Painful Realization?

I've been gone for some time and my return isn't my usual blog entry. I have an enormous amount of things to take care of, though, so I have to make it quick.

This came up organically in conversation today and I've been thinking about it. I mean reallythinking about it. Racking my brain thinking about it. I started running through 22 years of musical experience (well, probably 18 or 19 conscious years) and my database--which I consider reasonably substantial--was coming up empty.

I cannot think of a song I hate more than Asher Roth's "I Love College".

I mean, really, I can't. I like and listen to classic rock, indie rock, world, rap, hardcore, electronica, pop, indie pop, industrial, classical, folk, punk, and R&B. I can even tolerate country, unlike most people. I enjoy Taylor Swift, Bad Brains, Death Cab for Cutie, Chris Brown, John Denver, The Arcade Fire, Van Halen, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Godspeed! You Black Emperor, and The Roots. When I say I'm not a Beatles fan, it doesn't mean I don't like them; it only means I don't worship them. I consider myself fairly open-minded.

On the one hand I became instantly angry when I realized this about The Song Which Shall Not Be Named Again. My generation produced the worst song I can conceive from any era of music. And it's bad. Not lovably bad. Not "Achey-Breaky-Heart" bad. Not "We Are The World" bad. Not "Blue (Da Bu Di Da Bu Da)" bad. It's intolerable. It's hostile. It sucks the life from you. It embodies everything that's wrong with humanity and packages it in an offensively bad tune. I wondered if this was a sign of the musical apocalypse--if Asher Roth is the first of the four horseman to emerge from a rift in the ground to streak flames across the sky and initiate The Fall.

But then I turned the coin to see the bright side. Of all of the music I've had the privilege of hearing in my lifetime, songs that incite this sort of rage in me are few and far between. Maybe music has finally experienced and overcome its low point. Maybe this is the sort of near-death experience one needs to really appreciate life. We now have a paradigm of what not to do.

I hope the latter is true, or I will be nervously waiting for the three other horsemen to emerge.

Penis Jokes Not Included

Moving right along now...

I'm hoping everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Mine was actually really enjoyable. The few days leading up to it weren't great (understatement of the year). This is going to be the second consecutive weekend I haven't seen a movie, though. On the one hand it gives me an opportunity to catch up a little bit here. On the other hand...well...we all know how much I love seeing movies.

No installment of funny pauses today. Haven't stumbled upon a good one in a while. When I do I'll be sure to fill everyone in.

Video for today is by Rainer Maria. In part I'm posting it because I've been listening to and enjoying them lately even though I'm not huge on this particular song. Another reason I'm posting this, however, is because while looking for a video of theirs on YouTube I realized that--holy crap--this one was filmed in a diner that my friends and I eat at constantly. Weird...

#32: Stranger Than Fiction

I'm going to go ahead and guess this isn't one of Will Ferrell's more popular roles. That's probably because he isn't yelling, acting like a child, or dressed in some sort of half-hearted costume that makes his role less a character than Will Ferrell dressed as a character.

That makes it sound like I don't like Will Ferrell. I do. I loved Talladega Nights, Anchorman, Step Brothers and a variety of other deliciously immature and inappropriate slapstick comedies. His cameo in Wedding Crashers made an already fantastic movie that much more fantastic. The problem is Will Ferrell has gotten to a point in his career where he just plays himself. All of his characters are exactly the same--they deliver similar lines, act similarly, and have similar character flaws. They say if it ain't broke don't fix it, but the problem with this is that he's a talented actor. He's no, I don't know...let's say...Jonah Hill. A role like this proves his oft-forgotten versatility.

Incidentally, Will Ferrell doesn't need to yell to be funny. At least not all the time. Here he is (dare I say it!) completely charming. He plays a soft-spoken, mild-mannered, effectively boring IRS employee who only reevaluates his life once he finds out it's in danger. Maggie Gyllenhaal adds what happens to be my favorite of any role I've seen her in: a sassy anarchist bakery-owner. Along with a typical scattered and overly-intellectual college professor in Dustin Hoffman, a tortured method writer in Emma Thompson, and an audacious assistant in Queen Latifah, this relatively small movie boasts one of the most stacked casts of any film I've had the pleasure of reviewing thus far. Despite the strangely minimal interaction between all of the characters each of them complements the movie in such an invaluable way that none of the talent goes to waste.

I hate to refer to this movie as cute because that would make it seem like some easily-forgettable family movie. Puppies that chew on an old pair of your shoes are cute. Babies that don't realize they have something on their heads are cute. Good movies, though, are heartbreaking or exciting or hysterical. This movie is none of those, but it doesn't need to be. It gives you this sort of empty feeling (in a good way) as it presents strangely profound existential messages amidst a seemingly silly plot. There is, of course, no way for a man to all of the sudden find his life being narrated. And if, for whatever reason, this were to happen, this narrator would not be omniscient and would not be able to predict his impending death. But the concern is not, "How will Harold Crick save his life?" so much as it is, "How would you react if you knew your death was imminent?"

This film isn't especially deep as it doesn't leave you desperately seeking someone with which you can discuss it. When my sister and I watched it we both agreed we liked it and that sufficed. It does, however, get you to reconsider the more mundane elements of life if only for a little bit. And it helps that it has an indescribably talented cast, a unique plot, and a whole lot of intelligence behind a "cute" facade.

Undeniably artsy

Incidentally I came up with what might be a fantastic writing exercise for my students with regards to tone and narrative voice. On what would normally be an hour car ride home, instead sit in traffic for over two and a half hours with a dinner at home that is undoubtedly ice cold and then sit down and do your best not to sound angry at the world in a blog entry.

Here's my second installment of funny pauses.

Sorry, Lea Michele.

Video for the day is Insomnia by Electric President. Very pretty song. Enjoy.

How am I doing with the not sounding angry at the world?

#31: Unmade Beds

Seeing movies at IFC, however wonderful, is difficult because so few of the films have any reviews publicized before their theatrical releases and it's hard to find much information on them. You're often left with going by the movies' descriptions on the theater's website and the posters to get a feel for how interesting they seem. On this particular day I really wanted to see something at IFC and this looked intriguing. Additionally, it just happened to be showing at a time that was convenient for me.

Do I regret it? Not at all. It takes a lot for me to regret seeing a movie. Am I especially impressed? Not particularly.

While I hate to come out swinging in my approach to this film because I by no means disliked it, it's films like this that give independent cinema a negative image. Not every indie movie is pretentious and artsy. Not every one is set in some foreign city and utilizes dreamy voice-overs during love-making scenes with abstract existentialist musings. Not every one has a series of intertwining stories that only ostensibly come together at the end but are really never resolved at all. I don't mean to sound harsh, but Unmade Beds seemed more an indie movie parody than an indie movie.

My initial reaction is that the troubled, emotionally-unfulfilled youth caught uncomfortably between childhood and adulthood is getting to be a tired character. I couldn't identify with either protagonist in this movie. I don't suspect that the filmmakers hoped for the viewer to feel bad for either character, but if one can't even justify their actions or relate to their seemingly ungrounded emotions it's difficult to follow them for the duration of a feature-length film. One doesn't even necessarily want to like them because they don't offer much. The female was frustrating and the male just made me profoundly uncomfortable.

To be fair, there were some beautiful cinematic shots and lines of dialogue in here. There was also a really great soundtrack. These contributed to my acceptance of the film by its conclusion. I didn't walk out of the theater feeling as if I'd just gotten shafted. My concern is that the film's successes came fragmented. It isn't enough to like a few lines or a shot here and there. I don't even remember any specific scene from the movie. I remember the male character drank. A lot. And then proceeded to have some incredibly awkward encounters with his father. The female character just seemed completely impetuous. She had some interesting lines over the course of the film, but those could have been delivered by anyone and they would have been equally as intriguing. Looking back, she really didn't do anything.

So I guess that all this talk reveals my primary concern with the film: characterization. Plot could not have been my primary concern because there really isn't any. This isn't necessarily a shortcoming because I don't get the sense from the film that there was supposed to be a plot and it just didn't show up. Rather, the film was the study of two main characters. When those characters reveal themselves to be flat and lacking touch with reality, however, it's difficult to see the draw for the film.

Unless, of course, you're an indie movie fan.

Chi-Sci-Fi?

It's been a while, hasn't it? I've been so swamped lately I can't even describe it. Well, now that I've lost whatever minimal readership I may have had, why not get back into the swing of things?

I'd like to add a new segment I will periodically try out. It's called Funny Pauses. Here is the first installment.

Sorry, Paul Severino.

Video for today is a little obscure. It's a former band of a friend of a friend that you'd never guess isn't professional. Besides the fact that the video is surprisingly well done the sound beats the snot out of so much that is out there right now. I know that was a bit of an unbecoming description but....here's His and Hers by The Riflemen

#30: The Time Traveler's Wife

The problem with a shockingly long hiatus is the fact that it's been a solid three months since I've seen this movie so I won't be able to give too much brilliant insight into it. Not that I'm able to give too much brilliant insight into any movie. Hm...how humbling.

I don't know why I wanted to see this movie. I was somehow, for some reason, intrigued. I can't deny that I enjoy so called chick flicks but this one looked especially sappy. However, with the summer winding down and an end-of-break beach trip in the driving-home stage, we decided to give this a whirl.

I can't lie; I liked it. Maybe I need to go hunting and then to a football game to recover from that confession, but this movie bounced back from what was a slow start to become a really moving love story. I've heard that the book is The Five People You Meet In Heaven status--uber-popular but not really considered literature. It's a beach read. It's a train read. I can't agree or disagree with this because I've never personally read it, but I can see where that claim might come from. The story doesn't lend itself to profundity.

Love is an innate human desire (groundbreaking conclusion, no?) so stories revolving around it don't need to be profound because they appeal to everyone. This, however, was undeniably creative--a chick flick that doubles as a pseudo-sci-fi film. For those who didn't understand the premise (as I didn't upon entering the theater) the man in this film has a condition where he spontaneously time-travels to different points in his life. That premise in and of itself can make for some interesting scenarios, but putting the love story spin on it creates some real paradoxes. When old Eric Bana meets young (and I mean young) Rachel McAdams, for example, is it creepy if they also love each other later in life? Is it weird for her to talk to him? Is it weird for him to talk to her? Somehow the story helps the viewer avoid these questions; the nature of the relationship does not become a priority because how convincing the two are as a couple makes the pairing seamless.

Despite the distance from the time I saw this film I distinctly remember the beginning being a little rocky. It was a little too slow and a little too cheesy for me to take it entirely seriously. I thought that if the movie sustained that pace and tone I'd be in for a long night and a waste of money. However, as you get to know the characters, you find yourself expecting the time jumps at all the wrong moments but praying for just thirty more seconds before he disappears from an important moment in his life. During his wedding, for example, you find yourself desperately searching for an answer of when he's going to leave and if he's going to make it back.

The end, of course, as with most romance movies, is heartbreaking. You know it's coming, but despite its predictability the filmmaker does a good job of distracting the viewer long enough to keep the obvious out of his or her mind until it actually hits. And it does hit. It's that standard bittersweet sappy conclusion that makes you hate yourself for being so human. The creativity of the story saves it from being cast off as cliche.

Similar to what I've heard of the novel this was adapted from, The Time Traveler's Wife is not cinema. There's nothing brilliant about it. There are moments where the writing is silly and where the twists aren't really twists because you know they're coming, but the story appeals to basic emotions and accomplishes what it seems to have hoped to accomplish: an eccentric take on the age-old love story.

My second brush with Christopher Guest

I thought of an interesting list that dawned on me today: ways to address people you should know but don't:

1. Hey you!

2. Hello sir/ma'am

3. Hey! How ya doin'?

4. This guy!

5. Uh-oh! Here comes trouble!

6. Wo-oh-oahh where have you been?

7. Well look what the cat dragged in!

8. Look at this big shot!

9. I was just thinking about you!

10.

I'll leave number ten open for suggestions.

Video for the day is a fairly recent Cursive song. There's a lot of energy in it which is one of the things that drew me to it in the first place. It's called Dorothy at Forty.

#29: Waiting for Guffman

I think it's fine to have a thing. M. Night Shyamalan has his twists. Quentin Tarantino uses chapters. Francis Ford Coppola does a lot in black and white. And Christopher Guest has his mockumentaries.

In part it's a safety net--not necessarily in a bad way, but in the way that a director can ensure his or her audience knows what to expect, effectively weeding out potential critics by completely disclosing your style up front. It's also a testament to doing what you're good at. Cinema is not a field conducive to experimenting for the sake of experimenting. You need to be pretty firm in your presentation, and throwing the budget and time into something you aren't completely sold on yourself certainly would be a waste.

Additionally, though, it's a bit constrictive whether one realizes it or not. When directors make a conscious decision to exhibit some distinguishable consistency in their work they need to have mastered the craft and all of its requisites. By no means am I trying to imply that Guest hasn't; his mockumentaries are truly well-done and his films seem to improve chronologically. The problem is the nature of the genre calls for certain things that can't be compromised.

The one thing I feel that Guest failed to provide his viewers in this film is verisimilitude. Part of the beauty of a mockumentary is that it takes the world as we know it and presents it completely unfiltered, exposing just how nonsensical we can be sometimes. The reality is where the humor comes from--we laugh because we're uncomfortable, because we're in denial, and because we see a lot of what we find ridiculous in ourselves or in people we know. That's why The Office is so funny, because the business world can be that ridiculous without realizing it.

In part the problem might be that this review is coming from someone who has at least some experience with community theater. Simply put, based on the community plays I have seen, the community plays I've been in, and the community plays I've heard of, this just doesn't capture reality. The product is a caricature of community theater stereotypes that are simply too hyperbolized to get a laugh; the players were too delusional, the community was too naive, and the play was too awful.

There's no denying that I'm no professional screen-writer/director, but to me the potential humor in satirizing community theater lies in the nuances. The singers need to be good enough for the viewer to understand where they're getting the idea that they deserve a spot in a play but just amateur enough that their performance teeters on tolerable. The director needs to be obviously and knowingly amateur but can't care about that. The audience needs to be generally indifferent despite the profound amount of work that is going into it--superficially supportive. And the play itself needs to be bad only in small ways--minuscule mishaps and miscues that are noticeable and cringe-worthy but not downright appalling. I just feel like Guest's scenarios in this movie are too overblown.

There are moments where this movie really struck a chord with a particularly funny line or situation. The end, in particular, was predictable in the sense that you knew something was coming, but the viewer couldn't help but appreciate it. Best in Show came four years after Waiting for Guffman and the improvement is undeniable. However, on its own, Waiting for Guffman only shows glimpses of an entertaining movie.

Consistency is king

I've been gone for a while making sure that my work is in order, and although I should be continuing that right now everybody needs some solace. Right?

My Farmville is shaping up nicely. For anyone who doesn't know who that is I strongly suggest not pursuing the knowledge; it will absorb you.

I know no one is going to agree with me on this but the weather has been absolutely gorgeous lately. I love how quickly it got breezy and chilly. I can't even explain how great my morning commute has been: pitch black with virtually no one on the road on a blustery late summer/early fall morning. It's really an excellent way to start the day, believe it or not. Much better than that 8 a.m., 90-degree trek all the way down Route 1 over the summer.

The video for the day is an incredibly poor quality clip for one of the less impressive songs on a truly impressive album. Don't get me wrong; the song is great. But of all the songs, this isn't even one of the better ones. It's called I Believe in the Good of Life by a band described by the lead singer as "gay church folk band" called The Hidden Cameras. I can't advocate enough for this band if you're looking for something new to listen to.

# 28: Inglourious Basterds

I remember the days when I hated Quentin Tarantino: the days before I got it. I never was able to appreciate his over-the-top violence, abundant non-sequiturs, and annoying and seemingly out-of-place soundtracks. I didn't understand his popularity and I vowed never to see Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, or Kill Bill.

Flash forward a few years and I own the special edition of Pulp Fiction and consider it one of my favorite movies. I kick myself every time I hang out in the house watching something and forget to rent Reservoir Dogs. I own Kill Bill 1 & 2 having seen and loved both of them. I recently purchased True Romance despite knowing little to nothing about it solely because Mr. Tarantino wrote it. My favorite scene in Sin City just happens to be the one scene he directed. And I have been looking to pick up From Dusk Till Dawn for some time now. In short he's become one of my favorite writers/directors.

It took me some time to realize just how talented a writer he is. This movie is the perfect example. On the one hand you may not want a movie's best scene to come at the very beginning, but then again this opening presented to me what instantly became my favorite monologue of all time. Seriously. The film's villain--a man so vile and repugnant that you can't help but love him--casually delivers a sickeningly logical holocaust-defending argument to a man who is subsequently brought to tears. It undoubtedly chilled everyone in the audience and set the tone for a memorable World War II movie more throwback propaganda than historical fiction.

Despite setting the bar astronomically high for the film Tarantino was able to achieve consistency effortlessly. There were no lulls in this--no expendable scenes. Every character was necessary even if he or she didn't seem so at the time. Three distinct plotlines were penned, each so engrossing that it made you forget about the other two until the scene changed. He continues to be one of the most purposeful screenwriters in the business.

One thing that I think Tarantino does better than any other writer/director I've seen is tenseness. You won't find suspense done any better in a horror, action, or mystery film. In addition to the opening scene--which I absolutely cannot say enough about--four or five scenes stuck out as unforgettable if for nothing else than how uncomfortable you felt watching them, desperately waiting for the outcome. This is as much attributed to his writing and directing as it is his casting. I have yet to see a Tarantino film in which the cast doesn't collaborate flawlessly; the conflicts are always very real and the sound relationships--however few and far between--always have very tangible chemistry. The Basterds, specifically, in this movie exude camaraderie in the few scenes in which we see all of them together.

I have to mention Brad Pitt specifically here. Although his part isn't really as big as the trailers made it out to be, he played the brutish hero to a T and contributed the majority of the laughs to the movie. I think he is one of those actors who is easy to write off because he's become far better known for his looks than for his acting ability, but no one could have pulled this part off more naturally.

My initial qualm about Tarantino was the sense of pretension I got from him. I thought his stylized pieces--complete with chapters and ambiguous symbols--indicated that he took himself far too seriously. After all, his movies seemed far more absurd than profound. I rarely change my tune about things like that; when I get that sense from someone I generally stick to it. In this case, however, having finally experienced him adequately both through his work and through interviews, I've really come to appreciate this youthful creativity and enthusiasm in him. He's an incredibly smart and talented person--don't get me wrong--but it seems that his propensity for excessive violence, helter-skelter storytelling, and curveball detours can be attributed far more to an insatiable sense of humor and a conscious refusal to succumb to the conventional.

Far less relatable than you'd think

The doomsday clock is ticking.

Why do they not produce clothes in my size? Honestly. I understand that I'm short, but everything is either way too big or way too small. Maybe I should just get every individual outfit tailored to my liking.

I'm going old school with the song for this entry--well, sort of. It's a White Stripes song that many of you have probably heard, but probably not recently. It's called Fell in Love with a Girl, and it makes you want to dance--at least it does if you have a soul.

#27: Post-Grad

Unlike a lot of guys I dig a lot of so-called chick flicks: Big Fish, The Terminal, The Notebook, The Time Traveler's Wife, Mean Girls, What Dreams May Come, etc. Conversely, like most guys, I love Alexis Bledel. So I figured this was a no-brainer. I'm a recent college graduate. I love other films in this genre. I love the star of the movie. At the very least I anticipated this to be tolerable.

Boy was I wrong.

The movie clocked in at just under 90 minutes but you never would have guessed that if you were sitting in the audience. It wasn't even that the movie was slow-moving; simply put, the movie seemed to have no direction and as a result there was no logical progression to the plot.

It was virtually impossible to determine what the movie was exactly aiming for. I guess there was the general concept that Alexis Bledel's character was grappling with life after graduation, but the motif of familial relationships and the painfully flat romantic substory seemed to be added simply because they couldn't think of enough material for the more important adult-life conflict. As a result, all three storylines were thin and hastily wrapped up.

The family storyline was far and away the movie's weakest point. I'm hard-pressed to recall a more obnoxious movie family. In any other situation such an irritating family wouldn't be so hard to overlook; the typical frustrating movie family comes off as such because it is how they were written to be. Here, however, it was obvious the family was supposed to be quirky and endearing. The father was so bizarre and awkward that he was cartoonish in an off-putting sort of way. The grandmother was similarly annoying and virtually impossible to sympathize with. The son went beyond the unfortunate oddball pariah one may find in a show like Weeds and instead traipsed in the realm of bizarre to the point of disturbing. The mother ultimately became lost in the shadow of that rat pack, but in the few scenes she had she suffered by association: in her context, her excessive affection came off less motherly than irksome. Tack all of that onto a house littered with highly-prized garden gnomes, a revolving display case containing medicine and toiletries, and an ultimately illegal belt-buckle sales ploy that leads to a needless jailing and you have a group who got lost on the way to the studio for the filming of an indie movie that's trying too hard.

The romantic storyline had so little substance to it that any pain or joy the young lovebirds got out of the relationship seemed senseless. The only way the creators compensated for Zach Gilford's unsuccessful wooing of Alexis Bledel's character was his perpetual reiterating (almost word-for-word) of "You just have no feelings for me even though I'm in love with you." It's one thing to move the plot through dialogue, but the only way the audience could have been smacked in the face harder with that conflict is for the screen to have been blinking "WARNING: UNREQUITED LOVE." Similarly, the short-lived fling between Alexis Bledel and the suave, mysterious, exotic older neighbor was non-sensical and nauseatingly rapid. Besides being a completely unconvincing couple, whoever determined the necessity of this quirky motif relinquished the opportunity of having this character contrast starkly with the bothersome family and instead made him fit in this apparently alien community perfectly with his strangely furnished house and bizarre job. Granted, the bizarre job allowed for one of the few genuinely humorous scenes in the movie thanks to a Demetri Martin cameo, but the movie's creators failed to understand that quirky is only quirky when there is something to compare it to. When every character is a pod-person, the charm is lost.

Finally, as a recent graduate myself, I fail to sympathize with the apparent 6 or 8 months it took the protagonist to find a job. If the entire movie were to be about Alexis Bledel's struggle with adjusting to the real world there would have been ample opportunities to laugh at awkward scenarios and root for her character. Instead, though, when it seemed that the movie's focus was about to remain with job-hunting, it switched gears to her love life. When it seemed that the movie's focus was about remain with her love life, it turned to the quirky family. By the time her new job comes up at the end the audience has forgotten that that was her primary concern in the first place. And it certainly didn't take too long for her to land on her feet.

I'm not sure where I'm supposed to get my Alexis Bledel fix if movies like this fail so miserably. Sure, her cameo in Sin City was fantastic, but I WILL NOT see any of those Traveling Pants flicks and she doesn't have much else in her filmography. She has the talent to make good movies and I certainly hope the future of her career holds brighter spots than this or I'm going to need to petition for a Gilmore Girls comeback. Yes. I like Gilmore Girls. Sue me.