Can I have some fries with that Catch-up?!

Sometimes there are lulls between my posts, not because I’m not watching any films, but because I am lazy. I am watching films constantly. And, really, I have no excuse for not writing about the films by the next day but alas I sometimes find myself with a cartload and not enough energy to write a full post on any of it.  So I’m going to briefly tie up the loose ends that have been plaguing me, starting with the most recent:

The Big Lebowski (1998): This film came highly recommended. And as the film’s opening titles were beginning, D was already quoting famous lines from it.  But as I’m sitting here wondering what to say about it, I’m stuck on the “Yeah it’s funny, but what else?” schtick. It’s not a GREAT movie: yeah, the characters are over-the-top; yeah, all kinds of unexpected things happen; yeah, there’s bowling and potsmoking and funny one-liners and naked chicks flying through the rafters. But, what else?  I think what sticks out to me the most (besides the naked chick) is how poorly Sobchack (Goodman) treats Donny (Buscemi) and how poor Donny dies in the end and his ashes are blown into the Dude’s face because Sobchack isn’t paying attention.  This seems to be his M.O.: he’s so focused on giving Donny a weird Nam-esque funeral that he doesn’t pay attention to the fact that Donny wasn’t in Nam, and that he’s basically perverting his ashes by strewing them on The Dude rather than in the Pacific. Something else that sticks out is how Sobchack is constantly bringing up Vietnam. He’s stuck in the past.  He’s ‘agro.’ He’s the reason The Dude gets into trouble. He brings The Dude down.  I suppose the story is what it is: two guys up to some antics because one is toxic and the other’s too laid back to do much about it.  They’re both modern Everymen in their own weird ways. One’s passive, one’s aggressive. One lets things happen to him, the other makes things happen. Which is worse? Who knows…..

 

Lars and the Real Girl (2007):  This is a really sad movie.  I couldn’t believe it, actually. I thought it would be funny but it evoked a kind of pitiful melancholy that I can only suppose its sole purpose was to make people cry.  I can certainly appreciate the sentiment: 27-year old adult male dealing with abandonment issues and finding comfort in his imagination. It was obviously touching that the entire town helped him through his trauma. But that’s not realistic. Only in the movies does that sort of thing happen. I was surprised that the director didn’t take the cliched approach to resolving Lars’ Fake Girl problem: he very well could have had the sister-in-law begin to give birth, and have some complications, to help snap Lars out of his fantasy world. Because it was ultimately Lars’ fear that his sister-in-law would die in child birth (because Lars’ own mother died that way, giving birth to him) that caused him to create Bianca.  But, instead, he let Lars act it out naturally in his own time. I suppose this is a testament to coming to terms with your own life problems, in your own time, rather than having people force a cure.   It was a decent movie. But, like I said, very sad. Too sad.

 

The Duchess (2008):  One can never tire of watching films about women suffering under the hands of oppressive husbands.  Well, actually, that’s not true. This film, though its main plot was clearly the tyranny of the patriarchal hegemony, was mostly about Freedom. I mean, that was the whole platform of The Duchess’s lover: freedom for all!  Yes, yes, yes. We need freedom.  Especially in 2008.  But who is subjecting us to such tyrannical rule today? I have my suspicions: media, government, our addiction to consumption. Can we escape those? No. Well, maybe a little, but not completely. The Duchess could not escape at all, or she would have suffered very dire consequences. She lived her entire life in that situation: with her husband’s lover under the same roof. Aren’t we supposed to see that and be outraged?  Aren’t we supposed to say: not ME!!!  I would NEVER!  But I have to look a little further than the confines of my little house to identify what I need to escape from for my freedom. I think this film was a good attempt, but I fail to see how it truly instilled an invocation to actually free yourself from tyranny. It seemed to give off the impression that you should sit still and look pretty. I suppose the film could just be about the poor Duchess’s life…but what would be the point of that?!

 

Cache (2005): This is a French film directed by Michael Haneke. Ironically, lately I seem to be reading/watching texts that deal with the history of French-African relations. I read Camus’ The Stranger, which is about a Frenchman killing an Arab in Algeria, and I watched another film on the subject of the French suppression of African troops, Camp De Thiaroye.  Cache is apparently about the bad history between the French and Algerians (North African Arabs).  It is a slow-moving film, which I don’t mind at all because many Italian films run slow so I’m used to that.  The plot is such: a French man, Georges, and his wife, Anne, are receiving videotapes of themselves from an unknown source. The tapes are just sort of watching them: the watcher wants them to know that he/she is watching them. But the tapes then begin to lead them to specific places, and eventually to an apartment where Georges encounters an Algerian man who Georges finally realizes is a boy he grew up with that his parents were going to adopt, but because Georges lied about the boy, he ended up getting shipped off to an orphanage to grow up, presumably, in miserable circumstances. By the end of the film, there is no resolution as to who was sending the tapes: the man or his son. But one of the MOST SHOCKING moments in cinema that I have ever seen occurs in this film.  I say this because I feel I am relatively desensitized to what we tend to see in fictional film.  Now, this is not to say that real images of shocking things wouldn’t make my jaw drop too (I’m thinking of such real footage as Faces of Death). I’m just saying that I don’t get shocked that often, and my jaw literally dropped and my eyes bugged out in one scene in particular in Cache.  I won’t give it away.  BUT, clearly the point was to exhibit the shocking after-effects of the French on the North African Algerians. Georges’ selfish history with his once, almost-brother is an allegory of the French and their history in Algeria. One gets a major sentiment of abandonment, and a desire to SHOW the ill effects of such, through this film. It was a very good film. I should research the French in Algeria and African in general to understand better what this filmmaker is trying to explore. But the raw meaning is clear, even without the history lesson.

 

I have watched other films and TV shows but, like always, I don’t write about everything. I mean, you don’t want to hear about Ping Pong Playa (2007) or The Gods Must Be Crazy 2 (1988)….

Step Brothers (2008)

This was a really funny film. As I was watching it, it felt very much like Napoleon Dynamite, in the sense that Ferrell & Reilly were portraying characters from what the viewer might consider their own past or from their own former perception of reality as a kid.   They said and did things just like elementary or middle school aged kids, though they were 39 & 40 years old.  It was funny to see them acting out those typical scenes of asking their parents if they could make bunkbeds or open one present on Christmas Eve.  I seem to recall opening up a non-toy present on Christmas Eve when I was a kid, and being just as disappointed (i.e. pitching a major fit, and probably crying!)  because it wasn’t the “hulk hands” sort of a gift that could be played with.  Funny and relatable. 

I suppose these filmmakers were going for invoking a real sense of nostalgia with this film. To be able to act those things out, as 40-year olds, is quite a hearkening back to the old days many people had growing up.  This film was a real Peter Pan moment, I think.  It shows a refusal to truly grow up, the struggle against loss of innocence associated with growing up, and a return to that childish innocence that we were all stripped of when we were expected to shed our childlike ways and don more appropriate adult realties.

It is a thoughtful anachronism, these two characters and their prolonged childhood.  They are out of place in time in many respects, but by the end of the film, their paternal authority figure admits to his own childhood dreams of growing up to be a T-rex.  He says all he ever wanted to be was a T-rex and he would walk around the back yard with his arms tiny, acting like a T-rex.  This reminds me of one of our nephews who, when he was 3′ish, told me he wanted to be a Kitty when he grew up!  And that’s probably one of the sweetest and most innocent things I’ve ever heard in my life.  One day, much later on (he was 4-5′ish), after I had asked him if he still wanted to be a Kitty, he looked at me funny and said “No.” He now wanted to be something more appropriate, like a baseball player.  He didn’t seem to remember wanting to be a Kitty.  But I remembered. I still remember.

I still want to be a Kitty.

I think, as an adult, it is sometimes very desirable to want to retreat back to a time of innocence and exploration.  A time when you could be a kid for real. Now we can only “play” kids because those times have long passed for us.  But we still remember what it was like and we find a lot of humor in it. Obviously.  Maybe that’s why, by the time we’re in our 30s (for some of us, earlier or later), we’re ready for kids of our own:  because we want to re-experience the innocence since we have been coerced into being adults or adult-like for most of our lives.

We watched the racy, extended version of this film and it had some pretty crazy-funny parts.  I loved that in the midst of their anachronistic innocence, they were still very pure: pure of body and mind. The sex scenes with Dale (Reilly) and Alice were, I think, typical of teenage hormones. Alice was repressed, in all senses of the word, and she was merely acting out, like a child, in reaction to her overly-controlling husband.  …calling Dr. Freud!!!!    And Dale didn’t realize what was going on at all the first time they did it in the bathroom. And even by the end, after it had happened a few times with Alice, he calls it “making sex” with her.  There’s something to be said about not tainting your reality with what I think today is an overabundant burden on the idea of sex (knowing about it, wanting it, having it). And the fact that the family didn’t realize, or care, that they were having sex right in front of them (because Dale was helping her with a back spasm….;), shows how little parents tell their kids about sex, or are observant enough to pick up on the flashing red signs that they’re already doing it, literally, under their noses.

I like stupid, potty humor so this film kept me rolling.

Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay–Unrated (2008)

I can honestly say that this is the absolute funniest film I’ve seen in a long time.  I most appreciate the sick, childish, and ridiculous humor that directors Hurwitz and Schlossberg have let run rampant throughout.  This film is littered with stereotypes for all, and while it provides an endless “I can’t believe they’re doing that!”, those ridiculous stereotypes nonetheless have specific functions in the film.  For most of the stereotypes, there was a balance–there was frequently a character around to say “Wait, the stereotype is obviously wrong.  Look at what’s actually happening here.”  A few stereotypes, however, had no Reason to balance them: especially the inbred couple with their cycloptic baby, and the KKK’ers. Being a Southerner, I still cringe at the perception of all Southern folks being racist inbreeders, but the way in which the Southern stereotypes were presented was still roll-around-on-the-floor funny.  The couple was sophisticated and modern, but still incestuous.  And, I think they presented the KKK in the only light they could have:  absolute “Bubba” ridiculousness.

I think the most intriguing aspects of the film’s rampant stereotyping was how the inmates and the guards at Guantanamo Bay were presented; how obviously idiotic and highly illogical the Homeland Security Secretary was (played by Rob Corddry from The Daily Show); and how George W. Bush was portrayed as a man who has issues with his father’s (and others’) authority, and how he was just a regular guy who liked a good joke and a good toke. 

What kept me rolling in laughter well after the film had ended was what they all used to describe the “torture” practiced in Guantanamo Bay.  And while the idea of being forced to eat a ”cock-meat sandwich” as your torture is inherently funny (because of the words themselves, not the act itself), it’s also absurdly disturbing.  Do we detain people for our own self-satisfaction?  Is that what Hurwitz and Schlossberg are trying to convey to us? 

And, do we hang on to these stereotypes of ours for our own misguided justifications?  Do we remain in the Dark Ages of our own racism and discrimination so that we can keep discriminating?  This goes for everything presented in the film.  How often do we interpret the world around us incorrectly because of stereotypes we have absorbed into our psyche?  Corddry’s character frequently mistakes individuals based on stereotypes–Harold and Kumar (for terrorists), the African American orthodontist for a Thug, etc.  And, in the case of the Southern stereotypes, how often do “we” overlook that certain things associated with stereotypes might still be going on–we don’t want to believe that Southern people are really inbreeding, but we’re quick to mistake a group of African American males playing basketball in the street for a gang of Thugs. 

How selective are we being with our stereotypes?

Granted, the viewer could see it coming when Kumar pulled out his bomb-like bong in the plane’s bathroom, especially when earlier, the viewer could clearly see the suspicious older white lady eyeing Harold and Kumar in their seats, where she envisions Kumar (an Indian) as a bearded Afghani terrorist.  The viewer knows that they’ll be labeled as terrorists as soon as Kumar pulls that device out of his bag and shows it to Harold.  Reality is unimportant when stereotypes are the currency of fear.

I don’t think this is just another stoner movie.  I think it’s more than that.  From this film, I took away a really long laugh about the “cock-meat sandwich” and the cycloptic inbred baby, and also a better sense of how stereotypes are founded, mis-guided, and mistaken in our own times.  Even down to the rich, young, Republican prick who turned Harold and Kumar into the Feds for his own glory–well, that’s not so much a stereotype as it is a reality, right?!