High Life and True Grit

I recently watched True Grit and High Life. Both were entertaining romps.

I particularly liked Matt Damon in True Grit, and I don't typically like him much. Sure I love the Borne trilogy, most his films really, but I never really took to him. Maybe it was the 'stash that did it for me finally.

Jeff Bridges has been a long time favourite. Dude! And Last Picture Show anyone? Fabulous Baker Boys, Fisher King, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, The Morning After, and of course, Crazy Heart. Nicely done, Jeff.

But, nominations or not, I didn't much care for the girl. Especially because I first watched True Grit when I was a 7 or 8, and I had a serious crush on Kim Darby. She was one of my formative role models of girlhood!

I have no poignant connections to make between the two films except that they were both sadly entertaining - a dark slice of life, and both about desperation.

High Life is about a bunch of stoners that try to steal money disguised as ATM repairmen so they can finally live the high life - that is, stay high all the time. It had some funny moments, but it was a bit too sad for me to be altogether hilarious. They were pretty realistic addicts.

With Nine You Get Spoilers

I saw 9 last night with my two teenagers. I left the little one at home despite her protests. In the first five minutes I was glad she wasn't there for this particular cartoon. There were some great monsters. It was, in brief, enraging because it's so close to brilliance.

Spoiler Warning

The first hint that this movie has strong religious overtones is that the safe place our heroes use to hide in is a church. Nevertheless...

It's 1939 and war has broken out, but it turns out differently than we might remember. An intelligent nuclear driven machine was created for good but used for bad. Standard. Just like in The Matrix, the machine took over and killed all the people. But the inventor of the machine realized the problem is he didn't give the machine a soul. The atheists in the group might say "a conscience" or "the capacity for ethical determinations." So he makes nine little machines that look humanish and finds a way to impart a portion of his soul in each. He dies making the last of them, 9, because his soul gets completely used up.

What I loved about the film is the idea that each of these nine creatures is part of the inventor. Among others, there's a superego who's obsessed with safety at all costs, little curious dudes, a brutish stoner, an intellect, and a woman - his anima. As a hermeneutical allegory, it was really cool. But that concept falls apart at the end and a few times before.

A few of the creatures get sucked up by the monster machine. They called out from the machine because they were trapped inside. But the machine doesn't ever sway its course. If the inventor was right, that it lack soul, then sucking up the creatures should have altered the machine's agenda - making it goofier after one, and smarter after another, etc. And the solution would be for the others to allow themselves to get sucked up to add to the kindness of the beast. But they don't.

Instead they find a way to kill the machine, and get the dude out. But they come out like souls and fly up to heaven. "Now you're finally free!" Barf. Somehow they should have all stuck themselves together to re-make one full person. But they don't. It ends with 9 and the female and the two little dudes together: a nuclear family reminiscent of the Teletubbies. And they comment that they've got the place to themselves. But what the hell will they do stuck there together? How long before they realize hell is other sentient beings?

It was all still very entertaining to watch. It's just unfortunate that it didn't go all the way - well, that it didn't go in the direction I was hoping. God is such an easy out.

HP6 and Whatever Works

Harry Potter 6 is well worth the 3 hours of film if you include excessive previews. It's a delight to watch! I particularly found it difficult to take my eyes off Malfoy. He went all out this time round. And whenever I see Maggie Smith (almost 75), I will always think of Miss Jean Brodie: "I'm past me prime gels," or, even better, "Six inches is perfectly adequate. More is vulgar!"

I don't, however, recommend this movie to a restless 5-year-old - not mine anyway. She loves all the movies, but only when she's watching them at home. For this, she was bored after about 20 minutes, and we had to make a few trips to the bathroom, and I was glad to have some toys on hand to entertain her because I wasn't bored in the least. She spent more time watching the audience than the film.

As for Whatever Works, I was sorrily disappointed. I hadn't thought much of Woody lately, but I loved Vicky Cristina Barcelona. So I was looking forward to something special, but it disappoints. The actors spoke like they were on stage, and the main character, Boris, spoke to the audience frequently, and that's typical for Allen, but I find it awkward to watch. It's impossible to get lost in the film when you're constantly aware these people are acting. I liked that Boris tells it like it is to everyone he meets. I tend to admire people like that. But his love interest, Melodie, was supposed to be his opposite particularly to his brilliance, but her stupidity was over the edge and grating. A few lines of hers were funny, but too many were just uncomfortable. He's the heartless brain, and she's the brainless heart, and they're both painfully two-dimensional.

At 92 minutes, it feels like it goes on forever, yet it really needs another half hour or so. Characters change paths abruptly and unbelievably. There's too many to get to know them very well in the time allotted, and most feel like they're just doing a first reading of the script. Instead of subtle dialogue and action leading the plot, everything's spelled out in efficient asides that are devoid of any creativity or poetry. By the end I felt beat over the head with the big message: Enjoy life in any way that works for you. There. I spoiled the ending for you, so you don't have to go. You're welcome.

Hannah and Her Sisters it's not. Too bad.

Canadian Content

I saw three movies lately that are all Canadian-ish. So, I'll be like the CBC and play up the Canadian content. (Very few spoilers - a bit in the very last sentence.)

I've been thinking a lot about what it means to try to be a good man and how to discern what that really means. Men don't have much in the way of really positive role models. To what extent can a guy successfully tease less, yell less, shove and kick less, without a strong alternative offered that doesn't come across as wimpy? Then I saw this beautiful film, Lars and the Real Girl. Don't avoid it because it's about a guy who dates a blow-up doll; I promise they don't have sex (she's religious).

(Ryan Gosling was born in London, Ontario, then grew up in Cornwall.)

The part of the film I want to download and play on a loop is when Gus, the older brother, is explaining to Lars how to know when you stop being a boy and actually start being a man:

"Well, it's not like you're one thing or the other, okay? There's still a kid inside but you grow up when you decide to do right, okay, and not what's right for you, what's right for everybody, even when it hurts.... Like, you know, like, you don't jerk people around, you know, and you don't cheat on your woman, and you take care of your family, you know, and you admit when you're wrong, or you try to, anyways. That's all I can think of, you know - it sound like it's easy and for some reason it's not."

The best part of this speech is he says it all as he's making dinner, then continues after he excuses himself to do some laundry when he hears the dryer buzz. Being a man is not about being the most powerful, being waited on, being the one who can take on all others or the one who gets to call all the shots. It's about being strong and courageous enough to do what's right. That's really hard work, and it's not acknowledged enough when someone rises to the challenge. But it's also not about being perfect. It's about trying your damnedest to get it right once in a while.

The next movie had a fascinating depiction of a not-uncommon triangulation between mother, son, and husband. Ages ago I bought the movie Spider out of a bargain bin. Then the other night, by chance, I decided to give it a try. I had just made it through Eastern Promises, which is brutal but very good, and I needed something to take my mind off it before going to bed. It was a Cronenberg double-bill. Spider, the main character, just got released from an "insane asylum" to a half-way house. As he scribbles in his journals, the film flashes back to his childhood to when his problems first started. As he hit puberty, he started to see his mom as a sexual being, and his dad as the cause of the change, the one who turned this woman from a doting mother into a "slut," actually believing his dad killed his mother then brought home an impostor to live with them.  It's all very Freudian.

(David Cronenberg was born and raised in Toronto.)

It's necessary to see people in three dimensions. I don't believe we can love in part - that we can decide we'll love only the bits we like about a person and hate the rest. We have to love the annoying or disturbing parts too. We all get to a point when we see our parents as human beings separate from us. It can be a difficult step, and many never quite make it.

Being a mother often includes being nurturing, caring, warm and loving. Being a woman often includes being sexual and sensuous, even enjoying a bit of hedonistic excess. But can we be accepted and loved when we're not in our desired role?  That's the trick.

Finally, I saw Juno. What a delight. I actually think the soundtrack with songs by Kimya Dawson really made the film. It's got a fantastic female lead, and the love interest is a guy who's reserved but not passive. He actually shares his feelings without looking ridiculous, and he refuses to be stepped on. In a nutshell, girl meets boy, girl ditches boy, girl makes an effort to get boy back again. But what hit home for me was how she got him back.

(Both Canadian!)

Relationships can't always survive hanging on to a few initial expressions of affection: the poems and letters, home-made trinkets, or even a three-month-salary ring.  We sometimes need on-going reminders of acceptance and concern; we need gestures.

Not much beats a mailbox full of tic-tacs.