Well, It's Sort of Film Criticism

I put this together earlier in the week and it's been making the rounds on other film sites. I do not plan on ever paying one cent to watch this movie and, if this piece convinces others to do the same, it may have accomplished something.

Otherwise, it's good for a few cheap laughs.
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World Cinema by Joel and Ethan Coen

The message of this short is obvious, but worth promoting.

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More Emo Than Wild: Where the Wild Things Are

Imagine watching a YouTube video where a baby plays with his rattle and flings it right at his mother's head (because he/she doesn't know better). Then the Mom, having a rough day, stomps on the rattle in front of the baby, who we watch cry its eyes out because it's too young to understand what it did. The camera would then hold on the baby's face so we can witness every little tear making the mother cry as well. One can argue that going against expectations makes this video more artistic and truthful, while others may wonder what is so entertaining about watching a cute baby cry?

I watched "Where the Wild Things Are" over a week ago and have admittedly had trouble finding something to write about it considering all that has been written about it so far. But the main reason I'm hesitant to dive into thinking about this movie again is that it bummed me the hell out. If you knew my favorite films, you would realize there are many so-called "depressing" films I consider classics. However, those films may have depressing subject matter on the surface, but there is a level of exhilaration watching a great filmmaker telling a story that may be a complete downer.

This did not happen for me during "Wild Things", which played for me like relentless emotional posturing. What surprises me most about this is that I would never think Spike Jonze was a director who would go out of his way to take the movie in the direction of anti-entertainment. You may consider me unsophisticated to not appreciate the artistry that's on the screen, but I just could not believe the film was saying anything remotely new or insightful about childhood. It just wants you to accept its version of childhood as honest, although it is represented by a bipolar protagonist with sociopathic tendencies who conjures up playthings, who can each take up a chapter in the Freudian playbook.

"Where the Wild Things Are" is based on a popular children's book (unread by me) written in 1963 by Maurice Sendak. Encouraged by the author to find his own unique take on the material, Spike Jonze has made a film that wants you to look back at your own childhood, but not through rose-colored glasses. That is commendable, considering the various condescending and outright vulgar trash that is directed at children these days. But Jonze overcompensates and winds up making his least subtle film in the process.

It should be noted that this is Jonze's third film after "Being John Malkovich" and "Adaptation" and the first not to feature a screenplay written by Charlie Kaufman, although it has been said Kaufman contributed uncredited rewrites. After watching Kaufman's own directorial effort last year "Synecdoche, New York" and this movie, I do wonder if Jonze and Kaufman complete one another. I am currently wrestling with my feelings about "Synecdoche", which I think about often, but also felt that it was rubbing my face in its own depression. In some ways, I feel Jonze has made a film similar in tone, although with subject matter that doesn't really earn it as much as Kaufman's film does. The thing about "Malkovich" and "Adaptation" was that those films never lost their sense of humor, which, without it, could have made the subject matter tip over into full pretentiousness. While watching "Wild Things", I wonder what happened to the Jonze from those two films. He was a director who often knew when to alleviate the melancholy with humor. When did he turn into a filmmaker who wants you to feel his pain?

The first 15 minutes of this film are dedicated to portraying the sad home life of the protagonist Max. The pre-opening credits shows him chasing after the family dog. When he catches up to the poor creature, he practically grabs it by the neck and shouts at the top of his lungs. This is then followed by an incident where his older sister's friends get into a snowball fight with Max, destroying his snow fort causing him to cry. We then meet his mother (played by Catherine Keener) who is raising the kids on her own and also seems to have pressures from her own job. At this point, we see how much effort Max puts into getting his mother's attention when she's working or having a date. Every slight that Max feels he gets from his family results in him acting out. The final straw happens when Max bites his mother while she's trying to get him to calm down.


Believe it or not, these first 15 minutes of the film were the closest thing to the feeling of joy this film ever came close to approaching. Sure, the colors are drab and the depiction of family life is not exactly happy. Perhaps, in Spike Jonze's world, this level of family dysfunction may seem like the most traumatizing thing for a 9-year old to deal with. But while I watched this, I can only be envious that Max has such an understanding and kind mother, while also wondering whether Max himself simply represents the most extreme version of childish narcissism. I almost feel like taking Spike Jonze aside and letting him know how easy Max does have it in life for him to be acting out this way. It is another film where I often say to myself, "Man, I wish I had their problems!"

"Wild Things" becomes a true sadness pile when Max hops on a boat and goes to the island where the Wild Things live. These creatures are quite a handful, as if they were created for a psychotherapy coloring book. The main creature which Max bonds with is Carol, voiced by James Gandolfini, who is an equally interesting, distracting and ultimately preverse choice for this role. Prone to violent fits and insecurities, I could not be the only person who kept imagining this character pouring out his issues in Dr. Melfi's office. The character shares several of the same neuroses of Tony Soprano. And, much like Tony, I never thought there was anything that would appease the character's fits of anger.

We have other characters like Ira, KW, Douglas, Alexander, and Judith who each wear their resentments and insecurities on their sleeves. KW, who at first you think is a little more enlightened and less morose than the others, reveals that she has two bird friends, Bob and Terry, who she meets up with by clocking them hard with rocks to make them fall out of the sky. She even remarks after doing this that Bob and Terry do not mind that she hits them like that. This is quite a mopey group of creatures, anything but wild, bizarrely reminiscent of the mental hospital patients in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" with Max assuming the role of Nurse Ratched. What kind of child conjures up imaginary friends who seem ready to hurt him emotionally and physically at any given moment? Even the imaginary friend the kid from "The Shining" had was trying to warn him of impending danger.

As beautiful as the film looks, as shot by Lance Acord with fine uses of the color brown and sun glares, I believed the poetry resided solely within the images, but not the screenplay which truly does come across as written by psychologists rather than dramatists. The bulk of the movie takes place on the island, but the structure in this section is often shapeless and repetitive. Max and the creatures play, someone gets their feelings hurt and everyone mopes around for a bit until Max decides they should have fun again which results in the same hurt feelings. This happens again and again in approximately 15 minute intervals.


Does this film have anything truly insightful to say about childhood? Not particularly. It's more emo, a commercially branded melancholy than anything else. The movie sells sadness to depressives so that it can then symbolically pat you on the shoulder reassuringly to let you know everything will eventually be alright. The score by Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs attempts to soothe those bad feelings, but sounds like a hip kindergarten teacher leading her kids in a sing-a-long, trying too hard to unite the sullen and happy kids by trying to whip up their spirits with happy chants.

What does Max have to be so sad about? What makes him so special from all the other kids who have to adjust to the realities of growing up? I almost would use this film as a reason to explain why I haven't had kids yet not to necessarily understand a troubled childhood. Wouldn't anybody out there would like to have a mom like Catherine Keener? This is a woman who takes out time from her own work to type one of Max's stories. Who wouldn't want to have a parent who encourages your imagination like that?

I never quite get what Max learns from being on the island with the Wild Things, outside of the obvious parallels between them and himself, as well as the other people in his life. Except his family never directs anything at Max with any genuine malice. The Wild Things, however, cannot contain their anger and bitterness. Anytime they threaten to be cuddly things, they will blurt out a line like when one of them asks Max, "Are you going to keep out the sadness?" Considering all of the Wild Things have adult-sounding voices and feel as if they should have considerable life experience, it is difficult to think of them as merely representatives of children as much as they represent adults who are too childish to grow up. Perhaps, if the Wild Things sounded more young, I would have understood the way they behaved. But, after one of them throws yet another fit, the first thought that came to my mind was "What an asshole!" They don't resemble children, as much as they represent the self-entitlement of those who are actually well-off comparatively. It is not like these Wild Things have jobs or families to raise or bills to pay. They get to live out in the wild. How can that be so bad?

Often, in films like this, when the inevitable end comes when Max has to leave the island to return to the real world, there is a certain feeling of sadness about leaving an imaginary world behind. In this film, I really wanted to get away from that island long before Max did. In fact, I thought Max should have stayed there because they all deserved one another. I certainly did not believe any of the characters truly gained much of the experience. I definitely imagine Carol reverting back to his usual nonsense a couple of days after Max leaves.

I did not attain any greater understanding of my childhood while watching this film as much as I resented the film for thinking its depiction of a child's psyche was either original or universal. Max and the Wild Things are fashionable mopers who advertise their emotions because, ultimately, those who act out get more attention than those who try to deal with their problems in a way that is constructive and acknowledge that they are not the center of the universe.


I find it difficult to knock this film because this clearly came from Jonze's heart. The problem, from my viewpoint, is that it is difficult to care that much about problems I consider to be petty in the grander scheme of things. It has been remarked that this movie will be embraced more by hipsters than anyone else, which is an admittedly derogatory statement directed at a type of person who elicits little sympathy from most other people. Although I do not like to stereotype, the sad part is that there is some level of truth to this. I can certainly imagine those from Williamsburg, aka Hipster Central in New York, openly weeping at this movie for revealing how tough childhood was for those who were loved and supported emotionally and financially by their parents than most. You can argue that inserting obvious elements of family dysfunction into the script would have been more obvious, but it also would have been more dramatically relevant. This film is a litmus test in some ways as people like me will shrug their shoulders wondering what was so important about this story, while others will tout this as being as important a piece on childhood as "The 400 Blows".

"Where the Wild Things Are" was a drag. An artistic achievement, but depressing without purpose. As much as I did not like the film, I admire it for going against the obvious creative impulses. But, yet admiration for this film does not translate to the pure joy I have when watching something truly great. I never would want to sit through this film again. A film whose sole mode is melancholy for the sake of melancholy is just not enough to justify getting depressed over. Sure, it's effective in its manipulation of that emotion, but I do not need to be as traumatized by Spike Jonze's relatively painless depiction of childhood as much as he seems to be. Did we need to make this entire journey for an ungrateful kid to finally appreciate his mother? CLICK HERE TO READ MORE!

For Your Viewing Pleasure: Black Friday

Thanks to a simple embed code courtesy of Hulu, I can post the entirety of a great movie on this site that few have heard about or even seen. I watched this film for the first time myself earlier this year and think you should take the advantage of seeing it for free. This may be the way films like this will be discovered in the future.

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What Does It Take To Be Serious? The Coen Brothers' "A Serious Man"

(WARNING: This review contains MAJOR SPOILERS!)

When the truth is found to be lies
And all the hope inside you dies
Don't you want somebody to love?
Don't you need somebody to love?
Wouldn't you love somebody to love
You better find somebody to love

For all the discussion recently about how editing and cinematography have contributed to the decline of film, I would argue that the greatest problem with film today often lies in the screenwriting. It is one particular flaw that has become more evident as contributing to the dumbing down of cinema. That would be the unnecessary tendency for films to explain themselves. It is almost considered offensive to many filmgoers that their movies require them to think about their ideas or to not have every narrative turn's logic mapped out for them. This often results in bloated scenes with tedious dialogue where characters are given loads of expositional information to unload to make sure every "i" is dotted and every "t" is crossed. This is rather boring form for movie storytelling, when some of us believe story and theme do not need to be so crystal clear to be successful.

I read the screenplay for Joel and Ethan Coen's "A Serious Man" several months ago. Not only was it rather easy to visualize the film due to scenes and dialogue that were truly animated on the page, but the script also left me perplexed and with many questions. My response to these questions was not anger that the Coens did not explain what they were getting at. Instead, it made me anticipate the film even more so that I can experience the story visually and once again try to wrestle with the subject matter of the film. This is what the movies are all about to me.

"A Serious Man" is the third film in three years by the Coens, in probably what I feel has been the strongest run of films in their career. Much has been said about the greatness of "No Country for Old Men", but, while I admittedly believe their full-on comedies are hit and miss, I consider "Burn After Reading" to be a minor comedy classic. "Burn" perfectly captured post-9/11 America as a place with a dangerous mix of decreasing intelligence and increasing narcissism and vapidity where everyone from CIA agents to federal marshals to gym employees inflated their relatively petty problems into national crises. "A Serious Man", in some ways, connects to both of these films.

One can say these three films have truly captured the state of our country by confronting greed, mortality, narcissism, hypocrisy, and faith. The Coen Brothers, to their credit, do not ever show their hands through didacticism and simplistic moralizing. Although the spiritual has often played a great part in previous Coen films, this may be their first film where it takes center stage.


The main character of the film is Larry Gopnik, a college professor soon to be considered for tenure, who the Coens basically put through the ringer during the course of the film. His wife, Judith, announces early on that she wants to divorce him to live with another man, a so-called "serious man" who is rather full of it. A Korean student attempts to bribe him (maybe) to get a passing grade on his midterm. His layabout brother, Arthur, may be up to some illegal activities. His son, Danny, is a chronic pot smoker who owes the local pot dealer (a fellow student) money. Basically, like many of us, Larry nor his family cannot catch a break.

I am not going to pretend that I understand Judaism. Catholicism was the religious drug of choice when I grew up. And a Puerto Rican kid coming of age in Brooklyn during the '80's is, on the surface, a different experience than growing up Jewish in the Minnesota suburbs in the late '60's. I also am aware that perhaps I am bringing my own personal skepticism about religion into this movie though I certainly do not believe the Coens were attempting to make a movie that celebrates religion considering some of the more uncomfortable responses from some Jews so far.

The most obviously perplexing scene in the film is the opening sequence which may be some sort of invented Yiddish folk tale involving a man and his wife confronting what may or may not be an evil spirit. The man comes home to tell his wife how he was helped by a man named Reb Groshkover and that he has invited him to their home for soup. The wife immediately recognizes the man as someone who had died a few years before. We see two sides of faith in this scene as the man perceives Reb as a helpful man, while the wife sees him as a dybbuk. The scene ends with the wife plunging a knife into Reb's chest, which does not kill him but clearly affects him physically. Despite the knife sticking out of him with blood coming out, he gets up and leaves the home in the most polite way imaginable given the circumstances.

I have had difficulty connecting this sequence to the rest of the film because, as usual, the Coens never make it easy. This sequence not only depends on whether the characters believe if an evil spirit can take human form, but whether we believe in this as well. (Which, by the way, would make Groshkover not much different than, say, Anton Chigurh.) If we truly do believe, the woman has done the right thing enabling her to cast him out of her home. On the other hand, she may have just been plain superstitious and just killed an innocent man because she did not have a single doubt in her mind that her beliefs may have been false.


The willingness to succumb to faith is wrestled with throughout the rest of the film. For every terrible thing that happens to Larry, who is a mostly secular individual, he, like many of us do, go out to seek guidance from religion and often become susceptible to interpreting situations good or bad as signs. During the course of the film, Larry meets with three rabbis. The first rabbi is a young man who often resorts to turning around, looking out the window and pointing out that looking at the parking lot from a different perspective will help change one's perspective on life. The second rabbi tells a long and eventually pointless (or maybe not) story about a dentist who saw a message in Hebrew etched into the back of the front teeth of a patient. For people like myself who often feel religion is comprised of seemingly improvised, self-contradictory fables that do not really mean a whole lot of anything when you look at them a little more deeply, I had to laugh at what the Coens depicted as what the Jewish faith offers as guidance to a man with real problems.

Many may look at Larry's travails and insist that God is testing him to see if he will come out stronger when he deals with it. Others may believe the old saying that shit happens. Maybe Larry is simply having a run of bad luck that is not guided by any spiritual force. What sense would it make for God to punish Larry by having his wife want to divorce him and then killing her new lover Sy Ableman in a car accident almost immediately after her decision? Can Larry do little more than man up and deal with the cards that life has dealt him and hope that bad luck does not keep kicking him in the ass later on? Do most of us go through life thinking that no matter what bad things happen to us that there is a grand plan to it all or simply that life is not quite fair?

Much of the greatness of "A Serious Man" comes from how inclusive it is about the big questions it raises. Someone with my background had no trouble relating to Larry's troubles despite having little to no understanding of the beliefs in Judaism. As much as the movie is about religion, much like Park Chan Wook's "Thirst" a couple of months back, it understands that most spiritual and especially moral issues are still dealt with in everyday living. Perhaps, the answers that we seek from God can also be found right here in our reality. It is telling that when Danny Gopnik sees the eldest rabbi after his bar mitzvah that the words of wisdom that come out of his mouth are the ones printed at the top of this article, courtesy of Jefferson Airplane. Of course, it provides a great laugh in the movie, but it also makes you think how much more wisdom does religion offer than a '60's rock song?

The more I have contemplated "A Serious Man", I realize that the serious answers to this question may lie within those song lyrics. You also have to examine how the song is used in the film, in particular shots involving ears. The first time "Somebody to Love" is heard is when we our introduced to Danny sneakily listening to the song on his earphone during the middle of a class. The first shot after the credits moves through the inside of Danny's ear until it reaches the earphone. This scene is intercut with a doctor examining Larry by looking into his ears and seemingly finding nothing wrong. No one in this film actually seems to recognize the lyrics to this song as being profound in any way, thus they only listen to the lyrics as little more than entertainment while giving more credibility to what their faith offers them as guidance.

What's important about this is that Larry and other characters look for signs to explain life. If Sy dies in a car crash the same time Larry has a car accident, it must mean something. If an old fat lawyer drops dead right in front of Larry, it must be another sign. The rabbis reach desperately for signs because the last thing they would ever want to tell someone is that any of this can be random. That would obviously start making anyone question their faith. However, for all the search for signs that these characters engage in, sometimes the answers are blaring right into their ears. Maybe the truth that they have all accepted has been lies which obviously makes the hope inside of you die. At that point, all that matters is not God, but looking out for somebody to love, someone to connect with in life.


It is telling that the most freedom Larry experiences in the film is during his brief visit to Mrs. Samsky, his neighbor next door. Earlier in the film, he spotted her sunbathing completely nude while he was on his roof fixing the television antenna. Closer to the end of the film, still split from his wife, Larry goes to Samsky's home and smokes a joint with her, which makes him feel considerably less worried and on edge as he seems throughout the film. One line from Mrs. Samsky particularly stuck out for me, when she asks him, "Do you take advantage of the new freedoms?"

I took this as a way for her to tell him that he can be a lot happier person if he opened his mind to other possibilities. If he looks for the most obvious spiritual answers to his problems, Larry will never get anywhere in understanding them. It is important that the film ends with Danny's bar mitzvah, which, of course, he attends completely stoned out of his mind. It is a ceremony where a boy becomes a man in the eyes of God, but, in reality, most boys will spend their adult lives trying to deal with the responsibilities of being a man with most never quite getting the hand of it.

At the end of the film, Larry reconciles with his wife and also is assured that he will be approved as a tenured professor at his university. He basically reaches a point when things turn his way with little to no help from his own actions. Does he really learn anything from his problems or does he accept that now God had put him through all of that only to turn around and treat him as a favored son in the end? Just when Larry decides to change the grade for the Korean student who tried to bribe him just to cut him a break as the result of his own good fortune, he receives an ominous phone call from the doctor to tell him that he needs to come in to discuss his x-rays. To some, God has not finished running Larry through the ringer, while, to others, Larry's bad fortunes are merely continuing until they stop happening or, even worse, he will deal with this stuff until the day he dies which is probably true for most people.


The very end of the film rhymes with the opening ear shots and use of the Jefferson Airplane song. Danny and his classmates are being moved to shelter when a tornado comes their way. Just as Danny tries to get the pot dealer's attention to pay him back, everyone's attention is directed towards the approaching tornado. "Somebody to Love" is once again playing on Danny's earphone, though muffled. The final shot of the film is the right side of his body with the ear phone completely visible while in the other half of the screen, we see the tornado in the distance.

It almost becomes easier to see this as some sort of biblical catastrophe thrown Danny's way as a way of God testing him now that Danny is supposed to be a man. If there is the possibility that Larry may have some major medical problem, then perhaps this tornado represents the troubles Danny will have growing up without a father. Or, as the religious skeptic in me may believe, this may still all be random unfortunate events that will, in some way, force both Larry and Danny to be stronger to deal with their problems but does not necessarily have any greater message from a higher being attached to it.

It has been a few days since I have seen "A Serious Man", but it has not left my mind. I continue to puzzle over it and consider any possible answers it may have, making me relate to Larry that much more. I seek answers from a movie whose message may be that there may not be any answers. If that message is what the Coens are getting at, they certainly do not toss it off in a frivolous fashion. It is rather easy to be cynical and say, "Shit happens, so deal with it!". For all the criticism (sometimes deserved) about how the Coens look down upon their characters, I felt that "A Serious Man" was truly compassionate for Larry, Arthur, Danny and even some of the more unlikeable characters. Of course, it is funny that these characters are put through so much torment, but it's safe to say that we all laugh at these situations because although they are exaggerated, they are recognizably human.


I can remember the many times earlier in my life, when I would seek spiritual answers for any bad situations I have ever found myself in. Sometimes even nowadays (though rarely), despite my agnosticism, I will look for the spiritual answer to the big questions particularly when things do not turn out the way I wanted them to. Strangely, when things go right for me, I am more inclined to credit good luck rather than any higher power. Ultimately, I discount all of it when I realize all the beliefs you have to swallow to have any spirituality in our current world of organized religion.

"A Serious Man" is more about the exploration of one's spirituality and the ability to cope in the real world while doing so. The Coen Brothers have created a movie which is universal in its themes, as you can basically insert your own religion or even your lack of one into this story and it would not change a whole lot except for some of the details.

One must look at the quote that opens the film from Rashi, a medieval French rabbi, that says "Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you." Maybe life is not that complicated as it seems and we need to deal with it straight on, as opposed to looking to holy books written by men centuries ago who have no clearer path to the truth than any of us do. That is, perhaps, what separates truly serious men from those who think the answers to life are found in parables rather than common sense.


A Serious Man was viewed at the Landmark Sunshine Cinemas. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE!

The Industry of Outrage

Why are people so mad these days? I'm not talking about anger at social injustice. I'm talking about getting mad at anything that does not go your way or anyone that does not agree with your point of view. Since one of the reasons I even started this blog was to counter what I feel was the descent of some film discussion into alternately fanboy worship or cinephile bomb throwing, a subject that will recur on this blog is the act of discourse itself. For all the attention centered on the declining quality of our arts, I think discourse in our society has driven off a cliff and crashed into the rocks with a fiery explosion during the last decade.

Outrage is defined as the anger and resentment aroused by injury or insult or an act that violates accepted standards of behavior or taste. By definition, an outrage should arise out of an assault on one's personal morals. However, in today's culture, outrage is the goto mode of expressing one's anger at anything whether it has any effect on your personal life or not. It is often demonstrated in the most grandiose fashion and aided with the tools of our media. I would also argue that nowadays it is often more about building up the often dubious moral credibility of those who seem to be addicted to expressing their outrage publicly.

You may be asking yourself why am I who writes a film blog concerning myself with this issue? Well, I cannot actually escape this culture of outrage. Every day, I get up, turn on my computer and, before I visit my first web site, ask myself, "What is going to happen to piss off someone else today?" The last few weeks, we have been treated to outrage at President Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize, outrage over Roman Polanski, outrage over David Letterman, outrage over health care and outrage over some stupid reality show where two divorcing parents are doing everything in the world to mess their kids up for the rest of their lives. This is like listening to Howard Beale's rants on an endless loop daily minus Paddy Chayefsky's quality writing.

We are creating an industry of outrage where our media culture, whether it be television news, the internet or even our movies are fed by its populace completely losing its shit. We define our culture merely by opinions (or, more appropriately, taking sides) and moral judgments without taking the time to understand why we believe what we believe in. But as long as we believe our self-righteousness absolves us from realizing how we contribute to the decline of our culture, it doesn't weigh too heavily on many minds.

Look at the stories I mentioned above. Regardless of whether an issue is inherently political or not, it will get politicized. Most people will feel the need to take a side regardless of whether they actually fully understand why they are taking on a particular viewpoint. Anyone who has an opinion that does not fall into the often two-sided camps these issues eventually turn into is often considered traitorous for not frothing at the mouth as heavily as either side. It is typical of manufactured outrage to use your anger and self-righteousness to mischaracterize those that do not agree with you as one-dimensional beings. For example, those who think Roman Polanski was clearly guilty of his crime while believing that those who want him strung up are pseudo-moralistic phonies are still seen as sympathizing with a child rapist or even being pro-rape because they did not want to fully align themselves with the lynch mob. What happens to those who think the two sides that every issue are simplistically boiled down to are often both wrong?



Why does it seem like an impossibility that people with differing views can get together and actually argue their diverse thoughts in a civil way? It does happen occasionally. However, discourse often turns into sports where not only do people attempt to score imaginary points, but to tear the other party down on a personal level. Working themselves up to this point, arguing parties often resort to concocting imagined outrages where they can take someone else down through moral admonishments rather than, say, an intellectual argument. It is not enough for people to disagree with you, but they need to hate you with every fiber of your being because you do not dare see the world the same way that they do.

When someone cannot actually explain why they believe what they believe in, that is where these concocted outrages begin. If you do not have evidence to justify a war in another country, strongly suggest that those who do not support this war may not be patriotic enough. If the film you have not seen but expect to be great has its perfect Rotten Tomatoes score ruined by a small handful of critics, swarm the message boards for that review and verbally assault the critic without actually discussing the movie itself. If you cannot come up with a reasonable counterargument to an issue, get mad and stomp around because only then will anybody pay attention to you. If you can only use rhetoric rather than substance to make your point, there are not enough intellectual minds out there to point out how offensive this is which leads to our culture's daily bursts of collective outrage.

What bothers me most about these concocted outrages is that when you look deep below the surface, you realize how insincere they mostly are. I first noticed this back in 1988, when "The Last Temptation of Christ" was released at the Ziegfeld Theater to throngs of religious protesters carrying signs and chanting that Martin Scorsese had released a blasphemous film. Never mind that none of these people actually watched the film and would probably discover that the film has a more positive and even traditional take on the story of Christ than their eventual beloved snuff film "The Passion of the Christ". What is important about that protest was that it largely took place on the first day of its release...when the television news cameras were there. I saw the movie two weeks later at the same theater and did not find a protester in sight. Outrage needs a big audience because, otherwise, it would be like a tree falling in the forest with no one around to hear it.

Think of that now that we have several 24 hour news channels and the internet, so that we can have constant coverage on anyone willing to lose their shit in a public fashion. Fringe ideologues come together to protest with ideas so vague and incoherent and are not laughed at, but covered with a straight face. Well, if they're angry, they must be serious, right? We have message boards that allows anyone who can type (barely) to voice their opinions, no matter how asinine. Some even resort to the sort of language that, in most real life circumstances, would be considered threatening. Because this language is used anonymously, those who use it do not seem to feel they need to take responsibility for it.



I had mentioned earlier that the industry of outrage has become more about building up the dubious moral credibility of those who engage in it. We have to ask ourselves why certain people act considerably more self-righteous and are often the loudest while expressing their opinions. How often do others accept what so-called moralistic people without say questioning that perhaps the morals of these people are not as solid as they have been promoted? Though this may seem like a generalization, hasn't history demonstrated that those who are most vocal about questioning the morals of others have often been discovered to have significant moral failings themselves, often over the same issues which they have condemned others? Religious representatives, politicians, celebrities, journalists, etc. Pretty much anyone who has been given a stage to preach to others how they should live their lives or how they should think. Perhaps, this is why when someone decides to declare their outrage over a given subject, my first inclination is to start wondering what they are hiding?

I certainly do not pretend to be perfect and can succumb to self-righteous outrage myself. Although I would still hope to express that while I try to have strong morals and principles to stick to, they take a lot of work and would hopefully temper any inclinations to pass judgment on others for things I need to work on myself. But, as I have gotten older, I have realized that I have needed to get mad less without losing my passion for feeling the way I do on life's issues. I also realize that there are times we truly need to be outraged in this world. However, those times are not considered important or special enough when the populace gets worked up over every little thing with around the clock coverage and message board discussions in which genuine ideas are rarely ever exchanged because we define ourselves by what we hate and distance ourselves from those who disagree with us as being "those others".

I would have hoped this "either you're with us or against us" attitude would have been tempered considering all the stupid things we did as a country due to post-9/11 hysteria. But, no, people are still mad about...well, whatever you got. When there is little substance behind the madness, this level of outrage pitched so high on a daily basis becomes a pose. Sure, you are screaming under the spotlight just like Howard Beale, but you have nothing insightful to say about the world as much as you just simply enjoy yelling on a stage due to all the attention you are guaranteed to receive.

Meanwhile, I feel like I'm going to pass out from all this collective outrage. Just like the Mad Prophet of the Airways. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE!

Cinema Sampling, or How To Be Sergio Leone with a Few Easy Beats

After reviewing "Inglourious Basterds" and dismissing it as a rather thin movie that seemed to exist strictly for Quentin Tarantino to wank off on the screen and prove his love for the cinema to be greater than yours or mine, I did not think that I would need to revisit the subject again. I had, in some ways, hoped that the test of time (even just a few weeks after its release) would temper the initial raves for "Basterds" that practically suggested this movie was the Savior of Modern Cinema (though there are considerably more nuanced discussions here and here). Maybe the critics who went nuts over the film would have thought about the movie and considered that perhaps the depth they attributed to the film was perhaps not actually on the screen.

Alas, that has not been the case, which has left me perplexed and also straining to understand what others actually saw in this film. "Inglourious Basterds" is not merely a bad movie, but an important bad movie that I believe reflects something about our movie culture. Okay, bad may be too much of a harsh word, but a movie I consider more than troublesome. Hell, if other film writers are going to write multiple pieces declaring this movie a masterpiece, then I could, at least, take another crack at dissecting it. Besides, I have begun to find the pieces praising "Basterds" less thought-provoking as time has passed and entering into the realm of fanboy gushing with a slightly more intellectual bent. Strangely enough, I think this Onion piece was maybe the most spot-on assessment of both Tarantino and his film.

I also think the arguments against the film have been sidetracked too much into a debate about its depiction of Jews and World War II, which I still believe gives the movie too much credibility that it does not ever quite earn. I would rather argue the movie on its own terms than attempt to make this into an issue because my belief is that Tarantino's film never attempts to connect with history and should not be judged according to its historical accuracy. I do not fault the movie for that, but I do fault the movie for being such a lackluster experience that failed to engage to me on the most basic emotional level.

There has never been any doubt that all artists have their influences. Some may wear them on their sleeves more than others. Directors have often taken from other directors, often filtering them through their own sensibilities. The best filmmakers are those that rarely remind you of their sources of inspiration. Those directors are the ones who serve the stories, characters and emotions of their films rather than turn them into self-congratulatory film trivia contests where the audience spends the running time guessing the references. That's the difference between a filmmaker that aims for greatness, as opposed to those whose films have a disposability that rivals a VH1 clip show where comedians riff lamely on pop culture.

I am one of those people that thought the 1970's was an untouchable decade in film. Although my feelings about that decade have tempered a bit due to some films not dating well and the recognition that there was still a lot of crap made in that time, I still believe that the best that decade had to offer still dwarfs the best that the subsequent decades produced. We have been in the Age of the Familiar from the 1980's onward. With movies such as "Star Wars" smashing every box office record at the time, it became more acceptable and profitable to rehash and repackage past successes, sometimes as sequels and other times, under the guise of barely-veiled "new" identities. "Star Wars" itself was an appropriation of sources such as "The Hidden Fortress", "The Lord of the Rings" books and science fiction serials.

I am aware that this tendency has been existent in Hollywood from early on and always will be there. However, though most artistic cultures will be comprised of work that is derivative, there are also a strong minority of inventive artists that keep it alive. The problem with the last three decades or so of film has been the balance between the derivative and the groundbreaking tipping far more to the former than the latter.


Ideas from past movies are not simply being appropriated and re-imagined, but are dropped into newer movies without any deeper meaning than signaling to the audience that the director has watched a whole lot of movies. Movie culture has become the ouroboros, devouring itself to the point where there is not much left. We have been rifling through, as Al Pacino in "Glengarry Glen Ross" put it, our nostalgia files, patting ourselves on the back that filmmakers who are rampant Cinema Samplers enjoyed the same stuff we did. When Quentin Tarantino uses part of an Ennio Morricone score to remind you of Sergio Leone, we sit back and smile at the screen, self-satisfied that we too love Sergio Leone movies with Ennio Morricone scores. The problem with nostalgia though is that it is the enemy of invention. Not only that, nostalgia is the mask that hides a certain level of dishonesty, a mask to put over the face of human emotion. It is a remembrance of moments past through a Vaseline-smeared camera lens guaranteed to never capture the messiness of actual events.

The concept of sampling is most attributed to music. Although it had existed as early as the 1960's, it became more popular in use during the early years of rap music's popularity in the 1980's and eventually became commonplace and practically a necessity from the 1990's on. For me, the low point of music sampling was "I'll Be Missing You" by Puff Daddy & Faith Evans in 1997. A song meant to pay tribute to the murdered Notourious B.I.G., it did not merely sample but straight out lifted the entire melody of The Police's "Every Breath You Take". So, basically, a song meant to memorialize the death of a close friend and a spouse could not be bothered to come up with a melody straight from the creative mind and heart. In effect, the artists behind this tell us that they needed to borrow someone else's inspiration to plug the gaping holes in their own. Not only that, the melody came from a very popular song from about 15 years before that never stopped getting played on the radio. It is at that point when you wonder if they could have let their tribute to a loved one be untarnished by their desire to score an across the demographic hit record by using one of the most recognizable songs in recent times.

Films have been plagued by its own version of sampling during the same period and with the same results as the music industry: the creation of disposable entertainment. Sure, you can point to the number of sequels, rebooted franchises and remakes of movies that were not even that old to begin with as evidence of the lack of creativity in Hollywood. I would. I am sure most of the critics who praised "Inglourious Basterds" would agree, much like shooting fish in a barrel. The problem I have reading all the pieces on "Basterds" is that somehow Tarantino's film is the antidote to the crap Hollywood cranks out, as opposed to being part of the problem. What makes Tarantino's film particularly specious is its rather strained attempts to worship cinema itself. I don't know about you, but I do not want to see something I love get reduced to the simple-minded dogma of religious belief.

As I stated in my review of "Inglourious Basterds", I generally have enjoyed Tarantino's work, though have found him to be considerably overrated, as most of his films, with the primary exception of "Jackie Brown", do not exactly hold up to repeat viewings and seem to work better in parts than as wholes. I do agree, in some ways, that "Basterds" is a significant work in his career. Although others have claimed that it represents Tarantino's brilliance as a director, I believe the movie revealed his limitations and shortcomings as both a writer and a filmmaker. It only reinforced my issues with his early movies that he is a Cinema Sampler who has problems making a cohesive movie that are not about much beyond other movies. I would say that his propensity to sample other movies results in a film where each scene seems to exist as its own, but does not actually contribute much to the whole. They are pieces from different movies and inspirations awkwardly cut together with chapter titles used as loose splicing tape.


For example, the famous tavern sequence functions strictly as a showpiece, but little more. If anybody thought about the set-up to that sequence for a few minutes, it is clearly an example of the Idiot Plot. Basically, we have a nearly half-hour sequence predicated on the notion that the best place for a German double agent to pass secret information is the most public place imaginable to make it easier for an undercover British agent to get caught. Even Brian DePalma set up his Hitchcock-like suspense pieces with more common sense than this and would not have had a scene before it laboriously trying to convince us that the sequence's concept makes sense.

There are other aspects of "Inglourious Basterds" that border on the level of film school-level amateurism that seems to have been ignored by much of the critical community. I have to admittedly wonder if the film had not contained any movie sampling and, more importantly, a story that never came within a mile of a movie theater disabling Tarantino from framing the story with his big ideas about cinema itself, whether anyone would actually see the depth in "Basterds" that they seem to be seeing now?

As I had admitted in my review, I had read the leaked script for "Basterds" last year. Although there are a few minor scenes missing, the final film is a fairly faithful representation of the screenplay. Knowing little about the movie before I read the script, it was at the moment when it was revealed that Shosanna inherited a movie theater that I began to sink in my chair. It was, to me, the moment, when Quentin Tarantino completely decided to live in the Land of Movies and Movie References. Not only was the script referencing other movies through concepts for scenes as well as dialogue, Tarantino had finally decided to make the movie literally about movies themselves. The idea that the film's supporters consider to be its most brilliant revealed to me that Tarantino was on the edge of creative bankruptcy. About 30 pages into the script, I simply kept waiting for the inevitable climax in this movie theater, long before the screenplay itself reveals any details about staging the climactic movie premiere there.

I am aware that many critics point to how the movie audience's reaction to the depiction of violence in "Basterds" by the Basterds themselves contrasting with the reactions of Hitler and other Germans to the cartoon violence in "Nation's Pride" as some serious substance that Tarantino is putting out there to chew on. I never really believed that for a second and almost feel this has been one of those arguments critics put out because they have faith that Tarantino, due to his reputation, would not depict his violence with the same level of glee that someone like, say, Eli Roth does.

For me, the most horrific violent scene in the movie is when Col. Landa chokes Bridget von Hammersmark to death, but that almost seems like an accident (more powered by the performances than the direction) considering the Basterds' cartoonish scalping and baseball bat head-smashing earlier in the film. I even found the theater burning down played more like cheap catharsis than any serious statement on violence. It is empty shock value meant to inspire little conversation after the movie beyond, "Did you get a load of how they shot up Hitler's face?" For all of the violence that is in Tarantino's films, you rarely feel the weight you should when someone's life is taken away. The acts of violence in his movies feel like punchlines to jokes with extremely long setups. For me, a director shows his humanity depicting the aftermath of violence, which generally gets short shrift in Tarantino's movies with the exception of "Jackie Brown". You never actually see the bullets kill characters in the four deaths in that movie making the deaths genuinely shocking and disturbing. When Ordell Robbie kills Louis Gara, the camera remains in the back seat of the van concentrating on their facial expressions when their heads are turned toward one another. Did anyone care remotely about any of the people killed in the "Basterds" tavern sequence or is it merely a stunt reverse-engineered from its Mexican standoff conclusion?


I am not going to say that someone like Tarantino would understand violence more if he drew from life experience because which director really can? The problem with Tarantino is that the entire experience he brings to his movies is through watching other movies. How exactly is referencing Sergio Leone films in "Basterds" actually commenting on those films? Leone's films already commented on other westerns and particularly their neutered depictions of violence, by focusing not only on how those films treated life so cheaply but the machismo that leads men to kill one another to prove their masculinity. It is not by accident that Leone's films featured spare dialogue between men who often tried to one up each other in the tough guy department before eventually resorting to bullets. Death was not something romanticized or, as in Tarantino's case, something to get his rocks off. Leone treated the taking of a life as both operatic and absurd, not something which you can shrug off a minute later.

When Tarantino frames shots in the opening sequence like Sergio Leone, is he really saying anything beyond "Sergio Leone is an awesome filmmaker"? This is Tarantino sampling Leone to appeal to his cinephile disciples, which includes himself as the Onion piece I linked to earlier notes. Do these shots say anything about the characters up on the screen or are they merely action figures to be posed and propped up to resemble what Tarantino has seen in previous movies? This is not helped by Tarantino sampling Ennio Morricone's old music (although I have read that Tarantino's initial intention was to get Morricone to imitate himself) with instrumentation that makes little sense for the time period, location or even the genre. In fairness to Tarantino, even one of the greats like Martin Scorsese stumbled when he tried to ape Leone in "Gangs of New York", although he usually is one of the strongest directors to keep his influences in check. I would argue that, as much of a mess that "Gangs" is, it has a lot more on its mind than "Basterds" does. Perhaps too much, as that movie in the last hour struggles to figure out what it wants to be about.

Tarantino's cinema sampling becomes truly problematic with the character of Shosanna, who is the one character who we should feel the most empathy for, considering we see her entire family wiped out in the opening sequence. She should have been the heart of "Basterds" because there is no way that Tarantino could filter what she was going through references from other films. But, somehow, he did. As the movie progresses further, Tarantino does not take you deeper into Shosanna's anger and madness (she would have to some madness to carry out her plan to burn down the theater and kill herself in the process). Instead, Tarantino poses the actress Melanie Laurent in berets and dresses (in the script, the early scenes at the movie theater were intended to be shot in black & white in the style of the French New Wave), culminating in the ridiculous Getting Ready for the Big Night montage complete with the David Bowie theme song from "Cat People" where she appears to model Facial Expressions of Vengeance for Fashion Week. There's nothing genuine there, no matter how hard Laurent tries to convey something more. But the sequence borders on spoof of sequences from previous vengeance films much like Sam Raimi's "Evil Dead" movies contained montages of Bruce Campbell strapping on weapons to parody every Stallone and Schwarzenegger movie from the '80's. Except Raimi was actually commenting on the bloodthirsty absurdity of those movies, not merely sampling them like Tarantino does.


What exactly separates Quentin Tarantino's direction from the mentality of fanboys? Instead of fanboys trying so very hard to convince you how rabid they are for anything Batman and Star Wars, we have Tarantino making movies about how much of a hard-on he has for Leone and Godard. Much like fanboy film appreciation, Tarantino does not use his movies to explore the new and unexpected, but the been there and done that. He had even commented recently that Stanley Kubrick was not "all that". But can you imagine Tarantino going from "Dr. Strangelove" to "2001: A Space Odyssey" to "A Clockwork Orange" to "Barry Lyndon", exploring new ideas and new locations for each subsequent film, while still having recurring themes about humanity itself that runs through all of his work?

Much like fanboys' attention to details as costumes and special effects as opposed to human behavior, Tarantino's filmmaking is the cinema of useless minutiae. He will focus on things such as a plate of strudel, a giant pipe and even digress into a Samuel L. Jackson-narrated short on how well film can burn. Sometimes, I wonder if Tarantino hopes to coast on his enthusiasm for film to overcome his deficiencies as a filmmaker. Most critics seemed to convince themselves that Tarantino is a strong visual stylist, but his shot selection often serves the preservation of his too precious dialogue. Outside of the occasional dynamic shot (most of which are lifted from other directors and feel somewhat pale in comparison), Tarantino's coverage is pedestrian, almost on the level of the most dialogue-driven television. He often plops the cameras down in front of actors to watch them talk and talk and talk. Even the reaction shots of characters listening to these monologues seem off, as if they are merely there to break up the monotony of the chatter, as opposed to being cut in a way to add to the drama of a scene. This movie was shot on location in France and Germany, but feels like it could have been shot on a Hollywood backlot, considering how little feel Tarantino seems to have for creating a world through images instead of words.

The big question I am posing is what exactly does all of this cinema sampling build up to or am I supposed to be simply content that Tarantino can borrow a few beats from Sergio Leone and other directors to be considered worth mentioning in the same breath as them? Is it wrong for me to want Tarantino to invest his movies with something I can relate to, something that demonstrates that perhaps his life experience extends beyond the movie theater? What puzzles me about the praise for "Inglourious Basterds" is that this level of cinema sampling is something I remember primarily from film school. The first shorts that I and other students made were often derivative and pale imitations of our favorite directors. But, it is understandable that young filmmakers would not have much to say, although, most likely, most of them never will. The directors you knew who had something were those most willing to explore beyond what they have seen on a movie screen before or expand upon what they have seen so considerably that it is something truly visionary and truly their own. They were the ones who were willing to put their emotions up on the screen, even if they did not quite know what to do with them.


These days, it is the directors who simply lift from other movies who are given a pass, even more so when they resort to self-reflexive notions about cinema into their narratives. Are those who are praising "Inglourious Basterds" responding to Tarantino's images or his narrative or are they reacting to his passion for cinema matching their own? Of course, Tarantino has better taste and, despite my harsh criticisms, more filmmaking and writing ability than most of the hacks out there whose sense of film history does not extend pre-1977. That does not mean Tarantino himself has created a movie that is alive with emotion and passion. It probably means he created a movie that is a decently constructed museum piece of his tastes, but revealing little of Tarantino's soul. What an artist bears of his soul is what makes the movies exciting and alive for me and is the essence of those moments when cinema actually does transform me. No offense to critics out there, but what Tarantino seems to be more suited for is film criticism. Although I have read some great film criticism over time, those pieces will never reach the transcendence of a truly great film from someone with an original vision.

I hoped that for people to get something out of this piece than merely that I think "Inglourious Basterds" was significantly overrated by many critics. It is not about most people out there disagreeing with me because I have little interest in attempting to insult and tar and feather the majority opinion in an effort to "recruit" people to my ideology, much like what has happened the last few years with several notable films. I wrote this piece because I believe these thoughts are important and need to be put out there. More importantly, I have felt that this needs to be discussed as an important aspect of our current movie culture.

I can understand how many have celebrated "Basterds" because I was probably no different years back when "Pulp Fiction" was released. Time changes your perspective on certain movies. For me, "Pulp" was one of those movies for me. I am sure most of you have seen a movie at different times in your life and wondered why the movie seemed so different. Back in 1994, "Pulp Fiction" changed cinema in my mind, but, over time, it became clear the hype was deceptive. Every viewing of that film displayed more cracks in its structure. That combined with my interests and what I wanted to get out of a movie changing, as I grew older. I would admit that during my days in film school that "Inglourious Basterds" might have blew my mind, but, now it plays like a relic, its sampling dating it almost immediately while making me wonder aloud if Tarantino is not much more than a skilled one man tribute band.

I do believe that, as the first decade of this century has produced a mostly uninspired output from our current crop of filmmakers, we need to demand a more progressive movement in our cinema. What bothers me about Tarantino's style of cinema sampling is that it reeks of cheap nostalgia and promotes the notion that passion for cinema is measured by how much you celebrate it rather than how much you demand from it and challenge it. I would hope that the up and coming filmmakers in the next decade are those willing to put themselves out there and take risks by going to areas past directors never explored.

Cinema sampling is too easy. Taking someone else's melody and dropping new words on top of it is not quite the same as sweating over every note after starting with a complete blank page. If we are going to level the accusation that Zack Snyder's cinematic output consists of tracing over someone else's work, then why do we excuse Tarantino simply because he dresses it up in a more artier fashion and has better taste in his cinematic influences? When a movie like "Inglourious Basterds" has been hailed as being original and audacious, as well as referred to as turning point in our cinema landscape, I have to admit that it bothers me that some out there believe that the future of cinema will be found through recycling our past.


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This Week in Arrested Development, Part 2: Big Fan

"Big Fan" is the first film directed by Robert Siegel, screenwriter of Darren Aronofsky's "The Wrestler" and former editor of The Onion. Shot on an extremely low budget (probably in the neighborhood of $500,000) and employing the RED camera, the movie stars comedian Patton Oswalt as Paul Aufiero, probably the most dedicated fan of the New York Giants. I have to say that the decision to release this movie at the beginning of the football season was quite a daring one, as it delves deeply into the mindset of a football fan, resulting in a flawed, but disturbing and sad film.

I will admit right away that I never cared much for sports, so I never understood the appeal to waste away an entire Sunday watching football or baseball games. The funny thing is that I still enjoy sports movies because they actually get to the drama of a game, while cutting out the boring moments in sports (not to mention the endless commercial breaks). Sports has been so ingrained in the male culture that any man like myself who openly admits to not liking sports is given that look that says, "You're not masculine enough." Although if I were to suggest that sports is only a way for men to substitute the triumphs of rich athletes for the failures in their own lives, then that would probably trigger a violent response from any sports fan.

"Big Fan" goes there in a way that you can interchange the interests of the main character Paul with something like, say, movies, and it would still be insightful about the concept of rabid fandom and how it discourages personal development. The title of this blog post suggests this was going to be connected to the "Inglourious Basterds" review, didn't it?


Paul Auferio is a 35 year old Staten Island man who still lives at home with his mother, while working a dead-end job at a parking garage toll booth. His life revolves around his dedication to the New York Giants. He attends the games every Sunday with his best friend Sal (played by Kevin Corrigan), although there is one catch to it. Since Paul and Sal do not actually make enough money to afford tickets, they watch the game outside Giants Stadium with a portable television sitting in the trunk of their car.

Not only that, Paul makes nightly calls to a sports radio show, even preparing his thoughts beforehand in a notebook, and achieves the amount of "celebrity" that a frequent caller to a radio show could possibly achieve. He even has a tit-for-tat feud with another caller, Philadelphia Eagles fan "Philadelphia Phil". At the end of his phone calls, you can see the look of self-satisfaction on Paul's face when he feels he cuts Phil down to size with his own shit talk.

Later in the story, Paul and Sal see their favorite Giants player, Quantrell Bishop, on the street and follow him and his entourage to a strip club in Manhattan. Needless to say, when Paul reveals to Bishop that he may have followed him, the football player becomes paranoid and viciously beats Paul, sending him to the hospital. The rest of the movie centers around the aftermath of this incident and whether Paul will press charges against Bishop. Why would he not press charges? Because without Bishop, the Giants have less of a chance to make the playoffs and win the Super Bowl. When I call this movie disturbing, it is mostly due to this unwillingness on Paul's part to do something for his own self-respect.

You can see the common narrative threads from Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver" and especially "The King of Comedy" in this movie: the story of a loner who eventually reaches his breaking point. Much to my surprise, "Big Fan" does not go where you would expect it to go. Robert Siegel shows equal parts frustration and admiration for Paul. While Paul does not explore life much beyond his dedication to his favorite team, he also is somewhat of a non-conformist in society. Unlike his low-level, somewhat sleazy lawyer brother who married his large-breasted secretary (after he cheated on his first wife with her), Paul does not see living the family life with wife and kids along with a better job as the goals he needs to achieve in his life.


The tragedy of Paul is that his supposed non-comformity is an act of conformity in itself. "Big Fan" does not shy away from exploring the most damning aspects of the culture of sports fanaticism or any kind of fanaticism, for that matter. You watch people like Paul and wonder why they need to invest so much time devoted to nothing but sports. At a certain point, your life becomes nothing more than about what you blindly love. In Paul's case, you would think the beating he takes from Bishop would remind him that the things he loves do not exactly love him back.

There is a sort of danger in putting all your eggs in one basket, regarding your personal interests. There is such a thing as having an unhealthy obsession that prevents you from learning from all the diverse things that life has to offer you. I could never imagine ever having to converse with someone like Paul because he would tune out every topic that does not involve football. Then, he would try to turn the conversation over to what his interests are and expect that everyone cares about football as much as he does. When you look at Paul, you wonder how this man will ever age gracefully when he seems resistant to attaining any level of wisdom or self-awareness.

However, one can ask how different any of us are from Paul? We all have things we are obsessed about (and write blogs like this about), but where do we draw the line when our interests take over our lives to the point of de-valuing ourselves? When do we reach the point, as Paul does, where we take pride in meaningless victories? Is rebelling against maturity an act of non-conformity or a resistance to common sense? At what point is it necessary to put away the childish things that may hold us back?

Robert Siegel does a fine job of exploring these questions. It is also obvious from his script for "The Wrestler" and "Big Fan" that he understands the fringe aspects of sports. As much as a viewer like myself may find these characters a little too much to take, there are also moments when the emotions are more universal than you would care to admit. Both of these films resist portraying these characters in a condescending way, for the most part resisting cheap shots at their lifestyles.


One has to also give credit to Siegel for his spot-on casting. Though Patton Oswalt is not a professional actor (and, in a few moments, it does show) and is widely known for his takedown of the KFC Famous Bowl and being the voice of Remy in "Ratatouille", his face and body type is spot-on for this role. One can also see that hiring a professional comedian, who has not hidden his surly nature in his own act, aids the sadness and loneliness of the character. Though sometimes, Oswalt's line readings reveal his inexperience, his subtle facial expressions are quite effective. Kevin Corrigan is also strong, though I do probably feel he has played this type of character so well so many times, it cannot be that much of a surprise. I also have to credit Siegel for casting Michael Rapaport in a small, but important role that is perfectly suited for how off-putting he can sometimes be.

"Big Fan" is a bit rough around the edges and certainly shows a director learning how to use the camera to tell his story. Sometimes, the movie does tip over a little much into embarrassing the characters, such as an extended scene early on in a car between Paul and his mother, where she goes on about finding the used tissues from his, um, bedroom activities in his wastebasket. I have to say that Paul's story was both relatable and horrifying in equal measures. It is far from a great film, but still haunting to me. It will be barely released, starting this Friday in New York and Philadelphia, though most will probably catch up with on DVD. I can imagine a sports fan picking up the DVD, based on a superficial description of the film and then getting angry when the film forces them to be aware of who they are.

I sometimes fear that we are developing into a culture that devotes so much time to minutiae that we often miss the big picture as Paul does. That many of us think so little of ourselves that we define our existences by the things we love and admire than the actions we take. We turn our interests into objects of fetishization, which often prevent us from progressing and growing. Though I can understand why Paul would want to resist the lifestyle that his more successful brother has, I also found myself wanting someone to sit Paul down and tell him that he should not think so little of himself to define his life via a corporate sports franchise.

After all, it is just a game.

Big Fan was viewed in June at the BamCinemafest at the BAM Rose Cinemas in Brooklyn. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE!

This Week in Arrested Development, Part 1: Inglourious Basterds

Narrator: Tyler, you are by far the most interesting single-serving friend I've ever met... see I have this thing: everything on a plane is single-serving...
Tyler Durden: Oh I get it, it's very clever.
Narrator: Thank you.
Tyler Durden: How's that working out for you?
Narrator: What?
Tyler Durden: Being clever.
Narrator: Great.
Tyler Durden: Keep it up then... Right up.

After watching "Inglourious Basterds", I was reminded of the above exchange from "Fight Club". My thoughts about "Basterds" were a bit complicated before I entered the theater. I downloaded and read the widely-leaked screenplay for "Basterds" well over a year ago and admit my reaction to it was quite underwhelming. When the mixed reviews came out of Cannes, it gave me more motivation to skip the film and wait for DVD. This feeling may have also been combined with my lessening appreciation of the work of Quentin Tarantino, save for two of his movies.

Then, "Inglourious Basterds" was finally released this past Friday to near-unanimous rave reviews with many critics calling it an exhilarating and audacious work with several naming it one of Tarantino's best or the best movie of this year by far. The first thing that came to my mind was that I could not reconcile the enthusiasm of the reviews with my reaction to the script I read. However, the more feedback I heard concerning the film made me curious and consider that I may have been wrong.

I am reminded of the time I read Wes Anderson's "The Royal Tenenbaums" months before its release. Minus Anderson's visuals, the script seemed somewhat terse and cold. However, I was only getting half the film experience with the details in the filmmaking and the strength of the performances bringing out more than I saw on the page. Perhaps, like "Tenenbaums", "Basterds" played better seen than read and that, no matter what, it was worth seeing and discussing. So, sometime yesterday, I popped into the famous Ziegfeld Theater to catch an afternoon show of the movie.

And, after all that, I was still underwhelmed.

I almost tempted to call the film a tedious build-up to nothingness, although I will admit that the film is not completely pointless, but its ultimate theme is completely superficial to me and somewhat self-serving on Tarantino's part. "Basterds" is not even worthy of the controversy surrounding its portrayal of Jews, as well as its rewriting of history. It is an exploitation movie operating on the belief that it is art, while never fully committing to being either. It is a movie that believes that it is clever, when it is shockingly dull. So, how's that working out for you?

There is no question that Quentin Tarantino is a talented writer and director. He certainly has a distinctive voice. I would say that his films are often great experiences on first viewings. I am impressed by the hilarious dialogue, the often terrific performances and the willingness to turn some genre cliches on their head. Tarantino films gave me this feeling up until I saw his half of "Grindhouse", "Death Proof", where the dialogue felt tired and shapeless, with the characters spouting his words often annoying and self-conscious. It was when it first began to bother me that all of his characters sounded the same because they all talked like Tarantino when he is being interviewed, proud of their loquaciousness and their ability to make references to older movies.


Admittedly, before the release of "Death Proof", my opinions on both "Pulp Fiction" and the "Kill Bill" saga waned because I believe both films worked better in parts than as wholes. The dialogue that, at first, seemed funny and original now seemed dated and more than a little self-satisfied. These are certainly not bad movies, as both have enough great moments for them to satisfy on the level of entertainment, though not depth. "Pulp" comes across as a collection of clever concepts that does not really amount to much, outside of the self-appreciation of its own daring. The "Kill Bill" films feel completely unnecessary. 4 1/2 hours of a film about vengeance that does not really have much to say about its subject matter. Compare Tarantino's "Kill Bill" saga to any of the Park Chan-Wook films in his Vengeance trilogy and it is like comparing a crayon drawing to a Picasso.

I would also admit that what is important to me now in films is not what was important to me back during the time that Tarantino was becoming Quentin Tarantino, Star Director. There's that part of me that automatically assumes that I have grown up while Tarantino's films have regressed into a more immature state, which may be too much of an assumption to make on my part, but I cannot entirely dismiss.

Tarantino has two movies I consider to have stood the test of time: "Reservoir Dogs" and, especially "Jackie Brown". When you watch "Dogs", you are reminded that it was possible for Tarantino to make a film that was not bloated and enamored with its own cleverness. The film is certainly not deep, but is tightly constructed and directed with dialogue that plays real enough to still be funny and memorable to this day. When these crooks attempt to barter the colors they are going to take as aliases, you can believe that real criminals would argue over something that petty.

"Jackie Brown", though, is Quentin Tarantino's strongest work, by far. It was the one time I truly felt Tarantino put the needs of the characters before his need to show off his own writing. Although the movie is a genre crime movie on the surface, I also consider it one of the best movies about aging and being past one's prime. Although you can certainly credit Elmore Leonard for providing the source material, Tarantino's work as a director never stops to admire his work as a writer. He always serves the emotions of the characters. Has there ever been a more effective unrequited love story between two middle-aged people than the one between Jackie Brown and Max Cherry? You can sense that this movie was the one time Tarantino did not shy away from human emotion.

Since "Jackie Brown" is my favorite Tarantino film, you will hopefully understand that I do not have anything against long running times for a film dominated by a great deal of dialogue. In the case of "Inglourious Basterds", I simply thought the screenplay was rather self-indulgent which resulted in a film that was both unwieldy and uninvolving. When I had read the script last year, it had failed on the most basic level any poor script failed: I simply could not see the movie. Having now watched "Basterds", I still do not see the movie.


This film contains an overly complicated plot that is often explained in never-ending dialogue set-up because there are probably less than about 20 scenes in the entire film. That's right. This WWII exploitation movie has a similar scene structure to, say, a John Cassavetes film. But, in a Cassavetes film, scenes build and build to get at the raw and awkward emotions brewing between the characters, while Tarantino's film consists of scene after scene where either a plan is discussed or someone is hiding a secret, then the secret or plan is revealed or close to being revealed which leads to either violence or a skin-of-the-teeth evasion.

While I certainly do not have a problem with lengthy scenes, there was a pattern to my reaction to watching this kind of scene again and again. Most of it involved Tarantino's inability as a writer to get to the point, within scenes and sometimes within sentences, and his lack of ability as a director or sense of editing to realize when he is overselling the suspense of an individual scene. I would find the set-up to these scenes intriguing and felt they mostly did build up some genuine suspense, but then dragged the suspense on so long that the ending to each scene was telegraphed long before it happened. Once again, Tarantino is done in by being enamored with his own cleverness. When a director is patting himself on the back so often for the potential instead of the follow-through, it certainly gets more than a little wearying.

These scenes would also be better served if we actually were a little more involved with the characters onscreen. However, due to the clunky structure of the script where each of the central characters take turns disappearing for an hour, we never spend enough time with any of them to invest ourselves in their storylines. The main villain, Col. Hans Landa, aka "The Jew Hunter", is surprisingly the most three-dimensional character of the story. It also helps that the actor Christoph Waltz (who I do not believe I have ever seen before) gives such a great performance, knowing when to be subtle and when to go over-the-top just enough. I particularly loved his scene at the end where he takes more pride in his exceptional detective skills than the nickname bestowed on him.

I will say that the performance of Melanie Laurent helps the somewhat underwritten Shoshanna become more than just another vengeance seeker though the role is still a slight variation of the Bride from "Kill Bill". There is also some good work by Michael Fassbender in his three scenes, particularly his last moments, though it is unfortunate that more people will remember him from this movie than his fantastic work in "Hunger", where he performs in a scene as long as the tavern sequence in "Basterds", but in a movie that is interested in something more than genre celebration.

On the other end of the acting scale, we have Brad Pitt, who speaks in a ridiculous accent (yes, I know it's not supposed to be real, but it didn't work on a cartoon level) and wears a bizarrely constipated expression on his face for the entirety of his performance. Between his one facial expression here and his blank expression through "Benjamin Button", it is quite odd to say that his silly performance in "Burn After Reading" was his most nuanced in the last year. Also, Tarantino chose to cast "Hostel" director Eli Roth in a fairly significant role, perhaps to fill the void Tarantino used to fill of having a director give a lousy performance in his films. Roth wears a smirk on his face through all of his scenes, almost reflecting the expression I believe Tarantino wears when he is behind the camera. It also does not help that the Basterds are largely inconsequential to the storyline (when you think about it for awhile), despite being the title characters of the film.


The structure of the screenplay works very hard against the film, particularly since each character lacks even a moment to suggest a life outside of the frame. Yes, I believe that is necessary even when they are supposed to be genre archetypes. Look at how the Coen Brothers develop their characters through action, behavior and spare, but carefully chosen words. This movie struggles to jam in so many characters, most of whom contribute little to the story and certainly do not add anything thematically. There is a entire section early on dedicated to the German-born Basterd Hugo Stiglitz, as if the character will play a significant role later on, but it never pays off. That segment is only included for Tarantino to have an outrageous digression. In fact, the movie gives every character a big entrance and then forgets to give them anything interesting as follow-up.

I can appreciate that Tarantino loves film. I can also understand many people praising this film almost as a way of showing solidarity with him, considering that "Basterds" is being released at the end of what was another dispiriting and lousy slate of summer films. That said, movies that are ultimately about other movies or the power of making movies do not appeal to me in the slightest bit these days. According to Tarantino, movies can be used to avenge mass atrocities, kill evil men, and win a war. I love movies as well, but I do not find Tarantino's idealism endearing, but rather reductive and more than a little immature. Many of us who love movies will often use them for a certain kind of wish fulfillment that we cannot actually achieve in real life. We wish we can say such sharp dialogue at the right time. We wish we can exact vengeance on those who wronged us. We wish we can place ourselves in the middle of historic events and be responsible for their ultimate outcome. We want to be remembered. We want to be noticed.

It is also hard not to find Tarantino's message more than a little self-congratulatory. One wonders if he believes his own hype so much that he thinks his films can Change The World. I am more likely to think that a film can make an impact if it has something of insight to offer about our world that we have not ever considered before. I certainly do not consider most of Tarantino's work to even come close to approaching that level of depth.

When I was in my twenties, Tarantino's films worked on me for their base pleasures, as I am sure they worked for him on a similar level. I do not want to begrudge Tarantino's screen fantasia, but I also believe it has come out of the expense of his growth as a filmmaker and also exposes his personal fear that if he tries anything different, his fans, expecting a "Tarantino Movie Experience" every time he directs, will reject him. You may think that I may be crazy to accuse a 2 1/2 hour, dialogue-driven film that is mostly subtitled of playing it safe, artistically. But, during this movie, I was consistently aware of Tarantino keeping his cards close to the vest. The one question I continue to ask myself, after having read the script and then after watching the movie, is what was I supposed to get out of the experience outside of a director trying way too hard to convince us of his love for cinema, but revealing little of himself beyond that?


If Tarantino so much wanted to promote the love of cinema itself, perhaps he could move beyond homage and truly present a directorial vision that did not rely on past knowledge of other, better directors' films. I have seen Sergio Leone be Sergio Leone, but I do not need to see Tarantino ape Leone's style with not nearly as strong a sense of composition while raiding the music catalogue of Ennio Morricone for some of the most wince-inducing obvious music cues in the history of motion pictures. Though I grant that Tarantino's major showcase is his dialogue, one wonders how much his filmmaking would improve if he thought in images a little more, as opposed to the constant shot/reverse shot editing pattern of this film that serves the preservation of his precious words more than anything else.

Watching this film on the big screen, more so than when I read it, the passing of expositional information from one character to another was painful. The attempts at funny one-liners became more strained. A movie such as "Jackie Brown" was just as dialogue-driven, but, for the most part, that dialogue (what they said, as well as what they did not say) was revealing of character. The dialogue of "Basterds" amounts to little more than serving plot and scene set-up, as well as the self-promotion of Tarantino's wit. For the most part, these characters have the depth of action figures of a demented kid concocting his own World War II scenario.

I am beginning to think that Quentin Tarantino is turning into Todd Haynes. Both make films that feel like thesis projects commenting on other films. Like most student film projects, they are overwritten and believe the success of any given movie is measured by the number of homages. They also believe re-staging moments from older films without a fresh point of view counts as genre deconstruction.

"Inglourious Basterds" has its moments. Like other Tarantino movies, it works better in parts than as a whole. But I do not see what others are seeing in it. To me, it feels like Tarantino indulging his somewhat tired schtick. There are times, due to the subject matter, where he threatens to make a movie that does not need to be about other movies, but about life. But Tarantino cannot help himself. For every time he comes close to understanding the emotion of an event such as a young woman witnessing her whole family being slaughtered while barely escaping herself, he will later score a scene with that same character using a middling David Bowie song from the movie "Cat People" to reduce those emotions to rock music cheese. For every moment of possible reflection on something thoughtful, there is a moment of self-satisfied snickering to remind the audience that, yes, we are just watching a movie. Would it kill Tarantino to show a little sincerity beyond his fetishization of film?

Yes, the title of this article may be harsh, but I also do think there is some credibility to the notion. I am aware that I may have, in some ways, moved on from what Quentin Tarantino has to offer as a filmmaker while many of you may feel he contributes something important and relevant to our movie culture. However, with all the raves I have seen proclaiming Tarantino as a true modern cinematic artist, I have to wonder if perhaps some may be a little too invested in the idea of Quentin Tarantino while not being exposed enough to other filmmakers who. although they have obvious movie influences, operate through more than directorial pastiche, such as the previously mentioned Park Chan-Wook. Paul Thomas Anderson, whose early movies wore their influences on their sleeves, eventually evolved into a more original filmmaker with "Punch Drunk Love" and especially "There Will Be Blood". I do not think Tarantino is necessarily an irrelevant filmmaker, but I wonder if we can all ask a little more from him than this draggy and curiously empty film. I certainly think he would be a filmmaker I would appreciate more if he stopped trying so damned hard to be clever.

Inglourious Basterds was viewed at the Clearview Ziegfeld Theater. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE!

When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong

"The Blair Witch Project" became a box office and cultural phenomenon 10 years ago this summer, mostly due to its central gimmick: that the film itself was found footage that had the appearance of being real. In retrospect, the film was quite influential on the first decade of filmmaking in the 21st century with many films embracing the faux documentary digital video aesthetic where shots felt as if they were caught rather than staged.

I would also add, more significantly, that it was the first film to hype how realistic it was. During a time when films seemed manufactured and handcuffed by cliched plot points, a movie like "The Blair Witch Project" wanted to make you feel that you were actually there, the fourth character of the film experiencing the unseen horror of what was on the screen as it was happening.

However, there is a problem that afflicts many films employing this method. Almost all of the time, these films showed their seams, as if filmmakers believed that employing Shaky-Cam during the film from beginning to end with the actors doing improv, while in the moment, was more than enough to support the believability factor of their conceits.


It goes without saying that "Blair Witch" is interminable to sit through (85 minutes never seemed longer) with repetitive dialogue and action plus terrible actors playing obnoxious characters. But, what truly dispels the notion of reality is when the actors start to take certain actions they would only do in a movie to forward the plot or to capture something on camera that could never be caught in a particular situation. Despite the characters experiencing the most obvious spooky sound effects while often running around screaming in fear for their lives, two of them do this with their cameras turned on, supposedly resting on their shoulders.

It reminds you when someone will run a camera during the aftermath of an accident or random animal mauling instead of helping the person who is hurt. In the case of "Blair Witch", the characters will not put down the camera to even help themselves. It is not unexpected to watch a movie like "Blair Witch" while commenting openly how stupid these characters are, Mystery Science Theater-style, while also mocking their incessant whining in the face of danger.

Now, when I describe how one reacts to a movie like "Blair Witch", I am also reminded of how television reality shows invite similar responses. Those shows often cast people with broad character traits that are often used to manipulate obvious narratives of conflict. The casts of these shows can easily be boiled down to types that one can root for or against. At any given time, any one of these "characters" will do something that will invite audience ridicule. It is not a coincidence that any reality show participant will probably not reach the end of the series with their dignity fully intact. "Survivor" was the first of these reality series, premiering early summer in 2000, just less than a year after "The Blair Witch Project" hit screens.


This Keeping It Real School of Filmmaking, as I call it, with apologies to Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle, has gotten me thinking, particularly since I have seen two movies recently that have employed it in different ways: "In The Loop" and "District 9", not to mention the many films and television shows over this past decade, in particular, that believe the truth can be found only when hoisting the camera on your shoulder and blending documentary and fiction.

However, the more I look at most of these films, the more I believe that filmmakers are quite often using a somewhat lazy visual shorthand to convey reality, as opposed to seeking something more true and honest in the character development or deeper within their stories. It has become a full-fledged gimmick, as fake as CGI used to plaster over a scene that is not working on either script, performance or directorial level. If a filmmaker uses a style that pretends to be real, how can anyone question the believability of the characters' actions or behavior? In my opinion, the unbelievable actions of a character become more obvious when a filmmaker tries to Keep It Real.

"In The Loop" is actually an effective political satire directed and co-written by Armando Iannucci that is clearly meant to allude to the run-up to the Iraq War, where principles were tossed away while the bullying and cheap tactics of the war's supporters won out over plain common sense. "Loop" creates a world where the principles of certain characters are either weak or non-existent, allowing the more ideologically-driven members of government (both American and British) to get their way.


Iannucci's film becomes a study of language and how it can be constantly twisted to serve a more manipulative individual's purpose. It also happens to be one of the most foul-mouthed movies to come down the pike since David Mamet's peak years. Most of the vicious putdowns come from the character Malcolm Tucker (played by Peter Capaldi), the Prime Minister's chief enforcer, who dresses down everyone including the British Secretary of State Simon Foster (played by Tom Hollander) and dictates to all what they are supposed to say and how they are supposed to say it.

I laughed throughout watching "In The Loop", while knowingly cringing, as it became obvious the familiar direction this was heading towards the end. It was like early 2003 all over again. As much as I enjoyed the film, I cannot say I lost anything visually when I watched it on IFC's Video on Demand. "Loop" was shot on HD video using the Sony HDW-F900, presumably to have multiple cameras running to cover scenes where improvisation was encouraged. One also assumes that Iannucci wanted to make you feel as if you were there, catching conversations on the fly. Though there isn't a documentary crew acknowledged by characters in the movie, if it had been revealed there was one, the style of the movie would have fit perfectly.

As much as I liked "In The Loop" for its content, I cannot honestly say there was even a single shot that I can recall now. The shots in the movie range from basic handheld coverage, catching the actors' performances, to occasional quick zooms and rack focuses, calling attention to the camera trying to catch up with capturing the action. Overall, the style of the movie is still not different than sitting at home and watching "The Office".

If Iannucci's intention was to fake reality by intentionally unpolished camera work and editing rhythms that stress the awkwardness of real conversations, I am not quite sure it was ever necessary. The movie's strength is in its language, which is, admittedly, rather heightened. It is the type of dialogue that most of wish we can come up with in life when we get into heated arguments. You wonder why the film cannot simply embrace its stylized sense of wordplay, instead of using camerawork that tries a little too hard to convince us of its truthfulness.


Since I had brought up David Mamet before, I actually wonder if "Glengarry Glen Ross" were to be made today, whoever directed it would have employed the Keeping It Real style so that it would make the dialogue feel real, as opposed to the profane poetry it always was. The stylized use of gel lighting would be tossed away, as would the decision to shoot in 2.35:1. There would certainly not be any complex dolly shots mixed with simple static shots to cover scenes of dialogue. Of course, it would be shot on HD with possibly less devotion to the original text and more improv that would be shaped later in the edit room.

One does sense the influence of reality television on a movie like "In The Loop", as if employing a constantly moving camera will prevent the more restless members of the movie audience from getting bored. At the same time, the movie attempts to convey that the action is being caught by an objective observer, as opposed to more subjective dolly and tracking shots, which call attention to some action or line of dialogue or even an object within the frame. One can argue, however, that this Keeping It Real style often calls attention to itself. Sometimes, a viewer like myself would rather pay attention to the language rather than constantly being aware of the shot being so wobbly. This style certainly isn't going to convince me of the reality the filmmakers want to sell. The reality of the story of "In The Loop" is already sold by how well we all remember what actually got us involved in our current Iraq quagmire.

It was not the handheld cameras employed in the films of John Cassavetes that made me believe those films, but the raw emotions of the often great performances, as well as the dialogue he wrote (and he did actually write most of those words though it was widely considered to be improvised). Mike Leigh's films are often developed through improvisation over several months, often giving his movies the feel of real life. Although Leigh may employ handheld cameras at times, he only does so for specific scenes while still taking the time to plan specific tracking, panning or static shots for other scenes. He never imposes the Keeping It Real style on the entire film. It is all about what serves the emotion of each individual scene.


Having seen "District 9" yesterday, I have to wonder what emotions were necessarily being served by the filmmaking. Directed by Neill Blomkamp and shot with producer Peter Jackson's stash of 9 RED cameras, "District 9" employs a self-conscious documentary style (unlike "In The Loop", a documentary crew is acknowledged onscreen) to tell the story of alien (actual aliens, you know, from space) refugees in Johannesburg, South Africa, who are being herded out of their slum and probably into internment camps. The movie is energetic and fun for its subject matter. But I also believe Blomkamp reveals himself to be a first-time filmmaker who does not quite know what kind of film he is attempting.

There has been much insanity over the internet this past week when the intellectually fraudulent New York Press "critic" Armond White gave "District 9" a bad review, enraging angry fanboys who did not like that this review ruined the movie's then-perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes. These fanboys, most of whom had not seen the movie yet, then went on the attack much like they did last year with "The Dark Knight". Much like "The Dark Knight" collective mouth foaming, these fanboys embarrassed themselves with their propensity for childish insults revealing serious arrested development. Also, much like a majority of anti-"Dark Knight" reviews (and like most pro-"Dark Knight" reviews), this particular "District 9" review was not well-written or argued, although Armond White has this problem with any movie, as well as a continuing struggle with sentence construction. Roger Ebert actually had the right response to this by defending White's right to write his review, while also properly labeling him a "Troll" for his mindless contrarianism.

While finding "District 9" entertaining for its action set pieces, I have to wonder why this movie is receiving such universal acclaim. Blomkamp spends most of the first half of the movie trying on different styles, including Keeping It Real, and changes it up, sometimes from scene to scene, whenever he needs to convey a plot point the way that would be most clear, but not exactly inventive. I am surprised that more critics have not commented on how confused the movie seems to be about itself.

For most of the first 45 minutes the movie plays like the South African alien refugee version of "The Office". Even lead actor Sharlto Copley looks like someone combined the DNA of Tim Roth and Steve Carrell. Instead of awkward character moments, we have aliens throwing up and pissing on camera. The movie tries very hard to sell the notion that it is a documentary with actors being interviewed on camera, footage that is supposed to be from a documentary crew following the main character and even occasionally cuts to security camera footage with the time and date stamped in a corner of the screen.

Much like "The Blair Witch Project", it is attempting to sell the realism of a story for a genre that, for the most part, employs a more stylized level of filmmaking. Much like "Blair Witch", the movie's attempt to sell its realism often results in my viewing of the film spent picking apart the moments that feel manufactured once you look past the Shaky Cam. The documentary footage is always stamped with the logo of the company that Copley's character, Wikus Van De Merwe, works for. Yet, this footage varies from Keeping It Real handheld shots to shots that look staged and blocked often involving the integration of the CGI aliens. At one point during this supposed documentary footage, three to four aliens turn to look directly at the camera almost in synchronization and perfectly composed with each of the aliens taking a place in either the foreground or background with the background aliens unblocked by the heads of aliens in the foreground. This shot lasts about 3 seconds, but takes me out of the movie because it does not feel remotely like a shot composed in a documentary, unless it was supposed to be an Errol Morris-style re-enactment.


More importantly, throughout the first section of "District 9", the film occasionally turns into a real film with scenes that could not have been filmed with a documentary crew. When the plot begins to kick in at about the 45 minute mark, the movie then completely abandons the Keeping It Real style and decides to become an actual movie when Van De Merwe teams up with an alien in a race against time. Once again, this decision was made to serve plot, but I actually enjoyed the film when it finally decided what it wanted to be.

By the end of the movie, when it briefly returns to documentary filmmaking to wrap up the story, I actually wondered if it had been necessary for the first 45 minutes to spend so much time convincing us of the reality of an unrealistic premise, when the film could have simply have embraced in its own genre and simply told us a good alien story. The first section of the film did not help in making me care any more about the characters nor was it ever really going to make me believe the reality of the situation. Instead, it feels like a gimmick, something employed to lend shallow gravitas to a story that was never going to have it. Or, even worse, it may have been a way for the director to convey a lot of expositional information through talking heads, as opposed to showing it. If Blomkamp was going to mix documentary and fiction, I prefer he had been more upfront about it and possibly comment on the differences, such as "American Splendor" did.

What surprises me is that most of the critics have shown more reservations towards the second half of the movie, feeling that it gets bogged down in action set pieces, as opposed to the apartheid allegory they feel the beginning of the movie was promising. I do not mind an allegorical tale, but I also wonder if an actual story about apartheid may be more effective than using science fiction stand-ins to make it more palatable to audiences who will flock to anything with aliens and ignore the subtext anyway. I do wonder if I would have found "District 9" a bit offensive if I actually lived in South Africa, as much as I found Steven Spielberg's use of September 11th imagery in "War of the Worlds" more than a a bit crass, exploitative and flat out ridiculous.

The second half of "District 9" is when we actually care more about the characters and the story rather than getting distracted by the filmmaker's attempt to convince us This Is Really Happening. Does aping reality truly ever make a film seem real or do filmmakers not trust the content and the emotion of the films to allow the viewers to relate to what is happening onscreen? I wonder why this particular form of filmmaking has become so prevalent this past decade and cannot help but wonder how much they are influenced by reality shows and vice versa.


When considering this subject, I am actually reminded of 90 Day Jane, which was a big internet story back in February 2008. A woman named Jane put up a blog that planned to last for 90 days when, at the end of this time period, she promised to commit suicide. Jane would talk about what was going through her mind, while also considering the many ways she could kill herself, even willing to take suggestions from her growing readership.

Little to anyone's surprise, it was revealed that 90 Day Jane was a hoax, concocted by a couple of people as some sort of "art" project. What made it so offensive to me personally was that these "artists" needed to fake reality to give their bullshit (Jane's suicide entries were not exactly insightful about the issue of suicide) an air of legitimacy. That they had no moral qualms wanting to convince everyone that a person was actually going to kill themselves for your entertainment value suggests the mindset of a sociopath rather than an artist (though it is understandable that they may share some traits, ha!).

This goes back to my notion about how our entertainment needs to sell fake reality as a cheap way to engage you rather than telling stronger stories with more involving characters. Or, perhaps, be a little more demanding of the audience to be more film-literate, as opposed to assuming the visual storytelling of our most gifted filmmakers may fly over their heads. These past few years, we call any director who covers dialogue and action with multiple handheld cameras to give it a sense of unearned urgency a filmmaker with vision when true visionary directors try their damnedest to avoid visual gimmickry. There seems to be a need to sell the reality of a movie today that almost feels like the need of reality television to convince us that their shows are real. It is not a surprise to anyone when it has been discovered those shows are just as staged as professional wrestling.

I do hope that the coming decade in movies, when more and more movies will be shot digitally, will not result in this faux reality becoming more common. It would be more refreshing to see directors to return to giving their images more meaning through distinctive camera movements and composition, something directors in South Korea or Hong Kong excel at these days.

I am not sure the Keeping It Real School of Filmmaking will result in much more than diminishing returns in the future.

"In The Loop" was viewed on IFC on Demand.

"District 9" was viewed at the Regal Union Square 14. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE!