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If you know me, or if you've been reading along with this blog from the beginning, you know how much I love college football. It's important to me, and it's not that I just cheer for a particular team passionately (which I do) but that I also fancy myself an exceedingly amateur college football historian. It's why in a lot of ways I'm really glad a biopic of Syracuse running back Ernie Davis, the first African-American to win the Heisman Trophy, has reached the big screen. Most people know about Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in baseball and Jesse Owens' four gold medals at the Berlin Olympics and Texas Western University starting five black players against five white players from the University of Kentucky en route to winning the 1966 NCAA Basketball Championship (recorded not all that faithfully in the film "Glory Road") but not as many people know about the 1960 Cotton Bowl in which Syracuse took three black players into the heart of Texas and Jim Crow and defeated the Lone Star State's favorite team in a racially charged game. A game in which Davis accepted the Cotton Bowl MVP afterwards at a Dallas country club....and then had to leave since the club didn't allow blacks. But sports movie tend to trod a well-worn path and every time the screenwriter and director approach a fork in the road for some reason they tend to ignore the sage advice of poet Robert Frost and take the road more traveled.
Before going any further I should probably state for the record that my affection for the sport means I'm probably not the best person to offer fair analysis. In his review for the esteemed New York Times, A.O. Scott stated that the majority of viewers' "knowledge of college football in the 1960's is hazy or non-existent." And that's probably accurate. And maybe those people can enjoy this movie more than me. My knowledge of college football at that time is not hazy nor non-existent. I know about Ernie Davis and I know about the 1960 Cotton Bowl and....but I'll get to that.
So, as established, "The Express" is fairly standard. The most important relationship is between player and coach (Ben Schwarzwalder who is played here by Dennis Quaid, a solid performance in which he apparently gargled with gravel before each take) and there is a grotequesly underdeveloped love interest and a Best Friend/Teammate (Omar Benson Miller) and a supportive uncle (Charles Dutton who, along with the appearance of the man who played Notre Dame coach Dan Devine in "Rudy" as the Syracuse athletic director, apparently means these two are required to be in college football movies) and dialogue that isn't so much words as it is platitudes and, of course, the Inspirational Locker Room Speech (which is fairly weak, actually - I'd give two out of ten) and a heap of sap. But it does have a few things going for it.
I liked the way it showed that even at a school in the north there was a still a clear racial divide and I thought the film did a pretty good job of showing how the coach was somewhat uncomfortable with the idea of blacks playing for him but also recognized the best player should play and slowly came to have his eyes opened with no small assist by Davis himself and, hey, I liked the music score, too, in the way it lent the feel of a collegiate marching band to most of it.
Unfortunately, Rob Brown is a bit disappointing in the lead role. Yes, he looks a lot like the real-life Ernie Davis, but he's very just very blah. No charisma. His smile when he wins the Heisman Trophy is just so phony. I would have preferred Derek Luke, a terrific actor, or, if they could have made this movie several years ago, a younger Will Smith.
But my main issue boils down to the following question: why do sports movies so routinely insist on fudging facts when it's not necessary? I understand that not every single fact can be represented faithfully and not every word every person said was written down and, for God's sake, I'm even willing to forgive the fact "The Express" teaches us that Ernie Davis learned he would make a good running back in much the same manner as Forrest Gump. Sometimes, though, movies take it too far in their re-ordering of the truth for what the filmmakers (in this case Gary Fleder as director and Charles Leavitt as writer) would probably call "dramatic license".
As a young boy Ernie Davis grew up with a stutter and he overcame it the older he got, particularly because he was forced to deal with more social circumstances the more famous he became for his exploits on the football field. The movie, however, solves his stutter in a single passage when the Uncle has Ernie read a bible passage at the dinner table and tells him to take a breath. Really? Really?
The aforementioned "Glory Road" was guilty of taking a landmark event and turning it around because Texas Western did not come from behind to defeat Kentucky in 1966. They led the whole game. Ernie Davis had an injured hamstring in the 1960 Cotton Bowl, yes, but he did not sit out after halftime only to return heroically against his coach's wish and lead his team to victory. He played the whole game. The 87 yard touchdown catch you see Davis after the make-believe return-from-the-locker-room moment happened, sure, but it happened on the third play of the game, not in the fourth quarter.
Perhaps I'm nit-picking. But perhaps not. The movie is correct that there was a brawl in the game - purported to be incited by a racial slur by one of the Texas players and chronicled in Life Magazine at the time - but they also make the 1960 Cotton Bowl appear to have a crowd that was nothing beyond 50,000 about-to-riot Texans wearing ten gallon hats. I'm surprised these extras weren't given six-shooters to wave wildly.
Likewise the scene set during a game against West Virginia in which their home crowd is portrayed as bottle-throwing thugs which causes Quaid's coach to not allow Davis to score a touchdown for fear of a riot only to watch as Davis refuses his coach's order and goes ahead and scores never happened. Not only did it not happen the game against West Virginia that particular season wasn't played at West Virginia. It was played in Syracuse.
Clearly the filmmakers were trying to craft a morality play, demonstrating racial prejudice during that period in America. Okay, that's fine. But do you really have to change things up so radically to do so? "Glory Road", again, had coach Don Haskins (played by Josh Lucas) tell his team he was starting five black players to make a social statement. Except, of course, that never happened. Haskins started five players, as he said again and again before passing away earlier this year, simply because it gave his team the best chance to win. His decision was made solely for the sake of the game and therefore wound up transcending the game. It's the same damn thing with Ernie Davis but the movie refuses to show it that way.
In real life Davis was a soft-spoken, warm person who did not particularly like confrontation. The movie has him making statements-making statements in regards to racism. But in real life, most especially in that crucial Cotton Bowl game, he never made statements-made statements. He did his - as they have the movie Davis say at one point - "talking on the field."
The problem is "The Express" doesn't have him do his talking on the field.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
Rachel Getting Married
I think it happened. In fact, I'm pretty sure it did. If it didn't, I truly can't wait until it does. All this is to say that yesterday I think I saw the best film of 2008. Jonathan Demme's "Rachel Getting Married", a title that both says it all and doesn't begin to, is pretty much perfect. The direction is fantastic, the writing is marvelous, the acting is uniformly sound, and standing at the center of it all is a layered, staggering, shattering performance by Anne Hathaway as the sister of the title character. It remains to be seen whether or not Hathaway will win the Best Actress Oscar but I know this (and I say it as someone who has never been overly impressed by her acting): she sure as hell should.
Kym (Hathaway) is a recovering addict, has been for 10 years, and is currently mired in rehab. She is released for the weekend to attend the wedding of her sister Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt) to kind, soft-spoken Sidney (Tunde Adebimpe, who in real life doubles as a founding member of the infintely amazing band TV on the Radio and don't presume they didn't cast him for that reason) that is to be held at the family's sprawling Connecticut estate.
This, of course, is not all, but what the script by Jenny Lumet (who I read today is the daughter of renowned director Sidney "Dog Day Afternoon" Lumet) does is not force the drama. What I mean when I say that is her script uses a wedding spread out over the weekend as its structure. It follows the preparation and the ceremony beat-by-beat and lets the drama play itself out within these moments.
Kym arrives home and instantly becomes angered to learn a friend of Rachel's and not she will be maid of honor. She won't let it go. And we see, whether she can help it or not, Kym wants it all to be about her, and maybe this has been her primary problem all along. And maybe Rachel knows it. We see a scene in which Father-In-Law and Son-In-Law stage a contest to find out who can load the dishwasher the fastest as the family looks on. I know how that might sound in print but what the scene does is show the two men connecting without one or the other saying aloud, "Boy, we're really connecting, aren't we?" And then the scene flips and, wouldn't you know it, makes it about Kym. There is a scene in which an Unexpected Pregnancy is announced and I know that seems cliched but notice its placement in this movie. It is put where it is for a reason and is used not as a way to "shock" the audience but as ammunition by the character.
The direction by Demme includes a wandering camera, moving around the house, in and out of rooms, many, many handheld shots, that works not to lend it a pseudo-documentary feel but to put us, the audience, in that house with everyone else. We're there, we're right alongside them, we're experiencing things as they do. None of this feels pre-determined. It's all authentic.
The authenticity is reinforced by the decision not to use a regular movie score and instead have all the music of the film - and there is a lot - played by people in the movie. The two families coming together because of this wedding are different - one is white, one is black, but no one ever says this because why should they? They obviously don't care - and this gives space for rock and jazz and classical and much more. The scene over the closing credits is not to be missed. It seems like a throwaway, and doesn't fundamentally change a thing, but is this not one woman finding solace in music? It's overwhelmingly important, I think.
And so is Hathaway. This is monumental work and should crack her future wide open. She pulls the trick DeNiro used to wherein she somehow morphs into a completely different person. It's not just that her hair is chopped shorter, but she seems paler and more frail. Clinging to her cigarettes like life preservers, clearly affected by a mother (Debra Winger, that great actress who only turns up sparingly in movies these days) who makes both entrances and exits at the wrong times because she puts herself first, Kym wobbles on a tender thread of a tightrope between immense happiness and deep sadness, sometimes as if she has one foot in each world simultaneously. She is affected by everything, perhaps too much. Damn near each scene takes her through a full palette of emotion and never more stunningly than the breathless monlogue in which she offers her toast at a pre-wedding ceremony to Rachel. This entire sequence is great and feels just like real life but you feel Kym's inevitable speech looming over it all, and when it comes it's atypical because Hathaway never goes overboard one way or the other. She doesn't fly off the handle nor does she rise to the occassion and turn sentimental. It finds the perfect middle ground and becomes at once horrifying and tragically moving.
"Rachel Getting Married" could have just been about a wedding (like Robert Altmann's "A Wedding" which was slight) but it's Hathaway's Kym that makes it so much more. You have to let go, whether your problems are big or small, and maybe there is no difference when it comes to the issues of life, you know? They're all big. But you gotta' let them go.
As I walked home a couple stanzas that Adebimpe wrote and sang in his band played over and over in my head and I think could work as the synopsis I sincerely apologize for having failed to give.
Kindly reverse the order
Of the options you've laid before you
The needle, the dirty spoon
The flames and the fumes
Just throw them out tonight
Don't keep it silent and tortured
Or shove it under the floorboards
Your busted heart will be fine
In its tell tale time
So give it up tonight
Kym (Hathaway) is a recovering addict, has been for 10 years, and is currently mired in rehab. She is released for the weekend to attend the wedding of her sister Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt) to kind, soft-spoken Sidney (Tunde Adebimpe, who in real life doubles as a founding member of the infintely amazing band TV on the Radio and don't presume they didn't cast him for that reason) that is to be held at the family's sprawling Connecticut estate.
This, of course, is not all, but what the script by Jenny Lumet (who I read today is the daughter of renowned director Sidney "Dog Day Afternoon" Lumet) does is not force the drama. What I mean when I say that is her script uses a wedding spread out over the weekend as its structure. It follows the preparation and the ceremony beat-by-beat and lets the drama play itself out within these moments.
Kym arrives home and instantly becomes angered to learn a friend of Rachel's and not she will be maid of honor. She won't let it go. And we see, whether she can help it or not, Kym wants it all to be about her, and maybe this has been her primary problem all along. And maybe Rachel knows it. We see a scene in which Father-In-Law and Son-In-Law stage a contest to find out who can load the dishwasher the fastest as the family looks on. I know how that might sound in print but what the scene does is show the two men connecting without one or the other saying aloud, "Boy, we're really connecting, aren't we?" And then the scene flips and, wouldn't you know it, makes it about Kym. There is a scene in which an Unexpected Pregnancy is announced and I know that seems cliched but notice its placement in this movie. It is put where it is for a reason and is used not as a way to "shock" the audience but as ammunition by the character.
The direction by Demme includes a wandering camera, moving around the house, in and out of rooms, many, many handheld shots, that works not to lend it a pseudo-documentary feel but to put us, the audience, in that house with everyone else. We're there, we're right alongside them, we're experiencing things as they do. None of this feels pre-determined. It's all authentic.
The authenticity is reinforced by the decision not to use a regular movie score and instead have all the music of the film - and there is a lot - played by people in the movie. The two families coming together because of this wedding are different - one is white, one is black, but no one ever says this because why should they? They obviously don't care - and this gives space for rock and jazz and classical and much more. The scene over the closing credits is not to be missed. It seems like a throwaway, and doesn't fundamentally change a thing, but is this not one woman finding solace in music? It's overwhelmingly important, I think.
And so is Hathaway. This is monumental work and should crack her future wide open. She pulls the trick DeNiro used to wherein she somehow morphs into a completely different person. It's not just that her hair is chopped shorter, but she seems paler and more frail. Clinging to her cigarettes like life preservers, clearly affected by a mother (Debra Winger, that great actress who only turns up sparingly in movies these days) who makes both entrances and exits at the wrong times because she puts herself first, Kym wobbles on a tender thread of a tightrope between immense happiness and deep sadness, sometimes as if she has one foot in each world simultaneously. She is affected by everything, perhaps too much. Damn near each scene takes her through a full palette of emotion and never more stunningly than the breathless monlogue in which she offers her toast at a pre-wedding ceremony to Rachel. This entire sequence is great and feels just like real life but you feel Kym's inevitable speech looming over it all, and when it comes it's atypical because Hathaway never goes overboard one way or the other. She doesn't fly off the handle nor does she rise to the occassion and turn sentimental. It finds the perfect middle ground and becomes at once horrifying and tragically moving.
"Rachel Getting Married" could have just been about a wedding (like Robert Altmann's "A Wedding" which was slight) but it's Hathaway's Kym that makes it so much more. You have to let go, whether your problems are big or small, and maybe there is no difference when it comes to the issues of life, you know? They're all big. But you gotta' let them go.
As I walked home a couple stanzas that Adebimpe wrote and sang in his band played over and over in my head and I think could work as the synopsis I sincerely apologize for having failed to give.
Kindly reverse the order
Of the options you've laid before you
The needle, the dirty spoon
The flames and the fumes
Just throw them out tonight
Don't keep it silent and tortured
Or shove it under the floorboards
Your busted heart will be fine
In its tell tale time
So give it up tonight
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
The Greatest Inspirational Speech In The Locker Room
I'm hoping to finally indulge in the long-anticipated (for me) Ernie Davis biopic "The Express" this evening and having glimpsed the previews wherein Dennis Quad delivers what will clearly be the Inspirational Speech In The Locker Room, I, as I must, got to thinking. What epitomizes the most quintessential of all Sports Movie scenes?
When I first had this thought I simply assumed I'd be writing about Gene Hackman's pep talk at the end of "Hoosiers". (By the way, my favorite movie-watching moment so far of this year occurred the Monday before the start of the NCAA Tournament when I re-watched "Hoosiers" with my friends Dave, Matt and Trish. It was beautiful, just beautiful. I had one too many scotches and still felt like I could have run five miles once it ended. The ironic note was the end of the film nearly parralleled the end of Drake University's Tournament game five days later. Much like Hickory High found itself in a tie game as the clock ticked down to zero with the ball in the hands of its star player Jimmy Chitwood, Drake found itself in a tie game as the clock ticked down to zero with the ball in the hands of its star player Adam Emmenecker. And as this was happening Matt was grabbing hold of me and yelling, "It's just like Jimmy Chitwood!" But there the comparison ends. Jimmy Chitwood made the shot. Adam Emmenecker didn't. And then Western Kentucky stabbed Drake fans in the heart with that heave. Remember the conclusion of the game Hickory wins to get into the championship? Ollie makes the two free throws and then the opposing player heaves the ball from half-court? Well, the heave in the movie almost goes in. Really. Watch it. Well, imagine if the heave had gone in and how Hickory would have felt. That's what it felt like when Western Kentucky made their heave.)
So I fired up the "Hoosiers" DVD and skipped to the scene before the championship game and found that the Inspirational Speech In The Locker Room isn't really there. In fact, Gene Hackman actually says, "It's way past big speech time." Instead he has the other players talk before the pastor who doubles as the team's bus driver reads the David and Goliath passage from the Bible and then Gene Hackman tells his guys he loves them. Moving, moving stuff, but it actually goes against the grain of the Inspirational Speech In The Locker Room.
My mind then drifted somewhere else, specifically to Oliver Stone's over-stuffed, over-zealous 1999 professional football opus "Any Given Sunday". If you recall, this film had a massive, sprawling cast (and when I say sprawling, I mean it - imagine Charlton Heston as the league commissioner and Ann Margaret as the team's owner's mother and even Elizabeth Berkley as a young woman who makes a living, shall we say, "turning tricks") over which Al Pacino as head coach Tony D'Amato lorded. Now in his twilight years the esteemed Mr. Pacino has gained a reputation - not unfair - of doing nothing more than yelling, of turning up the volume regardless of scene and situation. My friend and colleague Brad so accurately noted that in the third act of "The Devil's Advocate" Pacino "essentially scream(ed) an entire conversation." The Inspirational Speech In The Locker Room, however, practically begs for extravagant theatrical showmanship. Whether it was intentional or not, I don't know, but Stone found the perfect actor, given Pacino's late career propensity for hollering.
The other two staples of the Inspirational Speech In The Locker Room are hyperbole and cliches. Gobs of it, rolling like moss off trees in Savannah. But in this particular situation its at once forgivable and necessary. Why? The Inspirational Speech In The Locker Room's roots are in reality. Sort of, anyway.
I assume they started long before Knute Rockne became head football coach at Notre Dame in the teens and twenties but the one real-life Inspirational Speech In The Locker Room that probably even non-sports fans know is Rockne telling his team the dying words of the great George Gipp (immortalized in the film "Knute Rockne, All American").
"Sometime when the team is up against it and the breaks are beating the boys, tell them to go out there with all they got and win just one for the Gipper."
(Note: This speech, of course, was parodied wonderfully in "Airplane!" by Leslie Nielsen when he implored Robert Hays to "get out there and win just one for The Zipper").
But was Rockne even really at The Gipper's bedside as he claimed to be in said speech? Were the words Rockne used truly spoken by the dying Gipp? History indicates nay on both charges. And it's also a known fact that Rockne did not have a sick child, which he also claimed during another Inspirational Speech In The Locker Room. So there you go, real-life Inspirational Speeches In The Locker Room were born of lies, cliches and hyperbole. That's why when Oliver Stone uses them in "Any Given Sunday" it's perfect.
(Note: It is generally believed former Nebraska Football Head Coach Bill Callahan gave The Worst Inspirational Locker Room Speech of all time prior to his team's 41-6 loss to Missouri in 2007. He is reported to have said the following: "Hey, guys, a lot of people don't think we can win this one. Frankly, I don't either. Who knows? None us really know anything. Do we? Nope. We don't. Life, she's a mystery. Sort of like my gameplan. Which I accidentally left on my table at Applebees last night. Boy, those mini bacon cheeseburgers were dynamite. If you can play as well as they tasted, well, guys, we can win this game. Maybe. Again, I don't want to say anything definitive. So let's go play.")
D'Amato is the coach of the Miami Sharks in whatever fake football league Stone conjured up and they have, of course, had a rough season. Quarterback controversy, team owner breathing down coach's neck to inject "new life", James Woods running amuck as a morally corrupt trainer, stock footage of "Ben Hur" and storm clouds rolling in, the list goes on.
The speech starts: "Now either we heal as a team, or we're gonna crumble. Inch by inch, play by play -- till we're finished. We're in hell right now, gentlemen. Believe me. And we can stay here....or we can climb out one inch at a time."
Football is what, boys and girls? A game of....inches!!! That's right! It's verbiage straight out of the Cliche Manual, which, as we've established, is a good thing in this scenario, but delivered for maximum effect by a (stunningly) restrained Pacino.
It continues: "Now I can't do it for you, I'm too old. I look around I see these young faces and I think, I've made every wrong choice a middle aged man can make. I pissed away all my money, believe it or not. I chased off anyone who's ever loved me. And lately I can't even stand the face I see in the mirror."
Now he injects a bit of the personal hocus pocus. Like Rockne using The Gipper and his own son as mere motivational tools, D'Amato is using himself.
"In either life or football, the margin for error is so small....one half step too late or too early and you don't quite make it. One half second to slow or to fast, you don't quite catch it. The inches we need are everywhere around us....on this team we fight for that inch. On this team we tear ourselves and everyone else around us to pieces for that inch! We claw with our fingernails for that inch! Because we know when we add up all those inches that's going to make the difference between winning and losing! Between living and dying!"
Now the Pacino we know turns up! Voice raised, spit flying, eyes terrorizing, screaming like hell hath no fury! (Note: For months after I saw this movie in the theater I would, for no good reason, every now and then scream at my roommate Chad, "We claw with our fingernails for that inch!" I think he enjoyed it.)
"I'm still willing to fight and die for that inch! Because that's what living is! The six inches in front of your face! Now I can't make you do it! You gotta' look at the guy next to you....I think you're gonna see a guy who will go that inch with you! You're gonna see a guy who will sacrifice himself for this team because he knows when it comes down to it, you're going to do the same for him! That's a team, gentlemen, and either we heal now as a team...."
At this point, Pacino, still yelling like Buddy Rich at his backing band, suddenly stomps on the brake and dials it way back in a split second to conclude.
"....or we will die as individuals. That's football guys. That's all it is. Now, what are you going to do?"
In nearly every other scene in the film Pacino is the twilight years-Pacino, ranting and raving. But in this scene it's almost as if he's once again....(gasp!) acting. He's like, dare I say, a once-brilliant football player who has lost "it" but suddenly regains "it" at a crucial moment in a key game. It's like Oliver Stone said to Pacino right before the cameras started rolling, "Hey, Al, dial it up. Yell as much as you want." To which Pacino replied, "I'll be damned if you're gonna' tell me how to act!" and so, to show Oliver who was boss, he did the opposite.
I think Pacino is missing a golden opportunity to rake in some more dough with this whole thing. Sports teams should hire his services. Seriously, watch this scene and tell me the man wasn't born to deliver Inspirational Speeches In The Locker Room. If you want to give one, you have to indulge in at least a few cliches. If you want to indulge in a few cliches, you have to froth at the mouth to make them convincing. If you have to froth at the mouth, well, sorry, but you and no one else can froth at the mouth like Al Pacino.
(Watch the speech here.)
When I first had this thought I simply assumed I'd be writing about Gene Hackman's pep talk at the end of "Hoosiers". (By the way, my favorite movie-watching moment so far of this year occurred the Monday before the start of the NCAA Tournament when I re-watched "Hoosiers" with my friends Dave, Matt and Trish. It was beautiful, just beautiful. I had one too many scotches and still felt like I could have run five miles once it ended. The ironic note was the end of the film nearly parralleled the end of Drake University's Tournament game five days later. Much like Hickory High found itself in a tie game as the clock ticked down to zero with the ball in the hands of its star player Jimmy Chitwood, Drake found itself in a tie game as the clock ticked down to zero with the ball in the hands of its star player Adam Emmenecker. And as this was happening Matt was grabbing hold of me and yelling, "It's just like Jimmy Chitwood!" But there the comparison ends. Jimmy Chitwood made the shot. Adam Emmenecker didn't. And then Western Kentucky stabbed Drake fans in the heart with that heave. Remember the conclusion of the game Hickory wins to get into the championship? Ollie makes the two free throws and then the opposing player heaves the ball from half-court? Well, the heave in the movie almost goes in. Really. Watch it. Well, imagine if the heave had gone in and how Hickory would have felt. That's what it felt like when Western Kentucky made their heave.)
So I fired up the "Hoosiers" DVD and skipped to the scene before the championship game and found that the Inspirational Speech In The Locker Room isn't really there. In fact, Gene Hackman actually says, "It's way past big speech time." Instead he has the other players talk before the pastor who doubles as the team's bus driver reads the David and Goliath passage from the Bible and then Gene Hackman tells his guys he loves them. Moving, moving stuff, but it actually goes against the grain of the Inspirational Speech In The Locker Room.My mind then drifted somewhere else, specifically to Oliver Stone's over-stuffed, over-zealous 1999 professional football opus "Any Given Sunday". If you recall, this film had a massive, sprawling cast (and when I say sprawling, I mean it - imagine Charlton Heston as the league commissioner and Ann Margaret as the team's owner's mother and even Elizabeth Berkley as a young woman who makes a living, shall we say, "turning tricks") over which Al Pacino as head coach Tony D'Amato lorded. Now in his twilight years the esteemed Mr. Pacino has gained a reputation - not unfair - of doing nothing more than yelling, of turning up the volume regardless of scene and situation. My friend and colleague Brad so accurately noted that in the third act of "The Devil's Advocate" Pacino "essentially scream(ed) an entire conversation." The Inspirational Speech In The Locker Room, however, practically begs for extravagant theatrical showmanship. Whether it was intentional or not, I don't know, but Stone found the perfect actor, given Pacino's late career propensity for hollering.
The other two staples of the Inspirational Speech In The Locker Room are hyperbole and cliches. Gobs of it, rolling like moss off trees in Savannah. But in this particular situation its at once forgivable and necessary. Why? The Inspirational Speech In The Locker Room's roots are in reality. Sort of, anyway.
I assume they started long before Knute Rockne became head football coach at Notre Dame in the teens and twenties but the one real-life Inspirational Speech In The Locker Room that probably even non-sports fans know is Rockne telling his team the dying words of the great George Gipp (immortalized in the film "Knute Rockne, All American").
"Sometime when the team is up against it and the breaks are beating the boys, tell them to go out there with all they got and win just one for the Gipper."
(Note: This speech, of course, was parodied wonderfully in "Airplane!" by Leslie Nielsen when he implored Robert Hays to "get out there and win just one for The Zipper").
But was Rockne even really at The Gipper's bedside as he claimed to be in said speech? Were the words Rockne used truly spoken by the dying Gipp? History indicates nay on both charges. And it's also a known fact that Rockne did not have a sick child, which he also claimed during another Inspirational Speech In The Locker Room. So there you go, real-life Inspirational Speeches In The Locker Room were born of lies, cliches and hyperbole. That's why when Oliver Stone uses them in "Any Given Sunday" it's perfect.
(Note: It is generally believed former Nebraska Football Head Coach Bill Callahan gave The Worst Inspirational Locker Room Speech of all time prior to his team's 41-6 loss to Missouri in 2007. He is reported to have said the following: "Hey, guys, a lot of people don't think we can win this one. Frankly, I don't either. Who knows? None us really know anything. Do we? Nope. We don't. Life, she's a mystery. Sort of like my gameplan. Which I accidentally left on my table at Applebees last night. Boy, those mini bacon cheeseburgers were dynamite. If you can play as well as they tasted, well, guys, we can win this game. Maybe. Again, I don't want to say anything definitive. So let's go play.")
D'Amato is the coach of the Miami Sharks in whatever fake football league Stone conjured up and they have, of course, had a rough season. Quarterback controversy, team owner breathing down coach's neck to inject "new life", James Woods running amuck as a morally corrupt trainer, stock footage of "Ben Hur" and storm clouds rolling in, the list goes on.
The speech starts: "Now either we heal as a team, or we're gonna crumble. Inch by inch, play by play -- till we're finished. We're in hell right now, gentlemen. Believe me. And we can stay here....or we can climb out one inch at a time."Football is what, boys and girls? A game of....inches!!! That's right! It's verbiage straight out of the Cliche Manual, which, as we've established, is a good thing in this scenario, but delivered for maximum effect by a (stunningly) restrained Pacino.
It continues: "Now I can't do it for you, I'm too old. I look around I see these young faces and I think, I've made every wrong choice a middle aged man can make. I pissed away all my money, believe it or not. I chased off anyone who's ever loved me. And lately I can't even stand the face I see in the mirror."
Now he injects a bit of the personal hocus pocus. Like Rockne using The Gipper and his own son as mere motivational tools, D'Amato is using himself.
"In either life or football, the margin for error is so small....one half step too late or too early and you don't quite make it. One half second to slow or to fast, you don't quite catch it. The inches we need are everywhere around us....on this team we fight for that inch. On this team we tear ourselves and everyone else around us to pieces for that inch! We claw with our fingernails for that inch! Because we know when we add up all those inches that's going to make the difference between winning and losing! Between living and dying!"
Now the Pacino we know turns up! Voice raised, spit flying, eyes terrorizing, screaming like hell hath no fury! (Note: For months after I saw this movie in the theater I would, for no good reason, every now and then scream at my roommate Chad, "We claw with our fingernails for that inch!" I think he enjoyed it.)
"I'm still willing to fight and die for that inch! Because that's what living is! The six inches in front of your face! Now I can't make you do it! You gotta' look at the guy next to you....I think you're gonna see a guy who will go that inch with you! You're gonna see a guy who will sacrifice himself for this team because he knows when it comes down to it, you're going to do the same for him! That's a team, gentlemen, and either we heal now as a team...."
At this point, Pacino, still yelling like Buddy Rich at his backing band, suddenly stomps on the brake and dials it way back in a split second to conclude.
"....or we will die as individuals. That's football guys. That's all it is. Now, what are you going to do?"
In nearly every other scene in the film Pacino is the twilight years-Pacino, ranting and raving. But in this scene it's almost as if he's once again....(gasp!) acting. He's like, dare I say, a once-brilliant football player who has lost "it" but suddenly regains "it" at a crucial moment in a key game. It's like Oliver Stone said to Pacino right before the cameras started rolling, "Hey, Al, dial it up. Yell as much as you want." To which Pacino replied, "I'll be damned if you're gonna' tell me how to act!" and so, to show Oliver who was boss, he did the opposite.
I think Pacino is missing a golden opportunity to rake in some more dough with this whole thing. Sports teams should hire his services. Seriously, watch this scene and tell me the man wasn't born to deliver Inspirational Speeches In The Locker Room. If you want to give one, you have to indulge in at least a few cliches. If you want to indulge in a few cliches, you have to froth at the mouth to make them convincing. If you have to froth at the mouth, well, sorry, but you and no one else can froth at the mouth like Al Pacino.
(Watch the speech here.)
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
One Man's Journey to Prefontaine-Land
So my pilgrimmage to the filming sites of "Without Limits" has concluded. Yes, there were many other happenings during my journey - like an Elizabethan production of "Our Town" outdoors (on a 30 degree night, a fact which I rather enjoyed) in Ashland, Oregon and a brief stop in Mount Shasta, California, the setting of one of the very first screenplays I ever authored about a rash of drive-by coconutings, and an inadvertent visit to one of the "deadliest beaches in California" (don't ask) - and, yes, I failed in my quest to re-enact the scene in Eugene, Oregon outside McArthur Court on the university campus when Billy Crudup says to Monica Potter, "Do you know where McArthur Court is?" and she looks back toward it, right behind her, and subtly raises her eyes at it because 1.) I wasn't driving a convertible and 2.) There were no Monica Potter look-alikes (and my sister wanted absolutely nothing to do with any re-enactments), but all that matters not.
I have set foot on historic Hayward Field, the same track where Pre himself used to win just about every race he ever started. And, let me tell you, I'd never been on an Olympic-quality track (and it is Olympic-quality, considering the U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials were contested there just a few months ago) and, man, it was like walking on a fricking cloud. It wasn't just a far cry but a far shrieking holler from the cinder Waukee High School used to pass off as a track.
I have visited Pre's Rock, the site of the terrible car crash that took America's greatest long distance runner's life much, much, much too soon.
So, you're thinking, where's this cinema-obsessed idiot going next? Well, maybe nowhere movie-related. How about that? I mean, come on, what do you think I did this morning? Googled filming locations for "Atonement"? C'mon, that's just crazy talk.
Historic Hayward Field.
The Hayward Field track, up close and personal.
The memorial to Pre outside Hayward Field.
Oops! How did this get in here?! Anyway, it's the view from my hotel patio in California. Every morning of every day of everyone's life should begin with coffee while looking at the Pacific.
Pre's Rock. If you look closely you will see an old race number emblazoned with the words Quad City Times. It's nice to think someone else from Iowa made the pilgrimmage (unless they were from Moline, I guess, or Rock Island, but I don't think so). Sorry, but we won't discuss what I left.
I have set foot on historic Hayward Field, the same track where Pre himself used to win just about every race he ever started. And, let me tell you, I'd never been on an Olympic-quality track (and it is Olympic-quality, considering the U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials were contested there just a few months ago) and, man, it was like walking on a fricking cloud. It wasn't just a far cry but a far shrieking holler from the cinder Waukee High School used to pass off as a track.
I have visited Pre's Rock, the site of the terrible car crash that took America's greatest long distance runner's life much, much, much too soon.
So, you're thinking, where's this cinema-obsessed idiot going next? Well, maybe nowhere movie-related. How about that? I mean, come on, what do you think I did this morning? Googled filming locations for "Atonement"? C'mon, that's just crazy talk.
Historic Hayward Field.
The Hayward Field track, up close and personal.
The memorial to Pre outside Hayward Field.
Oops! How did this get in here?! Anyway, it's the view from my hotel patio in California. Every morning of every day of everyone's life should begin with coffee while looking at the Pacific.
Pre's Rock. If you look closely you will see an old race number emblazoned with the words Quad City Times. It's nice to think someone else from Iowa made the pilgrimmage (unless they were from Moline, I guess, or Rock Island, but I don't think so). Sorry, but we won't discuss what I left.
Friday, October 03, 2008
When A Lie Comes True
When I made my pilgrimmage to North Carolina two years ago to visit "The Last of the Mohicans" filming sites and, among other things, sit for two hours beside the waterfall at right, I had concocted a fib in my head wherein if anyone (i.e. Attractive Women) asked my purpose for visiting the Tar Heel State I would advise I was writing an article for a Chicago magazine wherein I was drafted to visit the filming sites for a few of my favorite movies. My fake itinerary? First, Elizabethtown, KY for, obviously, "Elizabethtown" (which I did actually pass through on my way to North Carolina). Second, North Carolina for "Last of the Mohicans" (which was, of course, actually true). Third, Maine for "The Myth of Fingerprints". 
Fourth, Oregon for "Without Limits". That was my ready-made lie that I, as expected, was never able to use since I rarely ever ran into attractive women and the one time I did she naturally asked nothing beyond, "Would you like another beer?"
But strange things have been afoot since my creation of that tall tale unused. For the very next summer my beloved sister wound up working for Americore in Maine, allowing me the opportunity to visit Andover, ME and Bethel, ME and sit in the same gazebo as Julianne Moore and James Legros and commune with the spirits of Warren and Daphne and all the rest. And, lo and behold, the following year - or, as it's also been called, this year - where should my sister end up but (yes!!!) Oregon. Roseburg, Oregon, in fact, smack dab in the middle of Eugene and Coos Bay, the filming locations for "Without Limits".So yes, this week I'll be jetting out to the Pacific Coast where, amongst many other things, I'll make a visit to legendary Hayward Field, Pre's real-life "second home" and also the site of this past summer's U.S. Olympic Track & Field trials, where a great deal of the movie's scenes were filmed. I'll also have an opportunity to visit Pre's Rock, the place where his tragic car crash took place and people now visit religiously to leave flowers and old race numbers.
Don't ask me why these things keep happening. Perhaps next year my sister will somehow end up working on the Warner Brothers backlot, right next to the set of The Hit Pit. (Hint: Hilary Swank hit a speed bag there.)
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
The Lucky Ones
Often you will ask a person who has just seen a movie whether or not he or she liked it and they will reply, "Well, (so-and-so) was good" or "The acting was good." Translation: the movie itself wasn't so good. But can this really be the case? How can the acting be considered good when the movie isn't? If you want to know how it can be I direct you at once to Neil Burger's "The Lucky Ones". Three soldiers return home from Iraq, two on leave and one for good, and wind up on a road trip to Vegas. It's a standard movie of the genre with three very warm, very real performances courtesy of Tim Robbins, Rachel McAdams, and Michael Pena that make it very much worthwile.
Cheaver (Robbins), saddled with a bad back, is returning to his wife and son in St. Louis. Colee (McAdams), who walks with a severe limp after being wounded, is on her way to Las Vegas where she will return a priceless guitar to the parents of a friend she made in Iraq. T.K., his - how shall I put this delicately? - "junk" on the fritz after also being wounded in combat, is also on his way to the City With The Strip, where he hopes to meet up with his fiance.
Once they have landed at the New York airport they find that, of course, there has just been a blackout grounding all flights and so, naturally, the trio rents a car together and strikes out for St. Louis where Colee and T.K. can catch a flight to Vegas but, inevitably, once they arrive it turns out Cheaver's wife, not having seen him for two years, wants a divorce and, wouldn't you know it, his son has been accepted to Stanford except he needs another $20,000 to attend which, obviously, Cheaver doesn't have unless, you guessed it, he goes to Vegas with the others and hits a craps table and....but I could go on and on, providing plot spoiler upon plot spoiler.
It's the Road Trip Movie modus operandi, after all. Happenstances lining up like building blocks. If a character says, "I have to go to the bathroom" don't presume to believe such a detour will involve nothing beyond going to the bathroom. At one point, a character's crucial personal crisis is resolved when (I'm not making this up) a tornado literally drops from the sky. I mean, I'm all for writers thinking outside the box but that's not just getting out of the box. That's getting out of the box and leaving it in the next county. Perhaps the writer needed to be put back in the box after that one. But regardless of what the screenplay may have them do our trio of actors, and the writer/director, has a clear idea of who these three characters are.
As Cheaver, Robbins is restrained, his emotions kept in check, but also good-hearted. He's quiet, but not brooding. His scene at home with his wife (done without music) as he slowly comes to see what is about to happen is lifelike in every way, and the polar opposite of most of the rest of the film. One may be tempted to label him a father figure but observe the sequence where a stopover at a roadside bar - surprise! - goes awry. Cheaver's reaction, though, is not to harangue the person responsible with proclamations such as "What were you thinking?" or "That's not how you should act!" but to simply do his duty - get the person away, laugh about it, and feel relief. They're all in it together.
Ever since Rachel McAdams (as far as I'm concerned) upstaged everyone else in "Wedding Crashers", I believed she was a gifted performer just waiting for some weightier roles to come along. There will still be better roles to come but she re-proves her chops in this one. Genuine, polite to a fault, curious, (perhaps the most affecting scene in the film is a "throwaway" moment in which she scans drawers in a guest room) she talks and talks and talks and asks questions and questions and more questions and sincerely wants to help and brought to mind an Oscar-nominated performance from Amy Adams in "Junebug" - endless words used to mask a much deeper sadness. She can flip to anger on a dime, and does on a couple occassions, and you sense she had a rotten childhood without the screenplay ever saying it - which is to say the actress herself is entirely responsible for conveying her own backstory. That's talent.
Pena's T.K.? He's the sort of the guy who always ready (and probably excited) to make a plan. After Cheaver's wife asks for the divorce it is T.K. who instantly dives into advising Cheaver, "This is what you need to do." Hence, when asked he brands himself a "leader". His whole plight is a man's man having his manhood taken away and it's ashame the movie had to resort to such wretched symbolism to clue us into this but even if the screenplay hadn't done so we still would have figured it out via Pena.
In the end I found myself sort of rooting for a couple more schlocky plot contrivances. I wouldn't have minded spending a bit more time in the company of this trio.
Cheaver (Robbins), saddled with a bad back, is returning to his wife and son in St. Louis. Colee (McAdams), who walks with a severe limp after being wounded, is on her way to Las Vegas where she will return a priceless guitar to the parents of a friend she made in Iraq. T.K., his - how shall I put this delicately? - "junk" on the fritz after also being wounded in combat, is also on his way to the City With The Strip, where he hopes to meet up with his fiance.
Once they have landed at the New York airport they find that, of course, there has just been a blackout grounding all flights and so, naturally, the trio rents a car together and strikes out for St. Louis where Colee and T.K. can catch a flight to Vegas but, inevitably, once they arrive it turns out Cheaver's wife, not having seen him for two years, wants a divorce and, wouldn't you know it, his son has been accepted to Stanford except he needs another $20,000 to attend which, obviously, Cheaver doesn't have unless, you guessed it, he goes to Vegas with the others and hits a craps table and....but I could go on and on, providing plot spoiler upon plot spoiler.
It's the Road Trip Movie modus operandi, after all. Happenstances lining up like building blocks. If a character says, "I have to go to the bathroom" don't presume to believe such a detour will involve nothing beyond going to the bathroom. At one point, a character's crucial personal crisis is resolved when (I'm not making this up) a tornado literally drops from the sky. I mean, I'm all for writers thinking outside the box but that's not just getting out of the box. That's getting out of the box and leaving it in the next county. Perhaps the writer needed to be put back in the box after that one. But regardless of what the screenplay may have them do our trio of actors, and the writer/director, has a clear idea of who these three characters are.
As Cheaver, Robbins is restrained, his emotions kept in check, but also good-hearted. He's quiet, but not brooding. His scene at home with his wife (done without music) as he slowly comes to see what is about to happen is lifelike in every way, and the polar opposite of most of the rest of the film. One may be tempted to label him a father figure but observe the sequence where a stopover at a roadside bar - surprise! - goes awry. Cheaver's reaction, though, is not to harangue the person responsible with proclamations such as "What were you thinking?" or "That's not how you should act!" but to simply do his duty - get the person away, laugh about it, and feel relief. They're all in it together.
Ever since Rachel McAdams (as far as I'm concerned) upstaged everyone else in "Wedding Crashers", I believed she was a gifted performer just waiting for some weightier roles to come along. There will still be better roles to come but she re-proves her chops in this one. Genuine, polite to a fault, curious, (perhaps the most affecting scene in the film is a "throwaway" moment in which she scans drawers in a guest room) she talks and talks and talks and asks questions and questions and more questions and sincerely wants to help and brought to mind an Oscar-nominated performance from Amy Adams in "Junebug" - endless words used to mask a much deeper sadness. She can flip to anger on a dime, and does on a couple occassions, and you sense she had a rotten childhood without the screenplay ever saying it - which is to say the actress herself is entirely responsible for conveying her own backstory. That's talent.
Pena's T.K.? He's the sort of the guy who always ready (and probably excited) to make a plan. After Cheaver's wife asks for the divorce it is T.K. who instantly dives into advising Cheaver, "This is what you need to do." Hence, when asked he brands himself a "leader". His whole plight is a man's man having his manhood taken away and it's ashame the movie had to resort to such wretched symbolism to clue us into this but even if the screenplay hadn't done so we still would have figured it out via Pena.
In the end I found myself sort of rooting for a couple more schlocky plot contrivances. I wouldn't have minded spending a bit more time in the company of this trio.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Miracle at St. Anna
A Spike Lee movie (excuse me, I meant a Spike Lee "joint") can often be a rather frustrating experience. The man is a talented filmmaker, and that's all there is to it. Regardless of his topical rants and politics and antics courtside at Knicks games he is capable of serving up rich, breathtaking cinematic passages. Passages is the key word, however, because he rarely seems able to maintain that rich, breathtaking feel for the duration of an entire film. He tends to indulge in superfluous flights of fancy (stock footage of Willie Mays' famous World Series catch inexplicably popping up in "Summer of Sam"), extraneous characters (Milla Jovovich in "He Got Game") and inane subplots (the daughter in "Crooklyn" suddenly getting shipped down south to live with relatives) that weigh everything down.
Lee's WWII opus "Miracle at St. Anna", based on the novel by James McBride (who penned the script), opens with a - here are those words again! - rich, breathtaking passage of the all-black 92nd Army division attempting to cross an Italian river in 1944 to confront the German army. A Nazi femme fatale back at base camp smokes a cigarette and coos over a loudspeaker, pleading for the black American soldiers to abandon their country since it doesn't truly care for them and switch to the German side. The camera tracks with the division as they advance, watching for the enemy, listening to her, and we are introduced to our four leads, Stamps (Derek Luke, a great performance in which he both commands and underplays and re-affirms why he is deserving of more leading roles), Hector (Laz Alonso), Bishop (Michael Ealy), and Train (Omar Benson Miller). I loved this sequence. Stylish and unusual. One problem, though, it doesn't actually open the movie.
No, the movie opens in 1983, where an older Hector is watching John Wayne on TV in "The Longest Day" causing him to say out loud to no one, "We fought that war, too." (But remember, friends, Spike Lee didn't have any ulterior motives for making this film. Got it? No ulterior motives.) We then see Hector working at a post office where an Italian man ask to buy stamps. Hector snags a German luger and kills him. A young reporter (Joseph Gordon Leavitt, who, along with John Turturro's detective, sound more like characters in a 40's B-movie than anyone out of 1983) goes along with two detectives to Hector's home where the head of a priceless Italian statue is found. And then we flash back to 1944.
The four primary characters find themselves trapped behind enemy lines, cut off from their division. They are surrounded by Nazis on all sides. This alone would make for a tidy war movie, but then, as we established, being tidy isn't usually Lee's interest.
Train comes into contact with a young Italian boy, Angelo (Matteo Sciabordi), and befriends him. The group takes shelter at a home in a Tuscan village where the family's young daughter Renata (Valentina Cervi) finds herself drawn to both Stamps and Bishop. Once making contact with their commanding officer the Americans are orderd to find a Nazi and take him prisoner. A son of the family is a notorious Italian partisan, sought by the Germans.
As the film progressed I couldn't help but feel the theme emerging was that of blind faith. There is a lot going on in relation to this issue. Train is convinced young Angelo has been touched by God and, on top of that, Train hauls the head of the aforementioned broken Italian statue with him everywhere, convinced it possesses power and makes him invisible. Electricity that has been out for years at the small Italian home mysteriously returns. Black soldiers take orders from a white officer who is clearly less experienced than them. Most horrifically, we witness the real-life tragedy at St. Anna from where the film gains its title, victims praying for salvation to the end.
There is one specific image that seems to sum this theme up in grand detail. One character, his time having run out, as he literally clutches blindly to faith. The film could have ended right then with a wallop. But I knew it wouldn't since I knew we had to go back to 1983 and sort out that whole god-forsaken mess. I mean, what is it with these historical movies that have to start in present day? It's become as common to cinema as jump cuts and a shaky camera.
Oh, there are other subplots that serve no consequence, like the whole romantic triangle which is terribly clunky and exists solely to generate tension between two characters who already had tension, anyway, and a sequence - which wasn't in the book, as stated in interviews by Lee - in which our four leads are refused service in an American cafe. Yes, all on its own this sequence works quite well but not so much within the framework of the movie. It feels ham-fisted, just a few more of those "non-existent" ulterior motives.
But much like a tragic film that begins with the tragedy so it hovers over all that is to come, the bookending passages of "Miracle at St. Anna" cause it to have sort of the same effect. Except, of course, the tragedy doesn't stem from the film's subject matter. The tragedy is the film. Spike can employ heavy-handed symbolism sometimes, but I've never seen him dredge up such heavy-handed schmaltz. The opening and closing bring to mind another WWII film that uses the device. Remeber it? Directed by another guy whose first name starts with the letter S (and his last name, too)? About a particular private who's gone missing? Another movie with portions that were exquisite and portions that were, well, heavy-handed schmaltz? Lee has said he wanted to make this movie to show other people contributing to the second World War, to subvert the insipid cliches. It's strange then that his movie falls victim to one of those insipid cliches.
Lee's WWII opus "Miracle at St. Anna", based on the novel by James McBride (who penned the script), opens with a - here are those words again! - rich, breathtaking passage of the all-black 92nd Army division attempting to cross an Italian river in 1944 to confront the German army. A Nazi femme fatale back at base camp smokes a cigarette and coos over a loudspeaker, pleading for the black American soldiers to abandon their country since it doesn't truly care for them and switch to the German side. The camera tracks with the division as they advance, watching for the enemy, listening to her, and we are introduced to our four leads, Stamps (Derek Luke, a great performance in which he both commands and underplays and re-affirms why he is deserving of more leading roles), Hector (Laz Alonso), Bishop (Michael Ealy), and Train (Omar Benson Miller). I loved this sequence. Stylish and unusual. One problem, though, it doesn't actually open the movie.
No, the movie opens in 1983, where an older Hector is watching John Wayne on TV in "The Longest Day" causing him to say out loud to no one, "We fought that war, too." (But remember, friends, Spike Lee didn't have any ulterior motives for making this film. Got it? No ulterior motives.) We then see Hector working at a post office where an Italian man ask to buy stamps. Hector snags a German luger and kills him. A young reporter (Joseph Gordon Leavitt, who, along with John Turturro's detective, sound more like characters in a 40's B-movie than anyone out of 1983) goes along with two detectives to Hector's home where the head of a priceless Italian statue is found. And then we flash back to 1944.
The four primary characters find themselves trapped behind enemy lines, cut off from their division. They are surrounded by Nazis on all sides. This alone would make for a tidy war movie, but then, as we established, being tidy isn't usually Lee's interest.
Train comes into contact with a young Italian boy, Angelo (Matteo Sciabordi), and befriends him. The group takes shelter at a home in a Tuscan village where the family's young daughter Renata (Valentina Cervi) finds herself drawn to both Stamps and Bishop. Once making contact with their commanding officer the Americans are orderd to find a Nazi and take him prisoner. A son of the family is a notorious Italian partisan, sought by the Germans.
As the film progressed I couldn't help but feel the theme emerging was that of blind faith. There is a lot going on in relation to this issue. Train is convinced young Angelo has been touched by God and, on top of that, Train hauls the head of the aforementioned broken Italian statue with him everywhere, convinced it possesses power and makes him invisible. Electricity that has been out for years at the small Italian home mysteriously returns. Black soldiers take orders from a white officer who is clearly less experienced than them. Most horrifically, we witness the real-life tragedy at St. Anna from where the film gains its title, victims praying for salvation to the end.
There is one specific image that seems to sum this theme up in grand detail. One character, his time having run out, as he literally clutches blindly to faith. The film could have ended right then with a wallop. But I knew it wouldn't since I knew we had to go back to 1983 and sort out that whole god-forsaken mess. I mean, what is it with these historical movies that have to start in present day? It's become as common to cinema as jump cuts and a shaky camera.
Oh, there are other subplots that serve no consequence, like the whole romantic triangle which is terribly clunky and exists solely to generate tension between two characters who already had tension, anyway, and a sequence - which wasn't in the book, as stated in interviews by Lee - in which our four leads are refused service in an American cafe. Yes, all on its own this sequence works quite well but not so much within the framework of the movie. It feels ham-fisted, just a few more of those "non-existent" ulterior motives.
But much like a tragic film that begins with the tragedy so it hovers over all that is to come, the bookending passages of "Miracle at St. Anna" cause it to have sort of the same effect. Except, of course, the tragedy doesn't stem from the film's subject matter. The tragedy is the film. Spike can employ heavy-handed symbolism sometimes, but I've never seen him dredge up such heavy-handed schmaltz. The opening and closing bring to mind another WWII film that uses the device. Remeber it? Directed by another guy whose first name starts with the letter S (and his last name, too)? About a particular private who's gone missing? Another movie with portions that were exquisite and portions that were, well, heavy-handed schmaltz? Lee has said he wanted to make this movie to show other people contributing to the second World War, to subvert the insipid cliches. It's strange then that his movie falls victim to one of those insipid cliches.
Monday, September 29, 2008
In Memoriam
The legendary (no other way to say it) Paul Newman passed away last Friday at the age of 83. One of the first old movies I ever watched (long before my ascent - or descent, if you will - into film snobbery) was "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid". There were two things that sprang to my mind when I heard of his passing, however, and one I experienced afterwards.
At the start of Newman's 1967 "Cool Hand Luke" we see his title character on a sweltering summer night in the south, all by himself, tossing back bottled beer, and busting open parking meters. He doesn't even seem all that interested in acquiring the change that pours out of them. A cop car pulls up, shining its lights directly into Luke's eyes. So Luke plops down on the sidewalk, throws his arm around one of those parking meters like it's a southern belle, and has another swig of beer. "Take me away," he seems to be saying, "'cuz I don't care." While it was James Dean who starred as a "Rebel Without a Cause" I must say, with all due respect to the late Mr. Dean, the image of a so-called Rebel Without a Cause was never, ever summed up better than it was in that opening image of "Cool Hand Luke".
I also recall once at a microbrewerey in Scottsdale, Arizona having a film-related discussion with my friend Nathan and somehow ending up on the topic of the Kevin Costner 1999 weepie "Message in a Bottle". Our conversation went something like this:
Me: "I'll be honest, I like a good chick flick-"
Nathan: "Yeah. Me too."
Me: "But 'Message in a Bottle'...."
Nathan: "That was over the top."
Me: "Really over the top. Too much."
Nathan: "Way too much."
Me: "It should've been awful."
Nathan: "Should've been god-awful."
Me: "But there was something about it that got to me."
Nathan: "It got to me, too."
Me: "What was it?"
Nathan: "Paul Newman."
Me: "Yeah. Paul Newman."
Give Mr. Newman a great screenplay, and he was fantastic. Give Mr. Newman a bad screenplay, and he was fantastic.
On Saturday night I was at a sports bar to watch my beloved Nebraska Cornhuskers lose (but that's neither here nor there) and at halftime there was a brief ABC news report that mentioned Mr. Newman's passing. There was actually a tiny smattering of applause that broke out. I think it's safe to say he will be missed.
At the start of Newman's 1967 "Cool Hand Luke" we see his title character on a sweltering summer night in the south, all by himself, tossing back bottled beer, and busting open parking meters. He doesn't even seem all that interested in acquiring the change that pours out of them. A cop car pulls up, shining its lights directly into Luke's eyes. So Luke plops down on the sidewalk, throws his arm around one of those parking meters like it's a southern belle, and has another swig of beer. "Take me away," he seems to be saying, "'cuz I don't care." While it was James Dean who starred as a "Rebel Without a Cause" I must say, with all due respect to the late Mr. Dean, the image of a so-called Rebel Without a Cause was never, ever summed up better than it was in that opening image of "Cool Hand Luke".I also recall once at a microbrewerey in Scottsdale, Arizona having a film-related discussion with my friend Nathan and somehow ending up on the topic of the Kevin Costner 1999 weepie "Message in a Bottle". Our conversation went something like this:
Me: "I'll be honest, I like a good chick flick-"
Nathan: "Yeah. Me too."
Me: "But 'Message in a Bottle'...."
Nathan: "That was over the top."
Me: "Really over the top. Too much."
Nathan: "Way too much."
Me: "It should've been awful."
Nathan: "Should've been god-awful."
Me: "But there was something about it that got to me."
Nathan: "It got to me, too."
Me: "What was it?"
Nathan: "Paul Newman."
Me: "Yeah. Paul Newman."
Give Mr. Newman a great screenplay, and he was fantastic. Give Mr. Newman a bad screenplay, and he was fantastic.
On Saturday night I was at a sports bar to watch my beloved Nebraska Cornhuskers lose (but that's neither here nor there) and at halftime there was a brief ABC news report that mentioned Mr. Newman's passing. There was actually a tiny smattering of applause that broke out. I think it's safe to say he will be missed.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Why Amy Ryan Is Totally, Officially My New Second Favorite Actress
It's not just because she gave the finest movie performance, male or female, no questions asked, in 2007 (which I can't remember if I've mentioned or not), and it's not just because she played a completely different character in the second season of "The Wire" and made it completely convincing but now that she's gone on "The Office" (a sitcom of all places) to yet again play a different character - a human resources "dork" whom she gracefully underplays while still finding the funny - and not only do it convincingly but even make rapping the lines "wicka wicka what?" sound completely authentic.Seriously, what can't this woman do?
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Twelve Movies I Need To See
Andrew O'Heir on salon.com recently indicated he was "tagged" by colleague Glenn Kenny to make a list of twelve movies he had not seen but needed to see. The first thought that popped into my head, naturally, was: Oh, I'm ripping off that idea.
Okay, it was actually termed twelve hard to see films that he had not seen, but I'm not a film historian and so I don't have all day to lounge around, drinking coffee, and getting up to speed with every film the Danes churned out in the sixties. I have seen a great deal of old classics but, even so, my list will have some pretty well known names on it and I'm not sure how they fell by the wayside. On second thought, I kind of am. See, the problem with my netflix account is that I can't stay out of the damn thing. I'll put a classic film I haven't yet watched at the top of my queue except, for instance, I'll then watch the new Coen Brothers movie "Burn for Reading" and leave the theater with a thirst to rewatch "Intolerable Cruelty" and so I'll immediately move that to the top of my queue and so on and so forth. These things are happening all the time and, before you know it, some 1940's masterpiece I really do need to witness has dropped from #1 in the queue to #18, never to be heard from again. Hence, the list.
Twelve movies I need to see. You may need to see different ones and so consider this me tagging you to make your list. I thought it would be difficult but, honestly, it took about four and a half minutes. The twelve rolled right out. I put them in my queue (in the exact order listed here) and, so help me God, I won't touch it until I'm done with my dozen.
1. Sullivan's Travels. My most classic case of simply assuming you'll see something one day but never actually following through.
2. Out of the Past. Long ago I went through an obsession with film noir and I've seen most of the classics but this one, with Robert Mitchum, always eluded me.
3. Claire's Knee. I've only seen one film from famed French filmmaker Eric Rohmer (a man whose fingerprints, it has been said, are all over the "Before Sunrise/Before Sunset" films) and here's the one I've always yearned to watch - about a man who sets in motion a plot to do nothing more than touch the knee of a beautiful woman.
4. The Long Goodbye. Robert Altman tackled this Raymond Chandler story in the 70's with Elliot Gould as Phillip Marlowe.
5. Marty. Of all the names on my list I'm most sad to report this one. Not just because it seems like it's totally up my alley but because my mom always said her dad's favorite movie was "Marty".
6. Eve's Bayou. An exceptionally critically acclaimed film from 1997 that I remember making a mental note to see lo those eleven years ago and then....never did.
7. The Philadelphia Story. Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant, and Jimmy Stewart doin' what they do.
8. Detour. This one pops up on just about every greatest films list there is and is partially famous for being so poorly made because it was made on the exceptionally cheap. The esteemed Roger Ebert has written that it would "not earn the director a passing grade in film school." But also that "it lives on....an embodiment of the guilty soul of film noir." Time Magazine has written, "Film noir? No film is noirer." In fact, maybe I'll move this to #1. No, no, no, no! I'm not tampering with the list!
9. Bridge on the River Kwai. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, get off my back.
10. Tokyo Story. Ebert has written that "Sooner or later, everyone who loves movies comes to (Japanese director Yasujiro) Ozu. He is the quietest and gentlest of directors, the most humanistic, the most serene." I hadn't come to him yet. But, damn it, I'm about to.
11. Shoot the Piano Player. I recall reading about this Francois Truffaut film - though I can't remember where - and making yet another excited mental note to rent it and then I....never did.
12. To Catch a Thief. I'm sure there are more important, bigger movies I need to see than this supposedly lightweight Hitchcock piece about Grace Kelly and Cary Grant cavorting through the French Riviera but this is the dessert of the project and all I want is some chocolate mousse.
Okay, it was actually termed twelve hard to see films that he had not seen, but I'm not a film historian and so I don't have all day to lounge around, drinking coffee, and getting up to speed with every film the Danes churned out in the sixties. I have seen a great deal of old classics but, even so, my list will have some pretty well known names on it and I'm not sure how they fell by the wayside. On second thought, I kind of am. See, the problem with my netflix account is that I can't stay out of the damn thing. I'll put a classic film I haven't yet watched at the top of my queue except, for instance, I'll then watch the new Coen Brothers movie "Burn for Reading" and leave the theater with a thirst to rewatch "Intolerable Cruelty" and so I'll immediately move that to the top of my queue and so on and so forth. These things are happening all the time and, before you know it, some 1940's masterpiece I really do need to witness has dropped from #1 in the queue to #18, never to be heard from again. Hence, the list.
Twelve movies I need to see. You may need to see different ones and so consider this me tagging you to make your list. I thought it would be difficult but, honestly, it took about four and a half minutes. The twelve rolled right out. I put them in my queue (in the exact order listed here) and, so help me God, I won't touch it until I'm done with my dozen.
1. Sullivan's Travels. My most classic case of simply assuming you'll see something one day but never actually following through.
2. Out of the Past. Long ago I went through an obsession with film noir and I've seen most of the classics but this one, with Robert Mitchum, always eluded me.
3. Claire's Knee. I've only seen one film from famed French filmmaker Eric Rohmer (a man whose fingerprints, it has been said, are all over the "Before Sunrise/Before Sunset" films) and here's the one I've always yearned to watch - about a man who sets in motion a plot to do nothing more than touch the knee of a beautiful woman.
4. The Long Goodbye. Robert Altman tackled this Raymond Chandler story in the 70's with Elliot Gould as Phillip Marlowe.
5. Marty. Of all the names on my list I'm most sad to report this one. Not just because it seems like it's totally up my alley but because my mom always said her dad's favorite movie was "Marty".
6. Eve's Bayou. An exceptionally critically acclaimed film from 1997 that I remember making a mental note to see lo those eleven years ago and then....never did.
7. The Philadelphia Story. Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant, and Jimmy Stewart doin' what they do.
8. Detour. This one pops up on just about every greatest films list there is and is partially famous for being so poorly made because it was made on the exceptionally cheap. The esteemed Roger Ebert has written that it would "not earn the director a passing grade in film school." But also that "it lives on....an embodiment of the guilty soul of film noir." Time Magazine has written, "Film noir? No film is noirer." In fact, maybe I'll move this to #1. No, no, no, no! I'm not tampering with the list!
9. Bridge on the River Kwai. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, get off my back.
10. Tokyo Story. Ebert has written that "Sooner or later, everyone who loves movies comes to (Japanese director Yasujiro) Ozu. He is the quietest and gentlest of directors, the most humanistic, the most serene." I hadn't come to him yet. But, damn it, I'm about to.
11. Shoot the Piano Player. I recall reading about this Francois Truffaut film - though I can't remember where - and making yet another excited mental note to rent it and then I....never did.
12. To Catch a Thief. I'm sure there are more important, bigger movies I need to see than this supposedly lightweight Hitchcock piece about Grace Kelly and Cary Grant cavorting through the French Riviera but this is the dessert of the project and all I want is some chocolate mousse.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Le Samourai
For anyone who feels current movies are too much of too much, that they are too gaudy, too over the top in their filmmaking, too stacked with jump cuts and narrative tricks and oblique camera angles, then, for God's sake, I direct you to French director Jean Pierre Melville's 1967 small masterpiece "Le Samourai" at once. Never in my movie-watching existence have I seen a movie so completely stripped of pomp. It's only circumstance. It's about only what it's about, which is to say it doesn't masquerade as anything beyond its most basic story.
It's difficult to review this film because in a review you're supposed to give some general sense of story and then hint at the bigger picture, except in "Le Samouri" there is no bigger picture. Let me try to explain: it opens with Jef Costello (Alain Delon) on his bed in his drab apartment indulging in a cigarette (which he will do quite often as the film progresses). He gets up. He leaves. He goes to a car. He gets in. He drives away. He arrives at a garage. A man switches out the car number and hands Jef a gun. Jef drives away again. He arrives at the apartment (Nathalie Delon) and only now - ten minutes in - does he speak. Then he leaves. He goes to another apartment. A poker game is in progress. He confirms how long they will be playing. He leaves. He goes to a nightclub. He sneaks into an office in back. He shoots a man. He leaves. He....wait, wait, wait, wait! He shot a man?! Yes. Yes, he did. I was matter of fact about it, just like the movie. The movie is insanely matter of fact. You want a show? Go to Vegas. "Le Samourai" is like the most inside-access documentary ever made.
There is one modern day movie I can think to compare it to and that's the Coen Brothers masterpiece from last year, "No Country For Old Men". Not all of the movie, mind you, but specifically many of the scenes involving Llewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin). Remember how often it just lets Llewellyn go about his business? The camera kicks back and watches how he sees the cars far below in the canyon. He checks it out. He finds the drug deal gone wrong. He finds the one guy who made it away from the scene. He waits him out. He finds the money. "Le Samourai" is this scene expanded over an hour and a half.
I'll sum it up this way, if a team of normal filmmakers and the minds behind "Le Samourai" were asked to make a film about a guy who steals some fireworks, shoots them off, runs away, and gets caught, the normal filmmakers would show the guy stealing fireworks from someone he used to know which would involve much dialogue relating to his moral dilemma and then spend five minutes showing the fireworks shoot off before having him run away with a girl who was impressed from afar by the fireworks leading her to approach him and ask his name and then take him to a nearby farmhouse to hide out in the attic before the authorities closed in at which point a lengthy shootout would occur before he gets run over by a tractor.
The makers of "Le Samourai", however, would show the guy steal fireworks, shoot them off, run away, and get caught. And it would be much more involving.
It's difficult to review this film because in a review you're supposed to give some general sense of story and then hint at the bigger picture, except in "Le Samouri" there is no bigger picture. Let me try to explain: it opens with Jef Costello (Alain Delon) on his bed in his drab apartment indulging in a cigarette (which he will do quite often as the film progresses). He gets up. He leaves. He goes to a car. He gets in. He drives away. He arrives at a garage. A man switches out the car number and hands Jef a gun. Jef drives away again. He arrives at the apartment (Nathalie Delon) and only now - ten minutes in - does he speak. Then he leaves. He goes to another apartment. A poker game is in progress. He confirms how long they will be playing. He leaves. He goes to a nightclub. He sneaks into an office in back. He shoots a man. He leaves. He....wait, wait, wait, wait! He shot a man?! Yes. Yes, he did. I was matter of fact about it, just like the movie. The movie is insanely matter of fact. You want a show? Go to Vegas. "Le Samourai" is like the most inside-access documentary ever made.
There is one modern day movie I can think to compare it to and that's the Coen Brothers masterpiece from last year, "No Country For Old Men". Not all of the movie, mind you, but specifically many of the scenes involving Llewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin). Remember how often it just lets Llewellyn go about his business? The camera kicks back and watches how he sees the cars far below in the canyon. He checks it out. He finds the drug deal gone wrong. He finds the one guy who made it away from the scene. He waits him out. He finds the money. "Le Samourai" is this scene expanded over an hour and a half.
I'll sum it up this way, if a team of normal filmmakers and the minds behind "Le Samourai" were asked to make a film about a guy who steals some fireworks, shoots them off, runs away, and gets caught, the normal filmmakers would show the guy stealing fireworks from someone he used to know which would involve much dialogue relating to his moral dilemma and then spend five minutes showing the fireworks shoot off before having him run away with a girl who was impressed from afar by the fireworks leading her to approach him and ask his name and then take him to a nearby farmhouse to hide out in the attic before the authorities closed in at which point a lengthy shootout would occur before he gets run over by a tractor.
The makers of "Le Samourai", however, would show the guy steal fireworks, shoot them off, run away, and get caught. And it would be much more involving.
Monday, September 22, 2008
A Digression: The Night Church Went Secular & My Faith Was Affirmed on a Bus
The answer to your most obvious question is, yes, that horrendously blurry image really is Jenny Lewis, the beguiling, ultra-talented frontwoman for the rock band Rilo Kiley who my friend Dave and I saw solo on Friday night at the Epiphany Church in downtown Chicago. (Either, cellphone cameras weren't designed for taking pictures in dark spaces or I just don't know how to do it.) First off, let me say that if the new stuff she played on Friday (her second solo record hits stores tomorrow) is as good as it sounded at this show, well, my sympathies, Rilo Kiley devotees, but I don't how much longer they're going to last. Her abilites are progressing at a rapid rate. Second, yes, you read the words Epiphany Church correctly. She really did play at an architectually marvelous House of the Lord. Why is this noteworthy?
Oh, no reason. Perhaps because Ms. Lewis authored the tune "Born Secular". And the tune "The Absence of God". Or perhaps because she wrote these lines: "It's a surefire bet I'm gonna' die. So I'm taking up praying on Sunday nights. And it's not that I believe in your almigt. But I might as well as insurance or bail." Or perhaps because she wrote this line: "My mama is an athiest, if I stay out late she don't get pissed." Or perhaps because she wrote-Voice Inside Nick's Head: "Nick, stop it! Now you're just listing lyrics! Remember, you told yourself you wouldn't do that?"
Nick: "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I can't help it! Just one more line? Please?"
Voice Inside Nick's Head: "Okay. One more."
She also wrote this line: "It's just you and God. But what if God's not there?" Yes, she sang those in the church, and I sang right along with her. And let me tell you, after a week of the nation's economy falling to pieces, 124 more hurricanes destroying everything in their path and a continuing Presidential election I'm already sick off, it felt really, really good to sing them out loud.
Now lest everyone think I'm some morally inept heathen I'd like to stress for the record that I'm not. I was confirmed in the Lutheran Church and I do believe in God, absolutely, it's just that I tend to get a little pissed off at Him and often times - like, say, last week - I really start to wonder about His so-called intentions. (My apolgies here for bringing this topic into my cinematical blog and, I assure you, this is just a one-off.) Most importantly, though, I don't feel Him at church. I don't. I don't think I ever did. I went to church more as a social activity and, in some ways, as an obligation. But I never felt His presence in the sermons or the bible verses or the communion or the church announcements ("the building and grounds committee is meeting this wednesday and now! The Lord's Prayer!") or, worst of all, the sharing of the peace (wherein you actually had to shake hands with the people around you and say, "Peace be with you").
No, no, no, no, the places I've felt Him have always been different. Places like, you know, movie theaters and concert halls and, even better, the random places you never, ever expect. Those only pop up every once in a very great while and that's why I was stunned - still am - that after the Jenny Lewis show, where all these thoughts were barreling through my head, my feeling that my faith is most strongly affirmed in the most random of moments would be affirmed in the most random of moments.
Dave and I piled onto the bus after the show and a young woman whom Dave would desribe after the fact as a "platinum blonde" (but please don't hold that against her) wound up standing directly behind me and took a phone call from a guy friend and explained she was on a bus and had just come from the Jenny Lewis all by herself because - and now I'm quoting 100% verbatim - "that's how I do things in Chicago. Alone. But not lonely."
To paraphrase the title of another Jenny Lewis song, her saying that melted my heart.
"Alone. But not lonely." Oh my God. A kindred spirit. A person who gets it. A human cut from the same cloth. Someone who understands. Someone who goes to concerts by herself. By herself! And she doesn't care, probably because she's not uptight and totally comfortable with who she is and doesn't require human contact 24 hours a day and probably gets pissed when people tell her she's weird because she doesn't require human contact 24 hours a day!
"Alone. But not lonely."
Yes, elsewhere in the conversation she explained to the person on the other end of the line that she couldn't pronounce Joe Biden's last name (and she couldn't, because she tried) but that she trusted Obama's choice, anyway, and that she was a "feminist" who was "majoring in women's studies" (so she was probably too young for me). But then at the end of the call there was a long pause as she listened to the other person speak and then she said, "That's what I always think of when I hear The Beatles. You and me. In your room. Listening to them." And then she started to sort of tear up. On a public bus! I swear to God! You could hear her effin' voice cracking! And then I started to tear up a little because she was tearing up. It might have been my favorite moment in my 3+ years in Chicago. (No, I didn't ask her out or say anything to her because I couldn't. And if you have to ask why I couldn't, well, it's because you're not her and me and you probably can't go to concerts by yourself.)
It's such a great feeling when you come across a lyricist who seems to speak for you on certain topics and feelings - lyricists like Ms. Lewis, and Sir Bruce, and Neko. You know they feel like you, or at least at one time in their life they did. But you can fire 'em up on the Ipod any time you want. It doesn't offer the beautiful randomness of life, not like the Ashland Express bus on a Friday night. "Alone. But not lonely." She felt like me. It brought me oh so much comfort. I don't know her name, but I'll never, ever forget her. Maybe that makes me strange. But I'm positive it wouldn't make me strange to her. Which is all that matters.
Let me leave you with another Jenny Lewis penned lyric, if you please: "You never knew why you felt so good in the strangest of places".
Ah, Jenny, sometimes you do.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Embodiment of the Moving Image
I once sternly said to the father of my friend Nicolle in the midst of a conversation regarding cinema, "Do you even know what 'Chinatown' is about?" "Yes," he replied, "it's about water." "Well, yes, it's about water!" I hollered as if it was the Monday morning I returned to work after a month long vacation to the south of France with Sienna Miller and the Starbucks barista had just advised me they were out of coffee. "But it's about the mystery of life! The most pertinent, most essential mysteries of life! It says more about life than any movie ever made! Ever made!" He then nodded, sort of, not quite, and slowly but surely backed away from me.
I hold the high the opinion that a movie can only explain the most pertinent, most essential mysteries of life without truly discussing them. You can't, for instance, have characters sitting around and saying out loud things like, “Now I want to tell you about the most pertinent, most essential mysteries of life.” Yes, movies like that exist (for God's sake, "Before Sunrise" and "Before Sunset" are two of my absolute favorites and all they are is two people sitting around and discussing out loud...etc, etc) and they can be fantastic and magical and they have their rightful places in the pantheon but at their most basic, their most fundamental, movies are about dramatically telling a story.
No movie ever made ("Casablanca" comes the closest) has ever simply told a story better than "Chinatown". There are no hidden motives in "Chinatown". Yes, it's a murder mystery, but when I say hidden motives I'm talking about the intention of the writer (Robert Towne) and the director (Roman Polanski). It's not a political statement or a moral statement, or something of the sort, in the guise of a murder mystery. It's a murder mystery, nothing more, and because it's nothing more it becomes something more and therefore becomes something more than any film ever made because its something more never desired to be anything more. (Does that even make sense?)
Private Eye Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) unearths clues and determines motives and, in doing so, the deeper meaning, without ever having even a minimal spotlight thrust upon it, reveals itself through the results of the investigative process.
Evelyn Mulwray comes to Jake in the first scene because she suspects her husband is cheating on her. “Do you love your husband?” asks Jake. She confirms she does. “Have you heard the phrase let sleeping dogs lie?” he wonders. She has, but it doesn’t matter. She wants to hire him. So Jake sets forth on the case, snooping after his target and seeing Mr. Mulwray with a young girl. But is what Jake sees really what he thinks he sees? Not for nothing did the esteemed Roger Ebert term the film "an epistemological mystery about seeing, the moral responsibilities of (mis-)interpreting what you see, and the inevitable tragic consequences of flawed vision."
"Flawed vision". We see what we want to see. All the time. It's why we stay in bad relationships for years and years and sometimes well past the point of marriage and sometimes right down to the end. It's why Nebraska Football players are morally resolute individuals who help old ladies cross the street and donate all the illegal cash they have received from the athletic department to charity while Colorado Football players are unethical hooligans run amuck who steal lollipops from children and use their illegal cash to buy SUV’s solely for the purposes of running over innocent golden retrievers. It’s why even after Jake finally sees the real Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) he doesn’t really see her, not until it’s too late.
We’re all like Jake Gittes in so much as he fails to follow the very mantra he establishes in the first scene to “let sleeping dogs lie” we too fail to heed it. We fail to heed it because we have to know. We have to attend therapy and pour over the minutiae of every single thought we've ever had and every single action we've ever undertaken in order to determine why we are the way we are. We build a particle accelerator because we have to know the reasons for the Big Bang even, by God, if there's a slight chance we might all get sucked into a black hole.
We’re all like Jake Gittes because we too can have hours, days, weeks, months, even years where it hurts – as Jake says when that infamous bandage is plastered to his nose – “only when I breathe.”
We’re all like Jake Gittes because just like he once hurt someone in Chinatown whom he loved and vowed never to do it again, only to do it again, we too are doomed to repeating mistakes. Don’t think so? Are we not mired in a war from which we cannot extract ourselves? Has our latest Presidential election not devolved yet again into (gasp of gasps!) mud-slinging while issues are ignored? Did I not turn on CNN just this morning and be warned of an inevitable Great Depression lurking around the corner?
“Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown.” Of course, Jake won’t forget. He’ll remember. But then remembering won’t really do him any good.
I hold the high the opinion that a movie can only explain the most pertinent, most essential mysteries of life without truly discussing them. You can't, for instance, have characters sitting around and saying out loud things like, “Now I want to tell you about the most pertinent, most essential mysteries of life.” Yes, movies like that exist (for God's sake, "Before Sunrise" and "Before Sunset" are two of my absolute favorites and all they are is two people sitting around and discussing out loud...etc, etc) and they can be fantastic and magical and they have their rightful places in the pantheon but at their most basic, their most fundamental, movies are about dramatically telling a story.
No movie ever made ("Casablanca" comes the closest) has ever simply told a story better than "Chinatown". There are no hidden motives in "Chinatown". Yes, it's a murder mystery, but when I say hidden motives I'm talking about the intention of the writer (Robert Towne) and the director (Roman Polanski). It's not a political statement or a moral statement, or something of the sort, in the guise of a murder mystery. It's a murder mystery, nothing more, and because it's nothing more it becomes something more and therefore becomes something more than any film ever made because its something more never desired to be anything more. (Does that even make sense?)
Private Eye Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) unearths clues and determines motives and, in doing so, the deeper meaning, without ever having even a minimal spotlight thrust upon it, reveals itself through the results of the investigative process.Evelyn Mulwray comes to Jake in the first scene because she suspects her husband is cheating on her. “Do you love your husband?” asks Jake. She confirms she does. “Have you heard the phrase let sleeping dogs lie?” he wonders. She has, but it doesn’t matter. She wants to hire him. So Jake sets forth on the case, snooping after his target and seeing Mr. Mulwray with a young girl. But is what Jake sees really what he thinks he sees? Not for nothing did the esteemed Roger Ebert term the film "an epistemological mystery about seeing, the moral responsibilities of (mis-)interpreting what you see, and the inevitable tragic consequences of flawed vision."
"Flawed vision". We see what we want to see. All the time. It's why we stay in bad relationships for years and years and sometimes well past the point of marriage and sometimes right down to the end. It's why Nebraska Football players are morally resolute individuals who help old ladies cross the street and donate all the illegal cash they have received from the athletic department to charity while Colorado Football players are unethical hooligans run amuck who steal lollipops from children and use their illegal cash to buy SUV’s solely for the purposes of running over innocent golden retrievers. It’s why even after Jake finally sees the real Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) he doesn’t really see her, not until it’s too late.
We’re all like Jake Gittes in so much as he fails to follow the very mantra he establishes in the first scene to “let sleeping dogs lie” we too fail to heed it. We fail to heed it because we have to know. We have to attend therapy and pour over the minutiae of every single thought we've ever had and every single action we've ever undertaken in order to determine why we are the way we are. We build a particle accelerator because we have to know the reasons for the Big Bang even, by God, if there's a slight chance we might all get sucked into a black hole.
We’re all like Jake Gittes because we too can have hours, days, weeks, months, even years where it hurts – as Jake says when that infamous bandage is plastered to his nose – “only when I breathe.”
We’re all like Jake Gittes because just like he once hurt someone in Chinatown whom he loved and vowed never to do it again, only to do it again, we too are doomed to repeating mistakes. Don’t think so? Are we not mired in a war from which we cannot extract ourselves? Has our latest Presidential election not devolved yet again into (gasp of gasps!) mud-slinging while issues are ignored? Did I not turn on CNN just this morning and be warned of an inevitable Great Depression lurking around the corner?
“Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown.” Of course, Jake won’t forget. He’ll remember. But then remembering won’t really do him any good.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
It's Always Sunny On Thursday Nights
I hold the opinion that, in general, television anymore is a wasteland devoid of even the most modest entertainment. Perhaps this stems from my feeling that Reality TV is, along with Michael Bay, Jessica Simpson and Colorado Football, the bane of all existence. Seriously, I have thought at least 92 times that Reality TV has played itself out, that it's hit a wall and can go absolutely nowhere else, and then I see an advertisement for "So You Think You Can Skee Ball?" or "America's Next Top Park Ranger". But I digress....
Thursdays, however, are the one night when creativity and actual artistry reclaim the airwaves and you can indulge in something that is tasty, healthy and filling.
I've written before of my immense fondness for NBC's brilliant "30 Rock" and I'm even excited again for "The Office", what with Amy frickin' Ryan returning from last season's final episode. But those two shows do not premiere until next Thursday. Tonight, however, on FX at 9:00 CST you can catch the season premieres (2 episodes, back to back) of the raucous and raucously funny and very, very, very, very wrong "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia", a show revolving around 5 friends (sort of), Dennis (Glenn Howerton), Mac (show creator Rob McElhenney), Charlie (Charlie Day), Sweet Dee (Kaitlin Olson), and Dennis and Sweet Dee's legal father Frank (Danny DeVito), who run a bar (sort of) called Paddy's in the City of Brotherly Love.
To attempt an inital summary at what sort of entertainment this show offers up allow me to borrow a plot synopsis written by the Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan of one of this evening's episodes: "Picture a scene of two people in a morgue, looking for human flesh they can consume (it's a long story). They reject taking flesh from the body of a dead African-American, deciding a fleshier white corpse looks more promising, then discuss whether that decision was racist."
Does that sound appealing? Or, for instance, take this summation of the show as a whole from ever-reliable wikipedia: "The series deals with a variety of controversial topics, including abortion, gun control, physical disabilities, racism, sexism, religion, the Israeli/Palestinian situation, terrorism, transsexuality, slavery, incest, sexual harassment in education, the homeless, statutory rape, drug addiction, pedophilia, nuclear proliferation in North Korea, child abuse, mental illness, gay rights, bulimia, prostitution, nazism, and cannibalism." That's a "variety", all right, and it doesn't even touch my favorite subplot from last year in which Dennis and Frank pretend to be police officers which prompts Charlie to dress and act like Al Pacino's "Serpico" and try to take them down. Subject matter aside, it is probably as close to genuine screwball comedy as you're likely to find in this day and age.
It must be made clear - if it hasn't been made that already - that this show is not for everyone. It's been described as "Seinfeld on crack" and as a person who knows more about "Seinfeld" than you, everyone you've met in your life, and everyone that everyone you've met in your life has met in their life, I can safely say that comparison is apt, though entirely accurate.
The old mantra on "Seinfeld" was "No Hugging, No Crying". Now, on "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia" there's been some of each and that's okay because compared to Dennis, Mac, Charlie, Sweet Dee, and Frank, Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer seem secure, balanced, and upstanding. The "Sunny" quintet is so spectacularly timid and neurotic they have to cry and hug every now and again just to keep it together.
It was also said of "Seinfeld" that "the characters gleefully do not grow." No worries, because the "Sunny" characters don't grow either. Not only do they not grow, one might argue they regress. Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer learned lessons they simply chose to ignore. Dennis, Mac, Charlie, Sweet Dee, and Frank seem to learn lessons except for the fact they're the wrong ones.
A common complaint leveled at the show is that all the characters talk alike. And they do, undeniably. And, as they say, that's the point. Imagine five people are together all the time every day all day. Do you think they might start to sound alike? Remember the scene in "Curb Your Enthusiam" when Larry David and Jason Alexander (i.e. George Costanza) are yelling at each other for, like, two minutes? Imagine that scene lasting for twenty minutes but with five people instead of two who sound alike yelling at each other and that's "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia". If you can't take it, I understand.
If you can, by all means, tune in. Shows this good need your support. And if you had ever pondered, as I long did, what Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer would have been like in their 20's, you'll finally know.
Thursdays, however, are the one night when creativity and actual artistry reclaim the airwaves and you can indulge in something that is tasty, healthy and filling.
I've written before of my immense fondness for NBC's brilliant "30 Rock" and I'm even excited again for "The Office", what with Amy frickin' Ryan returning from last season's final episode. But those two shows do not premiere until next Thursday. Tonight, however, on FX at 9:00 CST you can catch the season premieres (2 episodes, back to back) of the raucous and raucously funny and very, very, very, very wrong "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia", a show revolving around 5 friends (sort of), Dennis (Glenn Howerton), Mac (show creator Rob McElhenney), Charlie (Charlie Day), Sweet Dee (Kaitlin Olson), and Dennis and Sweet Dee's legal father Frank (Danny DeVito), who run a bar (sort of) called Paddy's in the City of Brotherly Love.
To attempt an inital summary at what sort of entertainment this show offers up allow me to borrow a plot synopsis written by the Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan of one of this evening's episodes: "Picture a scene of two people in a morgue, looking for human flesh they can consume (it's a long story). They reject taking flesh from the body of a dead African-American, deciding a fleshier white corpse looks more promising, then discuss whether that decision was racist."Does that sound appealing? Or, for instance, take this summation of the show as a whole from ever-reliable wikipedia: "The series deals with a variety of controversial topics, including abortion, gun control, physical disabilities, racism, sexism, religion, the Israeli/Palestinian situation, terrorism, transsexuality, slavery, incest, sexual harassment in education, the homeless, statutory rape, drug addiction, pedophilia, nuclear proliferation in North Korea, child abuse, mental illness, gay rights, bulimia, prostitution, nazism, and cannibalism." That's a "variety", all right, and it doesn't even touch my favorite subplot from last year in which Dennis and Frank pretend to be police officers which prompts Charlie to dress and act like Al Pacino's "Serpico" and try to take them down. Subject matter aside, it is probably as close to genuine screwball comedy as you're likely to find in this day and age.
It must be made clear - if it hasn't been made that already - that this show is not for everyone. It's been described as "Seinfeld on crack" and as a person who knows more about "Seinfeld" than you, everyone you've met in your life, and everyone that everyone you've met in your life has met in their life, I can safely say that comparison is apt, though entirely accurate.
The old mantra on "Seinfeld" was "No Hugging, No Crying". Now, on "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia" there's been some of each and that's okay because compared to Dennis, Mac, Charlie, Sweet Dee, and Frank, Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer seem secure, balanced, and upstanding. The "Sunny" quintet is so spectacularly timid and neurotic they have to cry and hug every now and again just to keep it together.
It was also said of "Seinfeld" that "the characters gleefully do not grow." No worries, because the "Sunny" characters don't grow either. Not only do they not grow, one might argue they regress. Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer learned lessons they simply chose to ignore. Dennis, Mac, Charlie, Sweet Dee, and Frank seem to learn lessons except for the fact they're the wrong ones.
A common complaint leveled at the show is that all the characters talk alike. And they do, undeniably. And, as they say, that's the point. Imagine five people are together all the time every day all day. Do you think they might start to sound alike? Remember the scene in "Curb Your Enthusiam" when Larry David and Jason Alexander (i.e. George Costanza) are yelling at each other for, like, two minutes? Imagine that scene lasting for twenty minutes but with five people instead of two who sound alike yelling at each other and that's "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia". If you can't take it, I understand.
If you can, by all means, tune in. Shows this good need your support. And if you had ever pondered, as I long did, what Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer would have been like in their 20's, you'll finally know.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Burn After Reading
The heroes and heroines - or perhaps I should anti-heroes and anti-heroines - of so many noir movies from the 30's and 40's were reasonably intelligent people driven by greed and, if not love, lust. The heroes and heroines - or anti-heroes and anti-heroines - of Joel and Ethan Coen's latest ode to noir, however, seem a few rungs below reasonably intelligent and are not driven by greed and lust so much as they are by insecurity, addiction, cluelessness, general unpleasantness, and plastic surgery.
Things kick off with CIA agent Osborne Cox (John Malkovich, swearing more than Tom Cruise in "Tropic Thunder") being demoted for, amongst other things, an apparent drinking problem. Instead, he resigns his post and then tells his wife Katie (Tilda Swinton) he plans to write his "memoirs". She does not seem amused. In fact, she does not seem amused by much at all. Not even by George Clooney's Harry Pfarrer, a slovenly U.S. Marshal who hauls his gun everywhere, the man with whom she's having an illicit - though not at all passionate ("Maybe I can get a run in") - affair. She is ready to divorce her husband (hence her laywer advises her to get a copy of his finances) and she wants Harry to divorce his wife though he seems a bit evasive when it comes to this topic and maybe that's because he's not only cheating on his wife with Katie but also with the hanging-on-by-a-very-thin-thread Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand), an employee at Hardbodies Gym where she spends more time scouring the internet for dates and attempting to concoct scenarios in which she can afford to have her face fixed and her breasts augmented than working. Luckily, her co-worker Chad (Brad Pitt), whose life revolves around exercising, hydrating and grooving to his Ipod, and not necessarily in that order, is handed a disc dropped on the locker room floor that contains Osborne's finance information which Katie had burned for purposes of said impending divorce.
The gym's nerve-wracked manager (Richard Jenkins) wants them to get rid of the disc but Chad and Linda decide to make an attempt at scamming some money off Osborne by using the disc (or, as Chad puts it numerous times, "the sensitive s---") as leverage. Chad's motives are unclear, probably because he has no motives and even if he did he wouldn't understand them, which is why it's a good thing Linda is there to push him along, considering her various prospective surgeries aren't covered by her medical benefits and so she needs some cash and needs it fast. These two, needless to say, are not the most well-tuned oboes in the orchestra.
So we're off and running through the world of a modern-day noir but since it's written and directed by the Brothers Coen that means there will be a gaggle of unusual hoops through which everyone will have to jump. People seem to operate based on what they've seen in old noir movies. ("The Russians? Why did they go to the Russians?") A smattering of red-herrings are thrown at us. One character used to be a Greek-Orthodox priest. Harry works on a mysterious contraption in his basement. People are followed by people in cars who at times seem to be followed by other people in cars. I haven't even mentioned the two guys (J.K. Simmons and David Rasche) back at Langley (in two of the absolute funniest scenes in any movie this year). They talk and talk and talk and seem to be explaining things until you realize they're not really explaining anything and they might even be more confused than you are.
At one point Harry is discussing when he used to work as a private investigator and how in those days it took some real work to find a person. But now, with the internet and cellphones, anyone can find anyone. It doesn't take effort at all. Likewise in the old days to pull off a blackmail scheme you had to be a little sinister, a little jaded, but in an icily cool way. You had to have an attitude that was arresting. It took some flare. You had to have passion, even if it was terribly misplaced. You had to be Lana Turner and John Garfield. And when it went bad, as it had to, it felt like a bonafide tragedy.
But now, a noir can be fueled by any couple of schmucks at the gym.
Things kick off with CIA agent Osborne Cox (John Malkovich, swearing more than Tom Cruise in "Tropic Thunder") being demoted for, amongst other things, an apparent drinking problem. Instead, he resigns his post and then tells his wife Katie (Tilda Swinton) he plans to write his "memoirs". She does not seem amused. In fact, she does not seem amused by much at all. Not even by George Clooney's Harry Pfarrer, a slovenly U.S. Marshal who hauls his gun everywhere, the man with whom she's having an illicit - though not at all passionate ("Maybe I can get a run in") - affair. She is ready to divorce her husband (hence her laywer advises her to get a copy of his finances) and she wants Harry to divorce his wife though he seems a bit evasive when it comes to this topic and maybe that's because he's not only cheating on his wife with Katie but also with the hanging-on-by-a-very-thin-thread Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand), an employee at Hardbodies Gym where she spends more time scouring the internet for dates and attempting to concoct scenarios in which she can afford to have her face fixed and her breasts augmented than working. Luckily, her co-worker Chad (Brad Pitt), whose life revolves around exercising, hydrating and grooving to his Ipod, and not necessarily in that order, is handed a disc dropped on the locker room floor that contains Osborne's finance information which Katie had burned for purposes of said impending divorce.
The gym's nerve-wracked manager (Richard Jenkins) wants them to get rid of the disc but Chad and Linda decide to make an attempt at scamming some money off Osborne by using the disc (or, as Chad puts it numerous times, "the sensitive s---") as leverage. Chad's motives are unclear, probably because he has no motives and even if he did he wouldn't understand them, which is why it's a good thing Linda is there to push him along, considering her various prospective surgeries aren't covered by her medical benefits and so she needs some cash and needs it fast. These two, needless to say, are not the most well-tuned oboes in the orchestra.
So we're off and running through the world of a modern-day noir but since it's written and directed by the Brothers Coen that means there will be a gaggle of unusual hoops through which everyone will have to jump. People seem to operate based on what they've seen in old noir movies. ("The Russians? Why did they go to the Russians?") A smattering of red-herrings are thrown at us. One character used to be a Greek-Orthodox priest. Harry works on a mysterious contraption in his basement. People are followed by people in cars who at times seem to be followed by other people in cars. I haven't even mentioned the two guys (J.K. Simmons and David Rasche) back at Langley (in two of the absolute funniest scenes in any movie this year). They talk and talk and talk and seem to be explaining things until you realize they're not really explaining anything and they might even be more confused than you are.
At one point Harry is discussing when he used to work as a private investigator and how in those days it took some real work to find a person. But now, with the internet and cellphones, anyone can find anyone. It doesn't take effort at all. Likewise in the old days to pull off a blackmail scheme you had to be a little sinister, a little jaded, but in an icily cool way. You had to have an attitude that was arresting. It took some flare. You had to have passion, even if it was terribly misplaced. You had to be Lana Turner and John Garfield. And when it went bad, as it had to, it felt like a bonafide tragedy.
But now, a noir can be fueled by any couple of schmucks at the gym.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Let's Get Symmetrical
Last week I was watching Monday Night Football at my friend Matt's apartment, sipping on Labatt Blue, one of my two favorite beers in the whole wide world, and after the game ended we decided to throw some "Arrested Development" on the DVD player, and then it started to approach the point when we needed to go to sleep but still wanted to finish the episode we were watching, and Matt said, "Here. Finish this." With that, he handed me the half-full beer he had been drinking which just so happened to be Sierra Nevada, my other favorite beer in the whole wide world. So there I was, with a Labatt Blue in my left hand and a Sierra Nevada in my right hand. I couldn't even take a drink for a couple minutes. I just stared at this strange, wonderous sight. "Matt," I said at least four times, "do you realize I'm double fisting my two favorite beers? This has never happened before!" Glory, glory. Yet, I find it strange that being who I am and knowing how my brain operates that I never thought this momentous moment was, in fact, foreshadowing something else.
This weekend I attended the new Coen Brothers movie (review to come, though let me say I liked it quite a bit) and had to hike through a driving rain to the theater and then through the driving rain to get back home. By the time I reached my apartment, soaked to the bone, I just wanted to flop on the couch, flip on the TV and revel in a nice, hot cup of coffee. And so as I settled in, mug in hand, and perused the cable channels, lo and behold, I found "The Last of the Mohicans", one of my two favorite movies in the whole wide world, showing on channel 141 (Fox Movie Channel). Well, this couldn't be more perfect, I thought.
Oh, except it could. For showing on, I swear, Channel 142 (American Movie Channel) was "Million Dollar Baby", my other favorite movie in the whole wide world. (Ironically, a couple years ago on this very blog I compared "Last of the Mohicans" to Labatt Blue and "Million Dollar Baby" to Sierra Nevada.) I must have sat there for about three minutes just staring at the digital cable channel lineup without selecting one or the other. They're on at the same time, I thought over and over, they're on at the same time. And not just on at the same time but side by side. Was it true? Was this possible?
Oh, it was. Has this ever happened to you? Have your two favorite movies ever been showing simultaneously? I suppose you could hook up two DVD players to two TVs and and have it happen whenever you wanted but, heck, that just seems like cheating. This, though, was the work of the fates, of the movie gods.
You haven't lived - okay, okay, I hadn't lived - until you toggle directly from Hawkeye declaring to a British officer "I don't call myself subject to much at all" to Maggie Fitzgerald declaring "I got nobody but you, Frankie."
Woah, heart palpitations. Let me calm down here.
Okay. I think I'm good. Astute readers may notice the two moments I just mentioned do not line up timewise between the two movies and this is because "Million Dollar Baby" started earlier than "Last of the Mohicans". This is a good thing. If the third acts of these two films were running concurrently....you know what? Let's not discuss what would happen.
Back and forth, forth and back I went, greatness of cinema to greatness of cinema. Alice & Maggie. Hawkeye & Frankie. Uncas & Scrap. Cora & Danger. On & on it went. And as "Million Dollar Baby" concluded with that magnificent voice-over, fading to black, I immediately flipped back to "Last of the Mohicans" and the moment that appeared, without anything in between, I swear to God, was Hawkeye shouting to Cora, "Stay alive! No matter what occurs! I will find you!" From the most shattering, heart-breaking cinematic moment of all time to the most rousing, inspiring, leap-outta'-your-seat-and-take-on-the-whole-world cinematic moment of all time. Mere coincidence? Poppycock.
This, of course, begs the question, what is this foreshadowing? Is it even possible this is foreshadowing something? How can such an event be topped? Will Kate Winslet star in the new Michael Mann movie? Will Tommie Frazier join Bo Pelini at Nebraska as Special Assistant Head Football Coach? Will Lucinda Williams and Neko Case cut an album of duets? Will Sienna Miller join Kylie Minogue onstage for a ceremonial glass of scotch? Who knows? Who cares?
"On the contrary," Cora says of the war she is finally experiencing first hand, "it is more deeply stirring to my blood than any imagining could possibly have been." I'd imagined what happened yesterday. But having it actually happen? I'm with you, Cora. It's more deeply stirring to my blood.
This weekend I attended the new Coen Brothers movie (review to come, though let me say I liked it quite a bit) and had to hike through a driving rain to the theater and then through the driving rain to get back home. By the time I reached my apartment, soaked to the bone, I just wanted to flop on the couch, flip on the TV and revel in a nice, hot cup of coffee. And so as I settled in, mug in hand, and perused the cable channels, lo and behold, I found "The Last of the Mohicans", one of my two favorite movies in the whole wide world, showing on channel 141 (Fox Movie Channel). Well, this couldn't be more perfect, I thought.
Oh, except it could. For showing on, I swear, Channel 142 (American Movie Channel) was "Million Dollar Baby", my other favorite movie in the whole wide world. (Ironically, a couple years ago on this very blog I compared "Last of the Mohicans" to Labatt Blue and "Million Dollar Baby" to Sierra Nevada.) I must have sat there for about three minutes just staring at the digital cable channel lineup without selecting one or the other. They're on at the same time, I thought over and over, they're on at the same time. And not just on at the same time but side by side. Was it true? Was this possible?
Oh, it was. Has this ever happened to you? Have your two favorite movies ever been showing simultaneously? I suppose you could hook up two DVD players to two TVs and and have it happen whenever you wanted but, heck, that just seems like cheating. This, though, was the work of the fates, of the movie gods.
You haven't lived - okay, okay, I hadn't lived - until you toggle directly from Hawkeye declaring to a British officer "I don't call myself subject to much at all" to Maggie Fitzgerald declaring "I got nobody but you, Frankie."
Woah, heart palpitations. Let me calm down here.
Okay. I think I'm good. Astute readers may notice the two moments I just mentioned do not line up timewise between the two movies and this is because "Million Dollar Baby" started earlier than "Last of the Mohicans". This is a good thing. If the third acts of these two films were running concurrently....you know what? Let's not discuss what would happen.
Back and forth, forth and back I went, greatness of cinema to greatness of cinema. Alice & Maggie. Hawkeye & Frankie. Uncas & Scrap. Cora & Danger. On & on it went. And as "Million Dollar Baby" concluded with that magnificent voice-over, fading to black, I immediately flipped back to "Last of the Mohicans" and the moment that appeared, without anything in between, I swear to God, was Hawkeye shouting to Cora, "Stay alive! No matter what occurs! I will find you!" From the most shattering, heart-breaking cinematic moment of all time to the most rousing, inspiring, leap-outta'-your-seat-and-take-on-the-whole-world cinematic moment of all time. Mere coincidence? Poppycock.
This, of course, begs the question, what is this foreshadowing? Is it even possible this is foreshadowing something? How can such an event be topped? Will Kate Winslet star in the new Michael Mann movie? Will Tommie Frazier join Bo Pelini at Nebraska as Special Assistant Head Football Coach? Will Lucinda Williams and Neko Case cut an album of duets? Will Sienna Miller join Kylie Minogue onstage for a ceremonial glass of scotch? Who knows? Who cares?
"On the contrary," Cora says of the war she is finally experiencing first hand, "it is more deeply stirring to my blood than any imagining could possibly have been." I'd imagined what happened yesterday. But having it actually happen? I'm with you, Cora. It's more deeply stirring to my blood.
Friday, September 12, 2008
The Mighty Have Completely Collapsed
Which line in the trailer for "Righteous Kill" (opening nationwide today), starring Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino (meaning this really should have been made, oh, 15 years ago), do you think is more jaw droppingly hideous?
- "Not everyone respects the badge. But everybody respects the gun."
or
- "Once you pick up a check than I'll believe in miracles."
If anyone sees the movie (I'm not going to) please report back to me if at any point DeNiro wishes Pacino "Good luck" to which Pacino cackles and yells, "Don't need any! I was born lucky!"
- "Not everyone respects the badge. But everybody respects the gun."
or
- "Once you pick up a check than I'll believe in miracles."
If anyone sees the movie (I'm not going to) please report back to me if at any point DeNiro wishes Pacino "Good luck" to which Pacino cackles and yells, "Don't need any! I was born lucky!"
Thursday, September 11, 2008
My Great Movies: Elizabethtown
Critic-proof. A movie wherein critical reception has no bearing, wherein friends' coherent and often correct arguments are rendered meaningless. To me, Cameron Crowe's "Elizabethtown" is critic-proof. Few people I know liked it and reviews were generally unkind. Nathan Rabin of The AV Club devoted himself to a year long project in 2007 entitled "My Year of Flops" in which he re-watched and then offered commentary on films considered blatantly unsuccesful upon their release. The first film on his list was "Elizabethtown", though while labeling it a flop Rabin also called it "a heartfelt debacle of rare ambition, sincerity and vision." Maybe I just respect heartfelt debacles more than the next guy but despite "Elizabethtown's" flaws - and, yes, I'm aware of them - I can't really even see them when I watch it. It transcends good and bad. It cuts far deeper into my skin.
Drew Baylor (Orlando Bloom) has designed the Spasmotica, a shoe which will revolutionize the industry. Instead, of course, it is a horrendous failure, and so his boss (Alec Baldwin) calls him to his luxurious office for a tete-a-tete which ends with Drew's dismissal. "Success, not greatness, is the only god the world truly served," says Drew in voice-over as he walks out the door and determines to commit suicide. The fates, however, have a different idea in mind. He receives a phone call from his sister. Their dad has died. He was home in Elizabethtown, Kentucky when it happened and, thus, Drew is enlisted by his sister (Judy Greer) and mother (Susan Sarandon) to journey south and bring back his father.
Cue the obligatory love interest, flight attendant Claire Colburn (Kirsten Dunst). Ah, but since this is a Cameron Crowe film her cue will be accompanied by song - Tom Petty's "It'll All Work Out". She gives Drew a free seat in first class and proceeds to lather him up with words all night and draw a map directing him to his destination, complete with multiple phone numbers for herself. As he departs the airport she stands behind him shouting the interstate exit number he needs to take once, twice, three, even four times.
Roger Ebert deemed it the "most unrelenting Meet Cute in movie history." Rabin termed her "The Manic Pixie Dream Girl", and said such a character is "an all-or-nothing-proposition. Audiences either want to marry her instantly or they want to commit grievous bodily harm against them and their immediate family." Judy Berman of salon.com also weighed in on Rabin's coinage, adding that characters such as "The Manic Pixie Dream Girl" are "exercise(s) in male wish fulfillment." Hey, Judy, I got news for you, Rhett Butler is nothing more than female wish fulfillment. Harlequin's been churning out wish fullfillment in print for eons. Springsteen's masterpiece "New York City Serenade" is wish fulfillment set to music. Hell, even Michael Bay movies fit the criteria in so much as they fulfill his endless wish to blow stuff up. But Cameron Crowe fulfills his wish and suddenly the whole world is ending.
Maybe you don't like Claire Colburn for who she is and that's fine, but I find the notion of a woman who wears Maker's Mark tee shirts and listens to Ryan Adams (and not just the alt-country stuff, mind you, but the art-rock weirdness of "Love is Hell", a CD you glimpse her holding) and professes the nobility of solitary cross-country road trips so forcefully carrying out a Meet Cute with me rather appealing. I like Claire. I do, and not least because at one point she says, "I like being alone too much." That's a line that sums me up and my attitude toward relationships and what more can you ask from movie dialogue?
Anymore movies seem content to offer us the main characters and maybe a couple people in support - usually the two best friends - but once Drew arrives in his dad's hometown Crowe offers up a rich smorgasboard of eccentric relatives who decry the Baylor family's idea of having their town's favorite son cremated and look down on their decision to reside in California "even though" - as Drew repeatedly points out to no avail - "we now live in Oregon". Yet there are others beyond the family tree, like the shady Bill Banyon (Bruce McGill) and the about-to-be-married Chuck & Cindy who turn the hotel where Drew is staying into some sort of commonwealth version of a Cancun resort. And let's not forget Drew's mom back home - Sarandon is deft and brilliant, as usual - who fixes the toilet and wages war with her car engine and then finally does turn up in Elizabethtown to face all those who have vilified her in a scene too rewarding, and unexpected, to give away.
Drew makes the most inroads with his cousin Jesse (Paul Schneider) whose now-defunct band Ruckus once "almost opened" for Lynyrd Skynyrd and now maintains a son Sampson with a mischievous streak. "You can't be buddies with your own kid," Jesse's father harshly explains and the look Schneider offers in response to this critique is simply priceless. I feel correlation with Jesse as well, his dreams of hitting it big and his unspoken resignation that he knows he won't.
Of course, it is inevitable that isolationist Drew, the son who didn't come home for Christmas and felt no passion or emotion for anything but a "beautiful shoe", will come to understand the importance of family and learn to both feel and love. The old saying, though, is it's not the destination, it's the journey. The journey Drew takes in "Elizabethtown", and the journey others characters take, offer the rewards.
Crowe has no desire to follow his plot from Point A to Point B. He makes many diversions, letting scenes and characters breathe, focusing in on whatever moments catch his fancy, and filling endless frames with unusual and rewarding dialogue. Notice the scene where Jesse is discussing his band with Drew and Drew follows up with, "And now you fix computers?" And Jesse responds by singing one of his band's song, as in this is more important than that. Yes, there are a few montages, and I often rail against the montage, but they're so much easier to stomach when set to "Summerlong" by Kathleen Edwards or "Big Love" by Lindsey Buckingham.
In the end - literally and figuratively - it all comes down to one, last journey. Drew's solo road trip, just him, his car and an explicit instructions from Claire detailing the voyage down to the minute and set to song. This passage is among the most luminous I have ever witnessed on a movie screen and was partially responsible for finally causing me to strike out and see "The Last of the Mohicans" filming locations in the Tar Heel State like I'd always dreamed.
One of the great myths perpetuated by the movies is the Life Changing Visit. Often you will see this happen during the course of a film character going home for the holidays or for a family reunion or, as in the case of "Elizabethtown", a funeral and while at home their life changes for the better and all in only a few days. Is the myth based at all on fact? I've gained some perspective when going home or for a visit or on vacation, or maybe I've made a small life decision, but has my life truly changed?
But so what if it's just a myth? People always say movies are meant for escape only to turn around and criticize other movies for not representing real life. So which is it?
I think it's important to believe lives can be altered in one felled swoop even if we know such an occurrence rarely happens (if at all). No, I don't expect to go somewhere I've never been and find both the meaning of life and true love with a girl who sees the Mississippi River not as Water Flowing South but as "Mark Twain's muse and Jeff Buckley's funeral bed", but I like to dream it's possible. Crowe's film is a poem to that dream's possibility. Below the surface of this movie beats the heart of a romantic, which means its heart beats just like mine. And that's why I'll always think of "Elizabethtown" as a masterpiece, no matter what anyone says.
Drew Baylor (Orlando Bloom) has designed the Spasmotica, a shoe which will revolutionize the industry. Instead, of course, it is a horrendous failure, and so his boss (Alec Baldwin) calls him to his luxurious office for a tete-a-tete which ends with Drew's dismissal. "Success, not greatness, is the only god the world truly served," says Drew in voice-over as he walks out the door and determines to commit suicide. The fates, however, have a different idea in mind. He receives a phone call from his sister. Their dad has died. He was home in Elizabethtown, Kentucky when it happened and, thus, Drew is enlisted by his sister (Judy Greer) and mother (Susan Sarandon) to journey south and bring back his father.
Cue the obligatory love interest, flight attendant Claire Colburn (Kirsten Dunst). Ah, but since this is a Cameron Crowe film her cue will be accompanied by song - Tom Petty's "It'll All Work Out". She gives Drew a free seat in first class and proceeds to lather him up with words all night and draw a map directing him to his destination, complete with multiple phone numbers for herself. As he departs the airport she stands behind him shouting the interstate exit number he needs to take once, twice, three, even four times.Roger Ebert deemed it the "most unrelenting Meet Cute in movie history." Rabin termed her "The Manic Pixie Dream Girl", and said such a character is "an all-or-nothing-proposition. Audiences either want to marry her instantly or they want to commit grievous bodily harm against them and their immediate family." Judy Berman of salon.com also weighed in on Rabin's coinage, adding that characters such as "The Manic Pixie Dream Girl" are "exercise(s) in male wish fulfillment." Hey, Judy, I got news for you, Rhett Butler is nothing more than female wish fulfillment. Harlequin's been churning out wish fullfillment in print for eons. Springsteen's masterpiece "New York City Serenade" is wish fulfillment set to music. Hell, even Michael Bay movies fit the criteria in so much as they fulfill his endless wish to blow stuff up. But Cameron Crowe fulfills his wish and suddenly the whole world is ending.
Maybe you don't like Claire Colburn for who she is and that's fine, but I find the notion of a woman who wears Maker's Mark tee shirts and listens to Ryan Adams (and not just the alt-country stuff, mind you, but the art-rock weirdness of "Love is Hell", a CD you glimpse her holding) and professes the nobility of solitary cross-country road trips so forcefully carrying out a Meet Cute with me rather appealing. I like Claire. I do, and not least because at one point she says, "I like being alone too much." That's a line that sums me up and my attitude toward relationships and what more can you ask from movie dialogue?
Anymore movies seem content to offer us the main characters and maybe a couple people in support - usually the two best friends - but once Drew arrives in his dad's hometown Crowe offers up a rich smorgasboard of eccentric relatives who decry the Baylor family's idea of having their town's favorite son cremated and look down on their decision to reside in California "even though" - as Drew repeatedly points out to no avail - "we now live in Oregon". Yet there are others beyond the family tree, like the shady Bill Banyon (Bruce McGill) and the about-to-be-married Chuck & Cindy who turn the hotel where Drew is staying into some sort of commonwealth version of a Cancun resort. And let's not forget Drew's mom back home - Sarandon is deft and brilliant, as usual - who fixes the toilet and wages war with her car engine and then finally does turn up in Elizabethtown to face all those who have vilified her in a scene too rewarding, and unexpected, to give away.
Drew makes the most inroads with his cousin Jesse (Paul Schneider) whose now-defunct band Ruckus once "almost opened" for Lynyrd Skynyrd and now maintains a son Sampson with a mischievous streak. "You can't be buddies with your own kid," Jesse's father harshly explains and the look Schneider offers in response to this critique is simply priceless. I feel correlation with Jesse as well, his dreams of hitting it big and his unspoken resignation that he knows he won't.
Of course, it is inevitable that isolationist Drew, the son who didn't come home for Christmas and felt no passion or emotion for anything but a "beautiful shoe", will come to understand the importance of family and learn to both feel and love. The old saying, though, is it's not the destination, it's the journey. The journey Drew takes in "Elizabethtown", and the journey others characters take, offer the rewards.Crowe has no desire to follow his plot from Point A to Point B. He makes many diversions, letting scenes and characters breathe, focusing in on whatever moments catch his fancy, and filling endless frames with unusual and rewarding dialogue. Notice the scene where Jesse is discussing his band with Drew and Drew follows up with, "And now you fix computers?" And Jesse responds by singing one of his band's song, as in this is more important than that. Yes, there are a few montages, and I often rail against the montage, but they're so much easier to stomach when set to "Summerlong" by Kathleen Edwards or "Big Love" by Lindsey Buckingham.
In the end - literally and figuratively - it all comes down to one, last journey. Drew's solo road trip, just him, his car and an explicit instructions from Claire detailing the voyage down to the minute and set to song. This passage is among the most luminous I have ever witnessed on a movie screen and was partially responsible for finally causing me to strike out and see "The Last of the Mohicans" filming locations in the Tar Heel State like I'd always dreamed.
One of the great myths perpetuated by the movies is the Life Changing Visit. Often you will see this happen during the course of a film character going home for the holidays or for a family reunion or, as in the case of "Elizabethtown", a funeral and while at home their life changes for the better and all in only a few days. Is the myth based at all on fact? I've gained some perspective when going home or for a visit or on vacation, or maybe I've made a small life decision, but has my life truly changed?
But so what if it's just a myth? People always say movies are meant for escape only to turn around and criticize other movies for not representing real life. So which is it?
I think it's important to believe lives can be altered in one felled swoop even if we know such an occurrence rarely happens (if at all). No, I don't expect to go somewhere I've never been and find both the meaning of life and true love with a girl who sees the Mississippi River not as Water Flowing South but as "Mark Twain's muse and Jeff Buckley's funeral bed", but I like to dream it's possible. Crowe's film is a poem to that dream's possibility. Below the surface of this movie beats the heart of a romantic, which means its heart beats just like mine. And that's why I'll always think of "Elizabethtown" as a masterpiece, no matter what anyone says.
Monday, September 08, 2008
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Innate setpoints. This was a term used by Ethan Hawke in 2004's "Before Sunset", as in people all have "innate setpoints" from which they tend not to deviate too much. I've always loved it. In fact, I went so far as to title a screenplay of mine Innate Setpoints. I'm not sure there are two words one could use to better summarize human nature. And Woody Allen's 445th feature film (note: I made that up) is a full-on exploration of that notion.
We get sense of our primary characters innate setpoints within a lunch and then a dinner at the start of the first act. Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johannson) have come to Barcelona to spend the summer with Vicky's relatives, Judy (Patricia Clarkson) and Mark (Kevin Dunn). What inevitable, god-awful question does Mark pose to each of them before they've seemingly even had to time to take a sip of wine? "What do you do?" (Aaaaargh!!!) Cristina replies, "I'm at liberty." Vicky, on the other hand, has come to do work on her masters degree in "Catalan Theory" and to this Mark poses an even worse follow-up question: "What do you do with that?" Not, why that? Or what interests you in that? But, what do you do with that? As the real-life Bill Murray once observed when asked to discuss his career path, " Are you trying to make me gag?"
But, seriously, this scene establishes our two heroines for who they are: Vicky is grounded and with a plan, a goal for which to shoot, regardless of whether or not she truly believes it to be the right decision. This, too, is underscored by her impending marriage to Doug (Chris Messina), back home in NYC, who calls up Vicky at all hours and quickly establishes his sort of character by declaring, "What's up, babe?" Cristina, on the other hand, is flighty, adventurous, unwilling to be tied down to one thing that will define her, someone who doesn't necessarily know what she wants but sure as heck knows "what she doesn't want".
Later that night, after the quartet has attended a function at an art museum, Vicky and Cristina dine together and who should approach their table but the dashing Spanish painter Juan Antonio, looking suspiciously like Javier Bardem. (By the way, based on the version of Barcelona we see here everyone appears to be a writer or photographer or painter or sculptor or composer or poet or flamenco guitarist. Are there no businessmen? No pencil-pushers? No custodians? No line cooks? No - gasp - financial company employees?) Reveling in his un-Americanness he wastes nary a split-second on useless small talk and instead wonders if they will accompany him via plane to another Spanish town where he must see a sculpture that inspires him and then, perhaps, the three of them can romp together through the boudoir.
Needless to say, Vicky is instantly turned off and Cristina is instantly turned on. Cristina wins out, maybe because the movie would be less exciting if she didn't. The projected course, however, for this unique threesome goes wayward, as it must, and Vicky finds herself questioning what she's made with her life while Cristina will eventually move in with Juan Antonio.
All this would be well and good for a fine, little movie but midway through Allen sends a jolt of engery, life, vim, vigor, charisma, pasion (!) knifing through the goings-on in the form of Juan Antonio's unstable ex-wife (she tried to stab poor Juan Antonio right before their divorce) Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz, offering the most glamorous headcase you ever did see). She turns back up at Juan Antonio's pad through an unfortunate circumstance, glowering at Cristina over breakfast, her hair in a frightful yet mesmerizing way, a cigarette burning in her hand. In all the films where I had previously seen her never had I heard Ms. Cruz turn up the volume so loud. Her adamant, profanity-laced disagreements with Juan Antonio make for riveting theater and left me wishing a bit that we'd received more screen time for this unstable beauty queen. There is a lot of life blowing through "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" but Maria Elena is a frickin' November gale on the Great Lakes. She merely ups the ante a considerable degree and makes all the questions already asked even harder to answer.
Twists and turns are aplenty and are not for me to reveal, but one brilliant decision by Allen that makes the movie truly distinct is in the voice-over by Christopher Evan Welch. The most interesting item I've ever read relating to how one goes about writing voice-over is this: If you take it out and the movie still makes sense, keep it in. Well, if you removed the voice-over from "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" it would still make sense and that's why keeping it in makes it so great. It presents the movie with a documentary feel, as if the narrator is watching over all these people and reporting back to us with his findings on human nature.
What he seems to find is that it doesn't necessarily matter where you put people or who they meet or what they do or how much wine they drink because we're all tethered to those innate setpoints and, whether we can bring ourselves to admit it or not, we'll drift back to them eventually.
We get sense of our primary characters innate setpoints within a lunch and then a dinner at the start of the first act. Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johannson) have come to Barcelona to spend the summer with Vicky's relatives, Judy (Patricia Clarkson) and Mark (Kevin Dunn). What inevitable, god-awful question does Mark pose to each of them before they've seemingly even had to time to take a sip of wine? "What do you do?" (Aaaaargh!!!) Cristina replies, "I'm at liberty." Vicky, on the other hand, has come to do work on her masters degree in "Catalan Theory" and to this Mark poses an even worse follow-up question: "What do you do with that?" Not, why that? Or what interests you in that? But, what do you do with that? As the real-life Bill Murray once observed when asked to discuss his career path, " Are you trying to make me gag?"
But, seriously, this scene establishes our two heroines for who they are: Vicky is grounded and with a plan, a goal for which to shoot, regardless of whether or not she truly believes it to be the right decision. This, too, is underscored by her impending marriage to Doug (Chris Messina), back home in NYC, who calls up Vicky at all hours and quickly establishes his sort of character by declaring, "What's up, babe?" Cristina, on the other hand, is flighty, adventurous, unwilling to be tied down to one thing that will define her, someone who doesn't necessarily know what she wants but sure as heck knows "what she doesn't want".
Later that night, after the quartet has attended a function at an art museum, Vicky and Cristina dine together and who should approach their table but the dashing Spanish painter Juan Antonio, looking suspiciously like Javier Bardem. (By the way, based on the version of Barcelona we see here everyone appears to be a writer or photographer or painter or sculptor or composer or poet or flamenco guitarist. Are there no businessmen? No pencil-pushers? No custodians? No line cooks? No - gasp - financial company employees?) Reveling in his un-Americanness he wastes nary a split-second on useless small talk and instead wonders if they will accompany him via plane to another Spanish town where he must see a sculpture that inspires him and then, perhaps, the three of them can romp together through the boudoir.
Needless to say, Vicky is instantly turned off and Cristina is instantly turned on. Cristina wins out, maybe because the movie would be less exciting if she didn't. The projected course, however, for this unique threesome goes wayward, as it must, and Vicky finds herself questioning what she's made with her life while Cristina will eventually move in with Juan Antonio.
All this would be well and good for a fine, little movie but midway through Allen sends a jolt of engery, life, vim, vigor, charisma, pasion (!) knifing through the goings-on in the form of Juan Antonio's unstable ex-wife (she tried to stab poor Juan Antonio right before their divorce) Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz, offering the most glamorous headcase you ever did see). She turns back up at Juan Antonio's pad through an unfortunate circumstance, glowering at Cristina over breakfast, her hair in a frightful yet mesmerizing way, a cigarette burning in her hand. In all the films where I had previously seen her never had I heard Ms. Cruz turn up the volume so loud. Her adamant, profanity-laced disagreements with Juan Antonio make for riveting theater and left me wishing a bit that we'd received more screen time for this unstable beauty queen. There is a lot of life blowing through "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" but Maria Elena is a frickin' November gale on the Great Lakes. She merely ups the ante a considerable degree and makes all the questions already asked even harder to answer.
Twists and turns are aplenty and are not for me to reveal, but one brilliant decision by Allen that makes the movie truly distinct is in the voice-over by Christopher Evan Welch. The most interesting item I've ever read relating to how one goes about writing voice-over is this: If you take it out and the movie still makes sense, keep it in. Well, if you removed the voice-over from "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" it would still make sense and that's why keeping it in makes it so great. It presents the movie with a documentary feel, as if the narrator is watching over all these people and reporting back to us with his findings on human nature.
What he seems to find is that it doesn't necessarily matter where you put people or who they meet or what they do or how much wine they drink because we're all tethered to those innate setpoints and, whether we can bring ourselves to admit it or not, we'll drift back to them eventually.
Friday, September 05, 2008
Heart Attack Imminent
Mark the time in your log. Note the velocity of the wind. Take stock of the temperature. Ensure whether or not the sky around you is sunny, cloudy or partly one or the other. Look at the person sitting next to you (but don't introduce yourself if you've never met him or her).
Is there a reason, you must be wondering, why I, your humble blogger, am asking you to do all this? I'll tell you why, because I'm doing all this right now.
Okay, but is there a reason, you're now asking, why your humble blogger is doing all this right now? Well, of course there is. I'm doing all this right now, dear friends, because it's happened. It's finally, finally, finally happened. I've pleaded with gods of cinema for they-and-I-don't-know-how-long but either I've worn them down to the point of giving up or they've just decided to be nice. (Maybe they let it slip through the cracks unwittingly, I don't know). But the day has arrived. Well, it hasn't arrived yet, I should say. It arrives later this month. But it will arrive. Oh yes, it will. Glory hallelujah. Hark the herald angels sing.
"Chinatown", the greatest movie ever made, is coming to the big screen.
Is there a reason, you must be wondering, why I, your humble blogger, am asking you to do all this? I'll tell you why, because I'm doing all this right now.
Okay, but is there a reason, you're now asking, why your humble blogger is doing all this right now? Well, of course there is. I'm doing all this right now, dear friends, because it's happened. It's finally, finally, finally happened. I've pleaded with gods of cinema for they-and-I-don't-know-how-long but either I've worn them down to the point of giving up or they've just decided to be nice. (Maybe they let it slip through the cracks unwittingly, I don't know). But the day has arrived. Well, it hasn't arrived yet, I should say. It arrives later this month. But it will arrive. Oh yes, it will. Glory hallelujah. Hark the herald angels sing.
"Chinatown", the greatest movie ever made, is coming to the big screen.
The Curious Case of Inglorious Bastards
Early returns on the casting of Quentin Tarantino's upcoming WWII film are, needless to say, eyebrow-raising. At last check (and this is after, apparently, Simon Pegg, or "Shaun of the Dead" himself, and Nastassja Kinski dropped out) this is what we're seeing:
-Brad Pitt
-Mike Myers (Perhaps looking for a Travolta-esque comeback in the wake of "The Love Guru"?)
-B.J. Novak (You might know him as Ryan the temp from NBC's "The Office".)
-Diane Kruger (The striking German actress who no doubt will bring to mind the George Costanza line, "She's kind of a cute Nazi".)
Q.T. has never disappointed before in his ability to concoct crazed casting potions but, nevertheless, I'm getting a little freaked out.
-Brad Pitt
-Mike Myers (Perhaps looking for a Travolta-esque comeback in the wake of "The Love Guru"?)
-B.J. Novak (You might know him as Ryan the temp from NBC's "The Office".)
-Diane Kruger (The striking German actress who no doubt will bring to mind the George Costanza line, "She's kind of a cute Nazi".)
Q.T. has never disappointed before in his ability to concoct crazed casting potions but, nevertheless, I'm getting a little freaked out.
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Seth, Sandler, Schwartzman, and......Springsteen?
The hills are alive with rumors that the Greatest Living American (as we like to call Bruce Springsteen here at Cinema Romantico) is possibly set to make a cameo in "Funny People", the latest cinematic casserole to make its appearance on the ever-burgeoning Judd Apatow Buffet Table.
Oh, please, say it's so! Please, sir, please!!!
Oh, please, say it's so! Please, sir, please!!!
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