Change Your Image
P42
Reviews
Entourage (2015)
Haters give this film too much credit
I saw this movie based on two things: the Cracked video which made a point of how nobody cares about this movie enough to even pirate it, and secondly the hilarious review by Mark Kermode. He gets pretty much up in arms about the despicable morals of this film.
But in order to have any kind of morals, you need to have a spine. You need to have some kind of structure, some kind of distinctive flavor. This film has none of that. Every disgusting action is counterbalanced with a "serious conversation". Yes women are used as set dressing objects in the movie pretty much non-stop. But a main character also gets back together with his ex as she's giving birth. Yes there's a hideous gay stereotype walking around as a punching bag, but that's counterbalanced with a kind of sweet after credit wedding scene featuring honest-to-goodness George Takei. Contrary to "Hyde", the movie-within-the-movie, Entourage seems to have been studio meddled to death. It's a movie that has everyone and everything, and therefore none of it is interesting or matters.
The ostensible main character, Vinnie Chase, has no agency in the film whatsoever. Except for his opening lines, where he decides he wants to direct his next movie, all the decisions are made for him by other people, including Mark Wahlberg playing "Mark Wahlberg", who just wanders into frame and takes up Vinnie's cause for a scene, and then wanders out again.
The point I do agree with Mark Kermode though, is how baffling it is that the gang's seemingly supposed to be competent? I guess some fans of the show will still see the ironic undertone and claim it's all funny, that they succeed despite being idiots. And that's great for them, but I wonder if they don't just try to see what isn't there. The only character who actually sees the main guys for what they are, talentless driftwood, is ridiculed out of the movie, and that's how the day is won! And then Johnny Drama, who is obviously completely talentless, wins a Golden Globe. We only get to see him fail and be awarded, we literally see not a single piece of his acting for Hyde!
And then there's an endless parade of celebrity cameos, none of them "as themselves" but rather as characters with the same name. See you can tell, because they all curse. This is very funny. There's even some boxer who has a multi-scene role which is also very funny, because see she's a woman, and she can beat a man!
I do think there are some pieces of this that really had some kind of potential. But the central problem really is the character of Vinnie. He is a guy that coasts through everything, that's sort of the point. In a TV show I'm sure that can be funny, in fact Seinfeld did that before Entourage. But in a movie the main character needs some sort of problem to deal with. The movie failed to do this, and in fact it's hard to picture any kind of story in which Vinnie would have any kind of arc. He's arcless, that's his whole point. And even that *could* be involved in a movie, but then you'd need some brave decisions. Which go beyond having a truckload of f bombs and double d bombs.
And if you think I'm being prudish here, go see Crank and Crank 2. That's actual male fantasy. This is just... nothing.
Harmontown (2014)
"That means he'll change"
Like most of us, I learned about Dan Harmon through Community. Which, I learned early on, was based on his own experience at community college. Jeff, in particular, was based on him. Not that Dan's handsome, or a lawyer... but a jerk who only sees people as instruments to get what he wants. And then he tries to change. Jeff actually does change. And Dan?
Well, Dan is still profoundly egocentric. In his year being fired from Community he started a podcast, in which ostensibly people have a chance to interact with him and become part of the show. In practice, he often turns the attention back to himself within three sentences.
This documentary, produced by Harmon's own production company, is also called Harmontown, and is therefore also very much about Dan Harmon. There are attempts to shift the focus to breakout star Spencer Crittenden, but while Spencer's story certainly is interesting, Dan's exhibitionism steals the spotlight over and over again.
As it should. Because the intriguing thing is that the "therapy" that this podcast and tour admittedly is, ultimately works. Dan makes a couple of mistakes along the tour (drinking too much moonshine, cursing at his girlfriend), talks about them on stage, and moves beyond them. And comes to the realization that "being egocentric is OK, if you want to be the person that makes other people happy". It's a small step, but a step towards knowing who he is, and seeing a way to improve that.
The most profound scene comes when he decides to work on the network notes for a pilot with Erin. The network was puzzled by a guy in the script saying "The corporate people can never have creativity, but they'll have everything else". What's everything else? They brainstorm over that. Then there's a moment at the end where the guy sings a song, which turns the perspective around for (I think) his daughter. Why? Erin. "She needs to say something to him." Dan "Yeah". Erin "She says "so you can have your integrity, and they can have everything else"". Dan looks at her. Looks at the camera "So he'll change". Looks around "that means he'll change".
I'm typing this up from memory, but that's basically what it boils down to. It's an absurdly beautiful moment where you see their relationship moving past their hangups about themselves and each other, and their art flow together, as just has to happen for two people who are so self-reflective in their work. The fact that the main character is a standin for Dan is so obvious it doesn't even need to be stated. He is and will remain at the core of his work. But he still might change.
So is it a well made documentary? Yes. Is the subject matter examined well? Yes. Is it worth seeing? If you listen to Harmontown, absolutely. If you're only a fan of Community, try the podcast first. If the podcast doesn't do it for you, the film will only repel you further. If you're into none of it, but like character study documentaries, then I would suggest you watch it as well.
The Identical (2014)
Rambling mess with no message
It's hard to comprehend that this movie was made. It's Forrest Gump meets Walk the Line meets The Parent Trap. Is that too much for one movie? Absolutely. But on top of that, it also tries to be appealing to Evangelical Christians. From the many 10/10 reviews on this board that mention this aspect, it's clear that somehow this worked. Apparently simply containing Christians that aren't complete buffoons is enough for that.
Elvis fans have not responded in kind, which makes sense as this movie is emphatically *not* about Elvis. It's just that all the world building that was done is all based on Elvis' life and music, only obscured enough that there is no chance of any copyright infringement litigation. This is extremely distracting.
As to the story: it's baffling in the complexity of its setup, and the complete lack of subsequent payoff. Twins are separated at birth. They never meet. While Drexel is a famous musician and the other, Ryan, is an amateur musician who becomes an impersonator of the famous one, we don't even see Ryan attend a show of Drexel's. In fact, we barely see Drexel at all.
Ryan visits his birth mother in the hospital and sings one of Drexel's songs to her. He doesn't know it's his real mother. She doesn't realize he's there. There's no subsequent consequence to this extremely coincidental scene. Which happens right after he makes a delivery at the hospital, which happens to be where his ex- girlfriend works, so it's coincidence upon coincidence... of course he hooks up with her again, as we knew already he would, since she is the narrator of the entire film. Yes, the narrator is not a point of view character. Which *can* make for interesting storytelling, if you really invest in it. The movie doesn't.
Ryan's adopted father, played by Ray Liotta, is a preacher. He wants Ryan to become a preacher also. There is some kind of conflict about this between the two of them... but no framing of this conflict. Ryan's simply in school to become a minister, and then drops out. This has no immediate consequences for the father's life... which it easily could have had. Why not, for example, make Ryan an assistant preacher in his father's church? And then he doesn't show up because he's got a performance? That's actual conflict. This is truly amateurish screen writing, in that they knew there had to be some kind of conflict, but didn't know how to create it. Yes Ray Liotta really wants his son to become a preacher. He says so many times. So you think that when Ryan drops out there's consequences? Nah. See, he already has a job lined up, because this shady garage owner likes his singing. Does the preacher break off contact with his rebellious son? Nah. He even goes to the son's shows.
The message in the end: always be yourself. Unless you can be Elvis. Then always be Elvis*. There's nothing Christian about this, and there's nothing useful in it either. If we ever find ourselves the identical lost twin of a celebrity, we'd better hope the celebrity dies in a plane crash, so we can use our own creativity to continue their careers.
I could go on... about the extremely uneven music, about the various ways in which characters age or not, about the totally out of the blue reference to the Six Day War, about Seth Green's hair and language, which do not belong together, about the two black characters that are both one-scene and very subservient, etc. It's a rare movie that is this messy. An absolute must see!
*Sorry, I mean Drexel of course.
The Chris Gethard Show: Public Access (2011)
Brutally honest, original, hilarious
The Chris Gethard Show is the best live TV show ever made. In fact as far as I'm concerned it's the first live TV show that matters.
TV is generally a crass medium. Even publicly funded television is often anxious to please everyone, and in doing so sinks to the lowest common denominator. The Chris Gethard Show never does that. It only strives to connect to the viewers in an honest way. It doesn't really matter if the viewer is brought to laugh, to boredom, to reveal personal emotions or to impersonate a dead celebrity. As long as people call in and bring something interesting to the table, the show is considered a success.
Chris Gethard and his enormous team of volunteers achieve this by letting their own creativity flow in various unexpected ways. There's an episode where the whole panel is blindfolded and other people come near them to freak them out. There's an episode where various experts talk about high culture while Colt Cabana demonstrates wrestling moves. There's an episode with guest host Alyssa about how awesome Beyoncé is. And there's multiple episodes in which Gethard is a human crane, because the first one was a genuine disaster so of course it had to be done again.
Special consideration should go to the music. The house band the LLC is essential in creating the atmosphere, and the musical guests are phenomenal. Acts like the Stumblebum Brass Band, The Debutante Hour and the Dolchnakov Brigade are an amazing eye opener into the talent of the underground New York music scene.
Through the internet TCGS is creating connections now between people worldwide. It will doubtless serve to inspire creativity everywhere it's watched. Gethard's magic is making people see that they have something to contribute, no matter how weird or sad they might consider themselves to be.
Avatar (2009)
Decent popcorn movie pretending to be so much more
It's hard to review Avatar without reviewing its fandom and its author's actions surrounding it. So I'm not going to try: I will review this movie based on the fact that people consider it to be revolutionary and powerful. Because not only has this movie turned out to be a blockbuster, it has received rave reviews as well. I expected the former and was flabbergasted by the latter.
It has all the elements of a good blockbuster: spectacular visual effects, a clear black and white morality, attractive stars and fast paced action. But in my mind it completely misses any qualities that might make it a critical favorite. So why is it anyway? What am I missing? Roger Ebert claims: "It has a flat-out Green and anti-war message." Now some people would argue that this message is brought so over the top and corny that it ruins immersion and makes the story too ludicrously black and white. I would go a step further: this has nothing to do with actual environmentalism and pacifism. This is just pretense, symbolical politics that has nothing to do with actual issues.
Enviromentalism is not about being against evil corporations, but about offering an alternative and working for that. It is not about "going back to nature" but about improving our current society in such a way that it becomes more sustainable. In short: worshiping hunter-gatherer societies is not environmentalism, but escapism. It is refusing to improve your own society and instead idealize another.
Pacifism, similarly, is not about fighting with bows and arrows instead of tanks and helicopters. And it is also not about joining a society in which no individualism exists, in which everyone must submit to the greater goal. How is joining the other side in any way connected to anti-war? If this is really meant allegorically, should Western pacifists go to Afghanistan and start killing NATO soldiers? Of course not. Cameron doesn't make his heroes kill the soldiers as a metaphor for killing them in real life, but as a metaphor for "making them go away". Oh, wouldn't it be nice if there were no more imperialists? Well, sure. But stopping imperialism by non-violent means is hard and frustrating work, not glorious pwnage. Again, pure escapism. No attempt is made to reflect an actual solution to a problem, but an imaginary totalitarian solution is idealized.
Cameron speaking in his imagined language at the Golden Globes was a wake-up call for me. Don't pretend this is anything more than a pipe-dream people. This movie doesn't have a message. It just has an illusionary solution that nobody would want in real life.
Once that smokescreen is cleared I hope some people might see the plot for what it is: wafer-thin. We know next to nothing about most main characters, even by the end of this over 2 1/2 hour movie. Why does Jake accept losing his human body and family/friends? How did he really relate to his brother? Why does Michelle Rodriguez' character switch sides? Why are (almost?) all people working for the mining corporation American? Why does Neytiri prefer humans? How does that affect her self-image? How did a young pretender get to run the mining corporation? And why do the Na'vi accept being led by a human? I could go on... for a 3D movie the characters are spectacularly 2-dimensional. One would expect quite a few transformational scenes in a movie about physical transformation: scenes in which different characters mourn the loss of what they leave behind, or curse their dependence on what they're gaining. You know, as happens in almost every episode of say, Scrubs or Lost. It's a cheap trick, but it makes your characters sort of human. And their dilemmas real and insightful. Instead of pure distracting entertainment. If anyone involved accepted that there is no depth to this movie I guess I would give it a 6 or even a 7. As it stands, the pretense of meaning makes the distraction much worse.
Adaptation. (2002)
The start of a new era in screenwriting
This movie is certainly not perfect. I can't really pinpoint it's flaws, but some things just seemed to 'clever', not natural enough.
But I think it is a genuine breakthrough in screenwriting, probably the biggest since "the usual suspects", which as far as I know was the first movie experimenting with images which turned out to be contradicted by the movies' own reality. "Adaptation" goes two steps further than that. It makes interaction with the world outside of the movie, with the making of this movie, etc. The opening shots (at the set of "Being John Malkovich") took me completely by surprise, as this was supposed to be fiction, and here was John Malkovich talking between the shots!
Cameron Diaz has said about "Being John Malkovich": "Some people say there are only 14 scripts in Hollywood. Well, this is number 15." I'd like to adapt that for "Adaptation": There are only two scripts in Hollywood. One of them is Adaptation's. But I really hope for many more to come!
Casablanca (1942)
where did Hollywood go wrong? (spoiler)
Sheer beauty. Without a doubt one of the best movies ever made. I wonder, at what point did bad endings become unfavorable in Hollywood? I saw a post on this site where someone tried to clean up all the loose ends in this movie, which also constituted a reunion of Rick and Ilsa!
This movie is so brilliant because it is just the middle of the story... and the end. Well and it's amazing a piece of war-propaganda as this is can be admired as a love story, and even as anti-war propaganda (?)! A job well done by the US government. But no matter, I enjoy it for whatever purpose it's made.