CAST Richard Widmark (How the West was Won, 1962) Marilyn Monroe (River of No Return, 1954) Elisha Cook, Jr. (The Great Gatsby, 1949) Anne Bancroft (Great Expectations, 1998)
Don't Bother to Knock stars Marilyn Monroe as a young woman losing her grip on reality as she babysits the child of hotel guests while being courted by a licentious lout from across the courtyard who soon discovers he's bitten off more than he can chew. The main character delicately treads the line between fantasy and reality, anger and keen sadness. Ultimately, however, this movie isn't really about Monroe's character, it's about a unresolved romance between Jed, an airline pilot with zero attachments, and Lyn Lesley, a lounge singer who wants to be more than his sometimes fling. As Jed's courtship of Monroe's unstable character turns dark, the subsequent character growth is what allows him to return to Lyn with his whole heart after the alarming climax.
CAST Rosamund Pike - Pride & Prejudice (2005) Dylan McDermott - The Mistress of Spices (2005) Shannen Doherty - Girl Just Wanna Have Fun (1985) Zoe Saldana - Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) Nick Stahl - Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) Robert Hoffman - She's the Man (2006) Paz Vega - Sex and Lucia (2001) Lake Bell - It's Complicated (2009) Adriana Barraza - Drag Me to Hell (2009) Victoria Patenaude - The Last Exorcism (2010) Jason Brooks - Star Trek(2009) Victor Webster - Must Love Dogs (2005) Kate Albrecht - Princess Diaries 2: A Royal Engagement (2004) Cici Lau - Legally Blonde (2001) Colleen Camp - Valley Girl (1983) Tom Wright - Troop Beverley Hills (1989) Dimitri Diatchenko - G.I. Jane (1997) Jon Polito - Highlander (1986)
A disturbing collection of cinema vignettes set in L.A. Most of the themes-drug abuse, illicit sexuality, narcissism and apathy-remind of a Brett Easton Ellis novel. However, it doesn't quite achieve the put-togetherness of a Grand Hotel-style movie (that's when there's a bunch of intersecting storylines) because apart from two stories featuring Shannon Dougherty as a psychiatrist with a terrible accent, there is zero overlap in the plotlines. Overall, Burning Palms was fun to watch in a i don't want to admit that i'm fascinated sort of way, because the humor was alarmingly dark and totally sick. I probably won't watch it again but I imagine that I'll bring it up in casual conversation fairly often.
Last week I invited some of the ladies in my program to go to the movies with me. I was excited because I'm not usually the social event "planner" - there's a lot of responsibility and potential disappointment in that role, even if it's something silly like going to the movies. I was nervous for a while because I waited ten minutes out front and nobody came! But then it turned out they were inside already, so good. Social activity accomplished.
I think I do not like the character of Carl Jung. He was kind of a dick. His relationship with Keira Knightly's character reminds me of a challenging relationship that one of my friends is dealing with. Not with the sadomasichism and spanking (that I know of), but in that he's giving her a lot of grief with pushing and pulling and he says that he cares about her but also that he doesn't want to be with her (or the quintessential avowal of someone truly spineless: he can't be with her). And it pisses me off because behavior like that is truly self-indulgent. You can't have your cake and eat it, too. At the end of the day you have to make a decision, and the sooner you decide the less heartbreak there is all around. That's what I think. Carl Jung: Royal butthead.
CAST Marlon Brando (A Streetcar Named Desire, 1951) Johnny Depp (Rango(voice), 2011) Bob Dishy (Jungle 2 Jungle, 1997) Rachel Ticotin (Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, 2008) Stephen Singer (The Happening, 2008) Faye Dunaway (The Rules of Attraction, 2002) Tommy 'Tiny' Lister (The Fifth Element, 1997) Tom Mardirosian (Lady in the Water, 2006)
This is one of those relative reality movies like Big Fish or The King of California (now that was a good movie). Our hero Don Juan, played by Johnny Depp, is probably crazy, but he also has these occasional moments of self awareness that suggest he consciously prefers the illusion to the reality, and then of course there's little snags that suggest the merest possibility that he's actually telling the truth, but no, that would be impossible. So this guy Don Juan, who dresses like Zorro, has to undergo a ten day psychological evaluation to determine if he will be committed. His psychiatrist is retiring in exactly ten days, and is determined that Don Juan should be cured in that time. The primary narrative focus is Don Juan's self-reported life story, his sexual exploits and the loss of his one true love. We also get a sub plot of Marlon Brando's character battling with his own life's expectations and making a mad grab at the sense of drama and romanticism that Don Juan represents. I guess the point is that life is what you make it, and if you are unhappy with reality as it is working out, just do something different.
November 18th, I think sometime around midnight, brought me to the conclusion of the Millennium trilogy. The third installment commences after Lisbeth has been arrested for the attempted murder of her father and it is a race against time to see if the truth will prevail over corruption and iniquity.
Consequently, the film is dominated by the trial and plays out much like an episode of Law and Order, with the male protagonist Blomqvist trying to prove the veracity of Lisbeth's allegations against her father, her guardian, and psychiatrist even as Lisbeth refuses to testify in her own defense.
That's a curious point and one of the notable complexities of this character. It's almost as if she's daring the court to find her guilty, by refusing to defend herself and dressing like a caricature of a punk. You might also say that she refuses to legitimate the proceedings with her participation, and those who conspired against her rigged the evidence from the start. Why give them the satisfaction of watching you struggle in the trap they have laid?
Secretary (2002) dir. Steven Shainberg starring Maggie Gyllenhaal (Donnie Darko, 2001) James Spader (2 Days in the Valley, 1996) Jeremy Davies (It's Kind of a Funny Story, 2010)
So I'm having kind of a hard time figuring this one out. It's about this girl, Lee, who's clearly unstable and vulnerable. She's just gotten out of a mental hospital, her father's a drunk mess and she has no healthy social relationships, except maybe with her high-school boyfriend, Peter, but clearly something is awry there as well.
So she becomes a submissive to her boss, Mr. Grey. And I feel like the way the filmmakers intended it to work out is this thing about how there's all different kinds of love and this dom/sub thing isn't wrong, just different. Here's some quotations I lifted off imdb to that effect:
Lee's father: "You are the child of god's holy gift of life. You come from me. But you are not me. Your soul and your body are your own, and yours to do with as you wish."
Lee: "In one way or another I've always suffered. I didn't know why exactly. But I do know that I'm not so scared of suffering now. I feel more than I've ever felt and I've found someone to feel with. To play with. To love in a way that feels right for me. I hope he knows that I can see that he suffers too. And that I want to love him."
Mr. Grey: "Is it that sometimes the pain inside has to come to the surface, and when you see evidence of the pain inside you finally know you're really here? Then, when you watch the wound heal, it's comforting... isn't it? "
OK - I get it. It's edgy. She finds fulfillment in punishment and control. Ok. But it's still fucked up. Lee has a family that cares about her, but she probably never really felt cared for. We get three males in this movie. The first is Lee's father, who is an alcoholic, calls her from random parts of town, and generally gets up to shenanigans which always prompts her to cut or burn herself, but then towards the end he seems to get cleaned up a little. The second guy is Peter, played by Jeremy Davies, he's kind of geek but well meaning and you can tell he wants to take care of Lee, but she is unsatisfied with him, especially after he refuses to spank her. The trick is that she liked him a lot before she got involved with Mr. Grey, who does a lot of spanking.
I guess what I'm having trouble with is that, if Lee was a passive and lonely girl, was she being self-actualized by accepting a life with Mr. Grey, as I think the filmmakers are trying to suggest, or was she caving, as I am inclined to believe. Instead of letting Peter love her as an equal, she decided she would always be weak and in need of control. That's the opposite of a self-actualized person, as I've understood it from Nietzsche.
She decided to be happy with her lot, which I guess was caused by family relationships and other psychological factors, rather than confronting whatever it was that made her feel so weak (prolly the dad). But then again, she's not sad at the end of the movie. She's happy with her life and Mr. Grey. The movie ends with a long, self-satisfied stare into the camera. Still, I'm left with the feeling that she's simply run away from her problems. She gave control over her life to someone else so she wouldn't have to deal with them anymore. I dunno...
SO maybe it was a happy ending, but she's no Ubermensche.
CAST
Keir Gilchrist (Saint Ralph, 2004)
Emma Roberts (Nancy Drew, 2007)
Lauren Graham (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (voice), 2009)
Jim Gaffigan (Super Troopers, 2001)
Zach Galifinakis (The Hangover, 2009)
Asif Mandvi (The Last Airbender, 2010)
Jeremy Davies (Lost (TV), 2008-2010)
Mary Birdsong (Adventureland, 2009)
Zoe Kravitz (No Reservations, 2007) Viola Davis (Eat Pray Love, 2010) Novella Nelson
As my partner in crime pointed out, It's Kind of a Funny Story has a really shitty title. It doesn't sound kind of funny at all. In fact, it sounds saccharine, like something that should be on the Hallmark channel. Possibly about Santa Claus. Nevertheless, wrapped in this ditsy package with those faces smiling banally at each other is a pretty damn amusing movie which has a lovely moral about how them teenagers are too damn stressed out.
The main character seems to figure out the insignificance of his own problems almost immediately, so there isn't too much whining. Emma Roberts, who plays the self-destructive love interest, also spares us any angst (yeah I got's scratches on my face- what of it?) There's a scene where everyone goes all glam rock and she still has the scratches, but they're made of glitter, I thought that was clever.
If I had to complain about something (which I do, evidently) it would be the inconsistencies in the script. Not unlike Kamikaze Girls (which I'm still talking about because I enjoyed it THIS much), this movie played around with some stylistic interruptions, some fantasy elements (Like the glam-rock scene and a part where everything goes all cartoony when Our Hero (sometimes I can't remember their names) discovers he is good at arts (bye-bye business school summer program). These bits were cute and I approve of their inclusion, especially the part where Our Hero returns to his five year old self to have a conversation with his mom, where I think Lauren Graham really stood out in a way that many of her roles fail to give her the opportunity to do (does that make sense?).
However, these bits were few and far between, and I think they could have been integrated better so that I could accept them as part of the story-world and not awkward interjections into a narrative. The other problem was a sort of manic-depressive flip flop between parts that were really funny and parts that were really sad. I guess that's the nature of the beast when you're talking about stuff like depression and homelessness and mental illness, but I feel like I've seen it handled better before, just because the extremes were so stark: this is something you're definitely supposed to find funny, now stop because here's something overtly sad.
I used to volunteer at a group home for schizophrenics and I would sometimes have to bite my tongue to keep from laughing at something. There's this terribly awkward feeling you can get when something is wrong and sad but undeniably weird and ludicrous. In this movie the distinctions were very clear. There weren't any in-between places where you had to wonder whether it was funny OR sad or feel bad about laughing. I guess they were playing it safe like that. Making sure no one left confused.
Anyway, I liked it a lot so you should all watch it too and see if you agree.
The Wolfman (2010) dir. Joe Johnston (Jumanji, 1995)
CAST Benicio Del Toro (Traffic, 2000) Emily Blunt (Sunshine Cleaning, 2008) Anthony Hopkins (The Silence of the Lambs, 1991) Hugo Weaving (Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, 1994) David Schofield (The Last of the Mohicans, 1992)
I did some serious multitasking while watching this one! I also took notes! And I discovered I have problems distinguishing Benicio Del Toro and Javier Bardem!
Ok - I guess they don't look THAT much alike, but they do have that swarthy, hispanic, heavy-jawed thing going on and it wasn't until the movie was over that I was 100% sure it was not Javier Bardem that I was watching. I also thought Benicio del Toro directed Pan's Labyrinth until just right now (Oops! That's not even close).
I don't know where to start! At first The Wolfman was really good! I thought the only reason it didn't do well in the theaters was that gothic horrors weren't really in the mode now (What was the last one? The Others?) But then it sort of devolved into a Van Helsing/League of Extraordinary Gentlemen sort of mess. Was this supposed to be about coming to terms with the undeniable-yet-ultimately-unacceptable beast that exists in the heart of Man or is this about beasties tearing it up? Because you're not allowed to have it both ways.
There was some cool visual stuff, Anthony Hopkins was supposed to be some sort of Great White Hunter type guy, and he had this tiger-fur lined coat that was badass. Also the African-Animal topiary garden where child Lawrence discovers his dead mother makes me want to live in an old-time British estate.
On the other hand, the second half of the movie was really tedious and predictable. Really shameless forshadowing is rampant throughout. The one exception is a silver cane/sword received by a mysterious stranger near the front end, which entirely violates the rule of Chekov's Gun, and I'm not sure whether I should be relieved about that or not.
A few points remaining:
1) Cameo by GOLLUM at the 35-minute mark
2) Death toll in the 20s, but the DEER survives.
3) Old-time insane asylums are the scariest places in all of space and time
4) Requisite circling dolly shot of the anti-hero perched on the edge of a rooftop and howling
5) The romance was SO contrived: OMIGOSH - he taught her how to skip stones! They are soul-mates now! I have asked countless male-types to teach me how to skip stones, and not only have I never fallen in love with any of them - I still can't skip a damn stone. This scene irritates me.
6) Where can I get some arcane old textbooks with monster illustrations?
7) The sequence of full moons is insensible. From Buffy, I know that the full moon lasts for 3 nights a months. However, in Wolfman, it only lasts for one. Fine. Whatever. Here's the timeline.
Moon1) Lawrence visits the gypsies, gets bit by wolf.
Moon2) After recovering from his injury for a month, Lawrence transforms into a werefolf and kills many townsfolk, he is apprehended in the morning.
Moon3) Lawrence has been confined in a mental asylum for what we can assume is one month. He transforms and kills many sinister old-time doctors. In the morning he tells his GF that he has to return home to kill the first Werewolf (for vengeance reasons)
Moon3-4???) Lawrence returns to his home (after dark!!!) pursued by his GF and Scotland Yard after a journey which could not have sensibly taken a whole month, and seems to have only taken the day (making it the night after the full moon). Nevertheless, Lawrence and the original werewolf transform well after night has fallen! Grrr, sloppy storyline.
Last point: They stole this scene from The Lion King, and it's weird how obvious it is.
