Love: Where The Wild Things Are (PART 1)

(Note: in an effort to get this up I’m not going to edit so I apologize for the stream of conscious approach)

Where The Wild Things Are was my favorite book of childhood. I wasn’t exactly sure why it was at the time. It just was. I would read it constantly. Draw pictures of the Wild Things. Make up my own Wild Things. All that sort of stuff. I was one of those hyper-imaginative kids that would sort of make you worry in some ways. At first glance WTWTA doesn’t seem to be about too much. Boy gets in trouble. Sent to bed without supper. Imagines a place with fantastical where he gets to be troublesome. Eventually returns. Gets supper. Really that’s it and it would seem obvious that it’s some sort of ode or bit of comforting tale to kids when they get in trouble. But the open ended-ness of the stark narrative really has allowed the psychological subtext to be debated for years and years. Is it about troubled kids? Is it about the recess of imagination? Inclinations to violence? Is it simply an analgous tale to Maurice Sendak’s own feelings toward his homosexuality? Really, it’s gone a million ways.

And with that it’s amazing that the best analysis I’ve ever seen at getting to the heart of Where The Things Are, came in the form of the new featue film from Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers.

I could write an 100 page paper on the analysis of child psychology in this movie. This not hyperbole. It’s is a stunningly complex film. So much so that I need to see it again to really tinker and figure some stuff out. This is not exactly the simple plot of the book, but a fully fleshed out child with a fully fleshed out (and still slightly ambiguous) child mentality. And in exploring his life at home, then his life with the Wild Things, a lot of grand themes take presedence: anger, jelousy, delirium, school, sybling detachment, divorce, existentialism, and many more.

The opening section of the film deals his life at home. We get bits and pieces of everything, a sort of key to understanding the rest of the movie if you will. I’m not going to get into details, because the subtle way the movie reveals these details is such a joy; a kind of forgotten way of filmmaking. It’s all detail oriented stuff, with bits of dialogue off to the side, an image through a doorway, a few hand-made items. Max (oh yeah, that’s the main kid) absorbs his environment and things seep into him quietly. It’s remarkably well-observed stuff here. Everything is impossibly pronounced yet never feels in your face or didactic.

And then all sense of being definitely didactic goes out the window when Max acts out, and runs away to escape to his island where the wild things are. The sequence takes up close to the rest of the running time and not only is it amazing from a technical filmmaking perspective, but it’s one of the most surprinsingly complex and nuanced bit of storytelling I’ve ever seen. It pretty much abandons a technical narrative for an emotional one. Max meets the Wild Things and becomes their king. He interacts with his new friends on a very child-like and visceral manner. Really it seems to be postulating that The Wild Things are not just the inclination to be troublesome, but representations of all the kinds of emotions and fears that lead to being troublesome. It’s freaking brilliant about it too. There’s no obvious one to one. One character isn’t his mother. One isn’t his dad. One isn’t fear. One isn’t anger. They’re all of those things in different ways. His main friend Carol (Holy Shit James Gandolfini. Just amazing work here) who seems to personify a kind of strained masculinity and terror. He is both Max’s absentee father and Max’s id. They’re tumultous relationship seems to be the core of Max’s wrestling with is own anger and maturity, but if so it is only one half of the coin. The other half is realized by the two female Wild Things which represent different aspects of his mother and sister. First in Judith, the stern and dissasociated Wild Thing (another spectacular voice performance, this time from a morbidly funny Catherine O’Hara) who constantly seems to be at odds with Max; and also with the most affecting Wild Thing, KW, whose quiet resignation, humanity, warmth, and emotional weary simply radiates of her and illustrates Max longing for a reconnection with these two central women of his family. Lauren Ambrose doesn’t even get a paranthetical aside for this performance.  Fully realized. Textured. Heart Breaking. Seriouly, why don’t we nominate voice actors again?  It’s that good.

So is  Max’s journey to where the wild things are a dream? His imagination? Both? Does it matter? Either way the movie certainly seems to be adopting dream-logic for the sequence. Believe it or not, the film that WTWTA most closely resembles is Mullholand Drive of all things. An odd choice for a “kids movie” one would think, but it’s completely analogous: a reality and a dream complimenting each other, fragmenting already stark dichotomies to tell a whole picture of a person and complete a pyschology.

I don’t blame a lot of people for not liking it. When I say “they just didn’t get it” it’s not some holier than thou statement, but more an acknowledgement that it’s really difficult to get. I certainly didn’t get all of it. At least not yet (once again, I need to see this again). I just know I haven’t seen something this ambitious in a long time. It was as formally and thematically ambitious as There Will Be Blood, and like that movie it deserves to be credited not only for it’s ambition, but for it’s amazement at how well it succeeds. I have to let it settle in as I just saw the thing last night, and I’m not really prone to over-doing something after having just seen it… but right now there are two films from this decade which take the cake for not only being flawless films, but cinematically and emotionally ambitious, while reaching some kind of deep seeded and complex truth. The first Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind  and other is Where The Wild Things Are. And I’m not even that crazy about Spike Jonze’s other movies.

And lastly, is the movie for kids? A lot of it will sure go over their heads. But that’s fine. In a way that’s what makes the film exactly for them. Kids are much better at sensing emotional truth than we ever give them credit for and I am positive they will see this movie and connect to Max’s life.

Like: World’s Greatest Dad

I’ll keep this short.

World’s Greatest Dad is a funny movie. Perhaps more surprisingly, it is also a very good movie.  You can’t say this is a total surprise, as the film’s director, Bobcat Goldthwait (yup, the Police Academy guy), already established a nice little foundation of indie/tv work: the profoundly messed-up Shakes the Clown, the great ruse Windy City Heat, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Chapelle’s Show, but most most of all his 2006 feature Stay, later retitled Sleeping Dogs Lie. Admittedly I have yet to see that last one, but all reports indicate it was surprisnigly nice little film about honesty and (in his words) “a tasteful amount of beastiality.” So WGD seems to be a nice little evolution in his career. (For example, it looks pretty good. Sleeping Dogs Lie was shot on some pretty low quality video, so Bobcat seems to make the leap to 35 with a surprising amount of guile. It’s not flashy or anything, but it’s got real steady feel to it).

Robin Williams gives easily my favorite performance of his since “The Genie” in Aladdin (yes this includes Good Will Hunting) . Even if the situation around him gets a little crazy, he plays it straight. His down to earth, good-natured-but-understandably-frustrated dad just rings very true. Even when things get very crazy and he takes his inner desires to some pretty extreme places. But it works.

But most of all Bobcat has crafted a wholly focused movie; all it’s trying to do is say one true thing (even hinting at this goal by quoting the famous Hemingway axiom of “one true sentance”). It’s an underrated and under-attempted quality in a movie and I found it admirable.

There’s actually a nice little moment that encapsulates this aforementioned one true thing. That moment is when Krist Novoselic shows up. The name Krist Novoselic is an intersting one, because he’s one of those unrecognized yet incredibly influential people. How do you know him? He’s “the other guy” from Nirvana. And his appearence in the movie is completely appropriate. He’s friends with Bobcat and when the director asked Krist to be in said scene, Krist asked “Just what is this movie about anyway?”

(WARNING THEMATIC/KINDA PLOT SPOILERS FOR THE REST OF THE BLURP SO TURN AWAY NOW) Bobcat answered: “You ever know that situation where someone dies and a bunch of people who didn’t know him talk about him, and turn him into something else that has to do with their own wants and needs, and push the people who actually knew him and cared about him off to the side?” Krist apparently smiled “Yeah I think know something about that.”

So yeah. The movie is basically about that. And it leads to Bobcat’s “one true sentance” (which is wonderfully enough the first sentance he wrote down and the starting point for a movie… thematically working backwards is also a wonderfully under-represented thing in movies). Here’s the paraphrased quote: [People think the most terrifying thing in the world is being alone, when really the most terrifying thing in the world is being only with people who make you feel alone.] And the movie earns the right to say it.

I’m looking forward to more Bobcat movies.

Like: Inglourious Basterds

Yikes. Inglorious Basterds might be my favorite movie of the year (for the record, I’m still deciding between Up, Drag Me To Hell, District 9, and Tetro in some fashion). It is also probably my favorite Tarantino movie since Pulp Fiction.

The revenge picture seems to be making some sort of cinematic comeback. It’s an odd little genre and unlike say Kill Bill, where the revenge is kind of a literal plot level thing, the revenge picture is kind of like a revenge surrogate for the audience in a larger social text. There’s some of the old blaxploitation movies that skewed that direction (eg. Sweet Sweetback’s Badaaass Song) and the rape-revenge movies (like I Spit On Your Grave). The goal of these movies is simple: catharsis. Show the revenge and the audience feels a sense of elation that often don’t get to feel in the reality of those situations. This is not an insidious practice. These movies aren’t advocating revenge in real life or anything (those who say they do, psssh… nonsense), but what does seem to matter is what exactly you’re justifying in revenge.  Racial injustice and sexual assault sure make a whole lot of sense , which is why the aforementioned movies relatively embraced by some critical communities. Meanwhile movies with bad revenge desires, like sayyy Death Wish (paraphrasing: “I’m going to go shoot up random minorities cause I’m sick of their shit!”) are much more problematic. Even something like Crash or Glory which are merely made to appease White Guilt I find kind of distressing. So either way it’s kinda murky territory but the point is there are revenge pictures and they serve a function.

So imagine if you will, a World-War 2 revenge picture.

We forget that we kinda used to make them all the time (Dirty Dozen, etc.), but the last decade or more has featured a lot of sobering, serious World War 2 movies. Don’t get me wrong, these films have varying degrees of  importance and immersion that I greatly admire, but they also made us forget that we can make audacious non-historical WW2 movies too. It’s OK. Not everything has to be Saving Private Ryan. This bears mentioning because I think I saw about 10 films that felt as if they simply had to be SPR, even with having no reason to be.

Enter Quentin Tarantino, who seems to have come at just a perfect time.

Inglourious Basterds is brash, audacious, tense, vibrant, list of great adjectives with wholly cinematic allure. 95% of it’s running time is rich with the highest quality Tarantino dialogue (not what I felt was sometimes a lame imitation in Death Proof) and those moments are punctuated by brief but intensely violent moments; the kind of moments that are well-served and often built up to brilliantly.  The film starts simply “Once upon a time in Nazi Occupied France”, which couldn’t be more perfect because although the settings are often startlingly intimate, the ultimate version of the Third Reich we get here is not all that different from the version we get in Indiana Jones movies; which is to say, the complete encapsulation of movie-time villainy. It’s like we’ve forgotten that you can portray the Nazis that way without turning into an Us vs. Them fascistic dick.  You can. It’s okay. It’s part of an accepted movie and cultural language and in our desire to be thoughtful rounded people we have somehow come into the belief that our villians have to be just as thoughtful or rounded. Nonsense. It’s knee jerk liberalism (and this from a hardcore liberal). God, they’re the NAZIS. They were the most hateful and evil group of dicks in the recent history of western civilization. It’s okay to make them the embodiment of evil. BECAUSE THEY WERE.

Now, that is not to say Quentin Tarantino would EVER make the mistake of hollowing out his characters to the point of simplistic archetypes and cutouts. Quite the contrary. For starters Brad Pitt’s Lt. Aldo Raine knows EXACTLY how to march right up to the line of ridiculousness and keep it… well not grounded, but just grounded enough not to lose the audience. Sure Pitt’s chewing scenery, but he’s doing that infamous tight rope walk where it’s all balanced in perfect movie reality. Ebert talked in his review about Tarantino’s uncanny ability for doing this. He can make a line or moment utterly ridiculous and yet finds this unmistakable way to ground it and give it emotion.  Pitt gets to give a tongue thrashing assault and does so with such utter committment I usually find missing in most of his “serious” roles. As a result, it’s probably my favorite Pitt performance. He’s having a ball and so are we; taking absolute delight in every little verbal tick and inversion of his oh-so-balls-out Tennessee diction. It wholly showcase’s Tarantino’s world famous ear for dialogue as it reverberates through and through. He’s a perfect vehicle for the basterd’s grim and unflinching philosophy/behavior as most of them don’t say a word; they’re just an outright presence, scalping their way across the countryside.

As counterpoints, there are the two central females of the film: Melanie Laurant’s Shoshana and Diane Kruger’s Bridget von Hammersmark. I kind of think it’s better to keep their involvement in the plot a secret, not because it’s twisty or anything, but because it’s just no necessary. Suffice to say they are two completely realized characters with vibrant personality, layers, and depth. This bears mentioning because Tarantino is unfairly thought of as a kind of guy’s guys director and instead, looking over his filmography, he’s litered his films with about a dozen+ fascinating female figures.  They get to espouse rich dialogue. They get to perform their butts off. They get to be heroes. He never asks them to get naked. They are more or less treated on an acting level with complete respect. They’re simple characters in other films (ie “the girl”) and here they are something so much more. Let’s stop and think about not only how rare this is, but how incredibly refreshing it is.

This leaves “the bad guy” as a matter of discussion. It has been said many times already but Christoph Waltz as Col. Hans Landa of the S.S., is without a doubt one of the best performances of the year. Probably the best. Landa is such a all encomapassing figure: an authority, a mannered gentlemen, a seething detective, a fucked-up sociopath, a delighted nave, a touch fay, all-together menacing, and yet completely and totally coherent. How can you even do that? It’s a mystery for sure, but it is such a great combination of writing, direction, and performance to be sure. I can’t speak highly enough of it. But it’s one of those performances that EVERYONE gets, like Ledger’s Joker or Day Lewis’s Daniel Plainview; no one misses what’s going on from the visceral forefront to the many subtlties at play. It’s a remarkable achievement.

So as for what this whole freaking movie is actually about (and it is about something given my opening bit about Revenge films). Let’s get into what actually happens in this sucker.

WARNING HUGE FUCKING SPOILERS AHEAD BUT ITS WHAT I WANT TO TALK ABOUT SO TURN AWAY NOW IF YOU HAVEN”T SEEN IT. REALLY… AND IF YOU REALLY DON’T CARE THEN FINE I SUPPOSE… OKAY… Getting back to the Revenge film bit… Basterds is wholly cathartic because you get to see the war you want to happen and not the war that did. We get to see Nazis utterly shot, scalped, beaten to death, scarred, and blown up. And it’s not like some parade of violent delights either. I mentioned the matter of buildup and punctuated violence which gives all of this said violence some hefty weight. The idea is catharsis in every possible form. And if you’re doing Jewish revenge, if you’re going to go ALL THE WAY with that logic. Then your ending is simple (again spoiler, here’s the ending), why not have your jewish ww2 revenge picture end with  Hitler, Goebbles, and all the high ranking nazi officials getting gunned down and burned alive in movie theater? Why not have your more humane Nazis get forever branded with the nazi symbol on the forehead so they “can never take off the uniform.” What the heck is more cathartic than that?

Nothing. It’s the ending we never got. Sure WW2 was born out of revenge for WW1 (more debatable than is commonly accepted by the way), but that’s not a concern. In reality, Hitler was the true to form and cowardly shot himself in a bunker (we’re pretty sure about this). So, in the interest of catharsis, why not shoot him over and over again in the head?

Some critics seem to have a problem with this. Particularly David Denby of the New Yorker (not even going to bother to link to his knee-jerk nonsense). But to label this kind of revenge film as stupid or insensitive is just as stupid or insensitive. That’s because doing so means you’re mistaking Tarantino for an amateurish idiot who indulges in violence or revenge for revenge’s sake. Sure he’s a brash persona, but he’s no dummy. That kind of indulgent simplicity is what many of his imitators do, but not he. Tarantino is a master of both wholly exploiting a genre for all it’s worth and then subverting or transcending it in the most interesting ways. DFW once wrote a great piece on how his lynchian tendencies are played for “coolness” rather than discomfort and therefore lose effect, but I think his work from Pulp Fiction on works beautifully in terms of transcending that surface coolness. He simply cuts above garrishness. It’s not because he has lengthy dialogue scenes or simple tricks like that, which people often mistake for being smart, it’s because of a much more nebulous tone of intellect and emotional gravity. It’s beyond simple irony or dissaffect. It’s genuine care and love for these, the depraved archetypes and conventions at play.

It’s a wholesale acceptance of the human condition, IE understanding that the desire for revenge (in cinematic form) is cathartic even for the most liberal, a-fascist personalities in the world, which once again I am. I’m practically a freakin pacifist, but I can wholly understand and engross myself in the Tarantino ww2 reality. Yet for some reason it seem to urk other critics, colleagues, and friends who find this kind of treatment of a “serious subject” to be offensive. The same people who find Dirty Harry to be some kind of fascistic guide to life.  I don’t understand that. It’s like they’ve never seen a movie before. Movies don’t have to espouse your sense of politics or life philosophy (hell, we kind of perfer if they don’t). And I don’t say that in a “it’s just a movie don’t take it seriously” kind of way. I say that in the sense that there’s this cinematic social contract that what you’re seeing is a representation of a kind of dream or inner will.  The best directors know what’s happening, acknowledge it, and go past it. But so many people get trapped in Tarantino’s acknoledgement of base tropes, they can’t get past it. Come on! You’re not falling victim to a movie, it’s falling victim to you, ultimately. It’s a such a freaking shame too because they’re missing out on the best kinds of movies. The kind where you get to subvert your own freaking pretentions of what is proper and ride your own id. And unlike most trash, Tarantino guides your id with such utter care and poignancy. God… You’re missing out on those movies.

And missing out on the genius of Inglourious Basterds, probably the best movie of the year.

Like: District 9

So I’ve missed the last few weekends of movies and am going back to furiously catch up.

Starting with District 9, which is astoundingly good.

I’m not sure I can add anything to discussion, people seem to love the serious sci-fi angle on this this (relatively) low budget and rather unlikely blockbuster.

But I just found it to be doing so many interesting things so let’s go to bullet form:

-This is the best CGI I’ve ever seen. Hands down. The close ups of the bugs are photoreal. You’d swear they were prosthetic or practical effects, but nope. CGI. James Cameron should be ashamed of himself, spending 450 million to make “photoreal” cgi and instead his Na’vi from Avatar look like damn cartoons. He was utterly bested by a south african filmmaker with 30 millions dollars and hell of a lot more smarts. So how did this guy do it? Care, mostly. Rely on less CGI shots, spend more time on them, opt for a non-glamorous shooting style, go for an alien design that caters much better to CGI (ie bugs), and it helps to have WETA on your side, who in my mind is easily the best effects studio working today.

-Lots of great tone jumping. You don’t really notice it like you would in other films, but by keeping the docu-like form and cinematography the filmmakers afford themselves the ability to jump tones, and even narrative to a degree, all while keeping a cohesive singular movie. It’s just so exceptionally well done and I don’t really think people realize how vibrant and stark the sense of humor is in some of the scenes (the prawns living habits, the main prawn father/son interactions). Like I said the whole docu vibe affords them a lot of leeway. Just a brilliant move.

-Speaking of the “Shaky” cinematography, THIS is how you do it (Booooo Cloverfield). They know just exactly how to hold the camera with a slightly wider shot and focus in when focusing is important (it only gets real shaky with intentional bumps). Just lights out work, and believe me they worked on this over and over again until they got it right. Loved it.

-Lots of great violence. I’m not some guy who just sees movies like this for it’s action, but boy oh boy can a appreciate a film when it does it well. Blowing people up doesn’t have to be some mindless actioneering, but instead can be a cinematic, visceral and even cathartic film experience.  Like a pro, Blomkamp holds off most of this til the end and unleashes such a great last few acts.

-This movie has a lot in common with Starship Troopers (also just a great movie. I’m not kidding, the cartoony stuff just plays perfectly in that film. Verhoeven’s no dummy). D-9’s not going for the same satire angle, but there’s a lot of the same kinds of things being said about war mentalities, the “other”, etc.

-The movie somehow has just the right amount of sweetness too.

-Particularly loved the opening detail on their malnourishment as explanation, does so much explaining in a simple detail.

-Having Sharlto Copely, who plays the main guy Wikus, just absolutely NAIL the role has to help you out. It seriously wasn’t until this exact moment that I realized he was acting against nothing and completely sold his relationship with the main bug. It blows my mind. I seriously didn’t even think about it til right now… whoa… I had been thinking about his character arc and how he sold his development. Which is what you really should be thinking about and not the CGI. Just brilliant.

-As a historical lover of first person shooters, I could appreciate all the great inventive weapons in this. Fun stuff.

-That’s good for now I think. I really liked this well executed, and thoughtful movie. Sure the concepts at play aren’t exactly rocket science, but they sure aren’t banal and they used a valid sense of maturity and tact in dealing with them. Which is a HELL of a lot more you can say than most summer movies.

-Peter Jackson found a winner.

PS – A basterds blurb coming soon

Like: FUNNY PEOPLE

I liked this movie both more and less than I thought I would. Rather than go into a big analysis I’m just going to list stuff I liked and Stuff I didn’t like. What a novel idea!

Like:

-Eric Bana. I knew he had a comic background in australia but he absolutely fucking nails the role. It’s a thankless role for one, but he manages to make it both hilarious and realistic. We’ve known plenty of alpha male figures who have good mix of ambition, friendliness, combativeness, and basic stupidity; who can be awfully smart in some ways and completely pathetic in others. He’s just great and goes all out. Good stuff.

-Jonah Hill. Absolutely shines with minimum screen time. Pound for pound funniest. Plus he has a real grounded character to boot.

-”Raaaaaaaaaaaaandy.” Most of this is outside the actual movie but you either get me or look it up. You won’t be disappointed.

-nails the world of stand up (don’t make the mistake of analyzing comedy. That’s why punchline failed. Don’t try to explain the joke).

-nails the world of fame. People love pictures.

-nails the dynamic of joke writing. When you’re pitching jokes people don’t react and laugh really they just can say “that’s good” and use it.

-Seth Rogen plays probably the closest thing to Seth Rogen. Or at least what I imagine him to be like. Which is a super sweet guy. Overtly sensitive. And really funny too.

-Leslie Mann. Very strong in this one. Much less of a performance than her other roles (which she was going for outright comedy or effect, and nailed it). Some people are griping about how judd apatow is in love with is wife and just showing her off or some shit, but that reeks of BS to me. It’s fully functional.

-The two Apatow kids. Is it me or are these kids developing great timing and screen presence?

-Adam Sandler. Some people have an idea that comedians are actually pretty sad, angry, lonely people. Most people don’t. But really that’s how they fuel a lot of comedy. And Sandler is utterly willing to go there and get pretty dark (his insanely dark song on the piano about his hating the audience, all while the audience is laughing, is a particalarly great trick he and apataow play on the other movie audience and a complete encapsulation of the dynamic of both fame/the character). His whole mess is on the table and there isn’t any neat journey or arc to it. He’s a guy dealing with some shit and has many moments of misplaced anger and misplaced benevolence.  I also loved sandler’s ability to both make fun of and relish his own movies. He’s fully aware he’s making movies for  12 year olds and likes it. It’s his natural inclination. And yes he has that other side too, but for him, that’s for real life and standup. It was a nice meta-self-exam. And I liked it a great deal.

-The relationship between rogen and sandler. Just a great balancing act that defines the blurred lines of being paid to essentially be someone’s friend. Theire relationship is totally the backbone of the film and makes it all work. (There’s some speculation that this is really about Apatow’s relationship with Garry Shandling. Which might be very well accurate).

-The insane amount of funny cameos. And they were all (pretty much) functional.

Don’t Like:

-It’s not really a movie. I mean there’s no real plot or anything.Which isn’t that big a deal, really. Cause films can be fully functional as a multi-character piece. And this one is functional; every character is distinct and interesting and, yes, funny. But it’s not really a character piece either. I don’t know. There needs to be something more… focused for that. I don’t know. It’s big and it rambles and while it all is fine, it’s just noticably lacking the solidarity that something like Knocked Up even had. And that’s maybe the biggest problem… Knocked Up was inescapably better. So in taking many steps forward in terms of going towards something more dark and human, he takes a step back in the sense that it just isn’t as good a movie.

-Why is this so relevant? Because of the James L. Brooks corallary.

Apatow admits himself, the goal of any real comedian is to make a James L. Brooks movie. Why? Because they’re real and sad and hilarious and perfect. They’re the funniest movies about insanely upsetting things. And he knows the perfect amount of sweetness to use without making people barf.

And what Funny People means is that Apatow took his step into the James L. Brooks direction and it really wasn’t even close to the same thing. It was something else entirely, something good even, but it wasn’t Brooksesque. And that was the great hope for Apatow. After Freaks and Geeks (which IS brooksesque) that’s what people wanted from him. But I didn’t much of that here and I really am beginning to think that Freaks and Geeks just might have been more Paul Feig (who SERIOUSLY needs to kick start some real directing/writing gigs) and less Apatow (whose style comes across more clearly in Undeclared?).

Anycrap it’s minutae and more about my hopes for the man rather than actual quality, but still I feel it’s a valid reaction.

The only thing I’m on the fence about is where to go from here? Should he try to make the tight James L. Brooks movie the world so desperately needs? Or should he just go off and try to do his own messy but infectious thing with more courage? Either way he’ll probably build on Funny People.

Which is a very funny movie.

Like: Midnight Movies

I see a LOT of midnight movies. It’s a little much probably for someone my age. Yes I’m still relatively young, but I work and it’s hard as shit to see a midnight movie and go to work the the next day. But I still do all the time. Any time there’s a movie I like coming out? Midnight thursday. I’m there. And I see a lot of movies. Sometimes once or twice a week. And I always prefer the midnight movie.

A few reasons why:

1. The best audiences. People who want to see/enjoy the movie as much as you and

2. You get to enjoy doing other things on the weekend. Like going outside… or seeing another movie.

3. It’s easy to find parking.

4. You don’t have to listen to someone say how much they liked/hated the movie and slant your opinion. Instead, you get to be that person! Hooray. (This of course assumes non-critical influence. Though I’m at the point where I know where/who to go to for critical influence and just how much to read of a given review to know if I’m going to see something. I’m pretty much at the point where I won’t watch the trailer of anything I really want to see. As trailers usually ruin the movie).

5. You get to drink lots of soda.

6. You’re effectively turning a movie into an “event.”

7. The Arclight (the best theater of all time) ALWAYS has midnight movies of pretty  much anything being released. Awesome.

8. I can’t think of other reasons.

… But it’s mostly the great audiences.

NOTE: there’s also apparently a pretty good band called “Midnight Movies” who a  bunch of people like. I’ve never listened to them but I like the name.

Like: Arrested Devlopment, Revisited (Part 1)

So me and the stuff-I-like gal have been going back and revisiting Arrested Development.

This is a good thing.

The show holds up absurdly well, not only terms of repeat viewings, but not feeling stale (yeah it’s only been like 5-6 years, but you’d be amazed how sensitive to that a lot of people can be).

And there’s nothing really to say about the show that hasn’t already been said, but who cares? I love it.

The writing is just so tight and focused. I can’t tell you enough how uncommon that is in a comedy. I’ve been racking my brain trying to think of something AD was similar to; sure The Simpsons works only because that show was infinitely witty and can be compared favorably to just about anything. But the best direct comparison I can think of is old Preston Sturges movies. There’s the same cyclical focus, repetition, and interests in absurdist, selfish human behavior. Sometimes they even have the same run-on joke style. I’ve been really happy since I thought of this and am suddenly interested in digging out my old Sturges movies too.

More conclusions and stuff to come in a part 2.

But I just think everybody should keep revisiting Arrested Development if they have a chance. It may seem redundant, or not exactly cutting edge proclamation or anything. But it’s one of those truly great things. Maybe I feel bad cause I was letting it slip out of my consciousness a bit.

I mean COME ON.

Like: Miranda July

I know I’ve been on a huge “like” streak, but who cares? Life’s better if it’s a love train.

I’ve just started reading “‘No One Belongs Here More Than You.’ stories by Miranda July” And I’m loving it.

Truthfully, I feel a bit of a novice when it comes to July’s work. I saw ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW back when it came out and had a very strange experience. I had no idea what I was walking into and it was one of those films that grows with you, especially in the days after you see it and have time to digest. This is mostly due to the fact that it is just so vividly different. Sure, the film is technically linear nor is it really abstract or anything. But it’s a kind of floating, ambivalent narrative. You could use filmy type descriptions and fall back on phrases like ” it’s starkly beautiful” or something like that, but that’s not what makes it relevant or even good.  This film is emotionally adventurous. Characters just have moments where they’re floating through each others lives. And it goes into unexpected places. The sexuality can be sudden, abrupt, juvenile. Emotional reactions can be completely disarming. Every character is just a bit off. They have these moments and we feel like we fall into their brain, and we follow their logic or desire just a few steps past the well reasoned response and into a territory just a step beyond. It’s fascinating. The film seems like a grouping of short stories, but it’s also not; it’s a cohesive movie that just happens to be about brief moments with these people.

It makes sense that Miranda July is first and foremost, a performance artist. The main stake of performance art is cause and effect (AKA reactions). Thus all her art, writing, and even her film operate on a kind of momentary appropriation. Scenes and inclinations follow the will of the moment. It’s like all her characters possess varying kinds of monomania that rear their ugly, or perhaps beautiful head. Tonally, it’s absorbing.

The other neat realization is that this behavior of “following a momentary logic to it’s end” is one of the central definitions of being crazy. And thus I feel like much of her work is a series of explorations of what happens when someone desires and thoughts cross an accepted social norm.

Miranda even appears to be the perfect vehicle for this entire world she explores: there’s a slightness to her, a plain and natural beauty, but also a child-like cuteness displayed by her stark, wide eyes. They contain the perfect mix of innocence and an intrinsic sadness; she seems like the perennial adolescent.

I can’t wait to read some more.

Like: 500 Days of Summer / Don’t Like: The Guy Who Co-Wrote 500 Days of Summer

So every once and awhile I’m privy to one of those neat screening/Q+A things with the makers of a movie. They can be pretty fun. I don’t like going to them for big-fun-type movies as the audience for these things are usually pretty jaded. But I just recently got a chance to see 500 DAYS OF SUMMER in this aforementioned manner.

The film is actually pretty charming. It’s emotionally simplistic to a degree, but it wears it’s heart on it’s sleeve and while many of the creative devices have been done (or even done to death), it does them earnestly so, completely refraining from diving into an irony induced coma; which is admirable. The film has a particularly wonderful first 30 minutes or so, filled with all that good stuff one likes: humor, cleverness, bluntness, creativity, and perfectly paced cinematic devices (not to mention and excellent use of title cards). And then it’s not as if these qualities disappear from the film completely, but just that the sharpness and clarity of the intentions haze into a kind of murky area. It just falls into a pattern of redundant scenes where, I dunno, stuff happens. That sounds like a lazy statement on my part but I assure it’s not. Since we know where the whole relationship is going (it is declared so at the beginning) we just get a run on in juxtapositions, which again are very fun at first, but the transition game eventually wears out its welcome. Luckily the film ends aptly, and without any resolution-y hiccups. All in all, it’s good stuff.

Sure I had minor quibbles. The kind of stuff you overlook when being sufficiently charmed by a movie (which I was): The very admirable and talented Joseph Gordon Levitt plays the all too familiar lead of the blank slate generic sad sack of a man who gets wooed by the manic, tempestuous girl who doesn’t want anything serious or permanent in life. It’s a tale as old as time, yes, and Zooey Deschanel’s Summer is appropriately enchanting. But I didn’t sense there was a real understanding of her character, and what she wanted in life. Of course the film makes no bones about conveying that JGL’s character does not understand her either and that is much of the source of conflict. But shouldn’t the writer have some idea? The world of the movie itself? I dunno. If one thinks like that than in retrospect you kind of have a hollow feeling about 500 Days. True, JGL comes out understanding the most basic of lessons, but just barely so. It’s a very juvenile point in the love development path, but once again, the film was charming so I was ready to go to war of the sort of obviousness and juvenility that wasn’t apparent to the main character.

We almost left before the Q+A… In retrospect I wish I did.

(First off, in order to discuss this I must get spoilery. If you you want to see the movie and plan on enjoying it. Stop reading. Cause I’m about to be dispariging.)

The film has a great opening in which the author makes it clear he has some anger with the real-life surrogate of the titular female. It was a great thing on the screen and got big laughs. But I thought it was a comic exaggeration… you know… something for effect.

Boy was I wrong.

500 Days of summer is about a sad sack who falls in love with a girl who doesn’t love him the same way and can’t commit to him. Why does he? Cause we like the same music! She’s not a vapid whore! She actually talks to me! She validates my existence with her acknowledgment! It’s sad sack story for a reason; while most guys have been there at some point in their life, no doubting it, there’s still something very juvenile about it. There are so many real-life girl and people issues to get into without resorting back to the “girls just don’t like me” issue. It’s just a juvenile issue. I’m sorry it is. That doesn’t mean it’s not valid. But it’s, like, a high school thing… That’s not a love story for 30 year olds. And this is a film about 30 year olds.

So when I was there watching the co-writer speak… ugh… He was clearly very nervous and that’s fine, and he had some funny anecdotes and really seemed to mean well… but then things just kept becoming very apparent… I really hate speaking like this, but these are kind of inescapable conclusions the audience seemed to be coming to… and not to be crass, or judgmental, but… I have never seen or listened to someone who seemed like a nice, well-intentioned guy who was really so secretly angry, resentful, neurotic, self-pitying, self-centered, insecure, juvenile, and all in all kind of a general pre-occupied dick about his own state of life. It was as if the whole world was mean to him and that’s not fair! True, none of this was that overt, but it was practically oozing out of every word he said. The Stuff-I-Like-Gal came to the same exact conclusion and we made virtually no conversation or gesture or eye roll during the entire Q+A. And yet we came to the exact same conclusion. Terribly unfair of us? Possibly. But possibly obvious too: The guy angry little man.

And look, it’s not as if one can’t be an angry, resentful, neurotic writer and have angry, resentful, neurotic protagonists. But you have to display some clue about your own self-identity. Woody Allen was the master of this because he UNDERSTOOD that all the problems/conflicts in his oeuvre were ultimately of his own doing. And for decades, it was fascinating to watch. Lots of others writers did it before and lots have done it since to pretty entertaining results.

And this poor screenwriter… He didn’t get that it was all him. He really didn’t. You see 500 DAYS OF SUMMER was based on his real life. Almost to a T. And as he talked you realize, he didn’t get that it’s about the kinds of girls he was attracted to. In the film, JGL never acknowledges any of his own shortcomings. In fact his character has none. He’s the perfect nice guy. The world is too tough on him and he’s lonely and all he needs is a girl to reflect the love he shows her everything is perfect. But of  course the girls can’t do that. They’re flighty creatures. They break up with him so, Summer is the encapsulation heinous evil bitch who broke up with him. Really, even though they weren’t in those blunt words, he was outright saying this!

And watching this co-writer, coming to that realization… it sort of ruins 500 DAYS OF SUMMER. The film just wasn’t what I hoped it was when the credits rolled. I had hoped it was just a clever movie where a couple of writers crafted a great story with humor and drew on life experiences…

… Instead, it was the story of this asshat’s life with the lines he wished he said.

There is nothing worse in the writing world. Granted, it’s probably the best version of that kind of thing I’ve ever seen (funny, charming, whatnot). And I understand the inclination to write the story of your life. It’s something every writer sort of goes through when they first start writing. But eventually they realize just because “that’s the way it happened” doesn’t mean it has any sort of validity whatsoever with the realm of the screen, or page or whatever the medium of the writing (Todd Solandz’s first half of storytelling is about this very subject, and it’s an extraordinary film)… But this guy didn’t get it. Or who knows, maybe he did and couldn’t get over those hangups so he just barged ahead anyway. I’m not really sure. I just know the kinds of things he was saying:

He said the entire movie was based on two girlfriends who did the exact same thing to fuck him over.

He acknowledged that neither of these relationships lasted longer than 6 months (wow, what life changing time frames!).

He actually said the entire movie happened to him with the exception of a dance number and one other scene. He was bragging about this. He wanted us to feel bad for him. Like he got a raw deal. Again, screwed over by these bitches.

He bragged about being on set as an “authenticity” expert and being sure they got the details of how it really happened.

He talked about how the entire script was nothing but a way of dealing with the break up.

He talked about how insipid and self-involved the two girls who inspired Summer were. And that when they read the script they had no idea it was exactly about them and said they identified with JDL’s character. Then turned to us screaming about how “THAT’S SO YOU!” in shocking anger.

He admitted that the Summer character exists as an object.

He admitted that the two girls were not unlike all his other relationships too.

He admitted that the two girls were still the equivalent of clueless harpies who went on to find love after not wanting to commit to him.

He admitted that he doesn’t understand why the girls did any of what they did, but that’s “how it happened.”

He admitted that he doesn’t understand why girls keep “doing this to him.”

He admitted that the girls perspective doesn’t get any representation in this film.

He admitted that the hopeful ending isn’t real, that the new girl relationship ends just as badly, just something to convey a kind of hope to the audience.

And then it becomes obvious. The resonance of 500 DAYS OF SUMMER is in its detailed perceptions. Moments in which the audience perceives true moments because of the authentic voice. E.g. a real life anecdote being interesting, but not corresponding to a great context beyond the truth of the anecdote itself. Which means there is no real over-arching truth. No validity to the co-writer’s perspective. Which renders the entire scope aimless, unfeasible, and lacking credibility.

It is a story written by a guy who has no idea that he is the joke.

It’s a cruel statement. I’m aware. But in the end 500 DAYS is simply a tale of vengeance. A recreation of events to make them singularly sided. A self-edited history whose charm and guile may be the most upsetting things as all, because under that facade lies a film about women being basically evil. And not really getting that it’s about weak-willed men whose own insecurities betray their noble intentions. And it’s skewed to make a conclusions of the world where this kind of perspective is okay for men to have… where it is the truth… where it is good.

I’m sorry, I appreciate the will for stories to be honest as much as anyone… but no one wants to watch someone work out their psychosis at every one else’s 10 bucks.

… It’s a good thing it was a screening then.

Like: Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince

So yeah, I like the Harry Potter books. They’re good. They’re fun. J.K. creates a heck of a world, and best of all she is the perfect kind of amateur writer whose natural style rarely gets in the way of the clarity of her intentions, nor the narrative. Just good, good stuff.

The movies are a slightly different story. I really do hate the first two movies, with the special kind of hate reserved for the things that are so infinitely lazy and inane. Those films are glorified line readings with special effects. Thanks Chris Columbus for your complete lack of effort! One things a direct of cinema would understanding of telling a cinematic story, you know, cimenmatically. Perhaps I’m being harsh. They were servicable most likely, but admittedly the best thing that came out of them was that they were impeccably casted with a stable of A+ british actors and appropriate young kids who were signed up for the long haul.

Things were suddenly righted in the third film when cinema god Alfonso Cuaron, took over and injected the entire thing with a sense of fun and imagination (I realize that’s a generic statement, but it is also an accurate one). It could have been a truly great film had it not made a couple of weird choices that subverted the real essence of some key moments, but none the less it was wonderful to see the world actually come to life, even throw in a few surprises. Next, Mike Newell came along for the forth filmand had a nice solid entry. It was probably the most “traditional” kind of movie, whatever the hell that means, but it helps that the story lends itself to blockbusterish-like tone.

Then some guy named David Yates came in to direct the fifth one. I had never heard of him. He had pretty much just done some BBC tv and that’s it. But after I sat and watched the film I realized that I really liked Mr. Yates. He took a somewhat rambling and unfocused book (it’s great and all, but come on) and turned it into the fastest paced, shortest, and probably most focused film to date (perhaps even a little too rushed to be honest). The young actors, probably just getting more comfortable with age, seemed to have settled into adopting naturalism; their scenes were far less stagey. And the action finally had a kind of weight to it, best personified in the truly thrilling Dumbledore/Voldy fight. But none the less I considered his entry to be visually exciting, more interesting, yet still somehow workman-like. And in a first, since Columbus, Yates was hired back to direct the 6th film.

And now, I’m thrilled he was.

Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince, is by far the best film of the entire series. It’s a somber film. An layered film. A film that always opts to tell the story through cinematic language when possible. And most of all, the film breathes beautifully. It doen’t feel like a single other film in the series. It feels heavy. Scenes air out and emotions get to run. The film just feels lived in. The young actors seem to be challenged by Yates to step up and do some real adult acting (and some real fun innuendo comes into play as a result).  Seriously, every single actor gets a chance to show depth: Malfoy gets to do reluctance and despair. Hermione gets to feel wounded. Ron gets to do pride, arrogance, and even a nifty little love sap. Harry gets to show unabashed self-confidence (unnatural of course), and even deal with responsibility of maturity. And Dumbledore gets to deal with finality; as Dumbledore, and his subsequent relationship with Harry, is undoubtedly the core of the film. Yates knows this. And he shows it from the start with a wonderful cinematic blurb of an opening (a sort of papparazzo fallout of the fifth film’s battle). Not to get spoilery, but HBP is really a film/book about Dumbledore saying goodbye to Harry, taking him as his confidant, partner, and ultimately successor of sorts. And here, what could be so heavy handed, is told completely with ever look, glance, and cinematic cue.

Even with that strong core, the film truly belongs to Jim Broadbent. Dear god, does he get a chance to shine in this. I’m pretty sure the entire Slughorn role was left completely in tact (or at least it sure felt like it). He does so many things with what could have been a bit of a throwaway role. But he and Yates craft something exceptional here. Not just for a Potter movie, but for any movie. Slughorn gets to show such range: buffoonery, intelligence, pride, terror, emotional paralization, sadness, and deep, inescapable shame. But rather than morph to singular essences of those traits within the moment, he exhibits them from THE singular essence of one character. It is true acting. Embodiying three demensions. His eyes, in every thing he seems to do, simply seem to ache with vulnerability, and therefore humanity. I honestly think it’s one of my favorite performances of the year.

The whole film is just works brilliantly, and it almost feels, dare I say it? High brow. Yikes… but despite all this, there will be Potterites will hate it.

Oh yes, the movie diverts from the book, um… a lot. This irks some people. I do not understand thi.. I mean I get it in the techncial sense, but I go to the movies so I can see something different, something new. Going to simply see a visual word-for-word recreation is nothing more than an exercize in unhealthy internalization, if not mild egocentrism. In some ways I think the HBP is… gulp… better than the book. I’m not so naive as realize that there is a way in which all books are inherently better than their movie counterparts, in that movies naturally lack the depth and scope that comes from the novel format, but movies can exist as something separate and just as good in their own way. So often, book-to-film adaptations try to capture that sense of scope by keeping every single detail. This was the main fault of the first two movies. What HBP instead opts for is by going for the same depth, emotions, and scope by supplanting singular detail (plot or otherwise) with tone, character tension, or even a clever adlib or gesture. Every one of these divergent choices is just immpecable: the simplization of the quidditch tryouts, the added burrow scene, the removal of most of the flashbacks, some added dialogue, the new placement of an infamous kiss, you name it.  These bits and plot changes reek of excitement, effieciency and, to use a word so many times it becomes redundant, depth.

So… I’m on board with David Yates, who has made an incredible movie that mostly deals with human interplay, but just so happens to be a summer tentpole. I can’t remember the last time a popcorn movie had this much weight (hint: it’s not a popcorn movie in the slightest). At first I thought the idea of splitting the last movie into two was a deplorable idea, still technically do. But Yates just entered that special territory, where I’ll be down with anything he does because his work is simply a joy to watch.

In case you couldn’t tell I really liked this movie… Actually, I would have probably liked it even if I hated Harry Potter.