Month: April 2008

Pain is funny. Or funnyish.

We recently saw two very good films that zero in on people in pain. In The Savages, there’s a scene where Philip Seymour Hoffman, having wrenched his neck during a game of tennis (and an argument with his sister Laura Linney about his idiocy in his relationship with a woman), stands with his head bound up in an absurd weighted contraption, meant to “balance” him. Linney looks on and laughs, and he can’t help it–bursts into giggles, too. And ‘though the pain doesn’t go away, not the nerve in his neck nor the loneliness of their lives nor the anguish of their family history and current reality (dad sinking into dementia, and needing to be put in a home), the laugh reframes the pain as less a personal blight than something the two share. Continue reading Pain is funny. Or funnyish.

The Orphanage

A gothic manor house located in a particularly beautiful, particularly remote spot on the Spanish coast is purchased by a woman who lived there decades before when it functioned as a Catholic orphanage. She and her husband, along with their six-year-old son, work to restore the home and transform it into a school for mentally disabled children, but when her child starts communicating with unseen forces and soon vanishes into thin air, the past finds a way to eerily push itself into the present. This film is creepy and atmospheric and evocatively affective–perhaps due to the fact that it’s plot ingeniously appropriates and recontextualizes the story of Peter Pan. There is a set piece about twenty-five minutes in that is stunning, and the ending’s perfect balance of the uncanny and the mythic will break your heart.

Fuck you, Gravy Robbers!

Adult Swim keeps upping the absurdist ante.

Walt Whitman’s review:
Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job! is often aggravating,
but it’s never boring,
is never complacent,
and I sing of
its cascade of chubby men in thongs,
its fluids dribbling or spewing or squirting from mouths (and elsewhere),
its unibrowed whore-milk-drinking baby Chippy,
its frenetic love of (don’t we all) synthesizer dancing,
and its video tomfoolery circa 1982,
oh Zach Galifiniakis
Galifaniakis,
Kiss Zach,
drinking your gravy caught in your thick thick burly beard,
I-I-I-I-I watch in slackjawed wonder.

Lars and the Real Girl

I was dubious and this will definitely not appeal to all tastes, but I was completely enchanted and moved by this Capra-esque fantasy firmly rooted on the planet earth by smart, unadourned, emotionally resonant acting choices. Lars (an understated Ryan Gosling in a charming and warmly human-sized performance) suffered extreme trauma as an infant and the result, twenty-seven years later, is that he severely lacks interpersonal relationship skills. When he purchases a life-sized, sex doll for companionship, literally convincing himself she is real, his brother wants him packed off to a mental institution. His sister-in-law (Emily Mortimer) takes a different tact and soon the entire town rallies around Lars’ relationship with “Bianca.” None of this should work. None of it! The potential for treacly, saccharin-laced whimsy is undermined by a no-nonsense approach and a cast of characters straight out of an E. Annie Proulx novel (the original screenplay by “Six Feet Under” scribe Nancy Oliver was nominated for an Academy Award). The first act is a bit forced (give it a little time) and the ending, befitting the genre, is telegraphed from the next state, but the plot twists keep you engaged and even surprised.

Inside

HOT DAMN. Another great, vicious French horror film–not quite as smart, polished, and riveting as Ils/Them which I reviewed a little while back, but it is still sharply-shot, often unnerving, and about 10,000 times gorier.

The plot: a pregnant woman who recently lost her husband (how careless!) is being assaulted in her home late one Christmas eve by a profoundly freaky Beatrice Dalle (the Betty Blue), who wants to give her a Caesarean. Or, more precisely, wants the baby for herself, and plans to get it expeditiously, using whatever comes to hand.

I’m likely the only person who posts here who would love a film so unrepentantly gory, but maybe it might attract fans of stylish, audacious filmmaking; its qualities are not merely the repulsive but the perverse seductive beauties of such gore, and every shot is lovingly framed, the colors are vibrant, the use of shadow and haze outstanding. The directors rival Takashi Miike in their ability to yoke a vibrant, joyous aesthetic sensibility to such literally pulpy, vigorously vicious material.

Toilet Scissors

I can’t compete with Arnab’s Kids’ erotophilia. (I’m tempted to simply write: “Arnab Chakladar has an unhealthy love for Kids.” Let’s see that come up on google.)

But the Upright Citizens Brigade long-ago earned a place in my pantheon of great comedy shows. Their work comes out of a dedicated improv set-up, sketches developed live and on the fly, tweaked but still very free-form — and displaying an often-dizzyingly wonderful talent for absurd synchronicity. (I also have this huge love for depictions of people singularly, obsessively, aggressively focused on a plan of action. Whether promoting the use of ass pennies, teasing others at an ugly club, or trying to get a group of Christian-camp kids to confess to wrong-doing, the slow-burn build to angry exasperation always makes me laugh.)

Their concert film Upright Citizens Brigade: ASSSSSCAT illustrates the improv in action; following a monologue from a guest-speaker, on a topic thrown from the audience, the UCB troupe (supplemented by a few other guys, including a very very funny Horatio Sanz and Andrew Daly) riffs on elements of the story. The filmed show is grand; the extras include clips and scenes from a number of other shows, and they’re all great.

the kids in the hall

they’re back. mike and i and a bunch of others are going to see them in minneapolis later this month. it will be my third time seeing them live. the previous shows were brilliant adaptations of sketches from the show for the stage. this tour is apparently mostly new material from which they hope to spin off a new show and a movie. here’s an av club interview replete with video.

i have this emotional connection to the kids which i can’t quite explain–and it doesn’t translate to them individually (though i did watch newsradio religiously). it may be that it takes me back to those halcyon days of grad school, when we had no money and theory seemed like something worth fighting drunkenly over in bars. oh, wait, those were nightmarish days. anyway, as intellectually satisfying as the kids’ comedy can be (like a man getting hit in the groin by a football, it works on so many levels) my primary relationship to it, and them collectively, is one of love. i almost burst into tears when “having an average weekend” played at the beginning of the show the first time i saw them live (i think it was at the wiltern–john, pete, did we all go together?). mike, make sure to bring some hankies, and be ready to hold me close on the 26th.

Walk Hard

I would provide a mild recommendation for Jake Kasdan (& co-writer/comedyimpresario/medialovechild Judd Apatow)’s biopic shenanigans. As it began, I was sucked into its pitch-perfect mimicry and its generally sly and absurdist approach to parody — Apatow learned some of these chops on the old “Ben Stiller Show,” which offered up some of the greatest, sharpest showbiz satires ever made. (My favorite was the Behind the Music documentary about the rise of U2, who were managed early on by Reuben Kincaid.)

Alas, those bits were 10 minutes long, and this is almost 90, and … well, it is never more than a sly absurdist parody. John Reilly remains one of my favorite comic actors, unrivalled in the portrayal of earnest dimwit intensity. But Dewey Cox–and every character–remain sharp but shallow caricatures, and the film doesn’t develop the sense of character the way other Apatow films (or even the best Will Ferrell vehicles) do. Watching Anchorman I felt like I was inside Ron Burgundy’s head, and it was a wonderful strange place, but Dewey’s all too familiar. Walk also avoids the scattershot quantity-theory of parody (a la Airplane), which allows it to be much smarter but also less frequently funny. I admired the craft of the jokes, and I’m not sure a general intellectual appreciation ought to be the primary outcome for a comedy like this.

I did enjoy the full-frontal male nudity. Penises are funny.

Jackie Chan!

Fuck Brett Ratner. Chan’s return to Hong Kong for an old-school silly/pathos-drenched/action-thriller Robin B Hood is ridiculous and reasonably good fun. But I recommend it for its pedagogical import: this story of two burglars who end up caring for a baby they’ve kidnapped is really just like parenting. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thrown a shit-filled diaper at Kris, and it’s splattered the wall and her to hilarious effect. Or accidentally tied the baby carriage to an armored truck, and then had to commandeer vehicles in a mad chase to rescue the happily-cooing Max. I was so glad to see a movie finally, finally get it right.

Seriously, if you like Jackie Chan, you’ll like this. A few great gags, in the stuntman sense–e.g., hopping from air conditioner to air conditioner down the side of a building. A lot of inane but harmlessly pleasant gags–e.g., diapers, a strange Brokeback Mountain joke, etc.

Oh, I’m thinking of opening a blog for discerning, film-loving parents. Besides these rare instances of films which accurately represent, I’ll be doing some serious kids’-film criticism. My first post will explore the numerous continuity errors I found in Scooby Doo on Zombie Island. Shameful.