Moonrise Kingdom (5/5 Stars)

“Let’s make an inventory”

Says Sam Schukusky to Suzy Bishop, once the two twelve year olds have successfully run away from their respective adults (parents for Suzy, a junior khaki troop for Sam) to elope on the New England island of Penzance. And make an inventory they do. Suzy is carrying her brother’s record player with extra batteries, her favorite LP, her pet kitten, several of her favorite science fiction books, her lucky left-handed scissors, and her much-loved set of binoculars. She carefully explains why each item is important. And if you haven’t guessed already, this scene is taking place in a movie written/directed by Wes Anderson, because, really, who else would have characters take the time to do an inventory of the things they are carrying. I mean, if it isn’t a war movie and the characters aren’t talking strategy and weapons, an inventory is almost unheard of in movies. This is just one particular touch, along with absurdly detailed set designs and costumes, obsessively neat and tidy dialogue, and super-controlled camera shots, that scream out that you are in that most distinctive of styles, Wes Anderson cinema. No other movie looks or works quite the way his do.

Now this does not automatically mean that his movies are good, in fact it has been a decade since he made a movie that needed seeing. The distinctive style that makes his films stand out also tend to undermine the story and move it toward the unfortunate territory of boredom. But, I’ve always felt there was a great movie just waiting to be made by the guy, and I’m glad to say he has finally made it. “Moonrise Kingdom,” is one of the best movies of the year. It succeeds in all the places his earlier movies have failed without sacrificing any of the trademark idiosyncrasies that make Anderson films such unique experiences. 

First the two kids are genuinely likable and may have some actual problems. I would like to emphasize the word “actual” here because so many of Anderson’s characters don’t have actual problems. They are generally well-to-do good-looking people afflicted with a type of depressing boredom or something. Like for instance, the three brothers in “the Darjeeling Limited” had unexplained father "issues" so they went on a long train ride in India to bond. Being able to afford to go on a long train ride in India to bond with family isn’t exactly evidence of a real world problem. I would guess that’s why so many of these characters tend to suffer quietly in whispers. They seem to be some acknowledgement that it is kind of pathetic to be unhappy while blessed by their relative circumstances. Anyway, this isn’t something to worry about in this story. Sam Shukusky is an orphan recently dumped by his latest foster parents and Suzy Bishop is emotionally disturbed. Or at least she has good reason to think she might be. She found a pamphlet entitled, “Coping with the Very Troubled Child,” on the top of her refrigerator, which is admittedly a kind of a freaky thing to find in your house. Neither have any friends, but they do like each other, and their love story is sweet and touching.

It takes a certain kind of skill to act effectively in a Wes Anderson movie. There is always a temptation to softly speak in long pauses. Take for instance Gwyneth Paltrow’s character in “The Royal Tenenbaums.” This however is a boring mistake. Instead the exact opposite needs to be done. An actor needs to fit in as many yells as possible within the tight framework of stilted dialogue. This is essentially the only way to break through the gorgeous/suffocating style to achieve some sort of catharsis and why an action blockbuster star like Bruce Willis, playing the island police officer, is a much better casting choice than a mellow guy like Owen Wilson. Otherwise an actor needs the jujitsu comedy skills of a guy like Bill Murray, also present playing Suzy's father, who has the unique ability to take the style and subtly play it against itself by under-under-playing his performance, see the scene with the axe and the little kids. We’ve got some passionate speakers here. Edward Norton, Jason Schwartzman and Harvey Keitel, as scoutmasters, put in a ridiculous degree of professionalism in directing boy scouts. Frances McDormand doesn’t yell but carries around a bullhorn and uses it whenever she speaks. 

It's all done very well. Someone here between Murray, Willis, Norton, and Schwartzman deserves an Oscar Nomination for Best Supporting Actor but I can’t really decide who deserves it more than the others. A safe choice is Bruce Willis, who in his very long career has amazingly never received any real recognition for anything. Given his perfect performances in great movies such as “Die Hard,” “Pulp Fiction,” “The Sixth Sense,” and "Sin City" he is a bit overdue. For all his machoness, he has done some of his best work with children, and there is a scene here with the orphan Sam after he has been caught, separated from his love, and notified that his foster parents do not want him back that contains every correct thing you can say said in all the correct ways in such a situation.

Lastly, Wes Anderson has finally figured out how to end his movies on a high note. This movie has an exciting third act with an honest to god action sequence that doesn’t have some winking existential sigh of a conclusion. (Contrast this with “The Life Aquatic,” and his weird decision not to blow up the tiger shark with dynamite as planned.) In other words, the movie like so many other Wes Anderson previous efforts doesn’t run out of steam before the end. This is probably his crowning achievement and what makes this movie his best movie yet. (I will forever love “Rushmore” more yes, but that is strictly for personal not critical reasons, like say, the main character’s name being Max)

When you have a style that is especially distinctive (like say Altman or Kubrick) it is especially hard to judge your movie because they are so unlike anything else. So it would not come as a surprise to me if “Moonrise Kingdom” was completely ignored come Oscar time. It shouldn’t be though. Among the more obvious things it should be acknowledged for are the original score by Alexandre Desplat (you may remember him from “The Tree of Life”), and the art direction by Gerald Sullivan. The not so obvious things would be a nomination for best director for Wes Anderson and best original screenplay for Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola. And why not, nods for cinematography, editing, and Bruce Willis. It should go without saying that a Best Picture nod is called for as this is one of the best movies of the year.

Prometheus (5/5 Stars)

A worthy addition to the franchise

It is the year 2089 and a couple of archaeologists excavate a cave in Scotland. They find a cave painting of a large humanoid pointing at what looks like five stars. The same mural had been found in the ancient murals of the Egyptians, Sumerians, Mayans, and Babylonians as well. These civilizations had little to no contact with each other. What’s more, the five stars can actually be found in the nighttime sky. One of these stars is very similar to Earth’s sun and orbiting it is a large gas planet with a moon very similar to Earth. Is it a message? A warning? An invitation for man to meet its makers? Five years later, the Weyland Corporation sponsors a spaceship named Prometheus and its crew of engineers and scientists to make an investigatory trip to that far off galaxy. They find almost exactly what they are looking for: an ancient pyramid with the long forgotten carvings of a humanoid species of alien. But they also find a not very well intentioned something else living inside. Then people start dying.

The look and the feel of the movie should be instantly recognizable for those familiar with the “Alien” franchise. The font for the title is the same, the style of futurisitic technology and set design is the same, and the director, Ridley Scott, was actually the director of the first “Alien” movie (but none of the others. This was way back in 1979). The plot (humans investigate, find hostile aliens, people start dying, the corporate agents act amorally, and more people die) is fundamentally the same as the first several movies, but differs in all the correct ways. There are new thrills, new themes, and new developments in what happens to who and when. I'm being vague on purpose. This is one of those movies where the less I say about the plot, the better experience the reader will have when they see it. So let me just say that the movie is similar enough to the original movies that they make sense being in this franchise but different enough that you will still actually be shocked when you should be. Or in other words, you can enjoy this movie without having seen any of the others and having seen the other movies won’t diminish the experience of this one. This is a quality (the ability to expand on the themes and look of previous movies without violating basic copyright laws) that marks all great sequels and prequels and what makes “Prometheus” a worthy addition to the “Alien” franchise.

No actors from previous installments of the franchise are present in “Prometheus,” but that does not stop this movie from having one of the best ensemble casts in any movie this year. None of these actors are A-List, but to the cinephile in the audience, it is a hugely heavyweight collection of intelligent badassery. First off, playing the ship’s captain is Idris Elba (aka “Stringer Bell” from “The Wire.”) This guy must be a good 6’4” composed entirely of muscle yet still would not look the least out of place in glasses reading a book on quantum mechanics. Not an easy thing to do. Then there is the corporate overseer played by Charlize Theron (aka the “Monster”), who has recently accomplished the feat of being in her late thirties and more stunningly beautiful than she has ever been. Charlize certainly doesn’t need help being tall, but that doesn’t stop her character from wearing five-inch power high-heels, a touch that along with an icy glare gives her screen presence an effect similar to, well, I can’t think of any other woman but Sigourney Weaver. Next is the new golden-boy of serious cinema, Michael Fassbender, who you may be most familiar as the young “Magneto” in the latest X-Men movie. Fassbender has a face and build that makes him perfect for playing a super intelligent and amoral android.  There’s a great scene when he watches his favorite movie, “Lawrence of Arabia,” and the resemblance is uncanny. He has the same intense gaze of a young Peter O’Toole.

Finally there is Noomi Rapace (aka the original and actually Swedish “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”) playing the archeaologist. She is noticeably softer than Lizbeth Salandar but the events she goes through are just as traumatic if not more so. I always hesitate to say an actor/actress is brave because you know in the end, it is all just pretending. But for a select few I will pull out that adjective. Christian Bale is one and also Noomi Rapace. It is hard to judge a science fiction performance come Oscar time because the great ones generally require actions in situations that have never been done before (in contrast a performance in a movie adapted from Shakespeare is perhaps the easiest to judge) but as you reflect on this movie, ask yourself this question about that particular scene you must know I am talking about: Who else could have done it better, or better yet, who else could have even done it? (And don’t say Rooney Mara unless you want to piss me off.) For the fourth time in as many movies as I have seen her in, I believe Noomi Rapace deserves an Oscar Nomination. Perhaps the best compliment I can give this movie however has to do with the fact that Sigourney Weaver is not missed. That’s huge because Weaver is arguably the best female action heroine to ever grace the movie screen. But here I am saying it: Rapace and Theron, more than make up for the absence. There is some serious intelligent badass female empowerment going on here. Ridley Scott never seems to disappoint in that area. 

The main flaw in this movie is that it asks several big questions like: Where do we come from? Who are our makers? What do they think of how we turned out? and then does not answer any of them. This does not bother me that much though because these questions really do not have any decent answers and when a movie tries to provide these answers it is always unsatisfactory anyways (see 6th season of “Lost,” the “Matrix” sequels). There is a moment in this movie when the maker has the opportunity to say something and instead just starts being violent. What could it have said? I have no idea. It could have been cool if he had said the correct thing whatever that is. He does not say anything and that is a shame, but I’m not about to fault the writers for not knowing what the meaning of life is. Asking the questions is good enough for me. 

Five Films Series: Super Gay Edition

Joe: What happened?
Jerry: I’m engaged.
Joe: Congratulations! Who’s the lucky girl?
Jerry: I am
Joe: What!
Jerry: Osgood proposed to me. We’re planning a June Wedding.
Joe: What are you talking about? You can’t marry Osgood.
Jerry: You think he’s too old for me?
Joe: Jerry, you can’t be serious.
Jerry: Why not?? He keeps marrying girls all the time.
Joe: But- but you’re not a girl. You’re a guy. And why would a guy want to marry a guy?
Jerry: Security

 - Some Like it Hot (1959) Written and Directed by Billy Wilder

This edition of the Five Films series is different from the others. First, the topic that has been chosen, Homosexuality, is not something you can find many examples of in old movies. Unlike a topic such as race, homosexuality was either not talked about or censored. Take the above joke from 1959 in Billy Wilder’s Some Like it Hot. The character of Jerry asks, “Why would a guy want to marry a guy?” in a state of complete befuddlement. Apparently he has never even heard of homosexuality. And it’s not that the character of Joe is homosexual either (he isn’t for those unacquainted with the movie. Joe and Jerry have disguised themselves as women in order to infiltrate an all-women band and escape the mob) although he does hit on the basic reason why people want to marry each other. A rich playboy asked him thinking he was a girl and as he explains to Jerry, this is his last chance to marry a millionaire.

Second, unlike race, the national controversy about homosexuality is far from over in our time. (And when I say that the controversy concerning race is over, I simply mean you will be hard-pressed to find a large and outspoken segment of the population that does not think racism is bad and isn’t against it.) Only in the past year, has a majority of the American people polled in support of gay marriage. At the same time there have been a large number of states that have outright banned gay marriage in their state constitutions. But our culture’s view, expressed in those time capsules we call movies, has indeed changed, and that change is what I hope to chronicle here.

All That Heaven Allows (1955) – Directed by Douglas Sirk

 

Take note! This movie is not about homosexuality. It never even mentions the subject. I don’t know of many movies from this period that do. More importantly, I don’t know any great movies that do. And no matter what I feel about the subject matter, the main point of the “Five Films Series” is to recommend great movies. So I am not going to recommend Ed Wood’s “Glen or Glenda.” I haven’t seen it but I’ve heard it’s terrible.

 This one will work just fine. (I also deliberated on recommending “Lawrence of Arabia.” Homosexuality isn’t mentioned at all in that one as well, even though it is widely suspected that the biographical Lawrence was homosexual. We don’t know for sure and know even less as to whether he if ever acted on it if he was. We just don’t know basically.) For two reasons I will choose “All That Heaven Allows.” The first is that it is about forbidden love, albeit a heterosexual one between a rich widow from the country club set and her much younger gardener. Second reason is that the actor who plays the young gardener is Rock Hudson, a heterosexual sex symbol throughout the 1950s and 1960s. He was best known for playing virile Texan oil tycoons (see Giant) until he was involuntary outed as a homosexual in the 1985 when he died of A.I.D.S. It came as a huge surprise to many people. That very manly man was super gay the entire time.

 It is completely inescapable to watch this movie and not think about it. One of the great strengths of Douglas Sirk’s directing style is its unapologetic directness. It is a type of movie making that nowadays has gone completely out of style, only to be used ineffectively by daytime soap operas and endlessly parodied by sketch comedy shows. But here, because of the time period, the melodramatic oppression of conformity is believable and is especially disquieting.

 There are many nice touches that make this small movie a great movie. The gentle honest moments between the two very different people that explain exactly how and why they feel a strong connection. The cynical reactions from the gossip crowd that don’t understand the match and insist that the main motivations must either be the gardener’s sex appeal or the widow’s inheritance and probably both. The couple’s fears that their love would turn the widow’s children against her and make her lose her place in society. Dialogue about being “true to thine own self,” being brave enough to live the correct way, and making sure what is unimportant stays unimportant. And how the couple’s plans to get married are eventually and realistically derailed by a sense of shame stemming from societal disapproval. The widow’s son buys her one of those newfangled television sets to cheer her up. “All you have to do is turn the dial and you have all the company you want right there on the screen-drama, comedy, life’s parade at your fingertips…” says the salesman. A poor substitute for love.

 

  The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) – Directed by Jim Sharman

 

Starting in the 1960s, homosexuality starting popping up in movies, albeit in stand alone scenes, either as a joke or some sort of horrible experience, and sometimes both. In 1967, Mel Brooks made “The Producers,” a story about a couple of Broadway producers attempting to make lots of money from little old ladies by overselling a sure-fire flop. The producers seek out the “worst director in the world,” a gay man that meets them in a full dress and complains how the story “Springtime for Hitler,” is depressing because in the third act the Nazis lose the war. In 1969, the Best Picture winner “Midnight Cowboy,” featured perhaps one of the most awkward and cringe inducing sexual encounters (homo or hetero) ever in a movie. It takes place between two complete strangers in a filthy movie theater in a disgusting NY Times Square. My favorite though is the ten seconds in Clint Eastwood’s “Dirty Harry” when the cop is searching a San Francisco park at night for a serial killer and happens upon a nervous young man named “Alice” who says he will take a dare. Harry discloses that he is police and the young man threatens to kill himself. “Well, do it at home!” growls Harry.

 Then like a thunderbolt, the silence is broken. Out of nowhere, adapted from a little known British stage production, comes “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” And this isn’t just any movie; it is a bizarre musical horror/science fiction parody, a frenetic freak show full of gleeful shock and awe. It is the ultimate and definitive cult classic. A movie that caused absolutely no ripples in the box office when it opened but through strong word of mouth, repeat viewings, and midnight event showings now holds the world record for longest theatrical release. In fact it is still being shown at several theaters. (Chelsea’s Clearview in NYC still shows it Saturdays at midnight and that is where I first saw it two years ago). You may want to see the movie first at home before seeing it in a movie theater though because its hard to hear the movie over everyone in the theater screaming the entire time.

Homosexuality isn’t just present in this movie. It is brazenly outspoken in a horrifyingly sacrilegious and depraved way. The movie starts with a newly engaged straight-laced couple named Brad and Janet (a young Susan Sarandon), whose car gets a flat and strands them next to a gothic castle. Inside they find a bunch of tap-dancing freaks led by a murdering transvestite in horror makeup named Dr. Frankenfurter (Tim Curry in a role of a lifetime). He is constructing in his lab a perfect man-specimen, which he names Rocky Horror and plans to use exclusively for gratifying his homosexual lust.

 Anyone watching this movie and not knowing anything about homosexuality will not come out thinking that it is anywhere near normal behavior. In fact, the transvestites aren’t even human. They are aliens from the planet Transsexual in the galaxy Transylvania. They came down here in a time warp and oh well nevermind. The point is that this movie and how it was seen is indicative of how people thought about homosexuality in the 1970s. It was underground, it was extreme, and it was something you did in secret in the middle of the night with a bunch of other like-minded weirdos. (p.s. Don’t let that last line fool you into thinking I don’t heartily recommend this movie.)

 Let it be noted that “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” has never been associated with homophobia. It was largely successful only in neighborhoods with a large homosexual population. So unlike “A Birth of a Nation,” it speaks less about societal prejudice than it does about the type of person who engages in the type of taboo that will end up ostracizing themselves from society. In other words, it takes an extreme person to openly engage in the type of behavior that will eventually cost them family, friends, and church (as coming out in the 1970s regularly did). Would a normal person be able to make that choice? And if they did, is it something that can only be done halfway?

 

Philadelphia (1993) – Directed by Jonathan Demme 

 

 You can’t ignore a dreaded deadly infectious disease. Homosexuality for the longest time was something slept under the rug and ignored. You could live your entire life without noticing that it ever existed. And then in the eighties and early nineties, thousands of people started dying each year from a new sexually transmitted disease named A.I.D.S., a disproportionate number of them having contracted the disease through homosexual relations. And these weren’t just the stereotypical “freaks” you might meet at a shady cineplex in the middle of the night; these were well known famous heterosexuals who (gasp!) had been gay all along. People like Rock Hudson and Freddie Mercury, involuntary outed as homosexuals on their deathbeds.

 A.I.D.S. unlike homosexuality was especially visible. Someone who had it wasted away in front of your eyes. Other times they developed sizable lesions on their skin. This is what happens to the lawyer Andrew Beckett (played by Tom Hanks in an Oscar Winning Role) in “Philadelphia.” One of the partners of his law firm recognizes his lesions as the result of A.I.D.S. and not long after, Beckett finds himself fired for incompetence by the same colleagues that just made him a partner and put him in charge of one of their biggest cases. Of course, Beckett was fired not because he was incompetent. He was not even fired because he had A.I.D.S. He was fired because his disease outed him as a homosexual and to the partners of his law firm this means that he is an unfit degenerate (think Dr. Frankenfurter in “Rocky Horror”). But Andrew Beckett is a lawyer and he knows there are laws against discrimination (i.e. formulating opinions about others not based on their individual merits, but rather on their membership in a group with assumed characteristics.) Armed with that legal rationale, Andrew Beckett takes his former partners to court for unlawful termination.

 This movie could have just been simply a court battle between Andrew Beckett and his former partners, but these forces are actually both antagonists in this story. The main character is the lawyer that represents Andrew Beckett, one Joe Miller (played by Denzel Washington.) I refer to him as the main character because Joe Miller is the person who changes during the story. The character of Joe Miller is not unlike the white racist sheriff in “In the Heat of the Night.” He starts off homophobic. He is afraid he may contract A.I.D.S. by shaking Andrew’s hand. He finds homosexual sex disgusting. In one scene, he gets especially angry when he is mistaken as gay in public because he has taken on Beckett’s case. But as a lawyer (and just maybe as an African American) he understands discrimination and as the story progresses, he not only comes to understand that was Andrew Beckett unlawfully terminated but that he too has engaged in it himself. He starts seeing this person not as a homosexual with A.I.D.S. but as a complex and decent person who just happens to be a homosexual. Spending time with people will do that. It’s only human.

 

 Ellen, “The Puppy Episode” (1997) 

 

 Because of our society’s love affair of new technology, social change seems to happen quicker nowadays. This TV episode only happened four years after “Philadelphia,” but I include because it is one of those watershed moments where tolerance really started to pick up steam. After this aired, you started seeing gay characters in TV series and movies everywhere. It was no longer a problem anymore as far as Hollywood was concerned.

 And I would argue that one of the biggest reasons is the type of person who started coming out around this time. These were not freaks like the creatures of “Rocky Horror Picture Show,” that cavorted in horror labs and mocked family and church. These weren’t even those that were publicly respected but had succumbed to a dreaded disease brought upon by engaging in secret lifestyles. This was an entirely different breed of public homosexual. In 1997 Ellen Degeneres came out twice. She came out as a lesbian in her personal life and as her TV character “Ellen” in the famous, “Puppy Episode.” (This move would eventually get her TV show cancelled and would put her out of work for three years.)

 There is one striking thing that it is just too obvious to overlook about Ellen Degeneres. She is not a terrible person. She was a completely clean comedian. She never cursed, never was vulgar, and mainly joked in that Seinfeldesque vein of observational humor and quirky thoughts. Her show was strictly PG. And when she came out, she did it in a genuinely funny and nice way. She wasn’t angry with anybody. If you were homophobic, she seemed to go out of the way to hold your hand and guide you through it. It is one thing to say you don’t want Dr. Frankenfurter around your children, but how can you keep a straight face and say the same thing about Ellen.

 

 Getting an honorable mention from this year is the Kevin Kline comedy, “In and Out.” I won’t say too much about it other than it too is about the coming out of a really nice character, a romantic literature professor. Here is my favorite scene in the movie.

 

  Milk (2008) – Directed by Gus Van Sant 

 

 The first I ever heard of Harvey Milk, was a discussion in a criminology class about “The Twinkie Defense.” A lawyer from San Francisco claimed that his client, a man by the name of Dan White, was not responsible for the assassination of the Mayor of San Francisco and a city supervisor named Harvey Milk because he was hopped up on too much junk food. The jury may have agreed because they only gave Dan White a four-year prison term. That may seem odd to you. Dan White murdered two elected officials and received only four years from the jury.

 Well maybe it would make more sense if I told you that Harvey Milk was the first openly gay public official ever elected in this country and more can be attributed to him for the successes of the early gay rights movement than any other public figure. The movie “Milk” chronicles the life of Harvey Milk (played by Sean Penn in an Oscar winning role) and is narrated by a lone Harvey Milk at his kitchen table giving a living will into a tape recorder in the event that he would be assassinated, which he eventually would be. This movie is more than just a great biopic though. It is also a great movie about American democracy, because it shows just how one man can use those great freedom loving tools, politics and capitalism, to change society.

Harvey Milk did not like how the street businesses in his community discriminated against his fellow homosexuals. So he made a list of all the gay-friendly businesses in town and all the not gay-friendly businesses in town. Then he networked with his community. He got everyone to stop buying things from businesses that were run by assholes. This works. Soon enough, the neighbor that gave Harvey Milk a less than polite welcome finds himself having to be polite in order to keep his business afloat. Milk then uses his existing network to do favors for other local forces like unions, newspapers, and political parties. He gains influence and runs for office. As an open homosexual, he introduces the topic in debates. He organizes protests and rallies to make the issue more visible. He goes across the state to such hostile places as Orange County to spread his sometimes very unwelcome message. He cleans up the epidemic of dog shit at the local park (Not a LGBT issue but still important to society). He is a great role model for those who would bring about how social change. He gets rid of his hippie beard and wears a suit. He often tells jokes to break the ice of with people he is attempting to recruit to his cause. And he is willing to work with other not-like minded people (for instance Dan White) on other issues they may agree on.

 This movie holds a special place for me because it helped evolve my view on LGBT issues. Until I had seen it, gay marriage, was something that I considered none of my business. I felt I did not have to care about it one way or another. Then I saw a scene in this movie that really took me by surprise. Harvey Milk is having a birthday party at the capitol when Dan White shows up drunk. Dan White, who is not doing well politically at that point, goes up to Harvey Milk and claims that homosexuality is merely an issue that helps Milk get elected. And this is when I expected Harvey Milk to do the Ellen Degeneres thing and calmly and jokingly explain to Dan White that he is mistaken but it is okay because he understands where he is coming from. But Milk does not do that. Milk gets angry. He informs Dan that this is not an “issue.” “This is our lives we’re fighting for,” he says. Milk goes on to inform Dan that he has had two lovers in the past that he had to talk out of suicide (one more will actually go on to commit suicide before the movie is over.) He could not be more serious about the importance of what he is trying to accomplish.

 The message to me was clear. It is not okay that you don’t understand or don’t care to understand or wish that the whole thing would just go away. The time for the apologetic friendliness of Ellen-types is over. Now is the time to finally realize that lives are being ruined. Life, that thing you only get one of. This is far more important than the semantics of what the word “marriage” means. Admittedly the Bible is against it. But then again the Bible believes in the power of witches and that the sun revolves around the Earth. Just because the Bible is wrong doesn’t mean that God doesn’t exist, it just means that the people who wrote the Bible lived in the goddamn Bronze Age. Gain some context, a little empathy, and grow the fuck up.

 

Dark Shadows (4/5 Stars)

Death to Hippies

 It may surprise you in this age of vampire saturation that director Tim Burton, the reigning godfather of cinematic spookiness, has never done a vampire movie before. “Dark Shadows,” is his first. The same goes for his frequent collaborator, Johnny Depp. He has been pale and gothic plenty of times but he has never actually sucked blood. He does it well, or at least he does it better than they do it in “Twilight.”

The vampire in question is Barnabas Collins, the son of a very wealthy fishmonger merchant. Circa 1772, the father founded a fishing colony in New England, named it Collinswood, and built a huge gothic mansion on a really big hill overlooking the sea. Barnabas had a youthful fling with the housemaid, but never committed, instead marrying a woman of more noble birth. Unfortunately for him, the maid was a witch. Out of mad love, she killed his parents, murdered his wife, and turned him into a vampire. Then after he still refused her advances, she revealed to the townspeople his accursed nature and they buried him alive in a coffin in the middle of the woods. There he stayed wide-awake for two hundred years. In 1972, a modern day construction crew accidentally uncovered Barnabas’ coffin. Barnabas, always so polite, apologizes before murdering everyone. He was so very thirsty.

 If any of this seems like kind of heavy stuff to you, you wouldn’t be Tim Burton. To a guy like that, this is the set up of a comedy. Well, sort of. I wouldn’t exactly call Tim Burton a comedian. But there are plenty of small jokes. Mostly fish-out-of-water stuff involving the interaction between gothic horror and hippies. Sort of like Scooby Doo in reverse. Now that I think of it, Scooby Doo wasn’t all that funny either, but I still liked it. And this movie too. I liked this movie.

 At this point in my Tim Burton fandom, I have decided it is okay to overlook the things he has always been bad at because he does other things so well. For instance, with any other director, I would be dismayed if they spent so much time doing remakes and adaptations. Tim Burton does almost nothing else. (“Alice in Wonderland” “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” “Sweeney Todd”). But this is okay, because Burton has consistently proven that when he is not following an already completely worked out story, what we generally end up with is a narrative mess (“Mars Attacks!” “Planet of the Apes” “Sleepy Hollow”). What he excels at though is art direction, makeup, costumes, etc. and in this he can be considered one of the best.

 “Dark Shadows,” is apparently a remake of a 70s soap opera melodrama. I bet it was really bad. Anyway, its basic story affords Burton a chance to put his trademark look on something he has no business sticking his dreadfully macabre hands on: flower power. You’ve never seen hippiedom look so pale and haunted. We are at the point probably where we tend to take for granted the amount of vision and effort Burton puts into the look of his movies. This movie, just like his others, is ridiculously gorgeous. The best parts of the movie involve the juxtaposition of the ancient occult Barnabas with beanbags, disco balls, and a van full of hippies. My favorite scene takes place around a campfire where Barnabas describes being locked in his coffin for 200 years and other horrors. All the hippies think he is really deep and weird and stuff. I can only imagine that this might parallel what Tim Burton faced in the 70s when he was growing up. He seems not made for that time. I bet he really got a kick out of having Barnabas murder all the hippies at the end of the scene for no particular reason. I know I did.

 Artistic direction in a Tim Burton doesn’t end with inanimate objects. The actors themselves are cast because they look like they belong in a Tim Burton movie. The perfect example of this is Helena Bonham Carter with her bone-white complexion and large eyes. Nobody looks better undead. Then there is Michelle Pfieffer, that most skeletal of beauties. Chloe Grace Moretz appears in her first Tim Burton movie and fits right in as well. A nice surprise is the witch, played by Eva Green. She is not one someone would expect to see in this type of movie. Her abnormal attractiveness is more suited for normal movies. She was after all a very good Bond Girl in “Casino Royale.” But notice the way she smiles just a little too widely or the way she swivels her head on that just a little too long of a neck of hers. As a witch, her beauty is only skin-deep and she has found a way to play that really well.

 Of course, nobody is better at downplaying attractiveness than Johnny Depp who has basically made a career out of it. What him and Burton seem to have completely in common is a strong aversion to sensuality. It is a rather common theme in their movies (Edward Scissorhands, Corpse Bride, Sweeney Todd). Having said that, this movie has plenty of sex in it, or at least plenty for a Tim Burton movie. (Vampire sex it must be said is incredibly violent. I wonder if that’s a modern evolution of the character or whether all the old books described it as such as well.) That doesn’t mean that anyone besides the witch is enjoying it though. Depp in particular is as stiff as possible about it like he always is, which I have always found humorous and still do.

 One more thing about Depp must be mentioned: his extravagant vocabulary. It’s ridiculously first-rate and has been for about a decade in almost every movie he has been in (Pirates of the Caribbean, Rango, Rum Diary etc.) As all these movies have different writers I am beginning to think that Depp must be smuggling a thesaurus to work each day and punching up his lines.
 

The Avengers (3/5 Stars)

It’s Okay!

 I never read comic books as a kid nor did I have a ton of video games, but I did own action figures, mostly Star Wars and Legos. Action figures, unlike books and video games, do not come with their own story lines so kids had to use their imaginations in order to have fun. I do not recall any particular story of mine that is worth repeating suffice to say they all had one thing in common: continual cartoonish violence. You know the kind where you take two action figures and you harmlessly smack them against each other and make kablooie noises. I remember it fondly in that odd nostalgic way people tend to glorify the stupidity of children (or innocence, either one), but I would not insist on making a feature film out of it, which, I would argue is essentially what “The Avengers,” is: A story composed of the kind of action sequences I would have come up with when I was ten years old....and had access to several hundred million dollars.

Don’t get me wrong. “The Avengers,” is okay and I must admit I haven’t the slightest idea how they could have made it better. It seems fated to be mediocre due to the cast of characters that are included. The Avengers are composed of Iron Man/Tony Stark (played by Robert Downey Jr.) a genius mechanic/billionaire who wears an indestructible suit that can fly and has plenty of machine guns and missiles. Then there is the Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff (played by Scarlett Johansson) who is good at martial arts and uses pistols. Then there is Hawkeye/Clint Barton (played by Jeremy Renner) who is good at archery. Then there is The Hulk/Bruce Banner (played by Mark Ruffalo) who is a brilliant scientist who involuntary turns into an uncontrollable green monster with unlimited strength whenever he gets angry. Then there is Thor (played by Chris Hemsworth) who is an immortal demi-god with an all-powerful hammer that can summon lightning storms. Finally, there is Captain America/Steve Rogers (played by Chris Evans). He has a patriotic uniform and a nifty shield. It should be fairly obvious that these superheroes aren’t exactly equal. I mean Captain America may be strong, but not as strong as the Hulk, and he can’t fly like Iron Man, and he has no ability for stealth like the Black Widow, and he has no long range ability like Hawkeye, and he isn’t educated like Bruce Banner or Tony Stark. In fact, he really doesn’t know anything about the last fifty years because he was cryogenically frozen during that time. (He is otherwise their leader though.) Contrast that with Thor, who as an indestructible and immortal god should be able to beat the tar out of every other Avenger in every scenario. The presence of a superhero such as Thor also requires the story to have a super-villain with an almost equal amount of power as him. Enter his brother, the semi-god Loki and an army of mean-looking aliens with supposedly superior technology.

The movie stages two rather huge battle sequences. One takes place on a flying aircraft carrier (largest waste of taxpayer money EVER) and another in Midtown Manhattan. Besides the death of one person, it may surprise you that nobody else gets seriously hurt or dies. No superheroes, no military personnel, and no civilians end the movie with anything more than the faintest scrapes, cuts, or bruises. In fact, I would argue the greatest special effect used during the full scale destruction of a completely inhabited Manhattan is the framing of the shots in such a way that we never actually see anybody getting hurt. This sense of total unreality is what reminded me of playing with plastic toys as a kid. Nothing is real. Otherwise Tony Stark would be dead ground meat in his fancy suit after every battle he is in. And can the Hulk really survive a multitude of rockets launched point blank into his face without a single blemish occurring?

 For some reason it has become increasingly difficult for blockbusters to achieve the very reason they exist: to excite and thrill. It is not hard to have violence that is exciting. It simply must include actual danger or actual pain or the threat of actual pain. To demonstrate how little you need, take a look at the movie, “Black Swan.” In particular, the scene where the main character notices a cut near her nail cuticle, tries to fix it, and accidentally pulls off a strip of her skin. When I watched that it made me recoil. Why then would Thor knocking Iron Man 100 feet into the air with his magic hammer have little to no effect at all? Well, because it results in nothing but a dazed look. It must not have hurt. A movie with action sequences that have no effect on the characters is not exciting. It is desensitizing. Pretty soon it does not matter how big the explosions are, all I recognize is their impotence. What is more, when I do not understand how things happen, I stop caring pretty soon if they happen at all. I don’t get how Iron Man can survive all the blows he takes. I don’t understand how The Hulk can beat up a floating leviathan one thousand times his size. And will someone please tell me how the hell Scarlett Johansson can beat up burly men three times her size. She has no muscles. None.

 I suppose some of this has to do with the MPAA. There is this strange rule out there that allows PG-13 movies all the gunfire, explosions, and metropolitan destruction they want just as long as you do not see anybody getting hurt. However, if you wanted to see a man realistically cut off his own arm like James Franco does in “127 Hours” you would get an R rating. In effect, violence is morally okay just as long as you don’t show the consequences of it. Oh, will someone think of the children. They are our future. But unreal hammed up violence is not in itself bad. I’ve seen plenty of movies I loved that worked just like that. The best of director Robert Rodriguez (Sin City, Planet Terror, Machete, Desperado) excels in that sort of thing. The difference though is that these movies are fun exploitation movies that don’t give us a bunch of scenes containing impassioned speeches about the importance of it all. “The Avengers,” needs to be more uniform in its purpose. If you are going to make the action sequences ridiculous then make the characters and dialogue ridiculous, and do it the whole way through. And please no intended-to-be-taken-seriously-patriotism. This country deserves better than that. “Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol” was a great action movie. So, for that matter, was “Black Dynamite.” “The Avengers,” works best when it treats itself like it should: a joke. There are enough self-referential and belittling jabs that make the movie pretty funny throughout its run time. Quite a lot of these are provided by the best character, Tony Stark, played brilliantly as always by Robert Downey Jr. Mark Ruffalo, the nth incarnation of Bruce Banner, does a solid job as well. I still wish Thor’s weakness was stupidity and not arrogance (see my review of “Thor”) and I never saw Captain America’s movie so I guess I missed the part where it makes sense for our symbol against Nazism be a guy that looks like the poster child for Aryan machismo. Scarlett Johansson and Jeremy Renner like most interesting actors continue their star rising descent into less interesting movies.

Bernie (3/5 Stars)

There is at least one thing we know for certain. Bernie Tiede shot Majorie Nugent, an eighty three year old woman in the back four times, than stuffed her lifeless corpse in a freezer where it stayed for the next nine months. Why he did it is a lot less clear, and amazingly, whether he deserves to be punished for it is also up for debate in this new “comedy” directed by Richard Linklater and starring Jack Black as the title character.

This story is based on events that took place in the small town of Carthage, Texas in the 1990s. The movie even has most of the townspeople of Carthage cast as themselves. They interact with the movie stars who are playing the principal characters and give interviews directly to the camera at other times. So this movie has a novel structure as a half documentary, half movie. It is more weird than effective though and leaves a plenty to be explained and uncovered. 

The story deserves to be on the same newspaper page as “Man bites dog.” Bernie Tiede was just the nicest guy. Everyone loved him. He was the town’s assistant funeral director. His employer describes him as the most qualified employee he had ever had. He taught sunday school. He sang in the church choir. He directed and starred in town plays. He made a habit of giving gifts to everyone he met. He even would visit widows after the funerals of their husbands and console them with flowers. One such widow was  Majorie Nugent, played here by Shirley Maclaine. In addition to being his ultimate victim, she also happened to be the richest person in town.

Majorie had no friends and had not spoken anyone in her family for years. Her sister plays herself in the movie and describes her as a hateful mean person. Bernie basically became her one and only friend. They started doing everything together, even going on trips and cruises to exotic places, (always first class.) Bernie started doing everything for her. She fired her entire household staff. At one point she rewrote her will to give everything to Bernie. Over time it became just her and Bernie in that big house of hers.

Was it romantic? Well, probably not. Bernie was a closet homosexual. The police found several videotapes of him having sex with local married men when they raided his house. Anyway, one day, for no real reason (to hear Bernie tell it), Bernie killed her. Nobody noticed for nine months. In the meantime, Bernie started giving away all of her money. He bought people cars, financed local businesses, and donated a new wing to the local church. In all, it is estimated that he spent 1 million of her money on the townspeople of Carthage. (He never really got around to paying off his own credit cards with her money though.) Finally Majorie's stockbroker became suspicious and got the police to search the house. They found her stiff corpse in a freezer in the garage. Bernie confessed. When they asked him why he never disposed of the body, he said he wanted to give her a respectable funeral someday.

The town district attorney, Danny Buck, had the case transferred to a different town because he feared Bernie wouldn’t get a fair trial. Townspeople started telling him that a local jury would never convict Bernie. “You people are aware that he confessed, you know,” a tired Danny Buck says. Bernie was convicted and is spending life in prison. He teaches four classes and does a lot of good work in the big house now. Apparently people really like him there too. 

The movie isn’t really that funny. This is mostly because it is rather tough to make a joke out of the actual murder of an elderly woman. Her not being a nice person never quite makes it okay. Bad behavior can usually be mined for laughs without any real problems, but there is a line, and this movie crosses it. 

This movie would make a fine double feature with Jim Carrey’s superior “I Love You, Phillip Morris,” another true story of a closeted homosexual from Texas that was just the nicest guy and sang in the church choir and went and stole millions of dollars. What that movie accomplishes and "Bernie" doesn’t is provide some decent motivation for the events that occurred. I thought I basically understood the Jim Carrey character. I never found out who the real "Bernie" was. Sometimes it seems like we are seeing something on the screen that couldn’t have possibly have happened the way it did. For instance, after shooting the old lady, Bernie cries over her dead body. Did that really happen? If so, how do we know exactly how he reacted? These are vague areas that cry out for a treatment usually reserved for an Errol Morris documentary, which is at least clearer about what is uncertain.

Apparently just after shooting her, Bernie went to the dress rehearsal of the town musical he was directing. Ironically it was a production of the “Music Man,” and Bernie played the lead role as the charming con artist that dupes a small town into giving him a bunch of money. Is Bernie a confidence man? The movie never takes a strong stand on this subject and the possibility is only hinted at. In fact, the only person this movie really does not seem to approve of completely is the district attorney, Danny Buck. Matthew McCounaghey plays him in caricature as a slick egotistical sensationalist. His portrayal is debatable to say the least. Bernie killed a woman. I think we could say Danny Buck was justified in prosecuting him in court over it.

An opportunity missed here is an exploration of the tragic elements of this story. This is the second movie based on a true story about closet homosexuals in Texas that end up doing terrible things. I think you can make an argument that the crimes they commit are linked to the marginalization of homosexuality in Texan society. In “I Love You, Phillip Morris,” the man’s wife bluntly asks a doctor if the gay thing and stealing is related. I would argue that it is in the sense that lying everyday to everyone about an essential part of one’s identity will probably aid a person’s ability to lie in general. What was Bernie doing accompanying little old ladies? He was a very nice man who apparently everyone liked. Did he not deserve love or marriage? Bernie’s reasons for being nice to Majorie Nugent in the first place was that he had noticed how she was so lonely. (The money was there as well but that does not seem like his entire motivation.) As a gay man in Texas, he would have probably known quite a bit about that.

Five Films Series: The Hunger Games

Five Films Series: The Hunger Games

Smile! You're on TV!

You do not have to look very hard to find real life parallels in this spring's smash hit, "The Hunger Games," in today's oversaturated culture of "reality" programming. (i.e. The sensationalism, the unfair behind the scenes manipulation of supposed fair contests, the shamelessness of it all.) But try not to be too clever about it. In my last five films series I attempted to show the transformation of a topic over the years. In this article I will attempt to show the opposite. I will show a topic, media sensationalism, that I argue has not changed at all, technological advances aside.

This is a provocative topic, especially in the media. You don’t have to go very far to find some TV, newspaper, or radio pundit complaining about how the mainstream media is biased and sensationalized. And they are correct in one aspect; media in general is biased and sensationalized. (They are also very wrong in another when they claim that there is such a thing as a uniform “mainstream” media. If you are a pundit that has a big enough audience, you are automatically a part of the “mainstream” media and if other people in the “mainstream” media do not agree with your point of view than logically the “mainstream” media is not uniform.But that is beyond the point of this essay.) But it always has been and using five great films from the past I hope to at the very least dispel the notion that there once was a nostalgic “golden age” of honor in the press. I also hope to point out some of the inherent idiosyncrasies of the medium of film and television that tend to stray the news to bias and sensationalism even when the people behind the news have the best of intentions. And maybe just maybe I might say something about human nature.

1940 – His Girl Friday, directed by Howard Hawks

A manager of a newspaper learns that his ex-wife and ex-star reporter is engaged to be married to an insurance salesman. So over the course of the day he pulls out all of the stops (legal and illegal) to get her to stay on for one more story in an attempt to break up the engagement and get back his love, and just as important, his best employee. The character of the big newspaperman was rampant in early cinema. They were either adventurous crusaders or dirty sensationalist manipulators or both (Citizen Kane?). Walter Burns is his name in this movie (played by Cary Grant) and he is the epitome of the latter. Whatever he is doing in this story, it sure isn’t ethical journalism. Witnesses are goaded, conclusions are jumped to, and lying and scheming is usual business. When revealed, more lying and scheming comes follows, just in louder shouts and with less shame. In fact, at several parts, in order to delay the departure of the couple, Walter Burns, goes so far as to frame the insurance salesman for several crimes and thrown in jail. Then he kidnaps his mother. Really.

The big newspaper story the movie centers around the imminent execution of a cop killer. The newspaper takes the cop killers side and plays the angle that the killer was insane at the time and that the politicians are ignoring that fact because the cop was a “colored” man and they are trying to capture the “colored” vote. (It is always a sad thing when you watch great old movies and something racist casually pops up.) Was the guy really crazy? Well, that’s debatable. The point of course is that the newspaperman cares less about the story than using the story to further newspaper circulation and get back his girl. It’s all a means to an end to him, and he couldn’t care less if people are getting run roughshod over while it happens. Walter Burns is a big strong confident man that talks super fast and lives his job. He does not have time for pauses and self-reflection. Tomorrow’s paper needs to be done by tonight and it has to be better than every other paper in town.

What makes this movie a great movie is that his ex-fiancé can match the big newspaperman, line for line, and snarky remark for snarky remark. The rapid-fire dialogue in, “His Girl Friday,” is perhaps the fastest ever seen in any movie made then and probably since. (At least I haven’t seen a movie with faster dialogue.) Generally speaking, a page of dialogue in a screenplay represents about a minute of screen time. Reports from “His Girl Friday,” had them fitting four pages in a minute. It is a rather incredible thing to watch. Here is the entire movie, FOR FREE!

1951 – Ace in the Hole, directed by Billy Wilder 

We tend to share a glorified memory of the 1950s built on lots of nostalgic movies made in the 1970s and 1980s, but watching the movies actually made in that decade make me wonder whether it was actually one of the worst decades in our history. You cannot match even today the cynicism and bleakness of an average 1950s movie, the golden age of hard heartless men and loveless untrustworthy women. Everyone smoked and drank nonstop and, let’s face it, was probably suffering from some intense untreated PTSD leftover from two huge wars mixed in with a very present threat of a potential nuclear war.

One of the more cynical movies is “Ace in the Hole,” a story about the disgraced journalist Chuck Tatum, (played by Kirk Douglas) fresh fired from several big papers out east and finding himself in a remote town in New Mexico working for the local rag. He hates it there and hopes for that one big story that will rehabilitate his career and get him the hell out of the dump. Then one day, it happens. There is a cave-in at the local mine and a man is trapped inside and can’t get out. An Ace in the Hole! Chuck Tatum knows exactly how to milk that story for everything it is worth. The only problem is that if the local excavation team does the job properly, the trapped man will be out in two days. Not good. Chuck needs at least a week of fresh sensational newspaper reel to turn the story into a full-fledged media circus. So he convinces the local politicians and police to have the excavation team drill from the top (which will take a week) instead of coming in from the mouth of the cave itself. How does he do this? He promises to right glowing reviews of the politicians and police about their response to the emergency. The man’s wife is in on it too. She hates the small town as well and thinks her husband is a loser for choosing to live there. She cheers up only when tourists start filling up her restaurant as they stop by to gawk at the mine. She starts charging them admission tickets in order for them to park their cars on her lawn. Meanwhile, in the mine, the trapped man slowly starts dying.

Pundits get “outraged” today by simple video edits of telephone calls or YouTube videos that take things out of context. But this sort of thing has been happening forever and it is a curious thing to get angry at what seems to be a natural occurrence. It should be remembered that until very recently in history, newspapers or any other type of media did not even attempt to pretend to be objective. It is said that the entire Spanish-American War of 1898 can arguably be credited to lies perpetrated by the newspapers of William Randolph Hearst. Since this is not a new thing the question of why reporters enrich their stories with unreliable evidence or fabricate them entirely should not be asked without the obvious counterpoint, why are they so continually successful? As Chuck Tatum says, “Bad news sells best, because good news is no news.” Once again, here is the full movie, courtesy of YouTube.

 

1976 – Network, directed by Sidney Lumet 

Howard Beale, the widowed, fatherless, hard-drinking anchor of the UBS news hour has just been fired for low ratings. Since, as he says on air during his next to last night on the program, that he has nothing left going for him in his life, he plans to commit suicide during the next show. “You ought to get a hell of a rating out of that. 50 Share, Easy.” Predictably, the ratings skyrocket, but not before Beale is fired for calling life bullshit (instead of apologizing as he was supposed to do) on his final night. Behind the scenes though is a producer named Diana Christensen, who lobbies to bring Howard Beale back on air to yell bullshit some more because obviously it is what the people want to hear. Think of the ratings! “For goddsakes Diana, we’re talking about putting a manifestly irresponsible man on National Television,” says the head of the news department. She nods. Exactly.

This is the heavyweight movie in this series of films. Network, is one of the best written screenplays ever, the best evidence being that almost every actor that spoke the words ended up with an Oscar  nomination (a record five total) with three winning (Peter Finch for Best Actor, Faye Dunaway for Best Actress, and Beatrice Strait for Best Supporting Actress). The influence of “Network,” can be seen in many news networks today and in weirdly the absolute wrong way it should have been. Howard Beale, the mad prophet of the airwaves, is almost a venerated figure nowadays, with plenty of pundits (Glenn Beck comes to mind) actually seeming to draw on him for inspiration, and at least one recent politician from New York who used his catch-phrase, “I’m Mad as Hell and I’m not Going to Take it Anymore!!!” in a campaign. What must be remembered though is that Howard Beale is quite literally an insane person and he is not on air because suddenly the news division at UBC cares about the “truth,” or “telling it like it is,” but because they have realized they can draw a gigantic profit by putting on a show with almost no production value (basically a guy shouting bullshit with no actual investigative reporting) and selling it to an audience, angry because of a depressed economy and a high crime rate, that simply wanted somebody to articulate its anger.

At the same time, and this I must admit, Howard Beale is almost impossible to take one’s eyes off. He is an unforgettable character with several memorable passionate speeches (Finch won a Best Actor Oscar for what is essentially a supporting role). The sophisticated amongst us will tend to look down upon the sensationalized portion of our media. We will belittle the TMZ’s, the Reality TV shows, and the Angry Talking Heads on the 24-hour networks, but this overlooks the fact that these shows are sometimes genuinely entertaining (not informative, but entertaining). Here’s a good example. Take a morning and listen to AM Radio, Rush Limbaugh, why not? He is after all, one of the best. Notice how he talks with as much fervor and passion during his advertising segments as he does when he talks about politics or the news. This should tell you something about the show. The fact that he is always so provocative no matter what the subject is should be seen as having less to do with his actual feelings than what can be said is a professional style. Words spoken are generally more exciting when spoken with righteous indignation, and his job is to be exciting, not so much to inform. It is okay to enjoy these shows, just as long as you aren't actually relying on them to be informed. No, you should not be watching Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show," for news value. It isn't news. It's entertainment. Perhaps someday I will write an essay on how one can tell which they are watching at any given time.



1987 – Broadcast News, directed by James L.L. Brooks 

But let us stop being so cynical for a moment. How about a movie with nice likable characters that only want to do the right thing. I give you “Broadcast News,” one of my favorite movies and a perfect demonstration of why television probably cannot be trusted with the truth even with the best of intentions behind it. This movie was directed by James L.L. Brooks and is based it on his own experience at a news station. It is about a producer named Jane Craig (played by Holly Hunter) who is fighting the good fight of substantive journalism over flash sensationalism with her colleague Aaron Altman (played by Albert Brooks) a veteran reporter and an expert on everything that reporters should be experts about. Entering the station one day is Tom Grunick (played by William Hurt) who freely admits that he is not a good reporter nor very smart, but is probably the best choice for anchor. What he has people cannot teach. He is good looking, poised, and a really nice guy. Unlike Aaron who is not so good looking, snarky, and increasingly bitter and mean that he is being overlooked and underappreciated.

Admittedly, this is more of a story about people than a satire on the news (there is a love triangle), but what concerns us is the news. There are several things I would like to point out. First of all, the news is a deadline driven business. At the same time is an art form. So it follows that no matter how prepared everyone is, everything is still always rushed, because a news piece can always be made better with the time gained from good preparation. (See clip below of Joan Cusack running through the newsroom to make a deadline with her famous huge 80s hair.) The profession is exhausting and should only be considered by workaholics. Secondly, and here is the tragic thing. It does not matter how hard you work or how well the writing is, or how informative the report is, if it cannot be presented well. The success of Tom Grunick does not come from any scheming of his, but because he is likable. Whereas Aaron Altman fails even though he knows everything and can write anything because he does not like people, and in turn, is not liked by them. When Aaron finally gets the chance to anchor the news one night, he writes a very good monologue about a very important event. Unfortunately he starts sweating profusely on the air. Nobody in the audience even noticed the story. All they saw was a guy sweating a lot. In essence, you cannot present any story whatsoever on the news if you cannot make a good first impression. You need flash without distractions first. Substance comes later. Hopefully you can find a really good-looking person to anchor your newsroom who has the latter. This is presented persuasively in this movie by Oscar nominated screenplay and three Oscar nominated performances (Holly Hunter, Albert Brooks, and William Hurt). It is also a very funny movie and probably the most enjoyable of the five here.


2007 – The Fifth Season of “The Wire,” created by David Simon 

The Fifth Season of “The Wire,” is commonly known as the disappointing anti-climax to what “some people” say (and by that I mean me) is the best thing ever shot with camera. Anti-climax? Sure. But, disappointing? Not so much. To say that would be to glean over what exactly the makers were trying to say about the first four seasons. That would be: if we know what the problem is, why can’t we solve it? Enter the press room of the now defunct Baltimore Sun, facing cutbacks and low morale. It has on staff a couple of producers that are more interested in finding a better job at a better newspaper instead of making the newspaper that they are at competent and functional and a young reporter that is sensationalizing his stories instead of putting in the effort to do real journalism. The ultimate irony: every great story being told, all the important issues, all the fantastic characters in the series are completely missed by the newspaper as they chase a fictional serial killer of homeless people down in hopes of scoring a Pulitzer Prize. I can’t show you any of “The Wire” here on YouTube nor can I really ask you in good conscience to watch an entire TV series in a single article. But here is the creator, David Simon, speaking before Congress about the future of newspapers and his disdain for bloggers. It should be the least interesting part of this article, but probably, by far, the most informative.



I will see you in the dystopic future, where I am sure we will continue to have the same neverending problem with the media.

The Hunger Games (3/5 Stars)

The Reality TV Paradox

Great documentaries are lucky documentaries. The greatness of such films like “Hoop Dreams,” or the “Seven Up” series rely greatly on the unlikely coincidences that somehow were recorded by a camera. Would anybody have cared about the Rolling Stones documentary “Gimme Shelter,” if it did not just happen to accidentally chronicle a murder at a rock concert? Would the mockumentary “Borat” be as hilarious if Sacha Baron Cohen had not coincidentally hitchhiked onto that particular RV filled with those particular outrageous frat boys?

Now at the same time imagine that you were a movie or television studio that is attempting to create a documentary that will be predictably successful. How can you produce a predictably successful product that relies on coincidence? If you don’t do anything you are at the whim of fate and the documentary will either be bad or good depending on what you so happen to record. But if you do things to make sure that dramatic coincidences do occur, you are essentially writing the documentary, which in essence makes it cease to be a documentary. In the end, like much reality TV, you get a product that lacks dramatic effect because unlike real documentaries it is untruthful and manipulative and at the same time lacks the production value and professionalism of a documentary that is sincerely untruthful and manipulative, or in other words, a fictional movie.

I bring this up because, “The Hunger Games,” is a fictional movie about a reality TV show, and as such piles on layers of almost absurd complexity on how the characters are perceived depending on whether it is by us the movie audience, or the TV audience in the movie. In other words, the underlying emotions of a scene are generally undermined by the realization that it is all an act. And how much can you care about a person (even if it was a life and death situation) if you knew they were mugging at a camera at the same time?

I have given this movie three stars because I enjoyed it okay. But I want it also to be known that I have never seen a movie quite like this one, and that affirmation of originality should be seen as a sort of moral victory at least. The story takes place in a future where the United States has split itself into 12 districts and hosts an annual game that pits two randomly selected teenagers from each district into a fight to the death gladiatorial tournament. From district 12, there comes the 18-year-old Katniss Everdeen (played here by the 25-year-old Jennifer Lawrence) who volunteers for the tournament to save her 12-year-old sister from being selected. Also selected from her district is Peeta Mellark (played by Josh Hutcherson). They are whisked away from their poor coal-mining district to the big city where they are mentored by Haymitch Abernathy (played by Woody Harrellson) to be likable, because that is the best way to win these particular games. In other words, the games are not real. They are fake reality TV. Apparently a good old fight-to-the-death would not be predictably exciting enough. There is a whole behind the scenes room of producers here who manipulate the games. This can be done by releasing forest fires or releasing lethal wild animals into the tournament space whenever they feel it will add some spice. The most blatant form of cheating is to get sponsored. If you are “likable” enough, the head sponsors will send you a parachute containing a survival kits that can give you an edge over the competition. In other words, the “Hunger games” are bullshit. And to play into the whole “getting people to like you” survival game, Katniss and Peeta pretend a romance. This is original in that it is the central love story of the movie, and admittedly, I have never seen a movie so willingly and transparently admit that its central love story is contrived bullshit.

I suppose we are now at a point of idiotic media saturation where the only way to seem truthful is to exert the highest amount of cynicism. Everything about “The Hunger Games” is fake. The games are fake. The capital city that the games take place is composed of fake 3D generated architecture. The hairstyles and fashion of the inhabitants are grotesque, garish, and nonsensically exaggerated. (Actually I would admit this is perhaps some of the best effects of the movie. Whoever designed the costume and makeup had a field day with this movie. It is done much better than the action and done so well, that at least three quarters of this movie could be deemed a chick flick.) Every other tribute in combat is a one-dimensional stereotype whether it is the evil Cato (Big Evil Guy) or the innocent Rue (Small Innocent Girl). In fact, the only distinguishable human being seems to be the main character, Katniss Everdeen, played by Jennifer Lawrence, who when you think about it, may be the fakest character of all.

Oh boy, what did I mean by that? Well, Katniss is the type of person that does not like to bend toward conformity or try to get people to like her. She just wants to be herself. Now, whom does that remind you of? If you said you and only you, you’re an idiot. That should remind you of everybody. That description describes everybody. In fact, I would argue that Jennifer Lawrence’s best acting asset is her ability to act blank slate and call it individualism. This character has no foibles or eccentricities. It is just Jennifer Lawrence in her plain/beautiful persona having strong feelings for her family and a survival instinct. You would be hard-pressed to find a human being with neither of those characteristics. Do you think it just may be the best marketing ploy ever to take this one-size-fits-all persona and throw it into a story with so much fakery that it seems real by comparison? It would appeal to every person who feels that they are the only real person in a world of phonies (which I would argue is a real cliché way to feel).

The phenomenal success of “The Hunger Games,” should lead to some hilarious movie studio board meetings. I can just see it now: a bunch of middle aged rich guys brainstorming on how they can capitalize on a trend based on the utter distrust of manipulative media because it is ruled by a bunch of middle aged rich guys bent on manipulating people for profit. Vampires were easy. Now I suppose we will have a slew of movies made expressly for profit that aim to expose cliché and promote distrust in manipulative money-grubbing movies. It’s a shame that irony can’t kill.