Balls and Walnuts
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Category Archives: At the movies
King Kong: the academic review
Time for a quickie before my meeting.
Know what I love about the journals Science and Nature? They’re not above reviewing popular books and movies, provided there’s some shred of scientific relevance. For example, back in ’04, physicist/climatologist Myles Allen reviewed The Day After Tomorrow (Nature 429:347-348), which you’ll remember as the uber-silly global warming movie with decent special effects and Jake Gyllenhaal as the braniac son of Dennis Quaid — the kid who failed calculus because he solved all the test questions in his head and didn’t bother to write them down — and what kind of idiot doesn’t learn in elementary school to show his work? But anyway.
Myles Allen wrote a kickass review. I still refer back to it on occasion to learn style points. I especially like his two-liner, “A medic watching this film would learn as much about climate as I would learn about cardiology watching ER — not nothing, but I would prefer the surgeon standing over me with a scalpel, or the politician pondering my petrol taxes, to have had some additional training. So I find the fuss about the film’s possible impact on climate policy rather disturbing.”
I gotta say, it’s fun getting the skinny from folks who know:
A romance of violence
When Viggo Mortensen’s character, Tom Stall, first appears in David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence, he pauses near the door to the diner where he works and picks up some litter. A casual detail — blink, and you’ve missed it — yet it resonates with the film’s opening image. A young man leaves a dumpy motel room and pauses to straighten the rusted-out chair which sits beside the door. Moments later, he commits an unthinkable crime, something which even to this day is nearly taboo for Hollywood.
Thus, when Tom Stall picks up that soda can, we’re left to wonder: was the opening a flashback? Is our hero that very same creep?
Better than the book
I have a confession: I never finished reading the graphic novel, V for Vendetta. The novel loses steam after Evey’s imprisonment, so I suspect some other book from my TBR pile snagged my attention, and V went unfinished.
After seeing the movie, though, my curiosity got the better of me. I had to see why Alan Moore was so tweaked by the screenplay that he refused to have his name associated with the movie. By the end of the novel, I had gnashed my teeth to bloody stumps —
Okay, that’s hyperbole. Still, V for Vendetta (the graphic novel) made me think about the few times where the movie improves upon the book.
Bits and pieces
Not sure why, but I’m feeling sapped this evening. The muse wants me to read, not write, and I’d be a fool to ignore her.
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We watched movies this weekend. We watch so few movies that we would lose money on Net Flix, that’s how video-starved we are around here. Here’s the rundown:
David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence: four thumbs up. This one is worth a blog entry of its own, particularly as the subject matter dovetails well with our discussion of the violence in V for Vendetta.
Kronk’s New Groove, Disney’s sequel to The Emperor’s New Groove. Jake watched this by himself. Afterwards, he came upstairs and announced that it sucks balls, whereupon I corrected him, saying that the proper phrase was, “it sucks monkey balls,” preferably using a colorful adjective to modify ‘monkey.’ This sparked an argument as to whether ‘monkey’ was strictly necessary. I countered with the intrinsic funniness of words containing ‘k’ sounds (as I learned in my Comedy Writing Secrets book), so Karen said, “Okay, then, ‘it sucks toucan balls.'” This led to a discussion of whether toucans have balls, and whether the birds in my novel have external genitalia. (No. The males’ penises evert during intercourse, snake-fashion.) Jake stuck to his guns and insisted that the movie only sucked balls. End of argument.
No word as to why it sucked balls.
Good Night, and Good Luck: again, this one is worth a post of its own. In brief: while this film choked me up several times, it is deeply flawed. I’ll get into that some other time. We forced Jake to watch most of it, even though “It’s in black and white!” Karen countered with, “Didn’t you know that in the past, everything was in black and white?” and I added, “Yes, color is a relatively recent invention of the human mind,” thereby proving that you don’t need marijuana to talk like a stoner.
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Maureen recently recommended Chez Piggy’s Caramel Pecan Tart. I made it yesterday, and I must say, Maureen, you know your pecans. Also, welcome to WordPress. How does it feel to say no to the dark side?
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One last note on the pecan tart recipe. As written, the recipe neglects to tell you to add the sugar to the flour when you make the crust. It’s an obvious error, but if you’re the kind of person who follows recipes to the letter, you’ll be left with an icky, tasteless crust.
I added about a half teaspoon of salt to the crust, by the way, and another half teaspoon of salt to the nut mixture. It didn’t seem right to omit the salt. Since I have never tried this one without the salt, I can’t say whether I helped it or hurt it.
Time to work on the morning post!
D.
V . . . for Virtue
For the Short Attention Span Theater-goers among you: V for Vendetta gets four BIG thumbs up from Walnut and Balls. Bear in mind that Balls is one tough customer when it comes to movies.
On to the review.
I wish I wasn’t afraid all the time.
Imagine being a movie reviewer, and living in fear that someone might mistake you as a terrorist sympathizer. From David Denby’s review of V for Vendetta in The New Yorker:
“V for Vendetta,” a dunderheaded pop fantasia that celebrates terrorism and destruction
Okay, that’s quite enough out of you, Mr. Denby. Meanwhile, around the block at The New York Times, Manohla Dargis chimes in:
Is the man in the mask who wants to make Parliament go boom Osama bin Laden or Patrick Henry? Or just a Phantom of the Opera clone who likes to kick back to the cult sounds of Antony and the Johnsons? Your guess is as good as mine, and I’ve seen the film.
How about that other rock of journalism, The Washington Post? From Stephen Hunter’s review:
“V for Vendetta” is a piece of pulp claptrap; it has no insights whatsoever into totalitarian psychology and always settles for the cheesiest kinds of demagoguery and harangue as its emblems of evil. They say they want a revolution? Then give us a revolution, one that’s believable, frightening, heroic, coherent and not a teenagers’ freaky power trip.
Doesn’t anyone get it? Sure — Peter Travers in Rolling Stone:
Calling Warner Bros. irresponsible for releasing a film that rouses an audience to action is like calling the Constitution irresponsible for protecting free speech. The explosive V for Vendetta is powered by ideas that are not computer-generated. It’s something rare in Teflon Hollywood: a movie that sticks with you.
I haven’t done a comprehensive survey, but it seems like the mainstream reviewers want you to see this movie with a prejudiced eye. It glorifies violence. Its politics are simplistic on the one hand, confused on the other. It is, in David Denby’s words, “a disastrous muddle.” Yeah, I wish I weren’t afraid all the time, too.
Live blogging the Oscars
The 78th Annual Academy Awards kicked off with a stretch of uninspired animation meant to evoke Hollywood’s rich history. Bleech. They had all year to do this? And that’s how I feel about the lead-up to Jon Stewart’s introduction, too. What began as a sort-of funny riff on Brokeback Mountain soon became a tired, uninspired joke.
Jon Stewart’s opening monologue had one, count it, one good joke (the actresses not having enough cloth to cover their breasts), plus a fun medley of gay themes in Westerns. The closing clip of Charleton Heston and Gregory Peck was priceless. (more…)
V for Vendetta
Oh, delicious:
James Wolcott has posted his review of Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta. Check the official website for trailers.
“People should not be afraid of their government. Government should be afraid of the people.”
I’m paranoid enough to think saying this will put my name on a list somewhere, but, hot damn, I can’t wait.
D.
Nipples! Pubic hair! Butt cheeks!
Over at YesButNoButYes, view the trailer for The Curious Dr. Humpp.
No, really.
Clearly, I specialized in the wrong branch of medicine.
D.
I love Jeff Corwin
. . . with a quiet, manly kind of love. You know, the way John Ireland loved Montgomery Clift in Red River — no, wait, that’s not quite right. I dig Corwin the way Sal Mineo dug Jimmy Dean in Rebel Without a Cause . . . no, no, no, that’s not it either.
Maybe I love him the way Claude Rains loves Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca — hey, wait, you mean that’s gay, too? (See David Thomson’s essay, Film Studies: Gay films? Well there’s ‘Raging Bull’ and ‘The Godfather’ for starters…)
Well, I certainly don’t love him the way Laurence Olivier loves Tony Curtis in Spartacus, or the way Jake Gyllenhaal loves Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain. Damn it all, aren’t there any role models in Hollywood for good, beefy, MASCULINE love?
Hmm. Maybe I love him the way Jake Barnes loves his fishin’ buddy Bill Gorton in The Sun Also Rises. I can always count on Papa Hemingway for confidently heterosexual male-male bonding, right? Right.
Anyway, I owe this gush of enthusiasm for Jeff Corwin to my son, who found this repository of Jeff Corwin video clips. They’re all great, but we especially enjoyed Jeff’s “Never before seen movie segments!”
So, Jeff, I love ya ‘cuz your heart is in the right place, you care about animals, you’re a ham like me, and you’re funny as hell.
That and the fact you’re so damned hawt.
Jeff, I wish I knew how to quit you.
D.
P.S.: If you want a serious treatment of the history of gay themes in Hollywood cinema, you can do no better than The Celluloid Closet, 1995. Great stuff.
2001, five years later
Five years, or thirty-seven, thirty-eight . . . who’s counting?
This morning, Karen watched 2001: A Space Odyssey on TV while I read through Miss Snark’s Crap-o-meter critiques of novel synopses. This juxtaposition led me to wonder how I would write a synopsis for the 2001 story.
Think about it. If you focus on the main story arc, your bullet summary will be: An alien artifact acts as a catalyst to human evolution. You would leave out the HAL 9000 subplot because it has nothing to do with the rest of the story. It doesn’t further the plot. It even lacks a thematic connection to the rest of the movie.
The trouble is, I like character-driven drama. HAL is the best character in the story, and the HAL subplot contains the movie’s most poignant moments. Yet if your bullet summary reads: A sentient computer develops a paranoid streak and becomes a homicidal maniac, what will the agent or publisher make of the remaining 3/4 of the story?
I’ve been conflicted about this movie ever since I saw it in the theatre as a seven-year-old. Afterwards, I remember feeling bored, bewildered, and perhaps a little stoned. I can still hear my mother yelling at my brother, “What’s wrong? What’s the matter with him? Why is he acting like that?”
Nothing wrong with me at all, except I had no idea what the ending meant, and when I read Arthur C. Clarke’s book the following year, I was convinced Clarke didn’t understand the ending, either.
Opinions about this movie vary wildly. Pauline Kael, who never met a Kubrick movie she didn’t execrate*, called 2001 “the biggest amateur movie of them all, complete even to the amateur-movie obligatory scene — the director’s little daughter (in curls) telling daddy what kind of present she wants.”
Over at IMDB, a Finnish fellow writes, “One has to be ready for it, or it cannot be understood. In fact I don’t think it can be understood at all, at least not all of it at once. It is a philosophical journey to the infinite and beyond, a masterpiece of it’s genre . . .”
You won’t find many reviews which are in-between. The film ranks #87 in IMDB’s top 250. Read through the 1000+ reader comments if you like. Most are gushingly positive**.
Well, folks, I fall in between. Yes, the movie is beautiful, right down to the non-whooshing*** spacecraft and HAL’s glowing soul. The spacecraft special effects are so damned gorgeous, I’m willing to forgive Kubrick the LSD trip at the end. I’ll even forgive him the Star Child.
Yes, HAL’s story carries as much dramatic heft now as it did in 1968. Yes, it is ambitious and brave and noble to try to make a movie about enlightenment (Karen’s theory re: the ending).
But, holy cow, the story does not hang together. Without HAL, we have majesty and mystery, but precious little drama. Without the monolith, we have a fine space opera, but one which lacks a beginning or an ending. With HAL and the monolith, we have the cinematic equivalent of a grafted cactus.
Samuel R. Delany, a writer for whom I have great respect, tried to pull it all together in this essay, but I don’t think he’s successful. Another Golden Age SF writer, Lester Del Rey, slammed the film in his 1968 review.
What did Kubrick have to say about 2001? The man hated explaining his movies. I suspect the best we’ll get is his endorsement of 15-year-old Margaret Stackhouse’s notes on the film:
“Margaret Stackhouse’s speculations on the film are perhaps the most intelligent that I’ve read anywhere, and I am, of course, including all the reviews and the articles that have appeared on the film and the many hundreds of letters that I have received. What a first-rate intelligence!”
I’ve read Stackhouse’s notes, and you know what? I still don’t think Kubrick is telling a coherent story.
There. Glad I got that off my chest. In HAL’s words, “I feel much better now, I really do.”
D.
*Sorry for the two-bit word, but if you read Kael’s review, you’ll see that the words hate and detest are far too mild.
**If you’re interested in reading a more scholarly appraisal of the critical reaction to 2001, read this superb essay at 2001: A Space Odyssey Internet Resource Archive. This excellent website also has an excellent compendium of other resources on the web.
***In space, no one can hear you whoosh.
PS: Craving more Kubrick? Here’s another cool link.