NOTICE: The [Private] Return of STINKYBITS

A quick notice for all three of you devoted followers of StinkyBits. Two things: (A) I will begin updating StinkyBits in the next several weeks and (B) I will be taking the blog "private" about the same time. If you would like to receive an invitation to be a reader of the newly "private" StinkyBits, just shoot me an email.

88 Minutes (2007/8) -

A stunning wrongheaded concoction posing as an "adult" thriller. Al Pacino plays Dr. Jack Gramm, a forensic psychiatrist whose carefully crafted professional persona casts a long shadow. He's a famous provider of "expert testimony" who regularly makes the rounds of the television talkshow circuit. He also teaches an elite seminar at an apparently major university. And, as the film begins, he's the subject of a gaslighting by an anonymous stalker who keeps promising that he'll die in eighty-eight minutes. (The basic shtick is that one of Gramm's most high-profile convictions -- a serial rapist/murderer whose conviction rested almost exclusively upon evidence provided by Gramm -- is coming up for execution, occasioning a new round of scrutiny for this controversial conviction.) So, the story basically goes: a new batch of murder's matching the profile of the incarcerated killer begin popping up around town. The kicker is that all the victims happen to be young women in Jack Gramm's life. At the same time, the convicted killer is hollering once again about his innocence. Together, these three circumstances begin to cast suspicion on Jack just as his day starts becoming really complicated when he begins receiving cell phone calls from a mysterious voiced man who claims that Gramm will be dead in eighty-eight minutes. So, the narrative must maneuver all of these plot points -- exonerate Jack, reveal the perpetrator of the hoax, kill a couple more women along the way to keep things "interesting", blahblahblah. At center is Al Pacino in a giant wig, huffing and puffing his way through various close calls. The cast around him (Leelee Sobieski, Alicia Witt, Amy Brenneman, William Forsythe, Benjamin McKenzie) all are foils, alternately doubting Gramm's innocence even as their own guilt at the possible gaslighter opens and closes at arbitrary intervals. I found that I felt mostly sorry for this talented youngish cast, who (inevitably) hopped on board this ridonkulous project for the chance to work with Pacino. But a lot of good it does them. Some try their best to do good work (Witt, Brenneman, Forsythe) and come out relatively unscathed, while others provide proof of just how much they can (and cannot) do. (Truth be told, Sobieski does give Pacino a run for the "worst" acting in this movie, though the disaster of her performance is less tragic than that represented by his.) The real problem is that the film has no idea what it wants to be. It's really the kind of movie Michael Douglas might have starred in back in 1996 but, with Pacino in the lead role, there seems to be a greater sense of reach in the film but little intelligence, insight or irony to back it up. (A cynical "twist" toward the end -- in which Gramm's ethical vagaries are confirmed -- does little to amplify the emotional or moral significance of this utterly derivative conceit.) And every time we get Neil McDonagh on screen, it's a confirmation of how (a) utterly conventional this story is and (b) nobody but McDonagh knows how to play this kind of tripe. When he's on, it's fun. When he's gone, it's deadly dull -- by turns sluggish and silly. It's a genre piece done arty. Kitsch without enough cleverness/artistry to take it into the realm of camp/cheese. But with enough lurid, default misogyny to make the whole enterprise feel gross. Like Pacino's tanning booth face and Elizabeth Taylor wig.

For The Bible Tells Me So (2007) +

An entirely lucid and utterly careful examination of the biblical basis of anti-gay rhetoric, sentiment and activism -- offered from the perspective of a group of families whose own views and activism within the church has shifted (albeit to varying degrees) as a direct result of loving a gay child. The film is not so much an expose of the radically arbitrary ways the bible is used to support and foment anti-gay sentiment (though, with the support of a diverse array of biblical experts, it does that too) but mostly an account of the various ways evangelical protestant families have made it "through" the challenges of loving a gay child. The families are a diverse lot -- a religious mom who shuns her lesbian daughter until that daughter's suicide transforms the surviving mother into a PFLAG activist; Senator Dick Gephart's maneuvering of the private/public challenge when his adult daughter comes out; two parents uncertain about their own feelings and beliefs when their attractive teen son comes out in high school; a mother and father's decision to love their daughter while disapproving of her life; the experiences of parents who are in their 70s and 80s when their son becomes the first avowedly gay Episcopalian bishop -- and this works to the films advantage, as the stories in concert demonstrate the particularities of each persons struggle reconciling homosexuality and faith. The film also feels very much like the kind of story one could show one's family with relatively little concern. An admirable piece of documentary filmmaking built around the project of awareness.

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (2008) +

A sweet, simple teen romantic comedy with a distinctively contemporary verve. Michael Cera and Kat Dennings play the title characters. Cera's Nick is a painfully romantic kid, who's stuck in a swoonpit for his ex-girlfriend Tris (Alex Dziena giving an empathetic performance in the bitch role) even as she's moved on. Dennings's Norah is a "not high school pretty" and painfully intelligent girl who's burdened with big boobs and a famous/powerful father. This combination of features has cultivated an unhelpful cynicism in Norah, who regards any boy's interest with a weary wariness. Nora's ex-boyfriend -- a delightfully smarmy Jay Baruchel as the lead singer in an Israeli rock band -- embodies the worst of both of the mercenary attractions to Norah, and it's compelling to watch Dennings's Nora inhabit the unpleasantness of his attention. (What I like about the framing of this romance is that we see both Nick and Norah's humiliations in not letting go of these awful exes not as simply pathetic, but as a gesture of how hard it can be to let go of what you know. For both characters, the ex relationships are mostly verification that it is possible for someone to love them a little and it's really terrifying to let that go.) But I also like the framing of the story for the way these characters inhabit a complex social universe that's both plausible and delightfully fantastic. I love the simple high school conceit with music as the currency of self (Nick's been making Tris excellent mix cds, which Norah's been rescuing from the trash at school -- so Norah's sorta fallen in swoon with Nick long before she ever met him). I also like how Nick and Norah both have unlikely friends. Nick's the straight-boy mascot of a batch of cute, wackogay rock boys. Norah's best friend is the proto-alcoholic basket case Caroline (played brilliantly by the hilarious Ari Graynor, who inhabits a humiliation narrative with a just light enough touch to keep it from getting entirely sad). There're great comic set pieces, a "fantastic" (both in the most excellent and utter fantasy sense) culmination of Nick and Norah's romance, some genuinely funny/strange moments, and a sense of giddy adventure that comes from the "crazy NY night" conceit. In many ways, it's a perfect teen romantic comedy -- loaded with attractive kids giving sweetly silly performances while also being allowed to be smart at the same time. I guess I liked it for being everything I like/d about Juno (without the supposedly elevating gravitas) and also being everything I like/d about Can't Hardly Wait (without cloying Hollywood veneer). A genuinely sweet and genuinely funny and basically smart teen romantic comedy. They really should make more of them.

Coraline (2009) -

A visually compelling parable about the temptations of ingratitude -- the perilous pleasures derived when you're certain that your life sucks. The film focuses on a little girl named Coraline, whose life is characterized by a constant barrage of mundane humiliations (beginning, of course, with the fact that no one seems capable of calling her by her correct name, insisting to address her as "Caroline"). When she and her work-obsessed parents move into a ratty apartment building in the middle of nowhere, Coraline is certain its all part of a scheme to make her miserable and sets out plotting her escape from the dreary new place she now calls home. A mysterious neighbor boy -- who Coraline treats miserably upon their first encounter -- delivers a gift, in the form of a doll that looks remarkably like Coraline. The doll is enchanted, and soon Coraline becomes absorbed in a series of delightful adventures in an alternate universe: one where her parents dote on her, delicious food is plentiful, and both the upstairs and downstairs neighbors present marvelous entertainments solely for Coraline's diversion and amusement. At first it seems like the alternate world is solely of her own dreaming but, as Coraline becomes incrementally more miserable in her daily life, the line separating the two worlds becomes ever less distinct. Of course, there's something ominous about the alternate world -- where everyone has buttons for eyes (kuh-reepy!) -- and soon it becomes clear that something malevolent is afoot on the other side of that little door. (A miniature door is the portal between these parallel dimensions.) As the narrative proceeds, Coraline must accomplish all sorts of formidable tasks in order to rescue several spirits trapped on the other side. The narrative is a moral parable addressed to children, melding the macabre whimsy of Edward Gorey and the magical sermonizing of Shel Silverstein, Carole Kind and/or Maurice Sendak. The one thing missing is the gleeful sense of whimsical possibility that Roald Dahl was so good at, wherein the scary comingled with the silly to make for truly gratifying journey toward moral resolution. The story here -- taken from Neil Gaiman -- seems always to be an adult speaking to a kid, and though Coraline is at the center of the story, she's as annoying and unappealing as "I Don't Care" Pierre or any of the unfortunate Golden Ticket holders. Which proves a problem. I don't know why I'm to care about Coraline, or Coraline's adventures. Indeed, I really am not encouraged to have even as much empathy as I do for Edmund in the first Narnia tale. Coraline's impossible, yet she's the hero. It's a curious narrative dilemma. Visually, however, this film is a feast. Incredible visual spectacles unfold at nearly every turn, all using a delightful "repurposing" sensibility (wherein everyday objects are transformed into thrilling discoveries). Unfortunately, the visual delight -- the film looks just amazing -- doesn't do much to clarify the cynical narrative. So the whole film's a little too scary, a little too arch, and way too emotionally obtuse. I wanted to like it at every turn, but never found my way in. The vocal performances are flat (Teri Hatcher's and Dakota Fanning's especially) and the lesson of this moral parable never truly coalesce. I love genuinely scary, animated ghost stories with kid protagonists -- Monster House, as one example -- but this one seems pitched a little strangely. While there was much to admire about this film, there was little in it love.

His Name Was Jason: 30 Years of Friday the 13th (2009) +

A simple, entertaining, fan-centered documentary about the phenomenon of the Friday the 13th franchise. Directors, writers, and performers all talk about their participation in the developing franchise. Their varied points of view are effectively woven together to compose an interesting synthesis of the narrative constructed by the many many episodes in the franchise. Some great details emerge -- like the sound concept behind Jason's signature stalking motif -- and some amusing descriptions of how various scenes were accomplished. Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the film involve everyone's theorization of "who is Jason" (given that the character has been reanimated using so many different conceits) which opens surprisingly interesting questions about the meaning of the narrative diachronically or synthetically. Mostly, however, the film works as a promotional teaser making even someone like me want to revisit all the films. Like I said, it's a fan-centered homage -- the filmmakers and stars being presented as participants in the same circuits of fan-culture as the presumed viewer of the film. But, really, quite engaging and interesting -- for a glorified DVD Special Feature. But there's a lot of material and, even for someone who fell off the Friday the 13th wagon after PartII, I found this homage to the series and its enduring pleasures to be utterly captivating.

Doubt (2008) +

Upon second viewing, Doubt impresses mostly for its hermetic efficiency. Shanley has crafted a diverting bauble, a compelling hypothetical that permits its well-intentioned audience much room to rehearse its pre-existing ideas. Nothing in this film -- or I suspect the play from which it is adapted -- requires that the audience confront their prejudices and predispositions. Rather, the film instigates a gratifying kind of self-reflexivity -- a lovingly filmed scenario that permits the audience to spend time mulling over their own thoughts and convictions. This, it seems to me, is what is most surprising about the piece: it doesn't provoke, really, at all. It invites thoughtfulness, but nothing so strenuous that it might cause someone to change their minds. And most insidiously perhaps, the film actually encourages the audience toward a kind of certitude: they film/play may not say but I know for sure. Which is sorta weird, actually, to stage a piece ostensibly about doubt and yet privilege the notion that people will believe what they are inclined to believe anyway. But what the film/play/narrative truly provides is the ring, the mat, the field of battle. As I was reflecting on the film, for the purposes of Viola Davis's Supporting Actress profile, that the film's many head-to-head confrontations are like a series of arm-wrestling matches, some of which end in victory for one or the other, but all of which are incredibly captivating. It's a hoot to watch these performers play through these roles, even if the roles make little sense beyond embodying key variables in Shanley's little game of morality algebra. Notably, Streep's performance was palpably richer on second viewing. Adams's work, too, signaled easily overlooked depths in nearly every scene. Davis's work was even more impressive, for its precision and its clarity, especially -- although I found it less emotionally compelling the second time through. And while Hoffman felt less mannered this time through, I found that I was more convinced of the performance's limits this time through. What I really admired this time through though (other than the surprising vulnerability with which Streep layers each of her dragonswipes) was Shanley's homage to working class NYC culture. It's a suspect romanticization, to be sure, as it's basically what was great about NYC before white flight, but it's stylishly done here. An interesting revisit... one that I found more gratifying than I anticipated.

He's Just Not That Into You (2009) -

An astonishingly tedious rumination on the contemporary courtship rituals of the privileged and attractive and heterosexual. The elaborate yet simple-minded plot is exhausting for its dependence on familiar formulas/cliches of the romantic comedy genre. Basically, this is what happens when you try to use Sex and the City's signature episode formula -- a soupy base of recognizable romantic difficulty, a heaping dollop of lifestyle porn, a dash of cute boy/man, and a garnish of flashy/pithy cameos -- and expect it to stand alone. The problem? The heart of SATC -- like Designing Women, Living Single, or The Golden Grils -- is the sustaining friendship shared among quite disparate women. Contemporary American filmmakers, however, find it really difficult to trust female friendship. So these women aren't really friends, just chattery co-workers inclined to shooting glib opinions and half-baked sympathies from their well-clad hips...or they're the other woman. Oddly, the guys in this film are pictured as having much more emotionally anchored relationships, although even those scenes are mostly scaffolding for early exposition with the relationships themselves fading as the film lumbers along. The cast is uniformly appealing. The three chattery coworkers -- 2 Jennifers and a Ginnifer -- are the most tediously scripted, and Jennifer Aniston and Jennifer Connelly do well reaching beyond the material to craft adequately appealing portraits of basically unappealing characters. Ginnifer Goodwin, in what is arguably the film's lead role, is way cute -- too cute actually -- for the role Drew Barrymore might have played a few years back. Unfortunately, Goodwin's performance is more annoying than endearing, largely because she's stuck playing such an emotionally monochromatic character. And I guess its the casting of this film that I find most annoying. Everyone's playing their type -- to a one this film is "perfectly" cast. You can almost imagine the screenwriters saying "we want a Jennifer Aniston type for the role of Beth" and then what happens when they get Jennifer Aniston for the role of Beth? It becomes fundamentally uninteresting because there's little discovery left to do. There's one scene in particular -- when Goodwin's Gigi has realized that Justin Long's Alex actually likes her and tell's Connelly's Janine about it -- Janine, who is supposed to be experience the incremental collapse of her marriage, immediately jumps into planning Gigi and Alex's "destination wedding." Both actresses do what they can with this scene -- Connelly playing the move as an desperate expression of Janine's deep denial, Goodwin registering the shock at her friends grasping romantic delusions. Yet the scene trucks on, the actress's "playing against the grain" doing little to actually complicate the sturdy artifice of the scene itself. And this is basically the way the whole film works. The actors's best efforts are for naught, and the film basically depends on how much you crush on the lifestyles depicted. The set decoration is glorious...straight out of dwell. Jobs are glamorous...with little work involved. And the relationships resolve as you expect them to upon first glance. Tedious, disappointing, obvious. I knew I was in trouble in the first scene when a galling "cute" joke about women's refusal to see the romantic truth literally "went to Africa" depicting tribeswomen gossiping. Dumb, racist, not funny. Then in the first real scene between Ben Affleck and Jennifer Aniston -- the couple who's choosing not to marry NOT because of something like a political commitment to marriage equality but because a vaguely anti-establishment mistrust of marriage as an institution -- when their first real fight over the idea of marriage is staged in front of some "edgy" painting with the word "should" written on it about twenty times -- when I saw that I sorta knew that this film's notion of sophisticated/subtle was pretty dumb and that I was in trouble. Sure enough. Dumb dumb dumb. And the film uses gay men and black people as obvious props while leaving lesbians completely out of the picture. (A smarter movie -- or at least Dan in Real Life smart -- would have had one of Aniston's sisters be a happily married lesbian, her partner sitting watching sports with the other brothers-in-law or something.) But then this movie appears to have had no interest in being smart. As MrStinky noted, it's enough to make you worry about the future of the "romantic comedy"...

The Last of Sheila (1973) +

An utter lark of a murder mystery, cleverly crafted by the (perhaps) unlikely screenwriting partners of actor Anthony Perkins and composer Stephen Sondheim and filmed by longtime Sondheim pal, Herbert Ross. (In short, the project is about as A-gay as any Hollywood project could get, circa 1973.) The set-up is delightfully baroque: a set-up that camps on the early 1970s fascination with all-star Agatha Christie parlor plays restaged in exotic locales; a delightedly sour tone that layers a scathing critique of Hollywood's most mercenary shallowness; and an intricate and captivating central mystery that keeps the twists coming until the final moments of the narrative. Featuring a delicious/weird cast (James Mason, Raquel Welch, Dyan Cannon, Joan Hackett, Ian McShane, Richard Benjamin, and James Coburn), the film surprises for the array of pleasures it assembles. You can enjoy the mystery while also delighting at the silliness of the spectacle. James Coburn is clearly having a blast, as are Cannon and Benjamin. McShane is a treat to look at. Hackett's acting her balls off, while Mason outacts everyone while barely breaking a sweat. And then there's Raquel. It will likely remain a mystery whether or not the whole character of Alice was intended as a spoof of Raquel Welch's signature style -- what I have called her "strangely passionate alacrity" -- or not. The filmmakers give poor Raquel the lamest lines, and she delivers them with a crazy sincerity that just makes me wonder if Tony, Steve and Herb weren't just pissing themselves with giggles in the editing room. It's not that they're mocking her, exactly, because there is no hint of cruelty in the film's presentation of her. Rather, it seems that they are just spooling the rope to see how far she will take it... Indeed, I wonder if this performance will emerge as one of my favorite Raquel turns in her superstar period. I'm not sure why the film remained off my radar until very recently. It's smart, weird, hilarious. Some of the casting choices are strange, and possibly attributable to the likelihood that they wanted to make this movie with their friends. (For example, Dyan Cannon is nothing in the excellent role of Christine, the ambitious Hollywood agent; she's also about years too young for the role, a hard-bitten Hollywood dame who was a secretary in the HUAC era. It's not impossible that Cannon, who would have been in her mid-teens during the McCarthy moment, might have worked in the secretarial pool at 16 but Cannon always acts like she's sixteen so we don't really get it that she and Coburn and Mason are industry peers who understand each other. I would have loved to see someone like Bacall or Stapleton in this role; would have read entirely differently.) The whole treatment of male homosexuality, too, is a fascinating glimpse into the lives folks like Ross and Perkins must have led. And while I was able to "call" most of the later twists -- the final use of the puppets; the red herrings in the first interpretation of the crime; etcetera -- the film remained a complete hoot, of the sort that I wish they made more of... I don't like reading mysteries but I sure do enjoy watching attractive, ostensibly glamorous people play at murder. And the spectacle of James Coburn in drag while wearing a monk's robes? Cuckoo crazy in only the best of ways. A lark.

Play Time (1967) +

A visually stunning comic opus. Jacques Tati constructs a visual landscape -- a high modern urban maze in which his character Monsieur Hulot gets variously lost. At the same time, Tati stages the parallel story of a warm American tourist who seems as at ease within this urbanized modernity as Hulot seems flummoxed. The film is meditative in tone, even as it executes some of the most intricate and subtle comic set pieces ever stage in cinema. The palette is all steel grey, with slight variations toward the green, blue and gold, so that the occasional splash of color (the blue of the elusive businessman's blazer, the american tourists's hats, the blue of a workman's uniform) becomes almost radiant. The fabricated landscape is loaded with giant sheets of glass -- doors, walls, windows -- which simultaneously force a curious lack of privacy even as they install a new kind of estrangement. The opening sequences in the modern office building and department store are enthralling but it's not until the extended sequence in the new restaurant that the film really becomes satisfying. There's a concentrated chaos in the restaurant, which permits a kind of gratification as we follow the vast array of running gags through the skein of confusion and chaos. I've never seen a film like Tatis's Play Time. It's poignant. It's literate. It's a visual feast. It's a tough go. Yet, for the most part, it's gratifying. I think what becomes most impressive about the film, at this historical moment, is that its an utter fabrication. Most of these sets -- interior and exterior -- were built on a soundstage, to Tati's precise specification. So, as such, none of them are "real" yet neither are they CGI. There's an old school artistry to the physical comedy, I guess, when we acknowledge that this is a built environment constructed solely for the purpose of making this elaborate series of refined visual jokes. As such, I guess, I'm fundamentally impressed by this as a triumph high-modern (and also post-modern) bit of physical comedy, of prop comedy, and of comedic commentary on contemporary society. I don't have much original insight on the film really. Most of my thoughts run the conventional routes -- this bit worked better for me than that; I'd love to see it in its intended 70mm; talk about redefining what masterpiece means -- but I am really glad to have seen the film, and I suspect the bits will haunt me for some time. (And I can't believe Professor Weinstein didn't show this in City and the Arts; must not have been available or something.) But an amazing piece of cinema, the kind that broadens your vision of what cinema is capable of, even/especially without the ornamental geegaws provided by cgi (though his use of 70mm does anchor this in the history of "new" cinematic technology in important ways). Anyway. Wow.

Arab-American Comedy Tour (2006) +/-

A fairly low-rent collection of concert footage of the three leading Arab-American comedians working today: Ahmed Ahmed, Dean Obeidallah, and Maysoon Zayid. The audiences for these sets are largely community audiences at Arab-American cultural events in such locales as Deer Park, Michigan, or Seattle. As such, some of the material collected here addresses its audience of "Middle Eastern heritage" more explicitly than any other Arab comic dvd I've seen. This video is marred by the erratic sound quality and occasionally amateurish camera work. The sound/camera work is of especially poor quality during Ahmed Ahmed's set (unfortunately during some of the only material with which I was unfamiliar). Obeidallah's set is mostly the standard stuff, with some interesting "new to me" bits about his Sicilian mother. Maysoon Zayid's set is good. Her presence as "a Palestinian virgin with cerebral policy who lives in New Jersey" adds what I think to be a necessary complexity -- especially regarding the racially marked body -- that is clarifying. If the production quality was a little better this would likely be the best Arab comedy dvd to own; as it is, the sound quality mars the product so that the dvd becomes mostly useful as a reference point for other video captures of these performers' work.

The Axis of Evil Comedy Tour (2006) +/-

An effective introduction to the core themes/figures in the new "Arab" comedy moment/movement. Ahmed Ahmed and Dean Obeidallah appear doing their core material, along with Maz Jobrani (who's very good) and Aron Kader (who's fine). There's not much really to say about this except that it's a Comedy Central special and the four comedians each do a representative set before a largely Middle Eastern concert audience. The material is solid and the framing conceit (each comic passing through an airport security check) is not distracting. I feel like I've heard the entirety of Obeidallah's and Ahmed's set, but this is a feature I think of this concert/show being targeting a more mainstream audience who might not yet know these two comedians. Unremarkable but effective introduction to these key figures within this particular moment in American stand-up comedy.

Heckler (2008) -

An odd, dispiriting exploration of the critical impulse and the damage it can do (and does do) to the creative spirit. Comedian/actor/filmmaker Jamie Kennedy's style is comparatively direct: by collecting observations and insights from a broad array of comedians, as well as a smattering of other performers (athletes, singers, directors, actors, authors, etc) and a handful of hecklers (comedy club hecklers, print critics/reviewers, bloggers/web-critics), Kennedy examines the ways in which criticism is a burden and nuisance for the real work of art-making. The basic argument of the film informs the film's structure. Kennedy is suggesting that all critics are basically "hecklers" -- the arrogant, no-talent, attention-craving yahoos who ruin the show for everyone else because they're so sure they know the artist's not doing his job right. This core premise informs the structure of the film, as Kennedy's many very smart and very funny talking heads craft an analysis of the heckler's action. (In this collective theorization, the heckler wants to both snag a part of the glow of attention while also asserting their own importance within the performance event. In this conceptualization, men do this because they're losers who can't get laid; women do this because they're drunk and possibly horny.) Building from the location of the comedy club, and the core dynamic of the various strategies a comedian might use in dealing with a heckling member of the audience, the film next moves outward, first to print/broadcast critics and then to internet critics (bloggers and web-writers mostly). The film becomes progressively less interesting as it moves away from the comedy club heckler, and Kennedy's frustration with the idea of criticism of any kind becomes increasingly annoyed and defensive as his focus moves away from the concentrated dynamic of the heckler-comic. One of the most entertaining and interesting aspects of the film is its portrait of the various ways professional comedians have for "winning" battles with hecklers. And Kennedy himself seems often quite adept in doing just that -- shutting down the heckler in a comedy club. And, as the film moves away from the dynamic liveness of the comic-heckler dyad, it seems Kennedy is also exploring how various folks "shut down" such hecklers when they're not in the same room, but writing in a magazine or snarking on a teevee show or blathering on a blog. The film begins powerfully -- smart, funny, intense -- but by the end (when Kennedy is basically picking fights with white guys who gave his 2003 movie Malibu's Most Wanted really mean reviews in regional weekly papers or glossy snark rags) the enterprise of the documentary just feels petty and defensive. All the familiar screeds against criticism ("who are these people and are they any good at doing this thing they're criticizing me for?") are mixed in with easy internet cliches ("probably a [insert disparaging reference to age, body type or sexual inexperience] loser writing in his mother's basement") so that Kennedy, however consciously or inadvertently, replicates the action he most judges the critic for: tearing people down just because he can, just because he has the access and technology to do so. (You can sorta tell the moment when the film starts losing the clarity of its intelligence when we stop hearing much about female hecklers and, by extension, female critics.) What's unfortunate in this is that the exchange between audience and performer -- the very dynamic that the heckler so poisonously exploits -- is lost as Kennedy's film moves along, and as Kennedy's conception of criticism and commentary becomes increasingly about defending his own rights not to be criticized. Which just stops making sense after a while. Several interesting routes of inquiry -- the rise of snark, the proliferation of opinion, the spectacle of artist abuse -- are left unexplored, while Uwe Boll's notorious beatdown of several "critics" is depicted in detail. It's too bad that Kennedy's genuinely interesting premise -- use of heckling as a model for explaining the complicated ways in which criticism and creativity are often uncomfortably conjoined -- devolves so into a confusing/confused defensive rant.

Revolutionary Road (2008) -

A pretty pretty postcard of marital misery. The film tells the story of "The Wheelers" -- a "special" couple living in suburban New York. Rick (Leonardo DiCaprio in a sincere performance that once again demonstrates his limits in playing period style) is an in-house copywriter for a nondescript firm. April (Kate Winslet, luminous as always in a performance that demonstrates none of the actress's capacity to subtly plumb unforeseen depths) is a stay-at-home mom who studied acting back in the day. As the film begins, Rick's on the precipice of his 30th birthday as April's reeling from the humiliation of being reduced to performing in an especially bad community theatre production. The coincidence of these challenges to their respective self-esteem occasions a crisis of faith for each partner's confidence in themselves and in their shared marriage. Rick reacts by instigating a predatory affair with a girl in the typing pool (Zoe Kazan, captivating in a throwaway part); April reacts by concocting a scheme to sell everything and move to Paris, where she can work and he can begin to find himself. Both Rick and April get completely hopped up on this fantasy and their love seems to be reanimated. As they spin this new fantasy future, those around them react variously. The dissipated, sissy-ish man who shares Rick's cubicle (Dylan Baker, in a quite thrilling performance -- I wanted to follow him into his own movie) observes with bemused cynicism. The Wheelers's neighbor pals The Campbells react with shock, with Milly (Kathryn Hahn, vivid and utterly human) reacting in frightened terror and Shep (David Harbour, in perhaps the film's most dimensional performance, responding with a melancholy fury). Of course, Rick and April's grand plans are patently unrealistic and they are humbled soon, in the most gendered of terms. Rick is offered a promotion at work and April discovers that she's pregnant. The threat to their shared plans (and private fantasies) posed by this pair of realizations causes their relationship to spiral deeper into the despair from which their Paris fantasy had briefly lifted it. Then it all really goes to hell. Rick takes up again with the girl from the typing pool; April has a cruel fling with Shep. A disastrous dinner with a mentally unbalanced guest compels a new kind of clarity for both Rick and April and, the next day, Rick starts his new job and April attempts to induce her own miscarriage (with devastating results). The problem with the film is one of tone. Director Sam Mendes plays the sincerity of the scenario, which only amplifies the shrillness of each character's shallow self-obsessiveness, without a clarifying frame. (I liked it better when Winslet played this same character arc in Little Children two cycles ago.) Winslet and DiCaprio spend a good deal of the film shrieking at each other, in ways that were likely quite challenging (and gratifying) as actors but do little to illuminate the characters of Rick and April. Michael Shannon does is feral force of nature thing as the mentally unstable son of The Wheelers's realtor (Kathy Bates, in an almost really good performance). As an intellectual currently undergoing electro-shock therapy at a nearyby loony bin, Shannon's character is poised to be the "speaker of truth" -- the one citizen capable of calling out that the emperor has no clothes. He seems at first to understand Rick and April's impulse to flee their perfect life; then, he calls each out for their cruel hypocrisies in not following through. He's patently a device -- like Mrs. Miller in Doubt -- who arrives to throw a monkey-wrench into things and thus amplify the tension for the last act. Shannon is good, but obvious, in the role. Ultimately - SPOILER ALERT - the film concludes with April dying as a result of her self-induced miscarriage/abortion; Rick leaving the community; and the neighbors left to sift through their own ambivalences about the "special" Wheelers. The narrative scenario is deeply cynical, ostensibly a satire on the conventions of self compromise that characterized post-WWII American middle-class privilege. The tragedy of Rick and April is borne of the fact that neither believes in anything, only their shared "idea" that they were "special" -- that Rick was "above" his job and that April was so much more than "just a housewife." I knew I was doomed when Rick and April shared the moments they knew they were alive: Rick's being the moment he marched to battle in France and April's the first time she had sex with Rick. This hollow fantasy of Rick as superman is the shared illusion that collapses on top of both characters, and it's at the root of the film's/narrative's most compelling critique: choosing to believe in the fantasy (of a future in Paris; of happiness in the suburbs; of how "special" The Wheelers are; of the importance of maintaining polite appearances) will be the source of one's devastation, if not one's doom. I actually quite like that premise. However, this film -- for whatever reason -- elides that tension in a curiously self-gratified indulgence in the intensity of each moment as it comes. Instead of this being a devastating satire of middle-class self-deception, the film becomes a meticulous dissection of the petty cruelties animating an unhappy marriage. Neither as intricately crafted as Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf nor as emotionally stark as Scenes from a Marriage, this film feels stunty and intellectually lazy. Really good actors get lost in their roles (Winslet, DiCaprio, Bates) while smaller roles shine (Shannon, Baker, Kazan) because of their relative clarity. Only David Harbour seems able to maneuver the three tracks necessary -- tracks that are (aptly enough perhaps) easiest described in the most simplistic psychoanalytic terms (id, superego, ego). Harbour (and to a lesser extent Bates) provide a really palpable sense of the pressure of the "rules" of proper behavior (superego), and Harbour also really taps into this guy's competing/conflicting desires (id). As a result, Harbour really is able to play -- in every scene -- the real conflict Shep feels as he tries to negotiate between his desires and his sense of obligation/duty. It's a dynamic, surprising, humane, and complex performance. I wish Harbour's subtle complexity had been matched by the other principal players. Alas. Everyone else gets too lost in id or too gummed up in superego and it's just tiresome. But the part that really pissed me off? How this film's depiction of a historical subculture (white suburbia at midcentury) characterized by rank, chauvinistic misogyny ended up as a replication of that misogyny rather than a lucid critique of it. The film's concluding moments are especially outrageous. As folks deal with the aftershocks of April's suicide-by-self-induced-abortion, the "blame the woman" aspects of this story really fly. In each of the concluding scenes (Rick on a playground, Shep meeting the couple who have just moved into the Wheelers old house, Mr. Givings as he turns down the volume of his hearing aid as his wife natters on), our sympathy is ostensibly invested with the men. And the only woman who isn't the "cause" of the man's discomfort? Milly -- the perfect housewife who does and says exactly as her husband asks and who believes in the principles of middle-class suburbia as social gospel. It's an appalling moment really: as we're asked to absorb the tragedy of April's death the reason for these men and their current unhappiness. Indeed, I left the film thinking less of Kate Winslet for having bought into this tacit misogyny -- I was so infuriated by the film and its bizarre resolution. We are offered these scenes as simple depictions of the characters's realities and it all points back to April: if she hadn't been so selfish, so unrealistic, so grandiose, none of his would have had to happen. It's a despicable conclusion, one that reveals not the satire, not the historical commentary, not the idea that things were so bad then...just that women are to blame for men's unhappiness and discontent. If only they could all be like Milly... Ack. Feh. Gah. Whatever.

Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights - Hollywood to the Heartland (2006) +

A deceptively simple concert movie, showcasing the trek of four stand-ups on a whirlwind, old-school bus tour of the southwest and the south. Produced by actor Vince Vaughn with his close friend Peter Billingsley (best known as the kid star of A Christmas Story), the rationale behind the tour is both simple and obtuse: take these unknown comics on the road to introduce them to a wider audience and to introduce parts of middle America to these comics. And then there's also something in there about the road show/variety show/vaudeville aspect I think? I'm not sure. But the movie's totally entertaining and engaging, a humane portrait of what it's like to be a working comedian. Because all the comedians are straight guys, and because only one of the guys is not white, the film also stages a pretty insightful glimpse into the "normative" business of comedy and comedy audience expectations. John Caparulo is a white trashy guy with a potty mouth and a mode unpretentious humor that seems to really reflect the experience of a white guy who drinks more than he dates and who experiences few of the benefits of his white, masculine privilege. He seems also to be the kind of comic whose life will likely be spent on the road, as opposed to on a sitcom or in the movies. His closest peer on the tour is Bret Ernst, a handsome (in a regular guy way) guy who seems like a generically funny comedian (though his backstory about his single mom and gay elder brother emerges as one of the more startling and moving threads within the documentary -- an excellent example of a straight comic successfully doing non-homophobic gay material). Ahmed Ahmed is perhaps the most recognizable comic on the tour, at least to me, and his material comes the closest to talking specifically about gender and race. Finally, the most interesting comic in some ways is the prissy guido Sebastian Maniscalo, a handsome rubberfaced guy with a knack for incisive physical comedy for whom the tour is his first real professional break from waiting tables. Add to this mix cameos by Vaughn buddies Justin Long and Jon Favreau, among others, and it's a cascade of comedic testosterone. What I like about the film is how simple it is: a concert documentary of this tour, with some clarifying chapters/threads that anchor the onstage fragments and backstage shenanigans in a generally accessible way. Not the most memorable bit of filmmaking, but this film is a generally entertaining and basically generous glimpse into the hard work of contemporary stand-up comedy.

In Bruges (2008) +

A witty, intense, gorey caper that plays out a drama of ethics and morality...among British thugs and gun/drug traffickers in a unifying Europe...amidst the sugar-candy landscape of a Belgian tourist town. Director/writer Martin McDonagh develops a dramaturgically concise conceit (you can almost feel how this narrative could fairly easily adapt to one of those old school farces, with everything set in the lobby/bar/bedchamber of the nondescript hotel) and opens it nicely to include the landscape of Bruges as a kind of silent character. The script is one of the most intricately witty I've heard this year, with character detail and essential backstory embedded within the unfurling banter of the film's central characters, Ken and Ray (Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, respectively). Farrell and Gleeson are charismatic, hilarious and formidable -- the hitman and the hitman's apprentice -- sent away by their terrifying boss (Ralph Fiennes, brilliant as ever) to lay low in Bruges. (Farrell's Ken, while on an assigned hit, inadvertently killed a child, thus causing a complicated set of stinks that must be resolved before things can continue.) McDonagh and his ensemble allow the scenario to unfold slowly. Once we think we understand what's going on, a new wrinkle or revelation complicates things further, until finally the piece builds toward a real suspense (both emotional and cinematic) which resolves in the most surprising of ways. Peppered around this core relationship dyad (or triad, if you count Fiennes) is an array of impressive performers, familiar and not, in large and small roles. I especially enjoyed the ubiquitous Zeljko Ivanek as the prissy Canadian who gets caught in a shocking altercation with Farrell's Ken. I also liked Jordan Prentice, as a hard-partying dwarf actor -- who happens to be filming on location in Bruges -- who happens to animate Ken's fascination with dwarves/little people and their supposed statistical predisposition toward suicide. Prentice's Jimmy is, possibly, the fourth hand in this story and it's testament to McDonagh's skill as a scenarist that I didn't realize until much later that the character of Jimmy permitted the subject of suicide to be floating in the air of the story long before it becomes a specific narrative tension. I also quite liked Thekla Reuten, in the comparatively undeveloped role of Marie, the innkeeper. Reuten's presence is essential to the piece and she's indelible. The only weak link I noted was Clémence Poésy, as the drug peddler/thief who develops a soft spot for Farrell. She's fine but... The film, though, is about the banter and affection between the three leads: Farrell, Gleeson and Fiennes (Fiennes being the antagonist to the dual protagonist of the other two). The relationship between Ken and Ray emerges, for all its early trashtalk, as one of the most tender relationships between men I've seen on screen in some time. Both actors play their roles perfectly. Gleeson is utterly believable as a cold-hearted professional killer who's got a truly tender heart. Farrell is completely right as the arrogant thug just out of his depth as he moves up the crime ladder. Farrell's performance in particular is appropriately adorable and completely terrifying. He's very sweet, very funny, very damaged, and at times very scary. It's nice to see the actor in a role that highlights his particular gifts. And he and Gleeson are one of the best screen pairings I've seen this year, including Sheehan/Langella and Streep/Doubt cast. A deservedly admired film. Funny, suspenseful, effective. I'm only sorry there wasn't a stage version before this perfect "opening up" of the tight, taut and intelligent dramaturgical universe. Good stuff.

The Wrestler (2008) +

A fascinating, stylish exploration of the emotional, spiritual and physical costs accrued by performers hustling for a dream that's finally slipping away. The movie's ostensibly about Randy "The Ram" Robinson (Mickey Rourke, in what promises to be an iconic performance). Rourke's Randy is a guy who's been wrestling since the 80s and now finds himself at the end of the only lifepath he's ever really known. When an escalating series of health challenges culminates in a near fatal heart attack, Rourke's Randy finds himself -- however uncharacteristically -- reflecting on his life choices and what potential for happiness might yet be his. At about this moment, Randy's ongoing flirtation with a local stripper, Cassidy (Marisa Tomei), seems to be on the verge of becoming a "non-professional" relationship. It's a gorgeous conceit really. Randy (whose real name is Robin) and Cassidy (whose real name is Pam) are both really good at what they do. Both are still meeting the intense, physical demands of their jobs long after their bodies should have given out. And both are deeply attuned to the ways that their success is measured by the pleasure their physical performances give their fans. It's an elegant, obvious parallel really and what's nice about the film is that it really allows the fact of these performers' lives to be recognized for the hard, gruelling, and incredibly skilled work that it is. I especially admired how Aronofsky used Randy's pervy grocery store boss to underscore the weird ways that Randy, as a macho wrestler, is disparaged for the overt sexuality of his job. An artful way to depict the stigma of the wrestler/stripper as profession. I like that Aronofsky seems so intent on depicting the bleakness of working-class New Jersey, the gruesome brutality of low-rent wrestling, and the incredible loneliness experienced by these bottom-rung entertainers. The wrestling culture sequences -- whether in the ring or the changing room -- are frank and astonishing. Early on, Tomei's Cassidy quotes the film The Passion of the Christ, likening Randy's injuries to the flayed flesh of the Christ. It's a fascinating invocation. But I didn't quite register when I heard it that it was also a warning that some of the subsequent scenes would contain some of the most intimately gruesome injuries that I have seen on film since Mel Gibson's gruesome opus. Both films really do use the abused bodies of their heroes as an external depiction of an internally borne suffering, a self-acknowledged martyrdom as each man pursues his calling. But wowza -- depiction of physical suffering in this film is really intense, largely because we are so inside Rourke's Randy that we not only feel the pain of each blow but also the hurt that will come as his body tries to heal. It's a profoundly different use of violence than, say, spectacular gore and Aronofsky really explores its dimensions here. I'm not sure what to make of the film as a whole. It's a fascinating conceit. It's a glorious convergence of actor and role. (On the whole, the film is exceedingly well cast.) The music is perfect. I just don't know what to make of the story. I like the oddly mythic open-ending but still -- I'm just not sure what I think of the narrative/story. Rourke is very good in the role. I'm struck that the characterization isn't that remarkable but it's more the spectacle of this bruised hulk of a man being so emotionally vulnerable that's so impressive. He's a hulking, scarred beast and here he is -- showing his most vulnerable underbelly. It's really captivating, even/especially as he marshals his talent for self-sabotage in a devastating ways. (I'm not sure I've ever seen a film where I felt like I was watching someone commit suicide by performing.) Evan Rachel Wood too is very good, as always. She brings a taut emotional openness to her character, Randy's estranged college-aged daughter. (The sequence of scenes between Rourke's Randy and Wood's Stephanie are certainly the most conventional scenes in the film, and both actors are vivid in their emotional openness and intensity.) I was sorry that, in its emphasis on Stephanie's tectonic shifts in emotion, Wood's performance was not richer in character detail. Her emotional immediacy is so ripe, so present, but I didn't feel that I got any hit on who Stephanie was through Wood's performance. Tomei, on the other hand, nails both the emotional immediacy while also bringing, without fanfare, an incredible depth of character detail to the role of Cassidy/Pam. Essaying one of the most cliched roles in supporting actressness, Tomei brings the lurid reality of Cassidy/Pam's work to vividly unremarkable life while also clarifying her distinctive individuality. Tomei is vivid, precise, and real in the role. Almost any actress would have been impressive in the part, gathering sympathy easily, but Tomei does something much more risky: she makes Cassidy/Pam normal. Her heroism comes not from the fact that she's a tart with unexpected depth, but because she's a weary, frightened person who's taking a giant emotional risk. I find it remarkable that Tomei's big moment of clarity -- her character-transforming epiphany -- happens when the character's almost entirely nude. She's naked and we're watching her inner conflict. Amazing. Again, I'm not sure why I remain so uncertain about whether I actually liked the film or not. It's a great conceit, and an impressive stunt, pulled off with style, sophistication and heart. An admirable accomplishment on all counts, with one of the best uses of music I've noticed in a long time. Sure to be an enduring film.