Finian's Rainbow (1968)

Very strangely, Finian's Rainbow is one of two films I need to see before I'm done with all of the movies nominated for Oscars in 1968 (I've seen most films from most years, and I'm close on a lot of them.) But Finian's Rainbow is a musical, and so I should have seen it a long time ago. I think there's a reason I haven't. This is... a weird thing. It's a kind of Brigadoon meets... well, I don't know what it meets. The music feels simultaneously 1960s and 1940s. It's sort of nominally about fighting racist prejudice, but its main song – one that keeps recurring – is about some fantasy version of Ireland. And although this is quite a stagey musical, with a very weird episode of non-musical, non-minstrel blackface involving turning a racist white man Black, this is directed by Francis Ford Coppola, who would, of course, make The Godfather just four years later. Honestly, this felt like it had a lot of cool elements, and the songs were also good, but they felt mashed up oddly in this movie.

Generic Title (Bridge of Spies)

A (sober) conversation with my friends Chris and Walter about Spielberg's new movie Bridge of Spies. This does contain spoilers, so be forewarned. Still, none of us recommends this movie, so you can probably just keep reading and then skip the film.

Walt: Ok fellas, I'm off to see Bridge of Spies. Wish me luck.
Chris: Stay strong.
Walt: Let me just say that I am the youngest one here.
Chris: Off to a good start.
Aaron: I just got out of the movie.
Chris: Initial thoughts?
Aaron: It was boring.
Chris: Agreed.

Aaron: What was this movie about? America and stuff, right? Principles? Doing the right thing? I don't mind a movie about all of those things, really, but I think what bugged me about this movie was something I kept puzzling over the whole time it was going on. What kind of movie is this? Is Bridge of Spies supposed to be a character study? It certainly isn't one; we know nothing of the main character except that he is a kind of symbol for "American values" and "giving a guy fair shake" and that sort of thing. We literally get only one little flash that there might be something else to his character in that little moment when he says that the Yale kid is the same age as someone else (no one follows up on this little red herring, but it is some indication of this character's humanity). But then if the movie isn't about this character, then it is a movie about plot, which means this is supposed to be a kind of suspense movie! If it is, then why is it so slow? There are all of these ponderous scenes where characters philosophize about the right thing to do, but where is the suspense??

Chris: So this is basically a heroic tale of human compassion, right? Mark Rylance has this line in the holding cell where asks for a pen and paper to sketch with. Hanks denies him and Rylance responds with something to the extent of "You would want your man to be treated just the same over there, right?" – cut to soft-focus close up of Hanks trying his best.

Walt: It was a parable or something. Or something.

Chris: The trailer wants us to think it's a thriller and at the very top (the opening sequence with Rylance being pursued) I was totally on board with that. But then this goes away and I wasn't sure what was left in its place. The plane sequence was pretty great; wish there was more of that. Something that my buddy Joey brought up was that we never get a chance to really care about the Hanks/Rylance relationship, because we spend so little time with them together. This caused the final bridge scene to fall flat since it was hard to care about them as much as the movie wanted us to. 

Hanks is feeling a little bloated

Walt: I think I just watched three different movies (or maybe I’m just responding to the three endings). At some point we’re in the one of the Berlins and I’m like “this is the same movie? But I thought Alan Alda…” Ugh, it was so bloated. I feel like Spielberg used to be so tight and now he’s become so much more ponderous. A year or two after The Color Purple, he called the it “the most grown up film I’ve made”. And if I think about it, all of his grown up films are bloated. So maybe it's not about where he is in his career so much as it is that he think grown up films should be bloated. Really, though, the movie kind of wanders. I remember watching an interview with him in the '90s talking about how he has this group that he screens his films with (I’m guessing Scorsese, Coppola, yadda yadda yadda). What the hell kind of notes are they giving him, anyway?

Aaron: And I wonder about the novel, actually, because there are really three plotlines – this had to have been cleaner in the novel, and it certainly could've been written more cleanly for the screenplay.

Walt: I didn't know that it was originally a novel. That makes sense. I don't think the adaptation is very strong. This thing should’ve been an hour on the history channel, not a Hollywood film. Seriously, why did anyone make this movie? What do we need it for right now? Spielberg reminds me of my dad in a way: he still thinks we should hate the Russians and that Castro is public enemy #1. This movie hated Russians. And Amy Ryan. They must hate her, to give such a great actress such an impossible and ultimately meaningless role. All she does is complain, right to end, when he doesn’t bring back that sweet sweet British marmalade. Imagine Odysseus returns home, saves Penelope from all the suitors and she just complains about how he didn’t bring back one of those amazing Trojan rugs! Also, what’s with Tom Hank’s son? Why is there even one scene with him? And what about the humor? All those jokes stood out like a sore thumb.

The camera loves Amy Ryan but this movie doesn't.

Aaron: I love your note that it is three different movies. But for me this is both a screenplay problem and a direction problem. There are so many little jokes. Spielberg can't help himself with these little bits of silliness. It baffles me. I'm thinking of that chief prosecutor in the GDR picking up the wrong telephone. Ha ha. And the little trick that Hanks plays on the assistant who is dating his daughter. What a prankster! And when that little joke comes back to bite him when the assistant spills the truth to Amy Ryan I actually laughed out loud. I thought this was quite a comical sequence. But this has nothing to do with the rest of the film in either its plot or its tone. It is very early in the film, and is, I presumed, designed to set the tone for what we're watching, but it's so comic that the tone it set confused the rest of the movie.

Chris: Oh yeah, that assistant... what happened to his plot line/why was he in the movie? For the joke?

Aaron: You are so right about the stuff with Hanks' son. Who cares. Maybe it is supposed to contrast with that final moment on the train? "American kids used to live in terror and sleep with their bathtubs full, but now they happily scamper over the fences of their neighbors so that they can more quickly get to the orange juice in Mrs. Thompson's icebox."

Walt: I don’t see a strong enough connection between the kid in the bathtub and the kids jumping the fence, but I had other things on my mind when that was happening. Yeah, his kid meant nothing.  When he’s deciding on whether to handle the negotiation and who does the pilot remind him of?  Some older kid that works for him that he’s not even related to!

* * *

Walt: But anyway, it’s about the power of the everyman or something. A guy realizes how awesome his life is or how awesome it could be, maybe. Like Joe vs. the Volcano, except the volcano is just a bunch of shitty people he has to wade through. Tom Hanks had a cold in that one, too, except he got better as the movie went on. Maybe that’s the difference between comedy and drama? The cold gets worse in drama. Oh my god. He had a cold. I kept wondering about that in the movie, but it just hit me. Cold. Cold War? Oh my god, I bet that’s it. Like they read a Syd Field screenplay book and got to the section where they suggest you give the character a physical marker à la Jack Nicholson in Chinatown (Jake is nosey so his nose gets cut) and thought “oooh, we should do that for Tom, too! I mean, it’s the Cold War, amiright, Stevie?”

Chris: Worst bit: That old woman on the train. She notices Hanks and scowls at him (you know, because he's defending a traitor). Then weeks later she happens to be on the same train car with him, but this time smiles because he did good job. Steven, we get it.

Walt: Oh my god, that woman on the train. She smiles for an awfully long while, doesn’t she? That’s bad train etiquette, even in an age where you didn’t have to lock your doors at night. Also, what about when Tom Hanks is looking out the subway window down onto the Brooklyn streets and is most likely thinking "god, I’m glad we’re not Russian"?

Aaron: Can we talk a little about Tom Hanks's acting in this? I kept looking at him in this picture and I just don't get it. What is he doing?

Tom Hanks is a little lost.

Walt: I don’t know what to say about Tom Hanks. I love him. I miss him, actually, but not enough that I want him back yet. He should hang out for a while. Thanks to TBS, he’ll never really go away, anyway. They basically just alternate screenings of Big and You’ve Got Mail. I mean, he was fine, he really was. But just because he’s our Jimmy Stewart doesn’t mean he has to take roles that they can’t offer Jimmy Stewart anymore. 

Chris: Hanks was not bad, but forgettable. I thought he was fantastic in that Captain Phillips movie and had high hopes for this. I will say he was a great casting choice, as was everyone. Rylance was fantastic but we didn't get enough!

Aaron: I thought Mark Rylance was great, and I also really liked Peter McRobbie (who plays some sort of higher-up dude in the CIA), and I also thought Sebastian Koch was perfectly cast and he was probably my favorite thing in the whole film. He was so good.

Walt: I enjoyed Mark Rylance. I’ve seen some clips of him doing Shakespeare and one of his funny Tony acceptance speeches, but that’s about it. I found him a bit too adorable, though. Wasn’t there something about him that was just kind cute? With that “would it help?” catchphrase? What a darling. I loved the KGB guy (Mikhail Gorevoy) and Sebastian Koch as well. In a movie that tried so hard to make everything look so dangerous, the danger he presented felt authentic to me.

* * *

Chris: Positive thoughts: Cinematically, it was everything we've come to expect from Spielberg. Just beautiful to watch with great attention to detail. Really lovely.

Walt: You’re right: it was beautifully shot. Spielberg is a master at conventional visual storytelling. That shot of Hanks on the bridge in the 1st ending was breathtaking. I thought the film should’ve ended there.

Aaron: Yeah, it surprises me that you guys thought it was well shot. The whole thing looked simultaneously washed out and milky to me. All of that bright, hazy sun pouring through the windows (this was especially annoying when we were in the chief prosecutor's office at the GDR). I don't understand Kaminski's style anymore. What is the point of bleaching all of the color out of every shot? 

The milky glow of sunlight beatifying our star

Walt: I agree with you that the lighting exposure in a lot of the film didn’t really work, but I’ll still defend the visual storytelling.  Little things, really, like the reveal of all the policeman in front of Tom Hanks' house. A lot of other directors would have shown all those police cars at the beginning of the scene to establish the tension, but Spielberg holds that off and waits until after he’s confronted by the single policeman to reveal what looks to be the entire precinct out there. Before that reveal Hanks and the policeman are on equal ground, but after, we see that Hanks’ character is all alone in this. I’ll also stand behind that beautiful shot of Hanks on the bridge in the first ending. However, I will not stand behind the several shots of using window panes as a literal framing device.

Chris: To be fair, the dismal/it's really cold look with the saturated color scheme was effective. Russia looked terrible and I wanted to put on another coat. Then we get a nice sepia tone for the pilot plot because we're going back in time. Haha.

Walt: Oh man, and what about how the Supreme Court glowed like Superman’s Fortress of Solitude? Spielberg really loves the America. And the 50s. I didn’t mean to write the “the” in “the America”, but it actually seems right somehow. 

Aaron: But I don't think it is fair to say that Spielberg loves the 1950s any more than any of the cohort that he came of age with - Lucas and Barry Levinson and Zemeckis and Coppola all love the 1950s. It was an important time for them. "When men were men" or maybe "when ethical questions meant something" or something like that. The movie does try to deal with those things. As much as Spielberg loves the U.S. – and that absurd shot at the end where Hanks is glad he's not a Soviet is evidence of that – the  movie can't help but notice that the Americans themselves are just as bad as the Soviets and the East Germans at several points. Note Hanks' crack about his East German prison cell being no better than his digs in West Germany. And then there was that crusty old judge and his total railroading of American justice, and the CIA's attempts to get Hanks to violate attorney-client privilege. The movie can't help but show us that Americans are no more a just group of people than the East Berliners or the Soviets. For all its highmindedness about the Constitution and liberty and all of that, the soldiers at the end are still dishonorable assholes to that kid who got shot down over Soviet territory and managed not to talk even though he was tortured. Bridge of Spies believes that the American people are, in truth, just as bad as Soviets and East Germans; we just have better laws over here.

Mark Rylance being adorable.

Walt: Oh man, I totally kept cracking to myself “when men were men” during this movie.  And you’re right too, that the movie includes Americans in the shitty people/volcano that Tom Hanks has to fight (I thought of Lionel Barrymore a lot when watching that cranky judge. Doesn’t that judge belong in a holiday movie about a guy who doesn’t believe reindeer can fly or something?). Perhaps Spielberg is wrestling with the idea that while he was having his American Graffiti moment there were all kinds of assholes pulling strings at the highest level. But do we need this movie for that? Or this story?

 * * *

Walt: Was anyone else struck by Tom Hank’s color palette at the end of the film?  He’s passed out on the bed wearing a charcoal gray suit with a dark red sweater poking out the sleeve.  Does he come back from East Berlin a lil’ bit Communist?  Does it signify Mark Rylance’s last impact on him?

Aaron: I didn't notice a change in his color palette when he returned. Perhaps that was further evidence of that never-ending cold??

Walt: Also, why go through the bit at the end where Rylance mentions that if the Russians don’t embrace him upon his release at the end it will signify his death only to tell us in the credits that nope, never mind, he didn’t die actually?

Aaron: That Mark-Rylance-doesn't-die bit was so Steven Spielberg - a habit he has that is just as marked as his multiple endings. Create tension and make something seem really scary, and then show us that we had nothing to be worried about after all. It happened when the CIA guy followed him in act one, as well. That guy seemed really dangerous, but turns out he was able to be defeated simply by a few snide remarks about American values and some nonchalant snacking on an almond or two. I kept hoping Rylance would get shot on the bridge itself by those snipers. I know that's terrible, but this movie needed some actual stakes, and then all of that tension would have actually had a payoff.

Walt: I fully expected him to get shot. Otherwise, oooooo snipers.  Better watch out, cause, y’know, they might… let you know if someone’s coming or something.

Chris: This was a true event right? So there's boundaries.  I assume Rylance's character didn't get shot on the bridge - then again maybe that whole scene didn't actually happen on a bridge. I don't know.

Hanks on the eponymous bridge

Walt: It had to happen on a bridge, otherwise no title. The bridge was so inconsequential to the film though. What’s the bridge of spies? Is it East Berlin? Tom Hanks? The actual bridge? It works on many levels, but so little is made of the actual bridge that there’s nothing concrete to tie it to. I’m just generally confused. About why the movie was made and what we’re supposed to get from it. I’m sure Spielberg’s great uncle loved it. It felt like a movie that a great uncle would tell his filmmaker nephew that he should make. “Now THAT would be real story.  None of this treasure-hunting crap. You wanna talk about danger?  When I was in Berlin…” 

Aaron: I am not actually sure how I stayed awake.

Chris: So why are people giving so much love to this movie? Is it palpable to today's attitudes towards war?  The paranoia factor? Are people just suckers for Spielberg? The shot that rings most true for me was the Germans getting shot down climbing the wall: that demonstrated the terror of the entire situation for me. That "oh shit" moment. Then Steven screwed it up by having American kids climbing over a fence at the end.

 * * *

Aaron: I am not really a Spielberg fan or a Hanks fan, so I don't have the same kind of affection or emotional attachment to these Hollywood icons that the two of you do, but to me this kind of "prestige picture"/Oscar-bait garbage that Spielberg makes is completely uninteresting. It reminds me of the sort of old-school Clifford Odets-style of writing: a kind of writing that makes itself look very important but actually doesn't say anything at all; it simply pretends to be serious. I think Spielberg should stick to genre pictures.

Walt:  I love Spielberg and I love Hanks, but I’m over their being paired together. I’ve heard that Spielberg thinks Hollywood is broken, though he and his “cohorts” as you called them, namely Lucas, were really behind the breaking. Now he’s trying to make up for it by being a grown-up, except it feels like a 14-year-old’s version of what being a grown-up is. Not that “being grown up” really means anything anyway, but Spielberg seems to think it does, and who better to cast in a grown up movie than Tom “American Dad” Hanks. I don’t know. I don’t know what to do about either of them as a fan of theirs.  I just want them both to go away. Like Star Wars. Just go away so that I can be glad to see them again. 

Chris: If I had to rate this movie with a facial expression, it would be the one that old lady made on the train. Mildly disapproving with a touch of confusion. 

One from the Heart

Francis Ford Coppola's romantic comedy/musical/drama picture is usually hanging around on Netflix Instant, although they take it off now and then just to put it back on (who can study the vagaries of why something is on Netflix Instant?). Anyway, I finally watched it recently, and...

It's one of the weirdest movies I've ever seen, made weirder by the fact that Coppola directed it. I don't have anything against the film's star Frederic Forrest, but although he was a jobbing actor in a couple of important movies throughout the seventies and eighties he never really became a star, so his presence in this curiosity feels odd. Teri Garr and Raul Julia, on the other hand, are super sexy in the movie, but One from the Heart is self-consciously theatrical and also depressing. There's a lot of yelling, a lot of fighting, and the entire thing – and this is probably its weirdest attribute – is shot on a sound stage. The whole thing is so odd. The main song, by Tom Waits (and sung by Waits and Crystal Gale) is actually really great, but it is strange too, especially because I find it gets stuck in my head now whenever I see the title of this movie. In any case, this is weird. I don't recommend it, per se, but it was an interesting early '80s filmic experiment.

Tonto & the Ranger

Julie and I, as a part of a long tradition, get drunk and watch The Lone Ranger.

* * * * *

 

Julie: I'm ready.
Aaron: Give me ten minutes.
Julie: Sure, but I hope you know this mess is two and a half hours long.
Aaron: I do. Such plaintive music! I think these are visual effects.
Julie: Haha. You may be right. Also we have not discussed the most important thing: What are you drinking?
Aaron: Merlot!
Julie: That seems a little classy for Tonto.
Aaron: Merlot isn't so classy, is it?
Julie: There he is! In the museum!
Aaron: "THE NOBLE SAVAGE". We are starting with that racism?
Julie: Well, Tonto is inherently a racist character.
Aaron: Oh this is good makeup!
Julie: Is he eating animal crackers?
Aaron: This is a weird way to begin an action movie. Where is the action? I think they're peanuts.
Julie: Here we go! The non-use of articles is one of the most racist things about this character. Apparently that is a Tonto tradition.
Aaron: Oh great.
Julie: Also, he has always been played by a white guy, so. There's that.
Aaron: But Johnny Depp isn't quite white, right?
Julie: That's the best part! Johnny thinks he might be Cherokee. But according to ancestry.com... He's African American.
Aaron: No you did not bust out ancestry.com.
Julie: Hahahahaha.
Aaron: No way. Really??? That is amazing.
Julie: Right? I mean, we can't trust that site. But: hilarious.
Aaron: Well, this is a Hollywood tradition, right? Non-white people or ethnically ambiguous actors are constantly being paid to play non-white characters.

Aaron: Is that... Tom What's-his-name?
Julie: Um?
Aaron: Hey, it's Pensatucky! I am watching this movie only for the cameos.
Julie: Wait, really? Is that her?
Aaron: Yeah. The woman behind Helena Bonham Carter.
Julie: Oh, I was distracted by HBC's whorish red red red lips and costume
Aaron: I approve of whorish red lips. Do you like Armie Hammer?
Julie: I forgot the Winklevoss was in this. No he's just a pretty face. Perhaps he will be interesting in this one! Or.. perhaps not.
Aaron: I think more than his face is pretty.

Julie: Well, that guy's face sure isn't pretty. Wait, is that the mom from Saving Mr. Banks?!
Aaron: It's her right? Oh maybe it is. I thought it was Pensatucky.
Julie: Ruth Wilson. She's not been in anything else of note.
Aaron: Oh. Hm. Well good for her. 2013 was a big year I guess.
Julie: This poor girl will always be in period dress with a bad accent.
Aaron: Let's hope not, poor thing.
Julie: And that would be Tom Wilkinson. FYI.
Aaron: Tom Whatshisname, Tom Wilkinson. Tomato, Tomahto.
Julie: That dude has a gnarly beard.
Aaron: Who directed this mess? Michael Bay? Gore Verbinski? Is it "Tanto" or "Tonto"?
Julie: Tonto.
Aaron: In Spanish, tonto means foolish.
Julie: I know. When Spain dubbed the original Lone Ranger, they changed his name to Toro. Look at me, I'm a fountain of useless knowledge.
Aaron: I appreciate it. I don't know thing one about this film except what nominations it got. Hahaha. That was funny. PG-13, of course. So the violence will all be fake and only for laughs.

Julie: Well, I guarantee you none of these actors knows as much about Tonto as I just told you. When did Johnny Depp go so wrong? Was it the fourth of fifth Pirates? He is a mess.
Aaron: Long before that.
Julie: He did things before Disney? It's been so long.
Aaron: Well, I was thinking of the second Pirates.
Julie: Oh, yes. That is correct.
Aaron: That second Pirates movie is the worst thing.
Julie: By the way, I already have no idea what is happening.
Aaron: Armie is some kind of district attorney? Something about railroad men? I am glad some action is happening, at least.
Julie: But how did they get together? Did I miss that?
Aaron: Yeah. Armie came in just in time to save Johnny from the criminal guy who just got rescued. But then Armie refused to kill that guy (you know, like you do) and then they both got locked up/captured by those outlaws. What's there to know? Stop the train. Fight the bad guys.
Julie: And why was Johnny locked up again? Because everyone is racist against Injuns? I need some motivation here, Aaron. Help me out.
Aaron: That was not explained as far as I can tell.
Julie: Oh, ok. Then we'll stick with the obvious, if silent, racism.
Aaron: Why is there a bird on his head?
Julie: Because he's an Indian! And that's what they do! What is this music? Who wrote this?
Aaron: Shall we try to guess?
Julie: Hans! The Zimmer Man! (Sorry, I had already looked it up.)
Aaron: Haha. But I love Hans Zimmer. All those drums. By the way, they asked Johnny why he was locked up and he answered "Indian", so your theory was correct.
Julie: Yes! Racism is always the answer. Sondheim should've scored this.
Aaron: Hahaha. Poor Steve. You're terrible.
Julie: Wait, what!? Don't pretend like you don't agree with me.
Aaron: Hahaha. You know I agree.
Julie: Just because he's old doesn't mean he's off the hook.
Aaron: But he's so old and white and closety.
Julie: He's not closely! He has a 25 year old boyfriend or something Doesn't he?
Aaron: He does? Good for him.
Julie: Closely? Am I that drunk? I meant closety.
Aaron: You can't be drunk yet! We have like two hours left in this drama.
Julie: I'm almost done with my first beer. And half the Cheez-its. I eat my feelings! The Racism is making me upset.
Aaron: Step away from the Cheez-It.
Julie: I can't. They're so cheesy.

Aaron: I think this movie used to be called Rango and starred a lizard. Now he's a Texas Ranger?
Julie: Well, it is Gore Verbinski!
Aaron: Is it? I was thinking it was Michael Bay.
Julie: I want a spirit horse!
Aaron: I do too!
Julie: How does one get one of those, do you think?
Aaron: Wasn't there a movie called Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron where Matt Damon was a horse? I think for it to be your spirit horse you have to break it yourself or something.
Julie: Oh my gosh, there sure was. I want a Matt Damon Horse. Yes, but where are all the visual effects?
Aaron: There are, so far, a bunch of really cool shots.

L'Arrivée d'un Train en Gare de La Ciotat

Julie: Yes, but where are all the visual effects?
Aaron: A train came right at us!
Julie: Um. Wasn't that the first film ever made? Haven't we made any improvements in a century?
Aaron: Did you see Elysium? I think it was robbed in the VFX department. You are so right about that train and the first film.
Julie: Elysium was boring as hell and the effects were no bueno.
Aaron: Trains always make me think of Freud and trauma, too.
Julie: Freud has a thing with trains? It is your time to shine dramaturgically and tell me what that means.
Aaron: Honestly, I am the worst Freudian. I have forgotten all of that. But Freud's first explanations of post-traumatic symptoms are related to having experienced a train crash.
Julie: The Lumière Brothers. They did the train first, and it was better.
Aaron: Perhaps the Academy was feeling nostalgic? (Like in the 2011 season?)

Julie: Ewwww. Is he taking his heart?
Aaron: I don't know, but this is way too much for a PG13 movie.
Julie: Ewwww. Did I need to see him vomit?! PG13 my ass. This shit nasty.
Aaron: I think he ate something. Like his kidney or something.
Julie: I feel that is racist in some way. I don't know how. But it is.
Aaron: Haha! It is, of course. The true lawmen are behaving properly. But the evil guys are "savages" right?
Julie: Ok, this narrative frame is total cribbing of Princess Bride.
Aaron: This narrative frame is asinine.
Julie: This is stupid. Is it supposed to teach me something? Also, is that Johnny Depp?
Aaron: Best Makeup. Yes.
Julie: Nice. But is it as good as Bad Grandpa? That is the question.
Aaron: No way. Absolutely not.
Julie: What is the other nominee? I forget.
Aaron: The winner: Dallas Buyers Club.

Spirit Horse!

Julie: Aw shit. I hope not. (Side note: I finished my beer and am drinking water until you catch up.)
Aaron: Catch up to what? I've had a quarter of a bottle of Merlot. And of course Dallas Buyers Club is gonna win.
Julie: Haha. You've got nearly 2 hours to polish that off. Spirit Horse! Do you think they painted the horse? I feel like he must be in white-face.
Aaron: HAHA. It is a really white horse.
Julie: He must be an albino.
Aaron: All of this exposition. It is so unnecessary.
Julie: Ew that horse crap was unnecessary.
Aaron: This is Verbinski's main problem. It's for teenage boys. So we have shit jokes. And racism. Teenagers love that shit.
Julie: I just looked him up and didn't realize Gore was so young! I feel like he's 65 but he isn't.
Aaron: He and Brett Ratner are about the same age, right? They've always seemed really similar to me.
Julie: Brett's four years younger, so basically.

Julie: Bunnies!
Aaron: Back to the narrative frame. Oh. No. It's just bad effects.
Julie: Oh my goodness, do you remember that oscar short that was all bunnies a few years back? It was so good. Sorry, I'm distracted by the bunnies.
Aaron: No. Bunnies?
Julie: Rabbit a la Berlin. So good!
Aaron: OK. I will watch it later. Or perhaps during this film.
Julie: I recommend the latter.

Julie: Did he just say his bird hat was angry?
Aaron: "Bird. Angry."
Julie: Angry Birds?
Aaron: Disney's product placement. So. Much. Exposition.
Julie: Really? I guess I'm just not listening to any of it.
Aaron: I know, but that's the point: why is there so much exposition? The film could be so much better if there were some guns or some explosions or something.
Julie: He needs to stop saying Kemosabe.
Aaron: Or an evil animated rattlesnake.
Julie: Well, we still have an hour and a half. It could happen.
Aaron: Also, let me just say that I wish this were a little more homoerotic.
Julie: Again, we have an hour and a half. 

Julie: I feel like Baz Luhrmann wants to be in this scene.
Aaron: I was just going to say that. Party sequences filmed by Baz.
Julie: He should totally do that! Just film everyone else's party scenes and leave the rest of the movie to the professionals. Is this like Batman? No one can recognize him because his eyes are covered in a black mask? Oh my god, her shoes. They just shot the table!
Aaron: Such a Tarantino rip-off.
Julie: Oh yeah? Huh.
Aaron: The guy who ate the heart is an evil spirit actually.. A windigo or wendigo or something. He eats human flesh.
Julie: He's just like Charlize Theron. I wish this were campier, like that movie.
Aaron: This movie has racist portrayals of black people, too.
Julie: Wendigo! Wait, there are black people?
Aaron: The bouncer.

Julie: The horse is as drunk as I am!
Aaron: Haha. I need more Merlot.
Julie: I need more Harp.
Aaron: The horse is supposed to be a spirit animal. And it gets wasted? Why does he keep saying kemosabe? Did you look that up too? What does it mean?
Julie: Ke-mo sah-bee (often spelled kemo sabe or kemosabe) is the term of endearment and catchphrase used by the intrepid and ever-faithful fictional Native American sidekick Tonto. Tonto originated that word! Who knew!
Aaron: Apparently white people in Texas were just as racist back then as they are now.
Julie: Ultimately derived from giimoozaabi, an Ojibwe and Potawatomi word that probably meant "scout", it is sometimes translated as "trusty scout" or "faithful friend". Its use has become so widespread that it was entered into Webster's New Millennium Dictionary in 2002.
Aaron: You are a font of knowledge.
Julie: I am good at Wikipedia.
Aaron: It's a good thing to be good at.
Julie: I wish this was a horror movie. I mean, dude is eating hearts! Why isn't there a Tonto horror movie like that? (Racism.) OH MY GOD. Is he in blackface?! AND A DRESS?
Aaron: He is. "This ain't what it looks like mister. I just like them pretty things." Well it looks like blackface drag. Is that what it is?

Julie: HAHAHA. Johnny should get the Razzie for this. It is terrible.
Aaron: So what keeps happening is that the film continues to point out that white people are, like, really racist and awful and xenophobic. While the film itself also manages to be really racist and awful with every single one of its portrayals.
Julie: Well, Disney isn't exactly known for being PC. Song of the South and all. They are kind of clueless, even when well-intentioned.
Aaron: Effects! Flying horse.
Julie: I missed the effects! because I was thinking of zip-a-dee-doo-dah! Dammit.
Aaron: I am willing to wager that your memory of Zip-a-dee-doo-dah was better than the effects. Ugh. More cartoony PG13 violence.

Julie: HAHA. Probably true. The redface is making my night. This movie is out of control with the racist makeup.
Aaron: For which it received an Oscar nomination. Actually, I am pretty sure the makeup nomination is for the old-age makeup in the frame.
Julie: He just explained Kemosabe! We were supposed to wait for it.
Aaron: So he did.
Julie: But that took an awfully long time.
Aaron: I am glad you looked it up. What did he actually say?
Julie: Oh, I don't know. I'm drunk.
Aaron: "Young brother"?
Julie: That sounds right.
Aaron: The guy who dresses in drag is named Butch. [I got this wrong, actually, but who can blame me?]
Julie: I love that he's still wearing that bonnet.
Aaron: And the wendigo just told him to "tell him straight"!
Julie: Hahaha

Julie: You can't shoot Mrs. Banks!
Aaron: I think we've all seen enough of these movies to know he doesn't shoot her. Why even bother setting it up?
Julie: But that face plant was awesome.
Aaron: I mean, it's all so predictable! Oh no, I missed it!
Julie: Mrs. Banks falls well. Hey, Black Beauty showed up! OH NO!
Aaron: OMG.
Julie: Animal cruelty. I am calling PETA.
Aaron: "Horse. Dead." Jesus.
Julie: Who's spirit animal was that? What a shame.
Aaron: He only uses nouns.
Julie: He just used a verb.
Aaron: This music was composed by Hans Zimmer?
Julie: Yessir. He just called himself a savage. Was he being ironic?
Aaron: Ironically.
Julie: Is he a hipster Injun?
Aaron: He's Johnny Depp. He invented hipster culture.
Julie: So true.

Julie: Nice scream, Armie. LOL!
Aaron: He is hot.
Julie: I am just not into him.
Aaron: I'll say this for Armie: he knows what kind of movie he's in. Orlando Bloom never did.
Julie: Truth.
Aaron: Barry Pepper! Told you  I was in this for the cameos.
Julie: But there aren't that many! There should be more.
Aaron: There should.
Julie: Also, Armie's mask is throwing me off. It's like he's going to the masquerade in the Phantom. He's in the sweat lodge! I hope they start singing "Colors of the Wind".
Aaron: That is not a sweat lodge. That is just a regular old teepee.
Julie: Whatever. They can still sing.
Aaron: This is so racist. Oh Jesus.
Julie: See! They're laughing at his mask too!
Aaron: "Many moons ago"? Really?
Julie: Exposition. 
Aaron: By which you mean more exposition.
Julie: But this is the first time I'm listening. Kind of.
Aaron: See, this is the thing that pisses me off. They act like evil white people killed the native peoples of the Americas. Such bullshit. The people who killed the natives were regular middle-class assholes. Not special hateful ones. Just normal ones.
Julie: The stories we tell ourselves...
Aaron: Right. "We are already ghosts". Wow. That was a good line. I'm actually emotional about that one.
Julie: I am emotional about the fact that that Native American actor is in this piece-of-shit movie.

Aaron: Where is the magic horse, Júlia?
Julie: I don't know, but I need some magic.
Aaron: Me too. Visual effects!
Julie: YAY! Horsey's back! Oh my god, he's so cute. And he just ate the scorpions.
Aaron: He is cute!
Julie: Um, no. Armie cannot pull himself out of sand with his teeth. Ridic. I have to (tee)pee. Be right back.
Aaron: If there is going to be a silver mine, there will probably be Chinese immigrants, too. Yep. Here they are.
Julie: Naturally.
Aaron: What we just saw was preposterous. A cave that has been dug by miners or railroad men cannot have Indian cave paintings on it. It has just been dug.
Julie: Aaron, you are being logical. But this movie is not. You have to accept its fictions!
Aaron: Finally an explosion. I've been waiting.

Julie: Fun music, Hans! Is he gay or straight (in real life)?
Aaron: Hans Zimmer?
Julie: HAHAHA. Well, yes, I'd like to know that too. But I was talking about Armie.
Aaron: Armie Hammer, as far as I know, is quite straight. [So is Hans Zimmer, as it turns out.]
Julie: Hmm.
Aaron: Long term girlfriend, I think.
Julie: I kind of want to watch Pirates now. Johnny is way more fun in that.
Aaron: He is really good in that.

Julie: Is she about to get acupuncture?
Aaron: Chinese woman? Keeper of oriental mysteries. This film.
Julie: Haha. truth. Is that Barry?
Aaron: It is.
Julie: Wow, we haven't seen him in anything in a long time.
Aaron: This man is obsessed with the railroads. But in 21st-century film that signals über-capitalist obsession. Which signals: bad. So Tom Wilkinson will turn out to be a villain of some sort. Just wait.
Julie: Well, clearly. I already thought he was one.
Aaron: Barry Pepper knows what kind of movie he's in, as well.
Julie: She certainly doesn't.
Aaron: What is happening? Whoa. This just got crazy.
Julie: Tom was praying.
Aaron: Is this Fiddler on the Roof? I thought they were going to sing "Sabbath Prayer"
Julie: Tom's beard is really bad. It is too bushy and not the right color.
Aaron: Is his beard fake?
Julie: Um, clearly
Aaron: I think that beard is real.
Julie: Really? How can we find out?
Julie: "Stupid white man." Yup.
Aaron: Yup. Eating Caesar salad.
Julie: Hahaha. I love a good Caesar salad.
Aaron: Julie, I am obsessed with Caesar salads. I make them at home now.
Julie: Really? One can be obsessed with Caesar salads?
Aaron: I crave them, honestly. I know. It's crazy.
Julie: But they are like so unhealthy for you. I remain unimpressed by these train visuals.
Aaron: As do I. What's wrong with a sensible Caesar salad?
Julie: Wait, I thought that kid was Armie's? Who is his dad?
Aaron: Maybe it is. I don't know, actually. How old is he?
Julie: No, he was whining about his dad maybe being dead. So it can't be Armie.
Aaron: The boy, I mean.
Julie: 10?
Aaron: Well, Armie says that the girl and he stopped talking 8 years ago. So... maybe.
Julie: Mmmmk.

Aaron: In these kinds of movies, why don't people who want each other dead simply kill one another?
Instead, they defer it.
Julie: Because then the movie would be 10 minutes long.
Aaron: The death, I mean. What would Derrida say?
Julie: WWDS?

Arrow-scene from Zhang Yimou's Hero.

Aaron: The Chinese workers are actually wearing the hats they wear on the rice paddies. Like, seriously? For digging tunnels? Seems impractical. And fucking racist.
Julie: YESSSSS SO MUCH RACISM. Hard to believe we still have 40 min to go.
Aaron: Oh for Heaven's sake. We do? What else could possibly occur?
Julie: Exposition.
Aaron: Hahahaha. True.
Julie: The Indians are coming!
Aaron: This scene brought to you by Zhang Yimou.
Julie: :D
Aaron: At least Verbinski watches other people's movies. OMG! Kurosawa shot. That is the famous Seven Samurai shot.
Julie: I love Hans just rocking out in the background. He knows how to get the job done.
Aaron: This is horrible.
Julie: And by horrible you mean amazing. Explosion!
Aaron: That was cool. By horrible I just mean how the slaughtering of thousands of native people is just one more fun adventure sequence.
Julie: Barry killed the old Indian!!!!!! I hate Barry. He really is a ghost now.
Aaron: JULIE!
Julie: What?
Aaron: Does Johnny's whiteface wash off in the river? Apparently not.
Julie: Where is the horse? That's all I'm worried about. He is the best actor in this thing.
Aaron: Seriously. The film keeps forgetting about the horse.
Julie: I don't understand how you can forget about a spirit animal like that.
Aaron: Me either.OK but seriously where is the horse?
Julie: Yay! We just saw him!
Aaron: Oh there he is.
Julie: :)

Aaron: Wait, this is somehow about the transcontinental railroad?
Julie: I don't care about the railroad. And I don't think this film does either.
Aaron: Cameo! It's the guy who plays that guy who loves staplers in Office Space. No. You are wrong. This film is obsessed with calling the railroad evil. This film is anti-technology.
Julie: But that is so weird.
Aaron: Stephen Root? I think I thought of his name.
Julie: Who? I don't know who that is.
Aaron: The guy Tom Wilkinson is talking to.
Julie: He's talking to a lot of guys.
Aaron: This scene stolen from The Godfather.
Julie: HAHAHA. Yes. The Lone Ranger, The Godfather. Basically the same.
Aaron: "Hurry up wid dem grapes". What?
Julie: Is the black guy Jamaican? What the hell is happening?
Aaron: "The National Anthem".
Julie: Johnny is not anti-technology, though. There goes that train.
Aaron: Is he stealing all that silver? Is that what's happening?
Julie: I'm not sure. But the horse is back, so I'm happy.
Aaron: This is the William Tell Overture.
Julie: Sure is.
Aaron: Is that a Lone Ranger thing?
Julie: Yes.
Aaron: I love the William Tell Overture. These are visual effects. YES.

Aaron: Terrible. This movie is terrible. Did it do well at the box office?
Julie: You were just excited about it! No, I'm pretty sure it did badly.
Aaron: He hit the girl in the head with a piece of coal And she fell like a cartoon and then got back up.
Julie: Reference: "Johnny Depp Blames Critics for Lone Ranger Bombing at the Box Office".

Aaron: Zimmer is having a good time.
Julie: Well somebody should be.
Aaron: There are two railroad tracks that run parallel to one another. In what world?
Julie: Hahahahaha In Gore's world.
Aaron: Hahaha. That grape slingshot thing was a good joke This movie's second good joke. I've forgotten the first.
Julie: I missed both of them.
Aaron: Never bring a knife to a gunfight. Or an unloaded gun to a knife-fight.
Julie: That was the first joke?
Aaron: No. That was just good advice.
Julie: Ah. I'll keep that in mind. I am waiting for them to make this into a ride at Disney World. That would be fun.
Aaron: Depp blamed the critics for this film's bad performance?
Julie: Apparently. Isn't that hysterical? It couldn't possibly be his terrible performance.
Aaron: Perhaps he ought to have blamed a) his lack of a desire to get in shape for the film and b) his continual need to work with Verbinski. But, like, the critics were right. I love Hans Zimmer right now, though. He just hasn't stopped!
Julie: Yes, he's making this part tolerable.
Aaron: He truly is.
Julie: He just threw Armie a bullet. And he caught it. From a moving train. This movie.
Aaron: Like. James. Bond.
Julie: Just. Like.
Aaron: You cannot shoot a car off a moving train. I am sorry.
Julie: In Gore's world, anything is possible. What is with this time piece?
Aaron: I don't know. The future? The past? No idea. Another watch.
Julie: Hmm. Another of Gore's enigmas.
Aaron: Remember when Rango won Best Animated Feature?
Julie: Unfortunately.
Aaron: Dayne and I always talk about how awful it is. He says thank you for the Her score link, by the way.
Julie: You're welcome? I'm mad at those Her people. That is ridiculous. [We are talking about the fact that the score for Her hasn't been released on iTunes or CD.]
Aaron: It is! That score is gorgeous!
Julie: And it's the only one that would actually make money and they just failed to make it. Like, seriously? Wait, is it over? The bunny just ate the scorpion! What does that mean?
Aaron: Huh? Back to the frame?
Julie: You missed it.
Aaron: No, I saw it. I've onloy had one bottle of Merlot.
Julie: Onloy?
Aaron: OK.

Mr. Fichtner.

Julie: Never take off the mask. Oh. It's over.
Aaron: There will be a button, surely.
Julie: You and your buttons. I always just turn shit off.
Aaron: And now the credits. Which clearly arrive with shame. Who would take credit for this?
Julie: Johnny was a producer. Hans!
Aaron: Well usually I just fastforward until the end of the credits to make sure there isn't a button. I like this tupeface. Typeface.
Julie: Tupeface? Hehehehe.
Aaron: It might be my favorite part of the movie. William Fichtner? That was Willliam Fichtner? James Frain was in this? Who was he?
Julie: I don't know; they all had beards.
Aaron: Remember when he used to get work regularly? I miss him.
Julie: That button sucked.
Aaron: Seriously, though, this movie was already made. And it was called Rango. And it was about greedy railroad barons. And it was just as Manichaeistic as this one.
Julie: Well, as Tina and Amy say, if something goes kind of well, Hollywood will just keep doing it until everyone hates it. I really don't think I even watched Rango all the way through. I am over putting myself through this shit.
Aaron: Haha. This score is great. The winner for the evening is Hans Zimmer.
Julie: Sorry, Hans, but I've gotta go with the horse. I mean, he at the scorpions and was generally delightful.
Aaron: Oh. You might be right. I change my vote. Horse and then Hans.
Julie: Wait, did the horse even have a name?
Aaron: Silver! "Hi yo, Silver!"
Julie: Oh. HAHAHAHA.
Aaron: Julie. Come on. I thought you researched this shit.
Julie: He didn't say it until the end! And then I was just like, oh! Yeah! That phrase! haha.
Aaron: Yeah, but, like. It's famous.
Julie: Shut it.
Aaron: No, they had a whole convo about naming the old mare.
Julie: At least I knew the William Tell Overture was from The Lone Ranger.
Aaron: True. I knew enough to ask...?
Julie: They had convos about a lot of things that were unimportant, Aaron. How was I supposed to know when to pay attention?
Aaron: Can I ask a question about the botton? Button. Jesus. Merlot.
Julie: HAHAHA Sure.
Aaron: Where is Tonto going?
Julie: I have no idea. He got all dressed up and everything. No clue.
Aaron: He is wearing a suit.
Julie: He must be looking for Silver.
Aaron: I'm looking for another glass of wine.
Julie: Hahaha. How many have you had? I only had two beers. And I am ready to pass out.
Aaron: Let's close out the Lone Ranger. Does it win anything?
Julie: No.
Aaron: Anbolutely not.
Julie: Yeah, I mean, that old Indian makeup was good, but that's not enough to win. And visual FX were not even on par with the other noms.
Aaron: Totally agree.
Julie: Sorry, Johnny.
Aaron: Also, no one is going to see this except us.
Julie: So sad. So true.
Aaron: Not sad.
Julie: We are dedicated (fools).
Aaron: Indeed.
Julie: Ok, I need to go to bed. Please edit me into a coherent, sober being.
Aaron: Good night.
Julie: Peace out. Hi-yo Silver. And all that Jazz.

Some of our earlier dialogues: The Avengers, Snow White and the Huntsman, Anonymous.

52163 over 16604

I think that the first thing to note about Life of Pi is that it is basically a kids' movie. It's rated PG (a fact I had apparently not noticed before buying my ticket). I had also forgotten that Life of Pi is in 3D. (The 3D works quite well and enhances the picture nicely, by the way; it isn't simply an unnecessary addition used to increase the price of your ticket.)

Ang Lee's film takes Yann Martel's survival novel (the book works like The Swiss Family Robinson and Robinson Crusoe) and makes a kind of fairytale out of it, something magical and filled with wonder. In fact – and how often does one get to say this? – the movie is better than the novel. Much better. Lee is able to use both CGI and 3D in ways that bring the story to life in a way Martel's prose never does. The film works more like 2001: a Space Odyssey or one of Jules Verne's great novels, where there are always new things to discover, and the world is a place of remarkable synchronicity and spectacle.

Lee and his screenwriter David Magee (the magical storyteller behind Finding Neverland) also manage to deal brilliantly with the book's incredibly problematic third section. The movie cannot escape its source material's insistence on the quote power of storytelling unquote (something I found clichéd in both the novel and the film), but it manages to deal with the pitfalls of this banal aphorism by using the medium of film itself – well, digital cinematography, anyway – to illustrate the power of cinematic storytelling. You'll see what I mean when you see the picture. The end of the film is never shown, only narrated, whereas we see the entire middle section of the film, we're in it. The second version of the tale feels less real – necessarily so – because we never actually see it. Gérard Depardieu does not eat Bo-Chieh Wang's leg.

The performances are lovely. Suraj Sharma, in his first film role, is great as the younger Pi, and Irrfan Khan (whom you know from Slumdog Millionaire and Mira Nair's films Salaam Bombay! and The Namesake) is just superb as the older, Canadian Pi. Irrfan Khan gives one of my favorite performances of the year, in fact. He is truly lovely in the film. Indian megastar Tabu is also great as Pi's mom. I want to say, too, that I loved Mychael Danna's music. It's absolutely beautiful, and can hold its own with any other of this year's scores.

I had been worried about the CGI in the movie, and the truth is that Life of Pi doesn't always look real. In fact, an overwhelming majority of it looks computer-generated. But Lee deals with this, as well. The realistic scenes with Irrfan Khan and Rafe Spall, his interlocutor in Montréal in the present day, all have a similarly CGI-inflected feel. The effect of this is that the "real" feels artistic and computerized from the beginning, so that when a tiger jumps toward the camera (a lovely homage to Apocalypse Now) it struck me as just as "real" as the scenes at the adult Pi's kitchen table in Québec.

Like I said, though, Life of Pi is a kids' movie. Lee and Magee have softened the book's violence for the film. Violence always exists just out of the view of the camera; there is no blood at all (a shocking artistic choice, really); and one never truly feels that Pi is in any danger whatsoever. The cannibalism and murders in the book are completely excised for the film, allowing the movie to avoid the strange feeling I had when I finished the novel, that all of this fantasy and the cliché of "the power of storytelling" covered over something much more sinister. The film has none of these complications, making for a more straightforward tale, and to my mind a much less troubling one.

The religious element of the novel takes up a similar amount of space as it does in Martel's novel. I fail – as I did in the book – to understand how this section of the story makes any sense or has any relation to the rest of the tale. Sure, it's comical; Pi is a Hindu, a Christian, and a Muslim, and apparently sees no contradiction in combining the three religions. The film makes him a sort of Kabbalist, as well. But gods have basically nothing to do with the story/stories of Life of Pi. This is a tale of a young man and a Bengal tiger. The addition of religion seems a digression (at least it did to me) in both the novel and the film. At the very least, the tale told by Pi – his total abandonment of religious dogma and, indeed, many moral principles, while at sea due to (obviously) hunger and its attendant madness – seems to demonstrate the deficiencies of dogma when confronted with true life-or-death struggles such as, oh, you know, being abandoned at sea for the better part of a calendar year.

The film of Life of Pi is less about gods and more about the universe. This movie is a kind of paean to the beauty of the world in which we live, the world we think we know, but which holds many wonders that we can see if only we pay attention: the ocean and its vastness, the many animals of the world, the stars and the solar system, the extraordinary fact of edible plant life, even evolution. Life of Pi asks us to be grateful for these gifts, and entreats us to look at them with new eyes, thanking the universe for what it has granted us, that it has allowed us to perceive even the small part of the splendor it allows us to access.

As Regards The Master

I have been delaying a post about The Master for a while.

Often, when I feel like a film is a little smarter than I am, or when a film overwhelms me, I just avoid posting altogether. Sometimes, I feel like a film is just too good, and I don't have anything to say except the (rather boring) oh-my-god-I-loved-it. Films like Biutiful and The Reader and The Wrestler left me without words at the time, though, for the record, I could now probably regale anyone with numerous reasons why I love those films.

But I haven't been avoiding discussion of The Master because it's too good. It is, rather, that The Master left me feeling very conflicted. I didn't love The Master, and this isn't because it is not excellent. It is excellent. But I found The Master also to be deeply flawed.

In many ways, The Master is a kind of continuation of Anderson's previous masterpiece There Will Be Blood. If you remember, Blood was a kind of giant metaphoric battle of wills that pitted (evil) capitalism against (evil) religion. There Will Be Blood is a morality tale dressed up as a personal drama. It uses dual character studies as a cover for an exploration of what Anderson (via Upton Sinclair, who wrote the source material) sees as competing sets of lies that trap human beings and blind them to their own lives and the lives of others. I found it difficult not to see Anderson's big-picture metaphors in There Will Be Blood, but they didn't bother me even a little bit, so taken in was I by the story, the character studies, and the sheer audacity of Anderson's filmmaking.

(Further, There Will Be Blood was an enormous departure for the director, whose previous films had been stories of late-twentieth-century life, saturated with color, filled with urban ennui, but possessing an underlying faith in the good intentions of his characters.)

The Master is also a battle of wills between two characters, each of whom symbolizes a way of life or a system of lies that traps human beings. Joaquin Phoenix (who is just absolutely genius in this movie) is a wayward alcoholic, who can't keep a job down, who has no direction in his life, who is impulsively and dangerously violent, and who mixes his own unique brands of hooch using shall we say unconventional ingredients (in the first few minutes of the film he uses – in different brews – jet fuel, paint thinner, and what looked to me like acetic acid).

His foil is the eponymous Master himself, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman (with his usual obstreperousness), an L. Ron Hubbard-type figure who believes in past lives and who performs something called "processing" on people willing to undergo his pseudo-psychoanalytic treatments.

Both characters are very, very interesting, and it is a testament to how convincing both characters are that my companion and I both considered the self-destructive alcoholic to be the one to have gotten in with the dangerous crowd and not the other way around. There are also some absolutely phenomenal sequences. Joaquin Phoenix's first processing session is easily some of the bravest, best acting he's ever done. It's incredible, actually. Anderson's direction of actors is flawless. His eye for detail is extraordinary. The Master is breathtakingly shot (by Francis Ford Coppola's cinematographer Mihai Malaimare Jr.), and Johnny Greenwood's score is haunting, intelligent, and engaging.

But... The Master outstays its welcome. Anderson is not satisfied with the film's first ending, and tacks on two or three more (depending on how you count). And the larger evils for which his (admittedly fascinating) characters stand in – alcoholism and religion – come to seem simple, trite, obviously flawed. Too soon I sensed my own feelings of superiority for these characters – one an aimless, disaffected alcoholic, the other an unapologetic, destructive charlatan. It felt easy to say Well why can't he simply get his life together? and How dare this man behave with such shameless arrogance?

If The Master is complicated, rich filmmaking – and it undoubtedly is – it also settles for answers that seemed to me too easy, and its moral compass is less complex than the intricate, humane storytelling that Anderson is able to achieve.

Pacino

I have heard many people say that their favorite actor from the 1970s is Dustin Hoffman or Robert De Niro. There's also Jack Nicholson and Jack Lemmon and Roy Scheider and Gene Hackman and Warren Beatty. I like all these guys, but my favorite - that's my story and I'm sticking to it - is Al Pacino and has been for ages.

It's easy to say that he yells a lot in his performances these days. Fine. He has a lot to yell about. But, let's just go back a moment: Serpico and The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II and Dog Day Afternoon and ...And Justice for All. are really just the beginning of a career for a man who has continued to produced excellent, surprising performances for the three decades since ...And Justice for All. The man continues to choose difficult roles and is choosing, more often than not, excellent material as well. It seems unfair to compare Angels in America or The Merchant of Venice to, say, Meet the Fockers and Everybody's Fine, but... well, I just made the comparison. My point is that I think Pacino has continued to challenge himself and add to his own work with engrossing and powerful performances even though he is over seventy years old. It's a fine body of work, and I hope the fine performances keep coming.

Love him.

Train Movies: Part 1

I don't know what got into me, but I watched Unstoppable, last year's Tony Scott film, and I liked it so much that I thought perhaps I would rent a couple of other train movies. I mean, there are quite a few famous ones – Sidney Lumet's Murder on the Orient Express comes immediately to mind – but, as I don't really re-watch movies, I thought I would check out a couple that I hadn't seen.

The thing that is great about Unstoppable is that it is, basically, a thrill a minute. The acting is passable, the storyline is highly improbable, and the whole thing has this very serious tone. It was also obviously written by the typical Hollywood writer who can't think of a more interesting villain than a big-business hatchet man whose main motive is "corporate greed" in the abstract. But I thought the whole thing was just so exciting. I mean, a train is barreling through Pennsylvania at like eighty-five miles an hour running into shit or nearly running into shit. I had a great time.

I watched Runaway Train, the Andrei Konchalovsky film with Jon Voight and Eric Roberts because I had thought that Unstoppable was based on this 1985 flick. Not so, it turns out. Runaway Train is a much smarter, much more 1970s-style film with an anti-hero in the Gene Hackman vein (I'm thinking of The Conversation and The French Connection). Runaway Train is about a prison breakout in Alaska. Jon Voight and Eric Roberts break out of the prison, sneak through the sewer system and get out to a trainyard somehow. After they get on the train, the drama really starts. This one doesn't have the suspenseful big-movie qualities that Unstoppable does, but it is not a film about trains crashing into shit like Unstoppable is.

Instead, Runaway Train is a film with an interesting ethical center, a movie interested in ethical conundrums and the essential humanity of the incarcerated. I was really into it, and since Runaway Train takes place on a train going ninety-five miles an hour, it's hard for it not to be suspenseful. Runaway Train also has an absolutely great ending, and you know how I love a great ending.

More train films to come. I'm just getting warmed up.

Since I'm Almost Done with School...

I've been watching some movies lately, along with going to recitals. There's about one every day this week and next, it seems.

So I added Robert Z. Leonard's The Divorcee with Norma Shearer to my queue recently. It's packaged as a "pre-code" Hollywood film, but it's from 1930 so, of course, it's incredibly tame by today's standards. The film follows Norma Shearer as she gets married and then divorces her husband because he's a philandering jackass. Well, first she cheats on him to settle the score and then he divorces her because he can't deal with his manhood being impugned. The film had me at this point. Norma Shearer calls her husband on his sexist double standards and then divorces his ass. Then she goes about town with numerous other men and tries to have a little fun. The movie winds down with her realizing that her life is empty (all that partying: so exhausting!) and meeting an old flame who still pines for her. She is planning on marrying him and moving to J-pan, but then his wife (who was tragically disfigured in act one) comes into the scene and Norma Shearer realizes what she really wants to do is not to marry the man who could make her happy, but find her husband (now living in Paris) and try to make a go of it with him again. The film ends happily (of course) with the sanctity of marriage being upheld, etc, etc. It's a lot like The Love Parade in this way--and similarly disappointing. Still, Norma Shearer is fabulous. If you've never seen her in anything, you're missing out. She won an Oscar for The Divorcee and it's because she played against type with this role and she's superb in it.

Today I continued my 1984 kick by watching Francis Ford Coppola's gangster-flick-slash-musical-revue film The Cotton Club. The movie stars Richard Gere, Gregory Hines and Diane Lane. As I said, it's a gangster film about the Cotton Club, so interspersed with the Godfather-style murders and meetings and kidnappings are musical numbers starring very light-skinned black people. It's a weird movie anyway, but it's treatment of race is a little odd, to say the least. Gregory Hines is second-billed in the movie, but the Hines plot and the Gere plot intersect only very rarely, and I began to wonder why we were following his story at all. Obviously, the film means to follow a white man and a black man as they navigate the politics and seamy underbelly of the Cotton Club, but the film is only truly committed to its white lead, and whenever the film turns its focus to its black lead it feels like an afterthought. This is so pronounced that The Cotton Club is really two movies, and because it divides its time between the two, the film never really gets off the ground. There is at least one really good scene in the picture, but it's mostly eye candy. The period is beautiful to look at and Milena Canonero's costumes are gorgeous. But that is pretty much all The Cotton Club has going for it.