September 05, 2008
Now that we’ve gotten war off our TV screens, we can put it
back where it belongs, in movie theaters. Because it looks like the war movie
is back, repackaged and marketed anew, just like the war we used to see on TV.
So observes “The Hollywood Reporter” after taking a look at the upcoming films
now being showcased at the Toronto Film Festival. Among those featured are
Spike Lee’s “Miracle at St. Anna,” which is the war movie as vindication of
overlooked African-American history and Paul Gross’s “Passchendaele” which is the
war movie as reminder of the mind-numbing and pointless slaughter of thousands of Canadians on a
blood-soaked hard to pronounce Belgian WWI battleground. And sneaking in too is
the now untouchable Iraq War Movie, called “anything but an Iraq War movie.” Such as an action-adventure movie that just happens to
take place in Iraq like Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker,” or a romantic
comedy involving goofy, attractive folks who just happen to be Iraq War
veterans on stateside leave in the US like Neil Burger’s “The Lucky Ones.” "Iraq
is a dirty word in film marketing right now," explains Roadside Attractions
co-topper Howard Cohen, who is distributing "The Lucky Ones." The "Reporter notes that Cohen is planning a Sept. 26 release for "Lucky" "in hop
es that the zeitgeist might change, making the
film more marketable.’
And let us not forget the war movie as Tom Cruise movie, “Valkyrie,” or as Quentin
Tarantino movie, “Inglorious Bastards,” (both of which apparently are raising controversies with German critics, who are still soreheads more than 60 years after the war ended)..
But the real sign that the war movie is making a comeback is the Hollywood script-like story of John McCain as processed
into his presidential campaign narrative. As another Hollywood Reporter article comments about the just-concluded Republican
Convention and its nominee (and you can just imagine these words being spoken by the
late voice of Hollywood trailers, Don LaFontaine) “A prisoner of war who beat the odds during
five years of brutality in a Hanoi jail cell, John McCain beat the odds again
Thursday night when he accepted the Republican nomination for president. The
story of McCain's youth was told in the 2005 TV movie "Faith of Our
Fathers." But walking up to the podium at the Xcel
Energy Center,
the now 72-year-old McCain turned another page in a new script that brought him
from nearly failed candidate to a possible Hollywood-style triumph as president
of the United States.”
And if they can’t do it in real life, there’s already the movie
version. "The Guardian" has been calling on readers for casting suggestions for all
the leading figures. The leading candidate for the role of McCain is, no
surprise, neo-Republican Jon Voight.
.
September 02, 2008
Who says movies don’t offer a window into the truth, a mirror of
the zeitgeist? The titles, anyway. A tip of the hat to the people at Mudflats.com, a site dedicated to “tiptoeing through the muck of Alaskan politics,” for this
update on what’s playing at the local movie house in Wasilla, Alaska, Republican
Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s hometown.
Meanwhile, I’ve been at a loss trying to come up with
movie-related items stranger and more implausible than the recent developments
in the Presidential election. Maybe this will do. “Poltergeist,” the 1982 Stephen
Spielberg-produced,Tobe Hooper-directed horror film about evil spirits entering
a suburban household through their TV screen, a smash hit that spawned two
sequels, is being remade with Vadim Perelman (“The Life Before Her Eyes,” “House
of Sand and Fog”) directing. That despite the alleged “’Poltergeist’ Curse,” which
supposedly resulted in the death of at least four and as many as six of the
cast members.
One of these was the waif-like
star Heather O’Rourke, who died on February 1, 1988 at the age of 12 after making
"Poltergeist 3." As fate would have it, I was one of the last journalists to
interview O’Rourke, spending a day on the set of the Chicago production for the “Chicago
Sun-Times.” Perhaps the “Curse” extends to my efforts on mustering up a copy of
my article on line; I’ve been completely stymied trying to “register” to read it. All I
remember about the experience is that Zelda Rubinstein, who played the dwarf
exorcist and whom I also interviewed, was nasty and abusive. And also that they
glued a fake moustache on my lip so I would resemble Tom Skerrit’s stand-in
double..
At any rate, perhaps the only curse Perelman and company need
fear is from fans of the original film. Here’s what “horrorchick81” has to say
about the remake:
“u gotta be shittig me......like i said NOOO NEED
TO REMAKE THIS. i hope everyone dies on this set.”
Good luck, Vadim.
August 28, 2008
So Barack Obama has been nominated as the Democratic
candidate for president, which inevitably raises the question -- is he the
Antichrist? The McCain people have been sort of suggesting that with their “The
One” commercial
though they didn’t come right out and
admit it when David Whittenberg, a blogger for the
“Washington Post,” confronted McCain spokesperson Brian Rogers about it. He
“didn’t give a straight answer,” Whittenberg writes of the response from the
Straight Talk Express. ‘"The Obama
campaign has said that they don't believe that to be the case. IIf you really want [the ad's]
secret meaning," he added, "play it backwards at half speed," said Rogers.
Whittenberg might be working on that, but in the meantime he
did what any other journalist would do -- make a Google search. He entered “Obama
and Antichrist” and got 1.3 million hits. Sloppy research! I refined the
search, putting “Barack Obama” in “exact wording” and “Antichrist” in “all
these words” and only got half as many. Though I’m still sifting through the
501,000 hits, some have stuck out,
including one in which Tim LeHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, authors of the “Left
Behind” series of Apocalypse/Rapture novels, express skepticism. "I can
see by the language he uses why people think he could be the antichrist,"
LaHaye is quoted as saying, "but from my reading of scripture, he doesn't
meet the criteria. There is no indication in the Bible that the antichrist will
be an American."
Or IS he an American? Nonetheless, even though there is
an "Obama is the Antichrist" website, the general consensus seems to be that he’s not.
What a relief! But then, what if...John McCain was the
Antichrist? I pop his name and “Antichrist” into the Google advanced search and
get 452,000 hits!. True, many of these are items about the John McCain people
insinuating that Obama is the Antichrist, but there are also observations like this
on the web forum “abovetopsecret.com”:
“Look at his
name John, Jaan, A name in Arabic which is another name for the Devil. Cain,
Remember the bible story of Cain slaying his brother Abel?, Cain, A Black devil
that had to go live in Southern Iraq in the wicked city of Nod. All of the Evil
Aliens from other galaxies used to meet their at the first Nudist Camp on this
planet; Nod/Nuwd. John McCain does have a Reptilian shapeshifting appearance
about himself, Would you not agree?. The AntiChrist.”
Sounds
reasonable to me. But just to be thorough, I pop some more names in. Hillary
Clinton? 342,000! Many , however, seem
to be preoccupied with her Antichrist-like fashion sense. Britney Spears?
148,000, but no doubt her alleged claim to be the Antichrist at the time of her suicide attempt might have upped the
numbers. The biggest shock was when I punched in “Bill O’Reilly is the
Antichrist” -- only 8 hits tallied. Compared to when I punched in my own name, which was 59!
One of those Antichrist hits under my own name, by the way, was a
blog item back in 2007 about
Lars Von Trier being incapacitated by depression while working on his new movie
called “Antichrist” -- which was the subject I was originally going to write about in this posting before being
distracted by all this political stuff. It seems Von Trier is feeling better
and “Antichrist” is back on track.
It takes place in a world which has been created by Satan, and not God and a
couple played by Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbrough hide out in a cabin in
the woods (surrounded evidently, judging 
from the pictures on the website ,
by cute woodland creatures)after their daughter has been killed in an accident
and await the apocalyptic news that the Antichrist, Ralph Nader, has been
elected President.
August 25, 2008
Never one to pass up a chance both to kiss a celebrity’s ass and
show off my feigned erudition, I wasted no time in discussing Coogan’s role in
Michael Winterbottom’s “A Cock and Bull Story,” an
adaptation of Laurence Sterne’s bizarro18th century novel “Tristram Shandy” in
which Coogan played himself as an actor in a film within the film that also is
adapting “Tristram Shandy.” Let’s listen in...
PK: You could hardly do a film that’s, in my opinion, better than
“Tristram Shandy,” where you basically played yourself in a very unflattering
role. Was that like a turning point in your career
SC: Not really. I’d done “24 Hour Party.” I knew that was
different. Was it a turning point? No, it wasn’t a turning point. It was
interesting and I found it quite enjoyable to play something in that way. I
don’t normally like people playing themselves if it’s self-congratulatory and
assisted. What happens when I’ve seen people play themselves is it’s sort of
self-congratulatory narcissism and I didn’t want to be guilty of that when I
did it, so I tried to sail as close to the wind as possible, even to the extent
of almost deliberately not being funny
to challenge the audience to wonder why I was doing it. I kind of just like
that whole tension and discomfort. I gravitate towards it. I don’t know why. I
like it. I like the awkward side of life.
PK: When did you first notice this? Was there an awkward moment
that you had when you were growing up which you enjoyed?
SC: Small tiny embarassing moments. I think that the discomfort,
awkwardness, embarrassment, all those moments are when we really learn what
it’s like to be a human being because there’s a sort of brutality of truth in
certain awkward moments and certain uncomfortableness because we have this way
of communicating which is very smooth and ordered and, ultimately, it conceals,
often, the true feelings.
PK: It discloses the truth
SC: Like kind of a conspiracy of communication and sort of repression.
So, it’s nice to kind of bust through that and find a way of shedding light on
the human condition, which is the purpose of drama. I think everybody can do
that in however small of a way or big of a way and I feel like when you do
comedy, when you look for the awkward things, that’s a way of finding that and
shining that light.
PK: So you draw on a lot of personal experience. Did you do a lot
of improvisation in “Hamlet 2?”
SC: No, not very much at all. I would do a lot of improvisation
only in discussions beforehand. I might say, “Let me try this” or “Shall we try
this,” those kinds of conversations before a scene, not really on camera, but a
lot of the ideas I had thought up just before a scene was shot.
PK: You went to a theater school, did you drawn on any of that
experience in creating your character?
SC: Yes, I did. A little bit. I’m aware of ... I’ve kind of got a
strange background because it’s half comedy, stand-up background and half
theatrical drama-school background, so half actor, half comic. I’m a strange
weird creature. So, yes, I was able to draw upon that on the comic side of
things. In terms of the drama, a certain streak of pretentious self-searching
that I was very aware of.
PK: But you had no teacher who was as inspiring as...
SC: At drama school, not particularly. I mean there must have
been guys...Not like that... The brutal reality is if there had been a teacher
like that she would have annoyed the hell out of me.
PK: If this one is very successful, do you think they’ll be doing
a “Hamlet 3?”
SC: I think that sounds terrible.
PK: People might have thought Hamlet 2 sounded like a terrible
idea.
SC: Actually, “Hamlet 2” did sound terrible. That is true. When I heard the title, I thought that sounds
really, really bad and then I read it and I changed my mind.
PK: Well, this is Hollywood.
Anything can happen. Do you have any
interest in doing something like the original Hamlet?
SC: No, not really. I’m too old. You have to be in your twenties
for Hamlet. In your forties, doing that kind of angsty self-searching looks
actually really tragic. Maybe you could do a mid-life crisis Hamlet, but who
the hell wants to see that.
PK: What about Macbeth?
SC: I don’t think so.
PK: You do have another film coming up with Michael Winterbottom
with whom you seem to enjoy a very good relationship?
SC: It’s not specific. We have 2 or 3 ideas, there’s sort of
hoping it will happen but nothing’s concrete right now, which is kind of a pain
in the ass, but we’re definitely going to do something, it’s just not
definitely the thing you may have read about that’s all.
PK: And then there’s something called “Ed Eagle,” which is...
SC: And that again may not happen either. These people kind of
throw my name into things before they’re ready and their out of the trap. It’s
kind of annoying.
PK: IMDB, not to be trusted then.
SC: Yeah, well, what do you think? I’ve seen stuff on IMDB that
I’m supposed to be shooting, that I’ve written a first draft of something. I’m
like wow, have I? I’d like to find it. If I can find it on the internet, it
will save me a lot of work.
PK: But you are doing a stand-up tour of Britain with
your Alan Partridge character?
SC: I’m doing a bunch of characters on stage, like six
characters. I’m sort of hesitant to call it stand up because though I do
characters for stand up because I also have a live band, dancers, and
supporting actors who come on stage and do sketches and stuff and a big screen
and I use computer graphics. It’s like a little theater experience, rather than
stand up. It’s not just me in front of a microphone.
PK: Will you do any numbers from “Hamlet 2?”
SC: No, I can guarantee there will be zero content from “Hamlet
2.”
PK: Do you find that, since you haven’t done it for about ten
years, thisis like a return to the well
to restore your inspiration?
SC: Yeah, it’s nice to just go in front of an audience again, no
middle man, a complete lack of ambiguity there, they applaud and laugh or they
don’t. It’s immediate. It’s also a good discipline because it requires absolute
focus. You have to be totally unresigned, you can’t do it in half measures, you
have to absolutely commit every night. So I’ve given myself that challenge,
that benchmark, as something that was important for me. I’m being sort of
pressured to wrap it up.
PK: Here’s a quote from Oscar Wilde that I read somewhere that you quoted once. “To be a spectator of one’s
own life is to escape the suffering of one’s own life.”
SC: It’s basically not that my life is angst and suffering,
because I quite enjoy it. But, of course, from time to time, things don’t go
exactly the way I’ve planned, but I channel everything I do into my work.
That’s a way of sometimes exorcising things. So, no excuses about experience,
everything is potentially creative material.
August 22, 2008
Before we get back to Mr. Coogan, I think I should follow up on a
posting a few days ago about the “2008 Brandcameos Product Placement Award,” which this year, for the first time, are being selected in part by popular vote.
Well, the results are in. And though the motion picture industry pretty much pales in promotional
and advertising significance before, say, the Olympics, I think it’s important to keep up with the latest developments.
Here are some of the big winners:
Brandcameo E.T./Reese's Award for Achievement in Press Coverage:
“Transformers.”
No contest there; how else can you refer to that movie except as
a product of its product placements?
Similarly, the other film that most shamelessly abused product
placementing, that high-end QVC broadcast posing as a movie “Sex and the City,”
took three seemingly contradictory prizes:
The Most Mouthwatering Award for placement most likely to prompt
an immediate purchase (namely its Luis Vuitton collection).
and:
The Perfect Fit Award for best product placement chemistry (The
Manolo Blahniks, of course).
and also:
The Film Whore Award for movie that most “sold out” for product
placement.
There can be no higher honor. Sorry for the interruption. We’ll
resume with Mr. Coogan shortly...
August 21, 2008
Steve Coogan has starred in two of the best movies of the century (“24
Hour Party People” and “Tristram Shandy,” both by Michael Winterbottom), he's one
of the most popular TV personalities in Britain (Alan Partridge? Tommy
Saxondale? No? I didn’t think so.) and is one of the funniest and most
inventive comic minds from over there since Monty Python. But nobody in America
knows or cares who he is. Maybe that’s for the best for everyone
involved.
Nonetheless, Coogan wants to make the transition, and this
month alone sees him in two comedies released in mainstream America, the
box-office topping “Tropic Thunder” and the lower profile but equally hilarious
“Hamlet 2.” In the former he plays a hapless British director losing control of
a “Apocalypse Now” war movie shot in the jungle. In the latter he plays a
hapless drama teacher in a Tucson
high school seeking to save his career by putting on a student production of
the title musical, a self-penned sequel to the Shakespeare original that
involves a time machine and a number called “Rock Me Sexy Jesus.”
I managed to grab a few minutes with him over the phone as
he was being spirited somewhere in a limo in New York.
PK: Where are you driving to?
SC: I’m driving from a studio in New York all the way back to my hotel.
PK: You’ve been very busy lately.
SC: Yeah. Doing the rounds, just whoring myself as they say.
PK: Well you’ve got two movies that are coming out this
month alone. Do you mix them up at all when you’re appearing before different
people?
SC: Not really, no cause I’m a big part in a small movie and
a small part in a big movie so it’s easy to distinguish really.
PK: Do you have any preference?
SC: Obviously I like the one where I’ve got the bigger part,
but Hamlet 2 is kind of totally different. “Tropic Thunder” is kind of like a
shotgun assault on the senses where you’re dying laughing at the end of it. “Hamlet
2” is a bit more uplifting in a kind of life affirming feel good kind of way.
PK: So you think “Hamlet 2” is more the feel good movie?
SC: I think so. Yeah. There’s more warm fuzzy stuff. Yeah.
I think so.
PK: It’s hard to tell whether you’re supposed to take it
tongue and cheek or not. It seems like your least ironic character that I’ve
seen on screen.
SC: Yeah, that’s true. Well there’s a lack of cynicism about
him and that’s kind of why I wanted to do it, to see if I could pull it off
really and also I like the fact that it’s kind of smart and it’s got that kind
of edginess, but at the end, it becomes the thing it satirizes. It satirizes
inspirational teachers and sort of becomes one at the end. That’s fine. I like
that. I like the fact that it’s not cynical and twisted in it’s resolution.
PK: I found myself moved by the conclusion and thinking
maybe I’m losing my critical edge. I assume it’s intended to be moving at the
end.
SC: Yeah. Well I was kind of surprised by it. I have to say
that Andy [Andrew Fleming, the director] was smart. I felt like the technical
side of the funny stuff is the sort of thing that preoccupies me most of the
time when I’m making a film like that but he made sure that those moments of
pathos were real, so that the funny stuff is underpinned by a real emotional
arc.
PK: The bits and
pieces of stage production in the film actually I thought looked pretty good. I
mean it was better than “Sweeney Todd,” for example. Is there an actual script
for that too?
SC: It’s kind of like there is. There are lots of disjointed
bits that have been written but that haven’t ended up on the screen. I remember
an earlier draft there were lots of TV monitors on the stage showing execrpts
from “Smokey and the Bandit” in the middle of the sequel to “Hamlet,” which I
really liked, but it didn’t make the final draft. But lots of people have said
they would like to see the whole play, but...just...be careful what you wish
for.
PK: About the “Rock Me Sexy Jesus" number, I’ve read there’s
some concern that some American audiences may be offended by that.
SC: Well, I guess some of them might. I think it depends
where you go. The more kind of liberal, tolerant, the liberal places won’t be so
bothered by it, but I guess more conservative areas may take it the wrong way,
but I think all interesting comedy or comedy that’s bold always runs the risk
of upsetting some people. I think that’s just the nature of the beast. Monty
Python, you know, had similar problems when they had “The Life of Brian,” but years
later people realized it’s just a funny film. It depends on what the intention
is behind it. If the intention is just to upset the apple cart or throw your
toys out and shock people for the sake of it then it’s not smart. And also it’s
not like it’s a new idea. “Jesus Christ Superstar” and “Godspell,” they tried
to make Jesus quite funky. I certainly don’t find that offensive. I don’t know
if it’s necessarily a good idea.
PK: It hasn’t ruined your relationship with Jesus, though?
SC: I’ve always had a very difficult relationship with him
anyway. I always thought he was a very interesting man, I just don’t believe he
could do all those tricks.
PK: Do you think there are significant differences in the
taste and what is acceptable in America
and Britain?
SC: Yes, there is and there are. You have to be aware of
that. Having said that, there are an awful lot of similarities. I feel very
comfortable. I don’t feel like I’m speaking a different language. I feel like
we have the same kind of references, we have a lot more in common in terms of
humor and popular cultural tastes than the British do with the European cousins
20 miles away. We don’t really share the same sense of humor with those guys,
but we consume avidly the same things as our American cousins. So it’s not
really such a huge leap, but, of course, there are certain tonalities you’ve
got to be aware of. One thing, for example, is the profanity of the C word,
which is a real no go area in American comedy, whereas in Britain we use
it like confetti.
PK: Confetti being the C word
SC: Yeah.
PK: Why would you want to become a big hit in America because you’re regarded as a God in Britain and yet
it’s resulted in all kinds of invasion of privacy. Here it’d be so much worse.
I mean, look at Lindsay Lohan and Barack Obama’s going to lose the election
because he’s popular.
SC: I don’t think...I got over that a long time ago really.
It goes with the territory. I’ve got quite a thick skin. As goes for America, I’m
not over here saying I really want to succeed at all costs. I’ve got quite a
comfortable living over here in the UK. Because I’ve got this very
secure career, it means I can try and do things on my own terms here. So I try
and choose jobs that I really think are good and I want to do and not because I
think it might move things forward for me. Although it’d be nice to have a
bigger profile here and therefore empower myself more, I do jobs based on my
gut instincts about whether I want to do them and try and find interesting
work. That’s the only criteria I use on whether I’m going to do something is
just whether I think it’s interesting and whether I think it’s funny. Even to
the extent that I’ll sort of go against what I’m advised by my agents because
it doesn’t feel right. So, it’d be nice, but my life isn’t defined by whether
I’m successful in America.
I just like working here and I like working with new people and a lot of them I
started working with here, so that’s exciting.
PK: “Hamlet 2” was a hit at Sundance, has that expanded your
possibilities here in America
and in Hollywood?
SC: Not greatly. A little bit. I just think people return
your calls and it seems things for some period are going well. It changed
things up a little bit, not radically. It’s all incremental.
NEXT: Tristram Shandy, the origins of post modernism, and the requisite
Oscar Wilde quote.
August 18, 2008
“Stupid is,” a great though imaginary person once said, “as
stupid does.”
However it does for “Tropic Thunder” (and its opening weekend
numbers, $26
million to beat out “The Dark Knight” for top spot, suggest it is playing
pretty well), going the “full retard” doesn’t seem a liability when it comes to
running for President. Since “Forrest Gump” came out in 1994, stupid has done
pretty well for candidates, especially lately when its opposite is no longer
“smart” but “elitist.” It works even better at selling politicians than selling
beer. As Susan Jacoby saysin a recent interview, “It shows that a lot of politicians think
they have to play to ignorance and label anything that goes against received
opinion as elitism.”
But back to the movies. Are they really that stupid? “Tropic
Thunder,” one can argue, doesn’t really do the full retard per se, but does it
ironically. Or is that just elitist reasoning?
And look at the heroes of
two of the year’s biggest hits, “Iron Man” and “The Dark Knight.” Now those are
elitists: smart, well educated, rich, connoiseurs of fine things, especially
women. But then again, those are their secret identities. Who knows, maybe
behind those masks they are as stupid as you or me.
In a way, they’re kind of like John McCain, who has managed to
hide his multi-millionaire status, muddled adulteries, blue blood heritage, and
marriage to an heiress (maybe the reason that doesn’t make him an elitist like
John Kerry is that Cindy keeps her mouth shut) and instead characterizes Barack
Obama with his hardscrabble background and uppity ideas as “elitist.”
Ironically, “Gump” star Tom Hanks has gone and endorsed the smarty-pants Obama. But the spirit of the movie prevails: “Run, Forrest,
run!”
August 13, 2008
Long conceded by conservatives to being an inveterate nest of Liberals, Hollywood may be taking a rightward turn.
Such is the hope expressed by “The National Review”
in their story about the production of David Zucker’s (late of the team that turned
out such funny movies as “HotShots, Part Deux” and the Naked Gun series)
political satire, “An American Carol.” In it a Liberal documentary filmmaker
called “Michael Malone” (played by Chris's less famous brother Kevin P. Farley -- he played "the Landlord" in the 2007 comedy "Wild Girls Gone") gets taken on a tour of American history on the Fourth
of July by none other than the ghost of Gen. George Patton. Here's a description of a scene being shot:
"Two young men--both terrorists--enter the station. They are
surprised to see a security checkpoint manned by two NYPD officers. "I'll
need to see your bag, please," says one of the officers. The lead
terrorist glances nervously at his friend and swings his backpack down from his
shoulder to present it to the cops. Just as the officer pulls on the zipper,
however, a small army of ACLU lawyers marches up to the policemen with a
stop-search order. The cops look at each other and shrug their shoulders. 'This says we can't search their bags.'
"The young men are relieved. They smile fiendishly as they walk
toward the crowded platform. As the lead terrorist once again slips the
backpack over his shoulder, he mutters his appreciation.
"'Thank Allah for the ACLU.'"
Fucking hilarious! (Sorry for the bad word, but the “Washington Times”
claims
“liberal” bloggers use profanity more often than conservatives, so I wanted to
keep up.)
“The movie smells like a
hit to me,” says “New York Post” critic Kyle Smith. Maybe it’s a typo, or maybe Smith wants to maintain his conservative
status by not using a four letter word, but what I’m smelling is something that
rhymes with “hit.”
Do they really believe anyone other than brain dead Rush Limbaugh
fans are going to want to watch, let alone laugh at that kind of “hit?”
Zucker, formerly a liberal Democrat, switched to the Republican
side during the 2004 election. His
unfunniness can be traced to that time
(hey, it was an unfunny time), as can be seen in the Republican campaign ads he
churned out.
Here’s a Drudge Report item on one of these spots:
“In the ad, Zucker....recreates former Clinton Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright's 2000 visit to North Korea.
During the visit, Secretary Albright presented North Korean dictator Kim Jong
Il with a basketball autographed by former NBA superstar Michael Jordan.
"Actress Adele Stasilli-Fernandez,
playing Albright, is shown presenting Kim Jong Il
with the Michael Jordan basketball, painting the walls of Osama bin
Laden's Afghanistan cave and turning a blind eye to suicide bombers.
In one scene, her skirt rips as she changes the tire of a Middle
Eastern dictator's limousine.”
Dave! You’re killing me! Apparently I’m not the only one
scratching my head, as the item goes on to say:
“One GOP strategist said ‘jaws dropped’ when the ad was first
viewed. "Nobody could believe Zucker thought any political organization
could use this ad. It makes a point, but it's way over the top."
Then there’s Jon Voight, who plays the ghost of George Washington
in Zucker’s movie. He sets “Malone” right by taking him to a still smouldering Ground
Zero.Voight, who admittedly
opposed the Vietnam War back in the day ( he won an Oscar playing an anti-war
paraplegic vet in 1978 “Coming Home” when that kind of thing was fashionable), apparently wants to be taken "seriously" about his new Conservative credentials and political savvy, so he recently unleashed his apocalyptic, anti-Obama opinions in an editorial in the "Washington Times." He concludes:
"If, God forbid, we live to see Mr Obama president, we will
live through a socialist era that America has not seen before, and
our country will be weakened in every way."
I’m cryin’!
The rest of Voight’s
screed contains a rewriting of history that makes “An American Carol” look like
David McCullough.
What do I know? Maybe Voight will end up McCain’s VP candidate.
But I’m thinking, could it all be a ruse? Could Zucker and Voight be liberal
moles in the conservative movement, trying to take it down with ads and movies
and op eds that show how stupid and unfunny (except unintentionally) it is? Maybe so, but judging from
the dipshit ads spewing from the McCain campaign, I’m not betting on it.
August 11, 2008
For six months, long after the film crept into box office
oblivion, a Hindu group has been sending me and I guess everyone else who
writes about movies a manifesto condemning Mike Myers's "The Love Guru," demanding it be banned or
censored, asking for an apology, or all of the above. I don’t know whether they
saw the film, but I didn’t, so I’ll say no more except I think that kind of action
serves only to get publicity, if not for the film itself than for the group
making the complaints.
“Tropic Thunder,” on the other hand, I have seen, and if those
disability groups calling for a boycott of the film because of its depiction of
an actor trying to depict a mentally disabled man have indeed seen the film,
they have totally misinterpreted it. As with the character played by Robert
Downey, Jr., a white actor playing a black character in the film within the film, the
targets of the satire are not mentally disabled people or African Americans but
Hollywood’s crude and often exploitative portrayal of them on the screen. So
these groups calling for the boycott should instead encourage people to see the
movie. Or at least develop a sense of irony. But that’ll be the day.
So this whole brouhaha has gotten me thinking, do Hollywood films, misinterpreted or not, have an impact on
the behavior and attitudes of the audience? The rare nutcake like David
Hinckley aside, could a trend like the increased presence of gays in movies and
TV over the past few years have had
anything to do with gay marriage becoming legal in Massachusetts
and California?
Could the frequent portrayal of the President of the United States as an
African-American in movies (often by Morgan Freeman, though his Presidential stature might be diminished — or enhanced — by this )
have helped produce a climate in which an African-American could run for President
for real? And could the recent spate of stoner comedies (of which I have written
at length in a dopey upcoming feature story) have clouded the brains in Washington enough to get
them to legalize the drug?
Maybe so, but I think it actually works the other way. The movies
try to appeal to and reflect the mood of the public; that’s how they sell tickets. Pushing for
social change just doesn’t pay off at the box office. Nor does being too subtle
and ironic, as the “Tropic Thunder” people are finding out.
August 07, 2008
Though his
favorable ratings are down for the count, President Bush and those who still
support him have faith that history will ultimately vindicate his
administration. Since these days History is written by Hollywood
movies, that process may have already begun.
Hence the
brouhaha over “The Dark Knight,” which not only may be the most commercially
successful film of all time but is the one taken most seriously by political
pundits. Though some (here and here in
particular) see the film as a denunciation of US foreign policy and the current
administration, others see it as a vindication.
The argument being
that like Batman making himself a scapegoat in order to extirpate the
“terrorism” of the Joker, Bush has taken on the blame for the woes of the Iraq
War when all those whiners don’t realize that it’s the key to kicking Al
Qaeda’s butt. Or something like that.
On the other hand, folks may want to wait for the release of
Oliver Stone’s already controversial “W,” in
which, judging from this trailer, the President’s sodden salad days and dubious rise to power make him the life of his party.
So which will it be? Bush as scorned prophet and redeemer of the
free world or profligate scalawag who’s led us to ruination? Since nobody will
be reading history or anything else in the future, this will be the judgment
that matters.
August 01, 2008
Once again
the Brandchannel people are about to present their annual awards
for product polacement
achievements in film, but this year they are including the poor schmucks who
pay $10 to be unwittingly subjected to this insidious advertising in the award process. But you have
to act fast! Voting ends today!
Here are some
of the categories up for votes:
Scene
Stealer: Brand that stole the spotlight from the actual stars of the film.
Bomb:
Brandcameo that ruined your enjoyment of a scene or film.
Odd Couple:
Brandcameo with the most awkward fit
Film Whore:
Film that sold more of its soul to accommodate product placement.
To this I
would suggest adding a “September Issue of Vogue” award for the film with the
most ostentatious display of chi-chi labels and give it to “Sex and the City”
and the “Movie in Disguise” award to the film that came closest to eliminating
all traces of actual filmmaking and replacing them with product promotion -- that would go to“Transformers” even though it came out last year.
Here’s a link
to refresh your memory of some of the year’s product placement highlights.
July 29, 2008
So you toss
the word “misogynist” around the hip young director and his ingenue star and
everyone gets bent out of shape. I mean, of the three women in “The Wackness,”
one (Stephanie played by Olivia Thirlby) is a cold-hearted, selfish and
hedonistic bitch, her mother, played by Famke Jannsen, is a cold-hearted,
joyless shrew, a chick named unity played by Mart-Kate Olsen is a drug addled
Park Avenue ditz and the hero’s mother is a nag. Not that these are necessarily
bad things; I liked the movie. But let’s see if the director Jonathan Levine
and Thirlby can talk their way out of this one.
JL: ..but
that’s me personally. Perhaps that’s something that subconsciously wells up in
the movie, but I think that in many ways I try to be as fair as possible and I
think that’s the great thing about having Olivia in the film, having Famke in
the film, and Mary-Kate, that perhaps on the page these characters are less
sympathetic, but these guys are so wonderful that they can sort of fill that
out in a beautiful way. And I don’t know if it’s misogyny or not. I wish I
could tell you. I wish that I could analyze it in that way, but I think that
for me the female characters in the film, the men are all kind of at the mercy
of these female characters in a way and that’s often how I feel with women. My
problem is that they hold a great deal of sway over me and perhaps there is
kind of a reactionary response to that that converts itself into some sort of
animosity, but I would like to hope that deep down the movie is really about people
and really cares about all the people in the film. I don’t know. Now I feel
like maybe I’m a dick.
OT: No.
You’re not. You’re not a dick. If I may, I have to comment on this. I’m really
sensitive to things that I think are misogynistic because I think that it comes
out by accident a lot and I don’t think this film is [misogynistic] whatsoever
even though the two main characters are male and thus given to discussing women
and sex in a very frank and male way. I think that the females in the film… I
don’t think that it’s misogynistic to depict a female who can use her feminine
wiles and is confident and is sexual. I think the other way around. I think
that at least between Luke and Stephanie, Stephanie wears the pants. Luke is
like a little bitch. He doesn’t know how to deal with the fact that this is his
first tiem and for Stephanie it’s just
PK: He’s the
blushing virgin and your character plays the sexually confident one. A role reversal [folding his
position like a cheap suitcase]
OT: I think
that if it’s done right the femme fatale character can be the ultimate feminist
character and not given to those kind of I don’t think that Stephanie is a
character that is a male fantasy.
JL: No. I
think she’s a real person and that’s what’s sort of so great about. I think
that the shifting power dynamic is something that’s very interesting to look
at. And the great thing is that, Olivia, with what you did especially, you can
always see the inner life flipping behind this characters eyes and you can
always see the motivation even when the characters are not necessarily acting
sympathetically and I think that the male characters do that too. You always, I
think any sort of misogyny in the film would come as an active defense
mechanism. It’s like a fall back thing, that’s what these guys are clinging to
and it’s because they are so under the sway of the women in their lives and
they can’t find any degree of control over it so they have to cling to their
misogyny and I hope that’s more of the characters of the film and less of a
macro thing
PK:
[increasingly sycophantic] It’s a pretty accurate portrayal of the adolescent
mind.
OT: I think
so. The male mind which is kind of adolescent regardless of what age. I mean
the truth is that boys will be boys and there’s a distinction between guy talk,
which is frank and you could interpret it as offensive, but who’s gonna do
that. There’s a difference between that and actually chauvinism I think.
PK: Which is
where the soundtrack gives cues. I’m
talking about Donovan of course.
JL: Donovan
was a real woman hater. You can tell. All his rhymes are about bitches and hos.
PK: You
mentioned this in another interview how the focus of the movie sort of switches
from Luke character to Dr. Squires [the Ben Kingsley character], did that occur
in the course of the shooting?
JL: No, it
was originally in the script. It was this POV shift about half way through and
then it shifts from focusing on the relationship between the sort of buddy
movie of it to the kind of blossoming romance as well, but it does, it shifts
to Kingsley. It always shifted to Kingsley in the script around page 40, page
50.
PK: It also
seemed to me, he’s sort of a 60s leftover and the movie sort of reminded me of
some of the films that came out in the 60s about you young men being initiated
like “The Graduate,” obviously, or… did
you ever see “If…”?
JL: I never
saw “If…”
PK: It’s a
good one. Were you influenced by those?
JL: “The
Graduate” certainly was one of the seminal films that I saw that made me want
to be a filmmaker. I think that we watched that a lot. We watched a lot of,
myself and the producers and my DP, watched a lot of kind of May-September
buddy movies, whether it be “Wonder Boys” or “Harold and Maude,” stuff like
that, and we also watched a lot of Cameron Crowe type stuff, whether it be “Almost
Famous” or “Say Anything,” all that stuff kind of combined to a hodge podge of
influences, but for me the stuff that influeced me most growing up is like
early 90s independent film whether it’s Todd Haynes or Spike Lee all that stuff
is really, that informs more the attitude
PK: There’s a
lot of Spike Lee in your movie
JL: Yea,
definitely. The kind of in your face provocation. The kind of willful roughness
in a way.
PK: When you
graduated from high school was it as memorable a year for you as it was for the
character in this movie?
OT: Yea, I
mean it was a little atypical my own experience. I graduated in 2005, so 10
years, 11 years behind the curve of the kids in this movie. In a lot of ways it
was very different, in a lot of ways it was exactly the same.
PK: Is your
heart broken?
OT: Not yet.
Almost. I actually didn’t. It was a little atypical for me because I got my
first acting gig when I was about to graduate, so I actually left school a
little early.
JL: But it
was the high school that Olivia went to was very similar
OT: Very
similar I think it probably was not a far cry for the school that Stephanie and
Luke graduated from
JL: In fact
one of the reference materials was my buddy went to the same high school that
she went to in ‘94 and I took his yearbook and that was one of the reference
materials
OT:... and the school is K-12, so in 94 I was
actually at the school in 2nd grade and I was in the yearbook that they were
using as a wardrobe reference. They were looking at the seniors page, but if
you flipped to lower school, I was there in 2nd grade.
PK: So what
are you guys doing now? I heard that you’re and I found this hard to believe
because you had already been in one of his movies but you were taken off the
cast of “Pineapple Express” and plan to boycott it when it comes out?
OT: Yea I
don’t think that David had anything to do with that decision. I’m not
boycotting it for the record. Somebody came up with that. That’s absolutely not
true.
JL: I’ll go
see it. You wanna go see it?
OT: I’m ready
to go see it. It’s going to be hilarious. Plus, I participated in it for a
while.
JL: But we
should pay for “The Wackness” and then just sneak into it.
OT: OK.
PK: “The
Wackness” got the audience award at Sundance and also at Los Angeles, but it seems to me like it’s
going to be a really tough sell because it’s not really like a stoner comedy
like Pineapple Express would be.
OT: It’s a
bit of a mixture. It’s like very specific and very broad and universal at the
same time.
JL: I mean I
guess we’ll see. I think for me as a… and I’m a big summer movie film guy, but
at this point I’ve seen so many explosions and computer characters, that I’ll
be excited about, I mean I think beyond anything it’s a character driven movie
so hopefully that is something that people will respond to at this point in the
summer, but it’s challenging. It’s provocative and it’s different, but I
consider those assets.
PK: What are
you going up against?
JL: I mean “Hancock”
comes out the same weekend, but I don’t think we’re really
PK: Another
adolescent male character with super powers.
JL: I guess
that’s true. I’m not sure that we’re gonna. I willingly concede to that, but I
think that hopefully we can be a nice alternative for some people.
PK: Upcoming
projects?
JL: Well, I’m
adapting a book for Sony called “The Echelon Vendetta” and then I’m reading a lot of scripts, but the fact
that I’m so proud of this
makes it hard. I don’t want to do anything that sucks, so I’m trying to hold
out and figure out the right thing.
OT: “Safety
Glass,” “Dream of the Romans,” “New York I Love You,” “Margaret.”
PK: These are
all done?
OT: Yep,
they’re in the can.
PK: So now
you’re just relaxing. Doing crack.
July 25, 2008
Say what you
will about the films of Judd Apatow, but “Knocked Up,” “Superbad” and the rest
have inspired one worthy trend in Hollywood
movies: dope smoking. Not only is it prominent in the upcoming Apatow movie,
“Pineapple Express” (the title refers to a lethal blend of cannabis) directed
by David Gordon Green, but also in “The Wackness,” JonathanLevine's vaguely-memoiristic tragi-comedy of being an 18-year-old dope dealer
hopelessly in love with a seemingly unattainable woman in New York City in
1994. Whose stepdad is his psychiatrist played by Ben Kingsley. To whom he
sells dope, and so on. That one.
A couple of
weeks ago I interviewed the director Levine and Olivia Thirlby, who
plays Stephanie, the unrequited love, but I got so stoned while talking to them
I forgot about it. I found it later when I played the tape thinking it was an old Mott the Hoople/Cowsills mix. So here it is now two weeks late but still relevant. Why?
Well, Thirlby, who also played Juno’s best friend in “Juno,” was supposed to
play a role in “Pineapple Express” (she was also in Green’s last movie “Snow
Angels”) ,
but got dropped from the cast. So
there. Anyway, she’ll get around to talking about that and also the “Juno”
effect so-called with all those unmarried Gloucester
high school girls getting pregnant. Or
getting stoned, I can’t remember which. And then, oh yeah: misogyny.
Here goes.
PK: So what
was it about 1994 that was so tragic for everybody’s lives?
JL: That was
so tragic? Well I think that’s more what the characters are going through at
the time. I don’t think that’s specific to ’94. I think there were two separate
things. There was the world I wanted to set it in, which is a world I was very
intimately involved with from my own personal experience and then there was
kind of the themes I wanted to addresss. I think ’94, not just with the music
that was so important to me growing up, but thematically I think with Giuliani
cleaning up New York and New York at this crossroads, I think it sort
of mirrored what the chacters were going through at the time.
PK: Do you to
take some credit for derailing Giuliani’s presidential hopes?
JL: No. He
was well on his way to derailing himself
OT: He was
derailed a while ago I think.
PK: Olivia,
in 1994 you were in New York.
But you were only about 6 at that time, right?
OT: 8, I was
8
PK: Do you
remember anything about it?
OT: Yeah, I
totally do. Like John said, the city was undergoing huge changes and I was very
aware of that. At least in the sense that all the adults around me were talking
about it and, especially in the neighborhood I grew up in, the changes were
really evident. I mean, it was a huge deal. We had a lot of friends in the
neighborhood, people that had been living there for a long time, and when they
started arresting the homeless people out of Tompkins Square park it was a huge deal
when Giuliani started trying to close all the community gardens. It was a huge
deal. It was something I was very much aware of and when the first restaurants
started to open up within walking distance that was also a huge deal.
PK: What part
of New York
is this?
OT: The East Village.
When I was that age in ’94, it was still really kind of pretty authentic. And
people who didn’t live there didn’t go there and now it’s, especially over the
past two or three years, it has become really different.
PK: It’s like
a theme park or something?
OT: It’s like
a quaint tenement theme park.
PK: There was
an artistic fervor going on...?
OT: I
wouldn’t say artistic fervor at all.
PK: Before, I
mean.
OT: Oh,
before. No. It wasn’t really like a bohemian area. It was like a crackhead
area.
JL: A lot of
crack fervor. People getting excited about crack
PK: You don’t
have any crack in your movie, though.
JL: No
PK: You draw
the line at crack?
JL: It’s just
not anything I knew personally. I’ve been lucky enough to avoid crack thus far.
OT: Don’t
lie, John
JL: OK, well,
with the exception of a few nights in college, but, no, that wasn’t the world I
knew, that wasn’t the world we were involved in. So, no crack.
PK: But you
smoked pot continually when you were about 18 or so?
JL: Yeah,
pretty frequently.
PK: But you
never sold it?
JL: I never
sold it. I would have been really bad at it I think. I would have gotten
arrested like even when I cheated on a paper in high school I would get caught,
I always had a really guilt conscience.
PK: If the
film is autobiographical, did you have a heartbreak at the same time? Were you
also a virgin?
JL: I guess.
Was I a virgin? At some point I was. I probably like around that time was when
I was deflowered. I’m not really very comfortable talking about that one. Am I
blushing?
PK: No, but I
am.
JL: Ok. No,
it’s not strictly autobiographical in any way. It’s just the worldview that the
characters have, the music, the backdrop, that’s all culled from my personal
experience, but nothing in that movie really happened.
PK: Is that a
Donovan song on the soundtrack?
JL: There’s a
Donovan song, “Season of the Witch.” Yeah, we thought that Kingsley’s character…
PK: Wasn’t
that used by Scorsese in “Mean Streets?”
JL: I don’t
think he did.
PK: No, I’m
thinking of “Atlantis.”
JL: Anyway,
we used it because we thought the Kingsley character would have been really
into like 60s -70s psychedelia and that in many ways he would kind of connect
the spirit of that music to the spirit of hip hop that Luke’s listening to.
PK: I get the
impression that Ben Kingslry may have been a handful to work with.
JL: No he’s
awesome. Why do you think he may have been a handful?
PK: His
performance is so, I don’t know, out there and freaky…
OT: That’s
the amazing thing about him is that he’s functioning on such a high level as an
actor that he can go from being himself to being this character who bears no
resemblance to himself in an instant. It was one of the coolest things about
working with him is that a lot of actors like need to be in character and get
in character and if they are playing someone who’s childlike or volatile or
crazy or stoned they need to be those things all the time, but he’s not that
way at all he’s very, one moment you’re talking to him before the camera is
rolling and he’s his stately, highly intelligent proper British kind of self
and then the next moment, literally, the camera’s rolling and he’s become all
glassy-eyed and stoned and...
JL: Yea, it’s
crazy. He’s got remarkable control and you wouldn’t know from one moment to the
next that he could go to that extreme place without …I don’t think he’s ever
done that stuff
PK: I read
that you had to teach him how to use a bong.
JL: That’s on
the internet today. I did teach him how to use a bong, but he wasn’t so
interested in kind of the details of that stuff. He was really interested in
the emotion and intention of his character and that’s sort of how he connects
to it like all the details are fairly ancillary to it. He connects to it
through this very kind of, he’s a classically trained Shakespearean actor,
that’s how he gets to it even when there’s a bong involved.
PK: Did he
improvise at all? Some of his riffs seemed almost spontaneous.
JL: I think
it’s mostly acting. He had one improvisational line with Mary-Kate which was
very good, but he was very much interested in adhering to the text strictly. In
fact, when he would get one word wrong he would ask the script supervisor to
come up to him and inform him of that.
PK: So Mary-Kate
Olsen and Ben Kingsley in a phone booth. How did you come up with that idea?
JL: Well, it
wasn’t that. I wrote it before they were even involved. So it was originally
just more about this character trying to connect to his lost youth by hooking
up randomly in a bar. Once it became them, I recognized that it might cause a
bit of a stir, but at the time when we were shooting it it just felt, and this
is maybe a testament to how strange I am, but it felt really fine, because he’s
playing a character that’s the maturity level of an adolescent and she’s very
wise beyond her years in a way so I
think they kind of met in the middle.
PK: [to
Thirlby]Were you sorry that you weren’t in a similar scene with Ben?
OT: Was I
sorry that I didn’t have a make-out scene with her? Who’s not? I mean, even Jon
considered writing himself into the script so that he could make out with Sir
Ben.
JT: By the
way, we rehearsed that scene and then I was like this just doesn’t make sense,
it’s just weird
PK: I don’t
know it could be a sequel. You probably don’t want to talk about “Juno,” but
it’s been sort of in the...
OT: It’s ok
we can talk about it
PK:
Especially locally we have these Gloucester
teenagers
OT: So what
happened? They decided they all wanted to get pregnant and they all wanted to
do it together and they were inspired by the film “Juno.”
PK: Well I
think that last step is debatable.
JL: That’s
just pure speculation. I feel like that’s much ado about nothing.
PK: It’s a
hot topic.
OT: I mean
I’ve definitely heard of it. People have been asking me about it, but I think “Juno”
is a piece of fiction. It’s a movie and it’s meant to be an artistic endeavor
and that’s the beauty of art is that you put it out into the world and people
can react to it so many different ways and if they react to it by taking it
very literally then that’s their choice.
PK: And you
don’t think the movie’s responsible for…?
OT: How could
the movie be responsible?
PK: Hey, I’m
on your side
OT: I mean I
don’t see how those things tie together. That would be the same as saying that
a movie that depicts a psychokiller inspires psychokillers [as in this recent
case].
Sure, potentially maybe that’s true, but is it the movie’s fault? If some
person saw the movie “Seven” for example and said wow that appeals to me I’m
gonna go kill people in a very strange and convoluted way, maybe they were
inspired by the film, but is it the fault of the film for depicting that?
PK: Oddly enough, though, after I
saw “The Wackness,” I did become a drug dealer.
JL: You
became a drug dealer? After I saw “Juno,” I got pregnant, which is weird, but
yeah, I don’t know. I feel like if you’re worried what anyone’s going to do
when they see your movie it’s going to paralyze you.
OT: I mean
it’s the same thing with Jackass of kids trying the Jackass stunts. Does that
mean we have to put a disclaimer in front of every single film saying “don’t go
do this.”
PK: I think
that’s Darwinism at work. The people who imitate Jackass are probably people
who shouldn’t live to reproduce.
JL: What
about the people who see a double feature of "Jackass" and "Juno?" They’re probably
screwed.
PK: They’d
probably cancel each other out. Meanwhile, in one interview you said you don’t know how to
write women. And in retrospect I'm wondering if maybe the movie might be a little
misogynistic.
JL: Well.
OT: People
keep saying that.
JL: Oh my
god, really? I haven’t heard it. No one said it to me. Here’s the thing, I can
neither confirm or deny that. There are parts of me that potentially have that
and I would probably like to work on those parts. I don’t claim to be a perfect
person, but I also don’t want to censor myself to the point where I’m, I think
if you start censoring the bad traits of your personality, the character
overall or the personality of the film overall is undermined. I certainly hope
that’s not the case. I don’t think my girlfriend thinks that’s the case.
OT: I
certainly don’t think it’s the case.
Next: Enough with this misogyny obsession, already.
July 24, 2008
For what it’s worth, here’s my take on the greatest movie of all
time .
THE DARK KNIGHT
Already fans are declaring “The Dark Knight” the best film of all
time. Well, I’m not even sure it was the best film released last week. True, so
much hype and near unanimous critical raves can set one up for disappointment.
But when I saw the film I was shocked by its murkiness, incoherence and
downright tedium. I was a fan of Christopher Nolan’s “Batman Begins,” but for a
film featuring a character called the Joker, this sequel was utterly humorless
and self-important.
It starts out with a decent bank heist, but when the fake Batmen
show up, and the pack of dogs and the perplexing cameo by Cilian Murphy’s the Scarecrow
from the previous movie, I was not only
confused but I didn’t care and I thought Christian Bale as Batman looked like
he felt the same way. Then the back
story about the mob laundering money and
some guy from Hong Kong offering them a deal and Bruce Wayne’s company offering
that guy a deal -- it was about as riveting as the trade tariff scenario in
“Star Wars -- Episode II: Attack of the Clones.”
So much for Batman. It’s the late Heath Ledger’s The Joker that
is the real draw. Showy and whimsical (that’s a funny magic trick with the
pencil) it injects the film with much-needed vitality, chaos and comedy. After
two and a half hours, however, Ledger’s reptilian lip-licking and skewed,
sibilant line readings seem a little mannered. Certainly the basic plot pattern
of the Joker taking hostages, offering Batman impossible alternatives, and
cackling mirthlessly when everything blows up gets a little repetitious. It
might not be an allegory for the War on Terror, but it sure tries to be as
depressing.
Ledger was a great actor and if he gets an Oscar it will be the
one he deserved for "Brokeback
Mountain." But I can’t
help being nostalgic for Jack Nicholson’s Joker in Tim Burton’s 1989 “Batman.”
He was funny and scary with great lines like, “This town needs an enema!” This
movie needs one, too.
July 22, 2008
Kudos to
fellow "Phoenix" film critic Brett Michel for being one of the few ( Dave Kehr makes similar observations in his blog) to recognize the
resemblance between Heath Ledger’s Joker in “The Dark Knight” and Andy
Robinson’s antic, anarchistic Scorpio in “Dirty Harry” (1971). Physical and
stylistic similarities aside, they are basically the same in being domestic
terrorists, sado-masochistic nihilists willing to kill the guilty and innocent
alike in order to overthrow the status quo.
Nor does the
comparison stop there, with Christian
Bale’s Batman being a technologically
enhanced, rich man’s version of Clint Eastwood’s blue collar Harry Callahan (Bale's Batman even talks with Clint's raspy whisper).
Both heroes face the same dilemma -- how
to protect society from evil without
succumbing to evil methods? How to save civilization from savages without
becoming savages themselves?
Why so
popular now? In many ways 2008 is a lot like 1971. The country wants out of an
unpopular war. The government employs questionable, potentially
unconstitutional methods to fight terrorists (radicals and black activists 
in 1971; Al Qaeda in 2008) and other destabilizing forces. A
Republican was running for president with a platform to continue the policies
of the previous four years.
The biggest
difference, though, has been the film’s reception. “Harry” was brutally
divisive among both critics and audiences. Chief among the naysayers was critic
Pauline Kael, who described the film as a "right-wing fantasy [that is] a
remarkably simple-minded attack on liberal values" and as exhibiting "fascist
medievalism."
But anyone
criticising “The Dark Knight” would be taking his or her life in their hands,
as notes “Globe” critic Ty Burr in a blog posting
in which he