Change Your Image
travisyoung
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
The Invisible Man (2020)
A performance you must see
As a thriller, The Invisible Man is well intentioned and crafted with moderate competence--a machine designed to take you breathlessly from one scene to the next, your emotions shattered but logic intact. The story is familiar enough, not so much because of it's namesake, the original 1933 The Invisible Man starring Claude Rains, but it's resemblance to 1991's Sleeping with the Enemy.
At least these filmmakers are smart enough to know that if a woman is going to be repeatedly placed in peril, she had better be the heroine and headline the film, even if from the very moment the film begins Cecilia Kass (Elizabeth Moss) is a woman who is determined to no longer be a victim. She escapes her house by the sea and sleeping husband (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) by running away in the middle of the night. No backstory is offered, we just observe the bleeding edge tech lab as she painstakingly disables each security feature from a single laptop, and from this we surmise that hubby must be a bad dude who is rich and has a playroom less transgressive but sadly more boring than Christian Grey. There are other minute glimpses of his character which suggest his general unfitness for marriage, but these assumptions still do not demystify him in the least. He isn't even a one dimensional character--he truly remains invisible, a cipher whose actions and motivations remain largely unknown for the majority of the film.
Cecilia finds safe haven with a single father cop friend (Aldis Hodge) who happens to have no personality or backstory beyond what I just described. Her new domestic life is portrayed by her being afraid to go outside to get the mail. Sooner rather than later the plot thickens when bad hubby's brother/executor (Michael Dorman) shares the tragic(?) news that hubby is dead, and willed five million to Cecelia paid out a month at a time for about four years.
By now we all know what is going on, even if we don't know how or why, but it is more or less fun to watch. Here these scenes draw from better and more notable films like Poltergeist and The Shining, and ultimately we are the better for it. Cecilia is stalked and seemingly gaslighted through a plot that twists but never quite turns dull.
Elizabeth Moss delivers a tour-de-force performance. If you are like me, it is quite possible you have already witnessed countless hours of her degradation and determined glares directly into the camera on "The Handmaid's Tale". Though the material in that series is arguably better fare in every way, in this film, Moss leads us to scenes which may seem far too contrived to be plausible, however she herself remains totally and utterly believable throughout every frame. Her pitch-perfect performance does not make The Invisible Man a particularly significant film in the scheme of things, but it does establish that she is a film actor of the highest significance because she carries this film completely on her back.
Trust me, if she wasn't in this, it wouldn't be worth watching.
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
Grotesque beauty
The crickets are chirping amid the stillness of what must be a balmy summer night. Bathed in moonlight sits an old farmhouse, its high gabled roof and slatted walls shining brilliantly against the dark outline of a quaint picket fence. And there, in sharp silhouette is the slim figure of the Hunter perched on a tree stump facing the house, conveniently dappled in shadows from a nearby oak. He slowly begins to croon a smooth a cappella rendition of "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms," his baritone voice filling the night air with dread and premeditation. Also cloaked in shadows is old Rachel Cooper, sitting in her chair on the screened porch breathing silently, ever vigilant, staring towards the voice piercing the darkness, her shotgun laid ready across her lap. Perhaps they can see one another, perhaps not. As the Hunter once again sings the refrain, Rachel even joins him in canon, the blend of their voices beautiful but eerie, ancient foes locked in eternal conflict, watching and waiting. Suddenly, the night dissolves in an instant as the screen covering the porch clots with blazing reflected light--a child has innocently approached Rachel with a burning candle, not realizing the mortal significance of the stalemate she has disrupted. Rachel frantically blows out the flame, but it is too late: the Hunter has vanished from his perch, and surely lurks invisibly somewhere close in the darkness, anywhere, everywhere, waiting with a patience as old as time. Rachel gazes into the abyss and hears the echoed hoot of an owl. The owl too is perched on a tree, his snowy blank face like a mask, imperial and emotionless, floating disembodied in the night. He shakes his feathers and spies a lone young rabbit scurrying clumsily on the ground. When the rabbit screams, Rachel's expression falls in weary recognition, her large eyes sad, and she says to herself, "it's a hard world for little things."
In The Night of the Hunter, it is indeed a hard world for little things. To siblings John (Billy Chapin) and little Pearl Harper (Sally Jane Bruce), it must seem like an unending nightmare fraught with immense evil and unspeakable loss. That their world is so mesmerizing and beautiful for us should almost make us feel guilty if this was not the work of fiction that it is.
John and Pearl seem like ordinary kids growing up somewhere in rural West Virginia along the Ohio River Valley during the depression. Their father, Ben (Peter Graves), robs a bank for ten thousand dollars, kills two people in the process, and before his children's eyes hides the money, is arrested, and is subsequently convicted. It so happens that his cell mate, Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum), is a prolific but opportunistic serial killer of widows who is nabbed for stealing a car, the full extent of his crimes apparently unknown to authorities. Tattooed alternately along the knuckles of his hands are the words "L-O-V-E" and "H-A-T-E", and it is not a coincidence that the hand that holds his ever-present switchblade is labeled "HATE". He saves that hand for women in particular. He has adopted the nickname "Preacher", professing a religion he and the Almighty "worked out betwixt us." Though Preacher wheedles and begs, Ben Harper takes the secret location of the ten thousand dollars he stole to his grave when he is swiftly executed by the state.
Preacher is not a subtle character, but upon his equally swift release, he is somehow able to dupe just about everyone into believing that he is actually a former prison chaplain who bonded with the late Ben Harper before his execution. With a broad swagger, he ingratiates himself into the lives of not only his ex-cellmate's children, but prominent members of their gossipy tight-knit community, and even their mother Willa (Shelley Winters). His masquerade is so persuasive that in almost no time at all Willa accepts his hand in marriage (the one tattooed "LOVE", no doubt).
Of course, the markings professed on his right hand are a lie: Preacher is not interested in love, or Willa, or anything except the ten thousand dollars Ben Harper hid somewhere. Willa doesn't know or care where the money is, and indeed, is only interested in love. At the conclusion of a marriage possibly even shorter than its courtship, Willa sits bolt upright tied up behind the wheel of her car at the bottom of the river, her hair flowing gloriously amongst the long river weeds, a deep, jagged slash across her throat.
Preacher knows the newly orphaned children are the key to the money, but when they narrowly escape his clutches and sail down the river, the cat and mouse game really begins. Preacher becomes the titular Hunter, and his obsessive pursuit of young John and Pearl leads us through an odyssey of astonishing beauty and madness. Along the way, an elderly lady named Rachel Cooper (Lillian Gish) becomes their protector, proving herself an unlikely but ultimate adversary to Preacher, a woman who is as committed to goodness as he is boundless evil.
Charles Laughton directed The Night of the Hunter at the height of his acting career. It was the first and only film he ever directed. Upon release, it was widely considered a failure, but today is often lauded as one of the best films ever made. Following a basic Southern Gothic formula, The Night of the Hunter is a savage antithesis to the preachy moralizing and sentimental pedagogy of To Kill a Mockingbird. The Preacher is no Atticus Finch, but the reverse is equally true.
The Night of the Hunter has a special place in my heart due to its heightened characterizations and a visual aesthetic that has been charitably labeled "expressionistic" but is actually nothing but baroque exaggeration. Like the smooth voice of the preacher, this film is hypnotic, casting a spell of affection it may not entirely deserve. There is something profound and exhilarating watching The Night of the Hunter for the first time--the scenes where the children glide down a shimmering river fill me with thrill and mystery, and the silhouette of the preacher riding a lone horse along the glowing horizon singing his hymn with patient omniscience stills the very blood in my veins. Too canny to be classified an avant-grade experiment (a la Eraserhead) and too dreamy to totally suspend disbelief, The Night of the Hunter is a startlingly gorgeous work of art that challenges us to find good in the face of evil, beauty within ugliness, and light in the darkness.
The Goop Lab (2020)
*sigh*
Maybe Gwyneth Paltrow's head should have stayed in that Pandora's box at the end of Se7en. Avoid at all costs. Bad science, bad logic, bad show.
1917 (2019)
The State of the Art
In a film landscape where Marvel movies are understood by many as masterpieces, and true art films are so connivingly dissected that nothing is above some reproach, a film such as 1917 makes perfect sense. I have read film critics copiously bandy about the descriptor "immersive" when attempting to justify effusive praise for this film the same way "pathos" is and has been inevitably invoked to describe the films of Charlie Chaplin. I suppose "immersive" does seem like a good fit in a film with a singular linear narrative; on the other hand, with such simple storytelling at play, were 1917 not "immersive," it would be an utter failure.
Amidst the height of the First World War, two British soldiers, lance-corporals Blake (Dean Charles Chapman) and Schofield (George McKay), are sent on a dangerous mission to deliver a message to another regiment that will stop a battle and save the lives of 1,600 men, one of whom is Blake's brother. As they battle the clock, their perilous trek through filthy rat-infested trenches and across enemy territory littered with booby traps is filled with high drama rendered ultra-realistically and seemingly captured in real time. Along the way, others that enter and exit the story in small but memorable cameos give the narrative a context and depth that profiles more than mere characters, but the time in which they lived and the war they volunteered to fight and even die for.
If many of these elements seem somehow familiar, that is because they are. Though undeniably "immersive", 1917 is more than anything else derivative. Make no mistake, this is an exceptional movie, although there is no way it could ever be described as exceptionally original. The heavily praised continuous take presentation has a deep and long precedent, originating with Alfred Hitchcock's 1948 film Rope, and most successfully executed with Birdman in 2014. The plot, though based upon true stories told to writer/director Mendes by his WWI veteran grandfather, bears more than passing resemblance to story elements from Saving Private Ryan. Many other film techniques and depictions may only be generously described as homages to Paths of Glory, Full Metal Jacket, and Apocalypse Now.
So does this lack of originality make 1917 a bad film? By no means. The acting is superb and effortless, the music stirring, the cinematography and editing nothing less than brilliant. Does this set a new high watermark for technical film quality? You bet. Writer/Director Sam Mendes has never made a bad film, and here he just may have assembled a perfect one, constructed of the best parts of many other successful films before it.
I suppose in a film culture saturated with countless sequels, prequels, reboots, and reimaginings, this is the new normal. In that context, for better or worse, 1917 is the state of the art.
Paris, Texas (1984)
The Best Film You Will Ever See
Paris, Texas is the best film I have ever seen, and without the complete participation of your emotions it would be an utter failure. Rather than a fault, this is an element of design crafted intentionally by the artists responsible for this film. If contemporary films were interpreted as formally as classic literature, then the plot surrounding Paris, Texas would be understood as nothing less than a post-modern Greek tragedy. Yet on a much deeper level, there is a kind of hard wisdom, more precisely a reckoning, that takes place within the unfolding narrative of the film that defies traditional moviegoing experiences because the transformation that occurs is within us.
Travis (Harry Dean Stanton) is not simply a broken man when we meet him wandering barren landscapes near rural Terlingua, Texas in search of water. Though grizzled and emaciated, he defies characterizations of mental illness or the slightly more nuanced strong, silent Man With No Name (though indeed, Travis does choose to remain mute for almost the first quarter of the film). From his eyes blaze a pain so immense, so intimate, one cannot even begin to guess the personal holocaust that brought about his current state.
What we do see is the literal collapse of Travis's apparent four year nomadic exile in the desert when he passes out from dehydration at a gas station near the Mexican border. His younger, more domesticated brother Walt (Dean Stockwell) rescues him by bringing him back to civilization. Although their strained travels west through the desert back to Southern California do not reveal the secret of his past tragedy, these moments do uncover in bits and pieces what exactly Travis lost: his wife and son.
In the suburbia overlooking I-5 and Hollywood-Burbank airport, Travis's seven year old son, Hunter (played by Hunter Carson), has been living with Walt and his wife Anne (Aurore Clément) as their child for four years. Although he has been told his biological father is Travis, when Hunter meets him again face to face, they are strangers. Neither Travis nor Hunter have any substantial memories of one another. Walt and Anne open their home for Travis to live, and support him as he reaches out to Hunter. One night after supper, they play old home movies for Travis and Hunter to watch, and we see first hand what seemed to be much happier times. Captured on shaky super 8 celluloid is footage from a trip the brothers took together with their families. Young Hunter is playing, everyone is smiling, and for the first time we catch glimpses of the woman whose presence up to this point in the film has always been felt but never seen: Jane (Nastassja Kinski), the young and beautiful mother of Hunter and the love of Travis's life.
Things are not quite the same after they watch the home movies; the relationship between Travis and Hunter begins to improve, and Anne reveals to Travis that Jane has been sending money for Hunter once a month from a bank in Houston. From this point, the film again changes, and we follow Travis and Hunter as they embark on a quest back to Texas to find Jane.
In the hands of lesser-talented artists, these scenes would be predictable. But it is the driving mystery of what destroyed Travis that orients the story in a trajectory forward into the undiscovered country of Jane. Though I will not reveal what happens in the film's final act, I will say that these scenes represent the best acting and filmmaking I have ever seen. Some other movies can be emotionally manipulative. In those films, quick cuts, close-ups, and flashbacks are used as gimmicks to visually embellish what the story lacks. That is not the case with Paris, Texas: as our wonder and fascination with what actually happened becomes knowledge, this knowledge alone influences how we feel. Your heart will break in these closing scenes, and as the film ends perfectly, it is left up to us to offer lonely hope for the future.
To place this responsibility upon the viewer elevates Paris, Texas from a great movie to participatory art. Travis may be the one we follow on this journey, but in both the film and our lives, the journey ultimately does not belong to him. Though this film is a fable, it's emotional reality will remain a part of your world for years to come.
Though it is very tempting to pour detailed accolade upon the direction by Wim Wenders, or the music, or the cinematography, or any other creative element of this film, that discussion should take place after you watch the movie. You may not ever see a better one.
Doomsday Preppers (2011)
_________ and Afraid
It's like Naked and Afraid, only there's no nudity. Be thankful for small favors. These people are just afraid :(
First Reformed (2017)
More Than Courage
If you do not watch "First Reformed" before the end of your life, then you have missed out on a great opportunity.
Most of the time, watching a film is a way to spend time intentionally escaping the reality of our own lives. Of course, actors, directors, writers, producers, and studios are very aware of this, and consequently exploit the fantastic. This is why there is such a preponderance of superhero and other genre-typifying films littering the current landscape. If you expect a popular film made in the past twenty years to suspend disbelief, you will be very disappointed.
Distinct from those and much more rare and rewarding are films that seem plausible and make you feel. These kind of films are usually considered classics, not only because of their high critical regard, but also because they offer a reality that motivates us in a visceral way. Whether lighthearted or extremely dense, movies such as this make us care, and that response stays with us long after the credits roll and we are better for it.
There is even a more uncommon and satisfying echelon of film than what I have already described, and that is what "First Reformed" qualifies as: a profound life experience. Movies like this inhabit a present reality that transcends art and becomes a part of who we are. In other words, we are irrevocably transformed in some internal way by experiencing the motion picture playing before us.
Reverend Ernst Toller (Ethan Hawke) is the divorced forty-six year old pastor of First Reformed Church in upstate New York. While his church building is a historic landmark, his congregation consists of only a handful of people. As his first name suggests, he takes his role as a servant to his flock, his community, and his God with sincerity and conviction. Mostly, he finds himself trying to satisfy every whim of those within his sphere of influence by performing a variety of tasks that range from menial but necessary to thankless and beneath him. There are a few key relationships at play, including a young church member named Mary (Amanda Seyfried) who asks Rev. Toller to talk with her husband, a troubled man who is devastated by humanity's culpability and apathy towards climate change. The pastor of local mega-church Abundant Life (Cedric "The Entertainer" Kyles) also affects a friendship with Rev. Toller ("even a pastor needs a pastor"), but whether this connection is collegial, opportunistic, or domineering depends on the occasion, and may not have a single answer. The stark contrast between these two churches and their pastors cannot be overstated (It could also be a significant meta-reference that a man known publicly as "The Entertainer" who transacts his life with dual identities was cast as the pastor of Abundant Life, but never mind).
The fine details of the film underscore its dynamic message of free will: the threadbare living quarters and dirty bathroom of poverty; the implicit symbolism of Toller raising up overturned headstones in the graveyard surrounding his church; his sudden reaction when yet another person tells him what he should do. Toller's life is miserable, but his perspective is insightful: "Wisdom is holding two contradictory truths in mind, simultaneously: hope and despair. A life without despair is a life without hope. Holding these two ideas in our head is life itself."
First Reformed is remarkable because it demands that we navigate our relationship with God by means of our relationships with his creation. This doctrine is framed philosophically within the film by the repeated question "Will God forgive us?" But to call First Reformed a mere theological exercise undermines the powerful narrative and emotional resonance of the characters and plot.
Much could be said of the cinematic devices at play within this film, whether or not particular sequences qualify as homage to other masters or stand on their own artistically-but to analyze these arguments here or upon your first viewing would do you a major disservice. It would be equally importune to lavish well-deserved praise upon Ethan Hawke's performance and Paul Schrader's writing/direction-although I must say this is by far the best film of either of their distinguished careers.
When we struggle with the questions Toller suggests, not only does the film find its voice, we ourselves are changed on a personal level. "Courage is the solution to despair," says Toller, "reason provides no answers." His quest is through the dark night of not only his own soul, but that of all humanity, and in the film's final shocking moments, I believe he discovers a truth that escapes the human demands of religion, reason, and despair to ascend to the heights of authentic faith, hope, and love.
Paths of Glory (1957)
Which Path Will You Take?
War produces the true natures of men: some lose their humanity altogether and become monsters, while others embrace a kind of moral courage that cannot be defined or explained. So it's astonishing that a considerably intellectual filmmaker like Stanley Kubrick could distill this principle in such a visceral way.
Make no mistake, Paths of Glory is a film of high concept and blinding idealism, but composed simply and without plot complication. It's World War I: Upon the orders of his superior officers, Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas) leads his entrenched regiment of the French Army into a battle to take "The Anthill", an impenetrable German stronghold. It's a suicide mission, and everyone knows it. Of course Dax protests that the attack would only weaken the French Army, but General Mireau (George Macready) does not care. Indeed, though Mireau has already formed the same conclusion, the promise of a juicy promotion by the equally unscrupulous General Broulard (Adolphe Menjou) combined with his own Machiavellian ambition have already persuaded Mireau to command others to certain and purposeless death.
Unlike the amoral executives who command him, Dax does not lounge in extravagant mansions and eat gourmet meals with fine silver; he lives in the trenches with his men, a lawyer compelled by war to root in a festering wound of dirt and death dug by politicians who have never gazed upon a battlefield. As he dutifully proceeds to prepare the attack, fear abounds among the soldiers he leads, with deadly results.
It is here that the film begins to challenge how we define courage. We see Dax advance while hundreds of others die horrifically around him. Some do not leave their trenches, so intense is the firefight on the battlefield. A safe distance away, Mireau orders his artillery to fire upon their own army to force them out of the trenches. Meanwhile, without support, Dax falls back into the trenches in a shower of dead bodies without making it to the Anthill, unable to convince anyone else to climb back out with him into oblivion.
So galvanized is Mireau's rage at the prospect of losing his promotion that he demands one hundred men from the regiment be executed for cowardice. General Broulard convinces him to merely court martial three men chosen at random, and even allows Colonel Dax to defend them against the death penalty. The trial is a farce to say the least, and although the outcomes are sadly predictable, that doesn't mean the final journey we take with this movie is less than we can anticipate.
Paths of Glory is a technically perfect film. As the camera seamlessly glides through the twists and turns of grimy trenches, horror and fear visually unfold like flowing tapestries along a magnificent human hallway. That nature and realism dominate the production design does not make the lens any less subjective or the images of war in all its boundless evil less beautiful. The booming cacophony of the battle scene has an aural texture that damns us to imagine the true nightmare actual combat must be. The acting is superb as well, every actor delivering his best work, Kirk Douglas in particular; despite his historic inclination for ham and bravado, Douglas' characterization of Dax is intense yet authentic and anything but a caricature. Colonel Dax's ability to maintain composure while evincing contempt and moral outrage is a script requirement, but the horror sculpted upon Douglas' face when confronted with the evil of men and the spiritual burden revealed in his posture and gait are the work of an artist.
As I said, this would seem at the outset like a philosophical film crafted by a director who demands his audience intellectually grapple with the moral implications of what is provocative material to say the least. Perhaps it does accomplish that; certainly, if you watch this movie and fail to consider the message the film delivers, you are not only brain dead but morally bankrupt as well. But please watch the final scene, a brief coda after the main plot of the film has concluded: An achingly beautiful German girl held as an enemy captive is made to sing before the rowdy French troops. As the war begets monsters, sometimes men of real courage are able to rediscover their own humanity. Any movie can make you think. But in that last moment, if you can see more than a singing peasant and weary soldiers, if you are able to hear more in the simple folk song than just lyrics, then you, like Dax, can discover that the only true path to glory is not in war or ambition, but in hope and innocence that sometimes may only be found in the most unlikely of places.
Synecdoche, New York (2008)
art that makes you feel
Caden Cotard (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) is a playwright and family man lost in the sea of his life. In a sense his life is spiraling out of control: he begins to suffer numerous obscure physical ailments; he is tempted by the flirtations of a girl who works at his theater (Samantha Morton); his dissonant marriage to a talented artist (Catherine Keener) turns into a separation that eventually becomes a continental exile; his young daughter is tattooed over a large portion of her body, becomes the muse of a pedophile (Jennifer Jason Leigh), and is deceived (quite graphically) to think that her father abandoned her to pursue homosexual liaisons; and from there the story of Synecdoche, New York becomes exponentially more tragic, complicated and absurd. In the end, Caden is literally caught up in a cataclysmic global apocalypse. But believe it or not, none of this is especially significant to the story. The plot itself exists as a parable, and like all films written by Charlie Kaufman it is awash with symbolism, lunacy, and sorrow.
In the midst of all these devastating events, Caden is bestowed a MacArthur Fellowship, which is a large monetary grant dispensed over a period of years for people in any field who show enormous ability and potential. With that funding he assembles a cast and crew in a huge Manhattan warehouse and creates a theatre program that imitates every detail of his life. Stacked compartmentalized sets are built for the play as analogues for his apartment, the street, the city, the real world, and then other sets are made to imitate those sets within sets within sets, etc. He casts an actor as himself, then another as himself directing himself, and others as himself directing himself directing himself and so on. You get the point. He also casts multiple actors for the roles other people have in his life. There is no way to distinguish between the relationships in his real life and the play, because everything is real life, and everything is the play, and he has no idea how to complete either. He hires a cleaning lady as his replacement director and takes on her former job himself, thus not only being merely a character within his play, but actually becoming an actor portraying the life of a role within the play within his life. As the aforementioned apocalypse ensues, bodies are strewn across the bleak desolate landscape of (the world? the play?) and Caden, now infirm, becomes more and more isolated and withdrawn from the process of (life? art?) until he is taking direction on his deathbed from a voice in his ear. Simultaneously, this film is life as an art form and art as a form of life, each carried out ad infinitum.
Anyone who has seen anything written by Charlie Kaufman will be familiar with such themes, however I don't think I have ever observed within any other work of fiction such intense sadness as Caden's forty year journey across the last half of his life. The rose petals on his daughter's tattoo wither and fall from her body as she dies cursing him. The woman he has loved for over thirty years dies of smoke inhalation the same night they finally consummate their relationship because she lived for the same amount of time in a perpetually burning house. These mythic elements probably seem bizarre or baroque to most people, but they succeed within the film because Kaufman as writer/director/producer has created an incomparably beautiful and grotesque work of art that above all makes you feel.
Most people often use deficient words like "brilliant" or "masterpiece" to describe great films, and I believe that is because we are too dim to articulate anything substantive about what a film means to us on a deeply personal level. All we dullards are aware of is that we have been moved, and that the mechanism of that movement is totally beyond our stupid, grasping comprehension.
Synecdoche, New York is definitely a great film. It contains the best work of all people involved in its making. And although it is great for many reasons, none of the ones I am able to write intelligently about are what actually makes this film what it is. All I can say is that it is great simply because it is, and it means something to me. On the other hand, what the film means is hard to say...I guess it depends on how you feel, or if you can feel at all.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Breaking up is (really) hard to do
Everyone at some point feels like Joel Barish.
Joel has decided to erase his girlfriend Clementine from his memory. Literally. That's only fair though, because she has already had Joel erased from hers.
Apparently, there is a medical treatment that can do that...as the doctor who pioneered the technology explains, "Technically speaking, the procedure is brain damage." If only it was that simple.
Joel and Clementine are extremely complicated thirtysomethings who because of their many flaws and quirks actually make a perfect match. Most importantly, they love each other. We learn this along with many other bizarre and fascinating details as the film traces every memory Joel has of their problematic relationship. The labyrinthine journey through his mind takes the fuzzy fantastical form of dreams: some of his memories of Clementine are nightmares, but quite a few are startlingly beautiful treasures. It is these that Joel desperately tries to salvage, but by the time he realizes how he feels it may already be too late.
Over the course of the film we also meet the entire staff of Lacuna, Inc., the four-person medical firm who is systematically destroying Joel's memory of Clementine. These are very weird people. Collectively they resemble the sort of slapstick professionalism you might witness late night at a video store. Still, as the plot (and Joel's memory) unravels, we discover that memories may be fleeting, but the past is absolute. Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. The careless employees of Lacuna Inc. experience this truth as their lives intersect, parallel, and collide with Joel and Clementine and one another. Their struggle through the night against Joel's memory of his love will change each of their lives forever.
What I like about movies written by Charlie Kaufman is that in an underhanded, diabolical way the film itself is always asking the audience questions. So even if you could somehow willfully change what you remember, could you ever really change how you feel? And does Fate even care about what you remember?
Paradoxically, Joel and Clementine seem perpetually destined to be together, and equally doomed to break up. To me, that is the one unanswered question that lingers long after the credits roll: "Does love overcome fate, or does fate overcome love?" In the real world there may not be an answer, but in the present reality of Joel and Clementine, I think the answer is both.
How happy is the blameless vestal's lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd. -- Alexander Pope, "Eloisa to Abelard"
What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993)
"I want to be a good person."
"Tell me what you want as fast as it comes to you," says Becky to Gilbert as they relax in the thick brown grass beside the pond. Stretched out under the bright sun, he closes his eyes and begins to think deeply.
"House...I want a new house for the family." His dreamlike expression softens. "I want Mama to take aerobics classes. I want Ellen to grow up. I want a new brain for Arnie."
"What do you want for you," she asks, "just for you?"
The shadow of a smile drifts across his face, and he replies without hesitation, "I want to be a good person."
Gilbert Grape is a good person, he just doesn't realize it yet. Johnny Depp portrays the twentysomething Gilbert in Endora, Iowa (Pop. 1,091) as a young man asleep at the wheel of his life. As he narrates his story, we learn his older sister Amy is a mother type figure and a decent cook, only she has a tendency to accidentally start fires (like the one that burned down the elementary school she used to work at). Ellen, his younger sister, is a preening pubescent teen who has an opinion on everything - and it isn't a very good opinion either. Kids from around town come peeking through windows of the ramshackle Grape house to catch a glimpse of his 500-pound mother, who cannot come to the dinner table (or hardly go anywhere for that matter) so the dinner table comes to her.
And then there's Arnie.
Arnie Grape (in an Oscar-nominated performance by Leonardo DiCaprio) is about to turn eighteen in a few days, and suffers from severe mental retardation. His favorite pastime is to climb up the water tower in the middle of town, but climbing down is a different story. He is unable to dress or bathe himself. He likes to find inventive ways to decapitate grasshoppers, but cries when he realizes he has killed them. As the doctors have warned - and Arnie often cheerfully reminds everyone - he can go at any time. Gilbert puts it this way: "Some days you want him to live...some days you don't."
Just passing through this off-beat atmosphere is a curiously wise yet enigmatic young stranger named Becky (Juliette Lewis). Everyone else in the sleepy town sees Gilbert as a carbon copy of his father, who committed suicide fifteen years earlier. They see someone going nowhere, and in a sense he already is nowhere. But Becky sees more. She sees more than Gilbert can see in himself, and she sees that his circumstances have made him afraid to feel anything.
What's Eating Gilbert Grape is the fine product of director Lasse Hallstrom. Just as in one of his later efforts, Chocolat, Hallstrom has created here a small world where stagnant lives hide under a blanket of tranquility, and a mysterious young woman blows in and changes everything. Beyond the perfect cast of supporting characters played brilliantly by Mary Steenburgen, John C. Reilly, and Crispin Glover, on the surface this could seem like a sentimental teen chickflick dramedy, but it is nothing of the sort. Because in this film Gilbert finds more than just love...for the first time ever, he finds himself, he discovers life, he even discovers death. He finds freedom, and through that freedom he is able to save his family from themselves.
Do not miss this movie.
Jacob's Ladder (1990)
More than a movie
Jacob's Ladder is a superbly crafted film that transcends mere entertainment and becomes an experience much greater than the sum of its parts. When you watch movies such as this, you are unleashing very powerful forces that short circuit your natural ability to remain in control. Much akin to narcotic addiction or hypnotism, upon first viewing you will be unable to think, act, or even believe apart from the intense feelings Jacob's Ladder inspires.
Tim Robbins is Jacob Singer, a warm and genuinely likable Vietnam veteran who, in spite of earning an advanced doctoral degree, chooses to find employment working for the U. S. Postal Service. We learn in bits and pieces as the plot unfolds that his service in Vietnam included a very frightening battle, and the events set in motion on that fateful day parallel what could be his descent into madness.
Jacob's life suddenly begins to resemble Hell. He is literally chased by confusion, fear, and death, he sees unbelievably terrifying images, has horrific experiences that whether real or imagined are too frightening to bear alone. His only comfort comes in the form of the woman he lives with, Jezzie (the late Elizabeth Peña), and his chiropractor, Louis (Danny Aiello). Each of these people's relationships with Jacob represent more than just the roles they fulfill in his life-they are absolute forces at battle for his sanity, and possibly even his soul.
His torment begins to include the past as well, the undeniable love he still has for his ex-wife and painful memories of his son Gabe, who died tragically in an accident (played by a young Macauley Culkin). As all these elements of the past, present and future collide in shocking hallucinations, Jacob slowly begins to suspect he could be the victim of a secret Army drug experiment gone terribly wrong.
With a haunted desperation, he embarks on a journey to find out what on earth happened to him-only his visions / flashbacks / flashforwards have become so delusional that reality and fantasy are hopelessly interwoven and nothing is as it seems. All that is decipherable is good and evil, life and death. And at the end of his nightmare, all he has to do is choose.
That's all I will share of the story. I'm not going to do you the disservice of spoiling the experience this movie is. Suffice it to say, there is much more to know, and nothing left to tell.
Meanwhile, there is not enough that can be said of Robbins' performance. Although he has had "more important" film roles, never before or since has Robbins portrayed naked human emotion so effortlessly and without artiface; though this will not be his most remembered role, it is his personal best to date. Also in top form is director Adrian Lyne. Likewise, Jacob's Ladder is by far his personal best, though he may remain better known for his other more commercially successful films, such as Fatal Attraction and 9 &1/2 Weeks.
Jacob's Ladder is not a horror movie as some may deduce; It is human drama, masterfully disguised as a supernatural thriller. The basic elements of Jacob's Ladder have been plundered several times over the past few decades by technicians such as as Shyamalan who aspire (but fail) to be artists, and franchises like The Conjuring that aspire (but fail) to be art. We have been suckered by flashy films with clever plot twists that cheat us on story, characters, and technical excellence, and in so doing we have lost the discovery of real feelings while the lights flicker before us.
Films such as Jacob's Ladder are set apart from the rest of the pack because you don't just watch stuff like this, you feel it too.
The Black Dahlia (2006)
Sucks like an airline toilet
Alright, so do you want the good news or the bad news? Wait, just nevermind, it's all bad:
THIS MOVIE SUCKS!
Wanna hear more? Okay, you're the boss...
When I first popped in the DVD, I was genuinely excited about this movie. I was thinking about its sporadically successful but admirably gifted director Brian De Palma; I thought about the cast, most of whom I normally consider to be competent actors; and I thought about how James Ellroy's original novel by the same name is undeniably good, even if it's not great. I thought I had enough to hope for an entertaining two hours...boy was I wrong!
Still, I can honestly say that as I watched The Black Dahlia I experienced a surprisingly wide range of emotions: First, extreme boredom...in fact, I found it difficult to not pass out. But then I slowly realized I was actually becoming physically exhausted fighting the natural but overwhelming urge to rip the DVD out of the player and send it flying across the room like a frisbee to crash and shatter into hundreds of broken pieces (even just imagining the movie as splintery shards of disc dancing on the floor brought on a rapturous glee equivalent to Pooh Bear slurping up a pawful of huney). But about halfway in, my agony melted into volcanic rage and no power on earth was able to keep me from shouting at the screen with all the scruples of a spastic Tourette.
The Black Dahlia is aggressively bad, as if everyone involved in making it wanted the audience to suffer unfathomable punishment for watching...there are UN treaties that ban lesser tortures than watching this movie. Idiot purists would complain that the movie isn't faithful to the book, but that simply isn't true. As far as the basic story, the same things happen more or less as in the novel, only the novel didn't suck. What else can I say? Bad acting all around (except for Mia Kirshner, who did a surprisingly fine job at playing a slutty bad actress), bad music, bad editing, bad direction, bad writing, poor use of cameras, film, sets, script, actors, and studio vehicles. It lacked fundamental cinematic devices, like plot and performances.
Please, pretty please, avoid this movie at all costs. There are many things in life much more enjoyable than sitting through this film, like having a root canal, talking to your mother-in-law about all your inadequacies, or having your eyes plucked out with a rusty grapefruit spoon. The one lingering question in my mind is whether it is more masochistic to make this bad a movie, or to watch it.
The Majestic (2001)
Finding hope
Although The Majestic is certainly a film with an agenda, it is more importantly a concert of finely tuned instruments playing a sensitive, moving composition that never fails to entertain. It hits all the right notes too, even if the mildly subversive elements of this cautionary tale tend to masquerade as delicious slices of wholesome American nostalgia.
First, I should warn you: this is NOT a Jim Carrey movie. If you want to see Rubberface goofing around making artless observations about bathroom habits then go watch Ace Ventura or The Mask, or something equally subhumorous...this is not the movie for you.
Here, Carrey actually acts, and by the way, he's really good at it. It's 1951 and Jim Carrey finds himself through a series of accidents in a small southern California town with his memory wiped clean. But to the townspeople, his face seems strangely familiar. This town really isn't like every other small town though...from this place, 62 young men sacrificed their lives during the course of WWII, and the friends and family they left behind have been coping with an enormous loss ever since. Because this film was released after 9/11 it resonates in ways much more profound than the filmmakers could have intended. You feel the impact in the heart more than the head.
In the best role of his career, Martin Landau takes one look at Jim Carrey, and sees his only son Luke, missing in action and presumed dead for 9 and a half years. Landau lives above the Majestic, the long neglected movie theater closed down after the war. In an act of tremendous optimism, he decides to reopen the Majestic, and the whole town comes out of their rut and pitches in with the restoration. Besides a father, Luke also discovers he had a beautiful fiancée (the very talented Laurie Holden, from The X-Files) and soon enough they rekindle a gentle courtship. Things seem to be shaping up nicely for "Luke" if in fact that's who he really is.
And that's where the plot takes a turn for better or worse.
We live in a fearful age, and the same is true in The Majestic...then and now there are lingering concerns about our liberty and freedom resting in the hands of the powerful and possibly corrupt. In the early 1950's the threat was communism, and the powerful were seated on the House UnAmerican Activities Committee. Without revealing too much about the conclusion, I will say that when Jim Carrey's character is subpoenaed to testify before the committee, he has to choose between his honor and what had been his life. These scenes in their audacity make this movie, and in spite of all the heavy drama, there are a few very funny moments.
The Majestic is the summa theologica of Frank Darabont, the man responsible for good films such as The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. He says that in Hollywood, the story has died. I don't think that is true though, at least in this case. Because this film is not a mournful requiem, it isn't the story of just a man, or a romance, or even a family. It's about us, about ordinary people living in dangerous times--like the townspeople in the film. And through a familiar-faced stranger they found a hero, and a hope they thought had died many years before.
The question is, can we do the same?
Stay (2005)
Misses the mark
Ultimately it's a richly textured, multi-faceted look at the relationship between guilt and love, death and life. Suicidal themes run amuck, so, as you can imagine, there are many dark, intense scenes between talented actors. And the performances really are great, as is the mind-bending cinematography. But its way overwritten...the truly brilliant "interesting plot device" mingles but never bonds with the characters or dialogue, so everything falls flat. It's not rewarding, because insignificant elements overshadow details crucial to experiencing the intended impact of the film.
If you want to see an astonishingly filmed, well acted movie, here it is, have fun...But Stay breaks the first commandment of film-making because it takes itself more seriously than its subject. At the end of the day, the message the filmmakers seem to communicate is, "see what we did!" instead of "see what we mean."
Five Easy Pieces (1970)
Choosing to be
Five Easy Pieces is much like its protagonist, Robert Eroica Dupea: buried underneath layers of superficiality lies brilliance, passion, and pain. Not only is Jack Nicholson as Bobby Dupea at his personal best ever, his performance in this film is largely unparalleled in post-modern cinema.
It doesn't take long for us to learn that Bobby works as a laborer in a hot, dusty oil field because he is so exceptional that he can do anything he wants, he can truly be anyone-except his true self. On the other hand, the people with whom he surrounds himself pretty much do the best they can with what they have. Despite these limitations, there is something authentic and admirable in their simple lives that Bobby surely knows he cannot find in himself. His condescending relationships with his trailer trash bowling pals (Billy Green Bush) and Rayette (Karen Black), the gum-smacking waitress who loves him, certainly do not provide him with any level of personal satisfaction. Frustrated, he erupts in fits of torment and rage that obliterate his mask of sanity. He cannot escape the life he left behind.
It is his past, his eccentric but gifted family that comes to bear when he returns to his childhood home on a small, eternally foggy island in Puget Sound. There, we see the real him emerge: the tortured musical genius, the sensitive loving son. We are moved, they are moved, but he is not. He will always see himself as a failure because he hates himself-the only person he ever loved-and nothing else matters.
There is a scene halfway through the film that has been the subject of much homage and parody: Bobby, Rayette, and two traveling companions they picked up are seated at a roadside diner. Predictably, Bobby doesn't see the wheat toast he desires to eat on the menu, so he antagonizes the server by ordering a sandwich and customizing it until he gets nothing but his toast. The scene is quite funny, and the clever wordplay and clash of personalities is entertaining to us as the audience, but at its climax Bobby is overcome with boredom and anger and sweeps his arms across the table smashing water glasses and sending all manner of eating utensils flying. This parable illustrates Bobby's larger predicament: Some people are given much; others very little. No matter what life Bobby could choose to live, he perpetually chooses the empty table rather than a warm meal, even if he has to clear the table himself.
Perhaps that is the message of Five Easy Pieces, to choose between finding or losing, accepting or rejecting, living or dying. By observing the tragedy of Robert Eroica Dupea, we can choose to do what he could not, no matter what life we have been dealt.
A History of Violence (2005)
An unflinching manifesto
A placid mid-western family becomes inherently dysfunctional - even sadistic - when violence from both the past and present invades their disgustingly peaceful lives. Actually, words like "placid" and "peaceful" are too kind...everyone in this movie seems heavily medicated 90% of the time!
Possibly the most sedate is Mortensen, who when armed with Wrangler jeans, a broken-down pickup and a bad haircut convincingly plays Tom Stall, the subdued owner of a local diner in a sleepy, rural town. And it works, because everything about this movie is vaguely lethargic. In fact, if the film were any less flat or (let's face it) slow, it simply wouldn't be believable. It's not boring - it's just not Hollywood either.
True to form, director Cronenberg uses special effects sparingly yet with startling results, to illustrate the topic, not the story. The cinematography is visually mesmerizing, beautifully filmed with the deep, murky shadows of a Vermeer painting. Bello gives her best performance to date as the concerned wife/mother, and the entire Stall family evokes nothing but realism when seemingly ordinary people find themselves in extraordinary circumstances. On the other hand, all the other characters are cold caricatures, vivid exaggerations that feel completely out of place within the framework of the film.
But right there lays the balance - a perfectly harmonized composition of intrinsically flawed elements. For example, a large portion of the third act is so clichéd and unimaginative that, were it not for the speechless power and sheer intensity of the final scene, the whole film would collapse under its own pretension.
You may have noticed...I'm not going to share any of the large details of the plot, because the narrative is not what the film is attempting to communicate. Having watched it several times, I puzzled at what the movie really accomplishes: It's not a drama, because although you desperately want to know what happens, you couldn't possibly care when it does. It isn't a fable...there is no moral of the story. It certainly could not be called a character study - yet it is the relationships of the Stall family that perfectly illustrate what can only be described as a commentary on violence.
Movies like this really aren't made anymore, and so it is remarkable how Cronenberg wields passion and induces deep thought in what is for all intents and purposes a sparse film in many respects. It is reminiscent of the New Hollywood film renaissance that took place in the late sixties and through the seventies, movies that simultaneously inspired and demoralized, revolted and delighted. Whether you will consider "A History of Violence" a bore or a thriller, trash or a masterpiece, it is undeniably a manifesto against violence that unflinchingly demands your full attention.
The Deer Hunter (1978)
A poetic, emotional odyssey
A baroque tragedy portrayed in three emotionally shattering acts set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War. But it's about more than Vietnam: The Deer Hunter chronicles the effects of violence upon ALL people, not just those whom participate in it.
I will be careful not to spoil or expose the crucial elements that truly make this film greater than the sum of its parts. We are pulled delicately by both the head and the heart to not merely watch but actually experience the normal, even mundane lives of steel workers as their relationships and the story unfold in a small Pennsylvania town. And maybe it all plays slowly at first - granted the film is not densely plotted - but that's precisely the point, because it's about the people, and not anything else.
Amidst the awesome beauty of the Cascade mountains (a more than comparable filming substitution for the Appalachians) the iconic parable of the hunter poetically emerges, unifying the narrative and the roles these men play in each other's lives, and in the world.
Then Vietnam. Three go in, and are irrevocably changed by 24 hours at a riverside POW camp...and you will be too. You will never be the same after these few scenes. This is by far the most psychologically intense sequence I have ever seen played out on film.
Back home in small town PA the effect is much the same. The cold of late fall underscored by a haunting virtuoso guitar solo encapsulates the loss of innocence and the guilt of living in a world that seems broken. Relationships bloom and wither out of season, and again the hunter, the deer, and the bullet find solace and unexpected reckoning with one another.
As the story again shifts to Vietnam, we discover that true insanity is not war or violence, but fulfilling a promise of love in the face of it. Beginning with a wedding and ending with a funeral, you will be devastated by The Deer Hunter.
It has been said that the movie is about many things: war, patriotism, violence, friendship, Nixon, religion...far too many topics to list here. And even if it is about any or all of those things, what makes this picture overwhelmingly moving and disturbing is the fabric of love woven through every frame. Although lauded by many technical awards, many of the more superficial, aesthetic characteristics such as cinematography, editing, and sound dubbing are either hit or miss (usually in equal shares). But this movie excels far above and beyond almost every other film made in the past 50 years solely by the strength of the material and the powerful performances. DeNiro for once is simply life-like (as opposed to typically being larger-than-life). Streep is complex and yet pleasantly provincial in this her second film. Walken transforms from a character into a person...and through all of it, we can't help living inside their skin for three hours, because we all know people just like them...we ARE just like them.
Electra Glide in Blue (1973)
Where have all the cowboys gone?
A requiem for the death of the American hero. No, this is not the plot--this is what the movie accomplishes. Do not mistake this existential parable for what may otherwise seem like a superficial counter culture exploitation flick--it is nothing of the sort.
Record producer Guercio's first (and last) effort at filmmaking (captured beautifully by the late cinematographer Conrad Hall) leaves the viewer wondering "where have all the cowboys gone?" John Ford taught us that the hero rode a white horse and did the right thing, even if it killed him-, and in this Vietnam era analogue, Blake is a five foot four inch leather clad motorcycle cop writing speeding tickets along a lonely two lane road cutting through monument valley. With high hopes and ideals, he aspires not only to do more but to become more...and for a while he succeeds. But the world is different, people are different, and the old heroes he admired are not just obsolete--they are extinct.
We are inexorably drawn through his disillusionment and our own to an ending that is sad, tragic, and inevitable.
Hollywoodland (2006)
More than what meets the eye
This careful, intelligent, and almost always underrated film from TV auteur Coulter is genuinely pleasing: Brody is dark and quirky, and Lane's eminent talent and beauty emerge from beneath layers of wrinkled, ultra-aging makeup. Surprisingly, I was even able to suppress my sincere hatred of all things Affleck and be taken in under the spell of what could be a movie that promises more and better things from all involved.
Actually, the irrelevant and ultimately bad title is at least still better than what a huge, impending lawsuit from Warner Bros. originally quashed ("Truth, Justice, and the American Way"). Which is good, because the film is about none of the above. It also is not a gritty, faux-noir "Hollywood whodunit" in the mold of Chinatown or L.A. Confidential (regardless of how it was promoted). Nor is it a tender bio-pic of a tragically misunderstood and unostentatiously sensitive genius actor a la Man on the Moon or Chaplin. Oddly enough, Hollywoodland more than anything else is an exercise of what it is not.
Still, what remains is a character-driven drama, an out-of-sequence world that parallels the decline and fall of two protagonists with the fuzzy logic and style of an impressionistic painting. And beyond what is somberly portrayed as wasted potential and loss, we find in the last few frames meager hope, and painful but true redemption.
V for Vendetta (2005)
V for Vindictive?
What happens when the politics of a movie overpower what is otherwise a moving, relevant, and even (at times) beautiful message?
Everyone tries SO hard here...Portman becomes wonderfully cockney, Weaving emotes mystery and power with every gesture and head tilt, and Hurt channels Hitler and any other tyrannical dictator with a frightening authenticity and ferocity--this film shares with us by far the best performances of their careers. Technically speaking, "V" is better made than any other film in the past 3 years, and much, much better than other Wachowski/Silver collaborations (read: the Matrix trilogy). Throw in what is a perfectly twisted plot, and what we SHOULD have is a movie catapulted to every top 10 list for the next 20 years, right?
Well...not so much. You see, intolerance of the intolerant is very dangerous, especially when the filmgoing public wants to be entertained, not indoctrinated. Buried beneath the faux message of love and acceptance, behind the flashy special effects, Panavision gloom, and the painful smile of a ghastly Guy Fawkes mask is a hatred more malignant than anything Hollywood or comic books could ever dream up. This film teaches that learning to hate is how we learn to love, that vengeance is the only way to achieve justice, that fear of anything--including God--is akin to torture. Democracy begets war, Christianity begets terrorism, and freedom may only be found through Anarchy in the world according to V.
One question: is that a world where you want to live?