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grrgoylWe may have found our Journeyman. Tery called me to excitedly report she'd seen him walking from his car to a building just beyond where I'd stopped hanging signs. She was running late so didn't stop to talk to him, but it was still sufficient proof that he wasn't a figment of our imagination. It's kind of funny how you can live so close to people and never meet them in this day and age. I'm sure the timing appealed to the cosmic sense of humor -- just yesterday we had agreed to give up on him and spent the gift card we had bought for him. Hahaha, Universe, that was a good one! But I hope you get tired of playing with me soon.
~*~
I recently saw two movies that I immediately bought online before the end credits had finished rolling. Unprecedented!
First was a movie I've wanted to see for a long time, but there just always seemed to be something else to rent instead;
Running with Scissors: Based on the memoirs of Augusten Burroughs, who deserves props at least for maintaining such a great sense of humor if even half the movie is true. The opening line is the perfect synopsis of this movie: "This is a story of how my mother left me, and how I left my mother." Young Augusten (Joe Brooks) has a crazy mother, Deidre (Annette Bening)....no, REALLY crazy. Her drive to achieve the fame and recognition for her poetry she feels she deserves is so intense and self-centered that it's turning her husband (Alec Baldwin) into an alcoholic and blinding her to her son's own natural talent. Her contempt for anyone else's creative efforts sucks all the fun out of the local poetry club meetings, where she reduces her fellow housewives to tears with her scathing criticism.
The Burroughs' home life becomes so volatile that it's a relief when they finally seek out a therapist, Dr. Finch (Brian Cox), until we realize that the doctor is almost as certifiable as his clients. His house is a bright fuschia nightmare with a front yard full of trash, he's more likely to adopt his patients than cure them, and he's got an unhealthy fixation with bowel movements. To Augusten's complete horror, his mother dumps him there to live, and eventually be officially adopted by the Finches.
Who are: Hope (Gwyneth Paltrow), a disturbed Jesus freak who makes decisions by pointing to random words in the Bible, and is convinced her cat talks to her, even from beyond the grave.
Neil (Joseph Fiennes), gay with homicidal and schizophrenic tendencies, who hooks up with Augusten despite a 20-year age difference (and who portrays their relationship fairly convincingly despite sharing hardly any actual physical contact).
Natalie, the only remotely normal one of the bunch, with a dream to go to school that's continually shattered by the doctor using her money for his own personal IRS difficulties.
Agnes, the doctor's wife. She's also relatively normal, apart from an appetite for dog kibble as a TV snack. She's just trying to hold the family together through her husband's increasing eccentricities and indiscretions.
It's hard to imagine a family being this dysfunctional, but harder still imagining someone surviving such an environment without going 'round the twist themselves. But the movie for the most part isn't about Augusten, it's about his mother, who with the help of heavy psychotropic medication plummets into a deteriorating spiral of depression and narcissism before Augusten breaks away and moves to New York, for the sake of his career and his own sanity. Not to justify her behavior, but according to events in the movie it seemed her life was terribly frustrating, always being one step behind her son: Augusten has a breakthrough where he says he feels he succeeds in getting in touch with his unconscious. Three or four scenes later, after one of her fugue states, Deidre announces the same happening to her. Augusten spends the night with Neil, confirming his suspicion of his homosexuality, only to come home to discover Deidre in flagrante delicto with one of her housewife friends. Poor Deidre always seems to be a day late and a dollar short. Ultimately we learn at the end that Augusten has become a recognized author (duh), while Deidre languishes in obscurity, estranged from him.
But it's Augusten's journey that allows us to end on a hopeful note. His goodbye to Agnes is 10 times more sorrowful than to Deidre, because she was 10 times the mother to him, and 1000 times more supportive of his career.
My initial impression of the movie, and why I enjoyed it so much, was because it played exactly like a Wes Anderson movie (including the carefully chosen, perfectly fitting period music). Some of the lines could have been written by Wes. A 10-year-old Augusten explains to his father why he boils and polishes his allowance ("I like shiny things"), who stares back in exhausted defeat and answers, "I really don't see myself in you at all." My favorite line is when Deidre casually says to Augusten, weeks after depositing him with her psychiatrist over his vehement protests, "You've been spending a lot of time at the Finches'," to which he cries indignantly, "Were there other options I wasn't aware of??"
But the connections, the connections. These are what excite me about watching lots of different movies. I never would have believed either Brian Cox or especially Gwyneth Paltrow could play crazy with any credibility if they hadn't both been in Wes Anderson movies (Rushmore and Royal Tenenbaums). It wasn't until halfway through my second viewing that it dawned on me that Gwyneth and Joseph Fiennes played the romantic leads in Shakespeare in Love. Making these connections cause a little thrill to pass through me, something that Tery doesn't understand at all, try as I might to make some kind of sports comparison for her.
She doesn't care in the slightest that this is the third Joseph Fiennes movie we own, the fourth Brian Cox, the fifth Gwyneth Paltrow (despite not being very big a fan), the fourth Alec Baldwin and the second Annette Bening. In fact, the more I tried playing this game with her, the more she feigned sudden hearing loss. Beeyatch.
From reading the reviews, I take it this movie wasn't very well liked. I don't care. 4 out of 5
The second movie I now love was even less well-received evidently, Stranger than Fiction. I was put off watching this any sooner by Ryan, who didn't care for it. Serves me right for letting other people's opinions dictate what I watch and what I don't.
Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) is an IRS agent with a highly structured life. Every day is the same rigid schedule: The exact same number of toothbrush strokes, the precise same amount of time to do his tie, the exact same number of steps to the bus stop, arriving at precisely the same time every day. He's not only tightly regimented, but also bland in the extreme: His walls, furniture and clothing are all a matching ecru. In other words, barely qualifying as alive.
Until the day he starts hearing a voice (Emma Thompson) narrating his dull routine. He does his best to ignore it until it mentions his "imminent death." Right about this time is when he starts auditing a vibrant baker named Ana (Maggie Gyllenhaal), tattooed, bubbly, energetic, with a complete disregard for the rules (she deliberately withholds 22% of her taxes to protest government spending on defense and corporate buy-outs). Harold falls for her immediately, although her feelings for him aren't quite so magnanimous.
He seeks out Dr. Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman), English professor, whose life is ruled by literature as surely as Harold's is by numbers. He tries to help by determining which stories Harold ISN'T the protagonist of, then tries to narrow down which author's narration he's hearing. He fails and tells Harold just to live the life he's always wanted. Believing his death to indeed be imminent, he sets to winning Ana's affection with a vengeance. He learns to play the guitar, a lifelong ambition. He stops counting toothbrush strokes and breaks free of the rut he's been caught in.
He discovers his narrator is an actual author named Karen Eiffel who is somehow writing about him. He tracks her down to convince her not to kill him. She's just as surprised to meet her protagonist as he is. The problem is, as stated by Hilbert after reading her draft, that her book is an artistic masterpiece and will make no sense at all if Harold doesn't die. Harold reads it and reluctantly is forced to agree. I won't say how it ends, preserve a tiny bit of mystery for you.
The movie raises an interesting question about existence. Which is more important, one man's life that will eventually end either way, or a great literary work that will endure for all time? Of course, in the movie the story as we hear it is hardly a masterpiece, is in fact more than a little trite, but that's not the point. What would you do if you had to die for the greater good, just as your own life was finally beginning?
Not to mention the subtle but unmistakable religious undertone of asking a man to knowingly face his own death.
Will Ferrell was unexpectedly good in this movie. He reminded me a little of when Jim Carrey first attempted drama. Not that there isn't any comedy here, but it's certainly markedly subdued from his usual work. Unfortunately this is what seems to have drawn the most complaining on the IMDb boards; people watched this expecting a Will Ferrell comedy, not all this stuff about death. Well, god forbid you watch something that makes you think.
Dustin Hoffman was of course also very good, if a little surreal seeing such an accomplished actor in the same room as Will Ferrell. You can almost detect a spark of awe in Farrell's eyes as well.
Emma Thompson's character is a little confusing. The fact that she's narrating a man's life at first creates the impression that she's God, a perception that isn't helped by the fact that when we first see her she's high above the street, looking down on mortals small as ants (turns out she's contemplating different ways to kill Harold, which she does through most of the movie); or that she lives in a nearly empty, all-white apartment that resembles more than a little Morgan Freeman's vacant office floor in Bruce Almighty. Some people on the message boards had this to say about Emma: "Who was that narrator lady? She was ANNOYING." If you don't know who Emma Thompson is, you have absolutely no business coming near a movie chatboard, in my opinion.
Shortly after we meet her, she meets Queen Latifah, an aide sent from the publisher to help her overcome her writer's block. The whiners on the boards protested that her character seemed to serve no purpose whatsoever. Of course she served a purpose, stupid people -- she was a sounding board so we could hear Eiffel's thoughts and writing process, otherwise it'd be damn boring watching a writer pace back and forth in silence hoping for inspiration.
People also complain that Ana's change of heart and sudden attraction to Harold are unbelievable (the turning point comes when he sings a tentative song he'd been practicing on the guitar to her and she jumps him in a fit of passion). I didn't find it unbelievable at all...I think there are few things sexier than someone singing, especially someone who isn't that sure of themselves and not that good, but heartfelt. At that moment, I fell in love with Will Ferrell a little too.
People also compared the movie to a Charlie Kaufman film (either "Kaufman lite" or "an inferior version of a Kaufman film") which I think is a terrible insult. Remember, I HATE Charlie Kaufman movies (or at least Charlie Kaufman endings). I suppose with the existential plot comparisons are inevitable, but this movie at least followed a logical line and had a satisfying (and non drug-induced) ending.
Name game for this movie: Second Will Ferrell movie we own, first Queen Latifah, third Maggie Gyllenhaal, fourth Dustin Hoffman, SIXTH Emma Thompson (the winner!!!)
I don't care what anyone says, for me this was also a 4 out of 5. I laughed, I cried, I fell in love. What more do you want from a movie?
One joker on the IMDb boards made the comment, "This is the worst movie ever created." This unleashed a shitstorm of responses, "Well, then you obviously haven't seen _________." When asked what his favorite movies were, his list included The Running Man, Total Recall 3 and Arnold Schwarzeneggar, demonstrating him to be willing to poke callous fun at other's tastes while keeping his own closely guarded.
Sure, he was an asshole, but it got me to thinking about what I would include in my top ten best and worst lists. I've decided to publish them here for the hell of it:
BEST (not in any significant order)
1. Brazil
2. The Fisher King
3. Fight Club
4. V for Vendetta
5. Amelie
6. Trainspotting
7. Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring
8. Rushmore
9. Moulin Rouge
10. Donnie Darko
WORST
1. Alien vs. Predator
2.Constantine Mission to Mars (thanks to JeffyJeff)
3. Open Water
4. Young Adam
5. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (my vast apologies to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dopshoppe and kavieshana)
6. Tideland
7.Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves The Village (thanks to kavieshana)
8. Reign of Fire
9. All 3 Star Wars prequels
10. Second 2/3 of the Matrix trilogy (yes, these last two were cheating a bit)
Feel free to judge me based on these, because rest assured I'll do the same for yours. How about it? If you had only ten days left to live, which movies could you simply not bear to leave this plane of existence without watching one last time? Conversely, which ten would you rather gouge out your own eyes and ears than watch again? Obviously there are a lot of really crappy movies out there. My criteria was movies that I had a reasonable expectation of enjoying before they went very, very wrong.
~*~
I recently saw two movies that I immediately bought online before the end credits had finished rolling. Unprecedented!
First was a movie I've wanted to see for a long time, but there just always seemed to be something else to rent instead;
Running with Scissors: Based on the memoirs of Augusten Burroughs, who deserves props at least for maintaining such a great sense of humor if even half the movie is true. The opening line is the perfect synopsis of this movie: "This is a story of how my mother left me, and how I left my mother." Young Augusten (Joe Brooks) has a crazy mother, Deidre (Annette Bening)....no, REALLY crazy. Her drive to achieve the fame and recognition for her poetry she feels she deserves is so intense and self-centered that it's turning her husband (Alec Baldwin) into an alcoholic and blinding her to her son's own natural talent. Her contempt for anyone else's creative efforts sucks all the fun out of the local poetry club meetings, where she reduces her fellow housewives to tears with her scathing criticism.
The Burroughs' home life becomes so volatile that it's a relief when they finally seek out a therapist, Dr. Finch (Brian Cox), until we realize that the doctor is almost as certifiable as his clients. His house is a bright fuschia nightmare with a front yard full of trash, he's more likely to adopt his patients than cure them, and he's got an unhealthy fixation with bowel movements. To Augusten's complete horror, his mother dumps him there to live, and eventually be officially adopted by the Finches.
Who are: Hope (Gwyneth Paltrow), a disturbed Jesus freak who makes decisions by pointing to random words in the Bible, and is convinced her cat talks to her, even from beyond the grave.
Neil (Joseph Fiennes), gay with homicidal and schizophrenic tendencies, who hooks up with Augusten despite a 20-year age difference (and who portrays their relationship fairly convincingly despite sharing hardly any actual physical contact).
Natalie, the only remotely normal one of the bunch, with a dream to go to school that's continually shattered by the doctor using her money for his own personal IRS difficulties.
Agnes, the doctor's wife. She's also relatively normal, apart from an appetite for dog kibble as a TV snack. She's just trying to hold the family together through her husband's increasing eccentricities and indiscretions.
It's hard to imagine a family being this dysfunctional, but harder still imagining someone surviving such an environment without going 'round the twist themselves. But the movie for the most part isn't about Augusten, it's about his mother, who with the help of heavy psychotropic medication plummets into a deteriorating spiral of depression and narcissism before Augusten breaks away and moves to New York, for the sake of his career and his own sanity. Not to justify her behavior, but according to events in the movie it seemed her life was terribly frustrating, always being one step behind her son: Augusten has a breakthrough where he says he feels he succeeds in getting in touch with his unconscious. Three or four scenes later, after one of her fugue states, Deidre announces the same happening to her. Augusten spends the night with Neil, confirming his suspicion of his homosexuality, only to come home to discover Deidre in flagrante delicto with one of her housewife friends. Poor Deidre always seems to be a day late and a dollar short. Ultimately we learn at the end that Augusten has become a recognized author (duh), while Deidre languishes in obscurity, estranged from him.
But it's Augusten's journey that allows us to end on a hopeful note. His goodbye to Agnes is 10 times more sorrowful than to Deidre, because she was 10 times the mother to him, and 1000 times more supportive of his career.
My initial impression of the movie, and why I enjoyed it so much, was because it played exactly like a Wes Anderson movie (including the carefully chosen, perfectly fitting period music). Some of the lines could have been written by Wes. A 10-year-old Augusten explains to his father why he boils and polishes his allowance ("I like shiny things"), who stares back in exhausted defeat and answers, "I really don't see myself in you at all." My favorite line is when Deidre casually says to Augusten, weeks after depositing him with her psychiatrist over his vehement protests, "You've been spending a lot of time at the Finches'," to which he cries indignantly, "Were there other options I wasn't aware of??"
But the connections, the connections. These are what excite me about watching lots of different movies. I never would have believed either Brian Cox or especially Gwyneth Paltrow could play crazy with any credibility if they hadn't both been in Wes Anderson movies (Rushmore and Royal Tenenbaums). It wasn't until halfway through my second viewing that it dawned on me that Gwyneth and Joseph Fiennes played the romantic leads in Shakespeare in Love. Making these connections cause a little thrill to pass through me, something that Tery doesn't understand at all, try as I might to make some kind of sports comparison for her.
She doesn't care in the slightest that this is the third Joseph Fiennes movie we own, the fourth Brian Cox, the fifth Gwyneth Paltrow (despite not being very big a fan), the fourth Alec Baldwin and the second Annette Bening. In fact, the more I tried playing this game with her, the more she feigned sudden hearing loss. Beeyatch.
From reading the reviews, I take it this movie wasn't very well liked. I don't care. 4 out of 5
The second movie I now love was even less well-received evidently, Stranger than Fiction. I was put off watching this any sooner by Ryan, who didn't care for it. Serves me right for letting other people's opinions dictate what I watch and what I don't.
Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) is an IRS agent with a highly structured life. Every day is the same rigid schedule: The exact same number of toothbrush strokes, the precise same amount of time to do his tie, the exact same number of steps to the bus stop, arriving at precisely the same time every day. He's not only tightly regimented, but also bland in the extreme: His walls, furniture and clothing are all a matching ecru. In other words, barely qualifying as alive.
Until the day he starts hearing a voice (Emma Thompson) narrating his dull routine. He does his best to ignore it until it mentions his "imminent death." Right about this time is when he starts auditing a vibrant baker named Ana (Maggie Gyllenhaal), tattooed, bubbly, energetic, with a complete disregard for the rules (she deliberately withholds 22% of her taxes to protest government spending on defense and corporate buy-outs). Harold falls for her immediately, although her feelings for him aren't quite so magnanimous.
He seeks out Dr. Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman), English professor, whose life is ruled by literature as surely as Harold's is by numbers. He tries to help by determining which stories Harold ISN'T the protagonist of, then tries to narrow down which author's narration he's hearing. He fails and tells Harold just to live the life he's always wanted. Believing his death to indeed be imminent, he sets to winning Ana's affection with a vengeance. He learns to play the guitar, a lifelong ambition. He stops counting toothbrush strokes and breaks free of the rut he's been caught in.
He discovers his narrator is an actual author named Karen Eiffel who is somehow writing about him. He tracks her down to convince her not to kill him. She's just as surprised to meet her protagonist as he is. The problem is, as stated by Hilbert after reading her draft, that her book is an artistic masterpiece and will make no sense at all if Harold doesn't die. Harold reads it and reluctantly is forced to agree. I won't say how it ends, preserve a tiny bit of mystery for you.
The movie raises an interesting question about existence. Which is more important, one man's life that will eventually end either way, or a great literary work that will endure for all time? Of course, in the movie the story as we hear it is hardly a masterpiece, is in fact more than a little trite, but that's not the point. What would you do if you had to die for the greater good, just as your own life was finally beginning?
Not to mention the subtle but unmistakable religious undertone of asking a man to knowingly face his own death.
Will Ferrell was unexpectedly good in this movie. He reminded me a little of when Jim Carrey first attempted drama. Not that there isn't any comedy here, but it's certainly markedly subdued from his usual work. Unfortunately this is what seems to have drawn the most complaining on the IMDb boards; people watched this expecting a Will Ferrell comedy, not all this stuff about death. Well, god forbid you watch something that makes you think.
Dustin Hoffman was of course also very good, if a little surreal seeing such an accomplished actor in the same room as Will Ferrell. You can almost detect a spark of awe in Farrell's eyes as well.
Emma Thompson's character is a little confusing. The fact that she's narrating a man's life at first creates the impression that she's God, a perception that isn't helped by the fact that when we first see her she's high above the street, looking down on mortals small as ants (turns out she's contemplating different ways to kill Harold, which she does through most of the movie); or that she lives in a nearly empty, all-white apartment that resembles more than a little Morgan Freeman's vacant office floor in Bruce Almighty. Some people on the message boards had this to say about Emma: "Who was that narrator lady? She was ANNOYING." If you don't know who Emma Thompson is, you have absolutely no business coming near a movie chatboard, in my opinion.
Shortly after we meet her, she meets Queen Latifah, an aide sent from the publisher to help her overcome her writer's block. The whiners on the boards protested that her character seemed to serve no purpose whatsoever. Of course she served a purpose, stupid people -- she was a sounding board so we could hear Eiffel's thoughts and writing process, otherwise it'd be damn boring watching a writer pace back and forth in silence hoping for inspiration.
People also complain that Ana's change of heart and sudden attraction to Harold are unbelievable (the turning point comes when he sings a tentative song he'd been practicing on the guitar to her and she jumps him in a fit of passion). I didn't find it unbelievable at all...I think there are few things sexier than someone singing, especially someone who isn't that sure of themselves and not that good, but heartfelt. At that moment, I fell in love with Will Ferrell a little too.
People also compared the movie to a Charlie Kaufman film (either "Kaufman lite" or "an inferior version of a Kaufman film") which I think is a terrible insult. Remember, I HATE Charlie Kaufman movies (or at least Charlie Kaufman endings). I suppose with the existential plot comparisons are inevitable, but this movie at least followed a logical line and had a satisfying (and non drug-induced) ending.
Name game for this movie: Second Will Ferrell movie we own, first Queen Latifah, third Maggie Gyllenhaal, fourth Dustin Hoffman, SIXTH Emma Thompson (the winner!!!)
I don't care what anyone says, for me this was also a 4 out of 5. I laughed, I cried, I fell in love. What more do you want from a movie?
One joker on the IMDb boards made the comment, "This is the worst movie ever created." This unleashed a shitstorm of responses, "Well, then you obviously haven't seen _________." When asked what his favorite movies were, his list included The Running Man, Total Recall 3 and Arnold Schwarzeneggar, demonstrating him to be willing to poke callous fun at other's tastes while keeping his own closely guarded.
Sure, he was an asshole, but it got me to thinking about what I would include in my top ten best and worst lists. I've decided to publish them here for the hell of it:
BEST (not in any significant order)
1. Brazil
2. The Fisher King
3. Fight Club
4. V for Vendetta
5. Amelie
6. Trainspotting
7. Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring
8. Rushmore
9. Moulin Rouge
10. Donnie Darko
WORST
1. Alien vs. Predator
2.
3. Open Water
4. Young Adam
5. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (my vast apologies to
dopshoppe and kavieshana)6. Tideland
7.
kavieshana)8. Reign of Fire
9. All 3 Star Wars prequels
10. Second 2/3 of the Matrix trilogy (yes, these last two were cheating a bit)
Feel free to judge me based on these, because rest assured I'll do the same for yours. How about it? If you had only ten days left to live, which movies could you simply not bear to leave this plane of existence without watching one last time? Conversely, which ten would you rather gouge out your own eyes and ears than watch again? Obviously there are a lot of really crappy movies out there. My criteria was movies that I had a reasonable expectation of enjoying before they went very, very wrong.
Too Lazy to Sign In
Date: 2007-10-11 03:50 pm (UTC)You are so enlightening, Bear. I thank U.
Re: Too Lazy to Sign In
Date: 2007-10-11 04:10 pm (UTC)Well unless there was a gun held to his back, Augusten appears in the bonus featurettes speaking at great length of his approval of the movie, how the set of the Finch house was so dead-on he felt he was back there again. He also talked about the importance of letting go of your "baby" when you sign a movie deal and relinquishing a certain amount of creative control. When a writer isn't happy with their film, they don't make a secret of it (vis a vis: Alan Moore and V for Vendetta, for example), so I'll continue enjoying the movie until I can read the book for myself. ; *
Re: Too Lazy to Sign In
Date: 2007-10-12 12:26 am (UTC)Too lazy to change from my default icon
Date: 2007-10-13 05:52 pm (UTC)There. That's the best I can do with that.