Birdman (2014, R)

Now that this film cleaned up at the Oscars, it’s back in my local cinema, so I was able to take a look at this year’s best picture.  And… I’m not quite sure.  There are aspects of it that I really like, others I don’t like at all, and still others that put me at a loss.  The best movie of the year?  I don’t know about that, but I know it’s not everything I hoped it would be.  (A few spoilers.)

Michael Keaton’s Riggan is a Hollywood star best known for the comic-book franchise he headlined back in the ‘90s (possibly just a hint of meta there.)  His career stalled years ago when he walked away from the Birdman films, and he’s now directing and starring in a play he adapted from a novel, a desperate attempt to reacquaint the public with his capabilities.  There’s interpersonal drama, backstage blowups, and onstage flameouts, but the main thrust of the story is Riggan’s drive to convince everyone (and himself) that he’s still relevant.  The film ruminates on ideas of fame and artistry, craft and spectacle, and the need to feel that someone sees us.

We’ll start with what works.  Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s direction is excellent, dizzyingly up close and personal, and Emmanuel Lubezki’s cinematography is spectacular.  The design and the score add wonderfully to the film, making even the outrageous things we see onscreen feel honest and alive.  The cast, which includes Michael Keaton, Emma Stone, Edward Norton, Naomi Watts, Zach Galifianakis, Amy Ryan, and Andrea Riseborough (who played the lead in The Devil’s Whore,) is quite good.  Special mention goes to Edward Norton as Riggan’s costar Mike, a notoriously-difficult but brilliant method actor (maybe another smattering of meta) – Norton has a talent for feeling really natural even when his character isn’t, and that’s especially true here.

The script has some genuine laughs, inventive flair, and good things to say about the nature of acting and celebrity.  However, the script is also where the film stumbles the most.  Sometimes it’s too pointed and tell-don’t-show, while at others it revels in its own surreality and weirdness.  There’s this trippy device in which “Birdman’s” disembodied voice lectures Riggan about the direction his career’s taken, and Riggan occasionally displays superhero powers (telekinesis, flight, etc.) that are almost-definitely-but-not-100%-certainly in his head.  I don’t know – sometimes stuff like that works for me, but I’m not quite feeling it here.

As for the story, I have a few strong complaints.  Pretty much all the female characters are woefully thin, and though Norton is great as Mike, the script does him no favors.  There’s being a difficult, demanding actor – picking apart every line of the script, drinking real gin onstage, and bring a sunbed to his dressing room so he can be “authentically” redneck – and then there’s toxic dickery.  He straight-up tries to sexually assault Watts’s Lesley during a performance, on the grounds that it’ll be much “truer” if they actually do the deed.  I know actresses deal with lots of sexist crap, but I can’t believe that this incident is basically treated as comparable to the other insane stuff he pulls, and I can’t believe he wouldn’t have been fired from the play over it.  That’s either wildly implausible or grossly depressing (probably a little of both.)

Warnings

Swearing, sexual content (including attempted assault,) violence, substance abuse, and thematic elements.

Relationship Spotlight: Gypsy Leemaster & Woodrow Prater (Belle Prater’s Boy)

Belle Prater’s Boy is a book that captivated me when I was younger, and much of that is down to Gypsy and Woodrow.  Both are fantastic in their own right, but they’re so much better together.  Here’s a cousin bond that grows gently but swiftly into a fierce best friendship.

Although Gypsy and Woodrow know one another before the events of the book, they don’t really know each other.  Gypsy’s family lives in town, respectable, while her aunt, Woodrow’s mother, attached herself years ago to a holler-dwelling coal miner.  Woodrow is a poor hillbilly cousin that Gypsy sees infrequently, never for long stretches of time.  Their occasional visits are marked by the difference in their circumstances, Gypsy’s Sunday dresses compared to Woodrow’s too-big hand-me-downs.

Despite this distance, they fall into a comfortably intimate routine almost as soon as Woodrow comes to town to live with their grandparents.  They share jokes and tall tales, lie on the rug poring over the same comic book.  They join forces to campaign for trips to the movies, and Gypsy introduces Woodrow to all the new things to experience in town, from getting his hair cut at a real barber shop to giving their grandparents’ dog her favorite treat.  I may not have grown up in the South in the ‘50s, but watching them laugh together and keep each other entertained brings back so many summer memories.

And of course, they share more than just their hobbies and enjoyments.  Gypsy wastes no time in asking for Woodrow’s theories about his mother, who has disappeared, and he tells her his fantastical story of the place in his backyard where two worlds touch, the place he says his mother vanished into.  In turn, Gypsy confesses her own secrets – her prickly feelings toward her stepfather, for instance, and her fear that no one knows who she really is, that they only see a pretty girl and nothing of Gypsy herself. 

Of course, this means that each knows the other’s most vulnerable spots, and on the rare times that they fight, it can get nasty quickly.  All it takes is one flippant remark about Woodrow’s mother to wound him, and when he wants to get Gypsy’s dander up, he just needs to pal around with her stepdad.  Their falling-outs don’t last long, but it’s clear that they can both hit the other where it hurts, and when they’re feeling insecure or ignored or edgy, they’re not afraid to do it – interesting how friends on the outs can make the sharpest enemies.

Much more often, however, they champion each other against those who seek to hurt them.  When townsfolk gossip about Woodrow’s mother, Gypsy forcibly changes the subject, trying to shield Woodrow from it.  Like the rest of the family, Woodrow knows the truth about how Gypsy’s father died, and he runs interference when people poke too closely at the secret.  She challenges anyone who sneers at his crossed eyes, and he shows the light to anyone who suggests she’s less than she is.  Even when they’ve been arguing, they see when the other is being threatened and rush in to aid their cousin and friend.  In those moments, any disagreements, slights, or pointed stings pass away, and all that’s left is a pair of devoted protectors who would do anything to keep each other safe in a world that, they both know, is too quick to harm.

In the Flesh (2013-2014)

I’ve been hitting so many TV jackpots lately:  Nikita, Agent Carter, The Bletchley Circle, 12 Monkeys (I’ve not written about that one on the blog yet, but expect a few remarks when its debut season ends,) and now In the Flesh.  Since I’m well-acquainted with my aversion to zombie narratives, I’m glad a friend recommended it so strongly, because there’s no way I would’ve sought it out on my own and I totally should have.  I just finished this short-lived British drama, and I’m in love (admittedly, it helps that there’s no infection angle – people don’t turn after being bitten.)

Something of an outlier in its genre, In the Flesh is a post-post-apocalyptic story, taking place in a small English village four years after a zombie rising.  In that time, scientists have discovered a treatment that doesn’t reverse the zombie-ism, but it gives the undead their minds back, stops their hankering for cerebellum, and, as long as they take their medication faithfully, keeps them from turning “rabid.”  Armed with their daily shots and flesh-toned makeup/colored contacts to help them look more like the living, the newly-dubbed “Partially Deceased Syndrome (PDS) sufferers” are being gradually reintegrated into a society that’s wary at best about rubbing elbows with undead “rotters.”  Our hero is Kieren Walker, an 18-year-old lad with PDS just discharged from the treatment center.  Sensitive Kieren is unprepared for the harsh backlash he meets when he returns home.  The zombie-fighting Human Volunteer Force (the HVF, which includes his sister) is calling for his blood, social segregation is de rigueur, and his parents are completely at a loss for how to treat him.  Meanwhile, flashbacks to the horrors he unknowingly committed in his “untreated state” are a side effect of his medication, the innocents and neighbors he killed.

It’s an immensely rich series that uses zombies as a parallel to examine social stigma in many forms, everything from ableism to homophobia, but it also avoids heavy-handed “Get it??  It’s a metaphor!!!” anvil-dropping.  Instead, the commentary is woven into a smart narrative that examines a lot of thoughtful zombie-specific details.  As one example, take the HVF.  These are people who protected lives during the Rising by killing the undead.  They know what PDS folk can do in their untreated state and can’t simply forget the atrocities they saw.  In that sense, it’s understandable and maybe even natural for them to hate the rehabilitated zombies.  At the same time, the revelation that PDS can be managed with medication means that every “rotter” they killed during the Rising is someone who could have been treated and recovered their minds.  Suddenly, they’ve killed just as many neighbors as the untreated PDS – some HVF members, upon realizing this, are horrified or at least deeply conflicted, while others double down on their insistence that those with PDS aren’t human and should be put down before they turn rabid again.  Meanwhile, HVF members are commemorated for their valor while PDS folk are barely-tolerated sub-members of society who deserve, at minimum, to face up to what they did when they couldn’t control themselves.  It’s just such a fantastic series; in just nine episodes (will it rise again?  your move, Netflix/Amazon,) it provides a phenomenal well of creative, emotional storytelling and insightful themes of otherness, discrimination, and what it means to be alive.

Warnings

Violence (including zombie attacks, black undead blood, and braaaains,) language, drinking, a little sexual content, and strong thematic elements.

Allegiant (2013)

I finished the last book in the Divergent trilogy a few days ago, and I’m still not sure what I think of it.  I appreciate that it really branches out and changes the scope of the series.  Sometimes, it pays off to take a series to unexpected places, which certainly happens here.  However, even in new locales with different crises, it trots out some of the same old plot elements without approaching them in novel ways, and I’m still flummoxed by the ending.  Having reached the end of the trilogy, I’m not left with a “Wow!” or an “Ugh!” – more of a “Hmmm…”  (Spoilers ahead for the series.)

Insurgent ends with a bang – the long-awaited information that infuriating characters had been dangling in front of Tris (and me) for the entire book.  The big bombshell?  Their whole society is a lie, a behavioral modification experiment/genetic sifting bowl cooked up by a bunch of scientists in the post-apocalyptic but still-functioning world beyond the city limits.  The rites and rituals of the faction system are merely constructs, and outside eyes have been monitoring and manipulating the city’s residents for generations.  No factions on the other side of the fence, but when Tris and a small party of citizens venture out of the city, they discover a new social divide.  Tris and other Divergent folk are considered part of the GP (genetically pure) elite, while those who fit nicely into a single faction are GD (genetically damaged) – menial-labor material at best, criminally depraved at worst.  Tris and co. try to find their footing in the outside world, navigate the new order of the day, and wrestle with how they can help the city from the outside.

Complaints first.  The whole series has a penchant for pulling the rug out from under Tris and the reader, and it maybe does it a bit too much here.  Particularly on the subject of Tris’s mom, this book undoes a lot of big revelations Tris already had about her in earlier books, which makes the earlier stuff feel like a waste of time (plus, I think it’s more interesting if Mrs. Prior wasn’t up to her eyeballs in all the conspiracy whatnots.)  I’m also not a fan of the way the narrative is split between Tris and Four, her hunky-but-angsty boyfriend.  There’s a practical reason for it, but it doesn’t work for me, and the ending especially is just too much Four.  I won’t get into the ins and outs of whether things should have gone down like they did, but if I were writing it, I’d have positioned it so Tris’s big climax was much closer to the end and truncated the fallout/epilogue.  Finally, there’s just too much rebellion.  It’s not continuing clashes against one corrupt/unjust authority; it’s several micro-revolutions all mixed together, and it gets repetitive and unspecific.  (Oh, and why did the scientists think that setting up a bunch of diametrically-opposed factions-before-blood sects that engender mistrust and resentment was a good way to maintain peace?)

On the other hand I find a lot of the existential “my life is literally a science experiment” stuff pretty interesting, and I like a lot of Tris’s internal conflict as she explores the outside world and her place in it.  I appreciate that the book addresses dubious moral choices within a rebellion, the idea that being oppressed doesn’t give you carte blanche to return an eye for an eye, but in the end, it sort of drops the ball on the whole idea.  The GP vs. GD thing intrigues me, and though I’m not crazy about the ending, I’m pretty satisfied with the specific circumstances of it.

Warnings

Violence, light sexual content, and disturbing elements.

Whiplash (2013, R)

This movie came out on DVD two days after the Oscars (‘cause it’s convenient like that,) so I finally had the chance to see it.  I see exactly why it won the awards it did (J.K. Simmons for supporting actor, sound mixing, and film editing,) and while it’s an excellent movie, I also see why it didn’t win the other ones it was up for (best picture and adapted screenplay.)  It’s just not the sort of movie that wins those sorts of awards.  However, it is a great film, and I’m happy it wasn’t just a seat-filler nomination.

Whiplash tells the story of Andrew, a first-year drummer at a highly-prestigious, highly-competitive music conservatory.  He thinks he’s hit the jackpot when Dr. Fletcher, an esteemed professor, plucks him out of obscurity to join Fletcher’s elite jazz band.  Under the dictatorial Fletcher, it turns out, dreams come true are both hard-earned and crushingly fleeting.  Andrew’s life becomes a pressure cooker of verbal abuse, nonstop practicing, and rewards that are constantly in danger of being yanked away.  It’s not so much a matter of success as it is one of survival.

Naturally, much of the movie’s greatness owes its thanks to J.K. Simmons’s brilliant performance as Fletcher, as well as the fine material he has to work with.  This character is just remarkably exciting to watch, because he has so many weapons in his arsenal.  Sometimes he rages at his musicians, hurling litanies of abuse (and, occasionally, chairs) at them.  Sometimes he goes frighteningly quiet, murmuring threats in their ears or commenting on their deepest vulnerabilities with nary a thought.  Sometimes the anger begins slowly, starting off reasonably, almost reassuringly, and gradually descending into white-hot fury.  Sometimes he’s all encouragement and smiles, lulling them into a false sense of safety while getting them to open up about the insecurities he’ll throw back in their faces later.  And worst of all, sometimes he makes these kids feel fantastic:  when he’s in Fletcher’s favor, it’s clear that Andrew feels like a jazz-drumming stud, on top of the world, and he subjects himself to endless ugliness, humiliation, and pain just to get those scraps of Fletcher’s praise.  The true menace of Fletcher isn’t his insults or intimidation – it’s the way you can see exactly why Andrew keeps chasing his approval.

And oh boy, does he chase it.  The expression “play until your fingers bleed” isn’t the least bit figurative here, and there are numerous moments throughout the film when I weighed the various likelihoods of Andrew killing himself, killing Fletcher, dropping out of school, or dropping dead of a heart attack onstage.  The tight storytelling and claustrophobic framing add to the tension, which puts you right at the kit with Andrew and makes this movie more edge-of-your-seat than plenty of action blockbusters out there.  It’s a film that feels more like an experience than a viewing, because it immerses you so wholly into Andrew’s high-pressure world.

Warnings

Copious language and verbal abuse (including homophobic slurs and the R-word,) sexual references, a little violence, and disturbing elements.

(Next) Next Five Independent Shorts: Buster Keaton

Continuing my tour through Buster Keaton’s classic shorts.  Some of these are later efforts when he was starting to think about features and his interest in shorts was waning, while others are topnotch comic offerings.  Here are shorts 11-15.

Convict 13 (1920)

A tried-and-true premise:  through a case of mistaken identity, the innocent Buster is sent to prison as a crook.  Variously, he tries to escape jail, quell a riot, and woo the warden’s daughter.  We get literal gallows humor, fun with uniformed disguises, and an excellent fight involving a ball and chain – fantastically funny.

The Scarecrow (1920)

The plot here is so thin that it’s hard to describe.  Basically, two farmhands/roomies are fighting over a girl, and there are a lot of scrapes and chases.  More important are the comic sequences.  There’s the famous Rube Goldberg house in which everything serves a double function, an extended scene of Buster being chased by a dog (Fatty Arbuckle’s, actually – the short puts his ladder-climbing skills to good use,) and Buster’s superb imitation of a scarecrow.  Plus, he walks across a river on his hands, just cuz.  How awesome was this guy?

The Goat (1921)

More mistaken identity to facilitate more chases.  Buster accidentally winds up on the wanted poster for a notorious criminal and finds himself beset by police (admittedly a common position for him.)  Buster is hilarious and a boss all throughout – he vaults over a guy to leap out a window, puts an elevator to fabulous use in a chase scene, and is dragged down the street holding onto the back of a moving car.  The word you’re looking for is, “Wow.”

The Blacksmith (1922)

This is a curious entry.  It’s well-regarded as one of Buster’s worst independent shorts; this is on the Buster scale of “worst,” so it’s still funny and entertaining, but it lacks the care and attention put into his best work.  The short, in which Buster causes havoc as an assistant blacksmith, is cheaper and blunter than we typically expect from him.  However, there’s a recently-recovered alternate version that’s wonderfully funny and much more Buster.  The best bit from the original version has Buster fitting a horse with some snazzy new shoes, and the newly discovered print adds great gags involving, among other things, a cardboard cutout of a car, a sly proposal, and some clever pulley tricks.

The Love Nest (1923)

Buster is the newest unfortunate crew member on the seafaring Love Nest, whose captain finds any excuse to throw his men overboard.  I love the running gag of the captain’s endless supply of wreaths to honor his fallen crew, and who doesn’t appreciate a good unintentional mutiny?

Favorite Characters: Donna Noble (Doctor Who)

My favorite New Who companion hands down and one of my top five companions of all time.  So much love for Donna – she didn’t quite grab me in “The Runaway Bride,” but when she returned for series 4, she was made of awesome through and through.  After Rose’s thing with the Doctor and Martha’s crush on him, what the Doctor needed more than anything was a friend, and he found a pretty fine one in Donna.

Donna is another terrific example of RTD’s “amazing ordinary people.”  She’s a temp who’s bounced around any number of offices and assorted jobs, and her shrew of a mother is fond of reminding her that she has nothing to show for anything she’s done.  Once, she was frivolous and self-absorbed, but a chance encounter with the Doctor shows her the size of the universe.  It’s not just that she can’t go back after that; she refuses to go back, and she learns how to chase the alien and the impossible.  It’s simply gorgeous to see where she goes from where she begins.

So where does she go?  Oblivious no more, she seizes the past, the future, and alien worlds with both hands, drinking in the wonder.  She develops a keen eye that picks up on important details, and she throws herself determinedly into all manner of situations.  She proves herself to be remarkably brave; when she gets kidnapped by a baddie of the week (she’s a companion, it has to happen some of the time,) she’s as liable to give them lip as anything else, and she does what needs to be done even when she’s terrified.  She isn’t the least bit cowed by the Doctor – he’s her friend and she loves him, but when she thinks he’s in the wrong, she gives him what for and doesn’t back down.

Though her initial appearance shows her to be rather self-involved, that’s not the Donna who joins the Doctor’s travels in time and space.  Instead, she reveals an earnestly sensitive side that I know surprised me.  From massive events, like desperately trying to save the people of Pompeii before the eruption, to quieter ones, like comforting an Ood in his last moments, even stroking his bare head, she displays care and empathy throughout her time with the Doctor.

Even her temping skills come in handy.  More than once, Donna discovers a vital clue because she sees the mundane little details that don’t jibe, while the Doctor is too focused on the big alien picture at hand.  On these occasions, she cheekily toots her own horn, but for all her bluster, Donna has a hard time seeing the excellent woman that the Doctor and the fans see.  She’s been told for many years that she isn’t good for anything, and for every self-congratulatory moment, there’s another in which Donna insists she’s nothing special.  But oh, how she is.

Best of all is Donna’s relationship with the Doctor.  They have splendid fun in the TARDIS, sometimes joking, sometimes bickering, and always in the thick of things together.  As someone who generally prefers their Doctor-companion dynamics sans romance, I love their purely platonic bond, and what’s more, I love how important it is.  Time and again, Donna shows just how well she knows the Doctor, and she gives him exactly what he needs.  Whether that’s a crucial alien doodah, a sharp talking-to, a listening ear, or a back to help shoulder his burdens, Donna is there.  When I imagine an ideal platonic partnership, it looks an awful lot like this lovely friendship.