Way Harsh, Part 2, a Small Photo Tribute to Brittany Murphy

Because I should be doing other things... and because I very sincerely am saddened by Brittany Murphy's passing... and because I don't know how to capture video... and because the video would likely be taken down promptly... and because I don't know where my copy of Drop Dead Gorgeous is... here are some of my favorite caps of the late actress, whom my friend Jessie described as "a staple of our generation" (so accurate)... Nathan from Film Experience Blog probably said it best with "I missed her before she was gone." The stills are from Clueless, Freeway and The Dead Girl.

Totally Buggin' with a sad face

While doing some factual research for the Decade List (character names and what-not), I saw the horrific headline at the top of the screen: Brittany Murphy Dies at 32. From my pre-teen years watching Clueless more times than I would prefer to admit, Murphy has always had a special place in my heart (made even more solid by her all-too-brief role as Reese Witherspoon's lesbian bunkmate Rhonda in Freeway). Though her career was fairly patchy afterward, especially the big Hollywood vehicles like Just Married and Uptown Girls, she gave a truly memorable and heartbreaking performance in 2006's The Dead Girl, which now feels even more haunting than it once did. In addition to acting, she sang on a Paul Oakenfold track, "Faster Kill Pussycat," one of my not-so-guilty pleasures. I may have to put off rewatching Gerry to remember some of Murphy's finer offerings (those being the aforementioned Clueless and Freeway, as well as Drop Dead Gorgeous... I didn't think I'd ever feel sad watching any of those three). I wonder if the proposed Clueless sequel/reunion will still happen. Terrible news.

Breakfast at Tiffany's Is Your Favorite Movie? Just Look at Me.

Love and Other Disasters - dir. Alek Keshishian - 2006 - UK/France

I hate finding myself in the cinema, especially when it's in the form of a seen-it-before romantic comedy like Love and Other Disasters. It's even worse when that character proves to be the most pathetic in its ensemble cast. Peter Simon (Matthew Rhys) is a film-obsessed journalist, who wears Echo & the Bunnymen T-shirts, with romantic woes of tragic proportions. "Films have ruined my love life," he says, as I sit back, groan, and realize, "fuck, I'm ruined." I tried to ignore this tragic projection in focusing on Brittany Murphy's indecipherable accent, but it just kept coming back. And, this isn't to mention that the characters exist in a reflexive London where its inhabitants try their best not to fall into cinematic clichés. I need to get a life.

Penny for your thoughts? How about 20,000 of them?

Yes, the quote that titles this blog is from The Brady Bunch movie -- and, I'm sorry, but it's a guilty pleasure of mine. Christine Taylor has brilliant comic timing, though she's never used properly, and I can't think of any other film based on a TV show that I hate which actually amused me (um, well, yes, I can... Miami Vice... scratch that). PS: What Carol Brady (Shelley Long) doesn't realize is that 20,000 pennies would equal $200, not $20,000 which is needed to save their house from foreclosure... just a minor blemish.

MTV should be shot for including the film 300 in a category that recognizes the "best" of anything in their Movie Award nominations. Granted, who gives a fuck? But my hatred for the film 300 runs so deep, even this irks me.

Why do people (particularly black people) find men in drag... or more specifically, men dressed as fat women... amusing? Christ, it's barely funny any more in Some Like It Hot, and that's a recognized "classic." Now we have to have Norbit, Mrs. Doubtfire, any fucking Tyler Perry abortion, White Chicks, Big Momma's House 13, To Wong Foo, the Hairspray remake (mind you, no John Waters films are included in this blasting) and probably a bunch that were recently green-lit. Mrs. Doubtfire earns some minor respect in my book, solely for Arrested Development's brilliant parody of it.

Dear filmmakers (and TV producers),
If you feel the urge to put any incarnation of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" in your film, slap yourself. This applies to you: Amy Berg (Deliver Us from Evil), anyone involved in Shrek, Andrew Niccol (Lord of War), Hans Weingartner (The Edukators), Julien Schnabel (Basquait), and the producers of that ridiculously successful show House. The song no longer emits any serious emotional response from the audience except for a groan.

Back on the subject of music, Yo La Tengo should score every film out there. With three amazing scores in just two years, they have a perfect understanding of the relation between visuals and music. See: Shortbus, Old Joy, and Junebug for reference.

Christians are scary. See: Danielson: A Family Movie (or, Make Joyful Noise Here) or Deliver Us from Evil for just two cinematic examples of such.

In addition to Christians being scary, I’m scared of Dakota Fanning. Though I think the name The Dakota Fanning Rape Conspiracy is a wonderful band name (I trademarked it, so don’t try to steal it from me), I don’t know what to make of her. She seems to always be “acting” to ludicrous extents--extents that are completely distancing from the audience. She’s not a human; she’s some sort of alien or acting robot. Granted, I am basing this solely on my “I’m-bored-on-a-Saturday afternoon” watching of Uptown Girls on TV, but I’ve been told that she’s not much different elsewhere.

I’m sick of hearing about this being the summer of “threequels.” That’s not a word, fuck off.

With this year’s Cannes film festival coming very soon, I wonder how long it will take for the Palme d’Or winner to make it stateside. Other than Fahrenheit 9/11, which had a release date before it even premiered at Cannes, most of the past winners have taken over a year, including the Dardennes’ L’enfant and Ken Loach’s The Wind That Shakes the Barley, which will be on DVD in July, a year and two months after it's big win.

Is there a “respected” Oscar winner out there who has had their name involved in more shitty film projects than Nicole Kidman? (I say “respected,” because Cuba Gooding Jr., Mira Sorvino, Marisa Tomei, and Angelina Jolie don’t count.) Though I think she needs to stay away from the Botox, I can admit that she was wonderful in The Hours, The Others, and To Die For, but look at the rest of her films. Some of them may have sounded worthwhile in the pre-production stages only to get fucked in the end (see Fur, The Human Stain, Eyes Wide Shut, and Birth), but some of them were just destined to suck (see Bewitched, The Stepford Wives, The Interpreter, Batman Forever, and Practical Magic). With all these failures, she doesn’t seem to be touched by it, perhaps because everyone forgets about her shittier projects.

I wish Steve Carrel would stick to lower-key comedy like Little Miss Sunshine; his performance in that film will keep him forever in my fondest memories, even if I dislike everything else he does.

Why do directors want to work with Kirsten Dunst? She’s only given one worthy performance in her life and she was like 10 when that happened (Interview with the Vampire, if you’ve forgotten). Ms. Dunst has managed to woo “hip” directors like Sofia Coppola, Michel Gondry, and Sam Raimi to cast her in their films (in Sofia’s case, twice!). Her performances lack any interest or, worst of all, soul, and yet I still have to hear about her. If the rumors of Kiki playing Debbie Harry in a biopic are true, God help us all.

Also on the subject of actresses, how come Jordan Ladd seems to be showing up in… everything (at least everything on my American cinema radar)? I once only remembered her as the sex-crazed Alyssa who warned her friends about the coming of the rapture (not the Siouxsie and the Banshees album, mind you) in Nowhere. Now, she’s in Grindhouse, Inland Empire, Cabin Fever, and--of course--Hostel 2. Don’t get me wrong, I quite enjoy her, and though I hate her mother (Cheryl Ladd), she inadvertently gave the world the glory that is Rose McGowan by vetoing Jordan’s involvement in The Doom Generation. McGowan replaced her as Amy Blue last minute, and the rest is history.

Quentin Tarantino has an unhealthy foot fetish. Expect a blog with numerous photo examples of such soon. Someone else has already spotted this.

And, if you haven't yet seen Kelly Reichardt's Old Joy, it has officially taken Mutual Appreciation's spot of the best film of 2006, only six months late. It's a rapturous experience that I can't say I've had in a long, long time.

Like the title says...

Clueless - dir. Amy Heckerling - 1995 - USA

It's a strange thing revisiting a film that sort of defined parts of your youth. It's a stranger thing to find that it still holds up. And even stranger that it's far more subversive than you could have even mildly understood ten years ago. Clueless, director Amy Heckerling’s Fast Times at Ridgemont High for the 90s (her attempt at a 2000s flick, Loser, tanked), became the blueprint for numerous, inferior teen flicks (worse, teen flicks based on famous literature) to this day. While high in character count, Clueless is essentially all about Cher Horowitz (Alicia Silverstone), a chic, materialistic wannabe-do-gooder from Beverly Hills. The films that followed Clueless, from She’s All That to 10 Things I Hate About You, took a broader approach, trying to get just about every stereotype of a teenager to relate. Here, especially in retrospect, you relate with no one. Cher is shamelessly in her own head, with delusions of selfish philanthropy. Silverstone is absolutely perfect in the role, as you never really think that she’s any different from the character. While there’s your usual supporting roles from other social groupings--a skateboarding stoner (Breckin Meyer), a smarmy crooner who replaces penis size with status (Jeremy Sisto), and a “clueless” girl from Jersey (Brittany Murphy)--this is not their film. Cher is our model teen and, with her narration, we’re given entrance to the mind of the cluelessly hip.

Heckerling doesn’t make Cher the teen queen she thinks herself as. While she gets the boy in the end and wipes clean her conscience, the title of the film most directly points to her, not Tai, her selfish “project,” or Dionne (Stacey Dash) and Murray (Donald Faison), who’ve “watched that Ike and Tina Turner movie one too many times,” Amber (Elisa Donovan), the bitchy poser, or even Josh (Paul Rudd), the textbook college student, ex-step-brother of Cher. It’s Cher that’s clueless. During the pivotal scene where Cher comes to terms with falling for a gay guy and realizing she’s deeply in love with Josh, her interior speech is interrupted by a fashionable dress in the window. “I wonder if they have that in my size,” she cheers. Before this, she very meticulously creates acceptance for her fuck-ups with her friends, never believably. Or at least not believably outside of Cher’s mind. The film’s resolutions find Cher catching the bouquet at her teachers’ wedding, whom she set up for her own selfish, grade-grubbing purposes, and kissing Josh, her true love. This is the way the film had to end, but this doesn’t make the ending a happy one. Cher has found interior acceptance of her missteps, even if they only make agreement subjectively. Cher is, above all, a materialistic, selfish, self-absorbed bitch, completely unaware that her good doings only happen to make herself look and feel better. As we can notice the naiveté of the young idealistic lovers in Richard Linklater’s quintessential 90s Before Sunrise in retrospect, we can see the same thing in Clueless. Though I think it’d be a long-shot to ever get made, a Clueless 11-Years-Later sequel could maturely illuminate these youthful pretensions of happiness and acceptance, just like Before Sunset marvelously did. Plus, what's Alicia Silverstone doing now anyway?

All this aside, Clueless still stands as one of the wittiest, quotable films of the 90s. From lines like Cher’s response of “I love him” to her gay boyfriend’s question of whether or not she likes Billie Holiday to “Searching for a boy in high school is as useless as finding meaning in a Pauly Shore movie,” Clueless was what smarter (or more fashionably-savvy) kids quoted instead of Clerks. I could quote further, but that’d ruin the fun in revisiting the film. Sure, certain forms of teenage, 90s colloquialisms really fall flat: “Isn’t my mom a total Betty?” or “I totally paused” are examples. But, now, we can look at those terms (though they may have been simply created for the film) as we might look at a man calling a girl a “dame.” They’re certainly of their time. And, of it’s time, Clueless certainly was. It’s strange to find that the film works as far more than simply a cultural landmark in film and subverts its own glossy, colorful, happy exterior.

Crunk

8 Mile - dir. Curtis Hanson - 2002 - USA

It's sort of a chore to bring myself to a film like 8 Mile. In fact, I haven't actually seen the film since it came out in theatres and played (thankfully for free) at my school. A friend of mine and I had a long discussion recently about rap stars and our intense dislike for them. While there are different genres of rap, there's a unifying quality to nearly every rapper working today shares; this is there shameless and unironic sense of vanity (this quality lends itself, too, to artists like Jennifer Lopez, as well). Rap songs these days are never really about anything; there're simply platforms for self-promotion, maturabation, and vulgarity. For some reason, speaking in the third-person about yourself has become the norm, and if that's not okay, at least have someone announce your name at some point in your song. This is even the case with hip-hop artists that I genuinely respect. For some reason Wyclef Jean, of the Fugees, turns a song about Shakira's hips not lying into a song about refugees. Jay-Z turned a Tupac metaphor of his "girlfriend" (read, his gun) into a song about his quite literal girlfriend Beyoncé. While rap music seems to have turned into an artless money-making business (and while 8 Mile is certainly a bad film), I find myself struck with the lack of this vanity and this vulgarity in 8 Mile.

Based on his real life (though very much dramatized in a Hollywood sense), Eminem plays Jimmy, your very typical introverted artist who just wants to rhyme, but life keeps getting in the way. Even before it's brought up, there's a tournament that hovers over the beginning of the film; it may not be explicitly mentioned, but you know it's going to happen. This is to be the arena where Jimmy can shine and prove everyone wrong. If you don't know how it ends, you haven't seen enough films. Perhaps 8 Mile's lack of vanity comes from director Curtis Hanson, a director who, on a few occasions, makes you forget that his screenplays are infested with clichés. There's a "rawness" in 8 Mile that never truly seems authethic, yet still manages to have you thanking someone in Hollywood for not making this into a vain two-hour long adaptation of a rap song. Really, the best scene in the movie is the sex scene between Jimmy and the boss' daughter (Brittany Murphy). It's never glamourized, not the least bit sexy, and our hero finishes in just a few minutes. Seriously, what rapper would agree to play a character who blows his load in less than five minutes? It's also a bit strange that a rapper like Eminem could outact both of his trained costars, Murphy and (especially) Kim Basinger as his mother. I will probably never see the 50 Cent vehicle Get Rich or Die Trying, as I find 50 Cent to be far more disgusting and narcissistic a creature than Eminem. And while I cannot even begin to call 8 Mile a good film, in retrospect, there's something genuinely refreshing about a film that strips away the now-staple unironic egotism that so plagues the world of hip-hop music.