and the brand is forgotten. Spotlight is a film for them, and can be both enjoyed and appreciated.

Black Suited Boneheads

Gravity’s Rainbow

I’ve just read, or re-read the first 15 or so pages of Gravity’s Rainbow. Pirate plucked his bananas, imagined the tip of a rocket landing between his brow before it explodes, then described his mind reading or dream reading powers while the Foreign Office or some black suited individuals messaged the Adenoid Blob with trucks full of cocaine. Whether or not I’ll be able to keep this up seems extremely unlikely.

Sports/News

Today and for the past week Tom Brady is the victim of a mess, or his own arrogance, guilty as can be, or unfairly demonized for a non-issue.  How much does due-process matter when it seems obvious what happened? Is it possible to know the facts when the objective media become the tool-bags of a bickering contest? 

Does Roger Goddell not personify as the suited commissioner the clumsy, clunky, jocky bonehead one imagines all football people to be? Or has he orchestrated another attention grabbing media frenzy just before the beginning of a new season? Please. I would have watched the Packers either way. 

Speaking of bone-headed jocks, the football media at each step acts either outraged/thrown into a frenzy over every new manufactured development, forgetting all context, completely oblivious of the idea of reading between the lines, or they preach in lockstep with the forwarded press release like some lieutenant or technocrat, staying loyal to chain of command, or whatever other B.S. buzz-cut boneheads use to justify their sloppy cover-ups and general stupidity.

Speaking of general stupidity, the Republican debate is coming up on Thursday. Unfortunately I couldn’t get the day off to watch. Its funny there are so many candidates that Fox has to hold a pre-debate debate for the bottom six. So debate-night Thursday will resemble a pay-per-view boxing event in more than just the undercard, main event structure, but also the verbal punches, thought concussions and mush for brains occupying the ring.

Contempt (1963)

Paul (Michel Piccoli) is an artist without an art form. He's a former crime novel writer, aspiring playwright, unwittingly tasked to fix a screenplay. Fritz Lang is the beloved filmmaker bastardized by the impossible task of adapting the Odyssey with Godard's touch of sarcastic minimalism. Dailies show Greek statues with painted eyes, arrows drawing fake blood and so forth. Both artists represent Godard's own contempt for his chosen art form. A botched film project within a film about exploitation. But who is the true exploiter and exploitee?

Brigitte Bardot was contracted for a nude scene so Godard has her posing like a Page 3 girl. She is commodified within the story and film, a two dimensional beauty catalogued by her hair and curves. Her relationship with Paul is inconsequential within the barren landscape of the film. She stops loving her husband after he appears to pawn her off to his boss, an American film producer played by Jack Palance. Yet their love is hardly palpable, in so much as an inanimate object can love or be loved.

Jack Palance is a physical presence like one of the Greek statues, held out with Godard's usual contempt for Americans and anyone in the film business. Of course he can't communicate with anyone without a translator, his English falling on deaf ears with a thud. Godard's contempt seems for the film itself this time. Raoul Coutard's cinematography is exploited for a visual beauty without a contextual one. Palance, Bardot and Lang are treated like puppets stripped of character by their director. Yet these are trivial symptoms of the broader exploitation in Godard's nihilistic vision of the world, with no more important victim than himself.

There is no Godard film without contempt, but this time he wasn't sure where to direct it. The screenwriter is contemptible because he has no conviction. He's caught between financial practicality and an artistic sense of self. Bardot's character is contemptible because she lets her body be sold without her brain, and to an American no less. Lang is a slave and Palance a slave master of the film industry. At the end of the film, Lang continues to work, tortured by a hopeless project. “You must finish what you start,” he says, which Godard surely feels about his own work. Bardot, for hitching a ride with an American, and Palance for being a movie producer, are both killed in a car accident at the end.

Godard loathes western affectation, cinematic nostalgia and anything artists or intellectuals might collectively get exuberant about. So Paul is a fool for admiring Dean Martin's character in Some Came Running, with his hat and cigar. Quotes from books, philosophers, and/or meandering intellectual conversations pain and bewilder the audience with just that intent. The joke is on the characters cleverly quoting or conversing, and those who think any of it means something. In addition Fritz Lang and Douglas Sirk might be great directors if not for so many people starting to think so. For Godard, the love of 1950's Hollywood films was once a truth and then became a joke.

In many ways Contempt is the truest expression of Godard's convictions: contempt for the world, the cinema, his admirers and himself. Some say it is the greatest French film ever made, so perhaps his feelings were not so misplaced. 

Boyhood (2014)

Critics around the country have praised Boyhood, Richard Linklater's new film. It was preordained for masterpiece status, and every critic fell in line. They were amazed that a filmmaker could tell a story with characters, including two small children, who grow 12 years older without the need for extra makeup, or different actors. Linklater accomplished this by filming his actors once a year for twelve years. He chose Ellar Coltrane to play the boy, Mason, and his daughter Lorelie to play Mason's sister. Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette played their parents. This group would get together, scribble down the next installment of the script, shoot for a couple of days and say goodbye till next year. Despite being shot over 12 years, and running almost three-hours, Boyhood remarkably only took a combined 39 days to shoot. Apparently Linklater and his team would sometimes write the scenes the night before. Such exhaustive attention to detail surely couldn’t have any downsides if all the critics are satisfied. Yet the film is surprisingly disjointed, and many of the scenes are poorly written and uninspired.

Linklater's film unfolds like a series of cliched cultural snapshots from the last 15 years: Gameboy, Harry Potter, Britney Spears, Hot Topic, the Iraq War and Obama. These are the historical cues, along with Mason's changing hairstyles, to let us know the years are flying by. It's like Forrest Gump for the 2000's, filmed in real time. With each passing year, Mason sits on the sidelines as his mother blows through drunken husbands, and his dad settles down by replacing his GTO with a minivan. He must juggle his parents' emotional baggage with the overwrought hallmarks of boyhood. Mason gets bullied in the bathroom as he clutches his schoolbooks in terror. A smaller Mason looks at a Victoria Secret catalogue before graduating to internet porn by puberty. Not long after he is peer pressured into drinking a beer by some comically obnoxious older kids. As Mason grows into himself, a cultural stereotype starts to take shape. With longhair comes smoking weed and kissing girls in the back of a wood-panel station wagon. With spiked hair comes emo fashion accessories, suspect work ethic, and a passion for photography.

Coltrane isn't unwatchable in his teenage years like Lorelei, but he has about as much presence on camera as your average reality tv personality, musician, or athlete turned dramatic actor. Linklater successfully molded Coltrane into the same pseudo-intellectual, self-centered, perpetually unsatisfied wimp that Ethan Hawke played in Before Sunrise. He shrinks from the screen with age, either hiding behind his bangs, or in full recoiled posture. Some critics have praised the parents as the real center of Linklater's story about boyhood. This is either because these critics are parents themselves, and parents always think it's all about them. Or because, when fully audible, Mason only manages to string multiple sentences together when he's petulantly complaining to his girlfriend: first about the superficiality of Facebook, then about her cheating on him.

The most interesting and worthwhile thing Richard Linklater's new film Boyhood has to offer is the chance to see its lead actors at 12 different stages of their life. Some grow taller, some grow fatter, and some never should have become actors. Besides the wonder of aging, Boyhood contributes a trite and predictable coming-of-age story with little style to compensate for its overinflated sense of importance. At the end of the film, an attractive college girl speaks on behalf of Linklater's clever pen, asking our protagonist, do we seize moments or do moments seize us? I almost started laughing when she preceded the question with something like, “you know how people say,” and couldn't contain myself after hearing what came after. Bits of fortune-cookie wisdom like this are sprinkled throughout Linklater's film, putting Boyhood over the edge in the minds of critics. They at least gave reviewers a jumping off point (aside from the 12 years) with so little else unique or interesting about the film to work with.  

The Battle of Algiers (1966)

The French general, played by the only trained actor in The Battle of Algiers, asked a group of reporters, “Should France stay in Algiers? If your answer is still yes, then you must accept all the consequences.” The consequences referred to by the general were the torture of prisoners by the French army, and the bombing of civilians by the Algerian revolutionaries.

Gillo Pontecorvo's film is a landmark in cinema: a quintessential example of Italian neo-realism, and an important barometer of an era galvanized by revolution and radical political thought. It has since been used by terrorists and revolutionaries, along with world powers as a training video on guerrilla warfare. The Pentagon reportedly showed The Battle of Algiers to US officers in order to prepare for counter-terrorism efforts in the Iraq war.

Aside from being a thrilling film, The Battle of Algiers serves as a lesson when assessing the violence erupting in the Middle East today. What essential question, similar to that of the French general, should be asked about conflicts in the Middle East? One might ask, should Israel have a military presence in Gaza and the West Bank? And should the U.S. have a military presence in Iraq? Perhaps most importantly, what is the difference between a terrorist and a revolutionary?

The Algerian revolutionaries in the film strongly resembled what are now considered terrorists. However France didn't belong in Algeria and eventually withdrew in 1962. Should France stay in Algiers? The answer was no. The overthrow of the French regime seemed inevitable in the film. The Algerian people, picked up off the street to star in the film, their impassioned and anguished faces portrayed so starkly by Pontecorvo, would not be denied.

The general in The Battle of Algiers was willing to accept torture as a consequence of war. What lengths is the US willing to go in order to stop Hamas or ISIS and protect ourselves? As the three women planted bombs in a cafe, bar, and airport populated by civilians, Pontecorvo's film forced audiences to look terrorists in the face and see a human being. In that vein, are we willing to look at our enemies and sympathize with their point of view in order to make the world a better place?

Days of Heaven (1978)

Days of Heaven has everything to delight a lay-snob's appetite for cinematic artistic pretension. Though surprisingly enough, it doesn't pass the test of a true film snob.

There is beautiful cinematography, shot during the magic-hour (how technical). And a love triangle. Not the melodramatic kind you'd see on television, but something more muted, like you'd see in a foreign film. To top it off there are the blank stares and the precocious voice over of a child.

Thanks to these key elements, Days of Heaven is regarded as one of the greatest movies ever made. It earned a place in the hearts of cinema lovers everywhere – right next to Terrence Malick's other films, The Thin Red Line (great cinematography and war), and The Tree of Life (great cinematography and Brad Pitt). Days of Heaven is one of the most visually beautiful movies ever made, but somehow certain critics still found something wrong with it. According to them, Days of Heaven is simply overrated.

The issue for these critics seems to be the devil in the details. Apparently some of Malick's crew didn't think he knew what he was doing during the making of the film. The film ran over budget because Malick allegedly started shooting inordinate amounts of coverage with the idea of solving the film's plot problems in the editing room. Infamously, he then took years to edit Days of Heaven, and had to add the voice over (much praised) after the fact just to cobble all the pieces together.

Why does this matter? For some, knowing these details takes the sheen off of the once-a-decade filmmaker’s genius. If only the movie was exactly as Malick had planned. Then they would consider Days of Heaven the masterwork of a true cinematic visionary. Knowing of

Malick's struggles opens the door to critics who wish to parse the film's thin story, and they say, disjointed composition. Not to mention Richard Gere's historically inaccurate haircut and bad acting.

In my opinion Days of Heaven is still a great film. Thank Malick for the magic-hour, the Texas prairie (actually Canada), and Linda Manz's adorably improvised Chicago-hick accent. Truthfully, Days of Heaven is pieced together just fine. And the film benefits from a story which doesn't convolute or detract from images already loaded with emotion. Even Gere's clumsy dufus approach fits a character as fleeting as the passing harvest. As Gere runs from the police like a chicken with his head cut off, with no hope of escaping, I couldn't help but think of the cruel reality of the passage of time. Gere's character is shot dead unjustly, with no hope of explaining himself and little chance of being remembered. Similarly, each summer a new batch of workers come and go, and with them foolish love affairs and forgotten children. Eventually even the wheat harvest and the prairie will disappear. 

The Conformist (1970)

Bernardo Bertolucci’s film The Conformist is like a vegetarian who loves wearing fur. It masquerades as a leftist political film, villainizing fascists as cold, materialistic and of course, sexually perverted. Yet the film embodies what it purports to critique.

From the very first shot of the film, it is apparent that this isn’t your uncle Godard’s, satirically absurd vision of fascist Italy. Jean-Louis Trintignant sits on a hotel bed, intensely contemplating some impending catastrophe, totally uninterested in the naked woman lying next to him, with the film seemingly basking in his esoteric coolness. As Trintignant sits in a car, the collar of his jacket is popped in the same way Belmondo mocked American gangster movies in Godard’s Breathless. Trintignant's character wants normalcy: a bourgeois wife, and the security a dictatorship offers. He just wants to fit in, but his latent homosexuality, and love of fedoras and three piece suits just doesn't jive with either political movement. The Conformist is visually breathtaking, utilizing color filters, deep focus, beautiful 1930’s clothes and decor. Its visual style makes it a great film, however this seems totally incongruous with its intended critique of fascism. It fetishizes fascism rather than mocking it.

The Conformist is considered by many to be one of the greatest films ever made, but so much of what is great about the film doesn’t fit within our interpretation of it. And what the film offers as explanation for its characters is mostly ignored by critics who praise the film. The main character is a fascist because he was molested and is a closet homosexual, and the liberal professor’s wife sleeps on both sides of the ideological divide because she is also a sexually confused, closet lesbian. According to the film, the ideological differences of the left vs the right are no more than a front for bedroom politics. As in many films, fascists or socialists, whoever is more unpopular at the time, must be politically motivated by their sexual ineptitude or perversion. The film intends to critique fascism on a psychosexual level, yet the characters sexual and ideological politics seem frivolous.

The Conformist wants the cake of conformity and to eat it too. It celebrates the excess that its contemporary independent film movement has attempted to satirize, while also trying to conform to that movement's benchmark technique of intercutting. The Conformist attempts unsuccessfully to incorporate the French New Wave's editing style; beginning at the end, occasionally and confusingly cutting back and forth within the story. (Godard's influence on independent films of this period is similar to that of a Mussolini-esque dictator.) Its attempt at intercutting makes the film far more confusing than it should be, ironically appealing to the pretentious film-watchers elite and not to the masses.

Bertolucci’s “operatic filmmaking” as Kael put it, overshadows his intended message. The film is like listening to the opera, not following the story, but enjoying the singing. The Conformist is a great film, despite it growing more elusive to less patient audiences by the year. It not only wonderfully captures the style of the 1930’s but also the thinking of 1960’s filmmakers. As much as we might want to champion it for its intelligence and freudian political undertones, its greatness lies in the beauty of its voice.

Under the Skin (2013)

It is a testament to any true mind bending film that their viewers are very nearly put to sleep. A film so artfully esoteric and minimalist strains the patience of an audience. One would be lying not to admit that upon first watching Under the Skin they weren’t close to nodding off. I’m one of those film enthusiasts who makes his friends watch movies he suspects they won’t have the patience to enjoy. I see it as my duty to try to improve their taste and exercise their metabolism for the cinematic art, and thankfully they are always good sports. In the case of Under the Skin I feel bad for what I put them through. Under the Skin is a film which seems to have contempt for the viewer, offering little to enjoy and even less explanation for itself. The film at least bewildered my friends enough that half way through the film they chose to see it through rather then turn it off, partly out of curiosity but primarily to justify the hour already wasted. The last third of the film wakes the viewer from his somnambulance, availing its artistic merit. This doesn’t justify the first hour amounting to cinematic water torture. Nonetheless, if you can stay awake through the entire film and haven’t quit before seeing the ending, Under the Skin gives those few people something haunting to remember. It is the perfect example of a film about which critics write, “I didn’t enjoy it, but I think it’s one of the best films of the year.” 

Under the Skin is one of the more strange and surprising films I’ve seen in a while for a number of reasons. It is incredibly frustrating and confusing, until gradually it begins to makes sense. One thing that is unique about it is that it is not confusing in the sense that there are a lot of moving parts that are difficult to put together. Rather, there are very little parts and none of them are easy to explain. It also throws the viewer off from his or her expectations if they haven't previously read the book. My hope was for something sultry and surreal. Having not read the book, I envisioned Under the Skin to be a stylish sic-fi noir where the beauty of Scarlet Johansson is juxtaposed with the grotesque and supernatural. Something like Bladerunner meets Alien, if Sigourney Weaver turned out to be an alien. Instead the film is as dreary as its setting, with Johansson fitting in about as well in Scotland as she might have if she looked like the alien from Alien.

What can also be disappointing about the film is that Johansson’s talent and charm are completely wasted. Her sumptuous voice, which she used to perfection in Her, is not utilized at all. Her character barely speaks during the entire film. Instead she moves through film, inhabited by an alien, looking about as confused as my friends did while watching the film. The alien-Johansson’s motives and purpose are unclear. Through the first half of the film the alien drives around picking up men off the street by asking them directions then offering them a ride. Thinking they’ve been given an invitation for sex, the men go with Johansson to her apartment where both undress. The men walk towards a naked Johansson and as they approach her slowly sink into a black pool until they disappear. Without having read the book the viewer is left unsure of what has happened to the men. Having read a bit about the book, apparently they are being harvested for the alien-Johansson and another mysterious alien we see riding a motorcycle in the film.

The direction of the story shifts when Johansson picks up a man with Elephant-Man-like facial disfigurements. She feels pity for the man and decides to let him go. After this Johansson begins to feel more human. She tries eating human food given to her by a man she has built a relationship with. When she and this man try having sex, at the moment of penetration the alien-Johansson leaps up and shines a lamp over her vagina. It is as if she hadn't been aware what it was there for. Perhaps then she realizes what all those men she picked up off the street were after. At the end of the film the alien-Johansson is raped by a man in the woods, who rips off the facade of the beautiful actress to reveal a bald black alien. Without speaking for the author or filmmaker, does the alien serve as a metaphor for an adolescent woman's navigation through sexual experiences? Every sexual encounter has stayed under the skin, and the sexual assault too will be trapped there like the men in the black pool.

The Immigrant (2013)

A Prisoner of the American Dream

The Immigrant is one of those films which will likely fall through the cracks. For one reason or another which perhaps only Mr. Weinstein can attest, The Immigrant saw an extremely limited advertising campaign and distribution. Given its release early in the year, it will certainly get overlooked come award season despite warranting strong consideration, especially for the performances of Joaquin Phoenix and Marion Cotillard in the title roles.

The Immigrant looks like many films set in the same time period. The costumes are more understated but the colors are the same. The palette is a wash of mahogany and maroon offset by dim yellow candle and lamp light. Martin Scorsese's television drama Boardwalk Empire also takes place during the 1920's. Unlike Boardwalk which pops with a plastic artificiality having been meticulously touched up on a computer, The Immigrant looks more a like a slowly fading painting. Boardwalk's style immediately catches the attention and admiration of the viewer. The viewer thinks to themselves, where can I buy a gold pocket watch, fedora and matching three-piece suit? The visual style of The Immigrant distracts less and draws one in more to the characters.

In The Immigrant Joaquin Phoenix plays the sensitive but typically bipolar pimp Bruno, who lashes out at his girls while stroking their hand. When his new employee Ava, played by Cotillard, tells him not to touch her, Bruno screams, “I should beat you to death,” but “I want to help you.” Bruno's manic fragility, along with Ava's veiled deviousness make fascinating a less than inspired story. Ava's hatred for her male customers, as well as her pimp, is written on her face, yet her pragmatic desire to get paid is plainly stated. She tells another prostitute, “you don't take my money, ever.” Despite her apparent innocence and virtue, initially Ava would rob Bruno if given the chance. At the beginning of the film, Bruno seems to be stable and wealthy when he buys Ava from Ellis Island. It quickly becomes apparent that he is not only mentally and emotionally unstable, but one misplaced outburst away from either homelessness or imprisonment. Bruno unravels as his possessive infatuation for Ava grows. The initial hatred Ava has for Bruno devolves into a half-hearted sympathy. We can't help but feel for Bruno as the once confident Pimp becomes increasingly pathetic. At the same time we wish Ava would pack her bags and run as far away from him as possible before he does something crazy. Bruno is driven mad by the elusive desire to possess Ava, despite the obvious fact that she doesn't love him. Ava is defiant in the face of a weltering Bruno. His strong-handed pimp persona fails to mask a wimpish insecurity and male inadequacy. Early in the film Bruno attempts to woo Ava with affection and control her with fear, both of which fail.

Like many films about immigrants, life after arriving at Ellis Island seems worse than anything fathomable. Yet immigrants like Ava remain desperate not to be deported. Similar to illegal immigrants today who risk their lives crossing the border, Ava wishes only to find a better life in America and be happy. Her struggle throughout the film serves as a metaphor for how illegal immigrants continue to be mistreated. Ava tells a minister while confessing that she lives like an animal. Illegal immigrants are treated like cattle, degraded and commodified. Bruno saves Ava from being deported by bribing a police officer. He buys Ava and feels that he owns her. She sells her body working for Bruno as a prostitute like modern immigrants sell away their dignity and civil rights to employers seeking cheap labor. The greatest tragedy of the struggles of illegal immigrants is that they are vilified, despite being enslaved in a country which they idealized as a means for salvation. For an illegal immigrant, hopes of living out the American dream quickly become a haunting nightmare in which they are the victim of the ugly side of capitalism. In The Immigrant, Bruno tells Ava at his lowest point, “Forget about me, because I took everything from you and I gave you nothing.”

127 Hours (2010)

By Eric Jessen 1/13/2011

Might it have been a ground breaking film or a snuff nightmare? The showiness and overly beautified style of Danny Boyle's last film Slumdog Millionaire, cut and structured for the reality TV viewer with a short attention span, bleeds through in Boyle's new film 127 Hours. But what made Slumdog a two hour music video and poverty merely a road block for teen love doesn't overshadow the inherent messages in Aron Ralston's unbelievable story.
Who hasn't met a Ralston once in their life? He eats protein bars, drinks gatorade and gets high on testosterone and exhilaration. But this is the story of young exuberance being literally brought down to earth. The strength of Boyle's film is in showing how Ralston, played exceptionally well by James Franco (which will certainly earn him a best actor nomination), must come to terms with profound loneliness, and perhaps learn the idiocy and selfishness of his careless attitude, boasting to para-skying-bungee-mountain-biking friends about dances with death at the expense of his loved ones.
The issue with 127 Hours is Boyle's need to force the redemptive value of Ralston's experience in place of brutal honesty. Ultimately in showing Ralston's realization that he needs companionship to survive the movie screams Humanity too loud. The flashbacks of Ralston's shining moments in life feel too much like Kodak moments. The music by A. R. Rahman (who worked with Boyle on Slumdog) often feels too cute, as well as clips of old commercials for Juicy Fruit and Gatorade. The inevitable dismemberment scene which looms over the entire film is the only time Boyle truly challenges the audience and forces it to endure the horror of Ralston's experience. It is also the only time the cloud of Boyle's grinning technique is lifted.
A film portraying the nihilism and cruelty of the world was possible here. But not in the stomach of Danny Boyle. And perhaps for the better. The realities of Ralston's experience as well as the hardships of the world may be too unbearable to stand. The sensationalism of violence and perversion in film will never be as unwatchable as the truth.

Mom and Mom, the King and the Kids

By Eric Jessen January 1st, 2011

The Kids Are All Right (2010)

Since its conception film has been the people's medium. Giving the people what they want, violence and particularly sex have been the basis for the vast majority of movies. (It's no mystery why Pauline Kael gave her books titles like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and When the Lights Go Down.) But similar to the general population I'm not sure the film industry fully understands homosexuality. Hollywood has yet to learn how to effectively do gay sex. So it came as no surprise the new film The Kids Are All Right, portraying the modern American family – two moms and a donor – couldn't resist giving one of its lesbian main female characters a proper heterosexual fucking, doggy-style and the works. What saves The Kids Are All Right is at least for the first hour it doesn't take itself too seriously. Don't be fooled by the title. This film doesn't purport to be “progressive,” and the subtextual message about the legitimacy of multiple mom or dad families isn't shoved down our throats. The Kids Are All Right makes room for some tickling satirical humor. Whole Foods shopping, green obsessing, California liberals are this film's punching bag if an easy and tired one.
Just as satirizing upper-middle class couples dining-out conversations over a bottle of wine about composting and yogurt stopped being cute, The Kids Are All Right took its inevitable serious turn. This is where it becomes an extremely cliched family drama. The Julianne Moore mom feeling that she's not appreciated is portrayed in a scene where the Annette Bening mom is too busy for the bathtub because of a work related phone call. And when Mia Wasikowska as the prudish daughter finds out one of her moms slept with her donor dad she lets out her anger by getting drunk at a party and attempting to suck face with her equally prudish and possible homosexual best friend.
As the title indicates the kids end up all right, and mom and mom do too. What else could we expect from the people's medium. As long as they go home feeling like they learned something.

The King's Speech (2010)

On the conveyor-belt of British films The King's Speech is this year's fit for the store front. Between the British people's old-fashioned respect for royalty, effeminate sensibility and insecurity, dry humor and pride in stubbornness and perseverance, the inevitable Academy Award Best Picture nominee is the sum of its parts. Colin Firth's King George VI overcoming his stammering is only as uplifting as its subject matter is propped up to be. Perhaps brought on by one too many contrived life affirming, confidence assuring nods by the King's speech therapist (played to type by Geoffrey Rush) in the final minute, The King's Speech depresses rather than uplifts and diminishes one's faith in the state of creativity and independence in film.

Grizzly Mad

By Eric Jessen 10/29/2010

Some sick personality trait of mine and film director Werner Herzog had us instantly drawn to the story of Timothy Treadwell, particularly the circumstances of his death. If you're not familiar with the story; Treadwell is the man who lived with bears over the course of thirteen summers in Alaska's Katmai National Park and Reserve, filmed himself for the last five, until he was eaten by a bear in 2003. Grizzly Man is the documentary put together by Werner Herzog using Treadwell's surviving footage.
Perhaps out of a common cynicism and overall surliness, I think both Herzog and I looked to the story of Treadwell to affirm personal beliefs about man's relationship to nature. As opposed to Herzog, the notion I looked to affirm was somewhat petty. Having grown up with little or no connection to animals I've always found people who feel an emotional bond with their pet unbearably annoying, especially when they speak to them like they would an infant. I always believed people and their pets are as true a bond as children and their imaginary friends. So for me Treadwell was an example of someone whose emotional bond with animals was ultimately proven to be a lie.
Herzog on the other hand looked to affirm his belief that the world is a cruel and violent place. Herzog says on the soundtrack for Grizzly Man, “I believe the common character of the universe is not harmony, but hostility, chaos and murder.” And despite the hours of footage of Treadwell living amongst bears, sometimes even touching them, Herzog says he sees in the bears not the love and connection Treadwell believed he and the bears had, but a “blank stare and a half bored interest in food.”
Herzog was also fascinated by the madness of Treadwell: why he seemed to have a death wish. Treadwell himself admits on camera, “My life is on the precipice of death...If I show weakness, I'm dead. They will take me out, they will decapitate me, they will chop me up into bits and pieces – I'm dead.” (Of course this is exactly what ends up happening. When Treadwell appeared on Late Show with David Letterman even Letterman asks, “Is it going to happen that we a read a news item one day that you have been eaten by one of these bears?”) And despite this Treadwell idealizes the bears, almost deifies them. He gives each of them names and speaks of their wisdom. In one strange sequence in Grizzly Man when he finds a pile of excrement of one of his favorite bears, “Wendy's poop,” he exults, “It was inside her.”
But could it be that Treadwell was simply showing off for the camera. Many friends of Treadwell say in Herzog's documentary that Treadwell just wanted to be a star. Treadwell is visibly aware of the camera at all times. In the almost one-hundred hours of footage Treadwell took while in Alaska he's constantly putting himself in the foreground and the bears in the background. He seemingly becomes more the subject than the bears.
Creating an image for himself seems foremost on Treadwells mind. We learn in Herzog's documentary that this has long been an obsession of Treadwell's. Once an aspiring actor, he turned to drugs and alcohol when he lost the part of the bartender on Cheers to Woody Harrelson. And when he was in California looking for work he claimed to be an orphan from Australia, even doing a Down Under accent, for some reason hiding the truth that he grew up in a seemingly normal home in Long Island.
While in Alaska Treadwell is always trying to portray himself as the lone savior of the bears, risking his life for their protection. Yet Alaska's Katmai National Park and Reserve is a protected land with few reported cases of poaching. It appears Treadwell's idea of himself as the protector of the bears was as much a delusion as that he was an orphan from Australia. He desperately tries to maintain his image even when he's not alone. On a few occasions Treadwell is seen telling Amie Huguenard, who stayed with him the last few summers, to “get out of the shot,” saying he's supposed to be alone. He constantly reminded us on camera how daring it is of him to be alone with the bears. Yet until Treadwell and Huguenard's death, no one had been killed by bears in Alaska's Katmai National Park and Reserve. He also seems on camera infatuated with his physical appearance; his so called Prince Valiant haircut, and looking fit and athletic despite being in his mid 40's.
So what was Treadwell doing in Alaska? It's clear that he was there more for himself than for the bears, both to gain stardom and to soothe some inner pain. Treadwell admitted that living in Alaska with the bears saved him from alcohol and drug addiction. Perhaps toeing the line with bears, risking his life every day was the vice Treadwell needed as a replacement. But I think he also wanted to give his life some purpose and make something of himself. So he had to create a purpose. He had to create a persona – the protector of the bears.
Herzog says, “I have seen this madness on a movie set before,” speaking of Treadwell as he would one of his actors. Herzog also says, “I have seen human ecstasies and darkest human turmoil.” One is immediately reminded of Herzog's Fitzcarraldo (and the subsequent documentary about the film, Les Blank's Burden of Dreams, which shows how obsessive Herzog became making the film) where Klaus Kinski's character becomes obsessed with dragging a gigantic boat across land from one river to another. In fact madness has been the subject of many of Herzog's films. I was also reminded of perhaps Herzog's most famous film, Aguirre, the Wrath of God, based on Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, in which the main character Aguirre (again played by Klaus Kinski) becomes addicted to his own power and is convinced he is the wrath of god saying, “If I, Aguirre, want the birds to drop dead from the trees...then the birds will drop from the trees... I am the wrath of god. The earth I pass will see me and tremble.” Also in the making of Aguirre Herzog showed his obsessive nature. He insisted on shooting the film on location in the Amazon despite terrible weather conditions.
One might watch Grizzly Man and think Werner Herzog is making a fool of Treadwell, yet I think he actually took a very objective approach. Herzog often comments on the soundtrack of the brilliance of Treadwell as a filmmaker in his ability to capture spontaneous moments of nature, particularly Treadwell's interactions with foxes. Herzog seems to think this is where Treadwell makes a true connection with nature. Here is a point where I may disagree with Herzog. Just because Treadwell can interact with the foxes like anyone would their pet dog or cat, doesn't mean there's any difference between that and the blank stare Herzog saw in the eyes of the bears. I think we just naturally see a connection and project warmth in a cute, cuddly and nonthreatening animal like a fox and cruel indifference in a large, intimidating animal like a grizzly bear.
I don't think Herzog was out to make Treadwell the fool in an attempt to show the madness and cruelty of the world. Treadwell became the mad fool when he was finally eaten. Treadwell couldn't just be the man you may have heard about who lived with bears. He had to prove how daring he was by videotaping himself. Finally he had to up the ante one last time. The summer Treadwell was killed, he stayed in the park longer than normal. With most of the bears in hibernation by this point, Treadwell was living amongst starving and therefore much more dangerous bears. Perhaps Treadwell did have a death wish and staying longer the final summer was a type of suicide. I think in death we got the final verdict on Treadwell's sanity. Yet in death Treadwell finally got what he always really wanted – some notoriety. With Herzog's Grizzly Man he became a star.

Malcolm Lowry and "Volcano"

By Eric Jessen August 9, 2010

The London Times said of Malcolm Lowry's first book Ultramarine (1933) that “if the art of writing is imitation, then the author has mastered it.”
Since his death in 1957 countless theses have been written on Lowry's life: some claim he was a homosexual, others claim he was impotent, all search for an explanation for his drinking, his masterpiece Under the Volcano (1947), and his subsequent failures as an author. Though not an authority on Lowry's life – having only read Under the Volcano and seen the award nominated biographical documentary “Volcano” by Donald Brittain - I would hypothesize that perhaps his true sorrow came from knowing he was an impostor.
It seems from an early age Lowry had already decided he was a failure. According to the documentary, his childhood could be summed up by a series of complaints: his mother was not loving enough, he was constantly ill, and despite his father being a body builder he was considered a sissy in school. (The Hollywood depiction of his life would immediately cut to a flashback in black and white of an overweight woman threateningly wielding a frying pan around the kitchen as little Malcolm cowered in the corner, then a shot of several kids pointing their fingers at Malcolm laughing deprecatingly.)
It seems his pain and suffering became his obsession. He drank continuously until he convinced himself he was an alcoholic. He brooded and sulked until he convinced himself he was depressed. At one point he wandered endlessly outside Bellevue Hospital, drunk and spouting gibberish, until he convinced himself and the doctors he was insane. He desperately sought his own suffering. His actions indicate not as much a cry for help but a cry for attention.
By the time Lowry was writing Under the Volcano in Mexico his obsession with his own suffering had reached a type of arrogance. He saw a sort of divine significance in his own drunken misery. When at first his novel had trouble finding a publisher, he could cope. But once Under the Volcano became a huge success, hailed worldwide as a masterpiece and a work of a genius, his life truly started to fall apart.
Afterword he drank in between struggling to come up with new ideas for novels. Not another was finished the rest of his life. He once again visited therapists and mental hospitals. After years of disappointing fans and publishers he became somewhat of a disgrace. His misery became a reality. Finally, and sadly fittingly, he died in a pool of his own vomit having downed a half bottle of gin. Too bad it wasn't Mescal.

Inception (2010)

By Eric Jessen August 2, 2010

Not since Christmas Eve when I was ten years old have I been so eager to call it a night. Thanks to Christopher Nolan's Inception, I don't think I've ever been so excited about dreaming since I first learned about Freud.
Inception may be the first movie in a long time deserving of its place atop the box office. It's like a cross between Mission: Impossible and The Matrix cut together with as much boldness and flashiness as Nolan's Memento. (You can already give Lee Smith the Oscar for Best aka “Most” Editing.) Although I was a little disappointed the movie was easier to follow than I was led to believe. The pieces of the puzzle, the dreams within dreams within dreams within dreams actually fit together quite nicely. With the help of some rather lame explanations, of course. I would suggest instead of having these explanation scenes a word bank be printed on the back of our ticket defining "inception," "extraction," "kick," "limbo," "totem," "forger" etc. That would just about cover it – then straight into dreamland. Which leads me to my even bigger gripe. Why does every character in the end have to prefer reality when the dream world is so clearly more interesting?
But really I can't criticize Inception. It was a lot of fun. Some may say it's too literal minded, the characters are shallow, the dialogue is weak. It's not very witty, a little too dower like it doesn't know it's supposed to be fun. (And then again, it's fun anyway.) And all of those things may be true. But show me a movie with as complicated a structure, as many layers of story that also has well developed characters and great dialogue, all while sparing time to dazzle us with special effects. Maybe, in our dreams.

Kramer vs Kramer (1979)

By Eric Jessen July 6, 2010

With Robert Benton's Kramer vs Kramer divorce has never seemed more adorable and less messy – no adultery, no prenups, just love. And learning; Kramer husband (Dustin Hoffman) how to be a better parent to their son Billy (Justin Henry); Kramer wife (Meryl Streep) how to be a more “complete” person.
One night he comes home late, for reasons of the “bringin'-home-the-bacon” variety, and she runs out on him – to California “to find myself.” “It's not you it's me,” she tells him. Now Kramer husband has to raise Billy by himself. Much bonding occurs, so when Kramer wife returns Kramer husband won't give up Billy without a fight. Lawyers and judges get involved and Kramer wife is awarded custody of Billy despite all the heart-strings being pulled in the husband's favor.
It's all very civilized and upper-middle class. (Did I mention both Kramers are advertising executives in Manhattan and wife went to Smith.) Meryl Streep seems to be in about 15 minutes, of which she spends about 13 crying, and somehow she won Best Actress. Hoffman runs a lot with briefcases and portfolios under his arm and shares many warm looks with cute little Justin Henry which won him Best Actor.
In the end Kramer wife comes to her senses and decides to let husband keep Billy because she thinks it's best for their son. How nice. I'd say divorce has never seemed more sensible – even desirable. Maybe when Kramer vs Kramer was awarded Best Picture a few directors and producers had other things in mind. After seeing what it did for the Kramers I'd sign on the dotted line.

Duel in the Sun (1946)

By Eric Jessen July 2, 2010

After ten minutes of Dimitri Tiomkin Prelude and Overture the movie starts. The opening credits say King Vidor's Duel in the Sun with Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotton, Gregory Peck, Lionel Barrymore, Herbert Marshall, Lillian Gish, Walter Huston, Charles Bickford, Harry Carey and on and on. With so many names in big bold letters how could it go wrong? The only more amazing list was of the uncredited directors: William Dieterle, Josef von Sternberg. Another was David O. Selznick who also produced and wrote the script.
Then again I asked myself, how could it not go wrong? And so so wrong it did. Duel in the Sun, which was more accurately known at the time as “Lust in the Dust,” is so bad it's impressive.
Jennifer Jones plays the ravishing “half-breed” who puckers her lips and puffs up her chest. She makes them cowboys go wild. Gregory Peck keeps his hair wet and his hands dirty and does his best impression of a hunk. (Southern drawl has never sounded so articulate.) From the moment they make eye contact they look like they want to take a bite out of one another. (I think I saw Jones lick her lips.) All that's missing is a mating cry. Finally they kiss and it brings the house down. Jones resists at first – then again she aspires to be a lady. But eventually Peck's manly charms overcome her to the point she decides to loathe him for it. The passion boils over resulting in the two trying to kill each other. Fantastic! They both shoot each other then ask, “Are you okay, darling?” Outstanding! One of the great endings I can remember – two people dying in their killers/lovers arms. They didn't realize how much they loved each other until they'd killed each other. Did I mention this was a love story?
Joseph Cotton plays Peck's brother, the good guy, who Jones loves until she realizes how boring he is, and presumably sterile. Just before Peck shoots Cotton he delivers this line, “Don't give me your high and mighty noble talk, Big Words.” Brilliant! Lionel Barrymore plays the same part he played in It's a Wonderful Life except on a horse. Lillian Gish plays Mr. Potter's wife and she really is never bad enough for this movie, although she has her one overwrought dying seen. And how could I forget Butterfly MacQueen, who didn't get her name in bold, again playing the mousy maid from Gone with the Wind.
Duel in the Sun is so bad it's great. And hilarious. And irresistibly entertaining. Some would even say it's good. Maybe it is? Don't see no reason why not.

The Life of Emile Zola (1937)

By Eric Jessen June 27, 2010

When Paul Muni in full Emile Zola beard screams about truth in William Dieterle's The Life of Emile Zola I couldn't help but chuckle. Or was it that I gagged but the sewage that spewed from my mouth was thought too lurid to survive any retelling?
Hollywood has always told its own version of history, but why does it always have to be at the expense of facts? In the case of The Life of Emile Zola the lack of truth is not particularly egregious but it is particularly ironic – and perhaps an opportunity for a teaching moment.
Emile Zola was a man about truth. The Life of Emile Zola agrees. He was tried and found guilty of defamation for accusing in a newspaper article members of the French army of convicting Alfred Dreyfus of treason knowing he was innocent, and trying to cover up their mistake by acquitting Major Esterhazy of treason knowing he was guilty. Zola fled to England. Dreyfus was let out of prison after the French government collapsed. And Zola died of carbon monoxide poisoning soon after. Thankfully fact and the film are still on the same page.
Here's where fact meets Hollywood. Emile Zola was famous in France long before writing Nana as the film portrays. (Although a small foot note, every detail counts where fact is concerned.) Alfred Dreyfus' wife never met with Emile Zola and begged him to help her husband, showing him evidence her husband was innocent. And in the category of Hollywood by omission, there was no mention whatsoever in the film of Emile Zola accusing in his article members of the military of antisemitism against Dreyfus.
I say, Why? Do these fabrications not make the movie less substantive? Do they not make the story more dull? Why must Hollywood always take liberties with the truth? Why must it mold history to fit its cliches? I say, stop the over-fictionalizing and fantasizing! I say, stop making every trip to the movies an unlearning of history! J'Accuse! J'Accuse!

Seven Chances (1925)

By Eric Jessen June 24, 2010

In this wonderful Buster Keaton comedy the set-up is perfect. Jimmy Shannon (Keaton) is down on his luck – some trouble with his girlfriend and desperately in need of money. He has just found out he's set to inherit seven million dollars from his grandfather as long as he gets married by 7:00 PM on his 27th birthday. Well it just so happens that his 27th birthday … is today!
Of course his girlfriend – a sentimentalist – doesn't so much care for the idea of getting married just so he can inherit seven million dollars. Now Shannon's really up against it. A series of embarrassing proposals, including one to a mannequin, prove futile. So his friend gives him a hand by placing an ad in the newspaper looking for all women interested in a husband and seven million dollars. No need to go into detail – one thing leads to another, a little misunderstanding – but before he knows it Shannon is being chased by thousands of disgruntled brides in gowns that look more like togas stolen from the set Cecil B. DeMille's Ben-Hur (made the same year). It's a classic sequence in Keaton films. (And it's another chance for him to show off his athleticism.)
Seven Chances is hilarious, great fun. It was a fresh take on marriage in 1925 and hasn't dated a bit. In the end Shannon gets hitched just as time expires. And to his girlfriend – the sentimentalist. (So love sort of prevails.) How could she resist – Shannon, I mean.

Autumn Sonata (1978)

By Eric Jessen June 23, 2010

One of Ingmar Bergman's last films tells the story of a mother (Ingrid Bergman) and her daughter (Liv Ullmann). When Mom is an intelligent, worldly concert pianist and daughter is a dull housewife and an emotional wreck, of course it's all Mom's fault – “You didn't love me,” “You were never there for me,” “I cried myself to sleep” etc. When mother comes to visit daughter it's all smiles at first, then one night (and for nearly the rest of the film) daughter lets mother have it. It's all sorrow and tears to the end. This is one of those films where the character you're led to hate the most – the mother – is the only one you like because she is the only one not whining about her life – or whines the least. When it's not painfully tiresome in its ideas about parent child relationships it's just boring.

The Sound of Crumpling Trash

Eric Jessen 6/5/2010

(Email advice to my brother John on the contents of his external hard drive)

If you still have The Sound of Music delete it immediately and never watch it in your entire life. It was one of the worst, most revolting pieces of trash I've ever sat through. I've never hated mom (a hopeless sucker for sappy musicals) and dad (a hopeless sucker for anything popular from the 1960's) more when they tried to convince me it's a classic.

After surviving three hours of Julie Andrews and her seven dwarfs spewing candy coated excrement while skipping in unison, I immediately deleted it from my desktop then put it back on my desktop just to be able to delete it again.
A computer generated crumple of trash has never sounded sweeter.