Little Round Mirrors

I Live in Fear

2012-02-12T01:47:00.002-05:00

Akira Kurosawa's I Live in Fear (1955) is one of five films in Criterion's Eclipse Series 7: Postwar Kurosawa DVD set, which was part of my Kurosawa binge from a few years back. I've never watched this one before tonight.

I'm starting to like watching films for the first time as part of this project. I get to log my first impressions, which isn't something I often do when I watch most films at home (especially rentals), aside from the occasional snide remark or glowing review on Facebook or Twitter.

With foreign films, writing as they play is especially tough. A few seconds of staring at the monitor or into space, searching for a word or phrase or new direction for the next paragraph, can mean missing crucial plot and character development in subtitles I miss. Then I have to back up, start again, etc.

With I Live in Fear, I found myself watching about the first 30 minutes before typing a word. The premise of the film is simple: the elderly patriarch of a Japanese family becomes obsessed with the idea that his entire family will be killed when another atomic bomb falls on Japan. Mind you, the film is set in 1955, ten years after V-J Day.

I Live in Fear is one of the first films I've seen that tackles Japanese emotions about the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. What's interesting to me is how the patriarch's paranoia puts him firmly in the minority, while his family somehow remains aloof. Wouldn't one suspect the fear to be a bit more prevalent in this family? I mean, this is a country that was hit with atomic power, not one that just dealt with Russian and/or Cuban bluster. Yet most of the characters appear ready to live rather than watch the skies all day.

This sort of reminds me of growing up during the latter portion of the Cold War — in the Reagan '80s in America, you still had your kooky bomb shelter people, sure, and they stored food and other provisions underground or elsewhere. You also had your strangely aloof people — the ones who either didn't believe there was any imminent danger, or ones who did believe in a real threat, but somehow achieved a strange zen state of acceptance. "You have to die someday," they appeared to assure themselves. And then they watched Rocky IV or something and felt fine.

Lack of control seems to lead some people to paranoia, anger, and other irrational behavior, whereas many other people — often the majority — view a lack of control with resignation and calm. "Keep Calm and Carry On" comes to mind. Of course, under all that, the anxiety brews.

In the case of I Live in Fear, the patriarch wants to take his family away from Japan to the only place on the planet where he feels everyone will be safe — South America. He's even got a scheme worked out where he'll barter with someone living in Brazil — a person who wants to "return to Japan." As bartering is not a major financial transaction (in his head, anyway), the idea seems simple and easy, but convincing his family is another idea entirely. They want him declared incompetent so they can protect what money they have left. The patriarch is slowly spending them into oblivion after trying to build a bomb shelter and arrange for transport to another continent.

Their case comes before a court, wherein representatives must deliberate whether to declare the patriarch incompetent. One of them says, "his anxiety about the bomb is something we all share. [...] We just don't feel it quite as strongly. We don't build underground shelters or plan to move to Brazil. But can we claim that the feeling is beyond comprehension?"

What we do with our anxiety in times of great stress is what often sets us apart.

Kurosawa films are always satisfying, even when they tackle heavy content. Toshiro Mifune is in proper form here — not surprisingly, he simply owns the lead role. The supporting cast is capable, even the extras who play in the spraying water of the garden hose outside the foundry seem to capture a kind of carefree resignation toward it all. You cannot live in fear, even if you have every reason to be afraid.

With this film, Kurosawa seems to be saying that living in fear is not living at all. In that way, one could argue that postwar Japan was very much like Cold War America. Sure, the threat of annihilation was there, but if that's all we thought about, nothing would get done, and all that constant worry would be our undoing.

People have to get up and live, not cower every time a plane flies overhead or tremble at the sound of approaching thunder. For two cultures that are so drastically different, at our core, we share very human ways of dealing with what we dread. I'm sure this isn't an earth-shattering revelation, but for Kurosawa to put this theme forth in postwar Japan is extraordinary.

I Confess

2012-02-09T22:58:00.003-05:00

I Confess is a minor Alfred Hitchcock film that I've never seen, and part of my great Hitchcock binge of 2011, wherein your intrepid author purchased some 50 Hitch films on DVD (many of which he has never seen but for some reason could not talk his way out of owning).

The gist of I Confess is a man confesses a murder to a priest, and because of the secrecy of confessional, the priest cannot reveal the murderer to police. Ah, but the murderer was disguised as a clergyman, which casts doubt on the silent priest. Here's the trailer.

This is the first time I've watched Montgomery Clift on film. The guy had some chops. He died of heart failure in his mid-40s, unfortunately. Health problems plagued him throughout his life. Seeing him here is cool — an actor I've heard about for years finally gets a face to the name.

Karl Malden appears in the film as a police detective (shocking). I've never thought of Malden as a heavy hitter in Hollywood (even though he sort of was as a character actor). Malden was never a suave leading man, but that nose, and those distinctive looks made for some great character acting in his long career.

Anne Baxter is here, too — another actor I've heard about from time to time but never really watched. Stuff like this makes me want to watch more old movies, because great swaths of Hollywood remain blind spots to me, including the bulk of Hitchcock's career. I've seen the great Hitch films, but feel obligated to dig deeper.

As long as I call myself an aspiring screenwriter (read: as long as there are older screenwriters and/or younger ones who suck, yet somehow get regular work), then I feel compelled to know Hitch well. As I'm writing this while the movie plays, I guess it's time to focus.

The Hudsucker Proxy

2012-02-08T23:18:00.001-05:00

If you're from Muncie, Indiana, and you see a movie that mentions Muncie, then you know it's a real thrill. If you're not, then I'm sure it's the same feeling if you catch a reference to your own hometown in the movies, whatever town that might be. Of course, I wouldn't know that for sure, because I'm not from your hometown. I'm a Muncie man.

So, unless you're a Muncie Girl (or Guy), you might not know that feeling. If you are, you're probably someone I know, which puts you in the 100 or so people who read this blog regularly, and you know what I mean.

(Hey, a hundred readers is pretty swell. Go Eagles!)

Speaking of swell, Muncie might be the least swell place on the planet — a sleepy, post-industrial midwestern town famous for its ordinary averageness. Hollywood seems to enjoy pointing this out. That's fine.

The Hudsucker Proxy makes Norville Barnes, a Muncie native, out to be the biggest imbecile in New York, and of course, viewers can extrapolate that all Muncie natives are stupid if they want. One look at the stories and letters in the Muncie newspaper won't help.

(Side Note: Many of my Muncie friends who have moved to big cities east or west tell how the news from Muncie is so bizarre, so unbelievable, they often show non-midwestern friends, who in turn read the Muncie paper for entertainment. I'm not kidding.)

There's not much Muncie in The Hudsucker Proxy, but what's here is eerie. My high school colors are gold and blue, and our mascot is the eagle. Imagine my surprise when I saw this in 1995-ish with my then-girlfriend (also from Muncie) and discovered Norville Barnes is not only a Muncie native, but one who came from a similarly themed, (fake) college. Sure, not a high school, but still.

At least the fight song is different.

"The Muncie College of Business Administration" sends a few hundred dreamers to Hollywood every year, and few have done much out there. Joyce DeWitt, maybe. The rest are scrapping to make it happen, and more come and go all the time. None of them are imbeciles for trying. I'm proud of all my friends and former students who give it a go.

Muncie's most famous export isn't in Hollywood, though. This guy went to New York, and 30 years later, he's doing just fine. (Technically, he's from Indianapolis.)

I never went to Hollywood or New York. I never learned how to hula hoop, either. Can't hula, can't roller skate, can't skateboard, can't ski, can't swim, can't play basketball — why, it's a miracle I learned how to ride a bicycle or walk and chew gum. I can run, though, and write a little bit. I took those skills to Chicago after college, along with a truckload of moxie, see.

The opening montage of "experience needed" reminds me of pretty much every job hunt I've been on since I finished college — especially my days in Chicago, where even entry-level jobs require 3-5 years of experience. This is what happens when tens of thousands of people have the same idea. Big pond.

The Hudsucker Proxy is one of my favorite Coen brothers films, but despite the obvious connections to my hometown, I tend to forget the film even exists. Maybe the film offends me a little (not much, but there's a little pin prick each time). Maybe the film is overshadowed in their oeuvre by greater films such as Fargo, No Country For Old Men, or my favorite Coen brothers film, The Big Lebowski.

In fact, one could argue, as my wife the Hudsucker newbie remarked, "So...it's Lebowski as a period piece?" Well, yeah, kinda. A schlub gets in over his head and almost dies. There's a dance number, a white-haired millionaire, and so on. There's even a narrator who seems to know all. Then again, even The Big Lebowski is a period piece, so what do we know?

Say, how come when the janitor stops the clock at the end, freezing Norville Barnes in mid-air and leaving Sidney Mussberger's kinetic balls floating in mid-reaction, essentially stopping time, why do the snowflakes keep falling?

Betcha didn't expect that question from a Muncie man.

Kinetic balls. Heh.

Hot Shots!/Hot Shots! Part Deux

2012-02-07T01:34:00.000-05:00

Watching Hot Shots! again makes me think about how effectively they skewered more than just Top Gun. Twice.

Yeah, most of the sight gags are weak — the opening sequence on the aircraft carrier has a guy doing semaphore ballet, another guy roasting a hot dog by a jet exhaust, and of course some guy falls off while catching a football. In the modern parlance, we call this "weak sauce."

But at least Lloyd Bridges gets to do his schtick again for two films. His work in Airplane! is top notch, and he picks right up here and knocks it out of the park. The guy does not have a flat joke in either film.

Idle thoughts: Why do people keep sitting on small dogs?

Whoa, Charlie Sheen and Jon Cryer worked together before "Two and a Half Men"?

Jim Abrahams has written and directed three comedies featuring airplanes..? Add his involvement with the Naked Gun films, plus Top Secret! and The Kentucky Fried Movie and you have one of the most successful and prolific comedic minds of the late 20th century.

I use the "blow it all on hats" joke just about every time the wife and I talk about money. I'd forgotten where I stole that joke until tonight. Here's a movie that came out before I finished high school, and I'm still using that joke in semi-daily conversation.

This is my life. I'm not proud.

Hot Shots! and Hot Shots! Part Deux are just a couple more examples of the kinds of films I grew up watching and for which I still have a soft spot despite some pretty major gripes, which I'll get to in a moment.

My siblings and I probably watched this a half dozen times when we were growing up, and a few more times on television. Funny thing, though — I don't feel nostalgia in quite the same way as with many other films, and here's why:

Remember when killing Saddam Hussein was a wishful joke in silly movies? Google sort of takes the air out of those jokes now, you know? Evil tyrant, mass murderer, horrible human being, yes. And now if you want, you can go on Google video and watch him die.

So, can I laugh now when Topper drops a bomb into Saddam's lap in the movie? (I guess so, because somehow he lives.) Or how about when they go to assassinate him in the sequel, and he speaks with a lisp?

I mean, I don't feel any pangs when Saddam hands The Dude his bowling shoes in that dream sequence in The Big Lebowski, but that's different — even tasteful.

The Hot Shots! films, released shortly after Gulf War I, are some pretty strong indicators of the lack of closure in western culture re: Saddam. They make Saddam out not so much as a brutal dictator as a bungling fool, stepping on rakes, tripping over dog beds, and running face first into a bug zapper. We couldn't get him then, so we settled for making him a joke. Humor is a great way to deal with pain.

For more than 10 years, that lack of closure festered and ultimately led to another war.

Both Hot Shots! films are a strong indicator of the mood of this country in the period between the two Persian Gulf Wars. Throw in a parade of jokes that are simply racist and ignorant and you have possibly one of the lowest points in American cinema, right?

Except I don't think it's that simple.

Consider, instead, that these films were made precisely to lampoon the jingoistic bullshit of films like Top Gun and Rambo: First Blood Part II (and III). Richard Crenna even shows up here, spoofing his own role in the Rambo movies!

I mean, an Iraqi torturer steps out of the shadows wearing a Holiday Inn towel on his head. You don't get a whole lot more racist than that. But is this more of a comment on what viewers think rather than what the filmmakers think?

The filmmakers uniformly substitute obscure words and mumbled names of famous people as foreign language. "Kareem of onion! Al Jarreau!" "Omar Sharif!" "Sufferin Succotash!" And if you're sharp-eared, you can catch it. If you just hear foreign language as so much gibberish, you won't even hear English. The filmmakers are testing you.

There's just so much legitimately brilliant comedy here that I can't get upset no matter how badly I want to decry this film as racist or ignorant. I can't get self-righteous about them. I can see these films as equal opportunity offenders.

Ryan Stiles, who plays a demolition expert and seems like an early, much milder draft of the character Danny McBride plays in Tropic Thunder, really nails it:

"Know what I'm gonna do if we make it? I'm gonna go back to Eagle River and marry my gal, Edith Mae. Gonna get us a nice little place with a white picket fence. You know the kind. Two-car garage. Maybe a fishing boat. And in 15 years, when they're all paid for... I'll set my charges and blow the shit out of them."

The more I ponder that quote, the more I feel that those words are a microcosm of what makes the Hot Shots! films brilliant parodies of American culture, not just Top Gun. (Read a certain way, Top Gun is a brilliant parody of American culture.)

Also consider Miguel Ferrer's line, "Thank you, Topper. I can kill again. You've given me a reason to live." Later, he has another great moment, smiling and mugging for the camera before saying, "War: It's fantastic!"

Both Hot Shots! films are a comment on the American dream and our insatiable thirst for violence, and not just in film. There's even a video game counter at the bottom of the screen in Act III, tallying the death toll and declaring this the bloodiest film ever. Do we not keep a death toll during times of war?

Nothing is safe from parody here — even the audience's world view. They even take a shot at Apocalypse Now, throwing in Martin Sheen for a cameo, and turning Iraq into Vietnam, just with Iraqis this time. For so many Americans, what's the difference?

Hot Rod

2012-01-09T00:43:00.000-05:00

I'm a sucker for stupid comedies done well. Hot Rod is one of the stupidest and best I've ever seen, and that makes it magnificent.

Hot Rod is basically the first film from The Lonely Island. Andy Samberg plays Rod, a wanna-be stunt-biker a la Evel Knievel. He wears a cape. He doesn't know how to talk to women. He barely knows how to drive a moped. He can't convince his stepfather (Ian McShane?!?!) that he is a real man. They fight with bow staffs and medicine balls. Rod usually gets his ass kicked.

When his stepfather falls ill and needs a heart transplant, Rod vows to earn the $50,000 required for the procedure — so that when his stepfather recovers, Rod can kick his ass.

Certainly the Idiot Manchild sub-genre of film comedy gains no new ground with Hot Rod, an Andy Samberg vehicle that was intended for (and not good enough) for Will Ferrell, but damn if this movie isn't funny anyway.

Sometimes, that's all I want. Give me a film that flopped in theaters and got dumped to DVD, but still had, you know, a crowd of townsfolk following the main character and doing a big musical number that escalates into a riot. Give me a preposterous plot with characters who are too stupid to be real, yet seem like people I knew growing up.

These flyover states have created their share of Idiot Manchildren. Maybe it's because we grew up on violent cartoons and TV shows like "The Dukes of Hazzard" and "The A-Team." Maybe you combine that with the bombastic, stupid rock music from the '80s, all synth-heavy and screeching. Even movies like The Karate Kid, No Retreat, No Surrender, and Rad taught us that we could be badasses, no matter who we were or how much we sucked at being a kid or growing up. If we tried hard enough, we could do anything.

Informed by all that silly '80s stuff that we totally bought back then, The Lonely Island pretty much makes a living making fun of all that. Awesome. Stupid and awesome.

Here's the first minute or so. It's pretty much all you need to know:
But here's the musical number/riot anyway, if you still need convincing:Cool beans.

Hot Fuzz

2012-01-05T23:45:00.000-05:00

A lot of people would kill to make just one brilliant film that stands up to repeat viewings as well as Hot Fuzz. Edgar Wright made three between 2004 and 2010. All three are critically bulletproof, and if you disagree, you are incorrect.

My wife is English, so this film speaks to her in a way that most Americans don't understand. By that I mean that she was the only person in the theater who was laughing when the model village appeared, or when the Anglo slang term "nob" appeared on the swear box, or when the key code for the police evidence room was "999" (Britain's 911), or when the hedgehog randomly appears in the riot room — I could go on and on.

Hot Fuzz is a distinctly English film that parodies great American action films such as Lethal Weapon, Point Break, and many more. But they don't restrict the nods to American action movies. Check out this list for more references and this one for subtle stuff that's sure to geek you out — if you're a geek, anyway.

How about the swear box at the Sandford Police Station? All of the swears have symbols in strategic places, so as not to offend with the actual word — except the last word, the one at the bottom, the mighty C-word. I'd type that word here, but this is a family blog sometimes.

Timothy Dalton, the great British actor who once played James Bond for two 007 films, shows up here to chew every bit of scenery around him. He's like a buzz saw — a buzz saw who wants ice cream.

Dalton isn't the only great British actor who appears as a citizen of Sandford. There's Edward Woodward, for a start, along with at least a dozen others in the cast, along with a slew of cameos — the best being this one.

Hot Fuzz is one of only a handful of films that my wife and I can watch over and over together. We never get tired of this film. Since seeing this one in the theater with my buddy Brian and laughing our arrrrses off, we've probably added another 20 viewings.

I aspire to write a film as densely packed with established details and genuine, rewarding payoffs. For every little detail you get in the early going, that same detail appears in some way toward the end, playing a vital role in wrapping up the story. A great screenplay does that.

Hot Fuzz is a rare film, indeed. I'm happy to have the 3-disc edition featured above, as well as the Blu-Ray, which would render the DVD redundant if I didn't enjoy having both so much.

Film informs a lot of what I want to do when I visit places. For example, when I visited Los Angeles for the first time in 2000, I mostly just wanted to go to a Ralph's as a nod to The Big Lebowski. In the case of Hot Fuzz, I just wanted a Cornetto once I got to England in 2008:

Tasty, indeed.

Hoosiers

2012-01-05T01:35:00.005-05:00

Hoosiers is a beautiful film, but I'm from Indiana and I grew up watching Indiana basketball, so I'm biased (and of course I own a copy on DVD).

Sure, I get bothered sometimes because the film is about a fictional high school and a fictional game, based only loosely on historical events. I wish this were really a play-by-play re-enactment of the Muncie Central vs. Milan game on which this film is loosely based, because that's real Indiana basketball history. But that's not this film.

Instead, this is a film that doesn't get too much into specifics — a fictional team from a fictional town with fictional players leaves room for more vicarious viewing, I think, and as such, this is a tribute to anybody who played or dreamed of playing Indiana basketball. I'd say basketball in general, but this film is called Hoosiers for a reason.

The music also bothers me. Jerry Goldsmith's score might be the worst I've ever heard by someone other than James Horner. Here's a film set in the 1950s, but instead of music that fits the period, we get '80s synth music throughout.

I've long been a fan of stripping bad scores from '80s films and replacing them with music that doesn't sound so horribly dated and awful. Hoosiers tops my list of films that need new scores.

I love this film anyway.

Is the Indiana countryside beautiful? You bet. Even the shots of an overcast autumn day are pretty, because they look like home. Even that shot of Barbara Hershey attempting to hoe her garden is a pretty one, because it looks like a billion back yards around here (even if Hershey appears to be hoeing in the dead of winter, and keeps banging the hoe up and down in the same spot, essentially just digging a hole in the mud — I'm no gardener, but what is she doing?).

A lot of people I know, including my wife, don't understand why I prefer the Big Open Nothing of Indiana so much, with all the quiet, remote towns where you actually can hear yourself think, and people know who you are, and they don't just want your money. I prefer the Big Open Nothing because I'm all that's there, and I can look in all directions and see possibilities instead of people in the way.

Of course, that's an idealized view of small town America, where if you're the wrong color or religion or sexuality, you can get hurt. In many cases, you're not welcome in these parts, like Coach Dale isn't welcome for the first hour of the film. At least they got that part right.

But something beautiful and poetic happens in Indiana small towns to this very day. Dreams are born and often realized in high school gyms and gravel driveways and in living rooms in front of televisions.

This year marks 25 years since the Indiana Hoosiers won their last NCAA title with this shot. I was 12 years old, and it was the greatest game of basketball I've ever seen.

In 1993, Delta High School — my high school — advanced to the sectional title game by beating Muncie Central, the same school that little Milan toppled some 40 years previously to win the state title. (Alas, that next game was a different story, but beating Central is a big deal in my part of Indiana.)

The underdog success stories are special, because what really happens to little teams in Indiana is this. That's my old high school on the losing end of the state championship just four years after I graduated. The following year, Indiana switched to class basketball, so the rare and beautiful underdog stories like Muncie Central vs. Milan, or Central vs. Hickory, can't happen again.

That makes Hoosiers even more special, commemorating all the teams that made it, all at once. "Let's win this one for all the small schools that never had a chance to get here."

Indiana high school basketball hasn't been the same since 1997. They broke it, as far as I'm concerned.

We need underdog stories. I've either been an underdog or been around underdogs my whole life. I like it that way. Victory is sweeter if no one expects it from you.

I was never good at basketball. I wasn't very fast, wasn't very tall, couldn't shoot well, and forget dribbling altogether. Still, because of games like that '87 NCAA title game and films like Hoosiers, I probably spent half my teenage years in my parents' driveway, playing ball until I got sleepy or until the sky got so dark I couldn't see the hoop.

I'd bring the ball inside for the night and go straight to the sink to wash my hands, which were covered in the kind of dirt that I didn't want to wash off, because it made me feel like a part of it all.

Postscript: Tonight, I tried to put the Hoosiers special features disc in my DVD player. As I was taking the disc off the spindle in the case, the disc cracked. In 10 years of collecting DVDs, I've probably handled 2,000 discs, and I've never shattered one taking it out of the case. I figured I'd grab the Blu-Ray and upgrade, but the HD version doesn't have the bonus features. So I'll be getting another DVD instead, because in my book, if you grew up on Indiana basketball, you ought to have a spot on your shelf for this film.

Hitchcock: The Legend Begins

2011-12-01T01:00:00.000-05:00

In a weak moment (on 5/9/11), I picked up the Alfred Hitchcock: The Legend Begins collection, which may have been a mistake.

The set includes 20 Hitch films, most of which are in the public domain, giving companies like Mill Creek Entertainment the ability to put 20 old movies together in a set for pennies on the dollar. They did the same thing with John Wayne.

Of course, most of these films are in shoddy condition, and the Amazon reviews are mixed, pointing to faulty DVDs that won't play properly. So far, I haven't noticed any playability problems, but as for print quality, these appear to be U-matic transfers — mediocre but watchable.

Four DVDs of Hitch for $5? Count me in. I'll look past flawed prints if I can get 20 films outright and watch them on my own entertainment system and at my own pace. Renting 20 films on Netflix would take me weeks — way more expensive and time consuming, and that assumes Netflix has all of these films available (not sure there and don't feel like checking).

Enter reality. This comes on the heels of picking up the Masterpiece Collection, another 14 Hitch films. Then I found the Alfred Hitchcock Premiere Collection, which adds another eight to the pile (two of those films are also in the above 20-film set). Then I took the plunge on the Alfred Hitchcock Signature Collection, adding nine more. I've suddenly added more than 50 movies to this project, a few of which are downright clunkers to which I have no personal or academic attachment, and most of which I've never even seen. Oops? What am I supposed to say about them all?

Hitchcock's film work largely has been a black hole for me over the years, so I don't have buyer's remorse, exactly. I've seen several of his greats — Psycho, Vertigo, North By Northwest, Shadow of a Doubt, The Lady Vanishes — but I don't count Hitchcock as a real influence, and I'm not satisfied with how much I've seen of his work.

I may have overcompensated.

Most of Hitch's films are lessons in character development, pacing, maintaining suspense, and structure. I still fancy myself a screenwriter with a lot to learn, and Hitch seems like a teacher whose classes I've always seemed to miss until now.

All that said, this set presents some logistical problems. I'll treat the 14 films in The Masterpiece Collection normally, watching each title as I get there alphabetically because those films are truly masterpieces and I have stuff to say. I'll do the same with the 9 films in the Signature Collection and the 6 films in the Premiere Collection.

As for The Legend Begins set, maybe two of these films are truly "masterpieces" (The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes, if you're curious) so I don't need to write 20 individual entries for a mixed bag of mostly awful looking and sounding films I've never seen and may never watch again, and about which I feel nothing but curiosity and satisfaction for finding a bargain. So one entry is all you get for the entire collection, filed under "H," and this is it.

Highball

2011-11-30T23:03:00.001-05:00

Highball is a Noah Baumbach film that nobody's ever heard of, and even Noah Baumbach doesn't put his name on it (he uses the pseudonym "Ernie Fusco" as director and "Jesse Carter" as writer).

I failed in my attempts to find adequate DVD artwork to pilfer for the benefit of this post. The above shitty image is the best my Google searches yielded.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement for this little '90s film. I could try to write such an endorsement, but this guy did that already. Read that and come back. I'll wait.

...

I mostly own this film because I have all of Noah Baumbach's films on DVD, and even his lesser films still have merit. Also, I'm a completist and I can't stop.

I have to look past the technical issues — the awful lighting, the jump cuts, the tinny soundtrack — and focus on the writing and acting. Do that, and this is a solid little independent made on a shoestring.

I've been to some parties like the ones depicted in this film. The formula is pretty easy: Create a mixed company situation, introduce a guest or guests who has/have some insane perspective perfectly rationalized (I'm suddenly remembering the woman I once met who confessed that she stops taking birth control when she meets a new man), and see what happens when they spout their bullshit madness in mixed company. "Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan makes a lot of sense! What do you mean, you need a Constitutional Amendment to implement that? Sounds like a liberal conspiracy!"

Honestly, I think there's such a thing as a sociopathic party host, and they collect batshit crazy friends who don't get along. And then they invite everyone to the same party.

You know when a friend tells you, "I have to introduce you to my friend so-and-so, because you guys would really get along great." This is the opposite — this is a party host not telling you anything, and instead ambushing you with an asshole. "I don't really like you, so I'm going to introduce you to this other asshole I don't really like, because you'll hate each other and that is funny to me."

[They don't really say that. But they think that.]

Having suspected this sort of thing for some time, I sometimes look for the batshit crazy person when I'm at a party. Maybe someone walks in with an ironic hat or eyewear or facial hair (dead giveaway), or keeps insisting we turn off the music and put on his or her band's new bullshit EP instead, or maybe he or she brings the single most disgusting dish of sweet smelling nastiness full of cat hair and shame. You know, for sharing.

If I can't find him or her, I just assume it's me.

If you've been to enough parties, you've seen the usual stuff:

Someone inevitably drinks too much and makes a total asshole of him or herself. With any luck, there is crying involved, and I get video of it.
Somebody says something political or homophobic or racist or sexist or just generally ignorant, and other people get pissed off and clam up or leave the room. Even better, someone gets pissed off and stays in the room to speak up. "Hey man, that's not cool — my sister is a leper."
Someone else tells a story about some local yuppie bullshit for which they currently have a chub. "I brew all my own beer, make all my own clothes, and of course, all of the food you're eating was created from the molecular level using only the finest locally grown organic molecules that I picked up at the molecular farmer's market at 5 o'clock this morning while walking the labradoodle. Did I mention I'm an asshole?"

Or, you know, "All of the products you're eating and drinking are Amway...as well as that couch! Here, let's watch this quick DVD and I'll show you all how you can make a fuck-ton of dollars!"

All that well-deserved ranting and ridicule aside, I've also met some great friends this way, had some great food, and made some great memories. We've even thrown a couple of our own parties here at Chez John, and no one even got food poisoning!

So dinner parties aren't all bad. Far from it. Go to enough dinner parties, and you run the risk of having a good time, and maybe even making new friends that are the kind of people you want to invite to your own home, because they're on the level, and they can cook, and they're smart, and funny, and they're not class warriors or elitists or helicopter parents or furverts.

[Side note: What's up with furverts?]

A great party doesn't have to be an all-out happy fest wherein everyone walks away fast friends. People go to parties to relax, have fun, and meet people. Of course, there are your awkward moments even at the great parties, because that's what happens in mixed company. It's not a big deal, though.

This isn't the best place for personal shout-outs, but suffice to say, if I've been to a party at your house in the last couple of years, I definitely want to come back, and I don't think that you're a sociopath or a bad cook or host, and I don't mind your pet(s) or your friend(s) as long as they don't mind me.

Also, that cajun bread you made was fantastic, Matt Lasher.

High Plains Drifter

2011-10-09T02:11:00.002-04:00

In the first 16 minutes of High Plains Drifter, Clint Eastwood's character visits a town called Lago, where he kills three men and rapes a woman. By the 20-minute mark, if we're still watching, we get an idea of why.

Through a flashback/dream sequence as Eastwood's character sleeps, we see several outlaws brandishing horsewhips, beating an unarmed man to death in the street.

As the townspeople look on, the man begs for someone to help him, but all the townspeople — their faces wrapped in shadow — just stand there and let him die. Among the townsfolk, we see familiar silhouettes of characters the stranger has met so far, including the woman he's already raped.

Finally, we see Duncan's face — a slightly younger, clean-shaven Clint Eastwood. Somehow, this unnamed stranger in town and Jim Duncan are connected.

But Jim Duncan is dead.

When the stranger wakes from his dream, he goes out again. The town sheriff approaches him with an offer. Seeing as the stranger shot and killed the town's hired guns, the sheriff wants to hire the stranger to help with a little problem. The town needs protection from three gunfighters who are getting out of prison and heading straight for Lago. They're the same three gunfighters that killed Jim Duncan.

The sheriff insists that the stranger pay nothing for any goods or services in Lago. The stranger accepts the offer, and immediately goes on a town-wide shopping spree. He gets free boots, free drinks (he "buys" a round for the house before the barkeep knows the stranger isn't paying), and recruits a town militia, which he offers to train. He tears down a rich man's barn for the building materials. He evicts everyone in the town hotel so he can have the whole place to himself. He even names the town dwarf as acting mayor and sheriff — at the same time.

In short, the stranger pretty much does what anyone would do if you got an all-expenses paid shopping spree in a town full of assholes. He paints the town red — no, literally, with the townspeople's help — and re-names the town "Hell." Here's another good examination of the film.

Hello, revenge fantasy! Pretty much every character who was either complicit or directly involved in the killing of Jim Duncan gets his/her just desserts.

Wait...so rape is justified? That's not what I'm saying. But maybe the film is saying that.

One could argue at great length about the rape scene. While neither sexually explicit nor as intense as the rape scene in Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs (which came out two years previously), there is a disturbing connection between the two films that gets at the worst of misogyny. Of course, neither Straw Dogs nor High Plains Drifter pre-date another classic film that depicts rape as something a woman eventually enjoys. Dr. Zhivago (1965) did the same thing.

What's more, during the rape scenes in all three films, the female fights at first, then submits, then appears to enjoy herself. In High Plains Drifter, when the rapist goes back to her for more, she welcomes him — and sleeps with him again!

But in High Plains Drifter, this is a protagonist committing the rape. Only despicable characters do that, right? Protagonists maintain that moral high ground, so they're always better than the villains. High Plains Drifter takes on that old saw.

High Plains Drifter appears to take a rather blithe view of violence against women, with only the flimsy justification that this woman somehow "deserves" this sort of thing because of her complicity in the murder of Jim Duncan. Here's an interesting thread on the topic.

The film's thesis appears to be that any punishment up to and including rape or death, regardless of the damage emotionally, financially, or otherwise — is justifiable when the original crime is murder. Say what you will about that. I'm not certain I agree with that thesis, but I'm trying to understand how the filmmakers got there.

Eastwood's stranger is an avenging angel with no morals who has returned to Lago to enact justice. In High Plains Drifter, in order to deal with the amoral, one must abandon all morality. In order to enact revenge, morality disappears almost altogether here. Some characters in the town get a free pass — the meek, for example. The stranger treats all of the town's minorities — Mexicans, Native Americans, and even the town dwarf — very well. The stranger is not entirely without morals. He doesn't rape every woman in sight — he rapes the one woman who watched Jim Duncan's death and did nothing. Agree with his method or not, he does have a motive to commit the crime.

But does the stranger really get revenge? That's the part I find most interesting. In "The Cask of Amontillado," Edgar Allan Poe's short story, Poe clearly lays out what the narrator believes to be the tenets of revenge:

"I must not only punish, but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong."

Using that as a guide, does the stranger get revenge?

1) Yes, he gets away with punishing the town and townsfolk, leaving destruction in his wake.

2) No, the retribution does not overtake him. He leaves town unscathed and disappears into the ether.

3) He does not fail to make the town aware of his identity and motivations...sort of. Several characters allude to Marshal Jim Duncan and appear to recognize him, but the stranger doesn't confess, and no one outright identifies him.

But when he kills the outlaws in the film's climactic sequence, one of the gunmen repeatedly screams, "WHO ARE YOU?" but the stranger remains silent. Only when he leaves town and passes Mordecai, the town dwarf, who is carving the name "Jim Duncan" into a headstone, does the stranger even remotely identify himself. Mordecai says that he still doesn't know the stranger's name. The stranger simply responds, "Yes you do," before riding off. That's all.

Is that true to how Poe defined revenge? Did the outlaws who murdered Jim Duncan in the street realize who had come to kill them? Even if the complicit townsfolk eventually realized who the stranger was, at best, they simply learned a valuable and violent lesson. The killers themselves were the ultimate target of the stranger's revenge.

Did the killers know? The stranger hangs one, whips another to death (okay, maybe that one understood what was happening), and the third is shot to death in the street. Do they know what hit them, as they die? That's unclear. Poe might argue that the revenge is incomplete.

However, the stranger rode off into the ether anyway, satisfied with his work.

High and Low

2011-10-01T18:01:00.003-04:00

At 143 minutes, finding time for High and Low has been difficult, and after watching The Bad Sleep Well a while ago and finding myself bored to tears and perpetually confused, I was reluctant to watch High and Low.

Today I decided to devote my afternoon to High and Low. The film is set in 1960s Japan, and longtime Kurosawa collaborator Toshiro Mifune plays Kingo Gondo, a footwear magnate on the cusp of taking over his company, National Shoes. When he gets a call that his son has been kidnapped and the abductor demands 30 million yen, Gondo's plan to assume control of the company is scuttled.

Ah, but his son is fine — the kidnapper took the boy's friend by mistake. So now Gondo has a choice, sort of: pay the ransom and save the child, even if the child isn't his own, or ignore the kidnapper's demands and let the boy die (and face the PR fallout when such a story goes public).

I'm watering down the plot a bit here, but suffice to say the film pits rich against poor, those who live high on a hill vs. those who live in a squalid valley below, or those who maintain moral high ground vs. the purely immoral. In ways both literal and symbolic, Mifune's character struggles to maintain that high ground throughout the film, and the film examines the cost of doing the right thing.

Part mystery, part police procedural, and part family drama, High and Low is a deeply satisfying film worth spending an afternoon to enjoy. While watching, I noted several moments in the police procedure that Hollywood films have since appropriated. For example, recording phone calls and analyzing background noise is a device most famously used in The Fugitive, but Hollywood has beaten to death many times.

The comparisons and contrasts with The Fugitive don't end there. You've got the kidnapper working in a hospital (rather than the protagonist). The kidnapper has both arms, sure, but he has a prominent scar on his left hand denoting some limb injury that is never explained. The police investigation is headed by a relentless detective (rather than a relentless federal marshal) whose experience and tenacity comes in handy many times as they track down the kidnapper and bring him to justice. The kidnapper is involved with drugs; the villains in The Fugitive are involved with a pharmaceutical scam.

Rather than convicted murderers riding a train to prison, it is Gondo and the detectives who ride a train to a predetermined point where they must throw out the ransom — thereby assuring Gondo of a "life sentence of debt" as the relentless detective puts it.

The connections to The Fugitive are pretty consistent throughout. Whether Kurosawa directly influenced David Twohy and Jeb Stuart when they were developing the script for The Fugitive is unclear. Still, the mere fact that these two films can exist 30 years apart and have so many connections speaks to the enduring power and influence of Kurosawa's work. Or maybe I just watch too many movies.

Much has been written about Kurosawa's influence on George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, and Martin Scorsese, especially when considering Kurosawa's large body of films set in feudal Japan. Relatively speaking, not much has been written about how his more modern-set films continue to influence Hollywood today. That's worth exploration. Having said that, this is worth reading.

High Fidelity

2011-09-20T01:45:00.001-04:00

I've been stuck on High Fidelity for months. Too much to say.

Perhaps more than any other film, I distinctly feel how much I've changed since the first time I saw this one, way back in that little movie theater in Nelsonville, Ohio more than a decade ago.

Back then, I sat there with the girl I was seeing, and over and over, I saw myself on the screen. At 24 years old, I needed a film to tell me that what I was feeling and thinking about women and music was normal. Other people were out there, and they were like me. (For the record, I screwed that relationship up pretty badly. So it goes.)

Now I realize that yes, other people like Rob are out there — and mostly they are all self-involved dicks who don't deserve much more than superficiality, and probably wouldn't recognize much more if they got it. They are doomed.

I like to think that I've made progress. I see Rob as a sad protagonist that I can't stand. Watching him is like looking at a home movie of myself from years ago and wishing I could reach through and strangle the sullen little kid on the screen (or at least give him a decent haircut).

He's a calculating misogynist — the kind of man who can't stand the idea of someone else sleeping with his ex, so he goes out and sleeps with someone, as if he's in a race to move on, or enact some sort of revenge...by striking first?

Once he sleeps with someone else, he immediately goes back to obsessing about his ex sleeping with someone else! Then he flips out when he learns she's slept with the new guy! But...look at what you just did, asshole! AAARGGH.

And because John Cusack is so damned likable, what his character pulls on screen is...okay? Funny? His redemption is...earned? What did he do to earn this, other than going to his ex-girlfriend's father's funeral? He's an asshole!

That's the first time I've gone off like that about this film and this character. Ten years ago, I understood him — I felt his pain, even. Bitches, man! Women — especially ones who had the audacity to dump me (when I probably deserved it) — were the enemy, and I had so much stored up anger that I should've stayed away from women altogether, but I didn't. I kept going back out there, and taking that darkness with me. Baaaad.

These days, I'm still obsessed with collecting music, sure, and I spend a shitload of time and money in record shops and on eBay looking for stuff, and yes, I'm still self-involved (hello...blogging?), but...would I pull this shit? No.

I'm not perfect. I still make plenty of mistakes with other people, but somehow I found a girl who stayed, and accepted all the faults and obsessions and stupidity and mistakes. She stayed. But more on that in a minute.

If not for the demise of physical media and my own canny move to stay in grad school through pretty much the entirety of George W. Bush's first term in office, I likely would be running my own record shop into the ground these days, hoping beyond hope that digital downloads and the death of physical media wouldn't be my undoing. Of course, owning my own record shop also depends on if health care were affordable and if I could afford to pay myself a living salary and if the bullshit of owning and running a small business weren't so soul-crushing. That's a lot of "if," but whatever.

Mostly, record stores seem like a good life, but they're not. "It's retail hell," my friend Stevie Ray used to say. He went out of business a few years later. But record stores are still cool, you know? I idealize them. They're fucking great. They're my church. Not like in Empire Records, which was nothing like any decent record shop I ever knew (more like a Sam Goody or the like). No — record shops have an allure, a palpable attitude about them, and that hazy, nicotine and vinyl and incense smell.

Record stores are a fantasy that doesn't really deliver — at least not for me, anyway. I know plenty of people who work in shops and have great lives and are happy. I just couldn't get there, for whatever reason. Loved the free music and the conversations. Hated the retail drudgery. But no job is perfect. If record shops paid $60k a year, we'd all work in one. Maybe.

Still, as a customer, I can't stay away from them. Tangent: I once heard my dad telling someone about when he was maybe my age, and he'd work all week, and wake up on Saturday morning with this itch, like he had to go out, because there was a bargain out there. He went out some weekends and would come back with all this stuff — a lawnmower, a car, a piece of furniture — never records. Dad doesn't give a crap about music. But I feel the same pull a few times a week — like if I don't check the shops regularly, I'll miss some amazing bargain, like when I found The Jimi Hendrix Concerts for one damned dollar, or both Traveling Wilburys CDs for $2, or when I found this for $90. You miss stuff by staying home. I don't club. I don't karaoke. I don't camp or climb rocks or ride a bike or take some martial arts class. I dig around in record shops. I might love that more than I love writing.

I'm Rob's age now. But aside from the obsessive record collecting and the occasional (mostly harmless) navel-gazing, I like to think I'm a different guy now. What changed? I watched as my friends married off, had kids, bought houses, etc., and I didn't understand. I kept collecting records. I kept blowing money. I kept having these aborted relationships with women. Two dates, maybe even three, and then nothing. Flameout.

Eventual solution? Self-imposed exile. Done going through the motions, telling the same stories, doing the same things. I kept going with my gut: "Maybe this new girl is the one."

Finally, I had the same epiphany that Rob has around the 1:40 mark in High Fidelity: "I've come to the conclusion that my guts have shit for brains." The film helped me get there. I sort of traversed the same arc he goes through. On New Year's Eve, 2005, I hung out with some friends, had a great time, and felt hopeful about 2006. My friends would later say that something about me had changed. They'd never seen me that way. What way? I'm still not sure. Maybe I was just at peace for once.

And then, along came my wife, our life together, our home, and Rufus, our little house rabbit, who is a total asshole, but we love him anyway. Boom, almost all at once.

The thing about High Fidelity is in the epiphany. Music and the messages therein shape how Rob views the world and the people around him, and it's all just fantasy. And after a while, it's easy to get tired of the fantasy, because the fantasy doesn't deliver. The bitch about fantasies is that they're perfect, and you can't have that.

Record stores sound great, until you have to actually do some work or listen to shitty music or stock something you know is awful. Takes a real adult to work in a record shop and not be an asshole to everyone who buys something you don't like. That stuff never shows up in the fantasy of sitting around listening to music all day and talking to people about Bowie or whatever. How cool is it that Nick Hornby sets this book in one of the most fantasized, romanticized places?

High Fidelity isn't really about music. High fidelity is just another phrase for commitment, and the peace that comes from letting go of the rest of what doesn't matter. I'm sure there's some Buddhism in here somewhere.

When you commit to somebody — really, really commit to something real and steady, you get something that transcends the fantasy (even if you get worn out women's underwear occasionally hanging in weird places in the house, or endless piles of shoes placed near virtually every door, or half-full glasses of water left on virtually every flat surface).

What at first seems like less than the fantasy actually ends up being more than the fantasy, and by miles. You get to come home to something. (I say this with the utmost respect for people who come home to an empty home for whatever reason, and do not intend to brag or whatever. I've done the living alone thing, and by choice, even, and although I like my current situation better, if my marriage doesn't work out, I'm living alone in a shabby apartment for the rest of my life. Living alone was great, too.)

Yeah, you might still slowly piece together all the deleted Bowie albums on Rykodisc (the ones with the bonus tracks you can't get anywhere else), or maybe you suddenly start putting together the Stones' discography on SACD, or maybe you go through a phase wherein you spend so much money on music at the Borders going-out-of-business sales that you actually wonder whether you'll single-handedly resuscitate the company and/or the entire record industry. Or maybe that's all just me.

But that doesn't mean I want any of that superficial, material stuff more than the person, the rabbit, the house, the kids (someday), and so on. All that collecting, that obsessing, that itch on Saturday mornings to go out and find a bargain even as physical media sits on life support...it's all just providing a great soundtrack for a pretty good life.

The Hidden Fortress

2011-06-02T00:13:00.001-04:00

George Lucas freely admits taking inspiration from Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress, a film about two meek, bickering peasants who meet a tough general and set out to help a princess. Sound familiar?

The last time I watched this film, in 2007 (I think), I had a flatscreen tube television. I remarked at the time how good the picture was, with just the right amount of grain and flecks of age that add rather than detract from the viewing. Now that I have a much bigger, flat panel HDTV, I'm pretty amazed at how good the DVD looks. I spend most of my time thinking about that when I watch this film.

Simply put, Criterion's 2001 DVD edition looks great. Sharp detail is evident throughout, but especially in scenes that take place in rocky areas (which comprise most of the film's locations). You can see textures in the rock, individual pebbles, clouds of dust, and fine grain in the film. I'm geeking out a bit at how amazing this DVD looks — a DVD, not a Blu-Ray, mind you.

From what I've read, The Hidden Fortress is Kurosawa's first widescreen film. Here's a good blog post on that, if you're interested. He's watched and written about each Kurosawa film in a bit more scholarly way than I'm doing here.

I'm fortunate to have the Criterion release with the 3.0 "Perspecta Sound" mix, which gives the soundtrack a bit more room to breathe. Other Criterion DVDs are plain old mono. If you're a purist who likes old films in mono, that might not bug you. (That track is an option on the 2001 disc, too.) I just prefer the breathing room.

My relationship with Kurosawa films seems to be on and off. I go in phases where I'll want to watch a bunch of his films in a week or two, and then I'm done for a while. I do that with all my favorite directors. Kurosawa is interrupting my Hitchcock phase right now, but I'll get back to Hitch soon enough.

As I watch Kurosawa's films and write about them, I get more interested in other Japanese filmmakers, but don't really know where to start. I've only seen one Yasujiro Ozu film (Tokyo Story), and virtually nothing else. Much of Japanese cinema is a blind spot for me. I need to fix that.

Hellboy/Hellboy II: The Golden Army

2011-06-01T22:56:00.001-04:00

I'm pretty sure Guillermo Del Toro would've screwed up Middle Earth.

After watching much of Del Toro's work, and re-watching the two Hellboy films tonight, I'm convinced that no one in The Hobbit would've had eyes, and if they did, their eyes would've been in screwed up places.

Every damned scene would be preoccupied with gears and machines and cranky whirly things with sharp bits, and all the beasts of Middle Earth would've been far hairier and about 10 times more macabre than Tolkien ever envisioned.

Things have a funny way of working out. Del Toro left work on The Hobbit, leaving no one except Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson to do the films. You know, the way it should've been in the first place.

Del Toro is perfect for the Hellboy films, though.

I enjoy the Hellboy movies, even though I never read the comic. You don't have to be a fan of the comics to enjoy the films, though.

I've been a comic collector since the early '80s, usually picking up copies of The Amazing Spider-Man and whatever else caught my attention, but stuff like Hellboy was a blind spot. I had a tough time with the comics of the '90s, which were often far darker and more violent than my Marvel heroes. Sandman, Hellboy, Preacher, Hellblazer, and others were a bit too much for me and my upbringing, all fire and brimstone and going to Hell, etc. I got over my hangup, read Preacher and most of Sandman, and never got around to the other two.

Both Hellboy films are spectacles of Guillermo Del Toro's and Mike Mignola's imaginations. Few directors could take Mignola's Hellboy story and infuse his own distinct vision as organically as Del Toro here.

All the attention to the inner workings and gears of things such as time pieces and other machines are distinctly Del Toro (for more of that sort of thing, check out his earlier film, Chronos). Maybe the most organic combination of Del Toro's and Mignola's vision is represented in Karl Ruprecht Kroenen, a blend of maniac and machine who won't die and must be wound like a clock.

My only real complaint with Hellboy is they used Pete Yorn's weak-ass cover of Nick Cave's "Red Right Hand." Seriously, what a perfect song for this film — if they'd gotten the original version instead of Yorn's watered down effort. Maybe they couldn't get Nick Cave's version, or maybe they wouldn't pony up the dough. Tragedy either way.

Okay, two complaints. Most of the wire work in Hellboy is awful. That gets better in the sequel, though, so I'll let that slide.

Three: Hellboy and Liz are both fireproof, but how come their clothes don't burn up? Nomex?

Okay, one more. Rasputin. Why does a man with glass eyes need to wear shades?

I'll stop.

How about Ron Perlman as Hellboy? Has there been a better casting choice in any comic book movie yet? Here's a guy who couldn't get arrested except for B-movies, random supporting roles, and video games for the bigger part of 25 years in Hollywood. But he had Hellboy's jawline.

I understand why Agent Myers was created for the first film — audiences who've never read the comic need to have that character through which they can experience this universe for the first time. They need a character to ask the audience's questions about the film world. I also understand why the character is gone in the sequel. If you've seen the first film, you know the drill, so you don't need a character to ask all the questions for the audience. Both creating the character and dumping the character are good writing choices for these movies.

As for special effects, although the first one is showing some age, I watch that climactic sequence in the first film and wonder why no one has done a competent film adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu." Why hasn't Del Toro, for that matter?

The second one, made four years later, obviously has better special effects and is much funnier — I mean, Hellboy and Abe Sapien sing Barry Manilow together. But the plot isn't as interesting, and the villain looks like Tom Cruise in Matrix makeup. I'm over it.

Seen as a double feature, liking both films is easy, though.

Harold and Maude

2011-05-31T00:38:00.000-04:00

Took me a while to get around to Hal Ashby's Harold and Maude. A film about a guy who attends funerals for fun and fakes his own suicides to torment his domineering mother hasn't seemed all that appealing lately.

I've been stuck for a couple of months, actually. Chalk that up to the grieving process, I guess. My mom's death continues to weigh on me, and I don't want to post some hand-wringing, navel-gazing stuff every day. I just don't feel like watching my movies much, but I'm not quitting. I've just slowed down.

Tonight, though, I put on Harold and Maude, and felt relieved when I watched the scene with the marching band parading by the funeral procession, and I couldn't stop laughing. Maybe I'm gonna be okay after all.

I'd never heard of Harold and Maude before taking that film genres course at Ball State in 1997ish. Although I had heard of Cat Stevens, whose songs comprise the entire soundtrack, I'd never paid much attention to his music.

After watching the film in class, I was a fan of both for life. Within the first 10 minutes, you get three Cat Stevens songs and two of Harold's faked suicides. Talk about a hook.

When Harold finds himself in therapy, he seems to be going along with the process; he's well behaved, soft-spoken — but look at what Harold is wearing on the left, as opposed to the therapist on the right:

This isn't Harold being compliant or active in his own therapy, but more of a "fuck you" to the therapist. Harold seems to make a comment on the superficiality of it all — dressing like a therapist doesn't make one a good therapist. This is what a rebellious young man would do, as he struggles with the adult world and all of those compromises, hypocrisies, and ironies.

Harold's uncle, Victor, "General MacArthur's right-hand man," according to Harold's mother, doesn't actually have a right arm. He salutes a poster of Nathan Hale by pulling on a string in his lapel that brings up his starched right sleeve. Ridiculous.

Of course, for all the commentary on death, there are several moments that take life quite seriously — Maude's concentration camp tattoo, for one. This isn't a film that deals with life and death in a flippant way, but contemplates the meaning we find in both. At one point, Harold and Maude find themselves together, their relationship blossoming like new life, and they're here:

Much has been written about this film over the years. Film scholars love Harold and Maude for the deft contemplation of life and death combined with moments that are still hilarious and disturbing 40 years later. You can read the film in the context of early 1970s American independent cinema, or you can recontextualize the film as a kind of comment on the modern tendency for people to get wrapped up in shit that isn't important at all, so much in fact that they forget how to enjoy life.

However you see the film, just see the film. Harold and Maude is a classic black comedy — the kind of film I don't return to much, but one that reminds me, abundantly, of who we've lost, how much we've lost, and all that's left behind.

Hard Eight

2011-03-25T02:10:00.000-04:00

Before There Will Be Blood, Magnolia, or Boogie Nights, Paul Thomas Anderson made a film he called Sydney, and later renamed Hard Eight.

Much has been written about how Robert Altman's films influenced Anderson. Even Anderson has discussed this at length. Hard Eight seems to be the most Altman-esque of Anderson's work — even casting Philip Baker Hall in the lead role.

But touches of Stanley Kubrick's work appear in the cinematography as well, along with French New Wave films. I'd go on citing other influences, but that's not the point — and you can read.

Hard Eight was one that I had to track down on glorious VHS, after I'd seen Magnolia and Boogie Nights. Even later, I picked up a copy on DVD at my local, dying Borders store. Unfortunately, I never got around to re-watching the film until tonight.

I've written a lot about films that impressed me long ago, but don't seem to sit the same way now — maybe they don't disappoint me, but I feel differently about them. I've also written about films that are just as good as I remember — ones that haven't aged a day.

Occasionally, a film is even better than I remember. Hard Eight is like that — great characters in complicated situations, with a cast that feels just right. I don't know why I don't watch this film more often (I probably say that about my whole collection). The film isn't Anderson's best, but looking again was totally worth the time.

Hannibal

2011-03-19T02:00:00.001-04:00

Perhaps the most surprising thing (to me) about Ridley Scott's Hannibal is that I own a copy of Ridley Scott's Hannibal. The film really isn't that great.

The film just misses greatness by feeling a little too much like airplane reading — you know, the formulaic type sold in airport bookstores and meant to be consumed quickly and without much thought.

The story gets wrapped up in fine details of fine things set in fine places, and even after several viewings, I still feel the presence of Thomas Harris trying to impress me with how much he knows about hand cream.

Further, and probably more obvious, is that Jodie Foster isn't here. Julianne Moore does an admirable job stepping into an iconic role, but I still can't get past it. She's not Jodie Foster, and no amount of southern accent can make her a different person, even if the film is set 10 years later.

But I went through a Hannibal phase a few years ago anyway, picking up The Silence of the Lambs first, then Hannibal, and finally Red Dragon. Sometimes, obsessive completist tendencies got the best of me regardless of quality.

Of course, I've seen the film that started all this Hannibal Lecter stuff — Michael Mann's Manhunter, but that film feels terribly dated and inconsistent compared to the films featuring Anthony Hopkins.

Just as Brian Cox does not feel right as Lecter in the first film, Julianne Moore does not feel right as Clarice Starling. Maybe for thinking this way, I'm one of the Philistines that Dr. Lecter rails against. I hope he doesn't find me rude for saying these things.

p.s. I should note that I do not own a copy of the prequel, Hannibal Rising. That film is garbage.

Halloween

2011-03-12T01:04:00.000-05:00

Alphabetical order brings the occasional happy coincidence — Groundhog Day coming up in February, for example. But Halloween is next, and this is March. We soldier on.

The first time I watched Halloween, my family caught the televised version at some point in the '80s. I was maybe 8 or 10 years old — far too young by today's standards, but my parents let me watch anyway. I've mentioned before how they rarely prevented us from watching anything except sex scenes (which were often just fast-forwarded — comical to watch and to contemplate as an alternative to watching at regular 30 frames per second).

I'm thankful my parents let me watch whatever, because I was exposed to so much great cinema at an early age. I often romanticize the weekends when Dad would bring home a pile of VHS tapes from the local video store, and I attribute much of that to a lack of money in those Reaganized '80s, but there's also a twinge of sadness when I look back, because as a family we really aren't that functional. We don't talk and when we do, we don't have much to say. We get along okay, but sometimes there are long silences.

We watched movies well, though.

Not surprisingly, Halloween scared the living shit out of me — the breathing noises, the "eyehole" perspective, the over-the-shoulder shots of Michael wandering around Haddonfield in broad daylight, the creepy music, the scene when Michael kills the German shepherd, and that moment in the night when he is standing across the street, silhouetted in the porchlight, and then...gone.

John Carpenter's script simply referred to Michael as "The Shape," which is pretty much the freakiest descriptor you could put on a killer stalker type in the late '70s/early '80s. This "shape" picked the one night of the year that he could walk around Haddonfield acting creepy, walking from place to place wearing a mask, and no one would suspect him (except Loomis).

Halloween is credited as the first "slasher" film, as well as inventing a host of other horror film cliches and spawning much discussion:

"The film set in motion the Puritanical, psycho-pathological principle that one's survival was directly proportional to one's sexual experience. It also asserted the allegorical idea that sexual awakening often meant the literal 'death' of innocence (or oneself). With the title character Laurie (Curtis) a virgin, she is able to escape mostly unscathed (as does the asexual Dr. Loomis and the young pre-teen Tommy Doyle), but others who are more promiscuous and sexually-charged are less fortunate and suffer deadly consequences as victims. In this film, murders often occur after sexual encounters when victims are distracted and off-guard."

Surprisingly, in addition to scaring me half to death, Halloween brought out my empathy. I remember feeling a strong sense of sadness and pity when the bullies knock the little schoolboy to the ground, shattering his pumpkin. I was sort of that same picked-on boy back then.

As an adult, the film doesn't work as a horror film for me anymore, but as a classic John Carpenter film, oh yes. As I get older, I appreciate Carpenter's efforts more, because I see how technically sound his work is now that I've studied film and watched thousands of terrible movies. For me, films don't get much better than Carpenter's work from 1978-88.

The Carpenter geek in me loves seeing the tribute to The Thing From Another World on televisions on this Halloween night. Carpenter would go on to make his own version of the film, a modern reimagining/tribute/sequel/somethingeruther that's not only a great horror picture, but just great filmmaking (not a surprise).

I didn't realize what I was watching then — Carpenter seemed to blend in with a lot of the cinema of the time, and I was too young to really know the difference (or associate names with films — but when you put Halloween, Escape From New York, The Thing, Christine, Starman, Big Trouble in Little China, Prince of Darkness, and They Live up against most modern excuses for filmmaking (especially genre pictures), you really can see a difference. Look at what John Carpenter was able to pull off without a lot of money but with a ton of creative control. He should be a hero to aspiring indie filmmakers.

I didn't want to watch this film lately because I wasn't feeling particularly Halloween-y in March, but I'm glad I forced myself to push through. Thankfully, I don't have any of the sequels to choke down (though Halloween II isn't bad). I've seen all the films in the original franchise, and they just get worse and worse.

And don't get me started on Rob Zombie's version, which took Michael Myers, the horrifying, unstoppable, mad killing machine, and made him a whiny little boy with flowing hair for the first half of the film. Basically, Rob Zombie did to Michael Myers what George Lucas did to Darth Vader. Not cool.

Somewhere along the way, filmmakers, writers, and audiences became obsessed with origin stories — and generally wanting to know how a madman is created. Okay, here's the challenge: Find one of those films where the madman origin prequel story is more terrifying than the actual, original film.

I contend that knowing how a villain got here is not nearly as scary as a villain who exists from nowhere, with little motivation. (Witness Heath Ledger's Joker for an example.) That's far more terrifying than knowing that a character was molested or abused in some way a la Zombie's interpretation, or fed "sister stew" a la Hannibal Lecter.

Madness comes from a deep, black void that defies description. The original Michael Myers personifies that void; we're looking off a balcony and seeing nothing but darkness and space where a man should be.

Groundhog Day

2011-02-28T02:03:00.001-05:00

I wanted to get to Groundhog Day on Groundhog Day, but that didn't work out. Then I figured I'd just settle for getting to this film during the month of February. Here you go.

I heard of Groundhog Day shortly after the film's release in 1993, when I saw my neighbor, Chris, wearing a "Groundhog Day -- the movie, not the holiday" t-shirt (or was that a hat?). I don't remember when I ended up seeing the movie for the first time, but for some reason, I remember that shirt/hat. Okay, it was some kind of article of clothing. Or maybe a coffee mug. Okay, it had the name Groundhog Day on it somewhere.

Anyway, the point isn't when I saw the movie, but that I saw the movie.

After maybe 15 or 20 viewings now, I can't hear Sonny & Cher's "I Got You Babe" without laughing. I can't hear the name Ned without following with "Ned the Head." I can't hear the name Punxsutawney Phil without affecting a Brian Doyle Murray voice.

Like all great American comedies, Groundhog Day stands up well to repeat viewings mostly because of great dialogue and brilliant comic moments. Every Groundhog Day brings out this DVD in homes across the country, including ours.

My wife and I watch Groundhog Day every year on Feb. 2 -- like many people, we like our little traditions, even if this one has an annoying moment or two. (Every year, at the 29:00 mark, I see David Pasquesi and tell my wife that I once took a class with him at The Second City in Chicago. The first few times, I didn't remember saying as much the year before. Now I just do it to annoy her.)

At least one part doesn't work at all — when Larry and Rita identify Phil's body in the morgue. Phil kills himself multiple times, only to wake up instantly at 6 a.m. to repeat the day. To spend time with his dead body indicates that the rest of the day goes on without him, and that's a little plot inconsistency that's always bothered me. Then again, maybe the whole day goes on without him and resets at the same time each night regardless of whether Phil is alive. I've never really understood this part. The older I get, the more thought I give this movie.

A couple great articles contemplate how many days Bill Murray spends living the same day over again. Here's one, and here's the other. Even Harold Ramis responded at one point. Great reading while it's still February.

There's even a film now with a Groundhog Day-inspired title. This is one of those films, like so many of Bill Murray's, that gets a little better every year, as nostalgia and anticipation play their part to make this film a classic.

I wonder if tonight is the last time I will watch Groundhog Day on DVD. I picked up a copy on Blu-Ray this year, and obviously the picture and sound quality are so much better. Knowing that, I nearly sold off my DVD copy this month, but I just couldn't skip blogging about Groundhog Day in February.

Grosse Pointe Blank

2011-02-25T23:35:00.000-05:00

"I killed the president of Paraguay with a fork. How've you been?"

Grosse Pointe Blank is one of my all-time favorite films, and I assure you that's not faint praise from a guy who owns 600ish DVDs. I love this film in a way I can't explain without incurring a substantial amount of paperwork.

But before I get to that, a moment of disclosure: I'm trying something a little different tonight. I come to you from my boss's basement, where he has a giant projection screen and a fancy schmancy sound system. I haven't seen Grosse Pointe Blank on a screen this big since...well...

I saw this film in a theater in 1997 in Muncie, Indiana, on a date with my Second Ever Serious Girlfriend, a girl I flipped for, who broke my heart in half, won me over again, and then we just didn't work out, and then we sort of tried again, years later, and that didn't work either.

We both loved the film the first time, and every subsequent time we watched on glorious VHS, and really, to this day. We let the film wash over us like a big wave of Gen-X goodness, which is what I hear from quite a few people around my age. What can I say? Grosse Pointe Blank spoke to us, captured the ennui of the '90s or something, validating our view of the world and of ourselves.

I don't remember laughing much at the film the first time, though. I was too young, at 22, to enjoy a good dark comedy in the way I do now, after so many viewings (100?) and 14 years. Now, after much more life experience, I understand the anxieties of rekindling old relationships, of returning to your hometown after years of growth and change, and dear lord, the high school reunion.

I actually thought my high school reunion would be like Grosse Pointe Blank, except I never really dated much then. A few blips on the radar but no real flames. My class didn't have a 10-year reunion, so I spent 10 years wondering, and then another 5 before we finally got our acts (and ourselves) together.

I'd never really paid attention to the Violent Femmes, or The Specials, or The Clash, or any of those great songs that comprised not one, but two solid soundtrack CDs, until I caught this film. Hearing this soundtrack was sort of like walking into a great independent record shop for the first time on a day when the employees were just on fire. Although I didn't understand all the humor of the film when I was 22, I still had the presence of mind to pick up both soundtrack CDs and hang on to them ever since.

Only with time can you really see how much a film has influenced you. Sure, I knew immediately when certain lines stuck in my lexicon, but I didn't realize until years later how much this film influenced my writing, my taste in music, and really, my world view. I tend to write quirky little scenes with characters who see the world with a self-awareness and wry sensibility like the characters here. Actually, that's pretty much Generation X.

This film is Generation X's Harold & Maude. You get a dark comedy about a character who has a bizarre connection to death, featuring a compelling but messed up main character who has an unlikely romance, set to a kickass soundtrack.

But you also get a film that captures a generation's sensibility, sort of a mile marker for where we were then, all the while sort of hinting at where we were going...or maybe hinting at the fact that we had no idea where we were going and we were just trying to survive the world and not get any on us.

Grindhouse: Planet Terror/Death Proof

2011-02-10T00:28:00.001-05:00

When I heard Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez were teaming up to make a double feature of B-movies as a tribute to the grindhouse films of the 1970s, I understood.

I'll admit, I'm a Tarantino/Rodriguez fanboy (Spy Kids and Sharkboy movies excepted — and yes, I even like The Faculty). But this is something different.

Anyone who grew up in Indiana throughout the 1970s and '80s should remember Sammy Terry, the late-night, B-grade horror movie host from channel 4:

I saw so many bad movies because of Sammy Terry, who might be the most compelling and interesting local celebrity around these parts. I used to hide behind the couch when his show started. That laugh, oh, that laugh used to scare the living shit out of me.

To understand the caliber of films he showed, you only need the titles: Invasion of the Bee Girls, The Swarm, and The Face of Fu Manchu.

Despite the awfulness of the films, I still stayed up late on many a weekend to catch Sammy Terry's show. Most of the films were awful, but Sammy's drop-ins were great. He'd provide these wicked little puns while talking to a plastic spider named George, who hung from the ceiling and sort of chirped at him.

I see the Grindhouse films as a tribute not only to an era, but to the campy, late-night hosts like Elvira, Count Floyd, and Sammy Terry himself. To me, there was nobody better.

Several years ago, I decided to dress up as Sammy Terry for Halloween. Long story short:

I bring all this up to show how much I was looking forward to the Grindhouse films. This wasn't just another outing from Tarantino/Rodriguez. This was a tribute.

They even pulled out vintage between-film reels ("Prevues of Coming Attractions") and used special effects and color correction to make these films look like shit. Add some purposely bad acting and writing and here you go. They still probably put more effort into making these films than any real B-movie director not named Sam Raimi.

I can see why the films don't work for modern audiences, though. Not everyone has a strong sense of nostalgia for the period. Not everyone was even old enough (or born enough) to remember how films looked in theaters of the time.

I grew up a mile from a drive-in movie theater. Talk about films looking and sounding bad. But we're talking about an era when audiophile sound and cinephile print quality were not an issue. Most people just wanted to go see a movie. Half the time, it didn't matter what was playing.

That said, when it comes to the Grindhouse films, I don't give a crap what these films are about or how "good" they are because I'm a sucker for nostalgia.

For me, the Grindhouse films are necessary. They get at a part of our country's history that nobody really thinks about (and many would just as soon forget). For a time, this kind of film is how Americans found entertainment at the movies. That should be celebrated, preferably with grande nachos and a Shiner Bock.

Greenberg

2011-02-09T00:18:00.000-05:00

[Note: I ordered a copy of Greenberg just so I could watch the film and write something. Then I forgot I ordered the thing, and went ahead with the Grindhouse movies. So now I have to back-date this and admit my folly. Enjoy.]

Noah Baumbach's films aren't always easy to take. He gets at the quirks of real people, and sometimes terrible people, and sometimes incredibly boring, messed-up people, and he does so with aplomb every single time.

If you've seen a Noah Baumbach film, you probably got awkward characters behaving awkwardly in awkward situations. He's good at getting at people. He's getting much better at films about deeply damaged people. I wish I could write more insightful stuff about this film, but I haven't seen this one enough times to really study all the nuances.

Ben Stiller plays Roger Greenberg, a former mental patient who housesits for his brother and basically spends the entire film trying to find a delicate balance between being a dick being an even bigger dick. He spends his free time writing complaint letters to various businesses and trying very hard to do nothing with his life.

Unlike a lot of films that take a selfish, loner misanthrope type and turn him (always a him) around in the span of 90-120 minutes, Baumbach makes no such attempt here. Roger Greenberg behaves in much the same way that a real misanthrope would behave, and doesn't get much better. He has a kind of existential revelation toward the end, but rather than going all saccharine or sentimental, we're left with this "new" Greenberg who isn't transformed so much as just slightly nudged forward.

My wife and I rented this one a few months ago, and she hated it. This thing is billed as a comedy of sorts, but really isn't. That's not why she didn't like the film. This is a super dry character piece about a total misanthropic asshole. In a way, I sort of identified with Greenberg, and in other ways I loathed him. I know there's a lot more here, though. I just need to look harder.

There are funny moments and some good lines, but the film doesn't seem stuck in genre conventions. There's a three-act structure at work, but again, the film doesn't seem bogged down in any kind of formula. I feel like I'm letting you down here, because I don't have anything revelatory to say that either 1) doesn't make me sound like a pretentious asshat and 2) hasn't already been written in any of the millions of reviews on this film.

Baumbach's films make me a little indignant. I write these little character pieces and have the toughest time getting anybody outside of friends and family to read anything. But this isn't about some self-loathing, staring-at-my-hands thing. If I let that take over, I turn into just another asshole like Greenberg, and the world has enough of those. I just have to keep nudging myself forward and letting my friends and family do the same.

Great Expectations

2011-02-08T20:36:00.048-05:00

I love David Lean films, but I'd never seen his version of Great Expectations before tonight, when I found this in a bin at my local Half Price Books.

I'm not one to "blind buy" movies anymore, but I always keep an eye out for used copies of Criterion releases. Even if I've never seen the film, I trust that most Criterion DVDs won't let me down. I'm usually right.

There are misfires. For some reason, there's a Criterion edition of Armageddon AND The Rock. When people question the judgment of Criterion, they usually refer to these two releases, one of which is pure shit and the other is just okay. After these two, there aren't many bad films with the Criterion name attached.

Add to that, this film has David Lean's name attached as well. Before he directed Dr. Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia, and The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lean made a couple of films based on Charles Dickens classics: this one and Oliver Twist.

While watching this, I noticed something about Alec Guinness, who plays Herbert Pocket here. In short, for the first time, Alec Guinness set off my gaydar. Thoughts whipped through my head: Was Alec Guinness gay? Obi-Wan Kenobi? Couldn't be. Well, maybe. Doesn't matter, but...okay, let's do some research.

A quick Google search revealed several articles, including one that reported Guinness was arrested in 1946 for a homosexual act. However, when he was arrested, he had the quickness of thought to give a false name. That false name? Herbert Pocket.

So, the role Guinness was playing when he tripped my gaydar is, in fact, the same name he used to try to throw authorities off his real identity and keep his homosexuality a secret. For years!

None of this matters, really. I mostly think the trivia is interesting, not the orientation. I never knew this stuff about him, mostly because I just don't care (until there's movie trivia to be had -- then I'm awake).

What's most interesting about this story, for me, is all the social class stuff. You get this boy who grew up a commoner and because of the generosity of others, got an opportunity to live a different life -- one that he grasped tightly. He learned to be one of another crust, a refined gentleman, though he was destined to be a blacksmith.

Sort of reminds me of my own journey. I grew up in a middle class home, the son of a factory worker and the grandson of coal miners. We were not poor, but we weren't rich. We were not "white trash." We were just working class folks, and we still are, and there's nothing wrong with it. Great Expectations seems to imply that there is, but whatever.

I was one of the only family members to go to college, to embrace the arts, to try to make money from my imagination, and to take a "white collar" job as a teacher. My life turned out very different from the way I might've been destined. I might've ended up working as a grocery store manager, or I'd have gone into the military, or I might've ended up in a factory. I don't know. All of those things were plausible options given my working class upbringing.

I'm not saying those things are wrong or bad or worse or anything of the sort. I could've been happy doing any of those things...maybe. I never felt as though I fit into those roles, and I'm amazed at how things turned out.

It's strange because I never expected to be where I am, and yet, here I am. It's as if someone were looking out for me.

The Goonies

2011-02-08T01:18:00.001-05:00

My parents rented The Goonies in March or April 1986. That weekend, we watched the film three times on glorious VHS. We never re-watched anything like that.

I grew up across the street from a corn field, several miles north of Muncie, Indiana. When Muncie is the nearest city, you know you're in trouble. We were like a bunch of hobbits out there — we never went on any adventures.

My family didn't have much money to travel or provide us kids with extravagant toys. My siblings and I just had each other, our imaginations, and a few neighborhood kids to keep us company. And our imaginations went wild when we saw The Goonies.

I saw The Goonies at the perfect time — our time, as the Goonies say. I was 11 years old — just the age when independence was new, and we could run around the back yard looking for buried treasure without our parents hovering around so much.

Parents aren't really like that anymore.

Anyway, around that time, I found this engraved medallion in a box of my parents' junk. I pretended the medallion was sort of like the headpiece of the staff of Ra. Tonight, I did my own little treasure hunt. Look what I found:

Of course, that piece is only part of the full survival set, if you're an 11-year-old growing up in my neighborhood. Here's the rest:

You need at least two knives(!), one of which is full of other gadgets such as a spoon, a fork, and a serrated blade(?), as well as a flower ring that sprays water(?), and a Falls City Beer bottle opener. You can't hunt for treasure without this stuff. At least, I never did.

Nearly 25 years later, all that stuff was in a box in my closet, packed away for no good reason except to take out now and then and remember. This is my buried treasure.

The Goonies captured everything awesome about being a kid. I never had to look for buried treasure to save my town. I never had to run from criminal families. But if I wanted to imagine all that stuff, I could (and sometimes did).

The Goonies was (I think) the second DVD that I ever purchased. At the time, most of the cast came back for a commentary track, which quickly devolves into people talking over each other, sort of like you threw a party and invited them all over. All the Goonies are around 40 years old now, some with kids of their own, and yeah, Kerri Green is still hot.

I love watching this film, even after all these years. I know there's no buried treasure, but try telling my imagination. I still have my medallion, Astoria is still in Oregon, and those rocks still rise out of the sea.

The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard

2011-02-07T03:19:00.001-05:00

There once was a little film about a car salesman. That film garnered a bunch of crappy reviews and was out of theaters within seven weeks. That was this film.

Despite a cast that included Jeremy Piven as a loudmouth salesman (typecast much?) and a parade of other character actors and comedians, The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard mostly just flopped hard — at least with critics.

Blame the base humor — everything from racism to homophobia to sexism to the simply puerile are here. Blame Will Ferrell for not having a large enough role. Blame Jeremy Piven's wig. Blame whatever you want — to me, this film is pretty funny despite the flaws.

I've seen films that fancied themselves comedies, but weren't funny — Scary Movie sequels for example, or maybe latter-day Leslie Nielsen spoofs. I don't even consider Mel Brooks' Robin Hood: Men in Tights all that worthwhile.

The Goods works for me, though. This is a low-budget comedy with low-brow humor and low aspirations, but a lot of gusto. I'm fine with that.

This film was budgeted at $10 million and grossed $15 million. I might not understand the particulars of accounting or budgeting for a major motion picture or how to balance my own checkbook, but by gum, even without balancing my checkbook, I know $5 million is more money than I have in the bank, and probably more than you have in the bank, so there.

The Goods doesn't aspire to bring in the teen audience that would pay to see something like Epic Movie (or pretty much any other comedy with "Movie" in the title). This film is smarter than that.

I mean, they reference Thoreau's line about lives of quiet desperation, which is something I've referenced here a few times. The music is solid. There's a Bandit car. This isn't a movie for the teenage crowd. This is a film for adults who just want to watch a silly comedy and let go.

Sure, they could've handled this scene differently, but for the most part, The Goods features characters and situations that I'd want to write. Stupid comedy comes easily.

I once heard this guy say that that "life is too short to write stupid comedies." As a writer, I couldn't disagree more.

My buddy Brian and I have a weakness for stupid comedies. The Goods is exactly the kind of film we'll watch over and over. We're not alone.

Why shouldn't I aspire to write a film that people want to watch over and over? Nobody's saying this is an Oscar contender. Stupid comedies have an audience, and they're not all stupid people.

Sometimes even smart people want to watch a film and laugh a bit and forget about life for a while, as the song goes. The Goods is the kind of film that would make my family laugh. Who wouldn't want to make his/her family laugh? Who doesn't enjoy laughing at the same jokes that make your parents and siblings laugh?

I grew up in the country. We didn't have cable or a dish. Mom or Dad would rent a stack of movies on the weekends, and that was our entertainment. We couldn't go to theaters or theme parks or museums or do much traveling.

Instead, we watched a lot of movies. I kept a list of the titles for a while, but gave up after the first several hundred. We rented damn near everything in our local video store. We saw our share of crappy movies, but we also rented quite a few comedies that we all could laugh at together.

You've got to understand, for me, sitting down with family and laughing at the same movies was pretty much the extent of how I could relate to them. We weren't joiners. We didn't sit and play board games. For the most part, we led a crushingly boring existence.

But we loved watching movies, and I loved watching movies with them. Still do. Of course, The Goods isn't exactly a family film, but family films mostly suck. I don't want to write family films.

I want to write stuff for other families who are as screwed up as mine, so other people can laugh and connect in the best way they can find, when functional conversation at the dinner table isn't an option, and when love and support look quite a bit different than what you see on television.

I want to write stuff that can help. To me, that's a humble, honorable aspiration.

GoodFellas

2011-02-05T18:25:00.000-05:00

Morbid curiosity brings me back to GoodFellas. This is no life I would want to live.

Despite the money, power, respect, connections, privileges, etc., you take one wrong step and someone shoots you in the back, and none of that stuff matters. Obviously, right?

Since Mom died, I've had a pretty strange relationship with materialism. As my siblings and I sort through what she left behind, we have choices to make and conversations to have about her belongings. Who gets what? What are these things worth? Sentimental value vs. monetary value? Everything seems to have a story, a significance, to one or more of us, and we have these conversations that must end in a compromise.

Is any of this stuff worth a fight? Not really. I just want everything to be settled fairly and in a way that would honor Mom and keep from blowing my family apart. This is harder than you think. When siblings start talking about money and wants and entitlement and so on, a lot of old stuff can surface — stuff that isn't worth the fight in my view.

Maybe that makes me a pushover. If the choice is a fight or taking something I don't want anyway, just take the damned thing. I never bought any of this stuff. I'm not attached to much. You can't take any of this stuff with you.

So the materialism depicted in gangster pictures doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Fine clothes, jewelry, houses — I wouldn't be able to enjoy any of that if I didn't come by the stuff honestly, and you can only fit so much into a casket.

Blame that viewpoint on a blue-collar upbringing — the same life that Ray Liotta's character decries in this film, as though anybody who works hard for a living must be a sucker. Maybe all blue-collar workers are suckers. I don't mind.

Having said all that, I've been going on some "retail therapy binges" that have left my credit card smoldering. Mom lived like a pauper for years and always "meant to" do things and "get around to" this or that, and she never did. She wished she could have certain things that she never got to have. She did without for years.

I think about all that stuff when I pass a record shop or an electronics store and catch myself saying, "Nah, you don't need that," or "You can't afford that," or any other "responsible" saying that, were this any other time in my life, would work to keep me from acquiring more and more stuff. Maybe this makes the pain go away for a little while — the feeling of power I get when I can just say, "Screw it. I'm buying it."

Maybe there's a portion of that rationalization in all of us — not just the gangsters in the film, but everyone who seizes what he or she wants. We tell ourselves we deserve something, that we've worked hard, that our relatives did without and now we refuse to do the same, etc.

I understand that point of view, now that I've seen how quickly life fades away.

There's really not much else to say about GoodFellas. This film neither motivates me to write nor begs for frequent re-watching.

At this point in my life, the film isn't even a distraction from everything else. After morbid curiosity, all you have left is this shot.

Good Will Hunting

2011-02-01T16:36:00.000-05:00

When I saw Good Will Hunting in 1997, I walked away feeling that I could write what I wanted. The problem was finding when. I'm still looking.

Good Will Hunting came along when I was in my senior year of college with the world spread out in front of me. I won a scholarship for a screenplay I wrote — and stayed in college an extra semester so I could keep writing.

While my friends were graduating, getting jobs and wives, buying houses and cars, and having children, I stayed in school. I don't regret grad school one bit, but I do get annoyed when people bring up the fact that I was in school a while. I know. I was there.

Although other people's lives passed me by, I don't think that way about my own. Yes, I grew apart from most of my friends, but growing apart is a two-person process.

Grad school forced me to think in ways I'd never even attempted, and to do work I never knew how to attempt. I ran on four hours of sleep or less, read and re-read books that made no sense until they made sense, and wrote papers using words I didn't even know how to pronounce yet. I found myself surrounded by people who were just as masochistic, but also just as inquisitive, competitive, and fascinated.

Finally, I got a job as a technical writer, which is the most bastardized form of "writing" ever invented. I didn't last. Within three months, I'd been offered a job teaching writing at a university. That led me to a full-time gig where I am now.

This was never the plan. This is just how things worked out. For most people, you don't get your dream job. You don't get your dream anything. You get what you get. You take it, count yourself lucky, and (try to) shut up. This is a blue-collar upbringing talking, I think.

Sean asks Will a simple question: "What do you want to do?"

First, that question is bullshit. Wanting to do something and actually getting to do something are different concepts, and only someone who has failed repeatedly can understand that sometimes you don't get what you want.

Sometimes, you take what you can get.

The only thing I've ever really wanted to do is write. Everything else I've done was a means to get to do that, because writing doesn't pay any better than any other kind of art, and all artists have to eat.

Knowing that kept me from moving to Los Angeles to try to be a screenwriter there. I could've gone out there and waited tables like all the other creatives. Instead, I chose to stay here. Like Sean in the film, I chose a path for myself.

Did I end up where I expected? No. Am I doing what I foresaw 20 years ago? Hardly. But you take what you can get and struggle to do a little better each day.

I type this from my couch on a snowy, icy Tuesday in the middle of Indiana. I do not have to be in Los Angeles to write. Some say you can't get into the industry unless you're out there. I wonder if these people have heard of the Internet.

Sure, there are days when I wish I lived in Southern California, but not necessarily for the industry. I mostly just don't like being cold.

Many people are tormented by the struggle to balance work and life. A few fortunate folks find a hobby to which they devote some free time: model airplanes or comics or something. Writing isn't a hobby. Hobbies wait for the weekend. Writing doesn't wait well.

When I don't want to write, I don't write. A lot of writers will say you should just write through that. To me, that sounds like a good way to crank out a bunch of shitty writing.

I got into teaching with the assumption that I would have the free time to write. Turns out, teaching is just as time-consuming as any other full-time gig, if not more. I'm not the first writing teacher to come to this realization, and I won't be the last.

Most of us are just living our lives of quiet desperation, like Thoreau said.

Good Will Hunting spends a lot of time on the symbolism of tickets — lottery tickets and the odds of winning, a World Series ticket that Sean gave away so he could "see about a girl," and the metaphorical "ticket outta here" that Will possesses.

Not everyone gets the perfect ticket. Some people don't get a ticket at all, and others play the lottery every day. As for me, most days I'm content to sit back and watch others try to use the ticket(s) they've been given, and I am thankful.

Most days.

Good Morning, Vietnam

2011-01-30T02:07:00.000-05:00

I try not to worry about people who don't like Good Morning, Vietnam. I wonder if they're exactly the type of people Robin Williams' character wouldn't like anyway.

If so, then they probably wouldn't like me either.

In high school, I got a copy of this film on glorious VHS. Within a few weeks, I had most of Robin Williams' lines memorized. My buddy Josh and I used to recite Williams' on-air monologues and annoy anybody within earshot.

"Too much time on your hands," people used to say.

Williams plays a fictionalized version of Adrian Cronauer, an Air Force radio personality, but everything I've read indicates that Cronauer's life and experiences differ substantially from the film. I don't care. That's not the point.

Williams made radio look like a ginormous amount of fun — all smartass remarks and rock music — and for a teenager, that was perfect.

My high school had a student radio station, and so did my college. I pissed off the management in both places. I've never been good with uptight people.

I went on the air for the first time in high school. I was 17. I didn't know what I was doing, and I was so nervous, I nearly yacked on the microphone. I didn't know what to say between songs. What Robin Williams made look so easy, I couldn't do at all.

I got comfortable while doing off-air production and reading the news on-air. In an act of rebellion and as a challenge to myself, I refused to rehearse the news, just so I could cold-read on the air and not mess up. Yeah, I still messed up.

I pissed off the station manager a few times. I once read Bush vs. Clinton presidential campaign slurs over "The Star Spangled Banner," which got his panties in a twist. I played "banned" music from artists such as the horrifying Simon & Garfunkel and the obscene Bachman Turner Overdrive on the air.

For good reason, the station manager had to keep a tight grip on things. You don't let a bunch of teenagers have their run of an FM radio station, even in the middle of nowhere with a 10-watt transmitter. I understand the risks now, but at the time, I couldn't help but compare that station manager to Cronauer's superiors in this film. The man, trying to keep me down.

In college, I joined the student station and started playing my own CDs, which I learned later was forbidden. Then I ran my mouth a little too much one night (shocker).

I was throwing my show to the next guy, and as I was talking, I realized I'd never listened to the next guy's show — or any other show on that station.

So I said, "You know, I'd love to tell you about the next guy's show, but to be honest, I never listen to this radio station." Funny to me at the time. Not so much to the students who managed the station. They made a big deal of that. Meh.

Eventually, I got away from radio when I realized I couldn't just screw around all the time, and that there were no jobs and thus, no future for me. I started realizing how much I liked writing more — I could edit myself before I blurted out something stupid.

Mom really loved Good Morning, Vietnam. When Williams goes on the air for the first time, he riffed so fast that Mom couldn't stop laughing. Then Williams went to the music. That quick shot of the VU meter clearly pegging the red prompted Mom to say, "Man, he's really pumping it out."

She knew all the songs in the film. She'd heard of most of the places. Her brother, my uncle Paul, served in Vietnam. He joined the Marines. I don't know the story exactly, but apparently someone near him stepped on a land mine, and he caught some of the shrapnel. He was honorably discharged and sent home, and was never right again.

The film devolves into sentimentalizing the conflict a bit, and as a result, some people — especially some veterans — tune out. If the filmmakers deliberately tried to minimize the conflict or pull a little revisionist history for the sake of drama, I still don't care.

For me, the film still resonates. "What A Wonderful World" juxtaposed with explosions and fighting now seems pretty heavy-handed, but I still don't care. War films aren't all John Wayne dodging bullets and coming out unscathed. This was one of several Vietnam-themed films of the '80s that made Americans acknowledge the kind of shit they sent people to do.

Ah, but this film is sneaky. You're lured in with a cracking good soundtrack and some hilarious monologues, but then the film starts turning, starts revealing a soul, as if the smartass were just a Trojan horse for a message. Don't like the message? Still don't care.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

2011-01-24T20:33:00.004-05:00

I needed Italians to make me a fan of the American west.

Until college, I'd really never watched an Italian western. I saw The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly for the first time in my film genres course when I was doing my undergrad at Ball State. My prof articulated how the Italians interpreted the American west — more cynical, more violent, more style.

When I was growing up, my dad and granddad often watched westerns on television, but usually these were John Wayne's pictures or Clint Eastwood's American work — rarely an Italian western. I always thought John Wayne films were boring and corny, and Clint Eastwood's American work left me wanting something — I'm not sure what.

Dad called the Italian efforts "spaghetti westerns," which I found out later was a common term for the Italians' attempts to emulate this distinctly American genre. Dad generally never liked "dubbers" (foreign films dubbed in English) and to this day he doesn't really like these "spaghetti westerns."

That didn't stop me from going out one year and buying Dad a copy of this film on glorious VHS, replete with sterling 4:3 full-screen aspect ratio and muddy, warbling 2.0 stereo sound. I'm not sure he ever watched that tape. I never bought him a copy on DVD.

This gets at the question of owning a copy of a film on disc (or any other format). Dad is 63 years old, and he's as healthy as 63 gets in Indiana. I hope he has plenty of time left, but realistically, how many more times will a 63 year old man watch a 3-hour western that's partially dubbed?

For that matter, how many more times will I watch this? Assuming I don't skip around my DVD collection and watch all of them straight through, I might not get back to this one until 2014 sometime. By then, we'll be looking at a new media format for home video. For ten years, I built this library of DVDs that soon will be obsolete. So much for the idea of a library, you know? I don't really like thinking about that.

My wife spent a summer working in Santa Fe a few years before we got married. Around that same time, I picked up The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly on DVD, and noticed the special features explored the Civil War-era west, much of which took place in New Mexico. Although she and I were separated by hundreds of miles, watching this film and the enclosed special features made me feel closer to her in a way.

My dad simply prefers other westerns — The Outlaw Josey Wales is his favorite — and many of my friends prefer other Leone films — Once Upon a Time in the West, For A Few Dollars More, The Colossus of Rhodes (kidding) — but The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly is my favorite. This was the one that opened the door and instilled in me an appreciation of the American western, whether filmed here, in English, or otherwise.

Although I don't often agree with people about The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, the point is not necessarily which film we prefer, but that despite our differences, we appreciate the American western and the idea of the west. That's just one example of all the connections we can have through film, and the sort of thing that made me want to own all these DVDs in the first place.

Goldfinger

2011-01-23T22:55:00.001-05:00

Goldfinger, the peak of Sean Connery's efforts as 007, and possibly the most iconic Bond film ever, also features James Bond in a very short onesie.

This is another one of those Bond films that often appeared on ABC as the movie of the week, and my dad and I would watch. I was too young to follow the story or understand the more mature situations, but I liked the gadgets.

As with most Bond films, the theme music is over the top and ridiculous, but the Goldfinger theme stands apart as both unabashedly awful and awesome at the same time.

Holy shit, Shirley Bassey sings loudly — okay, she's just pushed way forward in the mix, but still — listen to this!

All the 007 staples are here — gadgets, gorgeous locations, evil henchmen, implausible situations, quaint film techniques and special effects, and a guy who throws a hat.

Oddly, Oddjob's hat cuts off the head of a statue at Goldfinger's country club, but the same hat does not slice off Tilly Masterson's head later in the film.

Maybe Oddjob took a little something off when he threw at the girl. Yes.

Behold, Bond driving his Aston Martin into a brick wall and doing more damage to the wall. Behold, the frequent use of obvious frame rate adjustments to accentuate tension and action. Behold, the frickin' laser heading toward 007's balls. There's a lot to pick on here.

But that's not the point. Part of Goldfinger takes place in Kentucky, my dad's home state, where Goldfinger attempts to set off an atomic bomb inside Fort Knox and wreck the economy in the west. So here's a spy thriller with beautiful women, fast cars, guns, gadgets, and...Kentucky.

Goldfinger is a great Bond film — maybe the greatest — full of everything we wanted to see back then. And now.

GoldenEye

2011-01-23T19:13:00.000-05:00

GoldenEye, Pierce Brosnan's first outing as James Bond 007, felt like my generation had a James Bond for the first time, an idea helped along when the film turned out to be damned good.

For those of us who came of age in the 1980s watching the mummified corpse of Roger Moore and a wooden plank with Timothy Dalton's face painted on, Pierce Brosnan was a welcome addition. He is by no means the most charismatic, athletic, or even best looking of all the actors who played Bond, but he does have the best hair. Hair matters.

Easily the craziest, hair-raising opening to any Bond film, this is the one where Bond hops a motorcycle and chases after a runaway single-engine plane on a snow-covered runway somewhere in Russia. You might remember how this goes.

The plane rides right off the edge of a cliff, and Bond bikes off right behind, leaping off the bike in mid-air, somehow defying physics and falling faster than the plane in order to catch up, climb in, and pull the plane out of the dive. Impossible. Impossibly cool.

If I had one complaint with GoldenEye, I'd point to the scene that follows, supposedly several years later. Bond drives along with a woman who must be a librarian, while toying with another, much hotter woman, who follows in another car and eventually overtakes him.

Famke Jannsen's introduction as the hot woman in the red sports car reminds me of Clark Griswold's flirtation with the hot woman in the red sports car.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

In addition to Brosnan's first film as Bond, this is Dame Judy Dench's first appearance as M. I always have a tough time watching Dench, as she bears a striking resemblance to my late grandmother, whom I miss every day. When I see Dench, I'm taken out of the film a little each time. I'm not sure how to work on this.

Tonight, I noticed that Minnie Driver plays a Russian dancer in this film, adding her name to the long list of actors who passed through Bond films unnoticed early in their careers. I never spotted her before, and I've seen this film at least a half dozen times:

But back to the Bond-of-a-generation thing. After Timothy Dalton's two films, the Bond franchise needed a jolt (sound familiar?). Enter Brosnan, who had been courted to take over the starring role before. I have a hard time envisioning Brosnan in the Bond role for the two Dalton films, but that almost happened.

Regardless, Brosnan makes good here, as GoldenEye is not only the best Brosnan Bond film by miles, but might be the franchise's best since Connery (Daniel Craig's efforts notwithstanding).

I'm not too wild about any of the other Brosnan 007 films, but for me, GoldenEye stands up well to repeat viewings because of a solid script, inventive yet faithful direction, and good hair.

Go

2011-01-20T01:12:00.000-05:00

Go was the closest I ever got to rave culture (or drug culture, really).

I just never cared about that stuff. I came of age listening to Henry Rollins and Ian MacKaye spout off about straight-edgery, so this film didn't resonate with me in that way.

Instead, I just liked seeing a film with young people (instead of the usual gangsters) with a twisty plot that jumped about in time and spun out in all these directions from the perspective of different characters. For me, John August's script had all the best elements of '90s film.

I had a copy of Go on glorious VHS, and I took that tape with me to film school, along with Doug Liman's other, better film, Swingers. Although film school was a real growing experience for me, I was creatively bankrupt. I was reaching for whatever seemed like a motivator or an inspiration. Everything I wrote was garbage. No, really. And no, you can't read any of it.

After seeing Swingers, I was pretty stoked to hear Liman had made another film, and I wasn't disappointed with Go. This isn't a film that stands up well to many repeat viewings, but revisiting now and again is interesting, if only to see how the music, hair, and clothing styles slowly get more and more dated.

Also, I really enjoy watching William Fichtner's slow burn. "It's Confederated Products. It's a different company. It's a different quality of product." The whole bit about the pyramid scheme seems so random, but still fits so well here. Kudos to John August for getting that bit to work here.

I suppose even though I was never into all the culture, I pulled my share of all-nighters out with people. I used to get so cold then, when sleep deprivation and a dash of hungry took over just as the temperature reached the coldest point of the night. You get a specific kind of shivering then -- part exhaustion, part freezing, part excitement.

Sometimes on those nights, I'd roll the windows down to keep myself awake on the way home (on nights I went home). I miss those nights. I miss that shivering. Luckily I can put on Go now and then and get a snapshot.

Gladiator

2011-01-19T02:03:00.001-05:00

"What we do in life...echoes in eternity."

Here's a film that grapples with the concept of what makes a person great. One's life is not a series of achievements, but a series of deeds.

We are not our résumé. We are not our awards, our trophies. Our greatness is predicated on what we do, yes, but in my view, greatness is about who we reach, not what we reach.

I think about this sort of thing when I watch Gladiator. I see the film as a (three-hour) parable. I look back on what I've accomplished with my own life: degrees, awards, recognition. I'm not satisfied, and I don't want to be proud of this stuff; pride leads to arrogance and complacency.

I'm not done yet. I don't ever want to be done. I might not know what to do next (in fact, sometimes I think I'm frozen in place), but I still want to do things.

Seven years ago, I stood at my grandmother's grave and vowed to live a life that would make her proud of me. Two months ago, I stood at my mother's grave and promised the same thing. And, as I will not speak to either of them again in this life, I won't know if I've made either of them proud enough.

So I just keep doing what I'm doing. Live a good life, do good things, make a difference, and all that stuff. Hope they're watching.

These themes are what bring me back to this film. I know deep down that Gladiator is not nearly as good as its thematic predecessor, Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus. I know there are some over the top Hollywood histrionics at play here, what with the whole "Are you not entertained?" thing. None of that stuff matters.

I've probably seen Gladiator a dozen times over the years. I re-watch because the film is gorgeous — the kind of huge film with a simple, universal story that resonates with me, and makes me want to be better. I keep watching, and I keep doing.

"I will see you again. But not yet. Not yet."

Ghostbusters/Ghostbusters 2

2011-01-18T22:39:00.001-05:00

I was 9 years old when Ghostbusters came out, so I might've been too young for this film, but thankfully, my parents let me watch anyway.

I wasn't alone. My brother was 6; my sister was 4. I can't remember whether we all piled up and went to a movie theater (unlikely) or the drive-in theater a mile from our house (more likely), or whether we rented this one on glorious VHS (most likely, and most glorious). Point being, my parents didn't care.

I bring this up because I was looking at reviews of Ghostbusters on Netflix and couldn't get over how many uptight parents see this film as inappropriate for children based on the sexual content and language.

So, the demonic hell-dogs are cool for a 9-year-old? How about the ghost of the old woman in the library — the one that transforms into a vicious she-beast? General freaky things? Glowing red eyes? Decomposing bodies driving taxicabs? Parents are dumb.

At one point in the '80s, a neighbor had the Ghostbusters computer game, which had a simple premise: capture ghosts, make money, and buy more crap. I usually got stuck with the VW Beetle and not enough money to do anything except drive around, but sometimes, I did well enough to buy the bambalance. Of course, no video game is a substitute for buying the real thing. I miss that game.

I'm told I look like the main character in the modern Ghostbusters video game. I'm also told that game is reminiscent of the classic PC game, but after playing the demo and getting frustrated, I'm not so sure. I just wanted a bambalance.

So here's a question I've often pondered. When the Ghostbusters are told to choose the form of the destructor, and Venkman says, "So if you think of J. Edgar Hoover, J. Edgar Hoover will appear and destroy us," how come J. Edgar Hoover doesn't show up? Does Ray think of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man before Venkman thinks of Hoover? These are important questions, people.

These two films are best viewed as a double feature. At least that way, you don't have to try to make a special event of sitting through the vastly inferior sequel, which I still enjoy for some reason. Maybe that's because I enjoy seeing a bit more of these characters and how they ended up a few years later.

Another upside: I can't look at Viggo Mortensen in any film without shouting, "He is Viggo!" Sometimes, I follow this with the optional: "You are like the buzzing of flies to him!" I don't care if I'm watching Lord of the Rings or The Prophecy or A History of Violence. I never said I was easy to hang out with.

(Artwork by Kory, one of my students.)

Strangely, I don't come back to Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters 2 often. Even though I enjoy both films, I sort of forget they're there. The films are classic, though, and I'm glad to have an excuse to revisit both in the same night.

Maybe someday I'll get to watch all three.

Garden State

2011-01-18T02:35:00.000-05:00

"They will see us waving from such great heights, 'Come down now,' they'll say..."

My friend Michael and I view Garden State differently.

As a high school drama teacher for several years, Michael obviously spent most of his time around teenagers, many of whom were medicated and impressionable. To him, Garden State appeared to send the message that if you stop your meds, you'll be fine. You might even feel better than ever. He found the implication reckless, and the film fundamentally flawed as a result.

I don't want to speak too much for Michael; he's entitled to see the film his way and I don't begrudge him a different opinion. In fact, I see the logic of his opinion a lot more clearly now (probably because I've been exposed to a few hundred more at-risk college students in the last several years, and some days I fear the future). I didn't see the film that way at the time, though.

For me, Garden State was a watershed film that seemed to echo and therefore validate the work of Hal Ashby, Billy Wilder, and Cameron Crowe all over again. Zach Braff made me feel a little less weird for loving their quiet, quirky little character pieces so much, when none of my friends and few of my students had the patience to see what I saw.

In 2004, I'd just started teaching screenwriting to college students, and Garden State validated much of what I thought about storytelling, even underscoring many of the same lessons I was trying to teach.

As a writer, the film also gave me hope that, yeah, the stories I like to tell might have an audience after all. I had just started writing scripts again, and I was trying to capture little moments rather than high concepts. I was still a year away from starting a full-length script, but I'd be lying if I said Garden State didn't influence my ideas.

My script had a protagonist who went home after a long absence and had to deal with the loss of his mother and with the presence of his odd, distant father. My details were different, but the template was there. Shell-of-a-guy goes home, can't connect with his dad, meets plucky girl, and magically gets his life in order while indie rock plays on the soundtrack. There's a whole subgenre of these films now.

In a way, that script continues to haunt me. I wrote my protagonist's mother out because I had no relationship with my own mother at the time, and I didn't know how to imagine one.

Compared to the rest of Braff's career thus far, Garden State looks like an astonishing high water mark — a film (and soundtrack) that spoke to a generation of listless wanderers and continues to do so today.

I wonder if my own high water mark is ahead of me or behind. I find myself thinking about that script, and whether I can even do that again. I think about Mom and all the things I should've said, and consider writing that shit down. I wonder if what I'm feeling means a thing, and if she understands me at all now.

The Full Monty

2011-01-12T01:15:00.000-05:00

I saw this film in a theater in 1997ish, and I think I was on a date at the time. The Full Monty as a date movie? Yep. I remember laughing quite a lot. Simon Beaufoy's script is solid work.

Later, I found that The Full Monty seemed to lose impact on the small screen. (Write your own joke.) In this way, the film is a lot like There's Something About Mary, which had people rolling in theaters, but isn't nearly as bust-a-gut funny at home. In part, that's why I did not own a copy on DVD until recently.

I was in a Kmart a few weeks before Christmas this year (looking for Crispy M&Ms, which we'd heard were still available there), when I passed a display of DVDs and saw a copy of The Full Monty for $5. Yoink!

(We never found Crispy M&Ms, and since then we have determined they are long gone, a revelation that leaves my wife wanting. But I got this film on DVD — perhaps the last DVD that I'll ever purchase, so there's that.)

I remember not being able to understand half the dialogue in the theater (untrained ears 12 years ahead of marrying into a Brit family). Some lines still elude me without subtitles. I don't remember noticing the odd use of the word "soccer" in the intro, which doesn't fit at all (but probably got inserted to spare U.S. audiences).

One thing I don't recall is ever judging this film or feeling "icky" about the prospect of these middle-aged men turning to a life of stripping to make ends meet. Sure, say what you will about Robert Carlyle's character having his son along for things he probably shouldn't see, but aside from that, there's not much here to get worked up about, is there?

Consider it this way: Sheffield was once a booming steel town, and now it isn't. Reminds me a lot of my hometown of Muncie, Indiana, or really, the whole rust belt of America. People do what they can to survive even after the jobs have gone. They don't have a choice, do they?

There are worse things to turn to in times of desperation. Consider the meth problem, or the crime rate in general, of so many rust belt towns. Stripping for money seems rather tame in comparison to selling drugs to little kids or killing people.

If, in the Sheffield of The Full Monty, this is how depressed things have become, and if this is how desperate the people of Sheffield have become, then who are we to judge if these people find a little escape in going out to a strip club? Who are we to judge if people dance in one to make money to survive? What are people supposed to do?

I was unemployed for a time. (No, I never turned to stripping.) I remember the frustration of wanting to work and no one giving me a chance. I didn't want to work so I could eat, pay bills, etc. That was secondary to simply having a purpose and making something of myself. We forge our identities, in part, from our careers. I couldn't. That was incredibly painful.

During the '80s, my dad went through something similar. He was laid off from his factory job for 2 1/2 years. (No, he never turned to stripping, either.) He took a job cleaning RVs, and another job as a janitor. He drove farm trucks and tractors. He worked on cars. He opened his own farm equipment shop with my uncle. He took odd jobs. He did what he had to do, and life was very, very hard. At one point, my mom was in a panic because they only had $45 in the bank. My mom worked in a gas station and became the only source of income. My dad's identity as the breadwinner of the family was lost for a time. He seemed untethered, unhinged. He was miserable.

Now I understand, and I'm able to identify with the characters in The Full Monty quite a lot. These characters are out of options. They can't be choosy. They don't have the luxury of waiting for happiness and self-actualization. Sometimes happiness is just a warm plate of food.

By the end of the film, these men have overcome their own faults, for the most part, and their own insecurities. Their loved ones are proud of them for doing something in a town where nothing ever happens and where there are no opportunities. These men carved out their own opportunity and boldly went ahead.

We all do that, in a way. My parents did. I eventually did. You probably did. That's life.

The Fugitive

2011-01-10T00:17:00.000-05:00

If I'm flipping channels, and I find The Fugitive with Harrison Ford playing, regardless of the point in the story, I can't change the channel until the film is over.

I probably have seen this film two dozen times over the years — mostly on television, replete with commercial interruptions that I dutifully sit through so I can watch the rest of the movie. Again.

There are a few other films like that. Die Hard and The Silence of the Lambs come to mind, among others, but not one of them works like The Fugitive.

As a still-aspiring screenwriter, I've read a lot about Jeb Stuart and David Twohy's script, which has one of the best stories of any action/suspense pictures in the last 30 years. The Fugitive is easily the best work of either Stuart or Twohy's career.

The film isn't perfect, but The Fugitive is great entertainment. Sure, there are a couple of plot holes and implausible sequences. (The dam jump, anyone?) But that stuff is easy to pass off as one-in-a-million chances that work out for Kimble.

Maybe the most frustrating aspect of the film is the opening credits, which run off and on for the first 15 minutes of the movie. They seem endless. A film this suspenseful loses impact if you distract viewers with opening credits that drag so long into Act One. Mercifully, the credits end at 14:49, just before the iconic bus/train sequence.

The film doesn't have another sequence quite like the train accident. The rooftop chase is fine, but nothing like the rooftop sequence in, say, Die Hard. The climactic chase through the laundry is weakly symbolic (Kimble delving into someone else's dirty laundry to exonerate himself). But...I don't care.

In a way, re-watching The Fugitive is like doing a job I really love. I get to do this fun and exciting thing and get the same or similar result every time. I get to think about the time I spent in Chicago, the memories of which are bittersweet at best.

Much of this film is shot within the Chicago city limits, with easily recognizable locations — especially along Randolph St., near the Thompson Center. When I lived in Chicago, I worked about two blocks from there. When Chicago weather allowed, I used to walk to the Thompson Center to eat lunch and get my hair cut (on good days, I could afford both).

Chicago was a rough period for me, which I've mentioned here before and don't want to belabor. I had ambitions of doing improv and finding work as an advertising copywriter. I did the improv, but most of the ad agencies I contacted responded with indifference. Of course they did — I had no experience, and the economy tanked right around November 2000, when I moved to town. One creative director seemed interested, but she had no job openings. She said, "You never know, though — things change."

Not much changed except the weather. Eventually, I realized I could neither eat nor pay my bills regardless of whether I kept my job. So I quit. A few weeks later, I left town and went back to grad school.

I've done improv only a handful of times in the 10 years since. Imagine my surprise when I learned that much of the dialogue in The Fugitive was improvised or otherwise invented by the actors, including Tommy Lee Jones' famous "I don't care."

I learned at The Second City that most of the sketch revues are written through improvisation and refinement rather than clacking away at a keyboard. Improv is just another form of writing. That said, an ordinary script can become extraordinary in the hands of the right actors. That's exactly what happened to The Fugitive.

Neither Jeb Stuart nor David Twohy ever have written what you'd call critically bulletproof material, but put the writing in front of Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones, give them some freedom, and see what happens.

That's more than enough to keep me watching. Again.

From Russia With Love

2011-01-05T21:40:00.000-05:00

From Russia With Love is the second 007 film, and I can't for the life of me remember the plot. Something about SPECTRE going after Bond with some blond-haired tough guy and sending some blonde-haired woman...not that plot matters, but here's the IMDB logline:

"James Bond willingly falls into an assassination ploy involving a naive Russian beauty in order to retrieve a Soviet encryption device that was stolen by SPECTRE."

As in Dr. No, the 007 theme music appears frequently, though not enough to be as much of a distraction as in the previous film. Still, sometimes I notice James Bond's most trivial movements accompanied by the theme. Walking into a hotel — play the Bond theme. Drive a car — play the Bond theme. Raise an eyebrow — play the Bond theme.

I'm rather glad the Daniel Craig iterations don't feature the Bond theme so prominently.

Watching early Bond films can be difficult, thanks to the efforts of Mike Myers and the Austin Powers franchise. Frau Farbissina, Dr. Evil, and Number Two all have equivalents in this picture. I can't help some inadvertent laughing.

I can forgive the quaintness, but I can't get past my inner monologue, saying the name "Frau Farbissina" while impersonating Dr. Evil. It got weird.

The "chick fight" at around the 43:00 mark? The two women who fight for a husband? Yeah, that fight looks pretty bad now. I get the impression that fight was choreographed by a man. There's just not enough screeching and hair-pulling. They look like two members of G.L.O.W.

Speaking of appearances, how about Robert Shaw as Donald Grant, the Bond heavy here? He looks like a congressman from my home state of Indiana:

My biggest complaint with From Russia With Love is the rather abrupt ending. Stuff blows up, then Bondandthegirlrideawayinaboattheend.

Again, though, that complaint sort of gets at the writing, and criticizing the writing of a Bond film is rather like kicking a baby. All of the Bond films have varying degrees of bad writing, from cheesy dialogue to general implausibility. Who gives a crap?

Caring isn't worth the trouble. I like Bond films for the escape they deliver, and as I'm going through the grieving process and settling my mother's estate, this stupid stuff is the perfect antidote.

From Dusk Till Dawn

2011-01-05T01:29:00.000-05:00

Remember when vampires were a surprise?

In From Dusk Till Dawn, we get no hint of vampires for the first hour of the film. Nobody mentions anything about vampires. Nothing.

This isn't like everybody talking about Harry Lime in The Third Man for the first hour or so, and then Orson Welles finally shows up in the shadows. In that film, they established the character's presence in the world of the film because other characters talked about him, and then he finally showed up.

This isn't really like Psycho, either, in which Janet Leigh's character goes on the lam, only to die in the shower in the middle of the film. Psycho goes on from there with different, new main characters, sort of rebooting the narrative.

Strangely, From Dusk Till Dawn is a bit like both. We get no clue about vampires, and when all hell finally breaks loose near the one-hour mark, we spend the remaining 40 minutes watching the characters (some new, some newly dead) deal with the consequences of the choices they made before the vampires appeared.

The Gecko brothers choose to flee the law to Mexico. They choose to kidnap a family with an RV. The family chooses to go along rather than try to get away, fight, or attract the attention of the border patrol to get help. The family, in fact, chooses to travel by RV, yet stay in the hotel where they run into the Gecko brothers. From Dusk Till Dawn is a film about extreme consequences to even the most minor choices.

From Dusk Till Dawn is a screed about the merits of personal responsibility, and I don't think that's my sleep-deprived state talking. In the end, all the characters drive off by themselves, presumably to take care of themselves. The two surviving characters have no one left to care for them, and no one left to care for, either. They're only responsible for themselves. Why not? Everyone else they've known in the last 12 hours turned into a monster.

That's part of what brings me back to this film. You get the standard Tarantino/Rodriguez touches — the hyperviolence, the clever language informed by '70s television, etc. But this film takes real risks, not the least of which is randomly throwing vampires into the mess after an hour of weird choices. This is what can happen if you are dumb, mean, or psychotic, the film seems to say. But this film also seems to tout the merits of self-reliance rather than some dipshit sparkly vampire bliggety blah.

Yes, blah blah blah, vampires possess some kind of romantic or sexual allure. Someone is always falling in love with a vampire, either in some trance or by choice. Here, that doesn't happen. This film is more about the mayhem and gore rather than the paranormal necrophilia of something like "True Blood" or the Twilight series. I prefer the mayhem. If vampires exist, this is probably what you'd get if you found a vampire bar out in the middle of nowhere. They don't have to be sneaky.

Ah, but tween girls don't line up to watch a movie with Cheech Marin as the vampire. You don't have HBO making an entire softcore porn series out of Mexican vampires in a truck stop/topless bar. Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino weren't writing and selling gazillions of formulaic "paranormal romance" novels. Doesn't happen.

In defense of "True Blood," though, you do see them touching on social issues much more than in a film like From Dusk Till Dawn. Indeed, Rodriguez's film eschews political correctness, such as when George Clooney's character refers to the Asian character as a "Jap" when in fact the character is Chinese. (When corrected, Clooney's character says something along the lines of "Excuse the hell out of me.") This sort of apolitical correctness is present in most of Tarantino's films as well. Characters are often racist, sexist, etc. They want money, sex, alcohol, and other id-driven desires. These characters are not seeking some kind of sociopolitical redemption. They don't want to evolve.

From Dusk Till Dawn is not a great film (when I re-watch this one, I'm usually floored by how many bad, silly moments are here), but this is an interesting example of '90s cinema. My first look came in the mid-'90s, when everything Tarantino and Rodriguez did was "awesome" but no fanboy could explain why. Now, with some distance, context, and education, I can sort of articulate what's happening here — or at least, what I can make of this now. I like that.

The Frighteners

2011-01-02T14:43:00.000-05:00

Lord of the Rings would not have happened without The Frighteners.

In Peter Jackson's introduction to this DVD release, he notes how many computers and hard drives WETA ended up with after post-production on The Frighteners — going from just one machine to something like 35. What to do with all that technology?

That set WETA up to be one of the few digital effects houses in the world that could handle something like the Lord of the Rings trilogy. When they finished The Frighteners, that's what they were thinking, too.

This film marks Michael J. Fox's last starring role in a live-action motion picture. Although he went on to lead voice-acting roles in the Stuart Little pictures and supporting roles in a couple films and various television shows, this is pretty much the end of Michael J. Fox's career as a bankable lead actor. There's a certain peace to be found in watching this film. Like the Back to the Future trilogy, he's forever young(er) here.

Peter Jackson's career was a blind spot for me prior to film school. My old roommate Justin sat me down in the summer of 2000 and made me watch Dead-Alive and The Frighteners. I remember noting distinct stylistic similarities between the two films. We might have watched them on separate days — I can't recall. Justin was always making me watch a movie, and even though we eventually lost touch, I owe a lot to that guy for pushing me into unfamiliar movies.

I pushed myself into watching this one again today.

Here's a film that depicts a spectral serial killer who kills the living by inflicting heart attacks — squeezing the life out of his victims. When characters die, we see a light tunnel open above them, and their spectral selves emerge from their bodies, and they ascend.

Yeah, that's a little hard to watch right now. Pretty much anything about death is hard to watch since losing Mom, but I'm going ahead anyway. What's harder is not getting back to normal things, like spending a Sunday afternoon watching a silly movie and writing.

Friday Night Lights

2010-12-29T02:23:00.000-05:00

Call Friday Night Lights a football film if you want. I see more. I can't help it right now.

Getting back into this project, or any project for that matter, has been next to impossible since Mom died last month. Everything I watch seems to have a detail, moment, or theme that takes me right to her. Everything I do leads me right back.

Maybe I'm just predisposed to wandering thoughts that always end up in the same place. I find myself looking ahead to a stretch of films about loss and death, and I'm not good at this.

We hadn't spoken in five years. The "why" seems stupid now. We didn't get along, so we didn't talk. She wanted me to call and I didn't. I wanted her to treat me differently and she didn't. There's not much more to say right now. We hadn't talked in years, hadn't gotten along in even longer, and I'm the one who has to live with that, not anybody else.

I told my wife and myself several times this year, probably more times this year than ever, that I should call Mom. I should drop this shit and just call her. No, it'll be bad, I thought. I'll do it later. Yeah, maybe at the holidays, I'll try it again somehow. And then...well, I can't tell you everything.

Mom lived in Texas for a while before she got together with Dad. Watching this film tonight, I'm not actually looking at a film about football — I'm not even thinking about the film at all. I'm thinking of Mom, 40 years ago, out in that big, wide open nothing of Texas, where the landscapes stretch out forever. I like to think she was happy there, at least for a while. I have pictures of her from that era of her life, and she's young and pretty and happy. She had blonde hair then and I never knew why.

Listen to this soundtrack. Explosions in the Sky delivers these big, echoing, ebbing and flowing post-rock anthems that put the great big open nothingness of Texas to music. Throw in some rap and metal from the late 1980s and even Bad Company's "Seagull" over the credits and you have one of the finest soundtracks out there — the kind you can play on repeat and ride the arc of the film if you want. These instrumentals take me right to her again.

Friday Night Lights is a film about hope. I see a film that examines how we deal with dashed hopes and missed opportunities. Friday Night Lights says much about how intrepid we can be when we suffer a loss. We get back up because we have no choice. The world might look a lot different in that instant and beyond, and we might hurt like we've never hurt, and we might cry like we've never cried, but we get back up anyway.

And in this case, I find myself looking for solace through some kind of restitution — making her (and others I've lost) proud in whatever way I can because there's no other peace in this. I don't know what I'm doing, but this seems right.

If I live in a way that would make her proud, then maybe this won't be so hard to carry, and maybe when I see her again, everything will be different.

Free Enterprise

2010-12-08T00:26:00.004-05:00

I'm not going to bullshit you. This movie is not that good.

The idea is fine — two immature, twentysomething geek friends meet the real William Shatner in a bookstore, and he crushes their world by not being Captain Kirk. Kicking and screaming toward maturity ensues. Even Shatner has a character arc here. The film explores the nature of friendship in the face of adulthood, love in the face of childhood, and the imperfections in us all — even our role models.

The execution, however, is for shit. The writing is bland, the dialogue is longwinded and annoying, and the actors — I feel like I'm watching a group of geeked-out theatre majors at a lame house party where we're all watching a Dream Theater DVD (and I like Dream Theater!).

Pretty much the best actor in this film is William Shatner.

But this film is a funhouse mirror for the geek in me, and gets at so many feelings I have about everything from love to friendship to action figures. At one point in the late '90s, I thought I'd found treasure here.

I credit this film with giving me the idea to watch Logan's Run on my 30th birthday, which I did, alone, and I'm not sure how I feel about that now. Now, I guess I just feel like one of a million other geeks, nearly all of whom annoy the shit out of me.

That last bit gets at a strange dichotomy; I like the things that I like, but I often do not like the people who also like the things I like. Takes a while to get through the door with me.

I'm not saying my fellow geeks are bad people. I'm glad other people dig this stuff. I'm glad we have things in common. I just don't mesh well with them. My idea of a good time is not hanging out in a smoky restaurant with obnoxious people who smoke pipes, wear furry hats, and grow pointy beards.

Don't get me wrong. I have a few friends who share my interests, and I love talking with them and spending time with them, but I don't go to comic conventions, I don't do role-playing of any kind, I watch Joss Whedon projects in moderation, and I don't sound like Dr. Bunsen Honeydew or Sheldon from "The Big Bang Theory" when I talk. Most importantly, unlike a large swath of the geek populace, I shower daily.

Having said all that, maybe I'm a judgmental prick — an elitist among elitists. But no, there's logic here: just because you like the same stuff as someone else doesn't necessarily mean your personalities will mesh. I rarely meet someone who not only shares my interests, but also clicks with me. That's the Great White Buffalo of my social life.

That sort of brings me to the point. I'm not even sure I want to meet that Great White Buffalo anymore. In fact, I've stopped looking for it, because I like the people I've found over the years. If I found the Great White Buffalo now, would that person even fit? Where?

So yeah, I'm glad that most (though not all) geeks annoy me. That makes the ones who don't annoy me seem that much more special. Not only do my friends like what I like, but we also like each other. Also, they shower frequently.

We don't have to like all the same things. Some crossover is good, but I'd be freaked if someone had an identical DVD collection to mine, or had read all the same books, or whatever. That's not interesting; that's creepy.

I need my friends. I need my wife. For better or worse, regardless of our differences, I love that we all have our "things" that we share and our "things" that we don't. The "things" that make us different also make us interesting. I can learn from the people I know; they can turn me on to a movie I haven't seen or a book I haven't read, or a way of looking at the world that makes more sense than what I was thinking all along. They also can be the kindest, most wonderful people I could ever want to know.

My mom died a couple weeks ago, and I haven't been able to write or watch anything until tonight. I don't want to get into that yet. But things like blogs and stupid DVD collections sort of lose something in the wake of stuff like this. I haven't compartmentalized all the grieving.

Through the last two weeks, though, I have retreated to my wife and my circle of friends. On the night of Mom's calling hours, my wife and two good friends took me to the Heorot, which is my favorite bar in the world. My wife went to the jukebox and put on "Tom Sawyer." My friends Brian and Chris bought me dinner and a couple of drinks. We talked like we were all in college again. We laughed. I needed that hour or so with them so I could feel something other than what I was feeling. I felt normal.

I don't have the world in common with these guys, or my wife. I don't need the world in common with them. I just need them. My life is full of large collections, but they are my little collection. They are my only little collection, but the most important one of all.

Four Rooms

2010-11-09T02:03:00.000-05:00

The idea of Four Rooms is simple. Take four short films and set them in the same hotel, and connect them with one twitchy bellhop character (Tim Roth) who runs through all of them, pulling the four shorts together as one full-length film about his first night on the job.

Then you let four different filmmakers make a short film each, and edit the four together, so you truly get the feel of four stories coming together as one full-length film.

Well, I don't think that's confusing.

This film reminds me of confidence and confidence lost. This isn't the brightest spot in either Robert Rodriguez or Quentin Tarantino's oeuvre, but this is an interesting entry — one that points to a specific type of film made only in the '90s: the ballsy independent that spawned a thousand ripoffs and inspired a legion of posers.

(As far as the other two directors, Allison Anders and Alexandre Rockwell, this film might be their career peaks. I can't say for sure because I haven't seen any of their other work.)

Until recently, I did not own this on DVD. For one, the only DVD release boasts such glorious "special features" as "Widescreen" and "Dolby Digital Surround Sound." In the heyday of my DVD collecting, I refused (and mostly still refuse) to buy DVDs with piss-poor features. I want more value for my money than "Chapter Selections" and "Interactive Menus" and "Talent Biographies."

However, Four Rooms seemed like a great film to own and revisit once I got to the letter F, so I tracked down a copy. I've spent a lot of time writing about writing and how I got here. Four Rooms is an example of the kind of experimental narrative that influenced how I look at storytelling. I felt like owning this one, even if the DVD features are crap.

I've seen Four Rooms exactly one other time — the time I rented this one on glorious VHS. Of course, like every other film geek, I rented for Tarantino and Rodriguez, and I wasn't disappointed because those two guys could do no wrong (and still can't — just one man's opinion there).

I idealize '90s independent cinema, but there's a reason — the films were great. Even the minor films had the support of A-list Hollywood stars who were looking to do something different. Bruce Willis shows up in Four Rooms. So does Antonio Banderas. So does Madonna.

For me, in my early twenties, seeing big timers putting their weight behind quirky little independent projects gave me a confidence boost. People took chances then.

But Tarantino wasn't the only one getting to play. Rodriguez, Linklater, Smith, Liman, Baumbach, and many others got a shot, and they made the most of their chances. Most of them are still working.

I was just stupid enough to think that maybe weird-ass me had a shot, too. I didn't want to direct or act. I just wanted to write something, anything, hell I don't know what. Didn't matter. I just wanted to know that I could write what I wanted and not feel as if I had to write the next Die Hard or whatever. If I wanted, I could ignore my teachers, who told me that maybe writing about my personal experiences wasn't enough.

A film like Four Rooms made me think some strange stuff.

I never wrote anything like this film. Mostly, I just needed the confidence boost, and still do (in a different way).

What I mean by a confidence boost isn't that I need to feel free to write what I want. I got over that part. Now I write what I want and if people don't want to read any of it, I'm okay with that. Sometimes writing sits in a drawer or on a hard drive and nobody gives a shit. You have to be okay with that. You just have to keep writing.

No, my confidence is a little shaken because films like Four Rooms might not happen again. There might not be another boom in independent cinema quite like the '90s. There might not be another open window.

So yeah, there's a weird duality to consider. On one hand, I'm confident, and I write what I want. I can believe that someday, maybe the best of what I can do will get through somewhere.

On the other hand, what if the window is closed and someday never comes? Late at night, the walls can start talking to you, and they can tell you some things you don't want to hear. When you can hear every clock in your house ticking, you get a heightened sense of the passage of time.

I try to drown all of that out by clacking on a keyboard, but I can't quite type loudly enough.

The 40-Year-Old Virgin

2010-11-04T22:32:00.000-04:00

Ordinarily, the films I discuss here prompt some sort of personal storytelling, but in this case, no, I am not going to tell you about how I lost my virginity. That story is too short.

Instead, I'm going to admit another kind of folly: my own lack of command over the alphabet. If 300 and 10 Items or Less are ahead of the letter "A," then why isn't this film?

I think back to the time when I started this project, all that time ago, and the person I was then. Things were different in those days. I didn't have as much experience with alphabetizing.

The night I started this project, I was so excited. Finally, after all those years of waiting, I'd decided that particular night in January was going to be "the night." I had everything planned out. I even announced my plans to my friends. They were supportive, even cheering me on.

The night was going to be perfect.

I went home from work and I had a nice dinner. I believe I had a glass of wine to relax. But the anticipation was killing me. I couldn't really wait.

Unfortunately, that was the problem. I was so excited, I jumped the gun.

Looking back, yeah, I didn't know what I was doing. I fumbled around and started this project and ended up getting stuff all out of order, and there was some awkwardness, some instant regret. When I clicked "Publish," I knew I couldn't go back.

You can't have two "first entries."

I wish I could go back to that night and do things in the right order, to prove to myself and to others that I got better at alphabetizing. But you can't go back and get a do-over. What's done is done. Oh, I could back-date this entry, but you can't turn back time. And I would still know the truth about my own dubious skills.

Sometimes, a guy just has to keep on moving forward and hope that nobody ever brings up your mistake, your awkwardness, and maybe no one will ever find any writing you may have done about that awkward event on the World Wide Web.

Foreign Correspondent

2010-11-01T01:36:00.000-04:00

Far from Alfred Hitchcock's best film, Foreign Correspondent is just okay. They can't all be zingers. However, you do get Joel McCrea here. If McCrea isn't one of the best "everyman" leading men of all time, then I'll eat my hat.

You might know McCrea from perhaps his best film, Preston Sturges' Sullivan's Travels. That's a film I watched for the first time in grad school. At the time, I wasn't sure what to expect, but Sturges' film combined just the right amount of humor and pathos without being too maudlin.

McCrea worked with Hitchcock on Foreign Correspondent a year earlier. The plot is pretty convoluted; for an older film, I had trouble keeping up with what was going on, and really only remember a few pivotal scenes. The film seemed a bit unnecessarily long, and I found myself not invested at all here.

Of course, that's not really much of an indicator. I've had trouble focusing on films lately, often sitting in front of the TV with my laptop out, surfing away. I find myself answering my own questions with quick Google searches. When did Joel McCrea die? Which film came first, this one or Sullivan's Travels? Did Hitchcock do other films with McCrea in the lead role? What in the world is this film about, anyway?

I sit and type and don't really watch as intently as I should — and I'm not just doing this with older films, or DVDs that I own, but with movies I rent. Last night, the wife and I rented the Liam Neeson flick Unknown, which couldn't hold my interest and left me unimpressed.

Then I re-watched Errol Morris' Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control, which was considerably better and got me thinking like a film scholar again, what with all that Eisenstein-y montage-y stuff going on. Still, I had my laptop out. I even took notes!

When Apple introduced the iPad, Steve Jobs talked about how our computer use has changed in recent years. Now that wireless routers are ubiquitous, we use laptops (often with extended battery lives) in front of the television. We seem to watch with one eye on the TV, one eye on the computer screen, one eye on our smart phone, and one eye on the rest. Wait, how many eyes do we have?

My wife isn't a movie person. Her viewing habits are quite similar; she watches television with her laptop out, frequently checking Facebook or her e-mail, or surfing any number of Web sites that catch her interest. If a question occurs to me and I don't have my laptop handy, I ask her to look something up. Within seconds, I have my answer.

That's when we watch television. When I watch movies, especially ones for this project, I tend to have my laptop out, clacking away. This maximizes my time, you see. If I watch my movies and then type an entry like this, I'm looking at as much as twice the running time of the film. If I write while I watch, I get done quicker. I can move on to other things.

As my viewing habits have changed considerably, so too have my DVD buying habits. I continue to shift toward Blu-Ray instead of downloaded media (a whole other argument). I haven't bought a plain old DVD since the Great Hitchcock Binge of 2011, which resulted in my adding 50+ films to my collection, many of which I've never seen.

Because I find no real personal attachment to some of the films I'm watching, making time for them has gotten less and less interesting. I suppose this raises the question, why collect all these Hitchcock films if you don't want to watch them?

Put simply, I got started. I had to see that through. I had to see what else he had done, even if his minor works pale in comparison to his masterpieces. Hitch's oeuvre was a blind spot and I needed to fix that in a big way.

Also, you can't very well develop a personal attachment to a film unless you watch the film. (Okay, maybe you can with imagery or a soundtrack or something, but still. Watching is better.)

Foreign Correspondent, although nominated for several Academy Awards, is a minor film by Hitchcockian standards, but in my twisted, completist view, is still a film worth owning, because even minor Hitchcock is still Hitchcock.

I treat three great directors with such reverence: Alfred Hitchcock, Akira Kurosawa, and Stanley Kubrick. Even watching their worst films, I find the time well spent.

For Your Eyes Only

2010-10-31T21:48:00.002-04:00

For Your Eyes Only is maybe the best of the Roger Moore 007 films, and certainly has the best opening sequence of any Moore effort.

Of course, that's not saying a lot, as most of Moore's Bond films are ridiculous, but at least I don't have to sit through Moonraker yet.

I remember watching this one on ABC when I was maybe 12. I was never able to stay up to see how the Bond films turned out — past my bedtime, of course — but I was always able to watch the openings.

For Your Eyes Only opens with Bond placing flowers at his deceased wife's grave, which is a throwback to On Her Majesty's Secret Service. That's not the only thematic similarity. For Your Eyes Only explores themes of revenge and gets the playboy-esque Bond back to more of the nitty-gritty realism, sort of.

A helicopter arrives to pick Bond up; this turns out to be a classic Blofeld attempt to kill Bond via remote-control. Of course! This sequence is both ridiculous and awesome at the same time, and sets up one of the best death scenes for any Bond villain. In short order, Bond simply commandeers the helicopter, scoops up Blofeld's wheelchair with one of the landing struts, and drops Blofeld down an industrial smokestack. I don't think Dad had seen the film before; he laughed hard.

Also, this film is the one with the guy who throws the motorcycle, and the other guy who eats the pistachios, and there are Greek people, and Q. disguises himself as a priest for some reason.

All the requisite Bond stuff is here: fast cars, exotic locations, car chases, gadgets, etc. Julian Glover shows up here —you might know him as General Veers from The Empire Strikes Back, or as Walter Donovan from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Carole Bouquet plays Melina, the requisite Bond girl. Her hair is impractically long.

That's pretty much where I start drifting in and out. There are some chase sequences, some on skis, some with dune buggies, and even the obligatory underwater fight scene that is not really that exciting. Bond drives a Lotus throughout the film, beds a few women, kills a few men, climbs a mountain, goes off a ski jump, rolls a car and keeps driving. If I didn't already know the drill, this might be more exciting.

Of course, this one is still good for light entertainment — but only just. In fact, even Moonraker makes for some goofy entertainment on a Sunday afternoon or evening, provided one does not expect much.

But I'm not in the habit of owning films like that. Why own this one at all? The Bond films are a source of great internal strife inside the author.

In short, as an obsessive-completist, I tried to outsmart myself by first establishing a "no double-dipping" rule for myself as related to Blu-Ray upgrades from DVD, and then I purchased the 007 Ultimate Editions on DVD in order to keep from buying Roger Moore films on Blu-Ray.

Thus far, I have prevailed over myself, only having bought all of the Connery and Craig 007 films on Blu-Ray. So like 1/4 of the series. Look, I can't explain everything. This all makes sense in my head, and I'd advise you not to contemplate. Just keep reading and hush, like you do when you visit TMZ, and this will all go much more smoothly.

For A Few Dollars More

2010-10-30T18:08:00.001-04:00

Of Sergio Leone's "Man With No Name" trilogy, I've seen For A Few Dollars More the fewest times. Many argue that of all of Leone's westerns, this film is his finest. I'm not so sure.

I've always preferred the rough-hewn style of A Fistful of Dollars, and the slick, refined cinematography in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. That's not to say this film is bad, or doesn't deserve a spot right in the middle. I just rarely take this one out.

Actually, having taken another look, there's a lot to love here. Lee Van Cleef is a total badass in this film, a sharpshooting bounty hunter with a saddlebag that unravels to reveal multiple rifles, and he frequently steals scenes from Clint Eastwood. Van Cleef is not here as some kind of cold blooded killer, like his character "Angel Eyes" in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, though. His intentions and true identity are revealed later in the film.

Lee Van Cleef was maybe the first character actor whose name I learned, simply because he seemed to show up in the B-grade action movies, such as Armed Response, which my dad rented when I was growing up. In 1986, Van Cleef would've been more than 60, and even when I was much younger, I couldn't feel much excitement for an old, balding man running around with a gun — not exactly much of an action star. But in Leone's films, Van Cleef owns the screen. I always thought he looked like a vulture.

As for Eastwood, this film is a return to the poncho-wearing, gunslinging character he played in A Fistful of Dollars. What's interesting here is how much Eastwood's look reminds me of my dad and uncles, many of whom grew beards and swept their hair back in a similar style to Eastwood's character (and many of whom kept their look that way, to this day). I don't know, maybe this was the style of the times — virtually everybody had a beard. Whatever the case, I can't see Eastwood in these films and not think of my dad and uncles.

For A Few Dollars More was one of the first westerns — if not, then one of the best— to put a spin on the idea of a bank robbery. Most westerns depicted bank robbers as thugs showing up on horses, running inside, and taking all the money from the safe. In this film, the villains steal the entire safe.

I'm still not convinced For A Few Dollars More is superior to the other two films in the trilogy. In fact, sometimes I prefer Leone's Once Upon A Time in the West over anything with Eastwood. I will say that one of Leone's funniest and most badass moments is in this film, when Van Cleef's character strikes a match — on Klaus Kinski's hunchback. Leone sometimes used the old match-striking bit to great humorous effect, but I haven't seen one funnier than this one.

I guess that's another reason why I generally like Leone's westerns — even the ones I don't consider favorites. He lets some humor happen. Yeah, the writing is excellent and the violence is far ahead of most American films of the same period, but Leone also brings the funny, and is so comfortable with "badass moments." In this way, Leone connects quite neatly to Quentin Tarantino's style.

Really, all Tarantino needs to do is make a true western. Oh, look.

Following

2010-10-21T01:45:00.003-04:00

Before Inception, before The Dark Knight and Batman Begins, before The Prestige, before Insomnia, and before Memento, Christopher Nolan made a little, 71-minute feature film called Following.

I bought Following on DVD this summer. I was in Half Price Books, as is my custom on weekends when I get antsy, and I saw they had shelved this DVD among the out-of-print/hard to find titles. I didn't know Following had gone out of print, nor did I know the film had gotten scarce. Sold!

I came home and price-checked the DVD online. I paid a few dollars too much. Ah well.

I've mentioned previously that my DVD buying has all but stopped as I migrate to Blu-Ray and get more conservative with my shiny disc collecting. But that's not the only reason for the near-cessation.

After 10 months of this project, I'm still on "F."

At this rate, I'll get through the alphabet sometime around 2014. That's troubling in a way, and comforting in another. At least I have a goal. I often feel as if I don't.

I still buy the odd DVD here and there, usually when I realize there's a specific film missing from my collection and not available on Blu-Ray (yet). Following deserved a place on my shelf. The completist in me rides again. I have all of Nolan's films on DVD now.

Nolan shot Following guerrilla style, with virtually no budget, no permission, and not much in the way of equipment. Although the results are not perfect, what Nolan manages to accomplish is admirable. He gets these quick shots on the streets of London with no permits and gets great takes in public without people blowing his shots. He used available light as often as possible, recruited friends and family for roles, and ended up making one of the more critically acclaimed independent films of the 1990s.

A lot went right, in other words.

"Everyone has a box," Cobb says to the inexperienced Bill as they rifle through a stranger's home. He finds that box — you know the one, with the mementos, photos, love notes, trinkets, souvenirs, all detritus of a life, all kept in a shoebox or a hope chest. This is the flotsam of our past, evidence of what we've done, where we've gone, and maybe where we're going. Our homes are places where we store our belongings, and they are the evidence of what we have accomplished to date. If someone broke in and stole our stuff, would we have evidence of our progress? Would we have anything to show for all those years of working? Does the acquisition of "stuff" serve as an adequate substitute for the creation of art?

I ask myself that question all the time. Every weekend, I get antsy. On payday, the feeling is worse. I'm compelled to go out, to collect, to acquire, and then never enjoy what I bring home. Piles and piles of books to go along with shelves and shelves of shiny discs. I started this blog to force myself to stop and to give myself a project. I want more. I should be writing. I want more.

I've known many people over the years who've had dreams of making a full-length film or writing a novel or screenplay. Most of those people were just talking — idle chatter no different from the offhand comment about how they'd like to go to Paris someday, or how they'd like to own a Jaguar.

I bring this up as a contrast to what filmmakers such as Nolan, Kevin Smith, Robert Rodriguez, and Richard Linklater were able to accomplish before turning 30. All of them took that initial leap of making a full-length picture. They didn't shoot on 35mm film. Most of them shot on 16mm stock or Super 8.

All four made a critically acclaimed film with little money and went on to successful filmmaking careers. They found ways to cut corners and make their vision into a real film. They got antsy in all the right ways. They got off their asses and stopped talking and started doing.

I'm happy doing what I do and living this life, but I'd be lying if I said there was nothing missing. I have these moments when I stop and consider how much I've done with myself by age 35, and I have bouts of self-loathing and general dissatisfaction. Acquisition does not provide long-term satisfaction. Thoreau's bit about leading a life of quiet desperation comes to mind, but I don't want this to devolve into some whiny, navel-gazing mess. (Too late.)

Films like Following remind me that one can get up at any time and make a start. Whether I will is another prospect entirely.

Fletch/Fletch Lives

2010-10-19T01:36:00.000-04:00

"I don't shower much."

I've previously written about Cornelius Crane "Chevy" Chase's influence on my behavior, but no Chevy Chase role had a greater influence on me, my sense of humor, or my general level of smartassery than Fletch.

"Fletch" is short for Fletcher. That's Irwin M. Fletcher, or Fletch F. Fletch, or Jane Doe, or Don Corleone, or Harry S. Truman, or John Cocktoastin (my favorite), or Dr. Rosenrosen, or Victor Hugo, or Hank Himmler, or Nostradamus, or Claude-Henry Smmoot. Fletch has many names.

He's a reporter for a Los Angeles newspaper, but he always seems to find much more than average news stories. He goes through disguises and aliases with cartoonish frequency, but his dialogue is some of the funniest I've ever heard, and what makes me watch again and again.

"This house is obviously infested with Reticulermes mariocuomos."

Sure, Chase's other films — Spies Like Us, Funny Farm, and Caddyshack to name a few — feature plenty of lines I rattle off in everyday conversation, but the Fletch films provided the heaviest helpings of Chevy's smartass comments, outright bullshit, and physical comedy.

Adult males of a certain age and disposition (typically in the Gen-X/Gen-Y range, and with a penchant for annoying nearby women) all seem to love — and quote — the Fletch films. Maybe that's the Gen-X/Y tendency toward irony with a dash of condescension, or maybe that's just the XY.

Probably both.

I've often heard of Fletch described as "the one where the guy hires him to kill him" and Fletch Lives as "the one where he goes to the south." The plots, if you call them plots, are half-baked and convoluted, but who cares when you have this great vehicle for Chevy Chase?

"What can I do to y--for you?"

I taped Fletch Lives one random day in the '80s, and I watched that glorious VHS tape until I had the entire film memorized. This means I've probably seen the 1989 sequel a few dozen times more than the first film.

In a few cases, I watched Fletch Lives with my parents. There weren't many films that would stand up to repeated viewings at the King Ranch. Even the Blu-Ray.com reviewer gets nostalgic about watching this film with his dad. I'm not the only one who gets a little misty.

In high school, I wrote a radio play that was hopelessly derivative of the Fletch films and whatever other films were influencing me at the time, and by "hopelessly derivative" I mean that I miraculously avoided accusations of plagiarism because my high school teachers were either too busy to care or too uncool to notice. I'm not proud.

"I would've used your razor, but it looks like you've been doing some gardening with it."

Fletch Lives also seems edited with a greater sense of comic timing. What I mean is that for the first half hour or so, this film is just riddled with great-line-then-cut editing. The jokes come quickly, even as the Klan show up to torment Cleavon Little's character. This is where Chevy Chase really shines.

Of all his great lines and funny moments, for me the quintessential Fletch moment is when Chevy Chase picks up the Klansman's bullhorn and says, "Zulu! Zulu! [nonsense] Gene Hackman kick your ass! [nonsense] You want to pay you have to buy!" I've probably rewound and re-watched that bit dozens of times, trying to get exactly what Fletch says there. The above comes from the DVD subtitles, with my best guess there at the end.

"When it comes to stewed prunes, are three enough? Are four too many?"

Fletch Lives is my favorite of the two films, even though most people prefer the first film. For me, the sequel has better one-liners, a better cast (Hal Holbrook, Randall "Tex" Cobb, R. Lee Ermey, Cleavon Little, Phil Hartman, and Richard Belzer), and the writer, Leon Capetanos, makes the inspired choice of giving Fletch a fish-out-of-water story rather than basing this film on one of Gregory Mcdonald's mystery novels.

Curiously, Capetanos hasn't had a produced script since Fletch Lives, in 1989, but since then he's made a career out of real estate — not unexpected given the film's themes of estates, realtors, plantations, and whatnot. Information on this writer is hard to find and sketchy at best. As for Fletch films, there's been some chatter about a reboot, and the idea's been tossed around Hollywood like a hot potato covered in Belle Isle toxic waste. So far, nothing.

I've often thought that Ryan Reynolds would make a perfect Fletch if a reboot ever happened, but Reynolds once called the role "hallowed ground" and said he would not go there. "Hallowed ground" my Cocktoastin. This is the same guy who basically channeled Chevy when playing Van Wilder. I'm not the only one who noticed. I don't understand the holdup.

I've spent more than 20 years watching and re-watching the Fletch films, popping off the lines of dialogue in mixed company, and hoping somebody would catch the reference.

Sometimes, somebody does, and it's at those points, I know I have a friend in smartassery.
As far as you know.

Five Easy Pieces

2010-10-15T02:43:00.000-04:00

Every selfish, stunted male should watch Five Easy Pieces.

This film is sort of similar in themes to High Fidelity, but without the record shop, or like About A Boy, but without the new friends. Five Easy Pieces has no happy ending and no great awakening, but the film works anyway, if only as a rumination on the angst of an aimless generation and a reminder to me to not be such a selfish asshole.

Jack Nicholson plays Robert Dupea, a classical pianist who for some reason has taken to a life of working on an oil field and shacking up with a waitress (and other random women). He is a classic example of an underachiever, a man who has squandered his talent and found himself going nowhere.

Karen Black plays Rayette, Robert's girlfriend, a ditzy but sweet woman who loves him to pieces despite his faults. She's going nowhere as well, but the difference is, she either doesn't know or doesn't care (maybe both).

Robert doesn't fit well with the blue collar folks he surrounds himself with, including Rayette and his oil rig buddy, Elton. Robert is verbally abusive toward Rayette, and he can't stand Elton's little boy. The idea of having children of his own is repugnant to Robert. He seems to think his life has a greater purpose, but he doesn't know what.

And then he finds out from Elton that Rayette is pregnant. And then he flips out a little.

He chews out Elton, then walks over to his foreman and quits his job. Then he turns around to see two guys in suits chasing Elton down, beating him up, and cuffing him. Turns out, Elton robbed a gas station a year previously and his past is just catching up to him. Robert puts up a brief struggle, but once he realizes the men in suits are cops, he doesn't resist. He watches Elton hauled away, and that's pretty much the end of their friendship. Elton is not heard from for the rest of the film.

Robert runs from every challenge, gets annoyed at anything outside of his control, and reacts like a petulant child when he doesn't get what he wants. There's a famous scene in a diner when Robert attempts to order breakfast his way, but the waitress won't allow substitutions. Go here and scroll down to read a transcript.

Five Easy Pieces was one of my first rentals from Netflix in February 2003. My initial thoughts about the film were colored because I was experiencing films in a slightly new way. Renting a DVD but not getting the box seemed like a foreign concept. I was more apt to rent films that my local Blockbuster didn't stock, so I was digging into catalog releases, older films, rarer films, and often, whatever Netflix recommended. I was in a master's program in English at the time, so I was interested in character studies and quiet little films. I was renting some strange films, and I was initially very disappointed in Netflix.

This film was among the disappointments. My first impressions of Five Easy Pieces were not good. I found the film ponderous and thin at the same time, just full of bitchy, unhappy, selfish people, led by Jack Nicholson. Without likable characters, I was left wondering why I should even care about these people and why I was even watching.

Because of the apparent lack of a traditional plot, I was bored and a little frustrated. Much of the film didn't make sense. If Robert Dupea is supposed to be such a great classical pianist, why doesn't he play the piano? What happened? Why does he only play the piano when he's either clowning around or trying to seduce women? What is the freaking point of this film? There were few easy answers.

Something about the film nagged at me, though. I had the feeling that I'd missed the point, that I'd need to look at this one again. I kept the film in the back of my mind and eventually snagged a used copy on DVD, but hadn't re-watched until tonight.

I have thought about the film many times since 2003, though, and as I've thought, I've wondered about that nagging feeling. What was this film saying, and why couldn't I pick that up the first time?

Part of the explanation lies in that this film is not designed to speak to Generation X, of which I'm a member. Many of the nuances in this film were lost on me the first time, and I needed more context to really get what the filmmakers were saying.

So I started thinking about context. What was going on in the world and in cinema at the time of this film's release? This is a post-Woodstock, post-hippie-dream, early '70s disillusionment think piece and character study. That really matters to one's understanding of this film.

Oh.

But that's not the only nagging bit. In my efforts to understand the film, I had to understand Robert, and now that I'm a little older and in a different place in life, I do (I think).

My life is the reverse of Robert Dupea's. I grew up in a blue collar home. My family is unrefined by traditional standards. This is not a slight to them, but just the way I was raised. I battled against that for years. I don't talk like them...most of the time. I don't think like them...most of the time.

In a way, I rebelled and went the opposite direction of Robert. He embraced a blue collar lifestyle. I embraced a traditionally white collar profession and the "elite." I frequently find myself trying to reconcile the differences between the two worlds.

I also used to be a selfish prick. In my own search for identity, I dated around a lot and often found myself dating someone who was not at all what I wanted. But I didn't want to be alone, either. I found myself in situations that were so uncomfortable, I wanted to run (and a few times, I did). I once stopped calling a girl because I found out she read Harry Potter books. I'm not saying I was right. I'm saying I was wrong.

But I never abandoned a pregnant woman at a gas station a la Robert Dupea.

With another viewing, I see and understand much more of the conflict within Robert. So much of this film is understated that viewers accustomed to something more plot-driven or containing obvious character arcs will struggle here. I did the first time.

This film takes place in the early 1970s, and Robert typifies the alienation and rebellion of adults around his age at that time, backing away from his upbringing because he feels he doesn't belong, and disenchanted with the world ahead — the world he created for himself.

"I move around a lot because things tend to get bad when I stay," Robert confesses to his catatonic father toward the end of the film, betraying his restlessness and alienation. His whole life is one big existential crisis driven by his id. He reacts to difficult situations with all the wisdom and maturity of a teenager, as though his evolution as a human being stopped when he stopped playing the piano early in life.

He plays the piano for his brother's girlfriend and moves her to tears, but feels nothing inside himself. He confesses that he chose the easiest piece to play for her. He doesn't get a charge out of much of anything.

I get the feeling he's looking for that charge, but every time he thinks he's found what he wants, he realizes that he's wrong...again...so he abandons it. He abandons people and responsibility, and in the end, has nothing to show for his life.

"There isn't anybody gonna love you AND look after you as good as I do," Rayette says to Robert in the car as they drive away from his family home together, toward their future together. He wants no part of that future.

Five Easy Pieces is not an easy film. I despise Jack Nicholson's character and feel for those around him, who are so often hurt by his selfishness and immaturity. Five Easy Pieces also is a funhouse mirror for a guy I used to be or could've been if I'd given in to my base desires, and as such, the film is a reminder of what not to do with my life. Sometimes I need that.

A Fistful of Dynamite (a.k.a. Duck, You Sucker!)

2010-10-13T02:34:00.000-04:00

I'll confess; I've never seen this film. This one was long out of print and never available on DVD prior to 2007. Even glorious VHS copies were dodgy, hard to find, and expensive.

My wife bought me the Sergio Leone Anthology a few years ago, thereby hooking me up with beautiful DVD transfers of Leone's classic westerns with Clint Eastwood. I've owned Leone's "Man With No Name" trilogy twice before, on VHS and DVD, but those versions were no frills, dodgy looking, and sounded terrible.

Here, MGM went back and restored those films, plus this one, adding a metric shitload of special features. Plus, the completist in me loved the chance to get Leone's last western — this film — on DVD.

Unfortunately, like a couple dozen other films, I acquired a copy of A Fistful of Dynamite on DVD but never made time to watch. Then again, that's why I'm here.

Originally titled Duck, You Sucker! upon initial U.S. release in 1971, this film has many names, including A Fistful of Dynamite (to take advantage of the notoriety of Leone's earlier film) and Once Upon A Time... The Revolution, which recalls another.

Why not bundle Once Upon A Time in the West here, too, and make this a definitive Leone western collection? The answer is pretty simple; that film belongs to another studio. MGM had four out of five, and that'll work.

With so many titles, the placement of this film in alphabetical order is a little tricky. I considered just going with the original Italian title, Giù la testa, but that seemed more pretentious than even I could abide. In the end, I decided to watch this one under the film's alternate English title in an effort to get this one as close to the rest of the Leone set as possible.

This is a fantastic film; though far from Leone's best, this might be his most sensitive and cynical. James Coburn plays an Irish explosives expert wandering Mexico, and Rod Steiger plays a bandit with a crew made up of his own illegitimate children from his relations with multiple women.

Coburn's Irish accent isn't bad...for an American in an Italian western. He had Irish roots, at least. Steiger's Mexican bandit sounds an awful lot like Marlon Brando's Don Corleone in an angry mood, or maybe John Belushi doing an impression of Marlon Brando.

Don't believe me? Then how come when I search for Belushi doing Brando, I get Belushi doing Steiger?

Leone's only bad film is The Colossus of Rhodes — a colossal mess if you ask me — but even though all of his westerns are rock solid, this is probably the one that stumbles and meanders the most. In an effort to set compelling characters against the backdrop of the Mexican Revolution, he creates a story that seemingly wanders from sequence to sequence. Steiger is channeling a little of Eli Wallach's Tuco from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, and Coburn's laid back schemer reminds me a little of both Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef's previous efforts, with a dash of Jason Robards or Charles Bronson. Interestingly, Eastwood was offered Coburn's part but refused, saying the role was too similar to the other films, and Wallach eventually declined the role Steiger took.

This could have been "Man With No Name" #4.

While serving as Leone's last western, this film also works as a bridge between Once Upon A Time in the West and Once Upon A Time in America. If viewed as a trilogy, the viewer can see how Leone's view of western history plays out over the three epic films. Like Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch, here we see the influence of the industrial revolution on the American west, not just in how one traveled, but also how one fought. Machine guns and automobiles appear throughout, mowing down the victims of circumstance, mowing down time. Most Hollywood westerns keep things quaint, but both Leone and Peckinpah are right to examine other periods of the west — especially the end.

I love owning a copy of an artist's entire oeuvre, if only to give me more opportunities to use the word "oeuvre" correctly in a sentence. Taken as a whole, an artist's body of work is a work itself, with logical starting and ending points and an evolution along the way. I can see Leone's views about the American west reflected in his work, as well as his views on how Americans depicted their own history.

I love Leone's films because he seems to capture more about the American west than any American western director ever did, and he does so with dry humor and a keen eye. In fact, I'd argue that most of the Italian western directors did a better job of celebrating the west than anyone out of Hollywood not named John Ford or Sam Peckinpah (and those guys had their missteps — Leone didn't). I suppose one could argue for Clint Eastwood's own efforts as a filmmaker, but I can't watch his westerns and not see the influence of his work with Leone. That leaves me with only David Milch, whose "Deadwood" redefined how modern audiences view the west (mostly with colorful language many say was heretofore unheard).

Ah, but A Fistful of Dynamite has plenty of F-bombs — brave for a western released in 1971.

Before tonight, I'd never seen A Fistful of Dynamite. At 157 minutes, this isn't something I'll return to often, but having seen the film now, the rest of Leone's work sits in a new context, and I can't stop thinking about this one. I can barely stop writing.

A Fistful of Dollars

2010-10-11T22:31:00.000-04:00

Shopping for my dad is always difficult. What do you get a guy who never expresses an opinion one way or another about anything in your price range?

I mean, sure, I know he'd love a '57 Chevy, but you can't exactly get those at Target.

We only have so much money to work with, and we had even less when we were growing up. One Christmas, Mom put in our heads that Dad liked Clint Eastwood westerns.

You know how when you have someone to shop for, and they're really difficult, you latch on to that one thing and that's all they ever get? Well, you know how sometimes you're wrong, and you end up buying something over and over — something the person doesn't really want?

I got him a copy of High Plains Drifter, another classic Eastwood western, on glorious VHS. To my knowledge, that VHS tape remains unopened. We're talking at least a decade, still in the wrapper.

I never bought him another Clint Eastwood film. This is not to say he didn't appreciate the gift; he just wasn't interested after all, and that's fair. Maybe I need to try harder.

I've been trying ever since.

When I was growing up, westerns were always on television. Usually, my granddad would keep John Wayne films on television when he wasn't watching football or "Hee Haw." So when we'd visit, often we'd watch a movie on TV.

Dad enjoyed those John Wayne films as well, I think. The Sons of Katie Elder, Rio Bravo, Big Jake, and True Grit were on from time to time. This was a different time, when the Saturday or Sunday matinee film on television was a total crapshoot, so when a John Wayne film was on, you'd lucked out.

Of course, Dad never spent much time in the house on his days off. He was always outside working in the yard or the garden, or on some project, or in the garage. Or he'd be out trying to find a bargain at some auction or garage sale.

Sometimes, though, a random hot or rainy day would line up with a John Wayne film on television, and he'd stay in with us. Those days were rare.

A Fistful of Dollars is the first of Sergio Leone's "Man With No Name Trilogy," in which Clint Eastwood plays the mysterious main character, usually a drifter, fast with a gun, highly intelligent, and darkly humored.

Whereas John Wayne is the archetypal protagonist in so many of his films, Clint Eastwood's work with Leone was as an antihero: terribly dark and much more violent.

Sure, John Wayne's films often explore dark themes, but I always feel like I'm watching a sanitized Hollywood western, and at any point a character will say, "Gee willikers!"

But that's me.

A few years ago, I lived with Dad for a summer. I watched The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly that summer, mostly because I was unemployed and living with my dad, so I had nothing but time to watch old movies and write. (I should've started this blog years ago. I might be on letter G by now.)

One night, Dad and I got to talking about the "spaghetti westerns," because I'd picked up a great book on the topic. With this conversation, I almost figured him out a little. He said, "Those films are just too violent for my taste."

This is a man who, in 1986, took his 6-year-old daughter and two sons, ages 11 and 8, to see Rambo: First Blood Part II and Cobra at a drive-in double feature.

But I didn't press. Maybe his tastes have changed in 25 years.

One thing is certain. Dad's not a fan of foreign films, even if some of the characters speak English. He always calls them "dubbers," because the dialogue doesn't match, and that's distracting. Add to that, the voice actors are usually terrible, and that's even worse.

Subtitles? Not an option.

I look past the bad looping of a Sergio Leone film, and I'm willing to watch a subtitled film. Dad is different that way. But he still watches movies. I just have to keep trying.

Last Christmas, my sister and I pooled our money and bought Dad a Blu-Ray player. He's had this astonishing 52" flat-panel television for two years, but he only watches over-the-air programming out in the country. He had his DVD player connected via RCA cables. He was satisfied. I wasn't.

His first disc was not a Clint Eastwood film. I got him The Searchers, and we watched some — not all — of that film on his 52" television, and what we watched was glorious.

I'm not sure if he's watched the film since, except to demo the picture quality to friends and relatives.

But at least he's demo-ing the picture quality.

This is a step in the right direction, but this hardly means I'm safe just getting him John Wayne films instead. The solution isn't so simple.

All this leads me to a little realization. Dad doesn't consume films in the same way I do. For him, films are disposable entertainment that he doesn't have time to obsess over. I blog and pick apart and navel-gaze and watch and re-watch stuff. We're different. As I get older, I'm more okay with that.

Dad's birthday is this week. I have no idea what to get him. Maybe I'll just get him Paint Your Wagon and see what happens.

The Fisher King

2010-10-11T01:02:00.002-04:00

I used to do improv with this guy Dan, who used to sing "How About You?" He sang a lot of showtunes, actually, because he was a musical theatre major. Took me a while to make the connection to The Fisher King, though. Dan's a fan of this film, methinks. I know I am.

The Fisher King might be Terry Gilliam's best film, in that, by far, this is his most coherent effort with the most compelling story.

Your usual Gilliam touches are here — he loves twisty plots and off-kilter camera techniques and medieval symbols and filthy locations and downtrodden, misfit people. He also goes for the gut punch with characters who are so deeply flawed you wonder how they live with themselves, and then he makes them worse.

Gilliam's films are usually style-over-substance affairs, but not The Fisher King. In this one, the narrative is as strong, if not stronger, than Gilliam's typical vision.

Jeff Bridges plays Jack Lucas, a shock jock on a New York radio station. We see him hanging up on people, telling people off, and at one point, he tells a caller that all of the yuppies "need to be stopped." The caller turns somber, ominously, and that's the end of the call.

Lucas' career is on the upswing. He's going to read for a part in a terrible television show — one of those sitcoms with a catchphrase — and he has to rehearse the line, "Forgive me," until he is convinced that he has the line delivery down cold. Then he turns on the news to find that the somber caller went crazy, took Lucas seriously, and shot up a restaurant, killing seven people.

Flash forward to three years later. Lucas now works in a video store with his girlfriend, played by Mercedes Ruehl, who pretty much disappeared from any screen I've seen in 15 years. The sitcom with the stupid catchphrase is now a milquetoast hit with American audiences, and Harry Shearer, not Lucas, got the part. People on the street say "Forgive me!" to Lucas as he walks by.

At his lowest point, Jack is ready to kill himself when two thugs show up to try to set him on fire in one of those senseless set-a-bum-on-fire type killings. But then Perry, played by Robin Williams, shows up out of nowhere to save him.

Perry gives Jack a place to recuperate, which is in Perry's makeshift home in a boiler room. Before Jack can leave, Perry tells Jack that he knows where the Holy Grail is located. Some rich man has the grail, Perry says, and he needs help stealing it.

Confused and alarmed, Jack gets out of there, but not before the owner of the building stops him on the way out and tells Jack all about Perry's story.

Perry was in the restaurant, with his wife, who was killed.

Perry spent a year in a mental institution after the shooting. He was a professor. Now he's a homeless man with a fixation on medieval lore, and he hallucinates. He's a pathetic figure. He's by turns enchanted by an awkward female office worker, and tormented by a demonic, red knight.

Helping him isn't as simple as throwing money at him, Jack finds, and that kind of sensitivity to the plight of the less fortunate is never preachy here — just obvious if you're not an idiot. Williams and Bridges are in top form here (both would have to wait a while for Academy recognition).

Add The Fisher King to the miles-long list of films I wish I'd written — the kind of piece that combines all these fantastic set pieces with character arcs and real heart. No shocker here — Richard LaGravenese's screenplay was nominated for an Academy Award.

I saw this film for the first time when I was 20, living in my first college apartment and checking out movies from the library as often as I could. This is one of the earliest examples of me watching a film and being aware of the quality of writing on display — not just clever jokes or quotable lines of dialogue, but a fantastic story. You might say this is one of the first films that made me want to write screenplays.

That's what keeps me coming back to this one.

Fight Club

2010-09-28T02:00:00.000-04:00

I blame Fight Club for so much.

For one, Fight Club made writing screenplays about split personalities okay, when the oh-shit-Norton-is-Pitt twist really wasn't that interesting a twist in the first place.

That's the least interesting bit of the film, really. Having taught screenwriting for several years, by far the most overdone, clichéd, beaten to hell plot device among beginning writers is the split personality.

That device got so common in the years following Fight Club that I eventually made a list of banned story ideas for my classes. "Split personalities" was near the top.

(Of course, I offered to grant exceptions for those students who were also licensed, practicing psychiatrists. Nobody ever took me up on that.)

Fight Club explores the emasculation of men in modern capitalist society, but doesn't do much to provide reasonable solutions or alternatives, just postulating that the pendulum on which inept men sit must one day swing back, violently, against whomever or whatever performed the emasculation.

This is the logical conclusion, circa 1999, to the arc on which we found ourselves. Prior to 9/11, our greatest enemies were ourselves. Timothy McVeigh parked a van full of explosives and blew up a building. Sound familiar? The largest terrorist attack on American soil prior to 9/11 was perpetrated by an American. This is the world into which Fight Club was born.

Who is our enemy since 9/11? You make the call. Are the terrorists our enemy? Muslims? Republicans? Someone else?

Who says we have to have just one enemy? We were fantasizing about blowing up our own financial sectors in escapist film in 1999. When you have no real threat, you make one up. Hollywood has done this for years. Don't get too comfortable.

"We're a generation of men raised by women," Tyler Durden suggests, as if mothering causes the beta male mentality, some kind of dime store psychoanalysis. I don't buy that, exactly.

(Interesting choice of words: "I don't buy that.")

No, Mom didn't make us this way. Not by herself, anyway. (A male-dominated society attributing predominantly male foibles to females. That's rich.)

Fight Club also factored into my ill-advised aspirations as a film theorist. I had these grand ideas of doing my Ph.D. in film, and I'd seen a few articles on the demasculinization theme. I read them, enjoyed them, found them fascinating, and they validated some of my favorite films. I like when scholars write papers and books about films I enjoy.

Of course, these papers and books also tend to make every male film theorist look like an asshole. Hey, look, now the white guys are wringing their hands and trying to tell everyone how tough it is, being a white male. Y'all don't know what it's like, being male, middle-class, and white.

Our fathers wouldn't do this...would they? Where's the pendulum now?

Finally, for all of Fight Club bluster against material goods, I never stopped acquiring them — still haven't. In one year of owning a Blu-Ray player, I've amassed some 60 Blu-Ray discs. I don't know what all of this means, except that I probably don't take Fight Club to heart very much. Maybe I can't blame Fight Club exactly. Maybe here I just blame myself for not getting the message.

When I think about how my collections have gotten out of control over the years — the hundreds of DVDs and CDs, the thousands of baseball cards and comics, the shelves and shelves of books, and the mountain of debt I've built for myself over the years, all in an effort to satisfy...something, I can't help but think of what Tyler Durden would say:

"The things you own end up owning you."

More than any line, that one sticks with me. So much truth there. Give up your worldly possessions and move out of town. Fight Club is Walden with bloody fists.

Everybody says marriage and family tie you down, but I was tied down long before marriage. Paralyzing fear of the unknown and the lack of control I sometimes feel all seem to feed into this obsession to collect.

I've explored that here before, tried to generate something positive by writing and examining what I've made of this, and nothing could be more beta male than this navel-gazing writing project that goes from arrogance to self-loathing to self-aggrandizing to simply justifying materialism and obsessive-compulsiveness run roughshod. I'm not going to blame a movie and I'm not going to blame Mom. There's no point in assigning blame.

If I had nothing left but my wife and my rabbit, I'd still be happy because everything else can be replaced or recreated. They are the true currency, the true possession, the real meaning.

Watching Fight Club beats all that out of me.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

2010-09-17T01:13:00.000-04:00

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas caught my eye upon initial release, but I lost interest in seeing the film when I read Roger Ebert's review in which he described the film as "a horrible mess of a movie."

"If you encountered characters like this on an elevator, you'd push a button and get off at the next floor. Here the elevator is trapped between floors for 128 minutes," Ebert wrote then.

I turn to Ebert often. When I leave a movie and can't put my finger on what I liked or didn't like, I go read Ebert's review. Most of the time, he carefully and completely articulates exactly what I am thinking but can't say just yet. I'm not the only person who does this, so don't get all uppity about my lack of originality. I need time to process things, to reflect, and then assert. Ebert gets there first. So what?

He rips this film, though. He questioned Terry Gilliam's true influence on this project, given that Gilliam was not the original director (Alex Cox was fired from the project). He chalks this one up as a Johnny Depp vanity project, but I don't know how Ebert could miss Gilliam's touch here — these lens choices, soundtrack selections, and camera angles are nothing but Gilliam.

But regardless, because of Roger Ebert, I ignored the film for several years. I figured this was yet another Terry Gilliam mess, style over substance, story optional. Yawn and barf.

For all my moments of self-loathing when I reflect on my early 20s, I had Terry Gilliam pegged. I couldn't stand his work outside Monty Python, really. I still have trouble with Gilliam films — just not as much. I need less time to process what he's doing, and instead of getting frustrated, I welcome the challenge. After watching Lost in La Mancha, I see Gilliam as more down-to-earth, not some madman with a budget and a camera.

If I'm not mistaken, I finally watched Fear and Loathing on glorious VHS with my old film school roommate, Justin, when I lived in Ohio. He insisted I watch this one. Justin had quite the influence on me. He was the film student, while I was a screenwriting student from the telecommunications program who got to sit in film department courses. I was an interloper.

In short, I sat among future giants of the film industry who cited without fear of pretentiousness such influences as Bergman, Kurosawa, and Godard. They'd seen most of the films we screened, and had interesting things to say about technique and aesthetics. I was interested solely in storytelling.

These were true film students who shot on film, not video, like a real film school, not some podunk college that promises to "teach you valuable film industry skills that get you a job" while not actually having the equipment to do so. No, these folks were for real. They helped each other. They made actual films. They edited on Steenbecks and eschewed nonlinear editing software. Several of these folks ended up on IMDB, with actual credits. I'm not linking to them no matter what.

Anyway. Justin. I'd mention a title or he'd mention a title and we'd get around to me admitting I hadn't seen the film. First he'd sort of make me feel like an idiot, which was his custom, and then boom, he put the tape on. He did this four or five times that summer. He'd go out and get movies and come home with a pile of them. Living with Justin was sort of like living with a much younger, more pretentious version of my dad, and I mean that in the most complimentary way possible.

That summer kicked me in the ass, in a way. I learned director's names. I learned more about shooting. He kept film stock in the refrigerator, because that's what you're supposed to do. Once, his mom called and caught me off guard. "How do you like living with Justin?" "It's fine." "Oh, trust me, I know my son. But he's harmless. He's an open book." Uh...okay. I never figured him out because I never tried.

We bickered a little. Then we had a falling out. Stupid roommate stuff. I moved to Chicago and started the next chapter, but I became more voracious with how I consumed movies. Justin and I got back in touch several years later, but hardly spoke after that. He's out there somewhere, in Colorado or Oregon or some damned place, making movies, watching movies, an open book.

I prefer the Criterion version of Terry Gilliam's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas because, as with most Criterion releases, you get a metric assload of special features. I don't get why people buy the cheaper, stripped-down versions of things when there's a Criterion edition. Oh, sure, the Criterion versions are always more expensive, but look at what you get!

Documentaries, artwork, liner notes, and of course, with this one, you get a commentary track with Raoul Duke himself, Hunter S. Thompson. He chimes in occasionally with something borderline lucid, but spends just as much time rambling and, from time to time, he just howls like some kind of donkey-wolf braying at the moon. This is the genius?

I wonder if Ebert evaluated this film unfairly, based on the latter-day Hunter Thompson, who burned out and became even more rambling and incoherent. Yes, there are moments of utter chaos and confusion in this film, but there are just as many quirky, humorous moments amid the chaos to keep me watching. Add to that the lucid moments, the times when we just see Depp's Thompson typing, musing, set to the music of the era, when I see that even the paragon of drug addled nonsense can articulate what I'm thinking, even about an era I never knew.

Fargo

2010-09-14T01:35:00.000-04:00

When I first saw Fargo on glorious VHS in 1997 or so, I'd heard most of the Oscar buzz, but I don't recall the film playing in the theaters in my hometown. Of course, at 22, this isn't exactly the kind of film I went out to see.

No, back then, I was looking at independent comedies, and I fancied myself a fan of dark comedies (based mostly on my relationship with Clerks and Harold & Maude), but not necessarily films this dark. For the longest time, I didn't consider this film a dark comedy, despite all the black humor here. I'm not sure what I was thinking. I was 22. That's all I can say.

Years on, I can see why Fargo won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Fargo is an incredibly brave piece of writing. By the 6-minute mark, we've met William H. Macy's Jerry Lundegaard, a crooked car dealer taken to his logical conclusion, and the two dangerous types he hires to help him. See, Lundegaard just wants to run a little scheme, make a little money, and get himself out of financial trouble.

Peter Stormare's chain-smoking hitman is downright frightening in this film. He's cold-blooded, psychotic — the last kind of man Jerry Lundegaard actually wants to hire, and the last guy Steve Buscemi's character wants to offend. Of course, Buscemi's character is no Snow White (think that name over and feel free to wonder if I'm making a pun).

But that's not why the script is so brave. The protagonist, Marge Gunderson, played by Frances McDormand, doesn't even appear until the 33-minute mark of a 98-minute film, defying all the conventions in all the screenwriting textbooks. She turns out to be the most interesting character, and the Coens left her in the quiver for almost 1/3 of the picture. She's a spitfire, a real detective, able to piece together crimes in seconds, just by looking around the scene. In this way, she's a lot like Willem Dafoe in The Boondock Saints, except Fargo doesn't blow ass.

Marge owns every scene, and pwns every male in this film. She doesn't need help. She's a supportive wife to a dutiful artist, a competent chief of police, a great detective, an excellent shot, and a mother-to-be. I'm not sure there's ever been a stronger protagonist ever put to film. Her husband is just as supportive, offering to make her eggs when she's called to work in the night, and insisting that she eat a good breakfast. He's also the kind of guy who will fall asleep in bed with his hand in a bag of potato chips. He's harmless, a beta male. They make a great couple.

This time through, I saw shades of my wife and me. She's going to end up making more money when she's done with school, and I'm not too fussed about that. I'll play the supporting role in this house. She's no cop and I'm no painter, but the comparisons aren't too hard to make. She's in nursing school and I'm a teacher. When she's done, I won't be the breadwinner. I'll be the breadrunner-upper or something. Whatever. If the Gundersons are any indication, that stuff works too.

I made a point to collect all the Coen Brothers' films on DVD, because as far as modern filmmaking goes, nobody is doing better work. I don't reach for Fargo often, but when I do, I always see new bits to appreciate, and I don't just mean bits of Steve Buscemi flying out of a wood chipper. You betcha.

Family Plot/Frenzy

2010-09-13T01:00:00.069-04:00

I'm backing up to get two Hitchcock films, both of which are contained in the Masterpiece Collection. I've never seen either film, so I'm just reacting as I go.

Family Plot is Hitchcock's final film, a sort of thriller/black comedy. Though far from Hitchcock's best work, he was in his mid seventies at the time of the film's release, and still puts together a film that trumps most stuff made in the last 35 years.

Unfortunately, such faint praise is the only praise I can give Family Plot. What's more, despite a 95% fresh rating, many of the critics resort to faint praise, too, using phrases such as "not exactly top-tier Hitchcock," "minor but worthwhile," "pretty good," and my favorite, "enough good stuff to make it at least worth one viewing." Uh...okay. Perhaps more telling is the 57% fresh rating among audiences, or the 2.5 star rating on Netflix. The film has many fans, but most of them are hardcore Hitch fans who like everything, and/or critics who are afraid to call this film dopey.

For a start, the medium/psychic scenes with Barbara Harris are kind of painful to watch, Bruce Dern plays pretty much the same character in every film, and the melodrama is hard to swallow. Still, I'm sticking with this one.

A tall, mysterious woman who goes by "The Trader" and who looks like a young Tom Petty walks around this film, dressed head to toe in black. What's her deal? Oh, wait, that's Karen Black. I liked her better in Five Easy Pieces.

And...oh, wait, there's William Devane, formerly of "Knots Landing," and a dude I once saw roam into the Borders bookstore where I worked in Chicago. Hard to believe that guy worked with Hitchcock. What's he done since? Uh...a lot of television, mostly typecast as the creepy or unscrupulous type. Still working, though. Hey! I was once within 10 feet of an actor who worked with Hitchcock. That's kinda cool, I guess. Devane is super slimy in this film, all mustache and teeth and licking his lips a lot.

The plot is twisty, features egregious and unnecessary blue screen use, and doesn't make a lick of sense. I can do without this one.

Frenzy, on the other hand, is a fantastic film. I wish this had been Hitch's last film, because Family Plot is such a slog. Set in London, Hitchcock's penultimate film is a straight-ahead suspense film about a "Necktie Killer" on the loose. When a stack of circumstantial evidence puts the law on the trail of Richard Ian Blaney, a hard luck case, he has to find a way to clear his name. Jon Finch plays Blaney, a chain-smoking, hard-drinking, temper-prone Englishman who is in the wrong place at the wrong time and ends up the target of a police investigation into a series of grisly strangulations.

Frenzy is deftly written and paced, and seems the kind of film that is much more polished and lucid than Family Plot. Hitch has this incredible cast of great English character actors: Finch, Alec McCowen, Barry Foster, Billie Whitelaw, and on and on and on.

Hitch returns to England with a keen eye for the distinctly English. At one point, we're treated to a protracted conversation between a police inspector and one of his underlings, while the inspector eats the bigger part of a traditional English breakfast of eggs, sausages, rasher bacon, mushrooms, toast, and other fatty protein-y things that are awesome. When I visited England, I had a real breakfast at least twice. I was full for hours. The average LDL number in England must be in the thousands.

Food plays a significant role in this film, for some reason. Hitch features characters eating something in just about every scene. Brit food is often slagged off for being bland, boring, or just plain gross (blood pudding, anyone?), but I must say, after seeing what the police inspector's aspiring "gourmet" wife made him for dinner, I'd take this any day:

For Hitch, Frenzy seems like a love note to all things English — the plot is a nod to Jack the Ripper, the food is distinctly English, the black taxis are prominent, and familiar pieces of London are given plenty of screen time — Tower Bridge, Covent Garden, etc. Normally I'd say that this is why I liked the film so much, but really, the film is just damned good.

I'm not one to recommend many movies, but if you get anything out of this Hitchcock jag that I'm on, maybe you'll get a look at a lesser-known Hitch film like this one. In many ways this is a textbook thriller — the kind of film Hitchcock could make in his sleep, but in other ways this is Hitch coming full circle to make one last great film.

F for Fake

2010-08-31T01:52:00.000-04:00

Orson Welles' F for Fake is a wild, experimental film — not a narrative, kind of a documentary, yet more of an essay on fakery put to film in which the filmmaker fools you, too.

Here, Welles contemplates illusion, forgery, fraud, and other forms of deceit, focusing on the infamous art forger Elmyr de Hory, but also spending time on Clifford Irving, who gained notoriety after he wrote the fake autobiography of Howard Hughes (and went to prison for same).

Welles shows the connection between de Hory and Irving — they were friends, spending time on the island of Ibiza in the 1970s. Irving even wrote Elmyr de Hory's biography.

So, once Howard Hughes got wind of the "autobiography," he was forced to come out of seclusion — sort of. Hughes held a phone press conference with reporters in order to deny any involvement with the book and any connection to Irving — or did he? Hughes himself was a faker, having hired body doubles of himself. The recording of Hughes' voice sounds more like Woody Harrelson's impression of Larry Flynt.

They also interviewed Clifford Irving by phone. But was that him on the phone? What's up? What's down? Black? White? This film is astonishing, peeling away layer upon layer of trickery, flipping filmmaking on its ear in the process, and taking a place among Welles' most innovative and interesting works, and a masterpiece of editing.

Let's not forget, even Welles started out as a fake. He spent a career spinning tales and playing roles in the grand illusion of theatre and film. His Mercury Radio version of "The War of the Worlds" fooled people into thinking that Martians were invading. Beautiful!

Welles does some wild stuff with perspective here. He frequently goes from the camera's perspective to the editor's, moving back and forth from the footage and Welles looking at and commenting on the footage playing in front of him on a Steenbeck. He cuts together a variety of film stocks, changes frame rates, drops in still photographs, freezes the film and provides direct-address monologues, and generally creates a disorienting viewing experience of asides, interviews, B-roll, and personal reflections. This article provides a much more detailed explanation of what Welles was doing here.

I'm a big Welles fan; for me, Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil, and even Carol Reed's The Third Man are some of the finest films ever made. F for Fake is not like any other film; Welles seems at his most comfortable here, though, often smiling and laughing along with the revelations of the film. I went through a serious Orson Welles appreciation phase a few years ago, picking up this film and several others before giving up in my attempts to locate quality versions of his minor films.

Most of Welles' other films are either not available on DVD (The Magnificent Ambersons) or feature transfers so poor as to render them nearly unwatchable (The Stranger, The Lady from Shanghai, The Trial, Chimes at Midnight), which makes F for Fake even more rewarding — not only is this film on DVD, but one of two Criterion Collection releases (the other being The Complete Mr. Arkadin — a set that includes three versions of the same film). Ironically enough, the two Criterion releases of Welles' work are easily obtainable yet stand as the most impenetrable works of his career.

Sadly, Welles almost always had trouble raising money for his projects. In his later years, he bemoaned having to spend so much time trying to find funding instead of, you know, actually getting to create something. He was known as a creative tyrant. He was so direct, so demanding, so dissatisfied with the mediocrity of others, and to some, so arrogant, that he turned people off and/or turned them away. People misinterpreted and resented his intensity. People didn't understand him. He wasn't good at schmoozing. He wanted to create. So many people didn't take him seriously, and in the end, Welles sort of brought that on himself.

Even though Welles, left to his own devices, could create the greatest films ever made, he was always fighting off studio meddling and trying to find money to fund his eccentric efforts. When I imagine what Orson Welles could have accomplished in this age of digital cinema, nonlinear editing, and independent filmmaking on the cheap, I am overwhelmed at the possibilities. He needed people to get out of the way and let him do his job.

Filmmaking isn't like that, though. If Welles were solely a painter or solely a writer, he could have done anything he wanted, but because filmmaking is such a collaborative medium of experts, egos, sharks, and know-nothings, he languished for years trying to get project after project off the ground. That's not to say that his own hubris didn't play a role in his failings — on the contrary, Welles' hubris is the stuff of legend, detailed in books and cinematic depictions — but he had some seriously terrible luck, too. His story is by turns sad and triumphant, and I find the whole of his career absolutely fascinating.

By 1975 and F for Fake, Welles' film career was largely over. Afterward, he resorted to schilling Paul Masson California wines and, in one of the cruelest ironies of his or any other career, playing a gigantic, planet-eating robot at his largest and unhealthiest — indeed, not long before he died. He became a parody of himself, and then other people parodied him. When you're larger than life, you're easy to hit.

According to Bogdanovich, Welles wanted to do more "essay documentaries," like this one, but he never got the chance. F for Fake is Orson Welles' last completed film (he later finished a ho-hum television documentary called Filming Othello, which has never come to DVD). F for Fake stands as a bizarre, multilayered meditation, and a fascinating postscript to an illustrious, puzzling career.

The Evil Dead/Evil Dead II

2010-08-30T00:37:00.001-04:00

I toyed with how to do this entry. I didn't really want to watch the Evil Dead films back-to-back. So I decided to do something ridiculous instead. I'm watching both of these films at the same time.

In front of me, I have The Evil Dead playing on the television, and to my left, Evil Dead II is playing on my wife's Macbook. You should see this; I look like an idiot.

See, Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead and Evil Dead II are basically the same film — the second one just has more money and seems slicker. I joked with my in-laws about writing an entry for the first film and then copying and pasting the same entry for the second film.

In the end, that seemed like too much of a cheat — but the two films are so distinctly connected, I have trouble thinking of them individually.

I've watched the films back-to-back before, but not since I had the films on glorious VHS about ten years ago, so I don't quite remember everything.

Basically, the plot is this, both times: Bruce Campbell takes a girl to a cabin in the woods, and while there, he manages to bring forth evil, and he has to fight it off.

Of course, there are plenty of differences. In the first film, he goes with a group of people: three women and another man. In the second, he just takes a date. Researchers and hillbillies play a role in the second film, as does Ash's chainsaw for a hand.

Still, the two films are too similar to not have a clearer connection. That has always bothered me. There are a some throwaway lines that could've been rewritten to really connect the films, but as is, the two films don't connect as well as they could, so I feel like I'm kind of watching the same film twice or something.

The flaw is in using the same actor to play the same character who has basically the same experience in the cabin in the woods. No real indication is made as to whether the Bruce Campbell character of the sequel remembers the events of the first film, and if I've missed those indications, I just have one question: Why would he go back there? If your answer is, "Because he killed the evil in the first film," then sadly, you are wrong. I have a better answer for you.

If you assume Bruce Campbell's character either went insane or repressed everything after the events of the first film (which isn't much of a leap), then Evil Dead II works quite well as a direct sequel. There. That's all you need to do. Just believe he went nuts or forgot. Easy!

Side by side, I'm realizing how full of shit I kinda am, because the two films actually don't line up all that well. If they were made from the same script, wouldn't the events of the first film happen at pretty much the same moments in the second film? I started them at the same time. At the 26:00 mark, trees are attacking Ash's friend in the first film. At the 26:00 mark of the second film, Ash's hand just went bad. The differences go on and on. Nothing much lines up at all.

That leads me to an important conclusion that all Evil Dead fans should consider: Raimi didn't just re-make the first film with more money. He re-envisioned the first film, using a bigger budget, more imagination, more humor, more over-the-top violence and gore, and more Bruce Campbell, who can't remember the events of the first film because the trauma made him insane (or something).

Now that I've watched them simultaneously, I see them differently. Groovy.

Event Horizon

2010-08-29T23:26:00.000-04:00

I missed Event Horizon in theaters in 1997, and ignored the film based on the reviews I'd seen, which pretty much savaged this film like Sam Neill on a Satan bender in space. Spoiler alert?

About two years ago, I happened across the Amazon listing for the DVD. I'm not sure how; I probably was surfing and clicking on Amazon recommendations or something. I saw gobs of 4 and 5-star reviews. I couldn't figure out where all these positive reviews came from because I only knew this film as a steaming turd.

But I was feeling adventurous, and in the mood for something messed up, maybe. I decided to buy this one blind (ironic?), so away I went to Fry's Electronics while the wife was away on a trip, and a short time later, I was watching Event Horizon for the first time.

I can understand why people's opinions are so split. The film is slow to start, with only some loud noises and a weird dream prior to the 24:00 mark, when actual people go inside the Event Horizon. Madness ensues not long after that. We get creepy lights, a floaty glove (or is that a hand?), and lots and lots of blood. And we're only at the 28:00 mark now. The obvious Alien parallels are here, along with the Hellraiser ones. There's not much earth-shattering here in terms of plot.

Event Horizon deserves kudos for set design, makeup, and cutting-edge special effects (for 1997). The premise is ludicrous, some of the acting comes up lame, and I get a little tired of the loud noises-as-scary moments in lieu of a plot. But the film doesn't quite deserve all the ripping.

My father-in-law calls this film boring and slow, while my brother-in-law really enjoys this one, even if he admits Event Horizon is "messed up." I'll admit the film could move a little faster, and could go even further into "messed up" territory, but then again, go much further and you might drive the audience mad. What is seen cannot be unseen.

Judging from the split reviews, they might not be far off. This film goes into some seriously dark territory. (See what I did there? Space? Dark? Anybody? Hello?) Although this one doesn't quite become a classic film, or even a classic B-movie, damn, Event Horizon sure tries.

I respect that. That's why I keep this one.

European Vacation

2010-08-29T21:24:00.001-04:00

"Kids! Big Ben! Parliament!"

National Lampoon's European Vacation is probably the Vacation film that I've seen the fewest times, and possibly the one I like the least. I don't even own Vegas Vacation, so maybe this one juuust gets the edge for the few laughs I get.

Why do I own this one at all? Because they packaged the first film with this one for less than $10 on DVD and I couldn't resist the deal in 2006.

European Vacation was the only window to Europe that I had as a kid. My family was never going overseas. We didn't have the money for that, and the economy was so shitty during the Reagan years that politicians and Hollywood films were touting the awesomeness of the U.S.A. so that people wouldn't think to go anywhere else.

At the time, I drank that Kool-Aid down. I can remember Lee Greenwood's stupid "God Bless The U.S.A." song on the radio, and I can remember singing patriotic songs in school as if the ideals of The American Dream were a given. I'm sure my dad really enjoyed all the patriotism — he had time to do so when he was laid off for 2 1/2 years as the manufacturing sector gasped for breath.

I didn't realize until much later that most Americans have a hilariously narrow view of the rest of the world, fueled by the ignorance in films like this one. Every time Hollywood sets a film in Europe, they play to stereotypes so that ignorant people can follow along.

I didn't know any better when I was younger, but now films like this kinda piss me off.

Consider the incredibly negative depiction of Europe here (obviously played up for comedy). You can't understand the English hotel clerk. The Brits don't have bathrooms. They're super nice, to the point of idiotic. The French will curse at you if they realize you're an American. Someone will steal your camera. You'll get to Rome and get wrapped up in international intrigue. You'll get back home and feel so glad to see the Statue of Liberty, your cares will just melt away.

Okay, maybe some of that's true.

Of course, to the film's credit, we do get an American family that does all the stupid American things when abroad. They wear berets in France. They buy ridiculous Italian clothing. They get on a rotary near Big Ben and Parliament, and stay there. They have no idea what they're doing, and it's funny because it's true.

So America doesn't get a free pass here. When Americans go abroad, they do dumb shit.

Anyway, enough about that for now.

Ever wonder why the Griswald children change in every film? Well, the easy answer is, some of them are dead. Dana Hill, who plays Audrey Griswald here, fantasizes about overeating European foods at about the 16:00 mark. In 1996, Hill died of a paralytic stroke brought on by years of difficulties with diabetes. Yikes.

Then there's the career of Jason Lively, who plays Rusty Griswald here. The last film he did was in the early 1990s, and he's still living. Not as bad as death by stroke, but still.

Paul McDowell, Ballard Berkeley, and Eric Idle play the three consecutive English motorists that Clark Griswald hits with the rental car. American audiences know Eric Idle from Monty Python, but most Americans have never heard of the other two. Turns out, both of them are pretty widely respected character actors in English television. Berkeley played Major Gowen on "Fawlty Towers." The film gets these things right.

There are positives to this movie. You've just got to dig.

This is by far the dirtiest of the Vacation films, though, with a bare breast count in the dozens. You get gunplay, robbers, chase sequences, and a chest beating anthem over the closing credits about how, like, totally awesomer America is compared to all those frou-frou-ey European countries. The song is called "Back in America" by a band called Network, and for some reason the song is on iTunes. I'm serious.

Shit like this is what convinces Americans that the rest of the world isn't just inferior, but that it doesn't matter, either. That kind of nationalistic bullshit just pisses me off. I'm glad I don't watch this film very often. Bleh.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

2010-08-29T02:08:00.000-04:00

Would you re-live your worst relationship even if you knew how things would work out?

Tough question. I'm not keen on re-living pain; once is enough. But what about the happy memories, the ones that are kind of fun to remember? What about your travels, your funny and awkward moments, the people you met? Most of all, what about everything you learned about yourself and other people?

In my closet, I have no fewer than three shoeboxes (I'd have to dig them all out to count for sure). Each shoebox contains a relationship. Inside each box, I have notes, photos, receipts, souvenirs, mementos, and outright junk imbued with meaning and memories from each girl who shared time with me. I keep stuff.

I know lots of people who wouldn't think of keeping stuff. They throw out every reminder when they break up with someone. For some, discarding everything of significance is part of healing, but for me that seems like cheating.

You learn to live with your baggage; you don't just forget you had any.

Those capable of the "emotional purge" might seem heartless, too. If we were never all that attached to someone, then throwing out the reminders isn't too difficult. For me, I can't bring myself to throw out something that, at one point, meant so much. Somewhere deep down, these things, this stuff, still has significance. I'm not saying I feel the same way I once did; I don't. I'm saying these things still matter even though everything has changed. I can't stop speaking in abstracts. I'm very sorry.

For me, some days, I miss those girls. I miss their positive qualities (I don't just mean their unique hotness, brainy-ness, whatever). I don't miss these people so much that I'm willing to wreck the life I have now, because now is best of all. I don't miss their flaws, their things that were impossible to live with or understand. I don't miss their Gordian knot logic. I don't miss who I was at the time.

But some days, I do miss talking to them. In most cases, I hope they're doing well. In a few rare cases, I'm still friends with them. We don't hang out much, but we get along fine now.

I know a few people, including one particular ex-girlfriend, who would never allow my shoeboxes in the house. "Isn't it weird to keep mementos from an ex — more than one ex? What does that say about your level of commitment to the present relationship?"

Nothing. No, really. Nothing.

What does the present have to do with the contents of a shoebox, tucked away in a closet, containing the detritus and effluvia of dead relationships? The present is not relevant, except that I had to live out the contents of each shoebox, each photo album, each of those old e-mails and letters, in order to find my way here. That's all.

I like keeping a map of how I got here, and I like looking at the map every now and then. I need to remember how long and how far I traveled. Most of the time, I don't need to see the breadcrumb trail. If I look once every couple of years, I'm fine. But I need to remember how I used to be in order to be how I am now. If a shoebox rarely opened really impacts a relationship that much, then you are in a shitty relationship and you need to find someone who understands you better.

"Why do I fall in love with every woman I see who shows me the least bit of attention?" Joel Barish asks. He's a glum introvert, awkward and lonely.

That was me. I had this crushing, painful fear of being alone for my entire life. I'd lie awake nights, wondering what the next girl would look like, or what her name would be, and how her voice would sound.

I'd meet a girl, maybe on a bus, maybe on a plane, maybe at work or in class, didn't matter, and she'd be polite to me but nothing more.

I'd take that as so much more.

I'd go home, obsessing about her, whoever, and sometimes I'd even get a number and go home and immediately call her. Or I'd go out of my way to see her again. I'd ride the bus again, or walk down the same hallway at the same time.

Every single time I did this, I'd never see the girl again.

I had pipe dreams of missing out on "The One." I'd get depressed. I missed my chance. I missed everything. I made everybody around me miserable. Some days, daylight to dark and beyond, I was thinking about the same girl. Waste of time.

Sometimes, I'd meet a girl differently. She'd sit down next to me in a class and stay there the whole time. She'd work with me, and I'd see her all the time. We'd meet at a party and talk for hours. Something would click. We'd go out, sparks would fly, and next thing I knew, I was in a relationship. And the next thing I knew, the relationship was in a shoebox.

"Technically speaking, the procedure is brain damage," Dr. Howard Mierzwiak says.

I don't need the brain damage. I don't want to forget my ex-girlfriends. I'm thankful for every single one — those who got away, those whose hearts I broke, and those who were just psychotic, baby-crazy harpies who wanted to eat my soul. All they did was save me.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," wrote George Santayana in 1905. Charlie Kaufman's characters don't seem to mind, but I'd hate to forget.

Escape From L.A.

2010-08-23T02:34:00.000-04:00

If Escape From New York is preposterous, then Escape From L.A. is barking, effing ridonkulous. That doesn't mean I won't watch the film, though.

This film is a logical next step for Carpenter's Snake Plissken character. We've been to New York, so let's go visit the other city that Hollywood cares about: Los Angeles. One wonders whether Carpenter stopped after L.A. because the film is an inferior sequel, or because he ran out of cities in which Hollywood makes movies. New York and L.A. — there is nowhere else, right?

One year after the events of Escape From New York, Los Angeles is devastated when an earthquake strikes, lopping the city off into the sea. In John Carpenter's far-flung future of 1998, Manhattan Island is a prison, and Los Angeles Island (you read that correctly), turns into an Australia of sorts — the place where all "undesirables" are deported. Sometimes tsunamis strike — the kind of tsunamis that don't flood the city so much as just run through the odd crevasse here and there and make for good surfing.

Then we fast-forward to 2013, the even more far-flung future, where Snake Plissken arrives in Los Angeles wearing pretty much the same thing he was wearing when he left New York. Hey, in post-apocalyptic America, you can't expect Plissken to just stop at Dick's Sporting Goods every time he needs some camo pants. He also still has a mullet and an eyepatch. (Apparently in 2013, they don't do eye replacement yet. Better wait for Minority Report, Snake.)

Escape From L.A. creates an America that might be scarier than the one depicted in the first film. In 2013, we live in a fascist theocracy and have a president-for-life (played by...Peter Parker's Uncle Ben?). I would've predicted someone who looked a bit more like Tina Fey.

I mostly own this film for completist reasons. If you have the first Escape film, you need the second one, just to see how far Carpenter goes. Carpenter and Russell are both back, and so is pretty much the exact same formula as the first film. Snake is recruited against his will to rescue somebody important from a hostile place, and if he fails, he'll die because they've injected him with something that will kill him if he's not back in time. Sound familiar? I'm talking about the first film. I'm also talking about the second film.

All the set pieces are different, but the plot points are the same. He doesn't fly into New York in a glider; he shoots into L.A. in a nuclear-powered submarine. If you thought the special effects of the first film were silly, wait until you see circa-1996 digital effects. A shark tries to eat the submarine. I'm serious.

Ernest Borgnine and Harry Dean Stanton are combined and ably replaced by Steve Buscemi's teeth. Isaac Hayes' "The Duke" is gone, replaced by some guy you've never heard of as "Cuervo Jones." The rest of the cast is a who's who of B-movie stars: Bruce Campbell, Pam Grier, Peter Fonda, and Stacy Keach are all here, and they chew as much scenery as Carpenter allows (which is a lot). Carpenter even gets my favorite stock Asian character actor, Al Leong, whom you've seen before in probably thousands of films that required Asians with long hair. Still, no one upstages Russell's Plissken.

Escape From L.A. is evidence of my completist tendencies run amok. This film probably should be relegated to the B-movie dustbin, but I can't let that happen. This is part of a series, possibly of more than two films, and as a DVD collector, there was no question: I needed this film. I bought this on the same day as my copy of Escape From New York, and in the same Half Price Books store. You can't have one without the other. You're missing out otherwise.

Yeah, I have my complaints, but Escape From L.A. is great fun if you just let go and let the stupidity wash over you in a wave of ridiculousness. The soundtrack kicks ass (if you like '90s rock, anyway), with lots of post-grunge and sludge — the kind of music my wife loves to hear in the car. Or not.

Though not as good as the first, and definitely way goofier, the film somehow still works, by the slimmest of margins. Reviews were mixed, but even Kevin Smith defends this one (I know we're in a post-Cop Out world, but let's not judge).

He surfs a tsunami with Peter Fonda. He shoots basketball. He hang-glides. He's Snake Plissken, an archetypal '80s action hero transplanted to the mid-'90s, and sadly never heard from again.

I wish John Carpenter would make one more film with the Plissken character, and follow basically the same formula (why change now?). Russell will be 60 next year, but doesn't really look his age, and if Death Proof is any indication, he can still play a badass. I mentioned previously how I worked with a cartoonist who had a great idea for a third film, set in a different city. The story is out there. The film could be done. I'd go.

So this is a plea to John Carpenter, who is no doubt reading this blog (really!): Do one more Snake Plissken film with Kurt Russell, but don't necessarily do this one just yet. Set the film somewhere else, somewhere with history, landmarks, interest...and get my former co-worker on the horn. I can give you his contact info. He's got an idea for you. I'm telling you; it'll rock.

Escape From New York

2010-08-21T01:50:00.000-04:00

Everything about John Carpenter's Escape From New York is preposterous. I don't care.

In the far-flung dystopian future of 1997, Manhattan Island is a maximum security prison full of the worst criminals of our time. A 50-foot concrete wall runs all down the Jersey Shore and around the borough. That's supposed to keep the baddies in and the good people of 'Murka safe.

Then terrorists (not Muslims!) hijack Air Force One with the president on board (say what?) and crash the plane into a skyscraper(!) but not before the president, played by Donald Pleasance, climbs into a giant red egg ("pod," they say) and ejects.

Donald Pleasance played Blofeld in the James Bond film You Only Live Twice, a rather inferior entry in the 007 canon, but a Connery film all the same. Mike Myers modeled his Dr. Evil character in part on Pleasance's portrayal of Blofeld. Interestingly, in Escape From New York, Pleasance climbs into an eject pod shaped like an egg, much like Dr. Evil does in the first Austin Powers film. Did Myers conflate the Bond film with the presidential escape pod scene in Escape From New York?

Snake Plissken, war hero, criminal, and general badass of the future, replete with camo pants, mullet, and eyepatch, is sent to rescue the president. I wonder why he wears this eyepatch, because at 43:26, Snake busts into a room and turns his head this way and that, and you can totally see that he has two eyes. When I said this film was preposterous, I wasn't just saying.

Lee Van Cleef, badass old man with beady eyes, plays a police chief who recruits Plissken for the job. I don't know much about Van Cleef's later films, except that he did a string of B-movies. I remember him mostly from his work in the Italian western films by Sergio Leone and others. He's a great villain.

Very few action heroes get to drive a woody wagon. Snake Plissken? Yes. In a station wagon reminiscent of Clark Griswold's in National Lampoon's Vacation, Plissken gets away from the baddies (temporarily, anyway) with two or three other characters in the car.

What a weird, awesome film. Truth be told, I never paid much attention to Escape From New York before a few years ago. I worked with a cartoonist who was a huge, huge fan of Snake Plissken, and John Carpenter's work in general. My cartoonist co-worker was such a fan, and had such a grip on storytelling, that he cooked up an idea for a third Escape film — not a remake, but another sequel, set somewhere else. Of course, he didn't have the rights to develop the idea, but whatever. I can't tell you everything, but I loved the idea. He also talked me into checking out this film again, so I found a copy of the above version, used of course (and with a comic book, too).

I wish Carpenter had revisited the Plissken character more often. With all the locales that could become part of his dystopian vision of the future, and all the possibilities for interesting characters and situations, I'm not sure why there's only one sequel. This could've gone on for years.

Yes, Escape From New York is a preposterous film, but no, I don't care. This remains one of John Carpenter's best — a very well done search-and-rescue action/adventure/sci-fi B-movie that I can watch again and again.

The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill But Came Down A Mountain

2010-08-20T22:49:00.000-04:00

I'm fairly certain my graduate advisor and thesis director recommended The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill But Came Down A Mountain, because at the time I was dabbling in something similar for my thesis screenplay, about a small town with something important to do (so important, in fact, that I don't remember anything else about the idea).

I dabbled a lot that year, trying to find myself, find my style, tone, etc., and by the end, I'd found very little. But there's no timetable on finding oneself or one's own voice.

I also recall my undergraduate mentor endorsing this film, specifically pointing to Hugh Grant's trademark hemming and hawing. Perhaps both deserve credit for pointing me up this, er... hill.

I'd seen the film on shelves, but always passed because, well, this looks like any of a number of Grant's romantic comedies. I never even read the entire title on the box. I just saw this as The Englishman something something something something something.

Suffice to say, someone talked sense to me and sent me away to watch the film. I checked out a copy at Alden Library in Athens, Ohio, where the glorious, full-screen VHS transfer with state-of-the-art, warbling analog 2.0 sound came into my life.

At the time, I didn't care about quality — this was before I'd seen much of DVD. Most people didn't care about picture quality in the late 1990s, and I'd argue that most people don't care even today.

In grad school, I had other priorities, meaning I only cared about the story here, and why my advisor would advise this film. I probably had 100 or so VHS tapes at that time, all of which focused on tremendous storytelling (and all of which are long since sold off in favor of shiny DVDs and Blu-Rays).

Once I watched this film, I basically said, "Bloody hell, sod this fecking idea." (I may have been influenced by the dialogue.) After scrapping my own idea, I moved on to some other steaming turd of an idea and to another, and another, and another, before finally settling on the pile of cowshit that became my master's thesis. No, you can't read that.

Sometimes I get an idea, think my idea is good, and then I see a film with a similar idea and I just want to curse. Not only does the Film That Beat Me To The Punch validate my idea, but also the film rubs salt in an open cliché. All is not lost, though; I found a film I really enjoy.

This film takes place in Wales, in a town where the local "mountain" is measured and determined, rather semantically, to be a "hill" instead. Unwilling to take such a shot to local pride, the townsfolk rise up, quite literally, to make their "hill" into a "mountain." I'm not explaining this very well, and I don't have to — just check out the film. If you're not smiling with a lump in your throat by the end, then I don't know what to tell you.

Owning this film on DVD seemed logical, not only because you can find a copy for a few dollars, but also that I need to have access to films that make me feel this way, for that day when I want to feel that sort of way again. I'm not articulate this evening. I'm hemming and hawing a bit. Yes. Right.

The English Patient

2010-08-16T01:02:00.000-04:00

I don't have a particular attachment to The English Patient. Before tonight, I'd never even watched this one. I will admit, though, that this film has always held a sort of allure, mostly my own curiosity about all the fuss.

I've heard plenty of opinions ranging from the eye-rolling accusations of a snore-fest to the melty-gooey, smiley, "Ooh, I love The English Patient." This film won 9 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, in 1997. But I've heard just as many people knock this one as a real slog.

Probably two years ago, maybe three, I found the above edition in the used section at Half Price Books. I don't typically "blind-buy" DVDs unless I have some reasonable assurance that I'll like the film. I typically only do this with award winners and Criterion releases, or with the occasional blockbuster that I miss in theaters.

This isn't a foolproof rationale; I've blind-bought a few clunkers over the years.

For this film, I didn't feel assured of much of anything, what with the love-or-hate opinions and reviews I'd heard and seen over the years. I knew the purchase would be a gamble. For some reason, possibly because I knew my wife liked the film, I brought this one home anyway.

I rarely buy DVDs these days, especially since buying my PS3 and switching almost exclusively to collecting Blu-Ray discs instead. The Blu-Ray thing has given me plenty to wring my hands about, especially when I look downstairs and see 500 DVDs, most of which are in pristine condition and only watched a few times, if at all.

I still look around for good films to add to the collection, but only used DVDs, and only films ahead of this blog in the alphabet, and typically just Criterion or some other special limited version. Maybe I'll grab the odd out-of-print title, or something that hasn't come to Blu-Ray yet, or whatever else I simply can't resist.

That all sounds like I'm still buying a shitload of DVDs. Really, though, aside from the latest Criterion Eclipse Kurosawa set, I haven't bought squat on DVD lately.

Some days I feel like my collection is complete. Fancy that! I often talk myself out of buying DVDs when I'm in a store. The technology is fading away. I don't need all of this. Another DVD means another blog entry. By the time I get through the collection once in alphabetical order, DVDs probably will be gone and my collection will only have modest worth to me. I often think of just ripping the whole collection to a hard drive and selling them off while they still have some value.

But that would mess up this blog, and we can't have that, right?

As far as sweeping epics set in the desert go, I much prefer Lawrence of Arabia, but my wife prefers The English Patient instead. That's not hard to figure. She confesses she prefers the romance of the latter to the endless shifting sand and battle scenes of the former. She compares The English Patient to Atonement, and she's not far off — both are intensely personal dramas set against a world war.

(Side Note: I hated Atonement, but not because of the romance. I just felt as if the narrative of the story had been yanked from under me, and that if the whole film was told from the perspective of a dishonest narrator, then how are we to believe anything in the film? The whole picture was just bullshit.)

Now that I've seen The English Patient, I understand some of the fuss. This really is good filmmaking, and the editing is some of the best I've ever seen, with literally dozens of time shifts in the narrative. The cinematography is stellar, the acting is top notch...I could go on and on. The problem, for me, is I have trouble giving a shit about these people, most of whom do despicable things to each other in the name of selfish desires. I can't feel sorry for total shitbags.

The scene when Naveen Andrews' character, ~~Sayid~~ Kip, is defusing the bomb, was the only point in the film that I felt myself invested in a character. He'd just spent a night with Juliette Binoche's character, Hana, and then he found himself trying to defuse a bomb while jubilant Allied troops drove tanks through the area, shaking the ground and giving Kip the willies while trying to cut the right wire. I found myself attached to both characters in a meaningful way, but as for Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas' characters, I just felt empty.

For a film called The English Patient, and for a story so rooted in the flashbacks of that same character, I find myself doubting whether he is the protagonist. A protagonist, generally speaking, maintains the moral high ground. If that's our definition, one could make the case that Hana is the heroine rather than anybody else. Aside from the ending, she maintains a moral center throughout, and even in the end, she's riding away, smiling, better for the experience of having known Fiennes' character.

(I've not read anything about this film, so if I sound like I'm just arriving to the Hana-is-the-protagonist party, my apologies.)

I neither loved nor hated this film, but I did find The English Patient interesting. I had trouble caring, but I wasn't bored. The story turns me off a little, but technically this film is astonishing.

The English Patient easily ranks as the late Anthony Minghella's finest film; certainly, this is the one that garnered the most acclaim, with 12 Academy Award nominations and 9 wins. Cold Mountain "only" garnered 7 nominations and one win, which is fine because Cold Mountain isn't that great.

Of the rest of Minghella's work, I've only seen The Talented Mr. Ripley (dungheap) and Breaking and Entering (only slightly less of a dungheap). Minghella's death at 54 in 2008 certainly was tragic, but I have a hard time holding him up among the best directors of our time on the basis of one good film that really doesn't stir me that much.

Roger Ebert writes that this film stands up to repeat viewings, though. For that reason, I'll hang on to this one. Maybe there'll be a winter day that will call for an epic in the desert, and maybe my copy of Lawrence of Arabia won't be enough to pass the time or entertain the wife. Maybe The English Patient will be just the ticket, and maybe after repeated viewings, I'll get all the fuss.

Elizabethtown

2010-08-12T02:40:00.001-04:00

I remember seeing the trailer for Elizabethtown in a theater and smiling. Cameron Crowe was back. He was coming off Vanilla Sky, which was a decent film, but he'd also just done Almost Famous, which is one of my favorite films. I had high hopes for Elizabethtown.

Then I saw Elizabethtown.

I wasn't sure what to feel. I mean, a Cameron Crowe film always makes me happy. Say Anything was fulfilling. Almost Famous was astonishing. Vanilla Sky was complicated and uneven, but nobody's ever used R.E.M. any better.

Elizabethtown sort of left me feeling...incomplete.

Don't get me wrong — there's astounding material here. Cameron Crowe takes his keenly observant character studies and ear for dialogue and music to rural Kentucky, where my dad's side of the family comes from, and Crowe even insists on the correct pronunciation of "Louisville." He contemplates fatherhood, shows generations changing hands, and does this amazing montage of a construction worker named Rusty blowing up a termite-infested house. (You just have to see that.) In short, Cameron Crowe basically threw a film right into my emotional wheelhouse.

This film should be perfect. I want this film to be perfect.

The soundtrack, as with all Cameron Crowe films, is perfect — a combination of contemporary and classic rock — Patty Griffin, Ryan Adams, and My Morning Jacket sit beside U2, Tom Petty, Elton John, and Lindsay Buckingham. Every time he uses a song and an image at the same time, I hear my own record collection and I see pretty much what I'd do with the same song if I made a film. If Cameron Crowe keeps making movies, I'll never have to get up.

Crowe chose so much music for the film, the soundtrack spans three discs, including a rare-ish EP called "Songs from the Brown Hotel," which features a My Morning Jacket song called "I Will Be There When You Die." I'm not a big MMJ fan, but I love that song. There are no fewer than three great Tom Petty songs here, and Patty Griffin even shows up. You can't complain about this music. Nobody does soundtracks better.

There are so many brilliant moments — Alec Baldwin's character, for example, steals the opening of the film, and his lines pop up here and there throughout. Much of the film takes place in Kentucky, and most of those parts work. I'm even talking about the world's longest cell phone call, which is by turns romantic and exhilarating. There is nothing — nothing — like an all-night phone call.

The Kentuckians I know aren't quite this eccentric, but whatever.

Gailard Sartain — the venerable character actor — plays a mortician. Sartain was a regular sighting on "Hee Haw" when I was growing up. At my grandpa's house, "Hee Haw" was always on. Seeing Sartain in this film is sort of comforting. Grandpa would approve.

Dad's side of the family comes from Kentucky. I can pick a Kentucky accent out pretty quickly. Unfortunately, there aren't many real Kentuckians in this film. Most of the southerners are from Georgia, Texas, and North Carolina, and that's a shame, but nothing I can't get past.

Unfortunately, the script is off, and that's what bothers me. To create a protagonist, Crowe basically takes Jerry Maguire and Lloyd Dobler, combines them, and puts the character in a shoe company. During Bloom's moment of disclosure around 1:20, I keep waiting for him to spit out Jerry Maguire's line: "I am cloaked in failure!"

Bloom's character could be anybody; we all lose our fathers someday. That's an idea worth pursuing in a script. Why isn't that idea liberating for the writer? As is, we just have this well-worn, Jerry Maguire framework within which Orlando Bloom operates.

As a love interest, we get another plucky girl in the tradition of Kate Hudson's or Renee Zellweger's or even Penelope Cruz's, and I guess I should expect this by now, but I'd like to see Crowe write a completely different female love interest. Maybe even flip the gender roles. Anything to get Kirsten Dunst to stop miming the act of snapping a picture.

Let's just lay everything out. There's no narrative reason for Bloom's character to feel the way he feels or have the kind of failure he experiences. Crowe doesn't need this Jerry Maguire stuff to tell this story. This is a story about Drew going home, reconnecting with his family, reconciling some issues with his deceased father, and reconciling his own failures — but his failures could be any kind of failures. The subplots with the other characters and their arcs are welcome and refreshing — Susan Sarandon as the panicked widow who doesn't know what to do with herself, so she does...everything. I don't care about Drew's "shoe fiasco." I care about these people and how they connect/re-connect.

The method by which Drew attempts to kill himself — taping a huge knife to an exercise machine — is a sight gag that just seems forced. The comedy isn't as spontaneous as we've seen in Crowe's other films. The "60B" crap and driving directions and Drew yelling and talking to himself in the car is all just...tepid. Orlando Bloom is trying here, but he just doesn't have the talent to make weak material look strong.

Does anyone care about athletic shoes? What if Crowe had taken this another way? What if Drew were a successful, but arrogant and neglectful of his family, denying his roots, and then his dad died?

(Well, then you might have Garden State.)

All I can think is, this script is one draft away. I get the feeling Crowe rushed this one. Rework the opening and the two lead characters and you have a much stronger film. But that's just one guy's take. Feel free to start your own blog.

Yet, with all of these complaints, I still can't help but like Elizabethtown.

I see Kirsten Dunst give Orlando Bloom that "unique map" and send him on his road trip, and I hear that shoddy cover band bust out "Free Bird" in the background and start a fire, and I wonder whether I should just let go of all this critical stuff and enjoy the damned film. I think I will. Again.

[Side note: Long before my wife and I got married, she took a job in Santa Fe. I stayed in Indiana. While she was out there, I sent her a package including a road atlas with all the states and major spots between Indiana and New Mexico marked with little notes, the contents of which are none of your business. I sort of borrowed that idea from this film.]

Maybe Cameron Crowe was a bit more creative with his 42 hour, 11 minute, music accompanied pilgrimage. Even if the whole thing is so saccharine and dumb, we get such great music and imagery, I don't even care. There's "Hard Times" by Eastmountainsouth, a band I discovered before Cameron Crowe. There's "Pride" by U2, as Drew reaches the Lorraine Motel. There's a song for so many moments in a Cameron Crowe film, just as there's a song for so many moments in our lives. I associate music with moments. I hear songs and I'm right back there all over again. I'm not the only one.

I could pretty much watch this closing sequence again and again. I've come a long way with Cameron Crowe's record collection. I'm still hooked on his films after 20 years or so.

Crowe shot for the moon and hit the roof with Elizabethtown. The trick for me is being okay with that. I look at this film and wonder what could have been, but I also see what is right in front of me, and I realize, all over again, how much I love that too.

The Electric Horseman

2010-08-10T01:48:00.000-04:00

If you've never heard of The Electric Horseman, I won't be surprised. I'd never heard of this film either before I took a Film Genres course at Ball State.

I never forgot this film after that.

The Electric Horseman is a Sydney Pollack film from 1979 that stars Robert Redford's mustache and chest hair, and Jane Fonda's hilarious clothing, sunglasses, and hairdo. (I'll pause here so that all the Vietnam veterans in the audience can mutter, "Bitch.")

In that Film Genres course, my professor billed this as a populist film, which celebrates popular themes, pitting common people's values against the elite (and often crooked) rich/ruling class/management/whatever. Here's a good list of examples.

Basically, populist films are about the underdog majority; we might be great in numbers, and we're definitely right, but for whatever reason, we are powerless — unless we find a way to rebel.

That's sort of what Sonny Steele, Redford's character, does here. The opening montage gives us a look at Steele's rise as a rodeo star, and his ignominious fall to washed out, drunken sellout reduced to wearing a riding outfit covered in light bulbs and hocking "Ranch Breakfast" cereal. Trust me, the get-up is striking.

But Steele isn't the only character who should be doing something else. We also meet Rising Star, the ironically named (at the time of the story, anyway) race horse that now serves as some corporate behemoth's mascot. His best days are behind him. He was a champion. Now he helps a huge corporation make huge amounts of money.

Steele eventually goes on the lam with Rising Star, who Steele says should be "out to stud" instead of prancing around, drugged up on tranquilizers and in pain. I can't help but think that Steele is also talking about himself.

Fonda's character, a journalist named Hallie, goes after Steele with a camera and every intention of writing a great story.

"Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys" is a frequent refrain. I love the older film styles of the 1960s and 1970s, with that one hit song they play like 60 times in the film. When you get a great song, you play the shit out of it. That's a bygone film technique, but at one point Willie Nelson, Robert Redford, and some other guy break into an a cappella version over adult beverages.

(Oh, and Willie busts out no fewer than three great songs for that soundtrack, including a great cover of the Allman Brothers' "Midnight Rider," which is totally worth hearing. Willie can act, too.)

Pollack peppers the film with great little moments, such as when Steele and Hallie stop by a stream for a bite to eat, and Steele laments on all the wonder of his country, his home. He makes mention of how the whole country was once underwater, and if you dig around in the hardpack, you can find skeletons of the life that used to live there. Hallie just smiles, enjoying that Steele even knows these things. Of course, Steele says, this is his country.

Pollack gives the audience few reasons to side with the corporate bigwigs, all of whom show themselves to be clueless assholes who care about nothing except money and their own livelihoods. They don't count the costs in terms of impact on the world or the people they serve. They think they're doing the right thing. They're not.

Sonny Steele, whose life has lost meaning as he pursues the Almighty Dollar, decides to do the right thing, and damn the cost. He steals the horse.

What follows is kind of a long story, and I can't tell you everything.

At one point, though, Redford and Fonda walk the horse across the plain, purple mountains in the distance, and they sing "America, The Beautiful" with the slightest tinge of irony.

You know, you just don't hear many patriotic songs about money.

Anyway, the story is stirring, albeit saccharine, yet I never forgot The Electric Horseman. I got my mom a copy on VHS for Christmas in the late '90s. I always associated country music and horses with my mom, and knowing her, I figured she'd love this movie. We watched it together, and I was right.

I also associate this film with my grandma. In 2003, Willie Nelson came to Muncie and played on campus. I knew a few months out, and I thought it would be a great idea to take Mom and Grandma.

Well, Grandma died a month or so before the show. I ended up going with Mom and the people we were dating at the time. I really wish I could've taken Grandma too.

While I was grieving, I found myself prowling the iTunes Music Store every night, listening to previews of old country songs from the greats: Waylon, Merle, Johnny, and Willie, of course. George Jones was a big hit. I spent a lot of money I really didn't have on music I ordinarily wouldn't need, but I needed it then. Sure, I could've stolen the music, but I wasn't thinking like that. I just wanted some peace. I could hear my grandmother's voice in my head, and she needed a soundtrack.

Once in a while, this film would pop into my head too. I missed this film. I missed how this film made me feel, and who this film made me think about when I watched.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find the film on DVD. I searched and searched and no store had this one. I didn't want another VHS copy. Finally, I gave up; I bought a copy of the DVD on eBay when the title was out of print, which cost me quite a bit, and I didn't care — this one's a bargain at any price. (How this film was ever out of print confounds me.) I've watched this one two or three times since then. The transfer, or the source, or whatever, looks terrible and sounds meh. But this looks a lot better than VHS, and in widescreen, too. Maybe someday there'll be a Blu-Ray.

I look past Jane Fonda's ridiculous looks. I look past Robert Redford's cowboy thing. I find the country music and popular themes comforting. I look past the fact that this film is blatantly pandering to common people and their values, and in doing so made tons of money. Watching this film is like eating at Cracker Barrel, the restaurant that commodified and perfected the food of the American working class.

This is what people want.

Well, I'm generalizing. This is what I wanted after Grandma died, and when I fell out with Mom, and when I couldn't figure out Dad for the umpteenth time. The Electric Horseman is my comfort food.

This is a good film for me when I can't make sense of my life and the choices I've made and the living I make, or when the things I can't control or change make me feel sort of helpless and the words don't come easily. I can watch a film like this and disappear into the big, sweeping nothingness of America, the best parts, and go the way of Rising Star for a while.

I like to think this film can fix everything, if only for a couple of hours.

Eastern Promises

2010-08-08T02:41:00.003-04:00

I don't normally reach for David Cronenberg films. Often dark and violent, his films require me to visit a specific frame of mind, and that's not always easy.

Actually, I have trouble going there most of the time. I don't like walking away from a film feeling dead inside, and I seem to have labeled Eastern Promises as one of the films that leaves me devastated, even though I'm reminded tonight that such a label is inaccurate. All things considered, Eastern Promises ends on an uplifting note, but if the film's content is any indication of what actually goes on in the world, and the kind of people who live out there, then I'm not sure I want to be reminded all that often, which makes me wonder why I even own the DVD at all.

I got a similar feeling after watching Stephen Frears' Dirty Pretty Things, his film about the black market human organ trade. I love Stephen Frears' films, but I couldn't see myself watching Dirty Pretty Things again because I felt so devastated afterward. I never picked up the film on DVD. I probably won't watch the film again.

With Eastern Promises, though, I kept seeing the DVD in stores and I couldn't stop thinking about the film, most notably Viggo Mortensen's performance as the Russian mobster and Naomi Watts' underrated performance as Anna, the midwife who lost her own child. I decided that I didn't feel quite the same with this one; despite the violence and shock, the story wouldn't let me go. This is a solid piece of writing that ties up just enough, that shows just enough, that I want to go back from time to time.

Cronenberg's films often feature shocking violence and gore, but always seem to know where to put the line between "just enough" and "too much." He does not shy away from graphic content, but his films are not just graphic for graphic's sake. Though disquieting, I get the sense that every moment, every one of Cronenberg's choices, belongs in the film.

Supposedly, Cronenberg is making a sequel, with Viggo Mortensen returning to reprise his role as Nikolai. I've seen several comments questioning why a sequel is necessary, and I don't understand why anybody would refuse such a thing. Nikolai is a character worth reprising, and it's not like Naomi Watts took down the Russian mob. There are stories left to tell, and I'm looking forward to seeing where Cronenberg and Mortensen go next.

Of course, I just might need to find the right frame of mind before I go.

Eagle vs. Shark

2010-07-27T01:13:00.001-04:00

"My mom got kicked in the head by a cow. I can't go near cows now because I think about her too much."

Such is the kind of dialogue you get in Eagle vs. Shark. Here's a choice exchange between brother and sister:

"Stop calling me 'cockhole,' bitch."
"Cockhole."
"Grr! You're a bitch, and you're gonna die of diabetes."

I mean, come on.

Eagle vs. Shark is a terribly underrated and unknown quirkfest of an independent film from New Zealand, directed by Taika Waititi. The protagonist, Lily, is a fast food clerk who has a crush on Jarrod, a video game store clerk (Jemaine Clement from "Flight of the Conchords"). In short, they get together, and Jarrod invites Lily to visit his hometown, so that he can fight his high school nemesis, Eric. When they arrive, Lily meets Jarrod's family. Quirkiness with real emotional depth ensues. You even get whimsical stop-motion animated interludes featuring apples.

As much as I hate the comparison, this is sort of like Napoleon Dynamite, but more heartfelt, and more New Zealand-y. I really don't want to reveal many more specifics about the story of Eagle vs. Shark. You're either in the camp who can take a quirky indie film or you're not.

But I will say that Jarrod wears pants that say "Awesome" down the leg. He also has a mullet. If that does anything for you, like if you want to rent a movie and find yourself in a mood to watch a man with a mullet wearing pants that say "Awesome" down the leg, then I would suggest Eagle vs. Shark.

Unfortunately, films like Eagle vs. Shark, Napoleon Dynamite, and to some degree, Juno, all get lumped together under the umbrella of precious and condescending (and sociopathic, misanthropic, and downright eeeevil) indie comedies, a categorization that I reject. Those critics miss the point.

Here's a screed on Napoleon Dynamite and Eagle vs. Shark, written by someone who openly admits to not watching all of the latter. Obviously he wasn't engaged with the subject matter, which is fine, but he makes some pretty damning accusations about a film he didn't finish.

Eagle vs. Shark is sort of like a Todd Solondz film, but infused with actual joy and humor, and doesn't leave me feeling empty and hopeless, like my heart has been squeezed and my confidence in the goodness of humanity has fallen away. If you want to understand why we have school shootings and why little girls and boys grow up to be horrible people who tell homeless people to get jobs and think Sarah Palin is just neat, then watch a Todd Solondz film. I'm not saying his work is bad, but you'll want antidepressants afterward.

Eagle vs. Shark does the opposite. Despite taking me to dark places and offering awkward, hide-behind-the-couch humor (my wife's phrase), the film ends on a note so uplifting, I really don't want to hear the cynics bitch. (Also, any movie that features The Stone Roses' "This Is The One" under the climactic sequence sells me right there.)

It's not that films like Napoleon Dynamite and Eagle vs. Shark have no heart, or that the directors hate their characters, but you'll hear plenty of critics say that. It's that these characters have so much heart that the directors have trouble getting all of it on the screen. (I know that sounds sentimental, and I don't care.) Waititi's characters harbor deep longing, unfulfilled dreams, and repressed emotional traumas, and they keep going despite their pain, and fuck if they don't find joy in their lives anyway, with quirks as their defense mechanisms against the world and all the bullshit that life has dealt them. These are characters who get up, every day, no matter how much it hurts, and they do stupid, insane things to themselves and other people, and they instantly regret what they've done, and they stumble onward.

To dismiss this film is to not understand; these characters are not empty — they're too full, and what spills over is what they can't contain. There is something rare and beautiful here, and because I identify with these kinds of characters, I find myself laughing not at them, but at the pieces of myself that I see in them.

Drunken Angel

2010-07-26T00:53:00.000-04:00

Drunken Angel is Akira Kurosawa's first film with longtime collaborator Toshiro Mifune, the legendary Japanese actor who appeared in 16 of Kurosawa's films between 1948 and 1965, along with another 160-plus films in his long career.

Here, Mifune plays a gangster who has taken over some territory in postwar Tokyo while the real boss, Okada, is away in prison. Mifune's character is all bravado; he suffers from tuberculosis, one of myriad diseases to strike postwar Japan. Kurosawa's tackling the issues of the time is a brave move that elevates this picture from your standard noir exercise to film art, and for these reasons, the film is widely considered Kurosawa's breakthrough piece.

But Mifune is not alone here; his opposite number is a bristly doctor played by Takashi Shimura, who Kurosawa cast in more than 20 films from 1943 to 1980 (yes, I'm looking at the same Wikipedia entry as you; I'm not writing a master's thesis here). Although the Kurosawa-Mifune collaboration is a bit more widely known, Kurosawa's collaboration with Shimura started earlier and ended later, resulting in more finished films and a much richer legacy.

All trivia aside, what really works for me in Drunken Angel is the writing — at once embedded in the context of postwar Tokyo and presenting characters still relevant in the present day. Kurosawa and co-writer Keinosuke Uekusa based Mifune's character loosely on a gangster Uekusa knew personally, but the two writers struggled with Shimura's character, fighting to keep the doctor interesting and fully formed rather than a wooden do-gooder whose altruism would bore audiences and ring false. Only when Uekusa and Kurosawa remembered an alcoholic doctor they both knew in Yokohama did they find the inspiration for Shimura's character here. They needed a character with flaws rather than someone who exuded plain goodness.

That kind of character development and contrast is essential for storytellers. Yet every day, hundreds of scripts float around Hollywood with exactly this problem.

Kurosawa's films always seem informed by his life experiences, but not so much that his stories were overwhelmed. Here, he clearly bases his two leads on real people from his life, and in doing so creates two of his strongest characters, possibly the strongest characters he'd created at this point in his career.

I often feel uncreative when I base characters and/or events in my scripts and short stories on real people and experiences. Anybody can write down something that actually happened, right? The real writer is the one who can create from nothingness, right? I then have to remind myself that there is no such thing as "writing from nothingness."

Writing doesn't happen in a vacuum. We write from somewhere; good writers just have the strength of articulation. We don't choose the events, but we do choose the words. Throughout Kurosawa's career, he used real people and experiences as fodder for his work; there's nothing wrong with this. Sometimes these things are truer. But we can't forget the drama and the structure, too.

At about the 45-minute mark, Kurosawa turns to the guitar player who has been plunking away at the same song in the streets at night. Out of the shadows steps an older man who asks to see the guitar. He takes a seat and plays a more complicated tune (well, he mimes playing — the sync is off and so are the placements of his fingers). This is Okada, the boss that Mifune's character has replaced. Just as Mifune's and Shimura's characters have buried the hatchet, a bigger fish arrives (unbeknownst to them) to raise the stakes. That's good writing.

Drunken Angel tackles some issues that you just didn't hear much about in postwar American film. Although the Japanese couldn't depict the occupying military force at the time (along with several other prickly censorship regulations), in America, you'd be hard-pressed to find a mainstream film from the same time period that openly discusses syphilis and uses profanity. Drunken Angel does that, and along with depicting characters closely resembling people, places, and a time the writers knew, seems all the more real for doing so.