An Appeal for Charming Roguishness

I don't know how Wes Anderson manages it. He seems to have the skill to make a movie that, without fail, will look visually stunning (in that hypersaturated Wes Anderson way), have a solid soundtrack (in that indie Wes Anderson way), and manage to be deeply pleasing/amusing/comforting without being uproariously hilarious all the time. Must be a gift. Anyways, the Wes Anderson touch is still strong in our second installment of "Movies I Missed When I Was In Another Country," "Fantastic Mr. Fox." Again, it's been out for a while, you've probably already seen it or heard lots about it, so let's get right down to subjective analysis of what made this so pleasing.

But I suppose I can't resist a little plot summary. George Clooney, appropriately, voices the titular Mr. Fox, a charming devil of a man-animal with a weakness for grand thievery. He's retired, after a promise to Meryl Streep (wifey) to quit the dangerous life of stylish crime they lead, but you know how these things go. Eventually the allure of three huge super-farmers becomes too much, and old Foxy can't resist the challenge of stealing their precious products. And again, as these things tend to go, our hero runs into trouble when the farmers, lead by smart and evil Michael Gambon, try to track him down and avenge their loss violently. This imperils the rest of the forest animals, leading to some deep questions about reckless antics, a last big plan, and the Wes Anderson stop-motion equivalent of the shootout at noon.

Once you get used to the wild movements of the stop-motion puppets (a bit more frenetic than claymation, but somehow more peaceful than straight animation), the movie becomes immensely pleasurable to watch, kind of a orange-tinted dreamscape. The music, despite the English countryside setting, borrows heavily from American folk (I thought) and is jaunty, and the voice acting is stellar. But what really distinguishes "Mr. Fox" from your run-of-the-mill well done animated piece is the weird combination of the melancholy and the subversively optimistic. Wes Anderson tends towards the former (and much of his style of dialogue, the self-deprecating meditation on love and self and uniqueness, remains, especially in the Jason Schwartzman character), and Roald Dahl tends extremely towards the latter; surprisingly, the combination produces wonder, like an unlikely chemical equation. Things get bleak from time to time, but there's an undeniable sense of righteousness, even as Mr. Fox loses his tail. We all know that such things will not stand, and that a counteroffensive will be planed with all the dashing charm present in such a fox.

Which leads me to our point, mentioned in the title: one could look at this movie as an allegory for industrialization/big corporations vs. country farmers, or the struggle between animal instincts and polite society. But what I saw tends a bit towards the romantic: Mr. Fox, fantastic as he may be, is one of the last true charming rogues and debonair adventurers in a world where such gentlemanly virtues are disappearing fast. I find myself bemoaning the loss of adventure in the world more and more these days, but this doesn't entirely relate to the taming of the world. An essential component of the adventure is the adventurer, the sort of person just crazy enough to strike out for uncharted horizons purely for the sake of exploring the unknown. These individuals can be mercenary, insane, driven, or any number of adjectives that, when applied to a man's character, lead him to set out for the vast unknown. But one subset of the adventurer has always been the dashing man of action, equal parts gentleman and explorer, possessed of enough panache to sustain himself for weeks without food or pleasant company. His drive relates to some subtle internal recklessness, boredom with the tamed world some may say, but also to a different way of processing his world. Why not go home a different way? Why not see what happens when we do this? The spirit of adventure isn't entirely about the result, but the process, a kind of curiosity to seek the unknown.

And here is where our appeal for charming roguishness comes in: the world is becoming a smaller place. Bold explorers of old, the type who were really only at home braving the elements for months at a time with only the clothes on their backs and a really huge knife, are less and less needed, and may very well be a dying breed, regulated to living of the fringe and laughing as the end of society draws near. But we, as human beings, still need an element of adventure, which in turn requires people to go and seek this adventure. We need people to point out the excitement that lurks behind the mundane, people that can describe our exploits in such glowing terms as to make us feel that we braved Cape Horn. And of course, it helps if they can deliver a good toast, know a little about wine, and act like a gentleman (or lady; my apologies for the male-centric use of "him" in this rant). And this is what Mr. Fox represents: he may be a role model, in the fine Cary Grant tradition, of dashing yet slightly dangerous seeming men of the world, but he is also at heart a sort of adventurer straining against his tame desk job as a newspaper columnist. His need to steal mirrors our own need to see our exploits as extraordinary. He speaks to the unquenchable desire in the collective hearts of living things to feel fulfillment, and for humans (or anthropomorphized foxes) that fulfillment comes from adventuring, braving the unknown or unusual. And so his struggle is our own, his dangers the (cinematically dramatized) risks that one must take to sleep soundly at night, his very existence a sort of appeal for the existence of more like him: Mr. Fox, through his actions and reversals, but most importantly through his attitude, represents a type of person that we need now more than ever. May his presence serve as an inspiration and appeal to the youth of today to don their corduroy coats, snap their fingers, and light out into our constructed unknown in search of invented adventures, all the while remaining a gentleman.

Yeah, that's about all I have to say. I just might add a mini review of "Police, Adjective," a recent Romanian release that I had the misfortune of sleeping through: it is a very slow and dry police movie, not quite a drama and not quite a comedy. Yet there is a purity in the long silences, a beauty in the slightly bleak long shots, and there are a few inspired sequences between the detective and his wife about life. I think it's kind of a meditative and at least enjoyable pause from the hustle and bustle of things. But it is very, very slow, so be warned. If not, you might have the same experience I had of confusing my half-dreams with the plot, and then wondering what my friends are doing in the movie, or what happened to the old woman. But that in itself might be interesting.

Developing Countries Look Like Home Now

So I'm back, freshly returned from the wilds of Bali, Indonesia. It was wild, wonderful, amazing, adjective, and all that cliche study abroad stuff; in short, every inch the adventure I had hoped it to be despite my vocal complaints beforehand. That entire story is chronicled (and still being chronicled, as I'm not quite done letting go) over at my stunning associate's site, Fear and Loathing in Bedulu. Now that I've assured my loyal readers in this part of the world that I'm alive and well, let's get back to what we do best: reviews of movies in a belated fashion.

Catching up with movies missed, we'll be writing about "The Hurt Locker" today, one of the few movies that I wanted to see still in theaters somewhere (thank the Golden Globes dudes for that, I think. Or SAG?). Anyways, this one's been out for a while, so this is going to end up being more impression-y. Basically, what we've got here is another movie chronicling the latest conflict, our little perpetual Iraqi involvement, but a fresh angle in that the film focuses on a few soldiers, specifically a bomb squad. Our two noble support tech guys, Sgt Sanborn and Spc Eldridge, have to deal with a new supervisor, one SSgt. Will James. With fewer than forty days left in their rotation, Sanborn and Eldridge just want to make it home alive; challenge is that James is a bit of a cowboy, and comes in after the former squad leader dies from taking a risk. Shocked and more than a little scared for their own lives, Sanborn and Eldridge react badly to James' risk-heavy madman approach to diffusing IEDs. And so things get down to business: the movie focuses on the psychology of soldiers fighting unfathomable odds (a more obtuse way of avoiding the phrase "invisible enemy"), and to a lesser extent the camaraderie of a group of egos (well, mostly Sanborn and James fighting over protocol) all on the same side.

"The Hurt Locker" is certainly a realistic movie, as one woman in the audience remarked loudly a couple of times, and that realism is one of its great strengths. Although we don't have faux-documentary style footage, the camera still shakes like a head in a helmet as our boys scatter for cover on a dusty street (although not sickeningly), and the writer/director team puts their time in country to good use (I forget who spent time imbedded) by serving up technical jargon. My main objection here is that I was thinking it would end up a bit more like "Apocalypse Now," probably because James reminds me so much of Bob Duval's Col. Kilgore. But instead of mysticism, we get psychology, which is nice in its own right. I have a feeling that "The Hurt Locker" will take a place of honor in the pantheon of Iraqi conflict movies of the future, but we're still missing a masterpiece.

Let me see... we've got plot, realism, objections. Other than that, I don't have much else to say. This one is definitely memorable, but not something that'll prey on the consciousness for days. There are inspired sequences, such as a run-in with British or Australian paramilitary contractors in the vast desert, that kind of distill the jaded sense of fear that must develop during a rotation, but the real meat is maddening bomb diffusing. Tight and thrilling movies don't come any realer than a sequence in a crossroads where one wire just leads to another.

Hmm... a bit rusty, but it's an inaugural effort. I've already got another review in the tubes, and hope to get to current release stuff with "Police, Adjective" before I head back east. In the mean time, thanks for tuning back in. It's good to be home.

Science Fiction Double Feature

It's been a fine summer for Sci Fi movies (based on a sample size of two), so without any lengthy expositions let's get down to it. The movies for today are "Moon" and "District 9," seen within a week of each other due to the wonderful timeliness of my local movie theater and my friends who are willing to go drive to see current release films. The former is an exercise in genre, with a standard plot extremely well told, while the latter changes the rules and delivers a gritty and occasionally legitimately morally disturbing twist on alien stories as we know them.

So better late than never, let's start with "Moon." Unfortunately, I can't reveal which of the regulation science fiction plots "Moon" deals with for fear of revealing the story, but rest assured that it's familiar territory. However, it's not the story, it's how you tell it, and Duncan Jones (co-writer/director and apparently the son of David fucking Bowie) certainly knows how to tell a story. Sam Rockwell plays Sam (funny that), lunar resource miner. He's nearing the end of a three-year stint doing this mining stuff with no human company; instead, he has Kevin Spacey-voiced robot/helper GERTY, a more benevolent version of HAL (the comparison has been made before but is inevitable). But then there's an accident, and things start to get weird with the arrival of a second Sam, this one beginning his three-year stay. As original Sam's health declines and second Sam starts getting suspicious about fishy goings-on at the base the plot unfolds, and this is where I leave you to eventually see the movie. It's a little complex, but if you pay attention everything falls into place nicely, and there's a strong message of hope and sticking-it-to-the-man in the end. Another message: corporations are evil and exploitative. It's even a little thought-provoking, but mostly just a breath of fresh air for legitimate science fiction, even more production considering the extreme low budget (only really evident in a few iffy CGI moments). The acting is superb though- Kevin Spacey was born to voice robots, and Sam Rockwell does an incredible job playing the multiple parts. There must also be some fancy editing involved, as evidenced in the fact that original Sam can brawl with second Sam and all that I can worry about is that second/angrier Sam will hurt original Sam. So that's a testament to editing, camerawork and acting there. Definitely a good film though, beyond the limitations of genre stories, and well worth a look.

Staying with the promising young filmmakers theme (and hopefully with fewer parentheticals and hyphenated phrases), let's turn our attention to "District 9," a twist on the "aliens have landed" story full of social commentary and apartheid imagery. Another co-writer/director, Neill Blomkamp, is certainly visionary, although uncomfortably so. We get a world in which the aliens that land aren't bristling with hostility or boldly seeking to contact our civilization; instead, something has gone wrong, and a big ship full of sick/leaderless aliens lands over Johannesburg. Humanity doesn't know what to do with them, so we treat them as third-class citizens and shuttle them into a nice apartheid slum. Enter Wikus Van De Merwe, government bureaucrat in charge of moving the aliens now known as "prawns" (a nice bit of derogatory slang for the vaguely crustacean beings) into another encampment. Wikus takes on his task with zeal, finding ways of convincing the prawns to agree to eviction. The film at this point is documentary-styled, lending even more realism to what is a very gritty movie (the CGI is hardly intrusive at all, save some of the gory splatter effects that come later). But soon things get ugly: Wikus stumbles upon a canister and, in his zeal, gets squirted by mysterious alien technology goop and starts getting sick. When it turns out that he's manifesting prawn physical characteristics, the government contractor he works for essentially repossesses his body and whisks him off for a battery of unpleasant tasks. Here's where things get pretty unbearable. Not only does the film switch to conventional dramatic formula (no more documentary-style talking heads or "live footage"), but the social commentary and moral implications become unbearably heavy. The scenes in which Wikus is forced to test alien weaponry, especially on a live prawn, are both the worst as far as evil medical experiments since "The Host" (that I've seen) and make the soul squirm in revulsion. Sure, commentary is good, but is it necessary to be so damn explicit? Other scenes up to this point were also pretty bad, like brutality in the slums and casual hatred of the prawns; but things get better after this. Wikus meets up with another prawn, owner of the goop, and the two form an ass-kicking alliance so that they can both get the goop and turn Wikus back into a man (and so the prawn can, you know, do his own thing). This enables the commentary to take a new direction as Wikus becomes a reluctant freedom fighter (there's an especially Halo-esque assault on a building that's truly spectacular), but the message remains buried under a lot of gritty action that's hard to handle on a deep, emotional level.

In the end, I award "Moon" the distinction of better picture, because it has a bit more warmth and joy. Sure, both are fun and innovative (I use the word broadly) science fiction films, but "Moon" just had a little more joy about it. "District 9" may have pushed more limits, but the ultimate bleakness of the picture and the commentary were just a little too off-putting for my taste, which I like to think is geared towards the subtle. Both are fine films, just beware the sheen of violence designed for mass appeal.

So that's the last from me for a while I believe. I'm off to Bali in a few days, a fine place I'm sure, but one without lots of Western Popular Culture, which is of course the meat of this little blog-thing. Unless I feel particularly inspired by some form of pop culture over there, I think I'll be checking back in here in December, hopefully with lots of wonderfully weird indie-but-not-overly-so fare. Otherwise I've got the link for my Bali blog in the sidebar there, so if you want to check in with my trials and trepidations, feel free to go ahead. Otherwise we'll see how this western boy does in South Asia. Until December, over and out.

Indie Grows Up

I'll start this review with a little digression about the nature of indie, because I seem to be falling deeply in love with the digression as a way to make an incredibly convoluted point in my reviews. So I've come to the conclusion that many may have already reached, namely that there is a difference between indie kids and people who are really and truly Indie (not Indiana Jones, just capital-I-for-emphasis Indie) and that difference is the element of self-consciousness. Indie kids are the type of kid who go out of their way to be wacky and alternative and generally different in a quirky way, because they think it will make them appear cool and therefore give their lives meaning. Then there's a subcategory of individuals who do so in a semi-ironic fashion, known as hipsters, who focus more on the absurdist/awful side of being different and seek to showcase their own good taste by pretending to enjoy things that are clearly awful; the danger here is an overdose of irony that leaves none of the original good taste (if there ever was any) visible, resulting in walking caricatures. And lastly we have the core of my argument, that there is a type of person who is really and truly Indie, but they achieve this distinction by being so naturally and effortlessly indie that they actually cease to be considered as such (it also helps that their taste tends more towards the whimsical and unusual in such an ingrained fashion that their breed of indie is nowhere nearly as offensive as their irksome wanna-be counterparts). And it is because these people cease to be considered indie that their distinction is so ephemeral, yet every bit as pleasurable as what the first type of indie kid strives to be. The word "indie" has been looking weird on the page for a while now, so let's get to the review.

For a case in point demonstration of these different breeds of alternative lifestyle, please see "Juno" and then today's film, "Away We Go." "Juno" has become the quintessential indie movie because it tries so goddamned hard to be quirky; the quirk is forced. I actually found the movie enjoyable (minus soundtrack), but the after-hype and surrounding cult have become unbearable. Keeping all this previous history in mind, as well as my views on the subject of indie kids, it's understandable that I thought "Away We Go" would be similarly forced. The posters looked very "Juno"-cutscene-esque, and the trailer made it seem way depressing. So I entered said film with more than my fair share of usual skepticism, and was blown away. Not only does "Away We Go" diverge from indie stereotypes by being so naturally and subtly quirky, but it also centers on a pair of whimsical kids (who happen to be adults) growing up, further removing us from the angsty adolescent world of the stereotypical indie kid. And my god is it well told, as a story: full of fear and trepidations and joy and old friends and generally possibly the most hopeful take on growing up that my young mind has had the good fortune to stumble upon in these impressionable times when that part of the future looks really fucking scary. You'd probably like some plot now: John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph are a charming interracial couple about to have a baby. When John's parents abandon them indirectly/passively by deciding to move away, the two find themselves footloose and fancy free to go off and find a neighborhood to raise the baby. This leads to a road trip of visiting old friends and acquaintances and trying to come to terms with Real Life kicking in the door of their peaceful, simple indie-without-trying existence. Some of it is hilariously awkward, some of it just plain funny in an adversarial sense, some admittedly contrived (one joke in particular, but it's one of the best), but mostly just heartwarming, and with a large dose of pathos/sensitivity. Krasinski and Rudolph do great work here, and the script is outstanding (I figure that if I notice how fine and natural the dialogue is without feeling forced, it must be a baller screenplay, so hats off to you Dave Eggers). And the movie is also nicely shot and composed, lots of good colors and a cooly colored atmosphere, and the soundtrack is subtly indie, lots of one dude who has a mellow voice and is very accomplished with his acoustic fingerpicking ways.

That's not to say that there aren't a few overly drawn out segments, and that the side-characters are perfect and as real as our heroes, but it's not every movie that can make the bleak adventure of growing up seem so fun and exciting. The movie is best summed up in a final scene, where John is on a trampoline late at night, making phone calls on a friend's behalf in an angry way, when Maya goes and finds him, then the two have a ever-so-slightly quirky conversation that's actually quite deep and forward-looking, and then they fall asleep. There's something so poetic, I can't really do justice to the floaty feeling of deep contentment I had for the rest of the evening, nor the sense of excitement I feel for that period of my life, still yet to come. So the bottom line is go and see this movie, it's soul-warming and uplifting and funny, and will hopefully elevate your spirits for a few days down the line.

That's all from me for now, peep the Tartar Sauce for my first official posting with those guys. This one just seemed a little closer to the Mind the Bats heart, so I decided to give us some business. But don't worry, even though I'm doing some writing with them now I'll still come back to my roots with regularity, dropping things like this on you, the strange little indie films that I so adore and my odd rants. Because I remember where I'm from. Closing time now, gents, last rounds.

Magical Realism

What a cool phrase, and what a really satisfying type of fiction. I just read One Hundred Years of Solitude and it was unbelievably baller, got me thinking about magical realism, all that good stuff. But that's not what our post is about today. Instead, I bring you a review of a more literary bent: The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet, by Rief Larsen, a damn fine book and well worth your time. Unfortunately, book reviews aren't as much my thing as movies, but I'm feeling adventurous and think I'll give it a shot. For those of you who like comparisons, think The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, but instead of an autistic eighteen-year-old explaining the world with little diagrams, we have a precocious twelve-year-old genius cartographer, T.S., whose maps greatly enhance what could be simply distilled to a coming-of-age story. Only it's a bit more complicated than that: T.S's coming of age is vastly more subtle than what we've become used to when we hear the phrase "coming of age;" the story is almost as much about his worldview as it is about his character coming to terms with events both within his family and the world of adults, who are attempting to recognize his genius with some grand Smithsonian prize. It's also a rousing tale of adventure with a heavy pseudo-magical tinge to it, which is where we get out post title: to me, magical realism isn't about the magic. It's that kind of story where things tend to happen in ways that don't fit in with our ordinary laws of how the world works, and often not with the laws of physics. In One Hundred Years of Solitude, this took the form of a house that was almost a living breathing character, minor miracles of a non-religious sort, longevity, and a general feeling of awe and amazement. In T.S. Spivet, the magical realism takes a form more akin to the active imagination of a very smart twelve-year-old boy, something that I found incredibly charming. And even the book starts to bog down with a story within a story i the middle (arguably the only weak point), the confluence of wonderful events in the end more than make up for any digressions sustained in the middle. This is, in my humble opinion, one of the finest books I have read by a recent author in my recent memory, which is why I review it so glowingly. Now go out there and experience some magical realism of your own, find it in your little life, and start peeping The Tartar Sauce more frequently, 'cause I got a posting there now for keeps. Over and out.

Easy Review

It should have been a play, plain and simple. And of course it was, in the beginning, based on a Noel Coward play. The movie today is "Easy Virtue," something that showed an odd sort of promise back in the trailer, but then ultimately failed in practice. I am not a theater dude, and my knowledge of Coward plays is limited, but to me they are predominantly dialogue driven, fast paced, and kind of manically/whimsically fast in a style reminiscent of PG Wodehouse (who might have actually come after Coward, not sure, but my analogy stands). The movie lacks all of this: the dialogue occasionally breaks free of the tedious pacing, but for the most part any comedy and whimsy are stifled by terrible directorial techniques, unnecessary camera work (focusing in and out, overly complicated shots, wild panning and crane work) and the inability of Jessica Biel to really act at all. Her accent was the one thing that really and truly managed to piss me off; there was one scene where she seemed to be deliberately overenunciating her S's and it pierced my brain like a knife. There's a bunch of other stuff I could call her on like lack of comedic timing, lack of compassion/empathy and that stuff, but there's no real need to, because the characters really have no greater meaning in the plot. The young English dandy who falls for Biel brings her home, and then there's some half-assed drama about losing the family estate, and then there's mad tension between the rest of the family (minus Colin Firth) and this American trying to steal the young dandy away, but none of it matters. In the end, all plot ends are left hanging, and although the ending is satisfying you really don't need to watch the entire movie, just the last twenty or so minutes for a nice dance scene and some good moments with the butler (the movie's other saving grace) and some nice music. In fact, that's a pretty solid recommendation: just catch the last twenty minutes on TV sometime, and you'll get everything out of this movie you need to. But the overall experience wasn't bad, just not good. The music is fine, and (as I keep saying) Colin Firth and the staff are amusing to watch. Still, it would have been infinitely superior to see it as the original play (assuming that the play doesn't have such a gimp ending) with Firth and the jazzy soundtrack.

And this is old news by now, but we've got another guest postie at the Tartar Sauce that you guys can check out at your leisure. Cool cool.

Hungover

Seems an appropriate title for an inappropriately late review of "The Hangover." Because it was so very long ago that I watched said movie, I'll stick to impressions in an effort to save face and keep the writing pure. It's a bromance of sorts, but with subtler personal changes than in "I Love You Man," and even though said changes are only slightly less obvious, that little bit makes all the difference. Bare bones plot summary: standard issue groom, two of his best friends and his awkward, soon-to-be brother-in-law (too many hyphens) hit up Vegas for a bachelor party to end all bachelor parties. We witness the approach, hotel check-in, and then first drink of the night, and then watch a sped up shot of the skyline going from night to morning, and then get to see the aftermath of the debauchery. The biggest consequence is that the groom has gone missing, leaving approximately two days for the friends to find him, bond, sort out their differences, mature, and have a hell of a funny time. The comedy is broad and physical at times, including a rather unnecessarily crude scene with tasers, but is occasionally smarter and sharper than the mass median style it promises (such as when brother-in-law Zach Galifinakis has a dramatic music, slow motion, old west-style showdown during the aforementioned taser scene). This is comedy in the broadest sense, but not comedy without a sense of humor. For every time someone suffers physical trauma or for every drunk joke or for every other sort of stupid but funny moment there... well, the ration isn't exactly 1:1, but the fine moments like a Mike Tyson cameo make up for the other stuff. And the acting ain't bad either- Zach Galifinakis does a great job being weird and uncomfortable, Ed Helms is good as the uptight friend, the douchebag friend (too lazy to look him up) does a nice job of slowly toning down his brashness, and the supporting cast also shines, especially Heather Graham. And the character transformations are entirely suitable, especially that of douchebag friend, whose self-confidence, originally a major defect, turns into practical resourcefulness as he turns his considerable skills of douchieness to recovering his lost friend. Although Ed Helm's rejection of his whippedness may be more satisfying. Bottom line: it may be a comedy engineered towards the bros, but we can learn to live comfortable alongside our broseph bretheren. Last note: the music selection is a pretty godawful combination of top 20 pop and terrible rap songs, save Kanye's "Can't Tell Me Nothing," which Galifinakis did a music video for. I thought that was a super-clever in joke.

Okay. I haven't forgotten Pac-Biggie, but it's really hard to find an angle for that. I promise more recent movies and reviews in the near future. Cool stuff, let's get to it.

Ya, Odd Horten. And guesties.

Y'all lucky, you get two posts for the price of one today. Our good friend Jake over at the Tartar Sauce (a more reputable blog of pop culture and all that is good) hooked us up with a little guest post gig. So for thoughts on up, direct your attention that-a-way. For strange yet pleasing Norwegian films, you've come to the right place.

It never really feels like I'm home until I see a foreign or indie movie at the local indie theater, so you could call this our homecoming review. Welcome back to the wonderful world of little-known joy and rewarding cross-cultural immersion. Forgive what could sound pretentious. Our movie today is "O'Horten," a very strange and dreamlike movie that is also deeply pleasing in an odd way (and no pun very much intended). The movie chronicles the adventures of Odd Horten, a Norwegian train conductor who has just retired. That's basically all there is to a premise; the rest of the movie follows Odd on the path that retired life takes him, occasionally funny and occasionally meditatively symbolic. The entire movie moves at a very subdued rate, and nothing is really explained, yet the beautiful images and unusual charm of Odd and his journeys yield a very consistent sense of wonder and pleasure. This is proving a very difficult movie to review, because like a dream the individual qualities tend to pale in description, while all that is left is a vivid memory. The amusing scenes are usually awkwardly incongruous, like a situation when Odd is detained while passing through an apartment (to get into the building he had to enter another apartment via scaffolding) and ends up falling asleep, only to be awoken by the family's morning routine. Or the retirement festivities, where the train engineers perform a bizarre chant and then sit around trying to guess the model of various trains by recorded sounds. Then there are moments that seem to be extremely pensive or spiritual, like an involvement with a lively old drunk who proves to be more mysterious than he lets on, or a sequence where Odd brokers a deal to sell his boat. And the images... lots and lots of trains and snow and slow, peaceful movement with twinkling lights in that profound northern darkness. This is bewitching filmmaking; all that prevents this from being a perfect movie is the mystery, which I certainly wouldn't change because it makes the film as wonderful as it is, although probably transient in the memory as a dream. Either way, definitely worth the watch. It is a very subtle and Scandinavian movie, and the lilt of the Norwegian dialogue is almost as comforting as the end feeling of peace. Retirement is certainly an adventure, but not one with explicit goals or understanding, and this story is glorious.

I still haven't forgotten about Pac vs. Biggie, and I also have a review of "Drag Me to Hell" pending, although the experience was overwhelming so I need time to figure out an angle. All together there's a pleasant sense of busyness around here, so stay tuned.

A Word from the Management

A few things, for the few readers I still have left. First, apologies for the poor quality of the second to latest post, and for the growing incoherence of the latest post (which actually bears looking at; I'm rather proud of the opening essay-type schpiel, and the review has a solid message/impression amidst the incoherence). I blame a practice I've picked up of either reviewing movies long after I've seen them, and therefore forgetting lots and lots of key details and exactly what critical thoughts I had, combined with another practice of starting reviews and then forgetting whatever direction I had going at the time. I'll try and repent for my ways. Second, I usually slow down a bit during the not-summer, but this year the summer will be slow as well, due to the fact that I won't be spending lots of time in a major cultural or metropolitan area, and therefore will be deprived of regular access to my lifeblood of weird indie and foreign films, as well as whatever dreck the studios put out that manages to entertain me. So summer will be a bit slower. Third, a teaser. I finally got my hands on some Tupac, and now have lots of uninformed/amateur/purely musical opinions about his music, especially compared to Biggie. So the feud will live on, just as soon as I get some time to sit down and spout off about rap. Because I know you all are fascinated.

So to sum up, check out the last post if you haven't already. I kind of like it, at least in the beginning. And I'll work on improving the quality of reviews, at least bringing it up to our previous standards here at the site. Because semi-professionalism is all we can hope for on the internet. Cool? Cool. Over and out.

Way Close to Home

There seems to be a peculiar trend in cute little indie comedies these days, especially those that deal with teenagers, college students, or those who have just stepped into the scary world of adulthood. Some of these aren't so indie ("Superbad"), cute ("The Wackness") or even really late teen college-y (arguably "Juno"), but they all deal with similar themes: love and the eternal teenage condition. Protagonists invariably end up confusing love, sex, meaningful relationships, and all those desires associated with the growing up. Then they get frustrated and have to deal and, depending on the feel-good levels of the movie, live happily or bitterly ever after. Arguably the coming of age love-sex drama has been around for years, as in "The Graduate," but there's a greater sense of... nostalgia? Wistfulness? It's something a little deeper than angst. The indie coming of love comedy deals with this deeply romantic notion of love, in the literary 18th century way, and how it fits in with the modern hyper-sexed world of popular culture. And it is in this context that we have this peculiar generation of young people, coming into adulthood, who clash with these harsh expectations as the harsh realities fall into place. "The Graduate" was more about the banality of that society (plastics) and rebellion within the system. Ultimately the dude in that movie realized that he wanted the daughter, not Mrs. Robinson (rebelling more in her own right than he was) and did the right thing for love. But now we move on to movies like "Adventureland" (today's film! Finally), where the rebellion is all gone; the bitter reality of these dark times leaves no room for rebellion, only adaptation. The trick, as the protagonists of the indie coming of love comedy know, is to adapt while remaining true to that sensitive spark of romanticism. This is the plight of our generation. Some, like Luke in "The Wackness," get beaten down by the realities and learn a hard lesson. (Arguably, "The Wackness" is definitely not an indie coming of love comedy. It's way more about '94 and coming of age, but the relationship element is still somewhat relevant to this discussion. It just lacks the whimsy and sensitivity to fall into the ICOL category; Luke is jaded to the point that his sensitivity is less important than the need for a friend. That movie is far more complicated though, and I'd argue that the sensitivity element, if it were filmed alone, could have been the core of a solid, if bleaker ICOL movie. Hooray for parentheticals). Others, like our boys in "Superbad," realize that they don't actually want to fulfill their cultural obligation and have lots of sex. They want love, and the film, while resolving their friendship-love, sets things up nicely for wholesome relationships with their respective women as Curtis Mayfield plays in the background. So to sum up all of these thoughts, the ICOL comedy is definitely a phenomenon of our generation. There's a little nostalgia for the past, which is why so many of them either take place in past decades or have strong overtones of years past (the 70's vibe of "Superbad," or the 80's setting of "Adventureland"), and that nostalgia is arguably a representation of the sensitivity and romanticism at the core of these movies. We want to live in simpler times, when we would have been free to drive from Berkeley to Santa Barbara to Los Angeles and back again in the course of an afternoon in pursuit of love while Simon and Garfunkel play in the background. There is none of that freedom now (even though Ben wasn't exactly free to do so back then either). Or so it seems. While the world seems less open, and relationships seem more bleak, the spirit that caused that dude to drive up and down the coast in pursuit of a girl still exists in all the young people with their buried and suppressed sensitivities today. We are nostalgic, but the romantic notion lives on. Thus the ICOL movie. It's a phenomenon, but it's also a healthy expression of eternal human decency of spirit. I wonder how the spirit will manifest as times get darker or potentially better.

Wow, that was kind of a discourse on cultural phenomena. So now let's get down to the business of reviewing a product of said phenomenon. "Adventureland" is a pretty good movie, with a "Superbad" meets "Juno" kind of vibe, but an aesthetic closer to "Little Miss Sunshine." In other words, firmly indie. Our boy James, recent college grad with a degree of a literary bent, finds himself on the job hunt, and of course ends up at the only place that will hire him: an amusement park, Adventureland. It's a disappointment, shattering all the post-collegiate illusions of grandeur James had in mind. But he quickly makes friends: Joel, a Russian Lit major, seems to be a dire warning of what could happen should the job get to James. Frigo, an asshole, is a nasty reminder of James' friends and life growing up, and is also an asshole (there's a great running joke involving the back of Frigo's fist and James' balls). And probably most importantly, there's the woman of his dreams, Em. And here the movie gains meaning: James is, like so many brave young men in film these days, a capital-v Virgin. However, and here is where "Adventureland" earns its heart, this isn't due to any awkwardness or inability, despite a penchant for Michael Cera behavior. James is a hopeless romantic, and only wants to loose it to a girl he really and truly loves. So that's the subtext. The real meat of the movie is the courtship that springs up almost immediately between the two, and all those wonderfully painful difficulties that arise along the way. For everything, of course, can't run smoothly: Em is boning a late-twenties/early-thirties dude who works as a handyman at the park and is vastly cooler (seemingly) than everyone else. Yeah, shit kinda blows for James. But he handles his challenges with good grace and style, and in doing so, as the cliches have it, grows into his adulthood. Only not so much. More of a coming to terms with the way the non-cozy world of adulthood immediately post college than anything.

But don't worry, it's actually pretty funny along the way. Bill Hader shows up as the park manager to provide some much needed comic relief, and does it with great style and a great moustache. I don't remember his wife's name, or the name of the actress who played her, but she complements him well. The jokes take a kind of awkward tone, or audaciously lowbrow in the dick jokes Frigo makes, but the humor is genuinely warm and loving. Warm is probably the one-word review for this movie: the humor, the visuals, and the characters. Joel is a wonderfully weary and nerdy guy with a deep Russian soul to complement the literature he loves so. Frigo is an asshole and immature, but at the same time strangely earnest and loyal. Ryan Renolds (that cool-ish handyman dude) may be kind of sketchy and morally distasteful, but deep down he's still trying to be cool even though his life has lead him down the path to local nightlife, seducing younger girls, and working at an amusement park. Em is startlingly enigmatic and almost falls prey to becoming a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, except for the fact that she's a.) the most underdeveloped of all the characters, b.) too moody and sarcastic, and c.) really just a girl, kind of messed up after a life of being the socially cool girl, who just wants to end up with the right guy. And that right guy, James, does his best to jump the Micheal Cera mold. He may be awkward, but in the end he finds his balls, and he broods a bit more, and all of his interpersonal relationships seem to be initially centered around his possession of lots of marijuana.

I'm starting to wax poetic and read far to into the movie, and this review has taken over a week to write, a significant chunk done at two in the morning, so I should wrap up. Basically, "Adventureland" has that annoying indie self-acknowledging style, but it also has a warmth of character and sentiment to make up for its derivative elements. (The soundtrack is also quite fine, with the Velvet Underground featured prominently, and a lot of other late 80's post-punk/alternative/whatever genre that would be to really set the mood). But what sets this apart from all other indie relationship comedies/dramas is that this is a courtship that actually glorifies the hopelessly romantic dudes out there. "Adventureland" glorifies their struggle, and ultimately shows that there are few things out there that can resist the romantic impulse. The good dudes win out in the end, and forgive me for taking that message positively instead of cynically this time around. Just goes to show that even a slightly derivative premise can earn distinction with an earnest message.