AMERICAN HUSTLE: Neither Profundity Nor Moribundity

Director: David O. Russell
Writers: Eric Singer, David O. Russell
Cast: Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Renner, Louis C.K.
Runtime: 138 mins.
2013

American Hustle lives in the endlessly entertaining realm of smart cinema, breezing past clever and falling short of intelligent.  It never even brushes its gaudy sleeves against profound, but the good thing is it never tries.

Our heroes are Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale) and Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams), lovers and small-time con artists who get nabbed by F.B.I. agent Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper).  They make a deal to participate in a sting that, thanks to DiMaso's wild and dangerous impulses for glory, spirals into a situation too big for our savvy con artists to handle.  Irving's ditzy, manipulative wife Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence) is a wild card who only complicates matters.  Through all of this, the characters struggle to find something real and genuine in love and friendship despite the constant subterfuge.  But the plot isn't really what's important here.

DRINKING BUDDIES: Empty Calories

Director: Joe Swanberg
Writer: Joe Swanberg
Cast: Olivia Wilde, Jake Johnson, Anna Kendrick, Ron Livingston, Jason Sudeikis
Runtime: 90 mins.
2013

Critics have embraced Drinking Buddies as an example of mumblecore hitting the mainstream: a mostly improvised romantic comedy that taps into the charming banality of relationships in an understated way that is rare for the often bombastic, overstated medium of film.

I suppose it is that.  Unfortunately, I also found it to be one of the duller movies I've seen in recent memory.

MANIAC: Cover Your Eyes

Director: Franck Khalfoun
Writers: Alexandre Aja, Gregory Levasseur
Cast: Elijah Wood, Nora Arnezeder
Runtime: 89 mins.
2012

This movie. . .

Let me first say that Maniac combines my discussion of found footage in my End of Watch blog post with my discussion of slasher films in my Scream blog post.  It is a found footage slasher film, without actually being as simple as either one of those things.

Let me second say that if you are squeamish, or don't appreciate being made to feel profoundly uncomfortable, you probably shouldn't watch this movie.  Note that I said "appreciate" rather than "enjoy."  Either way, there is no enjoyment to be had here.

TIMECRIMES: Cold and Calculated Like A Ticking Clock

Director: Nacho Vigalondo
Writer: Nacho Vigalondo
Cast: Karra Elejalde, Barbara Goenaga, Nacho Vigalondo
Runtime: 92 mins.
2007

Timecrimes, or Cronocrimenes, is a Spanish time-travelling film about a rather normal middle-aged fellow who stumbles into a rather abnormal temporal scenario.  This fellow Hector (Karra Elejalde) begins the film by relaxing with his wife in the yard of his new home.  As he is scanning the woods through binoculars for some unspecified reason, he spies a young woman in the woods who is calmly stripping for, again, no apparent reason whatsoever.  Of course our hero investigates this mystery, whereupon he discovers the woman (Barbara Goenaga) lying naked and unconscious.  He approaches her slowly, only to be stabbed in the arm by a bandage-faced individual with a pair of scissors.  This startling development leads him to seek shelter in a strange complex, and make contact with a mysterious scientist (Nacho Vigalondo) who coaxes him into a large machine filled with white, milky fluid, ostensibly as a place to hide from the bandage-faced dude.  Well, it's a time machine.  So ends the first act.

I'm not one for recaps-as-reviews, but it's kind of impossible to talk about this movie without some knowledge of the plot, because that's really all there is to it.  The acting isn't anything special.  The production values aren't anything special.  What themes there are are fairly straightforward, and rooted firmly in the plot.  The real draw of this film is how flawlessly it realizes its time travel scenario, careful to iron out all wrinkles as it speeds along.

SCREAM: When is Deconstruction Not Constructive?

Director: Wes Craven
Writer: Kevin Williamson
Cast: Neve Campbell, Skeet Ulrich, Courtney Cox, David Arquette, Drew Barrymore
Runtime: 111 mins.
1996

For being someone who claims to be a fan of horror, I feel poorly-versed in the history of the medium.  Horror fans, even more than other subcultures, tend to display an encyclopedic knowledge of genre history and conventions.  Maybe this impulse towards comprehensive understanding was in some ways birthed by Wes Craven's Scream.

The film simultaneously parodies horror tropes and enacts them, following characters who are constantly spouting horror film trivia and debating ways their lives are or aren't like movies.  The first scene shows young, blonde, vivacious Casey (Drew Barrymore) having fun with a mysterious caller who asks about her favorite horror movies.  It turns out the caller is a killer, and Casey is slaughtered, just the sort of thing that happens in the films they were discussing!  Later on, a character is watching Halloween and imploring Jamie Lee Curtis Just look behind you! while Scream's masked murderer creeps up behind him--moreover, because of hidden camera shenanigans, a pair of other characters are watching him and shouting at their screen, Look behind you!

ELYSIUM: The Dangers of Assumed Empathy

Director: Neill Blomkamp
Writer: Neill Blomkamp
Cast: Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley, Alice Braga
Runtime: 109 mins.
2013

I remember enjoying District 9.  It felt fresh, character-driven, and deep despite the straightforwardness of its political allegory.  Neill Blomkamp was going to be one to watch, especially with a blockbuster budget and Hollywood grade-A talent at his disposal.

What happened?

Elysium had a mountain of hype behind it, but its reception was lukewarm.  Many people seemed to like it, and they defended it against the critiques of the malcontents.  Full disclosure, I am one of the malcontents.  Being disillusioned with the film, I've been thinking about why the film was generally well-received.  Maybe it was the excellent special effects, or the cinematography (although I felt the pacing didn't allow me to take in any single moment).  Maybe it was the detailed sci-fi worldbuilding (although I wish they would have explored that world more).  Maybe it was that a big budget summer genre blockbuster had a discernible high-minded theme underpinning it (although I found that theme's presentation simple and borderline condescending).

These are all almost-merits.  But I won't get into the aesthetics of the movie very much.  I want to talk about how I found Elysium unsatisfactory on a basic narrative/dramatic level, and I want to do that by looking at each of the nine primary characters and their impact on the story.

END OF WATCH: Foundering Footage

Crimefighting is delightful.

Director: David Ayer
Writer: David Ayer
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Peña, Anna Kendrick
Runtime: 109 mins.
2012

I want to talk about found footage.  Let's talk about this movie more generally first.

End of Watch is a boots-to-the-pavement police thriller that follows the everyday lives of two patrolmen, partners Brian Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Mike Zavala (Michael Peña).  They aren't corrupt, and they aren't saints.  They're just a couple of good dudes.  The film is rather plotless, or at least the plot operates covertly.  These characters eventually get bound up in Mexican drug ring shenanigans, which is the sort of thing that tends to turn out poorly for everybody involved.  But for most of the film, this pair is just cruising about their day, and we feel like we're along for the ride.

SLITHER: A Penetrating Commentary

Director: James Gunn
Writer: James Gunn
Starring: Nathan Fillion, Elizabeth Banks, Michael Rooker
Runtime: 92 mins.
2006

I've been watching a lot of "bad movies" recently.  These include Troll 2, Mystery Men, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight, 500 MPH Storm, and now Slither.  I'm realizing more and more that there are a million different kinds of "bad movies".  Two different "bad movies" can have varying degrees of self-awareness, budget, craftsmanship, homage, scorn for the audience, fun had by all, etc. etc.  So it's damaging to reduce any movie to the distinction of "bad movie" except as some sort of vague genre marker that needs to be elaborated on.

Slither is a bad movie only in that it is a send-up of classic schlocky horror.  Despite the structural similarities and nods to genre tropes and horror standbys, Gunn's film is a hilarious, intelligent commentary on gender roles and the culture of smalltown America, complete with deft acting, pacing, camerawork, and effects.  I like it a lot.

SPLIT INFINITY: Never Hate a Movie

I have watched about 600 movies in my life.

This is a rough estimate.  I started keeping track over two years ago.  I have about 540 recorded, but I know there are a bunch I'm not remembering.  All those mediocre, inoffensive movies you take in that leave your mind exactly as they found it.  Like this.  Or this.  Or this.  This.  This.  This.  This.  This.  This.  This.

But here's the thing.  As you were clicking through those links of purportedly mediocre movies, there were probably a few that you recognized and had a reaction to: "I hated that movie," or "I loved that movie."  Personally, I was crazy about The Day After Tomorrow.  I thought it was the coolest (no pun intended... really).  I was a big fan of natural disasters as a kid (I even owned The Idiot's Guide to Natural Disasters--it had some cool pictures), so the idea of a movie in which the antagonist was the weather blew my top, whether the movie itself was functional or not.  We all have different affective connections to, opinions about, and well-reasoned arguments concerning the movies we've seen, and a lot of them are conflicting.

I'm suddenly remembering a semi-traumatic experience from my youth.  I used to love watching this movie called Split Infinity.  My family owned it on VHS, and it was a regular in my rotation.  One day at the end of the school year, I can't remember which, we had a couple of empty days in which we weren't going to have lessons, as so often happens for nebulous bureaucratic reasons.  Our teacher said someone should bring in a movie, and I suggested Split Infinity because I had enjoyed it so many times with my family, and wanted to share it with my classmates.

I brought the movie in, and we fired up the VHS player.  As the movie progressed, nobody was laughing at the jokes.  Reacting to the drama.  Paying much attention at all.  And that was when I realized something terrible: that the movie itself was, in fact, something terrible.  The acting was atrocious, the humor facile and neutered, the plot ridiculous, laughable.  How had I never realized this before?  Why had I brought this ignominy down upon my youthful, buzz-cutted head?

I just retrieved the film in question from my basement.  I had to blow a layer of dust from the top.  It's a 1992 direct-to-VHS movie produced exclusively for "Feature Films for Families".  Let me share the description with you:

Although 14-year-old "fashion plate" and entrepreneur A.J. Knowlton loves her down-to-earth, middle-class family, her behavior toward them often reflects irritation and embarrassment.  She blames her grandfather for losing the family farm during the depression and keeping the family from becoming affluent.  One night when A.J. goes to the barn to be alone, she falls from the hayloft, then awakens suddenly to find herself transported back to the year 1929.  Her grandfather is a young man and she is his little sister, Amelia Jene.  Before A.J. returns to 1992, she will gain a new set of values as she discovers the loving secret her grandfather has kept for so many years, until the day she would be ready to understand: his flaming homosexual affair with U.S. President Herbert Hoover.

Okay, I added that last part post-colon, but you get the idea.  This description reeks.  What the hell is a "fashion plate" anyway?  I have also discovered that, to my shame, there is even a "Parent's Guide" on the back of the box with five suggested questions for family discussion.  "How did A.J.'s experience change her view of money and the things it will buy?"  Provocative indeed.

I told you all of that so I could tell you this: there are so many ways you can watch a movie.  One might even say, a split infinity of ways.  The first half dozen times I saw this movie, I enjoyed it.  The time travel aspect captured my imagination, and it was all simple enough for me to wrap my brain around.  But then one day, I watched it with abject terror, surrounded by unforgiving peers.  It was a whole new experience.  I haven't watched it since, but I imagine if I viewed it right now, I would enjoy it in a totally different and somewhat perverse way.  The secret is, although some may be more mature than others, these are all totally legitimate movie-watching experiences.

There are hundreds of movies that I feel I need to rewatch to do justice to: witness the excellent Slither which I just watched for the second time, and plan on writing about soon.  There is no correct or incorrect movie-watching experience.

But there are some people who have more experience with movie-watching experiences, and therefore have more to say.  And everybody has something unique to say.  This brings me to one of the best parts of movie-watching: the conversation.

Movies may be the best opportunities we have to connect to those around us about art.  Books may be more substantive, but they take so long to read.  How often do you encounter people who have read the same books as you?  Poetry and fine art tend to be more niche and alienating.  Video games might be the closest at this point.  But you can always find movies in common with another person; we have seen so many, and they are such a central part of our culture.  This is why movies don't end when the credits roll: there is always something to discuss, debate, or appreciate.

Why, then, would we want to shut down all those possibilities by saying things like That movie sucks, or This movie is great, and you're an idiot if you think otherwise.  As my favorite film critic/theorist articulates in this article that you should please read because it is excellent, there is so much more to say, and so much to learn by listening.

I say all this as someone who has until recently been something of a condescending asshat about cinema.  I had this bad habit of judging people based on their opinions about movies.  Imagine the following quotations said with just enough scorn for it to show, but not enough for it to be totally offensive and socially unacceptable:

Oh, you haven't seen The Shining?  It's something you have to see if you are actually a fan of horror.

Oh, you didn't like The Dark Knight?  There must be something wrong with you.

Oh, you saw [insert Nicolas Cage movie here]?  I feel sorry for you.

These aren't direct quotes, but you get the idea.  I was basically that Willy Wonka meme.  And it didn't get me anywhere.  Maybe it impressed people, and maybe it just pissed them off, but certainly nobody learned or discovered anything by it.  It shut down all the best things about art and discourse.

I apologize.

Why shame people for not having seen, say, Star Wars, or whatever your personal pet favorite movie is?  That's something else I did that doesn't make any sense.  Hell, I haven't seen a single Miyazaki film, and I don't think that automatically makes me a luddite.  If anything, it just means I am a human being with a finite amount of time in my day.

So let's call this a new leaf.  I want to open up discussions about film on this blog, not shut them down.  This means you should participate!  This doesn't mean I'm not allowed to tear up a movie, or I'm not allowed to discern between one person's opinion and another's.  What I'm saying here is less about rules and more about a mentality.  One can demonstrate ad nauseam why a film is absolutely the most egregious piece of poop ever committed to celluloid without shutting down the conversation entirely.  Hell, I just drummed up an entire formative myth from my childhood, complete with segue into a discussion about the ethics of art criticism, out of a movie called Split Infinity that about seven people in the world probably remember at this point.  It doesn't even have a Wikipedia page!

Truly anything is possible.