Birdman

From one interesting bit of trivia on IMDB, I take it that if King Duncan were a much-loved broadway actor, and Macbeth an action hero longing to be king of broadway, and Lady Macbeth a giant imaginary bird barking orders in Macbeth's ear, and the witches a cruel critic with the ability to foretell a prophecy, and Banquo a producer with the potential to lose everything at the hands of his best friend, well, then you'd have Birdman.  Instead of cutting a man from knave to chop to get the real action rolling, he drops a stage light on his head.  Riggan fears he's "a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more."

But that might be a bit of a stretch.

It speaks volumes that hours after getting home from the show, all I care about - still - is the review they got from that nasty critic.  This movie owned me.  Long shots through hallways that take us to later times in the action force us to stay with Keaton's Riggan at every step.  The acting was fantastic.  Edward Norton had me so worried that he'd do something stupid to ruin everything!  He was a perfect asshole.

Why do I care so much that Riggan left that napkin behind?

The style was reminiscent of another favourite movie, Synecdoche, New York.  Things are a little weird, and we have to just go with it.  The music was perfect for this feat - at times chaotic and anxious, at other times a soaring theme takes us up with Riggan.  I love that characters would randomly walk past the musician as he played the background score.

For the record, I don't think we ever find out what the review said.  There was only one significant cut in the film, and then some fantasy sequences with Spiderman dancing on stage, with huge jellyfish in the ocean, and with a perfect life where the most important thing is having a daughter who looks up to her father.

Easily an A+

K-W Charlie Awards for Student Films

Some bragging rights here:

My son and his classmates won first place at this year's Charlie Awards!   At 43 years, it's the longest running student awards festival in Canada.  It's not as popular as it once was, so I've offered to help build it back up to its former glory by next April.

Here's the film, Deep.  He edited out a few minutes for the Charlie's max 10 minute criteria, but I can only find the original:


Deep from William Snyder on Vimeo.

And the second place winner was this really cool claymation - but with sound (which I can't find):


Game Gramps from Burke Horst on Vimeo.

Burke added sound for the Charlies, but it was originally without sound for a youth video competition that requires a totally silent film under 3 minutes.  Burke won along with my kid, who submitted this one:


Time from William Snyder on Vimeo.

And now we're waiting to hear on a mental health video competition.  So far there are 140 competitors.  Will submitted this one:


As for the round, but forgive my likely bias on these ones!

Blue is the Warmest Color

Or, The Life of Adele, Chapters 1 and 2 - the French title, which far better captures the film.

Lots of details about the plot below, but they're not really spoilers in that the knowledge of them won't affect the film.  Nothing you couldn't see coming.

This is a film that I'd like to edit down myself to a more manageable two hours.  It's unnecessarily three hours long, and I know just the scenes I'd shorten.

The movie takes place over about ten years or so; it's left unclear.  Adele at 15 falls for a boy, but has eyes for a girl, Emma.  Then she and Emma finally connect, develop a relationship, move in together, grow complacent, split up, and Adele tries to cope with the loss.



I found the shifting in time jarring, but other reviewers loved it.  I kept feeling like I was missing something - like I must have drifted off.  One minute she's in high-school living with her parents, and the next, with the same hair-do that she can't leave alone, she's a teacher living with Emma in a very cool apartment that looks way too expensive for a new teacher and an artist to afford.  And the next minute, Emma has a 3-year-old with another woman.  Maybe it's a cultural thing, but I would have liked the occasional helpful heading, like, Four years later....

Adele never seems to develop a self.  She needs another person to stave off loneliness to the point that, when Emma gets busy with her art, Adele has an affair.  She's defined by her relationship and is lost without a connection.  There's one scene in which Emma encourages Adele to develop her writing in order to be happy, but Adele's happy just being with Emma.  That kind of thing.  And there are many scenes when Adele is alone, and she just stares out the window smoking.  And crying.  She likes her job, but, without Emma, she comes home to an abyss.

And I didn't care.  She isn't enough of a character on her own for me to care about her loss.  She's singularly focused on one person to the exclusion of the rest of the world.  It's a very sad film, but I didn't shed a tear.  But I also wonder if it's because of the music.  I hated the film Lost in Translation, mainly because I think Scarlett Johansson is a horrible actress - her lines are consistently flat.  But I cried at the end when a swell of music cued me.  But this film ends with Adele walking alone as an upbeat latin song brings us to the credits.  Maybe I misinterpreted the end entirely, but she looked distraught to me - still unable to get over Emma.  A guy she obviously isn't interested in goes after her, but in the wrong direction.  Another reviewer suggests it ends with the possibility of new love, but I think it ends with her unable to love someone else.  Not yet.

When Emma wants Adele to write, it's also telling in that she doesn't really acknowledge what Adele does do.  Her teaching and cooking don't seem to count in the same way.  They don't endure like art or writing might.  There's a pretension to Emma that distances her.  Her friends also go there arguing about Klimt the way art students are trained to do - at once intellectual yet vacuous.  Adele struggles with this in reverse at the beginning - wanting to discuss novels with a musical boyfriend who doesn't like books with long sentences. Adele is more authentic in her longing to talk about it all.  She has a pure desire about her books without any need to impress others. This mis-connection of passions again presents a barrier when she can't join in on the art discussions with Emma.   And Adele's love of reading seems to be forgotten in the second half.  Why didn't she pick up a book instead of staring out the window for days and years?

And some scenes go on forever!  There's Adele reading almost an entire story to her students.  The whole thing!  And there's Adele dancing while she watches Emma talk to her old girlfriend, dance, look over, dance, look over....  Scenes like this could have given the same sense of plot or character in a fraction of the time.  There are some scenes worthy of the length - dancing outside with the children, or floating in the water at the beach - scenes that quietly embody her internal turmoil.  But most needed a ruthless editing.

And then there are the sex scenes.  Uncomfortably long and pornified, they tell us little about the characters or their relationship.  There's an awful lot of bouncing and groaning, but scant gestural communication or connection between the lovers.  We don't get to see the build-up, the seduction, only a variety of positions that allow for adequate friction.  That was a shame.

But the film is captivating because of Adele's face.  She says so much with the slightest change of expression.  I was able to keep watching the entire three hours because she's a delight to watch.

For that, I'll give it a B.  

Genuine Artists: Strummer, Baker, and Rodriguez

A fantastic triple-bill of films about musicians filled my afternoon.  They're very different musicians, but  they all profoundly affected a ton of people because they get beyond the mundane - or immerse themselves in it.

Joe Strummer, front man for the Clash, is painted as a charming (but depressive) guy with a joyful spirit that brought people together.  Most of the interviews, of a really wide variety of people, take place outside with groups of people hanging out in front of a fire.  The film has a feel to it that made me want to live a different life just wandering around hanging out.  A brief, vicarious immersion in that bohemian lifestyle stayed with me.  It's a reminder of how unnecessary all the stuff is so long as we have the people.

The second film was also about a wandering soul:  Ginger Baker.  He was available for lengthy interviews with the filmmaker, which was very cool, and parts of the stories were animated stylistically so it wasn't just a montage of talking heads.  Nicely done.  But he came across as too quick-tempered to maintain any of the connections he made over his career.  He's bitter, and not for nothing.  Something I learned from the film is that only the songwriters get royalties for the music.  When he was in Cream, one of my all-time favourite bands, the songs were written mainly by Jack Bruce and Peter Brown.  They got all the cash, and Baker and Clapton got nothing beyond the money for touring and playing the initial recording.  I'd be bitter too.

The third film is a very different story: Searching for Sugar Man.  This is more of a detective story as a few interested fans search for Sixto Rodriguez, a musician barely known here, but with an enormous following in South Africa.  The music didn't get me for this one like it did the others, but the story is captivating.  Imagine having a talent that you think went entirely unappreciated and being completely unaware that people in another continent are nuts over you.  It's one thing to be the rare few with a talent like these guy have, it's another thing to have an audience that acknowledges that.  Without any appreciative feedback, how long will you believe you're as good as you think you are?  And maybe it doesn't really matter.  

Les Miserables and the Benefit of the Theatre House

I've seen Les Miserable, the play, live on stage and loved it.  The story is rich and full of thought-provoking dilemmas.  The music is lovely, and the story sweeps you away in a bucket of tears.

But I watched Les Miserables, the movie, on my laptop, and, while the singing was beautiful - particularly the children! - and the acting superb, it was long-ish, and I started reading at the same time.  I didn't get swept away.  Not a single tear was shed for their struggle nor their unbearable kindnesses.  Had I been in a darkened room with nothing to distract me, I might have loved it, but seen on a laptop with a pile of books at arm's reach, it lost its edge.

There are some films that can't be done justice on a small screen.  Producers should put a notice to that effect just before the opening credits:  If you're watching on a laptop, you'll be sorrily disappointed.  It might have been enough to give me pause.  But then I'd have to wait for it to come to a rep theatre to ever catch it.  A dilemma.  

Loved Ones

I chose an unwise film to watch while recovering from a lengthy bout of laryngitis.  My doctor's instructions, "Don't even whisper for the entire weekend," couldn't stop me from screaming at the screen while I watched The Loved Ones.

I haven't seen a slasher flick for decades.  They're not really my taste, but back in the days of pitching in to rent a VCRs to watch films, my buddies and I would always grab three movies to make the evening rental worth our while:  a comedy, an action movie, and a video nasty.  But I stumbled on this one by accident, totally unawares.  It looked like a teen-angsty type film at first, so I settled in for some fluff.  Once embroiled in the story, I couldn't stop.

And I forgot how fun it can be to be scared by a campy bit of blood and guts where so many characters choose to investigate suspicious activity all by their lonesomes.  

Brent's struggling to recover from accidentally killing his dad in one of his first experiences driving a car.  He cuts himself and toys with death, but when he stumbles climbing a rock ledge, his will to live proves strong.  Good thing, because he's going to need it.

For helping me to completely forget how much my throat hurts:  B+

Funny or Annoying: Wanderlust, Five-Year Engagement, and 21 Jump Street

After all the doom and gloom of Revolution, I was up for something much lighter.  I found three recommended comedies I had never heard of before (which is often, but not always, a red flag).

Wanderlust has Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd, and those two have made some stinkers in their time, so I was dubious. But the movie was light and held my attention enough to make me forget my troubles for the duration.  It's about two city-kids who go broke and join a commune.  People are people, and even in an all-loving, caring, trusting beautiful commune, there are jerks.  It's unavoidable.  It was cute. I'll give it a B-.

The second feature, The Five-Year Engagement, has Jason Segel, Emily Blunt and Alison Brie.  I love them, so this had to be good, right?  There were parts that were actually so unwatchable, I kept my hand at the ready to fast-forward.  There's a few weird sex scenes, some with food that make no sense in any context, but not even in a funny way.  And it wins the worst scene in any movie ever: Blunt and Brie entertaining a kid by talking as Elmo and Cookie Monster.  I kid you not.  Painful.

Why did they agree to do that?  Didn't they see how horrible it was?  Did they get paid a fortune?  Or, I suppose, it's just not my kind of humour.  Because at that link above, many many people say it was the funniest part of the movie.

Even worse than the painful scenes of nonsense is that the entire message of the film is that if a woman outperforms her man at work, it will have painful consequences for everyone.  The solution:  women should ditch their amazing opportunities (as a tenure-track PhD) and follow their husband's dream to own his own restaurant which can only happen in a city at the other end of the country, of course.  Otherwise the guy will become a bum and grow weird facial hair and just give up at life. Geesh, women are so selfish!   It was kinda like Mr. Mom, except in that movie, the dad learns to stop being such a baby and step up - and it's actually funny.  

Okay, I admit I did laugh out loud a few times at Engagement, but it didn't make up for the awkwardly unfunny scenes.   At all.  But it's a C- in my book because, for some reason, I was compelled to watch it to its painfully corny ending.

But, then, I watched 21 Jump Street with Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum.


It's that same sophomoric humour, but I was killing myself laughing.  It's clearly an A- for me.  And I thought about who to share the movie with, and it occurred to me how curious it is how we decide what's funny and what's annoying - because I have some friends who wouldn't consider watching any of these movies.

Sometimes sex scenes can be funny to me.  The scene in Grandma's Boy with the Barbie doll was hilarious, but Jason Segel having really fast sex in Engagement or even his different experiences in Forgetting Sarah Marshall weren't at all entertaining.  I found them uncomfortable.  And I found it tedious when Paul Rudd practiced pick-up lines in front of a mirror in Wanderlust.  What's the difference between these scenes?

I think unsexy sex is funny if the idea is new.  It has to be really original.  Maybe it's because I discovered fast forwarding VHS movies for kicks when I was ten, that it's not that hilarious to see it done in a big budget film.  But "You came on my mom!" is a new concept to me.  It's also a juxtaposition of the sacred and profane that can draw laughs.  Sometimes.  The other key is it can't be too close to home to hit a nerve.

I loved the first Harold & Kumar movie, but the Guantanamo Bay movie was too soon.  The prison is still in operation today, for crying out loud, and people really were sexually assaulted.  I know too much about the painful realities of the situation to be able to laugh at it.  Maybe ever.

People can get hurt in movies for our entertainment, but only certain types of people.  Most men can get hurt for laughs, but it's trickier for women.  It's hilarious if Kristen Wiig gets knocked down, but remember when a very young Brooke Shields tried a pratfall on the Tonight Show?  It was horrifying to watch.  She somehow provoked a sense of protection so it wasn't funny when she got hurt.  We're okay with people being hurt only if we think they can take care of themselves - or if we're made to hate them.  Even little kids getting hurt can be funny if they're annoying enough.  Or sometimes just if it's sudden and startling enough - right out of nowhere.  Or if they keep trying to do something but fail every time.  Okay, maybe it's always funny.  As much as I love cats, I laugh when they get hurt too.  It's been my experience that they're always okay afterwards.  They just shake it off and keep going, so it's rarely a tragedy.  Yet I feel a bit callous saying I get some joy from their epics fails right out loud.

Humour can't be objective because it has to do with individual experiences and sensitivities.  What's universal is needing to care about the characters and to understand the irony being posed, but I'm sure someone laughed his head off at the food sex scene in Engagement.  And somehow I think Jason Segel thought it was funny too, which is oddly disappointing.  We often make connections with people based on a shared humour which can reveal a shared background.  Funny that.

Rob Stewart's Revolution

Margaret Wente, in her latest discourse, thinks the reason the environment's being ignored is because of all the pessimists making us too depressed about it all.  She splits all environmentalists into two camps:

"But the biggest divide is really between the purists and the pragmatists, the pessimists and the optimists - between the McKibbernists, who believe we're on the brink of global catastrophe, and those who think human beings are more resourceful and the Earth is more resilient than the doom-mongers say they are."

And I ask:  Can't it be both??

Because it is.  Every environmentalist I know wavers between the two fronts or else the pessimists would just kill themselves or stay drunk all the time, and the optimists would stop fighting to be heard - AND, if optimists really believe it'll all come out in the wash, they wouldn't worry about how to frame their arguments to avoid shutting people off by being too depressing.  Follow?

This is all a lead-in to the new Rob Stewart film:  Revolution.  He walks that line all the way.  He clearly believes we're on the brink of catastrophe, but also that human beings are resourceful - that we will actually get our shit together in this generation.



Bad news first.  As a film, it doesn't quite work.  It's telling that opening weekend, it was playing everywhere, and the following weekend, even with the promise of a tree planted for every audience member, it was down to one theatre at the outskirts of town.  And I sat in that theatre with six other people.  Like with Sharkwater (which I was privileged to see when he was there answering questions), he struggles to tell a compelling story.  He's got amazing visuals and an incredible series of events to discuss, but he's not a storyteller.  Compare Sharkwater to The Cove to see the difference a compelling story arc makes.  Connected events listed in a row with some swelling music at the end, does not a story make.  Revolution is a really short film, yet I checked my watch at the 45 minute mark, shocked that there was so much left to sit through.  And I'm in the choir!  

Now the good news.  All that aside, as a call to arms, it's genius.  My squirmy 8-year-old asked if we could leave early, not just because she was getting restless, but because she wanted to go home to make posters to tell other people.  She got the message in the first half and was inspired to act on it.  Right now!  She didn't want to be beaten over the head with more of the same.  For the inspirational aspect, I'll still give it a B+ and tell people it's a must see.

Here's the message:

1. Things are really, really, really bad.  - By 2048, we'll be fished out (which of course always makes me think of this video, harkening me back to grade 9).  But even if we stop the fishing industry on a dime, today, the whole lesson of the film is that carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels is destroying the pH balance of the oceans to the extent that all life on earth could be destroyed.  You heard me.  All of it.  Is that catastrophic enough for you Margaret?

The oceans have died before.  If I got my numbers right, it was 65 million years ago, but it only took 4 million years for them to rebuild.  So that's something.  The coral is dying dramatically right now and could all be gone in twenty years, and phytoplankton in the ocean has seen a 40% decline in the past 50 years.  The oceans create half the oxygen in our atmosphere, so no ocean means not enough oxygen for us mammals out here on the ground, out cutting down trees like there's no tomorrow.  Because, hahaha, there isn't!  Not at this rate.  We're hilarious!

2. Canada particularly sucks.  - Once again, preaching to the choir.  It's shocking how far we've come over the decades, how high up we once were when it came to environmental legislation, only to lose all that ground with one monstrously short-sighted business-centric Prime Minister.  Yikes.  We've won "fossil awards", for the worst country for fossil fuel use, voted on by 400 environmental organizations, for the last five years.  We've been named, officially, the colossol fossil!  The biggest problem?  The tar sands.  According to too many people to name, the mess should be shut down right now, and all that oil left in the ground, but Harper wants to make it TWENTY TIMES BIGGER!  Because, you know, bigger is always better.  Think he's maybe compensating for something?

3. "If people knew the truth, they'd do something."  - I talk about this in class all the time.  It seems like it would be true, but I know tons about horrific slavery in the Ivory Coast, yet I still sometimes get lazy and buy non-fair trade chocolate.  Even though I know the truth, and teach the truth, I sometimes forget how important it is to act on it.  And I sometimes get depressed and decide my part doesn't matter since so few people really care.  Like Marky Mark says in I (Heart) Huckabees:  "I can stop using petroleum, but there's no way I could stop its use in my lifetime."  It's a dilemma.

But what does help is constant reminders.  We need films like this to wake us up over and over.  Like racism and homophobia, we stop talking about it because we think it's getting better, then we get a backlash.  These things have to stay on the front, solar-powered burner forever.  So really, it's not just about telling the truth, it's reminding people of it in different ways all the freakin' time.  BUT the corporations own the media, and I'm not convinced they'll be on board with our little scheme, so this could be a costly affair, EXCEPT, we've got that most anarchist of media on our side (so far in our land of the free): twitter and facebook.  Go nuts!

4.  Finally, the kids will save the day.  - Once we get money and a nice home, we get complacent.  Stewart doesn't say that, but I think that's part of the problem.  Kids see the long term because they haven't settled yet.  They're still in flux sufficiently to become impassioned about their future.  We codgers think we're all safe and cosy, so what's all the fuss?  The youth of today (and many old folk thank you very much) are taking to the streets already, protesting over and over until they're in tears for the frustration of not being heard.  There are some small successes here and there, and that can keep us going.  Someone said, "We thought we had to save the polar bear, but now we know we have to save our future."  Kids want this to change so they can flourish.  They don't have a car, so they don't worry about their hummer being taken away.  They're not there yet.  They're still willing to go without so we can all live.  We have to stop using fossil fuels dramatically, and we have to protect wilderness.  Go!

George Monbiot has a new book being release soon.  One reviewer sums it up,

As a species, he argues, we’ve made enough calamitous mistakes to learn from, and gathered enough experience and evidence down the ages to draw a new and challenging conclusion: huge swathes of wild places, on land and sea, teeming with life that is largely outside our influence, are necessary not just for the diversity of life on earth, but for the spiritual nourishment, perhaps even the social stability, of mankind. And we can create such magical, life-affirming places with a radical new environmental management plan: leaving them alone.

The way I see it, we have to stop acting like a virus eating our way through everything we see.  We have to reclaim what it means to be part of humanity: to use our big brains to cooperate sustainably  instead of competing and growing exponentially.  It's suggested in the film with the story of the cycle of lynx and hares.  Every 14 years the lynx population declines because they ate too many hares, then the hares populate again, and then the lynx flourish again.  I've witnessed the same with the fox and mice populations up north.  But people don't do that in quite the same way.  We build empires that are too big, then they collapse horribly, and another one begins.  But now that our empire is global, there might not be another ever after.



I'm so thrilled that Rob Stewart made this movie and that his films are so inspirational to so many people.  I hope he continues to run this circuit.  He's an amazing cinematographer.  But maybe he should think about hiring a writer - and maybe even a better narrator.  We can't all be good at everything.  And this is too important not to be the very best it can be to get beyond the congregation and into the streets.

I mentioned to a friend recently that I've told my children not to have any children - not because children aren't a joy.  They are.  And not because of overpopulation which is a story for another day.  But because there's nothing worse than watching your children suffer.  I'm on Wente's doom-monger side when I say that I believe that if my children have kids, they will watch them suffer a fate nobody should have to endure as we cope with the heat, endless drought, and oxygen-shortage.  My friend laughed, "Of course it will all work out somehow."

 Of course it will.

When Time Becomes a Woman

The title is intriguing.  Does it mean when a woman is better with time, as in it makes her more becoming?  Or does it mean that time, the concept, actually turns into or becomes personified as a woman?

At the beginning, it felt like the latter was the case.  And I was curious how it would play out.  A woman is meandering down a rocky beach, all dressed in white, oblivious to a man chasing her - of course he's all in black.  He catches up to her, and she's disinterested in his motives.  She's happy on her own.  But he needs her desperately because, "Time is running out."  Ah ha!  And I started to try to puzzle it all out:  If she's time, is he knowledge??  The idea of personifying concepts kept me interested for the first twenty minutes or so.  But then the story turned out to be about something else entirely, and I struggled to watch the rest.

It was like a whole movie of Jacob talking with the Man in Black from Lost at a point when you don't yet know their family history.  It's perplexing, but it's brief and within a larger plot line, and you're eventually rewarded with a story that makes sense in a weird kind of way.  Lost is more or less internally coherent even though it's entirely unrealistic:


When Time Becomes a Woman is science fiction, and, like most sci-fi, it has a philosophical bent.  Unfortunately, I found the science implausible, and the philosophy overdone.  It's about good and evil, black and white, male and female, change and stability, destruction and creation....  But I didn't come away with anything new about them.

Two people just talking for an entire film is a risky venture.  It worked with My Dinner with Andre because it was as if we were eavesdropping on a very interesting conversation at the next table.  This doesn't work because, really, the story gets dull and the actors seem like they're in an improv setting where they're expected to go with whatever crazy idea the other one dreams up.  And these two got really carried away!

It's an award-winning film, and other reviews love it.  It's just not for me.  It kept my attention for a while, though, so I'll give it a C.   

The Imposter and Craigslist Joe

I watched two really intriguing documentaries this morning - but in the wrong order.  Always watch the happier one last!  Now my day will be coloured with creepy!  I'll write about the happier one last at least.  Both get a B+.

The Imposter is about a messed up guy from France who was living in Spain, and through a series of chance events and manipulations, assumed the identity of a kid from Texas who had been missing for three years.  I remember when this happened, and I just couldn't understand how the family didn't know it wasn't him.  How could you not know your own child after just three years.  Sure, at 16, he'd be taller, and maybe scruffier, but you'd know the eyes.  Even if they were now a different colour.

But Frederic Bourdin had an explanation for everything!  He said the military had put solution in his eyes to change their colour.  Even the social worker believed this.  That's some solution!

It also helped that the family was pretty sheltered.  When told the long lost Nicholas was in Spain, his sister said, "That's clear across the country."   But she was brave enough to go get him.

I ended up with some sympathy for the family - especially the mother.  The most pertinent bit that I would have like to see more of was a brief interview with a family friend who explained how much the mom loved Nicholas, and everything was good, until she let a new drug-addicted boyfriend move in.  Then everything changed for the family.  She made a bad judgment call.  Happens to the best of us.

The movie is a study in wish-fulfillment.  If we want it badly enough, we don't make it happen, we just convince ourselves it already is happening.  It's much easier on us that way.

Craigslist Joe is the kind of movie to watch when you're about to give up on the world because it's filled with so many jerks and morons who do things like try to celebrate the tar sands as an environmental breakthrough.

One guy, Joe, decided to go for one month without anything he couldn't get for free from Craigslist.  He left home with no money, just a phone and the clothes on his back to see if he could rely on the kindness of strangers for food and shelter (and to make a movie).  Of course it made me want to try it right now - I've got a week free!  But there would be too many restrictions for me to succeed as well as Joe did.  I can't drive at night, so I can't barter with that - and it seemed he did a lot of that.  I can't be around anyone smoking, much less sleep in a house full of smokers, and that would put up a huge barrier for me.  And I'm female.  I assume I'd be more likely to face greater dangers, but maybe I'm just a little paranoid.  But this makes me wonder if Joe could have done as well as anything other than a 20-something American, clean-shaven, straight white guy.

And he wasn't totally alone.  The day before leaving, he went on Craigslist and found a guy with a video camera willing to silently (completely silently) travel with him and film the entire month.  The film owes a lot of kudos to the camera guy who made himself completely disappear yet captured some pivotal scenes.

In a film like this, I'm always left wondering if any of it was staged, but I'll go with it as if it was all real and happening just like it was shown.  And of course people might be a whole lot nicer when they're being filmed.  But I can't imagine getting around that one - could you make a whole movie with hidden cameras in your lapels?  Without a camera (or camera-operator), maybe he would have been ripped off - but he didn't have much to steal anyway.

The set-up of the film is a perfect start for a significant life-altering experience - and we're cued to expect something.  Unfortunately, Joe doesn't really go there.  He's kind and open, but he's lacking any real depth or authenticity.  The movie probably doesn't deserve a B+, but it was right there when I needed to see it, to be reminded that we can help people also by allowing them to help us.  People are interesting and kinder than we expect.  That's enough.

Catfish

Catfish is a documentary, but not the talking-heads kind.  It's a romance.

I don't think I've ever felt such giddy excitement watching a movie before.  One of the filmmakers says at one point, "It's like we're just about to open our SAT scores."  Exactly.  This film could have gone horribly wrong, and the reason it didn't is because there isn't a mean-spirited person in the bunch.

Nev, a 23-year-old photographer, gets a painting of one of his published photos from 8-year-old Abby, and he e-mails her mother to thank her, and then he gradually falls in love with Abby's 19-year-old sister, Megan over eight months of online conversations.  Finally he decides to take a road trip to see the whole family.  Nev's brother, Ariel, and friend, Henry, think it all makes for a good movie, and they were right.


This movie is all about reality and duplicity and honesty and loneliness.  I don't watch reality TV shows much, but from what I've seen, they're contrived and scripted - setting people up against one another to create an interesting conflict for the viewers.  This film is a mystery, so nastiness isn't necessary to keep us watching.  In a very minor early scene, Nev is talking with his brother and casually puts his hands down the front of his pants as they chat.   That's not something people in documentaries typically do, and it nicely stages him as an open and authentic kind of guy.

The film is also about falling in love long-distance.  At one point Nev is in bed, with his retainer in, reading intimate texts between him and Megan to Ariel and Henry, and he gets embarrassed by it all and finishes reading hiding under a blanket.  Nothing is edited from a text conversation the way it would be in a retelling of an in-person dialogue.  Nev also photoshops their pictures together.  He's 23, but he's acting like a little kid because he's in love.  Love can make the most mature, reasonable, professional adult act like a total moron.  Ebert called him naive, but maybe he's been married too long to remember how overpowering that feeling can be.  We see it in the paper all the time, and we laugh or are shocked at the antics of people in the throws, yet we really shouldn't be.  That could be us!

A lesser person would be angry enough to want to cause some harm to the woman who played with his  heart so thoroughly.  Nev doesn't take so much as a footstep in that direction.  For the kindness in it, and the simple provocative nature of the story reveal, and the fact that they were brave and crazy enough to go to Megan's place in the middle of the night, I give it an A-.


***  SPOILERS *** (Go see it before you read the rest - really! - It's on Netflix)


Okay, in case you haven't guessed, Catfish is a romance between Nev and a woman who doesn't actually exist.

There's a whole other story going on here.  But it really ruins the suspense of the film to know about it in advance.  You've been warned.

Abby's mom, Angela, is in her 40s and starting to feel like she hasn't achieved any of her dreams.  She lives for other people - her husband and kids.  She paints beautifully (it's telling that she's watermarked all her photos on her site), but I imagine she felt insecure about her artwork when she decided to tell Nev it was all done by her 8-year-old daughter.  It makes it that much more impressive if it's done by a child.  Angela's got a complex fantasy life going that seems to help her cope with a demanding home life.  It appears she has an estranged older daughter somewhere named Megan whom Abby hasn't seen "in so long she doesn't know what she looks like," and she recently left her job to spend her days caring for her two disabled step-sons (one appears severely disabled) and Abby.  That's a hard road to travel.  But, unlike the fantasy lives of many frustrated and lonely moms coping with caring for kids all day, her fantasy life seeped into other people's real lives when she sent Nev her paintings and pretended to be a 19-year-old woman falling for Nev with a model's photo in "Megan's" profile box on facebook.  I think the "falling for" part was all too real.

Since a key point in the film is the problem with misappropriating information, it's ironic that the film was sued for using music without permission, and that at Sundance, they were grilled on the reality of what they actually filmed.  We never really know another person completely; we just trust that people feel and think the way they say they do and that they're not putting on an act.  Trust is generally a good thing, but technology has taken us to a place where we're even further removed from what little grasp we ever had on reality.

The film skirts the borders of being about mental illness.  Even after the big coming clean in the movie, Angela continued to try to talk to Nev as Megan.  Nev says he's empathetic, and he stays in contact with her because he used to have problems telling the truth as a kid.  I think that's a whole different ballpark!   I also think it's great that they stay in touch and that she's getting counselling.  Obsessions can be disabling.

Yet it's funny how obsessed we can be with knowing the whole truth.  I like a nice story, and I'm okay if a few things were embellished here and there.  I'm curious about some details, but this film has brought about a cult of people searching online and in public records for information about all these people.  They want to know the absolute truth, and they'll stop at nothing to find it.  Some in the comments here wonder why Nev didn't he just read Angela's blog where she wrote about giving Megan up.  Maybe because the blog started in 2010 - a little late for a film released in 2010 and obviously filmed years earlier.  Another site explains why the film likely isn't a hoax.  This obsession is curious.  The film shows us a very positive way to react to a difficult situation.  Even if it's all contrived (which I doubt), it's still a good movie.  If it is fake, then Nev, Angela, and Abby are amazing actors.

Finally, and most obviously, the movie is also a huge cautionary tale about the dangers of the internet.  There's some serious collateral damage from all this: Aimee Gozales was the woman whose face Angela used to portray Megan.  The filmmakers told the story to her on film.  She seemed to take it beautifully, but now checks online regularly to see if anyone else has stolen her identity.  Stealing credit card information is one thing.  Angela stole Aimee's face.

Be careful out there, kids!

Movies About Teenagers Coping With Life

Kindness slays me.  I can sit stone-faced while people are slaughtered and abused and love dies and all hope is lost, but one act of kindness and I'm a puddle on the floor.

I watched two movies that deal with a similar theme of coping - specifically, New York teens dealing with angst.  One was nasty, the other nice.

First I watched Margaret.  It got mixed reviews, but if people like it, they generally think it's a masterpiece - an operatic film with huge messages for the world.  I found it intriguing, but annoying.

It's got an amazing cast: Anna Paquin, Matt Damon, Allison Janney, Matthew Broderick, and Mark Ruffalo in the first unlikable character I've seen him play.  Paquin plays Lisa, a 17-year-old who distracted a bus driver who ran a red light and killed a pedestrian which prompted a lawsuit.  Lisa held the dying woman's hand and talked to her as she bled out.  The rest of the movie is about her trying to cope with this ordeal, the guilt she feels for the part she played in the accident, all by herself.  She keeps insisting her mom's not there for her, even though mom keeps asking to help.  Lisa's stubborn and arrogant and wavers between loving the drama and being completely traumatized by it.  The portrayal of a teen in crisis is very realistic.  She's just on the brink of getting that the whole world isn't about her, so she's scrambling relentlessly to draw attention to herself at every turn.


But there's a larger message that some reviewers get very excited about.  In one of her classes - some kind of amazing debating class with two teachers - arguments centre around 9/11, the Israeli invasion of Palestine, the Iraq and Afghanistan invasion, and whether or not the America government is a terrorist organization.  The journey Lisa takes through all her crap is apparently mirroring the journey America is taking to get over itself.  As if.

The problem I had with the film, is that Lisa is too unlikable for me to care about her.  She's realistic, but I'd like to avoid her for now until she grows up a bit.  There's just a brief moment at the end where we get the idea that she's figuring it out, but it's too little to make up for having to watch her drama unfold for hours.
This is a C+ for me.

The nice movie about coping is It's Kind of a Funny Story.  It's a feel-good movie about mental illness.  It follows Craig, a 16-year-old who came close to jumping off a bridge, but walked into the local hospital instead.  He didn't have a major traumatic event like Lisa, just the daily grind of more pressures than he could handle.


There are a few issues with the reality of the set-up:  The psychiatric wing of the hospital has a rule that if you ask to be admitted voluntarily, you have to stay for five days no matter what, but legally they can only detain a voluntary patient for up to 24 hours - but then there'd be no movie.  The patients regularly escape the wing for fun and games elsewhere in the building - there seems to be no security personnel at all. Visitors drop in whenever they feel like it - night or day.  Patients can call anyone they want at any time.   They take away patients' belts and shoelaces, but not the drawstrings in their sweatshirts....  But this isn't a documentary (although some people will come away thinking this is what it's really like).  And it's no Girl, Interrupted.  It's much much lighter, yet no less watchable.  

The film reminded me of a book, The Bear's Embrace, about a woman with PTSD who spent some time in a psychiatric hospital.  She said that what really helped her was the other patients' total belief in her experiences and acceptance of her rather than rote sessions with the doctors.  This film shows a similar camaraderie and acceptance of one another juxtaposed with visitors calling the patients weird or yelling at them for not being able to get their shit together.  It's a wonder more of us aren't having issues with life.

Over his five days, Craig grows up and recognizes that he should be grateful for all he has.  The main reason this movie is preferable to Margaret is that we get to actually see Craig's character development instead of just hoping it gets better after the film ends.  He becomes more other-centered and starts noticing the beauty in the world.   We're rewarded for watching him slog through depression a bit (a really little bit).

I like the film because it reminds us that lots of people are walking around depressed, and that it can really help to try to find ways to help others and/or to try to find some beauty in the world - anything to get outside yourself.  Friends can be great too, but that can be hit and miss.

I'll give it a solid B.  

Movies About Teaching

I just watched Detachment - a movie about a supply teacher in an inner-city school.  It's a familiar topic for films:  To Sir With Love, Stand and Deliver, Lean on Me, Teachers, Mr. Holland's Opus, Dangerous Minds...  But I like this one because nothing is really improved in the school, but in a less bloody way than Battle Royale.  However, this film is no less raw.

In so many movies about high-school life, one teacher comes along with a fresh perspective, usually some tough-love strategies, and everything improves dramatically.  Detachment sees many teachers trying valiantly and failing miserably to affect the system and society.  They do have a positive effect on some kids, but there are others that fall to the wayside.  So it goes.  Some teachers in the film have issues with mental illness and others openly despise students to the core, but most are doing their best with a difficult job.  That rings very true to me.

The film brings in the larger society.  The main character, Henry, spends evenings with his grandfather who's somewhat neglected in a retirement centre.  His caretakers aren't cruel, just busy and underfunded.  Henry tries to take care of a young prostitute until he recognizes he's out of his league.  He talks to his students about how women are treated, but ignores cruel and sexist comments as they happen.  That's a matter of the greater good.  Maybe if he ignores the snide comments and continues with his lesson today, and everyone comes back tomorrow, they'll gradually learn to respect one another instead of being forced to act respectfully.  Forced behaviour rarely becomes internalized; it's just on display for the authority figure.  He needs to convince them to treat others kindly - and that's a much slower process.

The acting was beautiful and subtle.  I loved the juxtaposition of drawings and surreal images throughout.  Life is profoundly absurd.  There are many vicious characters in this world, and we can't necessarily improve it all.  But our acts of kindness can help even it all out a bit, even if we totally lose it once in a while.  It might not get much better, but what's for certain is, if we don't try to be kind, it will definitely get worse.


And now for a short rant involving some scenes that resonated with my experiences teaching high-school for over twenty years:

* Unequal treatment at the hands of admin:  One reviewer mocked the film because Henry was called out for a hug, while another teacher openly and vulgarly admonished a student for wearing nipple-revealing clothing - as if that would never happen.  Of course it happens.  In any profession some people get away with anything, and others get charged with minor infractions.  I've seen some teachers get away with leaving the building to go for a coffee during class, and others get reprimanded for going to the bathroom.  Some teachers work hard at their lessons, and others show films every day.  There are always people that can flaunt rules successfully and others who are punching bags for the boss.  It may not be fair, but it's realistic.

* The effect of parents' attitude on student behaviour:  There were few attending parent-teacher night.  I've sat through similar evenings with few attendees.  The typical night brings in a few of the parents you don't need to see, and none that you do.  And the law is on the parent's side.  Parents in the film threaten to sue the school for not providing the best education for their kids.  When kids know that their parents will attempt to punish the teacher for low marks instead of blaming the student for not doing their work, then kids own the show. I have suspected that some of my students have parents that did their work for them, and something they didn't show in the film is the amount of cheating that goes on.  It's ubiquitous.  I know that if I give a student a failing grade, I'll have to prove I've done everything possible for the student, but the student doesn't have to show any work.  If they fail, it's because we didn't teach well enough; we didn't motivate them or entertain them or enlighten them.  Many teachers figure this out and make sure they don't fail kids - even those who do nothing.  This just makes it all so much worse.  And kids really do show up for class regularly without pens or paper.  It's not because they're poor.  It's because doing class work is such a low priority for some of them it barely registers.

* Students screaming and swearing at teachers:  In my case it doesn't happen anywhere near as often as the film depicts, but shit happens.  As a new teacher, when I wrote "Miss Snyder" on the board, a student commented, "Good.  She's single.  No sloppy seconds."  I started using "Ms." after that.  Shortly after having my first baby, I had a student threaten to come to my house and kill her.  The Behaviour Consultant assured me he'd deal with it, so I didn't call the cops.  On follow-up - the consultant had forgotten.  I've taught students who have just gotten out of jail - one for raping an elderly woman in a wheelchair.  I've had to testify against a student who almost killed someone with a baseball bat.  I had students put a firecracker in a paper airplane and launch it at me when I was pregnant.  Upon their immediate return from the office, they told me they're supposed to say, "Sorry."  I've seen students ironically yell and swear at teachers because they felt disrespected.  They know their rights, but not their responsibilities.  I've also lost quieter students to suicides I didn't see coming.  This is a volatile age that needs soothing and containing, and we have to start over again with a new group every term.

* The bureaucratic power of standardized tests:  Parents believe the scores indicate the quality of teaching rather than just the demographics of a school.  We trip over ourselves to improve our test scores - sometimes at the expense of real teaching.  Months are spent teaching to the test so students are bombarded with opinion papers, then they don't have time to learn how to integrate and cite quotations into a piece of writing or learn to edit and revise their work.

I sometimes think we need mandatory character-development and anger-management classes because it seems like such a looming problem in our schools and in society in general, but - something the film suggests but doesn't clarify - it isn't all like this.  It's way more good than bad.  Lots of people are kind.  In Henry's class, two kids were jerks on the first day, but 28 kids were sitting ready to listen.  The film focused on the bad because conflict is interesting, but in real life those kids sitting quietly are the majority - overall, if not class by class.  And it's exciting when one of the rough set turns before your eyes.  It's rare, but thrilling.  But more rewarding is the day to day interactions with the average nice kids.  They just aren't as exciting on screen.

Overall, I loved this movie - A-

Movies About Connecting

Last night I watched a double bill of - wait for it - very similar movies:  Seeking a Friend for the End of the World and Safety Not Guaranteed.

Seeking a Friend has Steve Carell, Keira Knightley, and Britta from Community, but it's not really a comedy. There are a few funny bits, but really it's about how different people cope with the world ending.  It is, however, very touching.  It's really an improved remake of Last Night (also billed as a comedy).  It also reminded me a lot of Melancholia - and relatively speaking it's hilarious, but Melancholia is a tragically depressing film.  In Seeking, people find various ways to manage beyond looking forlorn and weeping.  Some go for destruction, and others maintain a strict routine in a massive bid at denial, and many more leave on a widely hedonistic note.  That's actually believable to me.  Sure people will be distraught or desperate, but many will be wasted for those final three weeks.  The couple we're following have a quest to find their loved ones in the last days, and they develop a relationship of sorts over the course of their road trip.

For some reason, that part of it reminded me of The Sure Thing.  Weird.




Safety Not Guaranteed is about a trio of magazine writers (well, one writer and two interns) tracking down a man who put out an ad seeking a friend to go back in time with him in his time machine.  And, like Seeking, the intern and time machine dude develop a relationship of sorts over the course of putting the finishing touches on the machine.  This one is quirky and sweet and hopeful.  It leaves lots of questions, but they don't really matter in the end.




Both films are about the importance of making connections with anyone we can.  Life is short.  What makes both films work, I think (because neither got consistently good reviews), is the actors. The movies are full of plot holes, so it's not about the stories.  If the Earth is about to be knocked off its axis, then how will it help to be in a bomb shelter - at all?  How could three bumbling reporters uncover dirt on a guy more efficiently than the FBI who's been following him for years?  But these things don't matter here.  Carell and Knightley were spectacular.  Right now it's my favourite film for both of them. They're crass but tender, and very real.  And in Safety, Aubrey Plaza, Mark Dupless, and Jake Johnson were all compelling to watch.  It was lovely.

B+ for both.

Is Ebert Getting Soft?

I watched two films last night both on Roger Ebert's glowing recommendations.  The first, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, has an amazing cast, and an incredible setting to work with, but the storyline seemed so contrived I couldn't get past it.  He gave it 3.5 stars.  It had a few great lines, but please.


Maybe I just don't know any people like this, or maybe it's because I'm not British, but a few of the characters are destitute, having lost their entire life savings, and they feel the best way to manage their retirement is to fly to India and move into a hotel sight unseen.  I get that it's cheaper to live in India than Britain, but couldn't they stay with a friend in town?  How did they pay for the plane ticket?  Will they just never see their kids again?  Why don't all the poor in Britain move to India?  And how did Judi Dench's character get a work Visa?  I suppose I shouldn't let the minor details ruin the flavour of the film, but the themes had me rolling my eyes too.

This is a love-conquors-all film.  Love is great and all, but there is more to life. Some of the characters are in an amazing new country, but their only concern is getting laid.  They need to feel young again.  It reminded me of that horrid Pippa movie I watched recently. I know several people in their 60s and 70s who don't spend their days and nights trying to feel young again - or at the very least they don't need to have sex in order to feel vital.  Why aren't they ever represented in mainstream movies?  And everyone's so concerned that everyone else gets partnered up, yet they leave out poor Maggie Smith.  Nobody encourages her to get with anybody - or to never give up being sexy.  Is it because she's temporarily disabled, or because she's too old?

And why is outsourcing retirement living to India seen as a good thing that we all should hope works out?  

I love Maggie Smith.  To most people these days she's Professor McGonagall, but I can't stop seeing Miss Jean Brodie.  (I think I saw that one at a far too impressionable age.)  And I love that the crabby wife is the mom from Shaun of the Dead.  And Bill Nighy and Tom Wilkinson are two of my favourite actors, and I'm loving Dev Patel these days (having just recently seen Slumdog).  But why did Tom's character wait so long to re-connect with the love of his life?  Couldn't they have exchanged addresses and kept in touch after he moved away?  It's just a far too convenient plot devise.  And why did a woman who's lived in India her entire life decide to move in to this hotel?  And what's with the tearful phone calls to people back home when they all have computers and the internet.  Doesn't Skype work there?  There were a few too many easy roads taken with the material and too many inconsistencies for me to call this a winner.  But the actors were a delight to watch, and it entertained me enough to keep me awake as I marked tests.  So that's something.  I didn't hate it, but it wasn't worthy of its cast.
Maybe a B-.

But the second movie Ebert recommended has far less to cushion it:  The Odd Life of Timothy Green.

 

It's an interesting premise.  A couple wish so hard for a kid, that their wish comes true and they get the exact kid they wanted - but with leaves growing on him (because he sprouted out of the garden).  But, of course, this is partially a careful-what-you-wish-for film.  And if you want to see a great film with that premise, watch Ted instead - a fantastic film in many ways.  Odd Life  could have been good, and it started really well, but then it got painfully schlocky.  The kid's a misfit, yet is able to turn curmudgeonly hearts to butter.  Whatever.  I can handle that.  It's that his family saved the town's pencil factory from closing with a proposal to make pencils out of leaves and thus save all the trees.  Um...  I don't think so.  And the over acting was painful to watch, especially, and this is hard to say, Dianne Wiest - whom I typically adore.  Jennifer Garner acted in the same way she acts in every movie, and that's getting tiresome all on its own.  And if you want to just dive right into the schlockiness of the film, the little girl they end up with should have been called Ivy!    Ebert gave this 3.5 stars.  I'm giving it a solid D.   But I got even more marking done. 

When Good Actors Make Bad Films

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Unrestricted Love

My Afternoons with Margueritte is a lovely film about a an uneducated man and the three women in his life:  his bus-driving girlfriend, his abusive mother, and a well-read older woman - much older.  It's no Harold and Maude though.  I think it's better.

It's not at all contrived that someone who couldn't manage in school could suddenly pick up on nuances of literature and connect them to life.  I've seen struggles with literacy prevent kids from having a useful education, and it's curious that we focus so much on the written word when we're moving beyond that in real life such that people can get all their news from YouTube.  But that's not really what the film's about.

It's about love and connections and kindness unrestricted by artificial social constructs that create boundaries around who we should spend our time with.*  It's another reminder to fight the pigeonholing that sticks us in roles that just don't work for us.  But, unlike The Graduate, the characters here actually get somewhere with their personal rebellion.

It's also about education and arrogance.  Germain is well-loved because he is kind and funny and wise.  Some reviewers find his relationship with Annette, his lovely young girlfriend, unbelievable, but I think that just reveals an attitude of rigid and arrogant conformity to social expectations.  They get what they need from one another, and they clearly have a bond in the film.  In fact, it's the whole point.  Similarities in age, education, and/or aesthetics are not what really connect us - that's all just superficial crap.  We connect when we have a profound respect and admiration for another's ideas or actions.  This is different than being impressed by them, as the characters do don't anything spectacular, but how many of us do.

And it's about rising above your beginnings.  We don't need to be taught love from our parents; it's in us already if we're brave enough to share it.

Okay, it's sentimental, but it works.

A-

- - - - -
*Grammar point:  This bothers me a bit.  I know it should say, "with whom we should spend our time," but that feels awkward and pretentious.  Nobody talks like that.  Personally, I think it's time written language cleans out its closet of some archaic rules that only affect marks on student essays and little else in the world.  I'm taking the first step by largely ignoring them.

The Graduate

I think I first saw this classic when I was about 8 when it first premiered on television.  I'm almost as baffled by parts of it today.  Some call it a screwball comedy, but I think it's mainly just sad (except for Mr. Robinson's speech near the end - that was funny).

Benjamin is home from college and is quickly seduced by Mrs. Robinson, but soon becomes obsessed with her daughter Elaine.  Spoilers below, but it doesn't matter.  The charm of the film is in the way it's carried out more than the plot line.  (And the trailer tells all anyway - I hate that!)


It's curious that Benjamin and Elaine are both involved with university life, but Vietnam isn't mentioned.  There's not a sign of protest on the Berkeley campus except for Benjamin being questioned about being a possible agitator.  Maybe Nichols wanted to give the film a timeless feel, but it's pretty stuck in the 60s anyway.

Benjamin's character is relatable to a point.  He's adrift, held fast by inertia, and unable to choose a direction in life just yet.  He's going to procrastinate as long as possible as all his options look stale and boring. He's awkward and annoyingly adolescent - rudely talking loudly in a library, refusing to care about his affect on others, badgering Elaine with questions and proprosals.  He's having an angsty middle-class rebellion against very little. I understand the draw to Mrs. Robinson for a 20-year-old virgin, but it's curious why he'd fall so hard for Elaine.  She's the beautiful Katherine Ross, of course, but after just one date in which he watches her cry a bit in a strip club, they commiserate about their station in life over burgers, and he later spills it about her mom, he becomes totally obsessed with her and stalks her.  She becomes his goal in life.  Forbidden fruit, or she's just the best option he's got?  To a 20-year-old, she sure beats plastics.  It's funny that he announces his impending marriage to her while still unemployed and living at home.  He's young enough to not have thought that part through, but it's odd that his parents don't question how they'll live.

While Ben passively floats through life, Mrs. Robinson actively works to escape her futile existence. She also doesn't want to be the living dead - managing through life by rote.  She breaks free from the monotony of her situation with an affair.  There's one scene I find absolutely heartbreaking.  She tells Ben she knows nothing about art, but when he asked what she took in college, she says, "Art."  In that one brief conversation, she subtly makes it clear how much she's given up over the years, how much she's let go of her passions.  She forbids Ben to date Elaine, I think, because she has tainted Ben with this shameless experience, and she doesn't want it touching her daughter.  She doesn't want the sins of the mother laid upon the daughter, but, try as she might, she's impotent to stop it.

But Elaine is a conundrum for me.  When Ben tries to catch up to her bus at Berkeley, we can feel her discomfort when she catches sight of him and as he talks to her.  But after she rages at him a bit, she suddenly soften and feels - what? - suddenly she wants him to stick around.  Is she flattered by his obsessiveness? Or does she just feel trapped or bored with her prep-school boyfriend?  She's also avoiding the boring trap of the bourgeois life, so maybe she attaches to him to get a taste of rebellion.

Then he just proceeds to wear her down - it's the only move he's got:

Ben: "We can get a blood test today."

Elaine:  "Benjamin, I haven't even said I'd marry you yet....I just don't think it would work."

Ben:  "Tomorrow, then.  We'll get the blood test tomorrow."

Just like Tom in 500 Days of Summer, he can't seem to hear what she's saying.  Or he just doesn't care. Or he hangs on to the hope that his persistence will win in the end.  And, for Ben, it does.

He rescues her from a forced marriage - after it's over - but, as they sit on the bus together, it's clear they postponed the inevitable call to action with a little drama of their own, but now they still have to decide what to do with their lives.  It's a thrill to do something anti-conformist, but they didn't solve anything.  They're still stuck.

Creating a comedy or a tragedy is dependent on the ending.  Stop on a high note, and it's a comedy.  Stop a little later when it takes a downturn, and it's a tragedy.  For that, why some call this a comedy - much less a screwball comedy - is beyond me.

B+

500 Days of Summer

I watched this for the second time and like it much better, but I still don't love it.  I do love the fanciful bits of filming:  the dance number with cartoon birds, the buildings turning into drawings and being erased, the numbers with different levels of darkness in the sky, and the beginning caveat in print.  I like the out-of-orderness of it that makes it more realistic as a memory.  The story is original and compelling.  So what's the problem?



Tom and Summer meet.  She says lets keep it casual.  He falls in love and is tormented when she dumps her.  The first time I saw it, I couldn't stand it because of Tom's annoying neediness - that he didn't listen to her words when she said she didn't want a relationship, that he thought little things were signs that she was falling for him, regardless what she told him, and that he can't cope without her.  It's just too frustrating to watch him.

After a second viewing, I'm no more sympathetic to him, but I like how he's explained.  He's a product of too many cliched romantic movies, and he's taken his cues from fantasy instead of seeing what's right in front of him.  His blind date spells it out for him, but he still can't see it.  And by the end, he still won't learn.  He's a romantic, and I think we're supposed to admire his tenacity and hopefulness, but the ending was still annoying to me.  It's believable, for sure, but it's bad enough watching it unfold in real life.  Many of us make the same mistakes over and over like we're on auto-pilot.  It's painfully tedious.

But there are some lovely little touches throughout the movie and some entertaining supporting characters that make it worth a watch.

ETA - I like it more now that I know JGL felt the same way about his character:

B+

Woody Allen Picks

On a challenge to name Woody Allen's top ten after watching his newest, I've arranged all his movies that I've seen in the order from most loved to most hated, from absolute brilliance to difficult to watch.

1. What's Up, Tiger Lily? 1966   

2. Hannah and Her Sisters 1986 

3. Midnight in Paris  2010 

4. Manhattan  1978

5. Annie Hall  1975

6. Play It Again, Sam  1971 

7. Manhattan Murder Mystery  1992

8. The Purple Rose of Cairo  1984 

9. Alice  1989 

10. Vicky Cristina Barcelona  2007

and to continue...
Crimes and Misdemeanors  1989 

Love and Death  1973 

A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy  1981

Sleeper  1972

Casino Royale  1967
What's New Pussycat  1965

Cassandra's Dream  2006 

Husbands and Wives  1991

Bananas  1971 

Every Thing You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask  1972

Deconstructing Harry  1997
Mighty Aphrodite  1995
To Rome with Love  2011

Interiors  1977
Melinda and Melinda  2003
Match Point  2004

Whatever Works  2008
 
There are still many I have not yet seen - or not recently enough to remember clearly.  Some I'm sure I've seen, but I can't remember how well I liked them:
You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger  2009
Scoop 2005
Anything Else  2002
Hollywood Ending  2001
The Curse of the Jade Scorpion  2000
Small Time Crooks  1999
Sweet and Lowdown  1998
Celebrity  1997
Everyone Says I Love You  1995
Bullets Over Broadway  1993
Shadows and Fog  1990
New York Stories  1989
Another Woman  1987
September  1987
Radio Days  1986
Broadway Danny Rose  1983
Zelig  1982
Stardust Memories 1979
Take the Money and Run  1967

(I didn't laboriously type out all the titles and dates; I just cut and paste them from IMDB.)