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.