FRANK: Something Perishable

Director: Lenny Abrahamson
Writers: Jon Ronson, Peter Straughan
Cast: Michael Fassbender, Domhnall Gleeson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Scoot McNairy, Francois Civil, Carla Azar
Runtime: 95 mins.
2014

You think you know Frank. Just as our protagonist makes the mistake of believe he understands Frank's potential, Frank's desires, and worst of all Frank himself, you begin watching this film with a sense of superiority--or at least a sense of superior perspective. As the film opens on a young man desperately seeking inspiration but only coming up with a few facile snippets of pop fancy, you understand exactly where this must be going. This story is a Kunstlerroman--the development to maturity of an artist--with zany indie trappings. When our protagonist Jon (Domnhall Gleeson) joins a strange band called the Soronprfbs that jars him out of his sense of normalcy, you predict that this band will be the key to unlocking his nascent potential.

You've made a mistake. You couldn't be more wrong.

NOAH: An Ark of a Different Color

In which the Bible gets weird.

Director: Darren Aronofsky
Writers: Darren Aronofsky, Ari Handel
Cast: Russell Crowe, Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, Emma Watson, Jennifer Connelly, Logan Lerman, Douglas Booth
Runtime: 138 mins.
2014

Noah could have gone one of two ways.

It could have catered to its Christian audience, presenting a souped up but conservative Noah narrative that would please the religious crowd and hopefully nab the sad group of Russell Crowe fans that remain loyal. In other words, it could have gone the way of God Is Not Dead, a fundamentalist narrative about the triumphs of faith that was released around the same time as Noah, and is of course laughably inept from a filmmaking perspective. But it makes the Christian audience happy. I don't mean to pick on Christian movies, fundamentalism in general makes for bad filmmaking: we need only look at the recently released conclusion to the Atlas Shrugged trilogy, which is apparently one of the most embarrassing excuses for a movie trilogy to ever be ejaculated onto the populace.

Alternately, Noah could have abandoned the Christian (and Jewish, though I can't imagine they would mind nearly as much) audience by taking loads of silly liberal liberties with the Noah narrative, in an attempt to appeal to the sort of folks who get excited about a Hercules movie starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. Fundamentalist Christians would have become this film's enemy, going on crusades about how the Hollywood machine has tainted Truth yet again. Most others would have ignored it as a version of Evan Almighty that didn't pretend to be funny.

I let Noah slip under my radar because I wasn't interested in watching either of those possibilities. I made a mistake. It turns out Noah is a PG-13 action movie that doesn't fall into either of the above categories. It falls into a category of its own. It is like nothing you've ever seen before.

A lot of people called it bad. Everybody called it weird. I call it confusing, exciting, beautiful, and tremendously uneven. I don't understand what it all means, but I have a review to write, so I'm going to pretend.

PROXY: A Dead Baby Joke

In which our protagonists turn out to be antagonists and our antagonists turn out to be antagonists.

Director: Zack Parker
Writers: Kevin Donner, Zack Parker
Cast: Alexia Rasmussen, Alexa Havins, Kristina Klebe, Joe Swanberg
Runtime: 120 mins.
2013

Proxy is fundamentally deceptive. It's the kind of movie that makes you hate everybody, then tricks you into hating them for all new reasons that subsequently turn out not to be true. It tries to be high-minded and succeeds in being low-brow. It's a massive crock of M. Night Shyamalan plot twists, if Shyamalan turned out to be a teenager and also a sadist. It's like wandering through a winding maze full of cupboards, and behind each cupboard is a punch in the face. Proxy is deliberately designed to be a face-punching labyrinth.

So why, instead of just being hateful, is it also boring?

OBVIOUS CHILD: Laughing Ladies

Director: Gillian Robespierre
Writer: Gillian Robespierre
Cast: Jenny Slate, Jake Lacy, Gaby Hoffman, Gave Liedman, David Cross, Richard Kind, Polly Draper
Runtime: 84 mins.
2014

"It was nice to be able to enjoy a comedy movie all the way through without once feeling uncomfortable about its treatment of women."

So said one of the friends with whom I saw Obvious Child. Can you imagine that? If every single comedy film you watched made you feel not only uncomfortable, but personally attacked? As if the movie is having a joke at your expense, and you're not invited to laugh? You would have to go into every comedy film with a certain amount of trepidation, or at least wariness. You would feel like you need to become expert at shrugging it off so as not to be the wet blanket of the post-movie discussion of best lines and funniest moments; you would fail at shrugging it off.

I'm not saying that's how it is for everybody, but it's the status quo for a whole lot of women who watch comedies. Luckily there are exceptions. And if I feel like Obvious Child is a breath of fresh air, I can't even conceive how fresh and funny it must feel to its female audience.

GRAVITY: In Space No One Can Hear You Win Seven Oscars

Real women don't let go.  Take that, Frozen.

Director: Alfonso Cuarón
Writer: Alfonso Cuarón
Cast: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney
Runtime: 91 mins.
2013

Here's the breakdown:

12 Years a Slave: 3.  Dallas Buyer's Club: 3.  Frozen: 2.  The Great Gatsby: 2.  Her: 1.  Philomena: 0.  Nebraska: 0.  Captain Phillips: 0.  The Wolf of Wall Street: 0.  American Hustle: 0.

Gravity: 7.

Seven Oscars.  That kind of success is remarkable.  Not to mention that it is absolutely unprecedented for a sci-fi film.  The question of Can Gravity win? has been satisfactorily answered.  The question that remains is Did Gravity deserve to win?  After that is answered, an even more savory question lingers: Why, after 86 years, did the Academy open their arms to a sci-fi film?  These are the questions I'm looking to address.