Some Thoughts on Mad Men: “A Little Kiss, Pt. 1”
Labor strife has settled, though it still barely hovers in the background. Familiar faces, long dispersed, reconvene in the service of glitz, glamor, and a white-knuckle grip on the tail-end of culture. And the times have changed since Mad Men last graced the little screen.
It’s Time to Meet Them…Again: The Muppets
It may start with Paul Simon playing the music, after lights have dimmed rather than lit, but the message behind The Muppets is clear: these people (critters? The debate may never end) are back. Raucous, rambling, loud and spectacular, the reboot of Jim Henson’s all-too-venerable creations gets it right by not being so reverent, and by recognizing that the Muppets are all about having fun, even if it means the occasional slip into chaos.
The Goonies Put Away Childish Things: Super 8
In many ways it’s easy to mistake Super 8 for The Goonies; the progenitor of that particular brood of rapscallions, Steven Spielberg, is at the top of the poster as an executive producer, after all. Given the band of plucky and physically varied kids on an otherworldly mission, the comparison is more than easy to make. But whereas The Goonies was a celebration of childlike wonder and imagination, Super 8 is about growing up, leaving fantasies behind, and facing the real world—even if that world holds some truly fantastical challenges.
O Brother, Where is Thou Hammer?: Thor
For the god of thunder, Thor doesn’t really make a ton of noise. Sure, there’s bellowing, whimpering, the odd outburst of melodramatic screaming. And things go “boom” with a clockwork regularity whenever the mythology of Asgard and the delicate family politics of royalty threaten to overtake slam-bang Marvel action. But on the whole, this comic book extravaganza from a Shakespeare-bred director, starring two Oscar winners, two nobodies and one gratuitous-yet-hilarious Kat Dennings, is a surprisingly sedate affair, an experiment in opulent maneuvers that belies the beguiling depth of its fraternal connections.
(Cough Cough) Whoa, a Dragon!: Your Highness
Once upon a time, in the magical land of California, two men created a TV show. That show, Eastbound & Down, was a profane pipe bomb of outlandish comedy, a gleefully masochistic skewering of ego, fame, and full-bore delusion. This show rocketed it’s star and co-creator, Danny McBride, into the uppermost tier of Hollywood funny men; it was only a matter of time before he and his faithful companion Ben Best made a movie together.
Oh, if only that movie had not been this one.
Girls Behaving Badly: Sucker Punch
There is a point—actually, many points—in Sucker Punch when it all just seems too much. The bullets, the booms, the whirling limbs of theoretically of-age girls are an all-out assault on both the senses and any sense of morality. Well, no one has ever accused Zack Snyder of subtlety, and his latest opus of violence, sex and comic book fetishizing simply re-affirms his standing as the most outré of all the popcorn movie directors in Hollywood; for him, it’s go big or go bigger.
Their Fate Can’t Be Adjusted: The Adjustment Bureau
Little moments matter so much. The bus we catch or the bus we miss; the door left open or the door locked tight; the question we ask, or the silence we keep. All of these seemingly miniscule decisions and occurrences make up the path our lives take, building a massive, overarching plan that we call Life. This is the central tenet behind The Adjustment Bureau, a little movie ostensibly about Very Big Things that succeeds because it focuses on the little things, and allows the big picture to take care of itself.
Films, Award Shows, and the Joy of Life: Movie Marty’s Oscar Picks
These are not predictions. There is not (much of) a piece of me that actually believes that my personal preferences will in any way resemble the winners list tomorrow evening. The Oscars, after all, are far from pure guarantors of impeccable quality—after all, any method of evaluation that could place Dances With Wolves above Goodfellas can never, ever be looked to as a paradigm of integrity. That said, they’re still a hell of a lot better than the Golden Globes.
Also, these are not definitive rankings or statements of quality. Since I have yet to see two of the best picture nominees (The Kids Are Alright will arrive from Netflix, tragically, on Monday, while Toy Story 3 will be saved for a rainy Pixar-esque day), I can only judge what I believe to be the best of the rest. But with those caveats, I feel compelled to lay down my judgements with the utmost authority that can be garnered by a part-time blogger with four followers, so here goes.
There are many ways to evaluate the worth of a film, like any piece of art. We can examine the minutiae of story, sound, and sight, deeming the the most technically flawless production as excellent, and then grading the rest on a curve. We can base our judgement on popularity—the more people thought it was worth seeing, the better it must be. Or we can rely on the most fickle of metrics, the impact that a film has on our souls. Some movies just hit you, cause your experience to transcend the theater, and there is no logic that can explain why it affects you more than the film you saw last week. Films like these can cause the bitterest of disagreements, since the person sitting next to you might be utterly unmoved. Perhaps most of the audience does not see its worth, and would never award it a thing, much less the most coveted statuette in Hollywood. And yet, these are the films that make you want to go back to the theater, just to be moved again.
The King’s Speech, by all accounts the prohibitive favorite to win Best Picture, is not one of these films. Don’t get me wrong, I spent a perfectly pleasant two hours in the company of excellent actors portraying extraordinary people in the most down-to-earth way they could, in a story swirling with historical importance and laced with both humor and pathos. In other words, the type of film that is beautifully calibrated for awards season, but still obviously calibrated. And in a field that, more than any recent year, is full of risky, exciting work, the staid Oscar-bait of The King’s Speech stands out only in its comparative mediocrity.
Two preseason favorites, Inception and The Social Network, seem to exist on opposite ends of the awardability spectrum. Inception, conventional wisdom has it, can’t win Best Picture because it was a summer blockbuster, an action movie with a veneer of intellectualization—if Avatar couldn’t pull it off, no way Inception will come out on top. I think the actual issue is that the exploration of dreams is too cerebral; while Nolan’s masterpiece will make you think, it won’t make you stand up and cheer. The Social Network, similarly, is chock-full of Big Ideas, ranging from the nature of friendship to class warfare, and the visceral impact that David Fincher excels in is talked to death by Aaron Sorkin’s witty but wordy screenplay. Inception, on the other hand, managed to keep the thrill of the dream in sharp focus while still implanting paradoxes and riddles that would niggle your brain for days afterward; for his structural brilliance alone, Nolan gets the nod for Best Original Screenplay.
A lack of visceral impact was not a problem for Black Swan, and Darren Aronofsky more than earned a Best Director statuette with his chilling vision of the pursuit of perfection. And although I maintain that Mila Kunis was robbed of a Supporting Actress nomination, there is no stopping Natalie Portman from picking up her first Oscar. Everything that can be said, about her dedication in training, her beautifully naked performance, and her utter embrace of character, has already been said—suffice to say, she’s the most clear cut winner in recent memory.
For Jennifer Lawrence’s sake, I wish that Winter’s Bone had come out last year. If it wasn’t for Portman, Lawrence would be making a strong case to be the youngest winner ever for Best Actress. As it is, she can take solace in the buzz around her virtuoso performance, as she was the heart and soul of a stupendous little indie film that managed to be both wrenching and brilliantly mannered. Director Debra Granik and her writing partner Anne Rosellini should pick up the Oscar for adapting Daniel Woodrell’s novel into a pitch-perfect tale of courage, dedication, and honest necessity. What’s more, John Hawkes makes a strong case for Best Supporting Actor, thanks to his brutally frank depiction of how deep family loyalty can lie, but how powerless it can sometimes be.
Hawkes is edged out, however, by another drug-addled family member. While The Fighter struggles with some corny dialogue and contrived histrionics until the poetry of the sweet science sweeps in, the film is buoyed by Christian Bale’s manic energy. While he doesn’t shy away from the darkness of his crackhead character’s world, Bale makes it easy to see why Dickie is still the Pride of Lowell, decades after his last bout. Bale might well be joined in the winner’s circle by Melissa Leo, who plays his mother with the scorn, deep affection and plethora of whiskey and cigarettes that any Irish kid from Eastern Massachusetts will recognize instantly.
Leo edges out chic pick Hailee Steinfeld because Steinfeld just didn’t have quite enough to do in the Coen’s remake of True Grit. Don’t get me wrong, she was wonderful as the precocious, hard-driving conscience of Rooster Cogburn’s resurrection, but it’s hard to shine a particularly bright light when you’re plunked next to Jeff Bridges. Playing a slightly more destructive version of his Oscar-winning Crazy Heart brigand, Bridges once again shows that he’s one of the best in the business, drawing the love of the audience no matter what kind of dangerous antics he engages in. But he won’t be bringing home the hardware two years running; True Grit only earned one statuette, for Roger Deakins’ breathtaking cinematography of the Old West.
Instead, co-host James Franco earns his first Oscar, for anchoring the best film of the year, 127 Hours. Danny Boyle’s whirling dervish approach to filmmaking makes a kinetic, touching, and ultimately jump-up-and-sing life-affirming story out of a guy being trapped by a rock. No small portion of the credit belongs to Franco, who more than meets the challenge of having to carry most of the film without even being able to move. The tormented contortions of his face are just a miniscule ingredient in his performance; what makes his character, and the film, connect is how, even in the darkest of hours, he oozes such a joie de vivre that we all yearn for his freedom, and celebrate it when it finally comes. Rarely have I left a theater feeling so uplifted, and I had just watched a guy cut off his own arm with a dull Leatherman knife.
For the way it glorified precious life, for the universality of its emotion, and for the brilliance of the sun it showed during a cold and frigid winter, I pick 127 Hours for Best Picture. Will the Academy agree? We’ll find out on Sunday.
What Has Six Legs and Two Very Sore Tuckuses: The Human Centipede: First Sequence
“Why are you doing this?” screams a naked Japanese man, crouched on all fours with two whimpering American girls extending from his surgically altered rear end. A legitimate question, and one that someone, at some point must have asked Tom Six, the writer/director/producer of Human Centipede: First Sequence. What his answer would have been is perhaps the most pronounced and by far the most profound issue raised by this disturbing, graphic and ultimately pointless entry into the mad scientist niche of horror.
What a Man Wants: A Boy and His Dog
If nothing else, A Boy and His Dog, L.Q. Jones’ quirky whack at post-apocalyptic allegory, can be commended for a certain measure of cheeky honesty. Although the radiation-ravaged landscapes of countless films are awash with thievery, brutality and depredation, rarely are the prerogatives claimed and jealously guarded for sustaining life addressed so bluntly, and with such humor. For behind its admittedly flawed indictment of societal tyranny, A Boy and His Dog is first and foremost about those basic staples of a life worth living: food, and sex.
