CleverDonkey.com …Musings, Commentary, Opinions, and Drivel

The Devil Wants Starbucks

So we went to see The Devil Wears Prada and it was really good. Meryl Streep gives yet another amazing performance as the head of the world’s most influential fashion magazine. She plays the character as a cross between Cruella de Ville, Vito Corleone, and Margaret Thatcher. The movie is very biting and very funny. I’m not sure I’m 100% on board with the message, but I’m at least 75% there.

The movie tells the tale of a young, earnest, pretty, smart, normal-sized girl (Size 6, maybe?…normal-sized by Hollywood standards is what I mean). She shows up for an interview for a low-on-the-totem-pole clerical opening at the world’s leading fashion magazine, specifically the assistant to the assistant to the editor in chief. The girl is very well played by Anne Hathaway (who?), and she holds her own on-screen with heavyweights La Streep and Stanley Tucci. Her character knows nothing about the fashion world and is confused by the seriousness and reverence with which the fripperies of style are looked upon by the priestesshood.

Of course, that’s where the movie starts. By the middle she has moved up to be Streep’s characters right hand gal, and becomes a starry-eyed true believer, hypnotized by the power and beauty of being in the upper echelons of the fashion world.

This being Hollywood, of course, she comes to her senses by the end and goes back to her standard-Jetta-commercial-issue boyfriend, leaves the fashion world behind, and seems to content to be an earthbound girlfriend of a wannabe-chef.

The part I’m on board with is leaving the cutthroat world of high fashion behind. But the part I’m not on board with is going right back to her starter-life with her zero boyfriend. It doesn’t help that the film doesn’t really capture any chemistry between the two.

But, this is really Ms. Streep’s film. She doesn’t chew up the scenery, she simply gives it withering looks until it self-destructs in self-defense. Her character is fully realized and completely unredeemable. She sacrifices everything (family, love, happiness) to maintain her iron grip on the helm of the fashion world, and it is her example that first dazzles Hathaway’s character, and then ultimately educates her into the true cost of “success”. That is a point with which I am very much on board – sacrificing everything for professional success is like making sure you have the largest, most impressive bucket of air. It doesn’t matter how big or fancy or jewel-encrusted or rare it is, it’s still just a container filled with nothing.

I’ll take a houseplant in a terra cotta planter, made with happiness and love, any day of the week.

That’s all.

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Unfortunately for a film like The Break-Up, the marketing dweebs in Hollywood feel compelled to over-publicize the film and let many cats out of many bags. As such, many of the best parts of this film were reruns due to their placement in the vast number of trailers and commercials for this film. Even so, the film is *still* funny, Aniston and Vaughn have the actual chemistry of an actual couple (and I don’t mean that as a reference to their supposed involvment, I mean it from a script+acting+directing perspective), and the story is fresher than it has any right to be.

For those living under a rock, the story is that Aniston’s and Vaughn’s characters meet (cute), fall in love, buy a condo together, spend a few years together, then break up during a wicked fight about pent up resentments. However, neither will leave the condo, and thereby hangs the tale. This isn’t a film as dark as something like The War of the Roses, but it’s also not When Harry Met Sally or (insert title of any Hugh Grant film). My gut feeling is that anybody who has been both in and out of love will find something to relate to in this movie.

For example, there’s a scene where the couple prepare for having both their families over for dinner. Vaughn’s sole job was to bring home 12 lemons. He brings three. When Aniston asks why he didn’t bring the 12 lemons she asked for, he wonders why she would need 12 lemons. They were for a centerpiece, and when he realizes they were “show lemons” that nobody would eat, he cares even less that he got the wrong number and suggests practical (for a man) alternatives like making the centerpiece in something smaller, like a glass, or not having a centerpiece at all and instead putting the lemons on the chicken that he tasted, implying it needs a little something.

After the dinner party, he proceeds to crash on the couch playing video games while Aniston is left with the cleanup.

Most of this information has been related in trailers, clips, and commercials, so I don’t feel bad about repeating them here, and they present the crux of the ensuing argument that causes the eponymous break-up.

There is an interesting point to this film, as with almost all films about relationships, which is that the man’s viewpoint, due to its lack of emotional sensitivity, is “wrong” and must be changed, while the women’s is “right” and long suffering. This film doesn’t paint it quite that black-and-white, but in the end it does tend in that same direction. I’ve always disliked that viewpoint, as it discounts the thoughts and feelings of men out-of-hand.

For example, *his* job involves owning a business with his three brothers, while *her* job involves working in an art gallery selling art. Having been both a business-owner and an employee, I can tell you that owning a business is orders-of-magnitude more stressful, and at the end of the day when they’ve both worked 10 hours, *he* has every right to be more spent than she does. And that’s not about gender, that’s about responsibility, risk, and stress. Now, men generally tend to hold the more stressful positions, and one may see that as gender-bias in the workplace. One might also see that as women being smart enough to *not* sell their souls to a job, or being sensitive enough to let the job rank second to the family, or simply being the one that fate decided needed to bear the children for humanity.

Also in question is the need to cleanup right away after the party. *She* has the compulsion that doesn’t allow her to sleep with a dirty kitchen, and his offer to help in the morning is seen as work-dodging (which, honestly, it probably is, but that’s not true until the next morning when he tries to get out of helping!). Aniston’s character also rejects Vaughn’s suggestion of having a pool table in the house. It doesn’t matter that it’s been a dream of his his whole life, it just doesn’t fit with her idea of their house so, poof, no pool table.

In any case, it would be nice to see Hollywood take a more balanced view of male/female relationships, but I guess there isn’t a lot of comic fodder in a balanced viewpoint. Well, one notable exception to that is Billy Crystal’s film Forget Paris, which is a wonderful and funny film that doesn’t show just a courtship or a breakup, but shows a courtship, marriage, troubles, separation, reconciliation, and all the other stuff of life. Like The Break-Up it has some serious moments as well.

In any case, in spite of all of that, The Break-Up is a solid, funny, serious/funny film about relationships. Also notable are the supporting cast, with John Favreau and Jason Bateman as friends of the couple, Vincent D’Onofrio (nearly unrecognizable and uncredited) as one of Vaughn’s brothers, and Judy Davis as the scarifying owner of the art gallery where Aniston’s character works. The bottom line is that this film was far better, to me, than most of the reviews I have seen, which I attribute at least in part to the fact that the film has much more serious content than one would be led to expect by the trailers and commercials. For me, that was a good thing.

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Your money is "safe" with him

After seeing this movie it became clear to me what low expectations I have from Hollywood films these days. This film was a solid, well written, well acted, intricately plotted action flick, and I realized I hadn’t seen anything like it since…well…since a very long time. It’s not quite as good as Die Hard, but it’s better than Collateral, to give you an idea of where I’d put it in this genre. It’s a bit unfair to compare anything to Die Hard, since that’s the film that both defined this genre and has ruled as the best intelligent action picture ever made ever since, IMHO.

However, Inside Man is right up there. First of all, it was astonishingly refreshing to see Denzel Washington not play Denzel Washington for the first time in a long time. Here he plays an NYPD hostage negotiator who gets pulled into a Dog-Day-Afternoon-like standoff at a bank robbery that isn’t what it appears to be. Denzel’s character is extremely competent, but he’s not a super-sleuth or a John McClane-like bad-ass. However, he uses a combination of his instincts, street-smarts, and determination as he attempts to unravel the mysteries with which he is presented.

Also refreshing to see is Jodie Foster, looking exactly her age, playing a character her age, showing wrinkles and laugh lines and looking spectacular doing it. Not only that, but she plays an amazingly amoral “consultant” who helps people’s problems go away. Her character can be summed up by noting that after she has blackmailed the Mayor of New York City into doing what she wants, he responds by saying “You, my dear, are a magnificent cunt.” And she is.

Clive Owen and Christopher Plummer also both shine in their roles, and the supporting cast is nearly perfect. All of this is directed with flair by Spike Lee, and also with a bit of Spike Lee-iness. There are some trademark shots and scenes that mark this as a Spike Lee Joint, but he has proven here that he can deliver the big-studio, big-budget, big-grossing ($66 million and counting) hit, while still making a great film. That skill seems to have escaped most directors today.

I’m curious if Spike was able to leverage his status as a premier director to keep control of his film and maintain the intricate and sometimes nearly opaque plotting. My take is that today’s studio execs fear films that challenge audiences to pay attention and think, and instead seem to reflexively add in slow-motion kung fu, slow-motion gunplay (with pistols held sideways in that “cool” way), techno-music-driven flash-cut montages in nightclubs run by the bad guys, any time they think a film is getting too cerebral.

In any case, I really liked this film, and if you’re a fan of action movies that challenge you to keep up and don’t mind that there’s not any kung fu or sex, then this might be a film you’ll enjoy.

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This is one of those rare instances where I read the book before seeing the movie, and the cliche holds true, the book was better. Much better. That’s not to say that the film was bad, but the pecking order is great book followed by slightly above average film. One of the best parts of the film is the performance of Aaron Eckhart as Nick Naylor. Nick is a lobbyist for Big Tobacco, and he hasn’t so much as sold his soul as he has failed to control his awesome power for convincing. He’s managed to convince himself that Big Tobacco is being unfairly treated and mis-characterized by the government and the press, and with his pure belief he is able to charm and sway just about anybody to open their minds, even if just a smidge, to consider the fact that Big Tobacco just may not be the incarnation of the Devil.

Now, if you’ve read much of this site you’ll know that I’m not pro-smoking (he understated), but intellectually I’ve also felt that the government is acting quite hypocritically with regards to tobacco. Since tobacco is legal, the constitutionalist in me says that it should be treated as such and not harassed and over-taxed. If we as a people say that tobacco is legal, let it be legal. Now, that’s not to say that I believe it should be ubiquitous, and in fact I would happily agree to having tobacco legal to smoke, but have it be illegal to inflict others with one’s effluvia. In other words, I won’t tell you you can’t smoke if you don’t tell me I have to inhale your blow-by gasses.

Parking high horse.

One of the things I like best about the film is that it doesn’t demonize Nick Naylor, and instead shows him to be a superstar, while also beginning to question if he’s playing for the right team. He has a young son, and the film plays up the fact that Nick is ambivalent about how to reconcile his desire to be a good dad with his desire to do a good job. This aspect of the film is what I think weakens the impact, as it attempts to humanize Nick without making him pick sides.

For example, there’s a scene where Nick’s bosses send him to visit an old, cancer-stricken former Marlboro man and take him a briefcase full of cash, no strings attached. No confidentiality agreement, nothing. Just, here, here’s some money from us to you. An implied guilt trip. And Nick not only delivers the money and the message, but he spins the interaction in such a way as to leave Mr. Dying Marlboro Man (played wonderfully by Sam Elliott, who in retrospect seems born to play a dying former Marlboro Man) with only one option – take the money (for his family after he’s gone) and keep his mouth shut (so that he won’t be a hypocrite by taking their money and then saying derogatory things about tobacco).

The kicker is that Nick has taken his son along with him on this visit. You see, his son accompanied him on this business trip to California so that he and his father could bond, and the son innocently backs his father into a corner about going along to make the payoff, because Nick admitting that he didn’t want his son along would be Nick admitting that what we was doing was “wrong”. And Nick doesn’t see himself as a wrongdoer. So Nick’s son gets to see what his dad does for a living. And, like all sons, absorbs it and learns from it.

There are other facets to the film, as well. Nick belongs to the M.O.D Squad, which stands for Merchants of Death. This group of three represent Tobacco, Alcohol, and Firearms, and meet once a week for lunch and spend time comparing yearly mortality rates for each of their respective masters and using that to gauge the toughness of their jobs.

There’s also a vacuous reporter, played by Katie Holmes, who does a little convincing of her own (if you know what I mean and I think you do) and gets Nick to open up to her about his job, and then writes a scorching expose of him and his cohorts. It was only afterwards that Mynagirl told me that the reporter was Katie Holmes, and I have to say she did a singularly unimpressive job, and sort of faded into the background, in my opinion. And got a little bit freaky before doing so, I might add.

The rest of the cast does a good job, with Robert Duvall as the personfication of Big Tobacco, William H. Macy as the prototypical anti-smoking (and Birkenstock wearing) liberal Congressperson, and Rob Lowe (whose porn name should be Raw Blow, if you ask me) as the stereotypically sociopathic and pseudo-spiritual Hollywood movie exec.

Put it all together and you have a fairly good film that could have been great with just a bit of tweaking and enough backbone to stay away from the Hollywood-esque ending. Still it was much more entertaining and different than the usual Hollywood drivel, and that makes it worth seeing.

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Mynagirl and I have a relationship where, when we are sure that we are alone and have absolute privacy, we share with each other the uncharitable, judgmental, mean, nasty, rude, cruel, and just plain malicious thoughts, jokes, and feelings that pop into our heads. These are the things that one would never ordinarily share with others, lest one be thought to be evil or crude. In most cases these thoughts don’t actually represent our beliefs, but instead represent things that we think are funny even if they are just plain inappropriate.

For example:

What’s the difference between Christopher Reeve and OJ Simpson?

OJ walked and Reeve got the electric chair.

or

What is the opposite of Christopher Reeve?

Christopher Walken

Now, intellectually I find both of those jokes offensive. I liked Christopher Reeve and don’t really approve of making fun of the dead. However, in my heart of hearts, both of those jokes make me laugh. They shouldn’t, but they do. They’re creative and funny, and Christopher Reeve was enough of a cultural icon for me to be able to disassociate the jokes from the actual tragic circumstances of his accident and his ultimate death.

And I would share with Mynagirl the fact that I found those jokes funny – she may or may not agree, but we revel in the trust and closeness that results from such open honesty with each other.

What, you may ask, do my autobiographical musings have to do with CSA: Confederate States of America?? Well, the parallel is that Kevin Willmott, the writer/director, has put into his script and onto the screen a lot of the same gasp-inducing-yet-funny things that many people might think, but never say.

The premise of the movie is that you, the viewer, are watching a television station, and that station is airing a Ken Burns-like documentary about the CSA. In the reality of this film, the South won the Civil War (or the War of Northern Aggression, depending on one’s roots) and hence we have the Confederate States of America, or the CSA. The documentary (in the film) was produced by British television, complete with typically erudite and accented voice-over. The documentary is interrupted at regular intervals for commercials from the present-day CSA for products that would only have niches in this imagined reality, and also by news breaks reporting news that one would never see today.

I’m trying not to get too specific, as the parade of yelp-inducing moments in this film are endless and diabolically funny, while also forcing us to hold up a mirror to today’s less-than-perfect race relations. Mr. Willmott has taken a great risk in producing a film like this, because even though it is funny, it is also incendiary and I’m sure will be controversial.

I’ll give you a real-world example of how this film is completely relevant today. We went to this movie with our friend Bruce, and it was showing at the Angelika theater here in downtown Houston. The Angelika is an upscale venue for arty, snobby, and foreign films that have some revenue-generating potential (it’s not a gritty, run-down, art-house type venue, is what I mean). We go there frequently and really relish the experience of seeing a film in a calm and serene setting, with comfortable seats, good concessions, and interesting films, without having to subject ourselves to the multiplex masses.

So, today when we showed up for the film, we purchased our tickets and went inside. To picture the scene, please note that the lobby of the Angelika is very beautiful, with artistic touches and over-sized posters of foreign films on the walls of the soaring atrium overhead. Also, the three of us are about as white as you can get – I’m of Czechoslovakian-British descent, Mynagirl is German-British, and Bruce is Polish. That’s about as white as you can get, and we were in a place that, let’s be honest, is traditionally populated with upper-middle-class whites, pseudo-intellectuals, and film-geeks.

However, when we walked in today, the lobby was the fullest that I have *ever* seen it, I’d say between 100-125 people (and if you’ve even been to the Angelika you’ll realize how full the lobby was), and 95% of the patrons were young African Americans, 90% of those male. My immediate thought was that they were here to see CSA (which is billed as being “Presented by Spike Lee”), and based on the interactions of people I could tell this was an organized event, and that they weren’t all here by accident. So, I wondered what organization had gathered here en masse for this film, and I wrestled with the fact that this film might not raise up warm feelings of brotherhood in my fellow moviegoers. I didn’t have any specific worries, but let’s just say I was tracking the potential of ending up on CNN in the worst-case scenario.

After we got our concessions and headed into the theater, we realized that 99% of the African American folks were there to see a sneak preview of the film ATL, which is a coming-of-age story focusing on four black friends. I have to admit to a certain amount of relief-followed-by-white-guilt at my own feelings. Realisticaly, I knew that it was possible that watching a film like CSA could very easily, and understandably, generate feelings of ill-will from a theater full of young black people. And I also calculated that there was a very small, but nonetheless real, chance that those feelings might manifest themselves in some confrontational way.

I was also a bit disappointed that they weren’t going to see CSA, because I think that dragging these kinds of unspoken differences and suspicions out into the light can only be good in the long run, and I was looking forward to playing my part. However, interestingly enough, the black-white viewership ratio swung wildly into the other direction, and I only saw one African American patron watching CSA. On the way out I wondered how he felt, being the only black person in a theater full of whites watching a film depicting modern life pretty much the same as it is today, only with slavery still being legal.

And that was an interesting result of this film, to me. I stopped and examined my own thoughts and feelings about race, and I pondered the thoughts and feelings of someone from a different race and wondered if they mirrored my own.

So that means this film was effective. I laughed, I was horrified, I empathized, I examined my own feelings, and I contemplated the feelings of others.

What more can one ask from a film?

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I’ve heard and read nothing but good things about Peter Jackson’s King Kong. This weekend I got a chance to go see it with my friend Bruce. Long story short, there is no way that Mynagirl would ever go see a movie filled with so much animal cruelty, but she and her mom are deep into a home renovation project (from which I am excluded by everyone’s mutual consent), which left me at loose ends on Saturday, which is rare.

So on Saturday we saw the film, in a fairly full movie theater, and I must say that I do not get the hype. I will say this, the film managed not to be boring over its three hour length, but “not boring” does not an epic make.

On the positive side, the effects are pretty eye-popping and realistic for the most part. Kong’s face is very realistic, as is his fur, gait, musculature, and hands. I’d quibble with the fact that during his titanic clash with three T-Rex’s, Kong throws boxing jabs like Joe Frazier, drop-kicks like Jackie Chan, and does rolling, over-the-shoulder throws like Rowdy Roddy Piper. Not very…ape-like, I must say. But very well-rendered from digital effects perspective.

With regards to the story-telling, I think I can sum it up with one anecdote. An hour into the film Bruce leaned over and asked, “Isn’t there supposed to be a giant monkey in this movie?” The first hour sets up the tale by showing an idealized but still Depression-era New York, with fanatical movie producers, struggling engenues, salty tramp steamer captains, and earnest playwrites. The second hour begins with the tramp steamer voyage, complete with gruff but trustworthy crew members, secret maps to undiscovered islands, and a semi-kidnapped earnest screenwriter.

During the second hour we finally make it to Skull Island, replete with fog-shrouded rocky coastlines and the ship temporarily beached on the rocks, forcing them to stay just long enough for the plot to continue developing.

The first journey ashore is quite frightening, and the lady beside me with her two kids should be ashamed of herself. Her daughter appears to be 6 or 7, and her son appeared to be about 5. During a very scary encounter with the local natives, and I mean *very* scary, her son leaned over and said “Mommy, I’m scared…” and tried to crawl into her lap. She fended him off back into his seat, saying, “Look, your sister isn’t scared…stay in your seat…”. I almost couldn’t pay attention the rest of the film knowing that this poor kid was sitting there having to huddle alone with his fear next to his seemingly uncaring mother. And, ma’am, if you read this, next time believe it when the film is rated PG-13.

About halfway through the film we finally get a brief glimpse of Kong as he takes Ann Darrow off into the jungle. The next 45 minutes consist of the men chasing Kong and Ann, Kong chasing the men and Ann, everyone fighting with dinosaurs and insects, and the crew of the tramp steamer being miraculously transformed into the Colonial Marines from Aliens, blasting natives, dinosaurs, and giant bugs like a well-trained special forces military squad. They finally knock Kong out with a sh*tload of chloroform that just happened to be aboard.

They bring Kong back to New York, put him on stage, he gets loose, climbs the building, yada, yada, yada, we all know how the story goes. The creative part of this film is that this whole thing is stretched to three hours. It felt like about 30 minutes of screen time were taken up with Ann and Kong staring soulfully into each other’s eyes and inventing a new one-word sign language (setting up the faux-tearful finale).

Jack Black, as big a personality as he is, isn’t really able to inhabit Carl Denham, the larger-than-life character that he plays…his performance just doesn’t do it…like a long fly ball that hits a foot below the top of the fence…still a well hit ball, but just a double, not a home-run. I didn’t even recognize that Ann Darrow was being played by Naomi Watts, as the performance was very un-stellar and unremarkable, and it was only later that I found out it was Watts. Adrien Brody is…just one of those things that I don’t understand about women. He looks like a whippet and has about as much personality as a sedated whippet, but the accolades seem always to flow for him, so I’ll just have to resign myself to his celebrity-hood, I guess.

Overall this movie is just average, which means that it’s actually pretty bad given the budget, expectations, reviews, and hype surrounding it. If I’m being completely honest, I have to say that this movie was just about exactly what I expected, so I’m glad that I’ve seen it so that I can now disparage it from direct experience. And if that’s the most positive thing one takes away from a film, that is faint praise indeed.

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First of all, be prepared to pay attention. If you’re not in the mood to stay focused and track details and make logical jumps and not be spoon-fed the typical, ham-handed, Hollywood hoopla, then skip this movie and go see King Kong. However, if you’re in a thoughtful mood and want to be challenged, educated, and entertained, then go see Syriana.

It also helps if you have an interest in geopolitics and a healthy skepticism that causes you to wonder what the differences are between what the government says, what the news reports, and what reality is. Syriana tells a complicated story by following several key characters and showing their points of view as they interact, intersect, or pass in the night.

The backdrop of the story is the oil bidness and how the trillions of dollars involved end up causing oil companies to act as nation-states, and also causes the disenfranchised of the world to direct their hatred at the oil companies in the same way they hate fat, comfortable western nations.

The movie is a fictionalized story based on a non-fiction book by a former CIA agent who worked the Middle East beat back in the 80’s. The book is called “See No Evil”, by Robert Baer. I have not yet read the book, but plan to do so very soon.

The story borders on being opaque, and I had to lean over to Mynagirl more than once and whisper stuff like “Which brother is he?” and “Is that somebody we’re already supposed to know?”. But it gives you just enough of the story so that even though the blanks aren’t all filled in, you’re able to get the gist of it. I like that in a movie…challenge me to keep up and don’t feel you have to have some character exposit everything for the audience.

Along with its intricate plotting the film also has great acting and directing. George Clooney disappears into his role as a the CIA agent, sporting a full beard and a few more pounds that make him seem much more Everyman-y and much less Clooney-y. Then there’s Christopher Plummer – yes, that Christopher Plummer, from The Sound of Music – turning in a chillingly effective performance as a behind-the-scense string-puller. Matt Damon is also effective as the eager and idealistic consultant.

If you’re comfortable having a black-and-white view of the world, and you don’t want that worldview challenged, you should skip this film. Everything and everybody in this film is some shade of grey and while some of the characters are truly bad, none are truly good in the typical Hollywood sense. But if you have an open mind and are energized by challenges then this might be the movie for you.

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The producers of the short film clip “Broken” were nice enough to send me a review copy on DVD. There’s an interesting story behind this short film, as it was produced by independent film makers on a shoestring to serve as a demonstration of their film making skills, a sort of artistic audition, if you will. The difficulty on judging this piece stems from trying to figure out if it should be judged in the realm of Hollywood films (to which it aspires) or in the realm of shoestring, independent films (which it is). My only choice is to rate it both ways, so here goes.

Shoestring Film Rating (***½, grading on a curve)

If I had been shown this short film without having previous knowledge I would have assumed that it was from some schlocky new UPN/WB television series about spies. It’s got sort of an Alias-meets-Consipiracy-Theory-meets-Xena-meets-Seven kind of feel to it, but with cornier writing and acting. For a network television show or a Hollywood film, that would be faint praise. However, for something done in the manner of this short film, it’s actually very good. So, from the perspective of a couple of normal folks spending their own money to put something together, this film rocks.

Absolute Film Rating (*½, no curve)

However, if we ignore the origins of this piece, it comes in at a bit below average for Hollywood/network TV fare. The dialog and acting are sometimes okay, usually corny. The artistic direction is a bit trite with all the characters affecting the most obvious trappings of their stereotype. For example, the main bad guy’s schtick is he plays a harmonica, and the various henchpeople are tattooed, muscled, pleather-wearing, and/or cartoonishly menacing depending on the particular well-known caricature being attempted.

Overall Rating (**, combined rating)

So, if I put that all together I say that this is overall an average piece, but with flashes of talent, imagination, and drive that clearly demonstrate that the people behind it could probably step up to the major leagues. I think that was the purpose the producers had for this film, and in that I think they have succeeded. Consider that they went out of their way to locate this website, contact us, send us the DVD gratis, and continue to communicate to elicit feedback. They clearly want people to see and review their work.
They’ve even gotten a mention from Roger Ebert. They have also put a lot of work into their web site, where you can read more about their production of this film and its effects, and even buy a copy of you’re interested. In particular, if you have an interest in the making of film, the information on this site and on their DVD is incredibly interesting and entertaining.

For me, as a film aficianado, seeing people creating works like this is like a breath of fresh air. Yes, the film aspires to a lot of Hollywood cliches that I don’t find particularly compelling, but what it does it does well. It also shows that “cinema” is coming into the reach of the masses and it gives me hope that we’re moving to break the stranglehold that the big studios have on this type of entertainment. I urge Alex Ferrari and Jorge Rodriguez (the makers of Broken) to use this film as a Trojan Horse, allowing them to enter the gates of Hollywood film making, while allowing them to secretly bring their artistic sensibilities along for the ride and not be assimilated. Resistance is NOT futile!

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Nobody Goes to the Movies Anymore

There’s much ballyhoo and boo-hoo in the press these days about how movie theatre revenues are declining. Nobody “goes to the movies” anymore. DVDs are too prevalent and come out so quickly. Moviegoers just aren’t as excited about going to the movies.

One possibility is that the movie quality is declining. I know Engineerboy feels this way, at least in part. Make good, interesting movies that people want to see, and they’ll go to the theatres.

But that’s not entirely true. Sure, a theatre packed with Syrianas and When Harry Met Sallys and Full Metal Jackets would be great, and you might see more people — although some potential moviegoers may want more Dukes of Hazzards instead (which actually wasn’t a bad movie…). But the truth is, at least for people like Engineerboy and me, going to the movies is largely about the experience as much as it is the film content itself. Granted, if the only offerings at the Googleplex were Deuce Bigalow Three through Thirty-Three, we might take a pass. However, we’ll go to the movies even for a mediocre offering just to have a nice social afternoon escaping from reality, snuggling next to each other in the seats, and munching on treats.

But our urge to go for even a mediocre offering dims in the face of the waning experience that is “Going to the Movies”. Movie theatres could do SO much to improve the experience and pull people in, almost regardless of the quality of the film itself.

What the Hell are Squinkles?!

First off, improve the concessions. For some of us, this is almost the whole point of the “Going to the Movies” event… the fresh popcorn, the Milk Duds, the fountain Cokes. But movies no longer have “traditional” candy, I was informed… No Milk Duds, no Whoppers, no Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. About the only recognizable offering among the weird disgusting-looking candies were M&M’s. I’m sure somewhere at the corporate level a bean-head decided that evil alliances with sub-par candy providers were a good financial decision, and it may have looked really attractive on paper. But what 35-to-40-year-old has great memories of Squinkles at the theatre when they were a kid? I bet you if they just bought from the various vendors without regard for alliances and simply bought with the immense buying power they wield, they’d have a fully stocked display case of REAL candy that might make people actually want to come to the movies. But it’s a long-return payoff to improve the bottom line, unlike simply slashing your “treat” providers to UnknownCandyCo.

And improve the popcorn… I mean, the stuff they put on it isn’t even labeled as “Butter Flavoring”. It’s “Golden Flavoring”. If that doesn’t scare you, it should. It’s just flavored oil. Eww. There’s a classic theatre here in River Oaks from a boutique chain (Landmark Theatres) that actually has butter on their popcorn. I’m sure it’s messy and a total pain in the ass for them to maintain, but it’s SO exquisitely good. Makes going to a show there worth the narrow seats and only two or three screens.

So if the treats are any indication, the movie theatres just don’t care about you anymore. Just a year or two ago if you ordered a pretzel extra salty, you got one right from the spinning spindle — warm and decently fresh, with the salt baked ALL over that twisted little piece of bread. Last week when we went to the movies I ordered an extra salty pretzel and got a PLAIN pretzel in a disgusting perforated steam pouch and had to find the location of little salt packets on my own. I mean, could this place give less of a shit about the experience? They can’t even be bothered to bake the salt into the pretzels. And trust me, trying to get large hunks of salt to hold onto an already-baked surface is completely futile. AND distracting if you’re trying to watch a show. Similarly, I got tricked the other day into lusting after a “Cinnabon Pretzel” at our local Marq-E multiplex. It looked incredibly appetizing in the picture, hot and delicious with a cinnamon bun center with swirled icing. Knowing how yummy Cinnabons are, I asked for one. Same disgust-o perforated pouch, with a little TUB of COLD icing. Why does this make me want to come to the movies? It doesn’t.

In general the whole self-service aspect of the movies gets so infuriating that you do begin to ask yourself, Why am I here?. I have to butter…er….oil… my own popcorn. I have to salt my own puny pretzel. I have to get my own napkins and straws at the end of the counter, at this narrow space among the zillion other patrons. It does make one ask “Is this experience worth $30?”. As the theatres try to cut costs by streamlining their process, they forget that at some point the loss of customer interest just isn’t worth it.

Go for the Long Haul

Like many companies, the theatre chains are trying to improve bottom line by slashing basic services. This may work in the short haul but will not gain you long-term loyalty. And loyalty is what these guys need as home-based options get more advanced. I know theatre chains are bitching about movie quality, but they should take a hard look at themselves and decide what will entice people to the theatre instead of staying home. I mean, people still go to eat out all the time even though nearly everyone has a stove and oven. Going out is fun, and enjoyable, at the right restaurant. The theatre chains have to think of themselves as more of an “experience provider” than a “movie house” that can just shove any old thing at their patrons and somehow miraculously expect the patron to want to come back again and again.

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So, Steve Carell has just burst onto the scene as a new major Hollywood film star. We knew him from The Daily Show, where we found him to be…enh. He was okay, but when he left we didn’t miss him. We heard that he was starring in the US version of the British TV show “The Office”, but never saw an episode.

Then one day a couple of weeks ago while watching another movie we saw a trailer for “The 40-Year-Old Virgin”. It looked pretty funny and so it was on our radar as a possibility, but we’ve seen thousands of funny trailers for movies that sucked, so I wasn’t too sure we’d go see it. But over time we kept hearing good buzz about the film, and the trailers kept getting funnier. So today we decided to go see it, and, boy, am I glad we did.

The movie is hysterically funny, and also a bit touching and heartwarming. Carell plays Andy Stitzer, who is, well, a 40-year-old virgin whose workmates find out about his…intactfulness…and decide to “help” him lose it. One of the best characteristics of the film is that it doesn’t mock or deride Andy’s virginity, and actually shows it to be kind of noble. Oh, it sure pokes fun at him, but in a natural way that seems to fit the oddness of an actual 40 year old virgin male.
Carell plays the part with perfect pitch, and walks a fine line between disturbed, lonely electronics store worker and lonely, inexperienced yet still nice and normal electronics store worker. As his “friends” give him advice and try to get him hooked up with an assortment of…um…”available” young ladies, Andy instead becomes enamored of Trish, who runs a store near his workplace. Trish is played with refreshing reality by Catherine Keener. In a wonderfully un-Hollywood move, Keener and Carell actually appear to be about the same age, and the character of Trish has three kids (and one of those kids has a one year old of their own, making Trish a “hot grandma” in the opinion of all of the male characters). I’m sure somewhere there’s a Hollywood exec who is sure that the role should have gone to Lindsey Lohan (who is 20) instead, to grab that key (and imaginary) Won’t-Plop-Down-$10-To-See-Anyone-Over-30 demographic.

Rant Directed At Hollywood Execs:

We know you think that 15-25 year olds are your key demographic. However, what you are missing is the fact that the reason this is your key demographic is because, as a general rule, younger people are not discriminating movie-goers and so you can still count on them for a big opening weekend as long as you have the right “names” and a big marketing budget. To put it another way, you can sucker teens into watching a crappy movie as long as you “spin” it the right way, and that can be done purely with dollars. Making something of quality, however, requires talent and inspiration, two things which you seem to no longer value. However, I predict that this film will do great at the box office, even though it’s Rated R, even though the two characters are 40+ and one is a grandparent, even thought it’s actually sweet and not stupidly shocking for shock value, even though it stars a no-name (by Hollywood standards), even though it’s directed by a TV guy, even though nothing explodes, even though there are no rappers in it, even though the denoument is…well, I won’t spoil it. This movie breaks all the apparent “rules” of Hollywood execs, so much so that I’m surprised it got made. But, oh baby, am I waiting for the attitude change that this film (along with Wedding Crashers and other films like it) will bring to Hollywood. I know you’re in the business to make money. But I think you’ll find that while it is hard work to find and nurture talent, it’s even harder work polishing turds, which is what you’ve been doing lately.
Anyway, back to Virgin. The supporting cast is also great, with virtually no false notes anywhere in the film. There are a couple of things I could have done without, but to highlight any of them would be to give them more weight than they deserve. But overall the film manages to be hilarious, touching, raunchy, and sweet in just the right proportions. I urge you to run out and see this movie and show Hollywood that making this film was a risk worth taking.

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