Positive byproducts of the Production Code

As evidenced by my frequent ramblings about it and the fact that it was my chosen topic for a 17-page research paper, I am obsessed with the Production Code. (If you don't know what that is, it was a doctrine that governed what could and couldn't be shown on screen in the Golden Age of Hollywood - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Production_code.) Like Lars von Trier’s The Five Obstructions, it was a 30ish-year experiment in how art conforms to, works around, or readjusts to restrictions. Seeing its heavy imprint on everything from gangster movies to romantic comedies is always fascinating and sometimes even consuming – at the end of Code-era crime movies, I always find myself wondering in the last ten minutes if the criminal will meet his or her mandatory fate by imprisonment, murder, execution or suicide. Sometimes the Code influence is so obvious and awkward that it becomes laughable. I recently saw Kubrick’s Lolita for the first time, which was made in the waning days of the Code but nonetheless features a clumsily-added one-sentence epilogue declaring, as if at gunpoint, that the immoral protagonist died while in prison. But lately a thought has started to tickle my brain…did the Code produce any positive byproducts or outcomes? I think it did.

First off, let me say where the Code absolutely did not work. Its most glaring intrusion was the aforementioned wrist-slapping of any character who had breached its moral standard. History indicates that this did not even produce the desired effect – audiences wound up cheering for Scarface or Little Caesar anyway. The limitations on violence were less problematic – however, if crime movies were allowed to be more grisly instead of the strangely bloodless affairs that they were, perhaps then the harsh dissuasion against this lifestyle wouldn’t be necessary. There are a handful of other silly quirks, like the obligation to fast forward nine months after a woman announces she’s pregnant to avoid having to show the ghastly horror of an expecting woman. This left filmmakers with two options – twist the restrictions to the film’s advantage, or make them stick out like a sore thumb to express that you’re not happy about it and that it’s not really a part of your film. Basically, in these arenas, I can think of very few examples where the film was benefitted (except in some cases where the writer/director incorporated the rules creatively).

So on what did the Code have positive effects?

Sex.

The most obvious positive byproduct of the Code was the invention of the beloved cinematic treasure that is screwball comedy. It’s 1934, and although a Barbara Stanwyck film called Baby Face came out a year earlier and features a woman literally and unabashedly sleeping her way to the top, suddenly men and woman can barely touch each other. What to do? Make a romantic comedy where the characters despise each other until the very end, or, as the psychologist in Bringing Up Baby put it, “The love impulses in men…reveals itself as conflict.” Frank Capra did this in 1934 with It Happened One Night, and after the film won five Oscars the screwball style reigned the comedy scene for almost a decade. There’s really no reason that this style would have developed had it not been for the Code. It was a creative response to limitations that benefitted audiences and film history.

Now let’s move into the 40s and 50s. Suddenly there are some really sexy movies on the scene, like The Big Sleep, To Have and Have Not, Gone With the Wind, To Catch a Thief, and North by Northwest. Again, in these films, the characters cannot touch each other outside of a single kiss, so where is this heat coming from? Dialogue.

In all of these films, it’s nothing but words that create chemistry that sizzles off the screen. Their discourse serves as intercourse. Would Bogie and Bacall have been any hotter if they flat-out banged? I don’t think so. In comedies like The Seven Year Itch or The Girl Can’t Help It, the Code is made fun of in a way that juxtaposes sexuality and comedy. In the latter, for instance, there’s a scene where Jayne Mansfield is talking about how she wants to be a perfect housewife someday, while her enormous breasts fill the screen.

Nowadays you can show virtually anything sex-related onscreen. Well, almost – the current line actually exists in a rather unfortunate place where you can have oral sex but you can’t show a woman’s face in the throes of pleasure for too long (true story – that was a censorship battle in Boys Don’t Cry). That’s intrinsically good – artists should be allowed to express themselves however they please. But is this good for cinematic stories? If people can show anything, they will – few see the point of exercising restraint. Personally, I find myself reacting rather indifferently to steamy sex scenes, but getting chills from the sexiness of the studio-era films I listed above. Why? Think of it this way. Which is sexier: a woman doing a striptease in which she ultimately doesn’t remove much clothing, or a naked woman just sitting there? I think we can all agree it’s the former. That’s the difference between sex and violence in film: with violence, I believe, there’s no real benefit to holding back. Someone getting shot offscreen is not going to have more impact than someone getting shot in frame; in fact, it might have less. On the other hand, I find sex to be more effective when it’s about the tease. Hell, in Gilda, Rita Hayworth does a “striptease” in which she only removes one glove, but it’s still extremely hot and memorable. It’s all about leaving things to the imagination.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t endorse censorship. If it was 1934 and Will Hays himself asked me if I supported the Production Code, he’d get a hearty “hell, no!” But I’m not talking about belief systems here, I’m talking about history. It’s like how WWII was not an awesome fun bonanza, but somewhat accidentally lifted the United States out of the Depression. Side effects. And while it’s easily to vilify the Code, I’d argue that it had some pretty great side effects.

What do you think? Am I a censorship-loving Nazi, or am I on to something here?

Why I don't get James Cameron

Recently, my boyfriend took it upon himself to give me an early blockbuster education of sorts, exposing me to all the big and beloved 70s, 80s and 90s movies that were integral parts of everyone's childhood except, for some reason, mine. The primary figure of study has been James Cameron. In a short period I've seen Aliens, The Abyss, The Terminator and T2 all for the first time. And what I'm about to say might prove very controversial.

I just don't get James Cameron.

I don't get why his movies are so loved - and note my word choice here - loved as opposed to just admired or widely enjoyed. I don't know why he's acclaimed so much as a director. I don't know why his films crack lists of bests along with undisputed classics. I will attempt to explain why.

First of all, while sci-fi and action are not the primary genres I'm drawn to, I have favorites in each - from Invasion of the Body Snatchers to the Bourne movies - and I'm always open to seeing these films when they're allegedly good. So this isn't a genre bias thing.

His primary motive seems to be not "I have this great story to tell," or "I have a creative vision to share with the world," but "fuck you, yes I can make this movie." I imagine that the reason he made The Abyss was that he was in a bar one day and someone mumbled something incomprehensible, at which point Cameron jumped up and yelled "Fuck you, I can too make a whole movie underwater!" and then stormed out and spent eight kerwillion dollars. This attitude seems better suited to a scientist or inventor - when I watch Cameron's films I always kind of feel like he's trying to prove things instead of entertain or inspire.

But my main problem is the technology issue. Cameron's films often seem like character and plot are secondary annoyances that are begrudgingly included. My thoughts on the frontiers of technology and cinema - and ergo, my beef with Cameron - were beautifully summed up by Andrew Tracy at Reverse Shot in his review of Public Enemies:

"As with directors of such disparate inclinations and scale as Steven Soderbergh, David Fincher, James Cameron, and Robert Zemeckis, [Michael] Mann’s films increasingly feel like vehicles for technological test-running and problem-solving—a preoccupation which is at least partially understandable, as filmmaking is a more or less ceaseless confrontation with technical decisions and challenges. However, the corresponding critical efforts to enshrine these endeavors as the most important content of the films that surround them—to pass over Benjamin Button’s inherent Gump-ishness or Che’s dramatic lifelessness or Miami Vice’s silly solemnity— willfully ignore the fundamentally mainstream (and often hopelessly vapid) tropes on which they are built. To claim that these technological adventures are broaching bold new cinematic frontiers is to pretend that these films aren’t the hobbled, intrinsically unbalanced works that they are." (You can read the whole thing here.)

Yes. This is it exactly. I was never in the habit of "excusing" or "overlooking" elements of films, particularly the story/script. After I saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, I noted how the dialogue (and the over-abundance of it) made me throw up in my mouth. This seemed to be the elephant in the room that critics didn't seem to mind because the effects were amazing, the cinematography beautiful, etc. I have two problems with this. Number one is that I always hold every element accountable, unless it was a decision that the filmmaker had no control of and even objected to (i.e. Production Code censorship and story mutilation). Number two is that if an element is so bad that it is taking me out of the movie, the movie as a whole is failing. If the dialogue is distractingly bad, I cannot just "forgive" that. The same would be true if I could see the zipper on the monster costume, or there are a glut of glaring historical inaccuracies, etc.

But this trend that Tracy is observing as a result of effects advancement and the digital revolution has, in my opinion, been the mindset that gave Cameron a career. No one talks about the ludicrous storylines, the storytelling cliches, the oft-flat characters (not all of them, don't kill me), the unironic saturation of 80s and 90s-ness that makes the movies age badly. They take the technological advancements in his films as evidence that the movie as a whole is great. That's like saying that fruit tastes good just because it was grown in space without soil or water. It's impressive, sure, but the evaluation of how it tastes is (and should be) completely separate. When I saw the making-of documentary for the The Abyss, it knocked my socks off. They had done things that seemed impossible, had worked around challenges I hadn't even considered when watching it. It made me appreciate it, but just because something is technically impressive does not make it enjoyable.

I can also appreciate that he goes all the way with his ideas, but there are plenty of other examples of filmmakers who do that to a better effect. That's because their visions are more cohesive, and I'm more willing to take a wild ride on something that's not just a self-indulgent display of technology. Additionally, sometimes directors with their wings clipped produce better results, so the "go all the way" approach shouldn't necessarily be praised as the purest form of filmmaking.

Furthermore, Cameron doesn't understand that if you don't have all the resources to do something, DON'T. For me, Aliens suffered from a visible effort to conceal that they didn't have the money to do everything they wanted to do. In many shots, there's supposed to be a lot of aliens, but they shoot it tight and shaky to hide the fact that there's not. It showed. If you don't have the money or resources to show a lot of aliens, don't create several situations where there's supposed to be. I understand that you need to up the ante from the first film, but maybe focus on one big alien that would be in your budget to construct and show, or several alien babies, or a meaner alien, or hell, wait several years until you can get more money. Similarly, in The Terminator, a lot of the effects are really good, but some, like the stripped-to-metal Terminator walking through the warehouse at the end look bad. With a mix of bad and good effects, you can't write off the bad ones as "well, they didn't have the technology then." They obviously had the technology to make some things look good, but they didn't know when to stop and overstepped their bounds. I'm not arguing for Cameron to become a minimalist - he directs action blockbusters, which are over the top in their nature. I get that. But if he learned to scale back in the right places, he could offer a tighter product that doesn't have spots which scream AND THIS IS WHERE WE RAN OUT OF MONEY AND/OR STAN WINSTON COULDN'T FIGURE IT OUT.

I think Cameron's bombastic audaciousness might have overtaken him to a point where it could be damaging. His new film, Avatar, comes out this December, and his method of creating hype is one of the most phenomenally stupid and self-defeating campaigns I've ever seen. He's spreading the word that the effects are so incredible and revolutionary that they can cure cancer and AIDS while raping your mind and changing your life. Usually, the biggest claim a blockbuster will make is "the best thrill ride of the summer" or something. That's very reasonable. It's not too outrageous to award that title to a movie. But what Cameron has created here is a situation where the movie cannot actually exceed expectations. It will either meet them, or, more likely, be lower. This very well could be a mind-blowing film, but the way Cameron has set it up will probably make it a disappointment. Already many critics and audience members at preview screenings are saying that the footage doesn't live up to this insane hype. Furthermore, it seems Cameron is under the impression that the entire world is waiting for this movie with bated breath - whereas in reality, no one outside of the film geek world knows about it. The trailer has only just debuted, and while "Avatar Day" - a worldwide screening of a 16-minute trailer - played to packed audiences, the verdict was very mixed. So to recap, virtually no one knows, and those that do know have expectations that are almost impossible to meet. What hath Cameron wrought? Is he actively trying to lose a lot of money?

If Avatar fails, that might dismantle the mighty Cameron, or at least put his ego in check and cause him to reevaluate his strategy. (Already he's dialing back the hype a bit - maybe he's catching on.) He's allegedly said before that he'd like to try his hand at an intimate drama - and I'd be interested to see what a James Cameron movie looks like without all the special effects and flash. Would there be anything left?

Beyond the essentials: Hitchcock

This is my new feature Beyond the Essentials, where I use my vast and utterly impressive film knowledge to help you figure out which lesser-known movies by your favorite actors and directors are worth your time. Or maybe I'll never write another one again. We'll see.

So I assume you've all dutifully seen the mandatory Hitchcock viewing like good little film lovers - which, for the sake of argument, consists of Psycho, Vertigo, and Rear Window, possibly North by Northwest. The way I arrived at this conclusion was by completing the following sentence: "You call yourself a film buff and you HAVEN'T SEEN ________ ?!?" I don't think any of his other works would induce that same level of hysteria if you hadn't gotten around to them yet. If you had any kind of formal film education, you undoubtedly saw Rope, at least in part, because GET THIS, GUYS, I DON'T KNOW IF YOU KNEW THIS, BUT THE MOVIE HAS A LOT OF REALLY LONG TAKES. Then there are the second-tier essentials, like Strangers on a Train and The Birds, which are logical next steps in your Hitchcock exploration.

But then you see that his IMDB page is a big muck of stuff you've never heard of, or maybe you've heard of it but not about it. Where to begin? While I'm hardly a scholar on the subject, I think I've delved a bit deeper into his filmography than the average bear, so allow me to share my findings. This is by no means a complete report, of course, but just a selection of highlights (and lowlights).

THE MUST-SEES

1. The 39 Steps (1935)

A kindred spirit to North by Northwest, this is a similar tale of a rogueish lad getting wrapped up in a big mess and going on an adventure to deal with it. It has some great twists as well as some genuinely shocking moments, and great screwball chemistry (attraction masked by antagonism) between the two leads. It's kind of a leaner, scrappier version of NbNW, and a lot of fun.

2. Lifeboat (1944)

This movie hardly reads like a Hitchcock at all. And that's not a bad thing. I think we can all agree that Hitch was more concerned with plot than with characters (and there's nothing wrong with that), so it was a neat surprise to see this character-driven piece from him. It's a handful of strangers stuck in a lifeboat, trying to survive and figuring out who they can trust. The performances are incredible, and while it's not exactly suspenseful per se, it's definitely gripping. This movie needs to be discovered. Also: look for the clever way Hitch manages his cameo.

3. I Confess (1953)
This film is called one of the more “noir-ish” in Hitchcock’s filmography, and I’m inclined to agree. Very dark and shadowy. Montgomery Clift is a perfect lead for this film, adding a lot of pathos and gravitas as a conflicted priest. Shot on location (which Hitchcock absolutely hated to do), this is a tight little piece of everything that’s good about Hitch.

MAYBE ON A RAINY AFTERNOON

1. Stage Fright (1950)

Amicable enough, it's a standard whodunit. I happen to be quite fond of films set in the backstage world. But two things make it stand out: the scenery-chewing of Marlene Dietrich, and the mind-blowing twist that, at the risk of being hyperbolic, challenges one of the conventions we take for granted in cinema (particularly in films of that time).

2. Marnie (1964)

One of the interesting things about following Hitchcock's career into his later years is seeing what he did with the increasing on-screen permissiveness in movies. Well, in 1964, he made a movie about sexual psychosis. Really. With the added subtext of Hitchcock's real-life obsession with star Tippi Hedren, there's a lot going on here. It's not perfect, and some parts are a bit silly, but it's an interesting and gutsy move from a director who was always pushing the envelope. And Sean Connery is at the height of his dashing-ness here.

3. Suspicion (1941)

Joan Fontaine stars in the only Hitch-directed role ever to win an Oscar, which baffles me. Maybe I was missing some hidden depths or something, but her performance was pretty bland. It's like a diluted version of her role in the vastly superior Rebecca a year earlier. The real draw here is for Cary Grant fans, who want to see him do something different. And by different, I mean sinister. He doesn't play a Joker type or anything, but rather subverts his classic charm into that kind of charm that a lot of murderers seem to have. If you do see this movie, though, go in knowing that the ending is very much not what Hitchcock wanted, and read what the original ending was and why it didn't make the cut.

DON'T BOTHER

1. Torn Curtain (1966)

This was the only Hitchcock movie I really never got much out of. Very meh, and it randomly stars Paul Newman and Julie Andrews. Unfortunately, watching Cassidy and Mary Poppins outwit Soviet spies is not nearly as fun as it sounds.

In conclusion, though, every film by a great director has at least something to offer. Whether that potentially brief something is worth two hours of your time, however, is another matter.

What other obscure Hitchcock films can you recommend / advise against?

Soundtrack September

I was invited to participate in "Soundtrack September" over at Film Babble, and it got my wheels a-turning. The task was just to discuss some favorite soundtracks - easy enough. But I didn't want my choices to be too obvious. Like, of course I could mention The Graduate or Singin' in the Rain, but that's not really breaking any new ground, now is it? So I thought I'd use this space to highlight some of my more obscure or unappreciated faves. What was supposed to be a couple of blurbs spiraled quickly out of control! I have broken my picks into three categories, with three selections each: preexisting songs, scores, and musicals.

PREEXISTING MUSIC

I started to see a theme emerging in the picks for this category - all of them were preexisting songs that had new versions recorded for a film. It's not that I don't love mix-tape soundtracks (looking at you, Garden State), but it's always interesting to see beloved songs re-appropriated for a new context.

1. De-Lovely
The move itself is kind of lame. Skip it. You're allowed to. But the soundtrack is, in a word, ravishing. The film is a biopic of Cole Porter, which attempts to right the wrongs of earlier biopics such as Night and Day by painting a more thorough portrait of Porter that includes his homosexuality. Along the way, his famous songs get new life breathed into them by artists such as Sheryl Crow, Elvis Costello, Robbie Williams, and Alanis Morrissette. Now, I know this seems odd. Like isn't Morrissette really angsty and a peculiar choice to be singing such happy songs? Not so. Her version of "Let's Do It" is super perky and I actually choreographed a super perky dance to it in high school. They also don't try to modernize the songs at all - they record them in a way that's true to the originals, but with a fresh feel. It's the ultimate primer on 30s/40s music. Download. Now.

2. Good Night and Good Luck
For this film, director George Clooney opted for short interludes of jazz singer Dianne Reeves singing 50s classics. Brilliant. Much more effective than a swelling score, this classy approach really roots you in the era. She covers artists like Nat King Cole and Dinah Washington, but having one singer do all of the songs provides a nice sense of cohesion. This soundtrack makes a great gift - I gave it to my ex-boyfriend's parents for Christmas and it was a huge hit. Very warm and sophisticated.

3. Across the Universe
I love the Beatles, I really do, and in loving them I don't feel it's blasphemous to cover them. I have a CD of soul covers of the Beatles, by artists like Aretha Franklin and Marvin Gaye. It's totally sweet, and I'm not ashamed to admit that I prefer some of those versions to the originals. Similarly, for this soundtrack, a smattering of young stars and some special guests breathe a new vivaciousness into the hits we all know and love. It really energizes the songs to have them in the context of a narrative - such as "I Want to Hold Your Hand" being used to express a forbidden lesbian desire or "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" being about the military draft. The vocal talent is great - even Bono is tolerable with his rendition of "I Am the Walrus."

SCORES

To be honest, movie soundtracks/scores don't often jump out at me. In fact, in the world of symphonic scores, I find 95% of them to be interchangeable in any given decade. So when a film score actually rises above the droning buzz and catches my attention, it's definitely something special

1. Atonement
The Academy handed over the Oscar for this one. They were right. Like in Peter and the Wolf, where each character is represented by a different instrument, Composer Dario Marianelli expresses the ferocious and cold determination of Briony through the clacking of a typewriter. It's genius. It's organic to the story and conveys its intensity.

2. Broken Flowers
Technically, there are some preexisting songs on this album, but what I'm really focusing on here is the three-song contribution of Mulatu Astatke. I had the pleasure of seeing Astatke live in concert and his music is like nothing you've ever heard. He calls it "Ethio-jazz," and it's kind of - well, it's Ethiopian jazz. Kind of an indigenous jazz/trance thing? I really can't describe it. Weaving into the film in the form of a CD that the protagonist's friend gives him, it's the perfect embodiment of Bill Murray's Don - cool and relaxed without trying, but on a mission.

3. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Just like the film itself is a re-imagining of the Western, the soundtrack is a re-imagining of what music is like for Westerns. "Haunting" would be an understatement - Nick Cave's music helps to build tension and unease for a movie where you already know the ending. An unexpected array of instruments also elevates this above the typical Oscar-bait soundtrack.


MUSICALS

Self-explanatory.

1. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg / The Young Girls of Rochefort
Yes, I can count - I know that's two. But they're both directed by Jacques Demy, they both star Catherine Deneuve, and both have music by Michel Legrand. So they're kindred spirits. Legrand's jazz scores are phenomenal, enhanced only by the light and sweet voices of talented casts (although most of them are dubbed). In the latter, you even get to hear Gene Kelly singing in French!

2. Sweet Charity
For some reason, Sweet Charity doesn't get its due when discussing classic movie musicals. I don't know why - it has sleek direction by Bob Fosse, one of Shirley MacLaine's best roles and some fantastic songs. There's the dryly sardonic "Hey Big Spender" and the jubilant "If My Friends Could See Me Now," but my personal favorite is Sammy Davis Jr's unexpected contribution "The Rhythm of Life" where he preaches a wild hippie religion.

3. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007 version)
I really really liked this movie, and I think it was seriously underrated. Sure, it got some polite award season nods, but I felt like people didn't really warm up to it like they should have. Maybe in time it will get the respect it deserves. I loved Johnny Depp's growly Bowie-esque singing, goddammit, especially on "My Friends" (friends=blades). It's not what you're used to hearing in a musical, and that's what makes it unique and captivating. Helena Bonham Carter came off a bit shrill, but mix it in with the lush gothic orchestrations and overall you have something pretty awesome.

BONUS TRACK

-Any of the scores Alberto Iglesias did for Pedro Almodovar's films
I realize this could be a whole list in and of itself, so I'm keeping it simple by saying "all." This has been one of the more fruitful director/composer collaborations that I can think of. Iglesias produces sensuous and innovative Spanish music that defies the cartoon cliche. Choice track: "Dedicatoria" from All About My Mother.

At the risk of unleashing a torrent in the comments section - what are your faves (beyond the obvious)?

District 9 and the future of cinema

In the wake of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, the internets has been buzzing about the decline of intelligence in the moviegoing public. Everyone from the Times' A.O. Scott to my own darling boyfriend are noting this trend. Basically, Americans are dumb and want their movies to be dumb too. Nothing but loud, clanging franchise movies are being greenlit. But tonight at a packed preview screening for the movie District 9, I saw a glimpse of the future. A way to have people rush out to see a movie that's actually thought-provoking.

Lie.

Okay, not really. But kind of. What I really mean is:

Metaphors.

When The Dark Knight came out, critics and audiences were trying to decipher what appeared to be a Big Message lurking under all that action. It was definitely political, but people weren't sure whether it was liberal or conservative. At any rate, I think Christopher Nolan's primary intention was just to make a really good Batman movie, and he threw this in to add some weight. And everyone and their mother saw this movie. Twice.

But with District 9, director Neil Blomkamp is taking that idea one step further. This movie is unquestionably and blatantly about the evils of racial intolerance. In the opening shots when a segregated alien slum of South Africa is presented, the educated folk in the audience go, "Oh, like apartheid. I see," and follow the metaphor through to the end. The less educated see the part where a mean military man is pointing a gun at an alien and saying something like (I'm paraphrasing) "I can't believe I get paid to kill you, you alien scum" and realize that hatred is bad, because they've kind of come to sympathize with the aliens by now. It reveals its message across the board, to any level of intelligence. It's almost impossible to miss.

Having said that, it still delivers plentiful action, horror and sci-fi. Neither element is at the expense of the other. They coexist. Was District 9 advertised as a movie with a message? Hell no. But by luring people in with they elements they like, you can sneak in the heavier stuff that makes it more than mindless entertainment. Like slipping medication into dog treats.

In fact, I've always thought metaphor movies were an underrated tool and mode of filmmaking. It shows that an idea or social phenomenon transcends a specific situation and can be applied to anything. If you showed a bigoted person a movie about the evils of apartheid, they wouldn't care. Even if you showed the cruelty and injustice that black people suffered, their minds are made up about black people and won't change. But if you show them District 9, these aliens are a blank slate to them. They don't have preexisting feelings towards this group, so the filmmaker can orchestrate sympathy or hostility to serve the film's purpose. I'm not saying this movie is going to change the world, or any movie like it. But it's a way to present ideas to people while keeping them open-minded. It also negates the "that could never happen here / now" mentality that people sometimes use to write off the atrocities of history.

The audience applauded riotously at the end of the screening. I don't know if they just liked things blowing up, or if maybe, just maybe, this movie appealed to them all the more because it had more to offer. Maybe I'm being overly optimistic here, but it gave me hope.

>****UPDATE***** I just saw Inglourious Basterds and it would appear that a similar strategy has been employed - the advertising promises 150 minutes of Brad Pitt scalping Nazis, whereas the actual film is a downright meditative period piece with mostly European actors speaking other languages (with a little bit of Brad Pitt scalping Nazis). Check out a good analysis here.

The mindless movie debate

The new Transformers movie has sparked a lot of controversy about the nature of entertainment and what people actually want from it. If all people really want is two and a half hours of incoherent explosions, that could be troubling news for the human race. The biggest defense of the film is that sometimes people just want predictability and mindlessness. I thought I understood that argument, until I was directed to this quote from Roger Ebert:

"Do I ever have one of those days when, the hell with it, all I want to do is eat popcorn and watch explosions? I haven't had one of those days for a long time. There are too many other films to see. I've had experiences at the movies so rich, so deep--and yes, so funny and exciting--that I don't want to water the soup."

Here's where the mindlessness argument starts to fall apart. The problem is that people making that argument are saying there are only two types of movies in the world: the Shoah type (that's a 9.5 hour documentary about the Holocaust) and the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen type. That just doesn't make any sense.

There are definitely days when I'm not in a Shoah mood. Like anyone else, it could be a long day, a tough week, or just the laziness to not be particularly challenged that day. But that doesn't translate to a desire to experience cinematic catharsis akin to Freud's anal stage of psychosexual development (aka when a toddler's primary joy in life is pooping). On these days I pop in a comedy or a musical. But not a dumb, mindless comedy such as Adam Sandler's last 3-5 movies - maybe a screwball comedy of the 1930s, which still sparkles with wit and energy (but not in a draining way).

Even action/adventure/sci fi movies don't have to be vapid junk. Look at the films of that genre that have become classics - ones that even diehard T:ROTF fans certainly love. Think Alien(s), Star Wars, Back to the Future, etc. These films endure because in addition to the fun and thrills, they have character and story. But those elements don't weigh it down. It's not like T:ROTF is a purer cinematic form because it's stripped of those things. None of these films would be deemed too taxing after a long day. They're still entertainment, but a more nourishing kind. They're nutrition bars that taste exactly like chocolate, whereas T:ROTF is just a chocolate bar. With flies on it.

So the next time you find yourself gravitating towards "mindless" entertainment, pause for a moment and consider your options. You don't have to sacrifice content for fun. They are NOT mutually exclusive. And for those who think T:ROTF is a masterpiece, ask yourself this: which holds a dearer place in your heart, that film or Star Wars? I won't deny that nostalgia probably factors in here, but at the end of the day you'll have a greater love for and inclination to revisist movies that appealed to you on a deeper level. Even if they have explosions.

Is this actually a movie? #6

Hey everyone, I found an upcoming movie that makes Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen look like the epitome of logical, linear storytelling. It truly must be seen to be believed.

Probably NSFW and definitely NSF most human eyes, but so worth it.

Without further ado, I present: Robo Geisha.









Thoughts:

1. Despite all the insane shit going on, the voiceover might be the best part. Although shrimp to the eyes is fucking amazing.
2. Is that a modified version of the riff from "Live and Let Die" in the background?!
3. Why are they crediting the special FX artists in the middle of the trailer?
4. I'm pretty sure this movie was created by putting random words next to "Geisha" and creating scenes around the resulting phrases.
5. Did I see this correctly...are those buildings BLEEDING when destroyed?
6. I think this movie will exceed the legal limit for UTTER INSANITY in a single film.

The release dates are uncertain, but here's the IMDb page if you simply must stay in the loop.

The misconception of Boston filmmaking that is driving me apeshit

If you live in or near Boston, you certainly know this, and if you don't, it's very possible that you've heard inklings of it. All the prophets are shouting it from the rooftops:

MASSACHUSETTS IS THE NEW HOLLYWOOD!

Let me try to break down why that is fucking retarded.

There are two factors contributing to this myth. One is that there will soon be two film studios in Massachusetts. One is in Plymouth and is slated to open next year; there is also a recently announced one that will be built in the relatively nearby town of Weymouth. Where are those towns? IN THE MIDDLE OF BUTT-FUCKING NOWHERE. Weymouth is about a 25-minute drive from Boston; Plymouth is about twice that. You know you're a hopping tourist destination when your biggest attractions are a really small rock and a reenactment village where everyone looks bored (field trips - trust me). So these studios are asking that Hollywood-based productions fly everyone over and dump them in a Pilgrim-themed town with consistently bad weather and little hope of shooting exteriors. Hm. Well, at least you know that your crew and actors won't stay out late exploring the nightlife. The impending opening of these studios causes me to have the following conversation with every single person I know or meet over the age of 30:

Them: Oh, so you just graduated film school, what's your plan?
Me: I'm moving to New York.
Them: Oh cool! But you know, they're opening that big film studio in Plymouth.
Me: Yeah...but putting my dreams on hold for a year and moving to a tiny middle-of-nowhere town for the microscopic chance that I can get one of the jobs that every single entertainment professional in New England will be competing for seems nothing short of INSANE.

The other factor contributing to the myth is the fact that non-studio, location shoots have been happening in the state, such as Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, The Women, The Pink Panther 2, The Departed, and more. Listen, news outlets, I understand. Anytime something happens more than once, you have to declare it a trend or an epidemic to keep people hooked. But calling Massachusetts "The New Hollywood" because of a few shoots breezing through is just ridiculous. Hollywood doesn't just refer to "a place where people happen to make movies," but rather "a place where there is a firmly rooted infrastructure and environment that supports and sustains filmmaking on a regular basis." That is not the case here. Some facts:

1. In Hollywood, it's almost always sunny and warm. That's why they put in there in the first place - Hollywood actually started in New Jersey. If you're shooting a pretty basic movie that doesn't call for snowstorms, why would you gamble on somewhere with such erratic weather?
2. Like I said, the infrastructure doesn't exist here. The resources are extremely limited - there's a handful of casting agencies, approximately three equipment rental houses, etc.
3. These imported productions almost never hire local crew or cast, with the exception of production assistants (i.e. coffee bitches) and extras. Most of the acting professionals I know around here can put in a day or two as "Man #3" or "Angry Inmate," but that's it. It's the same for crew - they pick people they know and trust, not strangers from the other side of the country. Why shouldn't they?

But, despite my pleas of logic and reason, this "New Hollywood" fever continues. The Plymouth studio has even licensed out the famous Hollywood sign to create a garish new one that says "Hollywood East." Aside from being annoying, it makes me sad that this hype is genuinely deluding some people into thinking they can get a big break in Massachusetts. It just isn't true.

Has the abundance of movie-viewing choices made us close-minded?

My boyfriend was recently lamenting that the new film by Alan Resnais, director of Last Year at Marienbad and other darlings of the Criterion Collection, has been unable to find U.S. distribution. This did indeed seem odd, considering the reputation he has from the French New Wave and the fact that there are any number of art houses in America. But then I started to formulate an answer, a counterintuitive one but logical nonetheless: our unlimited movie-viewing options have closed our minds.

There is virtually nothing stopping us from seeing any movie we want. You can go through Netflix, Blockbuster, a local video store, a chain movie theater, an independent movie theater, a repetertory/revival house, or Amazon. You can watch films online. You can buy a non-Region 1 DVD from another country. With a little elbow grease, you can watch anything.

So how could that possibly restrict what we watch? First, bear in mind I'm not talking about cinephiles here, who do seek out all the Region 2 DVDs of obscure foreign films, but rather the average moviegoer. My theory is the "it's what's for dinner" theory.

Say it's April 1952. You feel like seeing a movie. Unless you live in New York or LA, Singin' in the Rain is pretty much your only option. If you want to see a movie, it will be Singin' in the Rain. If you don't want to see that, you won't see a movie. It's what's for dinner, take it or leave it. So you go. Most people probably wouldn't be against musicals - or any genre, for that matter - because there weren't enough options to just rule out a genre. Teenage boys who now would only see Transformers and The Hangover would see musicals, romances, historical epics, foreign films, anything back in the day. (Let's not forget that for a while, foreign films were the exclusive source of on-screen nudity and sex.) You just liked cinema in general.

Now, if you so desired, you could restrict your viewing habits so that you only watch Mexican zombie movies, or only movies with redheads. There's no need to see something that isn't EXACTLY to your taste, unless maybe a friend or significant other drags you along. Americans also aren't inherently adventurous in their entertainment. Entertainment is a form of comfort, and most people stick to what they know. It's like how foreigners will sometimes remark that in American supermarkets, the variety is insane - there's like 200 kinds of ketchup. But that doesn't mean that Americans go through and systematically sample every kind of ketchup - they find one that works and stick with it.

Maybe the French New Wave gained traction in the U.S. - or anywhere - because these films would only be one of a few options you could watch on any given night, so people gave it a whirl. Hell, maybe that's how any movement gained ground. I'm not trying to make any value judgments here, because quality very rarely correlates to popularity, but just looking at the trends I'm not sure it would be the same story today.

What do you think? Has the smorgasboard of options caused us to retreat into niches?

P.S. - Don't get me wrong - not every movie was an automatic smash under the old system. It still ultimately had to appeal to viewers on its own merits. But by virtue of any one film being the only game in town, it could put asses in the seats on opening night. If the crowd liked the film - even if was something that might not have appealed to them on paper - they will tell their friends, and it's a hit. Now, there's no way to force asses into the seats, so films don't all get an equal chance.

If these are the best female filmmakers, we're in trouble

My yearning to see more female directors / women's stories out there is one typically met with frustration and disappointment, but equally frustrating and disappointing is how this deficiency is approached and discussed. For instance, here's my response to the Women's Film Critic Circle awards, which in an effort to speak out against the lack of representation just ended up making us all look bad. And now, from across the pond, we have this embarassment: a feature in the Guardian about female directors. Now, if this was just an article proving that female filmmakers exist, it would be fine. All the ladies listed have made 1-3 feature films (with the exception of Gurinder Chadha, who has made 5), and of those, most have only one movie of acclaim or quality, or none at all. But what's this? They kick off the individual profiles with "These are six of the very best."

Whaaaaaaat?!?

Okay, let's break this down. Andrea Arnold won an Oscar for best short film, released her first feature, Red Road, in 2006 to okay reviews but no real recognition, and now has a film buzzing at Cannes. Little early to deem her a prophet. Nadine Labaki made only one movie, 2007's Caramel, which got pretty good reviews but again, is one movie. Her profile is suspiciously padded with influences and interests, and the suggestion that she doesn't have anything in the works. Chadha, the most prolific of the bunch, did make a huge splash with 2002's Bend it Like Beckham, which got good reviews and made, to use industry terms, an assload of money. But nobody really cared about her other movies. Kelly Reichardt is probably the most deserving woman on the list, since everything she's done has swept festivals and made the critics pee themselves with delight. Kasi Lemmons released a few features to big yawns, and Jennifer Lynch has one atrocious (like, 3.9 on IMDB and commonly found in the "Cult" section of video stores atrocious) movie under her belt, Boxing Helena, and another maybe okay one. Oh, and she has an upcoming fantasy/horror movie about snake people that doesn't exactly scream Oscar.

My point is, if the directors on this list were male, it would be pathetic. The list is almost condescending - it's bending down to these directors, patting them on the back and saying, "Oh, you made an okay movie or two, little female director? You are the future of cinema! You're so special, yes you are!" I would much rather that this article did not exist at all then have it exist but lower the bar. Equality will only come when we hold female director's accomplishments to the same standards of their male counterparts.

This article also, whether intentionally or not, gives a clue to why there are not as many female directors. After all, it's 2009. It's not like women don't stand a chance unless they sleep their way to the top. People aren't going to approach them on a film set and tell them to bake a pie. But there's a quote from documentary filmmaker Anne Aghion, who says "it would have been impossible to combine my career and the accompanying 16-hour days with any kind of family life." Bam. Even though it's 2009, most women still want kids. They want to raise those kids and be moms. I know this because whenever I say that I don't want kids, people are appalled and ask why, and then brush me off by saying I will inevitably change my mind. (But I digress).

Here's another radical idea: maybe not as many women want to be directors. After all, it's not like they're not afraid to be top dogs. There are female producers up the wazoo, with most blockbusters or Best Picture nominees sporting at least one. So I'm not sure we can still blame The System for keeping them down.

In conclusion, I just wish this issue was addressed with honesty. Don't sugarcoat someone's accomplishments just because they have a cooter. And don't act like every woman on earth would be a director if she could, but a vast government conspiracy is keeping them from it.

Favorite cinematic New Yorks

I am going to move to New York City this September. Aside from a few visits, I have to admit that most of what I know about the city comes from movies. Unlike many other cities, both in the U.S. and worldwide, New York has the unique distinction of not really being cinematically pigeonholed (at least in American cinema). There is not just one New York on screen. Whereas LA is always slick and commercial, Chicago is always seedy, Boston is always teeming with blue-collar criminals, anywhere in Italy or France is always achingly romantic, and anywhere in urban Asia is always hustling and bustling, New York can be any number of things. Even though certain representations come up often, you can still hop onto Netflix and find a whole range of cinematic New Yorks, from the glamorous to the gritty. Below are some of my favorite versions of New York on screen. My criteria was basically that the location had to factor into the film - that it would change the feeling of the film if it took place somwhere else. The story couldn't be insulated from its environment. For example, even though Rear Window technically takes place in NYC, you probably wouldn't be able to tell because really it just takes place in one apartment. So that wouldn't count. Also, for the sake of focus, I'm keeping it limited to Manhattan - diving into the other boroughs is a whole other barrel of monkeys. (And the other boroughs are typically depicted in a more narrow light than Manhattan - i.e. you don't see too many fluffy romantic comedies set in the Bronx). Finally, note that this not a list of the best movies that are set in New York, but the best representations of New York on film. This list is by no means exhaustive; it is meant to spark discussion.


The Crowd (1927)
People often go to the big city to become somebody, but what if that doesn't work out? King Vidor's heartbreaking silent film exposes the lie of the American dream, and gives the audience a New York of dead-end jobs at nameless companies and tiny apartments with fold-out beds. But it also gives us the classic ending where a huge crowd of New Yorkers escapes their troubles by laughing the night away in a movie theater. It's unflinching, but hopeful.

Gold Diggers of 1933 (um, 1933)
People tend to think during the Great Depression, culture was completely decimated and everyone was just sitting in a pile of dirt. While that was definitely true for a lot of people, it's often forgotten that there was still a lot of decadent glamour in the upper sets. There were still opulent spectacles on Broadway and in theaters. So this film gives an interesting dichotomy wherein the characters are devising ways to steal their neighbor's breakfast so as not to go hungry, but then hopping between sparkly roles on Broadway. This New York is glitzy but full of scrappy folks who want to entertain but also just want to eat.

On The Town (1949)
Three sailors are seeing New York for the first time, and the attractions are larger than life - from the Museum of Natural History to flashy 1940s nightclubs (by the way, can they bring those back?). But the real draw is the women - lustful, confident, brassy and unabashedly Manhattanite.

Guys and Dolls (1955)
Unlike the previous musical I mentioned, people are less starry-eyed in this city. This film depicts the lives of gamblers and criminals, but without danger and brutality. Gamblers are people too, and they have marital and job woes like the rest of us. Similarly, the head of a religious mission can't fill the seats anymore. Everyone has problems in this New York, but they solve them with dancing and love.

The Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
Here's a New York full of backstabbers and huge egos. James Wong Howe's incredible black and white cinematography captures the city in all its grit and despair.

The French Connection (1971)
Because, ya know, sometimes you just gotta dress up like Santa to kick people's asses. There's the classic car chase, of course, but also a great dive bar with motown music, gritty cinematography and even grittier people.

Taxi Driver (1976)
Duh. Kid prostitutes and psychopaths, with dreamlike shots of driving down the dirty streets. An ode to the seedy unberbelly of the city, it still manages to be strangely lyrical while detailing the toll it can take on its denizens.

Manhattan (1979)
Even though this is technically a romantic dramedy, it's really more of a love letter to a city. Although that can be said of many Woody Allen films, it is probably most clear here, from the black and white cinematography to the opening voiceover with Gershwin to the iconic shot under the Queensborough Bridge.

When Harry Met Sally (1989)
A nice tour of a romantic New York through the seasons, and the film that immortalized Katz's Deli forever. Even if the Harry Connick Jr. soundtrack does get a bit cheesy...

Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
This film came under criticism for, among other things, depicting New York unrealistically (it was in fact shot primarily in London). That's not the point. The whole film has a dreamlike quality, and an unsettling quality - things aren't supposed to be quite right. This is a New York where everyone has secrets, from benign to dangerous and disturbing. You also rarely see daylight, which adds to the creepy vibe.

Zoolander (2001)
Underground walk-offs hosted by David Bowie? Past-fixated hand models lurking in graveyards? Mugatu?! This is one zany city. Zany and awesome.

The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
This isn't real New York, this is Wes Anderson's New York - he even went so far as to have an actor stand directly in front of the Statue of Liberty in one shot, and have made-up addresses. But he makes it his quirky own, and I wouldn't doubt that people like this really exist in NY.

Spider-Man (2002) and sequels
Everything is bright and efficient here. Jonah Jameson runs a snappy newspaper, the pizzas better be delivered on time and Spidey always saves the day.

Igby Goes Down (2002)
Shows the bohemian side of the city, in a subtler and more realistic way than say, Rent.

25th Hour (2002)
The main character, Monty, delivers an infamous "fuck you" monologue to everything in the city you could think of, from the Korean grocers to the "Gordon Gekko wannabe motherfuckers" on Wall Street, which many viewers actually read as a kind of perverted love letter. In a way, the film is Spike Lee's Manhattan.

Sex and the City (2008)
Okay, so this is kind of cheating, because I didn't see the movie. But I did see every episode of the show, and I figure the movie had a similar thing going on. So yeah, it's kind of a fantasy, but that's what makes it so fabulous. And hey, maybe people really do wear Manolo Blahniks to the convenience store. Plus, most of the places they go are real, so it can't be totally made up. But it's pretty much the authority on Manhattan glamour.

Watchmen (2009)
The anti-Spiderman New York, if you will. It's an alternate, dystopian 1985, where Nixon is still the president and America won the Vietnam War. It's bleak as all hell, but still has the vividness of a graphic novel come to life. Plus it has a restaurant called the Gunga Diner, which is awesome.

What are your favorite cinematic New Yorks?

Is this actually a movie? #5

I present to you: Tiptoes. This movie is absolutely real and is from 2003. It appears to have gone straight to DVD. Plenty of movies go straight to DVD, I realize, but this is unusual due to its star-studded cast.




The hyperbolic praise of Gary Oldman's performance is what really made this trailer seem fake. But no, here's the IMDB page: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0316768/ . Special thanks to my lovely boyfriend Scott for alerting me to the existence of this gem.

Representing your minority as a filmmaker

As I have said before, I go to film school. It has been my observation here that filmmakers of any minority persuasion, be it race, sexuality, gender, whatever, make films about that particular minority. Black students make films about black people. Gay men make films about gay men. Women make films about women. And so on. Looking to a wider scope of filmmaking, this also seems to hold in the professional world. Spike Lee makes films about black people. Gus Van Sant makes films about gay people. Sofia Coppola makes films about women. The probable reason, whether conscious or subconscious, is to give these minority groups greater representation, and also to show what you know best. But is that really the way to go?

This notion of representing your own minority in filmmaking has been on my mind lately. As you may know from an earlier post, I recently completed a short film about Jesus Christ in high school. The key fact there is that I am a woman who wrote and directed a film about a teenage boy. Knowing there are many grants, festivals and categories of festivals devoted to female filmmakers, where people seemingly throw heaping piles of money at you for having a cooter and making a movie, I thought I had it made in the shade. Since some of those suckers cost a lot of money to enter, I started going on these organizations' websites to see what kind of films had won in the past. And I realized that I didn't stand a chance.

What I found is that in an effort to foster equality, these organizations have been unintentionally exclusive to minority filmmakers depicting stories outside their minority. Every winner for these women's festivals or categories seemed to be about lesbian mothers with breast cancer or something equally Lifetime-y. My college hosted its own film festival in LA that offered a cash prize for female-directed projects, and I entered, but sure enough the finalists were both lesbians who made movies about lesbians. There was one student contest that had categories for women, Asians, blacks and Latinos, and the winners of each category in past years seemed to be ones that dealt with issues of that minority head-on. I think there has been a confusion and convergence of what should be two different issues: encouraging minority filmmakers, and encouraging minority stories. Those are not one and the same.

I understand and completely agree that minorities of all kinds are under-represented on screen. But instead of having people from those groups feel solely responsible for the duty of representing their kind, what if we switched it all up? Certain gay male directors, for instance, have proved themselves hugely adept at depicting women's stories (i.e. Cukor, Almodovar), as have white directors with certain stories of racial minorities. Perhaps this is because the outsider view brings in an objective and fresh perspective that someone who belongs to that group is too shortsighted to see. Often when filmmakers push themselves outside of their own kind, they produce their best films. To cite the above examples: arguably Spike Lee's two most critically successful films (with the exception of Malcolm X, for which most of the reviews attribute the film's quality to Denzel Washington) are Do the Right Thing and 25th Hour, the former of which deals with a whole spectrum of races with equal consideration and weight and the latter of which is virtually all white people. Gus Van Sant's most critically and commercially successful film was Good Will Hunting, about a bunch of East Coast straight dudes as opposed to West Coast gay dudes. Sofia Coppola, who admittedly has only made three films, was most successful on all accounts with Lost in Translation, which has a rich portrait of a male character where her other films were more female-centric.

Another thing to consider is that working outside your group gets more people interested in you and your work, which means that if you revert back to tales of your group, you have a wider audience. If Good Will Hunting hadn't happened, would Milk have been anything more than a blip on the gay cinema scene? If it hadn't been for Do the Right Thing, would Spike Lee just have been another Tyler Perry catering exclusively to niche audiences? (And as for Sofia Coppola, well, her dad is Francis Ford, so that doesn't really count.)

So this is why, as a female filmmaker, I don't feel obligated to tell only women's stories. A good story is a good story, no matter what kind of person or people it's about, and I shouldn't owe anything to women to represent them.

What do you think? Do minority filmmakers owe it to their communities to represent them? Do filmmakers push themselves and produce better work when they move outside their minority?

Is this actually a movie? #4

I am not going to preface this with anything other than the fact that it is truly not a parody or joke of any kind.

Christians, you gotta raise the bar.

I should really get into the religious entertainment racket, because you can seemingly pass off ANYTHING as a movie. I'm not trying to knock Christians or their beliefs, but for whatever reason they seem to pardon improbable stories, bad acting, horrible writing, cheesy effects, and any other crime against the cinema if the movie has a religious message. But it's not like your only source of religious films is this absurd ghetto - just check out the "religion" section of the Vatican's list of best films. Not all of them are classics like Ben-Hur or The Passion of Joan of Arc, but all of the films listed are at least trying.

You know a movie's bad when comments are disabled on YouTube, and when the following is including in the movie's IMDB FAQ:

Q: Is this film satire, a spoof of something, or some type of joke?
A: No, this is an actual movie which has a religious plot and message.

This movie is allegedly out in theaters now, if you want it to see it and thus have no respect for yourself.

Great expectations

No, this post is not about the Dickens novel or any of its adaptations (also I did just see the 1946 David Lean film version). It's about the preconceived notion you have going into a film, and what happens when that is shattered.

This was the subject of some controversy recently between myself and my boyfriend. He claimed that I always cling too tightly to the expectations I have going into a film. To clarify, the expectations I'm referring to are the ones created primarily by the advertising campaign, and have little to do with quality (i.e. "this movie is going to be awesome!"), but rather what the film is going to deliver at a basic level (i.e. "this movie is a raucous comedy" or "this movie is a character-driven drama"). Discrepancies of quality - either being pleasantly surprised by a film or disappointed - happen all the time, but I would say it is rare that a film's promotion sells something completely different.

We had just seen Adventureland, which is the new film from Greg Mottola, director of Superbad. I was expecting something along the lines of Superbad, since that was pretty much how the new film was being sold to me (and on the whole, why should I doubt a trailer?). Instead of being a foul-mouthed, sex-driven outrageous comedy with a heart of gold, however, Adventureland was a mushy coming-of-age romantic drama. Huh?

When I voiced my disappointment, my boyfriend couldn't believe it. He loved the film and said that when it becomes apparent that a movie is branching off radically from what I expected, I should be able to adjust and appreciate it for what it is. I wondered why I was unable to do that.

This made me think back to a couple of times that this has happened to me before - most notably, with Barton Fink and In Bruges. The back of the DVD case for Barton Fink, for reasons unknown, paints the film as a sort of zany Hollywood parody. It is, but it's not. It's also a dark, surreal, and disturbing mystery. Being completely unprepared for this, it left a really bad taste in my mouth. When I revisited it a year or two later, I absolutely loved it. In Bruges is a similar case. Its marketing campaign was insanely baffling in that it depicted a sort of European Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang, a comedic Belgian crime caper. That couldn't be further from the truth - while it has a few moments of morbidly dark humor, it's mostly a moody, profound meditation on life and death. Again, that left me feeling really weird afterward because I wasn't ready for it. I haven't seen it again since that, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that it's a really good movie in its own right.

So what went wrong with Adventureland? Was it really just this discrepancy?

The more I thought about it, the more I could think of reasons it didn't work as a film - structurally, character-wise, etc. - whereas after seeing Barton Fink and In Bruges I kept coming up with things that did work. But also, I couldn't shake the feeling that I would have preferred to have seen the film the trailer was selling. The rich environment of suburban teen malaise in a 1980s theme park seemed like a potential goldmine for the kind of humor seen in Superbad, but what actually unfolded just came off as watered down and neutered. With Barton Fink and In Bruges, I didn't really find myself actually longing for what I had been promised, just readjusting.

So maybe expectations do matter. But I can move past them - unless the film never lives up to its trailer or campaign in quality regardless of what direction it takes, and then it just merges with general disappointment.

What do you think? How do expectations of genre, quality or anything else figure into your moviegoing experiences?