Miles Teller does not understand why a
twenty-something guy like him, who was a physical therapist a few months ago,
is making a living running guns for the United States' war in Iraq.
It’s like this, Jonah Hill, his childhood friend and current employer explains: Remember little league where at the end of the year they would only give out
one trophy to the Most Valuable Player. Then one year a parent complained and
so they had to start giving out trophies out to everyone. Even the fat retarded
kid got a trophy. Well the Bush-Cheney people fucked up big. When Halliburton
got all the big contracts for the Iraq War, all the other mid-range suppliers’
strarted screaming unfair. So now there is this website that anybody and I mean
anybody can bid for contracts on and that’s how we are in this business.
“So you’re the fat retarded kid?” asks
Miles.
“Dude, I’m the fattest and most retarded kid
there is!” exclaims Jonah.
Such is the backdrop for this
stranger-than-fiction tale from director Todd Phillips. Phillips, known as a
comedy director (Old School, The Hangover)
is expanding his creative scope here and make no mistake, although “War Dogs” has a
lot of laughs, it is drama, and a very well made one at that.
The screenplay was co-written by Phillips
and Steven Chin. Chin has an interesting story. In his young twenties he became
interested in doing a story about two young arms runners in Iraq. So he went to
Iraq to interview them and get their story rights. This story isn’t exactly about
those two guys but Chin’s experiences, and his innate ability to understand the type of
person who would go half way across the world on a whim in search of forturne,
lends this story the its impressive amount of rich contextual detail.
There is nothing I like more than a story
that is told by people who seem to really know what they are talking about. “War Dogs” is that type of movie. When Miles and
Jonah (I’m writing this review so late that I have forgotten the names of the
main characters) need to solve problems, they need to solve very specific
ones. For instance, they have a contract to deliver a certain amount of
Remington handguns to a particular general in Iraq. The Italian legislature has just passed a bill
outlawing the selling of arms to Iraq. So Miles and Jonah (under threat of never
getting business again if they do not deliver) need to redirect their Italian handguns
to Jordan, bribe the local officials, and then personally drive the hand guns through Anbar province to
Baghdad.
When I speak of the power of details in
strong action storytelling this is a good example. The nitty-gritty down to
earth stuff lends suspense to a journey regular action blockbusters
can’t deliver even with the help of giant robots and the destruction of entire
cities. And you might learn something too like bribable soldiers like Marlboro cigarettes.
At its heart, “War Dogs” in is a story about a small business start-up and has all the hallmarks of the trials and
tribulation of a good business tale. It has unpaid subcontractors, personal disputes
between partners, the joy of success, and the business deal that goes wrong and
then goes really wrong. This movie could maybe have been made about any small
business but it says a lot about movies, and storytelling in general, that
business movies are generally only about two types of businesses: Drugs and
Guns. Businesses are perhaps inherently boring or put another way, if they go
well, should be boring and so most businesses in movies generally have outside action to
enliven the experience of them. How many times have you seen a movie about a bank robber? And how many times have you seen a movie about a bank manager that operates a bank
efficiently and competently? That's my point.
As a member of a two man small business,
it was fun for me to see a movie like this with my employer. It felt very
right. I mean besides the fact that Jonah, the boss in the movie, is a
sociopath. My boss isn’t like that. That's obvious enough. I'm not sure why I even mentioned it.
However, going back to Jonah Hill. He is
great in this movie. There are certain actors that can really stretch a
performance to hit as many notes as possible and in this movie there is not a
scene that Jonah is not doing something interesting or funny in it. It is odd that
I need to say this next thing given that he already has two Oscar nominations, but Jonah
Hill is a great actor with considerable range. Given his girth, there is really
not so many other actors like him that can fully supersede the comedy genre and
become full-fledged dramatic actors. But he can do it and I look forward to see
him do it for a while in the future. (On an irrelevant note: He has successfully gained back the entirety of the weight he impressively lost over the past couple years. That's too bad. I bet he's really struggling about it.)
Bradley Cooper also shows up as a heavy
dramatic presence in this movie. It is a role I haven’t seen him play before
but he does a good job at being scary enough. My favorite line, “I am not a bad
man, but in my line of business, I sometimes have to ask myself: what would a
bad man do?”
This Ghostbusters is not a remake (in which
the same characters do the same things) or a sequel (in which the same
characters do different things) but a reboot. It has the same name and the same
overall structure but different characters that do different things. For
example, in the first Ghostbusters (1984), the crew look for office space and
stumble upon an old fire station in Tribeca, New York. The place is a piece of
junk in a terrible neighborhood but it is thankfully cheap enough for them. In
the reboot, the new crew looks for office space and is shown the same fire
station. This time they are told it costs $21,000 a month in rent.
It’s a good joke and one this movie tells
many times. However, doing so reveals the weirdness of the movie. See if you
can wrap your head around this. In the 2016 version of Ghostbusters, the 1984
Ghostbusters don’t exist. That in and of itself is normal for a reboot. What is
weird is that the reboots wrings every callback opportunity possible out of the
earlier film. Some examples: The Ghostbusters logo is “serendipitiously”
created by a graffiti artist, the original cast shows up in cameos and quote
the original’s catchphrases, and a giant stay puff marshamallow man is fought
in the climatic scene. The movie treats these situations as if the movie knows
about the original film, but the characters in the 2016 version don’t know
about the original film. So there’s a disconnect between what the audience
experiences and what the characters experience because the audience remembers
the thing that is being called back in a scene but none of the characters in
that scene remember it. Like I said, weird.
It is fun to hear all these callbacks but I
would posit that it hurts this movie’s ability to be a stand-alone movie
because to understand these many jokes one would need to see the original
movie. A viewer who has not seen the original would probably be confused as to
why the movie would make such a big deal about a callback moment when the
characters themselves, by definition, can’t. To draw a contrast, take the movie
“Creed.” That was a reboot too in a way. But the new character existed in the
same time universe as the original so when it made callbacks it made sense for
the characters to feel the weight of them. Those moments do not work in this
reboot (if you take the time to think about it) and that is this Ghostbusters
oddest and biggest mistake.
It’s an odd mistake because this movie
probably didn’t need the callbacks and nostaligic jokes. This movie is a
“Bridesmaids” reunion, a movie that will be a classic once I convince everyone.
It is directed by Paul Feig and stars both Kristin Wiig and Melissa McCarthy.
Kristin Wiig continues to impress. She has been cast in this movie as the
straight man (she is a scientist at Columbia trying to distance herself from a
ghost book she co-wrote with Melissa so she can gain tenure) so she has not as
many opportunities to be funny but that doesn’t stop her from having the
movie’s funniest moment in a restaurant freaking out in front of the mayor. She
should be funnier more times but this is not really her fault, as I will
explain later.
Melissa McCarthy continues to be not as
funny to me as she apparently is to everyone else. I would compare her to Zach
Galifinakis. She rose to stardom in a very well written supporting role, which
has been hard to translate into mainstream comedic stardom. What seems to
happen, just like Zach, is that most of her funny moments come about not
through chracter revelations but from non-sequitor asides, quite a few of which
distract from the narrative flow of the movie. There is one more thing and this
actually does happen to do with her gender. Melissa McCarthy is fat but won’t
do fat jokes. This distinguishes her from every male of ample gut that calls
himself a comedian. Her writers won’t do it also (here that is Katie Dippold
and Paul Feig) and it leads to some unbelievable situations, like in “The Heat”
where she is cast as the sexually vigorous and attractive one opposite to
Sandra Bullock of all people. Unfortuately for our politically correct culture,
fat jokes will always be funny because (obesity epidemic due to subsidized corn
syrup excepted) it is fundamentally true that they reveal character (unlike say
racial jokes or misogynistic jokes). And jokes that reveal character are and
will always be the best ones. Melissa McCarthy’s pride ignores this to her own
peril as a comedian. It is about time for her to own it and join the big boys
of comedy (Rodney Dangerfield, John Candy, John Belushi, Zero Mostel, Jack
Black, Jim Gaffigan, Jason Alexander, to name but a few).
The revelation in this movie is Kate
McKinnon. She is hilarious. I’ve known her a little bit from Saturday Night
Live (she is probably going to blow up big time impersonating Hillary Clinton
this fall) but have never seen her in a movie. She reminds me of the early
freewheeling zaniess of Jim Carrey in a 5’5” frame. Making her more fun is that
she is in charge of the really dangerous equipment. She does a dance at one point
with blowtorches. Classic McKinnon.
The fourth is Leslie Jones. She fills the
Ernie Hudson role and then some. In fact she shows up earlier, has more jokes,
and says more smart things (she reads lots of nonfiction and knows all sorts of
things about the city) than Hudson ever did in the original. It doesn’t matter.
This Ghostbusters, unlike the first, is getting shit for not giving the black
woman a role as a scientist, as opposed to the (apparently undignified) job as
an MTA worker. I’m not sure what Ernie Hudson was doing in the first
Ghostbusters. He shows up three quarters of the way through and then doesn’t
really do anything in it besides postulate about the end-of-the-world, but if
he was absent from that one and Leslie Jones (who is only here because of
Ernie’s presence in the first) was absent from this one, the only thing missing
would be the liberal outrage.
(I’ve been trying to figure out why this
sort of controversy irks me so much. I can only ascribe it to what I would
consider an unfounded and pathetic sense of entitlement amongst those that are
outraged (not just black people of course, I remember Mahnola Dargis of the
NYTimes complaining about it too.) Its unfounded because to tell a good story,
even one with paranormal elements, it helps to set it in a realistic context. I
think it is fair to say that a black person in NYC in 2016 is more likely to
work for the MTA than for Columbia University as a scientist. If that is a
problem, it is a problem for the real world. It is not a detriment to
Ghostbusters to merely reflect reality. That is to say the solution to this
problem should be to fix it in the real world, not insist that a movie project
falseness. Its pathetic because (and I shudder to accuse people of this) it
insists that a person’s self-esteem comes from how they see other people who
look like them are portrayed in movies. It should be a basic thing taught to
all five-year-olds that movies should not dictate how one feels about
themselves. To say Ghostbusters, of all movies, made you feel less than, well,
that’s just, it’s just one of the saddest things I could possibly hear someone
say.)
The largest difference between the original
and the reboot has to be the extraordinary progression of digital effects in
movies. The comparison is a good reminder that being able to do anything with
computers does not necessarily make it better than the old cheap way. The special
effects in the original were crappy but they had thought in them and quite a
few of them were jokes. In the reboot, the effects are so big that it is damn
near impossible for them to be comedic. There is a big action sequence at the
end in which the ghosts of New York City past attack the four ghostbusters. It
is notable for its lack of laughs while being great to look at. Roger Ebert
made the observation that the original movie was an exception to the general
rule that big special effects can wreck a comedy. He explained:
“Special effects require painstaking detail
work. Comedy requires spontaneity and improvisation; or at least that’s what is
should feel like, no matter how much work has gone into it…rarely has a movie
this expensive provided so many quotable lines.”
The suits in charge of the reboot have, like
so many recent movies, used big budget spectacle, nostalgic throwbacks, and
political correctness (where are the ghost hookers of Time Square in the
climatic battle? Why are they fighting pilgrims instead?) as a crutch in the
place of character, creativity, and originality. The tragedy is that all the
ingredients for greatness are here but they have not been given space to breathe and
grow. In the meantime it’s good enough. Perhaps the sequel will do a better job
at making the apocalypse work for the comedy and not the other way around. At least
there should be less callbacks.
“Finding Dory” is special in that special way that special people are
special. It isn’t great but it has a lot of heart and its not mean or bad in
anyway so what’s the harm in liking it.
It is a spinoff from one of Pixar’s best movies, “Finding Nemo.” In that
movie a very worried father fish, Marlin, voiced by Albert Brooks, is searching
for his lost son Nemo. On his journey he meets his polar opposite, a fish named
Dory, voiced by Ellen Degeneres. Dory had a personality quirk that was all the
rage in the early aughts: she suffered from the inability to create new
memories. Yes, like that guy in “Memento” and Drew Barrymore in “Fifty First
Dates.” She provided a delightful foil to the always anxious Marlin what with
her blissfully optimistic mantra “Just keep swimming, Just keep swimming” and
her complete inability to remember what her problems were or even what was
Marlin’s mission.
She was a great sidekick. She is not so great a main character. For one
thing, her character needs a reworking that doesn’t exactly fit with what we
have been previously told about her. That is for the plot to kick in she has to
first remember a rather big that she forgot: she had lost her way from her
parents when she was young. Why she remembers this now and some other things at
various times when she can’t remember anything else strains the suspension of
disbelief. People pointed out that the main character in “Memento” implausibly
remembered that he couldn’t create new memories. Dory has that one memory quirk
as well and then a bunch of other memory quirks that surface up continually
when…well whenever the story needs her to remember something for it to progress
forwards.
This doesn’t happen too much but that in and of itself is also a
problem. For Dory needs to find her parents somehow, and the only way she can
do that plausibly is to simplistically bumble into them. So the story structure
reflects that and in doing so is especially linear and almost entirely
predictable. The problem solving required is at minimum capacity otherwise Dory
would be completely helpless or not Dory at all.
It does not take many twists and turns to get Dory very close to where
she needs to go and that is an Ocean Aquarium that rehabilitates injured fish
before releasing them back in the wild. The nature of this aquarium seems to
reflect the politically correct view towards aquariums nowadays in that they
are more like prisons for the large animals in them than homes. Thus this
aquarium has at its stated goal to rehabilitate injured fish and then at some
point release them back into the wild. Good, now we can look at fish behind
glass and not feel guilty about it.
At this aquarium she finds several “special” animals willing to help
her. The best by far is a wily Octopus named Hank (played by Ed O’Neill of all
people). Hank by and large solves the problem of how a fish can get around a
big above ground place. He slithers along and camoflauges himself to fake out
the humans. It is most definitely based on the true life notorious octopus that
escaped from an aquarium via a drainage pipe a couple of years ago.
Other animals are more forgettable. Sometimes the most interesting thing
about the character is who is ultimately voicing them. For instance, there are
two sea lions voiced by Dominic West and Idris Elba, both of whom played main
characters in “The Wire.” I got a kick out of that because I am a fan of “The
Wire” That is to say my pleasure in watching them here is
derivative as opposed to original. That is especially true of the disembodied
cameo of Sigourney Weaver who introduces herself over the Aquarium loudspeaker
as Sigourney Weaver and continues to provide information about the park as Sigourney Weaver. I
wonder if small children several decades born after the apex of the Aliens
franchise will know who Sigourney Weaver is? I liked it sure but that has very
little to do with the substance of this movie. I just happen to like Sigourney
Weaver.
I expect the message of the movie is the most commendable thing about
it. It’s very kind and nice and comfort food. I hate to be a total downer and
say that the idea that every one is special in their own special way and that
certain specialness makes them useful in ways that other not special people
cannot be is not entirely correct. But really think about it. Dory’s special
ability (or disability more like it) to optimistically and impulsively act upon
no evidence (because she can’t remember any) is not an entirely special
quality. Her success, let’s be frank, is mostly luck. She could just as easily be someone's lunch many many times.
I really don’t think I’m missing the point. I get the point. I
understand why parents would like to tell their children that everything will be
okay no matter how badly their genes have failed them. I just don’t happen to
agree with it. I much prefer a movie like Pixar’s “Inside Out” that has the emotional
maturity to see life with clear eyes. “Finding Dory” is all fluff.
“The Lobster” is such an original movie that to describe it would
necessarily require a comprehensive rehashing of the plot. I simply cannot say
it is like some other movie you know. But to not rehash the entire movie and
only focus on the beginning would also be to sell itself short because one of
the more interesting characters (Rachel Weisz) is only introduced halfway
through and what happens with her and the main character, i.e. the Lobster
(Colin Farrell) is more interesting than what happens in the first half. But
for the second part to make any sense, one needs to understand the first part,
and I can’t do that without giving it all away. So just take my word for it:
Rachel Weisz is great in this movie and I can’t tell you why.
It starts with The Lobster checking into the Hotel on the Seashore next
to a Forest away from the City. He has been recently divorced. The Hotel, a
creature of the State, will allow him to stay for 45 days to find himself a
mate. If he doesn’t they will turn him into an animal. He gets to choose the
animal. He chooses Lobster. It isn’t a completely arbitrary choice. As he
explains the animal will live a long time and he likes the sea. So it works in a
way. And that in a nutshell is how this movie works (more a miracle the more I
think about it). It chooses seemingly arbitrary and bizarre rules to follow and
then with a totally straight face follows them without flinching. The result is
an sincere, engrossing, and surprisingly consistent romantic comedy. And it is
a romantic comedy as strange as that may sound when applied to a movie such as
this.
No State in the known world would ever force people to find a mate
within 45 days before turning them into an animal. And that is likely because
no state in the known world deals with the kind of hopelessly anti romantic people
that inhabit this movie. Colin Farell along with his new guy friends John C.
Reilly and Ben Whishaw do not want to be turned into animals. Neither do the
females at the Hotel. But at the same time there seems to be an unwritten rule
that couples need to have a unique trait in common. Ben Whishaw has a limp.
John C. Reilly has a lisp. There is this really hot girl who eventually gets
turned into a pony because she can’t find anyone else who has great hair.
The Hotel has seminars and mixers in which relationships are promoted in
the least appetizing way possible. There is a rule against masturbating in the
hotel and the maids, as part of their job desciption, are to dry hump the
guests (but not to climax) in order to stimulate them to find mates amongst the
other guests. As Colin Farrell understatedly intones, “Awful, just awful.”
If this is a satire on something I don’t know what that could possibly
be and honestly I do not really care. I don’t want to think there is an agenda
behind this movie. If there were it would be a stupid way to push it because
nothing in here has anything to do with reality. The only way it works is by
its own rules all by itself. And encapsulated as such, it sets its rules out
clearly follows them steadfastly and exploits them for humorous and romantic effect.
To make matters more interesting, the outcasts of this mandatory
romantic society are a guerilla band of loners who carry out terrorist missions
targeted to break up the couples at the retreat. The guests at the hotel are
given tranquilizer guns and every once in a while bussed to the woods where they can earn an extra day for each loner they capture. There is a heartless
woman guest (played by Aggeliki Papoulia) that is particularly adept at hunting
other human beings. She is at 158 days currently. Hilarity and Tragedy ensues
when The Lobster tries to woo her by pretending to be heartless as well.
The movie is filled end to end with interesting details: for example
when the loners celebrate they listen to electronic music with headphones. That
way even when they are celebrating together they dance alone. And in the city,
a person shopping alone can be stopped by the police and asked for their
marriage certificate. The movie was directed by Yorgos Lathimos and also
co-written by him. He is obviously a type of insane.
Anchoring the movie is Colin Farrell who has turned into a special
actor. I remember him quite well as someone I would point out as rather bad (or
at least miscast). He was doing these great epic roles (Alexandar, The New
World, Miami Vice) and doing them, frankly, not so well. But then he had a
career turnaround in “In Bruges,” in which he played a down and out suicidal
loser who, quite importantly, had the same accent as his very own Irish brogue.
It was a revelation. His true calling was not as blockbuster hero. It was as a
loser and he has excelled in that role ever since. His turn in “True Detective:
Season 2,” “Seven Psychopaths,” and most importantly this movie prove that he
is at his best playing broken men. Colin Farrell brings a pathos and honest
humor to this character that seems entirely tuned to him. This is his best role
and I would argue an Oscar nomination for it.
Rachel Weisz, as we all know and I hope I have written about before, is
great and a very big movie girlfriend of mine. I wish I could tell you what she
does in this movie without giving away the last half of the movie except to
say, like everything she does, it is perfect. (I never got to rave about her
comedic performance in “The Brothers Bloom” but for fucks sake wasn’t that
revelatory). She’s worthy of a great romantic gesture. I’ve said too much
already.
John C. Reilly rises to the occasion again as a welcome competent face
in a movie totally out there with no money backing it. I’m reminded a little
bit of his work in “Cedar Rapids.” He is a great team player. Also there is Lea
Seydoux playing against type as queen of the loners given she is currently one
of the sexiest women in movies (Blue is the Warmest Color, Mission Impossible).
Then there is Ben Whishaw who is also very good. Everybody in this movie,
amazingly, is very good at playing people who do not resemble humans in a world
that does not resemble reality. It’s great acting drawn from great directing
and writing by Yorgos Lathimos who, as I related before, is probably insane.
Anyway I vote for an Oscar Nomination for Best Original Screenplay, the key
word being Original. Want a cold breath of fresh air in your movie going
experience. Go see “The Lobster.”
At least once a year I feel the need to point out the moral ambituity of
large-scale action sequences in modern blockbusters, specifically the untold
and unfelt thousands of deaths that necessarily must occur when entire cities
are reduced to rubble. I had been crying in the wilderness to nobody in
parituclar about this for so long that I expected that I would continue to do
it indefinitely. Imagine my pleasant surprise then when Marvel’s new movie,
“Captain America: Civil War” not only admits the reality of human collateral
damage but makes it the focal conflict for the entire story.
It starts with a covert operation in an African country by Captain
America, Black Widow, Hawk, and Scarlett Witch (new to me but apparently
introduced before). A bad guy is trying to steal a biological weapon. The fight
starts in a parking lot moves to an office building and finally ends in a
crowded marketplace. The bad guy has a suicide bomb in which he means to kill
everybody. Scarlett Witch, whose mutant power is to telekinesis, moves the bomb
explosion from the marketplace to the air but miscalculates and ends up killing
about fifteen people in an office building. The Avengers given that they are
conducting vigilante military operations are held suspect for this outcome. A
proposal is passed to give the United Nations oversight over the Avengers.
Iron Man, aka Tony Stark, feels guilty enough for this occurrence (The
fifteen dead were charity workers although any fifteen dead people would have
been good enough for me) to support the resolution. Captain America, coming out
against democracy, believes that the resolution would stop him from taking
action for or against whatever he deems himself to be important. It may be
obvious whose side I am taking in this conflict. I’m with Iron Man all the way.
Captain America apparently thinks he knows better than entire democratic
societies. That is the sort of behavior that gives Freedom a bad name.
The amount of characters and superheroes already introduced in this
umpteenth of Marvel movies makes listing all of them and the actors playing
them time prohibitive, but they line up in equal numbers on each side.
Thankfully Thor and The Hulk are somewhere else, as their presence would
seriously tip the scale against the more destructible members of the Avengers.
The action sequences are better and more entertaining than previous Marvel
movies. This is because instead of relying on the spectactles getting bigger
and more explosive, the superheroes fight themselves (and thus aren’t nameless
pushovers) and thus humor and creativity have to be employed to make sure
nobody gets embarrassed. The abandoned airport fight is especially good. Also,
as I said before, no massive human collateral occurs. The result is a very
enjoyable movie and my favorite Marvel movie so far.
Joining the Marvel universe for the first time is SpiderMan (the other
two Sony franchises have not happened in this particular franchise) and Black
Panther. Now this is a good opportunity for a compare and contrast between what
is considered to be one of the most beloved characters of Marvel and what is
sure to be the most boring.
Spiderman, aka Peter Parker, is a dorky teenager who lives with his Aunt
May in Queens, New York. Black Panther is the handsome well-mannered prince of
the aforementioned African nation. When Stan Lee created Spiderman, his stated
intention was to give the character all the regular flaws a teenager generally
has like immaturity, acne, and a hopeless crush on a girl. Such honesty and
relatability became endearing pushing Spiderman to an upper echelons of popular
superheroes. Black Panther, in contrast, seems to be a corporate marketing
committee’s response to an outcry for political correctness. He stands in like Two-fer
in “30 Rock” as proof that the corporation believes black people can be noble,
properly educated, and not sidekicks. It is perhaps a good thing that the
effort was made but the fact that they went about it in a way that crossed all
the t’s and dotted all the i’s goes a long way in making the character
generally unrelatable and almost as important, boring. He has no flaws and by
the end of the movie his one conflict is resolved. I can’t imagine what will
happen in the next movie that will allow the character to learn and grow in
complexity. Perhaps he will join Thor battling interstellar ice monsters. Peter Parker as we all know has a long journey ahead of him since
not incidentally he starts from a far humbler beginning.
(I doubt anyone else has noted this but the term ‘black panther’ refers
to the militant wing of an oppressed poor minority group. Is it not culturally
insensitive for a wealthy member of a ruling majority class to appropriate the
moniker? Or does this not count because they are both black.)
But enough about this. I really liked the movie and would recommend it
to anyone interested in seeing a blockbuster. The humor, the action, and most
importantly the maturity set it apart from most others. Finally I have added
the original Captain America movie to my DVD queue. For the first time I have
wanted to see it and fill in that particular gap in my Marvel movie knowledge.
In 1995, Director Richard Linklater came out with a movie called “Before
Sunrise.” In this movie, a guy (played by Ethan Hawke) traveling through Europe
asks a woman (Julie Delpy) who is traveling to Paris to get off the train with
him in Vienna. His plane leaves the next morning and he does not have money for
a room. Would she be interested in just roaming the city with him walking and
talking for a night? She thinks about it and then gets off the train and they
spend the night walking and talking.
Bullshit, right? Like on three levels. First level, what woman would get
off a train with a complete stranger in a city where she knows nobody? That’s
potentially dangerous and most women wouldn’t do it. Second level, what guy
would propose this sincerely? Wouldn’t a normal guy assume that a normal woman
would be creeped out by the proposal and consider it impolite to ask. Or would
he not assume that the prospect of walking and talking (not even going to a bar
or dinner because he has no money) would not be appetizing to a normal woman.
Third reason, assuming they got off the train and spent the night together, who
is actually interesting enough to carry on a decent conversation for at least
ten hours straight. Who are these people?
Well, at least one of them was Richard Linklater. The movie is based off
an experience he had during a trip from New York to Austin. He spent one
entirely platonic night in Philadelphia with a woman just walking and talking
before he left at sunrise. There are a lot of better directors working today
than Richard Linklater but I seriously doubt any of them are as cool a person
as he seems to be and if I could choose to strike up a conversation with any
one of my favorite directors at a party I figure the best one ought to be
Linklater. I can’t imagine him running out of interesting things to say.
“Everybody Wants Some!!” is another one of his movies like “Boyhood” and
“Before Sunrise” that would be preposterous in its main characters “coolness”
if it weren’t admittedly autobiographical. That is, if the main character here
“Jake,” was supposed to be some normal guy, I wouldn’t believe it, but if
Linklater says it is based on him, well, he did make “Waking Life,” so I guess
it’s possible for a college baseball player to be this cool.
Jake (played by Blake Jenner) has just showed up to his college house.
He’s not in the dorms as a Freshman because he has a scholarship to pitch for
the very popular baseball team and with that scholarship comes the free housing
off-campus (very cool). He is good looking (also cool) like every other guy in
the all star baseball house (hot friends, add that to the cool) and at the
baseball house party that night (parties are cool), he gets laid almost
immediately (I told you he was cool).
But this movie isn’t entirely about that. If it were, than Jake would be
in danger of being a douchebag. But he’s not. He’s Richard Linklater. So in
this baseball house are a lot of distinct personalities that are fun to hang
out with and get to know. Jake, it turns out, is a sincere listener who
essentially gets along with everyone and everyone gets along with him. The
other pitcher is a wise fellow (curiously beyond his years really) who is great
at casually philosophizing and smoking pot. The other guys are competitive but
it would be weird if they weren’t, after all, this is an all-star sports team.
And like most jocks I’ve known, they care quite a bit about winning but are as
forgiving of slights made in competition. Case in point: there is another
pitcher who is crazy unlikable and everyone teases him but it is unmistakable
that they do not ostracize him from the team. (Actually in my experience
getting along with jocks is easier than getting along with any other social
group. Just show up, give 100%, and don’t complain. That’s really all there is
to it.)
Another guy Jake spends a lot of time listening to is Finnegan (played
by Glen Powell). His philosophy to life is illuminating. At the baseball house
party the other players implore Jake to listen in on how Finnegan explains his
playing style to a couple ladies. Now how a baseball player explains his
playing style is code to explaining how he has sex. (It is assumed that the
girls know this. I mean are they really at the baseball players house party to
talk sports?) Anyway Finnegan explains that he doesn’t have the best bat, not
that much of a heavy hitter, but he is a true team player, is smart on the
field, and ready to help his mates out in a pinch. Classic curveball. Nice
touch.
Finnegan and Jake go to several parties over the weekend. The first is
at a disco. The second is at a Country-Western bar. Then they help throw the
baseball house party. Then they go to a punk rave. And finally Jake gets
invited to a theater student’s party by leaving flowers and a poem on her door.
He brings Finnegan and the other baseball players as well. Finnegan dresses up
as a person who would fit in at all of these and instructs Jake to do as well.
Jake asks at the punk rave, “aren’t we posers?” “No,” Finnegan explains, “it
doesn’t count if you are doing it to hit on girls.” An eloquent philosophy and
the way he practices it discounts the creepiness that other guys would not get
away with. That is to say there might be a difference between changing your
appearance and personality to trick a woman and take advantage of her and
changing your appearance and personality because you are hoping to please a
woman who would like you that way. Or at least the movie would like to think there
is a difference. Or maybe this loophole only applies to Linklater who is much
cooler than the rest of us.
The difference seems to be sincerity and given the types of movies
Linklater has made for the last quarter century it should be fair to say that he
treats people sincerely (sometimes to a fault, see “Slacker”). Perhaps we
should at least take heart that at least once that attitude helped a guy get
laid routinely. That is to say this nice guy never finished last. He wasn’t
racing of course, that’s the whole point. But if he was racing, he wouldn’t
have finished last. Not that he cared or we should either, but you know what
I’m trying to say.
I don’t like movies that require reading to understand it. I suspect
“Knight of Cups” is that type of movie. Specifically it may have been a good
idea to read “Pilgrim’s Progress.” It is quoted directly several times. Is this
an adaptation of that book? I don’t know, maybe?
“Knight of Cups” was directed by Terrance Malick and ostensibly written
by him as well. I say ‘ostensibly’ because the actors seem to be walking in and
out of scenes improvising without a script. Malick consistently uses a
narrative device somewhat unique to him throughout the film. You have seen him
do it before in a movie like “The Thin Red Line.” He employs poetic voiceover
over the eye of a wandering camera. It provides a celestial quality to a scene
especially those that are hectic and that have the original audio cut from it.
This worked so well in “The Thin Red Line,” because the underlying action was very
easy to understand. In was a WWII movie that involved an army trying to take a
Pacific Island. The voiceover commented on the scene but never needed to
explain what was happening. The story was very clear in that respect. “Knight
of Cups,” however (and Malick’s last two films as well “The Tree of Life” and
“To the Wonder”) employs this device without the simple plotline and the effect
is quite different. It feels like it is being used to cover up bad directing in
the editing room. There are plenty of “scenes” in which actors walk around
improvising dramatic situations in desperate need of some direction. Since
everything is cut up and entwined with vines of excess cinematography and
voiceover it is hard to tell what they scenes are about, but that may just be
hiding the fact that they might not actually be about anything. This movie
perhaps means something to Malick but he sure didn’t feel the need to explain
it to me.
It’s a beautiful movie of course. The cinematographer is Emmanuel
Lubezki, winner of the Academy Award three years in a row. His target this time
is Los Angeles and the areas that surround it. The camera follows a writer, played
by Christian Bale. He doesn’t look or act successful but apparently he very
much is. He is invited and attends many gorgeous parties in lots of mansions.
He spends time with an assembly line of models. Among them are Cate Blanchett,
Natalie Portman, Frieda Pinto, Imogen Potts, Teresa Palmer, and Isabel Lucas. And
I haven’t mentioned yet the naked nameless ones. He has a manager that says something
about making him richer than he already is.
Christian Bale does not particulary care about any of this and kind of
walks about in a daze. That may indeed be Malick’s point: that this Hollywood
lifestyle of riches and easy sex with beautiful women is ultimately
unfulfilling. However that brings to mind the biggest question every critic who
has seen the movie has had to ask: That is, if Terrance Malick does not like all
these beautiful things (architecture and women and everything between), why did
he expend so much effort to catalog it in this movie. He very much has an eye
for it. One telling example is the Las Vegas roadtrip scenes. Terrance Malick
may feel that Las Vegas architecture is fake, unfulfilling, and whatever but he
goes about that sentiment in a very confusing way. He makes it look flat out
gorgeous and then has Christian Bale walk around it totally unimpressed. This happens several times in the same way until the movie ends without the characters or the world changing in any significant way.
The fact that Christian Bale is rich and respected, sleeps with many
beautiful women, and hangs out at all these great parties will probably inspire
envy in the normal viewer not the knowing spiritual yearning of a world weary
philospher that perhaps Malick is trying to get at. This is nobody’s fault but
Malick’s. It is fair to say the movie is “out of touch.”
I suspect it follows from being known as a genius and then subsequently
surrounding oneself by ‘yes men.’ It helps to have that asshole producer that
will direct one to take the audience’s expectations and comprehension abilities
into consideration when making your art. When one is making one’s name in the
world, one cannot but help having this influence. No studio in their right mind
would give a young unproven director money without an experienced producer
looking over the shoulder. But sometimes a director gains a reputation for
being great and there comes this notion that they can do no wrong and at some
point all of their bad tendencies and indulgences flow through. Who was there
to tell Quentin Tarantino that he could have an hour and a half of just talking
before any action occurred in “The Hateful Eight.” Why doesn’t anybody explain
to Michael Bay that action movies should not have running times of over two and
a half hours? What the fuck is David Lynch’s “Mulholland Drive”? What is
it???!?
“Knight of Cups” contains every beautiful technique that makes a
Terrance Malick movie the unique special thing that a Terrance Malick movie is except
the movie part. It’s an important part that movie part. I hope he remembers it
next time.
Putting aside much hesitation, I intend to touch this subject for several reasons, none of which I bet are good enough, but nonetheless drive me to assert a basic point. Sure, it's a technicality in the large scope of things but its not like this blog is a big deal anyway. I mean it's public but nobody reads it except Tia Debbie (Hi Tia Debbie!) and so it seems to me to be the perfect place express my annoyance. I have not shared these thoughts on Facebook or Twitter or any other social media platform. I look forward to no conversations about it. Don't comment on this post if it isn't about movies.
#OscarsSoWhite controversy is technically a stupid argument. It takes place in a larger discussion of race inequality, which is not stupid but rather important. But #OscarsSoWhite is a stupid way to shed light on that larger discussion.
The larger discussion can be summed up like this: the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences is largely made up of old white men (i.e. not black people), the major motion picture studios are headed by non black people, and there is more opportunity for people who are not black than for black people in essentially all areas of the industry. From here one can make an even larger point about race inequality in general. Examples that come to mind: extortionate court system, mass incarceration, voting discrimination, and exclusionary zoning (inner city ghettos, housing projects, and segregated bad public schools are all included in this).
But #OscarsSoWhite is not actually about any of these issues. It is trending because of the lack of black nominees in major Oscar categories (actors, writers, directors, producers) the last two years. It seems like there may be racism amongst the old white men who make up the Academy but these accusations fall by the wayside rather quickly when one takes on specific cases of who got snubbed and who didn't. For instance, "Creed" directed by Ryan Coogler and starring Michael B. Jordan was only nominated for Supporting Actor for Sylvester Stallone, the white guy. 'Creed' a good movie but it is a good movie in the sense that the J.J. Abrams reboots of 'Star Trek' and 'Star Wars' were good movies. I think its fair to call it either the 8th sequel in a franchise or the newish requel . It is very rare that non originality like that gets nominated for Best Picture. And Michael B. Jordan had a fine performance but the Lead Actor category is historically much more competitive than the Supporting Actor category. Take 2013's "Captain Phillips" when Tom Hanks was snubbed for Lead Actor but Barkad Abdi was nominated for a Supporting Actor. Or consider other boxing movies like Warrior (only Nick Nolte nominated for Supporting Actor), Cinderella Man (only Paul Giamatti nominated for Supporting Actor) or even Million Dollar Baby (Morgan Freeman won for Supporting Actor, Clint Eastwood only nominated for Lead Actor). Every example of supposed racism in this year's Oscar fall along similar lines.
But then the argument changes. #OscarsSoWhite does not point out examples of actual racism in the movie industry but a symptom of the overall problem. This too is stupid.
Why, because the problem of general racial inequality in the movie industry is not something that would affect Oscar nominations because Oscar nominees do not and never have reflected the general movie industry. The movie industry in general is commercial is scope. If the Oscar nominations reflected that then the Best Picture nominees would be gauged by box office numbers. (And if they did, "Fast and Furious 7" would have been nominated. It coincidentally has a largely diverse cast.) But they never do. In fact, Oscar nominated Best Pictures are routinely movies that the big studios have passed on and most people who watch movies have not seen. This year "Spotlight" won Best Picture. To say it represents the movie industry in general is absurd. And the Oscar nominated movies that did make a lot of money at the box office this year are not lowest common denominator movies. They are great niche movies like Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian, and Inside Out. Those movies were not sure things to make a lot of money. The fact that they did was a bonus for everybody who cares about movies, but it certainly was not the reason they were nominated for Oscars.
Given that unique exceptional movies are the ones that are generally nominated for Oscars it would make sense that Oscar nominees do not follow the general demographics of society (that is to say 10% black people). Some years there are more, some years less, and some years exactly 10% depending on whether the movies the black people were in were unique exceptional movies. Great art by its very nature is unpredictable. It is impossible to tell where or when it will crop up next.
To appease #OscarsSoWhite there is a simple solution: make a category of Best Black Actor/Film/Whatever and then black people can be nominated and guaranteed to win an Oscar every single year. But for obvious reasons such a solution is absurd and more importantly insulting to every black person nominated because it casts a shadow over whether those nominated truly deserved it or whether it was some sort of pity vote. Such a designation would automatically consign black people to the kids table. There is a parallel to this already in the Animation category where a movie like Pixar's "Inside Out" may have made the Best Picture list if had not already been guaranteed an Oscar in a category with little competition.
For if their solution of more black studio heads and black academy members were granted, that would still not be a guarantee of recognition every single year. Why? Because the Oscars recognize merit not demographics or how much money a class of people have. People who know something about movies and pay attention to the Oscars recognize this. I certainly do not agree with all of the Academy's choices every year (as my picks will suggest) but I have seen enough of the movies to know that it isn't simply politics. More than usual the people who deserve recognition, get it. If they didn't, Oscars would not have gone to outsiders such as Marlon Brando, George C. Scott, Roman Polanski, and Woody Allen, several of whom refused to accept them. The cynicism which fuels #OscarsSoWhite is perhaps the most annoying thing about it. They probably haven't seen the movies. They chose this controversy because it was visible and immediate and with the foreknowledge that any argument it may spawn could be shouted down with all the history of slavery and segregation.
These people may then suggest that #OscarsSoWhite is helpful because it starts the argument. Anyone who has been acquainted with bad artists is familiar with this line of thinking. These are the same people that make offensively bad movies and go on to defend their incompetence by suggesting that all they care about is "reaction" or that it doesn't matter that their art lacks effort or meaning because they meant to do it that way. I strongly reject this type of nihilistic thinking. The difference between shit and art and between good political discourse and bad political discourse amount to the same thing. That the person behind it cared enough about people to put some effort into what they were doing and tried (and hopefully succeeded) in illuminating the world around us. This is something #OscarsSoWhite lacks. It got people mad at each other for stupid reasons and the real problems (which necessarily require cooperation between diverse groups of people that it sowed anger amongst) are still unsolved.
Okay here are my Oscar Picks.
BEST USE OF A SONG
It was viewed as a snub when the screenwriters of "Straight Outta Compton" were nominated because they were white. What this ignores is the power of the N.W.A. lyrics that are indispensable to the movie and probably instrumental in the reason the movie was nominated in the writing category. "Fuck Tha Police" Straight Outta Compton
"Good Vibrations" Love and Mercy
"Something Stupid" Joy
"You Belong to Me" Carol
"Make Them Laugh" Minions
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
I only saw one foreign language film this year but it was special enough for me to include the category.
White God, Hungary
COSTUME DESIGN & MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING
I'm combining these categories because they have essentially the same nominees.
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Revenant
Carol
The Hateful Eight
SOUND EDITING & SOUND MIXING
Again I'm combining categories because the nominees are the same but also because one film is going to be getting a lot of the these categories
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
The Revenant
Sicario
PRODUCTION DESIGN
Guess who?
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Revenant
The Martian
Room
Ex Machina
VISUAL EFFECTS
I actually did not understand how Mad Max: Fury Road lost this one but I really liked the movie who they lost to so I'm going to just go with the flow and spread the wealth around.
Ex Machina
Mad Max: Fury Road
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
The Revenant
The Martian
FILM EDITING
If Mad Max: Fury Road hadn't got every other prize I'm not sure I would be giving this to somebody else but here we are. Needles to say they both have great editing.
The Big Short
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Revenant
Spotlight
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Always the major story every year in this category is Roger Deakins being snubbed again. The weird thing is that for the last three years, Lubezki has straight up beaten him with some masterful cinematography The Revenant - Emmanuel Lubezki
Sicario - Roger Deakins
Mad Max: Fury Road - John Seale
Beasts of No Nation - Cary Fukunaga
The Hateful Eight - Richard Richardson
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
If I could pick a movie that encapsulated 2015 the best it would be "Results," a movie essentially about the gig economy and how that affects relationships. I could not have been imagined five years ago and Kevin Corrigan is the best part of it. Kevin Corrigan - Results
Mark Rylance - Bridge of Spies
Steve Carell - The Big Short
Nicholas Hoult - Mad Max: Fury Road
Tom Hardy - The Revenant
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Alicia Vikander won the Oscar for a movie I haven't seen but she may as well have won it for this movie as well.
Alicia Vikander - Ex Machina
Julie Walters - Brooklyn
Rooney Mara - Carol
Phyllis Smith - Inside Out
Sonoya Mizuno - Ex Machina
BEST ACTOR
Boy if anyone ever deserved an Oscar both for the movie he was in and for all the great movies he has been apart of it would be Dicaprio. Leonardo Dicaprio - The Revenant
Samuel L. Jackson - The Hateful Eight
Peter Saarsgaard - Experimenter
Idris Elba - Beasts of No Nation
Guy Pearce - Results
BEST ACTRESS
It is amazing how the two most intense movies of the year, "Room" and "The Revenant," are so dissimilar to each other. Brie Larson - Room
Cate Blanchett - Carol
Elizabeth Banks - Love and Mercy
Charlize Theron - Mad Max: Fury Road
Saoirse Ronan - Brooklyn
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
The Best Animated Film Category is B.S. and I won't be including it this year. Inside Out - Pixar
Ex Machina
Results
Spotlight
Straight Outta Compton
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
I've studied finance and so I know how it can be to make it funny, soulful, and entertaining and still be true to the source material. Adam McKay and Charles Randolph did that masterfully in this movie.
The Big Short
The Martian
Room
The Diary of a Teenage Girl
Brooklyn
BEST DIRECTOR
I actually don't see how a movie can win every technical category and not win Best Director. This man, George Miller, did the work. I can only suspect it was because of the subject matter: post-apocalyptic road warrior grunge, which is understandable in its own way. George Miller - Mad Max: Fury Road
Alejandro Inarritu - The Revenant
Cary Fukunaga - Beasts of No Nation
Adam McKay - The Big Short
Lenny Abrahamson - Room
BEST PICTURE
Yeah I loved this movie. I thought it was almost as good as WALL-E which I felt was one of the best movies ever made. 2015 was a great year for movies, perhaps the best since 2007. Go and see as many of these as possible.
INSIDE OUT
Mad Max: Fury Road
Results
Ex Machina
Spotlight
The Big Short
Love and Mercy
The Martian
The Revenant
Room
Beasts of No Nation
