Redesign!

I redesigned the blog! By redisgned, I mean picked a new Blogger template and scooted stuff around. I got all cocky from reading some hacks on the internet but it turns out I'm not destined to be a programmer, so this is about as fancy as it will get. I also added a banner up top with images from some of my favorite movies, and anyone who guesses them correctly wins...bragging rights. Enjoy what I hope is a more aesthetically pleasing blog experience!

The power of the face in cinema

In film school, one of our required courses was called "Media Criticism and Theory." I had it with arguably the worst of the professors teaching it, a guy so inexplicably consumed with white guilt that he had us read all these weird and highly irrelevant essays about how white people were ruining everything. But one thing stuck with me, and that was from critic/writer/essayist Walter Benjamin in his famous essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." Essentially, the bit was (or so my professor summarized) that in this wacky industrial age of art, the only thing that can maintain an "aura," or captivating presence, is the human face. I went and re-read the essay today and am actually having trouble finding where it says that (you can slog through it yourself here). The closest it comes is talking about the aura emanating from old-timey photographs of dead people. But even if both my professor and I interpreted it wrong, I stand by it as the truth.

It makes sense that human faces would be universally captivating. Faces are essentially the first thing that babies recognize. A study found that babies, MINUTES after birth, preferred looking at pictures of human faces over other subjects (side note: where do you get the babies for this research? "Excuse me, ma'am, may I borrow your newborn? It'll just be a moment..."). Personally, I've always been drawn to faces in art and photography - I just find it more interesting, as something I feel fundamentally connected to. It's a living person, not a bowl of fruit (which isn't to belittle still life).

So what does this have to do with cinema specifically? Well, I tend to think that the human face is the first and last great spectacle on the screen. What other object of focus can make you laugh, cry, shudder, or experience virtually any other emotion? (And not the movie as a whole - just a shot of something.) I'm not even involving words or sound in the equation - just the image of the face. Any number of comedians have elastic faces that can make you laugh, dramatic actors have emotional faces that can make you cry, and a range of people have faces that are frightening by themselves or with a little help from makeup. Think how powerful that is.

The reason this popped into my head recently was from watching two very different performances directed by two directors who just "got" the face thing. The first is obvious; the second, less so.

I saw Dreyer's La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc for the first time last week and was blown away. Here is a silent film from 1928 that features mostly close-ups of makeup-free faces to tell the story of Joan of Arc. Renee Jeanne Falconetti, as the title character, gives what Pauline Kael called "maybe the finest performance ever recorded on film," all without speaking a word. How? Well, Joan of Arc was alternately thought to be crazy and schizophrenic or a saint, the daughter of God. Falconetti communicates all this and more with her bleak, frenetic, fearful, tear-stained, hysterical, pious face. It has more impact than a thousand on-screen explosions or sex scenes. It was art, but also a spectacle in its own way. I was transfixed like I haven't been for much more complex visuals.

I also watched the little-known film Love Me or Leave Me last week, which stars Doris Day and James Cagney and tells the true story of 1920s singer Ruth Etting. I highly recommend it, since it blasts open the 50s, the biopic, and Doris Day's persona to show a bickering, loveless marriage and a moral conundrum of fame where no one is right. Naturally, being a film about a singer, there are many scenes of Day singing (not in the style of a musical - more the straightforward depiction of a Walk the Line or Ray). This was the first Doris Day film I had seen, and I know she's considered a bit of a lightweight actress but definitely not in this one. The director, Charles Vidor, could have really spiked up the musical numbers and made it more musical-esque (and there are a couple of those, but only because they take place at the Ziegfeld Follies), but mostly he just lets Day speak for herself. I'm not a big fan of concerts and usually for me watching someone sing is about as worthwhile as listening to a painting, but I was entranced. From the jubilance in her eyes for "Stay on the Right Side, Sister" to the mournful and self-protecting stance of "Ten Cents a Dance," she imbues every song, no matter how standard, with a deep meaning.

I must be in the minority on this one, otherwise blockbusters would be more in the style of Bergman than Bay. But sometimes, the power of the face catches on with the general public. Even the fanboys and/or Middle America connected to Heath Ledger's Joker, a performance that relied heavily on dialogue and body language but was also fairly face-oriented, I would say (beyond the makeup,too - the crazy eyes, the tics, the restless mouth). And what about one of this year's breakout roles - Christoph Waltz as Hans Landa? Sure, we love to hear him dissect and prance about his dialogue, but would the performance be half of what it was without his facial gymnastics? Tarantino, for all his cuts and mayhem, left the camera pretty stable on Landa so he could just work the audience. If you still don't understand what I mean, think of it this way: I could watch those performances on mute and still find them pretty compelling.

Maybe, someday in the future, when we've exhausted all the possibilities for car chases and blowing things up, there'll be a sort of reset and we'll come to embrace the ultimate spectacle again. I can dream, right?

What are some silver screen faces you've been drawn to?

Is this actually a [poster]? #8

My boyfriend and I have had Netflix streaming for a few months now, and it's pretty much the best thing ever. Today I was browsing their new arrivals, and the fun thing about browsing their new arrivals is that usually it's a page of stuff you've heard of and then page after page of movies that have no right to exist. I discovered that there's a children's film called "Dog Gone" whose plot isn't that outrageous in the grand scheme of kid movies, but the poster was too insane not to share. You're welcome.

Boston in cinema - Part II

I have already written about the dismal state of my home city/state on screen, focusing mostly on the city itself and trying to dispel the myth that it is all a thug-ridden shithole. Now, due to a series of pop-culture and personal events, I feel the need to be vocal again - this time about the Bay State's population.

I had a job interview recently in my current home of Portland, Oregon. The interview went well, and at the end the woman noted my place of origin from my resume and then said, "Wow, you totally got rid of your Boston accent."

She skipped right over "did you ever have an accent?" to go straight to "the only explanation is that you had one and then it went away." I blame movies.

I explained to her what I call the "Boston Accent Ring." You make a dot - that's Boston. No one is from Boston proper, in the same way that virtually no one is from Midtown Manhattan. It's all professionals and students. Now, there's a ring of smaller towns around the metro Boston area where people DO have the accent (also, a few scattered towns nearby and parts of New Hampshire). And then beyond the ring, nothing. Massachusetts has about 6 million people in 351 towns/cities. Scanning a list of towns, I could only come up with about 17 that definitely (or probably) produced the accent, some very small. And that has to assume that parents of child have to have the accent as well, so the family would have to be in that area for at least two generations. Plus the greater Boston area, due primarily to its acclaimed colleges, draws mostly people from other parts of the country and/or world.

With that math in mind, how does it make sense that EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN EVERY MOVIE SET IN BOSTON has this accent? Did they all grow up in these 17 towns? Let's use New York to give some perspective: that's like saying that every person in New York State is from Queens, or giving every cinematic New Yorker a Polish accent because New York has a bunch of Polish people. Actors are making themselves look stupid and producers are spending money on all these dialect coaches for NO REASON. (I'm only referring to modern-era movies - the accent started cropping up in the 70s and by the end of the 90s no Boston film was without it).

Why does this matter? It's just a silly accent, right? Well, yes and no. The Boston accent, unlike, say, a British one, has really bad connotations. It implies that you're a near-illiterate douchebag whose head is so clouded with love for the Red Sox that you literally cannot form another thought. You're rowdy, impulsive, dumb, trashy. And, if you're in the movies, you're probably also a criminal. The accent carries with it a whole persona. (Slate writer Jessica Grose suggests "Massholes" as a follow-up to "Jersey Shore." Hey, it makes sense.) When the woman at the interview expressed her amazement that I got rid of my accent, she said in a weird way that seemed to contain echoes of "Barack Obama is really eloquent for a black person."

In a way, the onscreen Boston/Massachusetts goon evolution somewhat parallels (parallels - it's not nearly as bad, I'm aware of that) what happened to African-Americans in movies. In both cases, a stereotype/archetype was born that the audience couldn't get enough of, and became so pervasive that people thought it was actually true of everyone in that group. Now, these Massholes do exist, but again their numbers are so small that it's ludicrous to have them represent a whole population.

Where's my evidence that people can't enough of the Boston goon? The first episode of this season of American Idol, that's where. It was the Boston audition round, which I feel especially qualified to discuss since I was there. Yup, I was a PA at the first round of auditions. So anyway, they shuffle the locations for the auditons each year. For example, they wouldn't go to Boston and New York in the same year because they know that people from one will go to the other and vice versa. So essentially, we had the entirety of the East Coast hopefuls in attendance up to where the next audition spot, Atlanta, started taking over. I watched the episode only because I worked on it, and I noticed that aside from the really good people, they showed a disproportionate number of Boston goons. They must have really hunted for them, because I stood behind one of the tents (they don't show this on TV, but in the first round you sing for a couple of producers in one of 13 tents) for hours and hours and don't think I saw a single one. Why? Why can't you have just generic weirdos? My only explanation is that they're trying to give America what America thinks Boston is. And there's no sign of slowing down, with Edge of Darkness and Shutter Island on the horizon and Julianne Moore's absurd representation on "30 Rock" (where I guess admittedly, they do mock everyone). Are producers afraid of having their films called inauthentic because their audience doesn't know the truth?

As I mentioned in my other post, I can't think of another city has this representation problem. Aside from Chicago in the 30s, when the movies would have you believe it was comprised entirely of sneering gangsters, every on-screen city has hoodlums, intellectuals, professionals, losers, winners, uglies, hotties, everything. Even the South, which a lot of people thoroughly and honestly believe has nothing but toothless incestuous people in trailer parks, has the rich and restless suburbanites of sex, lies, and videotape, the pretty young lovers of The Notebook, and the pimps and thugs of Hustle and Flow, among others.

It's a stupid stereotype that somehow completely erases the fact that Massachusetts is somewhere between first and third most educated state in the nation (whether you count it by bachelor's degrees, college graduates, advanced degrees - it's always in there), and has historically been really progressive. We wouldn't have all the history, accomplishments and notable figures to our name if we were all just a bunch of meatheads.

Lest you think I'm being too sensitive, I can totally laugh at my own people - I always thought the SNL sketches with Rachel Dratch and Jimmy Fallon as screaming Massholes were hilarious. It's just an oversaturation issue that's actually causing America to think badly of a state that doesn't deserve it. I don't want to live my life in other states perpetually explaining that I didn't escape from Planet of the Sox-Obsessed Apes. We gave America basketball, the birth control pill, the telephone, the liquid-fueled rocket, the Kennedys. We're on the cutting edge of medical and scientific research. We had the nation's first public library, high school, compulsory school attendance law, planned industrial city, public park, subway, college, and right for gays to marry. We're kind of a big deal. Let's hope these caricatures don't erase that.

P.S. - In researching for this article, I heard about Next Stop Wonderland again, which appears to be the only modern-era Boston film where people are normal? It's definitely on my to-see list now.

Middle-aged people who can't behave at the movies

I will begin with a story. When I was a lot younger, I used to go with my mom and sister to a community pool during the summer. In the women's locker room, I started to notice that all of the women that were in their 50s or above would wander around stark naked. You would get an eyeful of everything from a few wrinkles to varicose veins and boobs dragging on the floor. And there was no discretion, no modesty - these women almost seemed like they were wandering around the locker rooms aimlessly in the nude. It was rather inconsiderate to those who, um, didn't want to see all that. One day, I asked my mom, "Why do they do that?" Her response? "They just don't care anymore."

What does this have to do with moviegoing? Well, believe it or not, I've noticed a parallel between locker room nudity and movie theater politeness. As a child, you have no self-awareness. You'll scream indiscriminately in a movie theater because you can't comprehend that it's an environment where you shouldn't. Similarly, you'll run around naked in a locker room (or often, any number of places) because you can't even conceive of that being a problem. Then, as you get older, you get self-aware and insecure. You would never be seen naked anywhere. This continues through your teens, twenties, thirties. You start to learn appropriate behaviors for different environments. But then, as middle age hits, you've served your time. You've been polite, you've held back. So you let loose. And this is my explanation for why at about half the movies I go to, there are middle-aged people behaving worse than children. I didn't want to get ageist here, folks, but you made me do it.

I should first quantify this statement: I probably don't see as many blockbusters as the average person. I was nowhere to be found for Transformers 2 or 2012, but I did see and enjoy Sherlock Holmes. Those types of films are the ones where the audience pest you're most likely to find is the teenage hooligan. Since blockbusters comprise the backbone of the American moviegoing experience, the teenage hooligan has been generalized as the number one theater pest. But triple their age, and you'll find yourself with the primary menace to foreign, independent, and classic films.

A couple of summers ago, my local rep house did a series of rare film noir double features. My boyfriend and I (read: early 20-somethings) hurried off to the theater with geeky film-nerd excitement. We were by far the youngest people in attendance (we even bumped into one of my professors). Everyone else was 40+.

It was the worst-behaved audience I have ever seen in my life. And I'm counting kid's films and blockbusters.

Everyone, EVERYONE talked at full volume the whole time. They made snarky comments. They laughed nonstop (and these were not comedies). Since this was a small, university-owned venue, there were no ushers. It was unbearable. It makes you wonder why they even bothered to come.

A few weeks ago, my boyfriend and I saw A Single Man. It's the artsy film debut of a fashion designer - like, you're not gonna wander into it by accident, and on the off-chance you do, it's probably because you meant to see A Serious Man. It stars Colin Firth, and there's a scene where his character is on the toilet. It's not supposed to be funny - it's just the vantage point of the character's house where he can see his neighbor's yard. You can't see any genitalia or anything. There's no bodily function noises. And yet, the second they saw someone on a toilet, the whole highbrow audience started laughing. I've seen the same thing happen at other indie/foreign films when someone is naked, there's a sex scene, etc. You know, things that would make a 12-year-old giggle.

My theory for this is that this middle-to-upper-class middle-aged folks see good reviews of these films in The New York Times and want to seem edumacated and sophistimacated by seeing them, yet they apparently lack the maturity to do so. I don't know exactly, but this isn't blind prejudice because I'm just reporting what's actually happening.

And teenagers and young people aren't the only ones fiddling with their phones, either. I saw The Yes Men Fix the World with my 54-year-old dad at the Film Forum in New York, and he texted THE ENTIRE TIME. I kept gesturing to him to stop, and he wouldn't. I thought it was maybe something urgent or business-related, but no, he was just trying to arrange to get tickets to a baseball game. Clearly, stepping outside for a single brief call would have been out of the question.

So I implore you, baby boomers: BEHAVE. Indie and foreign films often contain sexual situations and other things you have to be 17 to see, or artistically challenging moments. If these situations are literally outside of what your maturity level allows, please don't attend. There are people there trying to experience serious art appropriately. Put your god damn phones away. Try to set an example for the young whippersnappers.

P.S. - This extends to other art forms too. I'm a big dance buff and last year I saw an amazing show by Jirí Kylián called "Black and White." It featured dancers moving their bodies in unexpected but really dynamic and interesting ways, and even periodically using their voices. For some reason people moving their bodies in unexpected ways makes most people really uncomfortable, so my evening was almost ruined by rampant laughter and coughing. (Whenever there is silence in a live theater piece, the audience goes wild coughing.) And again, these are blue-blood fine arts patrons.

Have you found this to be the same problem as me? (All ages welcome to comment, of course!)

Judging adaptations on their own merit

My boyfriend always says you gotta be able to separate the stuff from the stuff. This cryptic phase has a plethora of applications, but I'm finding it increasingly relevant in discussing how critics and audiences receive certain cinematic adaptations. I recently saw Nine and, despite going into it with low expectations from the critical beating it had received, thought it was pretty great. It's no instant classic, of course, but it's definitely nipping at the heels of Chicago, and that puppy won Best Picture! It's sexy, fun, well-acted, well-sung, well-designed, and an all-around fulfilling time at the movies. Quality-wise, it's like Zombieland, another well-executed popcorn movie that critics loved. So I can't help thinking that this critical trashing has something to do with the fact that Nine is not as good as its source material, a little movie you may have heard of called 8 1/2.

Consider this quote from respected critic Claudia Puig: "Nine should have been called 4 1/2 because it doesn't come close to the work of the master who inspired it." That's a completely unfair assessment. Just because a movie isn't as good as one of the greatest films of all time, it's crap? Here's another, from critic Rob Thomas: "You don't have to love Federico Fellini to hate Nine. But it helps." Roger Ebert: "Nine is just plain adrift in its own lack of necessity." Roger, nobody asked you to evaluate the necessity of this film, just the film itself.

All this has got to stop, because it's keeping people from enjoying a good film that never even tries to be as iconic or great as 8 1/2 (and that's not a bad thing!). Classic films have been musical-ified at least as far back as the 50s, maybe further. I think the only unnecessary kind of remake is one that takes a really great and beloved film and makes it again without changing much. Making it a musical, updating it with new technology, changing the circumstances, or reinventing a film that wasn't that good to begin with all create something that's different enough to give a fair shot.

Films adapted from sacred cows of literature have the same problem. The Road, while received much more favorably, drew a lot of grumbles that the "unfilmable" book was ever adapted. Youth in Revolt (which admittedly hasn't come out yet) has drawn preemptive grumbles lamenting that the 500 pages of brilliance captured in the novel can't all be conveyed on screen. That's true - but you have to accept that film and literature are different mediums that will most likely tell a story differently. Film will rarely be able to achieve, for example, the character depth of a source novel, but it also adds visual and auditory elements.

As far as I'm concerned, there's no such thing as an "unfilmable" anything - look how many successful films came from material stuck with that label. Things might be adapted poorly, but that's not the source material's fault and should never prompt declarations that the film's real problem is just its existence.

So if you ever find yourself using "it's not as good as the original" as a critique, stop yourself and think. What's really the problem? Is it the directing? The screenplay? The acting? If you can't answer that question, then you're not really giving the film a fair chance. After all, think how silly that critique sounds in certain contexts - like, nobody complains that The Ten Commandments isn't as good as the Bible (arguably the most beloved source material of all time!)

What do you think? Are you as sick of this trend as I am?

Best forgotten and overlooked performances of 2009

There's a certain blank-slate magic in the air before movie awards season, when everything is fair game. Praises are sung in the moment. But then it gets to the end of the year, and for starters, the first three-quarters of the year in film are almost completely forgotten. Then, one critics' group will come forward with their picks. And another. Momentum builds for certain films and performances. And then it gets to a point where it becomes hard to deviate from the status quo. Thankfully, I feel that 2009 has been a pretty rich year for film, which has led to less of a consensus (I mean, obviously films and people emerge as frontrunners, but opinions are more divided this year). In the course of this snowballing, performances get lost. Maybe they were earlier in the year, they weren't seen by enough people, or they were just somehow overlooked, but for some reason they're not cropping up with distinctions and awards even though they completely deserve it. I've compiled a list of what I feel are the overlooked/forgotten performances of the year. Now, I want to be completely clear: I'm not saying that these are necessarily better than the performances getting all the recognition. In most cases, I don't think they should yank the rug out from under the Clooneys and the Streeps (in other cases, definitely!).


Best Actress

Rachel Weisz as Penelope Stamp in The Brothers Bloom
Cinema has its share of man-children, but women-children are a lot harder to come by (specifically, ones that are just naive but without a mental illness). Enter Penelope: she's brilliant and cultured, but has never left the house. Once two charming con men take her into their world, she opens up and takes the audience on her crazy ride. Weisz throws herself into the role with wild abandon - she actually learned a staggering array of instruments, sports, and talents for the part, and has great all-the-way moments like frantically humping the floor with a childlike declaration of "I'm horny!" (The fact that I found that scene funny and endearing instead of disturbing should make my point.)


Melanie Laurent as Shoshanna Dreyfus in Inglourious Basterds
Virtually absent from the film's trailer but really its driving force, Laurent's breakthrough performance is a knockout. Maybe audiences didn't see the true genius because she spends so much of the film speaking through gritted teeth and guarding her secrets for dear life, which isn't as immediately impressive as hardcore scenery chewing. But it snakes into your brain and stays there, right down to the iconic image of her maniacally laughing black and white face on a movie screen consumed with flames. I'd say the performance echoes Al Pacino in The Godfather.


Maya Rudolph as Verona in Away We Go
We all know the familiar story of a woman trying to free an emotionally stunted man from his shell. But what happens when the gender roles are reversed, and a happy-go-lucky man tries to do that for his girlfriend? Rudolph shows us beautifully, starting with an indignant smack to her boyfriend's head when he suggests she might be pregnant to some candid and completely unforced personal moments. She goes beyond being a funny lady from SNL, and then some.


Amy Adams as Rose Lorkowski in Sunshine Cleaning
Adams has virtually conquered the market on adorable - from perky pregnant southerners to princesses (she's even kind of a cute nun). Her persona is put to perfect use in this bittersweet comedy, where she applies a touching sincerity to what would be unbearably hokey in the hands of a less capable actress (she talks to her dead mother on a CB radio, for god's sake!).



Best Supporting Actress

Samantha Morton as Olivia Pitterson in The Messenger
Morton may be kind of nuts in real life (there are strong indications that she lied about having a stroke), but on screen, she aways delivers. As a newly widowed army wife, she's not glamorous, but she's real. In a series of hypnotic long takes, she lays her heart bare in a much more candid and real way than, say, Halle Berry's hysteric thrashing and screaming in Monster's Ball. I found myself hanging on her every word, literally entranced.


Olivia Williams as Miss Stubs in An Education
I wanted to like this movie, but I just didn't get what the fuss was about. Sure, it was solid, but I didn't feel it was anything special. All the attention has been lavished on star Carey Mulligan, but Williams, in a great supporting performance, has been ignored. I lamented not seeing Williams more after her amazing work as another teacher, Miss Cross, in Rushmore, and here she brings a quiet intensity to her interplay with Mulligan's Jenny that plays like a dramatic version of Cady's relationship to Miss Norbury in Mean Girls. (I know it's not a very highbrow example, but they are completely identical.)


Marcia Gay Harden as Mrs. Cavendar in Whip It
For as formulaic as this film got, one sharp and welcome deviation from formula was the main character's mother. So often in these teen sports movies, the mother is a shrieking caricature whose sole purpose on earth is to prevent their teenage daughter from participating in her sport of choice for completely arbitrary reasons. But Marcia Gay Harden is better than that. She's excelled in supporting roles in films like Pollock and Mystic River, and she brings the same elegant and multidimensional approach to this role. She's a real person, a real mother, and you find yourself agreeing with her a lot of the time. I also want to give a shoutout to Kristen Wiig and her role as Maggie Mayhem in the same film; much of my praise is the same. In a beautifully understated scene, Wiig tells our spunky protagonist that her mom might be right, but in a way that never feels preachy.

Best Actor

Sam Rockwell as Sam Bell in Moon
I'm not alone in gunning for Sam as Sam - there's a lot of support, including an online petition, to get him an Oscar nomination. After all, how often do you see a film featuring one actor playing multiple versions of a slightly different character...who interact with each other...successfully? I can't think of another. Moon is a great film all around, but without the anchoring performance it would fall apart. Rockwell is compulsively watchable in everything, and this introspective sci-fi odyssey is no exception.


Nicolas Cage as Terry McDonagh in Bad Lieutenant
Werner Herzog understands the truth about Nicolas Cage: if you want to get anything out of him as an actor, you have to let him run around and be crazy. He doesn't do subtle, he does crazy. Frankly, from early reviews I was expecting a lot more crazy, but there are still plenty of deliriously pleasurable moments to be had. From Cage's inexplicably Jimmy Stewart-sounding voice when he's high to random and over-the-top sex acts. It's funny, weird, disturbing, and sad.

Tom Hardy as the title character in Bronson
Quick, name a performance from this year that featured extremely large amounts of body painting, bizarre makeup, yelling, fighting, and full-frontal male nudity. There is only one answer - and that alone should give you a hint as to how bold this performance as Britain's most violent prisoner is. Plenty of actors can do psychopath, but rarely in such an extravagant, immersive, comical, and brave way. To further prove his chops, Hardy is just as good in psychotic prison scenes as he is when demonstrating his profound discomfort at normal social interaction in the "real" world. This is usually the gonzo stuff that award-givers love, but maybe it was underseen or just too out there, which is really a shame. If nothing else, they love the award physical transformation for a role, and this one rivals any I've ever seen.


Michael Sheen as Brian Clough in The Damned United
I could always tell that Michael Sheen was a talented actor, but in the first few roles I saw him in I felt like he wasn't being given enough to work with. He was pretty good in The Queen, but it was Helen Mirren's show. He was pretty good in Frost/Nixon, though the character wasn't very fleshed out and Frank Langella had the flashier part. In TDU, he finally got his chance to shine. At first nothing seems extraordinary, and then you realize a) that Sheen has become the character so fully that nothing even seems like acting, and b) that a man that just seemed cocky actually created a fierce sports empire driven by nothing other than his own selfish ambition. Combine those two factors and you get a compulsively watchable, egotistical asshole. That you root for.


Adam Sandler as George Simmons in Funny People
I am not one of the many who threw popcorn at the screen during Funny People because there was not a suitable sex-joke-per-minute ratio. It's a drama, people. And while I definitely thought it was uneven, it had great elements like Adam Sandler's performance as George. Wistful, sad, and autobiographical, Apatow managed to tap the same depths in Sandler that Paul Thomas Anderson did in Punch-Drunk Love.


Matt Damon as Mark Whitacre in The Informant!
Okay yes, technically this performance is getting buzz, but I don't understand why it's not a "given" like Clooney or Bridges on the lists. Maybe because it's funnier and more bizarre, and hardly the archetype of awards bait. But god dang it, that's what makes it great! Damon's Whitacre has such a fractured mind (from bipolar disorder) that he can compartmentalize everything in his life to the point where there is no overlap. When he lies (as he does often), it's unclear whether he believes it or not. Often, in movies featuring a constantly lying character, the audience knows the truth. Not here. Damon strings us along, pulling us into Whitacre's mind with hilarious interior monologues on subjects ranging from word pronunciations to polar bears that occur when he zones out. Damon has the advantage of being an actor with no defined persona, so he can seamlessly slip into roles like this one.


Best Supporting Actor

Christian McKay as Orson Welles in Me and Orson Welles
McKay had plenty of practice playing the larger-than-life Welles - he did so in a fruitful run of a one-man show. The tricky part of playing a real person, especially one as dynamic as Welles, is elevating the performance above mere impersonation. McKay achieves this by toying with the characters and the audience just like the real Welles did - like Welles' out-there documentary F for Fake, you never know when he's telling the truth or being genuine. Similarly, McKay's Welles is just as slippery with sincerity, which makes him a treat to watch.

Fred Melamed as Sy Ableman in A Serious Man
The Coen universe is dotted with wonderfully absurd characters, and Sy Ableman marks another one of their great creations. Condescending and slimy but with a strangely soothing presence, his contribution to this deadpan experience is capped by his brilliantly serious delivery of the line, "I think, really, the Jolly Roger is the appropriate course of action." Ableman is a serious man, all right - a seriousness that leads to absurdity that brings the funny.

Billy Crudup as Jon Osterman/Dr. Manhattan in Watchmen
Brad Pitt was nominated for a Golden Globe and Oscar for creating a character with insane technology in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - and yes, the finished result was visually impressive, but I found the character and performance to be pretty bland. Why not reward a successful fusion of the two? Dr. Manhattan is great to look at, of course, but Crudup pulls off the incredible feat of conveying a superhuman being that knows and can do absolutely everything, but has no attachments to this world and exists beyond emotion. Just as Dr. Manhattan exists on infinite planes of being, so does Crudup's performance.

Jackie Earle Haley as Walter Kovacs/Rorschach in Watchmen
On the other side of the Watchmen spectrum is someone too emotional. Haley - after a buzzed-about comeback in Little Children and with his upcoming role as Freddy Krueger - might become permanently typecast as a psychopath/creeper, but I'd probaby pay to watch it every time. He is unrelenting, merciless, and sometimes even right. There's a reason that Rorschach is, as my boyfriend claims, a fan favorite, and Haley brought all those conflicting reasons to life.

Special Mention: The cast of Humpday - Mark Duplass, Joshua Leonard, Alycia Delmore
I'm singling this film out because it's awesome, and there's no reason that it couldn't have been a totally accessible hit like I Love You, Man except for lack of a huge marketing budget and a fear of indies. I had heard of the mumblecore movement before but never really explored it, and hell, if it just means talky scenes that are hilarious, improvised and unbelievably realistic, consider me a fan. Delmore, as the wife of a completely straight man (Leonard) who is considering having onscreen sex with his best male friend (Duplass), has a series of amazingly profound scenes where she and her husband grapple with what love means in the 21st century. That sounds like a drag, but it's fresh, honest, and often funny. Duplass and Leonard have great bro-chemistry in their escalating dare. The three of them work together for a sense of realism that's never dull (i.e. if the word realism scares you because it makes you think of Italian Neorealism with really long shots of "the common man" shining his shoes). SEE IT!

Special thanks to my boyfriend and his blog, The Rail of Tomorrow, for helping me remember why I liked things.

The Oscar nominations will be announced February 2nd. Maybe they'll wise up and nominate some of the above.

Do you agree? Then what are your favorite forgotten/overlooked performances of the year?

What's the point of the "awareness" documentary?

Yesterday, my boyfriend asked me if I was interested in seeing the documentary Collapse with him, which according to IMDb is "a portrait of radical thinker Michael Ruppert [who] explores his apocalyptic vision of the future, spanning the crises in economics, energy, environment and more." I declined, because, well, what's the point?

I have always had a vague problem with "crisis" documentaries that I have never really been able to put into words. I could finally crystallize my feelings after seeing the excellent The Yes Men Fix the World. The film follows the Yes Men, two men who expose hypocrisy and stupidity in corporations and the government through elaborate pranks. Think Michael Moore meets Borat. In addition to causing a stir, though, the pranks have a purpose - for instance, one of them poses as a representative of the New Orleans government and promises to reopen a public housing area, thinking the real government will be too embarassed not to follow up on it. It doesn't actually work, but they get a lot further than you'd think. Most amazingly, though, it had a hopeful ending. They pass out a fake issue of the New York Times that has optimistic headlines like "College is made free for everyone" and "war in Iraq ends" and show people reacting positively to it, and end on the basic message that if two guys can get as far as they did, anyone is truly capable of making a change.

That was it. That was why Michael Moore's films had always left a sour taste in my mouth. It wasn't because of the subject matter - the Yes Men tackled subjects like a city in India left ravaged by the effects of a chemical disaster - but that the message seemed to be "this sucks and there is nothing anyone can do to fix it." Particularly in Roger and Me, which ends on an almost snarkily ironic credits sequence that features the Beach Boys' "Wouldn't It Be Nice," Moore doesn't seem concerned with making things better, only informing people that things are terrible. And this begs the question: what's the value of just plain awareness?

I'm going to put out the bold idea that it's not worth very much. The idea is that from awareness will come action, but at least from personal experience I never find that it works that way. Moore's films (I'm just using him as an example, there are obviously others) are so depressing that they become paralyzing. You walk out of the theater feeling too bad to do anything. Usually the only thing borne from that kind of "awareness" is cocktail-party banter. "Say, did you know that the town of Flint, Michigan is falling apart at the seams? Simply dreadful! Would you like another martini?" I experienced a fundamentally different phenomenon with The Yes Men, however. By staying positive and particularly ending a positive note, the film galvanized and energized me instead of draining me. I wanted to do something. (I didn't, because I suck, but this was closer than I had gotten before.)

The other problem is that is often's unclear what viewers CAN do to make a difference. I learned in a psychology class that contrary to popular belief, human beings often don't engage in helping behavior not because they don't want to or they're heartless, but because they simply don't know how. They see a situation and keep walking because they genuinely don't know what to do and how to contribute. Thus, I think these kinds of documentaries could benefit substantially from a screen at the end that says something like "We have started a fund for the people you see in this film, go to blablabla.com to learn more and donate" or maybe have people with collection jars outside the theater. There's nothing wrong with guiding people and giving them a little push. It can be hard to come away from a film of that sort and immediately formulate a way to connect yourself to the cause.

Finally, an inherent problem with the "just awareness" movie is that it costs money to make. Maybe a lot of money - obviously, not an Avatar-type budget but still thousands of dollars. If this movie is not going to motivate people to help, wouldn't the money be better spent helping the cause yourself? Returning to Roger and Me, the budget on that film was an estimated $160,000. Michael Moore himself said the film was a failure because it didn't cause anyone to jump to the aid of Flint. Well, Michael, maybe that money would have been better spent on the citizens of Flint - saving families from eviction, opening a public help center, something. It could have done a lot of good. Did he think a bunch of eccentric billionaires would see it and spill open their wallets? Furthermore, Moore's stunts - asking senators if they'd send their children to Iraq, trying to track down the CEO of General Motors - don't really accomplish anything. He could have led by example, perhaps - use half the money to help the town and the other half to document it.

I want to be wrong about this. If you have stories of yourself or people you know seeing depressing crisis documentaries that motivated them to open hospitals in Africa or even shell out some cash, please tell me. But as far as I can tell, the "awareness" model should be reevaluted and those filmmakers should take a cue from the Yes Men.

What do you think?

Eight movies all high school girls should see

The current wave of Twilight-mania has got me thinking. I didn't read the books or see the films, but I've read a great deal about them and what I know has me worried. Arguably, Twilight is the number one voice getting through to teenage girls these days (and their mothers, apparently). Whereas past teen girl obsessions such as boy bands were relatively harmless and neutral (their message? love is fun and everybody dance!), Twilight gives us a "heroine" whose sole interest in life is a guy. She allegedly says she would die without him and has no other interests, hobbies, or aspirations.

Now, this is hardly unprecedented in art or culture. Shakespeare was cooking up the same stuff with Romeo and Juliet, which needless to say is considered a classic of literature. But there's three key differences here. The first is that, in my opinion, the ol Bard doesn't exactly condone the young lovers' behavior and attitudes, whereas in Twilight it kinds of seems like the reader is the idiot if she, too, wouldn't give her life for Edward. The second is that there was no mass media in Shakespeare's time, and at no point were posters of Romeo plastered across teenage walls and girls would come out in droves to see the play. The third is that at the time the play was written, women's role in society was just to be mothers and wives. They actually did not have interests, hobbies, or aspirations. It's a little hypocritical, then, to still be pushing that type of character in a day and age where the media is at least attempting (not always successfully, of course) to push the opposite.

So what's the antidote? Well, I hardly have the persuasive powers of the Twilight franchise, but I've comprised a list of movies that I think have good messages for the teen girls of today. Now, before you think these are hokey picks, I fully understand that today's teens are savvy and cynical (except perhaps when it comes to sparkly vampires). When I was younger (and I'm talking single-digits age here), my mom would always rent me this VHS from the library called "Free To Be You And Me!" It was basically Sesame Street with a lot more moralizing and a lot less puppets - a deliberately multicultural group of kids spouting life lessons about how you should be yourself. While I understand that that video was aimed at a much younger age group, that type of film doesn't speak to teens. It just sounds like health class bullshit. In a similar vein, I also excluded films like Thirteen, which go to such lengths to discourage every dangerous youth behavior imaginable that it just gets ridiculous and you end up tuning it out.

The films on this list are good films in their own right and can be enjoyed by both genders. Similarly, there are great films that spread gender-neutral messages, so I didn't feel the need to include them. And in terms of artistic merit, every person alive should see Citizen Kane, The Godfather, etc. etc. In summary, this a list of really good and solid movies that send good and solid messages specific to today's female youth.

Mean Girls (2004)
A high school flick starring Lindsay Lohan? The uninformed may roll their eyes, but those in the know are aware that this packs the one-two punch of being based on a nonfiction book and being written by Tina Fey. It manages to warn girls of the dangers of being seduced by the in-crowd and why you shouldn't be a bitch while maintaining a killer sense of humor and never being preachy. Ironically, I first saw this in high school and thought to myself, "Gee, I'm really grateful that my female friends aren't mean like that." In college, I realized that I actually had had mean friends who were systematically destroying my self-esteem without me even realizing it. If you take nothing else from this film, consider these wise lines: "Calling somebody else fat won't make you any skinnier. Calling someone stupid doesn't make you any smarter."

Superbad (2007)
This film, in addition to being hilarious, is like a field guide to the adolescent male. They're horny and stupid, but they're also loyal and have ultimately good intentions. And yes, I have actual men who completely agree with me on this.

Jezebel (1938)
At first glance, this movie is just about Bette Davis acting her heart out in an antebellum period piece. If that's all it is for you, that's fine, and it's a solid drama. But upon closer inspection, I actually find the film to have a rather complex message. Southern belle Julie keeps men hooked by being high-maintenance and difficult, which young girls even today often feel they must do to keep men interested. BUT - then her fiancee gets fed up with it and leaves, and since that doesn't cause her to change her ways her behavior goes on to more disastrous consequences. By the end, it's when she is humble and selfless - even though her prized looks are marred by a dangerous journey - that she becomes a true woman. In short: ladies, cut the drama. It piques men's attention but doesn't make them stay, and you're not doing yourself any favors.

An Education (2009)
The main moral of this film applies to both genders: education is good for you. While that may seem obvious and preachy, it comes via the tale of a girl who took the long way around to find out. Education is more than books and rote memorization; it's learning about things beyond yourself and your world. Calculus, while not applicable to anything outside of a few select careers, teaches you to stretch your brain and think logically. Ancient history, which you may never think about again, opens your eyes to the origin of your civilization. My point is that education can teach you who you are, what you want and what you can do. The film's protagonist, Jenny, laments that her schooling is interfering with what she wants to do, like explore French culture. But the desire to do that would never have existed if it wasn't for her education. The gender-specific part is that she almost throws everything away for a man, which is never, ever, worth it. On the TV show "Boy Meets World" (big fan, won't lie), the super-smart Topanga turns down a chance to go to Yale so she can accompany her fiancee Cory to a community college. I never forgave her. It may be less romantic to audiences, but if Cory truly loves her then he can understand and be waiting for her when she graduates. Maybe you sacrifice a career or a lifestyle choice for a guy, but an education is a groundwork that you often can't make up later. (You can go back to school, of course, but it's different outside of your formative years.)

Whip It (2009)
Usually, a young girl's only hope for seeing a girl-power sports movie is some formulaic family-friendly junk on ABC Family. I can't say in good faith that Whip It isn't formulaic, but it provides some welcome deviations from the formula, such as the cute guy not being the main goal and solving everything, the best friend having her own life, the sport in question being pretty brutal and kickass and most importantly, the parents not being fundamentally incorrect fascists because they disagree with their daughter's choices. There are plenty of movies out there reinforcing the idea that parents just don't understand, but this is the only one I can think of (where the daughter is the protagonist) and the parents are said to have a good point.

Splendor in the Grass (1961)
Sex is healthy, and a desire to have sex is healthy - even for women! This may seem really obvious to some people, but depending on where you grew up and how you were raised, it may come as a shock. Elia Kazan's heartbreaking film communicates this by showing how horrible things can become when young lovers are not allowed to express this natural impulse, but mostly from the female perspective. The film was made in 1961 and takes place in 1929, but the same battle rages on today. I'm not saying that young girls should just give it up for anyone, but this was a committed and truly loving couple who were still kept apart due to arbitrary moral rules. The film also underscores a point I read in an article once: that while many parents and authorities automatically discredit young love because they don't want their children getting hurt, they may actually cause more harm by doing so because it creates a cycle of teens being told that their feelings aren't valid until a certain age. And then how could you explain all the high school sweethearts that stay married for years?

Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1981)
Okay, so now that we've established that sex is normal, Fast Times reminds us that sex isn't everything. It has the unique distinction of being a high school sex romp directed by a woman, and while it offers plenty of goofy delights not the least of which is a future two-time Oscar winner starring as a stoner named Spicoli, it never completely loses sight of reality. Most impressive is that a first sexual encounter is depicted as both unimpressive and rather physically uncomfortable for the woman (it came as harsh news to me that all intercourse did not result in screaming orgasms for the woman regardless of her level of experience, arousal, etc.) and that later that same woman gets pregnant and gets an abortion. Basically, the main character goes through a lot of really mature and serious stuff before realizing that she just wants to be a teen. It shows consequences without being condescending and after school special-y, and yet is still somehow a lot of fun and sorta deep.

Not Another Teen Movie (2001)
Lest you think this has any ties to later imitators such as Date Movie and Epic Movie, well, it doesn't. It came first and is actually a really funny parody of teen movie cliches that effectively exposes how absurd they are. It bears perhaps the most important message of all: movies are not real life.

For a similar list for the lads, check out my boyfriend's corresponding post here.

What movies would you add? Or, if you were a teen girl at one point yourself, what movies did you see in your formative years that effectively schooled you on life lessons?

When do you turn off / walk out of a movie?

I have only walked out of a movie once in my entire life that I can remember. My dad, distraught that he had two daughters and no sons after growing up with three sisters, tried to interest my sister and I in all things manly - particularly sports and violent movies. This didn't quite take. Somehow, though, he convinced me to see Blade II with him in theaters, and at the time of its release I was 14. I didn't really like scary or bloody movies, but for some unknown reason I got really excited and spent the whole day bragging about it at school. Pumped up like some badass I wasn't, we strode into the theater.

Within the first ten minutes, some vampire got his brains splattered on a wall and I screamed and demanded that we leave. We did.

I'm not really sure what the problem was exactly. I'm not averse to violence, so I guess the supernatural/scary elements were too much for me. And yes, it's probably not even that bad, but I'm a wimp.

Nowadays it's different, because I pay for my own entertainment. If I paid to see a movie that actually turned out to be just a filmed blank wall for two hours, I would stay because I paid for it, god dammit, and I am very poor.

But on DVD, it's a different story. I used to be a lot more trigger-happy with the stop button, but I've developed more patience. There are three main reasons I will stop a movie:

1. Averse physical reaction
I had to stop Waking Life because the squiggly animation was actually making me nauseous. Then again, so was the pretentious dialogue.
2. It does not seem like at any point it will get better
The most recent movie I stopped was Happy-Go-Lucky. I had really wanted to see it for a while, and I got about an hour in, and realized two things: 1) This movie has absolutely no plot, and one's enjoyment of it is completely contingent on how much you like the main character 2) I did not like the character. I couldn't tell if you were supposed to like her or not. Maybe in the second half she gets kidnapped by a gang of pessimists who convert her or something, I don't know, but from the way the wheels had been set in motion there were only so many places the train could go.
3. I get interrupted, by a lengthy phone call for example, and then...well...don't quite get back around to the rest...
Pretty straightforward. If I like where a movie's heading, I'll return to it after the interruption. If I don't, well, I guess I was just looking for a way out.

The exception, what makes a movie basically unstoppable, is importance. If I'm watching Welles or Fellini, I'm gonna stick with it, because there's something in these films that makes people promote them to the pillars on which they reside. I haven't seen Seven Samurai yet, but when I do, I'm going to hang in there even if I hate every single minute out of the 200-plus because it's just too important. But, ya know, I'm really not gonna be a bad person if I can't finish Happy-Go-Lucky.

The one exception is that several years ago, I stopped M about 30-45 minutes in. I knew that made me a bad person, and when I watched the whole thing recently it was of course great. I guess I've just gotten more patient in my old age.

What does it take for you to stop / walk out of a movie?

Is this actually a movie? #7

Here we have Valentine's Day, a romcom from Garry Marshall (director of Pretty Woman) that's sort of an L.A.-based Love Actually. There's really nothing inherently ridiculous about that. But here's what's ridiculous: this looks to be a movie where a selection of Hollywood's most attractive people complain about how they can't get a date. There's suspension of disbelief, and then there's this. I can much sooner buy an invasion of Earth by alien versions of the reincarnated Abraham Lincoln than the fact that Jessica Biel cannot find someone to have sex with on Valentine's Day. It's one thing to have a movie where one attractive star complains about being lonely, but a dozen? Unbearable. This is when, in my opinion, a movie crosses over from "glamour and fantasy to aspire to and/or escapism" to "alienating to everyone who doesn't look like Jessica Alba." Also, there's a rumor floating around in the YouTube comments that someone is the "voice of the dog." Those four words have never bode well for a non-animated movie.

And yet, this movie will still make a bajillion dollars. Check out the trailer and its many cringeworthy moments below.

Fun and sweet married couples on film

The release of Couples Retreat got me thinking about married couples in movies (or Antichrist, for that matter...a very different kind of couples retreat). Somehow the world of cinema, especially in more recent years (let's say post-studio era), hasn't really done a great job of making marriage seem fun or appealing. If a couple is already married at the beginning of a movie, they're probably either going to a) break up b) have horrible fights and almost break up c) one of them will die d) one of them will only have a little bit of screen time. Why is this? It seems in older movies, there would be less reasons for couples to be happy...rigid gender roles, inability to divorce, sexual taboos, etc. And yet the studio era, despite the predominance of romances that resulted in marriage only at the end of the film, produced many silver screen couples that stayed together from beginning to end credits and loved (almost) every minute of it. Here's some of my picks for couples that prove that the flirtatious fun and happiness can continue even after swapping vows.

The Thin Man series (1934-1947) - Nick and Nora Charles
This is the original fun couple, the one that all others would be indebted to. Playful, flirtatious, witty beyond normal human capacity and a little wicked, these two love martinis, mysteries, and of course, each other. I say "wicked" due to classic moments such as Nick throwing Nora into a taxi and telling the driver "Grant's Tomb!" to get her out of the way.

Holiday (1938) - Nick and Susan Potter
The Potters have supporting roles, but are no less memorable. Edward Everett Horton plays Nick in both this version and the one from 1931, so naturally he's a much older friend of the main character in the second outing but he still gets a sassy wife. He and the missus have the kind of raised-eyebrow rapport that can only lead me to one logical conclusion: THEY HAVE A TON OF SEX. I doubt anyone else reached this verdict, but I really felt like they were doing it whenever they were offscreen. And that's awesome.

Heaven Can Wait (1943) - Martha and Henry Van Cleve
This movie is rather unusual in that there isn't really a conflict or villain, it's more just the story of a man's life, the good and the bad. In not trying to force a plot, the audience gets the treat of seeing a marital relationship unfold very naturally over the course of 40-odd years, from lusty youth when Henry steals Martha away from his loser cousin to sweet and gentle old age. And to the afterlife and beyond...(no spoilers here - come on, look at the title).

The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) - Milly and Al Stephenson
This postwar readjustment drama still holds up today, largely due to the genuine performances of Myrna Loy, Harold Russell and Fredric March (the latter two snagged Oscars). Loy and March play a couple readjusting to married life in one of the more refreshingly realistic depictions of a long-term relationship from this era or any other. When their teenage daughter accuses them of never having relationship problems, Milly sighs and says there were countless times when they hated each other. "How many times have we had to fall in love all over again?"


Adam's Rib (1949) - Adam and Amanda Bonner
Two married laywers on opposite sides of a criminal case - conflict of interest much? Many agree that this is the best of the Hepburn and Tracy collaborations, and while I haven't seen them all, I'm not sure what else you could ask for. It's a battle of the sexes through and through, but by an unforgettable ending involving licorice you'll know that these two really love each other. (I didn't mean for the licorice thing to sound dirty - I promise it's really not).

Father of the Bride (1950) - Stanley and Ellie Banks
Spencer Tracy puts his grump persona to great use in this film as the frazzled title character, and Joan Bennett as his wife knows just how to handle him. For all their ribbing, though, the moment when Stanley sees his wife in her mother of the bride gown is really sweet and touching. And they share a slow dance after the sanity-sucking craziness of the wedding is over. It just shows that you can still be husband and wife even after you're mother and father (you know, sometimes).

Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956) - Norma and Rocky Graziano
Okay, I'm slightly cheating, because they're not married for the WHOLE movie (their courtship and marriage comes in the first third or so) but it's still not a final-reunion-in-the-rain-at-the-end-of-the-movie situation. At first you kind of wonder what the shy Norma sees in the belligerent, awkward, and inarticulate Rocky, but as their marriage progresses you figure it out (and so does she). She's the only one who can talk sense into him (he beats guys up for saying much less), and when Rocky comes home in a fit of rage after losing a fight, she puts a lamp right of front of him when he starts to swing and we realize they're a match made in heaven.

These are the only more modern examples I could think of:

Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993) - Larry and Carol Lipton
Not that much of a stretch, since Woody Allen was directly and visibly inspired by the Thin Man films - it's Nick and Nora, but 20 years later, neurotic and Jewish. Allen and Diane Keaton are reunited after his Mia Farrow period, and despite the Thin Man influence there's the classic Allen touch, with lines like "Save a little craziness for menopause!"

The Simpsons Movie (2007) and a TV series you might have heard of - Marge and Homer Simpson
While most of their time is spent having Homer drive Marge crazy, there's a love there unlike most other relationships in pop culture - and in being so, is actually quite like most relationships in real life. Maybe it's partially because it's had 20 years to develop, but the writers have really nailed the decidedly unglamorous but still sweet dynamic between average American spouses. Homer always manages to prove his devotion in the nick of time, and Marge remembers why she keeps him around. (On a somewhat related note, a Google image search for "Marge Homer" reveals SO MUCH DISTURBING SIMPSONS PORN THAT WILL HAUNT MY DREAMS.)

Fargo (1996) - Marge and Norm Gunderson

They don't share much screen time, and they're a far cry from the Park Avenue glamour of Nick and Nora, but the Gundersons are so cute you could puke. After a movie of abrasive characters and twisted violence, the final image of an expectant Marge snuggling into bed with her hubby is all the more tender.

And a controversial bonus pick:

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) - George and Martha
I first read this play and saw the film in an American lit class, where the professor introduced it as a love story. The first time you see it, all you can do is be shocked at how these people treat each other. That's fine. Get that out of your system. But I saw it a second time and realized that my professor was right. There is no one who could possibly be with George or Martha but the other. The games they play with each other, although seemingly unhealthy, are what sustain them. It's like how sadism looks painful and weird to most people but is a source of fun and intimacy for some. If you can get past the fact that it's two people screaming at each other and you were taught that two people screaming at each other typically indicates serious problems, then perhaps you'll see the romance.

This list is by no means exhaustive...who did I miss?

Great movies I discovered by virtue of their Criterion logo

There are a lot of movies out there and never enough time in the day. So, aside from classics, recommendations and films with directors/actors you like, how does one choose? Well, here's a personal shortcut: when I see a Criterion Collection cover, I know there's something worthwhile in there. Maybe it won't become a new favorite, but it's definitely worthwhile. The good folks at Criterion comb through a century-plus of cinema to find the good stuff for you, and there have been several instances where I discovered great movies simply because they bore the Criterion logo. Here are 7 movies that I plucked off the shelf due to their Criterion status, having never heard of them before, and loved. (And no, they're not paying me!)

1. Blast of Silence (1961)
A recent addition to Criterion library, I only really knew that this involved a hitman, a cool cover and a mere 77 minutes of my time. The film is not really groundbreaking in any respect, but it's taut and compelling nonetheless. It fits into a great genre that I call "post-noir" for lack of a better term - films of the late 1950s and early 1960s that incorporate noir elements but have a grittier, more realistic atmosphere (i.e. Sweet Smell of Success, The Man With the Golden Arm, The Hustler). The film has heavy narration written by the blacklisted writer Waldo Salt, which helps you get very close to the main character. A terrific and bitter little flick.

2. Mona Lisa (1986)
Neil Jordan's primary claim to fame is making that movie where the chick turns out to be a dude, but I had always heard that there was much more to him. The cover of this DVD, with a pretty woman yelling at Bob Hoskins in a car, had always intrigued me when I used to work at a video store, and last week I finally watched it. I'll admit that due to my rather pathetic inability to properly comprehend English accents, I probably missed a lot of the movie, but I was loving what I saw. I almost wanted to watch it again after I had finished - it's such a rich and dense film that I think it takes multiple viewings to fully appreciate. It's kind of a weird noir love story mystery, and Bob Hoskins is incredible. Michael Caine also has a small role playing a type you never get him to see him play. There's a planned Larry Clark remake that may or may not involve Mickey Rourke, so make sure to catch the original first.

3. Brute Force (1947)
Jules Dassin is most well known for his street-based crime films, from Night and the City to Rififi, but this one is set inside a prison. My interest was piqued because I'm a Burt Lancaster fan, and he's allegedly the star here, but it's really more of an ensemble piece with a scene-stealing performance by Hume Cronyn as the sadistic prison guard. A brilliant example of against-type casting, a role that would have typically gone to a macho, foaming-at-the-mouth type is pulled off by the mild-mannered Cronyn in what might be called a cross between Norman Bates and Hannibal Lecter. It also tackles social issues of prisons in a way that's never preachy, and delivers a grittiness that is not often seen in overwrought prison pictures.

4. Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958)
Lured in by the bright yellow cover, I read on the back that this was a parody of caper films like the aforementioned Rififi. I couldn't say I had seen an Italian comedy before, much less a classic one - the closest thing was probably the highbrow satire of 8 1/2. It turns out this film is an absolute hoot despite its simple setup - a bunch of inept criminals planning a heist where everything goes wrong. All the characters have the lower-class European mannerisms that you see in films like Moonstruck or My Big Fat Greek Wedding (i.e. waving your hands and yelling "Mama mia!"), but here instead of groan-inducing stereotypes, they are accurate (and very funny) portrayals created by a true Italian director and based in truth upon the criminal classes of the day. It's not so much laugh-out-loud funny as it is clever, with a solid script and great performances from stars like Claudia Cardinale and Marcello Mastroianni (hysterical). If you thought Italian cinema was very formal and produced only things like neorealism, you're in for a real treat (with a great jazz score to boot!).

5. F for Fake (1973)
Every good little cinephile knows that Orson Welles made Citizen Kane and Touch of Evil, and the second tier of Welles enthusiasts will know about The Trial and his Shakespeare work. But very few are aware of this bizarre and fascinating documentary he made about deception and fakers, from art forgers to Welles himself. I'm glad Criterion rescued this little nugget from obscurity, to strengthen the argument that there's a lot more great stuff to Welles than just Kane. Welles is a great actor, but he's equally compelling (and vaguely creepy) when he's just being himself.

6. Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
I found this gem by browsing the shelves of the video store I used to work at. Drawn in by the interesting cover (sensing a theme here? Just goes to show that a well-executed design grabs attention much better than the generic plastering of celebrity faces on covers) and the premise, but having never heard of most of the people involved with it, I gave it a shot. It's British black comedy through and through, featuring a wonderfully deadpan performance by Dennis Price and Alec Guinness in eight (!) roles. This film may not be for everyone - some may find it too dark, some not dark enough, but for the right crowd it's a wicked pleasure.

7. Elevator to the Gallows (1958)
At the time I first became aware of this film, I only knew Louis Malle from Au revoir les enfants, which I saw in ninth grade English class and was to my cinematically uneducated self "That French Holocaust movie with the masturbating." But what's this? The noirish debut of an audacious young director featuring a Miles Davis score? You can't get much further from a French Holocaust movie with masturbating. So I popped it in one day and while my boyfriend and I agreed that the ending was a little sudden and that the whole movie would have never happened if cell phones had existed, it was still a captivating melancholic thriller that featured ample footage of a miserable Jeanne Moreau wandering the rainy streets of Paris in that "post-noir" (see above) style I love so much.

What about you? Do you have the same faith in the Criterion collection? Do you have any similar success stories of impulse movie viewings from their library?