Movie Monday
In the futuristic movie Soylent Green, Charlton Heston rushes to see Edward G. Robinson as he is being “killed” in the euthanasia chamber. Those choosing such an end apparently get to watch panoramic scenes of their choice. In contrast to the barren wasteland where Robinson is living in the movie, he chooses scenes of nature: lush forests, towering mountains. As Heston watches with him, he says: I never knew there were times like this.
Fast forward to the real world and I’ve been told there was a time when newspapers had consumer advocates columns where readers would send in their complaints against businesses and the columnist would try and resolve the problem. In the beginning, the letters would be edited to only say “When I went into Business X to return a defective TV...... But soon these columns named names of both good and bad businesses.
Like the nature scenes in Soylent Green, these consumer columns are long gone. A governmental consumer advocate (yes, they did once exist) is just a dusty memory.
Which brings me to Movie Monday and movie reviewers of the past. I read that Pauline Kael was considered one of the best after I had donated my library reject copies of her reviews. Now, I only have 5001 Nights at the Movies by her. So in these short, witty, concisely full of knowledge reviews I have only a small sample of her greatness.
I did keep my battered copy of Agee on Film (where do I get these books?) and just last night I read his review of Double Idemnity. Wow! These people could write. But also, they might possibly not be able to even get jobs as reviewers in today’s absurd movie reviews market.
I like Roger Ebert. But he’s no James Agee. It’s like comparing Dickens turn of phrases to Michael Ondaatje’s. Agee writes like a well-wore pair of slippers; with a comfortable cadence. He writes for the beauty of the words not for the effect of them.
Maybe only lit majors can understand what I’m trying to say. Maybe that brand of writing is over. But if only for the historical importance, try to take a look at Kael and Agee at least. Like Heston you may say: I never knew it was like this.
And now on to my feeble movie review. Hanging my head in the presence of giants (but obviously not hanging it far enough since I still have the chutzpah to post it) here is my offering for Movie Monday.
Burn After Reading is written by the Coen Brothers as a macabre, existential rendition of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. And I can see Shakespeare scratching his head as he watched Clooney’s “love” machine and said: Man, they say I was bawdry. Now, that’s bawdry.
From the beginning, they’re a deus ex machina so I guess you could say that in the parallel universe where the Coens think and make movies, this one has a happy ending.
It’s over the top acting which is appropriate for the plot; acting easy even for the hammiest actors, which these aren’t. Playing against type you have Clooney and Pitt mugging wildly but good editing pulls them from the screen before their histrionics upset the plot. (Though McDormand starts to become annoying –unusual for her – before she pulls back into a believable display of grief.)
The plot in summary: A CIA agent after being disciplined for drinking, quits and decides to write his memoirs. Due to a mix-up, his memoir CD disk winds up in the hands of dim-witted gym instructor played by Brad Pitt who, with the help of the another gym instructor, decides to blackmail the agent. When the agent just punches Pitt in the nose, they decide on option number two: selling the disk to the Russians. (Any one who knows a Coen movie knows there is a lot more involved. But it was nice of the Coens to explain how the McGuffin CD disk winds up at the gym.)
Spoiler: People die in this movie; people you care about; nice people. I told you it was existential. That is, existential except for the part where your deus is always there to clean up the messy stuff. Existentialists definitely do not have deuses.
You need good writing for this type of comedy to fly and you get it. You need a trim, fast, convoluted plot and you get this also, with extra emphasis on the convoluted.
Will you remember the theme? This thing has a theme? As the CIA official ruminates: What did we learn from all this? Beats me.
Will you remember the plot? Of course: The Big Lebowski; Fargo; O, Brother, Where Art Thou? Raising Arizona. If you’ve seen any of these Coen movies there is at least one plot point that stays with you. (Raising Arizonza: the baby in the middle of the highway.)
So enjoy the movie as it is presented; but remember Shakespeare meant it when he wrote: (It’s) much ado about nothing.
In the futuristic movie Soylent Green, Charlton Heston rushes to see Edward G. Robinson as he is being “killed” in the euthanasia chamber. Those choosing such an end apparently get to watch panoramic scenes of their choice. In contrast to the barren wasteland where Robinson is living in the movie, he chooses scenes of nature: lush forests, towering mountains. As Heston watches with him, he says: I never knew there were times like this.
Fast forward to the real world and I’ve been told there was a time when newspapers had consumer advocates columns where readers would send in their complaints against businesses and the columnist would try and resolve the problem. In the beginning, the letters would be edited to only say “When I went into Business X to return a defective TV...... But soon these columns named names of both good and bad businesses.
Like the nature scenes in Soylent Green, these consumer columns are long gone. A governmental consumer advocate (yes, they did once exist) is just a dusty memory.
Which brings me to Movie Monday and movie reviewers of the past. I read that Pauline Kael was considered one of the best after I had donated my library reject copies of her reviews. Now, I only have 5001 Nights at the Movies by her. So in these short, witty, concisely full of knowledge reviews I have only a small sample of her greatness.
I did keep my battered copy of Agee on Film (where do I get these books?) and just last night I read his review of Double Idemnity. Wow! These people could write. But also, they might possibly not be able to even get jobs as reviewers in today’s absurd movie reviews market.
I like Roger Ebert. But he’s no James Agee. It’s like comparing Dickens turn of phrases to Michael Ondaatje’s. Agee writes like a well-wore pair of slippers; with a comfortable cadence. He writes for the beauty of the words not for the effect of them.
Maybe only lit majors can understand what I’m trying to say. Maybe that brand of writing is over. But if only for the historical importance, try to take a look at Kael and Agee at least. Like Heston you may say: I never knew it was like this.
And now on to my feeble movie review. Hanging my head in the presence of giants (but obviously not hanging it far enough since I still have the chutzpah to post it) here is my offering for Movie Monday.
Burn After Reading is written by the Coen Brothers as a macabre, existential rendition of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. And I can see Shakespeare scratching his head as he watched Clooney’s “love” machine and said: Man, they say I was bawdry. Now, that’s bawdry.
From the beginning, they’re a deus ex machina so I guess you could say that in the parallel universe where the Coens think and make movies, this one has a happy ending.
It’s over the top acting which is appropriate for the plot; acting easy even for the hammiest actors, which these aren’t. Playing against type you have Clooney and Pitt mugging wildly but good editing pulls them from the screen before their histrionics upset the plot. (Though McDormand starts to become annoying –unusual for her – before she pulls back into a believable display of grief.)
The plot in summary: A CIA agent after being disciplined for drinking, quits and decides to write his memoirs. Due to a mix-up, his memoir CD disk winds up in the hands of dim-witted gym instructor played by Brad Pitt who, with the help of the another gym instructor, decides to blackmail the agent. When the agent just punches Pitt in the nose, they decide on option number two: selling the disk to the Russians. (Any one who knows a Coen movie knows there is a lot more involved. But it was nice of the Coens to explain how the McGuffin CD disk winds up at the gym.)
Spoiler: People die in this movie; people you care about; nice people. I told you it was existential. That is, existential except for the part where your deus is always there to clean up the messy stuff. Existentialists definitely do not have deuses.
You need good writing for this type of comedy to fly and you get it. You need a trim, fast, convoluted plot and you get this also, with extra emphasis on the convoluted.
Will you remember the theme? This thing has a theme? As the CIA official ruminates: What did we learn from all this? Beats me.
Will you remember the plot? Of course: The Big Lebowski; Fargo; O, Brother, Where Art Thou? Raising Arizona. If you’ve seen any of these Coen movies there is at least one plot point that stays with you. (Raising Arizonza: the baby in the middle of the highway.)
So enjoy the movie as it is presented; but remember Shakespeare meant it when he wrote: (It’s) much ado about nothing.
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