Little Miss Sunshine
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
5 GOOMBAS
Done in the artsy, camp manner of most independent films, Little Miss Sunshine's basis is about an ordinary person's (or in this case, a family's) journey through the realities of life via the Road trip. A dark comedy, Little Miss Sunshine portrays a family with very individualized problems. There's the father whose lack of self esteem is marked by "WINNING!", the dirty grandfather who smokes pot, the closet femme fetale mother who smokes in secret and doesn't understand what her family needs, the depressed, suicidal uncle with a strong sense of reality (ironic huh?), the older brother whose taken a vow of silence (more on this later), and finally, Olive, the youngest child and the only bright light in this ridiculous family.
Little Miss Sunshine is a beauty pageant that Olive gets invited to compete in, and the entire family reluctantly makes the trip across country on a yellow bus. An ongoing theme of this film is insanity and happiness. I realize that these two ideas are kind of contradictory, but that is what this film is, contradiction.
For starters, there is the uncle who is considered to be mentally unstable, yet he is the one who immediately identifies the type of family dynamic he is dealing with. He is smart, well-rounded, and educated, all things associated with a healthy mind, yet doctor's tell him otherwise. The grandfather who is basically a dirty man, is also the person who is closest to Olive, the 8 year old daughter. He is the one who worked with Olive to get her pageant routine together. For hours and hours they worked together, and you could tell that this harsh, rough man had a soft spot for Olive. My favorite character, the silent brother, has great intuition regardless of seeming teenage angst. At first, his silence is depicted as anger and hositility. People in western culture are often uncomfortable with silence since it is often hard to tell what a person is thinking, yet this family seems to welcome it. What is also interesting is silence being the one thing Dwayne responds to the most. When he learns he is color blind and cannot become a fighter pilot, he breaks his vow of silence, and even his mother can't console him. Yet when Olive goes to "talk to him," all Olive does is sit with her arm around him in silence for a minute and Dwayne says "Okay" and stands up to rejoin the family as if they had just shared a long heart to heart. An interesting commentary by the writers or director of this film by making the van yellow. Yellow has traditionally been a symbol for both cheerful happiness and mental illness (Yellow Wallpaper crazy lady . . . interesting huh?).
After this whole crazy journey through life's complications personified into this one family, they attempt to make it to this beauty pageant for the sake of Olive. Its what will make her the most happy. They start off dragging their feet to go to this thing, and eventually push to get to the pageant, literally. They'll do whatever it takes, as a family (living or in death). And when Olive is judged, the entire family is judged. But by the end, do they care? No. Not one bit. They're a really messed up family in society's eyes, but they're still a family. Unlike the beginning when the family can't even stand to be together, in the end, the idea of family is definitely celebrated.
The Painted Veil
Sunday, January 14, 2007
This movie isn't a movie. It is 100% a film. When I think art, I think of The Painted Veil, and I have never, in my life, seen a film so beautiful.
Based on the novel by Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil is a romantic period piece set it the 1920's. What's so different about this film is its portrayal of how love is, how love evolves and changes, and how love is different for everyone. Walter loved Kitty right from the start. He married her regardless of how selfish, spoiled, and self absorbed she was. And then he hated her. Actually, they hated each other. But this film's beauty resides in their journey to find their own kind of love through respect and admiration, and how both characters are able to change and grow into people that were better than who they once were. To me, this film was truly able to express a deeper kind of love that we all wish we were a part of.
Updated 05/08/07: Although the film is breathtaking and a definite favorite of mine, the DVD (which just came out today) itself is quite a disappointment. Just cover art, cheap case, and DVD. No slipcover, no insert; the cover art doesn't even express how beautiful the film is . . . I'm sad.
Invincible
Thursday, January 11, 2007
4 GOOMBAS
I love Disney sports movies. I know that doesn't mean much since I basically love most kinds of movies, but sports movies in particular have a distinct way of kindling feelings of triumph, not to mention the connection I always seem to think I have with the hero or heroine. Regardless of how cheesy the movie, I get goosebumps every time he/she makes the goal/home run/touchdown/winner/ big putt during that final big game. "Is he going to make it?!", "Are they going to win?!", "OMG DON'T DROP THE BALL!" I seriously ask these questions . . . out loud sometimes . . .regardless of the fact that I already know the answer. Its more fun that way.
Step Up
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
3 GOOMBAS
I had to use some self control when rating this movie. I was so tempted to give it 4 GOOMBAS . . . but I know better. This movie is a 3. I am such a sucker for dance movies with pretty people in them that sometimes I wonder how I can ever proudly claim to be a film buff.
Step Up is about an inner city boy who vandalizes an art school, is caught, and is sentence to 200 hours of community service for that school. During his community service, he meets Nora, played by dancer/actress Jena Dewan who just happens to need and emergency replacement dance partner. Tyler, Channing Tatum, just happens to be an excellent dancer. What a surprise!
Of course they fall in love, then they fight, he quits, then someone dies which makes Tyler realize he needs to change his life. You know, the usual stuff. But just because it’s predictable shouldn't make any movie a bad movie. All movies need a recipe to go by.
There are obviously better romance movies than Step Up. And there are probably better dance movies than Step Up, though I can't think of one at the top of my head. Most dance movies are pretty bad, and even the classic dance movies are only classic because people love to watch them over and over again. Not because they're any good. Audiences just like to watch people dance. Either way, this is a pretty darn good dance movie. All you need is a pretty girl who can dance, a cute guy who can dance (the cute guy who can dance is very essential), and you've got all you can expect from a movie like this and love it. If you expected more from a dance movie, don't watch it.
Click
2 GOOMBAS
You know what's sad? That a movie like Click gets voted "Best Movie Comedy" for the People's Choice Awards. At first, I was appalled. Click was a watchable movie, but definitely not good enough to win any awards. Its downfall was very similar to The Break Up disaster (which was also nominated . . . I lose faith in the American people for that one). It couldn't decide what genre it was.
Adam Sandler is much like Cary Grant was during the studio era of film where actors like Grant would already stir pre-conceived notions about the film's plot. Back then, filmmakers didn't have much faith in the audience's ability to interpret moving pictures. We see this with action film actors such as Segal, Schwarzenegger, Van Damme. Adam Sandler sadly comes with a type cast. It doesn't help that movie trailers often betray the true kind of film you're consuming.
So you start out watching a movie that you believe is a comedy. You watch Michael Newman (Adam Sandler) receive a remote control that can be used against the fourth dimension, time. It can replay things in the past, fast forward into the future, alter the color of his face . . . which isn't really the fourth dimension but I digress. Michael then abuses this power, and then all of a sudden it becomes a serious movie and at the climax, there is this awful scene of Michael in a parking lot in the pouring rain about to die. Its not awful because of the circumstance . . . it’s awful because it's so bad it’s not even cheesy.
But what's even sadder is not that the people's choice was Click, but that there weren't any other better comedy films to defeat it. It’s not the people's fault. We just need better movies.
Ma Vie En Rose (My Life in Pink)
Sunday, January 07, 2007
4 GOOMBAS
Purity and innocence are historically characteristic of a child. Like I said in one of my previous posts, a child's mind is not yet tainted by outside influence or experiences. Their actions come from a deeper, more innate place. A place that most adults have forgotten about, and what Ma Vie En Rose does is remind the world that children's thoughts and feelings are not trivial but valuable.
Ludovic is a seven-year-old boy who believes with his whole heart that he will grow up to be a girl. His parents, Hanna and Pierre, are the stereotypical suburban couple. Pierre is masculine in every way. He is the breadwinner. He plays sports. He gets angry and relieves his anger by going into the yard and doing pull ups on the arbor. Hanna is docile. She isn't a push over, but she's calm and understanding. She likes throwing neighborhood parties, and hanging out with the other neighborhood moms. She's an excellent homemaker, and always wears dresses or skirts . . . at least during the first half of the film. So of course, when Ludovic begins to act outside of the perfect picture that is their family (i.e. dressing up as a little girl, playing the bride in a child's imaginary game, peeing sitting down), they flip.
But Ludovic's intentions and rational are completely and utterly innocent. It has nothing to do with sexuality. He just believes that God lost "one of his x's and gave him a y instead." As the community and his family hone in on the 'irregularity' of his behavior, the tension brings about a number of changes. Gender roles begin to cross. Lodovic's father becomes more calm. He even cries at one point. He begins helping around the house, cooking and cleaning. But most importantly, he becomes more understanding of Ludovic. Ludovic's mother on the other hand slowly stops wearing dresses and skirts. She begins to openly smoke, a common femme fatale depiction. She gets angry and blames Ludovic for the family's societal shun.
One can argue that Ludovic is gender personified. He proves that gender roles cross boundaries all the time. The only difference is that Ludovic embraces the opposite of his born sex.
There are some screwy scenes with TV characters call Pam and Ben, but that's French Surrealism for you. ;) I liked this movie a lot, and what makes it is Ludovic, his innocence, and the assumption that the audience has an open mind.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Monday, January 01, 2007
4 GOOMBAS
Tabula rasa; according to the American Heritage Dictionary, a need or an opportunity to start from the beginning. I learned it in high school as 'clean slate'. John Locke believed that only babies where born with tabula rasa; their minds not yet altered by experiences and outside influence. But what if you could tabula rasa your way through life? If you could wipe your mind clean of all experiences that haunted your past and afflicted your future, would you do it? Luckily, like most adventures that we would rather not face, we can live them vicarious through film.
An incredibly artsy film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind begins at the end during Clem and Joel's second, first meeting. Jim Carey and Kate Winslet star in this wild film as Joel Barish and Clementine Kruczynski. Joel is boring and dull, while Clementine is crazy and spontaneous (which is already made obvious by her ever changing hair color). They dress exactly opposite, the act exactly opposite, and even their names sound completely opposite. Yet somehow they fall in love. After a bad semi-break up, Clementine, being impulsive, decides to erase Joel from her memories through Dr. Mierzwiak, a specialist who can track the places where certain memories are stored and delete them. Joel, hurt and confused when he finds that Clementine has erased him, decides to go through the procedure as well. However, during the procedure, Joel realizes what he's about to lose.
For the majority of the film, Joel desperately tries to retain some memories of Clem by dragging her to different parts of his brain to hide from the Erasers. There is no need for additional flashbacks or additional commentary because what this film does is illustrate their relationship through literal memory sequences. To us, it seems like Joel and Clem are basically trapped in his brain, running from memory to memory. How Joel and Clementine first met (the first time), how they fought, and what their relationship was really like. Joel had forgotten how good it had been.
Symbolism and lighting plays a huge role in this movie. The color of Clem's hair changes with the time line of their relationship. When they first met it was green, a symbol for youth and vigor, qualities that Joel found attractive in her. Then it turned orange, and Joel began calling Clem 'Tangerine;' orange being a symbol for energy and demand for attention (Joel was also first attracted to her orange sweatshirt). Then during the hard part of their relationship her hair was red, representative of strong and powerful feelings. Other subtle things such as music being played backward as Joel re-lives his memories with Clem. As for the lighting, often times there are spotlights used on Joel and Clem, further evoking the feeling that they are being hunted by the Erasers as fugitives are hunted by the police.
When Clem and Joel meet and fall in love for the second time, this meeting becomes a commentary on the power of attraction and love. The mind cannot fool itself into not loving again. This film has so much wrapped in such a small box. Its just a simple love story, but the way it comes together makes it art.
