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what i watched last week

Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Blake Edwards, 1961). Iconic for more than one reason. Audrey Hepburn’s Holly Golightly is one of her most famous roles, while Mickey Rooney’s Mr. Yunioshi is a classic example of “yellow face” stereotyping. I can’t say I’m a big fan of Hepburn. I have nothing against her, never find her insufferable, but I’ve never really “gotten” her. The long party sequence is the best thing about the movie, with Blake Edwards showing his talent for unexpected laughs, and it is interesting to see how Hollywood dealt with prostitution (male and female) and homosexuality at the end of the Code Era. (The prostitution is suggested, but pretty clearly, while the homosexuality is hard to find.) Ultimately, Breakfast at Tiffany’s is a slight offering, one that fans of Audrey Hepburn will love, and a fun movie until the romance turns serious. #465 on the They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They list of the top 1000 films of all time. 7/10.

what i watched last week

My Life as a Dog (Lasse Hallström, 1985). This film touched a lot of people. It garnered two Oscar nominations, was fairly popular with critics, and is said to be one of Kurt Vonnegut’s favorite movies. It’s an honest look at childhood that avoids the sappy-headed cheap emotion common to such pictures. I wish I could say I liked it more than I did. But I found my mind wandering, and was glad to see it end, not because there was anything wrong with it, but simply because I was tired of watching it. This is definitely a case of Your Mileage May Vary. #461 on the They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They list of the top 1000 films of all time. (Trivia note: the girl who plays the tomboy is the real-life sister of Joel Kinnaman from The Killing.) 6/10.

The Navigator (Donald Crisp and Buster Keaton, 1924). Somehow I had missed this one along the way, and I’m so glad I finally saw it. Reviews of Keaton’s film in his prime write themselves. They are inventive, surreal, hilarious, and startling in the way his modern-day follower Jackie Chan can be. The shorts tend to be more surreal, with more laughs-per-minute, but the features are funny, too, and Keaton devised some of his biggest stunts in those pictures. (Plus, a movie like The General, which I admittedly find more admirable than funny, is a masterpiece in the historical genre.) In other words, there’s not much to say about The Navigator. I could list the best bits, but they don’t play as well on the page as they do on the screen. I could wish for a final third that didn’t feature black cannibals, although this one is no worse than most pictures of its time. The most important thing that separates The Navigator from the pack is Kathryn McGuire. She was in a lot of movies up until 1930, and then she disappeared from the screen, even though she was only 27. There’s not a lot about her on the Internet. But she is marvelous in this movie. She may not quite be Michelle Yeoh to Buster’s Jackie Chan, but she’s a lot more involved than a Maggie Cheung. Her physicality and willingness to participate in Keaton’s intricate slapstick make more of an equal than is usual in Keaton’s films, and this also adds a bit of a sexual charge to their relationship, again not usual for Keaton. Yes, it’s Buster’s film, and it’s his stunts you’ll remember, but McGuire is a key part of the movie’s success. #384 on the TSPDT Top 1000 list. 10/10.

This Is England (Shane Meadows, 2006). 8/10.

by request: this is england (shane meadows, 2006)

This one wasn’t actually requested by Ray. He just told me it was good, and I took his recommendation as an excuse to include it here.

This Is England tells the story of a budding skinhead in England in 1983. The sociological context helps place the film in its time, but I don’t think it’s necessary to know all about skinheads to get something from the film. It may sound like a sociology tract, but in fact it’s a fine, semi-autobiographical drama that feels “real”. Thomas Turgoose, 14 at the time and making his acting debut, is rightfully praised for his multi-faceted portrait of a 12-year-old whose father died in the Falklands War, and discovers a second family amongst the skinheads. His pals are a fairly amiable lot, and they take on the youngster as something of a mascot at first. You understand why the boy would want to join this gang, although it’s less clear why the gang exists in the first place (if Meadows made this more explicit, it would be a better sociology tract, but probably a worse movie).

Things change in an explosive fashion when an old gang member played by Stephen Graham (Al Capone in Boardwalk Empire) gets released from prison. His turn towards nationalist racism and violence is frightening, and Graham really digs into the role … he is pretty frightening, himself. Graham also manages to make a romantic moment (to him, anyway) seem legit. It’s a terrific performance that takes the film up a notch just when it needs it.

There isn’t much new here. It’s a fairly standard coming-of-age story. But the milieu is handled with honesty, and the acting by Turgoose and Graham is impressive. This Is England isn’t always easy to watch, but it’s uncomfortable in a good way. 8/10.

i don’t want to be maverick

I’ve always hated the movie Top Gun. It is true that it espouses a vision of American masculinity I could do without, and I have been accused of having negative feelings towards the movie because of my disagreement with the film’s values. But I think the key concept here is “espouses”. There is a difference between presenting a perspective, and espousing it. The preening that Top Gun indulges in isn’t offered with a critical eye; instead, it is given as a promotion of the ideas in the film. Top Gun is a commercial.

Too many people automatically assume that everything they see is espousing the perspective that is being offered. This has recently come up once again with the debut of Girls on HBO. Girls is a series about white, middle-class women in their early 20s, living in New York City. The auteur is Lena Dunham (she created the show, writes the show, stars in the show, and directs episodes of the show), who is herself a white, middle-class woman in her 20s. The semi-autobiographical nature of Girls leads some to criticize the show because they assume it espouses the perspective of the women who make up most of the cast. Why would they want to watch a show that promotes such a narrow, even despicable way of life?

But the characters in Girls are far from happy, they are not presented in a particularly positive light, and the main character (played by Dunham) is the recipient of the most barbed criticisms. She is self-absorbed and privileged. But this is not shown as a good thing. She is at her best when she steps outside of her self-absorption. Girls is not a commercial for the life style of its characters, the way Top Gun is a commercial for American ass-kicking via bad-mother flyboys. Girls walks a thin tightrope, to be sure, and it may turn out to be a commercial, but it’s not there yet.

I was talking with a couple of my siblings recently about Mad Men. A general complaint was that they saw no reason to watch a show about advertising executives from the sexist 60s. (I’m not sure either of them have actually seen the show, since they already know what it’s about.) If Mad Men were created by Tony Scott, it might work as a commercial in the Top Gun mode. But it’s not. Few, if any, of the characters on Mad Men are happy with their lives. None of the male characters are role models. Don Draper is a commitment-fearing philanderer with a big, existential secret … Roger Sterling has smoked and drank himself into numerous heart attacks … Pete Campbell flounders because he can’t meet the standards he thinks Don and Roger have set for him. And while they may not be aware of it, we in the audience know that they are entering a period in American life when their male privileges are being contested. In short, while something like Top Gun promotes the life it puts on the screen, Mad Men critiques the life and times of its characters.

There was a crucial scene in Mad Men a few weeks ago. A bunch of the ad execs take a potential client out on the town for booze and whores. At the brothel, Don sits at the bar, drinking, while the others get what they came for (Don is at present too enraptured with his new wife to join the men, and his opinion of whorehouses is affected by the fact that his mother was a prostitute). Afterwards, Pete and Don are alone in the back of a cab, and Pete drunkenly accuses Don of disapproving of Pete’s visit with the prostitute, finding Don to be a hypocrite, given his own history of philandering. Even Roger joined in the fun at the brothel. Don looks at Pete with surprise and notes, “Roger is miserable.”

I’m reminded of a point in our sibling conversation when my brother asked if the men on the show cheated on their wives, this being behavior he didn’t much approve of. I’m not disagreeing with him … I’ve been married to the same woman for almost 39 years myself. But his question missed the point. Yes, they cheat on their wives. And they are miserable. Mad Men isn’t a blueprint for cheating husbands, unless your idea of a good life is to feel miserable.

There are many reasons why we might decide to spend time with one television series over another. It may be on a topic that doesn’t interest you, it may be that you don’t have the time to devote an hour a week, it may be that you watched it once and thought it stunk. And it may be that the values the series espouses are ones you don’t like. But it is stupid to assume that just because a series (or movie, or book, or play, or song) presents a perspective you disagree with, it must be promoting the values of that point of view. Girls doesn’t make you want to be a 24-year-old middle-class white girl in NYC, The Godfather Part II doesn’t make you want to be Michael Corleone, and Mad Men doesn’t make you want to be Don Draper. You’re confusing these works of art with commercials like Top Gun, which exist solely to make you want to be like Tom Cruise.

what i watched last week

The Cabin in the Woods (Drew Goddard, 2011). On the way to see Drew Goddard’s first directorial effort, I mentioned Cloverfield to my wife. Goddard wrote the screenplay for that one, and I gave it 8/10. She liked the movie well enough, but she thought it was pretty silly to give such a high rating to that movie. Well, here I go again. There is a LOT going on in The Cabin in the Woods, and while I’m pretty good about not giving spoilers, it takes all of my energy to keep quiet here, because one of the delights of the movie is that is regularly sets up situations you think you have figured out, and then it takes a turn you hadn’t expected. Which isn’t to say it’s incoherent … by the end of the movie, it all makes sense, in a B-movie kind of way. It’s clever, it’s meta, it’s a lot of things that are normally pretty boring, but In Joss We Trust, so it’s good clever, it’s good meta. The final 20 minutes or so are eye-poppingly gory (my mouth was open the entire time, although one friend in our group said it was a boring example of too much CGI and red-colored corn syrup). There are so many references to other movies and TV shows that you lose track (the IMBD lists 15 “movie connections”, including the Evil Dead movies, 30s horror classics, and the video game Left 4 Dead, and that seems like too small a number … just to note two obvious ones from TV, there’s Scooby-Doo and Dollhouse). I’m trying to talk about this movie without giving anything away about this movie, which explains my rather vague comments. I can only say that it worked for me. 8/10.

what i watched last week

Slim pickings once again … over the course of the 12-day stretch ending tomorrow, I’ve attended three baseball games and two concerts. I did manage to get one movie in, though.

Tiny Furniture (Lena Dunham, 2010). Much of what I said about Dunham’s new HBO series, Girls, applies here as well. As I noted, “while it looked like an improvisational film made by friends for friends, [Tiny Furniture] was scripted, and the photography in particular was almost always perfect.” Cinematographer Jody Lee Lipes shot using a Canon EOS 7D, and I can’t say I know much about that camera, except you can buy it on Amazon for under $1400, and even on Blu-ray, the picture was stunning (and the sucker weighs just a hair over 5 pounds!). Dunham has an eye for how a frame should look, and perhaps it goes without saying now that she can write. Based on this film and Girls, it seems Dunham has a fairly narrow range to draw upon, but in this, she’s not a lot different from Woody Allen, who she clearly admires and whose “New York” pictures similarly have a narrow but illuminating focus. Dunham’s focus (white women in their 20s, just out of college, living in the big city, barely employed, feeling entitled even as the economy won’t allow it) will irritate a lot of viewers, I’m sure. But Dunham is a refreshing new talent, and for me, at least, she hasn’t worn out her welcome. 7/10, although that’s a rating that might change a few years from now, when we have a better sense of where Dunham’s career is going. [Ed. note: I wrote the above just before the big hubbub began over Girls. Turns out Dunham did irritate a lot of viewers.]

what i watched last week

This is more a bookkeeping post than anything substantial. It’s baseball season, which means I didn’t do much of anything besides watch the Giants suck. The only movie I watched, I’ve already written about, since it was a “By Request” … Dazed and Confused.

I’ve got four days until the Giants are home (at which point, I’ll be going to three games in five days, and then going to see Wild Flag the day after that). I better watch some movies while I’ve got the chance.

by request: dazed and confused (richard linklater, 1993)

Tomás made a bunch of requests, so he’ll get the lion’s share of my “By Request” posts unless/until someone else pipes up. I was happy to see Dazed and Confused on his list, since it is a movie for which I have great fondness.

Peter Travers said it best when he called Dazed and Confused a “shitfaced American Graffiti”. The comparisons to George Lucas’ film are easy to make (and most critics made them) … it’s the qualifier “shitfaced” that nails a key difference between the two. These aren’t “good” kids; more importantly, the majority of them are not “bad” kids, either. Linklater is largely non-judgmental here. The only people he looks down on are the mean ones. Participating in a mean act like the hazing of freshmen is “bad”, but only a small minority of the hazers are actually enjoying themselves. The rest are just taking part in a ritual they all went through when they were freshmen, and when the hazing is over, they take the victims under their wings, inviting them to their mindless shenanigans. Ben Affleck and Parker Posey are the only ones who really mean harm, and in the world of the movie, they end up being the outcasts.

While “nothing happens”, and while it seems there is no “moral” to the film, nonetheless the slice-of-high-school-life is insightful. Yes, it sucked to be in high school, but there were also times when camaraderie made it bearable, and this comes across. We see the newly-cool freshmen learning how to be. Of course, what they are learning is how to drink and get high and party, but just as important is what they don’t learn: they don’t learn to be vicious assholes like Affleck and Posey’s characters. They begin to discover how being with others in the same boat makes teenage life a little bit better.

One can’t write about Dazed and Confused without noting the huge number of then-unknown actors who became better known down the line: Joey Lauren Adams (her second film), Milla Jovovich, Rory Cochrane, Adam Goldberg, Marissa Ribisi (her first film), Cole Hauser (his second film), the aforementioned Ben Affleck and Parker Posey, and Matthew McConaughey (his second film). Not to mention the remarkable Wiley Wiggins (first film), who came out of nowhere, reached cult status, and went on to an ever-evolving life that is (mostly) outside of the movie world (check out his website).

I suppose I should mention the obvious about Wiggins, as well. In Dazed and Confused, he is the pitcher on the junior-high team. Wiggins is not a baseballer … a stunt double was used in the brief game scenes … but he eerily offered a glimpse of a pitcher from the future. Here is Wiggins as Mitch Kramer:

If you asked me to name my favorite directors, I don’t think it would occur to me to mention Richard Linklater. Yet I have seen eight of his films, and given a 9/10 rating to three of them (if you’re counting, Dazed and Confused, Before Sunset, and A Scanner Darkly). All but one of the others gets at least 7/10. This tells me two things. One, I should revisit that one Linklater movie I hated. Two, I need to catch up on the ones I haven’t seen yet. #756 on the They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They list of the top 1000 films of all time. 9/10.

what i watched last week

Cinema Paradiso (Giuseppe Tornatore, 1988). I’m not one for nostalgic paeans, but this one is a little different, with the hero’s mentor telling him “Don’t give in to nostalgia!” (A much longer director’s cut apparently changes this entirely, with the hero’s lost love telling him when they meet many years later, “There is no future. There is only the past.” Suffice to say, I think I’m glad I missed that version.) The early part of the movie, which tells the story of Toto when he is a small child, is easily the best. Salvatore Cascio deserved his awards as Toto, never too sicky-sweet, always inventive. And Philippe Noiret as his substitute father, Alfredo, has just the right touch. We get a real feel for how the movies can become an obsession. When Marco Leonardi takes over the part of Toto as a teenager who falls in love, the film changes focus. It’s not bad, Leonardi does a good job, and Agnese Nano is lovely in her brief role as the object of Toto’s desires (apparently her role is far from brief in the longer version). But it’s a fairly ordinary first-love story at that point, and while I never lost interest, I found myself wishing we were back in the earlier part of the film. In short, I gave in to nostalgia. Tornatore’s attitude towards nostalgia is confusing, and when Jacques Perrin steps in as the adult Toto, I’m no longer sure what the message is. Still, there’s a nice final scene where Toto watches clips of people kissing in movies (it makes sense once you’ve seen the film), and I can see why it won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film. #233 on the They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They list of the top 1000 films of all time. 7/10.

That Obscure Object of Desire (Luis Buñuel, 1977). Buñuel’s last film is fairly gentle; even the mocking tone is muted. A wealthy Frenchman falls for a poor flamenco dancer … he pursues, she leads him on, but she never gives in to his sexual advances. The audience waits for the eroticism to resolve itself, in the process becoming just like the Frenchman. It may not be resolved, but there are some erotic moments. For the most part, this is a far more genial comedy than we might expect from Buñuel. There are oddities (even in his last film, Buñuel hadn’t lost his willingness to do things differently). The Frenchman is played by Fernando Rey, a Spaniard, with his voice dubbed by Michel Piccoli, a Frenchman (and, of course, there are English subtitles). The Andalusian dancer is played by Carole Bouquet, a Frenchwoman (and future Bond Girl), and by Angela Molina, a Spaniard (yes, two different people play the same character, seemingly at random). The result is fluff enlivened by artful technique. #536 on the TSPDT list. 7/10.

Star Trek (J.J. Abrams, 2009). Reviewed earlier in the week as part of the “By Request” series. 7/10.

by request: star trek (j.j. abrams, 2009)

I have a backlog of requests (thanks to all who made suggestions), but sometimes requests are more spur of the moment. This time, our friend Doug came over, wanting to watch something “science fictiony action”. Which is how we ended up watching Star Trek.

More than two years ago, I wrote:

I’ve never really watched any of the TV series, and only saw one of the movies prior to this one. … I approached this as I would any other sci-fi epic, or at least, I thought that’s what I did. When the movie started, I understood that even a non-fan is aware of the basics … I knew the names of the main characters, knew some catch phrases, stuff like that. So it’s silly to say I’m totally outside the Trek universe. How did I like the movie? It was OK … the science part of the plot didn’t reward any deep consideration, so I avoided that. The action scenes were ok, nothing special, the acting reasonable. … It was a nice way to spend two hours; don’t think I’d go farther than that.

I feel a bit more kindly to the film now. It is indeed a nice way to spend two hours; what is especially nice is that two hours is all it takes … this isn’t the typical bloated two-and-a-half-hour blockbuster of the 21st century. I'm also a bit surprised that I didn’t mention the time-travel angle in my earlier post, because this time, I found it the most intriguing part of the plot. It’s not exactly trend-setting … it’s more like Grade-B Phil Dick … but it offers enough head-scratching confusion to make it interesting (I mean “head-scratching” in a good way).

I also found myself obsessing over the way we all knew these characters before the movie even started. There was nothing wrong with the first 40 minutes or so, but at some point, I realized that most of those minutes could have been cut, since the majority of them was spent letting us see for the first time characters we already knew. By the end of the movie, I didn’t feel I knew much more about the characters than I did before it started, which means the film ultimately stands or falls on those action scenes (OK) and acting (reasonable).

Still, as I say, I feel more kindly now. Previously, I had given Star Trek 6/10, but I’m going to up that a bit. 7/10.