The Trip

In what is now common fair, satirical narratives involving the daily lives of successful actors attempt to take the mundane of luxury and find absurd. It is quite an easy thing to do, as the inhabitants of their universe mock the self-righteous decorum which they do not belong in, yet merely savor.

The pairing of these two actors begins farcically enough, yet descends into nuisance, particularly with the voice-actor who cannot escape one sentence without mimicry.

The self-parody is not excessive as seen in Curb Your Enthusiasm, as there is a soft background of a missed romance that inspired the entire journey through Northern England foodie heaven. However, it cannot emotionally endure when the level of banter does not rise above sophomoric comedic jabs about other actors.

In short, there is no narrative, only eating and self-absorption. Not to say the film attempts anything else, only that the humor recycles itself hastily, creating unwanted and annoying redundancy.

Grade: C-

Broken English

The modern day woman possesses too many choices, according to the female protagonist's mother. Such possibilities nonexistent before appear a burden to the mother for the reason that they create a disappointing lifestyle exuded by Nora, her daughter.

Nora feels hopeless with men. She wants one so she can know someone loves her yet strikes out routinely and spends more nights drunkenly falling asleep than in a passionate embrace. The general recommendation she has received from her close female confidants is to play the numbers game. And yet all are oblivious to the self-destruction that accompanies aimless dating for the sake of dating.

Strangely, in the age of feminism, having a man in one's life is not intended to be a collaborator in the creation of the family unit. Thus the prospecting of men leads to perpetual disappointment even when married to a success, such as with Nora's best friend. Men never can fulfill the constant desire of want when they are approached like a fashion accessory to a woman's life.

And thus the emptiness of Nora's yearning for love while willfully being seduced by an actor and falling for a random French man who beds her in less than 24 hours, quicker than even the actor who had to wait at least a full day. There is supposed to be some sort of chemistry or romance between Julian the Frenchmen and Nora simply because he is tolerant of her anxious melancholy about the emptiness in her life.

The film proudly is about this emptiness and loneliness that Nora is trying to escape. She even physically runs away from New York City with her best friend with the excuse to find the French man she had a weekend affair with alongside her friend who herself indulges in the escapist fantasy by committing adultery.

The ease in which men penetrate women in this film is indicative of the meaninglessness which is attached to sexuality now. It is improper to say that women are abusing the norms of feminism by recklessly indulging themselves for mediocre reasons; but it is rather ironic that the choice to marry for family, or to use sexuality for pro-creation, is one that is ostensibly excluded to urban women.

In the end Nora is deceived into believing she has found herself in a brief deluded Eat Pray Love dalliance with Paris, when she is merely a pinball that is pushed around by everyone she meets. Her misery, which I believe is a firm critique of feminism, is summed up eloquently when she tells Julian she still does not know what she wants to be when she grows up. She has no identity, no sense of what being a woman actually is. 

In the end, she cannot find love because there is nothing to love about her.

Grade: C

Pete Smalls Is Dead

This is simply an eclectic disarray. It does not know exactly what to be, other than an attempt at irreverence, which misses. However, failure in itself still has meaning, in demonstrating the new found viability for filmmaking.

This clearly is a script which would not pass the benchmark for most studios. They are in the movie business to make money by making movies. Clearly and proudly championing its independent heritage, the script bobs and weaves incoherently while trying to tell a sleuthing story for which no excitement is aroused to begin with.

I don't know who the characters are and most importantly, why I should care about what they care about. There is a mediocre effort in being clever revealing the plot so haphazardly which only adds a dissonance to what the point of the story is.

Vaguely it is about a washed-up actor trying to recuperate love via the kidnapping of the only cherished possession from his diseased lover: Buddha. Coincidentally, to save Buddha his dog from his debt collectors, he must somehow coordinate selling the rights to a film his ex-triad successor left in limbo upon is death.

I wish there was a more ample survey of the underbelly of Los Angeles filmmaking, as if such quasi-Bukowskian men exist to make movies. I wish, also, of more of the setting of LA to have played a stronger supporting character than what was filmed - we could feel the organic environment but we did not get a sense of itself. 

And this is the general problem with the film: there is no center of gravity. It is so impetuous that it actually becomes flaccid. This is only exacerbated by a script that feigns wit and style but comes off as cute and not in a good way.

As mentioned however, this movie is a success for the spirit of creativity. Digital filmmaking made it possible to create the opportunity for my criticism and for the acting roles, which I am confident helped Mr. Dinklage secure his masterful Game of Thrones role. Likewise for Ms. Heady playing beside Steve Buscemi, who fittingly advertised herself as a queen for Game of Thrones by playing a personal assistant slut. I kid.

In the new path for making film with projects easier to conceive, there will be failed attempts which certify the profit signals of the big studios to make consumerist trash. However, the inertia of such projects will create a higher rate of quality independent films for release. All in all, this is a price that must be paid.

Grade: D

The Wedding Banquet

In the first meditation on homosexuality in America, with Brokeback Mountain the more famous remembrance, Ang Lee directs his attention to the stigma of gayness in the Chinese culture. Contrasted with American inimical behavior where it is downright violent towards gays on the frontier, the Chinese are disappointed yet value sexuality in another aspect: purely as a function of procreation. 

Thus culturally, the difference shows the significance of the corporeal body. Clearly the incubation of Christianity reveals sin as something worth purging. To the Chinese, so long as a child can be birthed, the dysfunction of gayness is manageable.

Here too, the difference in the insistence of patrilineal inheritance. Marriage serves this ultimate purpose to the Chinese. In Brokeback Mountain, we do not have a clear sense of the urgency of procreation to continue the surname of the father. Thus in the latter film, the immorality of homosexuality ends in tragedy ironically because heterosexuality does not convey any meaning outside of maintaining the homogeneity of a society, preserving it from uncertainty (i.e. decay).

In regards to portraying the fusion of gay and Chinese culture in early 90's New York, Mr. Lee does not hit the mark. There is too much concentration on the Chinese family which distracts from the gay life which Wei Tsung and Simon attempt to hide. As is telling, at least 60% of the film is in Chinese.

The lack of blending of the two minority statuses in America is a disappointment. We do not get a sense of the struggle to be a gay Chinese despite the apparent comfort the character has in his skin - only in the city itself, mind you, as he does not have the same comfort level to approach his parents. The center of the narrative is in his fear of failing his family. As if the gay community is devoid of those who have shared similar fates that he cannot rely upon for advice? Is he truly the only gay Chinese person at his wedding? 

The banquet itself is worth seeing to absorb a disturbingly unknown culture in America (disturbing because we do not see enough Chinese culture despite being ancient and innumerable). But Chinese cultural production in the film was atrociously done. In fact, the story itself barely hangs on a thread: it is too vain in its efforts to be a diagram of cultural crossroads found in America. Mr. Lee would have been better served filming a documentary titled "Homo and Hun".

Grade: D+

Take This Waltz

Take this Waltz is a splendid contemporary portrayal of the openness of sexual normativity. The vacuousness of marriage in the present, with ample birth control and luxurious abundance that makes child-rearing no longer a mandatory course of human life but a consumerist decision - like whether to upgrade television sets - is seen in all of its decay.

Margot seems to have a friend more than a husband. They play childish games together and act as bedtime companions. She is supportive of his chicken recipes, but to an extent. She seeks more from her life and her hubby is not giving it to her.

Conveniently, she finds some chemistry while on a writing trip to Montreal. And even more conveniently, that excitement in her life follows her home. The man who so seamlessly energizes her to the point she plans her day around waking up to stalk her now-recognized neighbor, provides what little significance she has in her life. It is a replacement for creating this significance. She wants to write her own works for instance, and when cornered about why she hasn't begun, she is left creating a diversion.

Her intrigue in the sexy neighbor is another such diversion in her life. The chemistry they immediately amplify shows to her some sort of serendipity in the entire ordeal. It does not matter to her that, through her wedding vows, the life she leads is no longer completely solitary. Historically, a husband and wife have been seen as creating a new life, with each a part of the assembly. Thus, Margot's interest in another man takes no consideration of the participation of the other member of her life.

Obviously not-and in general, the reprehensibility of infidelity underlies the self-indulgence of the act. Technically, however, the film is clever to preserve the matrimonial vows - yet the underlying self-indulgence cannot be escaped by simple cultural normativity. Unsurprisingly, Margot abandons a man who is making something with his life - a successful book, something she is incapable of making herself - and decides to indulge.

The audacious sexual montage is perfect to encapsulate the ecstasy of the indulgence. We see immediately after the ending of her marriage Margot and the man engage in penetrating intercourse, which then follows into several highlighted ménage-a-trois, accentuating the self-centered ness of her decision making.

Wisely, the film does not contemplate on such sexual narcissism. It uses the scenery to reveal how ephemeral her lust actually is. Instead of looking to her husband for support in becoming a better woman, Margot follows the cultural acceptance of women's liberation: one can disavow her marriage for no sufficient reason - or for an absurd reason such as having a lustful fantasy realized.

When matrimony was respected, men and women of course had sexual urges towards other people. Yet the significance and indeed burden of marriage has always been in the culturally perceived permanency, or sacredness, of the vow.  As contributory to the sacredness has been in the creation of the family. 

At present there is no natural tendency, neither natural order, for the logic of marriage. It is treated as a custom, really the aftermath of a large party, more than a formal institution. The meaning has been lost to the point where the reality of a fantasy can destroy its establishment.

I commend the film for its realism; that in the end, childishness cannot be a lifestyle.

Grade: A-

Broken Flowers

Methodical yet abrupt, Broken Flowers attempts to scrutinize a man’s life decisions in one episodic event. Perhaps this event is the first time in his life where he developed contemplation, and more telling, self-doubt.

Don Johnston is wealthy yet lonely. He clearly, despite his ease with women, has never considered the value of his life. We do not really see a man but instead an idler in life. The decision to determine if he has anything to love outside of his home was not even initiated by himself, but by his hilariously gum-shoe neighbor, who enjoys passing his existence as a crime sleuth.

His journey is divided into 4 vignettes. Fortunately none are seen exasperatingly bizarre, aside from a peculiar Lolita reminiscence. Though not much is made of his inanimateness, Don reveals his emotions through what he sees. And these are women. They appear within dreams accompanying his quest to find out if he fathered a son.

Loneliness best conveys what he is attempting to resolve. This is not made patently clear until desperately he provides food to a hitch-hiker and begs for him to be his son. When the young man flees, the realization hits Don: I have nothing.

Thus, the concentration on two pairs of attractive ladies legs by Don. They centrally indicate to us a schism in his outlook on life. Whereas before they may have prompted him to flirt, he now questions the accumulation of his time on earth, and henceforth what the old “him” would do.

The greatest challenge with a metamorphosis is the uncertainty about the life-change. Not only in the possibility of a worse-off condition, but also the uncertainty of how to act as this new “self”. Do I act oppositely to how I normally would? Am I being genuine if I am simply a polar opposite of before? What was so wrong with me?

There is an eclectic reaction with the women who he believes is the mother of his potential son. We have a typical womanizer response from one, embrace from another, and apprehension from the other two. All four have completely moved on with their lives from the decades old flames they carried with Don. We do not get a sense with any of them, however, their own struggle or battle with metamorphosis. At best, the scenes with each woman are merely random jests at meaning in Don’s life. And Don does not find any.

His success in his computer business aside, Don is left with a persistent empty void that he only realizes with this agitation. Thus, this film is a part of the common theme of nihilism in contemporary society. We are not here to judge Don, nor do we develop a sense of empathy with his procedure. We end the film as he does: what next?

Grade: B   

The Vicious Kind

Why do people do bad things? Most pressingly, why do people do bad things when they know they are bad? The entire film centers itself around a brilliantly quotidian answer to this question: It’s hard to be a good person.

Human perfection, seen universally in cultures as a form of spiritual virtuosity, is virtually impossible. Hence the mythologies of individuals who are deemed superhuman for their righteous tenacity. Indeed, these few men have carved entire worlds out of the mystique of their spirituality.

If it is impractical then to be a perfect moral agent, why even bother? At its crudest, it is to prevent harming others that we are devoted to. If we seek out the best for the ones we love, then acting impiously counter-acts the effort to nurture and support what we love, our very ends in themselves.

The film challenges immorality and its harm to loved ones very explicitly. We see the damage wrought, and the consequences as devastating, by those who found living above our crude animal desires as difficult.

This raises an interesting question on the basis of the drive of human will. Human freedom in itself does not grant that one’s actions will be virtuous. The obvious wrongness of certain actions-as made clear in the film-do not illuminate the general concept of morality itself. Is it sufficient to say that acting how we instinctually want is not always righteous? Why is it so hard to live beyond our instincts?

Ultimately, we have a Christian paradigm depicted to us: that the long causal chain of sin persists in creating human imperfection. Yet we return to challenging this paradigm: why does immorality continue to have momentum? In this particular vignette of sin, there is nothing external to the lives of this family which causes such destruction, other than willful disregard of living for something beyond what one simply wants.

Is this what is truthfully difficult for man to do? Emphatically yes. Finding purpose is the ultimate challenge in living. While not preoccupied on such a profound meditation, life can become dull when it is relaxed. The animal of human is always searching for something to direct his will towards. And oftentimes, this directs itself toward a self-indulgent affinity, which is inescapable.

The cultivation of self-discipline is the enterprise of religion itself; and thus with its decay, living at the peak of mediocrity creates a void which must be filled, irrespective of how irrational filling this void becomes.

The fact human history’s most influential members dictate their self-disciplines indicates the significance of combating the dichotomy of good and evil. Very succinctly, with four people, The Vicious Kind exposes the paramount value of religion in society. When families begin harming themselves, as true signs of the absence of any love outside of oneself, we have a self-destructed society, which can no longer persist as it has.

Grade: A

Django Unchained

What is violence? We typically speak about it as the forceful harm of a human caused by another human. Tellingly, however, we do not view violence as an absolute evil. Self-defense for instance can be justifiable for non-pacifists – and the pacifist who relents to violence ad hoc does not believe in the value of life-itself, making them predictably a minority in the audience.

Violence seems to be a simple solution to every human problem. Yet every human problem is fundamentally one of human action. This paradoxically is one that arrives at violence. In other words, violence is seen as a solution to violence, in the logic of most people’s morality.

Mr. Tarantino is renowned for his study of violence in film, in which he uses it self-righteously. All problems are solved with fittest morals, which necessarily are possessed by the most violent. It is not strange to look at every one of his protagonists as merely a successful violent tyrant – what escapes the viewership in our captivation of the gore rained down is the actual virtue of any of the characters seen on film. They all lack any.

In this sense, Mr. Tarantino is the most genius postmodern filmmaker of our time. The ad absurdum of relativism is in a world, and a society, with the Nietzschean ubermensch revealed naively - to those unsophisticated in the appreciation of Nietzsche’s meditation – at his logical end: might makes right.

This is not to say Mr. Tarantino agrees with the morality he depicts. But it is alarming to see the adoration of the “glory” he convenes upon. His worlds are inevitably self-destructive. This includes destroying a southern pre-Civil War plantation.

We possess the premise that slavery is evil, as an indication that the retribution a former slave has upon the white folk who view him a sub-human is justified. And agreeably, for the majority of the film, we see someone using violence within the norms of society – it is at least “tolerable”. But soon the postmodern ubermensch that Mr. Tarantino adores screams out, and turns the film onto itself, with absolutely nothing accomplished.

This may seem peculiar. Does Django not achieve his ends? Simple-mindedly, yes he does. Yet wisely, we see the evanescence of his success: in the path of his destructiveness elicits an immune response from the environment which tries to preserve order and harmony.

Thus, clear black-and-white violent “justice” – solving human problems begot by human action - reveals the difficulties in human morality, and the question on the justification of brute murder Django conducts. It actually solves nothing, yet provides the illusion of virtue to an audience which lacks no sense of it - true virtuosity does not laugh at the execution of a white woman whose only participation in slavery is in being incubated in southern society, and is instead gloriously appalled at the humanity of Django.

Grade: B+ 

Melancholia

What are we to make of impending doom? The same answer also asks the more philosophically vexing question of the day: in response to a meaningless world, what are we to make of it?

Justine seems unable to “fake it” in such a world. She tries smiling and acting happy, but it just doesn’t work with her. Even the center of every woman’s memory-bank, the wedding, is a disastrous ensemble. Trying to engage the truth of her existence with the world only ends up alienating her even more.

And yet the film portrays her as heroic. As the inauthentic world melts around her, in her melancholy are we supposed to see strength? Courage? Perseverance “through it all”? And that most especially entails persevering through life, which she denounces as “evil” on Earth.

What a startling declaration into a meaningless world. The intelligibility of the world thrusts itself into her life, and the lives of everyone. The causation of annihilation has sufficient reason. Is this, then, the reason for her tormented soul, embracing nihil?

Make no mistake, her manic depressiveness does not appear to be something which coddles nothingness. But contrasted to her sister’s overwhelming anxiety, we are supposed to find something commendable in her attempt at equilibrium with emptiness. A futile proposition to be sure.

The aforementioned sister vehemently denies the truth about life. This creates the main tension in the film. Von Trier, however, is not suggesting a Justine triumph in their contest, but the absurdity of a Godless world. His reduction to this endpoint cannot be looked at conversely, as if ultimate reality is death for the very reason there exists value in doom-itself.

Thus the world he paints is untenable. It is a fantasy land for the wretched and depressed, who want reality, which gives them pain, to go away. It won’t. How marvelously solipsistic the female psyche is to dream of Melancholia.

Grade: A-

Adam's Apples

The Danes have a curious sense of humor. Clearly still interested in wrestling with existential questions of meaning in life, Denmark is seen to possess itself an eccentric demeanor. Every character in the film has a strong flavor of personality. And yet each has an acceptable character flaw – not to be taken judgmentally, but matter-of-fact: this is the way people become.

The intersection of all these lives centers around rehabilitation of criminals in a church. This itself is bizarre to the modernist, who does not view religious edifices as anything assuaging, and instead constricting. Nevertheless, the program is run by a Protestant minister who has seemingly repaired the lives of two convicts and is embarking on repairing another one, who happens to be a neo-Nazi.

In truth, the Nazi symbolism does not reveal itself stridently in the film. It is only used as a proxy for the protagonist’s inclination toward destroying the world around him: most especially the sanctimonious feeling he ingests from the minister.

The story arc is in the demolition of the priest’s ambitions of goodness. His awful life has been cloaked by his irrational zeal, or so the neo-Nazi wants to believe for himself. Believing in God is a weakness, yet paradoxically, hanging a portrait of Hitler in replace of a crucifix shows a higher moral order to subscribe to.

That simple gesture which plays itself ancillary to the drama around the life of the church is the most telling aspect of the film. A man is not allowed to find meaning in God: he cannot orient his life and his worldview to look at the mechanics of existence as orderly and rational and intelligent. Good does not correspond to man aligning himself with this intelligence. Good is nothingness. It is a distraction. Truth is in the fact that the Aryan race is supreme, predicating itself on the faculty of human reason through the practice of science. Truth is in aborting a fetus damaged by alcoholism versus embracing and cherishing the responsibility of a difficult life. Life is not a test but vanity.

And yet what a marvelous rebuttal by the film, in the most Kierkegaardian-twist of cosmic fate. Such nihilistic teleology of the Nazi is abdicated, and in its place, not vain emotional appeals to “good”, but the actual experience by the protagonist in a metamorphosis; in becoming a grander form of himself. It is in this metamorphosis which was single-handedly caused by the “foolish” minister which provides such an ostracized religiosity to film in the age of decadence.

Grade: A-

I Love You Philip Morris

Consider this a light-charcoal comedy chosen well by Jim Carrey. Only he could take such an outrageous real character and infuse his trademark zany mannerisms to make such an outlandishly buffoon-genius palatable.

Aesthetically, there is not much to critique. This is a standard plot-driven tale. The narration and interstitial spaces provided much needed coherency to the antics of the protagonist. 

Most importantly, we see a schizophrenia between the well-adjusted man who is a pathological prevaricator, and the possible though unanswered source of his instability: the fact he was adopted and rejected by his biological mother. Naturally, however, though the film suggests otherwise, this rejection causality did not instigate his pathology; he was far more twisted far earlier in his life.

And yet we do not see a violent character per se. His crime which he cannot overcome is in his inability to find a formula for living an authentic life. A car accident leads to his "awakening" whereby he selfishly leaves his wife and family to embrace his "true" self as a selfish gay man. Perhaps we see a psychosocial escape, an identity crisis as it were, when he faces the death of his ego and decides to let it be itself. However, this line of reasoning, which he clearly never abandons, leads to his annihilation as a member of society.

There is a rationalization for guilt-free reckless thieving: I deserve it. Thus the struggle to acquire the means for such lavish ends escapes his self-lust, his ironic escape from reality as he resigns himself to authenticity. 

He had an opportunity to correct himself, albeit still through a corrupt arrow of time; on second thought, his falsity as a chief financial officer proves the inevitability of his mishandling of his time. Eventually, his inner pathology, of not living a life of virtue defined outside of his ego boundaries, perpetuated his demise from his near-death epiphany. The fact that he found nothing but his own desires as meaningful and true in his life versus the contemplation of a meaningful life that is completed by an outside significance - even Philip Morris could not stop the excessive chicanery - is indicative of a nihilistic age.

Grade: A-

Factotum

Being a writer is hard work. It involves doing things you don’t like to sustain your craft. And it is a craft that may never achieve recognition.

This last fact is of course what makes a writer a writer. He doesn’t write for acclaim. He writes to make sense of the world around him. Intriguingly, like most artists, the obsession with the craft can be personally self-destructive. And the entire film is centered around not the writing obsession, as that is in the background, but in the self-destructive behavior of Henry Chinanski.

He can’t hold a job. But that is his choice. He finds spectacular ways to terminate himself, and other ways which are quite riveting to the 9-5 er watching how easy it is to lose a steady paycheck.

Homelessness he doesn’t mind. Booze and cigarettes are his fuel. As for women? The film does a poor job of cementing this as beyond a mere happenstance snippet in this writer’s life. He does shack up with someone just as capable of poor decisions as him – but why? He doesn’t have an answer until the ending.

While I am critical of film which lacks a trajectory – and this one would follow-suit – I am appreciative of its contemplation on the nature of a particular character walking through life. Despite how agitating a life of his is towards my bourgeois–upbringing – though I am not the only one, as even his father wishes he “did something” – we see a living, breathing, philosophy. His passage through time, while much more convoluted, is much more authentic than “phonies” who run away from perseverance.

Indeed, the irony here is that in the age of nihilism, we mistake his living as marked with “bad decisions”. Yet his way of life, where all he needs is paper, a pen, a cigarette, and a desk, is a more powerful reflection of living than paying the bank for a little box on the hillside.

The film beautifully concludes with one of Henry’s short stories being accepted, without his awareness. It doesn’t matter to him: he’s a writer.

Grade: B 

What Happened Was...

In what can only be described as a film-play, where a set space is occupied at length by the characters, What Happened Was... Creates more drama about the contemporary cultural pulse than any I have seen, let alone attempted,

The genius of the film is that its ambition is so covert. We see a casual dinner, auspiciously a date, in an early 90's Manhattan apartment. The woman is fit and decently attractive (I would do her), while her invited guest-of-honor is for all intents and purposes a slouch. Most people would judge that she is out of his league.

The idiosyncrasies of both draw themselves out, as they talk about their other co-occupied space: work. Slowly, however, as conversation boilerplate cools, their inner personalities begin peaking out of the daily masquerade. Co-workers when the night begins become confidants.

Both are aspiring writers. This is seen punctuated brilliantly to suggest to the audience that we all want to be somewhere else, doing something else. Or at least, isn't that what should be on our minds? 

The woman is most earnestly attracted to this perceived ambition by her date, and falls for his publisher sales pitch about his novel which he expects will get him fired, but will give him the privilege to turn down Letterman. 

The film quickly turns cerebral when both reach the end of their line, admitting their deepest vulnerabilities about a world which has no life in it, one which makes them feel death looming in both of their solitude.

No doubt this film will be taken as discomforting to social butterflies, as well as banal to those searching for a barrage of cinematic colors. Yet it is a powerful indictment on the consequences of not living a life according to plan.

We all can't live happily ever after. And that is a truth no one can accept.

Grade: A-

The Living Wake

In a word, this is a work of genius. Wait, that's more than one word. oh well. 

This is a film that defines irreverence. The fact that every absurdity coherently and fastidiously complements each other creates a paragon of filmmaking, and indeed of writing for the screen.

To further add a shine to the silky smoothness, this is a film that Wes Anderson wishes he could make. His serial attempts cannot harmonize the absurd with the meaning that the absurd fantasy is trying to birth. But with The Living Wake, every frame is overloaded with brilliance and an overarching suggestion triumphantly cauterized at the work's conclusion, giving redemption to the perfectly whimsical oddities.

It doesn't hurt that every joke hits. And that the jokes form a stream of consistent humor that provides much needed relief in this genre of film. Where other film makers strain to create such ornamental weirdness, only falling catastrophically short because their aim is injected with vanity, here miraculously every bit works like a piece of exquisite machinery, enabling the viewer full suspension of their reality, and to accept this alternate hypothesis.

This cannot be overstated enough: it takes immense power and talent to actually tell a story with purpose through whimsically absurd symbols. As far as I am concerned, all other projects are shadows to this. I have not seen such a complete depth to the canvas of humorously bizarre as in this depiction.

Typically a dissenter would find irreverence to be exhausting to the willingness to suspend disbelief and engage with the reality as something substantial. Hence my general reluctance to such works which are made for irreverence sake. Rest assured, this film will have you chuckling and hopefully reach a startling conclusion on finding meaning in life.

Simply a masterpiece attempt and fulfillment. Must-see and must-appreciate. Genius.

Grade: A+

Mona Lisa

Mona Lisa challenges the audience to see the under-world of London as having a personality. That personality is front-and-center with George, an ex-con (or whatever a convict equivalent is on that island – I am too uncultured to know), who takes us through a voyage of the black market of sex.

Is it any wonder that the oldest profession in the world involves providing men pleasure? That there is an intricate, and on the surface, societal acceptance of this necessity – while at the same time turning a blind eye from the distributors of such sex commodities – reveals its tension in polite society. The countless posh boutique hotels which the “black tart” conducts her “business”, and locations which George must inhabit as a driver/security guard, condone her trade, so long as it is done quietly.

No doubt there are those on the vanguard in the hotels which are looking to ostracize her activity. Yet why? It is in fact not in the morality of the exchange of money for sexual conduct, but in fact the devaluation of the society which the hotel is a member of. And this is how this is a strongly English film, one which would not have been duplicated elsewhere.

For elsewhere, we do not have the strained vanity of class as we do in England. Where George clearly knows his place, and where his master, the one who pays the bills and owns the means of production in this corner of the blackness, despite generating enough profit to be modestly wealthy, still also knows his place. Denny, the boss, may negotiate in these same hotels, but he will never be seen as a born member of such high-society.

The class differences are very striking juxtaposed to American culture. Girls of the lower class willfully and voluntarily enter the sex trade. Indeed, they have a choice in the sense that society does not expect them to mobilize upward and enter business management or become an erstwhile professional. Sex is their professional option. If they can handle the perversion of old men – such as having a fetish for injecting heroin into nubile veins – they can earn a killing.

Yet the power, paradoxically, resides in those who have the capital to exchange for their bodies. The paradox is this: sex is scarce on the male side of the species, yet their resources provide them a means to get what they want.

It is human nature, of course, to always want more. And every character in the film shows this trait. It is what creates a plot to begin with; not to say the plot is artificial, only that in the machinery of the seedy underworld, we can see every character play their roles organically.

The ending provides an abrupt diversion to our fixation on George. It was pleasant to see there are some things that never change.

Grade: B+

Revolver

Swirling in the vortex of another male sophomore production, Revolver encapsulates – or at least tries to – sentimental verve. In that, the bloodshed and outlandish machismo actually serves a purpose beyond scintillating teenage boys.

Masterfully, Mr. Ritchie does not reveal his hand until the closing credits. He is indeed attempting to ‘con’ his audience amidst the flying bullets and standard kill sequences between bad guys, grafters, and Cockney.  Admittedly, I was fooled for more than half of the film.

Typical stock characters fit into their suits, and plot progression seemed banal. There is intrigue in its wrinkles, however, enough to keep an active mind occupied above the clichéd braggadocio and misconceived alpha male dominance; after all, if leading a gang which deals in drugs and strippers is the apex of masculinity, then one lacks a sophisticated taste for dominance.

Nevertheless, what would be boring popcorn fare has a lining of genuine artistry. The artistic merit of the meaning of Revolver is loftier than Mr. Ritchie’s previous works, which do not rise higher than the significance of a bar brawl. Here, we have the deception of a brawl, to tell a story about personal demons, and the process of exorcising them.

Is the attempt successful? Pausing to answer, we can contemplate at least the attempt in the medium of a guy flick. That is commendable in itself. However, I feel the abrupt reflex found in the conclusion would have had a softer landing had the pilot angled the plane at a more gentle descending angle, meaning, there was plenty of film time to weave the message in more clearly, while still deceiving the audience as Mr. Ritchie intended. Or perhaps I am merely projecting?

Grade: B

Goats

Reminiscent of works which only appear to have a story arc – the spectacular failure of Away We Go comes to mind – and of white, upper-middle class meaninglessness, Goats actually avoids the Sword of Damocles which dangles over such works and their vacuousness. How narrow the aversion is subject to debate.

In these “angsty” films, we have the illusion of change. In effect, the change that takes place is merely frame-by-frame, as if the chess game has already been played and we as players are inattentive to the unfolding fatalism. Typically these are industrial bins of emotional waste. In other words, not much happens beyond emotional foreplay and an amalgam of screenplay onanism.

In Goats, however, while it certainly shares the hollowness of other works, it does not dwell on melancholy. In fact, it is self-aware of its blackness, which provides a therapeutic to the cancerous blight that can be interpreted in a story about a 14 year old who no one loves, except by a stoned goat-breeding vagabond who serendipitously setup his pot plants in the backyard which the two shared.

I suppose it is quite poetic then. And indeed, it is touching that, were the protagonist to seriously reflect on his life, the fact he is emotionally stable and competent enough to excel at his boarding school is miraculous. His roommate, who shares the typically portrayed apathetic upbringing of an “abandoned” boarding child, is often a wreck, and at one point an alcoholic – at the age of 14.

David Duchovny plays the titular “Goat-man”, and does a spectacular job, extracting a passive emotional warmth in the Tuscon desert. Indeed, the success of this film is in the coherency and the depth of each of the chess pieces. While already established that we are merely observing a sample of one boy’s life, that sample is accentuated by a strong supporting cast.

And it is the supporting cast which makes the efforts of these films successful. Juno, which I would classify as a superior alternative as the story arc entailed a classic drama, fulfills this quota, while also puncturing the tale with humorous jabs. There is no room for meditation in that frenzy, as there is with the methodic pacing in Goats. Yet Goats does not end in a moribund manner, with the emotional spew of the cast creating a flux of disconnect. There can be no resolution in a film where nothing happens; yet we do see whatever it will be dangling above the dry Arizona sky.

Grade: B-  

The Long Goodbye

Noir films have a certain sensation about them, where too much investment in the effort creates predictability, and a repellent and detachment from the film observer. Indeed, good noir depictions do not try to work within the theme at all. The only connected dots between the treatment and the genre is simply a story involving the police.

Elliot Gould plays an exceptional character in Mr. Marlowe. As the protagonist makes or breaks the center stage in this genre, Mr. Gould's balance is extraordinary. We do not see a fatigued exertion into the machismo. Yet we also do not see a man who finds the story he is in to be overtly melodramatic, as if he is aware of the director's efforts to film. 

Thus the absence of apathy seen on his face is commendable. As the engine in the story - by necessity - we see an emotional commitment in the shifting gears. Often times we will have a sense that "gumshoes" roll their eyes at the malaise that their clients put themselves into. Here, however, we have a sincerity with Mr. Gould's effort - almost a conviction that his cause his noble in itself. This is in sharp contrast with poorer efforts in the genre which would paint the detective using the same color palette as the scenery.

And the scenery is not terribly asymmetric to the main character. This is not a hopeless world, in other words, where it would be easier to flood it and start anew. The characters and their lives which breathe life into every frame do not have a sense of decadence or decay about them. The main current in the film is indeed caused by immorality, but we do not see a city of sinners where this is a frequent happenstance. In fact, as one character drowns himself in the Pacific, we have a community of onlookers, distressed, look out into the darkness of the sea, the same night he passes on. This catastrophe is communally felt. It is abnormal. Teams of police come in, scuba gear in tow. The setting is one in which we ourselves would inhabit.

Thus a golden mean between sleuthing and the underbelly of every story such as this, and the normalcy of society, is cleverly accomplished. The pacing is such that we rarely have time to contemplate the inner nature of Marlowe; neither are we scratching our heads in the who-dun-it. The film flows like a gentle creek, which eventually arrives at a sudden, but small, jaded rock, at its ending. 

What to make of it? There are men who enjoy their job. And there are men who enjoy justice in the world. And they are not mutually exclusive.

Grade: B

Ally McBeal (Pilot)

In the midst of the emergence of the ability for women to apply themselves in a sophisticated manner in a sophisticated labor market, the consciousness, or placement of the modern female in society, has had its landscape pruned.

Whereas before, perhaps in a “simpler age”, women devoted their time solely on beautification and decorum – argued by modern intellectuals as subservient to the opposite sex – they now have to balance the added duty of possessing a well-paying job. Office secretary is no longer noble to don. Its intent was to give a young lady something to do before absconding with her beau. Now, with liberty comes responsibility.

Contrasted with her near-contemporaries found in Sex in the City, Ally McBeal is a woman who still believes in love. Or rather, love is a central component of her life. The genesis of the entire show is in the dramatization, and the romantic reminiscence, of the man she had loved more than any other. Further, as the show prunes immediately in its premiere, this romantic struggle is at the epicenter of her life.

But now a paradox emerges: Ally is a higher-echelon laborer. Her credentials and social hierarchal position, while not an upward ascent from her class upbringing, indicates, by all Feminist accounts, a worldly success. Even in the midst of striving in a “man’s world”, with the exaggerative sexual harassment of that world mocked from the get-go, she is missing something. Is her longing for love a sign of patriarchal oppression? Is her obsession with her ex a male power play?

The focus of the show on her love, with the legal proceedings acting as a backdrop to this drama, is insightful amidst the confusion on what it is to be a female with a six-figure income. One of the criticisms of cultural products such as a television show of a woman who immerses herself in the fantasy of romance is that the centerpiece still exudes “oppression”, as if the fact women do not think like men do yet is evidence of the brutality of society, shackling the ability for woman to be “truly” “free”.

Thus it comes as a celebration that Ally McBeal unabashedly absorbs itself in the single-female mystique, if not crisis: what do I do now? A job and a drink with friends is not fulfilling to her it seems. And yet there is the abrasive proclamation that she craves a man in her life. Sex in the City relishes the abandonment of such “naïveté”: romance is dead is the motto of that episodic, with love as a fantasy to keep little girl’s minds occupied. With Ally, however, we see a whimsical expose into the modern girl’s foray into the unknown world. Love may be sold separately, but it is an honest pursuit for her yet.   

Thus the show does not see its embrace of a classical female ideal as a weakness, but rather as its raison d’etre. Jobs may come and go, as Ally is already seen working at two firms, but love is here to stay.

Grade: B

Margin Call

Banks are filled with bad people who don’t care about anyone. I understand that is the cultural impression and thus cathartic release undertook in Margin Call. Yet its gross generalization is gross.

The theme of the work accentuates the antipathy of making money found in the minds of movie-makers. The reckless yearning for capital insinuates this animal spirit thirst as the cause of the banking disaster of 2008. With the film we are left with the taste of bitterness of the collusion of the banking firm’s decision to screw everyone to preserve their own skin. This is iconic Christian morality.

Never mind the nuanced dilemma of such a decision – the point the film makes is the world really is as black-and-white and crude as depicted. It’s quite simple: if people did not want money, bad things would not happen.

Nietzche’s consternation with the Christian paradigm of the world is in how perverse it reveals itself. For with the same zealotry for greed springs the yearning for achievement. In the Capitalist economy, motivations, and therefore emotional intent, are of no concern to anyone but those who own them. Humorously of course, The Great Transformation, would deem this impersonality of the market also as a flaw of the spontaneous flow of human action into an uncontrollable order-of-things, which has produced the greatest economic abundance in written history. Capitalism simply cannot win the more it wins.

The apex of the film then is highly disqualified. The momentum of the actions of the bank, alongside the actions of the social order, is itself castigated. As almost karmic, Margin Call contends that the devil is in the natural tendency for humanity to want more.

This is very much akin to the stain of sin found in every human. Yet as indicated beforehand, the lust for greed has in its origination the same lust for heroism. Christianity blinds the distinction, formulating corrective self-mutilation of those who are incubated in its moral paradigm.

We deserved this. While agreeable, it is not for the thesis presented. And the thesis of Margin Call exemplifies the exhaustion of the inconsistencies of the Christian religion, giving way to the nihilism of the day. Earning money is profitable. It is performed out of contributing value to a society. The church historically had a difficult time in this allowance in much the same way it has had difficulty in allowing humans to choose what they please. In the Christian religion, the freedom to please is tied to sin. Thus the infrastructure of virtue in Christianity will perennially find calamity as caused by the inception of free will.

The calamity is not meditated upon as a testimony to the misguidance of the values of the society: namely, entitlement indebted by others towards you. Instead, it is a recycling of a tattered myth which only distorts meaning in the world even more. Fitting.

Grade: C-