Paul Thomas Anderson: An Exposition

Hi everybody! It's been awhile since I posted but I've been quite busy with my second full-length screenplay, which I have just finished last week! Congrats to me, I know.

On the subject of screenwriting, one of my favorite film writers has a new movie coming out in October, The Master. Have you seen the trailer? Here it is!

Joaquin. Philip. Paul Thomas Anderson. WWII-era. This is such a treat for me, as I didn't think the year of film could get more promising with the release of Django Unchained.

Paul Thomas Anderson is one of only several great narrative filmmakers working today.  Ask me what my favorite movie is, or which one I would chose to send in some time capsule to aliens or what have you, and I would say Boogie Nights alongside Breaking Bad, if there is room in there for a series. 

Like Breaking Bad, Boogie Nights has every necessary element required for a spot in the apex of narrative drama. It has a perfectly defined protagonist with a definite dream, Dirk, played by Mark Wahlberg, who is perfectly likable and engaging because he is innocent and child-like in his pursuits of being a star, even when he is fucking up and hitting rock bottom on his journey to self-acceptance. It has the wise seer mentor Jack (Burt Reynolds) who takes our young hero under his wing, and who represents an artist with a passion for his film and the family of benevolent outcasts he has cultivated. We have the unfortunate mother-figure, Amber (Julianne Moore) who has a large heart and a painful history,  and who's single flaw is that she has too much love to give and nowhere to place it. Then there is the cacophony of terrific characters played with keen sensitivity by our current 21st acting titans: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Don Cheadle, John C. Reilly, Alfred Molina, William H. Macy. 

We like these people because they are good people, and it is surprising to consider that they are all porn stars and some are drug addicts and the world Anderson has created is not filthy or dirty by any means, because its characters are childish and kind and love one another, and the tragedy that happens to them is tragic because we care about them. Likewise, the finale of Dirk reconciling with father-figure Jack, who immediately forgives him and welcomes him back into his home, is the kind of beauty and parable simplicity only found in the best literary works. Did I mention that the film is really about the history of film? How Jack'sprinciples regarding the making of genuine art on 35mm are compromised by the advent of digital reproduction and subsequently, the shallowness of cinema in the 80's and 90's?

Boogie Nights doesn't belong to any decade.  It doesn't belong to the 90's anymore than it belongs to the 70's. Instead, it is a universal tale set to the music of a decade notoriously rife with pain, loss, hopes, mistakes, love, and of course, forgiveness.  It's a great precursor for the films of our current century, and its boy-meets-world tale belongs to all of us.

There Will be Blood is also a majestic force of cinematic art, but for entirely different reasons. Decidedly more methodical and punctual, it is more important for solidifying the canon of Anderson's unique brand of analogy driven American historicism, a brand I am certain will continue with The Master.

So here's to The Master! May it be everything we've hoped for 2012. 

Dim the lights.

Prometheus

Prometheus (2012)

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast: Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Idris Elba, Guy Pearce, Charlize Theron

*The following review is written by our guest editor, Stephen Spencer*

There’s nothing better than a film you want to watch again immediately after it ends.  Then there are films you never ever want to see again because they’re just so bad (the much hyped and disappointing The Watchmen comes to mind).  Ridley Scott’s Prometheus falls somewhere between these two extremes.  It’ll leave many viewers outside the cineplex groping for explanations and clarifications, but unfortunately, it doesn’t have many of the answers.  This isn’t to say that it’s a bad film, however; it is good on many levels but seriously flawed on others.

For the good, we need look no further than director Ridley Scott.  Like Blade Runner and Kingdom of Heavenbefore it, Prometheus is absolutely gorgeous and cements Scott as a living legend in terms of cinematography and visual style. From its lush intergalactic set pieces to its hideously bizarre monsters, Prometheus is a jaw-dropping adventure from scene to scene that engages viewers in its epic universe. Not for nothing, Prometheus begs to be seen in all its optical grandeur.

Many suspected that Prometheus shared the same universe as an earlier Scott film: the claustrophobically horrifying Alien.  As rumors turned to virtual fact, fans rejoiced at a fresh take on the iconic series from its original visionary, one that seemed to promise a hyper expansion of the Alien mythos.  But this is where the film makes its first mistake.  Fans watching Prometheus with Alien in mind will be sorely disappointed, not because of the lack of tie-ins (there is one overt tie-in, and it’s huge), but rather because they feel shoehorned in.  Prometheus could have stood on its own, but it chooses to stand on the shoulders of Alien to distracting and detrimental effects.  

Further hurting the film is it plot and characters.  Alien was so successfully captivating because it cultivated a low-key tone and organic pace through its realistic characters, with a plot punctuated at key moments by the Xenomorph.  Prometheus has the opposite problem: there’s too much room to breathe and not enough good breathing. Noomi Rapace and Logan Marshall-Green play Elizabeth Shaw and Charlie Holloway, fellow archaeologists/lovers that discover several interlinked cave etchings, leading to Prometheus’s intergalactic journey in search of the “Engineers” (the creators of the human race).  Rapace and Green’s on-screen chemistry never takes off, partly because the parameters of their characters’s romantic relationship is unclear.  Overseeing the Prometheus mission is Charlize Theron’s Meredith Vickers. Theron ably plays the role of the stern corporate suit, but it’s her skin-tight body suit that most (male) viewers will be interested in.  Commandeering the ship is Janek, played by Idris Elba, who is severely underutilized. The script can’t decide whether he’s a maverick loner or a born-and-bred leader, but one of these characterizations is forced on him without enough preparation.  Perhaps most disappointing character is Guy Pearce’s Peter Weyland, the aging billionaire CEO and financier of the Prometheus expedition.  Seeing Pearce in “old man” makeup is the film’s only visual gaffe; to put it bluntly, he looks ridiculous.  Why the filmmakers did not cast an actual senior citizen is beyond comprehension, and Pearce’s brief inclusion brings the film to the border of camp.  

Saving the best for last, Michael Fassbender plays David, the ship’s android.  David is idiosyncratic, super intelligent, and utterly emotionless, yet Fassbender imbues him with a unique type of humanity that alludes almost every other actor on screen (save for Rapace).  Scott is clearly interested in the concomitant themes conjured by the android archetype (Alien and Blade Runner), including that of creation, technology, and humanity.  Fassbender’s David is a new and interesting take on this character, and he ultimately provides the film with its existential and philosophic underpinnings.

Fassbender cannot, however, save Prometheus from its loose plot.  Looseness can be an artistic virtue, but this isn’t jazz; it’s more akin to a band student in her room with un-honed technical chops.  Many of the character’s decisions either go unexplained or are simply unrealistic; “reveals” are often dramatically unnecessary and confusing; and finally, some of the plot elements are downright confusing.  All this adds up to a film that begs post-screening discussion, discussion that does nothing more than reveal the shoddiness of its narrative.  

Prometheus does gain points for tackling the big themes: faith, family, and the pursuit of knowledge, among others.  But these should emerge from a well-structured plot and engaging characters, not the other way around.  InPrometheus, the thematic cart comes before the story-telling horse.  But the cart isn’t all that bad.  Prometheus is certainly worth a watch, particularly on the big screen, where its visuals and thrills are highlighted.  But don’t expect to be absorbed into a deeply layered universe -- it’s a black hole.

B  

The Grey

The Grey (2011)

Director: Joe Carnahan

Cast: Liam Neeson, Dermot Mulroney, Frank Grillo

Remember a long time ago when I wrote how B+ horror movies, like Insidious and Orphan, are solidly paced and solidly scary, but receive little attention or acclaim? My point was that B+ movies, horror or otherwise, have a niche, too, and need our love and support,even if they don't warrant immediate recognition from audience or critics (critics, bah!).  The reason is these movies are more likely to stand the test of time than many other films that were popular and supposedly iconic this past decade, but which are also B+ movies in quality and content. These uber-hyped movies have since withered away into pastiche and no one really watches them anymore, like one-hit-wonders or that popular jock from high school who now works at a mattress store (I actually know a guy). The one's that immediately come to mind are many of the Best Picture Winners: American Beauty, Crash, A Beautiful Mind, Slumdog Millionaire and The Hurt Locker. These mediocre movies can go straight to hell via the river Styx forever! Goodbye overblown mediocrity!

The Grey is a B+ movie that will likely gain more attention and praise as the 21st century progresses, and the reason is because it features so many classic film conventions in addition to many literary motifs as well. Obviously a film doesn't need literary motifs to be great, but it certainly needs a universal theme that can transcend the fact that -- let's say-- it's an airplane disaster wilderness survival flick with wolves starring Liam Neeson opening in January. But The Grey is that movie and a killer thoughtful and touching piece, something that Slumdog Millionare never achieved! (Clearly I hate Slumdog Millionaire, however, impending review of Boyle's far superior Sunshine coming soon).

First of all, the reason The Grey is only B+ is because it refuses to delve too deep into these universal themes, which is ironic I guess, depending on how you look at it. In the beginning we get Liam Neeson kneeling in the snow with a shot gun to the face, stopped at the very last minute from killing himself. Why is he so sad? We don't know why he's sad except that he has a daydream of  his hottie wife looking at him in bed. No matter. He boards a sketchy plane with a group of blue-collar workers which crashes (awesomely) in the middle of the frigid Alaskan wilderness. The remaining survivors are soon faced not with starvation or cannibalism ala Rugby team circa 1972 (RIP!), but rather with ferocious territorial wolves who lure each member into a gory death one by one. Therefore, what we have is a classic man versus beast saga, with abundant ubiquitous allusions to the similarities between the men and the canine beasts.

Let's just agree that this movie has some pretty sick scenes, like when My Best Friend's Wedding (Dermot Mulroney, I know) must zip line (shimmy) from a cliff to a gigantic tree a hundred feet off the ground, or when one member bleeds to death after the crash and Liam Neeson effectively consoles him into the light. We also get some promising actors, like the guy who plays Xaro Xhoan Daxos in Game of Thrones (RIP Daxos!). The movies also features a beautifully catchy Irish verse which is relevant to the story's conclusion, evokes the title's namesake, and is also an original piece, not some trite reference to a famous poet. (SPOILERS AHEAD) If you recall, the trailer featured a scene where our hero is about to engage in a battle to the death with a wolf, but the conclusion of this scene is not provided. By the end, do we really need it? Is there any question who will win? The answer is no. It is understood that Liam Neeson escaped a cowardly death for a noble demise, therefore experiencing life (and death) to the fullest. 

A final reason this film will stand the test of time is because Neeson recently lost his wife to a tragic skiing accident and has most likely drowned his grief in his work, as evidenced by the multiple movies he's starred in in the last few years. With The Grey, Neeson obviously channels some inner demons into his powerful and hypnotizing role, so when the Academy finally gives him his due of a life time achievement award many years from now, guess what? The Grey will also come out victorious once again.

B+

Girls (Season 1)

Such a rags to riches story.

We women live in terrible times. I know this because of the show Girls.

I knew we were in trouble with Girls from the very first episode, when Lena Dunham's pathetically reckless Hannah consents to passionless doggie-style rape with border-line mentally handicapped Brooklyn loser, Adam. The scene, like so many others in the series, is so desperate to spark repulsion and awkwardness from the viewer that it fails to elicit just that, instead merely calling attention to itself as a show desperately craving a post-modern gag reflex.  

Girls is a disaster of epic proportions, a show so self-conscious and pandering that it's constantly distracting from itself. In ignorantly assuming to be the voice of a voiceless generation, Lena Dunhum's despicable series actively refuses to partake in any substantive statements or opinions on the current role of women (girls, if you prefer). Instead, these twenty-something liberal-arts-grad heroines repeatedly demonstrate disregard for their so-called best friends and lovers, and worse, any semblance of respect for themselves.

Such irresponsibility is inexcusable, especially considering the current media and political debacle concerning women's rights in contemporary American society. That being said, such despondent observations of our generation's trails and pitfalls might be excusable if the narrative cared an iota for the basic tenants of character development. At the end of the first episode, Hannah leaves her parents' hotel after being cut-off financially, a precedent that presumably would result in her character evolving from an economically-challenged post-grad to an empowered, independent protagonist. No such luck, as Hannah succeeds in making increasingly stupid mistakes in her social life and career, even engaging in activities that border on disastrously harmful-- namely, offering to fuck her 50 something grope-y boss and then blackmailing him when he refuses. Such plot developments, which are wholly inconsequential to the plot anyway, are horribly damaging in the context of media depictions of women, considering that Dunham has made it clear that her aim in writing the show was to represent the lives of twenty-something women.   

Irregardless of this, the show refuses to have its characters account for their foibles and change their lives for the better. In this respect, all the female leads, not just Hannah, are boggling suppressed. Take "bohemian" (whatever the fuck that means) Brit Jessa, who can't simply meet with an ex-boyfriend without screwing him in order to prove that she's still desirable since he got a new girlfriend. Meek Shoshana is a virgin, and so obviously she can't engage socially with anyone without coming off as insanely awkward and so completely out of touch with  social conventions that she unknowingly smokes crack at a Bushwick party, strips, and runs down the street screaming (isn't this girl, like, 22 years old?) Even prissy career woman Marnie, who seems to kinda have her life in order, can't take the first step in actively pursuing a crude sexual encounter with a misogynistic sleeze-bag artist when he says, "The first time I fuck you, I might scare you a little because I'm a man" (ew). Instead, because she is so turned on, she runs and hides in the bathroom to ferociously masturbate....at her place of work, nonetheless.

Offensive anti-female depictions aside, the show suffers from repeatedly inane and unfunny plot devices-- such as when Hannah visits her hometown and has (awkward, of course) sex with a charming pharmacist and her father falls in the shower while having sex with her mom. Or when Jessa babysits and loses her employers children in the park. Or any other of the countless pointless scenes that do nothing to advance the plot or spark engaging conversations about gender and sex.

It is ironic that these four women have been referenced in the context of 90's- era Sex and the City. Would Samantha Jones run to the bathroom at the first sexual advance? Would Carrie Bradshaw be defeated by a molesting boss, or humiliate herself with an emotionally abusive fuck-buddy? Come now, let's not pretend that the characters of Girls, all played by the daughters of famous millionaires, are any more "real" than those of Sex and the City; their characters are just as insipid and contrite and shallow as those of the former , except at least the former featured women who acted on their own accord, and appeared earnest in its own botched goal to achieve a notion of female empowerment.

The only thing Girls achieves is portraying the self-hatred and resentment we feel about ourselves, a pervading marginalized group with no identity and no clue on how to move forward.

F

Breaking Bad (Season 1-2)

So this is the first television series featured on this blog. I'm excited!

If you're a fan of Walt, then you know that Breaking Bad's 5th and final season is premiering in almost a month (July 15).  To steel myself, I've been watching the entire show all over again, since I zoomed through it last year in order to watch the must anticipated Season 4. And oh man, how refreshing and wonderful it is to watch all our old friends again! Specifically, how nuanced and complex and stunning this show it the second time around. The following comment gets thrown around a lot in my neck of the woods in Brooklyn when Breaking Bad gets mentioned: "I've heard it's considered the best show of all time." Now I could be a good little blogger and do my research and find reviews in which critics spout out various points to buttress this position, but really, who gives a shit. Is Breaking Bad the best show of all time? What does that mean anyway? Let's find out!

Let's begin with a run through of Season 1 and 2's narrative SPOILERS SPOILERS. Walter White is a genius chemist who lives a boring and under appreciated life as a father and high school teacher in Albuquerque. He has never been allotted the credit or recognition he deserves through a series of set backs and failures. He works at a car wash where he is undermined by an asshole boss, his son has cerebral palsy, and his wife is newly knocked up. Poor Walt, stuck in a suburban deadlock, is diagnosed with lung cancer. Life sucks and then you die. Like all of us, Walt is merely a pawn in a cruel and unfair world of which we have no control. So what does he do? He aims to take control of his life, to assume power, by manufacturing meth. At first he chooses to do this for the practical purpose of leaving his family money after his death. As the series progresses, he finds his innermost self strengthened and rejuvenated as he must encounter and outmaneuver psychotic drug dealers and shrewd authorities, not to mention his own DEA agent brother-in-law, Hank. Not to mention that he must keep his illicit second job a secret from his family, a venture that causes him to build lies upon lies. However, it's a venture that likewise gives him the autonomy he craves. 

Why the alias Heisenberg? Much like the famous uncertainty principle, Walt's path gives him a semblance of control in a world that gives us no control. A cancerous death sentence and an unsatisfactory life are the central tenants of his powerlessness, and so what was initially intended as a practical means of sustainability becomes a catalyst to live the existence he always wanted. However, the more control he has--as a drug manufacturer dominating the market-- the more he must 1) be handed wild cards of violence and danger and 2) alter his morality and loyalty to stay afloat. 

On the surface it seems that Breaking Bad is a morality tale of one man gradually entering the dark side. And the show certainly is that. The major turn comes in Season 2 when Walt actively decides not to save Jane, Jessie's girlfriend, from choking on her own vomit after she blackmailed him and threatened to destroy his life. But on a deeper level, the show is also the story of an unpredictable world, one that begins to feel more autonomous than any of the characters! 

By the end of Season 2, glimpses of a teddy bear floating in Walt's pool and wreckage and dead bodies on his driveway reveal themselves as a catastrophic airplane crash. The entire episode reveals itself as a chain reaction of events and ironies resulting in mass deaths. This is not only symbolic for the amorality of Walt's  profession-- making meth and inadvertently destroying lives through drugs-- it's also representative of the manner with which life seems to coordinate our various encounters and decisions to result in something random, unexpected, and seemingly destined. Jane died because Walt went into Jessie's apartment and accidentally let her rest of her back. By letting Jane die, Walt disrupted her father's job as an airline comptroller who, in his grief, allowed the wreckage of two airlines. Walt would never had gone back to Pinkman's apartment if he hadn't encountered her father at a bar, where the father influenced Walt to try and save his loved ones no matter what, in this case Pinkman. But Jane wouldn't have been a junkie if Jessie hadn't reintroduced her (tempted her) to smoke meth. BUT Jessie wouldn't have been smoking so much meth if his friend and dealer hadn't been shot for selling in an unfamiliar gang territory. BUT that wouldn't had happened if Walt hadn't insisted on branching out beyond their own zones of meth-dealing. And so on. 

At the end of Season 2, Walt is in remission and his wife has discovered his secrecy, so she leaves him. Walt is determined to save Pinkman from his guilt and drug addiction because Pinkman is now as close a member of his familial circuit as anyone else. Walt is trying to preserve his loyalty and honor because it's the only thing that prevents him from being an aimless agent acting on his own accord with no purpose.

My favorite episode of Season 3 is the "Fly" episode, because Walt reveals that the night he let Jane die, when he heard Skyler singing to their newborn on the baby monitor, was the night he should have given up. In watching Season 2, this episode takes on a new meaning. This particular introspection from our protagonist and narrative irony is spectacularly magnificent, elevating Breaking Bad not only to one of the best series, but one of the best literary works of our time.

I can not attest that it's the best TV series of all time because I have yet to see every series, but I can certainly attest to its superiority in the vein of narrative achievements. Especially because it stands alone as a 21st century saga of one man versus the world.


A

Drive

Drive (2011)

Director: Nicolas Winding Refn

Cast: Ryan Gosling, Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks, Ron Perlman, Catherine Hendricks, Carey Mulligan

Drive's opening scene is intended as a promise of great excitement to come. Our hero, an unnamed stunt car driver played by Ryan Gosling, waits in a parking lot for two thieves whom are paying him to drive them away from the scene of a crime. He's obviously super sick at what he does-- something we know even before see the movie-- veering and swerving and halting and slowing as the po' are close on their tails. The scene ends with him jetting it to a car garage and subtly sneaking away, molding into a crowd of basketball enthusiasts. 

This scene is not nearly exciting as its makers want us to believe. No car accidents, no brushes of death with innocent bystanders, no shoot off, no irony or smirks or close-ups of brake-slamming can be found. That being said, the remainder of the film achieves something much more intriguing than the hyped suspense and violence which drew so many people to the theaters last fall.

Namely, Drive is impressive with its sustained momentum and wonderful characters. In an early scene, The Stuntman establishes a legitimate professional relationship with his employer Shannon, played by Bryan Cranston, who relishes giving his character a distinguishable and unique personality despite Shannon's lackluster dialogue. Albert Brooks is similarly unrecognizable as the sinister and indomitable crime boss Bernie, and Ron Perlman is perfect as violent and impetuous Jewish gangster, Nino.  Catherine Hendricks is wonderfully suited for her brief role, and of course, Ryan Gosling   becomes subsumed in his character's enigmatic demeanor, which deliberately calls for non- expression,  someone who remains an enigma until the final frame, a solitary and reserved figure of justice, with some seriously violent skills under his belt.

The end of Drive reveals so much of the film's hidden elements that it requires a couple viewers to understand its purpose. The Stuntman is revealed to be the most fearsome of this lot of gangsters. He is never afraid and his life is never in jeopardy, even though we thought it was the entire time. In this way, the film is one big joke on the audience. Whether he's wielding a car, a mask, a hammer, a stomping foot, or a knife, he's impenetrable, and so the irony is that, by the end, we realize that he was going to own these guys no matter what.

That being said, this original premise does not make up for the fact that the central crux, a love story between him and his neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan) fails on every level. Mulligan is so conspicuously miscast and so incompetent with the role that I am shocked no one nixed the idea. First of all, her character was meant to be Hispanic, so the obvious prejudice of not carrying through with finding a Hispanic actress is distracting and insulting. Coupled with this is the problem that Mulligan presents Irene as thoughtful, dead-pan, and non-emotional, even when Gosling's hero inflicts vengeance and abrupt violence. All the other characters are highly animated, the antithesis of the Stuntman, so why isn't Irene? Why does he fall for her anyway? The scenes in which they dote on each other are forced and disingenuous. If the film is meant to be neo noir, as its press suggests, than shouldn't the female lead be seductive and intriguing? It is increasingly apparent that actresses today can not be beautiful and sexy and still gain serious roles (check out Mulligan playing Daisy in Gatsby, or Emma Stone in every role she's ever been in, like Jonah Hill's love interest once upon a time). This consistency makes the decision not to cast a Hispanic actress even more inexcusable.  

And such a critical and unforgivable mistake makes Drive a great B movie that will be forgetten in ten years, when it could have been a 21st century classic.

B

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: An Exposition

Eternal Sunshine is one of those perfect films that comes along once every ten years. Its writing is so tight and its direction is so adept that its impossible to conceive that its concept is also wholly unique, even bordering on science fiction. Let us not neglect the fact that it's also a superb love story, or that Gondry's vision could not have been more suitable and visionary for the given script. I read Kaufman's script recently and it's simply not as moving as what the finished film achieves; likewise, Gondry's films are not as cohesive as Eternal Sunshine (although I think his direction of the Foo Fighters' "Everlong" is a mini-masterpiece). We can not imagine Joel Barish played by any other actor than Jim Carrey, who disappears in the role and who has never played a role with the same magnitude since, and we can not imagine a different milieu other than the perpetually frigid Long Island. And even though Charlie Kaufman remains one of the most talented living screenwriters today,  none of his screenplays (Adaptation included) approach the popularity, cohesion, and pathos of Eternal Sunshine. All of this points to the singular fact that Eternal Sunshine is a perfect amalgamation of many talents synching up at the perfect moment. 

And we are so grateful for this because I could watch this movie a dozen times more and still be moved emotionally and still be challenged intellectually. Why is this, exactly? Is it due to the progression of the film, which moves back and forth in time to the precise moment our protagonists first meet? (At the end of movie, during the ride back from first meeting Clementine, Joel tells his friends "She was nice," a profoundly simplistic statement referring to a love affair so complete, beautiful, and tragic, that it's the last memory wiped clean from his memory). Or is it the clever plot devices that make us think of memories? Like how Joel must dig deep to find shameful memories to hide Clementine, which makes one consider his or her own laden memories. Is it the terrific actors and their characters, spanning from a benevolent Mark Ruffalo to a pathetically sweet Kirsten Dunst to a discerning Tom Wilkinson to a loathsome Elijah Wood? Or is it the film's ultimate grandiose statement on love, the one that challenges Tennyson on whether 'tis better to have loved and lost, the one that makes us wish we could start anew with our significant others and grow to know them all over again? Even the title of the film-- the moment Pope's poem is recited by Mary over a spectacular image of Joel and Clementine watching elephants--is emblematic of the kind of literary magic only film can achieve.

I believe that ultimately the film is about second chances, which obviously touches upon something deep in human nature. Kaufman's original script ends on a much more dour note (think of Being John Malkovitch and Synecdoche, New York) than that of the film's conclusion. But in the end, we know love feels like shit, so why end on a note that reminds us of that? The final repetitive frames of a snow-covered beach perfectly echo this point; love creates an imprint on the collective universe that can never be erased. 

Inglorious Bastards : An Exposition

Let me begin with a story.

I had just moved back to New York to begin graduate school after a year-long hiatus picking up odd jobs (Chinese take-out hostess, tea shop barrista, creative writing teacher) in Austin and St. Paul. It was literally my second day in the city, and I was crashing with a couple of friends in the Lower East Side. Inglorious Bastards had come out that same weekend, so I walked to Chelsea alone for a midnight showing. There was virtually no one there. The theater darkens. Trademark Tarentino credits, in bold yellow, flash across the screen, set to his trademark bewilderingly apt choice of music. My heart leaps with excitement. "This is really happening," I tell myself. It's been five years since Kill Bill, which I saw on DVD alone in my dorm my freshman year of college. It's been two years since Death Proof, which I streamed alone in my tiny apartment in Austin. And now, as I sit in this theater, I recognize immediately, in a strange moment within the present that transcends into the future, that what was about to happen will always be, by and large, among my fondest of cinematic experiences.

Watching Inglorious Bastards for the first time was me watching a movie I had never known could exist. The movie transcends genre and narrative, history and fiction, characterization and objectivity. It reveals itself often and yet hides so much of its own construction as well. It functions as both a wholly American invention and a sweeping International film, having no outright determinable origin and featuring talented actors from across Europe (half the film is spoken in French and German for Christ's sake). It defies gender roles and expectations, and toward the end, even complicates what was established regarding the goodness of its characters. It's an alternate reality set within historical realism, and remarkably, a film about the power of film, about how film has the potential, both literally and metaphorically, to determine the course of history. And all the while, as it achieves all these splendid things, it also remains the first film to boldly achieve what will forever change the course of social consciousness, the mythologizing World War II.

When I use the phrase "mythologizing World War II", I refer to something very particular and distinct. Of course, we have been presented with cinematic historical fiction regarding the war for decades. But never has a film taken the occurrence of Nazism and turned it completely on its head by providing an essentially imagined world that takes place within the circumstances of Nazi occupation. The very premise, that a rag tag group of government assigned Jewish-American vigilantes are out to destroy the Nazi regime by any means possible, is not meant to be digested a typical World War II film, but rather, is essentially a revenge saga that almost, but not even quite this, "just happens to" take place during the event. What this manages to do is take World War II as we have come to know it, and desensitize us to it,  not deliberately, but ultimately in a way that reveals how distant it has become from our current world. This desensitization is similarly inevitable for every major important historical event, and yet, with the onset of film in the 21st century, no literature or art has come close to achieving this with such brilliant and mastered magnitude as Tarentino's vision. I wonder if Hellenistic Greeks felt the same way upon experiencing the Illiad and Odyssey for the first time, as generations and collective memories of the war faded and evolved in the face of posterity.

The fact that Inglorious Bastards was a huge blockbuster and not controversial further supports my position that at a given point, civilizations come to approach history through unique modes of story-telling and engagement. World War II, particularly the good vs. evil nature of Nazism, will never be again be strictly relegated to the cinematic confines of historical accuracy. The ultimate feat for any artist, if you ask me.

Now let's see what Tarentino can do with American slavery in Django Unchained.

The Descendants

The Descendants (2011)

Director: Alexander Payne

Cast: George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Beau Bridges, Matthew Lillard, Judy Greer 

It is generally understood now that Alexander Payne's films embody contemporary American life in such a uniquely hyper-realistic way that their supremely dark overtones become farcical. Election reaches the zenith of farce when we encounter Mr. McAllister (Matthew Broderick) having sex with his wife while fantasizing about his annoyingly ambitious teenage student, the antagonist Tracy Flick. Like Citizen Ruth, Election's dour ending and nice-guys-finish-last message (in which "real" nice guys don't actually exist)  established Payne as a filmmaker who certainly knows how to leave a bad taste in the mouth. Which is why Sideways was such a pleasant departure from his usual shtick. Even though Sideways featured Payne's usual crude debauchery and cosmic punishment towards its male protagonist, the final frame left a semblance of hope for an American culture shaped by failure and unfairness. 

The Descendants comes off as a desperate attempt at mature filmmaking, but that doesn't make it entirely worthless. The narrative revels in a simple formula: following its hero, George Clooney's Matt King, through an exploration of personal loss as he travels throughout Hawaii with his young daughters to confront his dying, comatose wife's lover (Matthew Lillard). Sincerely lacking in complex dialogue, the film relies primarily on a superb lead performance by Clooney, who temporarily transforms his reputation of playing affluent and suave baller-man to playing affluent and boring every-man. Devoid of nasty sex, humorous happenstances, and cruel realities, The Descendants instead opts to represent a moment in the life of a family uprooted by tragedy. 

Much like Election's use of middle-America suburbia and Sideway's use of the California landscape, The Descendants benefits enormously from its setting,  not so much romanticizing Hawaii but rather successfully and charmingly utilizing its milieu for plot and character development (Matt's wife did injure herself in a motor boat accident, after all). At the crux of the film's narrative arch is the development that Matt and his family will sell a precious spot of land during the duration of his wife's slow death. The film skillfully converges this plot point with the tragedy surrounding Matt's family, and the result is that no scene feels superfluous or especially trite.

In the end, however, one crucial element is severely lacking in The Descendants, which was somewhat present in the tender Sideways, and ubiquitous throughout the purely comedic Election: the element of genuineness.  Much of the film comes off as blatantly dishonest, and it's a profound testament to its brilliant performances that the movie doesn't drown in convention right off the bat. The languid dialogue is solely responsible, and one has to wonder what The Descendants could have been with a strong script rewrite and less exposition from its voice overs and unnecessary characters (in one scene, the King family bumps into a relative at the airport who drives them to view the coveted piece of land to be sold, only so that Matt can explain the sale to the audience). Likewise, the final denouement of the movie drags on twenty minutes too long.

It is ironic, then, that The Descendants feels disingenuous because it lacks the crudeness and dark vulgarity found in Payne's previous films. The film's best scene is the last, when ashes are dumped into the ocean in a ceremonial and deliberately underplayed farewell. "Well, that's it", Matt says to his grieving children. 

Sometimes, all a sappy family drama really needs is a depressing kick to the head.

B-

Shame

Shame (2011)

Director: Steve McQueen

Cast: Michael Fassbender, Carey Mulligan, Nicole Beharie 

Steve McQueen's strengths are found in his compositions and unbroken takes; water from a pressurized hose washes human excrement off a jail cell in Hunger, alluding to the mechanical and (in)effective process of erasing large-scale human abuses from collective consciousness. In Shame, Michael Fassbender's Brandon jogs through midtown Manhattan listening to a piano piece, the camera following him as he passes each deserted block. The scene has a self-conscious, poetic flow to it, and is mesmerizing because it captures a solitary figure running methodically through an established New York City, like a hand wound on a clock. The question is, what is the purpose of it?

Compared to Hunger, which was remarkable for its political images and structural coherence, Shame feels lackluster, an excellent concept often lacking a definitive visual message. Despite this, the choice of scenery is deliberate, as Brandon's world is devoid of color and brightness. McQueen's atmosphere is mono-chromatic, quiet, and reserved. Brandon's apartment and office building are high-rises where the uniformed and unfriendly shapes of New York architecture lie just beyond every scene. Suggestions of Brandon's reluctance to acknowledge his own destructively stationary path can be found in every corner; the way a TV is positioned in his living room, facing nothing at all; the manner in which he drinks Red Bull and too much sugar in his coffee; the way his apartment and office lack decorations or hints of human interactions (i.e pictures). His sister, Sissy (Carey Mulligan) wears colorful hats and leopard-print coats, which contrasts with Brandon's exposed face and dark attire.

In addition to the fitting scenery, an  additional strength is the film's characterization, amplified by exquisite performances from its leads. Brandon's character refuses to come off as generic for a man with insatiable sexual compulsions, and Fassbender's stifled expressions, desperate outbursts, and moments of sheer pining bring an air of sadness and originality to the story. Shame is largely about longing, both Brandon's and Sissy's, which is why the scene where Sissy sings the lyrics to "New York, New York"  ("I want to wake up in that city that never sleeps/ and find I'm king of the hill") is particularly moving. In the opening shot, Brandon scopes out a young hottie on the subway, then follows her out of the station, losing her the last second to his disappointment. He encounters her again in the last frame, a transformed man after encountering death. Is Brandon longing for this woman just to sleep with her, or does he believe she is the "one" who will finally save him? My instincts point to the latter, since the film embodies New York as a place where isolation and loneliness are the norm, and where genuine human relationships are few and far between.

Despite these pluses, Shame suffers in the end from its own lack of consequence. We are happy that irrevocable disaster was warded off, but we also desire a more palpable effect to arise from Brandon's  realization of his own familial and self neglect. If we are to perceive the ending as hopeful, it is only a shot in the dark, which results in a viewing experience that demands much more than what an excellent narrative merely suggests. 

B+ 

The Debt

The Debt (2011)

Director: John Madden

Cast: Jessica Chastain, Helen Mirren, Tom Wilkinson, Sam Worthington 

Watching an espionage film is only enjoyable if we can relish in the indomitable, super-human nature of covert agents hopping from one enticing location to another. One of the most enjoyable experiences I have had in the theaters this past year has been watching Bryan Bird's spectacular Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, basking in Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt escaping from high security Russian prisons and soaring off skyscraper rooftops in Dubai. Thankfully, we also have Daniel Craig's James Bond owning it at a high stakes poker game in Montenegro in Casino Royale, and more recently, Steven Soderbergh's largely under- appreciated Haywire, when hired agent/assassin Mallory Kane pummels Michael Fassbender into pieces in a Dublin hotel room. 

My point is, everyone should love a good spy movie. What they should not love is a spy movie where agents sulk about in their weakness and self-pity in a "psychological drama" like The Debt. 

The Debt is about three Israeli agents on mission to capture and bring to justice a Mengele-esque Nazi war criminal residing in East Berlin in 1965. The film jumps back and forth in time, from the East Berlin mission to 1997 (why?) as the three agents are now retired and publicly revered for having captured the Nazi way back then, when in fact they actually shot him dead, no wait, he actually escaped, and now they all hide some seriously shady secret that continues to haunt them all...and I'm already asleep.

The movie starts out well enough. Helen Mirren and Tom Wilkinson are always enjoyable to watch,  of course, even though their performances are passionless and static. Their young counterparts do not resemble them in any capacity, a huge credibility problem. However, Jessica Chastain dominates the movie and works arduously with her character. When the narrative transitions to 1965, the action builds as the trio comes closer and closer to their subject, curiously in the Nazi gynecologist's room, where Chastain's Rachel poses undercover as a married woman trying to improve her fertility by being inspected by the doctor. The choice of the patient/doctor set-up is a strange one, and there are a series of scenes where Rachel, legs spread on the table, is examined by the "Surgeon of Birkenau", and it remains a mystery whether the story writers intend this to be suspenseful, or simply a plot-device (Spoilers ahead!) to foreshadow Rachel's accidental pregnancy from a love affair with her partner. Which begs the question: what kind of secret agent gets pregnant while on the mission? And why are these agents so terrible at their jobs?

Unfortunately, the audience is never granted the level of suspense this story requires. Once they capture the Surgeon, a long, claustrophobic period ensues where they are cooped up for weeks in an apartment with the madman, gradually defeated by the pressure and stress of the mission.  In one scene, the cunning Nazi provokes them into screwing up the mission by delivering a "Jews are weak and deserve to be destroyed" monologue that results in our agents losing their cool and botching everything up, allowing the war-criminal to escape forever. 

The biggest problem with The Debt is that the Jewish agents prove to be weak, just as our villain predicted, which is a terribly irresponsible premise for a movie. Moreover, in the final scene, which takes place in 1997, Rachel decides to finally finish the job and kill the geriatric Nazi who alluded them many years before. Great, finally! Kill the old bastard! No such luck. Once again, this 90 year old man stabs Mirren to shreds and nearly escapes again. Will Rachel live or die? Did she do the right thing in revealing her decades-long lie? What are we left with after watching this shallow blather? War criminals, what are they good for? Absolutely nothing.

D

Melancholia

Meloncholia (2011)

Director: Lars Von Trier

Cast: Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kiefer Sutherland

One of the most surprising aspects of Meloncholia is the simple moments laden with tragedy. For a movie with a premise resting upon the impending destruction of mankind, the most heart-breaking scenes take place in the private confines of Justine's (Kirsten Dunst) personal interactions. Take the scene early on, during Justine's wedding to doting, benevolent Michael (an Americanized Alexander Skarsgard).  Michael presents her with a photograph of a meadow of red flowers, promising that they will live there together, and whenever she "gets sad" she can look at the flowers and not be sad anymore. The look on Justine's face confirms that they will never make it that far, due to her emotional unavailability and periodic depression. Another scene takes place in the bedroom of Justine's nephew, the son of her sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsburg) and husband John (Kiefer Sutherland). Justine has snuck away from the wedding reception to tuck the little boy in, and later sneaks upstairs again to watch him sleep. John, hiding in the corner, surprises her, saying "I hope you're happy," and "Do you know how much money this has cost me?" Justine has advertently derailed the party through her constant sneaking away. However, when John says this he is not playing the clueless bad guy role; rather, he is mindful of Justine's melancholy and legitimately hopes she is happy. When the reception is moved outside, the attendees decorate hot air balloons with inscriptions of good will to the newlyweds, and Justine watches mesmerized as the balloons float up into the black sky, a beautiful array of personal testimonies that will never be seen again, a lovely metaphor for man's brief span of time on this planet.

Precious moments like these elevate Meloncholia from gimmicky somber-female avant-garde drivel (I found Antichrist  irresponsible and self-consciously subversive for the worst reasons) to a precise timeline building toward a single, finite conclusion. The opening sequence of images, which ends with the planetary collision, leaves the viewer befuddled; when the planet hits, what will the characters be doing, and what will it feel like for them...and us? Therefore, when the intensely disturbing and realistic disaster hits in the final frame, in three seconds nonetheless, we are given exactly what we have been craving since the opening sequence because we were not presented with this image before (tee-pee on a hill?) and because it solidifies our desire to witness the disaster first-hand. 

In other words, Lars Von Trier pulls out every ounce of creativity from his bag of tricks. My favorite moments of Von Trier's films involve the chilling dread of realization he evokes from the use of a single object. In Antichrist,  an X-Ray photo of a child's malformed feet tells a father that his bat-shit crazy wife has been torturing their son. In Meloncholia, a makeshift device consisting of a circular wire on a stick confirms to a terrified Claire that the planet is moving toward earth, and very quickly. The image of Justine's horse falling to his legs is meant to foreshadow her inability to move forward, in life and after death, but it also demonstrates the death of all animals during the planet's impact. 

While alone and distressed in John's study, Justine replaces displayed art-book pages of abstract paintings, like those of Kadinsky, with those of human portraits, like those of Bruegel and Caravaggio. She wishes to surround herself with human nature, not abstract images of the universe, motion, and light.  This metaphor applies to the filmmaking, as Von Trier wants us to relish in his human portraits, not the elusive nature of  the deadly, interstellar planet.

To speak of Dunst's beautiful and empathetic performance of debilitating depression would be redundant. The film features so many fantastic, naturalistic actors (John Hurt as Justine's absentee father, Stellan Skarsgard as Justine's insensitive boss), but one stands out above the rest. Kiefer Sutherland's John is the third most important character, and the naive, reassuring nature of his character is so subtle that it's nearly difficult to detect.  There are so many high-caliber juxtapositions to Meloncholia, all of which were brought together to formulate a film that is both gorgeous and sad, realistic and fantastical, and scientific and poetic, allowing it to surely withstand the test of time.

A+

Carnage

Carnage (2011)

Director: Roman Polanski 

Cast: Jodie Foster, John C. Reilly, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz

Roman Polanski's Carnage opens with a steady-cam shot of an idyllic, seemingly normal encounter between young boys in Brooklyn Bridge Park. Two of the boys begin to argue, which ends with one hitting the other with a stick and storming away. Because this scene is viewed sans audio, the benign encounter gives the viewer the strange feeling that we have watched from a protective glass case.

This opening shot differs drastically from the remainder of the film, in which the viewer often feels bombarded and trapped in the swanky apartment of two middle-aged, bourgeois parents, Michael and Penelope Longstreet (John C.Reilly and Jodie Foster). We are not introduced to this apartment, but rather thrown in the pit, as the second shot features Penelope typing a letter recounting the fight between her son and the other boy, whose parents, Alan and Nancy Cohen (Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz), peer over her shoulder and politely correct her version of the story.  Polanski's set up provides us with a sense that Alan and Nancy will soon leave the Longstreet's after having indulged in the usual banalities we all are so familiar with during these awkward situations. Of course, that's not at all what happens.

Carnage is nothing if not hilarious, a bombardment of quips and spurious defenses that culminates in a climax of embarrassing, unadulterated venting. Everyone's worst side comes out, and once that happens, some of their best comes out, as well. John C. Reilly's Michael is a seemingly wimpy schmuck until he casually admits to voluntarily killing the family hamster, and later, proclaiming that he has been pussy-whipped and fashioned (literally) by his controlling, hypocritical wife. Similarly, Christoph Waltz's Alan initially appears dismissive and rude, constantly (literally) interrupting his hosts to answer business calls on his cell phone. Toward the end, however, he reveals himself, in the film's greatest monologue, to have clear and justifiable reasoning for his actions and perceptions of these social interactions.

If the men transform from masculine stereotypes to wise monsters, the females do the opposite. We recognize the superficiality and self-righteousness of Penelope even before her strong facade breaks down revealing her true, hysterical colors. Nancy is the most sympathetic of the bunch, initially because her husband is such a prick, but later, because she shows herself as a chronic sack of nerves who can't cope with any semblance of confrontation thrown her way. She vomits grotesquely from the stress, and upon recovering, gets drunk beyond oblivion on an empty stomach off Michael's scotch.

The fact that such character transformations can occur within the confines of a single setting with little to no action  is a momentous testament to the exquisiteness of Yasmine Reza's screenplay. If the film seems to end abruptly, it is only because (and here, I speculate) Reza recognized a great piece while writing and decided it was better to end it then see it drown in redundancy. I do not condemn this, but admire it. The film remains a flawless representation of man's powerless time and place in the universe, where forces beyond our control bring us in contact with strangers, and when our own inexplicable notions of civility prevent us from ever escaping. 

A

Cabin in the Woods

Cabin in the Woods (2012)


Director: Drew Goddard


Cast: Kristen Connoly, Anna Hutchison, Fran Kranz, Richard Jenkins, Bradley Whitford, Chris Hemsworth

**(The following review contains spoilers throughout)**

Cabin in the Woods features a scene where one of the female characters, Jules (Anna Hutchison) is dared to make out with the walled, taxidermied head of a snarling, ferocious wolf. Unexpectedly, she dives into the challenge, seducing and then sensually licking the inside of the mouth and teeth of the stationary bust.

This ridiculous and disturbing scene is one of many arbitrary interludes that help to contribute the sense of anything-goes, a general feeling that pervades throughout this hilarious and insane genre melding of classic horror shtick, governmental conspiracy, and ancient occult fanaticism. 

The film begins with two middle-age bureaucratic workers ( Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford) chatting casually over coffee in a high security facility.  They are preparing for an operation that remains a secret  to the audience until the last third of the movie. All we know is that we are competing with the Japanese, and that much is at stake if the project goes bust. The title of the film is blasted across the screen of these two men's sterile environment, a display intrinsically opposed to audience conception of the milieu of a "cabin in the woods."

Cut to our heroine Dana (Kristen Connolly) in her undies, preparing for a weekend get-away to aforementioned cabin with four other college students-- hottie Dana, hunky Curt (Chris Hemsworth), stoner Marty (Fran Kranz), and demure new guy Holden (Jesse Williams). They head out for the cabin and their journey is interrupted and their scenes spliced with the white-collar happenings of the "puppeteers", the government workers who infiltrate and engineer their inevitable deadly and gory fates.

Once the horror begins, with a spike through the hand nonetheless, what follows is an incessantly entertaining phantasmagoria of 19th century zombies wielding iron farm tools, deadly electric nets, and a rubric of rotating cubes all housing every conceivable monster known to man. An interesting concept by itself, Goddard actively choose to hold nothing back and mercilessly unleashes every worst fear onto its characters. It comes as no surprise,then, that in the final scene, the "real" monsters are unleashed as well, ancient underground gods that will cause the suffering of every human being on earth because they were not satiated.

Cabin in the Woods is so self-aware, so tongue-in-cheek, and so thoroughly creative that it begs to answer the question of whether we have entered a new era of horror-- one that sets the bar high for the survival of the fittest writers and directors as far as sheer originality goes. If this movie can feature a scene where dozens of elevators are opened at once and a heavily armed SWAT team is devoured by every horror creature from dozens of past classic films, where does that leave audience imagination?  How are we to be frightened by being eaten by one monster, when we have a film that features all? 

It is evident that this movie was greatly motivated by copious amounts of weed smoking, both in its construction (the ancient sacrifice must involve the death of the five figures of "whore", "athlete", "scholar", "fool", and "virigin, classic horror tropes), and how the central, uncharacteristic hero is fool/stoner Marty, who becomes impervious to government mechanics because of "all the shit he smokes". Regardless, Cabin in the Woods is a wonderful exercise in how we should never hold back our craziest cinematic ideas, and how to, more basically, write a fantastic fucking screenplay. 

B+