Our Idiot Brother

A stoner, or in academia, a habitual user of cannabis, can be funny. Dumb people can be funny. Dysfunctional families can be funny. People being hurt, or naked, or both, can be funny. "Our Idiot Brother" has all of these situations, but "Our Idiot Brother" is not funny. It has its moments, and certain characters work better than others, but ultimately, it's a big disappointment.

Paul Rudd plays Ned, an honest and benevolent, well, idiot, who works at an organic farm. He's so idiotic that he is arrested for selling marijuana to a police officer (if you find the joke funny, you won't for very long, because it's repeated over and over again throughout the film). He's released only to find that his girlfriend (Kathryn Hahn) has thrown him out and is keeping his dog, named Willie Nelson (another joke that is repeated constantly). He moves home and shifts from home to home of his three sisters: Natalie (Zooey Deschanel), a stand-up comedienne in a happy relationship with Cindy (Rashida Jones); Miranda, (Elizabeth Banks) who writes for Vanity Fair and is desperate to write the perfect tell-all story; and Liz, (Emily Mortimer) who is married to a documentary filmmaker (Steve Coogan), who is cheating on her with his documentary subject. They all lead seemingly perfect lives until Ned shows up, and his honesty brings them down to reality.

Unfortunately, "Our Idiot Brother" falls flat. I can't fault Paul Rudd for being a bad actor--he looks and acts the part convincingly--but I can fault him for being unfunny, which he is throughout most of the film. He's likable, no doubt, and as a matter a fact, all of the actresses--Deschandel, Mortimer, Banks, Jones--are likable as well, but none of them are funny either. Likability does not equal humorous. It's remarkable instead that the really unlikable character (Coogan's) is the funniest. And other than Coogan, T.J. Miller as another stoner provides the only other real laughs.

Some of the jokes are terribly unoriginal or predictable. When Coogan walks around naked after being confronted by Ned, there's a shot that's so obviously copied from Kevin Smith's "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" that Smith could easily win if he were to sue. The side story of Deschandel and Jones is basically a cheap rip off of last year's "The Kids Are All Right." In this film, however, they add the unfortunate and too-often-used stereotype that bisexual people are promiscuous, confused, and/or untruthful.

One of my biggest problems is the way the film relies on words to try and tap into the humor. That is, the jokes probably have the potential to be funny, but they are delivered in a way that is quite unfunny. So the actors, with or without the advice of the director and screenwriters, add in a bunch of words that either aren't funny to begin with or simply highlight how unfunny the joke is. For example, it's rarely funny to hear a child in a film swear, but here we get to hear a child swear. (The young actor Matthew Mindler does do a good job; if the film had more Coogan, Miller, and Mindler and less of the other actors I think I would have enjoyed it more).

The film has all sorts of references to Peter Sellers, but that only made me think of the Peter Sellers films they're referencing about clumsy men ruining situations, like in "A Shot in the Dark" and "Being There." "Our Idiot Brother" has none of that humor or sophomoric sophistication of Sellers films. Instead, it repeats the same jokes over and over again or it simply steals them from other films.

Read More →

Power Trip

Electricity is connected to hope. No electricity leads to insecurity, humiliation and vulnerability. These are some of the main sentiments in Paul Devlin's documentary "Power Trip," detailing the struggles of the company AES providing electricity to the Republic of Georgia in the post-Soviet Union era.

But for many Americans, perhaps this is a bit difficult to understand. Historian Robert Caro slept outside one night in rural Texas to help him understand just how much electricity meant to pre-electrification America. The United States has never had to deal with a strenuous shift from communism to capitalism, like Georgia has. Georgia, however, still is a developing nation with its citizens on monthly salaries of less than a hundred U.S. dollars. Americans are hurting, but everyone still finds it necessary to use air conditioning, regardless of the fact that air conditioning tricks your body into thinking it's hotter outside, produces greenhouse gas emissions which increases global temperature, and regardless of how expensive it is (not to mention the risk to one's health). Americans take electricity for granted. As I type, I am not under a deadline to finish this before the power goes out.

Film critics are told to leave all ideology, religion and prejudices behind when they view a film, but that doesn't mean they can't allow nostalgia to influence their reaction to viewing a film. For me, watching "Power Trip" reminded me of my time teaching and living in Georgia. I was happily reminded of numerous things: their love of home-made wine, the powerful choruses heard throughout the country and this film, and their proud tradition of hospitality but also suspicion: the giant statue of Mother Georgia in the capital, Tbilisi, holding a bowl for greeting guests and a sword for fighting off enemies, something they've had to deal with for centuries. Georgians are the best dancers in the world, and we get to see some of that. But it also reminded me of the suffering. A two minute walk from our school stood a decaying tea factory. It provided me with some interesting exploring and bat-viewing, but reminded me of the countless other decaying buildings around the country. Once on a trip to the Black Sea, a friend and I could only spot falling-apart buildings; there was also a random cow tied up, and my friend declared it the city's petting zoo.

The film begins about ten years after Georgia declared independence from the Soviet Union. An American energy company named AES has purchased Telasi, the Georgia energy company. But AES discovers just how difficult the job is: they're dealing with people unaccustomed to paying for electricity and having it turned off if it isn't payed for, and with a population making an average salary of fifteen dollars, trying to pay twenty-five dollars for electricity is basically impossible. The company finds that ninety percent of its customers aren't paying their bills, and so ninety percent have their power cut off. When the Americans came, Georgians expected they would have electricity twenty-four hours a day; now, however, AES is running an unsustainable business. It's as if the terrible things the Soviets told Georgians about Americans are coming true. "I don't trust the Americans!" an angry Georgian shouts.

The aggressive tactics might be a bit difficult for Western audiences to reconcile. In one case, we are told of electricity being cut for the airport just as a plane was about to land; the money was paid immediately. But in another, an old man says that he and the other members of his family have disabilities and cannot afford to pay for his electricity. He is told that he will not receive an exemption and must pay like everyone else. The man who tells him this is the company's manager, a British man who always arches his eyebrow, which is mocked by cartoons and teenagers alike.

Like "Capturing the Friedmans," "Power Trip" does not tell you what to think or even how to think. It provides just the facts, or more often just the emotions. An audience might feel anger at the corruption depicted or sympathy for Georgians without electricity, but they're not explicitly motivated to do so. Part of the reason I liked the movie was because of my time there, but those who have never heard of the country will likely also be captivated by its themes. There is a mystery to Georgia, and "Power Trip" explores it.

Have things improved? I would, having lived there almost a decade after "Power Trip" was released, say that it has. The film was released just before the Rose Revolution, which forced President Eduard Shevardnadze out of office. The power at my host family's home would go out probably once or twice every other day. The power was next to my room, so I usually climbed up to press the white button to turn it back on. Sometimes it didn't turn back on, and my host father would have to play with it, his cigarette dangling from his mouth. Sometimes it went off because we were using too much power, so we'd have to unplug appliances (usually the water heater) and sometimes it went off for some other reason, but considering the village I lived in was so rural it didn't have indoor plumbing, I think it's remarkable that we had that much electricity. I wonder what Georgians would make of "Power Trip."

One last thing about Georgia and electricity. The film details many Georgians illegally connecting their electricity. When I was in Georgia, an older woman was cutting the electrical wires to sell, and accidentally cut the wrong switch. The result: the entire country of neighboring Armenia was without internet. My Western friends and I never heard anything else about her, but we partly suspect she's in prison.

Read More →

A Summer of Movies

After being on a schedule of more or less a movie a day, I was, due primarily to the painfully slow internet speed of the Republic of Georgia, only able to watch three movies ("Ajosshi/The Man From Nowhere," "Waltz with Bashir," and "Amadeus") in the months of March through mid June. I was volunteering in a program similar to the Peace Corps, living with a wonderful family and teaching English to children who had never met an American, not even a foreigner. My time was mostly exceptional, though I deeply missed the movies. Like an addict back on addiction, I delved into motion pictures.

Upon returning home, the first film I watched was Charles Chaplin's "The Gold Rush" from 1925. It was enjoyable, but the Chaplin film I really want to write about is his lesser known "Limelight" from 1952. The last film before he was essentially exiled from America due to McCarthyism (he remarked that he wouldn't return to America even if Jesus Christ was president, though he later did to receive an honorary Academy Award in 1972), the movie is sort of an ode to his earlier days as the world's most famous tramp. It's a bit too emotional and preachy at times, but Chaplin films work well when they preach and play to emotions because of how fairy tale-like they are. This one is more realistic than say "Modern Times" or "The Great Dictator," his two best, but his star from "Limelight" Claire Bloom noted that it was a "fairy godfather" story, and indeed it feels somewhat majestic, like a lighter form of a ballet story than last year's "Black Swan." (This was also the first and only time that Chaplin worked with another legend of the Silent Era, Buster Keaton.)

Next on the list was Bruce Lee's "Enter the Dragon" and later on his son Brandon Lee's "The Crow." Both films don't take themselves too seriously--with the dialogue of the former and in the latter the fact that the main character can take a break from acting out his revenge to play the electric guitar--and they require a bit of patience, but eventually they both become enjoyable. "The Crow" is similar to later films like "Dark City," "Sin City," and "The Dark Knight" (those titles sound similar, don't they?), and it's not as good as any of the three, but maybe their style was inspired by it; I don't know. The climatic fight scene in "Enter the Dragon" is one of the best ever filmed.

A slight disappointment was "Runaway Jury" from 2003. I say "slight" because I wasn't expecting much. By now almost everyone knows that the stars from the film, Dustin Hoffman and Gene Hackman, were classmates at an acting school in the 1960s, and supposedly were voted the two least likely to succeed. That was before they both won two Academy Awards. They play opposing attorneys, one "good" and one "bad," and they share only one scene together. One gets the sense that the scene was added only to allow the two to finally act across each other in their first and only film together. They both overdo it a bit: Hackman snickers about, combing his hair like the devil; Hoffman paces back and forth and almost looks as if he's improvising. There's a large cast, with John Cusack and Rachel Weisz as two characters controlling the jury, Bruce McGill as the judge, Bruce Davison as an attorney with Hackman representing the gun lobby, and Jeremy Piven as a character assisting Hoffman's character. The jury is made up of Bill Nunn, Nora Dunn, Luis Guzman, Cliff Curtis and others. But all of them are not as entertaining to watch as Hackman and Hoffman, even if the two are giving less than their usual stellar performances.

Alan Pakula's "Presumed Innocent" from 1990 with Harrison Ford, Paul Winfield, Brian Dennehy, Raul Julia and John Spencer was considerably better. While being far more confusing than the average court room drama and a bit of a disappointment for a twist, it was still terrific, especially with its dark and sexy nature. But what struck me most was the similarities to this summer's Casey Anthony court house drama. The similarities are obvious: In both the film and this case, the prosecution was lacking evidence and instead relied on a substantial amount of speculation. But regardless of the fact that most Americans believe Ms. Anthony murdered her young daughter, we, the United States of America, do not sentence people to the death chair on suspicion. As Alan Dershowitz wrote in the Wall Street Journal, Western society insists that it is better for ten guilty men to escape justice than for one wrongly accused man to be wrongfully convicted. "Scientists search for truth," he wrote. "A criminal trial searches for only one result: proof beyond a reasonable doubt."

(See the documentary "Capturing the Friedmans" for similar themes.)

Another similar-themed film is Clint Eastwood's "Changeling" with Angelina Jolie. I can't think of another movie that has an entertaining hour and a half of good acting, stylish cinematography, and captivating scenes, and then concludes with a forty-five minute epilogue that was terribly unnecessary. Imagine if at the end of "Harry Potter and the Deathly-Hallows: Part 2," during that silly epilogue scene at the train station, instead of getting three minutes of our three grown-up characters, we got forty-five minutes of them. The forty-five minute conclusion of "Changeling" prevented it from being considered a great film.

Unarguably the worst film I watched was Edward Zwick's "Defiance." While both Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber have definite presences in the film, both, among virtually everyone else in the film, have perhaps the worst accents in cinematic history. The film's actors have produced good performances before (Craig in "Casino Royale" and Jaime Bell in "Billy Elliot," for example), but this film is not one of them. Zwick's much better "Glory"was on TV this summer, as was the AFI tribute to its star Morgan Freeman, which I missed due to my time in Georgia. Freeman made "Glory," "Lean on Me," and "Driving Miss Daisy" all in 1989.

Alas, there were other disappointments. Freeman's "Driving Miss Daisy" is enjoyable for about the first half-hour, but then becomes riddled with annoying conversations by Freeman and Jessica Tandy and the wooden accent by Dan Aykroyd, as well as a less interesting (and more eyebrow-raising) race relations story than "Glory" or "Do the Right Thing." ("Driving Miss Daisy won the Best Picture Award for 1989; the other two weren't even nominated.) "About A Boy" is a rare film where its actors--Hugh Grant, Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette--are more enjoyable than the film itself, which is just full of romantic comedy cliches. Brian DePalma's "Carlito's Way" has two strong elements to it--Sean Penn's performance and the exciting chase scene at the end--but other than that, it is dull.

I journeyed onto Netflix instant viewing to watch parts of "Rated X: An Inside Look at the Porn Industry" and became a bit bored by it, so I switched to the PBS series "American Experience" on Ronald Reagan and LBJ. (Switching between documentaries on porn and the presidents is a bit challenging to explain.) I do recall, however, showing bits of the clips of the Johnson documentary (not the porn one) to my students during my student teaching two years ago. The film is narrated by historian David McCullough, author of "John Adams," which I read this summer.

Speaking of, on July 4, I watched "1776," the highly entertaining musical starring William Daniels as John Adams. The film is remarkably accurate (except for the arbitrary singing frequently found in musicals) , though there are some inaccuracies: Adams (according to McCullough's biography) was actually highly respected in the Continental Congress; it was only after his presidency, which saw a higher amount of partisanship than Washington's, that his memory was likely blurred, and he wrote in his autobiography that people thought he was "obnoxious" and "disliked." Jefferson is portrayed more kindly than perhaps he deserves. He is accurately noted of avoiding arguments, but no mention of his later partisanship is given (rightfully, I suppose, as this is about Representative Jefferson and not Vice President Jefferson), and we see him strongly support the abolition of slavery, though he died so much in debt that he could not free any of his slaves (except for the ones he fathered with his slave, Sally Hemmings). John Dickinson's role as opposing the Declaration of Independence is exaggerated, and the number he leads ("Cool, Cool Considerate Men") was originally taken out of the film due to the objections of President Richard Nixon. (The song contained lyrics such as "to the right, ever to the right, never to the left--forever to the right" and has been restored in the Director's Cut.)

A man who as a College Republican worked to get Nixon elected president was Lee Atwater, and a brilliant 2008 documentary about him is called "Boogie Man." Director Stefan Forbes uses the cliche of a Greek tragedy but uses it effectively, to the point that it hardly feels hackneyed. Atwater's rise is detailed: his work for Nixon and Strom Thurmond and later Ronald Reagan. Atwater, of course, was George H.W. Bush's campaign manager in 1988, and he managed to make his candidate--a Connecticut-born, Yale-educated son of a senator--look like the working-class, rags-to-riches one against Michael Dukakis, the son of Greek immigrants. Atwater did so undoubtedly through racist ads, most infamous among them the "revolving door" ad and the "Willie Horton" ad. But with Atwater's fall to cancer we see that individuals like him aren't two-dimensional. Indeed, those featured in the documentary (the Bushes, Dukakis, Ed Rollins, etc.) all feel like something from a soap opera. Whereas some films of this nature attempt to schism the mythological from the real, "Boogie Man" embraces the blurring of them without fault; I can't imagine Forbes' film being any more mesmerizing if it had been more "myth-busting."

I was pleased to find Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris" to be his best since "Match Point" five years ago. Not knowing anything of the plot of the film, I was a bit turned off at first by the fantastical way in which the characters were speaking, thinking this dialogue was the stuff of fantasy films, like his wonderful "The Purple Rose of Cairo." Happy I was then when Owen Wilson's character found himself in 1920s Paris, conversing with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Luis Bunuel, Salvador Dali, and other influences on Allen's work. Wilson also is terrific; his "aww, shucks" personality is fitting, as he continually is surprised at what he's finding in the past ("Is that really so-and-so?"). He is supported by Rachel McAdams, Marion Cotillard, Kurt Fuller, Mimi Kennedy, Michael Sheen, Adrien Brody, and French First Lady Carla Bruni.

There are too many films to write about. Some were good ("Source Code"), some were disappointing (Robert Altman's "A Prairie Home Companion," Christopher Nolan's "Following" and especially John Frankenheimer's "Ronin"), some were quite funny ("Zombieland" and "The Other Guys").

Last, there was "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert." As Kevin Carr said, where else are you going to see General Zod, Agent Smith, and the guy from "Momento" in drag in the Australian outback? (For 90s nostalgia fans, actress Julia Cortez of the famous/infamous "ping pong ball" scene played the villain Rita in "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie.")

Soon I will be heading to Saudi Arabia, a country where the cinema is literally banned. I will be there for at least nine months, and I hope I shall be successful in viewing films. Wish me luck.

Read More →

No, Harry Truman Would Not Be a Republican

I am only 24 years old, but I have heard a lot of stupid things in my lifetime. Perhaps none of them is as stupid as when I was told that "Harry Truman would be a Republican if he were alive today."

Most Americans would recognize Truman to be the president who succeeded his predecessor Franklin D. Roosevelt upon Roosevelt's death, dropped the bombs on Japan and ended World War II, and led the United States into the Korean War. Since the latter two events center on war, perhaps that is why we are told Truman would be a Republican: Truman was hawkish on war issues, ready to fight the Communists in Korea as well as provide Marshall Plan aid to countries like Turkey, Greece, and Germany after World War II. And Truman was so hawkish that he dropped the atomic bombs on Japan and never apologized for it.

It's true that Truman risked his legacy and arguably his soul by his war actions, but he was also thought of as considerably soft on Communism. He was a frequent target of Joseph McCarthy, and in 1949 when the Communists took over China (even though there was absolutely nothing Truman could do about it), Truman was blamed for "losing China."

Conservatives frequently lecture us on how the president (who happens to be the Commander-in-Chief) must always follow the advice of his generals. It was Truman who fired General MacArthur, and as one newspaper put it, never before had a man so popular been fired by a man so unpopular. But historians have vindicated Truman for this, noting that it was at the very least a reminder to the military that control over it rests in the Oval Office, and Truman watched MacArthur, whom he referred to as a "dumb son of a bitch" and who disobeyed his orders during the Korean War, destroy his mythical status in front of Congressional committees. (The situation all sounds similar to President Obama firing General McCrystal.)

On domestic issues as well, Truman was very un-Republican. As a senator he voted for Roosevelt's New Deal programs completely, even supporting FDR during the controversial "Court-packing" debate. In the Senate and as President, he repeatedly and viciously attacked corporate greed and special interests. President Truman tried to pass his own socialistic programs, called the Fair Deal, which were opposed by Republicans, who overrode his veto to curtail the power of unions. Only one of his programs was adopted by Congress. Truman was even the first president to propose (wait for it...) universal health care, which Republicans labeled "socialized medicine." So if modern-day Republicans have finally adopted a pro-health care platform by embracing Truman, then that's fine with me.

Truman famously was projected to lose the 1948 election to Thomas Dewey. Remember that famous "Dewey Defeats Truman" headline? Truman raced around the country to "give 'em hell" and rally against the "do nothing" Republican Congress. Congressional Republicans were so shocked and angry at Truman's surprise victory that they were determined to ruin the remainder of Truman's presidency, and they did. Truman left office with an approval rating in the 20s, which was, until George W. Bush, the lowest Gallup approval rating for a president.

Truman was born and raised a Democrat, as most Missourians were, but he was a liberal one as well. He risked numerous elections by supporting black issues, was the first president to speak before the NAACP, and desegregated the military. I am not suggesting that Republicans are racist, but they certainly are opposed to the modern-day civil rights issue: queer rights. They cling to whatever religious or traditional opposition to not only same-sex marriage but most Congressional Republicans also opposed Obama's move to end the banning of gays, lesbians and bisexuals from serving in the military.

Hell, Truman even blamed the failing of his clothes store before he became a politician on the economic policies of the Harding administration.

So if any Republican could explain to me exactly why they firmly believe that this socialist hippy of a President is their kind of Democrat, so much so that by today's standards he's a Republican, I would love to hear it.

Read More →

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Charles Darwin told us that life is a "descent with modification." Bernard Haubold of the Max Planck Institute of Chemical Ecology simplified the expression by comparing biological evolution to a family tree. Even though humans and chimpanzees share about ninety percent of the same genes, the last common ancestor between the two lived five million years ago. Since then, it can be argued that mankind has enjoyed its hegemony over apes and other animals. There is a sense of calm, perhaps guilt, but mostly content with this situation.

The horror of "Planet of the Apes" series is that this situation is reversed.

"Planet of the Apes" was released in 1968 and remains one of the best science fiction films ever. It was followed by four sequels, and remade ten years ago by Tim Burton. After mixed reviews from critics, 20th Century Fox decided not to make a sequel to Burton's film but instead joined the common Hollywood practice of rebooting franchises. That probably was the correct choice, because while I don't think the Burton version was as bad as other critics said it was, I was underwhelmed by it (particularly by that controversial ending). I found myself being more interested in the set designs and Rick Baker's makeup effects than I did the story or the characters. Not so with Rupert Wyatt's prequel "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," a smart, emotional, thrilling film not quite as good as the original but still worthy of attention.

James Franco (forgiven for his Oscar 2011 sins) plays Will Rodman, a scientist developing a cure for Alzheimer's disease. His father (John Lithgow) is suffering from the disease, and so Will is deeply invested in discovering a cure. An incident involving a protective test-ape destroys any chance of Will securing funding for his research, but he brings home the offspring of the ape, and he and his father, once bound to watch the terrible decline due to the disease, now have something important in their lives. But Will soon learns that the ape, named Caesar (Andy Serkis), has inherited the advanced intelligence of his mother from the experiments. Caesar is even more advanced than his human same-aged counterparts. But Caesar also is an ape, and when things go wrong, he is forced into an animal shelter for apes (run by a character played by Brian Cox and his son, played by Tom Felton, who's character here is even nastier than Draco Malfoy). Unsure of what he is and where he fits into, perhaps the human side takes over, for if we are pricked, do we not bleed, and if we are wronged, shall we not revenge?

Freida Pinto from "Slumdog Millionaire" appears in the film and has talked about in interviews the amount of research she has done on apes while basing her character on real-life primatologists like Jane Goodall. Among the things she discovered are that bonobos, for example, are conflict-managers, and resolve conflict through sex (I do recall from my university class on human evolution that bonobos are very, very promiscuous), and that apes emote, with one of the prime emotions being that of betrayal. That is what I think is central to this installment. Betrayal, a bit of revenge, and resolution.

But is Serkis not tired of this performance capture acting yet? He is fascinating to watch, and he has done this in "The Lord of the Rings" films, "King Kong," and will do so again in Steven Spielberg's "The Adventure of Rintin: Secret of the Unicorn" later this year. Does the performance-capture look convincing? Well, it looks just as impressive as the films mentioned and "Avatar," but it still looks fake. The other two options, however, are to have actors in makeup (as was the case with the previous "Planet of the Apes" films) or to use actual animals, so the conclusion can be that a fine choice was taken. (To be clear my personal favorite is make-up; it almost always impresses me more than computer-generated effects.)

The first third focuses on the wonders of science--the exciting potentials that science can cure what damages us the most. The second third centers on the horrors of science--what temporary excitement gives us is quickly diminished by the side-effects. The final third is (as expected) a series of action-packed sequences as the apes take control. I wouldn't expect the trajectory to be any different, but the third act is less engaging than the previous parts. There are also some silly parts to the film, like when some of the apes use sign language ("Congo"?), and the film has numerous cliches, like a well-intended Dr. Frankenstein, a cruel bully toward animals, and a money-hungry CEO willing to put lives at risk for the sake of his success. (There's also a neighbor who keeps running into bad luck.) Still, there is far more emotion than most other "Planet of the Apes" films, and more thought, with themes of contagious viruses, animal testing, revolution, and at times more science than fiction.

Read More →