Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (1987)

A part of this was originally posted on AD Forums on June 23, 2012. Spoilers are marked with bold text.

Very rarely anymore do we see films that dare to challenge our per-conceived notions about the realities of a given time frame. Nostalgia is its own curse, and whitewashes the unpleasant from our minds as we hone in and focus on only what we care to remember. This whitewashing and blurring is a focus of Todd Hayne's controversial film 'Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story', a forty-five minute exploration into the forces that killed one of America's brightest stars far too early. It's easy to see why this film is controversial: for starters, the whole movie is acted out by Barbie dolls, a sentence that sounds incredibly tasteless without any context. There's plenty of unlicensed music floating through the movie. Probably most importantly, this film portrays the Carpenter family as extremely controlling, abusive, and dysfunctional towards its most innocent member, and this portrayal is likely what kept this film from the public eye for years. It's now available, in its entirety, on YouTube, and actually seeing the movie not only sheds some light on how the controversial elements of the film are handled, but has instantly converted me into an incredible fan.

The use of dolls to play the characters does sound tasteless at first, especially given that this is the story of a woman who died trying to fit into an unrealistic standard that the media has forced on women for years. Barbie is, after all, a traditionally anti-feminist symbol, focusing entirely on a person's outer beauty to determine worth. To portray a story of a woman so thoroughly chained to society's unrealistic standards, the Barbie works spectacularly as a tool of satire and a tool of caution. What really makes this decision work is both the relative interchangeability of each doll - something that works especially well in comparing Karen's troubled relationships with both Richard and her eventual husband - and the fact that the dolls become extremely malleable under the narrative's force. Karen is literally whittled into a bony, misshapen toy to accentuate the horrors of her disease.

The craft of the film is unbelievable. Even watching the horrible print I was watching, where images were blurred and fuzzed together with age (if only this film hadn't been attacked by the Carpenter family and we could get a nice shiny Criterion print - I'd bust open the savings account for that one, even), it's impossible to deny the amount of thought put into each image in each montage. The supermarket clips, with voice-over detailing the wealth of food now available post-WWII, combined with the placards detailing the dark details of anorexia, is a perfect juxtaposition (even though I had to pause to read some of the cards, thanks to quality issues). It even raises questions of its own - with all this food available, it insidiously suggests, is it any wonder that a woman would grow to pathologically fear what food will do to her physique? The ending is also a well-done masterstroke - the vague image of being spanked comes to the forefront of an emotionally shattered Karen, not to mention the horrifying yet pathetic sight of Karen eating mashed potatoes before traveling to a live-action sequence where SPOILER you realize that anorexia - the huge enemy of the entire film -wasn't the only pathological demon, and that Karen is also swigging Ipecac, and is also bulimic. SPOILER END The ending is incredibly powerful, even if you know Karen's full story, because of how it weaves together some of the disparate images Haynes has bombarded the audience with, finally giving them a psychological context.

When the film was made, the slightly out-of-focused images were intentional on the part of Haynes, and I think that, going back to the comments on nostalgia, it's intended to lure us into a false sense of dreaminess. The surreal is often at play in The Karen Carpenter Story, and treating Karen's life as a dreamy segue from her public persona as an angel of music is oddly appropriate, for a film that is simultaneously satirizing and condemning 

The only problem I have with the movie is the fact that Richard is fairly two-dimensional. The overall force of "the family" works well as an antagonist, because each member embodies a different type of control - Richard is an egomaniac, Karen's mother is smothering in the extreme, and Karen's father is simply dismissive of her interests. Karen's sickness works in tandem with these pressures. But separated from each other, they become exponentially weaker adversaries for her. The scene where Richard and Karen yell at each other doesn't work quite as well as other disagreement scenes because of the separations from the other antagonistic functions.

My parents raised me on the Carpenters' music, and I've actually been employed, through my school's work program, at the performing arts center that bears Karen's name on my college campus. I guess that makes her story more powerful to me, no matter how it's presented. Before the monitor in our lobby broke, I could sit in the lobby and watch Karen waste away before me, and wonder how such a beautiful, talented woman could ever think she wasn't good enough. This movie makes it a bit easier to understand.

The Hunger Games (2012) Review

Originally posted on AD Forums on March 26, 2012. Spoilers are marked in bold.

The phrase 'YA lit' didn't used to give people pause, but thanks to the omnipresence of what is possibly the most offensive book marketed to teenage girls ever, Twilight, in addition to a multitude of terrible movies marketed from teen-aimed literature both new (Eragon) and old (The Legend of the Seeker), the critical eye turned towards the latest YA adaptation to hit theaters, The Hunger Games, seems ravenous. I did not expect a masterpiece going into theaters. (Before you think I'm dropping into the realm of hyperbole later on, the movie isn't a masterpiece.) Me and my best friend had heard good things going in, which made us a little more excited than we normally would've been, but at the same time, we were cautious. (We were also more than a little disturbed that we were among the oldest non-parents in the theater. We couldn't quite figure out what the eight-year-olds were doing in our auditorium, but such is life.)

Overall, though, our caution was rewarded well. The Hunger Games was not the most brilliant movie, nor is it the best adaptation of a book, but it was a solid film that captured, if not the hefty emotional moments of the series, its tone and relentless fear excellently. The movie hews close to the book, and its added scenes, oddly, are more resonant in places than scenes lifted directly from Collins' work - we'll get into that.

Basically, the plot trajectory for the movie is summarized in its opening placards: The Hunger Games involve sacrificing 24 children of the 12 Districts, one boy and one girl, to a seemingly ruthless Capitol, which pits them against each other in a battle to the death. As soon as you see Katniss Everdeen on screen, it's made fairly obvious that she will be this year's Tribute from District 12, though she volunteers herself to save her fragile sister Primrose. With her fellow Tribute Peeta, she finds herself embroiled in a dangerous power struggle that she's only vaguely aware of as the ruthlessness of the other teens around her is made known.

As far as the movie goes, a lot of the troubles that one might have in adapting a book aren't evident. The script is tight, the only problems with it being either problems that the book itself had (keeping up the relentless pace of the novel tends to give emotional moments the shaft) or issues that arise from toning down the levels of gore and violence in the novel (SPOILER Rue's death suffers greatly in this aspect, as her killing in the book is incredibly animalistic; in a similar sense, Peeta's leg not festering towards the end of the Games leaves a lack of drama towards the end of the film END SPOILER). One nice device the film uses is making Caesar and his on-air partner expository characters for the audience; showing bits and pieces of what the Capitol viewing audience would see, and treating us like a Capitol audience, isn't the most creative filmic idea, but definitely gets the point across. The film adds sequences beyond this, and, without fail, they add to the story rather than detract from it. SPOILER Seneca Crane's death has been mentioned as an eerie one, and I wholly agree with that reading END SPOILER, but the rebellion in District 11 had a far more emotional tenor to it than the scene directly leading to said rebellion, SPOILER young Rue's death END SPOILER. Going back to 'things the book did that the movie shouldn't have done', Gale. Gale is such a nonentity in the first book, and barely there in the second, SPOILER that his status as a member of the 'love triangle' is almost laughable. END SPOILER The movie does nothing to rectify this, assuming that the marketers for the movie want to play up that aspect of the film. Gale's just there.

One aspect of the book the film really does get right is the frenetic tone. There is a lot of running, a lot of fear, a lot of tension. This mood works in the film's favor many times, only backfiring during one key sequence, and the sense of constantly being watched and tracked comes across very well.

Acting-wise, Jennifer Lawrence is best in show, but no one really drops the ball as far as acting goes. (We only saw Liam Hemsworth for about three seconds, so I can't really pass judgment on him beyond 'what the hell was that reaction face? And why are they watching the Games at work?') Josh Hutcherson is given the difficult task of being simultaneously dreamy and a two-faced ass, something he pulls off rather well. Towards the end, the script does move him into faceless prettyboy territory, sadly, but right about until the rule change, Hutcherson really conveys an uneasy personality blend. Elizabeth Banks is a particular stand-out of the supporting cast, though I appreciated the work of all of them. (It's a shame Bentley is likely to not be in the next film, that's all I'm saying.) And can I mention the boy who played Cato, Alexander Ludwig? Christ, that kid was scary as shit. He nailed that role. His last scene was probably the best, acting-wise, in the whole movie. Congratulations, Mr. Ludwig, I cannot wait to see more from you in the future.

Now for the bad. The special effects are... well, in some cases, really great. The control room looks brilliant. I'm sure that's where all the money went. However, what is arguably the most important scene in the film - the two District 12 champions on fire during the parade - looks absolutely terrible. As others have mentioned, hopefully the amount of money this film made will lead to a bigger effects budget, but I cannot fathom why the SFX money was not poured into that pivotal scene. The Games themselves, and the fallen images, have a nice broken-television feel to them, very artificial, though. There was one scene with a pan-up to something that looked obviously CGI but I honestly can't remember where that scene was, so I can't really comment on it.

There are also some scenes that fall emotionally flat. Lawrence's reactions and obvious awkwardness at the interview really stand out to me as a stumbling block - yes, the book stated she was awkward throughout the interview, but awkwardly charming, not awkwardly awkward. The potential awe one might have from her television debut is definitely muted by hewing too close to the book's definitions. SPOILER Rue's death, however, is the biggest problem. This moment is supposed to be one of the driving forces in Katniss making sure Peeta doesn't die in the Games, one of the reasons she heads off to find him, in her emotionally distraught state. Rue is supposed to be a stand-in for her sister as well - and we get none of that from the movie's fast pacing. It's hard to grasp why Katniss is openly sobbing in the woods in the film, where, in the book, the grisly nature of her death combined with her status as Primrose 2.0 make it obvious why Katniss is reeling. Thankfully, the film segways into a much more powerful segment about Rue's district in full-on rebellion after seeing the kindness Katniss affords them, which does provide some of the emotional heft missing from the earlier sequence. END SPOILER

People have mentioned the jittery camera, and honestly, my only problem with the camera was when the shots changed every two seconds for the early sequences of the movie. It was more frustrating than sickening, however, and that problem seemed to end the minute the Tributes got to the Capitol.

Since people are already talking Oscar chances, I think I can safely say Art Direction is a huge possibility, as is Costuming (depending on how AMPAS reads the Capitol clothing - yes, they are supposed to look inhumanly ridiculous in the book too). Sound Design and Sound Editing should be locks for nominations. If Actress turns out to be a pretty empty field, Lawrence might push through, but that would take a lot of other films outright bombing to happen. Picture will not happen.

All in all, this is a perfectly solid adaptation of the book, and stands well as a movie, despite having some obvious flaws. I'm probably going to see it again, for what its worth. Its flaws are not enough to mute its overall good quality.

****/*****

'Whitney' - The G Word (S1E20)

Most people are aware by now that Whitney, the sitcom starring Whitney Cummings as a version of herself navigating an incredibly stable long-term relationship she shares with a man named Alex, is not very good television. It purports itself to be a comedy, but very few laughs can be found in any given episode of the show. It also had the misfortune of being a terrible show being kept on the air while Internet darling Community was kept off the schedule for reasons still unknown, even though Community eventually returned to NBC. Whitney is a thoroughly terrible show, but it is subject to a vitriol usually reserved for shows like Toddlers and Tiaras, and, frankly, Whitney doesn't quite deserve that vitriol. It may be one of the shrillest, least funny comedies produced in the past five years, but it does not actively offend in the way, say, Glee is apt to do, and, every once in a while, can make a cogent point about something in a unique way.

'The G Word' is an episode that actually impressed me. No, it was not funny. That is nothing that we can expect from the show at this point in time. However, 'The G Word' tackles issues surrounding homosexuality with an understanding and grace that hasn't been seen on network television recently. It's an admirable effort, honestly. Because it was an episode of Whitney, I was unaware of 'The G Word''s existence until a friend of mine posted it on the shared Facebook wall for our acting troupe. We're doing a show about homophobia, and she said it had a very accepting, good portrayal of homosexuality in it. I was skeptical, but I watched it.

In the framework of the plot - bear with me, I have no idea who any of these characters really are - Whitney's friends Lily and Neal have just broken off an engagement, and Lily is despondent. Lily assumes that Neal must be going on dates with other women, and entrusts Whitney to find the truth. Since Whitney is that famous sitcom archetype - super-nosy protagonist - she dives into her task with gusto, taking along henpecked Alex with her (it should be noted that Alex really doesn't care) for a surprise visit to Neal's apartment. It turns out Neal is having a date... just with another man.

At this point is where you'd expect a sitcom as shoddily put together as Whitney to go completely off the rails, throwing in every stereotypical gay joke known to man and otherwise humiliating Neal as a character. Or, in true sitcom fashion, to have it be a huge wacky misunderstanding - Steven, the other man on the 'date', is just a coworker! They were having a business meeting! It was exactly as Neal told Alex and Whitney when they entered the apartment! Cue audience laughter! Oddly enough, and much to my eternal surprise, it didn't go like that. Neal rushes over to Whitney's apartment and shares that he doesn't really know what to do, because he did love Lily when they were engaged, but obviously has feelings for Steven. Whitney tells Neal that he should just try and open up to their friends, because hiding from them is going to get him nowhere.

And in terms of acceptance from friends, the episode serves as a pretty good primer on what you should and should not do when a friend comes out to you. Alex has probably the best reaction out of everyone else in the episode - simply saying 'cool' and offering Neal a beer. Alex consistently treats Neal like a person throughout the entire episode, respectful of his privacy and acting as if there is nothing different about his friend. (Whitney thinks he underreacted, but she is a shrill harridan that should never be trusted.) Lily comes in a close second - though she uses the term 'fluid' to describe Neal's sexuality, a word that I think is a bit of a cop-out to avoid saying that someone might be bisexual, she accepts Neal's sexuality with grace, and does not attack him for leaving her at all. Color me impressed that, on a show as terribly written as Whitney, Lily didn't blame Neal or Steven for leaving her in the dark, and actually took the time to listen to his issues.

Of course, this being a sitcom, there are some 'wacky hijinks' elements to this. A male peripheral character I didn't catch the name of was immediately offended that Neal was never attracted to him, then spent much of the rest of the episode in the background trying to impress him. Thankfully, we got no follow-up on this, as it was unfunny and stupid. Also, a blonde female peripheral character seems to exist to get drunk and make double entendres that weren't funny. Her reaction was pretty blase to the whole sexual identity thing, mostly because she needed to plow ahead with her double entendres. Also, since this is a 'sitcom', there were apparently things called 'jokes' that didn't quite work out. The ending in particular was jarring - after an episode of lovely stereotype-defying speech, the tag involves Lily thinking of maybe hitting up the bartender who sent her a drink in the beginning of the episode, only for Neal to inform her that particular bartender is definitely gay. Lily then declares that she obviously has a type. Way to erase everything you just did, episode.

But in any case, I feel like we should tip our hats to 'The G Word' for even maintaining that dignity and respect for... 21 minutes. Given that Whitney is a crass, poorly-written exercise on its best days, managing to provide a respectful tone in dealing with an individual's sexuality, even sandwiched between horrible jokes, is almost miraculous, especially considering the nonsense that shows like Glee have been foisting on LGBT cast members and viewers. Never thought I'd say this, but good job at something, Whitney. You have one episode to be proud of.

The South Park Retrospective, Part Three

Grouping Three: Celebrities and Their Function in South Park

Trapped in the Closet (season nine)

Fishsticks (season thirteen)

Originally posted on March 15, 2011 on AD Forums.

Celebrities do not usually end up looking good on South Park. It’s a fact of life. Britney Spears gets horrifically mutilated in the episode she appeared in, to make a point about the destructive nature of paparazzi on human beings. Sarah Jessica Parker gets shot in Scrotie McBoogerballs, mainly because she’s Sarah Jessica Parker and is apparently incredibly ugly. (She’s not that bad looking. Is she?) We can go on. And on. And on. I could have literally picked any duo of episodes and probably made the argument that celebrities are paradoxically portrayed as humans worthy of being treated like any other human, and otherworldly beings whose stupidity and fanaticism is even more boundless than that of the adult denizens of South Park, but I went with two episodes that are probably best known for their portrayals of celebrities and the idiotic lengths to which, in this universe, they will go to ingrain themselves into a society that seems to uniformly not care for them on a personal level while being oddly fascinated with them, with disastrous results.

This is most obvious in Trapped in the Closet, one of the most infamous episodes of South Park for tackling two subsections of America that tend to not like being tackled: Scientology and Tom Cruise. The main thrust of the episode – the conflict between Stan Marsh, who is believed by Scientologists to be the reincarnation of L. Ron Hubbard, and the upper-level Scientologists who know the truth about this so-called ‘religion’ – is often forgotten in the popular landscape for what might be the simplest subplot in a sitcom ever. Tom Cruise, going to pay his respects to Stan, the new prophet of Scientology, is devastated by Stan saying that he isn’t as great an actor as Leonardo DiCaprio (okay), Gene Hackman (all right), or Jon Heder, the man who gave us Napoleon Dynamite (…well, he was the best part of ‘When In Rome’), and locks himself inside Stan’s closet to grieve. Thus starts a cavalcade of people, from a remarkably sane Randy Marsh to Nicole Kidman to R. Kelly begging Tom Cruise to ‘come out of the closet’.

Continuing with the theory of the South Park mirror world, the implicit thought behind these implorations is that, in this world, there would be no repercussions for Cruise were he to come out of the closet. Obviously this is supposed to be a knowing wink at our own reality, where Tom Cruise’s sexuality is a terribly-kept secret, but it goes back to how, in South Park, homosexuality really isn’t a huge deal to the straight citizens of South Park. However, going with our central thesis of this analysis, the main thrust of Tom Cruise’s existential crisis that causes him to lock himself in a ten-year-old’s closet is an overwhelming sense that he is not cared for. Which, in Stan’s case, he really isn’t. Randy could probably give a shit, too, seeing as he’s stuck trying to get a man out of his son’s bedroom. However, the amount of media attention devoted to the efforts to get Cruise out of the closet is overwhelming. National news, other prominent celebrities, other Scientologists, and a dangerously armed R. Kelly are all at hand to witness the latest madness perpetrated by a celebrity. The paradox of how the South Park universe relates to celebrity, unlike the funhouse mirror that takes overreaction to an extreme and deemphasizes current America’s treatment of homosexuality as a novelty or a danger, could easily be said to be a direct translation of current America’s attitude towards celebrity – we consume so much unnecessary information about the rich and famous that we idolize, yet so many of us have stories of personal irritation or distaste about meeting some of these people in person. It is the idea of the collective hive mind fighting against the individual reaction, another iteration of one of South Park’s favorite themes – us vs. them.

Of course, also present in Trapped in the Closet is a rather incredible sequence of events where Stan becomes the prophet of Scientology and is informed of just how completely whacked the whole enterprise is. His ideas to reinvigorate the church, which are antithetical to its main mission (to scam people, according to an elder Scientologist), are met with cries that Stan is going to get sued, and Cruise, John Travolta, and R. Kelly all come out of the closet to assert they will sue Stan’s ass into oblivion. But this plot, which is completely straight satire, doesn’t elucidate much of the South Park world. The next episode will not deal with Stan getting sued. But the celebrities will remain idiots crying for attention, and South Park will continue to see all these celebrities turn up for no real reason.

Case in point: the second episode being analyzed, Fishsticks. Like the preceding analysis, there is an interesting plot in the foreground of the episode that deals with the creative tensions of having a partnership while working on a comedic venture, with Jimmy coming up with a pretty dumb, but mildly funny, pun about people who like ‘fishsticks’ being gay fish. (If you aren’t getting it, this will help. Prepare to be mildly impressed by the power of puns.) Since Cartman was in the room during the creation of the joke, he immediately begins to lay claim to its popularity in the world at large, leaving Jimmy torn over what to do about Cartman’s rampant lying. If you read this like one might read many Terrance and Phillip episodes – as a treatise on Parker and Stone’s working process and the issues they face when it comes to making the show and dealing with each other’s quirks – it’s a fascinating episode that pretty much flat-out says that sometimes these guys have issues with crediting and with each other. Episodes that admit these issues in a more raw, blunter fashion generally raise a lot of consternation in the fandom (wait until we get to You’re Getting Old!); the fact that this episode’s nuanced look at people being assholes to each other slipped by is definitely a product of Kanye West taking over the entire episode in the public consciousness.

Basically, Kanye West doesn’t get the fishsticks joke, and is sure that people are calling him a gay fish. On a cultural level, everyone has told West all he needs to know prior to this episode – he is, after all, the genius voice of a generation, not a gay fish. The collective masses are now, in West’s mind, turning against him, attacking him, endlessly fascinated with shaming him with a slur that’s not even a slur.

On the individual level, the people who run interference for Kanye tend to treat him, at the very best, with a complete lack of artifice. His posse makes a valiant effort to explain that no one thinks he personally is a gay fish. Cartman, Jimmy, and Carlos Mencia end up terrified of West because of his complete lack of comprehension. Compared to the faceless masses who laugh endlessly at the stupid pun, West is regarded as either completely crazy, or someone to simply wave off. The dichotomy becomes clear once again in the South Park universe. The individual will never have the same opinion as the masses.

As I wrote this, there were plenty of other episodes I thought of that fit this dichotomy nicely (particularly Stupid Spoiled Whore…, which, if I wasn’t already about two weeks behind in delivering this analysis, I would definitely weave in, due to its portrayal of Paris Hilton as incredibly mentally disturbed, making the individual continually fearful for his safety, and collectively a source of pride and idolatry for the female population). But the similarities in Trapped and Fishsticks’ receptions made them an excellent pairing. Beyond the paradoxical enamored collective and irritated/terrified individual paradigm that shows up often in celebrity stories, there are the same generalized conflicts that appear in many South Park episodes: religious authority vs. the common man, Cartman versus the world (except Craig, who has apparently learned that the best way to deal with Eric is to just let him do whatever he wants and move on with one’s life), sense against the nonsensical. In terms of fleshing out our South Park universe, our overreacting mob, such a staple of the show, is given purpose in relation to celebrity, while the individual is usually given to an extreme viewpoint.

Next time, we’ll switch away from the South Park world construction for a bit to focus on physical comedy and animation, with Casa Bonita, which is one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen put to film, and Osama Bin Laden has Farty Pants

The South Park Retrospective, Part Two

Grouping Two: The Taboo and the South Park Universe

It Hits the Fan (season five)
The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs (season fourteen)

Originally posted on January 31, 2011, on AD Forums.

The trajectory of this set of reviews and analysis was supposed to be something entirely different when I started re-watching these two episodes. (Also in the past month – my attempts to write a review for 200 and 201 were foiled when I realized I could not write one that didn’t dissolve into angry babbling.) As I mentioned in the last review, these two episodes highlighted have strong points and issues with the notion of America and its obsession with social taboos – in It Hits the Fan, the issue here is how foul language affects our society, a minor focus of the South Park film that segues into its general censorship messages; in The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs, the central theme can be boiled down to ‘The Rorschach Book’ – the satire lies with literary taboos, and how the more offensive a work is, the more likely it is to be seen as some form of art, or the more likely its messages will be muddled. We’ll still get to that, but there is an absolutely brilliant sequence in It Hits the Fan that changed my idea of how these episodes should be approached. The clip is placed below, until about thirty seconds in:

http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/152654/invading-knights

The universe of South Park is one that, while it has the same general structure as the real America – there is a poor, a middle class, and an upper class; it ostensibly takes place in a sort of everytown USA – has a very different social convention and spin. What’s interesting about the two episodes grouped together here is that not only do they tweak our perceptions of the current social climate in America, they create a unique, South Park specific climate that assumes things that, currently, would not be assumed in any shape or form.

In It Hits the Fan, the main focal point of the episode is how incredibly often the episode says ‘shit’ – it’s said 162 times, according to the convenient little counter in the corner of the screen during the episode, and written 38, according to Wikipedia. The episode beyond that, thematically, is a bit of a mess. Basically, the Knights of Standards and Practices are supposed to guard the curse words, one of which is shit, from becoming overused and bringing plagues, but the ending to this plot is very rushed and oddly slipshod. The satire of Standards and Practices itself seems to be entirely a matter of cleverness in itself, like Parker and Stone et. al said, “ooh this is clever” and never thought to further develop the metaphor because they had to end the episode somehow. I’m not going to really focus on the plotting issues here, though, because this episode exists as a showcase for two words and their effects on people – shit, which is counted in the corner, and fag. Shit is so overused in the episode proper that it confirms Kyle’s “I learned something today” segment fully – it ceases to have meaning. The second word, though, that’s an interesting one. (Before we go any further – I disdain using that word. I’ll try to limit my usage of it, out of sensitivity, to actual quotes from the episode, and when the word is completely unavoidable in explanation.)

Taking the clip above, Jimbo goes un-beeped when he says the word ‘fag’, prompted by Mr. Garrison’s completely inappropriate assertion that “only gay people can say fag” (without it being beeped). It is well established in the canon that Garrison is one of the South Park universe’s main instigators of conflict, and his attempts to lord his newfound… let’s say power but mean douchebaggery… over the town only serve to highlight his complete immaturity and lack of understanding about the very basics of his ‘identity’. In the bar, at the moment of the clip, his ability to use a new swear word is momentarily impressive to the drunk people – Randy can’t say it, nor can random mustached man. But Jimbo, in his petulant complaints that he cannot use ‘fag’ himself, manages to say it completely un-beeped. A few interesting things happen in response to this:

- Randy, Kenny’s dad, and the majority of the people around the bar, beyond pointing out that Jimbo didn’t get beeped, react as if nothing has happened. Later on in the episode, Must-Shit TV’s nonexistent plot gets them more emotional than their friend’s/relative’s accidental outing. Jimbo’s fearfulness is completely unwarranted. Hell, the person one assumes would be his partner, Ned, is so focused on the television that he doesn’t seem to register what’s happening.
- Garrison, ever the confrontational loon and annoyed that his attention has been usurped, vehemently spouts invective at Jimbo, distancing himself from his own proclaimed identity as a gay man by being, basically, a homophobe to him.

The South Park universe lays a mirror to our expectations of the United States and its social culture in this moment in an interesting way. Since the bar is largely populated by idiots (Randy) and rednecks (Kenny’s father), we would expect for the reaction to Jimbo saying ‘fag’ would be a little more pronounced than simply saying, “hey, you didn’t get beeped”… and would probably assume, through use of stereotyping, that the words spat out of Garrison’s mouth would be said in the situation by someone else. And in that way, it establishes tenets in its own universe – under-reaction to potentially revelatory situations, and over-reactions to minute circumstance. The bar, later on, also ignores such matters as a giant dragon stomping around a soundstage and Mimi Rodgers being beheaded in order to get outraged about the complete lack of plot cohesion in Must-Shit TV.

A smaller example of this takes place in the beginning of the episode, when Kyle decries the idea of HBC saying ‘shit’ on television as a ratings ploy, like that time Terrance and Phillip had a same-sex kiss on TV. Honestly? You still can’t do that on actual television without a huge firestorm of controversy. The sheer amount of press given to Glee over their depictions of gay romance – or lack of, in the case of Santana and Brittany’s fans vs. the show runners – contrasts greatly with the nonchalance both Stan and Kyle give to what would surely be a momentous event in television history in our current time, especially considering that Terrance and Phillip is, ostensibly, a children’s show. (Or something. Is anyone clear on this?)

Similar ideas of the universe are explored in The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs, but by taking the opposite tack – tackling something that a small set of America, primarily literary scholars and AD, and using that microcosm to explain both our universe and their universe. The plot is much more tightly wound together in Scrotie McBoogerballs than in It Hits the Fan, dealing with the four main boys being assigned The Catcher in the Rye in class, despite the fact that it has naughty language and convinces people to kill (like poor Butters). When confronted with the fact that Catcher in the Rye is about a whiny little fucktard who hates everything, our four main boys write a book that they’re certain will be banned, filled with disgusting imagery that makes people vomit uncontrollably. Vomit functions the same way as ‘shit’ in It Hits the Fan, the distracting factor that the casual viewer will distinguish the episode with.

The showcase here, though, as it illustrates our world, is the extent to which people will go to create illusions of meaning in even the most meaningless of pursuits. Scrotie McBoogerballs, as a novel, is devoid of any merit according to its true authors, but hailed as everything from a conservative-bashing screed to a scathing indictment of health care in the US. It’s true of anyone who reviews anything anywhere at some point – we project our own life’s experiences onto a piece of entertainment, and instead of appreciating a moment of resonance, we twist media into a confirmation of our views. Glee, again, shares this Rorschach-like quality, but I can go ahead and say that my nagging confusion over Daniel Tosh’s amorphous, contradictory sexuality makes me view Tosh.0 in a lens it probably shouldn’t be viewed in as well. (Also, I’m writing all this about a show that some people think is inane and devoid of meaning.) In demonstrating our own foibles of understanding, the episode also reflects the reactions to the ridiculous and mundane being opposed to how one would normally act. No one seems to care that Sarah Jessica Parker is dead at the end of the episode – as she is ‘ugly’ – but the world is turned upside-down by a book. The difference here, compared to It Hits the Fan, is that a book changing the pop culture landscape and offending large swathes of people interpreting it in differing ways is not only a logical idea for our landscape (opposed to a dragon mauling people on Must-Shit TV), it’s happened with a variety of books. Harry Potter is obvious, but the closest analogue I can make is to Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, the Amy Chua nonfiction book that started a culture clash last year with its views of how to raise talented children and garnered a large amount of critical discourse about its content.

Both episodes, of course, tackle the issue of taboos. It Hits the Fan is less elegant in its exploration than Scrotie McBoogerballs, but both seem to regard the central causes behind the profane and taboo as largely random and nonsensical. The proliferation of ‘shit’ comes from network greed and, the episode argues and upholds simultaneously, unnecessary envelope-pushing; the origin of the nauseating titular novel comes from the childish idea to give J.D. Salinger a big ‘fuck you’ for not writing a dirty enough book. (I do want to say that it’s quite awesome that the four boys decide to write a whole book instead of just doing what I assume most kids would do, either go on the Internet and find smut or find another banned book to read. Taking destiny into their own hands!) Once the taboo is broken, however, in the South Park universe, the taboo is broken to its utmost – there is no slippery slope, just total saturation of shit and excreta. It equates taboos with something inherently silly, like a fad or a craze, in that everyone is in on the madness (except Mr. Garrison, whose job is to remain off from center no matter what he’s doing), everyone takes their behavior to obnoxious extremes, and everyone is too enthralled with their object (‘shit’ or their novel) to listen to what passes for ‘reason’ in the episode proper (rune stones, actual reasoning).  This method of subconsciously equating societal taboos with something as inane as, say, Pogs, has a numbing effect, something pointed out in It Hits the Fan, and makes it that much easier, as an audience, to wonder why people get so worked up about it. It’s an effective storytelling method, though it cannot carry all of It Hits the Fan.

(An interesting note – I know it’s insanely cruel to mention this, but the rapid change in public opinion on the Kardashians after their wedding disaster really does change the tone of the ending to Scrotie McBoogerballs for the worse. It’s hard to imagine Butters weeping so openly over Kim in a post-Humphries world.)

Having set the ground rules for taboos and the universe of South Park and its citizens’ hang-ups, next time, we’ll dive into two controversial episodes of South Park, Trapped in the Closet and Fishsticks, and talk about how the South Park universe deals with the notion of celebrity. I’m going to say these reviews will probably be once a month, since they take quite a bit of thinking and ruminating on to make even the remotest of sense. Happy January all!

The South Park Retrospective, Part One

Grouping One: The Christmas Episodes


Mr. Hankey, The Christmas Poo (season one)
It’s Christmas In Canada (season seven)
Woodland Christmas Critters (season eight)

Originally posted on December 23, 2011, for AD Forums.

Well, it’s Christmas Time at AD Forums. That means a parade of vaguely relevant Christmas music, Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas played on an endless loop, and Holiday Inn vs. White Christmas debates. I figured, what better way to start this retrospective on South Park, and what I find to be its essential episodes, than with their Christmas episodes? To be fair, I had to pare down the list of Christmas episodes they’ve done to an essential three, which wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be.

Mr. Hankey, The Christmas Poo was really an easy decision to make, as it might be one of the most famous episodes of South Park ever, much less one of their most popular Christmas episodes. It introduces so much into the South Park mythos as well – Sheila Broflovski as a crusader for a nebulously-defined ‘justice’ and the first singing of “Kyle’s Mom is a Bitch” stand out in particular, though the live-action mock commercial, a popular interstitial in early South Park episodes, is also present. It’s Christmas in Canada was likewise easy for me to select, mostly because I adore the Canadian infrastructure as portrayed by the show and I love South Park Canadians. Woodland Christmas Critters, though, slides in as my third choice because it was the first episode of South Park I ever saw.

I will admit that, had I never seen another episode of the show (The Ungroundable, which is probably in my top ten South Park episodes of all time) right after being subjected to… well, whatever the fuck Woodland Christmas Critters is, I probably would not have watched another episode of my own volition. It’s a perverse, horrifying episode of television that is only redeemed by its ending twist, which still doesn’t change the fact that it is, for a major part of its runtime, about satanic woodland creatures having blood orgies and abortions. But let’s hold off on my rage for a second.

The connecting thread through these episodes is, obviously, their Christmas theme. What makes them interesting is how differently each episode portrays the general feeling of the season. Mr. Hankey’s main thematic thrust is combining the trappings of a traditional Santa Claus-esque mythology with the over-the-top efforts of Mayor McDaniels to make sure that no one is offended by anything specific to a given holiday. It covers a fairly broad spectrum of holiday alienation tactics in this way – the protagonist for the episode is Kyle, who feels extremely left out with his classmates since he is the only Jewish child at school. This alienation becomes even more obvious when he starts talking about a certain Mr. Hankey, who is a sentient piece of shit, and begins to actively disgust and frighten not only his classmates, but his parents, teachers, and counselors. His alienation has a parallel in the continuing problems with Mr. Garrison’s Christmas play, which offends Kyle’s mother Sheila, as it is centered wholly on Christian tradition. Not wishing to offend anyone, Mayor McDaniels steps in to make sure that no one feels offended – in essence, trying to prevent any further alienation, oblivious to the fact that the entire town is turning on Kyle and his seeming obsession with feces. The episode culminates with Kyle in a mental institution, as completely alienated from society as he can possibly get, and a holiday play that has so little to do with anything that it immediately turns its audience against each other, each parent and onlooker blaming the other for this obvious disparity between their wishes and the reality they’ve forced on each other.

Yeah, the episode is more known for featuring a talking piece of poop that leaves smears wherever it touches. It’s shock humor through and through, but the episode, at its core, isn’t about Mr. Hankey and his magic. It’s about the way in which the holidays divide society. Kyle’s efforts to fit in with his classmates turn him into a social pariah, while Sheila makes the town capable of seeing things only in divisions. The line where Mr. Garrison informs the children that they have to take down Christmas lights in the gymnasium because they ‘may be offensive to epileptics’ demonstrates this perfectly. The episode is also, clearly, a screed against taking political correctness too far. Whether or not you believe that our society focuses too much on being politically correct, the underlying conceit that people do not want to feel separated, in any way, during the holiday seasons, comes through as well. Sheila acts out of concern for her son, and that concern backfires, as it tends to do in South Park, into an insane mess.

It’s Christmas in Canada also features division as one of its major themes, in that its central plot is that Kyle’s adopted Canadian brother, Ike, has been stolen away by his birth parents to Canada. His family is devastated, and Mayor McDaniels, acting on the suggestions of the townsfolk (for once acting selflessly), suggests that everyone not buy presents this year and instead try to raise money for the Broflovskis to challenge the Canadian law that allows Ike’s birth parents to keep him in Canada. The divides in this episode are not a result of alienation, but of forcible separation – every conflict raised was forced upon the conflicted by some outside force. The other children turn themselves against Kyle because they view their parents’ sacrifices as a direct result of his family’s interference; Kyle turns himself against the townspeople’s plans to try and ease the pressure on him, deciding to go directly to the Prime Minister of Canada to make his case. And once in Canada, Kyle finds that he is not alone in turning against the government – indeed, a good portion of the Canadian population has been grieved by their new Prime Minister, adding another layer of forced divisions.  Everyone in It’s Christmas in Canada has been turned against someone who, on their own, they cannot hope to defeat.

There are uneasy alliances. The other three main boys ally themselves with Kyle when it becomes clear that, on their own, they will not get a Christmas/have a Christmas adventure. (This episode, more starkly than some of the other South Park Christmas episodes, also demonstrates the complete selfishness that overtakes some people during the holidays. The plot is set in motion by the selfish act of the Gintz family, and Cartman’s entire motivation for helping Kyle is to get himself some sort of materialistic Christmas. Of the compendium of selfishness displayed in this episode, Stan, however, ends up looking the worst – he wants to have a Christmas adventure so bad that he’s oblivious to the one he’s starring in.) The boys, in turn, join up with the mentally unstable City Wok man, and then a trio of eccentric Canadians from different portions of the country, in order to, hopefully, get what they want.

In opposition to Mr. Hankey, It’s Christmas in Canada does not directly address holiday loneliness, beyond having it as a framing device. Rather, its central issues seem to be with the dichotomy of selfishness and selflessness. In the end, Cartman’s only closure, after missing Christmas, is getting lightly hit in the face by Kyle and bawling his eyes out. Stan, as mentioned earlier, is so blinded by his selfish wants that he doesn’t realize he had a Christmas adventure. Saddam Hussein and Scott the Dick, as always with them, are defeated in the end, and their selfish motivations are torn down. In the end, the Canadians with legitimate petitions and Kyle – people acting on behalf of their respective areas, and to benefit more than themselves – are the ones who are rewarded: Kyle and Ike are reunited, the French Canadian gets wine for his people, the Mounties are given back their horses, and the Newfoundlander… can practice sodomy… again. It’s not a perfect metaphor, but the gist of the message is the same.

Oddly enough, despite there being at least two direct sequels to Mr. Hankey, thematically and content-wise, It’s Christmas in Canada acts like more of a sequel to Mr. Hankey than, say, It’s a Crappy Christmas. There are similar running jokes carried over through both – Mr. Garrison, apparently, wants those Mexicans out of South Park, at any cost – and similar themes of distance. Kyle acts as the center to both episodes, something that isn’t unheard of for South Park, but is unusual in the Christmas episodes. Save Woodland Christmas Critters, the other Christmas episodes focus mostly on the adventures of all four boys, working in tandem (until Kenny gets offed).

Which brings us to… sigh. Woodland Christmas Critters is truly one of the more disturbing half-hours of animation I’ve come across. Animation doesn’t really faze me all that much, mind you. I grew up with anime. I know that’s stereotyping, but honestly, it’s so true – anime can be really screwed up. There is something distinctly off with Woodland Christmas Critters, off in a way that not a whole lot of other things in South Park are. South Park always flirts with the boundaries of bad taste, but this is one of the few times we’re given a really good look inside Cartman’s mind, and God, I never want to go back in there. Clearly, my mind didn’t want to revisit the episode at all, as I blanked out a good portion of it before rewatching it for the purposes of this review.

If Mr. Hankey and It’s Christmas in Canada eventually affirm the necessity for coming together and avoiding division during the holidays, Woodland Christmas Critters affirms… well, God knows. It is basically a parody of old, cutesy Christmas specials – the commentary suggests John Denver’s Christmas special, but my mind went to that old one with the mice and the singing clock, whatever that one was called. Its main thematic thrust is throwing in as many horrifying plot twists as humanly possible… then having us laugh when it’s revealed that the whole exercise was a story told by Cartman in class.

It is, I’ll admit, a clever framing device. It explains the incongruities in what the narrator tells Stan (or, as he is known for this episode, Stan-ee) and what Stan actually decides to do in the course of the story. It also explains why Kyle goes batshit crazy at the end of the story. But it comes about eighteen minutes in to a twenty-two minute episode that, by all accounts, is just…

So basically, our story is that there are a group of Woodland Christmas Critters. One of them, a lady porcupine named Porcupine-ee (super creative) is, as a virgin, pregnant with the savior. Stan, feeling some sort of compelling reason to help the Critters, kills the mountain lion that usually preys on the virgin pregnant critter. Only then does he learn that the savior is really the Antichrist, and the Christmas Critters are the kind of Satanists that every mother in the eighties was afraid would steal away their children’s minds with Dungeons and Dragons and hair metal music. This is illustrated via an extremely graphic sacrifice and a blood orgy. Really. I guess there is a theme of division in this episode, if you assume that the episode is attempting to ally with you with Stan and feel his pain via graphically demonstrating just how wrong his – and, subsequently, the audience’s – expectations and assumptions about a group of cutesy animals are.

Oh but it gets better! The only way to kill the Antichrist, is, apparently, mountain lions. With the mountain lion queen dead, the only way to train the mountain lion cubs she left behind to kill the Antichrist is to… teach them how to perform abortions. When Stan gets back from that particular soul-sucking exercise, he’s too late anyways. The Antichrist has been born, and, in a fit of out of character behavior, Kyle, who is a heathen Jew, as the narration is quick to remind us (God this episode…), decides he wants to host the Antichrist.

I honestly tried to think of what the overarching theme of this episode might be, in light of the resolution, that Cartman is telling a story. I tried to think of some way to tie this in to the previous two episodes, but I didn’t think I could do it without stretching the elements to their breaking point. The episode does have a… happy? …ending, I suppose, with Kyle being absolutely humiliated (thanks, Eric) and Stan having a nice Christmas. But its main purpose seems to be to completely shit on the audience for their expectations of something calm and cute. It’s not necessarily a bad idea, but there is something unspeakably heinous about this episode. I was finally able to put my finger on it after watching it a few times – having it presented as a figment of Cartman’s imagination makes it liable to the characterization of Cartman. There is no commentary on the action happening, nothing to dull the shock of what is unfolding on the television screen. This is a fucked-up child, giving a fucked-up story to a bunch of his less-fucked classmates… who, apparently, enjoy it. It’s a circle of never-ending fuckery.

It’s also the best illustration of just how dysfunctional South Park is. It’s Christmas in Canada showed most of the adult town members at their best; Woodland Christmas Critters’ denouement shows the children at their absolute worst, complicit in the utter humiliation of one of their classmates and the megalomania of another. Even Stan, who usually has some sort of head on his shoulders – as demonstrated by his angry interjections throughout the story – wants to hear the end, swayed by the storytelling Cartman displays.

While it doesn’t quite tie into the other two episodes neatly, and though I really would rather not revisit the episode again, Woodland Christmas Critters is an extremely shocking example of how effective subversion of expectations in a narrative can be. And while I was tempted to argue that the episode is nothing but a string of nihilistic images, it does have a rather clever conceit behind it.

Anyways. That has been 2,400 words on three episodes of South Park. Sorry for subjecting you to that. The next episode grouping, It Hits the Fan/Scrotie McBoogerballs, will be another doozy, mostly because both episodes involve something I really love writing about, American obsession with taboos

The Rum Diary (2011) Review

Originally posted on October 29, 2011, on AD Forums. Spoilers are marked in bold.

As most of you probably know about me now, I try to find good in most of the movies I see in theaters. Hell, I found good in The Smurfs, however disheartening that was to me. However, I like waiting for a couple of hours, preferably a few days, to create a coherent picture of what it was about a movie that I liked, disliked, and what could be improved upon. Fortunately, 'The Rum Diary' made my job really, really easy for me by making its central flaw front and center, leaving no room for interpretation and making it easy to see its strengths and weaknesses. Simply stated, the film is a mess. It's a complete, total, unabashedly frustrating, pointless, boring, tedious mess with little to no stakes. I would say it had a profound lack of narrative flow, except that I couldn't detect a narrative buried beneath all of the overwrought drama and surreal but not very entertaining weirdness. This film focuses on a group of characters, namely, Johnny Depp's Kemp, in Puerto Rico. They get drunk a lot. Some shit happens. Not a hell of a lot of it makes sense.

It's hard to imagine how a screenplay like this would've ever been greenlit for a film if Hunter S. Thompson's material wasn't the basis for it. I'm not going to lie - I've never seen Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I'm not going to try to compare the two. As a stand-alone movie, the screenplay, written by the film's director, Bruce Robinson, is atrocious. As I mentioned in my introduction, there is a profound lack of a narrative; no flow ever gets established in the film because of this lack of anything holding it down. Various characters come in that seem to maybe hold some sort of plot that will anchor the rest of the film - Aaron Eckhart's Sanderson immediately comes to mind - only for these plotlines to flit away, leaving more meandering occurring until the film finally winds down to a bizarre conclusion that left one fellow audience member shouting 'That's it?!' as I left the theater. This is what hurts the film the most. I am not suggesting that I wanted some sort of air-tight, completely easy to predict plotline. I am suggesting that a plotline that stretched from beginning to end, in any fashion at all, would've been helpful.

One could argue that Chenault, and Kemp's infatuation with her, was a central plotline. Yeah, here's the problem with that. Firstly, Amber Heard is a terrible actress. The material here didn't serve anyone well, but the woman has two facial expressions and a perfectly proportioned face, which, apparently, substitutes for talent. She is the wrong actress to take this much heft of the story. Secondly, Kemp loving Chenault is something he seems to remember intermittently, when he isn't busy lighting police officers on fire or wandering around piss-drunk. Thirdly, spoiler the movie cheats us out of something that could be a genuinely great moment - the moment where Kemp and Chenault meet in New York - and informs us, via a text pop-up at the end, that they got married. Really? end spoiler

You could replace 'Chenault' (and yes, that IS someone's first name, and yes, that is ridiculous) with any of the myriad of shaggy dog stories in the film, as they all reach equally unsatisfactory conclusions. It's a shame that there's nothing that coherent happening in this film, because there is some pretty decent acting. Besides Heard, and Johnny Depp doing his Johnny Depp thing (which is getting a little stale), most of the cast is uniformly excellent to serviceable. I have to point out Giovanni Ribisi, playing Moburg, a perpetually drunk and high nutcase whose idea of unwinding involves listening to records of Hitler's speeches and drinking alcohol so disgusting it qualifies as lighter fluid. In a movie that was better tied together, he would be the centerpiece of an amazing supporting cast, and his insanity would buoy the bizarre proceedings. Instead, he gets lost in a movie over-stuffed with random happenings and people just like Moburg, all quirk and no purpose.

As far as the technicals go, this is a very lushly designed movie. Puerto Rico looks immaculate when it has to, dirty when the movie calls for it, and the setting does a good job of presenting such disparate realities simultaneously.

Overall, I wouldn't recommend watching this. There are gems of good performances buried between a terrible screenplay and terrible pacing and terrible direction and meandering everything. It is not a good showcase for Depp, a continuing sign that Amber Heard isn't the darling the media purports her to be, and an ultimately pointless film. It might be good as an anti-alcohol PSA-type film, but, then again, the film is so confusing and lurching that it might drive you to drink anyway.

**/*****

Sucker Punch (2011) Review

Originally posted on April 4, 2011, on AD Forums. Spoilers are marked in bold.

A little late to the party here, but I saw Sucker Punch the Sunday after it opened, in IMAX. It takes a lot to get me to shell out the additional money for something like that, especially since I'm trying to afford college right now, but Sucker Punch was something I'd been looking forward to since the first promo art came out sometime early last year. It looked like the kind of girl-power movie I'd been wishing would come out since, oh, forever. (We got so close to having a Sailor Moon movie in the 90s. The lack of box office success with Sucker Punch leads me to believe we will never have one now.) So I shelled out my bucks, knowing full well that Zack Snyder has disappointed me in many ways before, and his violent escapades have left me throwing up in many a movie theater toilet.

Maybe it's because of the things I was into when I was growing up - an ardent reader of not only Sailor Moon, but Revolutionary Girl Utena, Akira, and other films in the first wave of manga to hit America; the gritty works of Dark Age Frank Miller; even Spice Girls and the shrill dronings of other such fabricated bands - but this whole movie is impossible for me to describe because of the amount of strange nostalgia it gave me. To me, and girls from my era, this was very much as if someone took every five-girl sentai shojou show ever made, put it in the framework of the modern "realistic superhero" genre, and handed it to the world. There are real problems with the film, and I'll definitely cover them, but in my mind, Sucker Punch was a success, at least at conveying a mode that hasn't been well-done in American pop culture since Usagi Tsukino and her ilk first hit our shores.

Now, this movie, being a physical manifestation of many of my childhood fever dreams, had a lot of things that appealed to me. Emily Browning has always been a favorite actress of mine, ever since her impressive, haunted performance in A Series of Unfortunate Events (another series Sucker Punch owes a huge debt to, stylistically), and while acting is something that just does. not. happen. in this movie, she creates an impressive film presence. Everything about her fits the pseudo-anime vision Snyder's created, from her impossibly large green eyes, to her unnatural bleach blonde hair. While her oddly nauseated facial expressions before she "enters her dance" are unnerving, everything else about her appearance is vibrant, memorable, and fresh.

Speaking of visuals, this movie delivers them. By the truckload. There was so much going on, I'm pretty sure I missed some of it. No matter what you think of Snyder as a director, you have to admit, his work has style. The post-apocalyptic neo-punk visions created here, with their direct roots in modern anime cyberpunk and a heavy dash of video-game-esque sped-up fighting, are spectacular. Other sections of the film, especially those laden with odd dialogue about dancing and whoring or whatever, drag. The action does not. Which I suppose I should expect from Snyder, who's shown himself capable of nearly nothing else in earlier films.

Story-wise, nothing matches the opening sequence of Sucker Punch, which is probably the most powerful. The strains of Emily Browning's intensely sung 'Sweet Dreams' punctuate a stylistic portrayal of a poisoned relationship, and the film succeeds wholly in this opening, nearly dialogue-free, opening. It has a verve that most of the rest of the film is missing, and is an extremely excellent blend of visual panache and storytelling verve. Unfortunately, most of the rest of the film is missing this verve, save at the end, when we get kicked through three levels of dreamland and end up with Jon Hamm.

Which is where this movie either goes off the rails or reminds you of poorly structured shojo plots. The plot of this movie is episodic. Very episodic. Others here have likened it to a video game, which makes a bit of sense, but I was more reminded of one of the masterpieces of manga, Junko Mizuno's Pure Trance, which is every bit as episodic and visually stimulating as Sucker Punch. Pure Trance isn't a five-man sentai shojou, but it is one of the seminal works in underground manga, and details three generations of a family being tormented by the horrifically sadistic drug addict Director, who nominally runs a facility for tormented girls dealing with eating disorders. Pure Trance, like Sucker Punch, drags in a lot of plot-related areas, but its set pieces are of such bombastic intensity that you almost forget about the stretches of pointless weird (in Pure Trance's case) or clunky dialogue (in Sucker Punch's case).

As far as acting goes, as I said previously... there isn't much. Oscar Issac is batshit crazy, and I saw the movie over a week ago and STILL don't know if I liked it or if it was completely ridiculous. The only real standout is Jena Malone, who imbues her limited role with a lot more depth than this movie warranted. As a result, spoiler her death touched me far more than the others portrayed. Another interesting facet of Sucker Punch that Snyder uses from the sentai shojou show is the 'shocking death', which certainly fits for Ms. Malone's character. The other two deaths aren't nearly as successful. end spoiler The rest of the actors and actresses did relatively little - Jon Hamm remains a beacon of awesome in everything he does, and Carla Guigino has something interesting going on with her character that could've used some going into, but everyone else, especially the damn near useless Jamie Chung, stood around with their boobs popping out of their corsets, doing nothing.

Which is pretty much a hallmark of the sentai shojou genre. I really understand the criticisms being levied at this movie - the women are just sexualized objects and no amount of anti-male posturing can fix that, it's all style and no substance, it's episodic - but within the framework of a five-girl band narrative, these are constants. Sailor Moon wore hooker boots, for God's sake. As a film, divorced from any social context, Sucker Punch is an odd piece of modern moviemaking with seemingly contradictory messages and visuals. However, looking at it through the framework of a genre largely forgotten for brooding male superheroes, juvenile bodily-function-based comedy, and the wondrous beast that is the art film, Sucker Punch succeeds at being something much different: a throwback to the days where girl power was a hot topic, when anime wasn't just Naruto and whatever other boy-oriented action piece Shogakukan decided to shit out, and when little girls actually had superheroes to look up to and aspire to be, who fought for powerful abstracts like love, peace, justice, and, yes, freedom.

And damn all the problems, it was a relief to see I wasn't the only one aching for a return to women kicking ass.

***.5/*****

The Smurfs (2011) Review

Originally posted on August 2, 2011, on AD Forums.

And oh, how melancholy I feel upon writing this review. Because The Smurfs, despite being, on many levels, a very soul-sucking exercise, especially when you realize that you and your best friend went to see a children's movie on a Tuesday afternoon because you had nothing better to do, this film was... mediocre.

Maybe I should elaborate. The Smurfs, as it stands, was MERELY mediocre. It was not the fabled downpour of shit the trailers promised it would be. I ACTUALLY GENUINELY LAUGHED ONCE OR TWICE. This is far more than I expected, and really, makes me quite sad. Also making me quite sad: according to trailers before this film, they're making another Johnny English? Why? Why is this happening?

Anyway, to the film proper. In my mental universe, the plot went something like this:

There is a cat, named Azarel. Or something like that, I am really too lazy to look up the name of this cat. This poor cat is enslaved via some not-explained force to the repugnant wizard Gargamel, who hates Smurfs, even though they seem perfectly unobtrusive and have a pretty nice eco-friendly society going on. Well, this cat is horrendously abused by both Smurf and wizard alike, and occasionally by real live people via some weird portal plot that didn't make much sense to me. But Azarel keeps going back to Gargamel! It's like fucking Twilight with this cat, how does it not realize that every time it goes to help the insane wizard, he will end up getting thrown off buildings and choking on screws? Because he LOVES Gargamel. Or loves to watch Gargamel get hit by buses.

Seriously, the most lasting thing about this movie, to me, is the amount of abuse this damn CGI cat gets. Almost frightening, how much shit this cat has to go through. There is an innate cruelty to this film that children, apparently, love, since I was surrounded by giggles.

The real plot: Ostensibly, our heroes are a gaggle of Smurfs, who, during a Blue Moon Festival (which does not involve Blue Moon Brand beer, sadly), get thrown into a portal to New York, where they run into Barney Stinson and his wife, Emma Pillsbury, who's cured of her OCD and pregnant. Somehow the Power of Smurf makes everyone all happy and things turn out okay and Gargamel gets hit by a bus. (Comedic highlight of the film to the two year old behind me. STOP KICKING MY CHAIR ASSHOLE.)

The main problem with The Smurfs is... oh my God who am I kidding? There isn't a MAIN problem. The existence of this film is a problem. At least, though, one of the scriptwriters (there's like six, so I assume one had common sense) snuck in a few clever jokes, like one in the very beginning about how it's "totally okay" for there to be 99 male Smurfs and... Smurfette. (Another clever weird thing: Smurfette, at one point, shakes her head, and she makes the "100 coins" noise from Super Mario Brothers. Bizarre, but cool.) If the whole movie was turned into an ersatz commentary about how WEIRD the whole Smurf thing is, maybe it would've been better. As it is, having a bit of cleverness makes the film even odder. Sometimes it's a very predictable family film about being true to yourself. Sometimes it's an excruciating screwball comedy. Sometimes it's this hipster clever thing. Sometimes the special effects blow so bad you're in disbelief. And sometimes NPH plays Guitar Hero and you want to gouge your fucking eyes out. It's a schizophrenic movie.

Well, there are some good things. Katy Perry's voice, which is something I expected to loathe in large doses, actually works very well for Smurfette. I know, shocking, but it's true. The movie is really bright and colorful, with nice camera work, especially in the beginning in Smurf Mushroom Land. And there are very few scatological jokes. (They're replaced by cat abuse and pratfalls, which aren't MUCH better, but hey...)

I think that's it for good things!

But the fact that there are good things at all makes me depressed. I was expecting premium snark bait, the kind of movie that comes once every few years that's SO awful you can't turn your head away, and you can't help but laugh at it. The Smurfs... *sigh*... is not one of those films. It's just average. Frustratingly average.

Also, FUCKING SMURF THEME SONG IS STUCK IN MY HEAD. IT'S AWFUL. THAT FUCKING SONG. JUST KILL IT WITH FIRE.

**/*****

EDIT: Oh I forgot, I even wrote this down so I'd remember it: John Oliver's in this. That makes his filmography The Love Guru and The Smurfs. Greatest. Filmography. Ever.

Bad Teacher (2011) Review

Originally posted on June 25, 2011, for AD Forums.

I saw Bad Teacher a couple of hours ago. Usually I wait a day or two to collect my thoughts, but in the case of this movie, the problems in it are easily apparent. It was, dare I say it, even worse than Hangover Part Two. And it should've been better. And there were a few key things in place - a decent cast led by a more than capable Cameron Diaz, a good marketing campaign that highlighted the (few) funny moments. But Bad Teacher is just... bad.

The biggest, and most dire, problem, is Diaz's character. Unlikeable comedy protagonists are staples of movies and television. I don't think you're supposed to find Woody Allen's character in Annie Hall pleasant (or I completely misunderstood that movie); a more solid example would be the boys from Superbad. Who would REALLY want to hang out with whiny Evan, loud-mouth Seth, or, dear God, McLovin? Television offers us even more horrendously unlikeable characters, from racist genocidal maniac Cartman to pompous idiot Stephen Colbert. Usually, we like these characters for one of two reasons: 1) we laugh at how fucking insane they are (Cartman), or 2) the stories they move through are easy to relate to (the Superbad boys). Diaz is most definitely an unsympathetic protagonist, but the script doesn't know how to handle this. On one hand, she isn't crazy enough to be insane. She's repulsive, yes, but in a thoroughly normal way, which makes some of her antics (like her blunt assertation that a students' cookies suck) come off not as funny, but sad. On the other hand, her arc wobbles all over the place. Her quest to win a bonus to get a boob job automatically makes her plight sympathy-proof to male audiences. The fact that she doesn't have many redeeming qualities locks her out to the remainder of the audience. The script tries to do too many things with their protagonist. Diaz needed to either have more complex motivations and a more dynamic story arc, or she needed to go balls-to-the-wall crazy. She does neither. The character falls flat and leaves us wondering why we're even following this bitch.

And really, Diaz comes off as nothing more than a bitch. The script is the biggest problem in this movie - we are given little compelling reason to care for Diaz, as outlined above. We're given even less reason to care about her students, her coworkers, everyone. This script has the pacing and fragmentation of a television show. This movie would probably work much better as a TV show, honestly. "Terrible teacher continually screws over her class" is something I would watch. There are a lot of interstitials in the movie, noting 'three months later' and 'two months later' and such, things that might be more easily facilitated in the confines of a TV show (as Community does fairly well). Also, the interstitials fragment the movie in obvious ways, but scenes lurch into each other, random plot devices (like Phyllis Smith's brief flirtation with a cowboy) are never mentioned again, and things suddenly happen with no real explanation.

Maybe if the acting was good, this would help. It doesn't. Diaz sells her character well, and was probably the only acting performance I vaguely enjoyed. Lucy Punch (who I can't stand but everyone here loves so go figure) is supposed to be the cloying villain, the kind of overly sweet, sentimental character who the audience should hate because she's the antithesis of the wild main character. Instead, Punch vacillates wildly between random histrionics, seething, and having a nervous breakdown brought on by Diaz. (Speaking of Diaz's character not working - I know I wasn't supposed to be sympathetic to Punch. I was. Through the whole damn movie.) Jason Segel wanders around aimlessly and looks inexplicably hot. And Justin Timberlake, dear God. This man can be funny. We all know it. He is completely wasted here as a goody two-shoes whose cutesy act soon dissolves into full-on smarmy creepiness - AS A PLOT POINT. None of the main characters are at all pleasant to watch.

The supporting characters could actually make a fairly entertaining movie on their own, though. We have Eric Stonestreet as a rather befuddled biker-esque roommate of Diaz's; his scene with Thomas Lennon's easily seduced state testing employee is the best, and funniest, in the whole movie. Smith is an actress I enjoy watching, and her character's indecisive nature was also mildly amusing. I would love to see the movie where these three people's lives intersect... but alas, we got this.

Yes, this movie was pretty terrible. It doesn't reach the skull-crushing lows of The Love Guru, but it'd be hard to duplicate that, I think. It had a few amusing moments, and seeing Cameron Diaz soaking wet is always a plus. Otherwise, I'd recommend avoiding this.

*.5/*****

Moneyball (2011) Review

Originally written on September 25, 2011, for AD Forums.

Moneyball is a movie with limited commercial appeal, except for the fact that Brad Pitt is in it. The marketing department has done a wonderful job disguising what is essentially a dense, math-heavy, subtle character piece as a feel-good sports opus in the vein of Field of Dreams. Having read Moneyball more than almost every other sports book ever released (the dubious honor there goes to Game of Shadows for me, another book with amazing subject matter that would be tricky at best to film right), I was pretty aware - and warned the people I was going with - that if this film was done right, the daughter would not be a focal point of the film, there would be a lot of statistical analysis, and the A's wouldn't win the playoffs. 

And this film was, amazingly, done right. Moneyball is one of those books that I assumed would never be made when the script was announced as purchased, because that is the most un-cinematic book I have ever read. I mean, Cat's Cradle would be impossible to film, but it at least has some sort of cinematic appeal. Moneyball is a book that exists to tell you why the baseball you knew as a child is wrong, and what Billy Beane is doing about it, and HERE ARE PAGES OF STATISTICS AND MATH EQUATIONS. The use of computer screens and readouts in the film to simulate the complexity of what Beane and (the nonexistent in real life, but pretty obviously based on Paul DePodesta) Peter Brandt was a very inventive stroke; it implies to the audience that there is an insane amount of scientific complexity going on here, while not even bothering to try and explain it in actual terms in dialogue.

The scene where Brandt explains the use of Chad Bradford to the A's organization perfectly demonstrates where the film went right in translating the book to screen - we see pages of stats on Bradford on screen, but as Brandt explains why no scouts have picked him up despite stellar statistics, we see him pitch. The passage of time since the era when moneyball seemed like a really dumb idea has given us more people like Bradford, with bizarre delivery, weirder public personalities, and the audience can immediately side with Bradford - why doesn't anyone pick him up? All we have to see to believe that Brandt is correct in his assumption is one archival footage piece of Bradford pitching.

Acting-wise, Brad Pitt is pretty good. Both me and my friends, however, walked out raving about Jonah Hill's restrained performance, which was a big highlight for us. His role could've easily devolved into a stereotype that Hollywood loves to play - Ivy League nerd - but Hill plays him with such meekness in the beginning, flowing into a growing intensity that matches the building tone of the film. It's a really great performance, and I fear it'll be overlooked because OH MY GOD THERE'S BRAD PITT! Pitt will probably be overshadowed come Oscar time, but hopefully Hill squeaks into Supporting. He deserves it.

That being said, I can see why people think this film is boring. It is faithful as possible to the book, with scenes being transcribed word-for-word in some cases, like in the balletic mid-season trade scene, which is one of the film's highlights. But then again, it's Statistics: The Film. If you don't like baseball very much, this movie is about as thrilling as watching paint dry, I'm sure. (Confession: I don't like Rudy for the same sort of reason - I couldn't will myself to give a shit about football, no matter how hard I tried.) There are other things about the movie that are fairly shaky: the daughter subplot is very thin, and clearly some sort of studio mandate, as it starts nowhere, goes nowhere, and does nothing but demonstrate that Beane has a vague resemblance of a life outside of baseball... except he doesn't, really.

The players are also fairly undeveloped outside of Hatteberg, so we don't get much of an idea about other things going on around the As. Justice is supposed to be an example to the other As, for example, but once Beane tells him he needs to step up, apparently one brief montage of Justice watching a pitch get by him is enough to imply that he was good on his word. This isn't even mentioning any other players on the As, because... well, they're there, I guess. Maybe mentioning their names might've helped, though. You'd never understand one of the signs shown in archive footage towards the end of the movie unless you knew Barry Zito played for the As at the time. (Also won the Cy Young in 2002. The movie is set in 2002. That's some other issue for some other film.) I'm sure 95% of my theater was like, "what the fuck, why'd they show that sign?" There were other signs with similar reactions, but that's the one I remember the best. I'm not asking for full-on introductions for every As player here, but clearer footage from archives if you're not going to mention anyone outside of a core three-four players would've been helpful.

Nerdy notes alert:
- Sound Editing should be in the bag. Seriously, the sound work on this film is incredible. Moneyball will also probably figure into the Editing race.
- I bet no one here caught that the guy Beane was talking to on the phone about Damon is highly implied to be Scott Boras.

Overall, I am definitely a biased reviewer for this film, loving the book, baseball, and Jonah Hill. But this is a well-crafted, excellent adaptation of a book most people would think was completely un-filmable. I would highly recommend it, but understand that this isn't the film for everyone's tastes. However, this is easily one of the best of the year so far.

****.5/*****