I'm am not an expert on Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake," the ballet at the center of the Darren Aronofsky-directed thriller "Black Swan," (though I enjoy listening to it for relaxation). But I do know a thing or two about unpredictability after reading Nassim Nicholas Talem's "The Black Swan," a philosophy book about improbability and how to deal with it. The title comes from a Latin expression--more or less that a good man is as rare as a black swan (black swans were thought to have been non-existent). With the discovery of black swans in the seventeenth century, a millennium of thinking had instantly been erased. Moments of unpredictability--the outbreak of World War I, 9/11--present a "black swan problem."
There are characters here in Aronofsky's movie that participate in this game so that their desired outcome is achieved. However, its central player, performed by Natalie Portman, is one who is feeble and unable to do as the other characters do. But it's much more complicated than that--it appears she is going crazy.
Portman plays Nina, a young ballerina with a passion for perfection (a common theme in Aronofsky's films). She is determined to the point where some things do not seem quite right. Her director Thomas (Vincent Cassel) is demanding her to push harder to let herself go for the Black Swan part, to release her sexuality. Her mother (Barbara Hearshey) is overprotective, decorating her daughter's room with a painful amount of pink stuffed animals, and probably jealous of her daughter's success. What augments Nina's madness is that she now has a competitor named Lily (Mina Kunis). Lily has the easy ability to seduce which Nina lacks; it becomes evident to Nina that Lily is after her part, and the director is taking notice of the latter.
The movie will likely remind audience members of Roman Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby," particularly aspects such as sexuality, a strong female lead, creepiness, and the frightening presence of a scary man-bird. One disappointing aspect, however, is sometimes the dialogue is a bit (perhaps intentionally) silly. Thomas takes Nina back to his apartment one evening presumably to seduce her. He asks her questions: "Do you enjoy making love?" and she is noticeably embarrassed. "Sex," he says. "Do you like it?" She nervously giggles--the stuff of bad porn movies.
But this is one of the most stylish and gorgeous horror films in a while. There are moments that Aronofsky does not allow his camera to focus on, like spots of blood or muscles rotating or Nina being alone in the dark, but are still details that are impossible to ignore. (Personally, clipping nails and people standing straight up on their toes is difficult to watch, so this had better be sufficient preparation for "127 Hours.") In the first few moments, Aronofsky grabs your attention and refuses to relinquish it. He does this with the help of the music of "Swan Lake" as well as the original score by Clint Mansell, the cinematography of Matthew Libatique, and of course his performers. Natalie Portman gives the very best performance of her career so far, and as of this writing highly deserves the Academy Award. In "Black Swan" there is an expected amount of symbolism, a heavy amount of duality, and just the right amount of ambiguity. There are oft-used moments of people hiding in the dark and something arbitrarily jumping out to make us scared, but Aronofsky does not use these so they feel hackneyed. Instead, one gets the sense that this is an entirely original film.
I have never seen a bad film by Aronofsky, and I hope I never will. If one will exist, then the world is indeed unpredictable.
Let me first say that it has been exactly one year since my blog started. To be honest, I began writing most of the reviews that are dated on December 25, 2009 between October and late December, and after viewing Terry Gilliam's "The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus" on Christmas, there was a mad rush to figure out a quick, efficient and inexpensive way to share my ideas on the internet, which brought me to blogger.com. Thus, there are more than several articles all dated December 25, 2009. Happy Anniversary.
Anyway, TCM often shows a short documentary about the letterbox format, a format many people complain about. I have truly never understood the complaints against this format, especially because those who complain never offer much reason behind their opinions. TCM's documentary features interviews with directors Michael Mann, Martin Scorsese, Sydney Polluck, and Curtis Hanson.
To paraphrase the directors, basically every film of the past fifty-plus years has been filmed in a widescreen format, and so when these films are shown on television, they require the letterbox format so that the viewer is viewing the entire frame, exactly as the director wished it to be shown. If the letterbox is not there, then what happens is a process known as pan-and-scan, which dissects the picture so that the central image is expanded to a format that will fit a television screen, thus rendering it pixilated and a bit claustrophobic. Not only are you losing the visuals that help convey the movie, but as Scorsese says, you are in a sense re-directing the movie.
So as the directors say, if you see the letterbox format, do not be angry or frightened, but instead be grateful and content.
El Topo
Alejandro Jodorowsky's Western features a man in black accompanied by a naked child throughout the desert against little people and maimed people and naked women with a background of religious symbolism and drug-induced cinematography. This film, recently released on DVD and once a feature of midnight cinemas, is a better film than his follow-up, the even more psychadelic "Holy Mountain," and has its share of famous fans, from John Lennon to David Lynch. The element of absurdism is admirable and it's not an intolerable film; it's certainly an interesting step further to the left of Serigo Leone's Westerns, and it sure would make John Wayne furious. Still, this is one odd movie.
Arabian Nights
Famed Italian Pier Paolo Pasolini spent over two years in various different countries filming this silly wonder. The third part of his "life trilogy," (the other parts are a more watchable "The Decameron" and "The Cantebury Tales"), there is a nude character--full frontal, guys and gals--about every five minutes or so, and they're usually giggling, rarely acting, and often poorly-dubbed (even in its original Italian). Still, Pasolini somehow managed to get these naked actors to feel comfortable, and it properly prepared him for his next film and his actual masterpiece "Salo: 120 Days of Sodom." Beyond that, "Arabian Nights" is a chaotic, seemingly hastily-made movie that jumps from scene-to-scene with little thought. For further reading/viewing, read here, here and here, and view here (not work appropriate).
Black Samurai
Kierkegaard's "Fear and Tremblin" tells us that absurdism does not necessarily mean what is logically impossible but what is humanly impossible. "Black Samurai" is both. From 1977 (the year of "Star Wars" and "Annie Hall") this was blaxoitation gone far, far wrong. Jim Kelly from "Enter the Dragon" is a badass agent out to get a whiteass bad guy (who simultaenously plays with snakes and worships pagean gods). And Kelly has a pretty cool rocket pack.
There are others, like "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," Martin Scorsese's "The King of Comedy" and "Harold and Maude" which are all absurd in a good way. They are also more widely known and therefore not as relevant for a discussion here. I can't necessarily say if these first three films are recommendable or not. Pasolini was a gifted man and his "Salo" is a haunting film worth the watch for brave viewers; "Arabian Nights" was not. Jodorowosky is an acquired taste and not for everyone. "Black Samurai" might rank as an it's-so-bad-it's-good film. Regardless, they are three of the oddest movies I have ever seen.
Sometimes I think Youtube was made for me. Buried deep in the vast pit of self-made cat videos, archival footage of historical events, and your favorite old TV shows are the most absurdly hilarious videos imaginable. In my opinion, some of them include the following: McDonalds Custodial Training Video
One of my first jobs was working at Arby's while in high school, but I can fervently proclaim that my experience was nothing like this video, portraying a hopelessly naive new custodian--a McC--at McDonalds. This new customer comes into work and ready to get his hands dirty. His manager really defines cheeky as she gives him the training wheels to succeed at McDonalds. The staff humiliate him as he cleans up the McDonalds restaurant so he can see McC. Who is McC? McC is the fast-food spirit who makes his presence known only when McDonalds restaurants are really, really clean (which is never). To further elaborate on just how bizarre this video is, the main character tells himself--nay, orders himself--to "finesse that wall--that's the way!" And finally, thank the Lord, he finds McC--in his own reflection! Now that's McDonalds--helping to destroy America one day at a time.
I Have a Bad Case of Diarrhea
I used to live in Korea and was an observer of the uniqueness that is Asian languages. According to Wikipedia, this video originated from a Japanese program called "Zuiikin' English" from 1992. The host of the show, some guy named Fernandez Verde, explained his odd pedagogical theory that individuals learn languages like they exercise. Whatever validity that theory had was eliminated by what followed.
Now, being a certified English teacher myself, I can confidently say that many English language-learners, and learners of any new language, want to know important phrases that they will likely use while interacting with native speakers. I sincerely doubt that "I have a bad case of diarrhea" is one of those phrases, but Mr. Verde and his team at "Zuiikin' English" disagree with me. This particular lesson opens with a young Japanese girl presumably in an English-speaking country, sitting down and in tremendous pain. She instructs a man with an American or Australian or German or something accent to "call an ambulance, please." He says he will and asks her where it hurts. After replying that her "stomach-uh" hurts, she cannot explain specifically what the problem is, so she resorts back to Japanese. Now we will be taught how to properly say the important phrase.
There's something in Japanese, then in a narrative, mono-tone voice comes, "I have a bad case of diarrhea." That would be absurd enough, but now here's where the pedagogy comes into play. Three Japanese women in spandex pump their firsts up as they sing, "I have-eh baed case of diarr-i-a!" (In the exercise, the word "diarrhea" is signaled by the crossing of their arms around their stomach.) Other useful expressions learned are "take anything you want" and "spare me my life" (for the same girl who is mugged by two men--what an awful trip she is having) and "hasta la vista, baby!" which, obviously, isn't English.
First of all, I cannot plausibly think of a situation where an ambulance is necessary for diarrhea. Second, if I'm learning another language, that's probably one of the last things I want to learn how to say. Damn you, Verde!
Hippie Gets His Own Show Teaching Yoga With the Help of a Giant Cock
Of all the creepy children's TV show hosts, this is undeniably the creepiest. This video starts with a middle-aged man named Yogi-Oki-Doakee (I think) and he's in an odd, aerobatic position I could never imagine Mr. Rogers in. Then, instead of Big Bird, in storms some sort of stereotypical, Jar Jar Binks-esque Jamaican rooster cocking his way around the set as if he's in need of a restraining order. The rooster says something along the lines of, "Yeah, man. You can milks (inaudible, inaudible, inaudible)." Then a bunch of children enter at great apparent risk. One is dressed as a soccer player, another as a karate kid, another as a ballerina, but they cannot enter until they give Yogi a very uncomfortable-looking hug. This video is in many ways similar to the previous two, and hell, probably the rest, in that with each passing moment, it gets more and more unexplainable. For example, Yogi uses some weird wind analogy to explain the importance of breathing, and then his fucking cow keeps mooing "remember to breath!"
At this moment, it becomes unethical at best and frightening at worst. As the children, all of them appearing younger than the age of ten, construct their yoga positions, Yogi moves about "helping" them. He whispers to one, "Are you breathing, Christian?" as he hovers above the boy who probably just pissed his pants from fear. Okay, now I really can't explain this guy's fucking behavior, because he then has his head under his ass as he mimics a chicken (I guess); two disturbed young girls stand by, not quite sure if crying will help or hinder their chances. My comments, desperate as they are to humor, will not do justice to the remaining minute of the video, so just watch, and keep your kids away from Yogi-Oagi-Doakee and his creepy yoga. As Youtube commenter RaymondIsWin wrote, "this guy is in prison, right? Right?"
Siskel and Ebert Uncensored
Siskel and Ebert have been mentioned frequently (here, here and here). One thing that I miss most about them is their humor, which was evidenced when this youtube video surfaced four years ago. The video contains three segments from the 1980s where the two are preparing promos for their show. The first part of this video is rather tense and awkward to watch as the two come close to screaming at each other. "This is not the part that's supposed to match, slick," an angry Ebert says. "Give it a moment's thought. What are we doing now? The promo. Do you know what they have to match? Nothing...welcome to the exciting world of television, a holy new field for you to begin to learn in." Siskel is clearly shaken. "Well-spoken, Roger," he mutters. "Well," is the reply, "that's something you rarely hear." Siskel does eventually get the last line. "That's this week on 'Siskel...and...Ebert...and the Movies'...and the asshole--and that's Roger!"
The next one, which appears to be from the same shoot, features the two burying their hatchet in the best way men know how to--ignoring it, refusing to apologize, and instead ridiculing somebody else. In this case, those who will be ridiculed are Protestants (Siskel was Jewish and Ebert is Catholic). Siskel insists that WASPs run the country and everyone should ban together to overthrow them. Ebert is a little hesitant to get involved, but he eventually does, teasing Protestants as people who "sort of want a religion." Now Ebert's really having fun, noting that Jews and Catholics were "burning each other when Martin Luther was just a gleam in his mother's eye!" Then Siskel claims that the biggest decision a Protestant has to make is "what color yellow tie to fucking buy," and then Ebert says that Protestantism is "the only fucking religion that has the Reader's Digest as a prayer book."
The final segment (in this Youtube post it's played in the middle) is probably the funniest, as the two do what they did best--mock each other. Ebert mocks Siskel's stumbling of the English language and Siskel makes fun of Ebert's weight. Winner: Siskel comes close, but Ebert wins in all three.
For additional laughs, view one of the many clips of the two on Letterman.
Orson Welles Drunk Outtake
You may have thought that Orson Welles gave his best performance as a drunk man in "Touch of Evil," but then you haven't seen these outtakes from the 1970s. Welles--the man behind the War of the Worlds panic, "Citizen Kane" and guest star of "The Muppet Movie"--is really, really drunk in this footage of a commercial for, ironically, wine, constantly missing his ques and (if not for the respect the other actors and stand-ins likely had for him) really annoying the others. The best moment is when he utters "aaaghghaaagghaha" before delivering truly Shakespearean lines.
Hitler Reacts to Harry Potter
"Downfall" from Germany in 2004 is one of the greatest films ever made. Detailing Hitler's final days in his bunker, it featured a brilliant performance by Bruno Ganz. But Americans will always be amused by the German language; whether it's the Augustus Gloop/Guten Tag Hop Clop version or the angry Hitler version, it's always funny to us. So, some folks have taken one scene in which Hitler is very angry at his generals and re-dubbed it so that Hitler is addressing current-day topics. The topics are as varied as Kanye West to Second Life, but the funniest is certainly Hitler's reaction to Warner Bros.'s decision to postpone the release of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince." Informed of the decision, Hitler shakes as he removes his glasses and instructs anyone not a part of the "Harry Potter fandom" to leave, before screaming and shouting. His subordinate recommends they see "Twilight" instead, which really gets Adolf going. It's funny because of the German language, but also funny because Hitler was probably mad enough to complain of such a thing.
Olsen Twins Gimme Pizza
Recently, a paranoid Irishman watched archival footage of the release of Charlie Chaplin's "The Circus" from 1928. In barely a moment of footage, he spotted an elderly woman holding what appeared to be a cell--I'm sorry--mobile phone. Concluding that there was no other explanation, he posted at least one video and explained his conclusive hypothesis: that a time traveler dusted off the DeLorean and went back to 1928 to the premiere of a Chaplin film. By now it's been debunked as most likely being a hearing aid, but the point I'm trying to make is that nobody on Earth thought that the time-traveling lady with a cell phone would end up being analyzed by historians eighty years later. That lady is long gone and we will never know who she was. She is historically irrelevant, except for the fact that someone years later thought she was a time-traveler.
Similarly, for years people have pounded their chests telling us that there was a Munchkin who committed suicide on the set of "The Wizard of Oz." During the Tin Man scene in the forest (in which, if you pay very close attention, you will you notice several birds walking around the set), Dorothy, the Scarecrow and the Tin Man dance away, and just before the next scene, it's there: a Munchkin, who we're told was depressed and heartbroken because of another Munchkin, hanging himself. Now we're also supposed to believe that several hundred people on the set didn't notice it, that the editing team didn't take out the shot and order re-takes, that a Munchkin was there even though the little people weren't filming their scenes yet, and that for decades nobody noticed a hanging person on the set of one of the world's most famous movies. It has since been clearly identified as a zoo bird, but the point is the same. Nobody, seventy years ago, thought that people would go back-and-forth about something so minuscule.
Which brings me to the Olsen twins. Filmed sometime in the early 1990s at the height of their popularity, the Olsen twins made a musical piece about a group of young girls cravin' for some pizza. Since then it has become lost in the closets of dusty VHS tapes, until somebody thought it would sound a lot funnier slowed down. They were right. This video is hysterical. To bring the previous points into this, nobody during the filming of this video ever thought that years later they would see something like this. The three supporting actresses probably regretted their performances (particularly the girl with brown hair saying something about "whip cream poured like waterfalls") but if you were them, you would probably be content with the fact that years later nobody would be able to identify you from the videos. Then comes somebody who has way too much time on their hands and releases a four-minute version of your worst performance for over two million people to see. The rest is history.
Youtube is only about a decade old. Lets hope there are many, many more decades to come of comedy gold.
James Newton Howard's score starts off "Dave" with that certain "West Wing" sense of optimism. The music would be fitting for a president, except the president in this film doesn't seem to like Washington, his wife, or even his dogs as he throws the leash to the ground as soon as he's away from the cameras. Dave (Kevin Kline), however, is perfectly happy in his working-class job as the manager of a temporary employment agency and also a presidential impersonator, as he looks remarkably similar to the incumbent president. While Dave is sort of an everyday hard-working man like many of Jimmy Stewart's characters, Kline's portrayal of President Mitchell is reminiscent of Phil Hartman's impersonation of Ronald Reagan on "Saturday Night Live," at one moment smiling for the cameras and then ordering missiles to be dropped on the communists.
One day, a Secret Service agent (Ving Rhames) instructs Dave that the government needs his help. Dave is asked if he will assume the role as President Mitchell for the entire country while the President is busy; Dave can surmise that of course, the President must be doing some very top-secret duty if an ordinary man like Dave will temporarily assume the role of the presidency. And just like that, the President is gone, and Dave is acting. And Dave really, really likes being president.
But the President's top-secret duty is to carry on an affair with his secretary (Laura Linney). While doing so he suffers from a massive stroke, and now the President's Chief of Staff (Frank Langella) and speech writer (Kevin Dunn) have a bit of a problem. Dave is asked if he can stay on for a bit longer, to which he accepts, though hesitantly. But there are some ambitious reasons for such a move on the Chief of Staff's part; he desperately wants to be president himself, and he's "not going to let some Boy Scout" (the vice president, played by Ben Kingsley) take it away from him. (Langella played an infamous president on Broadway and film years later.) Langella is more terrifying than he was as Dracula when he gives Dave that icy stare to prod him how to behave in the White House.
Dave seems to be enjoying the job but is puzzled as to why the First Lady (Sigourney Weaver) hates him--the President--so much. Still, he will do what he can to make things right, and he starts by bringing some charisma and compassion to the job. With the help of an accountant friend (Charles Grodin) he manages to balance the budget so that funding for a homeless shelter can remain, setting up a conflict with his very mean-spirited Chief of Staff.
There are several humorous cameos in Dave, including Jay Leno, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the pundits of the McLaughlin Group, Chris Dodd, Tom Harkin, Paul Simon (the senator, not the singer), Helen Thomas (seventeen years before her comments on Israel resulted in the end of her career), Ben Stein, and Tip O'Neill. Also appearing is Oliver Stone, poking fun at his image as he explains to Larry King his conspiracy idea regarding the impostor president based on the shape of his chin.
When I was a kid, Tim Curry was in everything. He was the creepy (and by creepy I mean so scary that his fellow cast members avoided him) clown that helped make "It" regarded as the most frightening television miniseries in history. He was singing as a river of destructive oil in "Ferngully: The Last Rainforest". He stole the show from Tom Cruise as a demonic lord in Ridley Scott's "Legend" with hours of Oscar-nominated makeup on him. He was the best part of an all-star cast in "Clue," stumbling his away around a mysterious house with one or several murderers, and the only good part of John Huston's "Annie." He was also hysterical in "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York," as a hotel manager accused by a movie-within-a-movie character of smoochin' with a gangster's brother. He was practically omnipresent.
Before my time, there was of course the film that first made him famous: "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" in 1975. After the successful run in London and Los Angeles as "The Rocky Horror Show," the film version, with Curry as a Dr. Frankenstein-esque character singing and dancing his way around the house/space ship, has obviously become a cult class. It has also been in the news recently: "Glee" dedicated an entire episode to it, and Curry was honored as celebrities, including Evan Rachel Wood, Danny DeVito, George Lopez and Jack Nicholson, recreated the show on the stage for a benefit concert. (It didn't hurt, also, when vintage footage of a younger Russell Crowe performing in the show recently turned up.) "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," a film he once grew sick of due to the passionate (to say the least) response it had with many fans (it is the longest-running movie showing in history), acknowledged in an interview on "Fresh Air" that he recognizes it as a right-of-passage film for many. (One of the film's biggest fans, he claims, was Princess Diana.)
Curry will appear in John Landis's "Burke and Hare," and fellow star Simon Pegg seems thrilled enough that he has posted a picture of the two of them on Twitter. But to suggest that suddenly Curry has rebounded out of nowhere would be an inaccurate way to describe this talented individual. According to IMDb, he has appeared in over two-hundred projects as an actor, eight this year alone. Three of his films ("The Rocky Horror Picture Show," "Clue," and "It") will soon be remade.
Roger Ebert wrote in his review of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," a film he didn't like, that Curry was the most enjoyable cast member to watch because, for one, he was the only one (according to Ebert) who looked like he was having fun. Indeed, Curry seems to be always having fun in his films. He has a taste for the hyperbole, which heightens the enjoyment, whether he's complimenting Sylvester Stallone's daughter's big, round diphthongs in "Oscar," or going toe-to-fin with Kermit the Frog in "Muppet Treasure Island," or butchering a Romanian accent in the guilty-pleasure film "Congo."
Tim Curry has never quite been a main-stream actor. Often he is "the guy from..." or something like that; many of his performances may forever be lost in the Nickelodeon vault of history and time. But many of his films have gained cult film status, such as "Times Square," in which he played a radio show host. The film was not particularly well-reviewed upon its release in 1980, but since has become celebrated by the queer community for its portrayal of young (implied) lesbians. "Clue," likewise, virtually became unknown despite its all-star cast, solid reviews, and famous title. It was only with the popularity of home video and its frequent showing on Comedy Central that it became well-known. Of course, "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" in 1975 was the firm visualization of surreal camp, with its tribute to B-horror and science fiction movies, rock 'n' roll, and transvestism. Curry, likewise, has never really been a leading man, and he has claimed in interviews that he doesn't want to be one. He usually is his best when surrounded by other talented performers.
He has won several awards, like an Emmy in the 1990s for providing the voice of Captain Hook in the animated show "Peter Pan and the Pirates." He has also been nominated for a Tony twice, first as playing the title role in "Amadeus" opposite Ian McKellen in 1980 and again as King Arthur in "Spamalot" in 2005. Still, something even as prestigious as a Golden Globe or even a Hollywood Star has been kept from him. (But he did open the Oscars one year.) In essence, Tim Curry is Hollywood's best kept secret for a quarter-of-a-century.
A friend once explained to me the strategy of tic-tac-toe. Everyone who has ever played the game, he said, has at least once strove for the center of the board. The thinking is that the center offers the greatest destination for security. But the center gives the illusion of safety, my friend told me.
Essentially, going to the center is disadvantageous for several reasons. One, you've wasted a move to go to other areas (say the left, for reasons of being cute), and in tic-tac-toe there are few moves to make. Second, being in the center not only does not help you construct a scenario where your opponent doesn't have enough moves to stop you winning, but actually hinders you from winning. "You basically win by your opponent not noticing that you have amassed a strategic position," he told me.
Now we have the case of Barack Obama. By now, it has been a bit of time since the "shellacking" of 2010 (remember President Bush's "thumping" four years ago?). The Democrats suffered a humbling defeat of losing control of the House of Representatives and thus a great deal of Obama's agenda (most notably climate change legislation, immigration reform, and LGBT rights legislation). Is it time for Obama to move to the center?
Let me first say that everyone should calm down. For starters, the past three presidents who lost control of the House during their first term (Truman, Eisenhower, and Clinton) were re-elected, and I stand by my prediction that Obama will win re-election in 2012, even with Republicans in the House and a high unemployment rate. Second, this is the first time in decades that the opposition party did not take back both houses of Congress, and there is one reason for that--the Tea Party. Yes, the Tea Party might be have given further momentum in the goal of re-taking the House, but it undoubtedly cost the Republican Party the Senate. Because of the Tea Party, we still have Harry Reid, a senator who would have been defeated by any other Republican besides Sharon Angle. Because of the Tea Party, we do not have a Ken Buck or Christine O'Donnell or a Linda McMahon. We probably won't have a Joe Miller. And Mitch McConnell is still the Senate Minority Leader. Fifty-three Democratic senate seats looks a lot better than forty-eight, which is what it would be without the Tea Party.
On to the larger point, it may seem like the necessary thing for Obama to do is compromise. I'm not totally opposed to compromise, although I still believe bipartisanship is very overrated. Still, that does not mean Obama should pretend that the Earth is suddenly clean or that a Don't Ask, Don't Tell repeal should be shelved or that all (excuse me, any) of the Bush tax cuts should be extended. Only two centrists presidents--Dwight Eisenhower and Bill Clinton--won re-election in the past hundred years. Paul Begala has argued that Obama needs a centrist economic policy. Fine, I guess. Begala knows more than I do--he was, after all, a top level adviser to President Clinton.
But a major ideological shift to the center is not the right path. At this point, for Obama, the center is an illusion for safety. The center is where he will be most vulnerable to Republican attacks. Obama can still win the independent vote by not going to the center (it worked for him two years ago). So there's no need for him to make such a move, and, other than some areas, I doubt he will.
The opening sequences of "Machete" start in the same style of Robert Rodriquez's "Planet Terror" portion of "Grindhouse," with scratchy film as a homage to the 1970s grindhouse films he enjoyed. There is head-slicing from the beginning as the title character, played by Danny Trejo, storms a rusty old house filled with bad guys and carries a woman to safety. The woman, while still unclothed, returns the favor by slicing Machete's leg and brings out the bad guy, who then has her shot.
The bad guy is a Mexican drug cartel played by Steven Seagal and despite his Mexican nationality, wields a potent samurai sword. There are other villains who pop up--Jeff Fahey reprises his role from the "Machete" trailer first seen in "Grindhouse" as a businessman who simultaneously is the backbone behind the political career of a state senator named John McLaughlin (Robert De Niro). McLaughlin utilizes the fierce anti-immigrant stance of Texas to create the appearance of an assassination attempt by Machete and thereby increase his poll numbers. Don Johnson is also here as a brutal militiaman happy to shoot away at illegal immigrants. He's as fierce as Bull Connor and doesn't "speak Mexican" but is still angry that immigrants are on his Daddy's land and worried that Texas will become part of Mexico (again). Jessica Alba plays a Latina immigration officer doing her job to protect the law. Perhaps her heart will change when she meets Machete. Michelle Rodriquez plays Luz, who runs a taco stand but also leads a network of immigration help services. Lindsay Lohan plays the daughter of Fahey's character who also aspires to be a model.
Most of the actors are enjoyable to watch, especially Trejo and De Niro. This is Trejo's fifth appearance as the character; the first two were in Rodriquez's "Spy Kids" films, so this might be the only character in cinematic history who has appeared both in PG-rated family fun and R-rated sex and violence action. Johnson and Seagal are surprisingly effective also, as is Seagal.
I usually like Robert Rodriquez. His "Sin City" is one of the greatest films in recent memory, and his "Planet Terror" was better than the other portion of "Grindhouse" (Quentin Tarantino's "Death Proof"). But with "Machete," there is a certain level of stupidity that cannot be tolerated, especially when human intestines is used as a grappling. I'm not as a good a Catholic as I used to be, but I still get disturbed by images of a priest shooting guys' heads off in a church. There are elements of silliness that are frankly too silly. To put it simply, there are many good parts but much more bad parts.
The previous "Toy Story" films centered around a boy named Andy and his toys. "What are my toys doing when I leave my room?" must have been a universal question for young children when they saw the first film fifteen years ago and the impetus for such a film. "What should I do with my toys now that I've grown up?" is probably no less common of a question.
In "Toy Story 3," Andy (voiced in all three films by John Morris) is now getting ready for college and obviously finds no use for his toys which he previously loved. What does fate have in store for a toy whose owner is getting ready to leave for college? The gang is here again--Tom Hanks as Woody, Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear, Don Rickles as Mr. Potato Head, Estelle Harris as Mrs. Potato Head, Wallace Shawn as Rex, John Ratzenberger as Hamm, R. Lee Ermey as Sarge, and Joan Cusack as Jessie. Jim Varney, who voiced Slinky the Dog and who passed away in 2000, is now voiced by Blake Clark.
There are also new characters. Michael Keaton is Ken, who despite his narcissism (and adamant denial about being a girl's toy), finds new love with (of course) Barbie (voiced by Jodi Benson). Whoopi Goldberg is also here as a purple octopus (I think), and Timothy Dalton is a toy hedgehog who is also a thespian. Ned Beatty is Lots-O-Huggin Bear, or simply Lots, the leader of the group of toys the original gang encounters at Sunnyside, the daycare center they are accidentally donated to. Realizing that the children at Sunnyside are too young for them and that Andy is looking for his toys, they decide to try and escape.
Something I liked about the previous two "Toy Story" films and this one as well is the way in which adult themes are presented to younger audiences. When "Shrek" was released in 2001, I remember adults talking about all the "adult" moments in the film, though in that case it was mainly with heavily suggested innuendos. In the case of the "Toy Story" films, the themes have been those of alienation, depression, jealousy, identity confusion, abandonment and a lack of fulfillment. Most of this, I suspect, goes over the heads of its target audience; I was about eight-years-old when I saw the first "Toy Story" film and I doubt I recognized any of those themes.
I was fortunate not to have seen this film in 3-D. If I could lend my voice to the debate (which will soon pass away) on the use of 3-D in films, it is this: 3-D is awful. What is particularly annoying about the use of it is how stupid filmmakers must feel the audience members are. 3-D imagery is not necessary to try and wash away the boundaries between audience and projected images. Plato's cave allegory that there is a separation between the real and the copy should be enough proof. Our brains are efficient enough to understand the copy that is the cinema--we don't need a pair of uncomfortable and expensive glasses to help us. And from what I've heard, 3-D did nothing to enhance the viewing experience of "Toy Story 3."
In some ways "Toy Story 3" is too much of a repeat of the second installment, with an angry, villainous toy bitter about what his owner did to him and intent on preventing the other toys from achieving their happiness. It's also a bit crowded with characters, and even scary at times. The monkey might be the scariest character since Pale Man in "Pan's Labyrinth," and there's a scene which exemplifies how petrifying preschoolers are.
But there is a magic in this film that goes beyond nostalgia and sentimentality. In 1995 "Toy Story" initiated the brilliance of Pixar. Since then we have been blessed with "Finding Nemo," "Wall-E," and "Up." "Toy Story 3" provides a necessary sense of cloture and catharsis for these characters, but let's hope it will not be the last wonderful film from Pixar.
"If a man, sitting all alone, cannot dream strange things, and make them look like truth, he need never try to write romances." Thus wrote Nathaniel Hawthorne, whose "The Scarlet Letter" serves as an influence for Will Gluck's "Easy A," a film about a teenage girl who indeed has dreamed strange things and tried to make them look truthful with unending consequences.
Emma Stone is Olive, a sharp and witty yet fairly unknown high schooler with essentially one close friend and a bit hungry for a need of belongingness. Olive is generally well-liked, at least to those who know her. She spends one weekend listening and singing to bad music, and then uses her imagination to create a story of how she actually lost her virginity to a "gentleman." While Olive is generally well-liked, there is a group who does not like her, and that is a group of Christian students lead by Marianne (Amanda Bynes). Marianee's friend taunts Olive in class, and Olive retorts, resulting in her first trip to the principal's office.
She receives a detention and spends one afternoon cleaning the school with her fellow troublemaker Brandon (Dan Byrd), who is gay and harassed on a daily basis. Brandon painfully tells Olive that he has had enough with the bullying, and he wants her to extend the make-believe. He asks her to pretend to have sex with him. That way, everyone will know once and for all that he is indeed quite straight.
Anyway, requests like this continue. Students with desperate "needs" request her "service" and thus Olive is rewarded with gift cards, coupons, and attention. Her life begins to resemble the protagonist of "The Scarlet Letter," which is being read in class. The trajectory begins to spiral downward as things progress.
I haven't read "The Scarlet Letter" but I do know enough about it to understand the allegories. The condemnation the lead characters in these two stories is symbolic, to me at least, of the double-standard facing women. A male who engages in sexual activity and has numerous sleeping partners is considered a stud; a female in the same situation is a slut. I also can recall from my school days that the author of "The Scarlet Letter" was Nathaniel Hawthorne, the great-great-grandson of John Hathorne, a judge of the Salem Witch Trials and who is portrayed in Arthur Miller's play "The Crucible" as being of the most vicious of the group. There is definitely a hint of that sentiment in "Easy A."
This film is much like "Mean Girls" and "Juno" before it, centering on female leads struggling with what Erikson would have described as identity versus role confusion. "Easy A" does not do enough to distinguish itself from the two, but it is quite funny. Like the two mentioned films, it becomes evident that actual people, whether they be teenagers or parents or teachers or Christian fundamentalists, do not in fact talk and act as they do in this film. But the farcical nature is forgiven, because these characters and the actors portraying them are very funny. The movie has an entertaining cast, with Thomas Hayden Church as Olive's favorite teacher, Lisa Kudrow as his wife who is also the school's guidance counselor, Malcolm MacDowell as the school's principal, Fred Armisen as a local preacher, and Patricia Clarkson and Stanley Tucci as Olive's parents.
But the real gem of this production is Emma Stone. There is a perfect sense of sarcasm in her tone, a lack of intonation which is surprisingly effective and a slightly raspy voice mixed with her confidence in the risks she takes as a performer that make her really enjoyable to watch. It can be written with assurance that she will continue to entertain and her audiences will be quite fortunate.
Roger Ebert used his review of "Shaolin Soccer" as a vehicle to describe his theory of the star-rating system in movies. He said, "When you ask a friend if 'Hellboy' is any good, you're not asking if it's any good compared to 'Mystic River,' you're asking if it's any good compared to 'The Punisher.' And my answer would be, on a scale of one to four, if 'Superman' is four, then 'Hellboy' is three, and 'The Punisher' is two."
If I might be excused for unoriginality, the same theory can be applied here. "The Expendables," directed by Sylvester Stallone and featuring Stallon and a whole host of other tough guys, is a film that needs to be taken for what it's worth. Here is a film not comparable to "Superman," or "Gone With the Wind" or "The Exorcist" or "The Fog of War," but it's a film comparable to "Raiders of the Lost Ark," which is better than "The Expendables," or "Die Hard 2," which ranks at two stars to the three stars of "The Expendables." Several days before I saw "The Expendables," I watched "Wo Ai Ni (I Love You) Mommy," a documentary about a young Chinese girl adopted into an American family and a much more compelling movie. I have, however, just deliberately violated Ebert's rule. "The Expendables" and "Wo Ai Ni, Mommy" are not really comparable films; yes, perhaps they work better for different people, but they must be seen through different prisms.
Stallone is the leader of a group of mercenaries dubbed the Expendables, simply because, of course, they are expendable. They are tough, brutal (yet surprisingly sensitive) individuals. They have Austrian, British, Chinese, Swedish, Latin American, and Stallone accents. They are played by actors who have helped define the tough-guy action genre for decades: Jason Statham, Jet Li, Mickey Rourke, Dolph Lundgren. Also appearing are Terry Crews, Randy Couture, Steve Austin, and Eric Roberts. To add to the delight, there are simultaneous cameos by Bruce Willis and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his first appearance in six years.
The Expendables are hired to remove a general who has led a coup de'tat on the fictional island of Vilena. This general is the puppet to a merciless ex-CIA agent James Munroe (Roberts). (Say what you will about the film being stupid, but intelligent viewers will recognize not only the ironies of the villain's name related to the president whose Doctrine dealt with Latin America but also the plot's similarities to the Noreiga situation of the late 1980s. Additionally, it appears Stallon has heeded Mickey Rourke's plea for directors to star hiring Roberts again.)
One thing about the film that struck me is that it is not as violent as I expected. Indeed, there were decapitations, exploding bodies, and knives in throats, but it's not nausea-inducing. The result is that the movie is quite fun, despite some things that are troublesome. One is a silly moment at the film's resolution, and another is the violence towards women. There is only one female character in this whole movie (thereby violating the Bechtel Test), and she's beaten up pretty badly for no logical reason. Additionally and expectedly, the final act of the film falls victim to a ridiculous amount of annoying explosions.
It could be expected that such a film, with an unbelievable amount of testosterone and improbable sequences, would be labeled as "dumb." There are dumber things in our world today, but this is not a type of "dumb" that makes me lose sleep at night.
What I like to consider the "Pather Panchali" of Korean cinema, Park Sang-ho's 1965 Korean semi-documentary "The DMZ" (or "Bimujangjidae" in Korean) is a film once thought to be lost forever but was recently discovered. While possessing nice shots and a definite amount of risk (filming in the actual DMZ surrounded by troops and landmines cannot be too safe), it's not particularly well-made (the original film reviews agree with me), and it requires a tolerance of things like 1960s Konglish subtitles, but it is a film of impressive themes and emotions. Its actors--a boy and a girl playing two children lost in the DMZ searching for their mother--are sometimes annoying but mostly natural and interesting to watch. The idea for the film was sparked when director Park was visiting Japan and met with some Western tourists. The tourists asked him about Panmunjom and seemed to take a thrill in the idea of such a place, without recognizing the danger, tragedy or either countries to the north or south of the so-called truce village. He decided to make this film. It might be assumed that Park hoped and believed that within several years the peninsula would be united in one, but such is the tragedy of Korea.
The Lady and the Reaper
The film that deserved the Best Animated Short Feature Award at last year's Oscars, "The Lady and the Reaper" is an eight-minute piece from Spain. It starts sentimental, then surreal, then absurd. We see an aging woman, longing for her husband and ready to pass away. One night, she dies, and her spirit happily takes the hand of the Reaper to go to the other side--until she's saved. Briefly, a Time magazine photo is seen introducing us to a "famous doctor who saves another miserable life." This doctor is proud of his accomplishment, regardless of the fact that his patient wants to die, but his stubbornness is only matched by the persistence of the Reaper, as the two begin in a seemingly-endless battle over this woman. It is probable that many could make arguments about end-of-life issues with this film, but it is also doubtful that such an idea was the intent of the film. This movie is funny, wonderfully engaging and has a very effective musical score from Serio De La Puente. In my formative years as an ESL teacher, I would show this to my students, regardless of age or level, and of course the activities and assessments would vary, but it was usually a very enjoyable lesson.
The Cow
Dariush Mehrjui's "Gaav," or "The Cow," is about a universal theme regarding a working individual in unordinary times. In this case, he finds himself pitted against every member of the community. Ezzatolah Entezami plays a villager whose proudest prize and accomplice is his cow. While journeying away from the village, the cow is killed by a rival village. The community is concerned that Entezami's character will be unable to cope with the loss. As a community, they decide to tell the villager that his cow has run away. In an interview, Mehrjui talked about how the film was produced in 1969, at the time of the Shah's hightened propaganda about Iran entering a new period of modernity. He noted that the Iranian government was ashamed that Iran was being represented by its "un-modern" villages at international film festivals. But Mehrjui felt the absence of art films of Europe and America in Iran, so he made this film. Incidentally, the film launched the career of Entezami, who is considered one of Iran's greatest actors. The film is also regarded as the start of the Iranian New Wave, and it was also supposedly a favorite of the Ayatollah Khomeini.
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
After the seriousness of the previous "Star Trek" film, "The Search for Spock," the cast and crew decided to take a much more light-hearted approach. Practically a slapstick comedy but also with a sincere environmental message, Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and his crew approach Earth to find that their planet is being destroyed by an alien species. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) quickly (in a matter of seconds) decides that it must be because whales are extinct, so they must return to the past (1986) to bring back a humpback whale to communicate with the aliens. Once that ridiculous exposition has passed, the film becomes incredibly enjoyable, as the characters try to make their way through San Fransisco. Chekov cannot understand that 1986 was still during the Cold War, and that it might appear supicious for a man with a Russian accent to be asking for directions to the nuclear vessels (or "nuclear wessels"). Scotty cannot figure out how to speak to the computer, speaking into the mouse as if it is a microphone. Bones finds the primitive surgeries of the hospital to be similar to practices used in the Dark Ages. And Spock's state is disguised by Kirk as being the result of too much drugs in the 1960s. It doesn't help their cause as they explain that in the future there is no money, thus making it difficult to pay for dinner.
Thirteen Days
President Kennedy is warned that the missiles are within range of American cities, that the government would only have five minutes notice, and that the missiles have the potential to kill eighty million Americans. He is surrounded by a group of various factions, led by pacifists like Adlai Stevenson, pragmatists like Robert McNamara and hardliners like Curtis LeMay. The tremendous amount of pressure on the Kennedy administration is efficiently demonstrated in this movie, a movie I would consider virtually the only film justifiably shown at full-length in a social studies classroom. Kennedy, played by Bruce Greenwood, is advised primarily by his brother, the Attorney General Robert Kennedy (Steven Culp) and his chief of staff (Kevin Costner), a role which was largely exaggerated for probably several reasons. Regardless, it's a fascinating film.
Powaqqatsi
Godfrey Reggio's "Powaqqatsi," the sequel to his "Koyaanisqatsi," is a similar-themed documentary. While its predecessor focused on the juxtaposition of nature and modern technology, "Powaqqatsi" has a focus on the impact on humans, specifically on the cultures and work ethics of third world nations. What drives this film, and Reggio's others in his trilogy, is Philip Glass's awesome score, particularly the opening moments as well as what is usually titled "Anthem: Part 2," which was used in trailers for films such as "Philadelphia" and "Dead Man Walking" as well as a sequence in "The Truman Show" (also scored by Glass, a decade later). Michael Dare wrote, "If I could send just one film to the stars as a tribute to the beauty and passion of our species and planet, I'd have a hard time choosing between the two films of Godfrey Reggio. They're both masterpieces, affirming and lifegiving, raising the art of film into the stratosphere. The common language of no language makes his films perfectly international; I can't image anyone from any country seeing them and not walking away with the same message--that our homeworld is beautiful and giving, that all humans are equal in the sight of mother earth, that if we take from her more than she's willing to give, we must suffer the consequences."
Harakiri
Known as the essential "anti-samurai" film, there are many reasons to watch this movie. Its eerie and almost demonic cinematography is reminiscent of more well-known Japanese films like "Onibaba" and "Throne of Blood." Masaki Kobayashi's "Harakiri" is a repudiation of feudalism and authoritarianism, set in the Edo period, as Japan ended its isolation and began the Empire of Japan. Imperial Japan was obviously a period of severe aggression, and it seems to be that Japan feels a great amount of guilt because of this but also wishes not to specifically apologize for its aggression. Anyway, this period served as an allegory for the film. The film's most powerful moment, for most, is its scene of seppuku, or, as it is defined, Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment. The character must use a dull blade (he has sold his sword for food for his family) to commit the act. Supposedly, when the film was shown at the 1964 Cannes Film Festival, members of the audience fainted. See Joan Mellen's Criterion Collection essay and NonStoptoTokyo's Youtube post for more information about the film.
Murmur of the Heart
"Murmur of the Heart," directed by Louis Malle, explores a very unique family. The family, not dissimilar from other families depicted in films, particularly in French films, is led by an opinionated father, with an independent mother, two rambunctious older boys, and one younger boy who happens to be fourteen-years-old and desperate to lose his virginity. His route of doing so cannot be described as conventional, and can be viewed as quite shocking, but much time has past since 1971 when the film played in America, so I will not be the one to provide the details (just go ahead and watch the film). This boy, played by Benoit Ferreux, is more mature than his older brothers but willing to go along in search of his identity, and thus we have a quintessential coming-of-age story. He tries cigars and prostitutes (until that is spoiled by his older brothers), but his quest is postponed (or is it?) due to his heart condition, which requires a hospital stay away from the city. Here, perhaps, he will find what he is looking for.
The Purple Rose of Cairo
While Woody Allen's "Crimes in Misdeamnors" four years after this movie carried with it such a heavy weight which was a feature in some of his later films like "Match Point," "The Purple Rose of Cairo," while serious in romance and the emotions of disappointment, was much lighter. Like any character in an Allen film, Mia Farrow's leading role is one who despite her misery finds solitude in Depression-era America at the movies. Continuing to see the same romance film over and over again, she eventually falls in love with one of the characters, played by Jeff Daniels. A crisis is soon to unfold, as the character Daniel's plays in this fictitious movie jumps out of the screen and begins to talk with Farrow. The crisis, of course, is that now the movie cannot continue with its important character, so the studio sends the actor (also, obviously, played by Daniels) to try and convince this character to return to the movie. As might be expected, a love triangle commences. This movie's sentimentality is perfect, expressing a nostalgic tribute to movies without becoming too engrossing and is one of Allen's finest films.
Young Mr. Lincoln
While exaggerated in many parts for obvious reasons, I was surprised at how accurate many other parts were; the mysterious case Lincoln the lawyer must solve and the way in which he solved it are not entirely an invention. Henry Fonda in the title role (the same year his good friend yet ideological opponent Jimmy Stewart played another idealist politician in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington") also looked remarkably similar to a younger Abraham Lincoln. I once asked on IMDb about the makeup effects, as I was convinced that Fonda's cheekbones and forehead were made to appear more robust as Lincoln's were; I was reminded that 1939 also saw the release of "The Wizard of Oz" and its even more impressive makeup techniques. Lincoln, as many are aware, was a complex president, a man of ambiguous nature who signed the Emancipation Proclamation yet who was the only serious politician in the country who endorsed such a silly idea of colonizing American blacks from American soil to Liberia. He was a man who is regarded as a principle figure in freedom yet was the closest an American president has come to tyranny. He fought a war to free slaves yet did so with the sole purpose being to keep the Union in tact. Lincoln was a man of depression, serious thought, and haunted by death. Yet these serious themes are largely ignored here, and Fonda's Lincoln focuses on the Lincoln of humor, wit, intelligence and storytelling.
In "The Ghost Writer," Ewan McGregor's character, simply credited as the Ghost, is reassured by someone that he cannot be killed like his predecessor was, because ghostwriters are not cats. This is little comfort to the Ghost, for he is well-aware that he (like many characters in Roman Polanski's films), is someone in conditions that do not favor him, and against characters that are not ones to advance his well-being.
The Ghost is a writer, ignorant of current events but hungry for a good job, who has been hired to be the ghostwriter for Adam Lang, a former British prime minister and one of considerable controversy. Lang, played by Pierce Brosnan, resigned from his office after allegations spread that he illegally handed over British citizens accused of being terrorists to the CIA; the CIA tortured them and thus made Lang guilty of a war crime. The situation is made remarkably worse when the Ghost learns that Lang's former aide and the original ghostwriter was found dead in the waters next to Lang's compound.
Brosnan seems to be deeply concerned, as were some of his predecessors, as being typecast as James Bond. Brosnan was humorous in "The Matador," sang in "Mamma Mia!" and now is a nasty politician in Polanski's film. His performance is the most interesting to watch, though his scenes are few, but McGregor does his usual effective job in the leading role. McGregor's character is a typical one lost in situations beyond his control, as is often the case with Polanski's characters.
Oliver Wendal Holmes famously (and supposedly) said of Franklin Roosevelt that the president had a first-class temperament but a second-class intellect; Lang probably has neither. He is clearly influenced by others, drawing significant parallels to the Blair-Bush relationship. The allegories are not lightly-hinted--the America Secretary of State in the film looks remarkably similar to Condoleeza Rice. Additionally, he is half the talent of the Ghost, and it brings to mind other famous ghostwriters, as varied as Wolfgang Mozart and (speaking of Bond) John Barry, who has claimed he is the original composer of the famous Bond theme and not Monty Norman, who is credited with writing the score. (Incidentally, this is not a major theme of the film, but simply an observation.)
One disappointing aspect of the film is that it relies on the tired use of an ambitious, Lady Macbeth wife pulling too many strings, though the character is very enjoyable to watch Olivia Williams play her. And while this film may be a thriller, it's not always thrilling. The first and third half are fine evidence of thriller-making at its best, and while Polanski should be rewarded for not falling into cliches, he certainly does seem to lose a bit of bearing as it becomes dull and disorganized. Still, in an age of 3-D, CGI hyperbole, and the overuse of intensity, it is nice to see Polanski remind filmmakers how to make a good movie.
Many have noted filmmaker Errol Morris' article in the New York Timeson anosognosia. Morris tells the story of David Dunning, a professor of social psychology at Cornell University, reading the newspaper to discover a bizarre story. The article was about a man named McArthur Wheeler who was arrested after attempting to rob two Pittsburgh banks. He attempted to rob the banks in daylight, but what really made the story unique was that Wheeler did not attempt to disguise himself. Wheeler was totally perplexed after he was arrested: "But I wore the juice," he insisted. As Morris writes, "Apparently, he was under the deeply misguided impression that rubbing one's face with lemon juice rendered it invisible to movie cameras."
Wheeler had been told of the phenomenon of smearing lemon juice on one's face to mask it from surveillance cameras. He was at least somewhat cautious, as he conducted a test to verify the results; indeed, the pictures showed no face. Perhaps it was because he had in fact mistakenly turned away from the camera just before it went off.
We have all heard of stupid criminals, but Wheeler takes the cake. Dunning suddenly realized something as he was reading the article. Perhaps Wheeler was not simply too stupid to be a bank robber, but instead was too stupid to realize that he was too stupid to be a bank robber. This is identified by Morris' article as anosognosia, which is when a person suffers from a disability but either is unaware of the condition or is unwilling to admit it exists. In the case of McArthur Wheeler, he was too stupid to realize he was stupid.
Many characters in "A Fish Called Wanda" probably have such a condition.
Written by John Cleese and directed by Charles Crichton, the film opens with three of its main characters: Jamie Lee Curtis as the title character (sort of), Michael Palin (an alumnus of Monty Python with Cleese) as a stuttering animal lover named Ken, and Kevin Kline as a maliciously-witted Otto, not daring to hide any compassion and instead horrifyingly staring at Ken's obvious stutter. "That's quite a stutter you've got there, Ken," he teases, interrupting his sentence with a chuckle. Otto also isn't afraid to mention to Ken that he once had a friend in the CIA who had a stutter which "cost him his life."
Wanda and Otto, with Ken and Wanda's boyfriend George (Tom Georgeson), rob a bank, then double-cross the ring leader while pretending to be brother and sister. They discover though that they too have been betrayed, as the stolen jewels have disappeared. Cleese himself then appears as a lawyer attempting to find some actual satisfaction in his life but instead is taken for granted by his wife and daughter. Cleese, as Archie Leach (Cary Grant's actual name), will be representing George at his trial.
Curtis is perfect at portraying such a seductive and funny character. And while it's reasonable to believe that perhaps Cleese's character would be the smart one of the group, he is the one who dances in the nude (while speaking Russian), only to discover a family walk in on him. Kline in particular is wonderful to watch. He is as animated as Chaplin and as fast as Keaton. Moment after moment, he shines. He is ready to assassinate Ken (regardless of the consequences), he loquaciously speaks Italian as he makes love, and he deeply inhales the leather boot of Wanda in the film's best fetish moment. He likes winning, too, and when he is challenged on the United States losing the Vietnam War, he shouts, "We didn't lose Vietnam! It was a tie!" His jealousy, his hatred of the Brits, his constant need to complicate things are all marvelously done by Kline. But as clumsy as Otto is, there is something deeply troubling him. To tie in the Morris-Dunning-Wheeler aspect, Otto is frequently called stupid, and his voice slows--"Don't ever, ever call me 'stupid,'" he warns. There is complexity here, yet Kline allows hyperbole without losing control, and there is an endless amount of stupidity with his character. For Kline's performance, he was awarded the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
There is a flaw with a certain scene involving a dog, and I stand with Betty White in the stance that violence against animals is not funny. (May Ms. White forgive me, for I couldn't help but at least smirk at such dark humor.) In a post-Capra era, though, this is one of the finest examples of slapstick humor the movies have seen.
Christopher Nolan's "Inception" is a film about characters who perchance to dream. There is something deeply philosophical and fascinating about man's ability to dream, to analyze and reflect on one's own dreams, one's own nightmares, that offers women and men the ability to command such creative power that would make everyone a Dante or Shakespeare, as H.F. Hedge put it, and Nolan capitalizes on this.
There seems to be a genuine dissonance between man's rationality of being awake and the insanity of dreaming, where all absurdity and surrealism is finally available. This is the case with Nolan's film, a film which almost entirely creates a perfect equilibrium between intellectualism and entertainment.
The story is likely inspired by the science and psychology of lucid dreams, that is when a dreamer recognizes and acknowledges that he or she is in a dream. Many characters have such moments in "Inception." The film toys with our own recognition of dreams in that it is difficult to recollect them; we in essence quickly forget what dreams we dreamed. Another aspect is dream incubation, or the placing of a seed in the brain, or inception.
Leonardo DiCaprio plays Cobb, a dream extractor who leads teams to steal secrets from people's dreams. But in this case, for a complicated and quickly-described reason, Cobb and his team are not extracting but creating an idea in someone's mind. Dreams within dreams are created, totems are used to detect whether or not the person is in a dream, and the subjects (those whom the idea is created or stolen from) possess subconscious protections against the extractors. The more dreams-within-dreams that are created, the more risk there is; usually "death" in a dream returns the dreamer to reality, but with heavy sedation (as is the case on the team's special assignment), being killed could result in actual death. To die is truly to sleep for these characters.
Like in Scorsese's "Shutter Island" from earlier this year, DiCaprio's character is a man struggling with deep guilt and alienation. It is as if he exists in a prison when he is awake, and dreaming provides him the perfect escapism. The dreams allow him to take enormous risks, regardless of the potential consequences to him and his team members.
Another wonderful aspect is the fact that Nolan has largely avoided shortchanging his actors. Aside from Michael Caine and Pete Postlethwaite who both have small roles, this is an ensemble piece, with DiCaprio, Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ken Watanabe, Marion Cotillard, Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy and Tom Berenger all having important roles.
With Nolan, there is a special attention to detail, and when there are elaborate and expensive CGI images, one gets the sense that Nolan, unlike so many other directions, has not forgotten that the onus is on him to make the audience believe that these images are real. Cities fold onto themselves and characters fly like acrobats in a gravity-less corridor. There are nightmares--Cotillard's near-perfect moments as practically a ghost tormenting Cobb's guilt--filled with sudden horrifying glances, a look that could kill. And then a firm grip with a broken glass, and a powerful charge. And there is the wonder of subtext with regards to psychology and even architecture, all culminating in a film inspired by obvious previous science fiction films.
But this is a film with flaws. While there certainly is a sense of wonder here, that wonder unfortunately often does not go far enough. At times it feels as if there is nothing really new here, unlike other films that have dealt with similar subjects, as varied as Wilcox's "Forbidden Planet" to Hitchcock's "Spellbound," to Kurosawa's "Dreams." This film has been called a Kubrickian masterpiece; it is not. Part of the reason is that Nolan already is one of the best directors around, so the bar is just so high every time, but that does not mean one should not see "Inception." If you can tolerate the intensity, confusion, rapid speed at which the plot is explained, the lack of details to the plot, the real-or-not jargon about our dreams, the non-stop gun fights, etc., then it is a film worth seeing. There are many reasons to see this movie: its thrills, its acting, its cinematography, its ideas and especially its visuals.
You probably have heard about the ending. I won't mention much, other than it will probably make you smile (or groan if you are less patient or intellectually curious), and it would be best not to dwell too much time on it.
Steven Spielberg has created a legacy as the ultimate magician of the cinema. His movies have, for the most part, been bright, magical pictures, as is the case here in his 1987 film "Empire of the Sun." With this film, a coming-of-age World War II story, Spielberg indulges in familiar formulas: a lost boy without his parents, a yearning towards reconciliation, a feeling of miraculousness.
Almost always, Spielberg's combination works. Here it does at times, but there is no concrete epicenter, and instead it oversimplifies things and overly-complicates others. "Empire of the Sun" is a movie that often has that Spielberg quality of excellence but more often feels too long, too boring, and even too Spielberg.
A young Christian Bale plays Jamie Graham, the son of wealthy parents living in Shanghai in the 1930s as war breaks out between China and Japan (and the world, of course, for that matter). Jamie is as imaginative and charismatic as he is spoiled and selfish, but he is also quite interested in planes. In fact, it is his toy plane he tries to retrieve which separates him from his family during the chaotic and frightening invasion. Lost, scared, and confused, he returns home where food will run out. Often exactly in the right place, he joins an American sailor named Basie (John Malkovich), and the two develop a friendship, despite Basie constantly betraying him. The two are eventually captured and moved to an internment camp and wait for the war to end.
As mentioned, "Empire of the Sun" is either too complicated or too simple. It is too complicated as it involves an enormous amount of characters which were probably given their proper explanations in the autobiographical novel by J.G. Ballard which the film is based on. There is a doctor, a young Japanese man Jamie befriends, a brutal Japanese captain, an impatient British couple, and parts of Basie's gang which are all practically ignored. It is often too simple, as well. Towards the end of the film, Jamie, now called Jim, witnesses a bright and sudden light approach and push against his body. Instead of allowing reasonably intelligent viewers to ascertain that this is most likely one of the atomic bombings on Japan, Spielberg inserts a radio broadcast to provide exact details of the event. If that still could not suffice, Jamie offers out loud his realization of what has occurred and how he mistook it.
Most of the film is wonderful to look at. It involves dreamlike visuals and another majestic score from John Williams. But at times it feels like another attempt at "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial," though it is worth noting that in 1987, Spielberg, along with his 1985 period piece "The Color Purple," was emphasizing his directorial range, shedding the perception that he could only direct children fantasy stories. (Then came "Hook" in 1991, and he would have to wait another two years with "Schindler's List" to finally secure the reputation he deserved and strived for.) Again, at times the quasi-fantastical nature of "Empire of the Sun" feels justified, and at other times it feels gratuitous. It is also noteworthy, though, that Spielberg discussed in interviews about this story being the anti-Peter Pan story in that this is about a boy who has grown up too quickly. And so far, no praise has been given by the reviewer to the performer playing that boy, Christian Bale (the future American Psycho and Batman). It is a very commendable performance, as are the other performers throughout this film (including Ben Stiller, who has said that he first gained the idea for his 2008 film "Tropic Thunder" while making "Empire of the Sun.")
Overall, "Empire of the Sun" has the feel of a inspirational picture that does not exactly inspire the feeling of being inspired. Instead the film drags on; there is a beginning, middle and end, but the middle seems of epic proportion and unjustly too long. It seems that as matter-of-fact as the story could be, it instead chooses to lack a definitive sequence of events. At times it's "Oliver," at other times it's "Stalag 17," and at other times it at least looks like "The Color Purple" but feels like it possesses the youthful optimism of "Hook." It is an interesting hybrid, and another example of his interest in World War II. World War II, a war Spielberg's father fought in, has often been the setting for Spielberg's stories. His first Hollywood attempt at the subject was "1941," then this film in 1987 (ignore the Indiana Jones films for now), and he finally secured a masterpiece with "Saving Private Ryan" (or "Schindler's List" if you prefer to consider that film the "third time's a charm" entity).
As the film opens, Christopher Walken, the patron saint of eccentricity in the movies, is reading out loud Poe's "The Raven" to a classroom of students. It is immediately clear that his will be an enjoyable film. David Cronenberg's "The Dead Zone," from a screenplay by Jeffrey Boam based on Stephen King's novel, is an epic picture, despite its relatively short length of about 103 minutes, and immensely enjoyable to watch.
Walken's character, in that opening classroom, presents himself as a content man with an exaggerated smile; there's no real reason to doubt that most of his students probably like him, and as the audience discovers throughout the film, his character is passionate about education (King was also an English teacher himself before he became a full-time writer). Incidentally, Walken the teacher instructs his students to read "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," and if Christopher Walken could see the future as his character did in "The Dead Zone," he would know that about fifteen years later he would play that very headless demon he refers to.
Walken plays Johnny Smith (a name almost changed by Cronenberg due to its hard-to-believe simplicity). In love with his fellow teacher (Brooke Adams), Smith drives home in a storm and suffers from an accident. He finally awakens in a clinic. It is explained to him by his doctor (Herbert Loam) with dark-brimmed glasses and Polish accent (elaborated on later in the film) that he has been in a coma for five years. His girlfriend has left him, married, and now has a child. He obviously does not have his job anymore and requires physical rehabilitation.
These challenges would be difficult enough for any man, but Johnny discovers that he now has been blessed (or cursed) with the ability to see the future. One day in his hospital bed, he touches the hand of the nurse and suddenly can see that her daughter is in great danger. He shouts to the nurse that there is enough time; the daughter is saved. Johnny's life is completed altered.
Other characters appear in the story to utilize or be affected by Johnny's ability. Tom Skerrit is the local sheriff who has run out of options to find the Castle Rock Killer involving the rape and murder of young women. To the sound of the operatic score of Michael Kamen (one of the rare occasions in which Cronenberg did not use his frequent composer Howard Shore), Johnny helps the police track down the killer. Then there is a politician named Greg Stillson played by Martin Sheen in some of the film's best scenes. Stillson is a character that is the complete antithesis to some of his other characters like the loyal chief of staff in "The American President" and a practical, idealistic president in "The West Wing." He proclaims in a Pentecostal manner that he has a vision that he will one day be president (he played the title role in the miniseries "Kennedy" the same year), and Johnny becomes alarmed at the dangers of such a man and whether his power gives him the responsibility to act against the possible future.
Cronenberg's films are not usually scary so much as highly stylized, as is the case here (the exception is "The Fly," which manages to succeed in both aspects). Walken is effective from the beginning; his performance shows a man shifting from states of fright, command and anger, and he does so at complete ease. Not as accoladed as his performance in "The Deer Hunter" or as oft-quoted as his role in "Pulp Fiction," Walken's role in "The Dead Zone" is terrific and certainly one of his best performances.
I used to think that the "best worst movie" ever was "The Tingler" from 1959. Starring Vincent Price as a doctor studying the psychological aspects of fear, what started as a rather interesting psychological thriller with some witty dialogue evolved into a bizzare monster movie; the tingler was, if I recall correctly, some sort of creation born in the spine when someone developed fear. Price's character somehow removed the tingler from someone's spine, and thus it was released to reek havoc. To its defense, "The Tingler" had some descent moments. There was the mentioned humorous dialogue, Vincent Prince, some clever and presumably expensive gimmicks (like placing electrical buzzers under the seats when the tingler escapes and planting "nurse" actresses to "faint" during some scenes). "The Giant Claw" from 1957 allows "The Tingler" to seem epically classic in retrospective comparison.
The opening of "The Giant Claw" involves some wonderful exposition from a narrator explaining to an audience about the "raed-ah" ("raed-ah" and other ridiculous jargon try to pass as authentic and authoritative science, even by 1950s monster movie standards). In the skies there is a UFO (that's "unidentified flying object," the narrator tells us, since we probably don't know). Jeff Morrow and Mara Corday play two officials (Morrow a radar expert and Corday a scientist) trying to explain to government officials the existence of some sort of flying monster from an antimatter galaxy--oh, who the hell cares?
This flying monster has the wings of a turkey, the neck of a brontosaurus, the face of the late ugliest dog on the planet, the hair of crazy Travis Bickle and the likability of Snooki. Even that description does not quite do it justice, so plenty of pictures are provided. Of course, missiles and even nuclear bombs cannot stop the monster, and it can't even be picked up on the rad-ah.
Director Fred Spears was no Ed Wood. There seems to have been no evidence of passion or dedication in the making of this movie. Spear's movie shifts from one annoyance to another. There's an actor with an accent changing from stereotypical French to stereotypical Mexican. This character is petrified, and the local sheriff explains to the two main characters that they must rush to make it to the plane, though he does have enough time to explain the legend of this creature--that the villagers believe that someone dies after seeing the monster. Of course, the French-Mexican has just seen the bird, but why should that stop story time?
A Vincent Price-like character (Edgar Barrier) is provided to throw out some jargon about antimatter. The Price character has maybe, at best, only seen some pictures and descriptions of the bird (and a feather, but "we don't know if it's a feather," he says), but he can issue some hypothesis, that the bird is extra-terrestrial, coming from a galaxy billions of lightyears from our own. "No other explanation is possible." There's other wonderful dialogue. A pilot, before he and the others are killed by the bird, jokes that he will "never call [his] mother-in-law an old crow again!" Someone else says, "I don't care if that bird came from outer space or New Jersey!" (Is there a difference? Please forgive me for such a predictable joke.)
Like in "Jaws" two decades later, there is a wait to see the monster, but the reward is almost equal, for obviously different reasons. In flight the bird is often out of focus (deliberate, you think?). When it is in focus, the breathing nostrils are clearly visible. Murrow claimed that the actors did not know what the monster would look like until they had to painfully sit through the screening and endure the snickering of the audience; he walked home drunk that night. I imagine that maybe alone in a dark studio at night; then, and only then, and just maybe, would this monster be a bit alarming. Instead, it might be one of the silliest things the movies have ever known. What inspires such a movie? Wouldn't it be great to read some long-forgotten documents about the making of this film? With all the things Obama has to deal with, maybe he'll also have to save us from a giant buzzard, and the media will criticize him for not being angry enough at the bird.
Bruce the Shark from "Jaws" recently turned up in a junk yard. Perhaps the Giant Claw will as well.
It's all quite Hitchcockian. These are ordinary characters caught up in extraordinary circumstances. There are even symbolic black crows guarding a destroyed plane, a sort of Pandora's Box. Sam Raimi's "A Simple Plan," from 1998, does Hitchcock better than most other post-Hitch films.
The film reunites Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thorton, who both starred in "One False Move" six years earlier. Paxton is Hank Mitchell, a working man and college graduate seemingly happy in love with a pregnant wife (Bridget Fonda). He is employed but of course faces not unusual economic troubles. His brother, Jacob (Thorton), is considerably less intelligent, rational, and respected in their Minnesota community than his younger brother. One cold, snow-covered day, the two venture into the woods during a hunting trip with Jacob's drunk friend (Brent Briscoe), who, like Jacob, is unemployed. They stumble upon a crashed plane with a dead pilot (black crows devouring his eyes) and millions of dollars in stolen money. While Hank is initially the calm Boy Scout, insisting the money be turned over to the police, he is eventually convinced into keeping the money. The three make a series of promises and missteps, all the while the situation and their chances of not getting caught deteriorate.
Thorton's performance is the great moral centerpiece of the film, as Paxton's character struggles but overcomes his sense of guilt. Jacob, unable to be analytical about such feelings and complex situations, cannot help but "feel evil." If "evil" is a word only best fit for fiction, then that is satisfactory for this man; any deeper evaluation would be too great.
"A Simple Plan" requires some patience, for some scenes are a bit annoying. Paxton's character acquiesces to the desire of money, the root of all evil, too quickly, while Fonda's character is so much Lady Macbeth that during her first moments with her new baby, she quickly but calculatingly insists that her husband set up one of the members of the trio. Still, one cannot deny how engaging it becomes as the stakes constantly rise. Here are characters trying to rationalize their irrational behavior, and the film has such terrific actors, some of whom (like Paxton and Thorton) have never really been given their full appreciation. And unlike Hitchcock films, there is a certain amount of Biblical symbolism here (the Biblical Jacob's brother, Esau, had a unique relationship with his brother, though the Biblical Jacob was the shy one).
This is a terrific movie. Danny Elfman's score, during a period in his career where he shifted away from comic book films and surreal fantasies to more dramatic films like this and "Mission: Impossible" and "Good Will Hunting," is spot-on. Raimi's direction is awesome, understanding perfectly how to set the mood and motivations of each moment. It is Hitchcockian without ceding too much to influence. "A Simple Plan" should be remembered for a long time.
There is a respectable person speaking about himself being so respectable in the opening moments of Kirby Dick's "Outrage." This "respectable person" "doesn't do those things." The respectable person is Larry Craig. Those things are gay things.
Larry Craig, in case one has forgotten, is the former senator of the state of Idaho (a state where, like Iran, there are no gay people). He had famously said that Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky scandal was a "naughty boy." Craig, despite having a solidly anti-gay voting record during his career in Congress and a preacher of all those family values things, was the man who was arrested in a Minneapolis airport for soliciting gay sex in a male restroom. Defending himself as having a "wide stance" to explain the way his foot stretched into the other stall to call for fun, he became partly a laughing stock, partly another sex scandal, but mostly the face of a disturbing hypocrisy among closeted politicians. The hypocrisy is obviously the call to discriminate against gay people and simultaneously lead a gay lifestyle.
Craig is the obvious target. Also discussed are Charlie Crist, Ed Schrock, David Dreier, Jim McCrery and Ed Koch. These are men who largely have refused to support issues regarding HIV/AIDS, hate crimes, gays in the military, gay adoption and gay marriage, among others. Crist is the example that is really troubling, particularly because of the Macbeth-style ambition of the man. Crist, of course, has been in the news lately--he is the sitting governor of Florida who is also running for the Senate. When it appeared that Marco Rubio, the Tea Party favorite, would defeat Crist in the Republican primary, Crist abandoned the Republicans (becoming more common among moderates these days) and created a three-man race. Crist had also apparently offered his endorsement to Rudy Giuliani for president, and then when it became likely that McCain would win Florida and the possibility arose for Crist to be a front-runner for the vice-president nomination, Crist changed his mind and endorsed McCain (and he didn't call Giuliani to let him know). Inconveniently, though, Crist was single, and of course a single man cannot make it to such a high position. The McCain campaign, according to the documentary, already with so many hindrances and distractions and shortcomings, could not afford to defend their man as a straight man (so they picked Palin, who was facing ethics violations and could barely make a coherent sentence). Conveniently but in vein, Crist married six weeks before the vice-president nominee was chosen.
Barney Frank points out in the film that in 1976, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter were about even on gay rights. Since then, Democrats have gotten better (passing the Matthew Shepard Act and poised to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell) and Republicans have gotten much, much worse (leading calls of hatred to ban same-sex marriage mostly on the grounds of firing up their base). Former representative Jim Kolbe, a Republican from Arizona, is interviewed and discusses telling John McCain that he is gay, to which McCain immediately stated something along the lines of, "Jim, it's okay. I know. You're a good legislator, and it makes no difference to me." McCain, of course, is the man who said several years ago that he would support repealing DADT if the military approached him offering their support of the repeal. Now that the Commander-in-Chief (the commander of the military), the Secretary of Defense (who incidentally served the role in both a Democratic and Republican administration), and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff all have supported a repeal, McCain has for whatever lack of logic changed his mind.
Ninety percent of these cases are Republican, and a section of the film discusses Dreier, who was denied a leadership position in the Republican caucus of the House of Representatives because he was too "moderate." The famous Barney Frank quote goes that, "Yes, in the sense that I marched in the 'moderate' pride parade last summer and went to a 'moderate' bar." Washington in the film is called gayer than San Francisco, but much more in the closet.
But these discussions are sparked by the film but do not really offer an evaluation of the film, so here it is: This is a very good documentary. Dick, just as he did with his brilliant "This Film Is Not Yet Rated," is asking common-sense questions and being met with absurd answers and realities. The film's flaw is that it seems to be unbalanced in its emotions, such as when it provided a catharsis of gay politicians explaining the freedom of coming out, then shifting again to the hypocritical nature of those remaining in the closet.
"Outrage" raises the analogy of anti-gay bully who happens to be gay--he behaves this way to exemplify the image that he is obviously not gay, for no gay man would hate himself and those like him. As Bill Maher said, "hating yourself is the greatest love of all."
Do you love old movies, especially ones that are free and in the public domain? Visit my new website, Public Domain Film Review, for reviews, pictures, films, essays, and more!
I'm am not an expert on Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake," the ballet at the center of the Darren Aronofsky-directed thriller "Black Swan," (though I enjoy listening to it for relaxation). But I do know a thing or two about unpredictability after reading Nassim Nicholas Talem's "The Black Swan," a philosophy book about improbability and how to deal with it. The title comes from a Latin expression--more or less that a good man is as rare as a black swan (black swans were thought to have been non-existent). With the discovery of black swans in the seventeenth century, a millennium of thinking had instantly been erased. Moments of unpredictability--the outbreak of World War I, 9/11--present a "black swan problem."
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