Ceremony

Directed by Max Winkler (2010)

Starring: Michael Angarano, Reece Thompson,  Uma Thurman, Lee Pace

Ceremony feels like an adult Rushmore.  It tries so hard to be like a Wes Anderson film or to follow the tradition of Quirky Independent American dramedies, and it makes for a pretty enjoyable movie.   Sam Davis (Angarano), a picture book author, drags his friend Marshall (Thompson) out of the city for a vacation.  What they’re really doing is crashing the wedding of Sam’s pen pal Zoe (Thurman), who he’s in love with.

It seems like Ceremony scratches an itch I needed: moving from the city of New York to a New England mansion, where every wedding guest hangs around to drink and wander around the beach.  Every main character has a serious personality flaw, from Marshall’s acknowledged anxiety disorder to the narcissism of Zoe’s fiance, Whit (Pace).

(And can we talk about Lee Pace in this movie for a second?  After Pushing Daisies I would have thought that he’d be stuck in the Nice Guy type, but that guy is proving he’s got range.  Especially the range of an asshole, which Whit is, but in a quasi-likable kind of way.  He’s just so handsome!  and clueless.  I can’t hate the clueless.)

It’s a surprisingly tight story, despite the languid nature of the wedding guests.  The wedding stretches out over a weekend, filled with parties and drinking and awkward sleeping arrangements.

Actually, what I really like about this movie is the ending.  It’s perfectly emotionally resonant, which might have to do with its choice of music, but I also just like how non-formulaic the characters’ actions are.  What Sam gets from the experience of crashing the wedding and trying to steal the bride is that he’s more similar to Whit than he could have imagined.  The character who shows the most growth is Marshall, even when he spends most of the second half looking for his missing pair of shoes.

The fact is, even later in life than we’d like to admit, Max Fischer and the other ghosts of high school still remain.  Sam and Marshall are in their early twenties, but it doesn’t make them any more mature.  Sam wants to have an adventurous life, but he pursues that goal without consideration for the people he involves and it’s fun to watch him realize that.

Blindspot 2012: Nil by Mouth

Written and Directed by Gary Oldman (1997)

Starring: Ray Winstone, Kathy Burke, Charlie Creed-Miles, Laila Morse

Nil by Mouth is, primarily, a difficult movie to watch.  For years I had known that it existed as Gary Oldman’s directorial debut and being a bit of a completionist when it comes to actors I admire filmographies, I knew I was going to watch it.  But I really, really didn’t want to.  It is the realistic depiction of a working class neighborhood in London, with social ills such as drug use, alcoholism, and spousal abuse prominent in the narrative.

The film works best as a series of moments in life for the extended family.  Valerie (Burke) is married to Ray (Winstone) and expecting their second child.  Her brother Billy (Creed-Miles) is living with them, but gets kicked out for stealing Ray’s drugs.  He goes to live with his mother Janet (Morse), who supports his drug habit because she can’t stand his withdrawal.

I never want to watch someone shoot up ever again.  I also never want to watch someone drink Smirnoff vodka or start fights.  Subjects that other directors have handled as romantic are stripped down to the realistic results of addiction and abuse.  Over the course of the film Ray beats Valerie and causes her to lose the baby.  He proceeds to drink and harass her as she moves to her mother’s and a friend’s house to stay away from him.  When she does confront Ray she eloquently gives a speech about their relationship, but it seems like the sentiment won’t last.  They still have a child together and Ray still has legal rights.

Ray himself does not seem like an inhuman figure.  He tells his friend a story about watching his father in the hospital and their difficult relationship.  Its an important reminder to the audience that even though Ray is a person who does terrible things, he’s still a person.

Its just a really difficult two hours to get through to see that.

Blindspot 2012: Primer

Written and Directed by Shane Carruth (2004) Starring: Shane Carruth, David Sullivan

Primer is one of those grapevine movies, one of the few that had a lot of people talking about it after it premiered.  It is also a really smart science fiction film that approaches time travel in one of its more plausible scenarios, although I feel like most of the science went right over my head.  That creating a machine for time travel that the inventors might not even know what they’ve created seem fitting.

Abe (Sullivan) approaches his friend and business partner Aaron (Carruth) one day and explains that the machine they had been working on doesn’t error check.  This conclusion is drawn mostly by fungus, then by the fact that Abe has already built a machine for himself, and it is telling Aaron it exists from the future.

What Primer succeeds best in is building tension in a quiet, suburban manner.  The men aren’t trying to change history when they first travel with the machines, just to win money through the stock market.  Pretty soon, the notion of creating “doubles” and abusing the time streams is brought to an ethical quandary.  Notably, the fact that Abe and Aaron are consciously aware that they are destroying themselves through the machine.  Traveling back in time results in injuries that men discuss, but they slide over the fact that the man who goes into the box doesn’t exist at the end of the day.  Identities are drawn clearly as “doubles” rather than acknowledging the paradox of ending one’s own life to pursue time travel.  It poses an interesting double to a film like Moon where science effects the identity of the man experiencing it.

It’s worth another, more careful watch, if only to follow the engineer chatter that sets up the excellent third act.  I will admit that I had to look up a Wikipedia article for fully understand the time loop the characters create and to clear up some plot quibbles I had.  It doesn’t tie up perfectly, but it’s a movie that takes a popular topic for science fiction and turns it into an obscure dialogue into scientific ethics.

The Last Days of Disco

“Disco will never be over.  It will always live in our hearts and minds.”

Directed by Whit Stillman (1998) Starring: Chloe Sevigny, Kate Beckinsale, Chris Eigeman, Matt Keeslar

Rounding off Stillman’s Yuppie Trio is a film about the end of an era from the point of view of two assistants at a publishing company.  Charlotte (Beckinsale) and Alice (Sevigny) spend their time at their favorite club, where they dance and judge what relationships they would get out of the men they meet.  Their dialogue is often caustic and witty and they only ever seem to imagine hope when they talk about beloved disco.

Of their prospective suitors, Alice has the highest optimism and the worst luck.  She loses her virginity to Tom (Robert Sean Leonard) and gains two venereal diseases.  After that she bounces between Des (Eigeman) who is something of a cocaine addict and womanizer and Josh (Keeslar) who is very nice, but has a history of mental illness.  Her optimism also gets crushed a little as she lives with Charlotte in a Railroad apartment.

The third act moves from the female perspective to the men’s side, which makes it feel like Alice and Charlotte are left hanging for awhile.  Des’s club is involved in illegal activity of some sort, although he points out that he knows next to nothing about it.  Josh’s office is the ADA who is planning to prosecute, but his interest in Alice makes things complicated.  Paralleling that is the fact that no one really likes disco anymore, except for this small group of people.

The Last Days of Disco is unexpectedly charming and funny as it goes over the social mores from a generation ago, while young people make desperate attempts to climb the social ladder and still enjoy themselves for one night a week.  What I loved was that it championed optimism after all, even after disco was dead.

False Advertisement

My American Independent Film teacher just emailed us our syllabus for the semester.  On the front page it says “Should probably be called New American Cinema.”

Oh.  Now you tell me.

Not that I’m not excited to learn about New American Cinema, which is a rather big hole in my movie-watching habits, but it definitely the likelihood of my predictions by a mile.

The three that I got right: Stranger Than Paradise (1983); Synedoche, New York (2008); The Future (2011)

And as a brief means of defending my dignity, I did get a lot of auteurs right.  We are going to be watching plenty of Cassavetes, a Spike Lee, a Steven Soderbergh, some Gus Van Sant.

The thing is, New American Cinema is different from American Independent if only that the former inspired the latter.  We’re watching a lot more Altman, Scorsese, and Coppola than I would have expected, but really I should have seen at least two Malick films.

Anyway, I’m not gonna bother listing out the syllabus, but hopefully there will be some posts forthcoming under the “Movie Class Film” tab.

The Great Syllabus Guessing Game

In a little over a week, the Fall Semester will be upon me.  I’m currently enrolled in American Independent Cinema and rumor has it that this professor wants our homework to be all movie watching, all the time.  With my handy Directory of World Cinema: American Independent at my side, I think it’s time to play Guess the Syllabus.

I’ve had this professor once before, so I know he likes Anderson, Baumbach and Tarantino (although he also assumes that most college kids have seen at least some of their movies).  He also includes at least a few recent films, so I’m guessing there will be one 2010 or 2011 theatrical release.

Mullholland Dr.

Rushmore

Synedoche, New York

She’s Gotta Have It

Hostel

Boogie Nights

A Woman Under the Influence

Killing Zoe

The Man Who Wasn’t There

The King of Kong

Buffalo ’66

sex, lies and videotape

Lost Highway

Primer

Broken Flowers

Easy Rider

Five Easy Pieces

Stranger Than Paradise

Mala Noche

Pink Flamingos

Shortbus

All the Real Girls

The Station Agent

Before Sunrise & Before Sunset

Go

Slacker

Happiness

Pull My Daisy

Schizopolis

And the 2010/2011 spot goes to… I really want to say The Future, but seeing Holy Rollers again would be super.  And there will probably be a Sofia Coppola spot, so I’m gonna go with “Somewhere”.

Naturally, it would be better if this syllabus took me completely by surprise and introduced a whole slew of American Independents that I’ve never even heard of.  But, y’know, we’ll see.

The Darjeeling Limited

Written By Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola, and Jason Schwartzman

Directed by Wes Anderson (2007)

Starring: Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, Amara Karan, Anjelica Huston

When I think about The Darjeeling Limited almost two weeks after watching it, I mostly come back to the smaller moments.  How well-used The Kinks’ “This Time Tomorrow” is as they run for their train, the loving look Adrien Brody gives to his newly-purchased cobra, the fascinating movements in and around the train car.  And I keep thinking to myself “Well, maybe it’s all of these smaller moments that I like about the movie, instead of the film as a whole.”

Then I think about the weird motifs and themes: The white people coming to India expecting sudden spirituality, only spending their time getting high.  The year of mourning they take after their father’s death, but denial of their reactions on the way to the funeral.  Actually, it seems like it’s an entire movie based off of denial of emotions: Peter (Brody) doesn’t want to acknowledge whatever fatherly affection he has for his unborn child, but is automatically devoted to his new pet.  Peter (Schwartzman) is obsessed with his ex-girlfriend, but approaches all love and romance coldly, then turns these dramatic life moments into short stories.  I can’t even figure out what’s going on with Owen Wilson’s character at first blush.  Just that it was similar to his own life.

The movie is appreciative that making planned vacations is idiotic at best, although that’s putting it simply.  Francis pulling out a very exact schedule as compiled by his assistant Brendan (Wallace Wolodarsky) for his brothers to find spiritual enlightenment is hilarious.  The turning point comes when they get kicked off of the train and experience real India through a terrible river accident.  When facing death again, the movie shifts to the day of their father’s funeral which adds a lot of depth to the zany selfishness of the characters previously.  Instead of being a lark about American idiots using a saintly stereotype of India to excuse their own bad habits, the movie is about three flawed people who are in the middle of mourning.

Beginners

Directed by Mike Mills (2010) Starring: Ewan McGregor, Melanie Laurent, Christopher Plummer

Beginners is a very zen movie, which is a little strange considering how sad it is.  It’s just a very relaxed sadness, what it means to feel so disconnected from life, but finding a way back to it.  Oliver (McGregor) describes his life after his father’s death, four years after his father comes out of the closet.  He adopts his dog Arthur and reflects on his childhood, the history of sadness, and falling in love with French actress Anna (Laurent).

It’s weird to call it a quiet film since the soundtrack is very present, but that’s what it feels like.  Most of the emotional tug is subtle, or quirky without being too saccharine.  While Oliver and Anna behave typically over-the-top, it becomes endearing as two damaged people find a viable connection.  For example, they meet at a Halloween party, where Oliver is dressed as Sigmund Freud, carrying around Arthur.  They manage to have a conversation, even though Anna has lost her voice.  And off we go.  Oliver talks to Arthur, pretending that he can hear the dog’s responses (subtitles help us see into his thoughts) and leaves graffiti of “historical consciousness” rather than simple tags.  Anna lives in hotels and empty apartments, doesn’t answer her father’s phone calls, but also thinks that she can hear Arthur talking to her.

The film is cut between straight narrative of 2003 with Oliver’s reflections on life in the 1950s, when his parents got married and how happiness and sadness was portrayed in media.  Static images hang against a black background, or else switch phrenetically as Oliver describes them.  When his father is diagnosed with lung cancer, a quarter appears, later broken up into two dimes and one nickel, then twenty-five pennies as if understanding the term “a quarter-sized lump” can just as easily be broken up the same way.

For awhile, I couldn’t see how Hal’s (Plummer) sexuality fit into the picture.  As a character he joins gay activist groups and passionately tells Oliver about Harvey Milk.  It didn’t seem appropriate to have homosexuality handled in such a political, rather than personal, manner, but it makes sense.  Hal was looking for the community he couldn’t have after forty-plus years of marriage.  He is always determined to have someone to the point where he is worried about Oliver winding up alone because he won’t settle.

It’s a well-made, off-center film that is worth a trip to the local theater.  While it’s sad, it’s also filled with infinite hope.

Mr. Jealousy

Written & Directed by Noah Baumbach (1997) Starring: Eric Stoltz, Annabella Sciorra, Chris Eigeman, Carlos Jacott

Lester Grimm (Stoltz) has the bad habit of becoming obsessed with his current girlfriend’s ex-boyfriends.  When he gets into a relationship with Ramona (Sciorra), he tries his hardest to not fall into his old habits, but when he follows her writer ex-boyfriend Dashiell Frank (Eigeman), he winds up joining group therapy under his best friend’s name.

Mr. Jealousy takes the cast from Kicking and Screaming but sets them into a slightly more grown up reality: they all live in New York, have jobs they either love or hate, and are searching for “The One.”  Lester and Ramona’s relationship seems smoother than smooth, until Lester’s following habit rears its ugly head.

If there’s one great thing about Baumbach scripts is that they manage to have intelligent people speak realistically.  The dialogue is still stylized, as all movie dialogue ends up being, but there are the awkward moments and the weird, inside jokes between friends.  In that regard, Baumbach is a master.  He also manages to make overused plots into something that’s fun to watch while his neurotic characters work through the phases in their lives.

Eric Stoltz is easily the most likable guy in the universe, even as a jealous boyfriend, and Chris Eigeman is still really entertaining as a witty, if highly disorganized and messed up guy.  The cast works really well together as a whole, maybe because they’ve gotten used to each other since Kicking and Screaming?  All the winning scenes for me happen between the guy characters, who are struggling to figure out what it means to be adults, versus the romantic plot.  It’s emphasized enough, I just can’t detach it from Lester’s personality rather than the driving force of the film.

Considering I watched in twice in three weeks, there is something in Mr. Jealousy that’s really entertaining, even if its just that seeing smart people live in New York and have problems, while God narrates from above (Have I mentioned the voice-over narration?).

The Trotsky

Written & Directed by Jacob Tierney (2009) Starring: Jay Baruchel, Emily Hampshire, Saul Rubinek, Michael Murphy

Leon Bronstein (Baruchel) is a Montreal teenager who believes he’s the reincarnation of Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky.  After starting a hunger strike at his father’s factory, he is enrolled in public school where he raises hell in order to establish a Students Union.

I really liked The Trotsky in most areas.  Its a fun idea to have a teenager live his life convinced that he was a big figure in history and its spun in a cool way, where Leon lists out the important life moments he has to go through, from marrying an older woman to being assassinated someplace warm.  Between the first strike and going to his new school, Leon begs for counsel from famous revolutionary Frank McGovern (Murphy) who just happens to be an adviser to PhD candidate Alexandra (Hampshire).  Leon pegs her as his future-wife and she, of course, runs screaming in the opposite direction–for awhile anyway.

To be honest, I was sold with Jay Baruchel in those glasses, wearing those suits.  He just seems really iconographic, not just because he’s copping Trotsky’s style, but in a teen-film icon as well as a political-activist style.  He’s a bit like those posters of Che Guevera, all smooth lines and little details.  You get into his character and its really interesting just to see how he drew the conclusion that he was reincarnated, and how this affected his family.  His father just criticizes him because he can’t understand, his older brother is a jerk, his mother worries and dotes,  and his younger sister looks up to him.  When he can’t take it anymore, he locks himself in his room and searches phone books for the next Lenin.

The Trotsky pulls some of the tried and true teen film cliches, but it manages to make them fresh and fitting.  As the new boy in school, Leon is able to win friends surprisingly easily, despite his weirdness, but it helps that he is able to unite them under the desire for a Student Union.  There’s also a totally awesome Social Justice-themed School Dance, and I would watch this movie just to see that.  The opening shot is so great of the teenagers dressed as Black Panthers, Mao’s Peasants, and Che Guevera-era revolutionaries approaching the high school.

Come the end, all of the little plot threads get tied up neatly and its so amusing and beautiful to the eye that The Trotsky is a joy.  Even though I’m not a Communist.