whiskey in a teacup . com

So this is not strictly spoilerish and won’t even be interesting if you haven’t seen the movie, but if you wish to see Inception with your maidenhead fully intact, then I recommend you not read this.  If you have seen it, however, and want to geek out like woah, check out this link concerning the way the orchestral theme relates to Edith Piaf’s “Non, je ne regrette rien”, which plays a prominent role in the film.  I just adore stuff like that.   Not because it’s “deep” (this movie is very easy to understand, thanks to constant exposition) but because it’s just one of many balls-out awesome details in a work that was obviously made with love.  Those zero-gravity scenes?  On point, Mr. Nolan.  On point.  In lieu of thumbs I give it Two Painfully Engorged Breasts up, because that’s what I happily endured while watching it with a friend during a rare night out.

For extra credit, enjoy Frühling in Paris, one of my favorite Rammstein songs, which also makes creative and sexy use of the Piaf hit.

Alternate title:  An Emphatic Protest Against the Movie “500 Days of Summer”

On general principle, I have a baseline level of respect for movies that aim to tell an interesting story rather than just pander to the lowest common denominator.  Netflix always creates category recommendations for me called “Cerebral Foreign Dramas” and “Thought-Provoking Cultural Documentaries” and I eat it all up, barely pausing to feel the shame inherent in being a stereotype.  Independent movies, therefore, are usually somewhat up my alley.  But this is an example of an indie movie that hits the same stale notes as, I don’t know, The Notebook or some shit.  Just because the female love interest hasn’t had a nose job (she’s so real!) doesn’t mean this is anything but a painfully banal unrequited love caper, albeit one shot on cheaper film.  Most of the gestalt of this movie is pure Hollywood, and all the Urban Outfitters garb in the world can’t change that.  When the eponymous Summer tells a joke about how she used to be called Anal Girl in high school (due to her organizational skills), there’s a fucking spit take.  Spit take = zero cred.  It’s just simple math.

It’s impossible to care about the protagonist because he has no discernable gonads whatsoever.  I get that he’s supposed to be the sensitive impish hipster type, but even within the realm of sensitive impish hipsters he’s unbearably pathetic.  He gets the girl alone numerous times and doesn’t make a move; she asks him outright if he likes her and he says no.  Now, I myself would never respond favorably to aggressive courting, but I do expect a man who’s sexually interested in me to, like, show some sexual interest in me.  As a female viewer, I felt no sympathy for this socially impotent doofus, nor did I understand why Summer eventually started fooling around with him in the copy room.  What of it, Summer?

It’s also not evident why Summer is so entrancing to the protagonist.  Aren’t there any other pretty girls in your town who listen to indie rock?  In my town, that’s like three quarters of the female population.  What’s so special about Summer isn’t really clear, nor is it clear why she has such a bug up her ass about relationships.  She becomes distinctly odious when she defends her stance that Ringo is the best Beatle by saying, “Nobody likes him; that’s why I like him.”  People who go out of their way to demonstrate how “quirky” they are are perhaps the most insufferable people on earth.  These are basically two inscrutable, unlikeable characters who bone for a while (off-camera, no less!) and then stop.  Hey, I have an idea, let’s make a movie about them!  Or LET’S NOT.  And let’s not make the trailer deceptively intriguing, thus causing people to spend their Friday night groaning through this clunker.

And of all of the movie’s flaws, the most fundamental is this:  If you spend 500 days wild with infatuation because a girl sings a Smiths lyric while you’re standing in the elevator together, then HOW DOES IT FOLLOW that the music you hear in your head when you think about her is 1) Hall and Oates and 2) “She’s Like the Wind” by Patrick Swayze?  I give up.

We recently rented The Little Mermaid, which came out an astonishing twenty years ago, when I was six.  I feel pretty lucky to have been young during one of Disney’s golden ages, when the animation was hand-drawn and awesome and there were vulgar subliminal messages in every film.   I was a huge fan of The Little Mermaid and owned such items as t-shirts and leggings with Ariel’s picture on them, and little rubber action figures of her and Prince Eric.   Though I saw the movie many times throughout my youth, there were, of course, a few things I didn’t pick up on until seeing it as an adult:

-This is, essentially, a story about being born into the wrong body.  “Oh, that’s just a random part of the plot,” you say, “and clearly not a metaphor for transgendered people.”  Yeahbutt!  A major character in the movie is modeled after Divine, a hero of the LGBT community.   COINCIDENCE?  Yes.

-This is also a story about how, if you want a man to fall in love with you, you should drastically change your physical appearance and lose your ability to speak.

-There’s a weird moment during the Under the Sea montage where the lyrics refer to a “blackfish”, and then a fish who is very obviously supposed to be a black soul singer appears on screen and sings a few notes.  At least it wasn’t a catfish?

-The movie suggests that it’s totally fine for a sixteen year old to get married…to a dude she’s known for less than a week.

-I had always wondered about the mechanics of merpeople sex, but it never occurred to me that along with Ariel’s legs, she must have got a human vagina with a presumably intact hymen.  Considering how little she knew about life above the sea (she used a fork to comb her hair, etc), I think someone was in for a big wedding night surprise!

Say you’re walking down some grubby street just after twilight, and suddenly you notice a figure in the distance.  It’s someone walking towards you, and they look a little creepy, but they’re too far away to see clearly.   You continue walking and they continue walking and as you near each other you become more and more nervous, and it becomes more and more evident that this person is dangerous and could hurt you.  For whatever reason you don’t cross to the other side of the street, and finally you meet in the middle and the person grabs you by the shoulders and proceeds to shake you violently and scream bloody murder in your face for ninety-nine minutes.  That’s exactly what it’s like to see Drag Me to Hell, or at least to see it on the big screen, where the constant aural assault is enough to set you squirming in your seat and glancing at the ushers to remind yourself that it’s just a movie and you’re just in the theater.

The plot and themes and CG will leave you saying, “Eh, whatevs,” but the frequency and intensity of things jumping out at you while the sound effects team unleashes every lion’s roar mixed with screaming teakettle mixed with metal crushing mixed with violin high notes will leave you saying, “I can’t take this anymore and would like to leave.”  It’s not fear you’ll feel, exactly, but rather a consistent sensation of extreme physical discomfort.  When I left the theater I remarked with relief that it was sheer camp, that it wasn’t the kind of movie that stays with you; it wasn’t like Rosemary’s Baby or Last House on the Left or The Exorcist or any movie that terrifies you with its ideas as much as with its images.  But all week I’ve had trouble sleeping because I keep waiting for the jump cut, for the sudden ear-splitting roar of hellfire to come absolutely out of nowhere and knock me out of bed.  One could say, and indeed I am saying, that this movie gave me Post Traumatic Sound Effects and Editing Disorder.  In any event, I’ve found myself enthusiastically urging others to see it in the theater as soon as possible!

Last night we watched a fantastic documentary about the Young@Heart chorus, a group of elderly folks who perform covers of rock songs.  One’s first impulse is to coo over how cute the elderly are and to laugh at the surreal silliness of such an act; however, their performances are legitimately awesome and a good example of what makes art art.  I maintain that art is anything that communicates a feeling from one person to another.  A photo of a flower is probably not art.  A chorus of people eulogizing a recently deceased friend by singing “Forever Young” to inmates in a prison yard is, in this case, art at its most beautiful and true.  You might chuckle at the warbling voices and write the whole thing off as cheesy if you weren’t lying in a sobbing heap on the ground, at least if you’re anything like me.  This scene should be watched within the context of the movie, but if I cannot force your hand to rent it then I implore you to view it here.

It did bother me somewhat that the man who managed and conducted the chorus tended to pick ironic songs (Golden Years, Schizophrenia, I Wanna Be Sedated)…it felt vaguely cruel on his part, like he was more about getting you to laugh at the joke than enjoy the singing, but the singers didn’t seem to mind.  Many thumbs up all around.

Last summer I re-watched Requiem for a Dream, having seen it once about eight years prior.  I found it an able and engrossing film both times; however, my response to it changed drastically between viewings.  In my teens the infamous climax with its swelling strings, amputated limb, and double-ended dildo made me feel sad and uncomfortable.  In my twenties, it made me laugh out loud.  Aronofsky is a divisive director–I’ve found myself defending Pi and even The Fountain because yeah, they’re ridiculous, but they’re passionately ridiculous.  You can either embrace that spirit or spit at it, and I tend to embrace it.  The same is true of Requiem, although I simply have no patience for melodramatic fluff that tries to force me to feel the dirty shame of stupid people’s stupid choices.  I just don’t care about that shit.

So it is despite the aforementioned that I fully endorse The Wrestler as a great movie, though it’s not without its trite moments, nor without a tendency to overstate the obvious (as well as to include too many naked scenes of the admittedly stupendously built Marisa Tomei)….even with those flaws it’s really, really good and engaging, and it’s got genuine heart to it.  Pro wrestling is a fascinating spectacle; it combines the campy fun of drag with the exhilaration of choreographed violence.  Even viewers who don’t share my fond memories of watching Wrestlemania on pay-per-view would surely be intrigued by the depictions of what goes on backstage before and after a match.

Many reviews have mentioned the national tragedy of Mickey Rourke’s epic descent from this to this, but which Rourke created more sympathetic, realistic, relatable characters?  We would be remiss to mourn the loss of the young, lovely Rourke when we could instead be celebrating the heydey of the old, busted Rourke, who is still lovely in his own way.  It’s hard to imagine another actor hitting such a perfect tone or so deftly portraying a character who would be pathetic if he weren’t so vibrant.  Despite an ambiguously sad ending, I left the theater feeling uplifted and hopeful, which may or may not be what Aronofsky intended, but it was very welcome anyway.

Count Orlok has a penchant for biting his victims in the larynx, thereby missing the major vessels of the neck.

The other details pretty much check out.

“Contains spoilers!”

I’m willing to accept the batsuit, the batmobile, the silly sonar/cell phone subplot, and pretty much every other fantastical thing that happened in this movie. I’m an American movie-goer; my disbelief is suspended, yo. But my patience for ridiculousness runs out around the time the (terrifically acted) Joker visits the freshly-injured Two Face in the hospital. That left eyeball, shining moist and unscathed despite its eyelids and tear ducts having been burned away. That gaping jaw wound, with its exposed bone and tendon, not resulting in a fulminant infection. The fact that Two Face speaks with perfect diction despite having no lips on one side of his mouth. No! It simply doesn’t make sense. Plus, if he was really refusing all treatment, a burn that severe would probably kill him secondary to fluid loss, electrolyte imbalance, and that sort of thing even in the absence of infection. The pain alone could kill him, I’d reckon.

Furthermore, the jailed character who has the exploding cell phone subcutaneously implanted into his abdomen? The plot suggested this back alley surgery had taken place recently; yet the wound was in a fairly advanced stage of healing, with no edema, erythema, drainage, or (again) signs of infection. Inconceivable! In Gotham, there are great feats of violence and incredible technologies, but curiously there is no sex, no blood, no swearing, and apparently no microbial life.

I was delighted, however, to note that the Joker used hand sanitizer when he left Two Face’s room at the hospital. Let us all emulate this behavior in the course of our own maniacal endeavors.

You would do yourself a great disservice not to obtain and view the movie “The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters”. It’s about the long-standing rivalry between two Donkey Kong experts and the insane, foolish melodrama that surrounds them. Beyond being a riveting and lovingly-made documentary, it made me really think about the nature of competitiveness. I find it easy to understand wanting to be good or even great at something, but somewhat perplexing to want (to need!) to be the absolute best. I get that the notion of “the best” (especially in a video game context, where skill is correlated to a numerical point value) gives you something concrete to strive for; you can either get the highest score or you can’t, and if you can then you’ve unambiguously achieved something.

Many über-gamers have compulsive and autistic qualities about them and see the world in terms of math and patterns; it’s only natural they would consider ultimate success to be the attainment of a simple numerical goal.  However, despite the (amusingly overwrought and blatant) propagandizing of the movie, which insists on painting one player as the villain and one the hero, it becomes so clear to the viewer that winning is a distant second to simply being adept at and passionate about something, and to having others appreciate and revere your abilities.  What’s fascinating about the whole thing is that the gamers in question are two adults with jobs and families and other things of greater import going on in their lives, who are nonetheless totally obsessed with beating this arcade game, and each other. It’s risible that a grown man would cry over Donkey Kong, but it’s also rather touching.

In closing, I would be remiss not to state that the use of Leonard Cohen’s “Everybody Knows” during a climactic montage of the two rivals is literally one of the most brilliant moments in filmmaking I have ever seen.

A few years ago, Jared and I signed up for Netflix and enjoyed its services for some time. We had the “two movies at once” option and, at first, availed ourselves of their vast selection quite happily. Gradually we became lazier about sending movies back after we watched them, thus frequently leaving ourselves with nothing new to watch. In those instances we would sometimes go to the video store and stop using Netflix for weeks at a time, which is financially nonsensical. We canceled the service. Some time later, we found ourselves lamenting the experience of driving to the video store, walking around for twenty minutes unable to find anything good, and then paying late fees. We hemmed and hawed, but the choice was clear. Our problems with our prior Netflix experience had been pure user error, and we knew it.

We signed up again earlier this week, this time choosing the “three movies at a time” option and dividing that between two personal queues. I decided to start things off with a bang and chose The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Blade Runner as my first rentals, never having seen either before.

As for the former, I thought it was worth viewing, though I found the underlying philosophy to be a load of crap, and was distracted by Daniel Day-Lewis’s gigantic JFK Jr hairstyle. I was greatly titillated by his first sexual encounter with Juliette Binoche’s character, in which he gives her a physical exam by peering into her mouth and pressing his ear against her back to hear her lungs. The scene quickly deteriorated into some slapsticky pants-around-the-ankles silliness, which annoyed me. Few of the characters aroused my sympathy, but I did greatly enjoy the film from a visual perspective. Binoche being caught in the nude by a stranger and backing up into a wall of mirrors, then shrieking at the sight of her reflected ass; DDL hopping across a room on his hands while Binoche holds his feet and teases him for being jealous. Fantastic direction and acting all around. I am not really interested in reading the book.

As for the latter, I’m pleased to finally be in on all those catch-phrases Jared and his friends are always quoting. There’s a lot to like in Blade Runner, though it’s hard to cram so much story and and so many dystopian themes into a feature-length film. I wonder if it would have worked better as a trilogy or mini-series, though perhaps the issue is that it necessitates several viewings to be properly enjoyed. The movie was nearly crushed under the weight of its pseudo-futuristic 80’s hairstyles and makeup techniques, but you can’t fault people for trying. Also, I hope that when I die I’ll go out crashing through a series of glass partitions while wearing a clear plastic raincoat and being shot by Harrison Ford.

Based on these first results of our reunion with Netflix, I think we’re going to make it work this time around.