Sex and Death 101

Zach: You call this decadence?

A 'movie.' Consciously lit for 'production value,' people dressed 'nicely,' bachelor party 'set dressing:'

Stripper: Your fiance is lucky, she's got one of the good ones. I wish I was more into successful white dudes but uh (laugh), two broke Latin husbands -- (laugh). Jesus, stop me. Anyway man, gracias, seriously.

Made from a 'script,' by Daniel Waters, who also directed.

Sex and Death 101 benefits from a firsthand knowledge of the Hollywood business and cultural landscape. Waters is the loud and proud LA MOVIEMAKER type of movie maker. He says through self-awareness to 'deal with' the fact that it's a movie, and that beautiful and wealthy people are rulers of this kingdom.

News stand guy: This kind of stuff happens in the movies.

What Waters does, he does well. Think of Heathers, Batman Returns, and the first draft of Demolition Man. The dude who created Demolition Man knows it's a goddamn movie. He uses it to his advantage whenever he can. That's his art.

This movie arrived two years after fellow LA MOVIEMAKER Shane Black's directorial debut Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, also about "presentable" men running amok in LA, told in a narrative employing self-awareness, parody, and satire. The two movies are stylistically near enough to exist in the same universe.

Their self-awareness is a type that rewards viewers familiar with movie tropes, especially it seems ones from late-night HBO*. Conventions are expertly amped and tweaked, for maximum enjoyment. Beautiful people are the protagonists, that's a law of glitzy LA, and the best movies have TONS of sexual energy, erotic deviance, light philosophy, cool tunes, cash, and chill vibes. 

So it's not all bad.

A sprinkling of the world from outside this perspective. Applied as harmlessly as possible.

The LA movie scenario is a millipede of potential. It's linked to a tradition of genre juggling, and includes movies like The Loved One, In a Lonely Place, The Terminator, Lady Killer ('33), Body Double, The Black Marble, Sunset Boulevard, Bad Influence, D.O.A. ('50), Die Hard, and Eating Raoul. LA makes a great 'movie world,' I love some of these movies, and would pit them against subversive and deliberately weird movies Monday through Sunday. But I find myself in disagreement about the opinion that fantasy is the 'top,' the pure form of a cinema that is 'meant to be' entertainment. Entertainment is not the only way to explore the charts of our imaginations or feelings or experiences as humans. Seems like a conservative and single-dimensional view of cinema from a place that's supposed to be crazy, anything-goes, batshit insane. One way for movies to be dangerous is for them to approach complex and difficult and unusual situations and moments, and to let reality puncture style.

Roderick: Trix, I'm sure there's some logical explanation for all of this. I'm not going to wait around for it. Keys.

Sex and Death 101 feels closed off by its perspective of cinema. As in, however good this movie is -- and this movie is very good and very very entertaining, and I'm sorry it's stuck in my cross-hairs at some points -- I have the same problem with it that I had with Pet Sematary 2, Guncrazy, and the movies of Edgar Wright: I can hear the movies tink against glass walls.

From The Kill Bill Diary: The Making of a Tarantino Classic as Seen Through the Eyes of a Screen Legend, the one by David Carradine:

(Steven = Spielberg.) I think what Carradine's saying is cool. He prefers a violent thing to come from a personal reality. Earlier Tarantino said he likes Spielberg, and I think Tarantino can learn about people through their violence. (Not sure why Carradine highlighted Spielberg's violence, guess because they'd just seen Minority Report.)

I think Waters understands his characters, but expresses his understanding in a movie language. Like the whole 'concept' of the movie about a guy receiving an e-mail of the 101 women he'll have sex with in his life -- the movie tells you it won't explain the 'why' of this, but explains multiple times that a) an explanation won't be given and b) well there is this "machine" and the building with the machine and the exposition that takes place in the building with the guys in suits well there is that.

But it's my problem that these movies aren't what I want them to be.

And props for the insanity that exists.

Waters packs his movies full,

 as full as he can.

Roderick: And a man would rather have another man's jealousy than another man's respect.

Some shit goes down. The title seems appropriate, it suggests that late-night HBO movies are of a genre called 'sex and death movies,' which seems fitting, and this does feel like a 101 course for sex and death movies. One has to have confidence in one's writing ability to write the textbook, and Waters is a king in his land. He expresses people as 'types,' but richly defines the type of person. He spins adventurous narrative webs. 

You can tell the movie is intended for you because the movie is addressed to 'you' in its copious voice over. 

*Its earnest passions I found endearing, and the way it portrayed the 'depth' of a character through their knowledge of and appreciation for books and movies and music.

Roderick: The end is coming; and coming, is the end.

Tell you the truth, everything being said, I don't think the inclusion of the materials I think are missing would make the movie better. They wouldn't fit into the movie. The movie is pretty great at what it is, and I think people who really like movies like this could do a better job of saying what's great. I can't enjoy it on the levels others can, like maybe (?) Waters couldn't enjoy Killer of Sheep on the levels I can. (Bet he could, actually. Movie people are good at enjoying movies.)

You don't go up to [professional basketball player] and tell him he should be playing tennis.

Sex and Death 101 challenged me, 'called me out' for liking these movies, in smart, funny ways. Waters adds some shades to the movie's ending and presents a kind of textured and slightly bitter non-teleological view of the events, emphasizing that no one should give a fuck about why things happen. People should be. Simple, like that -- be.

Since I'm being honest, I think Hollywood should retire the 'quick death for a laugh' gimmick. Especially if you already nailed it with Heathers.

Gillian De Raisx: I always liked that word. Oh, and 'depleted,' 'dissipated,' and 'spent.' Those are good ones. But 'exhaustion' sounds like what it is.

I'd never really noticed Simon Baker, who plays the lead character, in other movies before. Another way you can tell Waters is LA local is I've never heard of Baker but he's super handsome and charming and fits in his role. He's believable, if not an iron man. And the movie has plenty of attractive women showing their cleavage and expensive lingerie.

WINONA RYDER WRITES IN A JOURNAL WHILE SPEAKING IN V.O.

As for the photography, by Daryn Okada, it's a style I don't like. I kept thinking of this Boogie Nights conversation throughout the movie:

Kurt Longjohn: For the shoot - I wanna talk about the look. I wanted to see about getting this new zoom lens... 

Little Bill: Right. 

Kurt Longjohn: I wondered if we'd be able to look into getting some more lights, too, y'know... 

Little Bill: Jack wants a minimal-thing... 

Kurt Longjohn: Right, well, very often, minimal means a lot more photographically than I think, well... than I think most people understand... 

Little Bill: I understand. 

Kurt Longjohn: No, no. Hey. I know you understand, I was talking about some other people. 

Little Bill: Well, I think what Jack is talking about is minimal, not really "natural", but minimal... 

Kurt Longjohn: Okay... fine... I was just saying... 

Little Bill: I understand... 

Kurt Longjohn: - 'cause I'm trying to give each picture its own look... 

Little Bill: Can we talk about this later? 

Kurt Longjohn: Oh, yeah... you have to go somewhere... or...? 

Little Bill: Well, no, yeah... I mean... 

Kurt Longjohn: 'Cause I was hoping to, y'know, for the shoot tomorrow, we could send Rocky down and he could pick it up... 

Little Bill: Kurt. 

Kurt Longjohn: No. Hey. Gotcha. You've gotta go somewhere so - hey - what the fuck? It's only the fucking photography of the movie we're talking about. 

Little Bill: My fucking wife has an ass in her cock over in the driveway, alright? I'm sorry if my thoughts aren't with the photography of the film we're shooting tomorrow, Kurt, OK?

Not only is Okada successful in Hollywood, he was even the President of ASC from 2006 to 2009. Which fact I kind of love.

My love/hate saga with Hollywood continues.

The Adventures of Tintin and War Horse

During an early The Adventures of Tintin sequence Snowy, the dog, chases a cat through Tintin's apartment and knocks over various things, including a model ship. The model ship hits the ground, one of its masts breaks, and a scroll in a grey tube falls out from inside the mast. Tintin, returning the model ship to its place, knocks the tube further beneath a cabinet with his foot, oblivious to the scroll's existence.

I knock scrolls beneath cabinets, sometimes, when I see films. My attention is in a different place, the vital components are mysterious or unknown to me, and my life continues. Sometimes I am like Tintin and encounter clues that alert me to my ignorance. Because I live in real life, sometimes not (perhaps mostly not). Steven Spielberg doesn't make films without explanatory keys. They are 'easy' films. They give you things - emotions, experiences, stories, meanings, messages, visual cues, etc.

The Adventures of Tintin, overall, gives you little else but action and excitement. The Unicorn ship is the mystery. Tintin isn't meant to have mystery. The furthest developed character is Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis); we learn about his family history and encounter his problems of drinking and self-doubt. The scroll, in metaphor, says something like "be cool, have fun." The second time I saw Tintin I followed the story closer and more things connected, but, if you can believe it, understanding the plot elements didn't make the film better, but empowered me to further appreciate the nonplot elements. Think about when you attend a party with nervous anticipation because you don't know some people and wonder what they're going to think about you and you worry that maybe some of them are superior to you or whatever but suddenly at one point during the party the other guests reveal themselves enough or you get smashed enough or whatever that you realize or remember the fact of universal human imperfection and fallibility and cut loose and stop giving a shit about what everyone else thinks and just have a good time. I continue to be disinterested in the story elements, but I feel okay about having fun with everything else.

Amazing to me is the fluidity of the camera, the film's delectable candy-colors, and the extraordinary ways Spielberg choreographs camera actions and character movements. Tintin is animated, but Spielberg directs it like live action. I submit that if you can feel the camera or the camera makes you feel, its actual existence is irrelevant. The long, dazzling chase sequence after the shattered glass case scene, involving motorcycles, cars, sliding buildings, and multiple characters, is a glorious and paramount example. A recent video essay introduced the term The Spielberg Face into the lexicon of cinephilia. The Spielberg Face is an example of how Spielberg works with the camera, doing some type of emotional or narrative lifting with each shot. Each shot gives something to the audience, manipulates us in some way.

War Horse section - I reveal some of the film's outcomes, see movie first:

War Horse's scroll, in metaphor, says something like "love strong, love long." The majority of the relationships in War Horse are loving ones, including love between Albert (Jeremy Irvine) and horse Joey, Albert and his father Ted (Peter Mullan), Ted and his wife Rose (Emily Watson), Captain Nicholls (Tom Hiddleston) and Joey, Joey and Topthorn (horse), Emilie (Celine Buckens) and Joey, Emilie and her grandfather (Niels Arestrup), rivals turned friends Albert and David (Robert Emms), and various members of the German and British armies and Joey. Joey is love's center.

Spielberg wants to overwhelm us with love, and by depiction of overwhelming love, encourage us to love more. The emotions of the film are purposely bloated, carefully developed to bloated excess. Sometimes, I think, the film's emotions are like nails on a chalkboard. In several instances Spielberg 'protects' us from the blunt impact of radical misery: rats in the British trenches appear in one shot and vanish in the next, Topthorn's body mysteriously vanishes when the German tank appears, which would run over Topthorn in reality, and Emilie dies in words spoken by her grandfather. The vision is narrow, it's Spielberg's magnifying glass pointed at love, and horrible pain and tragedy are only allowed to lurk on the outer edges, or become beautified and transmuted into tenderness, such as the death scene of Captain Nicholls.

But after we accept that this is what the film is, we can see that the film does these things well. Audience members openly sobbed during War Horse. The untruth of the screen sometimes agitated, bored, or offended me, but also sometimes I felt moved, compassionate, or joyous. My favorite sequence follows Joey's escape from the German tank: he hurdles the British trenches, bombs bursting in air, runs parallel to them for a while, tries to jump to the other side, doesn't make it, falls into the trench, runs through the trench for a while, and then runs into no man's land, trapping himself in barbed wire. WWI is happening and I am amazed by a running horse! Oh, Spielberg, you sorcerer.

Tower Heist

I couldn't compile a substantial list of good reasons for seeing Tower Heist before I went to see Tower Heist. Most reviews and word of mouth were negative. The people who did say a couple positive things about the movie sounded like they were on party drugs, like they could only say it had been a 'good time' without clear evidence of why it was a good time. I went to see the movie anyway because I wanted to see the movie.

I laughed out loud approximately seven times during the movie. This is a high number for me, especially since I saw the movie stone sober at 12pm on a Saturday. There were two other people in the theater; for whatever reasons our laughter was never synchronized. Sometimes one other person repeated back lines at the screen, moments after the line had been spoken, a phenomenon I've encountered before which completely boggles me. I have done it (repeated a line), but I can't think of what the reason was, and whether or not I had a good one.

The first time I really laughed was when Special Agent Claire Denham (Téa Leoni) and Josh Kovacs (Ben Stiller) share some drinks and Claire drunkenly says she will take a 'crab' home. I laughed so hard. Leoni did a great job playing drunk. Why is she not used more? Has no one seen Flirting with Disaster? Téa Leoni is funny. The second time I laughed really hard had something to do with Mr. Fitzhugh (Matthew Broderick) I'm pretty sure. Can't remember what exactly*, but I enjoyed Broderick's nebbish, anxious Mr. Fitzhugh. Broderick is great at comedic subtlety, and this would be his best performance of the year, if his best performance of the year wasn't in Margaret. There was also a scene in which robbery intel was interrupted by a conversation about lesbians. I thought the scene was executed seamlessly and for hilarious effect. "A gauntlet of lesbians." Eddie Murphy is in the movie too. He is very funny.

The narrative is ridiculous and should not be taken seriously. Not all narratives need to be taken seriously, it's not a big deal. The only problem, as other reviewers have mentioned, is the third act heist is too long. I speculate the third act heist feels too long because the dramatic beats interfere with the character moments that are the best part of the movie.

Tower Heist has an ADD narrative and that's great. Some scenes were so short and ended so abruptly I almost felt like the joke had been omitted. *I just remembered the Mr. Fitzhugh joke - it's when they're putting the team together and Kovacs asks Mr. Fitzhugh if he's in and Mr. Fitzhugh says "come back to me." Kind of reminds me of an Of Gods and Men scene.

It's my belief that films should subvert narrative conventions whenever possible and move at whatever speed they deem necessary. The idea of slow films being superior to fast films is an idea, and I don't believe ideas are rules. People who try to make rules for art are bad critics, not artists, and also not good critics. The speed of a film should be dictated by the needs of the narrative and by the director's perceived effects of speed upon the audience in relation to the intended experience. I'm not saying Tower Heist is great because it moves quickly, and to tell you the truth I haven't heard anyone criticize the movie for moving quickly, I'm just soapboxing because my opinion is the movie moves quickly and not only is this fine but it's great. I almost cried during Tower Heist, twice.

No one is hated by cinephiles like Tower Heist's director Brett Ratner is hated by cinephiles. No one. Because he's so hated it makes me view him as an outsider in mainstream filmmaking. Here is a filmmaker who many people think shouldn't be making films. Supposedly he's an arrogant womanizing asshole who is talentless, dilettantish, and stupid. Ratner will always have the last laugh, however, because he doesn't take himself too seriously. This is the thing people don't get that gives him his bizarre power. So in my eyes he's a wickedly flawed, potentially misguided, contentiously effective filmmaker. To me that sounds like the Hollywood filmmaker archetype, and in my mind it's a suitable personality for a creator of comedies. I'm not saying he's the best Hollywood filmmaker, but I am saying that I don't regret seeing Tower Heist.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (Redux)

It's an accident that my second attempt at writing about Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is so near the one year anniversary of its theatrical release (my first, dated 8/14/10). Last night I watched Scott Pilgrim, which I don't like very much, for the fourth time (w/trivia track), which must mean that I like this movie very much. It's a compliment when I say that in my opinion Edgar Wright's films are the easiest popcorn films to watch - I've seen all of them multiple times and have written about Shaun of the Dead multiple times as well.

"You broke the heart that broke mine. Now get ready to Chau down." - Knives Chau (Ellen Wong)

But still I struggle over what it is exactly that I get out of them. They're infectious, they're fun, perhaps the acme of modern escapist fantasies, but they haven't stimulated me on deeper levels. His films haven't rattled my insides, and I can't find a reason why they should. For me it's telling that reshoots were required for Scott Pilgrim's ending and that focus groups and O'Malley's final volume were necessary for Wright to find the film's emotional denouement. Here is a filmmaker who, largely through self exhibition, is well-known to be meticulous, but it may be that he holds his microscope to dramatic and filmic design, and struggles to give his characters more than a filmic depth.

(Michael Cera) Scott's fight sequences are best considered from a symbolic pov, as allegorical treatments of what would be emotional confrontations in real life. He's not The Bride, and he's not really killing; he conquers the idea of evil exes. The duels to death, as called by Matthew Patel (Satya Bhabha) through e-mail, involve no real deaths, but page-turning moments of maturity. Edgar Wright says he "tried to make it so that [Scott's] emotional story is consistent throughout [the film] and even the way he fights the exes is, in some ways, a reflection of his emotions." Most viewers probably make this switch without putting it into words. If the battles are taken as literal, Scott is a murderer, kind of, or whatever people who turn other people into coins are called.

Either way I don't understand why Scott Pilgrim reserves judgment for boy on girl violence, and I continue to see the implication as being that some forms of violence are acceptable. Wright has said that when Scott "gets to ex number four [Roxy Richter] he doesn’t really even want to play anymore and tries to opt out of fighting because he’s just had it," and it's true that Scott and Ramona are in conflict when this fight occurs. What we hear from Scott is "I don't think I can hit a girl. They're soft," and Ramona's response, "You don't have a choice." Other instances of boy on girl violence are given specifically negative contexts (all except the [accidental] boob punch), and are singled out from other violent acts committed in the film. The first time is when Todd Ingram (Brandon Routh) punches the highlights out of Chau's hair, and it's meant to be an example of how Todd is a rockstar asshole. The last time comes after Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) utters "let's both be girls" before kneeing Gideon Graves (Jason Schwartzman) in the balls. Gideon backhands (double checked in slow-mo) Ramona, and as he does a BAD!! graphic flashes on screen, and as he kicks her down the pyramid's stairs more BAD!! graphics flash on screen.

If the film wanted to express an ethical point it might have considered violence charged personalities from a more objective pov, but instead it makes the easy, obvious comment that girls should not be hit by boys, and chooses not to explore the complexity of the problem of boys hitting boys, or violence in general. The film behaves like Scott Pilgrim. All instances of this moral judgment, against boy on girl violence, which contradict the phantasmagorical circumstances, are clouded by narrative material - Scott is tired, Todd is an asshole, Gideon shows his teeth - but the fact is that not a single instance of boy on boy violence is given this type of treatment.

Scott Pilgrim's double standard on violence has also always bothered me, it's present there in my first response to the film. It's lame that the film would draw one line and not other, harder to draw lines; it's lame that Scott would. To me it indicates that the film's focus is not on philosophical or fundamental inquiries, and only considers essential questions from its narrative and temporal pov. Scott's pov, during the early 2000s or whenever the film is set. And Scott is a purposefully imperfect character, he's: immature, selfish, insouciant, and nearsighted. At least. A damaged protagonist can be more interesting than Edgar's Scott Pilgrim (I've never read the comic books, I should mention). Scott is a dull, limited lead for a movie. Worse, Edgar hopes both to give Scott flaws and to forgive them, which ideology I don't traffic in, because it seems contradictory to the point of having flawed characters.

The fear of female sexuality by males is very real. Though I think the film fails to offer rich expressions of intimacy between Scott and Ramona. Why she loves him is a complete fucking mystery to me. It's not that I doubt that a person could fall in love for no good reason, it's simply that I think the good reasons, and bad reasons, are way more interesting to explore than no reason. In the interview I keep quoting, Edgar laughs about this, laughs, saying "man, I’ve told girls I’ve loved them without knowing anything about them (laughs)." Okay, he's told a girl he's in love too early, but does he know the difference between telling a girl you love her and really loving a girl? I can't tell by the film.

This may be why Edgar didn't know how to end the film - he didn't know why anyone cared about anyone else, and he wasn't sure how seriously to treat their feelings. Emotional satisfaction is like sexual satisfaction in the Roxy Richter (Mae Whitman) battle, a matter of opportunity. Edgar may have been unsure of their final moment because he hadn't asked himself vital questions about his characters.

Scott's confrontation with the lesbian character Roxy is handled by Ramona herself fighting (battle hammer vs. razor belt), then puppet fighting for Scott. How she is defeated, though, is by Scott touching her erogenous hotspot, a place below one of her knees. She explodes in an orgasm, or something. What bothers me is the fact that this transgresses the simplest principle of lesbian intimacy, namely that a woman is stimulated by other women and not men. It makes sexual pleasure a matter of purely physical logic, activated by anyone given the knowledge and opportunity, and not a matter of more meaningful emotional intimacies and loyalties. I call bullshit. I too have an erogenous hotspot, located between my legs, but I don't explode in orgasms when anyone touches it. I explode when the right person touches it. That's because my penis is romantic (as love should be, please?).

The final fight, between Scott and others vs Gideon, is a process that is exactly the same as all the others + w/more people. If Scott had really gained the sword of self respect he might have immediately put the sword on the ground and realized his fights against other people were misguided and the real fight existed in an interior realm. I think one fight is with ourselves, one fight is authentically personal; and either Scott was wrong about the final fight with Gideon, or he was wrong about all the previous ones. Scott shouldn't have to destroy the hipsters or Gideon in these battles. When the real battle arrives, the one with Nega Scott, a joke about french toast is made (foreshadowed when Knives and Scott play Ninja Ninja Revolution and Nega Ninja appears: "I can never get past that guy," Scott says, to which Knives replies "Don't beat yourself up about it." I see this as more implicational evidence that Scott views everyone else as the problem).

It's knights and damsels programming, ("about him trying to win the heart of this fair maiden"), the same cultural wiring as always. The film's reluctance to probe violence from a fundamental level is for me symptomatic of a larger problem of emphasis on the superficial. All the worse that the violence is PG-13 neutered by a lack of bloodshed and profuse videogame flourishes. It's violence for kids, and it's glorified. All the worse that it echoes the most dramatically pleasing aspects of violence, without considering the reasons behind violence's dramatic dominance.

Edgar's Shampoo joke holds no water for me. It may be that Universal wouldn't have allowed the downbeat ending, in which Scott ends up with neither girl, but this undermines the gravity of Scott's flaws and his need to face them. It makes the dirtiest Hollywood lie there is: that the process of personal growth fits neatly into some manufactured narrative. I hate the way Edgar emphasizes how the film's end is a question mark, "a symbol to the audience that you gotta figure the rest of it all out," because he really means it's a question of who Scott will be with. That's the major riddle. Will Scott become an evil ex? To me that's an ambivalence that sidesteps harder questions about Scott's hubris.

The "hidden" elements in Scott Pilgrim, many of which I know better thanks to the trivia track, are unimpressive and reveal little more about the characters. Most things are simply complimentary on an aesthetic level; for example the inclusion of numerical clues to the exes (practical ones around ex number one, twos around ex number two, etc.), and heart shaped lights for Scott in relation to Ramona, and ex shaped lights and objects in relation to Scott in relation to Ramona's exes. That's information already available in the narrative. The film's surface and subsurface are so simple and smooth that the film can be watched and rewatched ad infinitum. It's designed that way, and "the essential love triangle should be easy."

District B13, District 13: Ultimatum, and Taken

Sometimes, while watching Pierre Morel's Taken, I felt a sense of magic. Not about the movie, but about me. I felt like a soothsayer, because I knew what was going to happen next and what was going to be said next (most people will), especially in those beginning thirty minutes, before the daughter is kidnapped, when the characters and their relationships are being set up. I'm not just being an asshole, I'm also being sincere: there was truly an instance in which I mouthed the dialogue along with the actress (Famke Janssen), despite never having seen the film or read the script.

It's clear that Besson now concocts whole films around a handful of attractive and sensational elements, and then hires a screenwriter to attach bullshit and perfunctory story formulas. That's too bad, on the one hand, because I'm speaking about the same Besson who once gave us better films like Le Dernier Combat (which had the courage to be what these films should be - without dialogue; some action movies in the future, I hope, will be more like silent films), The Big Blue, La Femme Nikita ... well you know who Besson is. In District 13: Ultimatum's blu-ray special features there's an interview with Cyril Raffaelli, who had a starring role in both District B13 movies and also served as fight choreographer. In this interview he's describing a moment in which he discussed his idea for a fight scene with Besson, who seemed pleased with what he was hearing. "Just so you know," Besson told him, "in this scene you're going to be holding a Van Gogh."

It's pretty great, on the other hand, because Besson still wants to create cinematic special-worlds, engineered for the delight of an appreciative audience. The action moments of Taken are when Morel shines the most, naturally, and I don't mind the way he emphasizes cinematic propulsion over continuity and logic. He edits purely for the sensational delight of the audience, and a late car chase and fight scene were expressionistic and thrilling rather than realistic and detailed. I don't mind that at all. He succeeds in engaging the audience because he thinks as an audience member seeking escapism, exaggerated emotions ("I don't like realistic movies," a friend once told me, "no, real life is boring enough.") and heightened experiences.

But in my opinion if you're going to exaggerate, and I've said this before, exaggerate all the fucking way. District B13, for example, is indeed a better movie than Taken. Not because it's smarter, no no no, but because it succeeds in capturing the bliss of decadent fantasy. It's as if the French found an abandoned Escape from New York narrative vehicle, hot-wired the thing, and drove it into 21st century Paris. Glorious! The extent of the liberation you allow your imagination is the difference between a low or high-brow film and a middle-brow film, and middle-brow films are worthless in every way except generating ticket sales and quickly becoming forgotten.

This is also why I think District 13: Ultimatum is better than District B13, even though I fell asleep three times while watching it(?!). District B13 used actor Bibi Naceri (who plays the crime lord in the movie) as co-screenwriter, and he and Besson designed some story about, um, revenge and valor, things like that. No co-screenwriter is listed for Ultimatum, and themes are borrowed from the original. Based on the Raffaelli story about the Van Gogh, and the experience of having watched the movie, I'd speculate they made the shit up while they went along, i.e. action took precedence over story. That's how they sometimes work in Hong Kong too, and I've come to appreciate the method. It allows for the superficial elements of the movie to shine, as it should.

General opinion seems to be that District B13 is the better movie. That's probably because its narrative makes more sense, relatively, and so its action has more meaning or impact. Get out of town. The meaning of the District B13 movies is action, and its true themes are punches, kicks, and parkour. Ultimatum clearly better develops these themes. The story, as it is, is ten times more confounding, outrageous, and unbelievable; as it should be. If I'm going to have a conversation with a crazy person, I want to have a conversation with the craziest goddamn person in the city, personally.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)

If I'm going to dig through the trash, I'm bound to inspect other people's garbage. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the 1992 movie, puts to the test my idea of a lasting place for all films in curious hearts, and a permanent value for them as historical records. A recent theatrical opportunity was, like Basket Case, a testament to the fervor of its followers, who might say the film isn't material for a tolerance test but good material. Simply, I disagree with the assertion in Buffy's case, and remain interminably ignorant of the television show and the show's spin-off. I consider it passable material.

I'll attempt to avoid dismissive language that might reduce the conversation to the purely taste based. As a film, Buffy is a specific breed of popular 90s filmmaking: a vampire element (genre emblem) is subordinate to related vampire hunting mythology (subgenre), subordinate to teenage allegory (demographic), subordinate to broad ranged teen comedy (Hollywood). It's execution is as a generic and broad ranged teen comedy. It functions as a teenage allegory as the vampire myth is secondary to the myth of Buffy, and the film is structured on her acceptance of new adult roles. Its efficacy boils down to your emotional investment in Buffy, who is written to attract sympathy and become liked.

Mostly the direction is functional, sometimes perfunctory. Working directors, without personal agenda (or vision), from Sam Wood and Lloyd Bacon to the present, are always the first to be accused of artlessness. When you feel the hand of Fran Rubel Kuzui in the movie it's in short, disconnected moments; stylistic choices, like the perfect push in on Buffy when the vampires arrive at the dance, are rare. It's occasionally decently written, sometimes entertaining. It can be both ("I'm the chosen one, and I choose to be shopping"). Too much time is spent satirizing 90's breed airheads, and either airheads are now more sophisticated or, more likely, filmmakers have become more sophisticated at portraying them. Several actors in the film were popular at the time, and several made names for themselves later on. I don't think it's worth discussing in this case. The performances are neither good nor bad. They are conspicuously performances, people pretending, without passion. Several times humor is used to puncture the artificiality, most notably in the instance of Paul Reubens's prolonged death.

The movie's deficiency, compared to other movies of the type that I enjoy, is the limited scope of personal, internal material. Little is undiscoverable, mysterious, or captivating in either the written characters, the actors' performances, or anyone else involved, behind the camera or in front, and it fails to capture the reality of the time and place. It's clearly made in the 90s, but says nothing interesting about the 90s. The weak direction limits its potential as spectacular dross, and too the film's conventional middle-class values make it less thrilling, less compelling. Taken as a teen comedy, the vampire stuff gets in the way; a discordance that generates copious exposition potential for the writer, but ultimately reveals little about teenagers or vampires. As a character based drama it's most successful, but I have difficulties imagining an enduring legacy for Buffy without the television show.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

Edgar Wright is a terrific filmmaker. I continue to wonder if the films he makes are any good. Part of me was worried too big a deal would be made of Scott Pilgrim, and then part of me was disappointed it appeared fourth on Friday's box office list. I don't think there's any doubt that Wright is concerned about the b.o., and as I've said in the past, things like the b.o. and award season matter to me only to the extent to which they matter to the filmmakers I care about. It's only Saturday, and Friday's numbers are likely estimates, but it might be that Wright learns this weekend he indeed has much in common with his heroes Dante and Landis, etc, i.e. he occupies a particular niche and his successes will come sporadically and based on the material he handles.

I love the lovable surface of Scott Pilgrim, a movie that moves so quickly you can like five things and hate three things about any particular sequence. Wright's talent is in manufacturing genial creative exercises, ataractic and panoramic studies of cinematic splendor. Extravagant fun. In fact, Pilgrim is too high-strung for Wright, I kept wanting him to chill out, I kept wanting Pegg or Frost to come in and take these characters by the hand and mellow them out.


And anyway, the style already proved itself with Speed Racer. I've noticed only the bravest critics have compared the two movies, which share a stentorian voice. That critics hate one and love the other is an expression of filmmaking politics, I'm sure, and I for one couldn't even say which is the better movie.

Wright works on expansive canvases, which I hate, but paints with rich textures, which I love. To me it's not even debatable that Knives Chau is the most likeable character the movie offers; probably my favorite part of the movie was her watching the band practice post-breakup from the exterior, and the hand print she left on the window afterward. For a movie with limp action scenes, my favorite was her disappearing highlights. And although I snoozed through some of the musical performances, the other band duplicating the envy and scorn of Scott's band was a great little detail as well. I'm talking about the first battle of the bands.

By the way, the currency in Pilgrim is fantasy, so why in fantasy world is it wrong for a guy to hit a girl? Isn't that fucked? I mean the implication is that it's perfectly ordinary and acceptable to start a fight with another guy - so I'm not offended on behalf of women's right to equality, I'm offended on behalf of all pacifist men. It perpetuates that like medfuckingieval (for Christ's sake) mythical vision of damsels in distress and male knights and all that shit, and I wish it wouldn't draw such clear lines on matters of violence. That's having and eating a cake. Although I guess it also empowers the female sex, because of those fight up-skirts? Classy. Maybe some people want to say it offers a complicated, multi-layered and contemporary view of sexual politics, but those people are wrong. It's your classic alpha male oriented point of view. That's not a criticism, but neither is its consideration means for applause.

Before I went to Scott Pilgrim I rewatched Shaun of the Dead. I wrote a two-parter about that film, about my love/hate relationship with the movie. Pilgrim crystallized what the Wright experience means for me. It's kind of like eating a bunch of sugary food that's my favorite kind of sugary food, and then there's the inevitable stomach ache. I doubt I'll ever learn my lesson, and I don't believe it harms me enough to try and stop. Though how much better for me would it be, if he could only give me some cinematic broccoli?

Shaun of the Dead, Cont.

If you haven't read part one yet, then, you know, read part one first.

After Night of the Living Dead, Shaun of the Dead makes the best use of the zombie-to-death horror relationship, and the meaty symbolism the zombie state represents. If you haven't read Simon Pegg's essay on Why the undead should never be allowed to run yet, then, you know, read that before you read this. It'll begin to demonstrate how much the writers of Shaun really cared about what they were writing, really thought about the subject and material, and it'll settle all debate as to whether the humor was biting or affectionate, if that question lingers in your mind (if it does, you should watch Shaun before reading, you know, anything, period.).

If you count the high points in Shaun, from an emotional perspective, three of them deal with the sadness of death and fragility of life. There are five high points total. The three deathcentric ones would be Philip's essentially unearned death scene, the first burst of brilliance from the movie, Barbara's inevitable demise and the consequent conflict, and Ed's heroic and redeeming final stand. The two remaining points are the Shaun/Liz reunion, and the Shaun/Liz David/Dianne love dynamics. The latter enjoys a partial appearance in the film's death theme, but it's earned so hard and fast, and by such different means, that it doesn't really count in my book. The book that I keep for my personal records. For me the David/Dianne death scene falls into the category of eradication of dispensable characters.

The first half of Shaun establishes the absurdity of the zombie scenario, and the second half highlights the bitter tragedy of absurdity. If it strives for too much and extends itself too far, the more the film should be appreciated. An attempt to unravel the fears and repressions of a person is the basis of the most exciting and engaging genre films, and if Shaun doesn't explore new territory, it does stick faithfully and effectively to its material. It gives itself entirely to its material, which is what a film of its nature must do.

There is an element of double-layered symbolism to Shaun because of its fetishistic treatment of popular culture. In the second sequence of the film, right after the hilarious bar scene, the inhabitants of London are filmed as zombielike creatures, and it's unclear if at that point they're even zombies or not. Wright and Pegg riff on one of Romero's other contributions to the zombie symbolism, the zombification that is a result of commercialism and materialism. This statement is made clearer by the fate of Ed and the lack of substantial difference between who he was alive and what he's like as a zombie. Furthermore, Shaun could and I think should be read as a wishful rumination of the zombie universe. Although the characters in the film cannot choose their deaths, Wright and Pegg chose for each of them to die a zombie death. Beyond a horror staple, the message, in the context of the film, is that zombie death is a great death to have. I think they could have killed all the characters and still it would have been a happy ending, because of the positivity and enthusiasm that Wright and Pegg portray the gruesomeness within. It's a rather tame horror film, and if it wasn't for the investment of characters Wright and Pegg corner you into this would be even easier to see.

What about the skill of execution? Beyond differing thoughts on the subject material, Wright is clearly a gifted director, and one of the few working today who can craft a movie that fires on all engines. It's a rare breed of film that finds success in the horror/comedy field, and it's even rarer for it to have identifiable characters. Wright's films also have the energy and tactility that so many modern films endeavor toward, and it's achieved effortlessly. His films are enjoyable and easy to watch. They don't make too many mistakes, and they sometimes land on brilliant moments (as discussed).

Wright is also gifted at giving his films over to his audience. His fans become fanatics, true believers. He's the Paul Thomas Anderson of genre films. People decode Wright's films, they study them, they search out their influences, they hunt down Wright's interviews, Wright's early films, Wright's breakfast menu, etc. Wright is probably the furthest you can get from the self-indulgent and self-satisfying type of filmmaker. He's one of the few filmmakers who has retained his original beliefs despite a typically souring successful career. His blog is like a 16 year old's blog. It's like the blog of someone who yesterday discovered films. His movies are like that too. His movies have the pulse of movies, they're real movies, the kind you look forward to seeing.

Shaun of the Dead.

The difference between fine-tuned and contrived is a thin one, based on feeling and intuition, and even beginning to make the distinction requires a degree of reflection and contemplation. Artists are regularly subjected to criticisms of their ability to succeed in accomplishing the mechanisms of naturalism, and there's a definite sphere of criticism that has a major concern with these qualities, in film and other areas, but in film there's a condemnatory voice frequently raised against a filmmaker whose films exhibit characteristics deemed movie fantasy material. A towering example is Steven Spielberg. Even the allmovie.com mainpage used to have that Alex Cox quote where he says, approximately, "Spielberg is not a filmmaker, he's a confectioner."

When I worked as an usher in a Dayton Ohio dollar theater, around the time my love for film was truly burgeoning, my manager was a graduate of the Wright State film program and had received his degree in a period of fierce criticism over the films of Spielberg. There was a large group of snobbish people who reacted strongly against the Spielberg design, and my manager found himself regularly defending the likes of Jaws and 1941. At this time I had a bit of affectation built into my mindset, I would pass judgments based on either partial personal exposure or simply the opinions of others, and I vividly remember saying something to my manager and his friend like, "Well you know, that's because his only good film is Schindler's List." A frankly bullshit proclamation that I was no doubt spontaneously fabricating. My manager and his friend rightly glared at me like I was a moron.

If this attitude towards Spielberg still exists I don't encounter it much anymore. Or I ignore it. Point is, many younger filmmakers begin with the opposite point of view. Everyone from Kevin Smith to Bryan Singer names Jaws one of their favorite movies, Jurassic Park is now called the final of his 'good films' (when it was initially deemed the nail in the coffin, which goes to show how opinions on his work shift over time), and writers like Edgar Wright and Diablo Cody very much carry on his torch, deliberately or not.

As this edges closer toward a discussion of Shaun of the Dead, and the obvious manipulative aspects of the film, there's a Frank Cottrell Boyce quote that should pose as a background, one from an interview with Roger Ebert. "A while back, I was on Radio 4's Film Programme the same day as Simon Pegg. We were asked what we thought of screenwriting manuals. I dismissed them as get-rich-quick compendiums of cliche. Pegg said he thought they were really useful. Our films opened that weekend. His vacuumed up money. Mine tanked. It may well be, I thought, that I've been missing something."

In a dream-type situation, where I am a studio executive and am allowed to fund whatever films I want, I would want to finance a Frank Cottrel Boyce film. Welcome to Sarajevo, The Claim, 24 Hour Party People, and A Cock and Bull Story are some of my favorite movies. Millions is absolutely my second favorite kids movie (only just behind Free Willy). I'm partly bullshitting now though too, projecting the same airs I did with my previous theater manager, because on opening day, with Boyce's film opening against Wright's film, let's be honest, I'm going to see Wright's film. There are external factors, for example Wright's films are better audience material, while Boyce's films work big and small, and I'm probably going to have an easier time talking a group of people into seeing a Wright film with me, but the point is, like when QT talks about taking satisfaction in Inglourious Basterds being the most widely anticipated film at Cannes, movies are easier to digest than films. And when I say movies, in this instance, I'm meaning the type of film you watch and say, "That never happens in my life."

Shaun of the Dead is basically an orgy of that feeling. It's a movie lover's fantasy, a popjunkie's paradise, and there's hardly a moment in it that isn't part of some overarching construct meant to elicit a specific reaction. In Shaun, as in Hot Fuzz, it's all about the pay-off. Wright's strategy is to be comically high and narratively straight-faced for about half of the movie and then deliver on all the set-ups in roughly the second half. I think it's euphemistic to say that he plays it safe in the beginning of Shaun, and in an angry or impulsive mood I'd say that the whole thing is essentially movie bullshit, a pack of dirty lies.

The beginning humor and exposition gradually build into the fabric of the film. The word exacerbate, Timesplitters 2, the Night of the Living Dead named mother, Barbra, the asshole roommate, and the pub/gun Winchester are some examples from Shaun. Wright is the kind of filmmaker who doesn't leave loose ends, and every piece of his film is either referential, trivial, or character building. Movie lovers see this as a way of adding depth to a film, but detractors interpret it as a way of resiting or inhibiting naturalism. Wright places reality into his film, and there's an obvious contradiction in this style.

Or is there, right? What artists, besides the non-fiction filmmaker or writer, and even they are often accused of steering the emotions of the audience, deal in reality? You know this conversation, of course, the one about nature vs. naturalism, the Bresson debate, the Neorealism angle, the vérité style, etc etc etc. Most people have heard the debate a million-trillion times, and I guess some people won't even have it anymore.

Wright's sin is that he uses filmic devises to reveal his characters' emotions, which means that the emotional high-points are grounded in basically a bedrock of falsity. He's a child of movies, and he's a moviemaker. The question I find myself asking myself is, am I, while watching his movies, again being that usher in front of his manager, disliking a film based on obscure and irrational pretext, or am I a matured filmwatcher, disallowing the unnatural and the unsubtle to affect me?

Starship Troopers.

There's a genuinely gripping moment about 2/3 of the way through Starship Troopers. An evacuation plane (piloted by the only pilot crazy enough to attempt this rescue mission, Carmen Ibanez, the ex-love interest of Johnny Rico, who will soon become Lieutenant of the group that is the target of this particular rescue) has landed in the midst of a significant strategical offensive initiated by the alien bugs. The bugs have a brain, and the brain has manipulated the Starship fleet by transmitting false orders over their communication systems: the bug brain orchestrated an ambush. The roughnecks caught in this trap are retreating into the plane. Lieutenant Rasczak has already perished (death from a bug), and Dizzy Flores has just won retribution for his death by tossing a grenade into the mouth of his monstrous murderer (kind of - Rico shot Rasczak before the bug could finish him, so technically Rico is Rasckzak's murderer). She is one of the last on their way to the plane. Rico, her new lover, the lover she has dreamed of having for years and years, a lifelong yearning that has only recently flourished, shouts for her to come aboard. As she turns and runs toward the plane a bug appears behind her, and the bug devastatingly inflicts mortal wounds upon her body. Rico's retributory slaying of the bug allows Flores to make it on board the plane with her injuries. As the plane begins to leave the co-pilot, Zander Barcalow, the former competing love interest between Rico and Ibanez, signals for the final two turret roughnecks to board. They run towards the plane but are incinerated by giant bug leaders of the approaching horde.

The plane takes off. Barcalow tells Ibanez that Rico is aboard the plane. Ibanez has no knowledge of Rico's love affair with Flores: it is in that moment that she learns Rico is still alive, as she was falsely informed of his death on the battlefield at an earlier point. In the back Rico holds the dying Flores in his arms, but it is not a sad moment, because Flores, with her dying breath, assures Rico that all this was worth it, because she was finally able to be with him, the one she always loved. Flores dies in Rico's arms.

The truly powerful moment comes then: Rico, assuming leadership of the squadron, rushes to the cockpit of the plane. He orders an all-out nuclear assault on the bug planet. He doesn't acknowledge Barcalow or Ibanez, he simply issues the command for planetary annihilation. Though his request will be denied, and through all that has happened before and will after, the true drama in this scene, for me, is the red-eyed Rico, who has been transformed by war in ways he never imagined, in ways the audience never imagined. His story we enter at its beginning, back in his high-school days, when he was still in love with Ibanez, and Flores was annoying and meddling along the peripheral.

It's those red eyes that are genuinely gripping. I can accept this moment because I can accept what surrounds and houses it. I'm not fucking around when I say that amid all the sci-fi lunacy and ancillary drama of the film, all the other badass shit going on, it's a truly powerful and meaningful message on warfare, and a sadly fatal moment for the human spirit.

Funny People.

Seeing Funny People is exactly, for me, like visiting Georgia. Specifically a place in Georgia about an hour outside any major city, about fifteen minutes from a freeway entrance, and the kind of place in the south where Confederate flags still emblazon pick-up trucks. I don't mean Funny People shares themes with a place like this Georgia place, I just mean that I didn't so much enjoy visiting this Georgia place. It was kind of boring. There wasn't a lot going on. At night I'd sit on the front porch and drink margaritas and literally listen to the sound of mosquitoes flying into their electric light deaths. Zzp.

I wouldn't go back. If you said, listen Shawn, I have tickets to either some backwoods place in Georgia, that you've been to, or I have tickets to Fiji, and we can live in one of those Fiji huts and all that shit, I would choose Fiji. Especially if you were buying.

Then again, some details from my Georgia trip stand out vividly in my mind. There are certainly things that happened to me there which haven't happened to me anywhere else. And I saw things there I haven't seen since. What if I'd never been to this Georgia place? It wasn't a homogeneous entry into my memory bank. Although not life changing, it was something oddly special. I remember too being asleep and awoken by the twelve-year old who was the son of the man I was staying with. He was clutching a beer and dancing to The Doors. He told me The Doors were his favorite band and that he always drank beer and danced while listening to them loudly.

I've read those interviews with Apatow where he talks about early screenings and showing the film to P.T. Anderson and all that. I wish someone had stood up, locked the door to the room, and been like, "Listen. Listen to me. Apatow you're a great filmmaker. You're the average man's genius. You're like a brilliant p.e. coach who reads poetry and teaches kids about life and weight training and encourages them to apply themselves. But nobody is leaving the room until you admit this movie is uneven and clunky."

It's easy to compliment the film. I'm glad he made it. I'm glad it compels people into discussion. Of all the Hollywood types I think he creates the strongest characters. I like the mutually denigrating experiences Rogen and Sandler experience from opposite sides, and how there's this middle ground they can meet in it for short moments like birds on rock islands. I think Schwartzman has awesome deliveries, if not the funniest lines. But. . .(start at beginning again, repeat endlessly).