Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Parenting and Stress

Just watched an ABC "Medical Minute" report that makes use of dubious statistics to suggest that parents are less prone to stress than their offspring-free counterparts.

1 - The test involved 33,000 adults, yet claims to be nationally representative. On what planet?

2 - While the report does note that parenting is not necessarily a bulletproof shield against mental depression, it does suggest that being a parent with a strong support system may help. Please note the qualification: "with a strong support system".

3 - There is no consideration of which is the cart and which the horse: Is being a parent a way to strengthen one's mental immune system, or are people with sound mental faculties more likely to undertake the great adventure and challenge that is parenting? I'm of the opinion that people who are prone to depression are less inclined to take on more baggage (in the form of a baby) than their healthier peers.

Of course, this is all about tendencies. There are plenty of unstable parents and well-adjusted, child-free adults.

This is such a non-story.

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Targeted Audience

Today's film offered for consideration is The Sweetest Thing (2002), clearly intended as a fluff piece from conception through execution. It is fair to say that this film is even more of a vacation from deep thought than Blades of Glory, another recently reviewed comedy.

The movie that does spring to mind for me by way of comparison is Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion (1997), a film characterized by one commentator as a bimbo movie. Though the two films have radically different philosophical points of view, (i.e., "messages",) they share the fundamental premise of heterosexual girlfriends at play, complete with outrageous road trip sequences. The male characters ultimately valorized share the characteristics of sweetness and of impressive financial success. Beyond that, the tales diverge significantly.

The Sweetest Thing (TST) features Cameron Diaz, Christina Applegate, and Selma Blair (Legally Blonde) as San Francisco roommates who are successful career women by day and active nightclub scene players by night. They are presented as sexually active thirty-somethings who evidently lack any behavioral boundaries whatsoever, even as it becomes increasingly evident that they are quite rigidly confined by the relational boundaries they have established in order to survive "the Game" of easy sex and casual relationships.

According to comments posted on imdb.com and supported by the two supplementary shorts included on the dvd, this film is not intended as a serious work with any deep message. That certainly seems to be the case, for the conversion of the party girl played by Cameron Diaz to a vibrant young woman looking for love (in all the wrong places) requires some serious suspension of disbelief. Evidently all that is required is a comedy of errors supplemented by a seriously lame self-help book's pronouncements. There are no consequences for her prior behavior, no wake-up call to clean up her act. What one does see is Christina Applegate's character coming to see the light through observation of her friends' follies. Of course, as she is a lawyer, one might arguably ascribe to her a greater ability to learn by observation than is evident in her friends.

Overall, the film has an Animal House entertainment quality to it without the invitation to root for any underdog. Yes, the raunchiness has its own form of appeal, but rooting for older mean girls still isn't quite as satisfactory for me as rooting for underdogs. Not even The Punisher (Thomas Jane) requires satisfaction from these women of privilege. Beyond the entertainment and the invitations to snicker, that little detail keeps nagging at the back of this viewer's consciousness.

Saturday, October 27, 2007

One Week Later

Don't rush me; I'm slow. It's taken me a whole week to come to what should have been an obvious observation about the whole Albus Dumbledore uproar, but I think I've finally got it:

A dear, sweet young man of my acquaintance and I were discussing the final book when I asked him if he'd heard the latest buzz out of NYC. Upon being told that the author had declared unequivocally that Albus Dumbledore had been gay, he said, "I don't know what to do with that information."

Now, if this bombshell was intended as a test, then there can be only one obvious answer, elusive though it seems to have proven to the many commentators eager to declaim throughout this past week. We readers, if we have learned anything from this series as we have traveled along the road to maturity with Harry Potter, should do as Harry did upon learning of his mentor's clay feet: ignore it. It's a matter of fact vs. truth, and the truth of the matter is that Albus Dumbledore was an excellent headmaster and educator who instilled in Harry the knowledge, values, and mindset necessary to accomplish the task at hand when the time came to do so. All the rest is interesting but ultimately irrelevant.

So when one discusses Dumbledore's sexuality, it is a matter of tangential interest only, not pertinent to the narrative that has so gripped the attention of the world and fired the imaginations of an entire generation (and a half) of readers. DD's private life, like that of the other faculty members, is no one's business but his own. The only adult whose personal life is relevant to the narrative is that of Severus Snape because it underlies his every choice and action. Even Tom Riddle's personal life does not merit scrutiny, (if only because he never really had one).

That said, I'm not sure that even Rowling has the right to declare Albus Dumbledore absolutely gay. While he clearly had a youthful infatuation with a fellow wizard, there is no evidence that he continued to pursue such interests in later life. I prefer the idea that AD had a habit of loving individuals, regardless of station or gender identification. Again, it's all of tangential interest but ultimately irrelevant.

Friday, October 26, 2007

Next Flick

I was really looking forward to watching The Holiday (2006), a quiet film billed as adult and sophisticated, starring Jack Black, Cameron Diaz, Jude Law, and Kate Winslet. The premise is that two young women experience disappointment and disillusionment in love, go on the Internet to seek escape, and end up agreeing to exchange abodes for two weeks during the Christmas season. Diaz is a high-powered type-A personality who makes successful film previews, while one must assume that Winslet is a highly effective editor at a publishing company, as her character has so little else to offer in the way of either personality or skills. She is, in fact, rather reminiscent of her character in Titanic, that oppressed rebel awaiting the right man to crack her out of her semi-self-imposed societal prison. Diaz remains rhythm-free, which continues to be amusing, sort of.

Jude Law plays the dashing and very sexy brother to Winslet's character. It is he who sweeps Diaz off her feet, breaking her out of her ice princess prison. Jack Black, on the other hand, was much more effective as a romantic interest opposite Gwyneth Paltrow in Shallow Hal (2001). One suspects he was misdirected here. Such an assumption, of course, does detract from the actor's credit as well. Too bad.

I wanted to like this film. I certainly like the cast, which is why I selected the film in the first place. Unfortunately, Black's character in particular left me worse than cold. I ended up wishing that the filmmaker had simply let Eli Wallach stand as more than man enough to fulfill this foolish girl's emotional needs. He certainly held his own, even stealing a couple of scenes, in my humble opinion. Unfortunately, the commercial need to pair off all the young 'uns left me wishing I'd saved myself the trouble of watching.

Narratively, I suppose one might laud the film for having everyone settle for the modest country abode instead of the lavish L.A. mansion, if only the choice weren't so unpatriotic. Ah well...

Monday, October 22, 2007

Further HP Reflections

(also posted elsewhere)

As previously mentioned, this past Friday J.K. Rowling announced to her predominantly high school audience at Carnegie Hall in New York City that she had always perceived Albus Dumbledore as gay. The initial reaction was stunned silence, followed by tumultuous applause. That response has had a chance to echo across the Internet and around the globe throughout the weekend. Like many, I have been mulling over the ramifications of this most recent pronouncement, and this is what I have concluded:

After my initial glee that Rowling had punctuated what she'd asserted has been a fifteen-year-long plea for tolerance by identifying Albus Dumbledore, beloved headmaster of Hogwarts, as gay, I began to think about the repercussions in light of the revelations in the final volume, specifically with reference to the memories of Severus Snape, salvaged through the ever-quick wits and resourcefulness of Hermione Granger, in conjunction with that always Johnny-on-the-Spot, Harry Potter.

- According to Snape, Dumbledore has really been more of a Machiavelli than a proper mentor to Harry. His intent had always been to use the boy as a sacrificial tool, a weapon against Voldemort when the latter returned.

- According to what we learn of Albus Dumbledore from his brother Aberforth, the former was always a very secretive fellow, a trait learned at their mother's knee. He never said what he really meant. Albus tells Harry in PS/SS that he most desired a warm pair of socks. In DH he tells Harry that he declined the job of Minister of Magic for fear of his tendency to abuse power. What he chose instead was to stay and work at Hogwarts, a school full of pretty young boys... (Rita Skeeter and the Roman Catholic Church, anyone? Or even the latest round of smut now being thrown at the educational community because of perhaps 4% of educators who have proven predator track records.ctual

- Like that poor fellow in Mel Gibson's Braveheart, Albus Dumbledore gets thrown/blown off a tower, thus plummeting to his death. Now, not all cinematic gays die this way, but many do die, and violently.

Ultimately, Dumbledore is bright, witty, and gay. He is admirably talented, far beyond normal, average folk, in fact, but he is also doomed to die unfulfilled. He is unworthy to serve as Messiah; he is only good enough to be a forerunner, and a flawed one at that.

Finally, and this is actually tangential to the whole Dumbledore thing, Rowling has named Harry's younger son Albus Severus Potter and left him with a fear of being sorted into Slytherin. Am I the only one who has noticed that the poor little fellow's initials are A.S.P.? What kind of chance has Rowling left him? Auwe!

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Contrasts in Romance

Today's odd pairing compares and contrasts a quiet little independent production titled, American Pastime, brought to my attention in the preview section on the dvd, Letters from Iwo Jima, with the commercial hit, Blades of Glory. Each features physical conflict but ultimately examines brotherhood, family, honor, and love.

American Pastime is an independent film by Japanese American Desmond Nakano featuring familiar adults juxtaposed with relatively unknown younger performers. The fathers in particular turn in performances worth noting, as played by veteran Japanese performer Nakamura Masatoshi and Gary Cole, the former star of the television series, Midnight Caller. What disturbs me is that Nakamura-san is the only performer of Japanese ancestry in the featured nuclear family. As with Memoirs of a Geisha, the use of other ethnicities seems preferable to the casting of authentic Japanese for roles written specifically for Japanese. Now why is that? Even, perhaps especially growing up in the western portion of the U.S., the filmmaker should be sufficiently familiar with the visual differences among Pacific ethnicities to be disturbed by this, (though I have also heard that a number of Japanese Americans disassociated themselves from their race upon release from internment, sadly.) In any event, the result is that the protagonist is very much an older version of the hip younger son in Flower Drum Song, who also loves baseball and jazz and all things American. That said, the depiction of life in the Topaz internment camp is specific and evocative. The general tone is more in line with that of the nissei who enlisted with the 442nd and won fame and respect for all Japanese Americans in some of the bloodiest and fiercest fighting in Europe during WWII than other films dealing with the internment of the JA's might seem in more strident independent films I have seen. What comes through is a whole lot of love: love of baseball, love of jazz, love of family, love of community, romantic love, and affirmative movement from selfish love to love of self that is self-respect sufficient to radiate to others.

Then there's Blades of Glory, a Will Farrell/Jon Heder headliner put together by Ben Stiller. With credits like that, there is only one kind of film to expect, and that is what one gets. This film also moves from selfish love to love of self that is self-respect that can radiate outwards to include others. Unlike the protagonist of American Pastime, whose lone wolfish ways are arguably attributable to political and societal forces alone, however, the protagonists of this film, both the lone wolf and the pretty boy, can claim the lack of adequate home support. The former is an orphan who grew up on the streets, while the latter is an orphan plucked from obscurity by an entrepreneur who clearly sees him as product, not progeny. Where AP has two blood brothers, the younger of whom learns from his elder, BoG brings together two antithetical orphans who learn from each other, one to be more outgoing, the other to be kinder and gentler, or at least moderately more considerate. Ultimately this film is an affirmation of the American sensibility: independence and spontaneity tempered by consideration and cooperation, just a little bit.

And everybody gets the brunette. Now how can one argue with that sort of ending?

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

P&P Revisited

It's been not quite two years since I first watched the Keira Knightley version of Pride and Prejudice on the big screen. Now I've had a chance to review it on my little laptop monitor, and evidently the passage of time and shrinking of screen size have done wonders for my appreciation of the film. Of course, I could quite possibly simply be suffering from fatigue and ennui...

Life in this new location that was once old and familiar has revived my awareness of nonverbals, which has, in turn, altered my perception of the latest film version of P & P. What I noticed this time around was a whole lot of speaking glances and telling looks, particularly on the part of MacFayden as Mr. Darcy. His character is clearly stalking Elizabeth around the halls and dance floors, long before he ever gets around to saying anything. She, in turn, seems to be all too aware of his animal magnetism, right from the get go.

A viewing of supplementary materials on the dvd revealed Brenda Blethyn discussing her character, which in turn explains why I find her so much less irritating this time around. Blethyn understands the mother not as a mere comic device but, in fact, as a fully fleshed, ambitious, hard-working mother who schemes without remorse in order to fulfill her social responsibility of providing for the five daughters she has borne, a formidable task in rural eighteenth century England. As such, she does not hesitate to use every asset available to her, from prodding her sedentary husband into fulfilling his social duties to plotting her own daughter's ill health with an eye on the weather. While we may view her as silly, even dangerous from the comfort of our 21st century vantage, cultural translation indicates that this is a woman who could give any contemporary multi-national CEO a run for his/her money in terms of scheming and utilizing limited resources to the best advantage, vapours included. And yes, she is dangerous.

Again attending to nonverbals, I cannot help but feel for Miss Mary Bennett. She would have made an admirable spouse for the erstwhile Mr. Collins, and this portrayal clearly indicates (at least to me,) that she pines for him silently. That said, Charlotte Lucas is clearly better able to manage the fellow, and it is probably better for all concerned, from his parishioners to his patron, that it is Charlotte and not Mary that Mr. Collins brings home to Rosings Park. Clearly this is a man that needs a firm hand managing him. Equally clearly, the actress playing Charlotte matches the actor playing Mr. Collins better than Mary might have.

One thing about Charlotte that has always bothered me and did so again upon this viewing is that she is clearly the source of the gossip that brings Lady Catherine down upon Elizabeth near the end of the tale. While this proves to be the machination by which the author brings the two erstwhile lovers together, nevertheless it does seem some kind of betrayal of friendship that Charlotte should convey such information to her husband, knowing full well that he will immediately run to Lady Catherine with it. One might argue that Charlotte is attempting to protect a beloved friend from a man believed to be loathed, but it is also Charlotte who must be the source of information about Lydia's "infamous elopement"; how can that have been the act of a friend? Of course, we do know from Charlotte's own lips that she is not sentimental and never has been. Still, it seems a poor kind of friendship that she offers in sharing such ill gossip about her best friend's family matters.

Having viewed, pondered, and written about this tale, I feel an overwhelming compulsion to read the original again. Of such stuff is really great literature made. :-)

(Right after Blades of Glory and HP again... ;->)

Flags and Letters

Still loving Netflix and all that it is providing, I have been festing, which has proven to be an unexpected feasting, perhaps because of all the hype that has surrounded the films I have most recently viewed.

Clint Eastwood has spent his professional career in Hollywood creating an iconic image that embodies the definition of tough, cool, and macho. He is all that seems to be Californian: rugged, independent, indifferent to the laws of man, more willing to shoot than to talk. Somehow I tend to link these characteristics with John Wayne and Ronald Reagan, neither of whom could actually act, except perhaps off-screen. Of course, they both have airports named after them now, and Reagan went on to become president of everything for which he ran, including the country.

Eastwood in his maturity has chosen to turn his lifetime of experiences and talents to filmmaking. I don't know why I can't remember that I like his work as a director, but there it is: every time I am faced with the prospect of watching one of his films, I find myself reluctant to begin, then completely seduced when I finally get around to doing so. The first time this happened to me was with Unforgiven, which I must have rewatched for a month while trying to wrap my thoughts around all the ideas packed into it. Such has been the case with my latest encounter with Eastwood-directed films, two this time: Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima.

These two films really should be seen together, or at least consecutively, and they should be viewed in the order listed above. One should not be seen without the other, though each stands well enough on its own. If Americans were willing to sit still long enough and, more importantly, theater managers willing to allocate such a lengthy time block for anything not sf- or fantasy-related, these films would have been one amazing epic. That said, there is great wisdom in having made them two separate films, if only because of the fact that doing so produces such an effective reflection of the sentiments of that era as well as the mood of present times, thus highlighting an essential part of the tangle of problems at the core of intercultural conflicts.

Flags features the American grunts who were singled out by a chance photo to serve as the unifying focus of fundraising in the U.S. during some of the darkest days of World War II. Eastwood's presentation of the events is such that one is invited to note not so much the conflict between nations as the conflicts of class and race, both within this country and within the military attempting to present a monolithic image to the world. The societal chasms depicted are not so much generational as experiential, falling between those who have seen action and those who have been in the heat of the action; between those who have been in a war zone and those who have only heard and/or read about it back home; between those running the war and those running in it or from it.

Ryan Phillippe, who caught my attention in Breach and Crash, is again featured, this time as the med tech who should be a noncombatant but must kill in order to attempt to heal, then must play the hero taking credit for the achievement of others.

Adam Beach, whom I first saw in the beloved Mystery, Alaska, turns in a great performance as the continually underappreciated and misunderstood Native American. His narrative stream may be dismissed by some as maudlin or overly dramatic, but that just goes along with the whole idea of the plight he represents as being too easily overlooked and dismissed.

There are a number of other familiar faces. T2's Robert Patrick flits by, as do other action film fellows seen a hundred times before. They are Eastwood film types, filling out military roles with aplomb.

This movie, however, spends as much time on the civilian side as on Iwo Jima, to its benefit. This is a war movie that takes us home, where so many of the fellows will never go again.
What I particularly like is the way it puts me in mind of the works of Kurt Vonnegut, whose wartime tales tended to leave his protagonist loose in time, flashing forwards and backwards between memories and distortions of reality in present time with less attention to chronological sequencing than to thematic connections. The resulting film blew me away.

Likewise, Letters moves between memories and present realities, more for the purposes of characterization than narration. The framework of the film is an archeological discovery, and Eastwood very kindly remembers to complete the connection at film's end, (unlike some other, less adept tale tellers who shall remain nameless here).

Letters is filmed almost entirely in Japanese, featuring English only in three brief encounters near the end when American soldiers are encountered, and in one brief early flashback. Again, the focus is more on the differences between leaders and followers, between traditionalists and modernists, between those who have had experiences in battle and those for whom battle, let alone war, is a relatively foreign experience. What one has had and values vs. what one has to lose is key to differences in attitudes.

Ultimately, the most sympathetic character proves to be a simple grunt who, like "Doc" in Flags is more of a noncombatant than an actual "soldier", and whose attitudes and actions serve as the most pervasive (if not the only) cultural bridge for viewers. As "Doc" waged war primarily with his med kit, so Saigo waged war primarily with his shovel. This baker turned ditch digger is the vehicle through which Western eyes are invited to appreciate and understand that the "enemy" were not so different from us. His enemies are not the foreign invaders but rather the abusive and vindictive superior who is always using him as a scapegoat and all-purpose whipping boy. All Saigo wants is to stay alive and return home to his loving wife and the daughter he has never seen. Though Western viewers may tune in to see the unarguably gorgeous Watanabe Ken-san, one cannot help but come away agreeing that "I like Saigo."

A friend noted that there is greater pathos with the losing side; whatever the reason, Letters is the superior film. Though both films depict the perversion of patriotism as an ideal, each also shows very personal pictures of the men in the trenches. There is great nobility and tragic loss depicted here, both high and low. These are companion films that each new generation really needs to see.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

California Inferno

California, land of outrageous special effects spectacles, does not require great imagination, though it certainly seems to abound in the stuff. No, reality supplies plenty enough for starters.

Friday evening a couple of the big rigs that are such an irritatingly common sight on the highways and byways of this great nation collided. Not content with colliding, they did so in a tunnel traversing a mountain pass. In the brief eighth of a mile during which they were out of the gently falling rain, they managed to instigate a domino effect. By the time they were done, the visuals were pretty spectacular, along the order of the original Terminator movie, complete with flames shooting out of both ends of the tunnel and a lovely smog cloud blanketing the adjoining valleys to this day.

When I watch Hollywood spectacles, I often forget what it is to live in Southern California. Life during the brief two years I spent there was much like living inside a movie, with the daily news pretty much like that. The question was never whether or not anyone had been shot but rather how many had been shot. The question was whether the shooting was a drive-by or stationary. The question was how many millions of dollars in damage had been done. The question was how long the flames would burn and how many hundreds of firefighters and rescue workers were involved. The answers were more along the order of research for future reference rather than asked with any sense of awe or wonder in the more traditional senses.

Now that I'm back in the land of eternal liquid sunshine, my sense of normalcy is readjusting. Here the normal freeway speed is 35 m.p.h., with mainland drivers sticking out like sore thumbs as they tear out their hair and wait for fingernail polish or paint to dry. Here the Thunderbirds perform one week, the Blue Angels vie for attention the next. The military presence here is a palpable reality with fireworks and infernos something from which they seek rest, not reminders. The question is not military or civilian, but rather, which branch of the military? Here the concern is whether or not a proposed interisland ferry service will jeopardize the whale population, as opposed to Southern Cal's concern over potential traffic snarls because the I-5 has been lit up by the "lifeblood of the nation", i.e. trucks.

So - fire or water? rain or snow? heat or cold? heating or air-conditioning? trucks or boats (or airplanes)? fruit or vegetables? potatoes or rice?

But it's not a world of dualities, so I'll take noodles, thank you very much, and you can keep your flames and your quakes and your politics and and and ...

I think I need some lunch.

Friday, October 12, 2007

Caregiving

Recently I've been watching Clint Eastwood's recently released trilogy of WWII films, specifically the first two: Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima. I'll go into detail about the films in another post, but for now I merely mention the fact because reflections on a character in the latter film, Saigo, made me realize something about how I'm spending my life right now.

A caregiver is like a baseball outfielder or a soccer (football) goalie in an essential way: when things are going well, life is easy and the workload is light. Life is, in fact, more of a spectator sport than a heated fray. When the action gets serious, however, the caregiver, like the outfielder and the goalie, is the last line of defense and, therefore, the most vital in the moment. There are gathered the greatest forces, there is required the greatest effort, there is the most to win or lose. Everyone else on the playing field has had their shot. If the ball gets past the last defender, it becomes the province of the world at large, moving on to a higher plane (the upper decks of the bleachers, as it were), and is no longer in the hands of the players.

When all is said and done, a caregiver can win a few, lose a few, but ultimately the ball will leave the field. That's just the way the game goes. In a game of inches, it's just a matter of paying attention at the right moments - or not; and sometimes it's just out of your hands, and there's nothing you can or could have done to make a difference. It is what it is.

(Does anyone know who said that last line recently to popularize its use?)

Saturday, October 06, 2007

Fact-Based

My mother passed away in February 2001. We buried her on the 16th. Two days later a story broke in the news about the arrest of a man who had been a mole in the Intelligence community for over two decades. I vaguely remember something about the incident, but evidently my attention was elsewhere at the time.

Recently I was abruptly reminded of that period in my life in the oddest way: the date struck me as I was watching the dvd of the recently released film, Breach, starring Chris Cooper, Ryan Phillippe. Laura Linney, Gary Cole, and Dennis Haysbert, among others. The casting alone would have caught my attention. In fact, I do believe that the cast was the reason I initially borrowed the dvd, and I was not misled, as has been the case on other occasions.

I love pretty much anything and everything Chris Cooper does. He has the same kind of quiet presence that David Strathairn has, or perhaps it is simply that both gentlemen never cease to surprise, impress, delight, and challenge my thinking with the roles they play. In this film, Cooper plays a man we, the audience, know to be a consummate liar and national traitor, yet he manages to convey an innate dignity and worthiness that incites admiration while simultaneously managing to emanate a sense of creepiness. As we come to understand the depths of his depravity and treachery, the camera progressively reveals his clay feet. You can see Cooper's character getting increasingly wound up and distrustful, even as he wants desperately to believe that the relatively naive young man in his outer office is simple and trustworthy. I found watching his descent riveting.

Ryan Phillippe, on the other hand, has often left me cold in the past, Crash notwithstanding. This time I found him very effective as the ambitious younger employee bucking for agent status. Ironically, whereas I have generally found him to be too arrogant to be able to contain himself, this time he was almost too capable of subsuming his ambitions in service of the Greater Good. Overall, however, I found his moral dilemma sufficiently engaging for my viewing satisfaction.

Laura Linney can do no wrong, at least on screen. I don't know that it is so much perfect casting as just another superlative performance from an extremely talented and intelligent artist. Whichever is the case, Linney delivers as Phillippe's dedicated superior and supervisor in the sting operation for which the latter is recruited. I particularly like the editorial choice to leave her softer scenes on the cutting room floor, (or at least relegated to the "Alternate" and "Deleted" dvd offerings). Her character makes the most sense as a stern, no-nonsense agent whose dedication to her work is not overwhelmed by overzealousness or undue earnestness, yet who manages to convey all of that in a way that is palatable, or at least free from the more customary gag-inducing reflex.

And who doesn't have the protagonist's reaction when Dennis Haysbert appears on-screen? He doesn't have to be there long to project that ineffable presence. 'Nuff said.

Now, one of the things I really enjoy about today's dvds is the supplementary materials. I was fascinated to see the real Eric O'Neill and to learn that, contrary to the claim at the end of the film that he has been working in the D.C. area as a lawyer, he has, in fact, been shopping the narrative of his adventure around Hollywood for some time now. Phillippe's characterization was surely much more troubled by excessive earnestness than the original on which it is based, yet one might also pass off the bounciness of said original (O'Neill) to the euphoria that must surely accompany the completion at long last of bringing to life on-screen such a life-changing experience.

As I feel my language control to be fairly nonexistent today, I shall stop here... for now...

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Odd Juxtaposition

Continuing my vidding kick, I've just been taking films in the order they arrive at the house. Recently this created a very curious sequence, much like catching a double- or tripleheader at the local plex might do.

Wild Hogs

This is a movie featuring four established actors supported by equally identifiable supporting performers. The result is better than the unexpected casting initially suggested when I first watched the previews for this film in theaters.

Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence, William H. Macy, and John Travolta play four mid-life suburbanites facing standard mid-life crises.

Allen is a dentist who has somehow lost the spontaneous edge that once made him "the Golden Knight" in his now long gone college days. Being married to Jill Hennessy, who looks like an only slightly older, more relaxed version of her Law-n-Order Claire character, doesn't help him. His son clearly thinks his father is a stodgy old man; consequently, the lad prefers to play hoops with his friend's father, who can dunk. His wife practically has to kick him out of the house to take the time off to go on the proposed road trip. The payoff, of course, is that he regains his self-esteem and wins his son's regard in the process. Unfortunately, all that esteem comes from getting into a fight with biker toughs. Entertaining as it is, I'm not sure that's a message that children in search of role models really need to receive.

Lawrence is an aspiring writer who has taken a year off from plumbing. Now that his year is up, his wife wants him back on the job. Clearly she rules the roost while he commands no respect from either his children or his live-in mother-in-law. His first client, a convenience store clerk, also deems Lawrence's character below himself in the scheme of life. The proposed road trip is a perfect escape for him. Unfortunately, he needs to lie to his wife in order to take it. It does buy him the time to reclaim himself, so that by the time she discovers the truth and comes storming after him, he is able to stand up to her and retake control of his marriage, or so we are led to believe. Unfortunately, this is probably the weakest of the narrative threads, even as Lawrence's character has some of the best sight gags. The intended message is that a man who can stand up to bikers should be able to stand up to one shrill shrew of a wife. That's not a great message.

William H. Macy's character walks a fine line between the kind of person mass media has taught us to fear and the kind we love to mock: he is a computer geek afraid of human intercourse, except with his suburban biker buddies. Macy plays his geek ingenuously, keeping the innocence and naivety clearly front and center and avoiding all but one suggestion of the online predator, which is intentionally played for laughs. His reward in the end is that he gets Marisa Tomei and masters his bike sufficiently to appreciate the bikini-clad beauties of Southern California while his friends finally fall down.

John Travolta has been cast in far more heroic roles than his fellow castmates. It is therefore no surprise that he is cast as the nominal leader of the group at the beginning of the film, or at least as the instigator of the road trip, though the audience is also presented with a clear view of his character's clay feet as well. This man who seems to have everything - a successful business and a supermodel wife - is actually bankrupt in the wake of his wife's departure and divorce. There is a lovely symmetry in watching this character's descent and dissolution as Macy's character grows into belated manhood. Reasonably, these are the two actors better known for their dramatic turns than their comedic roles, though they clearly do both with equal facility.

This film is an unqualified success at entertaining. The pace is excellent, the music fits like a comfortable old glove, and the faces are of old friends. Stephen Tobolowsky and John C. McGinley as the sheriff and highway patrolman respectively are familiar faces, if not names. For fans of Mystery, Alaska, Kevin Durand is a pleasant sighting, (though his resume reflects more television series work than film work).

As villains go, Ray Liotta plays this one a bit too flatly and heavy-handedly for my taste. He has shown much finer layers in some of his other work, but that may simply be a consequence of this script. There really isn't much room for him to demonstrate layers; he is simply asked to be a stock villain against whom the others may flail. Unfortunately, when he does finally get a chance to do some texturing, he doesn't. Ah well...

At least he gets to call one of the original Wild Ones, Peter Fonda, dad.

There is an ongoing homophobic riff throughout the film, overtly with McGinley's highway patrolman, less noticeably yet more consistently between Travolta and Macy, with the geek giving evidence of uncomfortable comfort in his own skin that way while the seeming stud is the one who is always squirming away. Again, there's a mixed message that is pervasive throughout the film, widely accepted as the norm in society, and just a little bit disturbing upon reflection.

Apocalypto

Mel Gibson's most recent offering, in contrast, is a very deliberate attempt to convey serious drama amidst the grand epic sweep of the great Mayan civilization in its death throes. It being a Mel movie, however, there are inevitable bits of locker room humor and the occasional nod to homophobia, Mel being an ardent and active espouser of the heterosexual lifestyle as the only sane, noncomedic choice among heroic warriors.

Like Wild Hogs, Gibson's Apocalypto quickly turns into a road trip, though the latter film involves more enforced travel than intentional meandering. Along the way would-be warriors are tested, with only one emerging a mature man by film's end which, coincidentally, also arrives at ocean's edge. Since Apocalypto is intended as a serious film, the failure of companions to meet each test encountered successfully results in death, in contrast to Wild Hogs, where failure merely results in decreased stature until all are equals instead of hierarchically situated.

As Gibson's film is more ambitious, the costumes and sets are much more lavish. The attention to detail alone makes this a film worth watching, despite the fact that sometimes the camera lingers a little too long on sets and scenery for the good of the narrative. Every stratum of society that has been discovered through painstaking research is meticulously depicted through costumes, accessories, body decorations, and assigned societal roles, making acting moot for many of the cast. Unfortunately, the few whose roles actually do require acting in addition to makeup, wardrobe, and placement are not always quite up to the task, a fact detectable despite the exclusive use once again of a language not much in use these days (Mayan). There is, of course, the possibility that I am not quite up to snuff on the topic of the eyes wide open school of acting...

Character-wise, Apocalypto shares with Wild Hogs the presentation of immature men who, through life or death confrontation, progress to a clearer sense of self. One senses, however, that the protagonist of the former film experiences significantly more growth than do the four riders in the latter. Sadly, the protagonist of Apocalypto retreats into the still free forest on the brink of invasion, exploitation, and destruction, whereas the Wild Hogs, who also return to their native habitat, i.e. the suburbs, arguably sustain a new lease on life (though a true cynic might see suburbia as just another beachhead for invasion, exploitation, and destruction of civilization as only an urban dweller can understand it).

One positive that both films share is the depiction of strong women, marginalized though they be in these male-centric narratives. Seven, the very pregnant wife whom Jaguar's Paws, the protagonist of Apocalypto, conceals in a well during the initial attack on the village, proves to be an able and fit mate and mother. Though clearly frightened, she presents a brave front for her young son, Turtle's Run. As the days pass, she finds creative ways to deal with exigencies that arise, from stitching up her son's gash with insects to gathering water for drinking to making a valiant if ultimately futile attempt to climb out of the well. She even manages to stay afloat and give birth amidst a torrential rainstorm while her erstwhile husband is pussyfooting around with deadly killers who have tracked him across two days, a Fugitive-esque waterfall leap, and limb-sucking bogs. What I don't get is why she is still required to wait for her husband to finally rescue her. Of course, this is a Mel movie.

If you're into cool weaponry, this is a great film to watch. In addition to extensive research of existing records, the weapons master who got his start in films working on Gibson's first hit, Braveheart, is back. He incorporates not only what exists in records, but what is plausible based on the materials available. Stone slingshots, obsidian-edged swords, and darts created on the spur of the moment from handy frog venom that are then shot through a giant rolled up leaf are among the weapons at hand. Of course, cool weapons mean creative blood spurting, another trademark of a Mel Gibson epic action film.

Ultimately, these are two films aimed at those interested in getting the testosterone flowing. There are some pretty cool stunts in each between long waits of scenery and narrative. Ostensibly, growth and maturity are achieved. One can always hope.