Day 5: Seven Up! & 7 Plus Seven

Someone: Give me the child and I will give you the man.

The Up movies are a fascinating film experiment in which a documentary crew follows the lives of a group of English people from childhood (at the age of seven) and catching up with them every seven years. I'd heard of the "Up" series before and thought it sounded like a fantastic use of the preservational quality of film. One of the movies came out when I was in college, but I didn't want to see it before seeing the others and, so, years later, I am finally (ugh I can't believe I'm going to type this) catching up. (ba-da-bing!) I find that I don't have much to say about the filmmaking in the two movies I watched last night and this afternoon as the movies were competent and nothing stood out in terms of great filmmaking or bad filmmaking. The very premise of the project overshadowed everything while I was watching it.

Seven Up, made in black and white in 1964, introduces us to the group of people when they're seven years old. It's a nice selection, encompassing a variety of children from different economic backgrounds. A narrator informs us that the purpose of the whole thing is to reveal those who will be adults in the year 2000. The children are interviewed about a selection of topics, from what careers they want to pursue (there's a lot of astronaut replies here), how they feel about the opposite sex, and the violence that seems inherent in childhood (I think all of them agree that violence is necessary sometimes) to questions about the economic and racial diversity in Britain (one well-to-do girl's response to what she thinks of "colored" people was quite shocking to me when she replies, "I don't know any colored people and I don't want to, thank you very much." Kids say the darndest things!). The movie was 40 minutes long and felt just right at this length, though, knowing that there would be many follow-ups, I wished that I had gotten to know their names a lot better so that I could keep track of them in later movies.

The thing that intrigued me the most while watching this movie was the way it resembled one of those nature documentaries about zebras or some other animal. I mean, seriously, I didn't realize this, but seven year olds act so much like baby animals it's ridiculous. They "play" at everything. I know that many animals learn how to do the things they'll do in adulthood by playing at it and I know that humans are just socially advanced primates, but watching a little boy talk about how he likes to read the Financial Times or another boy talking about being a missionary , it really comes through clearly how much they are playing at the roles of adulthood. Though the parents are never seen and other adult figures in this movie are primarily absent, it's hard not to see the influence certain adults must have had on the way these kids see and emulate adulthood.

The first follow-up, 7 Plus Seven, is in color and reunites the filmmakers with these people when they are 14. One of them has moved to Australia and many of those who were friends and interviewed as a team in Seven Up! no longer go to the same schools. The differences apparent and the similarities still there after seven years is amazing. They are asked, basically, the same questions. Some of their attitudes have changed, others remain the same, and others remain the same but are nuanced a bit (the well-to-do girl says she has nothing against colored people, but if she never met one she'd be okay with that). One of the boys recants his wish to be an astronaut, saying it was just childish dreaming, while another is pursuing being a jockey just as he said he would when he was seven. One interesting addition to the questions is whether or not they believe in God and why or why not. I was amazed at the way most of them answered the first part with assurance, but when asked why or why not, they seemed to struggle, finding answers deep within themselves.

Of note here is the way these teenagers seem to be so uncomfortable with themselves. Many of them who, previously looked at the camera or the interviewer when they were seven, now gaze down, afraid to make eye contact with anything. This is particularly present in the girls, I noticed. They are asked what they think of the documentaries themselves and many of them express concern that they don't see the point. Several express displeasure in having the repsonsibility of representing kids who share their background. There is often a struggle to express individuality that leads to a near argument between two of the boys about whether labor strikes are a democratic right. In this scene, the two that are debating are on the ends of a couch and the third boy, in the middle, looks at the camera and the interviewer uncomfortably.

I love this. All of this. I can't wait to see the rest of them. It's strange to think that these people that I can see as children and teenagers from the vantage point of young adulthood will, in the course of 2 more movies, outgrow me. I am interested to see if the filmmaking grows further as the people do, beyond the leap from b&w to color. These two films are part of a bold concept, executed cleanly, and fascinating to watch for anyone interested at all in what people are, how they live, and what it means to grow.

Nick Nolte's Hotel Rwanda II: Awww Hell on Earth

Stand-up comedian Patton Oswalt has talked about the quintessential Nick Nolte moment that you can see in every Nick Nolte movie. Oswalt grimaces and mumbles in a Nolte-esque way, something along the lines of "awwwwgeeeeessssawwwwhelll" As Oswalt puts it, Nick Nolte has a moment in every movie where he just can't take it anymore.

I couldn't help but chuckle when, during Hotel Rwanda, Nolte, playing a beleagured U.N. officer, does indeed have one of these moments. He's told that he can have no troops to defend the Rwandans and suddenly, you see on his face that he just can't take it anymore. However, he doesn't make a sound. Is this a step toward a more mature, nuanced Nick Nolte? I like to think so.

Day 4: Hotel Rwanda

Brian Wilson: Help Rwanda, help help Rwanda.

I’m against genocides. I’d like to state that up front, just so there’s no confusion. In fact, to my mind, genocides are among the most vile and disgusting things that human beings do to one another. Hotel Rwanda is a movie about an attempted genocide in the country of Rwanda, one that took place while I was in high school and, due to the fine, fine journalism we have here in the United States, an attempted genocide I had little knowledge about prior to watching the movie. The movie plays a little like Schindler’s List in Africa, though it lacks a lot Schindler’s weight and panache and substitutes for these things a few genre tropes borrowed from other movies and filtered down to a PG-13 rating. It’s based on a true story, but doesn’t get into much of the nitty gritty that would make it feel as if it was based on a true story. The movie is certainly compelling and has a fantastic lead performance by Don Cheadle, but ultimately feels too pat, too safe, and too pandering.

Don Cheadle plays (pardon me as I check IMDB for the proper spelling here) Paul Rusesabagina, the manager of a Belgian-owned hotel in Rwanda that caters to wealthy clientele. There is a growing conflict between the Hutu people of Rwanda and the Tutsis, divisions among the people created, we are told, by the Belgians who used to run the country. Paul happens to be a Hutu, but we see very early on that he has no particular allegiance to this group, beyond what they can provide for the hotel. His job gives him access to many important political figures and he is very good at giving these people the sense of refinement they feel they are due. Through Paul’s dealing with these people, the political situation in Rwanda is efficiently delineated and we get a sense of the arbitrary, yet deadly, nature of the conflict. When things turn serious, Paul will turn to all of his associates on both sides of the conflict for aid and, more often than not, he is able, through bribery and bluffing to get it.

And, thankfully, things turn serious pretty quickly. We get a sense of Paul’s love for his family, for his belief in style and money as problem solvers, and the people he is connected to, and then, an order is given and the Hutus begin slaughtering the Tutsis. Paul’s wife and, by extension, his children, are Tutsis so, naturally, they must run, lest they be caught and killed. They eventually wind up at the hotel where they begin sheltering refugees from the conflict, surrounded on all sides by Hutu militants bent on killing them.

The rest of the movie details Paul’s attempt to keep the handful of refugees, particularly his family, at the hotel alive while planning for an escape. As he does this, the movie turns the screws on Paul pretty well and Cheadle is more than up to the challenge of expressing this. His anguish and fear is palatable and ratchets up nicely with each new obstacle until, at the characters lowest point, he begs for a solider to shoot him, telling him that it would be a blessing to be dead. In another moment after being confronted with the extent to which the atrocities in his country are occurring, Paul struggles to tie his tie and Cheadle shows first the amusement that such a simple act should give him trouble, then the frustration, until finally, he vents his anger, fear, and frustration at the clothes he is wearing.

These are nice moments, both hinging on Cheadle’s performance. This is where the movie succeeds. Where it fails is, I think, is in a certain lack of cinematic aggression. From what I know about it, the Rwandan genocide was a horrific event. Much of the killing was done by machetes. Machetes! That would hurt! One of the characters says “The machete is an awful way to die.” I would agree, but the movie provides nothing to support this. Despite a nicely implied moment where we witness through Paul’s eyes some rape cages, there’s a curious coyness to the movie about cruelty, barbarism, and sheer human awfulness. A moment that seems lifted from The Killing Fields shows us the extent of the damage, but there’s nothing, really, showing us the cause.

If this seems like I’m wishing for a movie that depicted more cruelty for the sake of displaying cruelty, I’m not. I just can’t get over this feeling of patness to the whole thing and am trying to pinpoint certain areas that seemed lacking. It may be that the character of Paul (who, I’m aware, was a real guy) never engages with any serious moral decisions. There’s a moment where he leaves his family that comes close, but the movie (and, I suppose, life) give him the opportunity to retract this decision that takes away whatever weight that decision had earlier. There’s a feeling of “Paul and his people good, other people bad” that seems far too black and white to truly reflect the situation at hand.

Additionally, at many points in the film, I was thinking of Assault on Precinct 13, Night of the Living Dead, a handful of other zombie movies, Schindler’s List, The Killing Fields, and The Road Warrior. This movie is aiming higher than many of those movies were, but could have used some of what they offered to intensify the conflict, cinematically. All of these movies have the distinction of depicting their conflicts to extremes, often grotesque, to ratchet up the viewer’s empathy for the besieged. Here, I felt a remove most of the time. I was watching a really well made recreation of an event, but never got right down into the dirt, the mud, the blood.

I liked this movie while I was watching it. I think it’s admirable for trying to bring attention to a conflict many Americans weren’t aware of. After I watched it, though, I felt a little conflicted about my feelings. I wondered about the PG-13 rating, wondered if the movie was toned down in an attempt to bring its message to a larger audience. I wondered if it was worth it. Liberal white guilt says, yes. The cinephile says no.

Questions, questions, questions

So, I'm wanting to make it a habit to write a "discussion question" in the mornings, simply to blog about thoughts I'm having with regard to movies. I'd love to hear thoughts from other peoples out there so, if something strikes you, I'd love it if you commented like it's 1999.

Last night, I was discussing good movies, bad movies, Gates of Heaven and the ending to A History of Violence with my girlfriend, Tara, and she said something that I liked a lot. It was something along the lines of "All movies ask questions of the audience. The good movies explore these questions, the bad ones try to answer them." I like that a lot. You could certainly apply that to all works of art, but for the purposes of this blog, I'll think about it in terms of movies.

I don't know if attempting to answer its questions makes a movie "bad" automatically, there are many other things about movies that can save them from that label (including something about pure kineticism that I'll probably start talking about when a couple of Rambo movies come in from Netflix [which will be pretty soon, actually]), but I believe that most of the great movies I've ever seen state their questions, show several possible answers, ask new questions of those answers, and, ultimately, throw their arms up in frustration and say to the audience, "well, what do you think?"

I think it's a particular problem in mainstream Hollywood fare, to be sure. I mean, I like mainstream Hollywood fair 99% of the time (I'm easily entertained) but Hollywood no longer produces great movies. The best you can hope for is something that, while it's telling you the "right" answer to the question it has posed, is speaking in a way that's entertaining. Perhaps the reason mainstream Hollywood movies have such a problem, on a whole, is that the questions they're asking are not conducive to exploration (Aliens invading? Your smarts will save you. Or your love of family. Or your love of family & God) They ask questions that can have only a "right" or "wrong" answer. Or questions that don't apply to anyone (when did you stop beating your wife?). Or maybe they're not even asking questions, mabye they're just assuming we all have the same questions and telling us the answers to them by showing how loveable retarded people can teach us all important lessons.

I'm not sure and am now throwing up my arms in frustration. What do you think? har har har.

Day 3: Gates of Heaven

Pet cemetery investor: Death is for the living and not for the dead.

Gates of Heaven is a documentary about pet cemetaries by the (rightfully) acclaimed filmmaker Errol Morris. I'm a fan of his work. In fact, I think that his The Fog of War is one of the best movies ever made. Now that I think about it, a case could be made for every movie of his that I've seen (The Thin Blue Line, Mr. Death, and Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control) being placed among the best movies ever made. His body of work is so honest, compassionate, and reveals so much about all kinds of human nature that it crosses over to the world of high art.

Gates of Heaven is both big and small at once. It is a quiet, contemplative film, but it deals with the way the living handle death in such a focused and nuanced way that it feels epic in scope. It's a beautiful movie, with exquisitely framed shots and no music but that which comes from an onscreen guitar. It's a masterpiece.

The movie details, through interviews with the particpants, the opening of a pet cemetary, its ultimate closure due to financing troubles, the movement of the dead animals to a second pet cemetary, and, along the way, the personalities of all those involved. In the middle, there is a priceless interview with an older woman that, while it may go on a bit too long, nearly had me believing that the whole thing was staged a la Christopher Guest;her manner and speech seemed so real it must have been faked.

On the surface, it is about these things, but really, it's about the way people live, what they choose to do with their lives. One segment of the film focuses on the Bubbling Well pet cemetary, run by the patriarchal Cal Harberts. The movie’s focus on the contrast between his two sons -- the older one worked in insurance for a while, the other flunked out of college -- as they both talk about working at the pet cemetary is exhilerating. The older brother, who has not worked there as long and, thus, is forced to work under his younger brother, talks in analytical terms about how much he has to learn, how he is trying to understand the "dealing with people" part. He is clearly excited when he talks about his work in the insurance business, bringing potential hires into his office where he has deliberately set up many trophies for the interviewee to see. The younger brother gets excited talking about his stereo, the songs he's written, and, when no one's around, plays music on powerful speakers into the valley where the dead animals reside. While these differences exist, they also seem linked in the same sadness of bad choices and failed aspirations.

The movie can best be summed up in a scene where Floyd McClure, who opens the doomed cemetary the movie begins with, talks about how awful he found the experience of visiting a rendering plant. He speaks at length about how awful the plant treats the dead animals, tearing them apart. He remarks that the smell of the place was awful. He says the smell of the place was so bad that, when he sat down for dinner, before he could enjoy the smell of a nice piece of meat... and here he pauses, looks away from the camera for a moment as if he’s just realized what he’s said, and then quickly adds, “or vegetables”… he had to take a sniff of his wine to clear his nostrils of the rendering scent. This moment, where you see a man take stock of the choices he's making in his life, unfolds cleanly before your eyes. The movie is full of these moments and, as a result, inspires similar thought in the viewer.

Going even further, the same man claims that God put these pets on earth solely to love and be loved. Throughout the film, the relationship of the owner to the pet is depicted as one of God to man. The owner is referred to as the pet’s master, and “good” pets are the ones that provide absolute fealty to the wishes of the owner, allowing total trust between the two entities. (This is nicely contrasted as the (priceless) older woman talks of betrayals she’s experienced at the hands of her very human son.) There’s much talk from grieving pet owners of whether or not their pets will be with them in heaven (and much agreement that the pets will, indeed, be there). The talk of God and the relationship of people to pets made me think that perhaps what we witness in a pet cemetery and, perhaps, all funerals, is an expression from the living of what they hope they, themselves, will experience from a grateful deity when they die.

Much to ponder, much to think about, and I don’t feel as if I’ve done the movie justice even with the help of my brilliant writer girlfriend. The movie reveals so much about these people by simply letting them talk. And the longer they go on, the more they reveal themselves. That very thought makes me want to stop right now. But it also makes me want to go on…

Quick post

A friend of mine admitted to me that he watched bad movies to feel smarter than them (which is fine). He made an interesting point while talking to me about it. He said that he liked bad movies because he liked being in awe of their illogic. And I think that's something I do as well. There's something about movies that are just so insanely awful, they feel as if they were made by space aliens trying to approximate our culture or something. Thoughts, comments?

Day 2: The Nesting (1981)

Lauren Cochran: I may be sick, but I’m not retarded!

The irony of low expectations

I’m not really into the whole watching bad movies for irony’s sake thing. Not really. I mean, I love MST3K and I’ve been guilty of watching something in this mindset a time or two (to wit: the ending of Stayin’ Alive… oh man is that just brilliantly bad). But, I don’t get the point of intentionally sitting down to watch a bad movie just to prove to yourself, or those with and around you, that you’re smarter than it. Ha ha ha! What a dumb looking effect. Ha ha ha! What a cheesy line! Generally, I try to watch movies I suspect will not be up to par with the same diligence and attention I’d give to, oh, Broken Blossoms. Sometimes this enables me to be receptive to little gifts that these movies have to offer (see my post about The Mind Snatchers) but then…

Some movies are really, really, really trying on my intentions to not watch them ironically and The Nesting is definitely one of them. It’s a ghost story dealing with neurosis made in the early 80s and, so, it’s hard to know if it’s trying to cash in more on the success of Friday the 13th or Woody Allen. This isn’t a screamingly bad movie. It’s mediocre at best, bad at worst, but never awful. That translates into boredom. And in that boredom, ironic comments grow, flourish, and multiply. Nevertheless, let’s pretend that I didn’t say anything to my TV (you broke a window with your bare elbow and didn’t get cut? What?) while this movie was playing and move on.

Lauren Cochran is a writer with a book called The Nesting. We first see her suffering from agoraphobia. She sweats profusely as she walks toward the front door of her house. When she walks outside, we learn that one of the things agoraphobics suffer from is seeing the world through wide-angled lenses. After failing to get into a cab that she’s successfully hailed, it’s off to see her psychiatrist. Somehow. I don’t know how, she’s just in his office suddenly. He stridently informs her that agoraphobia can be treated and we immediately see her back in her apartment with hypnotherapy tapes and books in her house, soon to be interrupted by her overbearingly jovial friend, Mark.

At this point, I had learned 2 things about the movie. The first was that lead actress Robin Groves reminded me of an odd combination of Sally Field, Judy Davis, and Judy Garland (2 parts Field, one part Garland, a pinch of Davis). The second was that this movie was going to have one of those “oh they didn’t shoot enough coverage” editing styles. After the scene with her questionably platonic friend Mark in her apartment, the movie cuts directly to her back in her therapist’s office talking about going to the country. It’s one of those cuts that feel so jarring because there seemed to be no reason for her to be going back to her therapist’s so soon and there’s no transition material from one scene to the next. Not in the shots, not in the dialogue, not in the editing. Bam. Back to the therapist.

Anyway, Lauren decides (despite her therapist’s objections) to go to the country to treat her agoraphobia. She and Mark drive up to the country where she rents a suitably spooky house in the middle of the woods. The nicest scene in the entire movie happens around this time. The annoyingly jokey and cheerful Mark is about to leave to go back to the city. There is a discussion about who will drive Mark to the train station, Lauren or the quantum physicist(!) who rented the house to her. It’s a very naturally done scene and actually managed to evoke a bit of nervous empathy in me for Lauren who was going to be separated from Mark, a representation of everything safe for her. Though I found Mark’s character annoying, I also didn’t want him to go away. Nicely done, The Nesting!

But soon after this scene, it dawned on me that Lauren’s walking around and interacting with a few locals, including the friendly quantum physicist, with no problems whatsoever. I immediately understood that the agoraphobia she was suffering from earlier would be ignored until it suited the plot. You know, like the car that doesn’t start when the hero needs it to (a cliché this movie uses two times in quick succession, getting quite a groan out of me both times). I was correct about this. The agoraphobia happens at the worst times imaginable. But then, I guess, there’s never a good time to have agoraphobia.

Then the haunted house stuff begins and it’s pretty standard stuff. Creaking noises, strange dreams, doors opening and closing, and a mysterious cackling woman who appears at unfortunate times. In true 80s horror fashion, Lauren disrobes at one point in front of a three-way mirror (giving the movie three-times the nudity for the price of one willing actress) and there’s a ghost-related gory death here or there. One local tries to rape her, another tries to kill her and both are offed in grisly fashion. There’s a car chase with zero kinetic energy and obvious repetition in the sound effects of squealing tires. After learning of all this horror, Mark comes rushing back to save Lauren, but, on the way, his own car develops a bad case of sound effects, thus delaying his return and forcing Lauren to fend for herself.

The weirdest and most illogical thing about this movie is the way the ghosts in the movie act. They, like all movie ghosts, just want to communicate something to her that they feel she needs to know. And, accordingly, the ghosties start out trying to protect her, but, toward the end they start attacking her after she’s learned what they wanted her to know. This seems a very ineffective method of communication to me. Maybe there’s a psychological thing going on there that I didn’t pick up.

Ultimately, The Nesting is a movie with one or two nice scenes and a quantum physicist who serves no purpose, really, other than a brief philosophical discussion about the nature of the unknown in science. Hmph. Why waste a good quantum physicist in this way? He could probably have built a time machine to save them all from the perils of the past. The movie’s not bad, not good, and not very enjoyable unless you’re feeling extra-generous one evening or are a Gloria Grahame completist. She’s the cackling woman.

sneak preview

I am currently watching a movie called The Nesting for tomorrow's blog.

Week 1 index

Day 1: A History of Violence

Day 2: The Nesting

Day 3: Gates of Heaven

Day 4: Hotel Rwanda

Day 5: Seven Up! & Seven Plus 7

Day 6: Zardoz

Day 7: Zombie 3

Day 1: A History of Violence

Carl Fogaty: You should ask Tom... how come he's so good at killing people?

A fair warning. I may have spoilers in here. Sorry. There is too much about this film to talk about without them. Go see it and then come read this.

The American Dream
David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence is a film that demands a second viewing. There’s nothing “twisty” to it, nothing gimmicky demanding a second viewing like the ending to The Sixth Sense. It’s the bigness of the movie’s emotional weight that calls me back to it. It’s the way it escalates and ends so perfectly. But mostly it’s the way it explores its many ideas about the seductive power of violence, the futility of this violence, the deconstruction of the American family, and the myth of a noble protector. Some are placed under complete scrutiny, some are working deftly in the background, and still others are brought up to be examined and then quickly swept aside for the next idea. This is a very rich movie. The reason I want to go back to it someday is the implicit knowledge that this movie will only get better with each viewing of it.

The story centers on Tom Stall, an average Joe with a loving family who lives in the prototypical Hollywood Small Town™. He runs a small diner, commiserates with regulars, tells his blonde daughter that there are no monsters, and struggles with accepting his teenage son’s growing maturity. Nothing new here. Though Tom’s life is depicted with a certain mawkishness and the kind of reverence for the simplicity of small town life that has, as far as I know, never existed outside of cinema, there is an uncomfortability that permeates each beat we go through with our main character. A lot of this can be attributed to Viggo Mortenson’s performance. Here he acts like a man who has been given the perfect American life and isn’t quite sure that he belongs there. As a result, the opening of this movie feels a bit muddled, and at times, plodding. That’s on the first viewing. I imagine on the second, it will carry a greater significance since each bit of information it drops pays back tenfold later in the film. (Last chance: spoilers ahead)

As the movie reveals (after adeptly teasing us with mystery for a few scenes), Tom is not who he says he is. He has kept secret a former life where he was known as Joey Cusack (one assumes that he’s the missing third in the John-Joan-Joey Cusack trifecta of brilliance), a man who engaged in violent acts and had some connection to the mafia. At some point, Joey repented and reinvented himself as goody Tom Stall and, at the time of the movie’s beginning, considers “Joey” dead.

The plot machinations are interesting enough, but they pale in comparison to the way the movie considers acts of violence. I was grateful for the ways in which Cronenberg never let acts of violence pass without serious consequences. If there was ever an argument for the use of graphic gore effects, this movie is it. When someone gets shot in the face, the result is horrific. Whenever a gun appears onscreen, the tension rises palpably. There is real pain and real horror here (with a special nod to the scene in the diner as building to its climax exactly right).

Additionally, the movie explored not only the horror of violence, but also the seductive quality it has. Tom’s son physically demolishes a bully in school in a very satisfying scene for anyone who’s ever been picked on and Tom’s wife, while being suitably furious and disgusted at Tom for lying to her, is not exactly turned off by the situation.

The audience I saw it with was telling. It’s odd to me when an audience is audibly more uncomfortable with acts of sex than with someone being killed, but hey... that’s something else the movie deals with in a fascinating way. In fact, there’s just too much to write about. One could go on about the view this movie takes of the ideal American family, the way violence permeates our society on a very fundamental level… but I'm afraid those things will have to wait for my graduate thesis when I have more time.

The movie does have its flaws. Mortenson’s performance is a bit uneven and some of the dialogue is a little clunky. The structure of the movie seems a bit odd at times… the beginning gives the killers Tom later disposes of an emphasis that they don’t seem to deserve for their purposes in the larger storyline. Howard Shore’s score doesn’t quite work at the beginning. And, of course, the beginning itself may be as awkward and clumsy as I felt on my first viewing. Having said this, the movie is otherwise well crafted by all involved and William Hurt nearly steals the movie from Cronenberg in his role as Joey's brother late in the film. It’s certainly among the best of Cronenberg’s films and I know I’ll be thinking of it for years to come.

Oh yeah, the movie really, really knows exactly how to end.

first review later today!

first review should be up around 6 p.m. Mountain Time today.

edited to add:
Make that 8 p.m. Mountain Time. The theatre I was going to see History of Violence in had technical difficulties requiring me to see a later show. Apparently, they can't show movies when the toilets don't work. Jerks.

One day to go: Oh shit.

Butch & Sundance/Indiana Jones/Jack Burton/Data: Oh shit...

The top of the rollercoaster. And other such things. A friend asked me what my plans were for the weekend. I said, "I don't really have any." Then a thought. "Oh, yeah, I guess I have to watch a movie. Shit." I spoke that last word because it suddenly dawned on me at that moment what a commitment this is.

Random thoughts:

For the record: David Cronenberg is one of my favorites. Yet, in my younger movie-watching days, I thought his movies were pretentious and plodding messes. I watched Videodrome, Naked Lunch, Dead Ringers, The Dead Zone, and The Fly like any good teenager with a video rental card eager to earn his cult-movie watching street cred, but with the exception of The Fly and a little exception to The Dead Zone, none of them made any sense to me, emotionally, thematically, or plot-wise. I didn’t “get” Cronenberg. I figured he was one of those filmmakers that I just wouldn’t connect with. His films were continually listed on all those stupid “greatest sci-fi/horror” lists which, in my younger days, I absorbed with gleeful abandon. I never understood why they put his movies on there when they were, clearly, inferior product to your John Carpenters, your Lucases, your Romeros.

That all changed. When I was about 19 and, I guess, still eager to earn my cult-movie cred, I rented The Brood. I don’t know if it’s just that it’s the first movie I saw wherein the themes Cronenberg has been exploring his entire career were stated explicitly, the plot’s dealing with a mother gone mad (a theme that never fails to shake some part of me), my age and emotional maturity (relative to the past, of course), or the movie’s adherence to certain genre conventions that allowed me, for the first time, to get these themes, but I got it. And how.

Immediately, I re-rented all of those other Cronenberg films I’d seen before. Seen through the lens of The Brood, they suddenly made sense, and what’s more, I went nuts for them. Absolutely crazy “this was made for me and only me” kinds-of feelings about Cronenberg’s work.

Of course, it wasn’t The Brood that killed my dissatisfaction with Cronenberg, it was everything leading up to seeing it. When I saw The Brood, I was watching THE perfect movie for the way I felt at that time in my life. This has happened to me a few times.... Seeing the restoration of Vertigo on the 50-foot screen of Kansas City’s Englewood Theater... seeing The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly at the same theater, watching Annie Hall in the midst of a horrible teenage relationship, and, most recently, City of God.

The right movies, the right time. Life changing.

Anyone out there have any similar experiences?

2 days to go. (in the valley)

Dosmo Pizzo: You better tell him I'm not fucking around, Susan.
Susan Parish: He's not fucking around.

In the interests of transparency, I will inform you that I am using IMDB to open most of these posts with a movie quote. Seems appropriate. I don't want anyone thinking that I just remember these quotes like some sort-of savant. I'm no savant... I'm not even an idiot. I am a messy eater though.

And speaking of 2 Days in the Valley, we only get two days in the valley but three days of the condor? And SEVEN days in may? Jesus, I might as well just kill myself.

I'm grateful for the positive feedback I've gotten from some people. It makes me feel not so crazy.

So here's what's in the queue: I'm planning on A History of Violence tomorrow, followed by Hotel Rwanda, Gates of Heaven, Seven Up, and Seven Plus Seven. There's some nice tangental linking going on there.

A shout-out to co-worker Chris Schneider who has a massive collection of rare horror and culty movies. I asked him if he could loan me ten really obscure movies for the times when Netflix hasn't kept up with me. He asked, "Like, what, like Night of the Bloody Apes?" I could only laugh and say, "That's exactly right." I didn't even know there was a movie named Night of the Bloody Apes.

oh man

This made me laugh. Hard. Solsibury Hill was a nice touch.

A Trailer for "Shining"

3 days to go: Obligatory naval gazing post...

Fisherman: Here, squid, squid, squid, squid...

About me: I am 27 years old, a film school graduate, employed (thankfully), sometime composer, sometime writer. I live with my life-mate, Tara, and together we publish a magazine of literary humor called "The American Drivel Review". See the link on the right there. Oh, and, uh, I like movies. A lot.

I have wanted to be a film director since the age of 4 (after seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark) and, though other dreams (baseball player, astronaut, quatumn physicist) have come and gone, the movie-making one has remained firm. But here's the sticky truth: I have not made anything significant since my thesis in school, a half-hour science fiction piece called The Harvesters. It's been about four years. And while I've stayed busy acting, directing some stage work, and writing a couple of scores for a much more prolific friend's projects, somewhere I lost the drive, the commitment, the energy. This blog is, in part, an attempt to jumpstart my creative drive by immersing myself in my first love. Cinema.

So what? This is a blog about movies I'm watching, not me. You might wonder what kind of movies I like. What will I be writing about? After all, if I’m going to be writing about Godzilla movie after Godzilla movie for 3 months, this might not be so interesting. Or maybe it would be MORE interesting... Actually, now that I think about it that would be kinda fun. Especially if I watched them in order. But I won’t be doing that. Which is suddenly disappointing.

Imagine the Godzilla movie-a-day blog! "Day 72. Godzilla vs. A Big Rat. This Godzilla movie succeeds in character-driven plot in a way that most Godzilla movies don’t. For instance, when Ikio tells Johnny that she is in love with him, the interplay between the actor’s face and the dubber’s voice tells us that she KNOWS their love would be futile if explored. And yet, when Godzilla crashes into the building and knocks them into each other’s arms, we’re still pleased. We want these two to get together because if they don’t get together, then Godzilla has no power. Also, note the symbol of the dog in the corner in this scene. Clearly, it means something because when they cut away from the shot and cut back, the dog is GONE! Later, when Godzilla fights the Big Rat, it reminds us of New York with its many rats and alligators in the sewers.”

Now THERE’S a blog-worthy idea. What the hell am I doing? Maybe someone else can take that one.

Anyway, to answer my own question... I like lots of stuff. I am hoping to watch the cheesiest of grade-Z flicks to the highest echelons of CINEMA itself. The stuff in between... maybe I’ll catch some of it, but nothing is worse than the mediocrity in between. I watched the remake of The Manchurian Candidate a few weeks ago. Boy, there was some stuff to like in there. Boy, did it not matter because the movie was pretty forgettable. What a shithole of an ending, too. All I remember now, when I think about it, is liking Denzel and Liev and being embarrassed for Meryl.

Looking at the words “Denzel” “Liev” and “Meryl” seems like there’s some sort-of hidden code in there. Anyone want to spell something out of those three names? I don’t have that kind of time. There’s Squid to catch. And Godzilla movies to watch.

For those that wish to know: I'm planning on the "official" blogginess starting on October 1st with comments on A History of Violence Cronenberg is a personal idol and this one is looking to be super.

ads

I flipped a coin to decide whether I should put these google ads on the blog. Probably because it was made of money, it chose yes.

GIANT SQUID!!!

I'll get back to talking about movies and the blog and all that shit later today. This is too fucking cool not to post immediately.

Scientists photograph giant squid!!!!!!!!!!

Why This Blog Exists Part II

"and just who do you think you are that you think you can
raise the dead?”

The idea for this blog came to me after watching a movie called The Mind Snatchers.I bought the DVD for this movie for two reasons: it was an early starring role for Christopher Walken (whose work I enjoy for reasons of true artistic appreciation in addition to the kitsch factor) and it was selling for $1.99 at my grocery store. The quality of the DVD was what you’d expect for $1.99. The movie was not quite what I’d expected.

The cover and the title led me to the idea that this would be a campy science fiction deal and it kind-of was. The plot, based on a play by Dennis Reardon, focuses on the army developing some mind-control technology for reasons that I’ve forgotten. Walken is an unstable soldier, taken in by "the powers that be" to be tested on. He is put in a rather spacious estate where there are monkey experiments going on and is forced to room with another guy played by Ronny Cox.

The movie is clearly based on stage material, as much of it is made up of conversations between Walken and Cox, the setting is never really explored, and the blocking of both camera and actors would be more at home on the stage than on the screen. This staginess is simultaneously to the movie’s benefit and detriment, for, while the movie feels canned, poorly paced, and claustrophobic (filmicly), it also allows the actors to shine. Walken is great, as usual. The real surprise for me was that Ronny Cox delivered a great performance. Ronny Cox? A good actor? Even a great one?

Prior to seeing this movie, I was familiar with Cox’s work in Paul Verhoeven movies and I vaguely remember him from Deliverance and Beverly Hills Cop, but I’d never seen him as an actor. Sure, he’s wonderfully slimy in Robocop and serviceable as almost the same role in Total Recall, but those roles are so arch there’s not much room for nuance. In The Mind Snatchers, he is great as a dim-witted, repressed Southern man. There’s a nice acting moment when his character reveals to a psychologist certain racial insensitivities and he checks with his eyes to see what the psychologist’s reaction to his attitude is. I loved that.

So why did watching this mediocre movie with better than mediocre acting inspire me to watch a movie every day for 3 months and write about it on the internet?

After watching the movie, it occurred to me that there are so many movies out there with hidden pleasures to be found as they are in The Mind Snatchers. I had an irrepressible urge as a film buff to find them. I then remembered that I call myself a film buff but I have only seen one Godard film (Breathless) and I’ve never seen Fitzcarraldo and I keep meaning to watch some good Hammer horror flicks and Greed and Notorious and...

The list could go on forever and, I guess, that’s as it should be. The problem that led to this blog is that, since leaving college and getting a job and a life-mate, I’ve had smaller and smaller amounts of time in which to watch movies. This fact had been gnawing on my brain at the time I watched The Mind Snatchers. Then, I thought, “What if I watched a movie a day and blogged about it?” The benefits were clear immediately. It would be a nice way to make a dent in all these movies I want to see. It would be a funny little experiment to see if I could even do it. Having the blog would keep me honest since I’m writing it more for myself as a record of what I’m watching than for anyone else. The movie-a-day regimen is one I’ve failed before like many a fad diet, as is the writing everyday regimen. But the movie-a-day + blog regimen creates a positive feedback loop where I feel like I have to actually watch a movie AND write everyday. What a breakthrough!

So that’s why this blog exists. I hope that people read it and that they like it. I’d love nothing more than if I had a nice readership who came to read my ramblings on a semi-daily basis. Having said that, this is primarily for me as an exercise to get my creative movie-based juices flowing again and to see if it results in any movie-based dementia. ‘Cause that would be hilarious!

Why this blog exists + Declaration of Principles

WHY THIS BLOG EXISTS

"We all go a little mad sometimes."

From October 1st to January 1st, I will be watching one movie per day and blogging about my reactions to these movies here.

As the start date for this grand experiment in persistence and commitment draws nearer and nearer, I thought it'd be fun to write about who the hell I am, what the hell provoked me to do this, and what the hell I hope to accomplish from this endeavor.

But to kick this off in a style that is at once ironic, reflexive, and earnest, I thought I'd take a page from that great grandaddy of marvelous cinematic characters, Charles Foster Kane, and treat everyone to this blog's very own "Declaration of Principles."

---

DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES

Bernstein: You don't want to make any promises, Mr. Kane, that you don't want to keep.
Kane: These will be kept.

I. I will watch one movie a day starting from October 1st, 2005 and ending January 1, 2006. In the interests of providing myself a safety net, I reserve 4 'days off' for myself. However, within a week of taking a day off, I will watch 2 movies on one of the following days.

II. During this time, I will watch no more than 4 movies that I have previously seen within the past 5 years. The bulk of the movies watched will be completely new to me or only vaguely remembered from the years past.

III. I will publish a post on this blog within 24 hours after watching a movie. Generally, this means that I will watch a movie at night and post sometime during the next day about said movie.

IV. I will write with clarity and insight. I will proof each post for spelling, punctuational, and grammatical mistakes at least once.

V. In the event that I am unable to continue this blog within the constraints of these principles, I will cease the blog immediately, inform all readers thereof, and submit myself to the mercy of the Movie Gods (assuming the previous two entities exist).

Signed,
David Wester
9/26/05

get these spiders off of me