Essential Viewing: Sunday TV

As is my usual custom on the day of rest I spent most of last Sunday in front of the television.   There’s just something about coming across blockbusters from the 80s and 90s I never intended to see them again that’s hard to resist.  Really, what’s better than pressing a button and seeing a CGI tornado chasing Bill Paxton (or anything chasing Bill Paxton for that matter)?  It’s all in the flipping.  I don’t generally watch anything for more than a few minutes.  For some reason my attention span fluctuates according to medium.  I can sit and watch a movie about a log washing up on the beach (really) but when I watch TV I start channel surfing like a 5 year-old after a box of fruit rollups (those things are dangerous when I was three I saw a commercial for them and ran headfirst into a coffee table.  22 stitches.)

I’m If I’m honest with myself I think the reason I take so much pleasure in these bulging budget marathons is because I enjoy skewering bad movies as much as I enjoy watching good ones.  And if I’m even more honest with myself, it’s because I actually like them (a case of reverse cinematic denial?  Perhaps.)  On with the skewering.  I know movies are big and dumb these days but man, in the 80s and 90s when studios figured out they could make terrible films and market them to huge opening weekends, movies were down right brain-dead.  Sure they’re enjoyable, Independence Day is a great watch.  But a computer virus?  The Aliens just happened to be using Windows 95?  And how did they get an Internet connection in space?!

Another Sunday viewing joy is that it can be serendipitously hilarious.  For example, I caught the scene in True Lies where an incredibly sexy Jamie Leigh Curtis does a strip tease for her husband Arnold Schwarzenegger, (she doesn’t know it’s him, because of the plot).  Then later on I saw her in a commercial enthusiastically endorsing Activia, the yogurt laxative.  Hot.  Speaking of True Lies, every time I see it, or parts of it (I haven’t watched it end to end since I was about 14) I’m reminded of what an great ride of a movie it is.  You need both hands to count the great action sequences.  Plus, it’s genuinely a funny comedy that manages to have a strip tease scene that essential to the plot and Bill Paxton actually being good and funny as opposed to his usual bland and bland routine.

I flipped from True Lies over to the end of Terminator 3.  Which, I’m going out on a limb here, I liked when it came out.  I don’t remember why, I haven’t seen it since, but I left the theatre thinking it was good and I’ve maintained and defended that position ever since.  Boy was this a wake up call.  I’ve been living a lie.  Watching Arnold awkwardly rehash his iconic character from the 90s that, despite being from the future, feels painfully out of date was discombobulating in it’s own right.   But considering that this man is currently the Governor of Caleef-oarn-i-ah and that he took office the same year the movie was released takes its absurdity to new levels.  Still the solid ending (judgment day, nuclear bombs gong off everywhere, because of the plot) did get me kinda amped Terminator 4, coming out next month.  But more than that it made me jonesing to watch Terminator 2.  Because really, is there a better action film than T2?

While pondering this essential question my mind drifted once again to True Lies.   Not as iconic as Terminator but that last 45 minutes has to put True Lies in the conversation.  Another contender I immediately thought of was Aliens, a film I rewatched for the 10th time just a couple months ago.  If I had the ability to visit various premieres in film history, along with Douglas Fairbanks’ The Thief of Baghdad, Buster Keaton’s The General and Star Wars, I’d go to the opening night of Aliens just to hear the crowd’s reaction when Sigourney Weaver lays the smack down on the alien queen.  “Get a way from her you bitch!”  Strong.

Then it dawned on me, Terminator 2, True Lies, Aliens, all directed by James Cameron.  I love to rip on Cameron and won’t stop, when you stand on a stage and say to a billion people “I’m the king of the world!” after winning an award for directing Titanic you deserve what’s coming to you.  But Sunday viewing has forced me to give him his due.  Three kick-ass films films that are endlessly watchable and actually really good.  I tip my hat to you Mr. Cameron.

I don’t what’s going on with him lately.   He hasn’t directed a narrative film since Titanic.  Instead he’s been making underwater IMAX movies with bizarrely similar titles that contain titles of his previous films, Ghosts of the Abyss and Aliens of the Deep.  I wonder if Secrets of the Piranha 2: The Spawning is next.  See, now I’m ripping on him again.  James Cameron’s sense of entitlement is so unlikeable even when being praised he gets made fun of.  Perhaps Avatar, his 3D extravaganza coming out this December, will “right the ship.”  I hope so because I’d love to add another action film to my endlessly watchable repertoire (it’s been filling it up with Paul Rudd’s films lately).

Ahhh, the is the glory of Sunday TV.  Thanks for all the pearls of widsom.  I wonder what fruits will you bear next week.

What’s Good: April 09

So far 2009 has been pretty barren as far as new releases go.  Paul Blart: Mall Cop and Taken have been the top grossers,  Watchmen baffled uninitiated audiences and people seem to be digging to 3D.  I haven’t been able to get to as many films as I’d like but of those I’ve seen in recent weeks here are a couple I think are worth checking out.

Hunger

Hunger chronicles the protests that took place in 1981 at the Maze prison in Britain as IRA prisoners attempted the gain political prisoner status.  Amidst already horrendous conditions prisoners smear the cell walls with feces from floor to ceiling, refuse to bathe- resulting in forced cleaning sessions with a brillo-pad like broom – and, the films ultimate focus, stage a hunger strike led by Bobby Sands (Michale Fassbender).  This is no Slumdog Millionaire.

Films that graphically depict extreme cruelty are nothing new, but I can’t remember ever seeing one that has prompted me to use the word beautiful.  Director Steve McQueen (yes that’s his name and yes it’s a total coincidence) allows the events to play out with very little dialogue primarily relying on visual story-telling, bringing to mind the likes of Terence Malick, which is so assured for a first time director it’s scary.  In one sequence a prison guard, knuckles freshly bloodied for reasons unknown, silently smokes a cigarette as snow gently falls around him.  The scene lasts a good 3-4 minutes, does not elaborate, and is mesmerizing.  This is suitable microcosm for the visually incongruous film that is filled with images that are simultaneously alluring and repulsive.

The sparsely scripted style is sustained throughout save for a sequence in the middle where Sands tells a visiting priest (Liam Cunningham) about his plans for the hunger strike.  Acted with compelling restraint, the two debate his political and personal motivations over a 20-25 minute conversation that is, incredibly, largely captured in one take.  Filmed in a mid shot from the side the men are harshly back-lit, emphasizing Sands swirling cigarette smoke and silhouetting them in a glowing blue outline.   The scene is the only one in the film that features dialogue and feels more like an arresting one-act play.  This is sharp contrast provides perspective  to the rest of McQueen’s film where disturbing acts are witnessed but never talked about.

The final act follows Sands’ ultimate sacrifice which is frighteningly realized by Michael Fassbender’s inspired physical performance that goes beyond losing weight for a role.  The disturbing scenes, which once again play out with little dialogue, see Sand’s body deteriorate all the way to the end.   McQueen adds some haunting touches by interspersing unexplained visions of childhood memories or perhaps just hallucinations, that release Sands mind, and the audiences, from his tortured body.

It’s film you’re not likely to want to rush out and see again.  But it is one you’ll definitely be hearing from when 2009 top ten lists start rolling out.  After seeing this, Steve McQueen is now a huge flag on my radar, not to mention his magnetic and ferociously committed leading man.

Goodbye Solo

As you may remember my favorite film of 2008 was Wendy and Lucy, a film about a down on her luck Michelle Williams and her dog where nothing happens and your heart gets ripped out.  The director of that film, Kelly Reichart, along with the director of Goodbye Solo Ramin Bahrani are starting to turn this minimalist style into something of a tiny movement which has annoyingly been dubbed, neo-neo realism.  Don’t worry, this isn’t film snob fest 2009.

Solo (Souleymane Sy Savane) a jolly Senegalese cab driver in Winston-Salem North Carolina who you are literally in love with 3 seconds into the film engages William (Red West), a craggy hard-nosed southerner, and takes particular concern when he suspects William’s request to be driven to a cliff in the middle of nowhere is an attempt to end his life. William tolerates Solo’s aggressive, or perhaps oblivious, attempts to be his friend making it seem inevitable that the two are a pair of unlikely kindred spirits.

Though the premise is ripe for sentimentality Bahrani keeps the viewer off balance as things don’t fall into the places we expect them to.  And as we, along with Solo, try to decipher what’s going on with the reclusive William the characters burrow deep under our skin.  There is little dialogue and little need for it.  An exchange of closeups towards the films end communicates more to the audience any words ever could.

Most of the film’s actors are non-professional, as is often the norm with these types of films, and there is rarely a false note.  West has some film roles to his credit but is perhaps best remembered as a buddy of Elvis.  Here, his William is at once sympathetic and contemptuous as he quietly simmers with regret.  But it is Souleymane Sy Savane as Solo who serves as the heart beat of the film.  His defiant optimism is so contagious that it turns a somber premise into a story that induces far more grins than frowns.

Interlaced with a quiet beauty, whether it be a swaying tree branch or the bags under William’s eyes, Bahrani has made a film that, while cinematically minimal, is emotionally massive.

For those of you looking for a more commerical good time at the mulitplex (no judgements here) check out Monsters vs Aliens.  Make sure you see it in IMAX 3D, I know it’s $17 but the visuals are quite impressive.  You could also can’t go wrong with Paul Rudd in I Love you, Man.  Not quite as strong as Knocked Up or even last fall’s Role Models but even an average entry from these guys is always a good time.  And if none of that sounds good to you, don’t worry.  Summer begins with Wolverine in only a few weeks, (I’m both serious and joking).

Why?!?!?!?!

Fast and Furious made $72 million dollars this past weekend.  I’m going to jump out of a window.  That is all.  Goodbye world.